By N.P. Thompson
[I Served the King of England is now playing in New York and Los Angeles.]
There are two things that I especially cannot stand in movies: one of them consists of having men and women establish their sexual friskiness by leaping fully-clothed into a fountain; the other involves smashing every kitchen plate within reach to express bottled-up inner rage. I Served the King of England, Czech filmmaker Jiří Menzel’s return to the cinema after fifteen years of directing theatre, drags both of my pet peeves to the forefront, and then some.
The setting is Europe in the early 1930s; we all know where the time and place are headed, and so we wait and wait, through the supposedly merry frolics of an impish, mischievous, revoltingly amoral clown named Jan Dítě (Ivan Barnev, whose nimble physicality evokes Nureyev, but whose neutered persona and silent movie techniques are straight out of Chaplin). We wait for the Nazis to arrive and put an end to such quirky summer idylls as call girls and their rich, elderly johns pelting one another with cream puffs, squealing with joy, as a rigid, immobile attendant holds aloft a silver tray piled high with an endless supply of pastries for the combatants to grab. Menzel scores this outdoor romp to a jaunty, syncopated piano, much as the fountain leap, with the suits chasing the diaphanous frocks after one of the latter dabs a tablespoon of whipped cream on the nose of one of the former, played out to the strains of tuba and banjo on the soundtrack. The instrumentation reinforces that we are having such a wonderful time—or are we?
Even without our foreknowledge of the Nazis’ rise to power, the Holocaust, the Second World War, there’s something curdled from the get-go about Menzel’s adaptation of Bohumil Hrabal’s 1974 novel. Like the atrocious The Lives of Others, I Served the King of England sentimentalizes evil; furthermore, Menzel’s movie so neutrally presents the central character’s complicity in evil—that is to say, the movie cultivates a tone of wide-eyed, nostalgic innocence for the most questionable acts—that I, without virtue of having read Hrabal’s book, cannot quite tell what Menzel’s aiming for. In one sequence (the movie’s saddest and most outrageous), the director crosscuts between Jan’s failed attempts to masturbate into a hospital specimen tube (while listening to the Führer give a speech on the radio) and the scene that’s unfurling outside the clinic. A cluster of rifle-toting German soldiers in occupied Prague stand opposite a young man in his late teens or early twenties, dressed up in suit and tie. Adjacent to them, there’s a small tent out from which peaks a fresh, wholesome face; a young man peers through the flap, then pops out, and then another and another, so many that one wonders how a tent of such modest size could have held them all, these cleanly scrubbed flowers of Czech youth in their Sunday best. Menzel has some taste—he doesn’t show the actual gunning down of these local boys by the Nazi mob, nor are there sound effects of the killings. He makes the point with refreshing obliqueness. Yet what must the director have had in mind by juxtaposing this horror with his clown-hero’s inability to jack off? Could this be Menzel’s rebuttal to Roberto Benigni’s Life is Beautiful? The Czech auteur appears to tell us that, in wartime, we cannot have it both ways; one can be a victim or one can be a pawn, but that resourcefulness of any kind is out.
Then again, given the emphasis on procreation, on the engineering of an Aryan super-race, in the movie’s second half (Jan marries a devout Nazi girl who can’t get it on unless her bed faces a framed portrait of Hitler—it’s the Führer she’s responding to as her fair-haired husband mechanically screws), I realize it’s the impotence of the German fixation on “pure blood” that Menzel’s underlining, that the rigged-up rigors of their breeding experiments may not produce anyone like the Prague youths who were so casually squandered.
For most of the film’s 120-minute length, however, there’s the long “carefree,” slapstick build-up toward the inevitable, and all that, despite the handsome production values and rapturously good editing by Jiří Brožek, proves truly insufferable.
The movie begins with a whirling, waltz-like orchestral score, flourishy, bouncy, cuckoo clock music filled with bassoons and whistles and an escalating rhythmic attack reminiscent, in its circularity, of marching around and around the aisles of a toy factory, à la the boom and pomp trash classics of Leopold Mozart. Menzel divides the film between an older version of Jan (Oldřich Kaiser), just getting out of prison, ruefully setting up housekeeping within a dilapidated farmhouse in a fog-shrouded wood (“I rejoiced to see such devastation,” his voice-over admits) and Jan the younger (Barnev). The two physically match so well that I was never aware of watching different actors: the conceptions are seamless, so that their work appears to be a single performance, abetted by extraordinarily savvy make-up artists and wigmakers. Menzel, however, lets us in on the post-war Jan’s point-of-view, while revealing nothing of young Jan’s thoughts or even if Barnev’s dopey schnook with the carrot-blond shock of wavy hair and perennially twinkling smile of self-possession is, in fact, capable of thought. We’re meant to love him, in the midst of deeply unfunny gags, the way we might be in sympathy to Chaplin or Buster Keaton. The sepia-tinted silent comedy homage that introduces Barnev’s Jan selling hot dogs by the side of railroad tracks, then chasing the locomotive (unsuccessfully, of course) to give a customer his change, tries to tap directly into those automated wellsprings, but what a cynical joker we’re asked to consider endearing. In an ongoing, ugly commentary, Jan, whether on the street or in any of the beer halls/cafés/hotels where he works as a waiter, repeatedly tosses out coins—he throws them when no one is looking, then watches to see who scurries to nab the loose change and how fast they scavenge for it. Invariably, Jan’s pleased that rich men will grovel for these small amounts, but again, why? What’s the point, and why must it be flung at us over and over? Surely it isn’t to substantiate the clown’s moral superiority? Only a bastard would keep trotting out this same old coin trick.
In his white waiter’s uniform, making the rounds from table to table in balletic pantomime, Jan, whose eyes resemble a pair of gray marbles, doesn’t seem to be entirely there. His saucy impudence feels well rehearsed and when he gazes in a mirror at work, practicing his deranged non-expression, his cartoonish employer slaps him on the back of his head. The extremes of physical humor don’t make sense within the movie’s context. When Jan’s favorite prostitute visits the bar, she avenges Jan against his boss (or so she imagines) by idiotically pouring glass after glass of raspberry grenadine over herself, then letting the empty pints drop and shatter. It’s supposed to be a statement on control, I guess, of the sort that would register in the hearts of service industry professionals, yet walking out and down the street, all sticky and sweet, she’s in danger of being stung to death by swarming bees.
Unlike Keaton or Chaplin, Barnev’s clown gets to be a sexual conquistador, and while the movie’s blend of whimsy and erotica greatly appealed to a woman friend of mine, it struck me as insipid. I might have felt otherwise, if Jan weren’t so quick to beam at his own cleverness in bed and if the hookers and chambermaids he entertains weren’t so ostentatiously congratulating him in their delight. The ideas are good ones—he decorates their nude forms with white flower petals, with dollar bills and, yes, coins, and with (if I recall correctly) some yummy, dessert-like substance (but not before he’s stepped in chocolate-covered strawberry goop in his haste to make love on the dining room table). (Seen leaping into bed in one shot, the diminutive Barnev has, in spite of his impossible face, an impressively toned, athletic physique.)
In one of Brožek’s most skillful edits, Jan’s face radiates pleasure as a prostitute goes down on him; the scene imperceptibly begins in one bed and elides into another, the cold bed of the elder Jan who lies awake dreaming of this memory, the glow of candles providing the only source of warmth. In another sublime moment, Jan, having risen to the staff of an elaborate, Art Nouveau restaurant in Prague, listens as the maître d' (a fine, no-nonsense turn by Martin Huba) recalls that he once served the King of England. Jan swoons, and we anticipate him hitting the floor, yet as his body begins to tilt, the camera breaks into it with a smooth, gliding motion that tracks another waiter carrying a large tray. The expected pratfall (thank God) never occurs.
Menzel unfortunately compensates for this a scene or two later with one of the most protracted and contrived stagings. A waiter accidentally drops a dish in front of the patrons; he stares at the broken china and spoiled dinner for a small eternity, then goes berserk, deliberating smashing plates to smithereens, yanking cloths off the tables he proceeds to overturn, etc. Jan, naturally, replaces him. The movie, with its episodic procession of bigger and better jobs for the protagonist, becomes a kind of study (like Pierre Salvadori’s swifter and vastly more charming Priceless) in inadvertent social climbing. The opaque dandy here never sets out to advance—it simply happens through no fault of his own, just as his unlikely romance with a Nazi girl operates outside the sphere of even connect-the-dots rationality. In Menzel’s best-known work Closely Watched Trains (which I don’t care for either), the small town hick dullard at its center achieved self-actualization through losing his virginity, only to be shot dead by a sniper minutes into his voluptuous morning after. The killing was a kind of blessing: it violated the movie’s ironic cutesy-ness. There’s nothing quite like that in I Served the King of England, wherein ironies continue uninterruptedly. In the most heinous of these, Menzel returns to the image of Jan running after a moving train that’s just pulled out of the station—it’s a metaphor for the development of his consciousness, don’t you see—and that same hot dog customer from years ago is once again riding the train that Jan cannot quite catch up to. Except that this time, the businessman Jan short-changed isn’t an ordinary traveler. He’s in a cattle car en route to a concentration camp. We can’t possibly miss the neat symmetry of it, a symmetry that’s infinitely too neat.
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N.P. Thompson lives and writes in the Pacific Northwest.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Plant Smile on Face, Then Await Nazi Invasion: I Served the King of England
Links for the Day (August 31st, 2008)
1. GreenCine gathers first reactions to Abbas Kiarostami's latest, Shirin.
["From Variety: Though his name continues to pop up regularly as writer or story man on a good chunk of Iranian cinema, Abbas Kiarostami himself has not filmed anything even vaguely commercial since 2002's "Ten." The maestro has disappeared into making more abstract, experimental installations, theater pieces and films ("Five"). His latest, "Shirin," wherein 112 Iranian actresses and Juliette Binoche are shot watching a 12th-century Persian play, with the play's performance itself kept entirely offscreen, is unlikely to pack 'em in. Yet "Shirin" offers a feast for the bedazzled eye and a crash course in narrative obsession for the benumbed mind."]
2. "Letter from Patricia Patterson to John Powers": Jonathan Rosenbaum highlights a letter from Manny Farber's wife and collaborator to NPR contributor John Powers, setting a few things straight. (I'd also be remiss to not include this Rosenbaum post from a few weeks ago, which captions the wonderful picture above.)
["Manny was not a “Conservative,” a “Libertarian,” a “Republican,” an anything. In his early twenties he tried to join the Communist Party but they didn’t want him. During WWII he tried to enlist in the army but they rejected him. After inviting him to join, it took just one meeting for the New York Film Critics Circle to ask him to leave. He came home that night saying, “They fired me.” He also told me that even a therapist in Washington had “fired him” for not working hard enough. Manny was not a Republican because he never knew any. He didn’t quarrel with them because he was never around them. He quarreled with the people he knew: artists, writers, teachers, carpenters. When he saw smugness, complacency, and superiority — and often those qualities went together — then he would get going, and separate himself from them. He did not vote for Bush twice. I know, because for ten years I was the family driver, and he didn’t want to go to the polls. (His license had been taken away for reckless driving.) I don’t know about Bush once because I was in another booth. But I do know how much he revered FDR, that he voted for Jimmy Carter, for Bill Clinton twice, even had a Jesse Jackson moment, and loved Mario Cuomo and Barack Obama."]
3. At Time Out New York, Joshua Rothkopf talks with John Carpenter on occasion of his four-film BAM retrospective.
["I got into movies because of a passion for cinema. But after finishing my last film [2001’s Ghosts of Mars], I found myself as having no passion whatsoever: total burnout. By the time I got to the scoring stage, I looked like a zombie. Who knows why? I didn’t take enough of a rest. Also, the country was attacked—and I watched. My eyes were opened; I hadn’t observed anything for years. I needed to get away from the moviemaking process for a while. I’m slowly putting my feet in the water again, with a new perspective. Is there room for more movies like Escape from New York? I don’t know. You have to be subtle about that stuff, because people don’t like to be preached to. But there may be. We’ll see."]
4. "Warners and The James Dean Cult --- Part One": Tons of pictures and history at Greenbriar Picture Shows, where John McElwee explores the cult of James Dean.
["Two-thirds of James Dean’s starring work in films was yet to be released when he died on September 30, 1955. The only evidence of his stardom was East Of Eden, and the success of that led to one-sheets prepared for Rebel Without A Cause in which Dean was tagged Overnight Sensation with a future assured playing leads. Never before had a star departed so prematurely. Rudolph Valentino rose, peaked, and began his decline before death intervened and conferred immortality. Son Of The Sheik followed and became rallying point for fans bereaved. Youth snuffed out was (is and always will be) the stuff of morbid fascination for the young surviving. They’ll not be denied a last glimpse."]
5. "Some highlights of the Kawakita Series": The Film Society of Lincoln Center Kawakita series as seen by David Phelps at The Auteurs' Notebook.
["Violence at Noon (Oshima Nagisa, 1966)—A film of trashy dialogue (nearly starting with “I still remember how you tasted—that’s why I risked coming here”) and a methodical series of collapsed thematic binaries: two transgressive couples; love and hate; love and death; the mistress and the schoolmistress (mother); stable reality and fluctuating memory; society and nature; reason and instinct. All of which just adds up to the stereotypically Japanese (or Catholic) sentiment that society’s repressions make us want to lash out, which in turn makes us feel guilty, which in turn makes us want to lash in; the prototypically pornographic story has to do with a guy only capable of emotion—love and hate—when he rapes and murders or tries to kill himself, and women only capable of emotion—love and hate—when raped. But what is sado-masochism but the greatest binary of them all?"]
Quote of the Day: Arthur Godfrey
Image of the Day (click to enlarge): NOAA image of Hurricane Gustav as it moves through Cuba. Landfall predicted in the states on Monday afternoon.
Clip of the Day: How come I'm the last to know about Spaghetti Cat?
