tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2724911090291270182024-02-20T02:55:35.263-05:00I Found It at the MoviesEvan Davis loves movies. Occasionally, he writes about them.Evanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06030063762188563722noreply@blogger.comBlogger43125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-272491109029127018.post-57920433466740621162008-05-10T21:52:00.010-04:002008-05-11T13:36:18.580-04:00"Iron Man," Morality, and the Military-Industrial Complex<a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view¤t=iron_man_pic.jpg" target="_blank"><img height=350 src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/iron_man_pic.jpg" width=425 border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><span style="font-style:italic;">Iron Man</span> (Jon Favreau)</span><br /><br /><br />I recently had a conversation with a man who reminded me that whenever one evaluates a work of art, but especially a movie (or screenplay, which is what we were actually talking about), one always brings an “agenda” to the process of judgment. “Did this movie fit the parameters of what I expected from it? If yes, then it is good; if not, then it is bad.” This is the common mode of thought for most people when they see a movie, which is a more direct way of describing subjectivity within artistic consumption. Movie critics in general, and I in particular, all do this in one way or another. But what caused <span style="font-style:italic;">Iron Man</span> to crystallize these thoughts is how blatantly the movie made me aware of my own agenda as I watched it.<br /><br />Indeed, during the first half or so, Jon Favreau and his 4-man screenwriting team (the credited ones, anyway) do seem to want to make a layered, complex, and fun little movie. While making the first villains a bunch of vaguely ideologically defined Afghani warlords amounts to more than a bit of thoughtless Orientalism, Favreau still manages to depict Tony Stark’s (Robert Downey Jr.) transformation as a deep and personal one. One minute a too-charming weapons manufacturing billionaire, a morally awakened superhero the next, Favreau lets Downey be Downey (the man could never be boring if he tried), while still letting the pain seep through.<br /><br />Even better is when Stark returns to America after 3 months in captivity in Afghanistan. He decides to improve on the prototype he built to free himself from his captors, which results in the hot-rod-red and gold titanium suit we know and love. Getting the suit built to perfection, however, involves a lot of tinkering, which leads to the funniest parts of the movie, and points to the most pointed layer that goes frustratingly unexplored.<br /><br />Tony Stark’s backstory—jazzily exposited in an awards-show montage at the movie's chronological beginning—describes the man as a boy genius, graduating <span style="font-style:italic;">summa cum laude</span> from MIT at the age of 18, and taking over his father’s weapons-manufacturing conglomerate when he is 21. Not too long after he ditches his woman-for-the-evening—a <span style="font-style:italic;">Vanity Fair</span> reporter whose name he can’t remember—he is seen in his workshop (a funhouse of futuristic gadgets, natch) working on a car. But Favreau does something incredibly sly in that moment. Contrasted with the slick playboy image we have just witnessed, we see where Stark’s passion actually lies: in the laboratory. This is a man who loves to build things, to work out the most minute details of a complex series of problems. These moments are expanded even further when he is building the suit. After he casts off his man-about-town persona, Stark seems free to pursue his true love, and derive a massive amount of joy from it.<br /><br />Around such issues is where my own “agenda” rears its ugly head. After getting these little tastes of Stark’s real character, I wanted to see the subtext expanded: I wanted Favreau to incorporate how Stark let himself—perhaps forced himself to—become a lascivious brat who cared for little else but booze, cars and women. Furthermore, the scene with Stark working on his hot-rod presents a robust opportunity for Favreau to explore how the two sides of Stark’s personality can co-exist (before he finds moral clarity, of course). <br /><br />Instead, by the time the suit is finished and Stark has delivered his final speech to his assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), the moment has passed, the battle lines have been clearly drawn, and any mention of Stark’s conflicted relationship with his past has been disposed of with a couple of brief lines of dialogue. Even Stark’s initial moral imperative (use himself to destroy the weapons he inadvertently helped get into the hands of the very people he thought his weapons would destroy) vanishes in the second hour, since we see that those warlords are being controlled by Stark’s business partner, Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges).<br /><br />Another potential for a much richer and more nuanced analysis of morality in the face of global capitalism is Stane. Bridges, like Downey, also qualifies for the “could-never-be-boring-if-(s)he-tried” category of screen actors. Despite the one-dimensional characterization that Stane eventually collapses into, Bridges still allows for him to be a bit more than a simple moustache-twirler. But when we are first introduced to him, we recognize that Stane’s bitter jealousy of Stark lies in the fact that Stane was so closely bonded to Stark the elder, and viewed the future of Stark Industries as being taken out of his hands by a young upstart whelp much smarter than himself. Throughout the first half of the movie, Stane is painted as a member of the system of the military-industrial complex run rampant, a very human but very willing member of a world which sees Afghani villagers as little more than collateral damage. Because of Bridge’s subtle performance and Favreau’s initial light touch, we understand that a man who helps create modern evil can still be a human being.<br /><br />Things run off the rails when it comes to light that Stane was the one who hired the Afghani terror group to kill Stark. After subduing their leader and stealing the plans and prototype of Stark’s suit of iron, he plans on building his own suit, toward ends never actually defined. This of course leads to the big blazing shoot-out that results in Stark’s near-destruction and Stane’s total destruction. Everybody lives happily ever after.<br /><br />Time after time, Favreau leaves key moral questions hanging. (The problem of their being initially raised and then discarded has stuck with me more than with the laughably stupid climax, because, well, it’s laughably stupid, and can be brushed off as such.) Dana Stevens in <a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2190364/">Slate</a> offers up a particularly glaring example. (Full disclosure: I had read the following excerpt before I had seen the movie.)<br /><br />“In one scene, the Iron Man confronts a group of Afghan villagers, unable to distinguish the civilians from the combatants. At once a <span style="font-style:italic;">Terminator</span>-style readout appears on the inside of his mask, clearly labeling each civilian, and with surgical precision, he takes out all the bad guys, leaving the grateful good guys standing. It's a clever and viscerally satisfying gag that got a round of applause at the screening I attended—but it left me with a bitter aftertaste that lasted for the rest of the movie. How much collateral damage have we inflicted by trusting just such 'smart' weapons to make moral decisions for their users?”<br /><br />I was admonished for yelling “what the fuck?!” when this scene occurred. While I may be looking through a glass darkly at it, I believe that there is enough dropping of the ball by Favreau & co. throughout the movie to let Stevens’s reading hold up. There is so much potential for making ambiguous the confluence of modern warfare and global capitalism within <span style="font-style:italic;">Iron Man</span> that it is hard to forgive Favreau's simplistic renderings of Stark’s moral dilemmas.<br /><br />I haven’t even focused my attention on the moronic metal-lite score, or the shockingly stupid dialogue uttered by Stark and Potts during the climactic battle, or the cheeky ending that leaves us wanting more. Favreau and his screenwriters do leave us wanting more; it’s just not the “more” that they think. My friend Noah—along with <a href="http://movies.nytimes.com/2008/05/02/movies/02iron.html">A.O. Scott</a>—argued that the movie set out to fulfill the formula of the big action-superhero movie, and for him, it did that. <span style="font-style:italic;">Iron Man</span> met his agenda, and I wish it had met mine.<br /><br />EPILOGUE: When I first saw the trailer for <span style="font-style:italic;">Iron Man</span>, the primary musical piece used was one of the greatest shit-kicking, foot-stomping songs of all time: “Iron Man,” by Black Sabbath. This song’s concluding instrumental passages find their way into the beginning of the closing credits, but I thought to myself how fascinating it might have been if Favreau had woven the song throughout the film, like Robert Altman does with the central theme of <span style="font-style:italic;">The Long Goodbye</span>. Brilliant covers by the Bad Plus, Sir Mix-a-Lot, The Cardigans, and The Replacements are ready for service, perhaps on Stark’s car radio, or the gentle muzak of an elevator shaft . . . shit, there goes my damn agenda gettin’ in the way again.Evanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06030063762188563722noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-272491109029127018.post-18187062428323995922008-04-14T10:10:00.004-04:002008-04-16T22:14:54.849-04:00Detangling a Master's Thornier period<a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view¤t=Spellbound.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/Spellbound.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><br /><br /><strong>Hitchcock and Authorship: <em>Spellbound</em></strong><br /><br />If there were ever a single figure for Alfred Hitchcock who undermined his claims to the authorship of any of his films, it would be David O. Selznick. Hitchcock’s first producer in the United States, Selznick’s sensibilities were in stark contrast to those of Hitchcock. Hitchcock dismissed the first American film he directed, <em>Rebecca</em>, as “not a Hitchcock picture,” implicitly pinning its failings on Selznick’s “theory that people who had read the novel [by Daphne du Maurier] would have been very upset if it had been changed on the screen.”(1) Indeed, such adherence to the source material flew in the face of Hitchcock’s normal working methods, which usually gutted the novel/story/play upon which the script was based. Moreover, his dismissal of the film as not his own speaks not only to his acknowledgment of Selznick’s interference, but also to how strongly Hitchcock was aware of himself as the author of his films. It is this notion of authorship that Hitchcock often used as a barometer for whether or not he liked his own work. By extension, the question “what is a Hitchcock film?” becomes central to Hitchcock studies, and from such an auteurist viewpoint, can structure the worth of certain pictures as more important than others.<br /><br />Another example of conflict between authors will be examined forthwith, using the second film Selznick produced for Hitchcock, <em>Spellbound</em>. Selznick’s voice is more difficult to conclusively infer compared to <em>Rebecca</em>; Paula Cohen points to Selznick losing power in Hollywood throughout the 1940's, thus making it more difficult for him to control elements of production the way he used to.(2) The “Selznick touch” is more blatant in the film, according to Cohen; this will be addressed more fully later. What is the prime concern of this paper is Hitchcock’s signature, and whether or not it still makes its presence felt despite external creative sources (i.e. Selznick).<br /> <br />Firstly–and perhaps most importantly–the theme of psychoanalysis is presented more explicitly in the film than anywhere else in Hitchcock’s oeuvre. Scholarship has often come back to psychoanalysis to read Hitchcock’s films. None of the other films, however, have their narratives based upon the concept so blatantly as <em>Spellbound</em> has. According to Cohen, this is Selznick’s doing, who had been in analysis for some years.(3) But aside from this, Cohen states that Selznick didn’t have any direct involvement with the film until late into editing. Thus, we are left with Hitchcock having the ability to exercise his creative voice solely within the project.<br /> <br />Cohen’s text also asserts that not only did Hitchcock regain his voice in the film, but that Selznick had implicitly become part of that voice. “[Selznick’s] contribution [to Hitchcock’s development as a filmmaker] can be summarized as follows: he steered Hitchcock toward strong ‘domestic’ narratives (the du Maurier novel; the psychoanalytic theme); he alerted Hitchcock to the challenge of novelistic character...and he encouraged Hitchcock in a more creative use of the female performer. <em>Spellbound </em>can be read as something of an allegory of the painful, but ultimately fruitful, effects of Selznick’s influence.”(4) Is this assertion relevant? Is it even plausible? Female protagonists certainly didn’t play so central a role in the British films (despite the characters of Alice in <em>Blackmail</em> and Iris in <em>The Lady Vanishes</em>, for example). Are Joan Fontaine in <em>Rebecca</em>, young Charlie in <em>Shadow of a Doubt</em>, Alicia in <em>Notorious</em>, and the blondes of the 1950's films the products of Selznick and Hitchcock’s cross-pollination? <em>Spellbound</em> may offer some answers.<br /> <br />Let us return to the idea of psychoanalysis. Hitchcock scholarship has often come back to psychoanalytic theory to explain sexual (and, subsequently, narrative) dynamics of the primary characters in Hitchcock’s films, but only <em>Spellbound</em> literally takes psychoanalysis as the direct agent for its narrative. What does such a use of psychoanalysis do? To begin with, it foregrounds the need to decipher past experience as a means of purging current states of emotional crisis. John Ballantine’s amnesia–quite bluntly revealed during the film’s exposition–is rooted in childhood trauma, and he will only be cured and cleared of murder charges when he uncovers this trauma through analysis. <br /> <br />Lesley Brill sees this method as a way in which the romantic tradition of purging the past to heal the present continues, albeit in modern scientific terms. Brill similarly sees the psychoanalytic project to reconstitute identity analogous to the romantic quest for similar ends. In Brill’s mind, the distinctly romantic elements of this quest undercut the scientific notions of psychoanalysis. “Not only does Hitchcock radically condense the process of psychiatric self-discovery, but he explicitly attacks parts of its scientific framework, notably its emphasis on an ultimate professional impersonality and its dependence on deductive procedures.”(5) Indeed, one can find textual evidence of this within the film, when both Dr. Fleurot and Ballantine (masquerading as Dr. Edwardes) remark to Dr. Petersen about the need for impulse, for feeling, and not complete reliance on cold data. <br /> <br />Does this notion of psychoanalysis as romantic quest hold up? I’m not so sure. Indeed, Brill goes to great lengths to say that due to the film’s links with romantic archetypes, realism and plausibility no longer are factors when analyzing the film’s structure; in fact, the point is quite the opposite. Hitchcock’s use, according to Brill, of “such intrusive artificiality implies that works of art reveal essential significance by condensing and cutting through the haze that makes up most of daily experience.”(6) This is a viable statement for many of Hitchcock’s films, including ones which Brill classifies as “ironic” rather than “romantic;” but, like Brill’s thesis as a whole, it is difficult to ascribe this quality to all of Hitchcock’s work, namely, <em>Spellbound</em>.<br /> <br />One of the things that Brill says is incorrect to criticize <em>Spellbound</em> for is its being “‘talky’ or ‘theatrical.’”(7) The film has these traits, but they are used to turn the story into an archetypal romance, a modern version of a classic tale of love conquering demons, and identity restoring itself through the purging of those demons. Therefore, the film’s “talkiness” and “theatricality” are meant to elucidate meaning, rather than hinder it. This concept, however, is not as strongly present as Brill would like to think. <br /> <br />The “talkiness” of the film is a most intriguing tool of Hitchcock’s. He was always one to flout the greatness of silent cinema, the idea of making narrative “purely cinematic.” Indeed, his best films use dialogue only sparingly, for the very purpose of telling a story through visual means.(8) Yet, <em>Spellbound</em> is a dialogue-choked film, with characters constantly talking in order to dissect the hidden meanings of their behaviors. Paula Cohen reminds us that psychoanalysis was dubbed the “talking cure” when it was developed in the early 20th Century. “Talk, as Freud used it, was a therapeutic method by which unconscious information could be brought to the surface and made available for interpretation.”(9) It is as if Hitchcock was using the continuous flow of dialogue to illustrate the very techniques of psychoanalysis as part of the style. <br /> <br />This “talking cure” style, however, only further problematizes the film. Hitchcock uses the dialogue almost heavy-handedly, doling out explanations as if they were deadweight. No attempt is made to express the emotional intensity of the narrative through only visual means. The most recognizable visual sequence of the film–the Dali-designed dream sequence–is narrated by Ballantine, and continually interrupted by Petersen and Dr. Brulov. If one compares a similar dream Hitchcock constructed in <em>Vertigo</em> (where Scotty dreams of Elster and Carlotta standing next to him, and of him falling into Carlotta’s grave), then one sees that Dali’s images are being subverted by an obsession to explain them. Indeed, Cohen senses this as well within the sequence, saying that “the blatant artificiality of the imagery brings its metaphoric function into relief but jars with the narrative thrust of the film as a whole and with the narrative that accompanies the sequence in particular.”(10) <br /> <br />Cohen’s argument begins to contradict itself in a certain manner over this point. She speaks to the “fated...clash” of narrative and pictorial aspects within the film, each of which she distinctly assigns to Selznick (narrative) and to Hitchcock (visual).(11) Yet, as previously mentioned, Cohen believes that Selznick informed Hitchcock’s narrative thinking for the better, allowing him to develop more psychologically complex characters, specifically female ones. If the dream sequence can be used as a metonym for the rest of the film (and I believe it can, in certain respects), then how are Selznick and Hitchcock’s voices working well together? It doesn’t seem as though they are. <br /> <br />Consider Ballantine’s final revelation that allows him to purge himself of his amnesia and guilt complex. The sequence begins normally enough, with Petersen and Ballantine skiing down a mountain, in the hopes that it will trigger Ballantine’s memory. The cliff makes him remember the accidental killing of his brother, handled in an 8-second flashback that Ballantine narrates. Hitchcock would normally have allowed that flashback to run its course, in terms of its need to serve the story. It is a revelatory moment, one to which Hitchcock would normally devote a greater amount of time. Ballantine also delivers a superfluous voice-over narration (“It was something from my childhood! I killed my brother!”) in addition to the imagery. This seems completely incongruous to Hitchcock’s normal style. When talking to Francois Truffaut about <em>North by Northwest</em>, Hitchcock explicated the scene between Thornhill and the Professor at the airport: “It wasn’t necessary for that to be heard because <em>the public already had the information</em>.”(12) In <em>Spellbound</em>, Hitchcock is making redundant the very things within the narrative that one would think would be most powerful. Nothing feels like Hitchcock in these sequences.<br /> <br />Moreover, the visual quality of the film is more reminiscent of <em>Rebecca</em> than it is of Hitchcock’s other films. One sees very dynamic lighting contrasts, casting strong shadows across the walls and faces of the characters. While this very textured style served the purpose of Rebecca’s constant presence in Manderley, here it only bolsters the notion of psychological duplicity, a point already made plain by the shower of dialogue. What is interesting about the use of textured shadows in these films is that they aren’t seen elsewhere in his body of work. Paula Cohen sees this imbuing of Hitchcock with Selznick’s style as a positive thing. If one, however, analyzes these qualities in <em>Spellbound</em> within the context of Hitchcock’s other work, the more one realizes that the stylistic tendencies which produce Hitchcock’s primary concerns (moral ambiguity, ambivalence toward femininity, the fragility of the order of modern life) become undermined by Selznickian melodrama. “<strong>FT</strong>: There are some very beautiful scenes in the picture. For instance, the one showing the seven doors opening after the kiss, and even the first meeting between Gregory Peck and Ingrid Bergman; that was so clearly love at first sight. <strong>AH</strong>: Unfortunately, the violins begin to play just then. That was terrible!”(13)<br /> <br />Let us consider the gender dynamic of the film. On the one hand, Hitchcock’s handling of gender roles is quite intriguing, given their reversal (the female Petersen as the clinical doctor, the male Ballantine as the hysterical patient). However, characters consistently refer to Petersen’s displacement as a doctor. As previously mentioned, Fleurot speaks of her lack of warmth; she has “no intuition” (a stereotypical “frigid woman” trait). When she and Ballantine are out walking together, he consistently brings up how wrong she is to disregard love. Later, when she and Brulov argue about Ballantine, he criticizes her femininity: “the mind of a woman in love is operating on the lowest level of the intellect.” Earlier, he says that “women in love make the best psychoanalysts ’till they fall in love; then they make the best patients.” One can infer from these exchanges that Petersen’s only redemption is to become a “real woman”: to embrace romantic love, and to unconditionally accept her lover’s faults in order to help him. Nowhere in the film does this get subverted by Hitchcock’s usual ambivalence toward femininity. Compared to films like <em>Notorious</em> or <em>The Birds</em>–where Alicia and Melanie are neither glorified nor condemned for their “pure” and “impure” characteristics–Petersen very simply gives up her independence in order to reaffirm the patriarchy. The film condones this. There is no ambiguity to the moral codes under which Petersen and Ballantine operate. By “curing” themselves with “talk,” there is no longer any deeper meaning or subtext from which we can extricate motivations or notions of characterization. <br /> <br />If it weren’t for Hitchcock’s open dislike for the film, this last point could explain an incredibly clever thing Hitchcock has done with <em>Spellbound</em>. Once the notions of redemption have been identified and achieved through the narrative dialogue, the depth of Petersen and Ballantine’s characterizations are negated. The meanings of their conditions–and thus their lives–have been easily explored and explained, which ties to how loosely Hitchcock used hard psychoanalytic theory (Cohen refers to “psychoanalytic subject matter” in the film as “highly simplified, even bowdlerized”[14]). The lack of depth in the protagonists, especially in comparison to Hitchcock’s greatest films (and the fact that psychoanalysis has always been put upon him, rather than he accepting it willingly), could point to <em>Spellbound</em> being a parodic work, a deliberate subversion of psychoanalysis through the very use of it on levels of form and of content. By making the film heavy-handed and unambiguous, Hitchcock could be illuminating his disdain for such practice in not only film, but in the world. One could see <em>Spellbound</em> as the ultimate critique of psychoanalysis by using it against itself. But Hitchcock claimed to Truffaut that once Selznick gave him the idea about doing a film on psychoanalysis, he supported it (“I wanted to do something more sensible, to turn out the first picture on psychoanalysis”[15]). It would appear that in terms of Hitchcock being “[reluctant] to fantasize” and “[trying] to use a logical approach to the man’s adventure,”(16) Paula Cohen could be correct: Selznick had permeated Hitchcock’s working methods. Where the argument weakens is in the notion that such methods flourished once Hitchcock became his own producer. <em>Spellbound</em> ultimately seems more like a Selznick-dominated misfire than a “Hitchcock picture.”<br /><br /><br /><strong>Notes</strong><br /><br />1. Francois Truffaut, <em>Hitchcock</em>, with Helen G. Scott, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983, pp. 127 & 129.<br />2. Paula Marantz Cohen, <em>Alfred Hitchcock: The Legacy of Victorianism</em>, Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1995, p. 53.<br />3. ibid. p. 54.<br />4. ibid. p. 55.<br />5. Lesley Brill, <em>The Hitchcock Romance: Love and Irony in Hitchcock’s Films</em>, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988, p. 240.<br />6. ibid. p. 281.<br />7. ibid. p. 281.<br />8. Truffaut, p. 222.<br />9. Cohen, p. 56.<br />10. ibid. p. 60.<br />11. ibid. pp. 55-6.<br />12. Truffaut, p. 250. [italics mine]<br />13. ibid. p. 165.<br />14. Cohen, p. 56.<br />15. Truffaut, p. 163.<br />16. ibid. p. 165.Evanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06030063762188563722noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-272491109029127018.post-32400767129845279082008-04-01T23:22:00.004-04:002008-04-01T23:34:13.903-04:00A Conversation about "Contempt," Part III<a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view¤t=Contempt3.jpg" target="_blank"><img height=200 src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/Contempt3.jpg" width=454 border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><br /><br />Maddog (a far better <em>nom de guerre </em>for such a discourse, I should think),<br /><br />You will never find me disagreeing with you when it comes to <em>Weekend</em>. It is the nuclear bomb planted in the heart of pre-'68 narrative cinema, including Godard's own oeuvre. As you, I, and countless Godard enthusiasts (and haters, for that matter) know, the man never returned to that kind of filmmaking again, even after 1980, when <em>Sauve qui peut, la vie</em> (<em>Every Man for Himself</em>) marked his "return" to narrative, whatever the fuck that means.<br /><br />It's a little difficult to respond to your central complaint, that <em>Contempt </em>is boring. I'll never begrudge anyone of their opinion, but I've never found the film boring. Quite the contrary: <em>Contempt</em> has always been one of the most thrilling and engaging cinematic experiences I have had the pleasure to enjoy. Of course, I won't let myself off the hook so easily.