This database is at once utterly extraordinary and
totally depressing.
Is this any fucking way to think about how movies matter?
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Monday, July 7, 2008
Screw EW on 2 levels
As Paul rightfully notes, Entertainment Weekly's list of 100 recent classics is an embarrassment to all things cinematic. Not only is Napoleon Dynamite on the list, it's five places higher than In the Mood for Love. In a just world, the EW offices would have burned to the ground in an act of God/s but this is not a just world.
But rather than just gripe, perhaps we should compile our own list. I'd offer the following five, in no real order:
1. Magnolia
2. Unforgiven
3. Talk to Her
4. Children of Men
5. Tarnation
But here's another question: Has the Internet made such lists all the more suspect? They've always been of limited use, although an essential part of the cinematic experience. Even Cahiers found value in them. But in an age when everyone who has an opinion now has a place to get it published in some sense, and in an age when lists proliferate like Tribbles on Viagra, does singling out the best really mean anything any more? What film can't find a home on some best-of list somewhere?
Or perhaps more pointedly: What's the use of a general best-of list like this, or of the term classic? Has the Internet atomized film so much -- as evidenced by clips, fake trailers and the like posted to YouTube, message boards that dissect scenes for flaws in computer graphics, etc. -- that the concept film as a singular entity, as a relatively coherent expression is meaningless? If one wants to put together a list of "best films to do bong hits to" then Children of Men or There Will Be Blood or Russian Ark might not make the cut. In the retarded high school movie category, Napoleon Dynamite is probably a classic.
Film has always been a popular (populist?) art. Has it become such of one that the masterpiece -- the film that most if not all will recognize as sublime achievement -- is an obviated concept?
Just asking.
But rather than just gripe, perhaps we should compile our own list. I'd offer the following five, in no real order:
1. Magnolia
2. Unforgiven
3. Talk to Her
4. Children of Men
5. Tarnation
But here's another question: Has the Internet made such lists all the more suspect? They've always been of limited use, although an essential part of the cinematic experience. Even Cahiers found value in them. But in an age when everyone who has an opinion now has a place to get it published in some sense, and in an age when lists proliferate like Tribbles on Viagra, does singling out the best really mean anything any more? What film can't find a home on some best-of list somewhere?
Or perhaps more pointedly: What's the use of a general best-of list like this, or of the term classic? Has the Internet atomized film so much -- as evidenced by clips, fake trailers and the like posted to YouTube, message boards that dissect scenes for flaws in computer graphics, etc. -- that the concept film as a singular entity, as a relatively coherent expression is meaningless? If one wants to put together a list of "best films to do bong hits to" then Children of Men or There Will Be Blood or Russian Ark might not make the cut. In the retarded high school movie category, Napoleon Dynamite is probably a classic.
Film has always been a popular (populist?) art. Has it become such of one that the masterpiece -- the film that most if not all will recognize as sublime achievement -- is an obviated concept?
Just asking.
Saturday, July 5, 2008
The New Classics?
Is it any wonder American film culture is all but dead?
Adding: I wouldn't expect Entertainment Weekly to do anything but produce a list designed to affirm its readership's tastes as opposed to challenging them but is there any way to justify a list of 100 "new classics" from the last 25 years that only includes 7 foreign language titles? If ranking Speed (#40) 50 places above In the Mood for Love (#95) why even bother to include foreign language films on the list at all?
Adding: I wouldn't expect Entertainment Weekly to do anything but produce a list designed to affirm its readership's tastes as opposed to challenging them but is there any way to justify a list of 100 "new classics" from the last 25 years that only includes 7 foreign language titles? If ranking Speed (#40) 50 places above In the Mood for Love (#95) why even bother to include foreign language films on the list at all?
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Lost Metropolis Found
Exciting news for the film world out of Buenos Aires:
Of course, the real anticipation is in wondering what Queen song they'll choose to score all the newly discovered scenes!
Last Tuesday Paula Félix-Didier travelled on a secret mission to Berlin in order to meet with three film experts and editors from ZEITmagazin. The museum director from Buenos Aires had something special in her luggage: a copy of a long version of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, including scenes believed lost for almost 80 years. After examining the film the three experts are certain: The find from Buenos Aires is a real treasure, a worldwide sensation. Metropolis, the most important silent film in German history, can from this day on be considered to have been rediscovered.
Of course, the real anticipation is in wondering what Queen song they'll choose to score all the newly discovered scenes!
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Visualizing Muhammad and the POV shot
I've been meaning to post something very serious and academic about this subject for a while but instead I'll just throw it out there to see if anyone has any comments on it.