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"Links for the Day": Each morning, the House editors post a series of weblinks that we think will spark discussion. Comments encouraged. Suggestions for links are also welcome. Please send to keithuhlich@gmail.com.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Links for the Day (August 30th, 2008)
1. "Hollywood Takes on the Left": A Weekly Standard article from earlier this month. Stephen F. Hayes visits the set of An American Carol and roundtables with the cast and crew. RELATED: The Washington Times (from July) on the "Friends of Abe," which is mentioned in the Standard piece. The trailer for An American Carol is here.
["And Kelsey Grammer plays General George S. Patton, Malone's guide to American history and the mouthpiece of the film's writers. I chatted with Grammer on the set at Warner Brothers studios. "I'm glad some of the bigger guys jumped in--Dennis Hopper, Jon Voight, James Woods." Grammer has been out as a conservative for several years and has publicly mused about running for office. His name comes up periodically when California Republicans are brainstorming about candidates to take on Barbara Boxer or Dianne Feinstein for their Senate seats. It's not hard to see why. He is passionate about the issues that matter most to conservatives and extraordinarily articulate. "The accepted way to speak about America is in the voice that disrespects it. And the voice that's unacceptable is the one that loves America," he says, wearing the uniform of an Army general and sipping from a bottle of pomegranate juice. "How did we get here?" Over the course of two hours, we are joined by several others working on the movie and talk about everything from taxes--"the rich in this country are being criminalized"--to Iraq. "Petraeus has to couch every bit of optimism in some convoluted formulation to avoid the promised rush of disrespect," Grammer says. Eventually, the conversation turns from policy to punditry. Grammer, who is friends with Ann Coulter, says he quoted her once to some of the young people who work for him. "'Ann Coulter,'" he says, recalling their horror and assuming their voice. "'She's the antichrist.' And I said: 'What the f-- do you know about the antichrist? You don't even believe in Christ.'""]
2. "Production Lines": At Sit Down Man, You're a Bloody Tragedy, Owen Hatherley ruminates on the Eurostar/Somers Town team-up.
["Before Somers Town, there was the industrial film unit British Transport Films, whose excellence suggests that a film made entirely to promote the buying of train tickets can be as interesting, if not more, than someone's untrammelled creative vision. Somers Town tries to have it both ways. It certainly doesn't announce itself as A Eurostar Film or anything so vulgar. Nonetheless, it's all pretty obvious. The new terminal is contantly mentioned, and the final scenes in Paris - in glorious technicolour! - lay it on very thick. As an argument for travel, it works very well, and is a rare statement against anti-East European racism (about a third of the film is in Polish), and for a British cosmopolitanism. It's funny, sweet and very slight, and by far the most irritating thing about it is the appalling David Gray/Mike and the Mechanics-esque soundtrack, all soulful heartwarming crooning over the over-signposted 'epiphanies'. Oh for a British film that doesn't aspire to warming the sodding cockles."]
3. Busy publishing day at pigs and battleships, all by Ryan Wu: "A Cornered Animal" (on John McCain's VP pick); "Hitting the Big Shot" (on Barack Obama's DNC acceptance speech); and "Palin and the Tire Gauge" (more on Sarah Palin).
["This sort of Animal House as political campaign is probably the only aspect of McCain's operation that's close in spirit to McCain's appealing 2000 run (there's a wonderful essay by David Foster Wallace in Consider the Lobster that captures the freewheeling, insurgent vibe of the Straight Talk Express; read it and weep at what's become of Mr. Maverick). And this impulsiveness speaks to McCain himself, a man of many virtues but whose disqualifying personal flaw is that he makes decisions on the fly, often as a gut reaction to a provocation. The choice of Sarah Palin, it seems, is another product of McCain's impulsive, reactive decision-making and the thinking of a campaign that's effective in staying afloat primarily by being good at feeding the news media. McCain surely punk'd Obama for a news cycle or two, and he'll succeed in generating some excitement leading up to next week. But for what?"]
4. "No End in Sight on YouTube": Via The Chutry Experiment and Todd Holmes, news that Charles Ferguson's documentary will be available in its entirety on YouTube from September 1st through November 5th.
["One of the more devastating documentaries about the Bush administration was Charles Ferguson’s No End in Sight, which provided a scathing analysis of the Washington insiders who planned the war in Iraq, diagnosing an unbelievable amount of incompetence and hubris in a war that was sold as a “cakewalk.”"]
5. The latest Famous First from Ferdy on Films: THX-1138 by Roderick Heath.
["It’s easy to call THX 1138 an adult film, and the Star Wars films juvenile, but they’re built from the same nuts and bolts of parable. Star Wars was bent on being accessible and thrilling, where THX 1138 is allusive and mysterious. If THX 1138 is ragged in places, it’s also one of the best science fiction films of its time. Its influence is undeniable. Scifi dystopias arrived by the bushel in its wake, but the likes of Soylent Green (1971), Logan’s Run (1974), and Rollerball (1975) lacked its rigor of style and mise-en-scène, and I doubt Mad Max (1979), Blade Runner (1981), or The Matrix (1999) would have happened without its example. Lucas occasionally talks about returning to experimental projects like this. I doubt he will. And it’s a shame."]
Quote of the Day: W.S. Merwin
Image of the Day (click to enlarge): Ms. Palin, it seems, is a VPilf.
Clip of the Day: George and Laura hit it off...
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"Links for the Day": Each morning, the House editors post a series of weblinks that we think will spark discussion. Comments encouraged. Suggestions for links are also welcome. Please send to keithuhlich@gmail.com.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Requiem for Kong: "My Funny Valentine"
By Matt Zoller Seitz
The Economy of Visual Language: Neon Genesis Evangelion
By Michael Peterson
I was fortunate enough, recently, to view Rebuild of Evangelion 1.0: You Are Not Alone, the first in a series of four films by director Hideaki Anno and GAINAX Company, Ltd. that remake the acclaimed anime program Neon Genesis Evangelion. The new film is a fascinating entity, and I'm not yet sure that I have the critical faculties necessary to fully articulate my impressions: this new Evangelion varies between being a shot-by-shot remake in the Gus Van Sant Psycho vein (adjusted to widescreen), a Star Wars-like Special Edition with updated effects, and a full-on rework of the original series' plot fundamentals that, with each additional entry, promises to differ more and more from the original source.
What I do feel immediately confident saying is that the film is a visual masterpiece. Every shot in Rebuild of Evangelion is striking, both in the brutally violent action setpieces and in the emotionally agonizing periods in-between battles. Impressively, the film's strength comes not from what's been changed, but in what's been kept—every shot that worked in the original source remains as-is, and every shot that did not work is improved. Little improvement was required, really, as one of the unsung strengths of the original Neon Genesis Evangelion is its masterful sense of visual composition. While it was not until the End of Evangelion film that Anno's visual strengths as a director really stood out, one of the series' greatest successes is in finding great beauty (often in horror) with very limited resources
In brief, then, and without spoiling the plot, as it's hardly necessary here: Neon Genesis Evangelion is about a young man named Shinji Ikari, called to the fortress city of New Tokyo-3 by his estranged father Gendo. The city—the world, really—is under siege by monstrous creatures called "Angels," or "Messengers," that attack one after another, though they only ever strike at New Tokyo-3 (for reasons the show gets into later on). The only thing that can hold off the Angels, who are protected by an "AT Field," is a group called NERV and their Eva series—massive robots piloted by teenagers. Shinji has been selected to pilot the fearsome-looking Eva Unit-01 and is essentially press-ganged into working for NERV against his (decidedly weak) will.
What should be a mild genre piece in the vein of Gundam or Macross becomes something decidedly more mature as the story goes forward and we see the darkness underlying these genre conventions—a rather relentless psychodrama that builds until the series finale (and/or accompanying film) in which Shinji is asked to make a choice that will govern the world's fate. It is the unflinching look at the desperation and despair buried within all of the series' major characters that makes Shinji's ultimate choice so powerful.
Hideaki Anno is a remarkable animation director with a keen visual eye. Before Evangelion, he worked on a series called Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water (alternatively Nadia and the Mysterious Seas), which was based on a story outline by internationally-known anime wunderkind Hayao Miyazaki. It's easy to see why Miyazaki trusted Anno, as Miyazaki is deservedly praised for his absolutely lush visuals. In Anno, he saw a kindred spirit, a man who took the visual possibilities of anime seriously in a way that most do not (Otomo's work, for instance, has a kinetic energy, but his design work, while iconic, does not have a capacity for subtlety; and Satoshi Kon's work, while incredibly strong in the writing department, is only recently maturing to the level of these other directors—though he certainly has the potential to surpass them in time).
While Miyazaki's dense visuals pulse with life and vitality, and are always strikingly original, Anno surpasses him in at least one respect: Anno, like David Lynch, possesses a skill at framing his shots, and using the attendant color, to create visual compositions that stand out not only as beautiful in the story's context, but also as individual images, a painterly quality that he then applies back to the work. When Anno frames an image, the power of that specific image becomes a tool that he can later refer back to for an instantaneous emotional and intellectual response.
It is incredibly difficult to create a solid visual that then serves as a metaphor within the work itself, as the visual has to be potent in its initial incarnation without disrupting the flow of the story, and then must recur in a natural way. The latter criteria is easy in a work like Evangelion, which features numerous sequences that exist solely as representations of the internal struggle within a major character—psychic battling, dissolution of ego, nightmares, and the Human Instrumentality Project that closes the series all serve Anno's attempts to travel within by using the visuals acquired without. It's notable, however, that many of the series' aforementioned internal struggles are in fact a practical choice as well as an artistic one—the series' visual language was often prompted by budgetary concerns.
As Wikipedia reports, GAINAX was, at the time, not a wealthy production studio. Evangelion was begun after a film project was dropped due to lack of money and the studio was dropping various parts of their business to stay afloat. The complicated mech designs of the Eva series were originally deemed to be too complicated for merchandising, the accompanying manga was initially viewed poorly, and funding sources pulled out one after another while the series aired. As the show became too expensive to animate from episode to episode, more and more earlier footage was re-used. This should have been a disastrous choice, but the way the re-used footage was incorporated into the internal struggle episodes is a large part of what has made Evangelion so memorable.
"Being Economical" has, of course, two meanings. One is to save money, and one is to be spare and eliminate waste. Evangelion, by necessity, subscribes to both meanings, but it's the latter one that is most interesting to consider. Anno's compositions are very often "economical" to a fault, to the extent that they recall an Ernie Bushmiller comic strip. The bare minimum of information is conveyed, as in two separate instances where Eva Unit-01 holds a human figure in its hand with virtually no background, framed from just above the waist and within the opposite shoulder, leaving the figure in its grasp just off-center and dwarfed. Or as when the character of Asuka is viewed low and from behind as her Eva Unit-02 lowers in front of her (in our background) with a strip of caution tape in the foreground—this image benefits from the subsequent cut, which melds, in a small puddle, the blood-red of both Asuka's uniform and her Eva with Shinji's blue-clad leg.
Yet Anno is not averse to using detail when the moment requires it. Aside from the detail poured into scenes of shocking violence, which the series is more known for, Anno will frequently capture perfectly realistic images of Tokyo life—an early image of a payphone, first seen in the pilot episode, lends verisimilitude to a city that often had to be sparsely depicted due to budget. The payphone is used twice in the first half of the series as a means to illustrate Shinji's disconnect from his father, and so that image later appears in his internal struggle sequences with the attendant emotional attachment—the phone becomes a failed means of communication with the outside world, with all of the characters voicing their hatred of Shinji as he imagines them.
Another example that stands out comes from the End of Evangelion film. In a pivotal scene in the final travel inwards, Shinji appears as a child on a playground of his imagining, with two young girls in attendance. As the layers of Shinji's mind peel back, more and more "backstage" imagery appears, and the scene is lit by two theatrical spotlights in place of the sun. The hills in the background and the square of the playground sandbox provide deliberately sexual imagery—young Shinji is either within the womb or trapped in a vagina, depending on your point of view—and as Shinji builds a "sand castle" with the girls, a swing moves back and forth like a pendulum, indicating the passage of time.
The girls leave him, as all women appear to leave Shinji, and he stands over his creation—a pyramid that represents the headquarters of NERV, which brings complicated feelings of both home and a prison, and serves as a phallic image that stands in counterpoint to the vaginal imagery. But Shinji can't bear the pain of it, and the young boy crushes the "castle" with his foot. As he destroys it, the swing slows to a stop, signaling death. But then Shinji begins building the pyramid all over again. The image is perfectly framed, and uses only the bare minimum of visual detail—except in the faces of the girls, who are revealed to be grotesque parodies of the show's primary female characters. The swing, in the hazy light, is barely more than a shadow—and in a live action sequence further on, a real life swing is captured in similar framing, evoking the same concepts (it's nearly impossible to tell the difference between the actual and the animated).
This penchant for implicative visual language is also used to convey information that clears up central mysteries to the series. In the climax of End of Evangelion, one character performs a shocking act against another, and there has been some audience speculation, based on the abstract and internal nature of said finale, whether the incident actually occurs in the "real world" of the narrative. However, in one of the last television episodes, a series of brief, near still images of a disrupted kitchen (in particular, a lingering shot of an over-turned coffee pot lying partially out of frame) imply heavily that the incident truly happens, and thus makes it all the more devastating. In the final moments of the film, the incident is all but reenacted, and while the setting has changed, the animation returns to a similar series of still images (detailing the state of the world) to recall that moment. Although now, they're the most beautiful and evocative images of the entire series: a streak of blood across the moon, a cross nailed to a scrap of wood, dead creatures impaled and splayed in crucifixion poses, and something horrible and beautiful looking out from the water at figures on a nearby beach.