<br /><br />The "END OF CINEMA" concept is an intriguing entryway for discussing what is going on in <em>Contempt</em>. I'm with you when you key in on that moment as crucial to illuminating the film's stance on art cinema. But rather than side with Paul when he claims, "I don't think the cinema will ever die," Godard seems a bit more measured in his thoughts. I stand by my claim that on a certain level<em> Contempt</em> is an art film in and of itself. But I also think that Godard is being highly critical of what the art cinema can achieve. After all, Fritz Lang may be "worshipped," but Godard certainly does not present what Lang is creating as worthy of such adulation. He is in fact viciously parodying it. <br /><br />Godard's best work in his early phase encompasses the tension of emotional identification and alienation. Tenderness and Godard's frequent distancing of the audience from that tenderness is what makes his deconstruction of narrative so fascinating. He distances us from Paul and Camille's disintegration through the deadpan comedy of stepping through the hole in the door, or, when Paul interrogates Camille once more about her ceasing to love him, the camera oscillates from one face to another while a lampshade separates the two lovers.<br /><br />What's more, the idea of what cinema is and whether or not it is approaching an end is more ironic than you initially think. It is not as flamboyantly vicious as <em>Weekend</em>, and that is what distinguishes the two films when it comes to such an idea. <em>Contempt</em> does believe that the "art film" is dying or dead, but it approaches that notion with much more ambivalence than <em>Weekend</em> does. Hence, our emotional engagement with Paul and Camille, even though we are kept at arm's length. Also, the cinematography's intense sensuality, and its integration of the overwhelming power of nature as the backdrop to the film's second half, brings that ambivalence into sharper focus. <br /><br />But perhaps the thing that gives the whole game away is the implementation of the score by Georges Delerue. It is one of my all-time favorites, both for its elemental qualities and how Godard uses it in the film. It is warm, sensuous, and full of feeling. It aids in engaging a tender, emotional response from the images. But Godard places it in peculiar places, and cuts it off seemingly at random. (For example, the score plays over Lang walking across the studio lot and lighting a cigarrete, a more rote exercise than the score would normally accompany.) We are constantly forced to reconsider what the music is being used for, and why it makes us feel the way we do. Delerue's music embraces "high art," and Godard then tears it up.<br /><br />We haven't even gotten to how Godard manipulates Alberto Moravia's novel on which <em>Contempt</em> is based, but that could be moot, because I always misremembered you enjoying it. I am curious to hear if we can save <em>Contempt </em>for the end of cinema.<br /><br />-EvanEvanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06030063762188563722noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-272491109029127018.post-7892825623189105202008-04-01T13:40:00.004-04:002008-04-01T13:56:47.241-04:00A Conversation About "Contempt, Part II<span style="font-style:italic;">This is Madelyn Sutton's first response to Evan Davis's provocation about the controversial Jean-Luc Godard film.</span> Contempt <span style="font-style:italic;">is playing through Tuesday, April 8th, at <a href="http://www.filmforum.org/films/contempt.html">Film Forum</a> in downtown Manhattan.</span><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view¤t=Contempt2.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/Contempt2.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><br /><br />Evan dear,<br /><br />You covered plenty of ground; I hope you'll forgive a similarly broad response, which addresses, I suppose, your general effusiveness - and my (mostly) opposite response.<br /><br />Why do I so despise <span style="font-style:italic;">Contempt</span>? It's a difficult question to answer, particularly in the space alloted for this discussion. I will say, first, that I consider the general experience (physical and intellectual, rarely emotional) of the viewer particularly significant - this is why I would begin with the question above. I recall first seeing <span style="font-style:italic;">Contempt</span> in Malcolm Turvey's class on Hitchcock and Godard, though not particularly well (I can barely remember what I saw for the first time today!); what I do remember is being bored. Of course, in terms of the more general discussion of the film, the immediate answer might be, "Why, that's just the point!" Really? Would I like to watch a full-length feature making this point more than once? I might go ahead and interpret the thing a thousand ways to attempt to defend my displeasure and barely suppressable yawns, intellectually, yet I think this negative experience matters a great deal. I guess I sound a bit like Jerry - "The wise man does not oppress others with his superiority."<br /><br />And yet, I adore many of Godard's particularly "difficult" (read: pretentious, longish, etc.) films, such as <span style="font-style:italic;">Ici et ailleurs</span> (<span style="font-style:italic;">Here and Elsewhere</span>) and, my personal favorite, <span style="font-style:italic;">Weekend</span>. Early in <span style="font-style:italic;">Contempt</span>, when Palance's Jerry first appears, he's ranting (and I love Palance throughout for just this sort of thing) about his somewhat depleted budget and empty "set"; he concludes with arms thrown out, saying, "And this, my lost kingdom!" However, when Frencesca translates the latter for Paul, and I think the difference is important, she says, "It's the end of cinema." Paul, as obtuse as he will be throughout, answers, "I don't think cinema will ever die." If the subject of <span style="font-style:italic;">Contempt</span> is indeed the art film, you will surely agree that this is a significant exchange and an important moment of various levels of miscommunication. However, returning to my earlier comparison, I can't help but draw a parallel to the intertitles of <span style="font-style:italic;">Weekend</span>, one of the more powerful of which reads "END OF CINEMA". As such a claim can hardly be considered minor for either film - it's about the death of the medium itself, after all - broadening the comparison is surely acceptable. Furthermore, I might add, if Godard has indeed performed what this phrase states, it's as significant to his "project" as, say, Hegel's "death of art" or Nietzsche's "God is dead," if I might be so bold. And I will!<br /><br />The respective manner in which the two films enact the "end of cinema" highlights the distinction that, in my general verbal and, after all, knee-jerk response, becomes paramount. <span style="font-style:italic;">Weekend</span> is hilarious, disgusting, shameless, and wonderfully broad; it effectively touches upon many issues, including Marxism, the evils of bourgeois consumerism, the irreversible comodification of the "men, nature and gods" that still (somehow) interest the art cinema, the destruction of the sages and innocent idols of the past, the need for revolution on the scale of the present destruction, and so on. This is the "end of cinema" - the end of a tradition of filmmaking in which we can continue to root for the "good" rather than the "bad," ponder the significance of the danse macabre or the quality of emptiness of the individual, become intimately involved or perversely aligned with the characters whatever their supposed moral qualities, or, say, the universal qualities of hatred, violence, sadness or love. Sure, the belief in so many "truths" remains lurking behind the screen where the contemporary Hollywood film plays or even within the hearts of many contemporary indie films; after all, people continued to make art after Hegel and to worship "God" after Nietzsche. The point is, the door was opened. The "protagonist" can turn to his wife and say, "What a rotten film. All we meet are crazy people." (And just one more quote! "I am here to inform these modern times of the grammatical era's end and the beginning of flamboyance, especially in cinema." Postmodern? Maybe, if you believe in that stuff. Fantastic? Undeniably so.)<br /><br />So, I'll stand up and say, well, <span style="font-style:italic;">Weekend</span> does, in fact, achieve a sort of "END OF CINEMA", without leaving the cinephile wallowing and afraid - we've entered the beginning of flamboyance! Screw "high art" or the "Idea"! But what about <span style="font-style:italic;">Contempt</span>? If the filmmaker's angst represented by the misunderstood hero-artist (Lang) or the easily bought-and-sold (Paul) or the powerful yet shallow (Prokosch) is not ironic, and I don't think you mean to suggest that it is, Evan, well, doesn't that mean there's still the hope for the great cinema, for the power of the "Art Film"? Does the "end of cinema" refer to this profuse bitterness and worship of Lang, the languishing voice of greater truths? If so, can we accept this backwards adoration, knowing what we know, having seen what we've seen? Gods, nature, existence, essence, beauty, nature - they're "grammatical" (or linguistic or dead) values, and Lang, and perhaps all of <span style="font-style:italic;">Contempt</span>, worship angrily and tragically at their demise. Get over it! I'll take flamboyance over boredom any day.<br /><br />But I'm not fully convinced of this latest interpretation of the film; as I mentioned, I might redeem the film for myself by viewing such nostalgia as ironic. Paul claims to love all of Camille "tragically," and having seen <span style="font-style:italic;">Contempt</span>, we know how absolutely moronic that statement is. <br /><br />How's that? I'm dying to say more.<br /><br />MadelynEvanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06030063762188563722noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-272491109029127018.post-26480380717321149322008-03-20T03:05:00.010-04:002008-03-26T00:16:47.086-04:00A Conversation about "Contempt," Part I<em>For the next several days--or until they want to kill each other, whichever comes first--perennial odd couple Evan Davis and Madelyn Sutton will hash it out about one of Jean-Luc Godard's most celebrated early works. Check back regularly for updates.</em><br /><br />Contempt <em>is currently playing at <a href="http://www.filmforum.org/films/contempt.html">Film Forum</a> in downtown Manhattan until Tuesday, April 8th. The film is also available on an <a href="http://www.netflix.com/Movie/Contempt/60000661?trkid=222336&lnkctr=srchrd-sr&strkid=784543427_0_0">excellent DVD</a> from the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Contempt-Criterion-Collection-Brigitte-Bardot/dp/B00005JKPT/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1205998078&sr=1-1">Criterion Collection</a>.</em><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view¤t=Contempt1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/Contempt1.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><br /><br />Madelyn,<br /> <br />I don't know if you've had a chance to re-watch <em>Contempt</em> yet, but I suppose that since this whole scheme was my idea, I'll be the first to jump in. Let me also note that I plan to read the source novel by Alberto Moravia before this correspondence is over.<br /><br />Having seen <em>Contempt</em> again last week (and for the first time on the big screen), I am still awestruck by the power the movie has on me. Never again did Jean-Luc Godard have a similar kind of power in one of his films, even in the ones I have held more dearly to my heart. Set amidst the master's 15-film winning streak in the 1960s, <em>Contempt</em> lacks the puckish anarchy of <em>Pierrot le Fou</em>, the apocalyptic majesty of <em>La Chinoise</em> and <em>Weekend</em>, the gleeful abandon of <em>Breathless</em>, <em>A Woman is a Woman</em>, <em>Band of Outsiders</em> and <em>Masculin Feminin</em>, and the academic depth of <em>Les Carabiniers</em>, <em>Alphaville</em> and <em>2 or 3 Things I Know About Her</em>-- but it has to be, alongside <em>Vivre sa Vie</em>, Godard's most emotionally satisfying work. And perhaps why that is has something to do with the subject he is honoring and deconstructing: the art film.<br /> <br />The topics of art vs. commerce, tradition vs. modernity, man vs. nature: these were subjects taken on by the great art filmmakers of the day. At least, they were so-called because the industry decided that a certain type of world cinema had to be codified as a genre. Antonioni, Bergman, and to a certain extent Resnais all dealt with this type of modern, ambiguous cinema, and Godard set out to probe just how they may have all connected into such a genre as the "art film." Paul Javal (Michel Piccoli) is the frustrated screenwriter who sells his soul to a boorish American producer, Jerry Prokosch (Jack Palance) in order to make some quick money for he and his young wife, Camille (Brigitte Bardot). But in the process, a series of misunderstandings leads Camille to loathe Paul for his avarice, his potential infidelity, and his insouciance toward Prokosch's advances toward her. All the while, Fritz Lang, who is directing the adaptation of <em>The Odyssey</em> being written by Paul, stands at an observational distance, a relic from a past <em>Contempt</em> craves to reclaim, but cannot.<br /> <br />The distance between not only Paul and Camille but between Paul and everybody else is emphasized by the language barrier established from the humorous concept of the "international production." One of the most tender scenes involves Lang and Francesca (Giorgia Moll), Prokosch's assistant. They are the only two who speak all involved languages (French, English, Italian, German), and they seem to hold a deep warmth for each other because of this. Such tenderness doesn't exist between any two characters in the film, even Paul and Camille.<br /> <br />Famously, the prologue of a nude Camille and Paul lying in bed was forced on Godard by the film's producers, Georges de Beauregard, Carlo Ponti and Joseph Levine. They thought that there wasn't enough "skin" of Bardot on screen, which would naturally be the main selling point, right? What Godard does in that moment is not only expose the audience's voyeurism, but also problematizes Bardot's own image of herself. The persistent questioning of Paul about whether or not he loves her various body parts illuminates Camille's deep insecurity about herself, and gives us a prophetic image of why Paul and Camille's marriage is fragile long before Paul becomes involved with Prokosch.<br /> <br />As emotionally involved as we become with Paul and Camille, Godard deliberately forces us to examine their tenderness and cruelty from a distance. He shoots long, distant takes that are never clean in their <em>mise en scene</em>. Most famously, in the extended break-up/make-up scene between Paul and Camille, pillars, doors, and even lampshades prevent the two characters from joining in proper unity. Indeed, the apartment itself becomes a war zone.<br /> <br />Flash cuts remind us of the past and predict the future. Georges Delerue's brilliant score comes and goes seemingly at random. During a vaudeville show, the music stops so the characters can converse uninterrupted. And what Lang is seemingly making is a delicious parody of a traditional misconception of the "art film," when in fact, in the form of <em>Contempt</em>, the audience is witnessing one of its greatest incarnations. Godard is constantly distancing us from natural emotion, which in its own perverse way makes us feel even stronger the emotional catastrophe that Paul and Camille are inflicting on each other. In the late 1950s/early 1960s heyday of the "art film," Godard made the weirdest and most beautiful of them all.<br /> <br /> <br />This is all perhaps a bit vague in its effusiveness, but I think that depth will be achieved once the sparring begins. I look forward to your rebuttal.<br /><br />-EvanEvanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06030063762188563722noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-272491109029127018.post-63977802347784031722008-03-05T02:36:00.007-05:002008-03-06T23:09:40.696-05:00Gus Van Sant's Newest MasterpieceParanoid Park <em>opens this Friday at the <a href="http://www.angelikafilmcenter.com/angelika_film.asp?hID=1&ID=h558s8j.1635446c774fh3252.37">Angelika Film Center</a> in Manhattan, and opens wide in two weeks.</em><br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view¤t=ParanoidPark.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/ParanoidPark.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><br /><strong><em>Paranoid Park</em> (Gus Van Sant, 2007)</strong><br /><br /><em>I'm writing this a little out of order. Sorry. I didn't do so well in creative writing . . .</em> <br /><br /><br />No one would ever accuse Alex Tremaine (Gabe Nevins) of being anything but normal. He is 15, lives in Portland, OR, goes to high school, has divorced parents, has a girlfriend, and loves to skateboard. But there is something else to Alex, something more mysterious and perhaps more profound. Of course, he doesn’t really know it yet.<br /><br /><em>Paranoid Park </em>is a film that brings every confused and terrifying element of Alex’s psyche to a boiling surface. Writer/editor/director Gus Van Sant has sculpted a film that is an embodiment of subjectivity, every element some evocation of emotional consciousness. And it takes a most brutal event to make Alex even slightly aware that there is something going on inside of him.<br /><br />The event in question is a death that Alex causes, but is difficult to classify as murder. The police certainly do, but within the diegesis of the film, they never discover the truth. Alex can barely comprehend what has occurred, but it creates a deep rupture that closes him off from his former life.<br /><br />Van Sant, taking his cue from the source novel by Blake Nelson, frames the movie as a letter Alex is writing to his friend Macy (Lauren McKinney), but unlike Nelson’s protagonist, Van Sant’s Alex tells it out of order. Accordingly, Van Sant fragments chronology in a dense and effortless way. Alex is so consumed by the bewildering viscerality of his emotions that he is unable to cohere his experience properly. Alex is a stream of consciousness, but the film then becomes the complete embodiment of that stream, giving form and grace to Alex’s confusion.<br /><br />How does Van Sant accomplish this? First and foremost, credit must be given to DP’s Christopher Doyle and Rain Kathy Li. It is a rather canny move on Van Sant’s part to use Doyle in place of his standby for the “Death Trilogy,” Harris Savides. Whereas Savides’s images are dense and heavy, Doyle’s are light and lyrical. He is looser and more delicate. (See his work with Wong Kar Wai for further proof.) Slow motion, eerie lighting, and the texture of faces are all a part of Doyle and Van Sant’s arsenal, emphasizing a tension between Alex’s exterior monotone and the swirl of interior psychic trauma.<br /><br />As much as <em>Paranoid Park</em>’s visual conception brings forth a vision of Alex’s psychological deterioration, so the sound design further ruptures his subconscious. The songs, which are certainly not part of Alex’s universe (from Elliott Smith to Beethoven to Nino Rota), marry themselves to Doyle and Li’s images in a startlingly bracing way. From the slow-motion shower scene set to a piercing sound tone, to the silent breakup between Alex and Jennifer (Taylor Momsen) set to a theme from <em>Juliet of the Spirits</em>, sound is wholly integral to the lyrical tapestry, and may signal a push forward in American sound design when considered alongside <em>No Country for Old Men </em>and <em>There Will Be Blood</em>. <br /><br />And then there is the subject of skateboarding itself. As mentioned by a friend who himself is a skateboarder (and who will, hopefully, eventually post a response to this review), the movie doesn’t appear to contain much fidelity toward the question of why teenagers skateboard in the first place. (There is also the semantic issue of misnaming Portland’s Burnside Skateboard Park as Paranoid Park, when in fact there actually is a Paranoid Park located in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoid_park">downtown Portland</a>.) The movie’s launch point is skateboarding, but it is not its destination. What Alex finds in skateboarding is a liberating, alluring, and dangerous escape from the trials of his quotidian existence (divorce, homework, girlfriends). Especially if we accept the notion that the film’s aesthetic achievements serve as a subconscious counterpoint to what Alex is actually conscious of, then we can argue that skateboarding is not what he believes it to be. And certainly his fantasies of kids doing high-level tricks–gorgeously filmed in Super-8 by Li, which serve as their own counterpoint to Doyle’s more immediately psychological images–are delightful dreams of his own aspirations, aspirations he may never actually achieve. Similarly, his description of those who frequent Paranoid Park (“train hoppers, guitar punks, throwaway kids . . .”) is a highly subjective reading of those he finds there, and may not necessarily be reality. The film seeks to uncover the rift in Alex’s consciousness that his “murder” creates. And since his association with one of Paranoid Park’s regulars leads to this rift, we can potentially see his view of skateboarding as a trap rather than a liberation.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/film_review.asp?ID=3270">Akiva Gottlieb</a> at <em>Slant</em> mentions that at the end of the film, “we empathize with an ‘unrepentant murderer.’” Granted, he puts the key phrase in quotes, but it is worth mulling over. By film’s end, it has been revealed to us who exactly Alex is writing his letter to, and what he does with it. In one of the film’s most haunting images, we watch Alex in slow-motion throw one page after another into a fire while “Angeles” by Elliott Smith plays on the soundtrack. His soul has finally been unburdened. But does this mean that Alex has not repented? Does it even mean that he “got away with it?” Thanks to Van Sant’s fragmented chronology, we cannot be certain as to what may have happened after Alex disposes of the letter. It is unclear when his conversation with the detective–in which it is revealed that Alex’s skateboard has been found with the security guard’s DNA on it–occurs in relation to the letter’s burning. One can presume that the police might find further evidence on that skateboard that links Alex directly to the murder. And the final sequence finds Alex dreaming Li’s skateboarding fantasias, which he finally appears in. Have his fantasies consumed him to the point where he is a part of them, or are they delivering their farewell, never to return? It is unclear, and for Alex, the only thing that matters is that he is now able to honestly grapple with what he earlier called “different levels of stuff.” In other words, he has passed from innocence to experience. And perhaps he will begin to understand what those different levels actually mean.Evanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06030063762188563722noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-272491109029127018.post-60024511535894061932008-02-26T22:47:00.003-05:002008-02-26T23:16:14.263-05:00Pregnancy, Abortion & The Movies: A Look Back at 2007A rather unexpected cycle of films, as aesthetically and economically different from each other as could be, all took as partial or total focus of their narratives the topic of abortion. From small budget quirky comedy <em>Waitress</em> to the latest Judd Apatow powerhouse <em>Knocked Up</em> to Tony Kaye’s epic documentary <em>Lake of Fire </em>to the even quirkier teen comedy <em>Juno </em>to the Romanian drama <em>4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days</em>, all five of these movies dealt with abortion on some level or another, which is a surprise given how much the subject has stayed off of the front pages in recent years. (More hot-button issues in the last four years seem to have been war, torture, gay marriage, stem-cell research and sexual impropriety by the nation’s leaders, whereas in the mid-1990s, abortion clinics were picketed and bombed with terrifying frequency, and whether a candidate was pro-choice or pro-life could make or break their campaign.)<br /><br />It is certainly commendable that abortion should find its way into three relatively mainstream American comedies–<em>Knocked Up</em>, <em>Waitress,</em> and <em>Juno</em>. These movies, however, don’t really take abortion as its primary subject; rather, it is an unexpected pregnancy that is the spine of these films’ narratives. All of these pregnancies are carried to term, fitting them neatly into that subgenre of romantic comedy in which the female protagonist gets a bun in the oven in the first act, and has a blissful delivery at the climax. This is all well and good, to a degree. As several people have pointed out, there’s no story if the baby doesn’t get born. I’ll dispute that later; firstly, let’s examine just how these movies resolve the conflict early on, in which a woman must choose either Planned Parenthood or the local obstetrician.<br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view¤t=Waitress.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/Waitress.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><br />In <em>Waitress</em>, much like<em> Knocked Up </em>and<em> Juno</em>, writer-director Adrienne Shelley dispatches abortion with quite a bit of narrative speed. Shelley’s heroine Jenna, a preternaturally gifted pie maker played by Keri Russell, discovers that she is pregnant, the father being her abusive husband (Jeremy Sisto). She and her friends Dawn and Becky (Shelley and Cheryl Hines) wait outside the diner where they all work discussing Jenna’s new problem. Dawn brings it up hesitatingly: “have you thought about...the other thing?” Becky and Jenna react with shock and horror. Jenna immediately assures them that she will have the baby–despite the fact that she hates the thing, and for the rest of the movie, writes it letters which blame it for ruining her life. By the end of the movie, her pregnancy has given her the strength to become an independent, self-reliant woman, and she sloughs off both her husband and her OB/GYN lover (Nathan Fillion).<br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view¤t=KnockedUp.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/KnockedUp.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><br />Judd Apatow similarly pays slight and evasive attention to the issue. Alison (Katherine Heigl), an up-and-coming producer/host on E!, has a drunken one-night stand with Ben (Seth Rogen), a Canadian pothead slacker living off of an accident settlement. After she discovers that she is pregnant and informs Ben, Apatow presents two scenes. In the first, Ben consults with his friends. One (Jonah Hill) insists that Alison should “take care of it.” He eventually calls it a “shmashmortion,” so as to not upset one of the guys. This guy eventually bursts into a fit of hysteria, begging Ben to keep the baby away from “those butchers.” He even offers to raise the child himself if Ben does not believe he can handle the responsibility. Meanwhile, Alison is having lunch with her mother (Joanna Kerns), who similarly tells her to “take care of it.” A few more brief words from her, met by silence from Alison, lead to the clinching transition: Alison calls Ben to tell him that she is keeping the baby. Ben decides he wants to be involved, and after many setbacks, he and Alison fall in love, the baby is climactically born, and the three of them literally ride off into the sunset.<br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view¤t=Juno2.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/Juno2.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><br /><em>Juno</em> is the only one of these three films to actually use the word “abortion.” High school junior Juno MacGuff (Ellen Page) decides one night that it would be more fun to have sex with her best friend, Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera), than to watch <em>The Blair Witch Project</em>. Pregnancy ensues, and she makes the trip to the local clinic. A school acquaintance is outside protesting, and warns Juno that the fetus has fingernails. Inside the clinic, a goofy-looking slacker takes Juno’s information, making uncouth jokes in the process. As Juno looks around the waiting room, director Jason Reitman rapidly cuts from one nervous, “uncool” woman to another, until he cuts to Juno high-tailing it out of the office. That night, Juno tells her friend (Olivia Thirlby) that she couldn’t go through with it, that the thought of a fetus having fingernails freaked her out too much. She then decides to find a cute couple in the Penny-Saver who can adopt the child. She finds one (Jason Bateman & Jennifer Garner), and thanks to seeing Garner act as a good mom when she interacts with her niece–as opposed to the suburban ice queen she previously believed Garner to be–Juno realizes that she can give as well as admit her complete love for Paulie. Climactic birth ensues, and Juno and Paulie play their guitars into the sunset.