We're screening two films in our Visualizing the Sacred: Islam on Film series (and, yes, that link is a bit of shameless self-promotion) which tell the story of the birth of Islam and the life Muhammad, Moustapha Akkad's The Message (1976) and, as a children's matinee, Richard Rich's animated Muhammad: The Last Prophet (2004). In respecting Islamic custom, neither film actually represents Muhammad's physical presence on screen or by voice. He is present in his absence in both films either through off screen space, voiceover narration which relates his words, stand-in objects, such as the camel he's riding on, and POV shots.
I think The Message, in particular, would make an excellent, if long at 177 minutes, addition to any Intro to Film Style/Technique class as a sprawling Koranic take on Hollywood Biblical spectacle that also never once displays its central character on screen or in voice.
As I understand it, the Islamic restriction on images of Muhammad is not something that's found in the Koran itself. Rather it came into acceptance over time as generations of Islamic scholars established the codes and laws of Muslim society, after the fact of Muhammad's revelations. A title card at the outset of The Message explains that the decision not to show Muhammad on screen or in voice was intended to keep the focus on the spirituality of his message, rather than his actual, physical existence. The script actually underscores repeatedly that Muhammad was not divine, as Christian's believe Jesus was, but only a man delivering the message of God.
Muhammad's presence/absence in either film would be a fascinating thing for cinema scholars to explore in class as leaping off points for discussions about cinematic technique. I'm most interested, however, in the use of POV shots in The Message and Muhammad: The Last Prophet. The visual strategies of both films were signed off on by various Islamic councils and scholars. Without wanting to spark some kind of controversy on a subject way outside my wheelhouse, I wonder, if any of these scholars had ever taken a film class -- especially one taught by Vivian Sobchack -- would they have still given their consent. After all, if it's not okay to represent Muhammad on screen, why is it okay to represent his visual perspective? Even if you don't hold to the idea that POV shots necessary identify the audience as the character -- essentially meaning the viewer is or becomes Muhammad -- there are camera moves in both films that suggest an off screen Muhammad standing, running, turning his head etc. essentially embodying his presence on screen.
Even if you haven't seen the films (both are available on DVD) I'd love to hear what your thoughts are on the whole POV thing. And for those of you out there prepping film style and technique classes, I think The Message would be a great addition to any syllabus, as maybe it's time to give Lady in the Lake a rest.
UDPATE: Here's a clip from The Message that shows a few good examples of Muhammad's off-screen presence.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Man on Wire
I saw Man on Wire for the Archive last Thursday. It'll play at the end of June during the Los Angeles Film Festival before opening theatrically and it's worth a look - but don't worry about coming in late. The documentary about French high-wire walker and street performer Phillipe Petit walks a winding, convoluted path in getting to the moment we spend the whole film waiting for: Seeing Petit step out on to the thin wound metal cable that he and a misfit team of accomplices strung between the two towers of the World Trade Center in 1974. If Petit himself ever took such a rambling route in his previous headline grabbing, daredevil high wire stunts -- walking between the two bell towers of Notre Dame or the stanchions of Sydney Harbor Bridge -- his career would have been a short one. Man on Wire's director James Marsh, however, weaves backwards and forwards through Petite's life and his long nurtured plan to pull off what he and his team called "le coup," firstly in the hopes of building suspense and secondly, perhaps, to hide the fact that he's padded the story out with a lot of superfluous details and story lines to achieve a feature-length of 90 min. While Marsh succeeds in generating considerable anticipation by giving the exuberant, expressive Petit ample time to expound in retrospect on his life's passions and obsessions, much of it is squandered on a seemingly endless and random ordering of facts and events, particularly in the telling of their actual execution of the WTC plan. Just when you think you've had enough, however, Petit steps out on the wire ...
Thankfully Marsh avoids deploying any talking head sociologists, cultural critics or urban theorists to explain to us what Petit's, by turns, fantastical and suicidal, act means as art, spectacle or psychological aberration. The images, both still and moving, of Petit making his way across the wire suspended over 1300 feet above Manhattan, defy description. The act itself stands almost beyond words. It is a simply spellbinding in its terrifying beauty, even from a distance of 30 plus years. Not even Petit's own explanation of his quixotic intentions will suffice. Indeed, watching the images of Petit making multiple returns, back and forth across the wire, toying with the nonplussed New York City cops who converged on the rooftop within minutes, I came back to not to Petit's words but to something one of his Parisian cohorts said reflecting on the first time he set sight on the Empire State Building after arriving in Manhattan to execute the plan. Before he even laid eyes on the WTC, the Empire State Building drove home the immense scale of Manhattan's looming skyline as something out of proportion to human experience, even if the building of it was not beyond human will. If anything, Petit's performance was a triumph of the human over the sprawling, towering environments we humans increasingly live in. In a single act, he brought the alienating incomprehensibility of the World Trade Center's scale back down to human size and reaffirmed our place in the places we build for ourselves. (Petit himself, however, is brought crashing back to earth at the film's when he reveals that he capped off his soaring spiritual feat with a carnal night of anonymous sex with an eager NY fan while his long-time girlfriend waited back at the hotel.) That the outsized built environments of the modern megalopolis have now found their equivalent in the digital networks we swim in everyday makes Petit's act is as relevant now as it was then -- only one is left dismayed wondering what the digital equivalent of high wire walking would be and how long do we have to wait for some beautiful digital dreamer to pull it off.