One of the primary concerns in any visual composition is the treatment of space. Many of the quieter scenes of Evangelion gain their power through such spatial relations. In an early episode, when Shinji is riding alone on a train, the grouping of other passengers is carefully arranged so as not to overburden or overcomplicate the image, all the while conveying Shinji's feelings of isolation in a crowd. A man next to him, who falls asleep while the rest of the train slowly empties, angles in further and further until he's completely crowded out Shinji's already-limited personal space. Then he as well vanishes, leaving the boy alone—in fact as well as feeling.
Other examples: Ritsuko, deep within the bowels of the MAGI computer system that (very literally) represents her mother is a small fleck of white in a dark and barely defined space, with only a series of scrawled papers pointing towards her like an arrow. And when Asuka and Rei share an elevator in an interminably long silent take (another daring move for a television anime, provoked at least in part by budgetary concerns), their body posture is succeeded only by their position in the shot, with Rei in the far foreground looking forward as Asuka, posed defensively, stands in the background to one side, at a distance, and looking away. This elevator scene is later used briefly, with its original meaning intact, to jab at Asuka during a psychic battle.
I'd be remiss if I didn't point out one last aspect: other themes of the series are also delivered in this fashion, in particular the various religious aspects of the overlying plot. The Kabbalah's Tree of Life is consistently evoked, and at times the positioning of characters in relation to that symbol adds an additional layer to the scene. In Gendo Ikari's office, the image of the Tree of Life is painted or carved into his ceiling, and his position at the desk is in relation to the Godhead symbol on the tree. Similarly, in End of Evangelion, Shinji is seen at the position of the "Tiphereth" sphere—the sphere which corresponds to Christ on the cross, and thus also where the holy meets the profane—at the moment of his "sacrifice." This is as good a summation of Anno's visual style as you're likely to find.
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Michael Peterson is the publisher of the blog & portfolio site Patchwork Earth.
Day of Wrath, Church of Cinema
By Steven Boone
[Day of Wrath opens today for a one-week run at Manhattan's IFC Center. Click here for screening information.]
Like the esteemed film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum, I discovered Day of Wrath in my teens. One of the local PBS stations was showing Carl Theodor Dreyer's film about 17th century Danish witch trials (adapted from Anne Pedersdotter by Norwegian playwright Han Wiers Jenssen) late at night. I stumbled across the film already in progress as elderly Herlofs Marte (Anna Svierkier) was being stripped and tortured in order to force a confession: Was she or was she not in league with Satan? Could she name other servants of evil? An hour or so later, I was still riveted to my seat, watching another, younger woman accused of witchcraft stare out at nothing as she contemplated the tortures awaiting her and the image dissolved to a blunt final condemnation written on a scroll. I was all messed up. What kind of inhuman order could put a harmless old woman and a vivacious young one on such a senseless conveyor belt to doom? Shortly thereafter I saw Schindler's List, and these two very different films about persecution fused in my mind.
Watching Day of Wrath for the second time at age 35 (in a crisp new digitally restored print at IFC Center), I now see much more E.T. than Schindler's List: There are no villains, no evil—just weak and fearful individuals either hiding from or within a system that provides the cruel certainty and definition of wrathful law pretending to justice. Everyone in Day of Wrath is only trying to be as human and honorable as he/she can be within the limits of a paranoiac theocracy. What appeared to my 19-year-old eyes to be a dour, cold-eyed vision of corrupt power destroying innocents in the name of God now appears as delicate and wise about human drives as that scene in E.T. where Elliot, so used to having no one to really talk to or play with, shows off his toys to the extra-terrestrial and prattles on like no tomorrow. As in the scene of the old woman's torture, the toy reverie is lit from above and behind. The torture episode doesn't sport the aggressive shafts of backlight in E.T., but in both cases the light approaches from somewhere north of God; bounces back onto the subjects timidly, empathetically—a light that understands. The shadow areas are just as wise. This lighting describes not only a torture chamber's grim oppressiveness, but also the torturers' suffering and soldierly purposefulness.
They're all more or less attempting to do the right thing—even the influential pastor Absalon (Thorkild Roose), who remains silent with evidence that could save the woman. Despite his power and rank, his silence is not malevolent. It is cowardly. The corrupt priest fears losing Anne (Lisbeth Movin), his beautiful wife half his age, because he once saved her mother from the witch trials. He never revealed that his young bride's mother, in fact, practiced what their society considers witchcraft. The mother lived out her life and went to her grave with the secret. But given the opportunity to intervene similarly for Herlofs Marte (who also kept mum about the former subterfuge), he remains silent. The remorse is in every line on his face.
In a scene where Herlofs Marte begs Absalon for her life, the light strikes her peasant garb but falls away somewhere below her face. This "negative fill" conveys her desperation better than any jump cut, snap zoom, music cue, or handheld camera spasm contemporary filmmakers use to mask their lack of film sense. After Marte's trial, torture, and ritual burning at the stake, the film's balance deals with the folks who betrayed her and their attempts to co-exist despite crisscrossing fear and resentments that refuse to rest. Again, at 19, I couldn't see the moments of grace for all the intimations of doom. If Pauline Kael called Day of Wrath a fusion of Hawthorne and Kafka, I guess my fight-the-power mentality was stuck on the Kafka. Now it's impossible to miss the love that flows between Absalon, his mother (Sigrid Neiiendam's bulldog mug resembling a vicious Laurence Tierney one moment, radiating motherly concern the next), and his returning adult son Martin (Preben Lerdorff Rye); and (scandalously) between Anne and Martin. Herlofs Marte cursed Absalon and Anne just before her death on the pyre, and now their impossible domestic situation comes to resemble the devil's handiwork.
When Anne openly seduces Martin (with the intense gaze and fluid gestures a porn starlet could learn from) she's exercising a natural female freedom long denied, ever since she was forced to be Absalon's child bride. She is breaking free. But in an atmosphere where urges and frustrations condense into mists the shape of gods and monsters, she starts to look exactly like her mother's daughter—a witch.
Dreyer's camera tracks interior and exterior spaces to convey his characters' sensitivity to this nightmarish climate as well as what I take to be his own sense of the divine. In billowing fabrics and whispering winds, God or Satan or the dead menace the living, yet the way the light falls on suffering and ecstatic faces suggests a higher, more clement power. But far more chilling than this spooky expressionism are the simple pans down scrolls invoking God's word and the state's judgments. It's as if Dreyer was at war with words, answering their punishing certainties and limitations with the humanism of light and shadow delicately applied. Dreyer invites you to find in his flesh and blood friezes something a lot closer to God than those murderous texts. It's the only religion I ever wanted to join: the church of cinema.
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Steven Boone is a New York-based critic and filmmaker, a contributor to Vinyl is Heavy and the publisher of Big Media Vandalism.
Links for the Day (August 29th, 2008)
1. "Because You Can Never Have Enough...": At The Criterion Collection blog On Five, Kim Hendrickson explores the history (and mystery) of a missing scene from Pasolini's Salò, or The 120 Days of Sodom. (Above screencap from DVDBeaver.)
["A few months back, after we announced our upcoming release of Salò, or The 120 Days of Sodom, we received a note from a viewer asking us which version of the film we would be releasing, noting that a 2001 British Film Institute (BFI) release featured a brief scene not contained in the original Criterion DVD. Dealing with various versions of a film is a common situation for us, and as a producer it’s one of the first issues I address. The scene in question occurs at the end of the wedding sequence, approximately forty-four minutes into the film. In the Criterion master, the scene cuts just after the magistrate shuffles the wedding guests out the door and down the stairs. In the 2001 BFI release, this scene extends to include the magistrate reading a short poem."]
2. "Film Audio: The Pauline Factor, '68": Tom Sutpen links to a 1968 audio seminar with Pauline Kael. (Hattip: Aaron Aradillas)
["How much provocation can one speaker pack into just 54 minutes? In this recording of a talk given at UC Berkeley on April 26, 1968, the then-newly-hired film critic for The New Yorker, Pauline Kael, goes a great distance toward answering that question as she brutalizes Underground cinema, Arthur Penn, and the institutional imperatives of mass-market film criticism. And those are but three of the targets upon which she opens fire."]
3. A week in the film life of Steven Carlson.
["ON FRENZY: Everywhere I look, there's a darkness... Alfred Hitchcock's darkest joke is also one of his grandest, an iconic wrong-man thriller given a contemporary viciousness and pumped up to Kafkaesque levels of persecution, and Jon Finch is in his own way the perfect protagonist, so beaten down by life that a murder rap is just another thing for him to impotently defy. But here's the thing: While a good deal of the film (especially the ride in the potato truck) is sick squirmy fun, there's something that most people miss or at least don't feel like discussing. Hitchcock beats Michael Haneke to the punch a good 25 years prior to the latter's ascendancy in indicting his audience for what they're not walking out on."]
4. "Coming soon: 'Facebook: The Movie'?": From the Los Angeles Times. Sorkin's Facebook page is here.
["Is Aaron Sorkin getting his geek on? The famous technophobe and Hollywood scribe is trading the "West Wing" and "Studio 60" corridors for the graffiti-scrawled, software-developer-mobbed corridors of social networking upstart Facebook Inc. The Palo Alto company says it has not signed on to a Sorkin film about its inception, but Sorkin has started a Facebook group (well, he says, his assistant did that) to gather color for a Facebook film he is writing for Sony and producer Scott Rudin. A Sony Pictures spokesman confirmed the project but wouldn't discuss details. Through a publicist, Sorkin declined to comment."]
5. "Duchovny enters rehab for sex addiction": Foxxx Mulder? Wha???
["“Californication” and “X-Files” star David Duchovny has checked into rehab for sex addiction, his lawyer Stanton “Larry” Stein confirmed to Access Hollywood. “I have voluntarily entered a facility for the treatment of sex addiction,” the actor said in a statement released to Access. “I ask for respect and privacy for my wife and children as we deal with this situation as a family.” David married actress Téa Leoni in 1997. They have two children, daughter Madelaine West, 9, and son Kyd, 6."]
Quote of the Day: David Reisman
Image of the Day (click to enlarge): Mike Connors in Mannix; lead image to the Moving Image Source article "Lone Justice" by Mark Holcomb.
Clip of the Day: "I wish I were like Siskel & Ebert"
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"Links for the Day": Each morning, the House editors post a series of weblinks that we think will spark discussion. Comments encouraged. Suggestions for links are also welcome. Please send to keithuhlich@gmail.com.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Links for the Day (August 28th, 2008)
1. An online only exclusive from The New Yorker: Any questions for David Denby?
["This summer, David Denby has reviewed “I Served the King of England,” “Traitor,” “Vicky Cristina Barcelona,” “Elegy,” “The Dark Knight,” and “WALL-E.” If you’d like to talk about movies with Denby, submit a question online; his answers will be posted here later in the week."]
2. "Louisiana Eyes Gustav, Activates Guard Troops: Three years after Katrina, nervous New Orleans watches another storm brewing in Caribbean": From ABCNews.com.
["On the eve of Hurricane Katrina's third anniversary, a nervous New Orleans watched Wednesday as another storm threatened to test everything the city has rebuilt, and officials made preliminary plans to evacuate people, pets and hospitals in an attempt to avoid a Katrina-style chaos. Forecasters warned that Gustav could grow into a dangerous Category 3 hurricane in the next several days and hit somewhere along a swath of the Gulf Coast from the Florida Panhandle to Texas — with New Orleans smack in the middle."]
3. "Georgia War Shows 'Weak' Russia, U.S. Official Says." Presumably a bit of reverse psychology to which a Russian official might reply, "I know you are, but what am I?" See Glenn Kessler's article in The Washington Post for more.
["Russia's conflict with Georgia is the sign of a 'weak' Russian nation, not a newly assertive one, and Moscow now has put its place in the world order at risk, the top U.S. diplomat for relations with the country said in an interview yesterday. 'There is a Russia narrative that 'we were weak in the '90s, but now we are back and we are not going to take it anymore.' But being angry and seeking revanchist victory is not the sign of a strong nation. It is the sign of a weak one,' said Daniel Fried, assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. 'Russia is going to have to come to terms with the reality it can either integrate with the world or it can be a self-isolated bully. But it can't be both. And that's a choice Russia has to have,' Fried said."]
4. "The Seventh Art and the Eighth Wonder of the World": What does King Kong owe to Busby Berkeley? The Listening Ear knows.
["King Kong the movie is, from start to finish, built around cinema - it’s designed to look good as a film; it’s conceived around the technology of film. And revels in it - the stop motion animation, the elaborate mattes and models and process shots. It's set up to look right on screen. They aren't trying to hide these things - they are presenting us with an amazing spectacle, and expect us to marvel in it, all of it. The planning, the formal properties of the film, are made more explicit by being prepared by Denham's talk. His attempts to film on the island, his attempts to stage-manage the villagers or the fights with Kong, etc., set up the formal structure of the rest of the film - the parallel imagery on the island and in NY (the wall on the island serving as stage and curtain, that recurs in the second half; the parallels in how Ann and Kong are staked out for display; the parallel battles on Kong's mountain and the empire state building, complete with dangerous birds. Even details like the several scenes in both parts of the film of Kong fishing around caves/apartments for people.) The depiction of the act of making a film sets you up to wonder at the artistry of the story proper when it gets going. It's reminiscent of one of the other outstanding figures of cinema of the period - Warner Brothers' musicals, especially Busby Berkeley's parts. Berkeley’s numbers are almost parables for the shift from stage to screen. Their placement in the films (in 42nd Street, at least), and their overall structure, almost always enacts the shift from stage to screen. The numbers usually follow that pattern - starting on something like a real stage, then opening up toward film. First (usually) by shooting them from impossible places (the flies, through the floor), but eventually abandoning all sense of the spatial unity and integrity of the stage. The space in “42nd Street” (the song) or “By a Waterfall” or “Shanghai Lil” is pure cinematic space - much of it designed explicitly for the camera (and for editing), certainly constructing the three dimensional space of film. Interestingly, while this abandons the "real" space of the theater, it moves toward a "real" space of films - itself referring to the "real" space of, um - reality."]