<br /><br />Make no mistake: no woman should ever be forced to have an abortion. She has the ultimate right to choose what to do with her body, be that abortion, adoption, or becoming a full-fledged mother. And certainly on the most literal level, Jenna, Alison and Juno make their own choices. But, as I have hinted at, there seem to be other rhetorical forces at work informing those choices. <br /><br />In 21st Century America, abortion is something which is considered practically every time a woman becomes unexpectedly pregnant. It is a serious decision, and it is not my impression that most women make it lightly. (People tell me that in post-communist Romania, women often use abortion as a form of birth control; but more on that later.) In <em>Waitress,</em> <em>Knocked Up</em>, and <em>Juno</em>, however, abortion is treated as something of an afterthought, an idea quickly discarded for the more sensible option. <br /><br />Juno decides to have an abortion, certainly, but writer Diablo Cody and Reitman suggest that her decision to give the baby away is the first step toward a growing maturity within Juno, culminating in rejecting the arrested development of Bateman in favor of the loving maternity of Garner. Certainly Juno’s horror at the abortion clinic implies that such a choice for a pregnant teenager is positively repugnant. <br /><br />Both Jenna and Alison don’t appear to want to be mothers at all. They are both career women who are attempting to discover their own right to independence. Jenna is outright contemptuous of the thing growing inside of her, and Alison is depicted as a hot young spinster who is told by her bosses that she needs to focus on her image in order to get ahead. She is not happy to hear that she is pregnant, but after her talk with her mother, she comes to a quick decision to have–and keep–the baby. The way Apatow constructs the sequence suggests that Alison petulantly makes her choice as a defiant act against her mother. Neither Shelley nor Apatow have created scenarios in which their women might make a more serious, considered decision about the rest of their lives. There actually doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of choice in the matter. At points, all three movies are openly hostile toward abortion, from the outright disgust of Ben and Jenna’s friends to Juno’s shock and horror at the clinic.<br /><br />As for the rebuttal, “there’s no movie if she has an abortion,” honestly: as far as narrative is concerned, the pregnancy rom-com subgenre is a little too easy to make. Your three-act structure is built right in, as if nothing else interesting could be explored with these characters. Is it really that impossible to make a 90-120 minute movie–a romantic comedy, even–in which a woman has an abortion? I would like to think that Apatow, Cody, Reitman, and Shelley are creative enough to put together films that are more complex when it comes to the issue of women’s choice. <br /><br />By contrast, Cristian Mungiu’s <em>4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days </em>and Tony Kaye’s <em>Lake of Fire</em> never flinch from the realities and broader emotional spectrum of abortion. <em>4 Months </em>(a fiction film from Romania following two college friends over the course of one day as one of them tries to obtain an illegal abortion during the Ceausescu era) and <em>Lake of Fire </em>(a documentary shot in 35mm black-and-white in the US over a 17-year period) are certainly different in many respects, but both take abortion as seriously as cancer. <br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view¤t=LakeofFire.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/LakeofFire.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><br /><em>Lake of Fire</em> may stand as the definitive polemic on abortion in America. Begun in the early 1990s, when the British-born Kaye was still a commercials director, the film features talking-head interviews, vérité footage of pro-choice and pro-life rallies, and two actual abortion procedures. Advocates on both sides of the aisle–and along various points of the spectrum–let their voices be heard. Kaye gives roughly equal time to most participants, and though his rhetorical technique subtly reveals the film’s pro-choice leanings, he never allows the film to devolve into an ideological screed. Many unexpected opinions emerge from various figures, including author and Village Voice columnist Nat Hentoff, who is literally pro-life. He is an atheist and is opposed to abortion, war and the death penalty, a platform most pro-lifers would not claim as their own. Another is Norma McCorvey, the woman who served as Roe in Roe v. Wade. After being a pro-choice crusader for many years–along with being a lesbian–McCorvey claims to have seen a collection of dead fetuses in the walk-in freezer at the Texas abortion clinic where she worked. Soon afterward, she denounced her lesbianism, found Jesus, and became one of the key pro-life advocates in America. This is obviously a massive political windfall for the pro-life movement, but Kaye treats it as another example of how complex the issue of abortion is, certainly more complex than many of the demagogues in the film would like us to believe.<br /><br />The film’s climactic sequence–following a woman in Wisconsin through her own abortion procedure–is similarly treated with great restraint and impassivity. the woman describes her previous abortion procedures, and appears to have a great deal of melancholy about the latest. Doctors and nurses interview her, making sure that she is doing this of her own free will, and that she is 100% certain that this is what she wants to do. Then Kaye shows the actual procedure. Some critics have decried this move as exploitation, that Kaye wishes to merely shock the audience with the image of a dead fetus. But the procedure is so restrained, and its gruesome elements so deftly and matter-of-factly handled, that all we can think about is simply, this is how abortions are done. After the procedure has ended, the woman speaks directly to the camera about the experience. Eventually, she breaks down crying. <br /><br />The grand ideas we come away with after the movie ends is not that abortion is an uncomfortable afterthought, something which women quickly need to disregard when they discover that they are pregnant. Instead, the question of abortion emerges as something which is a very real, serious idea that every woman must decide for themselves. No one takes it lightly, and no one underestimates its consequences. But the necessity of its legality has the potential, as Kaye shows, to rip America in two.<br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view¤t=4Months3Weeksand2Days.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/4Months3Weeksand2Days.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><br /><em>4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days</em> offers up a case study which Tony Kaye might have used had he filmed in Romania instead of America. Two college students, Gabita (Laura Vasiliu) and Otilia (Anamaria Marinca), attempt to traverse the black-market abortion industry in Romania in 1987. Ceausescu criminalized the procedure when he came to power in 1966, and it wouldn’t become legal again until 1989, when he was deposed. Meanwhile, Otilia must monomaniacally overcome many obstacles in order to help Gabita procure an abortion. These include incredibly precise logistical steps in order to avoid being caught, negotiating with a terrifying doctor (Vlad Ivanov) who eventually forces Otilia to prostitute herself, and her boyfriend’s family, who trap her at dinner and incessantly talk about the banal while Otilia grows more and more anxious by the second. Mungiu films in long, sustained, hand-held takes, allowing a mood of quiet menace to creep into every corner of the frame. Otilia thinks of nothing else but helping her friend, to the point where, through her own frustration and the incredible rigor of Mungiu’s images, she becomes consumed by the quest and the quest alone, physically unable to understand anything else. The portentousness of the ending–a two-shot of Otilia and Gabita after the procedure, neither woman able to eat dinner while a wedding party goes on in the background–speaks to the depths of, and perhaps the irreparable harm done to, their friendship. But the film never questions the bond between them, or the necessity for the both of them to do what they do, even if it means potential harm. And the evil done to them is not abortion itself, but a political ideology that doesn’t allow for Gabita to share the experience of the woman at the end of <em>Lake of Fire</em>.<br /><br />So what are we left with? Five films which roughly split into two camps: comedy vs. drama, pro-life vs. pro-choice, mainstream vs. art house. Their approaches may all widely differ from each other, but these dualities remain fairly consistent. It would seem to suggest that mainstream America cannot face abortion in 2007. Or it could suggest that pregnancy narratives are merely in fashion, and the suppression of abortion is just an unfortunate byproduct. Further still, it could be that no one knows how to make a pro-choice comedy. I am not sure. In any case, we are left with a somewhat disturbing trend that has the potential to continue for years to come.<br /><br /><br />By the way, here's the piece that killed my motivation to put this one on the web, mainly because he beat me to the punch, and it's much better:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.villagevoice.com/film/0804,hoberman,78918,20.html">J. Hoberman in The Village Voice</a>Evanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06030063762188563722noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-272491109029127018.post-67759053323730448692008-02-05T00:49:00.000-05:002008-02-05T01:00:57.377-05:00The Best Preemptive Film of 2008This week, we look at abortion in the films of 2007, with two short reviews, and a large think piece about the theme of abortion in 2007. Here's the first:<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view¤t=4Months3Weeksand2Days.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/4Months3Weeksand2Days.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><br /><strong><em>4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days</em> (Cristian Mungiu)</strong><br /><br />The third Romanian to be heralded in the US in as many years, Cristian Mungiu’s second feature may be the best yet. It did not get officially released in America until late January, yet it was one of the most talked-about films of 2007. Why? Firstly, it was Romania’s official selection for the Best Foreign Film Oscar nomination process (and it was controversially not one of that award's finalists). Secondly, it played for a week in Los Angeles in late December to qualify for the general Oscar nominations. Finally, for all the above reasons, many critics, critics organizations, and critics’ polls have been including it in their best-of-2007 considerations. So, I am compromising: <em>4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days </em>is the best preemptive film of 2008. (P.S. It also came out of nowhere to win the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival last May.)<br /><br />Like Cristi Puiu’s <em>The Death of Mr. Lazarescu </em>and Corneliu Porumboiu’s <em>12:08 East of Bucharest </em>before it, <em>4 Months </em>is a triumph of temporal elasticity, terse narrative economy, and political subtext. Set in 1987, two years before the collapse of communism in Romania, Otilia (Anamaria Marinca) has to arrange an abortion for her friend Gabita (Lara Vasiliu). Both are in college, and abortion is illegal. But it must be done, and over the course of one night, the claustrophobic terror of such an experience is suffocating. Mungiu employs harsh light and long, handheld takes to expand time and present their ordeal quite starkly. Time eventually becomes an extension of Otilia’s psyche, as she is unsure of when the nightmare will end. And what a deft choice to focus not on the patient, but on her friend who must make sure everything happens correctly. From arranging the hotel to bargaining with the doctor (bargaining which includes sexual debasement) to dealing with her boyfriend’s insufferable family (easily the funniest scene in the movie) to both chastising and comforting Gabita, Otilia must accomplish all and be rewarded nothing. The film does have its political trappings, but this is more a story about how friends must do everything for each other, even if it potentially destroys their bond. The final moments, composed in an unblinking two-shot with Otilia and Gabita in silence at dinner, suggests a great deal of uncertainty as well as relief about what the future holds for the both of them.Evanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06030063762188563722noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-272491109029127018.post-49828540110778508582008-01-31T01:16:00.000-05:002008-01-31T01:40:26.264-05:00End of the Year Blog-a-thon, Pt. VI: The Ones I MissedI saw 75 new films in 2007 (a new record!) In a perfect world, I would've seen around 200 or so. Here are 21 that were essential viewing, but still slipped through my fingers. Can't see everything, after all.<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view¤t=Bamako.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/Bamako.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><strong><em>Bamako</em> (Abderrahmane Sissako)</strong><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view¤t=BandsVisit.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/BandsVisit.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><strong><em>The Band's Visit </em>(Eran Kolirin)</strong><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view¤t=DayNightDayNight.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/DayNightDayNight.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><strong><em>Day Night Day Night </em>(Julia Loktev)</strong><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view¤t=DivingBellTheButterfly.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/DivingBellTheButterfly.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><strong><em>The Diving Bell and the Butterfly </em>(Julian Schnabel)</strong><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view¤t=DrySeason.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/DrySeason.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><strong><em>Dry Season </em>(Mahamet-Saleh Haroun)</strong><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view¤t=Election.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/Election.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><strong><em>Election</em> (Johnny To)</strong><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view¤t=TriadElection.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/TriadElection.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><strong><em>Triad Election</em> (Johnny To)</strong><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view¤t=Exiled.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/Exiled.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><strong><em>Exiled</em> (Johnny To)</strong><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view¤t=ExterminatingAngels.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/ExterminatingAngels.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><strong><em>Exterminating Angels</em> (Jean-Claude Brisseau)</strong><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view¤t=Flanders.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/Flanders.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><strong><em>Flanders</em> (Bruno Dumont)</strong><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view¤t=Forever.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/Forever.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><strong><em>Forever</em> (Heddy Honigmann)</strong><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view¤t=GoneBabyGone.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/GoneBabyGone.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><strong><em>Gone Baby Gone</em> (Ben Affleck)</strong><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view¤t=HalfMoon.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/HalfMoon.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><strong><em>Half Moon</em> (Bahman Ghobadi)</strong><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view¤t=HonordeCavalleria.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/HonordeCavalleria.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><strong><em>Honor de Cavalleria</em> (Albert Serra)</strong><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view¤t=IntotheWild.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/IntotheWild.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><strong><em>Into the Wild</em> (Sean Penn)</strong><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view¤t=LadyChatterley.gif" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/LadyChatterley.gif" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><strong><em>Lady Chatterley</em> (Pascale Ferran)</strong><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view¤t=LosMuertos.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/LosMuertos.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><strong><em>Los Muertos</em> (Lisandro Alonso)</strong><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view¤t=QuietCity.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/QuietCity.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><strong><em>Quiet City</em> (Aaron Katz)</strong><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view¤t=ThisisEngland.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/ThisisEngland.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><strong><em>This is England</em> (Shane Meadows)</strong><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view¤t=WestoftheTracks.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/WestoftheTracks.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><strong><em>West of the Tracks</em> (Wang Bing)</strong><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view¤t=WindthatShakestheBarley.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/WindthatShakestheBarley.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><strong><em>The Wind that Shakes the Barley</em> (Ken Loach)</strong><br /><br /><br /><br />As I say, there's always next year. Thanks for takin' the journey with me. I'll see you in 2008.Evanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06030063762188563722noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-272491109029127018.post-8350751374333004852008-01-31T00:54:00.000-05:002008-01-31T01:11:01.897-05:00End of the Year Blog-a-thon, Pt. V: The 4 Best Movies of 2007, pt. CHere it is, the final entry, the movie that I may have seen last, but left the most deep, violent impression on me: if <em>I'm Not There</em> and <em>Syndromes and a Century</em> are joy inherent, and <em>Colossal Youth</em> represents a completely new kind of film, then this is the most explosive piece of mainstream cinema of the year.<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view¤t=ThereWillBeBlood-1.jpg" target="_blank"><img height=360 src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/ThereWillBeBlood-1.jpg" width=540 border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><br /><strong><em>There Will Be Blood</em></strong> <strong>(Paul Thomas Anderson)</strong><br /><br />I’m not sure I have ever seen anything like what has been achieved with <em>There Will Be Blood</em>. It is a work that grows within you, festering, not letting its grip loose. It is a work of sublimated emotional and physical violence, etching each shot into the fabric like a knife blade into a block of wood. <br /><br />We open in silence. Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) can’t make his fortune in silver, so he moves to oil prospecting. He becomes rich. But he lusts for even bigger windfalls. He has a son, H.W. (Dillon Freasier). One day, Paul Sunday (Paul Dano) come to his office and tells him that oil is in Little Boston, California. Plainview finds it, buys the land, and drains the oil from the ground. H.W. has an accident by the derrick and becomes deaf. Daniel’s mysterious half-brother, Henry (Kevin J. O’Connor), appears and becomes a new partner. H.W. is sent away to a deaf school, and all the while Daniel builds a rivalry with the other Sunday brother, Eli (also played by Dano), a young preacher who may not be all that he seems. And so, after Daniel has sold off to Union Oil, and we discover the depths and sources of both his fury and his sorrow, we see him retired, fifteen years later, disowning his son and having one final showdown with Eli. It is here that we see what these two men have quietly been all along: the corruption of the American soul, and of their own souls. Daniel lost his family to his avarice, and Eli lost his and many others’ faiths to the same vice.<br /><br />Anderson has crystallized what he began with <em>Punch-Drunk Love</em>, namely, refocusing and concentrating the vast wealth of his talent. His tracking shots have slowed their tempo, and have thus become more penetrating and ominous. Similarly, his soundscapes are more stark, and more sparse. The score, by Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood, is Anderson’s first without the Michael Penn-Aimee Mann-Jon Brion juggernaut, but Greenwood follows Brion’s lead from <em>Punch-Drunk Love</em> by creating an impressionistic, sparsely-used score that is without fail, the best film score <em>since</em> Brion’s 2002 opus. Anderson employs Greenwood’s percussive, dissonant strings to terrifying use, as they actively become an essential part of the film’s fabric, the tool which alludes to the hideous decay which is slowly built upon with all other elements. <br /><br />And then there is the small matter of Day-Lewis and Dano. Day-Lewis only further confirms his mastery over his craft, as every nuance, every simmering ferocity, every small expression of tenderness or pain is completely under his control. Daniel Plainview is a titanic smokestack, misanthropic to the core and willing to subvert any obstacle in order to achieve his ends. He instantly recognizes in Eli the same impulse to control and manipulate, and hates the threat to his power. It is a marvel to see Day-Lewis keep this all under the surface of things, smoldering until the climactic battle between and money and faith.<br /><br />As for Dano, make no mistake: he is a force to be reckoned with. Outclassed he may be, but how many 23-year-olds do you know who wouldn’t be? Eli is, similarly to Javier Bardem’s Chigurh in <em>No Country for Old Men</em>, a mortal demon, a clear-eyed, placid poison who hungers for wealth and power while appearing calm and pious to his parishioners. He condemns Plainview and his own father for striking a deal to drill for oil, but he is sickened more by the fact that he is not paid what he feel he is owed. A most revealing moment is his new church being built around him while he rehearses his sermon. Elmer Gantry would be proud. But Dano, as wonderfully creepy and outlandish as he lets Eli be, also shows his vulnerability, especially when Eli, now rich and famous at the movie’s climax, visits Daniel to see if he will drill for more oil for him. Eli is weak, succumbing to “sin” and greed, some semblance of true belief still within him that says he has failed to do the Lord’s will. <br /><br />SPOILER ALERT: And what of the ending which many decry or laugh off? It seems like the explosion that the movie has threatened to bring, but away from which it always shies. It is the mad, tormented battle that illuminates the final straw of Daniel’s hatred, and of his madness. He finally explodes, like the oil derrick that brings about H.W.’s deafness. It is the delirious end of faith, faith destroyed by money, and the evil that lays sprawling out before us, yelling, “I’m finished ” Plainview has won and lost–for it is America that is finished.Evanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06030063762188563722noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-272491109029127018.post-4899088637899390052008-01-29T22:22:00.000-05:002008-01-29T22:43:44.120-05:00End of the Year Blog-a-thon, Pt. V: The 4 Best Movies of 2007, pt. BAll that I can really say about this is that it just came out on DVD. Drop what you're doing and rent it.<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view¤t=SyndromesandaCentury.jpg" target="_blank"><img height=240 src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/SyndromesandaCentury.jpg" width=420 border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><br /><strong><em>Syndromes and a Century </em>(Apichatpong Weerasethakul)</strong><br /><br />Perhaps the masterpiece in a small body of work that may be the best of the 21st Century, Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s ode to his parents is a breathtaking meditation on memory, metaphysics, and the delicate malleability of time. His trademark dialectic structure is here–the first half (the “mother half”) is set in a country medical clinic, seen from a young woman’s perspective, the second half (the “father half”) in an urban hospital seen from a young man’s point of view–but the two blend and intermingle more naturally than in <em>Blissfully Yours </em>or <em>Tropical Malady</em>, representing how memories can drift from one context to another. That the same characters appear in both sections only reinforces such a concept. Such gentle beauty breathes a majestic philosophical meditation into great poetry.<br /><br />I was recently remarking to a friend how strange it was that Weerasethakul himself names many filmmakers to have had a direct influence upon him, namely the canonical American avant-gardists (Stan Brakhage, Maya Deren, Bruce Baillie) and the world cinema canon of the 1990s (Bela Tarr, Tsai Ming-liang, Abbas Kiarostami). But having seen both <em>Syndromes</em> and <em>Tropical Malady</em> again recently, along with a collection of short films spanning his career, it is evident that Weerasethakul is as completely self-contained an artist as can be imagined. His gifts of capturing the quotidian and making them effortlessly profound, of discovering the metaphysical grandeur of nature and how it interacts with human beings, of blending fiction and documentary, realism and folkloric myth, are without peer. He often employs non-professional actors, and commands their inherent naturalism with grace and ebullience. There is more life in his films than anyone else’s in the 21st Century. <br /> <br />Weerasethakul is fascinated by how stories come into existence. Indeed, from the 1995 short <em>Like the Relentless Fury of the Pounding Waves </em>to his four features and his most recent shorts (<em>Wordly Desires</em>, <em>Anthem</em>, <em>Emerald</em>), Weerasethakul presents characters who are creating narratives within the space of the film, and often magically inciting the existence of the film itself. The space where myth (the past) and reality (the present) meet is a source of great joy, suggesting a never-ending temporal flow, where distinctions of past and present are completely meaningless. <br /><br /><em>Syndromes and a Century </em>marks the greatest realization of all of his concerns, and is his greatest technical achievement. Weerasethakul manipulates light to create an iridescent glow in all of his spaces. In the “mother” section, light constantly flows in from the country outside, seemingly giving life to the patients and doctors inside. Artificial light in the “father” section behaves in the same way. Environment and subject are merged. The way that characters echo each other in each section only further attests to this, that the country and the city, the mother and the father, are two halves of the same whole, inhabiting the same temporal space. <em>Syndromes and a Century</em> is the joyous habitation of memory, and the most affirmative film in a decade.