Of course, one can't watch or think about Man on Wire without reflecting on 9-11 as well. Marsh avoids mention or reference to the event, by and large it seems, because it goes without saying: The terrorist attacks were Petit's human triumph rewritten as human tragedy. The thin line between creative and destructive act is made implicit in the film's reenactment of Petit and his crew's crew careful "plotting" and evasion of WTC security as they make their way to the roofs of both towers under cover of darkness. The urban artist and the terrorist are compelled to make their opposed statements on the same high-profile public site. They work on the same civic canvas. Beyond such comparisons, the destruction of the towers underscores the ephemerality of Petit's act, a performance that depended for its longevity in human memory, in part, on the then seemingly permanent monumentality of the WTC for its half life. Then again, one wonders if this doc would hold half the fascination it does if the towers were still standing. Now both Petit's performance and the Towers seem like the stuff of dreams.
UPDATE: Man on Wire also touched on one of my preeminent frustrations with docs about artists or performers. While celebrating Petit's vision and talents throughout, the film never once delves into the material facts of his existence, that is, how in the hell did this guy pay his bills? Yes, he's a street performer and the archival footage of his young life in Paris suggests his fairly modest living conditions at the time, but the source of his income, whether meager or not, is never touched upon at all. He obviously had the resources to fly back and forth to New York while planning his stunt, but where did they come from? Is busking in Paris really that lucrative? While a lot of fiction films about painters or poets or what have you tend to draw a lot of drama from the material struggles of their subjects as they endeavor to survive while producing their art, documentaries about artists past and present tend to leave out that side of the equation, as if guys like Petit exist entirely in an immaterial world of inspiration and creativity, unconnected and unaffected to the practical matters of paying the rent or buying food -- let alone numerous round trip tickets between New York and Paris. I always wonder what the reasoning is behind this kind of omission. Was Petit independently wealthy or something and did Marsh feel that detracted from his rebellious, free spirited pursuit of his dreams? Maybe it would and maybe it wouldn't, but failing to acknowledge the fact that artists have to eat too, always raises my suspicions. It's the Marxist in me I guess.
Friday, May 2, 2008
I Know Why The Caged Filmmaker Sings ...
Doing some reading before tonight's much anticipated Nathaniel Dorsky show at the Archive I came across this interview with Dorsky from Dec 2006. I thought this was amusing:
So what's the bad mating call equivalent of criticism?
UPDATE: Because I know we all got into this to get laid, right?
SFBG I'd never thought of filmmaking as a mating call, but you're right.
ND Many people don't understand that, and they try to win their mate by making horrible and aggressive conceptually based films. No one is drawn to them, and then they get even more conceptual and aggressive. It can be a downward spiral.
So what's the bad mating call equivalent of criticism?
UPDATE: Because I know we all got into this to get laid, right?
Monday, March 17, 2008
This Really Wasn't Intended as Another Scott Foundas Rant...
... but it probably is going to sound like one.
In his latest cover story, Foundas puffs up Michael Haneke, the Austrain director who has made much of his work in France. Foundas considers Haneke's remake of his own Funny Games to be a "consciousness-altering" masterwork because it critiques the complicity of audiences in our cultural desensitization to violence in media and society.
That rattling sound you hear is me rolling my eyes. I've appreciated if not necessarily enjoyed the Haneke films I've seen (including the original Funny Games but they're not consciousness-altering. And Haneke is certainly not the only director to have implicated the audience in the proliferation of violence in cinema and society: Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers, Remy Belvaux's Man Bites Dog, Mary Harron's American Psycho and even Sidney Lumet's Network and Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange spring to mind. One can even see Eli Roth's films as muddled analyses of our enjoyment of watching violence inflicted on others. For that matter, Pasolini's Salo does Haneke one better by indicting both the audience and the director -- as the sidebar that accompanies Foundas's piece points out, Haneke relies on his audience's taste for the ultraviolence as much as he critiques it.
In other words, Foundas seems awfully exercised about a director whose main thematic interests have been explored by other directors for many years. Haneke is a director of no mean talent but in my estimation he's not the trenchant social critic Foundas's latest mash note would indicate.