5. "Of Time and the City": Doug Cummings of Filmjourney.org on Terence Davies' documentary, and his first feature in eight years, shown as part of Los Angeles' DocuWeek. [Hattip: GreenCine.]
["Of Time and the City is Davies’ first documentary, and it’s a brooding, passionate, and often sardonic essay film that tributes the working class Liverpool of his childhood, and charts–with rueful adult hindsight–its cultural milieu. The film is largely comprised of archival footage from the era (Davies was born in 1945 and left Liverpool in ‘72) that is layered together with a supremely evocative soundtrack that includes broadcasts, classical music, pop tunes, and atmospheric sound effects with Davies’ own narration. His raspy, effusive delivery oscillates between his memories, musings, and quotations from the likes of James Joyce and T. S. Eliot. (Much like his absorbing DVD commentaries.) The latter poet is no surprise for those familiar with Davies’ autobiographical films: his trilogy of shorts, Distant Voices Still Lives (1988), and The Long Day Closes (1992) are all constructed as overlapping, circular memory films, snatches of scenes that fluidly merge in time and space, visually expressing Eliot’s idea that 'Time present and time past / Are both perhaps present in time future, / And time future contained in time past.'"]
Quote of the Day: Ernest Hemingway
Image of the Day (click to enlarge): The poster for the Coen bros.' Burn After Reading. Links to reviews gathered at GreenCine.
Clip of the Day: Patton Oswalt wants a steak (with illustrations). (Hattip: Kevin Seaman)
"Links for the Day": Each morning, the House editors post a series of weblinks that we think will spark discussion. Comments encouraged. Suggestions for links are also welcome. Please send to keithuhlich@gmail.com.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Notes on the DNC: #1 & #2
By Max Winter
[Note: The following is a series of emails about TV coverage of the Democratic National Convention sent to House founder Matt Zoller Seitz by his friend Max Winter, a New York City-based poet and a poetry editor for the literary magazine Fence.]
As I dig into these notes, I feel it's important to say I'm an outsider, politically; there are probably many people who, if awakened at 5 AM and splashed with ice cold water, could talk me under the table about politics, roll over, and go back to sleep. However, I've been interested in politics this year, in a way that I haven't been in some time. Part of it has obviously been the clash between the two leading Democratic candidates--one African American, one female, both complex, both viable. But beyond that, think about the timing. After 8 years of an administration about whom no amount of negative adjectives would be sufficient, whose previous lambasting has been so elaborate and so comprehensive that adding to it would be sheer redundancy, we find that the two leading Democratic candidates for President are a woman and an African-American man. Good work, Americans--where the heck have you been? The dialogue becomes, rather than who's the lesser of two or three mediocrities, as it was in 2000 and 2004, something else. Who do you trust? Who's more interesting to you? Who seems like they could win, not just in our imagination but in reality? Which is an interesting switch, to me at least--and will doubtless affect future elections.The notes I've made below are spontaneous and sporadic--I tried to respond to events and comments that pushed buttons for me. If I sound a little dour, it's because I am a little dour. This is an important year for Democrats, and my standards for performance at this convention are high.
7:00 p.m.: On CNN, Wolf Blitzer is announcing that Ted Kennedy will speak tonight--given the comparisons the media and others have made between Obama and JFK, the appearance is being presented as poignant before it occurs. Why? Can't its poignancy stand on its own? I'm also hearing, now, dribs and drabs about the Michelle Obama speech--she plans to speak about her husband's personality, rather than his political potential. The rhetoric about her speech, on CNN and elsewhere, is tempered with caution, as if everyone were nervous about what she might say. Republican strategists, I'm sure, are awaiting the speech like a sort of gift basket of gaffes.
On MSNBC, a table full of commentators has just showed up on the screen. They're all smiling, and probably not just for the cameras. I've been struck, this election year, by the dominance of commentators. Everyone but everyone--me, even!--has something to say. The blogs are humming with energy, MSNBC is more sensitive to stimuli than the most sensitive amoeba, the newspapers bring out the bold caps every time Obama looks serious during a speech. These reporters know they are going to be talking plenty tonight, and they're very, very happy. I tend to stray towards CNN on big political nights because the events seem somehow less filtered. Granted, Wolf Blitzer is antagonistic, but the anxiety of the commentators to speak on MSNBC is practically bursting out of the screen--is this a good thing or a bad thing? The amount of talk has resulted in some very firey monologues (cf. Keith Olbermann), but I can’t help but fear that these commentators, who some look to for moral fortitude, are more weathervanes than compasses, excited by whomever happens to be ahead. They like to pretend, the Olbermanns and the Maddows and the Matthews, that they are shaping the consciences of their viewers, but I always suspect they're on the spiritual "take."One interesting result, this election year, is that the media has hung on language more than at any time I can remember. As a writer, I respond to Obama's language because it's generally used very well. Obama has gotten plenty of praise for his poetic speeches, and more power to him for them. One could question their construction--their repetition, their occasional vagueness--and yet they often make me a little misty-eyed. Originally I thought I was just being sentimental, that maybe I'd gotten Obama fever. God forbid--I'm a lifelong anti-sentimentalist--but no, actually, the real reason was that I was moved to see a public figure using language effectively for the first time in my not-so-short life.
When statements become news events -- for instance, Obama's comments about gun-clinging rural Americans in San Francisco, or his wife's "proud of my country" remarks -- I tend to perk up. Sure, the attention paid to word choice is an indication that the commentators aren't inclined to find much else to talk about, but on the other hand, perhaps paying more attention to the way our politicians speak might be a way of improving them (as politicians); in the long run it might ratchet up public expectations of leaders, or at least of the words that come out of their mouths.
7:58 p.m. Bill Maher says, with characteristic good humor, and perhaps not in precisely these words: "The American people get stupider and stupider every election year...The American people get the leaders they deserve, and they don't deserve very good leaders." Although he's a smart-aleck, I always enjoy what Maher has to say, and I frequently agree with him. When asked if there was room for cynicism at this election, he managed to stump both Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews by replying, "Yes." He's not wrong about the Americans, really, and he's not really wrong about our right to look askance at events like this one. Poets William Butler Yeats and Delmore Schwartz tell us, "in dreams begin responsibilities," and this election year, we have quite a few dreams--with no lasting guarantee that the responsibilities will be carried out. It's all very well for the Democrats to congratulate themselves--what else is a convention for? But after the convention, what lies beyond that sort of self-congratulation?
8:30 p.m. : Nancy Pelosi: It was admirable to begin with the House speaker's salute to Hillary Clinton--and somehow proper. Though Clinton was reviled and scorned throughout much of her race against Obama for "divisiveness," her complicated relationship with the truth, her stiff manner, et al., her lack of cool set an example, opened up the possibility that there might someday be more important things than a candidate's image. Fat chance, I know, but...
Ah, would that Nancy Pelosi's speech had showed as much strength as her praise-ee.
This seemed a strange start to an event expected by many to be full of energy. Her delivery was wooden, and at times seemed almost half-hearted. There were moments, particularly towards its opening, where she seemed to be rattling off a list of stock phrases rather than expressing anything of any importance to her. Additionally, the list of accomplishments of Senate Democrats--a bill ending the import of toxic toys, improvements to the GI Bill, an act guaranteeing protection after 9/11--seemed paltry and negligible, only pointing up, to this listener, the much larger issues about which the Senate has done nothing satisfactory: FISA, the impeachment of Bush, the investigation of illegal firings of U.S. attorneys, ending the war...? Also, it was an oddly defensive move, a little like a letter you might send out at Christmas updating friends and relatives on events in your family. I ask again: what about Iraq?Her sound byte, "Barack Obama is right and John McCain is wrong," was an oddly simple statement, almost childlike, that seemed to be the main evidence of backbone in her speech. She didn't say it, however, with what seemed to me enough conviction--could she be unaware that her own political future depends, in a sense, on the Democrats' performance in the convention? As faith in their party among Democrats over 24 evaporates, wouldn't it behoove the party leaders to show a little more passion, or excitement?
9:30 p.m.: Ted Kennedy: Although left-wing U.S. history smiles crookedly on the Kennedy clan, it's admirable that the Massachusetts senator had the gumption, despite the fact that he was probably in a great deal of pain, to come on stage and express himself as forcefully as he did. The difference between him and those surrounding him is most likely that he has a clear idea of his beliefs. Can we say that about any of the other Democrats in Washington currently? If we could, wouldn't things be different?
The question the commentators have pounced on is whether the speech signifies a passing of a baton/torch/hot potato from one important family to another. It's important to remember that the baton is a little dirty, the torch has sputtered over time, and the potato has cooled. The legacy being passed on is questionable--and so I'm wary of reveling in metaphorical afterglow. Obama's techniques--the 50-state strategy, his use of the Internet--are unique to him, as is his image, which is, despite similarities to the Kennedy image, distinctive as well. Kennedy gives a cheek-smacker of a speech; if it doesn't satisfy the expectations one would have of such a family, he gives a nicely poetic delivery, drawing on the moon voyage and succinctly deploying other images of travel (such as a compass set "true"). Short as it is, it adds a note of sincerity and dignity to the night. These are impressive achievements, and for me, they’re sufficient.
10:30 p.m. : Michelle Obama: A strong speech, all told. The pressure on her must have been great indeed, given her impassive, some say grim demeanor at other times. I understand that--for years, I was the guy told to "smile" even when I was thinking perfectly happy thoughts. The world isn’t kind to people who look too serious (as The Dark Knight taught us).Like Pelosi, she smartly begins with a reference to Clinton--she must recognize, as would anyone, the accomplishments there. And in the narrative she gives, of getting to know her husband, of going out for ice cream with him, of the basketball game with her brother, as familiar as it might be to anyone who reads the papers, there is a sense of two individuals, two people, and in fact two families getting to know each other. The characterization of the Mister seems to fit what we've seen of him on stage. Sure he's a little cocky--that's okay. Cocky and winning (or at least holding his own) is ultimately better than humble and losing, a familiar scenario for past Democratic candidates.
Whatever degree of skepticism one might have about the all-too-good Obamas, part of their job is to represent themselves well, to present a good and likable face to the public. And that is accomplished here, by a long shot. There's host of issues lying beneath the speech--our familiarity with the story she was telling, our worries about her presence, and what's up with the kids? Although they are cute, and the family is likable, and this is all perfectly legitimate and within range of normal convention activities, I can't help but wonder if this is the year to ramp up the cuteness. I won’t tarnish the image with too much skepticism--because after all, the message here is about intimacy, and warmth, and, to a certain extent, the imperfection that comes with being human. I find myself liking her after the speech--she seems sincere, energized, communicative, and most importantly, awake. Presidents' wives, in my lifetime, have seemed vaguely anaesthetized, and it’s nice to think we might have a different version this year.7:00 p.m.: As I'm tuning into the strange truncated speeches from female senators only, Maryland Sen. Barbara Mikulski gives a stronger start to the evening than Pelosi did, her main point being the importance of equal pay for equal work, which she proclaims in a remarkably strong, booming voice. Barbara Boxer also makes a memorable statement--brief but energetic and emphatic--stressing energy and ending the war, and both in simple terms.
Oddly enough, the boys, and the women who act like boys, are now shutting out Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill. She was a possibility for Vice President, beloved by some, seen as a strong female politician, and she's being shut out. TV viewers need to have more of a glimpse of their possible future candidates, primarily as education--all too often, we head into voting with little knowledge of who we're voting for, other than what our friends and family have told us. Look, for instance, at the numerous interviews with Obama supporters a while ago, in which they had no idea what he had done in office or, really, what his platform does. Choirs, as nice as they can sound sometime, don't brook improvisation easily. As Americans, we need to be informed. It sounds like a cliché, but in many senses, it's true.
7:40: I'm watching CNN and suddenly wondering why Rudy "art bugs me" Giuliani is being given air time. I understand fairness to the opposition, but, um... On a night like this, he's being set up to be booed and reviled almost immediately. I never minded him too much as a mayor of New York, though some did, tremendously, but here as elsewhere, he's a nay-sayer.
On MSNBC, Ed Rendell is being asked what Hillary has to do to win over her supporters. I wonder if the candidates watch the news, and if they are protected, in any small fashion, from knowledge of how much pressure is on them. Sitting at home, watching the television, few of us speculate on the sheer difficulty of repeated performance. My last stage work was done over 20 years ago, a meaningless part, but one that filled me with dread. Even if you loved the game, and the crowds, and the cause, I'd have to imagine that this sort of work would take a tremendous psychological toll on the wrong person.
Chris Matthews is now asking Lisa Caputo if Clinton will talk about why she lost the nomination. Why would she talk about why she lost the nomination? Why would anyone talk, on such a night, about why they lost? Why would he even ask such a question? One could easily attribute the amount of sheer chatter in this convention to anxiety and nervous energy--although on the part of the commentators, it's hard to say if the nervousness is over the stakes of the election or over what their next story will be.Matthews has just asked Caputo about HRC's running in 4 years, Caputo is laughing at him. Somewhat of a relief, given that it's a dumb issue to bring up. Matthews needs to be teased, or better yet, laughed at, more often.
7:55 p.m.: Rahm Emmanuel is now being shut out by the boys on both CNN and MSNBC, oddly enough. I've always liked Emmanuel; he seems to have a fighting spirit. Sometimes, it makes him quite pugilistic in confrontations with other Washington personnel, but his strength is distinctive. I don't know if he has presidential potential--he has too rough an edge, and perhaps his aggression is better suited for administrative work. Still, having grown up during the time when speakers like Mario Cuomo were able to conjure up significant anger, and gumption (as he did when he spoke at the 1984 Democratic Convention), and having watched all of that anger slowly drain away from the party, I tend to go on the alert when I see signs of life in the underbrush.
8:27 p.m.: James Carville's mood has shifted, a cue for relief, as far as I'm concerned. Carville was angry last night, accusing the Democrats of playing "hide the message"; his spirits lifted somewhat with Ted Kennedy's and Michelle Obama's speeches. Now he seems guardedly optimistic.