<br /><strong></strong><strong></strong><em></em>Evanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06030063762188563722noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-272491109029127018.post-91298666864043698992008-01-29T00:27:00.000-05:002008-01-29T21:13:37.576-05:00End of the Year Blog-a-thon, Part V: The 4 Best Movies of the Year, pt. A<div align="left"><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Even though I consider this film on equal footing with the other 3 mentioned in this section, I should mention that in this year's </span><a href="http://www.filmlinc.com/fcm/poll/2007pollcritics.html"><span style="font-size:130%;">Film Comment Critics' Poll</span></a><span style="font-size:130%;">, I voted this film to be the very best of the year. Take that for what you will.</span><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view&current=6Dylans.jpg" target="_blank"><img height="220" alt="Photobucket" src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/6Dylans.jpg" width="420" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong><em>I'm Not There </em>and The Grand Symphonic Dance of Chaos, Clocks, and Watermelons</strong><br /><strong></strong><br /></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><em>"How long it had been, I couldn’t even say.<br />The day I arrived looks a lot like today.<br />At least, that’s how it seemed at the time."</em><br /></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></div><br /><div align="left"><span style="font-size:130%;">Todd Haynes’s masterpiece, like its very subject, is everything and nothing to everyone and nobody. It is a poem, a concerto, an essay, and a doctoral dissertation. It is also only a movie. It is a rapturous celebration of the freedom of the artist and a devastating critique of the human consequences of such freedom. It is a canny exploration of the political realities of the 60s, and a philosophical reconstruction of identity. It is not really about Bob Dylan, and completely about "Bob Dylan." It is coldly academic and passionately emotional, incredibly dense, and delightfully effervescent. It is, along with <em>There Will Be Blood</em>, the best American film of 2007.<br /></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></div><br /><div align="left"><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></div><br /><div align="left"><span style="font-size:130%;">Some already well-reported talking points to cover about <em>I’m Not There</em>, but which are nonetheless important to consider when tackling the film’s many long and winding roads:<br /></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></div><br /><div align="left"><span style="font-size:130%;">–Bob Dylan is played by six different people (Marcus Carl Franklin, Ben Whishaw, Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Cate Blanchett, Richard Gere), each portraying Dylan in a different phase of his life.<br /></span></div><br /><div align="left"><span style="font-size:130%;">–None of these six characters diegetically interact with each other.<br /></span></div><br /><div align="left"><span style="font-size:130%;">–None of these six characters are played by people whose race, gender, nationality, and/or age correspond to the Dylan they are portraying.<br /></span></div><br /><div align="left"><span style="font-size:130%;">–None of these six characters are named Bob Dylan. </span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, we can begin parsing just what the hell is going on in this whirling dervish of a film.<br /></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></div><br /><div align="left"><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></div><br /><div align="left"><span style="font-size:130%;">Bob Dylan is a cultural figure who has seemed impervious, especially in his heyday (1962-1977), to the poison of celebrity. The more controversy he courted, the more legendary he became. He has existed within and without of the temporal moment, whereas Elvis Presley and The Beatles have been practically defined by it. The more people attempt to define him, the more he seems to slip through our fingers.<br /></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></div><br /><div align="left"><span style="font-size:130%;">Haynes manages to effortlessly capture this mobility, presenting Dylan not as one man, but four men, a boy, and a woman. While the film’s structural spine progresses from Dylan-as-Guthrie (Franklin) to Dylan-as-folk-hero (Bale) to Dylan-as-rock-god (Blanchett) to Dylan-as-recluse (Gere), these various parts dance around each other, moving back and forth across time, and eventually, space. This is not to mention how Dylan-as-Rimbaud (Whishaw) and Dylan-as-damaged-family-man (Ledger) weave their way across the whole story.<br /><br />Since Dylan is not a fixed entity who can be linearly and psychologically understood, Haynes approaches him as a construction, one invented by the American public, but also by Dylan himself. His earliest avatar is an 11-year-old African-American boy named Woody Guthrie. In 1959, Woody has escaped from a child correctional facility in Minnesota and has jumped the rails, planning on making it big as a folk singer. He believes himself to be Guthrie, while inventing his biography on the spot. Then, Arthur Rimbaud appears, a 19-year-old poet being interrogated by a nameless tribunal in a nondescript government office. He proceeds to dance in and out of the film, offering mad aphorisms about nature and creativity. Back to Woody: when he is confronted about living 25 years in the past, we cut to a documentary about the troubled life of Jack Rollins, legendary folk singer of Greenwich Village who disappeared from the limelight in early 1964.<br /><br />We jump back to Woody’s journeyman story, and when he is tossed into a river off of a boxcar, we move to the story of Robbie Clark, an actor who became famous for playing Rollins in a hit movie from 1964. His marriage is falling apart, and to that end, the perspective taken is predominantly not Clark’s, but his wife Claire’s (Charlotte Gainsbourg). We again double back to Woody, until he makes his final escape to visit the real Woody Guthrie in a New Jersey hospital. He vanishes from the story, only to be replaced by Jude Quinn, who literally guns down an "unappreciative" audience at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival.<br /><br />The rest of the film revolves around this central figure, until we meet Billy, the aged outlaw who escaped Pat Garrett’s bullet and went into hiding in a bizarre small town in Missouri. After this introduction, all four remaining narratives slowly build their way to a firm break, until Jack finds God and becomes John (perhaps a seventh Dylan incarnation), Robbie gets divorced and drives off with his kids to go on a boat trip, Jude OD’s and then fatally crashes his motorcycle, and Billy escapes from prison and rides a boxcar out of town.<br /><br />While this might feel like a thorough synopsis, it only touches on what Haynes accomplishes by a radical collection of distancing effects and identifying techniques, all at the same time. Dylan’s lyrics, verbatim excerpts from various interviews, and quotes from other films saturate the dialogue. Visual passages from <em>8 ½</em>, <em>Masculin Feminin</em>, <em>Eat the Document</em> and <em>Don’t Look Back</em> are quoted wholesale. This is a film of cultural pastiche, which is only appropriate. If it appears to lack coherence, that is because attempting to dissect a life necessarily lends itself to incoherence, and no life could be better described as incoherent than Bob Dylan’s. These techniques—and the absence of any firm notion of story or character—provide a lens of analysis on the whole proceedings, studying Dylan like so many others have studied him. But now, we have a set of tools that reveals just how constructed previous studies have been. And no better technique is the splintering of Dylan into six people.<br /><br />The way we have traditionally understood Dylan is in very concrete biographical elements, all closed off from the others. Haynes exploits this by his fractured narrative. But he goes one step further to reveal that such an understanding is ludicrous, because Dylan is only one man, and these six personalities live in him all at once, and have from the very beginning. If Woody disappears near the beginning of the film, it is because he is the first to become completely integrated into the greater whole. By 1962, Dylan had digested his influences and emerged as his own being. Casting Franklin emphasizes not only the roots of his influences, but the apprentice-like quality of Dylan at that time, ready from the beginning to be someone completely different. Haynes’s "natural Brechtianism," as J. Hoberman calls it, intrinsically understands what analytical tendencies would arise in someone seeing a young black child who calls himself Woody Guthrie, but also living under the pretext of "Bob Dylan."<br /><br />Similarly, Haynes captures the strange behavioral implosions that Dylan showed the world from late 1965 to mid-1966 in Cate Blanchett’s performance as Jude Quinn. The most physically radical of all of Haynes’s Dylan avatars, Blanchett organically assumes the image of Dylan, which by the mid-60s was as familiar to the public as he was ever likely to become. But instead of Jamie Foxx-style mimicry, Blanchett becomes something totally different, a Dylan that is being invented right before our eyes. By becoming a man-woman (or is it a woman-man?), Quinn is never allowed to be fixed in our minds, constantly forcing us to reconsider what Dylan’s image at that time actually meant.<br /><br />When it comes to Jack Rollins, we are given the least amount of conventional concrete evidence of a character, as the story is presented as a television documentary attempting to discover what ever happened to the legendary folk singer. But if considered through this Brechtian window, we see that Haynes once again demands that we think about this phase of Dylan’s life as that most fetishized by mainstream popular culture. Indeed, much of the documentary parodies the lost idealism of the folk generation, how they became commodities, and how Dylan himself first became a commodity. Rollins’s rigidity in not only his music and politics but also in how he violently bites the hand that feeds him is echoed in the rigid and obnoxious form of the TV documentary. Sheer comic magic comes from Alice Fabian (Julianne Moore), the Joan Baez figure full of pomp and circumstance, who also milks the phony "naturalism" of the medium for cathartic laughs.<br /><br />Many people think that Robbie Clark is the most conventional and least interesting of these six narratives, but Haynes manages to subtly reveal another temporal warp in how Dylan the Family Man has been exhibited and received. It is the only story to not be told chronologically, which in itself implies that this Dylan infects all the others more deeply. And as another distancing layer, the story is told from Claire’s eyes. (Plunging down the rabbit hole even further, much of the expository information is recited in third-person voiceover by Robbie himself.) Haynes’s move is to show that when we think of Dylan in Woodstock raising a family, or succumbing to the more damning elements of fame, sympathy drifts to Suze Rotolo (Dylan’s girlfriend during the early folk years) and his first wife, Sara. The moment when love dies is when Robbie attempts to inhabit Jack Rollins. He is incapable of discovering the quality that defines Dylan’s allure, and Claire realizes that the man with whom she is in love is an apparition, a construction onto which she cannot grasp. Robbie embraces only what Rollins can superficially give him, but decays at the prospect of liberating himself from those gifts.<br /><br />Billy is easily the most hated part of <em>I’m Not There</em> by most of its detractors, and even by some of its supporters. A good friend adamantly declared that "it just doesn’t work." Others similarly claim that it feels too out-of-place, too abstract, and too un-Dylan to fit in with the rest of the ghosts that haunt the film’s spaces. The character of Billy, however, is the key to the whole project, the avatar that unifies the other figures into a temporally malleable meditation on Dylan as a whole. Billy lives in a town called Riddle, MO, a name that doesn’t leave much to the imagination. It is crucial to note that Woody, at the beginning of this, told a couple of hobos that he had spent a great deal of time in Riddle. Billy tells his story in voiceover, about how in Riddle, he is invisible, allowed to live out his remaining years. But Pat Garrett has returned, announcing plans to demolish Riddle to allow a superhighway to run through the valley.<br /><br />Time has already begun to bend, as Billy looks out over a valley to see Vietnamese villages being carpet-bombed. Garrett and company arrive in Buicks. Billy, after protesting Garrett’s actions, is taken to jail in such a vehicle. But everything else about the place suggests rural America in the late 19th Century. This would also be impossible if Billy actually is whom he says, because his age would place the action at around 1919 or so. And in the film’s final temporal kink, Billy, upon escaping prison and hopping the boxcar, discovers a beat-up old guitar in one of the bunks: it is Woody’s. These six Dylans have now been completely absorbed together, able to be viewed as connected elements in a naturally disconnected man, who can call upon any number of these elements to present himself to the rest of the world.<br /><br />J. Hoberman, in one of the best pieces of criticism on <em>I’m Not There</em>, says that the film "is an essay that derives its intellectual force from the idea of Bob Dylan, and its emotional depth from his songs." The truth of this statement is unshakeable, and is one of the keys to realizing that Haynes’s film isn’t merely a cold, analytical, postmodern study. None of Dylan’s hits are diegetically present: there is no use of "Blowin’ in the Wind," "A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall," "Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right," "Only a Pawn in Their Game," "It Ain’t Me Babe," "Subterranean Homesick Blues," "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35," "Lay Lady Lay," "Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door," "Tangled Up in Blue," or "Hurricane." "The Times They Are A-Changin’" makes a brief appearance, but it’s Jack Rollins singing an excerpt on a Steve Allen-style talk show. (Jack’s singing duties ae taken up by Mason Jennings.) "All Along the Wachtower" is heard fleetingly, and is performed in the Hendrix mode by Eddie Vedder. "Like a Rolling Stone" kicks open the back doors of your mind only over the closing credits, and "Mr. Tambourine Man" is ripped apart in the last moments of the film by Dylan’s wailing harmonica solo from a 1966 live performance.<br /><br />The brunt of the musical work is done by the more obscure, and perhaps more personal, songs of the Dylan catalogue. The only Dylan that ultimately matters is the one who emerges within these songs, and a dialogue between the music and the film is immediately begun. What’s more, covers find their way in as well, suggesting that even Dylan himself might not matter at all; all that’s left is the music he has allowed us to appropriate for ourselves.<br /><br />A key example of Haynes’s intelligence in creating such a dialogue is the scene in which Claire announces that she is leaving Robbie. What builds to a fight quickly collapses into one last moment of sexual—and emotional—intimacy between the two. As they embrace, "Idiot Wind" fades into the soundtrack, but it’s not the version found on <em>Blood on the Tracks</em>. Instead, it is an earlier version he recorded when he initially laid down the songs in New York in the fall of 1974. It’s rougher, in a lower key, and achingly sparse, only Dylan’s voice and his acoustic guitar breathing the song into life. The lyrics, once a scathing indictment of a former love’s inability to stay true to herself, becomes an elegiac and mournful loss of something that, despite the singer’s best efforts to destroy, will live on as tender memory. It is a perfect echo of the last moments Robbie and Claire will share, and when it cuts to the divorce being finalized in court, the music and lyrics’ contrapuntal dance only becomes more incisive as we see Robbie losing his temper in the parking lot.<br /><br />The other centerpiece is one of the greatest and least-heralded songs Dylan ever made, "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands." The final song from his mid-60s opus, <em>Blonde on Blonde</em> (an album more prevalent in <em>I’m Not There</em> than any other, interestingly enough), Haynes deploys it over Jude Quinn’s motorcycle crash and his final soliloquy, which he may be reciting from beyond the grave. The speech is from an acerbic interview Dylan gave to Nat Hentoff in a 1966 issue of <em>Playboy</em>, but from the mouth of Blanchett, along with the instrumental sections of the song playing beneath her words, it feels like a final eulogy to the transitory nature of Dylan’s life and music. Indeed, his final words, "everyone knows I’m not a folk singer," are followed by a swell in the music, a coy half-smile directly into the camera, and six gunshots firing at each Dylan’s mug shot (an echo from the beginning of the film).<br /><br />I have seen <em>I’m Not There</em> four times, and have only begun to scratch the surface with this paltry amalgam of thoughts. It is a deep, rich, and constantly revelatory film, one which sees Dylan as one and many beings, instantly recognizable but hardly knowable. It is a call to thinking about time and identity in completely fresh and exciting ways. It is the American cousin to <em>Syndromes and a Century</em> in its celebration of temporal, artistic, and existential freedom. Like both Bob Dylan and, as it turns out, "Bob Dylan," it’s not there, but it is willing to see where it might go.<br /><br /><br />Like Bob Dylan, "Bob Dylan," and <em>I'm Not There</em>, criticism of the film is in a constant state of becoming. Here are six pieces which all helped bring this one into existence:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.villagevoice.com/film/0747,hoberman,78422,20.html/full">J. Hoberman in The Village Voice</span></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.filmlinc.com/fcm/so07/imnotthere.htm">Larry Gross in Film Comment</span></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.thenation.com/doc/20071224/jones">Kent Jones in The Nation</span></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/moviereviews/2007/071122">Jonathan Rosenbaum in The Chicago Reader</span></a><br /><br /><a href="http://bobdylanalterego.blogspot.com/">An anonymous blogger's rant about the film and Dylan's life</span></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.tnr.com/booksarts/story.html?id=733e3ec8-9d1e-4b35-916d-02caf118f7d0">Jacob Rubin in The New Republic</a></div><div align="left"> </div>Evanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06030063762188563722noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-272491109029127018.post-22141256025910722662008-01-26T11:23:00.000-05:002008-01-26T11:36:09.752-05:00End of the Year Blog-a-thon, Part V: The 4 Best Movies of 2007These are the ones that not only reached further than anything else this year, they also set out to reinvent the very essence of cinema itself. These 4 films will stand the test of time, and will be debated long after we've all left the game. Here's the first:<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view&current=ColossalYouth.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/ColossalYouth.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><strong><em>Colossal Youth</em> (Pedro Costa)</strong><br /><strong></strong><br />Before May 2006, I had never heard of Pedro Costa. Then, when <em>Colossal Youth</em> premiered that month at the Cannes Film Festival (out of which a substantial number of press and public walked), it was as if I could not escape him. He was a rock star. By August of this year, the Portugese filmmaker was the subject of a complete retrospective in New York, which then proceeded to tour the continent, and <em>Colossal Youth</em> was treated to a full New York premiere run. While I regrettably missed his shorts and his only "documentary" feature, I saw all five of his "narrative" features. (The quotes will make sense later in this piece, trust me.) By simple virtue of his current methods, and of the evolution of his body of work, Costa may be the greatest living filmmaker in the world. Even the world’s oldest–fellow countryman Manoel de Oliveira, who turns 100 next year and had THREE films premiere in New York in 2007–seems to think so.<br /><br />There are people who 99.9% of the American public will never hear of: names like Hou Hsiao-hsien, James Benning, Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne, Tsai Ming-liang, Abbas Kiarostami, Bela Tarr, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Jia Zhang-ke, Hong Sang-soo, etc. Costa certainly falls under this category. But to people like me, he’s massive, a star in his own right, so huge that backlash has already occurred. The irony is not lost on me. Yet, before August 2007, I didn’t have a single opportunity to see any of his first five features or any of his shorts. (<em>Colossal Youth</em> played twice in February as part of Film Comment Selects, after being controversially rejected from the 2006 New York Film Festival.) None of his work is on DVD in the US. I guess he’s just my kind of rock star.<br /><br />Costa, by his own admission, is in love with classical American cinema. <em>The Blood</em> (1989) evokes Nicholas Ray and Charles Laughton. <em>Casa de Lava</em> (1994) reminds one of Jacques Tourneur and Fritz Lang. <em>Bones </em>(1997) is more Bresson than anyone American, but Costa insists that <em>In Vanda’s Room</em> (2000) and <em>Colossal Youth</em> are John Ford remakes (albeit highly radical ones). These connections sell his other achievements short, however.<br /><br />In <em>Colossal Youth</em>, the Lisbon we see is one familiar to the viewers of <em>Bones</em> and <em>In Vanda’s Room</em>: the Cape Verde immigrant-populated district of Fontainhas. In <em>Vanda</em>, we watched the tenements being demolished. In <em>Colossal Youth</em>, there are new housing developments, and piles of rubble everywhere. It is another universe, a wasteland that seems born from molten lava. It is a film that looks and feels like nothing I have ever seen before in my life. (A note on its production: Costa shot 320 hours of footage, all on location in Fontainhas, on consumer digital video cameras over a 15-month period. He spent roughly a year editing that footage down to a 2 ½-hour movie. His crew rarely eclipsed the size of himself and 1-2 other people. He used only available light, with reflectors. He also only used direct sound. His cast was comprised of residents of Fontainhas, many of whom he has known for years.)<br /><br />Narratively, it is a rather sparse affair. A man named Ventura, a former construction worker and witness to the Portugese revolution from decades earlier, is thrown out of his house by his wife. (Or is she his wife?) He then searches for a new home to live with his "children." It is not clear whether or not Ventura has any biological children, but he seems to be a spiritual father to various Fontainhas inhabitants, among whom is Vanda, who is now a mother and heroin-free.<br />Costa never presents a clean linear narrative; rather, we inhabit a picaresque dream, where time jumps back by a mere change of wardrobe. Vibrant contrasts of ethereal colors punctuate long, static takes of people telling many, many stories. All the actors are playing a version of their actual selves, but compared to <em>In Vanda’s Room</em>–which Thom Andersen astutely observed tore down the wall between fiction and documentary, between filmmaker and subject–<em>Colossal Youth</em> is an even darker, stranger work, the other side of the coin to <em>Syndromes and a Century</em>. Where <em>Syndromes</em> evokes the delicacy of memory and the breakdown of time and space in a lyrical, tender way, <em>Colossal Youth</em> does similar things, but by taking the very elements of reality and turning them on their heads. It surrealizes documentary in a way even Bunuel and Rouch could not have imagined, and grounds narrative into a tactile space the way Tarkovsky and Tarr used to do.<br /><br />Few shots ever move. Almost all shots are done from low angles. Andersen has described Costa’s methods as creating a Hollywood epic in which the stars are the character actors. Tag Gallagher has said that the film applies mythical epic form to those of the most abject poverty, the ennobling of the poor that many others have mentioned. These all do disservice to the new universe Costa has created, however. He has given us a new way of looking at the world, a way of seeing beauty in abjection, hulking madness in a timeless universe, people being accepted entirely on their own terms without power being placed upon them by outside forces. Ventura, Vanda, Ventura’s friend Lento, and many others are creating their own community, one in order to make the outside universe cohere.Evanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06030063762188563722noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-272491109029127018.post-22791724996541645542008-01-25T01:00:00.001-05:002008-01-25T01:35:49.779-05:00End of the Year Blog-a-thon, Part IV: Nos. 11-5For this year's best-of breakdown, four movies stood far and away above the rest, as well as from each other. These 7, on the other hand, fit rather nicely together in terms of the rapture they inspired in me. Once again, they are presented in alphabetical order.<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view&current=13Lakes.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/13Lakes.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><strong><em>13 Lakes</em> (James Benning)</strong><br /><strong></strong><br />James Benning’s films are not for everyone. I warned my then-girlfriend what she was getting herself into if she came to see Benning’s latest with me, and though she stayed the whole time, I could’ve sworn I heard some gentle snoring coming from her direction (just kidding). Quite simply, <em>13 Lakes</em> consists of thirteen 10-minute shots that never move or change perspective. Each shot is of a different lake in the U.S. Sound like background noise? Perhaps. But like the great structuralist films of the past, the nature of the cinematic experience is essential to finding the joys in the film; it forces one to really look at and listen to the image, until a whole wealth of rich variation becomes evident. Nature becomes otherworldly. (And by the way, the other part of this diptych, <em>Ten Skies</em>, is a Jerry Bruckheimer film by comparison.)