What initially spurred me to write this post, however, was the cover copy -- Michael Haneke is our mirror and if we don't like what we see, it's not his fault. This is a cliche, of course, but that's not what piqued my interest. Rather, I'd like to know why the mirror is always assumed to reveal what is ugliest about a society? Why do we never have a mirror that is held up to reveal what is good or beautiful about us? I don't write this as an irritated American who is tired of seeing our Wonderful Freedom and Way of Life denigrated. This is more a conceptual question. The mirror has obvious connections to narcissism -- it allows us to gaze upon our beauty and to double ourselves in reality. But the artistic mirror (or at least the art-critic mirror), the one that is said to show us who we really are, denies the pleasure of the gaze. By implication, the recognition of one's beauty would never be more than a narcissistic and thus false perception while the recognition of ugliness would always be the healthy and true perception. To borrow the style of Zizek's chapter titles in Enjoy Your Symptom, why does the mirror always show us as ugly?
In his latest cover story, Foundas puffs up Michael Haneke, the Austrain director who has made much of his work in France. Foundas considers Haneke's remake of his own Funny Games to be a "consciousness-altering" masterwork because it critiques the complicity of audiences in our cultural desensitization to violence in media and society.
That rattling sound you hear is me rolling my eyes. I've appreciated if not necessarily enjoyed the Haneke films I've seen (including the original Funny Games but they're not consciousness-altering. And Haneke is certainly not the only director to have implicated the audience in the proliferation of violence in cinema and society: Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers, Remy Belvaux's Man Bites Dog, Mary Harron's American Psycho and even Sidney Lumet's Network and Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange spring to mind. One can even see Eli Roth's films as muddled analyses of our enjoyment of watching violence inflicted on others. For that matter, Pasolini's Salo does Haneke one better by indicting both the audience and the director -- as the sidebar that accompanies Foundas's piece points out, Haneke relies on his audience's taste for the ultraviolence as much as he critiques it.
In other words, Foundas seems awfully exercised about a director whose main thematic interests have been explored by other directors for many years. Haneke is a director of no mean talent but in my estimation he's not the trenchant social critic Foundas's latest mash note would indicate.
What initially spurred me to write this post, however, was the cover copy -- Michael Haneke is our mirror and if we don't like what we see, it's not his fault. This is a cliche, of course, but that's not what piqued my interest. Rather, I'd like to know why the mirror is always assumed to reveal what is ugliest about a society? Why do we never have a mirror that is held up to reveal what is good or beautiful about us? I don't write this as an irritated American who is tired of seeing our Wonderful Freedom and Way of Life denigrated. This is more a conceptual question. The mirror has obvious connections to narcissism -- it allows us to gaze upon our beauty and to double ourselves in reality. But the artistic mirror (or at least the art-critic mirror), the one that is said to show us who we really are, denies the pleasure of the gaze. By implication, the recognition of one's beauty would never be more than a narcissistic and thus false perception while the recognition of ugliness would always be the healthy and true perception. To borrow the style of Zizek's chapter titles in Enjoy Your Symptom, why does the mirror always show us as ugly?
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Wow, only 105 minutes until
the first surprise (to me) at least -- Marion Cotillard. I didn't think her performance was much more than a damned good impression of Edith Piaf, but this wouldn't be the first time the Academy voters gave one of its top awards to a glorified Rich Little (see: Jamie Foxx). On the other hand, hers was the flashiest of the five nominees, and Julie Christie's role was more of a supporting turn.
This show is murder. I am disheartened. I need more wine.
This show is murder. I am disheartened. I need more wine.
Lori said this
to the sound people who said they couldn't remember who they wanted to thank:
"Then get off the stage."
"Then get off the stage."
Jessica Alba
looks like an eggplant with a fringe on top. I know she's pregnant, but purple isn't a good color for her.
This is one dull awards show
At this point, I seem to think I enjoyed last year's show better. Or maybe I haven't had as much wine this year.
Ruby Dee was damn good in American Gangster.
I'm a bit surprised that Tilda Swinton won. Lori says she's not, but is disappointed that we have to look at that ugly ass, shapeless frock-like thing she's wearing.
Ruby Dee was damn good in American Gangster.
I'm a bit surprised that Tilda Swinton won. Lori says she's not, but is disappointed that we have to look at that ugly ass, shapeless frock-like thing she's wearing.
Jennifer Hudson looks like a marshmallow
and she appears to be reading her introduction phonetically.
It's also 45 minutes into the presentation and they are finally getting around to an award the majority of us care about.
Lori hopes that Tom Wilkinson brought his daughter with him.
It's also 45 minutes into the presentation and they are finally getting around to an award the majority of us care about.
Lori hopes that Tom Wilkinson brought his daughter with him.
Ratatouille?
Ratapoopee is more like it. I watched Ratatouille on a recent flight and was decidedly underwhelmed. I haven't seen Persepolis yet, but it has to be better than the latest dazzling bit of computer animation.
Why are they opening with two technical awards and the animation award? This ceremony seems to have no coherence, as though someone is backstage randomly pulling envelopes out of a barrel. "Best sound mixing! You're up next!"