9:00 p.m. Who is Mark Warner, exactly? I asked the same question about Bill Clinton, and about Barack Obama (though not about Mario Cuomo), when they gave their keynote speeches. It's an odd spot, in the convention--sort of a "getting to know you" spot. He has an upbeat, clean, presence. He's a confident speaker, clear-eyed, level-headed, and enthused. But I can't say I'm excited by him. There's something in his delivery that's all too familiar. I've seen it in modern Democrats before. He's hesitant and a little too polite. He's stressing science and alternative energy quite a bit, a subject which has come up repeatedly tonight and last night. The issue hasn't crystallized as much as it should have during this election year; the connection between weaning ourselves off of foreign oil and onto other forms of fuel has not been made as crystal clear, and simple, as it needs to be in order to stir emotion in the voters.
Simplicity--how important that is. Obama has made quite a lot of hay out of simplicity, driving home the same handful of monosyllables. This probably arose from his careful study of prior Bush campaigns. The Republicans used simplicity--easy, memorable phrases--and look what they accomplished. Progressive Democrats such as Matt Bai have praised the Republican campaigns for their efficiency, and the compliment is deserved. They don't lose out on opportunities, while the Democratic Party seems hell-bent on it.
10:40-11:15 p.m. : Hillary Clinton: Christ, I said a lot of rather harsh things about the New York senator over the past few months, thought a lot of harsh thoughts, read a lot of harsh editorials, and read some near-obscene and half-literate statements in various comment boxes about her, but Hillary Clinton gave an awfully good speech tonight.
After several minutes of applause, she makes a remarkably strong start. What you first notice about the speech is its tremendous focus. There isn't too much fat here--she gets right to the point--support of Obama--right away, states it unequivocally, departs for a bit to describe her supporters, and then comes back to it. The speech is direct, it's eloquent, it's confident, and it's angry. Yet she's smiling. Her "keep running" quotes from Harriet Tubman, a stirring and unexpected touch, is the point in the speech when she could honestly be said to have the audience in the palm of her hand--they're all standing, they're all cheering, and they're all completely absorbed.It's interesting, throughout, to watch Bill. He's serious, he's completely still. Talk about absorbed! And when she mentions him, well, that's the peak for him. He leans back, he smiles... he's getting a huge, huge kick out of this, and it shows.
Towards the end of the speech, she asks her supporters, in a move that's already become the subject of much commentary, to consider why they voted in the first place. In my conversations with my own family members, who differ, among each other, on who they wanted in office, I used to say the same thing--we need to be respectful of whoever wins, we need to be supportive. I wonder if the audience is listening?
As I write this, I hear on TV that McCain has already released a new ad and issued a statement that Hillary's speech has done nothing to negate her criticisms of Obama during the primary campaign. Sound like deja vu?
But hey: James Carville has cheered up! Completely! That's a good sign.
This night is a clear improvement over the last. My question, since yesterday, has been not so much "Where's the love?" as "Where's the anger?" The necessity for anger, or for passion, or energy, or whatever it is the Democratic Party has been missing for so long, has never been greater. I'm hoping the rest of the convention goes just like this.
Max Winter is a New York City-based poet, critic and editor. His poems are collected in the volume The Pictures and have been published in the Denver Quarterly, Volt, The Yale Review, Octopus, The Paris Review, Boulevard and elsewhere. He is a poetry editor of Fence. Read more!
Understanding Screenwriting #3
By Tom Stempel
COMING UP IN THIS COLUMN: Transsiberan; The House Bunny; Tropic Thunder; Silent to Sound; Transformers; In Plain Sight; Mad Men, but first:
MAILBAG: Well, I certainly seem to have ticked off the graphic novel crowd, haven’t I? As “futurefree” and “JJ” noted, I was careful to doubly qualify my comments, and I did that because I was aware there have been some fairly good films made from graphic novels. One that some readers mentioned was From Hell, and one that I am surprised nobody mentioned was A History of Violence, which was terrific until it went a little funny in the head in the last third.
My point, that several readers such as “futurefree” and “Ed Howard” picked up on, is that the form does not necessarily lend itself to complex characters. It is not just a question of panels, but that the images are static, so you do not get the nuances you do in actors’ performances in films.
I have been meaning to admit since US#1 my dirty little secret, which is that I am not a fanboy. As a kid in the '40s and early '50s I read comic books, but as I hit adolescence I gave them up, with of course the obvious exception of Mad Magazine; some things are sacred. I never got back into comics or later graphic novels, and the older I get, the less interest in mythical kingdoms I have. I can certainly understand people, particularly in the last seven years, who much prefer to live in mythical kingdoms rather than the real world. But I just find the jumps in logic one has to make a little much. At the risk of driving off all my readers, I have to admit that I have seen only the first Lord of the Rings movie and not the other two. I have not seen any of the Harry Potter films, and only the first Matrix, which struck me as one of the stupidest movies of all time. I avoided Batman Begins (I am a little too old for yet another version of the origin story) and The Dark Knight (even though a friend whose judgement I trust said I had to see it because it was “as if Kubrick had directed The French Connection”). I do try to see one comic book/graphic novel movie a year and this year it was Iron Man. I kept wanting to see a) the outtakes of Downey Jr. and his stunt man trying to move in that outfit, and b) that cast (Downey Jr., Bridges, and Paltrow) in a real movie.
Now then, have we got any readers left? The other issue in the readers’ comments on US#2 was the use of exposition. “JJ” wrote, and I think he is right, that a lot of exposition is so obvious because studio executives are afraid audiences will not understand subtlety. Partly that is because films are so expensive to make that studios are afraid of losing a single viewer. Often when you see a film, you wonder why they made that script. The answer is usually that it is not the script they started out to make. In the notorious development process, the edges get rounded off and the most interesting material gets dropped. It is also a question of the executives themselves not being able to read and understand a script.
Two general rules about exposition:
There is also a tendency among writers and others to assume that exposition is only what somebody says. Not true. Look at how much we think we learn about Jeff in Rear Window from that wonderful pan around his apartment. (And then listen to the phone dialogue in the next scene between Jeff and his boss that ties all those visuals together.) One thing I have always loved about Chinatown is that virtually everything anybody says in the first half hour is a lie. The first Mrs. Mulwray is not Mrs. Mulwray, Hollis is not having an affair with the young girl, and the real Mrs. Mulwray seems unable to tell the truth until Jake slaps it out of her at the end of the film.
Before we get into this episode’s films and television shows, a brief scheduling note. When I agreed to do this column for HND, I told Keith that I could probably only manage to do it once a month. If you have followed it so far, you know I have done one a week. The day after Labor Day I start teaching at Los Angeles City College, which will slow down both my moviegoing and my time to write. So it will be a few weeks before US#4 appears. On the other hand, the Olympics are over and I may be able to get my wife out to see the growing list of films she wants to see, so who knows?
TRANSSIBERIAN (2008. Screenplay by Brad Anderson & Will Conroy. 111 minutes): In his comments on US#2 Joel asked for a view of this film, but this is not a response. I had already done the first draft of this when the notes came in.
This is a first-rate addition to one of my favorite genres, the thriller on a train. In a couple of ways it is even better than the grandfather of them all, Sidney Gilliat and Frank Laudner’s script for the 1938 version of The Lady Vanishes. In the earlier film the lady vanishes and we know it is foul play. In the current film, when a major character vanishes, we assume, because we have been watching The Lady Vanishes and its many imitators, that it is foul play. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. But Anderson and Conroy are using our genre expectations to keep us on edge. Late in the picture when one of the characters says she is going to the dining car to get some sugar for coffee, you know that no good will come of it. And it doesn’t, but in a way you probably do not expect. One thing that always bothered me about The Lady Vanishes is that just before the big finish, the train stops. I know there is a big shootout, but if you have a movie about a train, it ought to move. Look at how they play with that here.
Another way the current script is better is that Anderson and Conroy get into the characterization in more depth than Gilliat and Launder did. I know the earlier writers were writing for a rather shallow director, but still. We get the Russian police inspector in the opening scene investigating a murder, so we know there will be thrills. But having set that up, the writers can spend time establishing the characters. Shakespeare uses the father’s ghost at the beginning of Hamlet in the same way. The characters on the train are so evenly balanced it is well into the picture before we figure out who the main character is. They have written a great part for Rumpole’s granddaughter, Emily Mortimer (her father, the author John Mortimer, is the creator of Horace Rumpole, Q.C.), and she gives her best screen performance. The characters who are supposed to be suspicious are, but often we are suspicious of them for the wrong reasons. And they are written so the twists in their characters make sense with what we have seen or heard.
This is particularly true of the ending. At first it seems like a conventional sentimental happy ending. A couple is flying home, all cozy and safe. But then we get one more scene with another character. What she does tells us that the last—of several—things we were told about her are not exactly true. So the film ends on a darker, and I thought, more satisfying note.
THE HOUSE BUNNY (2008. Written by Karen McCullah Lutz & Kirsten Smith. 98 minutes): Lutz and Smith are developing their own mini-genre: women who at first seem dumb turn out not to be so dumb and win the day. Their establishing script of the genre was Legally Blonde and this one follows that template. I could even see it turning into a Broadway musical like the earlier film.
Speaking of verbal exposition, listen to how quickly they establish Shelly before we even see her. We hear her version of a variety of fairy tales, told in wonderfully fractured language that sets up her character in terms of rhythm and phrasing. The writers’ comic rhythms carry through the film in many scenes. Listen to some of the first scenes between Shelly, the Playboy bunny who becomes a sorority housemother, and Natalie, the leader of the sorority girls.
A defining scene in a female empowerment film is the makeover scene. Here we get two. The first, and most obvious, is that Shelly gives the unattractive sorority girls cosmetic makeovers, but Lutz and Smith throw in the makeover of the ramshackle sorority house as well to throw us off balance. This first makeover scene happens relatively early in the film. The second one, about an hour into the film, blew my mind. The whole thrust of most makeover scenes here, and in reality television, is that the women will use makeup, buy new clothes, and attract men. One should not be surprised that Lutz and Smith go beyond that. Shelly goes out on a date with a nice guy and tries all the tricks she has taught the girls. And they don’t work. How transgressive can you get? If the tricks don’t work, the entire cosmetic makeover, self-help, “how to get a man” mythology falls apart. So Shelly decides she needs to be smarter. And we get a mental makeover scene, with Shelly actually in classes. And in a funny bit in the library with a bunch of books. With a lot of books. And it works. She gets the guy; this is a Hollywood comedy, after all.
The transgressive nature of the film is not over. The sorority girls realize that after their makeover, they have become just as snobby as the girls in the other sororities. And they decide to go back to their original selves. Well, not all the way. They can’t quite decide whether they should be 50-50 or 60-40.
One other point. The Rating code will let you use the “f” word once, in a non-sexual way, in a PG-13 film. The House Bunny gets my vote for this year’s Best One-Time Use of “Fucking” in a PG-13 Film.
TROPIC THUNDER (2008. Story by Ben Stiller & Justin Theroux. Screenplay by Ben Stiller & Justin Theroux and Etan Cohen. 106 minutes by Variety’s and my count, 117 minutes by imdB): When I saw the trailers for this film, it looked like fun. When I looked at the scenes the actors brought to talk shows, it seemed flat. Seeing the movie, I had both feelings. The concept of the film is a smart one: a group of actors making a Vietnam War film are let loose in the jungle by a frazzled director who thinks he can shoot it documentary-style with hidden cameras. The actors run into a drug running operation, which they think is part of the “film.” There is a lot that could be done with the idea, and there is a lot the writers do. There is a fair mix of comedy and action, with maybe more of the latter than is needed. The characterizations of the various actors are dead-on right, as are the characterizations of the studio boss and one of the actor’s agents. On the other hand, some of the “inside baseball” stuff is so “inside” that the film stopped dead in its tracks, even for the Santa Monica audience I saw the film with, which probably had enough people connected to the industry to get at least some of the jokes. Although I must also say there were a lot more patrons under the age of 18 than there seemed to be parents or guardians in attendance. So much for the “R” rating. But even kids in Santa Monica know a lot about the industry, and if the film was too inside for them, it way well be for those east of the 310 area code.
The main problem comes in the writing of the individual scenes, or rather the lack of it. As often happens in comedies, particularly those directed by actors (Ben Stiller in this case), the actors have been encouraged to improvise. This is not always a good thing, and Tropic Thunder is Exhibit A for the prosecution. Improvisations are often very hysterically funny for the cast and crew and especially the director, but it takes a ruthless director to make sure those improvisations work in the context of the film, which here they very often do not. If you “had to be there” to get the humor, it’s not going to work on film. Actors, there is a reason Billy Wilder would not let his casts riff on his scripts.
Examples of the problem are the now-famous scenes (there is a lot more to it than just a cameo part) with Tom Cruise (not as unrecognizable as the publicity would have it) as a profane studio executive. Again, the idea is good, but what appears to be Cruise’s improvisations come out flat. The character is mostly foul language, and one is reminded of the famous story about Mark Twain. Twain swore a lot, and his wife tried to break him of the habit once by swearing back to him. Twain shook his head sadly and said, “Livvy, you got the words, but you ain’t got the tune.”
Which brings us to a look back at film history:
SILENT TO SOUND: I had occasion recently to look at some films made in the late twenties-early thirties (hey, I’m a film historian; I do stuff like that) during the transition from silent films to talkies. The UCLA Film Archive had a double feature of two films they have restored. One is the silent version of Harold Lloyd’s Welcome Danger (1929) and the other is the sound version from the same year. Lloyd started it as a silent film, then decided to do it as a sound film. The silent version was released to those theaters not equipped for sound. Even though the sound version was Lloyd’s most financially successful film, both it and the silent version are mediocre.