<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view&current=AssassinationofJesseJames.jpg" target="_blank"><img height=240 alt="Photobucket" src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/AssassinationofJesseJames.jpg" width=420 border="0" /></a><br /><br /><strong><em>The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford</em> (Andrew Dominik)</strong><br /><strong></strong><br />It is common historical knowledge that Jesse James was shot in the back of the head by the man he had once called a friend, and that said "friend," Robert Ford, achieved minor celebrity for the killing. To most, including James’s family, Ford was a sniveling little coward who deserved the killing he himself received ten years later. That general information being taken care of before the movie even starts is a sign that Andrew Dominik is after something different than the standard Western-betrayal narrative. His film is a lyrical invocation of the mythological West already being constructed in James’s lifetime, and about James himself. Sensuous slow-motion, hands running through wheat, a hauntingly backlit silhouette of James (Brad Pitt) stalking railroad tracks–this is where myth and brutal fact collide. Pitt’s James is a saintly madman, in love with and mocking of his own celebrity. As Ford, Casey Affleck embodies a young obsessive who despises himself and James for that obsession. And as evidence of the first major case of American celebrity mythology, James intrinsically recognizes that he needs Ford as much as Ford needs him. The History Channel-like voiceover serves as a sharp counterpoint to the dreamy and violent imagery, literalizing factual history while Dominik paints it as glorious madness. And when James sets his guns down one April morning in order to dust a picture on his living room wall, he closes his eyes, and quietly awaits the only thing that can save him: annihilation.<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view&current=LakeofFire.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/LakeofFire.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><strong><em>Lake of Fire</em> (Tony Kaye)</strong><br /><strong></strong><br />As an employee at Film Forum, one of the major art houses in New York City, I take it very personally that Tony Kaye’s latest film–which Film Forum premiered last October–played for only nine days to abysmally small crowds, when it was intended to last weeks. The film met a similar fate in major cities all over the country, and never escaped urban centers. It is a tragedy that people did not have the open mind to discover the fascinating and terrifying glories of Kaye’s years-in-the-making epic. The most astonishing thing about <em>Lake of Fire</em> is its sober evenhandedness, not daring to collapse into morally unambiguous ideology the way that the abortion debate so often does. Shot in luminous 35mm black-and-white, Kaye sketches out events in the history of abortion in the 1990s & 2000s, interviews major players on both sides of the issue, and refuses to give any easy answers. Eventually, after you see two abortions performed in front of your eyes, you realize that life, not only in its creation but also how it is lived after it is created (i.e. the autonomy women should have over their own bodies), is too easily destroyed by what certain men and women demand, based on the "word of God."<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view&current=NoCountryforOldMen.jpg" target="_blank"><img height=240alt="Photobucket" src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/NoCountryforOldMen.jpg" width=450 border="0" /></a><br /><br /><strong><em>No Country for Old Men</em> (Joel & Ethan Coen)</strong><br /><strong></strong><br />The thing that makes <em>No Country for Old Men</em> a masterpiece is the creation of an apocalyptic universe right in the middle of southwest Texas. Everything that happens–from Llewellyn Moss’s (Josh Brolin) theft of $2 million found in the desert, to the pursuit by hired killer Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), to Sheriff Ed Tom Bell’s (Tommy Lee Jones) instinctive deduction of events–happens with a force of purpose that is hardly ever explained. We simply see incredibly specific, methodic, minute actions, always with intention behind them. We just don’t know their secrets. Instead, we see details, hear sounds, and feel reactions that create a complete universe, one where a demon physically stalks the earth. But even he isn’t born of Hell, for he is a mortal. Shifting perspectives are expertly crafted, with subjectivities kept intact. The barren wilderness is both liberating and oppressive, as is the almost complete absence of non-diegetic sound. Even the ending, with its eery anti-climaxes on all fronts, is appropriate. In this universe, nobody is satisfied, not even this mortal demon. And as Ed Tom Bell sits at his breakfast table and recounts a comforting dream of his father being a protecting force in his life, he has no choice but to wake up.<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view&current=RegularLovers.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/RegularLovers.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><strong><em>Regular Lovers</em> (Philippe Garrel)</strong><br /><strong></strong><br />Philippe Garrel’s love letter to his youth and his stern rebuttal to Bernardo Bertolucci’s facile <em>The Dreamers</em>, <em>Regular Lovers</em> is a haunting portrait of the aftermath of May ’68. Shot in sumptuous but also charmingly tossed-off black and white, Garrel’s chamber epic follows a young poet, Francois (Louis Garrel, the director’s son and also one of the stars of <em>The Dreamers</em>), as he negotiates how to exist after his and his friends’ moment of triumph evaporates. <em>Regular Lovers</em> is intoxicated by the quotidian, the casual atmosphere of young people unsure of where to go or what to do. It also does not demonize all figures of authority, nor does it sanctify the behavior of Francois and his friends. (The scene where some cops enter Francois and his friend’s apartment is hilarious in the way the cops admire the art on the walls.) The centerpiece, a communal dance to The Kinks’ “This Time Tomorrow,” is a gorgeously rapturous and melancholy ode to trying to establish a community in a world that has rejected you.<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view&current=TheWaywardCloud.jpg" target="_blank"><img height=240 alt="Photobucket" src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/TheWaywardCloud.jpg" width=450 border="0" /></a><br /><br /><strong><em>The Wayward Cloud</em> (Tsai Ming-liang)</strong><br /><strong></strong><br />In a certain respect, <em>The Wayward Cloud</em> should be the happy ending the protagonists of <em>What Time is it There</em>? never received. After years of separation and spiritual longing, they are indeed reunited. Tsai’s gifts for rendering the absurdly erotic are on full display here, mostly involving a drought, random bursts into garish musical numbers, and many, many watermelons. Raw sensuality drips from every frame. And perhaps the film’s tragic, sexually violent ending proves that the two lovers’ romance was always little more than a dream, an ethereal fantasy which only proves brutal if ever made real.<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view&current=Zodiac.gif" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/Zodiac.gif" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><strong><em>Zodiac</em> (David Fincher)</strong><br /><strong></strong><br />There is clearly an intelligence behind the David Fincher of <em>Alien3</em>, <em>Se7en</em>, and <em>Fight Club</em>, less so behind <em>The Game</em> and <em>Panic Room</em>. But, with <em>Zodiac</em>, Fincher has delivered his second Great Work, and his first true epic. Like great Hollywood art, the film is dense, uncompromising, and somewhat avant-garde while hewing all of these tendencies to a popular, mainstream framework. We disappear down a rabbit’s hole of facts, both hard and soft, and at the end of the day, cannot decipher what justice or knowledge are supposed to mean.<br /><br />In many respects, <em>Zodiac</em> is the opposite side of the same coin as Fincher's breakthrough, <em>Se7en</em>. Both are serial killer procedurals, but whereas <em>Se7en</em> was all philosophical doom, <em>Zodiac</em> plunges into a labyrinth of quotidian details, adding up to something and nothing at the exact same time. Facts overlap, contradict each other, converge and split apart, until no matter how long you've been staring at them, they refuse to bring you any closer to unmasking the man who murdered five people between 1969 and 1970 in northern California. Police are able to generate a rough sketch of what he looks like, but in one letter, he says he wears a disguise. He seems to be psychotic, but always sounds calm. Moreover, he ceases to kill for no apparent reason--hardly the standard reaction for a psychotic murderer. Three men commit themselves so deeply to the case that it ultimately wrecks them: for Jake Gyllenhaal's cartoonist, his marriage disintegrates. For Robert Downey Jr.'s reporter, he crawls to the bottom of a bottle and loses his job. For Mark Ruffalo's cop, he nearly puts away a man he is convinced is guilty, but can't prove. Questions of obsession, the media, and the potentially inherent falsity of facts leaves us with nothing to grasp onto, which is exactly how Fincher wants to leave us.<br /><br /><br />Tomorrow, the beginning of the end! The 4 best movies of 2007, presented with their own individual posts, in alphabetical order.Evanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06030063762188563722noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-272491109029127018.post-22947333801034209292008-01-23T22:28:00.000-05:002008-01-23T23:19:14.991-05:00End of the Year Blog-a-thon, Part III: The Next 10In any other year, these 10 films could have ended up on my Top 10; however, 2007 was so strong a year that I couldn't avoid the opportunity to acknowledge their achievements, as broad and far-reaching as they certainly are.<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view&current=1208EastofBucharest.jpg" target="_blank"><img height=240 alt="Photobucket" src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/1208EastofBucharest.jpg" width=360 border="0" /></a><br /><br /><strong><em>12:08 East of Bucharest</em> (Corneliu Porumboiu)</strong><br /><strong></strong><br />Like <em>Zodiac</em>, <em>Syndromes and a Century</em>, and <em>Brand Upon the Brain</em>, the trickiness of memory is a central concern for Corneliu Porumboiu’s chamber piece, only it takes a much more darkly funny point of view about it. Three men, all of whom feel like they have something to prove about the fall of Ceauşescu, reveal something essential about the nature of politics: regimes may change, but people rarely do, ditto the beauty of the world all around us. The central sequence–a real-time television broadcast–is a delicious parody of regional public access TV and a sobering satire about how history can get lost in the shuffle of human perception.<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view&current=AwayFromHer.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/AwayFromHer.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><strong><em>Away from Her</em> (Sarah Polley)</strong><br /><strong></strong><br />Fiona (Julie Christie) and Grant (Gordon Pinsent) have the sort of wealthy-liberal marriage most of us could only dream about. But the fairy tale ends when Fiona is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, and is placed in a treatment center. The great sadness of having to cope with such a loss informs every single frame of this beautiful, graceful film, one which neither sentimentalizes nor trivializes the effect of Alzheimer’s disease on a marriage. Grant watches as the woman he knew vanishes, as she finds it difficult to remember him, and even takes up with a fellow patient. Grant was once unfaithful, many decades ago, and perhaps this is Fiona punishing him. Or perhaps it is an inevitable byproduct of Fiona desperately attempting to find something which makes sense to her. Neil Young’s “Harvest Moon,” in its original version and a new, instrumental version, haunts the backdoors of the film, where Grant realizes that he and Fiona must invent new lives for themselves, and performs the ultimate sacrifice–which is also the ultimate act of love. Polley’s direction and camerawork is so understated, so quiet, so assured, that we can only marvel at the beautifully sad thing she has created, and wonder what true love ultimately means.<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view&current=BeforetheDevilKnowsYoureDead.jpg" target="_blank"><img height=240 alt="Photobucket" src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/BeforetheDevilKnowsYoureDead.jpg" width=360 border="0" /></a><br /><br /><strong><em>Before the Devil Knows You're Dead</em> (Sidney Lumet)</strong><br /><strong></strong><br />Although it is the least of the six major American films released this year–<em>The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford</em>, <em>I’m Not There</em>, <em>No Country for Old Men</em>, <em>There Will Be Blood</em>, and <em>Zodiac</em> being the other five–Sidney Lumet’s newest gem is a propulsive thriller about the destructiveness of family. Brother allies with brother, brothers turn against mother and father, brother turns against brother, and finally, father turns against son. Philip Seymour Hoffman might have delivered his masterpiece, a role so finely etched, so human in its evil, and so seething underneath the surface that we don’t know when the man might explode. Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Albert Finney, Marisa Tomei, Rosemary Harris, and even Amy Ryan and Michael Shannon rot away before your very eyes.<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view&current=BrandUpontheBrain.jpg" target="_blank"><img height=240 alt="Photobucket" src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/BrandUpontheBrain.jpg" width=360 border="0" /></a><br /><br /><strong><em>Brand Upon the Brain!</em> (Guy Maddin)</strong><br /><strong></strong><br />Guy Maddin’s reimagining of his childhood might play differently were one to see it in a theater with a standard sound mix. But to see <em>Brand Upon the Brain!</em> with a live chamber orchestra performing the score, Isabella Rossellini reading the narration live, and with live sound effects turns it into a mesmerizing, living performative experience. Cross-dressing, young love, a mother Freud would appreciate, and a tawdry silent movie aesthetic makes the film one of the most deliciously gaudy, genuinely moving melodramas in recent years.<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view&current=GoldenDoor.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/GoldenDoor.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><strong><em>Golden Door</em> (Emanuele Crialese)</strong><br /><strong></strong><br />A triumph of narrative economy, Emanuele Crialese’s immigration tale never lets the audience up for air, quite literally. Almost all of the film is set in the bowels of a ship or the many halls of Ellis Island. It is mercilessly unsentimental in presenting the vicious bureaucracy of the immigration process, from the false dreams in the homeland to the arranged marriages near the end of the island’s dehumanization method. When "Sinnerman" comes blasting through the speakers and Charlotte Gainsbourg is seen swimming in the milk of human kindness, it is a great, radiant release, the liberation of spirit the family may never achieve in fact.<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view&current=InBetweenDays.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/InBetweenDays.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><strong><em>In Between Days</em> (So Yong Kim)</strong><br /><strong></strong><br />Although it is set in a Canadian metropolis, <em>In Between Days</em> could be set anywhere. The cold and isolating atmosphere in which the protagonist, Aimie (Ji-seon Kim) finds herself is emblematic of the isolation she isn’t even aware of within herself. Haunting pillow shots where she recites letters to her father remind us just how distant her reality is from her perception of it. She falls in love with the only person with whom she can communicate, drops out of a class in order to buy him a bracelet, and holds a typically adolescent insouciance toward the larger universe. After Tran (Taegu Andy Kang) rejects her affections, she begins to understand how alone she really is. Kim films these intimate moments in tossed off, handheld takes, using quiet, effortless dialogue. <em>In Between Days</em> is a delicate and sad slice of life.<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view&current=IntoGreatSilence.jpg" target="_blank"><img height=240 alt="Photobucket" src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/IntoGreatSilence.jpg" width=360 border="0" /></a><br /><br /><strong><em>Into Great Silence </em>(Philip Gröning)</strong><br /><strong></strong><br />The monks of Chartreuse Monastery in northern France are the subject of this thoroughly mesmerizing documentary about the daily lives of men who only open their mouths to sing or pray–which is, more often than not, the same action. Gröning shoots in HD and Super-8mm, evoking a starkly beautiful, holy place that seems godly in its perfection. Gröning piles on one activity after another–dining, praying, singing, outings, gardening–without any context or talking heads. Eventually, we move at the pace of the subjects, pondering the sayings that break up the action. It’s entrancing, and quietly suggests the glories of God on Earth.<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view&current=ManufacturedLandscapes.jpg" target="_blank"><img height=240 alt="Photobucket" src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/ManufacturedLandscapes.jpg" width=360 border="0" /></a><br /><br /><strong><em>Manufactured Landscapes</em> (Jennifer Baichwal)</strong><br /><strong></strong><br />Jennifer Baichwal’s brilliant documentary pulls off a hat trick: it discusses the work of another artist–photographer Edward Burtynsky–renders his body of work into a cinematic form, and then makes that form its own, thus creating an incredible dialogue between examiner and the examined. What’s more, the film is strikingly beautiful, exploring the weird aesthetic qualities of material and its origins. From its virtuoso opening tracking shot to its defamiliarization of scrapyards, <em>Manufactured Landscapes</em> exposes the beauty within the inhuman, perhaps the last stand in the war on globalization. Lacking in ideology but fully conscious of the horrors of globalized manufacturing, Baichwal and Burtynsky never flinch from the ghostly power of their images; it is the only way to wake us up now.<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view&current=Superbad.jpg" target="_blank"><img height=240 alt="Photobucket" src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/Superbad.jpg" width=360 border="0" /></a><br /><br /><strong><em>SuperBad</em> (Greg Mottola/Seth Rogen & Evan Goldberg)</strong><br /><strong></strong><br /><em>SuperBad</em> is the comedy of the year. A complete reconstruction of the raunchy teen comedy, it contains the strongest and funniest writing of the year, and delivers every single note correctly. <em>SuperBad</em> also reveals itself to be a rather incisive depiction of what hold the modern adolescent male in a perpetual state of infantilism: fear of the female body. The barrage of sex jokes, coupled with Seth (Jonah Hill) and Evan’s (Michael Cera) total love for each other, makes the ending incredibly sad and mournful. Not only have they learned to no longer see women as Other, their looks back at each other mark the growth of their own love, which makes their parting all the more tragic. <em>SuperBad</em> is the greatest gay love story since <em>Tropical Malady</em>.<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view&current=Zoo.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/Zoo.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><strong><em>Zoo</em> (Robinson Devor)</strong><br /><strong></strong><br />On the surface, <em>Zoo</em> is a documentary about men who like to have sex with male horses. This is like saying that <em>War and Peace</em> is about the Battle of Borodino. Robinson Devor has positioned his film as the successor to Errol Morris’s lyrical, meditative documentaries, juxtaposing actual interviews with dramatic reconstructions of the events described. Devor refuses to judge or exoticize the community of men in rural Washington who come together to have sex with these horses, but he does present their world as a dreamy, haunting and alien universe. It is extremely difficult for a non-zoophile to completely understand and totally identify with the lifestyle of a zoophile, but the notion of considering them any less acceptable in their sexual practices becomes essentially moot. Their world may be strange, but it contains the same quality of beauty that any other world might contain.Evanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06030063762188563722noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-272491109029127018.post-54206807121044391642008-01-22T22:48:00.000-05:002008-01-23T16:59:44.392-05:00End of the Year Blog-a-thon, Part II: Provocative but Frustrating<p></p><br /><br /><p>A good friend of mine is always annoyed by this category; aren’t the best movies like the most tantalizing lovers, alluring but playing hard-to-get? The title may not suit my needs for what I try to do here, because these movies gave me a taste of fascination, and then quickly smothered it up with disappointment.</p><br /><br /><p></p><br /><br /><p><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view&current=FayGrim.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/FayGrim.jpg" border="0" /></a></p><br /><p><strong><em>Fay Grim</em> (Hal Hartley)</strong></p><br /><p>As a huge lover of <em>Henry Fool</em>, I awaited Hal Hartley’s delicious followup with bated breath. Cast off is the absurdist humor based on portentous silence and still, grand camera work. In their places, we have a bizarre espionage plot and <em>Third Man</em>-style tilted angles (not to mention the shift to digital video). Henry even serves as a Harry Lime-like figure, discussed but never seen until the climax, engaging in shady business with shady people but always standing aloof from them. But for all of Hartley’s efforts to turn the nature of art into yet another bizarre cavalcade of meaninglessness, the movie collapses under its own wackiness, not achieving the balance of emotion and provocation that its predecessor mastered.</p><br /><br /><p></p><br /><br /><p><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view&current=Grindhouse.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/Grindhouse.jpg" border="0" /></a></p><br /><p><strong><em>Grindhouse</em> (Robert Rodriguez & Quentin Tarantino)</strong></p><br /><p>A strange project, this one. As fanboy homage, it is a delight, Rodriguez’s <em>Planet Terror</em> in particular. The bioterror subtext may hint at some broader political significance, but the movie really is just campy trash, which is how we should enjoy it. The trailers–by Rodriguez, Rob Zombie, Eli Roth, and Edgar Wright–are the highlights, as they delight in parodying and celebrating 70's grindhouse culture. Tarantino’s <em>Death Proof</em> is certainly the most accomplished of all the pieces, and it leaves you with more to chew on, although not all of it is good. The dialogue is his strongest since <em>Jackie Brown</em>, and his exploration of femininity is his strongest since then. But the mixed emotions of the climactic act of vengeance, in which Rosario Dawson and Zoe Bell gleefully take down Kurt Russell's deranged stuntman, left me feeling strangely uncomfortable.</p><br /><br /><p></p><br /><br /><p><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view&current=IamLegend.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/IamLegend.jpg" border="0" /></a></p><br /><p><strong><em>I am Legend</em> (Francis Lawrence)</strong></p><br /><p>If we want to talk about narrative bifurcation, Apichatpong Weerasethakul has got nothing on this schizoid Hollywood horror film. Its first half is a masterful evocation of last-man-on-Earth subjectivity, highly concentrated in its quotidian pace and narrative ellipses. But as the second hour comes around, one suspension of disbelief too many causes the damn thing to collapse in on itself, resulting in a false Christian happy ending that undercuts all that came before it.</p><br /><br /><p></p><br /><br /><p><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view&current=IntheValleyofElah.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/IntheValleyofElah.jpg" border="0" /></a></p><br /><p><strong><em>In the Valley of Elah</em> (Paul Haggis)</strong></p><br /><p>I was pretty shocked when I found myself liking something that Paul Haggis had created. But here was Haggis restrained, concentrated, and subtextual. Tommy Lee Jones’s performance is one of great precision, depicting a racist patriot who needs to find out why his soldier son was murdered. To watch the narrative unfold in its various dimensions is a marvel, and Hank Deerfield’s transformation is poignant and authentic. What destroys the entire film is a cheap, overwrought, purely Haggisian piece of symbolism in the last two minutes that makes Hank just another member of <em>Crash</em>’s panoply of stereotypes.</p><br /><br /><p></p><br /><br /><p><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view&current=Juno.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/Juno.jpg" border="0" /></a></p><br /><p><strong><em>Juno</em> (Jason Reitman/Diablo Cody)</strong></p><br /><p>I had very strong emotional reactions to <em>Juno</em>. It is the fantasy life I had always wanted for myself as a teenager: the quick wit, the warm and understanding parents, the rebellious sense of the absurd. But a fantasy it is: to my knowledge, no characters like these exist in real life, anywhere, in any form. Sure it is only a movie, but as a movie trying to position itself as an honest teen comedy, it mostly felt like a pack of lies. A lot of great one-liners and solid performances by Ellen Page, Michael Cera, J.K. Simmons, Allison Janney, Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner notwithstanding, <em>Juno</em>–and Juno MacGuff herself, for that matter–tries too hard to stake a claim for its individuality. Of course, all of this could be invalidated due to the very subjective and personal reading I had: by the end, it was hard to think of <span style="font-style: italic;">Juno</span> as only a movie, but rather a damning cultural artifact and a mournful autobiographical elegy.</p><br /><br /><p></p><br /><br /><p><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view&current=KnockedUp.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/KnockedUp.jpg" border="0" /></a></p><br /><p><strong><em>Knocked Up</em> (Judd Apatow)</strong></p><br /><p>Another unexpected pregnancy comedy that left me with a weird taste in my mouth, Judd Apatow doesn’t trust himself to go all the way with his examination of how men and women interact. Apatow is a master of writing and directing comedy; he doesn’t crudely juxtapose sweet sentimentality with scatology like the Farrelly Brothers; he instead seemlessly integrates them. He deftly handles actors who have great timing, and possesses an instinctive sense of when to hold back. Apatow also creates one of the most moving scenes from a marriage when Ben (Seth Rogen) confronts Pete (Paul Rudd) for being a "shitty husband," and thus ruining Ben’s relationship with his pregnant girlfriend, Allison (Katharine Heigl). Ben storms off, and Pete just stands there, on the verge of breaking down. But then, he puts on his best Dad face, and brings out the birthday cake to his daughter’s party. This moment is merely the exception to the rule, however; Apatow presents one difficult-to-swallow premise after another, and pities his women while empathizing with his men. There is a great sense of foreboding as Ben and Allison ride off into the sunset, but Apatow doesn’t seal the deal with this ironic conclusion, leaving us thinking that Apatow truly believes he has given us a happy ending.</p><br /><br /><p></p><br /><br /><p><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view&current=MargotattheWedding.