Why are they opening with two technical awards and the animation award? This ceremony seems to have no coherence, as though someone is backstage randomly pulling envelopes out of a barrel. "Best sound mixing! You're up next!"
THEY'RE OPENING WITH COSTUME DESIGN!?!?!?!?!
I'm riveted.
For the record, the costumes were one of the few award-worthy aspects of Elizabeth: The Golden Age.
For the record, the costumes were one of the few award-worthy aspects of Elizabeth: The Golden Age.
Make-up sex?!?!?!?
That CGI opening was horrid; why introduce the Oscars with images from films that never won -- hell, were even nominated -- Oscars. The freakin' Roland Emmerich Godzilla was in there, for chrissake!
Although he's delivering some good lines, Stewart's week of prep time is painfully clear. The line about black presidents and asteroids was great, though.
Although he's delivering some good lines, Stewart's week of prep time is painfully clear. The line about black presidents and asteroids was great, though.
Thoughts on the runway
Did John Travolta paint the top of his head? And dress his wife in a pumpkin?
Has Marion Cotillard understood any more than half of the questions of her?
What sin has the human race committed that has allowed the fruit of Billy Ray Cyrus's loins to get an interview at the Oscars?
Is anyone classier than Helen Mirren? Or even as classy?
Who the hell thought it was a good idea to interview people who make their own sweatshirts?
Has Marion Cotillard understood any more than half of the questions of her?
What sin has the human race committed that has allowed the fruit of Billy Ray Cyrus's loins to get an interview at the Oscars?
Is anyone classier than Helen Mirren? Or even as classy?
Who the hell thought it was a good idea to interview people who make their own sweatshirts?
Before the blogging begins....
I am going to fight my way through the bad cold and try to live blog these Oscars. But here are my predictions for the big winnahs:
BEST PICTURE: No Country for Old Men; runner-up: Juno
BEST ACTOR, FEMALE: Julie Christie, Away from Her; runner-up: Ellen Page, Juno
BEST ACTOR, MALE: Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood; runner-up: if he doesn't win, a fix is in.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR, MALE: Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men; runner-up: if he doesn't win, he and Day-Lewis should file suit.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR, FEMALE: Cate Blanchett, I'm Not There; runner-up: Saorise Ronan, Atonement
BEST PICTURE: No Country for Old Men; runner-up: Juno
BEST ACTOR, FEMALE: Julie Christie, Away from Her; runner-up: Ellen Page, Juno
BEST ACTOR, MALE: Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood; runner-up: if he doesn't win, a fix is in.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR, MALE: Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men; runner-up: if he doesn't win, he and Day-Lewis should file suit.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR, FEMALE: Cate Blanchett, I'm Not There; runner-up: Saorise Ronan, Atonement
Monday, February 18, 2008
4 out of 5
The Oscars are less than a week away, and Lori and I have ventured out to see four of the five Best Picture nominees. Juno interests neither one of us so if we do see it, we'll wait to Netflix it. The following are my thoughts about the four we have seen, in the order in which I liked them. Lori would flip flop the bottom two. If you haven't seen them, be wary of some spoilers.
1. There Will Be Blood
The historian in me loves Anderson's drama about the battle between America's two great driving forces, gloriously self-absorbed capitalism and putatively self-denying Protestantism. Daniel Plainview's drive to make himself a multi-millionaire, his success in raising himself up his own bootstraps from a past that he effectively refuses to admit exists, the hate that informs his competitiveness corroding into simple misanthropy, his need to beat his competitors ultimately becoming the need to physically beat his competitor for the American soul.... Many critics have likened the film to Citizen Kane, but an as apt comparison is Chinatown; both are about the corruption at the heart of California's (and by extension the nation's) growth into an economic superpower.
The film is full of so many beautiful moments: Plainview's fall into his mineshaft (a hint of his eventual fall into despairing misanthropy?), his adoption of the baby after his employee dies, his protection of Mary, his baptism. The two things that stand out to me are his apparent real concern for children -- he obviously cares deeply for H.W. (at least until the adult H.W. sets out on his own) and for Mary, to whom he promises to never let her father beat her again (which he says in front of her father), and whom he holds after his baptism -- and the baptism, where he confesses the one sin he feels, that of sending H.W. away. When Paul Sunday begins to strike him, Plainview looks at him with this face full of relief and rage that makes clear -- puts on plain view -- the hatred he harbors, usually for others but now, we recognize, for himself as well. Daniel Day Lewis's performance is invigorating, even when he dances about drinking metaphorical milkshakes at the end. With this and Gangs of New York (a far inferior film), Day Lewis positions himself as perhaps cinema's prime conduit of the wrongs that fuel the American spirit.