In his famous essay “Comedy’s Greatest Era,” James Agee said of Lloyd that “out of his thesaurus of smiles he could at a moment’s notice blend prissiness, breeziness and asininity and still remain tremendously likable.” Maybe in the mid-twenties, but by the time of Welcome Danger the prissiness and asininity had taken over. It is a problem in the silent version, and an even bigger problem in the sound version, where he adds a verbal prissiness as well. The storyline of both films is a mess: something to do with him being the son of a famous police chief and therefore called in to stop drug traffic in San Francisco’s Chinatown. The dialogue in the sound version, credited to Paul Gerard Smith, is very flat and “on the nose.” It is written in the style of silent film titles, that is, carved down to only the most basic information, expressed in the simplest language possible. Unlike good screen dialogue, it gives the actors nothing to play. Like Cruise’s arias in Tropic Thunder there is very seldom any discernible rhythm to it, although there is a brief exchange between Lloyd and the great Edgar Kennedy (who was added to the cast when sound was added) that has a bit of comic rhythm to it. Smith, and other writers of the period, did not realize how important each line of dialogue should be and how limited it needed to be. In the sound version, there are many scenes where the script just has the actors babbling on, although some of this may be dreaded improvisations as well. It will a few more years before Robert Riskin, Preston Sturges, and Nunnally Johnson get the balance right on screen dialogue.
The filmmakers of the sound version at least make an effort to use sound creatively, as in a chase scene in a drug den where the lights keep going out. This is a slightly longer version of the scene in the silent film, and they use the dialogue in the darkness effectively.
Not only is Lloyd hampered by his verbal prissiness, but Noah Young, who plays a dumb policeman in both versions, seems stupider in the sound version because his voice is used to over-emphasize his stupidity. Several of the puns of the silent titles simply do not work in sound. Young’s policeman admires a decision Lloyd makes and calls him a “King Sullivan” as opposed to King Solomon. It works when you read it, but not when you hear it. There is another one later, when Lloyd’s character, who has developed a great interest in fingerprinting, is called "the Finger Prince" by another one of the cops. Again, it works in titles, but not in sound. I had a similar problem with the character of Alpa Chino in Tropic Thunder. Maybe I’m just getting old, but it took me hearing it a couple of times to get the reference.
By the time Lloyd did Movie Crazy in 1932, he should have improved more then he did, but the dialogue, while better, is still too “on the nose,” and there is too much of it that does not make a particular point. The writers and Lloyd have not worked out the balance between the words and his reactions, which still tend to be busier than they need to be. Something similar happens to Clara Bow in her best talkie, Call Her Savage, also in 1932. A great star in silent films, she did a few talkies, although the microphone scared her to death. In Call Her Savage, the screenwriter Edwin J. Burke, adapting a novel by Tiffany Thayer, has written a great part to help Bow make the transition from flapper to grownup. Bow handles it well, but Burke, Bow, and the director still do not have the balance right. There are dialogue scenes, but then long reaction shots with Bow in which she goes through the kind of wonderful reactions that made her a star in silent films. Bow has a perfectly good speaking voice and gives a great performance, within the melodramatic limitations of the story, but she shortly thereafter gave up acting. A great loss.
The problem of the balance between the visual and the verbal continues to bedevil filmmakers, particularly those working with a lot of slapstick. I happened to see the 2007 film Mr. Bean’s Holiday the day after I saw Movie Crazy and it struck me that Rowan Atkinson was running into the same problem Lloyd had. If you are going to write in a lot of visual humor, then you have to write the dialogue, if you have any for those scenes, very sparingly and very carefully. If you are going to interrupt a good piece of slapstick with words, they had better be essential, not the kind of nattering that Lloyd and Atkinson do. After all, the best interruption of a silent film with a line of dialogue was simply one word in Silent Movie (1976). I’m not going to tell you what it is. If you have seen the movie, you know, and if you have not, then I won’t spoil it for you.
TRANSFORMERS (2007. Story by John Rogers and Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman. Screenplay by Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman. Based on the Hasbro Toys. 144 minutes): I deliberately waited to see this one on cable for the same reason that I waited to see The Doors on videotape in 1991. When you watch a film at home, you can turn down the overbearing soundtrack, which you cannot do in a theater.
If you are writing a movie based on toys, then you have to create characters for your script. One of the limitations of this script is that there is very little characterization for the Transformers. Presumably kids who have been playing with them for years will know who’s who, but the rest of us do not. There is a scene about an hour into the picture where the characters of the Transformers are finally introduced, but they are not given much characterization. And we get so little of their characterization later in the film that in the final showdowns, I was still lost as to who was who.
The writers also give us nothing but cliches for all but one of the human actors to play. For an example of what you can do with characterization in this kind of movie, look at the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Here Sam is a typical teenager, and his parents are typical stupid parents, which is a criminal waste, particularly of Julie White as his mom. The one semi-exception is Mikaela, the teenage beauty who tags along with Sam. At first we think she is just a stuck-up rich girl, but it turns out she is trailer-park trash, who naturally knows how to fix a car. A lot more of this could be made of this in the writing, especially since the actor playing her, Megan Fox, has either decided not to or has not been directed to have a little white trash fun with the part. Where is Jaime Pressly when you need her?
IN PLAIN SIGHT (2008. Various writers): In US#1, I mentioned that the new series In Plain Sight spent way more time than it needed on the family life of Mary, the federal marshal who watches over people in the witness protection program. The series then went off the rails completely by focusing in the last two episodes on the problems of Mary’s sister, her drug-dealing boyfriend, and Mary’s mom. The final episode was more a family drama than a crime drama, and since the family was never as interesting as the witness stories, the air went out of the series. It may be retrievable next season.
MAD MEN (2008. Episode #5 “The New Girl.” Written by Robin Veith): One way you tell us about character is what decision they make, especially when they are under pressure. In this episode, Don Draper is in an auto accident with Bobbie Bartlett, the wife of a comedian he is dealing with. He does not have the $150 he needs to pay the bail. Who does Don Draper call? He can’t call his wife. Any of the guys at SC would be obvious choices, but they would tell all the other guys at work. Joan, the head secretary? Word would get around even quicker. So he calls Peggy, the junior copywriter. Why her? Veith uses this choice to tell us a bit more about what Peggy was up to between season one and season two, and how Don was involved in that. And we see how Don and Peggy are similar, which leads to Bobbie suggesting to Peggy while Peggy is hiding her out at her apartment, that Peggy ought to think of herself as Don’s equal. Later Peggy stays in Don’s office after a meeting and politely requests repayment of the loan for the bail. When he gives it to her, she says, “Thanks, Don.” Look at how much Veith gets out of having her say “Don” rather than “Mr. Draper,” and how well we have been prepared for that.
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Tom Stempel is the author of several books on film. His most recent is Understanding Screenwriting: Learning From Good, Not-Quite-So Good, and Bad Screenplays.
Aural/Visual Bullying: Traitor—Take 2
By Steven Boone
[Traitor opens today in wide release.]
When I look at a film, as an individual viewer with my own distinct DNA, biochemical profile, ocular deficiencies, brain damage, life experiences, needs, wants, peeves, and perversions, I don't necessarily see what you see. But there is something called a "communal experience." I remember looking over at a row of 40 or more people staring up at the Valkyrie helicopter attack in Apocalypse Now. Every face wore the same expression. I remember the gasps and applause that erupted in the packed house at Symphony Space when a deranged kidnapper fell to Takashi Shimura's sword in slo-mo in The Seven Samurai. I remember the cloud of compassionate despair that suffocated me and others when young Igor struggled to look after dead Amadou's wife and baby in La Promesse. We were in this together. And I can recall, just the other day, a room full of men going "Woooo shit!" when Sergio Leone panned up a monumental tangle of leather chaps and duster jacket to the roguish, angelic face of Woody Strode at the beginning of Once Upon a Time in The West.
Those utterly unrelated flicks share a respect for time and space, for the moment, that has disappeared from American films. Few of our big gun filmmakers know how to leave a tender moment alone. As a result, we leave the theater alone in our disappointment. Or at least I do. But judging from the casual "what's next" atmosphere of contemporary moviegoing, I feel pretty comfortable saying "we."
Traitor is a movie about some of the most terrifying and inescapable facts of our times, and I walked out of it whistling and chewing gum. What's next? I could give you an intricate, sequence by sequence breakdown of why it is so forgettable despite its memorable performances and action cinematography, but I'm tired, man. Tired of writing the same review for each of Ho'wood's precision engineered attempts at serious fun.
Traitor is a summer thrill ride that contemplates the limits of devotion—to country, to faith, to loved ones, to personal and professional codes. Sounds tasty, except that the filmmakers' temporal and spatial disregard turns the whole shebang into one of those zippity TV intelligence agency procedurals that TV Guide would call "Riveting!" I could swear I just heard the same drum-machine electronica riff that accompanies a Traitor prison break sequence on a DVD of the crime show Kidnapped. And Alias. And CSI. And 24. Ditto the digi-snap-zooms, King Kong-amplified body blows, synth stabs, Private Ryan shutter judder, desaturated colors, oversaturated colors, flimsy depth-of-field, pitying piano tinkles, frenetic cuts (on even the simplest, quietest moments) and Syriana faux verité (every time craggy higher ups gather in conference rooms to speak gravely about the plot point of the moment.)
Seasoned screenwriter/first-time director Jeffrey Nachmanoff supervises with state-of-the-art professionalism, which means that the film's primetime visual flow and aural assault blunt the impact and intrigue of his genuinely thoughtful screenplay. Much of that thoughtfulness comes through in Don Cheadle's performance as an African-born American arms dealer drafted into the ranks of Islamic terrorists. Nachmanoff has an eye for masculine screen presence almost as piercing as Leone's eye for Strode, Bronson, Robards and Fonda in Once Upon a Time in the West. He has flinty fun with the banter between good-Fed/bad-Fed duo Guy Pearce and Neal McDonough; studies the Arab handsomeness of Saïd Taghmaoui's deadly profile and Aly Khan's oversized dark eyes. These are some dashing fanatical maniacs.
But unlike Leone, or, say, the Coen brothers on No Country for Old Men (the 2007 film that all of Ho'wood's shop steward genre directors should be forced to watch at the point of a scimitar), Nachmanoff just doesn't care for the moment. He drowns, abbreviates or telegraphs every opportunity to make us live in a life-sized, real-time, subjective, suspenseful incident. When the film's second major plot twist, a scene of horrible/triumphant violence, occurred, the audience at the screening I attended erupted in laughter. Many critics will swear it was the plot point's improbability that had them rolling. I say a real filmmaker who doesn't follow the prevailing crowd of aural/visual bullies can make us believe damn near anything—and feel it in our bones.
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Steven Boone is a New York-based critic and filmmaker, a contributor to Vinyl is Heavy and the publisher of Big Media Vandalism.
Jihad for Dummies: Traitor—Take 1
By Lauren Wissot
[Traitor opens today in wide release.]
Traitor, an international espionage thriller written and directed by Jeffrey Nachmanoff (better known as the guy who wrote the global warming thriller The Day After Tomorrow), pits Guy Pearce’s southern Baptist FBI man Roy Clayton against Don Cheadle’s devout Muslim, maybe renegade, former U.S. soldier Samir Horn in a cat and mouse game across several continents and 17 cities. The movie is loaded with misguided Muslims and Americans alike, all of them just trying to do the right thing and slaughtering innocents in the process, so it comes as no surprise that several of the crew (including DP J. Michael Muro) and Cheadle himself were involved in the faux-deep car wreck that was Crash. For the Traitor script is as jam-packed with simpleminded and heavy-handed exposition-posing-as-profound-thought as it is with suicide bombings and hand-to-hand combat action—all of it so painful to listen to and observe that I wanted to blow myself up during the first half. And I don’t even like virgins.
Which is too bad since the story concept (originating with executive producer Steve Martin!) is as complex and interesting as the script is clichéd and tedious. Cheadle’s Samir is a living lens through which the twin paradoxes of causing violence by doing the right thing and saving lives by doing the wrong thing are magnified. Happily, the story’s twists and turns are both numerous and unpredictable. Yet the lightning speed pacing, courtesy of slick editing and drive-by camera moves through the numerous foreign locales (all set to jaunty Middle Eastern music), feels like nothing more than a desperate attempt to distract us from the atrocious, one-note, tone deaf script. Any visual enjoyment is tempered by the Al Gore lecture posing as the film's dialogue (only An Inconvenient Truth is more thrilling and informative).
One montage sequence in which Samir’s background is monotonously droned from different mouths is particularly grating. An FBI agent reads from a file that Samir’s father was Sudanese and his mother is from Chicago (yeah, got that from several other scenes), cut to another person talking about how he had discipline problems in high school—nearly killed a kid!—and on and on. And does any of this make any difference to the story? Of course not. Nachmanoff employs this unnecessary drivel as running time filler, ignoring the very apparent fact that having other characters lay out the lead's back-story is wet cement, not cinematic in the slightest. And some of the lines are unintentionally hilarious, as when Clayton’s old school partner Max Archer (eerie-eyed Neal McDonough) reads a file and suddenly grasps that some bombing victims may have been fake: “Wait—these people died as infants!” he declares.
However, what’s not so humorous are the many clichéd Muslim characters—either piously praying or cynically drinking wine—surrounding Cheadle’s three-dimensional one. In the press notes, Nachmanoff and his producers take pride in having cast actual Arabs in the roles of, uh, Arabs! But this whole “we hired Arabs to play Arabs,” p.c. self-congratulating is offensive in light of the fact that not one Arab is serving in any key position of power on the film. Without Arabs in the all important roles of producers or writers, director or cinematographer, Nachmanoff’s simply putting an American point of view into the mouths of Arab actors, then hiding behind that flimsy mask and patting himself on the back for his Muslim “sensitivity” (as superficial an act as making Pearce’s Clayton “complicated” by having him major in Arabic in college). Personally, I’d rather see Benicio del Toro play Samir’s terrorist pal Omar over French-Moroccan hottie Saïd Taghmaoui (from Mathieu Kassovitz’s La Haine) and have an Arab at the helm.