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/MargotattheWedding.jpg" border="0" /></a></p><br /><p><strong><em>Margot at the Wedding</em> (Noah Baumbach)</strong></p><br /><p>A recent holiday gathering provided me a fresh opportunity to reconsider Noah Baumbach’s scabrous portrait of family. And I suppose that <em>Margot</em>’s true failing is over-exaggerating the evil that people do to the ones they love. Certainly real-life analogues of Margot (Nicole Kidman), Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh), Claude (Zane Pais), Malcolm (Jack Black) and Jim (John Turturro) say nasty things and then begin laughing five minutes later, but has there been any woman more icily vicious as Kidman’s Margot, or a son so forgiving as Pais’s Claude? And rather than feeling hopeful at the conclusion, I felt like the cycle of abuse was going to begin afresh for Claude. Such a strange movie.</p><br /><br /><p></p><br /><br /><p><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view&current=SouthlandTales.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/SouthlandTales.jpg" border="0" /></a></p><br /><p><strong><em>Southland Tales</em> (Richard Kelly)</strong></p><br /><p>Its supporters declare Richard Kelly’s white whale to be the future of cinema, a deliberately chaotic mess of mixed-media decay, of extrafilmic allusions, of 21st Century American cultural madness, of the apocalypse itself. Its detractors think it is the worst movie in many years, a chaotic mess of half-baked symbols and metaphors, a facile, childish, self-indulgent political allegory that makes some want to <a href="http://shutupanddeal.wordpress.com/2007/11/14/the-fourth-dimension-will-collapse-in-upon-itself-bitch">turn Republican</a>. But like so many films of its kind–<em>Heaven’s Gate</em>, <em>One from the Heart</em>, and <em>Showgirls</em>, just to name a few–the truth is a bit more complex. Don’t get me wrong: as a whole, <em>Southland Tales</em> is a bad movie. It is narratively choppy, poorly acted, far too heavily reliant on expository dialogue (along with Justin Timberlake’s voiceover), sloppy with its use of music, and is genuinely, ideologically confused. Kelly definitely has a lot to say, but has no concrete idea about how to say it. Yet, when the film stops trying to explain its madness and just succumbs to it, it is fascinating to watch. Timberlake’s Pilot Abilene is easily the most interesting character, and one wishes he were more prominently featured. Perhaps Kelly’s original cut was a more grounded film (20 minutes were cut and Timberlake’s voiceover was re-written and recorded), but it is hard to imagine anything saving this movie from itself.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/.%3C/a"></a></p><a href="http://www.blogger.com/.%3C/a"><br /></a><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view&current=TheTen.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/TheTen.jpg" alt="Photobucket" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><strong><em>The Ten</em> (David Wain/Ken Marino)</strong><br /><strong></strong><br />I never thought I would say this, but it is true: Paul Rudd is one of the least funny things about <em>The Ten</em>. Attempting a radically absurdist deconstruction of contemporary bourgeois behavior via the ten commandments–a methodology similarly executed in his masterwork of comedic genius, <em>Wet Hot American Summer</em>–David Wain only comes up smelling like roses about half the time, and that includes the rose that grows out of rhino shit. Rudd is supposed to be the thread which ties it all together (the commandment "thou shalt not commit adultery" is his alone), but he is too conventional, not going for the jugular, as in his best work. Highlights include Liev Schreiber and Joe Lo Truglio as covetous neighbors, Ken Marino and Rob Corddry as amorous prison mates–which is a vehicle for the single funniest moment in the film: Michael Ian Black as a sassily kinky, Shakespeare-reciting prison guard–and A.D. Miles & Bobby Cannavale as men who like to hang out naked while their wives are at church. The more limp elements include Rudd, Adam Brody as a parachute accident <em>cum </em>celebrity, and Gretchen Mol as a librarian who experiences sexual awakening with Jesus in Mexico. Whereas <em>Wet Hot</em> made over-the-top seem effortless, <em>The Ten</em> often feels just over-the-top.<br /><br />For other provocative yet frustrating movies in 2007, see my post on <em>Beowulf</em>, along with shorter posts on <em>Black Book </em>and <em>Offside</em> (found under "SC Movie Journal).Evanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06030063762188563722noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-272491109029127018.post-34250160356700370652008-01-22T02:18:00.000-05:002008-01-22T02:43:50.475-05:00End of the Year Blog-a-thon, Part I: The Rest of the BestThis is the first entry in a daily series for the next week about the best--and worst--movies of 2007. Hope you enjoy it.<br /><br /><strong>Part I: The Rest of the Best</strong><br /><br /><br /><br /><p></p><p></p><br /><br /><strong></strong><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view&current=AquaTeenHungerForce.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/AquaTeenHungerForce.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><strong><em>Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters</em> (Matt Maiellaro & Dave Willis)</strong><br /><br /><br /><strong></strong><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view&current=EasternPromises.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/EasternPromises.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><strong><em>Eastern Promises</em> (David Cronenberg)</strong><br /><br /><br /><strong></strong><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view&current=TheHost.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/TheHost.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><strong><em>The Host </em>(Bong Joon-ho)</strong><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view&current=HotFuzz.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/HotFuzz.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><strong><em>Hot Fuzz</em> (Edgar Wright/Simon Pegg)</strong><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view&current=Live-InMaid.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/Live-InMaid.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><strong><em>Live-In Maid</em> (Jorge Gaggero)</strong><br /><strong></strong><br /><strong></strong><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view&current=Paprika.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/Paprika.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><strong><em>Paprika</em> (Satoshi Kon)</strong><br /><strong></strong><br /><strong></strong><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view&current=Persepolis.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/Persepolis.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><strong><em>Persepolis</em> (Marjane Satrapi & Vincent Paronnaud)</strong><br /><strong></strong><br /><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view&current=Ratatouille.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/Ratatouille.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><strong><em>Ratatouille</em> (Brad Bird)</strong><br /><strong></strong><br /><strong></strong><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view&current=RescueDawn.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/RescueDawn.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><strong><em>Rescue Dawn</em> (Werner Herzog)</strong><br /><strong></strong><br /><strong></strong><br /><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view&current=SweeneyTodd.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/SweeneyTodd.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><strong><em>Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street</em> (Tim Burton)</strong><br /><strong></strong><br /><br /><strong></strong><a href="http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/?action=view&current=TenSkies.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/TenSkies.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><strong><em>Ten Skies</em> (James Benning)</strong><br /><br /><br />Tomorrow, this year's edition of "Provocative, But Frustrating."Evanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06030063762188563722noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-272491109029127018.post-46962538900293188782007-12-25T12:00:00.001-05:002007-12-25T12:18:28.805-05:00Happy/Merry 25th of December!In the spirit of the day, here are two old posts from last year--two movies that, every December, find a way into both my DVD player and my heart. Enjoy.<br /><br /><br /><br /><b>THE SNOWMAN</b> (Raymond Briggs/Dianne Jackson, 1982)<br /><br /><a href="http://photobucket.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting" src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/Snowman.gif" border="0" /></a><br /><br />One settles in to watch this short as a lighthearted holiday short, a 26-minute piece of children's fluff which will allow parents a moment of respite from the squalor that is the anticipation of Christmas. But <i>The Snowman</i> is not so ordinary. Its animation is coarse and rough-hewn, imitative of Raymond Brigg's illustrative style in his eponymous book. It's pantomimed, the music taking on a Prokofiev-like character. All of this is certainly intriguing, but in the grand picture, these qualities do not set it apart all that drastically.<br /><br />What makes <i>The Snowman</i> one of the most (if not the most) devastating children's films ever is composer Howard Blake's central theme, used in three strategic locations: over the opening credits, the middle sequence when the boy and the snowman are flying over the northern hemisphere, and the closing credits. The film's first shot--a man walks across a barren clearing, narrating about a particularly snowy day in his childhood, and then melts into an animated crane shot over a snowy landscape--is bleak, but alluring. The music haunts and engages, but does not overpower; it merely suggests. In the middle sequence, a boy sings the song "Walking in the Air" as flight over the world marks the first transformative steps of the boy into adulthood. The theme is now rapturous, full of passion and possibility.<br /><br />But the circle of the boy's mature awakening comes to a close in the final moments, when the boy leaves his house the next morning to see the snowman. What he discovers, however, is but a pile of snow and tattered clothing. He has witnessed death first-hand; he is no longer a child. Jackson doesn't leave any room for sentiment or tenderness. The film cuts away from the boy immediately after his discovery, cranes up, and fades into the all-consuming whiteness of the ground. The theme re-enters. This time, it is the harbinger of death, the melody of a heart discovering that it can be broken. Innocence is lost, experience remains. It is brutal, honest, terrifying, full of pathos, and beautiful. Death's inevitability and the loss of innocence has rarely been rendered so powerfully.<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://photobucket.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/HomeAlone.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting" height=360 width=240></a><br /><br /><b><i>Home Alone</i>: The Wondrous Terror of the Forbidden</b><br /><br /><br />What creatures haunt the inner recesses of the Child’s subconscious? Are we to believe that the agony and the ecstasy of freedom from the chains of the womb are truly one and the same? Is a freed tarantula the most poetic expression of vagina dentata the cinema has yet to produce? John Hughes and Chris Columbus dared to pose these questions, and found heart-breaking triumph in the face of Innocence itself: Macaulay Culkin.<br /> <br /><i>Home Alone</i> may be the most frightening and euphoric film about the awakening of adulthood because it refuses to shy away from manifesting those fears and joys in the external, always impressing upon us that demons lurk among us, and if one looks hard enough, you will always find them. For life is joy and terror, agony and ecstasy; the two are always coupled, and can emerge from the same source. Young Kevin McAllister, in being abandoned inside the cavern that is his suburban home, is ripped from the uterus of his overbearing mother for the first time, and must finally come to grips with life. The Munchian scream he utters while applying aftershave is his awakening of the Other in the Mirror. He goes grocery shopping; he eats ice cream for dinner; he battles criminals. All of these are fantastic expressions of the banal, symbols for Kevin’s transformation, his becoming. <br /> <br />And then there is Candy. O Candy, where be your gibes now, your gambols? You are the angel that awakens the transformation in the Mother, the recognition of a similar transformation, that the womb must no longer be a prison. Only then can the Mother and the Child reconcile themselves to each other. And it is the long quest, the night drive from Scranton to Chicago with the Polka Kings of the Midwest, which allows this to occur. Candy, you are Rilke’s spirit of Duino, facilitating but never participating, awakening the inner spirit but never actively engaging. <br /> <br />And what of the demons which emerge from the comforting shadows of police officers to be the terrors of the McMansions of suburban Chicago? Pesci and Stern are failed men, men of frustration and desperation, lashing out at the very forces which have smothered their hopes and dreams. Of course, they are the things which have emerged from Kevin’s soul, making one wonder: are these the secret manifestations of Kevin’s true fear, oppression of the spirit in the face of the modern capitalist system?<br /> <br />From every pore, the world of fear and displacement teems with life: the curmudgeonly Uncle Frank; the evil brother Buzz; the understanding father, the introduction of Big Pete to the rest of the world. And when what Kevin believed to be the true evil–Old Man Marley–is revealed to be his angel of awakening, then the climax of euphoria, the violent purge of the real demons, can commence. And Kevin is thus freed to rejoin Life. It never ceases to take the breath away, and electrify one with the wondrous terror of the Forbidden.Evanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06030063762188563722noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-272491109029127018.post-91370938939311273222007-06-17T20:42:00.000-04:002007-12-25T12:00:05.385-05:00The Bleakness of the Death of the Child(from December 2006.)<br /><br /><br /><b>THE SNOWMAN</b> (Raymond Briggs/Dianne Jackson, 1982)<br /><br /><a href="http://photobucket.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting" src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/Snowman.gif" border="0" /></a><br /><br />One settles in to watch this short as a lighthearted holiday short, a 26-minute piece of children's fluff which will allow parents a moment of respite from the squalor that is the anticipation of Christmas. But <i>The Snowman</i> is not so ordinary. Its animation is coarse and rough-hewn, imitative of Raymond Brigg's illustrative style in his eponymous book. It's pantomimed, the music taking on a Prokofiev-like character. All of this is certainly intriguing, but in the grand picture, these qualities do not set it apart all that drastically.<br /><br />What makes <i>The Snowman</i> one of the most (if not the most) devastating children's films ever is composer Howard Blake's central theme, used in three strategic locations: over the opening credits, the middle sequence when the boy and the snowman are flying over the northern hemisphere, and the closing credits. The film's first shot--a man walks across a barren clearing, narrating about a particularly snowy day in his childhood, and then melts into an animated crane shot over a snowy landscape--is bleak, but alluring. The music haunts and engages, but does not overpower; it merely suggests. In the middle sequence, a boy sings the song "Walking in the Air" as flight over the world marks the first transformative steps of the boy into adulthood. The theme is now rapturous, full of passion and possibility.<br /><br />But the circle of the boy's mature awakening comes to a close in the final moments, when the boy leaves his house the next morning to see the snowman. What he discovers, however, is but a pile of snow and tattered clothing. He has witnessed death first-hand; he is no longer a child. Jackson doesn't leave any room for sentiment or tenderness. The film cuts away from the boy immediately after his discovery, cranes up, and fades into the all-consuming whiteness of the ground. The theme re-enters. This time, it is the harbinger of death, the melody of a heart discovering that it can be broken. Innocence is lost, experience remains. It is brutal, honest, terrifying, full of pathos, and beautiful. Death's inevitability and the loss of innocence has rarely been rendered so powerfullyEvanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06030063762188563722noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-272491109029127018.post-87151351626231674842007-12-11T23:37:00.000-05:002007-12-12T00:00:30.531-05:00Film Critics Might Know Something.This is a response to Richard Corliss's recent piece in TIME Magazine, <a href="http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1693300,00.html">Do Film Critics Know Anything?</a><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://photobucket.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/ThereWillBeBlood2.jpg" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br />Now having read Richard Corliss’s piece on the state of film critics’ awards ceremonies twice over, I am even more baffled than the first time I parsed through the thing. Corliss, one of TIME Magazine’s two film critics and a former editor for Film Comment, laments the fact that time and again, film critics associations declare very obscure, very little-seen films as the very best of the year. Case in point: as of today, the film critics associations of New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Washington DC, and the National Board of Review have all declared either the Coen brothers’ <span style="font-style: italic;">No Country for Old Men</span> or Paul Thomas Anderson’s <span style="font-style: italic;">There Will Be Blood</span> to be the best film of the year. (The New York Online Film Critics split their vote between <span style="font-style: italic;">Blood</span> and Julian Schnabel’s <span style="font-style: italic;">The Diving Bell and the Butterfly</span>, but more on that film later.) <span style="font-style: italic;">No Country</span> has only grossed $28 million in 5 weeks of release, and <span style="font-style: italic;">There Will Be Blood</span> hasn’t even opened yet. Ben Affleck’s <span style="font-style: italic;">Gone Baby Gone</span> and Sarah Polley’s <span style="font-style: italic;">Away from Her</span> have cornered the acting awards (for Amy Ryan and Julie Christie, respectively), and Daniel Day-Lewis has cleaned up for his turn in <span style="font-style: italic;">Blood</span>. Neither Affleck or Polley’s films have made too much bank, either. Corliss laments that critical and popular success of 2007–films like <span style="font-style: italic;">Knocked Up</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Superbad</span>, and <span style="font-style: italic;">Ratatouille</span>–have gone virtually unmentioned in critics’ awards ceremonies. Late-year coming-of-age comedies like <span style="font-style: italic;">Juno</span> and animated films like<span style="font-style: italic;"></span> <span style="font-style: italic;">Persepolis</span> are getting most of the attention instead, and will most likely not be box-office Goliaths. Ditto the Best Foreign Film giants, <span style="font-style: italic;">Diving Bell</span> and the German espionage thriller, <span style="font-style: italic;">The Lives of Others</span>. The most important barometer for giving out awards, according to Corliss, is popular taste.<br /><br />In case you missed the dripping scorn with which the last sentence was imbued, don’t worry, it was there. Corliss is a fine critic; when he was editor of Film Comment in the 1970s, he helped shape the discourse of film history and aesthetics as we now understand it. Paul Schrader’s landmark piece on film noir and Donald Richie’s revelatory overview of Yasujiro Ozu’s career were encased in the pages of that magazine under Corliss’s leadership. But now, as the mouthpiece for film criticism in 2007 for much of the American public, he is lost in the morass of a rather typical schizophrenia for men and women in his profession. Critics often lament the fact that the movies they love so dearly go unseen. Many critics take the position that this is their own fault, however, that the movies which should be recognized are the ones people actually see. Indeed, Corliss takes this position, at least mostly, in his piece: “Gee, you're wondering, did <span style="font-style: italic;">The Diving Bell and the Butterfly</span>, the French story of a man totally immobilized by a stroke, beat out the German spy drama <span style="font-style: italic;">The Lives of Others</span>? (Three out of five critics groups say yes.) If you're getting restless, movie lovers, too bad. You'll be hearing the same obscure names at the Golden Globes and on Oscar night.” Later, he observes, “[i]n the old Golden Age days, most contenders for the top Oscars were popular movies that had a little art. Now they're art films that have a little, very little, popularity.” If Corliss had his way, it seems, <span style="font-style: italic;">Ratatouille</span> would win Best Picture, beating out <span style="font-style: italic;">Knocked Up</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">Enchanted</span>.<br /><br />Except there’s a wrinkle in the fabric: Corliss just recently published his list for the 10 best movies of the year, and there’s only one bona fide hit among them: <span style="font-style: italic;">Beowulf</span>. (And that is certainly not a film which has reached popular and critical consensus.) In fact, <span style="font-style: italic;">No Country for Old Men</span> was #1, and whose win at the New York Film Critics Circle Corliss certainly helped bring about. #3 was a movie that only played in major metropolitan areas and grossed next to nothing, and #s 4, 5 and 6 haven’t even been released yet, another ailment Corliss diagnoses in the critics’ awards distribution. (“Maybe the critical establishment has A.D.D.”) Corliss even openly disses his #6 choice, <span style="font-style: italic;">Persepolis</span>, for consistently beating out <span style="font-style: italic;">Ratatouille</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">The Simpsons Movie</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Bee Movie</span>, and <span style="font-style: italic;">Beowulf</span> in the animated film category. (“An art-house film beat out movies that have already grossed nearly $1.5 billion dollars (or about 47 euros) worldwide.”) This all seems more than a little bit contradictory, <span style="font-style: italic;">non</span>?<br /><br />Of course, Corliss defuses the bomb a tad, remarking that critics “obviously...should pick their favorites.” But then he says that this is just critics’ way of “contribut[ing] to the art-industrial complex,” that these critics awards are the steam needed to hurtle films to Oscar nominations. Which is certainly a no-no, since Oscars should be reserved for the high-grossing critical faves.<br /><br />So which is it? Critics awards are bad for not recognizing popular taste and for steamrolling certain films to Oscar glory. But critics awards are good because they recognize the films you love. Can we have the cake and eat it too? Let’s not forget that Corliss completely ignores the economic fabric which causes films like <span style="font-style: italic;">No Country</span> or <span style="font-style: italic;">Diving Bell</span> to never eclipse $50 million (the vagaries of specialized distribution, multiplex exhibition strategies, etc). And let’s also not forget that a large collection of films which many critics love very dearly are legitimate victims to the art-industrial complex and never make it out of the art-house ghetto. (After all, <span style="font-style: italic;">No Country</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">Diving Bell</span> are both Miramax products, a studio with a substantial cash flow, whereas my 3 faves of the year, <span style="font-style: italic;">I’m Not There</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Colossal Youth</span>, and <span style="font-style: italic;">Syndromes and a Century</span>, have grossed roughly zilch among the three of them.) Corliss, in all of his incarnations, also doesn’t seem to care a whit for any films not made in the English language, barring two exceptions whose high profiles and mainstream aesthetic agendas seem to prove the rule.<br /><br />At the end of the day, a critic’s responsibility is to him- or herself. When it comes to awards, they must vote for the film they believe deserves it. And isn’t it the essential job of a critic to make the public aware of the films that they love in order for the public to go see them? And did every single ticket-buying customer of <span style="font-style: italic;">Knocked Up</span> actually like the film? Isn’t Corliss playing into the hands of the art-industrial complex by placing a film’s value on its box office draw? C’mon, he’s gotta be smarter than that.<br /><br />Corliss is being quite pandering and condescending to his audience. By not wishing to look elitist and snobby, he overcorrects and sells himself out in order to seem populist. Truth is, all awards tend to be rather limited in their scope, and do lay down a red carpet toward Oscar night. But what’re you gonna do but try and be true to you? Maybe I’m a little more fiery this year because I like <span style="font-style: italic;">No Country</span> so much, and am quivering in anticipation for <span style="font-style: italic;">There Will Be Blood</span>. (By contrast, I didn’t much care for <span style="font-style: italic;">Brokeback Mountain</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Crash</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Million Dollar Baby</span>, or <span style="font-style: italic;">Sideways</span>, to name a few awards-mongers of recent years.) But he really should know by now that he’s never going to be in tune with the populace Hollywood likes to create if he keeps liking the things that he does.<br /><br />In case you’re keeping score, here’s Corliss’s Top 10:<br /><br />1. <span style="font-style: italic;">No Country for Old Men</span><br />2. <span style="font-style: italic;">The Lives of Others</span><br />3. <span style="font-style: italic;">Killer of Sheep</span><br />4. <span style="font-style: italic;">Atonement</span><br />5. <span style="font-style: italic;">Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street</span><br />6. <span style="font-style: italic;">Persepolis</span><br />7. <span style="font-style: italic;">No End in Sight</span><br />8. <span style="font-style: italic;">In the Valley of Elah</span><br />9. <span style="font-style: italic;">Waitress</span><br />10. <span style="font-style: italic;">Beowulf</span>Evanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06030063762188563722noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-272491109029127018.post-70812732277078778342007-12-10T21:17:00.000-05:002007-12-10T21:51:37.597-05:00Live From Pawleys Island: Movie Journal, 12/3-12/10I'm beginning my year-end DVD whirlwind a few weeks early this year, and here are the discoveries of the week:<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://photobucket.