That said, I don't think the film is perfect, or even Anderson's best film. Paul Dano makes for a very uncharismatic preacher and nemesis for Plainview; that the oilman would win out was never in doubt, and Sunday's transformation into a successful if overextended radio preacher was more a necessary plot development than a natural progression of the character. In short, Dano is just to emo to pull off this character. And Anderson strikes me as far too urban a filmmaker to feel completely comfortable in rural California at the turn of the 20th century. His best film in my mind, Magnolia, is a beautiful evocation of what makes Los Angeles such a frighteningly beautiful city -- the human disconnect, the pain, the longing that the city thrives on also offers true moments of unexpected human connection (the scene with "Wise Up" chokes me up every time). But Blood is certainly the best of the major films released this year, even though my guess is it will lose to the next film on this list.
2. No Country for Old Men
As with Blood, I remain a little underwhelmed by this one. I've seen it twice, and the second viewing made its themes a little clearer. But the film still seems disjointed to me, the proverbial attempt to have one's cake and eat it too. Much of the film's pleasure comes from Javier Bardem's performance as the insanely fucking scary Chigurh and Chigurh's facility with the ultraviolence. Thematically, the film is about Ed Tom Bell, the ever-one-step-behind sheriff who, when confronted with ultraviolence, retreats to his ranch with his wife. Given that Ed Tom is behind the times, it makes sense for him to be behind on this particular case as well. But it also made for a somewhat unsatisfying film for me. Because Bell's narration disappears after the beginning of the film, his subsequent appearances seemed more like comic relief to me: Much of the time, he's sitting at a diner table or a desk, ruminating on how unbelievable all of this violence is. But because the film spends most of its time following Llewelyn as he experiences the violence and Chigurh as he causes it, Ed Tom's shocked awe seems at best naive (perhaps the point that Ellis makes at the end of the film). And, when he and the El Paso sheriff discuss Llewelyn's death, their awe seems almost a condescension on the directors' parts. Mutterings about green hair and a lack of manners being "signs and wonders" of a coming apocalypse are comical in the context of Chigurh's air-gun and murderous ethical system.
In other words, I think the film is less than the sum of its parts, a film that is far better made than it is. As noted, Bardem is truly terrifying as Chigurh; I almost pleaded with him not to kill the poor gas station owner. I was saddened and comforted by Tommy Lee Jones's description of his dream at film's end. The shootout between Chigurh and Llewlyn in the hotel is impressively staged. The scene between Chigurh and Carla Jean, where she refuses to play by his rules, startled me a bit. But for all of this, I have to say I appreciated the film more than I liked it. For the first time, I feel that the Coens' formalist virtuosity has overwhelmed the film and made it a lot of sound and fury that signifies far less than it should.
3. Atonement
This film reminded me somewhat of Away from Her. Both at first seem to be about someone else -- Away from Her at first suggests it will be a character study of Fiona as she descends into dementia, and Atonement appears to be about the almost heroic love of Cecilia and Robbie. But each film is actually about another character's need to preserve a constructed memory of a happier, unifying past. Gordon cheated on Fiona (perhaps in a serial fashion), and Briony destroyed any hope of union between Cecilia and Robbie. But as actual memory fades -- in both Fiona and the aging Briony -- Gordon and Briony work to preserve the construct. Gordon's decision to let Fiona go, to give her what she needs, allows him to remember their relationship as devoted and selfless. Briony, by refashioning history into an epic love story (it reunites two ill-fated lovers on the backdrop of England temporarily dropping class barriers to unite as a nation in the early days of World War I), ironically transforms herself into the pair's uniter, not their divider.
This isn't a great film, but it is an interesting one methinks. Keira Knightley is all sorts of wrong for Cecilia (for one thing, in any of her love scenes I worry that she will stab her co-star with her chin), but I find Briony as a child to be a heartbreaking character, someone so sure of herself but scared of the world that her decision to betray Cecilia and Robbie made perfect sense. In a far more effective way than in No Country, the film harmonizes the difference in its narrative and thematic focus, as the narrative is never more than Briony's textual expression of those themes. This is why the film's final images, of Cecilia and Robbie at the seaside cottage, don't bother me. They're nothing more than the postcard Robbie carried with him, the fixed bit of happiness that Briony has created for herself and which she hopes to share with the nation and world at large.
I also found interesting the argument that a hopeful falsehood might be more important -- more truthful -- than the dismal reality. In other words, the truth can be adjusted. Which brings us to...
4. Michael Clayton
I know most everyone liked this movie, and I apologize in advance if this seems overly harsh, but I think this is one of the stupidest movies in a long while. It's not so much a conspiracy thriller as it is a character study in the mantle of a conspiracy thriller. But would it have been too much to ask to not have the conspiracy mantle riddled so full of holes? Michael Clayton is never presented as the incredibly effective fixer that he has the reputation as being -- we have several people talk about how effective he is, but doesn't one of the truisms of storytelling state that one should show, not tell? All we see him do is muff the handling of Arthur and piss off Karen enough that she hires hitmen.