Yet it’s apparent why impressive talent like Cheadle (who needs to challenge himself soon by just playing an out-and-out badass villain, as his likability is wearing out its welcome), Pearce, and Jeff Daniels (as an independent contractor for the C.I.A.) signed on to this grand idea that doesn’t deliver. Cheadle got onboard for a chance to explore a complicated and contradictory leading man. (Unfortunately, as deep as Samir is, he’s still tied to an unsubtle script.) Aussie Guy Pearce wanted the chance to don a good ole boy accent. (Unfortunately, it sounds like southern fried Australia.) And Jeff Daniels probably just wanted to fund his Purple Rose Theatre Company in Michigan. All sound reasons in my book. But if I learned anything from watching Traitor, it’s that sometimes doing what you think is the right thing just ain’t good enough.
Brooklyn-based writer Lauren Wissot is the publisher of the blog Beyond the Green Door, the author of the memoir Under My Master's Wings, and a columnist for Spout Blog.
Links for the Day (August 27th, 2008)
1. A shout-out to our friends at Benten Films whose latest release, Kentucker Audley's Team Picture, streeted yesterday. Click the link above for more information on the DVD. Click here for an interview with Audley at GreenCine, conducted by our own Vadim Rizov.
["AUDLEY (from GreenCine interview): I definitely don't feel anything very smooth about doing things as far as people in Memphis understand how films go down. People don't take this shit seriously because it's done so casually. Coming from the perspective of Hollywood films or student films which are taught in school, it doesn't feel real if you're not taking five hours to get a shot, it doesn't feel like it's hard work enough. I think film students are Hollywood-type people - you know, they worked 14 hours to set up a shot. And that's fine. I'm just sort of turned-off about how some people can become so self-righteous about that approach. I don't think nothing happens in Team Picture, and I think the humor probably helps people who aren't really on board. I don't think people get it for the most part as far as the general spirit. I absolutely expect that, and I don't expect people to go crazy over the movie, but I guess the idea is that it's not trying to convince you of how smart or witty it is. I think once people see it has some attention outside of Memphis, they start to understand that maybe there's something to it."]
2. "Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Do Kill": A Newsweek report on the plight of gays in Iraq.
["Sometimes the act of reporting a story is revealing in itself--especially when it proves particularly difficult. This was the case when NEWSWEEK began looking into the problems of Iraq's homosexuals after hearing reports of secret safe houses around Baghdad where many of them were taking refuge from the militias' self-appointed morality police. After weeks of inquiries, NEWSWEEK managed to find Nadir and persuade him to arrange a visit to one of the safe houses he helps run. Instead, the Mahdi militia rousted him the night before. Established in 2004, the militia is the armed wing of the organization led by radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who has been an implacable foe of the Maliki government. Terrified, Nadir contacted people at the London-based gay NGO that finances the safe house, and they instructed him to break off the visit."]
3. "Good Bye Godard: We Just Don't Care": At The Moviezzz Blog, Jim Magovern ponders the preponderance of critical ignorance.
["There was recently a link on a highly trafficked movie site to another site’s list of the top foreign films of all time. Nothing about the list was anything new, basic Film 101 titles like RULES OF THE GAME, BREATHLESS and 8 ½. What was of note about the story was that the writer who linked to it openly stated that he had never seen any of the films on the list. While I had to applaud the writer’s honesty, like many in the comments section I was a bit appalled by his lack of film education. This is a fairly well known blog, with a lot of traffic, not to mention paid advertisers, and for them to openly claim ignorance of not having seen such major films? It was rather depressing. Granted, it is a site that is more interested in the color of Batman’s codpiece than the films of Claude Chabrol, but it still was surprising. If someone is going to write about film, shouldn’t they make an effort to educate themselves about what they are writing about before they start writing?"]
4. "Dr. Dre’s 20-year-old son found dead in L.A.": From MSNBC.
["Dr. Dre’s 20-year-old son has died, the rapper’s publicist said Tuesday. “Dr. Dre is mourning the loss of his son Andre Young Jr.,” publicist Lori Earl said in a statement. Young Jr., who was named after his father, was found dead Saturday by his mother at their home in suburban Woodland Hills, county coroner’s Lt. John Kades said."]
5. "Saint Joe: “Showgirls” Writer Finds Jesus": Eszterhas meets Christ. From The Screengrab. The Toledo Blade article mentioned is here.
["In a twist that’s just about as predictable as anything out of his screenplays, former master of glossy cinematic sleaze Joe Eszterhas has undergone a spiritual conversion. You remember Joe from the rollicking ’90s, when he penned such odes to depravity as Basic Instinct, Sliver, Jade and of course, the legendary Showgirls. But time marched on without ol’ Joe, who saw his anomalous coming-of-age tale Telling Lies in America and his off-target Hollywood satire An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn turn into limp box office flops. His oft-threatened magnum opus Sacred Cows, a political fable about a presidential hopeful getting caught fucking a cow, somehow failed to materialize. Eszterhas has his own sacred cows now, as he reveals in his new book Crossbearer: A Memoir of Faith. As he tells the Toledo Blade, it all started in the summer of 2001 when “Mr. Eszterhas was diagnosed with throat cancer. Doctors at the Cleveland Clinic removed 80 percent of his larynx, put a tracheotomy tube in his throat, and told him he must quit drinking and smoking immediately. At age 56, after a lifetime of wild living, Mr. Eszterhas knew it would be a struggle to change his ways.”"]
Quote of the Day: Samuel Johnson
Image of the Day (click to enlarge): Three of several T-Shirt designs from CineFile Video (the auteur line, I suppose). (Hattip: Ryland Walker Knight)
Clip of the Day: In honor of the Bolton/Sheridan split: "Said I Loved You... But I Lied."
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"Links for the Day": Each morning, the House editors post a series of weblinks that we think will spark discussion. Comments encouraged. Suggestions for links are also welcome. Please send to keithuhlich@gmail.com.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
"Music Video Round-Up": Lil Wayne & Kanye West
By Brandon Soderberg
'Got Money' directed by Gil Green (2008)
“Got Money” is the big, dumb pop-rap song of Lil Wayne’s two-million sold Tha Carter III because it’s got buzzing synths, R & B crooner (and maybe the second weirdest dude in pop-rap now) T-Pain on the hook, and it’s loud and about making lots of money. The video, directed by Gil Green and undoubtedly conceptualized by Wayne himself, is not about making lots of money for one’s self, but a kind of anti-capitalist, Robin Hood of “the hood” redistribution of wealth, contextualized in an awkward but effective prologue about the continued economic fallout for victims of Hurricane Katrina.
New Orleans-born Lil Wayne has enough songs that reference or are explicitly about Katrina in his discography (see: "Georgia Bush" or "Tie My Hands") that he could’ve made a “political” video for any of them and gotten the right kind of press, but it’s way more interesting—and way more “hip-hop”—that he’d instead get political on a really-great but truly vapid “I got a lotta money” song. Rap though, has always been about reconciling opposites and turning one thing into another, hasn’t it?
Like most popular videos, “Got Money” bounces between a performance part and a plot/narrative. Most videos have a narrative that plays-out and is occasionally punctuated by the performer standing in front of some non-descript backdrop or even colored background performing the song. Here, director Green uses the same location for both the bank robbery and the performance part and just designs and shoots them differently, adding some much-needed cohesion to this event video. The bank robbery aspect is naturalistic, shot with a 70s movie sense of action—no computer graphic or Matrix style here—while the performance aspect is the bank designed by late-90s Hype Williams. Plot and performance are still distinct, but using the same set keeps a kind of subliminal continuity in the viewer’s head that ideally extends to reconciling contradictory messages between the song and video.
What makes rap music—especially a lot of very popular rap music—so confusing for everyone from rock-oriented music critics to Bill O’Reilly is how unstable and all over the place it is. We are used to celebrities and artists having a stable, contrived public persona that may change and evolve over time, but the moment-to-moment immediacy of rapping often brings about many, contradictory personae in a single song. “Got Money” does not reconcile or choose one image of Wayne—or of rap in general—it throws them all around with little interest in consistency; even “contradiction” doesn’t really get at what’s going on here.
The video’s a really solid, extended action sequence (something Green’s very good at, see: “We Takin’ Over”), pretty subversive about the failings of government and Capitalism and a suggestion as to what should be done about it, and it harbors every grotesque rap cliché out there: flashing lights, lots of jewelry, money flying, and gleefully offensive video-girl imagery. But Green also finds the place for quiet, off-the-cuff sloppy reality, such as the quick shots of Wayne counting the chains around his neck just as he brags “I wear 8 chains,” T-Pain’s robot-walk across the screen at the video’s end, or, my favorite, letting the camera hold too long on a stack of bills that rest on the windshield of a moving cop car.
"A Milli" directed by Gil Green (2008)
While Green finds a few places for off-the-cuff naturalism in “Got Money,” the video that preceded it, “A Milli,” is three straight minutes of tossed-off, messy realism. “A Milli” has inexplicably become one of the most ubiquitous rap songs of the year. It’s already become a staple for other rappers to rap their own verses over and despite the more conventional Wayne singles “Lollipop” (which also has a video by Green) and aforementioned “Get Money,” it’s this chorus-less, totally out-there rap-rant freakout by Wayne atop a beat that’s nothing more than stumbling slaps of kick drum and synthetic hand-claps and a slowed-down but looped ad-nauseum vocal clip saying “a milli” that’s somehow caught the attention of everyone. Pop music nerds relish the few times a year when something as bizarre as this grabs onto the ears of a million.
“A Milli” simply couldn’t have been a giant party video—or even a smart video pretending to be a party video like “Got Money”—and so, Wayne and Green quickly constructed a single-take making of style video that’s as off-the-cuff as Wayne’s presumably one-take freestyle for the song. It’s important to note that this video dropped first and essentially teased “Got Money.” So its first appearance on BET was baffling to many because it seemed so effortless and anti-climactic: “This is the video for one of the summer’s biggest songs?” Of course, that’s the point; that’s why it’s the perfect video for “A Milli”: it’s equally inexplicable.
A relatively raw and candid portrait of one of pop’s weirdest stars, “A Milli” shows Wayne getting done-up for a video shoot, going to the bathroom, kindly greeting fans, eating some food, and hopping onto set for the “Got Money” video rehearsal, all in a single-take. Taken as a prequel to “Got Money” video, it also becomes some kind of meta-commentary on the unreality of that video versus the near-documentary sense of Wayne seen in a “A Milli.”
There are plenty of cheats in this single-take, but the sense of casual forward motion remains and, for the most part, the cuts are purposeful: they signify the passing of time, match-up to producer Bangladesh’s avant-minimal beat, or seem like fun diversions, as when we see the photos taken with fans. Green has used this interrupted single-take style before on his astounding video for dead prez’s “Hell Yeah.” In the medium of music video, where everything must be as concise as possible and, of course, fit the length of the song, it’s not the technical proficiency of the single-take that matters, but the feeling of it being a single take, and the subtle jump-cutting maintains that feeling.
"Champion" directed by NEON
Just in time for the Olympics—and hey, even Michael Phelps is a Lil Wayne fan—comes the “Champion” video, featuring muppet Kanye going for gold. Mr. West’s king-of-everything bit got old like, two albums ago, but when a puppet version’s shown working-out, leading a group of fans equal parts fit and chubby on a glorious jog through L.A., flopping around on an American flag, and winning it all, the egomaniac schtick goes down a lot easier.
There’s a certain indescribable genius to conflating the child-like wonder of Sesame Street-style puppets and the similar wonder one has about the Olympics at that Sesame Street-watching age. In your first-grade history book the Olympics are “the Olympic games,” athletes are “competitors,” everyone involved is a superhero and not just some dude who’s good at swimming that also gets arrested for drunk-driving, and there aren’t any Computer-Generated fireworks.
Although undoubtedly chosen because it’s really funny and entertaining, Kanye as a puppet also makes an interesting statement about the inclusive nature of the Olympics. The other athletes and the camera treat puppet Kanye like a “normal” human—the only person with a problem is the black member of the committee, a sly comment by Kanye on the problems of racial expectation—and West’s shot naturalistically, which contrasts with the overt artificiality of the puppet. Check out the patient zoom on Kanye punching the air, the pervasive lens flare, or the exteriors, clearly shot on-location.
“Champion” the song is similarly inclusive. Based on a Steely Dan sample (“Kid Charlemagne”), West takes The Dan’s tale of a dealer/pimp’s fall and recontextualizes their ironic use of “Did you realize, that you are a champion?” to, well, being a song about being victorious. But not just another “I’m on top” victory song from a rapper, one that contrasts current times of wealth and success with times that weren’t so good—itself a hip-hop cliché (“I once struggled but now I can buys lots of shit”), but done here with the perfect amount of autobiographical detail. West follows-up the joke-brag “Why do I need a stylist/When I shop so much I can speak Italian” with a modest “I don’t know” and a declaration that he “just want[s] it better for [his] kids” and then stumbles into an extended reminiscence about his own materialistic wants as a child and their burden on his parents.
That Steely Dan sample is itself both a materialistic boast—Steely Dan charge notoriously high to sample, so it proves Kanye’s got the dough to buy—and a comment on music history. “Kid Charlemagne” itself borrowed from the Afro-pop and funk of the era and so West, a black rapper borrowing back their rhythms, creates an interesting comment on the porous borders of race and genre in popular music. West then takes it further with the reggae-tinge in the vocals/afro-pop in the drumming (and listen closely for those gorgeously subtle strings playing along to the melody) kind of coda that plays right before a final burst of power synths and uplifting chorus, all visually set to Kanye’s victory and some final, effective jump-cuts of him running with the flag.