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/Zoo.jpg" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Zoo</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> (Robinson Devor, 2007)</span><br /><br />On the surface, <span style="font-style: italic;">Zoo</span> is a documentary about men who like to have sex with male horses. This is like saying that <span style="font-style: italic;">War and Peace</span> is about the Battle of Borodino. Robinson Devor has created the closest successor to Errol Morris’s lyrical, meditative documentaries, juxtaposing actual interviews with dramatic reconstructions of the events described. Devor refuses to judge or exoticize the community of men in rural Washington who come together to have sex with these horses, but he does present their world as a dreamy, haunting and alien universe. It is extremely difficult for a non-zoophile to completely understand and totally identify with the lifestyle of a zoophile, but the notion of considering them any less acceptable in their sexual practices becomes essentially moot. Their world may be strange, but it contains the same quality of beauty that any other world might contain.<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://photobucket.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/Offside.jpg" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Offside</span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> (Jafar Panahi, 2006)<br /><br /></span><span>Jonathan Rosenbaum said it best when he declared Jafar Panahi’s latest political entertainment “so accessible and entertaining that some discerning viewers are suspicious of it.” <span style="font-style: italic;">Offside</span> is a blast, a warm, humanist comedy that is immensely watchable, but suspicious of it I am. Not for any subversive political message: the story of several young women arrested for attempting to watch the 2005 World Cup qualifier between Iran and Bahrain is as direct as they come. (In Iran, women are not allowed to attend soccer matches, so many attempt to disguise themselves as boys in order to gain access to the stadium.) Its tricky balance between toughness and sentimentality, however, often lapses from one side to the other. Certainly the film’s most enjoyable moments are when the girls engage in pure ecstasy at outwitting their captors, and their captors’ eventual giving up at trying to control them. But then there are moments when <span style="font-style: italic;">Offside</span> veers into cuteness, a tendency to let the personal cloud the political. The ending purports to close the gap between the soldiers and the girls by using the game as a nexus of community rather than division, but Panahi’s tone betrays him. At the end of the day, however, so many of these quibbles are those of a spurned lover wanting the film to be something it is not and does not want to be. As Roger Ebert did at the end of <span style="font-style: italic;">Almost Famous</span>, I gave myself a big hug at the conclusion of <span style="font-style: italic;">Offside</span>.<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://photobucket.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/RegularLovers.jpg" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Regular Lovers</span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> (Philippe Garrel, 2005)<br /><br /></span><span>Philippe Garrel’s love letter to his youth and his stern rebuttal to Bernardo Bertolucci’s facile <span style="font-style: italic;">The Dreamers</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Regular Lovers</span> is a haunting portrait of the aftermath of May ’68. Shot in sumptuous but also charmingly tossed-off black and white, Garrel’s chamber epic follows a young poet, Francois (Louis Garrel, the director’s son and also one of the stars of <span style="font-style: italic;">The Dreamers</span>), as he negotiates how to exist after his and his friends’ moment of triumph evaporates. <span style="font-style: italic;">Regular Lovers</span> is intoxicated by the quotidian, the casual atmosphere of young people unsure of where to go or what to do. It also does not demonize all figures of authority, nor does it sanctify the behavior of Francois and his friends. (The scene where some cops enter Francois and his friend’s apartment is hilarious in the way the cops admire the art on the walls.) The centerpiece, a communal dance to The Kinks’ “This Time Tomorrow,” is a gorgeously rapturous and melancholy ode to trying to establish a community in a world that has rejected you.<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://photobucket.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/InBetweenDays.jpg" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">In Between Days</span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> (So Yong Kim, 2006)<br /><br /></span><span>Although it is set in a Canadian metropolis, <span style="font-style: italic;">In Between Days</span> could be set anywhere. The cold and isolating atmosphere in which the protagonist, Aimie (Ji-seon Kim) finds herself is emblematic of the isolation she isn’t even aware of within herself. Haunting pillow shots where she recites letters to her father remind us just how distant her reality is from her perception of it. She falls in love with the only person with whom she can communicate, drops out of a class in order to buy him a bracelet, and holds a typically adolescent insouciance toward the larger universe. After Tran (Taegu Andy Kang) rejects her affections, she begins to understand how alone she really is. Kim films these intimate moments in tossed off, handheld takes, using quiet, effortless dialogue. <span style="font-style: italic;">In Between Days</span> is a delicate and sad slice of life.<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://photobucket.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/GoldenCompass.jpg" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Golden Compass</span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> (Chris Weitz, 2007)<br /><br /></span><span>I really wanted <span style="font-style: italic;">The Golden Compass</span> to be good. It would mean that the meaty portions of Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” series, <span style="font-style: italic;">The Subtle Knife</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">The Amber Spyglass</span>, could be brought to cinematic life with all of their dark, beautiful nuances intact. Instead, <span style="font-style: italic;">The Golden Compass</span> is a loud, CG-stuffed piece of fantasy ephemera, lacking in spiritual or philosophical depth. Certainly the notion of religion as the ultimate force of evil in the world hasn’t been completely sanitized–the leaders of the evil Magisterium have a certain clerical look and feel to them–but any weight or toughness of Pullman’s ideas are pretty much absent. Even Lyra Belaqua (a competent Dakota Blue Richards) is missing her edge. And the ultimate punch pulled is leaving the film on a note of hope, whereas the book’s conclusion is Lyra’s first major step away from innocence and toward experience. One can feebly hope for improvements in <span style="font-style: italic;">The Subtle Knife</span>.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Holiday in Handcuffs </span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;">(Ron Underwood/Sara Endsley, 2007)<br /><br /></span>I hate TV Christmas specials. Most Christmas movies are bad enough, but the massive churning out of feel-good, 2-hour pieces of sentimentality on the tube just about kill me. But ABC Family’s Holiday in Handcuffs is so deliciously absurd that I couldn’t help but plow through the sappy ending. There’s nothing family-friendly about this tableau of grotesques. Melissa Joan Hart is depicted as a PMS-raging psychobitch, her parents the ultimate suburban perfectionists, her brother a closeted golden boy, her grandmother a hard-drinking, tough-talking, all-around bawdy broad. Downright kinky sexual innuendos abound, and by the end of the first 90 minutes, I thought I’d walked into a John Waters movie. The plot is completely preposterous: Hart is dumped by her boyfriend, and she believes she must impress her parents by bringing somebody home for Christmas, so she kidnaps loveable rich boy Mario Lopez. Of course, the jig is eventually up, Lopez and Hart fall in love, and everybody learns a lesson. But for about an hour-and-a-half, the movie is so damned out of its mind I couldn’t help but love it. Please go to http://www.abcfamily.com to find out the next showtime!<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://photobucket.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/AwayFromHer.jpg" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Away from Her</span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> (Sarah Polley, 2006)<br /><br /></span><span>Fiona (Julie Christie) and Grant (Gordon Pinsent) have the sort of wealthy-liberal marriage most of us could only dream about. But the fairy tale ends when Fiona is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, and is placed in a treatment center. The great sadness of having to cope with such a loss informs every single frame of this beautiful, graceful film, one which neither sentimentalizes nor trivializes the effect of Alzheimer’s disease on a marriage. Grant watches as the woman he knew vanishes, as she finds it difficult to remember him, and even takes up with a fellow patient. Grant was once unfaithful, many decades ago, and perhaps this is Fiona punishing him. Or perhaps it is an inevitable byproduct of Fiona desperately attempting to find something which makes sense to her. Neil Young’s “Harvest Moon,” in its original version and a new, instrumental version, haunts the backdoors of the film, where Grant realizes that he and Fiona must invent new lives for themselves, and performs the ultimate sacrifice–which is also the ultimate act of love. Polley’s direction and camerawork is so understated, so quiet, so assured, that we can only marvel at the beautifully sad thing she has created, and wonder what true love ultimately means.<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://photobucket.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/BlackBook.jpg" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><b><i>Black Book</i> (Paul Verhoeven, 2006)</b><br /><br />I have been mulling over Paul Verhoeven’s first Dutch film in 22 years for a couple of days, and still can’t decide how I feel about it. Verhoeven’s career is certainly a peculiar one, one which has seen him fashioning gaudy blockbusters that contain a nastily satirical edge to them. This is a more muted work, but only barely: after all, this is a film which features a woman dyeing her pubic hair blonde to match her new <span style="font-style: italic;">coiffure</span>, and later getting a bucket of shit dumped on her. Verhoeven’s direction is raunchily propulsive, pulp disguised as art. (Or is it the other way around?) What’s so maddening/fascinating is the way he shifts our sympathies around. There are anti-Semitic Dutch Resistance fighters, sympathetic Gestapo commanders, Dutch collaborators and subversive Nazis. The only one behind whom we firmly stand is Rachel (Carice van Houten), a force of nature who uses her body to do battle with anyone who may stand in her way. The film’s most haunting image is Rachel watching her parents mowed down by a Nazi gun boat, and she seeming to float away, an apparition no longer connected to the corporeal world. That soon changes, as she infiltrates the Gestapo by screwing her way to precious information. But it seems too convenient that she’d start <span style="font-style: italic;">schtupping</span> the one nice Nazi in Amsterdam, while the rest are monsters. And the ending, with all of its twists and revelations, feels too clean in a bizarre way. And what of Ronnie, Rachel’s freewheeling friend who fucks Nazis and Canadian soldiers alike, and has a rip-roaring good time while doing it all? She lacks any political conscience, and is consistently rewarded for it. Is Verhoeven being salaciously subversive in these ambiguities, or is he simply morally backward? I still can’t tell. </span></span></span></span></span>Evanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06030063762188563722noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-272491109029127018.post-29077973969773125962007-12-02T19:25:00.000-05:002007-12-02T20:00:33.211-05:00"And I Mean Any Swingin' Dick."(I understand that this is a rather peculiar way to announce that I've returned to blogging, but that's just me, freewheelin' and always keepin' you on your toes.)<br /><br /><a href="http://photobucket.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/grendel-beowulf.jpg" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Beowulf </span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;">(Robert Zemeckis, 2007)<br /><br /></span>PREFACE: The following piece must be considered as a completely subjective, rather phenomenological experience. I went into this movie this afternoon completely expecting not to enjoy it. I was also thinking about Tim Burton, since <span style="font-style: italic;">Sweeney Todd</span>'s trailer played before the movie started. Also, I don't like agreeing with my grandparents about movies; call it a rather snobby, contrarian reaction I seem to have when we see movies together. (They hated the film, by the way.)<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Beowulf</span> certainly bears little resemblance in visual style to the literary form of the oldest known work of English literature. While the plot of the first two sections of the poem are more or less intact, Roger Avary and Neil Gaiman's script veers toward the level of trashy camp throughout. The most blatant and controversial shift is in the characterization of Grendel's mother: from gross old hag Beowulf battles and beheads to sleek golden Angelina Jolie who corrupts the hero and poisons his future, this is certainly not your momma's <span style="font-style: italic;">Beowulf</span>.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Beowulf</span>'s most unconscionable sin is its images. Director Robert Zemeckis retreads his 2004 hit <span style="font-style: italic;">The Polar Express</span>, using motion capture technology to render the actors completely lifeless. What's more, the movie never uses this technology organically; as one reviewer has pointed out, the movie feels like a vehicle for showing off what movies are going to look like in 5-10 years. This terrifies me. Any technology that attempts to monopolize film aesthetics must be taken extremely seriously for the danger that it poses. Nothing of interest comes from motion capture in <span style="font-style: italic;">Beowulf</span>; it is another excuse for Zemeckis to be a lazy, kid-in-a-candy-store kind of filmmaker. (A recent re-viewing of <span style="font-style: italic;">Forrest Gump</span> only confirms this feeling.)<br /><br />The conflict which runs counter to Zemeckis's technological indulgences is the script by Avary and Gaiman. (They apparently wrote it in the late 1990's, and envisioned it as a small-budget, gritty action piece; Zemeckis subsequently talked them out of it once the project exited development hell in 2005.) The dialogue is nothing less than hilarious camp, pulpy trash that the two men are clearly having fun with. The scene in which Beowulf (Ray Winstone) removes all of his clothing and armor to sleep and fight naked is one of the most homoerotically ridiculous things I have seen in a long while. But their most interesting triumph is the revamping of the poem's third act.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Beowulf</span> is a poem of heroism and male love, but lacking in any psychological complexity. Ever the mythical revisionist, Gaiman, along with Avary, transform the story to give as much sympathy toward Grendel as they would Beowulf. Crispin Glover--who may be America's most bizarre actor--gives a very sweet, anguished performance as the flesh-eating troll. His actions can be seen as righteous vengeance against the father who abandoned him. Similarly, making Beowulf procreate with Grendel's mother, rather than kill her, turns him into an arrogant, petty fortune-hunter, whose entire legacy is called into question. The final moments of Beowulf's life call to mind the famous dictum of <span style="font-style: italic;">The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance</span>: "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."<br /><br />At the end of the day, <span style="font-style: italic;">Beowulf</span> is a strange film, filled with authorial tension: repugnant for Zemeckis's fetishization of technology and his sex-and-gore-for-sex-and-gore's-sake visual treatment, and fascinating for the revisionist weirdness of Avary & Gaiman's script, along with the strength of the performances. (Seeing pudgy, middle-aged Ray Winstone as a muscly badass is almost worth the price of admission alone.) If this is the future of movies, we can only hope the CG-mongers of Hollywood continue to use scripts like this one.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span>Evanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06030063762188563722noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-272491109029127018.post-78923322022659108382007-06-17T21:27:00.000-04:002007-06-17T21:37:23.012-04:00Reflections on Orson Welles, Pt. III<a href="http://photobucket.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/LadyfromShanghai2.jpg" border="0" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket" height=240 width=360></a><br /><br /><br /><b>REFLECTIONS ON ORSON WELLES, PT. III: <i>THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI</i></b><br /><br /><br /><b>THE BACKGROUND</b><br /><br />Orson Welles came to make his penultimate Hollywood film in September 1946. He had finished work on <i>The Stranger</i> nine months previously, and had nearly bankrupted himself over the summer producing a touring theatrical adaptation of <i>Around the World in 80 Days</i>. He was desperate to work profitably again. The notoriously monstrous head of Columbia Pictures, Harry Cohn, invited Welles to make a film at his studio. After considering several projects which he had developed with the producer Alexander Korda, Welles decided to adapt the 1938 pulp novel <i>If I Die Before I Wake</i>, by R. Sherwood King. Welles had acquired the rights to the book in 1945 on the suggestion of his friend William Castle, and had the rights reassigned to Columbia, which then slowly developed the project for over a year.(1) Initially conceived as a quick B thriller, Welles soon found himself, at Cohn’s request, reshaping the material into a solid A picture starring his estranged wife, Rita Hayworth. Like <i>The Magnificent Ambersons</i> and <i>The Stranger</i>, Welles didn’t have final cut over the film. The final script had as many as four writers, although Welles was the only one to receive credit. With a 65-day schedule spread out over 12 weeks and a $2.3 million budget set, Welles began shooting on October 2nd, 1946. <br /><br />The production was rife with problems from the get-go. Despite the renewed bond that Welles and Hayworth created from working together, every other circumstance surrounding filming portended the project to be doomed to failure. The weather during location filming in Mexico and California was wretched, and various cast members became terribly ill, holding up production. Additionally, Cohn continually demanded that Welles shoot more close-ups of Hayworth, for fear that Welles wouldn’t use his star to her sexiest potential. He also forced Welles to film sequences that cost extra time and money, much to Welles’s chagrin. The most explicit of these was a scene of Hayworth lying on the deck of her husband’s (Everett Sloane) yacht, singing a ballad called “Please Don’t Kiss Me.”(2) To add to the turmoil, the original cinematographer, Charles Lawton Jr., exited the production at the late stages, and Rudolph Mate (Carl Dreyer’s cinematographer) was brought in to finish the shoot (although this may have been quite welcome to Welles, since Lawton worked slowly).(3) By the time principal photography wrapped at the end of February 1947, the budget hovered just below $2.8 million, with an additional 32 days of shooting having been used. <br /><br />The next few months saw Welles being subjected to a scenario with which he was all-too familiar by this point in his career: studio tampering. Cohn still wanted more close-ups, so he had Welles shoot them in the studio against a process screen, making Welles’s tightly constructed sequences even more disjointed. Parts of scenes were re-dubbed, which created an incongruity of dubbed and direct sound being juxtaposed within the same scene. Welles begrudgingly agreed to all of these requests. But the most egregious of all of Cohn’s meddling was during the editing of the film.<br /><br />According to Welles’s cutting continuity, dated January 1947, the film was 155 minutes long. Sixty-nine minutes were then cut, leaving the existing version at 86 minutes. Cohn and his editor, Viola Lawrence, gutted numerous sequences throughout the film in order to pare down the length. After an unsuccessful test screening in Santa Barbara, Lawrence cut the movie even more, eventually making much of the plot incomprehensible. Welles and his friend Charles Lederer then wrote a voice-over narration to help clarify narrative points lost in the muddle, much to Welles’s chagrin.(4) <br /><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Magic-World-Orson-Welles/dp/087074299X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-8492107-9430335?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1182059231&sr=1-1">James Naremore</a> cites not only the film’s most famous sequence–the Crazy House/Hall of Mirrors climax–as one of those most tragically gutted, but also the opening sequence when Michael O’Hara (Welles) and Elsa Bannister (Hayworth) meet. The sequence would have begun with heavy cross-cutting, establishing the main players, and why many of them–Broome (Ted de Corsia), and Grisby (Glenn Anders) in particular–are in Central Park when Elsa is trying to get back to her car. After this cross-cutting, a long tracking shot would have followed Elsa’s carriage riding through the park, then to Michael walking, then to a police car driving (<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Discovering-Orson-Welles-Jonathan-Rosenbaum/dp/0520251237/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-8492107-9430335?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1182059733&sr=1-1">Jonathan Rosenbaum</a> compares it to the opening shot of <i>Touch of Evil</i>). The dialogue between Michael and Elsa after he rescues her from being mugged was also more substantial, with a suggestive reference to Don Quixote; interestingly, Cohn had Lawrence cut all dialogue pertaining to literature or the characters’ fascinations with books.<br /><br />Sadly, Welles had to swallow all of these changes. He did not have final cut, nor did he have the clout among Columbia executives to prevent these changes. He wrote a lengthy memo to Cohn protesting many alterations, but it was too little, too late. He was most furious with the score by Columbia composer Heinz Roemheld. Welles had very specific ideas for the music, and believed Roemheld discarded all of the irony, satire, and bite that Welles had planned; in its place, melodrama and corny romanticism filled the soundtrack. He was especially annoyed with the turning of “Please Don’t Kiss Me” into a theme that ends up recurring throughout the entire film. One scene in particular sparked Welles’s ire:<br /><br />"...There is nothing in the fact of Rita’s diving to warrant a big orchestral crescendo...What does matter is Rita’s beauty...the evil overtones suggested by Grisby’s character, and Michael’s bewilderment. Any or all of these items might have inspired the music. Instead, the dive is treated as though it were a major climax or some antic moment in a Silly Symphony; a pratfall by Pluto the Pup, or a wild jump into space by Donald Duck." (Orson Welles & Peter Bogdanovich, <i>This is Orson Welles</i>, ed. Jonathan Rosenbaum, 1992, p. 195)<br /><br />The terrible score, along with the cutting of the Crazy House/Hall of Mirrors sequence, were the problems about which Welles would talk most over the next several decades. Welles’s friend and one of <i>Shanghai</i>’s associate producers, Richard Wilson, even said one of his greatest professional regrets was not saving Welles’s first cut of the Crazy House sequence. Inexplicably, Cohn held up the release of <i>The Lady from Shanghai</i> for a year. By the time it was released in May 1948, Welles had shot <i>Macbeth</i> at Republic Studios in just three weeks, and then had decamped for Europe, destined to become financially what he had always been artistically: independent.(5)<br /><br /><br /><b>THE REVIEW</b><br /><br />Unlike <i>The Stranger</i>, which does require one to wonder what might have been, there is more than enough of Welles’s madness in <i>The Lady from Shanghai</i> to marvel at its wicked glee, acidic satire and weary romanticism. Welles allegedly screened <i>The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari</i> for the cast and crew before production began, and its shadow haunts the many baroque set pieces within Welles’s film. <br /><br />What is striking about <i>The Lady from Shanghai</i>, for better and for worse, is the film’s juxtaposition of tones. From the first sweaty, swooping crane shot descending into the sailor’s hiring hall, where we see rich attorney Arthur Bannister (Everett Sloane) ask Michael O’Hara (Welles) to captain his yacht, to the legendary shoot-out in the Hall of Mirrors at a San Francisco amusement park, the film is filled with wickedly baroque, grotesque images and characters. Bannister’s crippled attorney, the drunk madman Grisby (Glenn Anders), and the smart-aleck detective Broome (Ted de Corsia) all border on the demented, sick characters born of a sick culture that believes human beings are its playthings. Welles’s camera shoots warped close-ups and highly suggestive tableaux to evoke the nightmarish world into which O’Hara has entered. Even Hayworth is otherworldly. On the surface of things, this only makes sense, as her hair is short and blonde. But it is something else. She is cold, distant, all interior, as opposed to her vibrantly sexual persona. Elsa is both innocent and vicious, and when she begins to speak in Chinese while pursuing Michael toward the climax of the film, one realizes that this is a fiercely intelligent woman whose past is far deeper than one may have anticipated. <br /><br />Blended with this acidic, nightmarish tone is a remarkably romantic, dreamlike one. This comes not only from Harry Cohn’s butchering of Welles’s original vision, but also from the character of Michael O’Hara himself, and Welles’s portrayal of him. Welles has never looked so gentle onscreen. (This was his only makeup-free role in his own narrative films, aside from young Charles Foster Kane.) Michael lives in a daze, unable to make either heads or tails of the people with whom he’s faced, or the situation in which he finds himself. (Indeed, this bewilderment, one could suggest, is even enhanced by Cohn’s hatchet job, as the narrative becomes unclear to the spectator as well as Michael.) He’s gentle, poetic, and deeply romantic. Michael is Welles’s only foray into a role that could be described as a dashing leading man. <br /><br />This blending of tones and styles qualifies the film to be considered of the <i>film noir</i> genre, but Welles’s vision of <i>noir</i> is decidedly different from that of Wilder, Tourneur, Lang, Preminger, Siodmak, Fuller, Ray or Kubrick. The satirical quality of the scenes with Bannister and Grisby indict modern society in a way that the aforementioned directors do not. Satire even explodes into absurd farce in the courtroom scene after Michael has been framed for Grisby’s murder. The judge isn’t aware of courtroom etiquette, Bannister and the prosecutor just yell at each other, and the jury members giggle and loudly blow their noses. Justice isn’t likely to be served to Michael. Elsa is also not a simple femme fatale, a la Phyllis Dietrichson or Brigid O’Shaughnessy. Hayworth’s performance as she lays on the floor of the Crazy House, dying, actually reminds me of the women of Sam Fuller’s films. These women are intelligent, tenacious, and not merely vicious or gentle. There is something about Elsa that makes her murderous tendencies and her romantic innocence synthetic, rather than dichotomous. As James Naremore and others have suggested, Welles has deconstructed Hayworth, exposed the audience’s sexual voyeurism, and endowed her with the intelligence she claimed he knew she had. <br /><br />As much as there is to enjoy within the film, much of it feels awkward. The dubbed lines, the abrupt close-ups, and the process screen shots make scenes disjointed, almost comical. The narration is grating, especially when one knows that Welles’s version didn’t have it, and wouldn’t have needed it. The score is atrocious, and like the music of <i>The Stranger</i>, it makes one long for Bernard Hermann. And the editing leaves scenes feeling rushed and incomplete. <i>The Lady from Shanghai</i> is a film whose individually Wellesian moments leave one in awe at what the man could do, and how much he’d changed since <i>Citizen Kane</i>. The violence done to it by Harry Cohn, Viola Lawrence, and Heinz Roemheld, however, leaves one regretting the lost, potential masterpiece.