The hitmen are shown to be professional and discreet, yet pick the one assassination method (car bomb) that is sure to draw a criminal investigation. Clayton's "death" is widely reported as fact when no body was found in the car (though his watch and wallet were; it would be an odd bomb that would completely obliterate the human body yet leave the wallet and watch unscathed enough to be identifiable). I've read elsewhere that the car bomb was an acceptable method because of Clayton's mob debts. On the one hand, Lori didn't realize he was in debt to the mob; on the other, the mob/bar subplot has little relevance to the story other than to make the car bomb slightly more plausible and give him a ne'er-do-well brother to pick him up. Finally, he effectively entraps Karen at the end of the film by demanding that she pay him off for things that she never quite admits to.
Although I was surprised that he's presented as a caring father, Clayton is badly written in general. I thought his surprise to learn that UNorth was actually a bad company was a doltish attempt to make him seem humane and above the company's fray (he specializes in the company's dirty work!). In fact, the moment I knew the film was going to be boody was when he has the bucolic moment after being chastised by the hit-and-run client. I'm so angry! My life is meaningless and I hate my job! I think I'll drive aimlessly around the Westchester backroads! Oh, look! Horsies!
So, no, I won't be rooting for Michael Clayton to win anything this Sunday. But since I had so much fun doing it last year, I'm going to down a bottle of wine and live blog the ceremony again this year.
Oh, and Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters was robbed.
1. There Will Be Blood
The historian in me loves Anderson's drama about the battle between America's two great driving forces, gloriously self-absorbed capitalism and putatively self-denying Protestantism. Daniel Plainview's drive to make himself a multi-millionaire, his success in raising himself up his own bootstraps from a past that he effectively refuses to admit exists, the hate that informs his competitiveness corroding into simple misanthropy, his need to beat his competitors ultimately becoming the need to physically beat his competitor for the American soul.... Many critics have likened the film to Citizen Kane, but an as apt comparison is Chinatown; both are about the corruption at the heart of California's (and by extension the nation's) growth into an economic superpower.
The film is full of so many beautiful moments: Plainview's fall into his mineshaft (a hint of his eventual fall into despairing misanthropy?), his adoption of the baby after his employee dies, his protection of Mary, his baptism. The two things that stand out to me are his apparent real concern for children -- he obviously cares deeply for H.W. (at least until the adult H.W. sets out on his own) and for Mary, to whom he promises to never let her father beat her again (which he says in front of her father), and whom he holds after his baptism -- and the baptism, where he confesses the one sin he feels, that of sending H.W. away. When Paul Sunday begins to strike him, Plainview looks at him with this face full of relief and rage that makes clear -- puts on plain view -- the hatred he harbors, usually for others but now, we recognize, for himself as well. Daniel Day Lewis's performance is invigorating, even when he dances about drinking metaphorical milkshakes at the end. With this and Gangs of New York (a far inferior film), Day Lewis positions himself as perhaps cinema's prime conduit of the wrongs that fuel the American spirit.
That said, I don't think the film is perfect, or even Anderson's best film. Paul Dano makes for a very uncharismatic preacher and nemesis for Plainview; that the oilman would win out was never in doubt, and Sunday's transformation into a successful if overextended radio preacher was more a necessary plot development than a natural progression of the character. In short, Dano is just to emo to pull off this character. And Anderson strikes me as far too urban a filmmaker to feel completely comfortable in rural California at the turn of the 20th century. His best film in my mind, Magnolia, is a beautiful evocation of what makes Los Angeles such a frighteningly beautiful city -- the human disconnect, the pain, the longing that the city thrives on also offers true moments of unexpected human connection (the scene with "Wise Up" chokes me up every time). But Blood is certainly the best of the major films released this year, even though my guess is it will lose to the next film on this list.
2. No Country for Old Men
As with Blood, I remain a little underwhelmed by this one. I've seen it twice, and the second viewing made its themes a little clearer. But the film still seems disjointed to me, the proverbial attempt to have one's cake and eat it too. Much of the film's pleasure comes from Javier Bardem's performance as the insanely fucking scary Chigurh and Chigurh's facility with the ultraviolence. Thematically, the film is about Ed Tom Bell, the ever-one-step-behind sheriff who, when confronted with ultraviolence, retreats to his ranch with his wife. Given that Ed Tom is behind the times, it makes sense for him to be behind on this particular case as well. But it also made for a somewhat unsatisfying film for me. Because Bell's narration disappears after the beginning of the film, his subsequent appearances seemed more like comic relief to me: Much of the time, he's sitting at a diner table or a desk, ruminating on how unbelievable all of this violence is. But because the film spends most of its time following Llewelyn as he experiences the violence and Chigurh as he causes it, Ed Tom's shocked awe seems at best naive (perhaps the point that Ellis makes at the end of the film). And, when he and the El Paso sheriff discuss Llewelyn's death, their awe seems almost a condescension on the directors' parts. Mutterings about green hair and a lack of manners being "signs and wonders" of a coming apocalypse are comical in the context of Chigurh's air-gun and murderous ethical system.
