By Keith Uhlich
Changeling opens—as did George Romero’s Land of the Dead—with a semi-ironic use of an old-time Universal Studios logo, hearkening back to lionized days of old from a present-tense vantage point. The joke of it is that the sentiment, in both cases, is a pose. Like Romero with Land, Changeling director Clint Eastwood is as lost with where movies came from as with where they are—his film (based on the late-20s/early-30s era true story of Los Angeles-residing mother/martyr figure Christine Collins) is a rootless jumble of tones and plots, a desiccated nowhereland, like something waiting to be feasted on by Stephen King’s ravenous Langoliers.
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To read the rest of the review at UnderGroundOnline (UGO), click here.
Monday, October 06, 2008
NYFF 46 (2008): Changeling
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3 comments:
I'm not sure the movie is quite as awful as that - but you're right that it is shameless Oscar bait (that will most likely succeed). I suppose the movie kept my attention the same way a HBO movie (but not a HBOseries like The Wire) might. But it's certainly not worthy to be the NYFF Centerpiece (or maybe it is - given the lamentable star-fucking tendency of late of the NYFF to feature red carpet hype rather truly provocative films). It was especially disappointing to come after wonderful Saturday screenings of Lola Montes and Ashes of Time Redux - both of which served as primers on how ideal cinema should work. My biggest problem with the Changeling is how black and white/cut and dry it was - despite what the NYFF write up said about exploring shades of gray and ambiguity. Was there any ambiguity in the depiction of corruption and evil? The LAPD were just a bunch of jerks who didn't question authority - same with the gorgons who worked at the psycho ward. Compared to the true shades of gray that both Hunger and Gomorra for example expressed - this was disappointingly cartoonish. I don't really blame Angelina Jolie - there wasn't anything else for her to play - and as you noted, it was consistent with the rest of the movie. I'm not sure if Eastwood had conflicted feelings about the killer's hanging - why else did he drag out the encounters? It was like a botched version of the end of High and Low - except I wasn't left with any moral clarity or true sense of tragedy.
A scathing review that I could not stop reading, as it was so well-written. Eastwood has increasingly become inclined to wring that last bit of dramatic "power" so many critics effusively praise at the expense of any subtext. It sounds like Changeling continues this unfortunate trend. And the point that Jolie's character seems to be a possibly Crawford-inspired archetype, making this emphatically a "women's picture" set at the time so many were released, seems to have great merit considering the trailer, though naturally I'll reserve judgment until I have seen the film.
I disagree completely about the critic, about it just being a down right awful film. I think the complete opposite. Now I haven't seen it and when I see I will make my final assessment. I am tired of these pointless movies that are getting nominated. I think the thing that brings this film together for me is Angelina; she is powerful and got robed for her performance in A Mighty Heart. I can't wait for this movie, the women gives me chills when she paints her master piece. I hope that she does get nominated.
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