<br /><br /><br /><b>Notes</b><br /><br />1. There is much debate as to the origins of the project. Welles told a story throughout his life that he grabbed the book off a shelf randomly, and asked Cohn to bail out his failing production of <i>Around the World</i> if Welles made him a movie. According to Castle, however, he gave Welles his own treatment of the novel, which Castle had tried, unsuccessfully, to sell to Columbia. Castle was then called into the Columbia offices to be assigned as associate producer to Welles’s version, unbeknownst to Castle that Welles had successfully sold the project in September 1945. Welles’s friend Fletcher Markle, however, claims that he and Castle helped Welles with the script in the spring of 1946, and also during location shooting in Acapulco later that fall. My initial account is a minor attempt to coalesce all versions of these stories. For more, see <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/This-Orson-Welles/dp/030680834X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-8492107-9430335?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1182060214&sr=1-1">This is Orson Welles</a></i>, pp. 508-9.<br /><br />2. In fact, Stylus Magazine’s <a href="http://www.stylusmagazine.com/articles/scenes/the-lady-from-shanghai.htm">Paolo Cabrelli</a> makes a convincing case for the scene, a view I shared even before I knew of its being against Welles’s intentions.<br /><br />3. <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040525/fullcredits">IMDb</a> says that Joseph Walker, Frank Capra’s cameraman, did some uncredited work, but I haven’t been able to verify the claim. If I were to speculate, I would guess that he lensed some of the studio re-takes in March 1947.<br /><br />4. Lederer, twistedly enough, was the nephew of Marion Davies, who in turn was William Randolph Hearst’s mistress. Lederer also married Welles’s first ex-wife, Virginia. As <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Orson-Welles-2-Hello-Americans/dp/0670872563/ref=pd_bbs_2/104-8492107-9430335?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1182060447&sr=1-2">Simon Callow</a> puts it, “[Welles’s daughter] Christopher accordingly spent occasional weekends in San Simeon under the roof of the man who had done everything in his power to destroy her father and his precocious masterpiece [<i>Citizen Kane</i>]” (Simon Callow, <i>Orson Welles: Hello Americans</i>, 2006, p. 222).<br /><br />5. James Naremore saw a version of <i>The Lady from Shanghai</i> in Frankfurt, Germany in 1981 that contained slightly different editing, alternate takes of some scenes, and shots that don’t exist in the U.S. version at all. It is a mystery if this version has ever been seen outside of Europe, or if it will ever be released anywhere else.<br /><br /><br /><b>Works Cited</b><br /><br />–Welles, Orson & Bogdanovich, Peter. <i>This is Orson Welles</i>. Ed. Jonathan Rosenbaum. 1st ed. New York: HarperCollins, 1992.<br /><br />–Callow, Simon. <i>Orson Welles: Hello Americans</i>. New York: Viking, 2006.<br /><br />–Naremore, James. <i>The Magic World of Orson Welles</i>. 2nd ed. Dallas, TX: Southern Methodist University Press, 1989.<br /><br />–Rosenbaum, Jonathan. <i>Discovering Orson Welles</i>. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2007.Evanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06030063762188563722noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-272491109029127018.post-36256128303453824602007-06-17T21:23:00.000-04:002007-06-17T21:35:40.817-04:00Reflections on Orson Welles, Pt. II(June 9th, 2007.)<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://photobucket.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/Stranger2.jpg" border="0" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket" height=240 width=320></a><br /><br /><br /><b>REFLECTIONS ON ORSON WELLES, PT II: <i>THE STRANGER</i></b><br /><br /><br /><b>THE BACKGROUND</b><br /><br />Orson Welles had been out of filmmaking for almost three years by the time he came to his next project. With <i>The Magnificent Ambersons</i> butchered, <i>It’s All True</i> sabotaged, and his credibility ruined by RKO Pictures, Welles decided to explore other interests. In those three years, he was highly active in radio and politics, regularly writing columns, making speeches, even ghostwriting for Roosevelt a time or two. And it wasn’t even the studios that came calling in the summer of 1945: it was Sam Spiegel, an independent producer looking to attach Welles as actor and director for his new property, <i>The Stranger</i>. Anthony Veiller and John Huston had written a script called <i>Date with Destiny</i> (Huston had to take his name off the project, since he was still serving in active duty with the U.S. Army), and Spiegel & his producing partner, Bill Goetz, were looking for a director. They decided to take a chance on Welles, a man who was seen in Hollywood as “damaged goods.” This would be a new experience for Welles: he was a hired gun, not having anything directly to do with the writing process, and was being kept on a tight leash by both Spiegel and Goetz. He wasn’t allowed final cut, and had to bring the project in on time and on budget. His initial casting ideas–like having Agnes Moorehead play the Edward G. Robinson role–were shot down. These restrictions notwithstanding, Welles was enthusiastic about the chance to make pure Hollywood product and prove himself as a financial asset, rather than a liability. What’s more, the story of a Nazi masquerading as a history teacher in a quiet Connecticut town certainly appealed to his creative and political concerns. True to his word, he finished the film on time and under budget, and <i>The Stranger</i> became the only film Welles ever directed to turn a profit.<br /><br />As with any of his projects in Hollywood after <i>Citizen Kane</i>, the editing process withered away Welles’s vision. Before production had even begun, one of Spiegel’s editors cut the script by thirty-two pages. According to the original cutting continuity (found in the Welles archives at the Lilly Library in Bloomington, Indiana), on which scholars <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Magic-World-Orson-Welles/dp/087074299X/ref=sr_1_9/104-8492107-9430335?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1181436117&sr=1-9">James Naremore</a>, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Orson-Welles-Bio-Bibliography-Bio-Bibliographies-Performing/dp/0313265380/ref=sr_1_1/104-8492107-9430335?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1181436264&sr=1-1">Bret Wood</a>, and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Orson-Welles-2-Hello-Americans/dp/0670872563/ref=pd_bbs_2/104-8492107-9430335?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1181436345&sr=1-2">Simon Callow</a> have done extensive work, the original cut of <i>The Stranger</i> was roughly 115-125 minutes. After Welles delivered his version to Spiegel and Goetz, they proceeded to remove somewhere between 20 and 30 minutes of footage. This consisted of a pre-credits sequence involving the female protagonist, Mary (Loretta Young), having a prophetic nightmare. A complete 10-20 minute chase sequence with Meineke (Konstantin Shayne) going to an Argentine dog kennel before he goes to America was removed. For the rest of the film, a flashback structure showing Charles Rankin’s (Welles) first few weeks in Harper, Connecticut–along with other dream sequences–was removed. <br /><br />These cuts certainly point to Spiegel and Goetz desiring to streamline the narrative and bring the running time down. As Simon Callow astutely observes in his Welles biography, <i>Hello Americans</i>, the cuts would actually have clarified certain lines spoken by Wilson (Edward G. Robinson), as well as made actions by both Mary and Rankin more organic to their characters. Welles believed those elements were the only visually stimulating images in the whole film (see <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/This-Orson-Welles/dp/030680834X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-8492107-9430335?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1181436478&sr=1-1">This is Orson Welles</a></i>, p. 186), but of course, he couldn’t do anything about it. Once the film was released, it did turn a profit, but the experience made Welles realize that working within the system was no longer a viable creative option. He would make two more films in Hollywood, <i>The Lady from Shanghai</i> for Columbia, and <i>Macbeth</i> for Republic. Then in late July 1947, Welles exiled himself to Europe, not to return to America for nine years.<br /><br /><br /><b>THE REVIEW</b><br /><br />The version of <i>The Stranger</i> found in Welles’s original cutting continuity certainly sounds more gripping than the final cut that exists today. The film has been historically viewed as the least personal and least important finished film in Welles’s career. (This seems true of his Hollywood work; from what I’ve read, <i>The Immortal Story</i> also seems to fit this description.) The narrative–a paranoid thriller centering around a death-camp mastermind (Welles) taking refuge in small-town Connecticut with a U.S. governement agent (Edward G. Robinson) hot on his trail–sounds like a wickedly Expressionist nightmare, quite Wellesian in both its artistic potential and political subtext. It is also Welles's first attempt at making a thriller, to be repeated in <i>The Lady from Shanghai</i>, <i>Mr. Arkadin</i>, <i>Touch of Evil</i>, and <i>The Immortal Story</i>. Indeed, many of the Welles flourishes are here: relaxed long takes, dramatic shadows, eloquent monologues (written by Welles himself). But there are too many narrative gaps to let the whole thing hang together. For instance, why would Wilson (Robinson) be sure that Rankin was in fact the infamous Franz Kindler after their dinner conversation, but then only decide to stay in Harper after he believed Rankin could be linked to Meineke’s (Konstantin Shayne) murder? Also, why would a cold-blooded Nazi all of a sudden feel great remorse for making his wife complicit in his crime, then attempt to kill her, then feel even more remorse for letting her brother die instead of her? The film doesn’t develop Rankin as anything more than a bug-eyed paranoiac, quietly waiting until the Nazis try to take over the world again. Welles’s performance doesn’t help matters, leaving the audience almost bored by his constant physical overacting. Loretta Young as Mary is similarly problematic; she just falls into hysterics a lot, only establishing a firm sense of self at the end, when she goes to the clock tower to kill Rankin. Robinson is the only member of the cast who works within the film; he is cold, but Welles’s camera allows his character to breathe, especially in his scenes with Potter (Billy House), the town clerk. The worst offender is the composer, Branislaw Kaper, whose syrupy score muffles any sense of real dread that might come across otherwise. It leaves one wishing for the gifts of Bernard Hermann, who delivered a masterpiece of film music with <i>Citizen Kane</i>. <br /><br />Welles called the climax on the clock tower “pure Dick Tracy,” and in a way it is. The final piece of dialogue is far too chipper, and distracts from the gruesome violence that just came before. One gets the impression that many of these complaints could have been solved had the released version been Welles’s, but of course, there is no way of knowing. Unless the cut footage miraculously resurfaces, <i>The Stranger</i> remains a curiosity to Welles fans, with charming stylistic moments injected throughout, but ultimately less his own than even <i>Ambersons</i>, <i>Shanghai</i>, or <i>Mr. Arkadin</i>.Evanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06030063762188563722noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-272491109029127018.post-35134513575519126762007-06-17T21:21:00.000-04:002007-06-17T21:34:47.993-04:00Reflections on Orson Welles, Pt. I(June 2nd, 2007.)<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://photobucket.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/Welles.jpg" border="0" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket" height=240 width=360></a><br /><br /><br /><b>REFLECTIONS ON ORSON WELLES, PART I: AN INVENTORY</b><br /><br /><br />It is no secret among my friends and family that my favorite movie of all time is Orson Welles’s debut, <i>Citizen Kane</i>. I even wrote an 11-page paper for my high school American history class about the making of that film. What shocked my friend Igor a year-and-a-half ago was that I had seen only two of Welles’s ten completed films that are available in the U.S. (he completed thirteen in his lifetime, but three are only accessible in Europe). Shouldn’t this man be a kindred spirit, the filmmaker in whom I see myself most clearly? This is only partially true. It is because of that very description–and some of my former misconceptions about Welles and his work–that I compulsively avoided exploring all the other things he did for the next 40 years. <i>Citizen Kane</i>, to my mind, is just about perfect, and because of my knowledge about the studio backstabbings that destroyed <i>It’s All True</i> and <i>The Magnificent Ambersons</i>, which then led to the strife of making <i>Othello</i>, I thought it best to let Welles live as he should have lived, as the greatest American filmmaker of all time. <br /> <br />That does the man little service, however. After the controversy of <i>Kane</i>, RKO Pictures, in conjunction with Nelson Rockefeller, sent Welles to Brazil to make a documentary that would counteract potential fascist spheres of influence in South America. Welles sculpted <i>It’s All True</i> as a loving elegy to a culture that the Brazilian government was attempting to exterminate, the <i>jangadeiros</i> (fishermen) of the Fortaleza region. Of course, this didn’t wash with either President Vargas or RKO, and they stole <i>Ambersons</i> away from him, re-cutting and re-shooting much of what he’d done. (Welles had had to negotiate away his right to final cut in order to make <i>It’s All True</i> on the schedule that both he and RKO demanded.) What’s more, they demolished <i>It’s All True</i>, allowing the Brazilian bureaucracies to destroy much of what he’d shot, and never let Welles edit what was saved. RKO began a propaganda campaign against him in the U.S., declaring that he was a party-loving playboy who indulged in every excess at the expense of the “poor studio.” According to their logic, they were justified in snuffing out this “boy genius” who dared challenge their working methods. <br /><br />It would be four years before Welles could make another film, a quickie thriller called <i>The Stranger</i>. He made it to prove to Hollywood that he was “bankable,” but that didn’t stop them from re-cutting the film behind his back; the same went for the next film he made the following year, <i>The Lady from Shanghai</i>. <i>Ambersons</i>, <i>The Stranger</i> and <i>Shanghai</i> represent, to my knowledge, the most sustained period of a studio not only re-cutting a director’s films, but destroying the footage they slashed, thus leaving the future public unable to ever see how Welles had actually intended these works to look, sound, and feel. After making a cheap version of <i>Macbeth</i> for Republic Pictures–and cutting out twenty minutes at the studio’s request–Welles left the U.S. for Europe, not to return until 1957.<br /> <br />Welles’s versions of his 1950's films–<i>Othello</i> and <i>Mr. Arkadin</i> in Europe, <i>Touch of Evil</i> in the U.S.–all met with venerable setbacks. It took Welles three years to film <i>Othello</i> because he kept running out of money, and had to act in others’ movies in order to begin shooting again. <i>Mr. Arkadin</i> was hacked to pieces by its producer after Welles missed editing deadlines, and currently exists in as many as six circulating versions, none of which are Welles’s final cut. <i>Touch of Evil</i> was gutted by more than half-an-hour and severely re-edited, so much so that Welles wrote a 58-page memo to Universal Studios with a long list of changes he believed were necessary. (Editor Walter Murch and producer Rick Schmidlin used this memo as a guideline to reconstructing the film, and that version is what’s available on DVD. Neither Welles’s original cut nor the studio’s original release version can be seen.)<br /> <br />Beginning in 1962 with his adaptation of Kafka’s <i>The Trial</i>, Welles reasserted his ability to gain final cut over his films. Unfortunately, he met with a plethora of financing problems, unable to begin or finish other projects swimming inside his head. Welles only finished five films between 1962 and his death in 1985, hardly the output he had desired. <br /><br />There were seven major works that Welles started and was unable to finish in the last thirty years of his life, primarily to due to financial or legal difficulties:<br /><br /><i>The Merchant of Venice</i> (1969)<br /><i>The Deep</i> (based on <i>Dead Calm</i> by Charles Williams, 1968-1973)<br /><i>Don Quixote</i> (based on Cervantes’s novel, 1955-1973)<br /><i>The Other Side of the Wind</i> (1970-1976)<br /><i>Filming The Trial</i> (1981)<br /><i>The Dreamers</i> (based on “The Dreamers” and “Echoes” by Isak Dinesen, 1978-1985)<br /><i>The Magic Show</i> (1969-1985)<br /><br />Only scraps of <i>The Dreamers</i> and <i>The Magic Show</i> have survived. <i>The Deep</i>, <i>The Other Side of the Wind</i> and <i>Filming The Trial</i> were all but finished; however, money always got (and continues to get) in the way of their completion. <i>The Merchant of Venice</i> was completely finished, a 40-minute adaptation intended as part of a Welles anthology T.V. series. Before it was ever screened, two work print reels and the soundtrack were stolen and have never been recovered. <br /><br />From what I understand, only <i>Don Quixote</i> may not have been meant to see the light of day. Filmed on and off for twenty years, it existed in as many as four different forms before star Akim Tamiroff died in 1972, and the money ran out again. Scholar Jonathan Rosenbaum has speculated that the film was “Welles’s ultimate plaything,” something he loved to kick around when he wasn’t occupied with other projects.<br /><br />In addition to Welles’s unfinished films, there are at least three scripts of major significance in his body of work that never got past pre-production: <i>Heart of Darkness</i> (written in 1940 as his first idea for a movie, which RKO rejected), <i>The Big Brass Ring</i> (a political thriller written between 1981 and 1982) and <i>The Cradle Will Rock</i> (an autobiopic written in 1984 about Welles’s work in late 1930's socialist theater). Countless other ideas, notes and scripts exist that have never seen publication, along with an extensive body of television shows produced in Europe and the U.S. <br /><br />What are we to make of Welles’s now-exceedingly messy career? One is faced with a choice: hold onto the notion that what must be evaluated is completed work, ignoring all else, or begin to incorporate the idea that unfinished product may reflect more about Welles in terms of process, and is thus just as important. If we are to embrace the former, then only three films can be seen correctly, and before a couple of years ago, only one was widely available in the U.S.:<br /><br /><a href="http://photobucket.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/CitizenKane.jpg" border="0" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket"></a><br /><br /><b><i>Citizen Kane</i> (1941)</b> [<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Citizen-Kane-Georgia-Backus/dp/B00003CX9E/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-0337553-7248143?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1180766294&sr=1-1">Released on DVD through Warner Home Video, 2001.</a>]<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://photobucket.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/ChimesatMidnight-1.jpg" border="0" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket"></a><br /><br /><b><i>Chimes at Midnight</i> (1966)</b> [<a href="http://xploitedcinema.com/catalog/chimes-midnight-p-625.html">Easily accessible as a region-free import DVD.</a>]<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://photobucket.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/FforFake.jpg" border="0" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket"></a><br /><br /><b><i>F for Fake</i> (1974)</b> [<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Fake-Criterion-Collection-William-Alland/dp/B0007M2234/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-0337553-7248143?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1180766776&sr=1-1">Released on DVD through Criterion Collection, 2005.</a>]<br /><br /><br />One other film exists in Welles’s original cut and has never been tampered with–<i>Filming Othello</i>–but it is unavailable on home video in any country.<br /><br />Should we decide to expand our horizons a little bit more, the following films are widely available, but often exist in versions not corresponding to Welles’s original intentions:<br /><a href="http://photobucket.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/Macbeth.jpg" border="0" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket"></a><br /><br /><b><i>Macbeth</i> (1948)</b> [There is a French DVD box set that contains both of Welles’s cuts, thankfully.]<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://photobucket.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/Othello.jpg" border="0" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket"></a><br /><br /><b><i>Othello</i> (1952)</b> [<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Othello-Abdullah-Ben-Mohamet/dp/B00000JN1N/ref=pd_bbs_2/102-0337553-7248143?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1180678034&sr=1-2">The version most easily found on DVD is a botched “restoration” from 1992.</a>]<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://photobucket.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/Trial.jpg" border="0" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket"></a><br /><br /><b><i>The Trial</i> (1962)</b> [<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Trial-Max-Buchsbaum/dp/6305772061/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-0337553-7248143?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1180767210&sr=1-1">Only public domain copies exist, many of which use truncated cuts.</a>]<br /><br /><br /><b><i>The Immortal Story</i> (1968)</b> [<a href="http://xploitedcinema.com/catalog/immortal-story-orson-welles-p-7617.html">The only available version is a truncated Italian import DVD.</a>]<br /><br /><br />The next level of interest would be to incorporate Welles’s work that was tampered with before it was ever released, thus making his original vision impossible to see. The vast majority of the films on this list are, sadly, all of the ones he made in Hollywood (barring <i>Kane</i>, of course), and thus the Welles films most readily available in the U.S.:<br /><br /><a href="http://photobucket.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/MagnificentAmbersons.jpg" border="0" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket"></a><br /><br /><b><i>The Magnificent Ambersons</i> (1942)</b> [<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Magnificent-Ambersons-Georgia-Backus/dp/6304119054/ref=sr_1_2/102-0337553-7248143?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1180767423&sr=1-2">Released on VHS.</a>]<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://photobucket.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/Stranger.jpg" border="0" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket"></a><br /><br /><b><i>The Stranger</i> (1946)</b> [<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Stranger-B-W-Billy-House/dp/B00006SFJ8/ref=sr_1_6/102-0337553-7248143?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1180767511&sr=1-6">Released on various public domain DVD’s.</a>]<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://photobucket.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/LadyfromShanghai.jpg" border="0" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket"></a><br /><br /><b><i>The Lady from Shanghai</i> (1948)</b> [<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Lady-Shanghai-Glenn-Anders/dp/B00004W229/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-0337553-7248143?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1180767606&sr=1-1">Released on DVD through Columbia Home Video.</a>]<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://photobucket.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/Mr.jpg" border="0" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket"></a><br /><br /><b><i>Mr. Arkadin</i> (1955)</b> [<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Mr-Arkadin-Confidential-Report/dp/B000E1OI80/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-0337553-7248143?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1180767719&sr=1-1">Three versions released as a DVD box set through Criterion.</a>]<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://photobucket.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/tomservo13/TouchofEvil.jpg" border="0" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket"></a><br /><br /><b><i>Touch of Evil</i> (1958)</b> [<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Touch-Restored-Orson-Welles-Vision/dp/6305999872/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-0337553-7248143?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1180767802&sr=1-1">Reconstructed version released on DVD through Universal Home Video.</a>]<br /><br /><br />Of course, Welles’s eight major unfinished films can’t be viewed by we average Americans, only read about; the same goes for his three major unproduced scripts, as their published versions have gone out of print. Over the next few months, I intend to view as many of the 11 completed Welles films to which I have ready access. I hope to begin a series in this blog that will explore just what the hell the work of Orson Welles really means, and if viewing them as completed works is really the way to make sense of a man who delighted in confounding expectations. Also forthcoming is an in-depth conversation with the book which helped begin this new understanding of Welles, Jonathan Rosenbaum’s recently published <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Discovering-Orson-Welles-Jonathan-Rosenbaum/dp/0520251237/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-0337553-7248143?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1180767901&sr=1-1">Discovering Orson Welles</a>. I hope to discover, as Rosenbaum and other scholars sympathetic to his positions have assured me, that Orson Welles really was more than just <i>Citizen Kane</i>.Evanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06030063762188563722noreply@blogger.com1