In other words, I think the film is less than the sum of its parts, a film that is far better made than it is. As noted, Bardem is truly terrifying as Chigurh; I almost pleaded with him not to kill the poor gas station owner. I was saddened and comforted by Tommy Lee Jones's description of his dream at film's end. The shootout between Chigurh and Llewlyn in the hotel is impressively staged. The scene between Chigurh and Carla Jean, where she refuses to play by his rules, startled me a bit. But for all of this, I have to say I appreciated the film more than I liked it. For the first time, I feel that the Coens' formalist virtuosity has overwhelmed the film and made it a lot of sound and fury that signifies far less than it should.
3. Atonement
This film reminded me somewhat of Away from Her. Both at first seem to be about someone else -- Away from Her at first suggests it will be a character study of Fiona as she descends into dementia, and Atonement appears to be about the almost heroic love of Cecilia and Robbie. But each film is actually about another character's need to preserve a constructed memory of a happier, unifying past. Gordon cheated on Fiona (perhaps in a serial fashion), and Briony destroyed any hope of union between Cecilia and Robbie. But as actual memory fades -- in both Fiona and the aging Briony -- Gordon and Briony work to preserve the construct. Gordon's decision to let Fiona go, to give her what she needs, allows him to remember their relationship as devoted and selfless. Briony, by refashioning history into an epic love story (it reunites two ill-fated lovers on the backdrop of England temporarily dropping class barriers to unite as a nation in the early days of World War I), ironically transforms herself into the pair's uniter, not their divider.
This isn't a great film, but it is an interesting one methinks. Keira Knightley is all sorts of wrong for Cecilia (for one thing, in any of her love scenes I worry that she will stab her co-star with her chin), but I find Briony as a child to be a heartbreaking character, someone so sure of herself but scared of the world that her decision to betray Cecilia and Robbie made perfect sense. In a far more effective way than in No Country, the film harmonizes the difference in its narrative and thematic focus, as the narrative is never more than Briony's textual expression of those themes. This is why the film's final images, of Cecilia and Robbie at the seaside cottage, don't bother me. They're nothing more than the postcard Robbie carried with him, the fixed bit of happiness that Briony has created for herself and which she hopes to share with the nation and world at large.
I also found interesting the argument that a hopeful falsehood might be more important -- more truthful -- than the dismal reality. In other words, the truth can be adjusted. Which brings us to...
4. Michael Clayton
I know most everyone liked this movie, and I apologize in advance if this seems overly harsh, but I think this is one of the stupidest movies in a long while. It's not so much a conspiracy thriller as it is a character study in the mantle of a conspiracy thriller. But would it have been too much to ask to not have the conspiracy mantle riddled so full of holes? Michael Clayton is never presented as the incredibly effective fixer that he has the reputation as being -- we have several people talk about how effective he is, but doesn't one of the truisms of storytelling state that one should show, not tell? All we see him do is muff the handling of Arthur and piss off Karen enough that she hires hitmen.
The hitmen are shown to be professional and discreet, yet pick the one assassination method (car bomb) that is sure to draw a criminal investigation. Clayton's "death" is widely reported as fact when no body was found in the car (though his watch and wallet were; it would be an odd bomb that would completely obliterate the human body yet leave the wallet and watch unscathed enough to be identifiable). I've read elsewhere that the car bomb was an acceptable method because of Clayton's mob debts. On the one hand, Lori didn't realize he was in debt to the mob; on the other, the mob/bar subplot has little relevance to the story other than to make the car bomb slightly more plausible and give him a ne'er-do-well brother to pick him up. Finally, he effectively entraps Karen at the end of the film by demanding that she pay him off for things that she never quite admits to.
Although I was surprised that he's presented as a caring father, Clayton is badly written in general. I thought his surprise to learn that UNorth was actually a bad company was a doltish attempt to make him seem humane and above the company's fray (he specializes in the company's dirty work!). In fact, the moment I knew the film was going to be boody was when he has the bucolic moment after being chastised by the hit-and-run client. I'm so angry! My life is meaningless and I hate my job! I think I'll drive aimlessly around the Westchester backroads! Oh, look! Horsies!
So, no, I won't be rooting for Michael Clayton to win anything this Sunday. But since I had so much fun doing it last year, I'm going to down a bottle of wine and live blog the ceremony again this year.
Oh, and Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters was robbed.
Monday, January 7, 2008
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