Director team NEON (Nabil Elderkin & John Pina) are wise to go light-hearted after their embarrassingly melodramatic (rejected) video for Kanye’s “Flashing Lights” and the computer effects-heavy Sin City-esque awkwardness of stuff like Common & Will.I.Am’s “A Dream” or John Legend’s “Stereo”. “Champion” is thankfully in the vein of the hand-made goofiness they brought to Kanye’s outrageous remix of “Throw Some Ds.”
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Brandon Soderberg is author of the sites No Trivia and The Biographical Dictionary of Rap.
Links for the Day (August 26th, 2008)
1. A real treasure: an online scan of Donald Phelps' ninth issue (dated 1965) of "For Now," a 103 page tribute to and collection of the work of Manny Farber. Via Girish Shambu, who offers a heartfelt in memoriam.
["If I might wax personal for a second, Farber happened to provide a turning point for this blog. A little over two years ago, I did a post on termite art and white elephant art. In the process of writing it and in discussing Farber in the comments with others, primarily Zach, I discovered that my film-blogging interests lay not simply in films but in discourse about films: reading, writing, talking about them. For occasioning this turn in the road for the blog, among many other reasons, I'm grateful to Farber and his essay."]
2. "'Gone With The Wind' Tarleton twin dies": From CNN.
["Fred Crane, the one-time actor whose Southern accent won him a slot as one of Scarlett O'Hara's beaux and the opening line in "Gone With the Wind," has died. Crane, who played one of the Tarleton twins in the 1939 classic, was 90. His wife, Terry Lynn Crane, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he died on Thursday of complications from diabetes. She declined to give details. The couple had lived in Barnesville, south of Atlanta, where they operated Tarleton Oaks. The bed and breakfast was named for his character in the film, Brent Tarleton. The other Tarleton twin was played by George Reeves, who later gained TV immortality as Superman."]
3. "Dick Escapes Sexual Battery Charges": God, it's just too easy...
["Comedian Andy Dick will face a series of misdemeanour charges after escaping prosecution on counts of sexual battery following his arrest last month. The 42-year-old comedian posted $5,000 (GBP2,703) bail following his arrest in Murieta, California, on 16 July on suspicion of drug possession and sexual battery. Onlookers reported he had walked up to a 17-year-old female outside a restaurant and "grabbed her tank top and bra and pulled them down and exposed her breasts". Cops stopped Dick and friends at a nearby discount grocery store after they had driven away from the establishment in a truck. Officers who found marijuana and Xanax in Dick's pockets during a curbside search added the star was "extremely intoxicated"."]
4. "Simple Jacks": Fernando F. Croce reviews Tropic Thunder, Frozen River, and Vicky Cristina Barcelona.
["The late Manny Farber's words kept flashing like a neon sign throughout Tropic Thunder: "Cartooned Hip Acting." As respectively a fading action-flick star looking to regain his blockbuster throne and a gross-out farceur angling to be taken seriously, Ben Stiller and Jack Black swell a basketful of sweaty tics and mugs into parade floats; as an Oscar-winning Aussie actor so Method that he surgically darkens his skin to portray a black guy, Robert Downey, Jr. suggests a different seminal essay by another recently deceased great writer -- Norman Mailer's "The White Negro." All pose, these guys, but conceptually it's okay since the film, directed by Stiller from a screenplay he co-wrote with David Lynch cuckoo Justin Theroux, is really about fakers winging it in the bush, from the old Nam vet with hooks for limbs to the gay rapper who has to insist he "loves da pussy!""]
5. "Domestic Disturbances": Bilge Ebiri on the cinema of Frank and Eleanor Perry. At Moving Image Source.
["The Swimmer might be the Perrys’ best remembered film today, but it presents a difficult case for study, chiefly because it’s hard to tell where Frank Perry’s work ends and Sydney Pollack’s (and possibly even others’) begins. Perry once speculated that about 50 percent of the film wasn’t his. (We do know for a fact that scenes featuring Barbara Loden as Ned’s former lover were replaced with Janice Rule playing the part—reportedly on the recommendation of Loden’s own husband, Elia Kazan!)"]
Quote of the Day: Robertson Davies
Image of the Day (click to enlarge): Frau Blücher is going to be dancing with the stars.
Clip of the Day: Scarlett and the Tarletons (see #2 above).
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"Links for the Day": Each morning, the House editors post a series of weblinks that we think will spark discussion. Comments encouraged. Suggestions for links are also welcome. Please send to keithuhlich@gmail.com.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Celebrity Skin: The Black List: Volume 1
By Steven Boone
On paper, HBO’s The Black List: Volume 1 fairly screams Black History Month: Twenty-two African-American superachievers speak about their lives and times; cue gospel choir and martial trumpets. Luckily, the canned epiphanies never come. The documentary’s format is refreshingly simple: Luminaries face the camera and tell their tales as if addressing a single friendly acquaintance (you, the viewer) rather than a sea of black ties at an NAACP fund-raiser.
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To read the rest of the article at Time Out New York, click here.
Mad Men Mondays: Season 2, Episode 5, "The New Girl"
By Andrew Johnston
I was almost a little disappointed when a literal new girl showed up halfway through “The New Girl”, as I was having so much fun decoding the ways the title applied to Peggy, Joan, and the visitig Bobbie Barrett (surely one of the sceries’ most fascinating-ever characters). It’s yet another entry in a very strong run of episodes and one which, in tandem with next week’s installment (don’t worry, you’ll find no spoilers for it here) provides more in the way of semiconventional character development than the series has in quite awhile.
The opening scene suggests another “new girl” candidate: A potential daughter from Pete and Trudy, who go to a fertility clinic in the hope of realizing the pregnancy she’s long desired. The whole process turns out to be Pete’s latest emasculating embarrassment, as he’s peppered with awkward questions by the doc (he’s of course completely sincere when he answers “no” to “Have you ever fathered a child?”). The 1962 nudist mags he’s given to stimulate himself into yielding a sperm sample are good for an ironic snicker, but the best joke in that scene is the presence of a copy of U.S. News & World Report with a cover story that even then was completely irrelevant to the day’s headlines. Industry wags have long referred to the mag as Useless News & World Report, and it was fascinating to see that was as true 46 years ago as it is today.
Bobbie plants herself firmly at the center of the action by coaxing Don into meeting for drinks at Sardi’s,where a symbolic passing of the torch from Rachel Mencken to Bobbie occurs (Rachel has gotten since we last saw her, and her husband has one of the greatest polyglot WASP-Jewish names I’ve encountered in either fiction or reality: Tilden Katz). Bobbie isn’t the “new girl” just because she’s the closest thing to a mistress Don has had since Rachel left, but also the first woman he’s encountered since then who could qualify as his female counterpart.
In the great tradition of men who change their minds out of petulance when they see something they don’t like, Don is soon en route to her beach house at Stony Brook, Long Island, a picturesque village in Suffolk County on the North Shore. On the way, Bobbie provides an abbreviated account of how she achieved success as Jimmy’s manager. “This is America,” she says. “Pick a a job and become the person that does it.” Needless to say, that’s exactly what Dick Whitman did when he became Don Draper (it’s also a philosophy Bert Cooper shares, as he reveals at the climax of “Nixon versus Kennedy”.) But being Don’s female counterpart doesn’t make Bobbie his female analogue--there are key differences in their worldview. She’s got a Roger Sterling-esque love of negotiation, an activity Don says “bores” him (he clearly does everything he can to avoid negotiating on the job at SC), and her subsequent conversations with Peggy suggest she’s a lot more cynical than Don.
Peggy’s arrival at the courthouse is staged like a mystery with a big reveal, and indeed, as Bobbie observes, it initially does sort of seem as if she’s gone a little too far above and beyond the call of duty for Don. Cue the flashbacks which shine light on what happened to her between "The Wheel" and "For Those Who Think Young" and reveal that, as Peggy sees it, she’s repaying a debt. In some respects, the insertion of the flashbacks feels clunky, but as discrete scenes they play quite well, in addition to providing us with some useful info. Peggy’s mom’s tendency to fawn over Pegs at Anita’s expense was standard procedure long before Peggy’s kid came along, apparently, and Anita herself seems to be about eight months pregnant at the time of Peggy’s delivery. If Peggy’s kid is being passed off as Anita’s, then they’re presumably being presented to the world as twins (this may have been stated before; if so, I missed it).
As Peggy drives Don and Bobbie back to the city, Peggy alternates between deferring to Don and acting in a way which suggests that she now has leverage over him, and knows it. It’s this side of Peggy’s personality which Bobbie is intent on cultivating. During their day at Peggy’s apartment, she gives Peggy advice that once again reflects her "Anything’s possible when you-go after what you want" worldview. “You’re never going to get that corner office until you start treating Don as an equal,” she tells her. “And don’t try to be a man--it won’t work.” And so it is that another, more abstract idea of “the new girl” enters the mix--the Helen Gurley Brown-influenced proto-feminist, an archetype that, surprisingly, Peggy may turn out to embody more completely than even Joan (who, in her conversation with Roger, displays a somewhat uncharacteristic-seeming shortage of ambition).
The flashback to Don visiting Peggy in the hospital makes it possible to argue that he, more than anyone, is responsible for Peggy’s tendency to aim high. After she tells Don that she doesn’t know what to do to get out of the hospital, he offers instant, decisive advise rooted in his rejection of the Dick Whitman identity, advice that’s sort of the inverse of what Bobbie says about picking a job and becoming the person who does it, yet which ultimately arrives at the same place: “Move forward. This never happened. It will shock you how much it never happened.”
That’s it for the flashbacks, but it’s not hard to infer what happened next. Peggy followed Don’s advice, in the process taking a few months off from SC, during which he covered for her before re-hiring her as a copy writer. Somewhere along the way, she dumps the roommate and gets her own place (I’m sure I’m not the only one who initially mistook the absence of Peggy’s roommate for a continuity error.)
Once again, there’s plenty of ambiguity about Don’s menschiness. His betrayal of Betty as a pouty response to Rachel’s marriage is hardly an example of maturity, but his standing up for Peggy is admirable, and I was reasonably impressed by his resignation to facing the music when it looks like Jimmy is going to call him out over the incident with Bobbie. The most grown-up thing he does, however, is treating Peggy with respect when follows Bobbie’s advice, first asking him to repay her ASAP and then calling him “Don” instead of “Mr. Draper.” (Sure, he has a surprised look on his face, but it says “I didn’t know she had it in her” rather than “How dare she!”). I was fearful that Peggy’s arc this season would be more about the baby than her career, but "The New Girl" (and next week’s "Maidenform") prove that when she’s got some fire in her belly, Peggy’s journey is every bit as interesting as Don’s.
Miscellaneous Notes: Many people will take Don’s $150 fine for drunk driving to be another of Mad Men’s periodic cheap, “Ho ho ho, look how far we’ve come in 40-some-odd-years” jokes. The truth is more complicated: According to the Consumer Price Index Inflation Calculator, that fine comes to $1,092.54 in 2008 dollars. New York DWI law is pretty complicated--it seems that those charged with drunk driving are actually charged with two separate different offenses, “Driving While Impaired by Alcohol” (a noncriminal “traffic infraction” with a minimum fine of $300 and a max of $500 for a first offense; these charges are handled by the DMV rather than the DA, apparently), and “Driving While Intoxicated”, (a criminal violation for which first-timers face a minimum fine of $500 and a max of $1000). Point being, if Don had a clean record, he could theoretically be hit for a fine that’s almost $400 more (in modern dollars) than what he would face in 2008. If the accident led the cop to upgrade the offense to an “aggravated DWI” (which is done at a police officer’s discretion, I think), they’d be more likely to throw the book at him.
The good ol’ inflation calculator also reveals that the $110 or so that Peggy scrapes together to pay Don’s fine would be $801 in 2008 money--no small sum at all, and one I dare say she shouldn’t need Bobbie’s encouragement to pursue its speedy return. In another Peggy note, I really liked how, as the only person on the drive home who was actually born and raised in the city, her knowledge of local freeways put Don’s to shame.
During the first season, a few people complained about a product placement deal with Jack Daniels that got the whiskey shown on camera and/or mentioned verbally in three or four episodes (it was really quite subtle, especially compared to stuff like the appallingly blatant shilling for the Red Robin burger chain on Psych a couple of weeks ago). Well, Don and Bobbie weren’t swilling a bottle of Jack Daniels as they tore it up on the road--the label is blue, not black--but the shape of the bottle sure as hell makes it look like one. Coincidence, or inside reference to last season’s plugs (which I don’t think are being repeated)? You be the judge.
Speaking of color changes, being the hopeless geek that I am, I couldn’t suppress the urge to do a Google images search to find out if the seals of either of the Long Island counties corresponded to the patches on the cop’s shoulders. The patches showed a lion against a red background, and, sure enough, the emblem of Nassau County is a lion, albeit one on a blue field. Would the producers have to get permission to use the Nassau County seal on the show? The blue-to-red switcheroo seems like the kind of thing they’d only really have a reason to do if the county had said no.
Finally, there’s the actual “new girl” of the title, who didn’t make much of an impression as a character (though she certainly is cute). The bit where Ken, Paul and Harry move in like sharks smelling blood was predictable, but still very funny. It also came off as fairly creepy in light of Ken’s even-more-lecherous-than-before portrayal in recent episodes. I therefore enjoyed seeing him crash and burn as a result of Freddie Rumsen’s impromptu performance, which was the most random, Twin Peaks-esque gag that the series has offered since the Chinese family left their rooster behind at the office back at the beginning of season one. My first instinct was that some great advance in zipper technology took place circa 1962 and Freddie was trying out a brand of slacks for which Sterling Cooper was preparing a campaign, but a quick glance at the abundant online articles about the history of the zipper suggests that, from an engineering viewpoint at least, by the 1920s the zipper had been taken about as far as it could go. Rather, to paraphrase one of the most memorable descriptions in (semi)recent sports journalism, this was just Freddie being Freddie.
Andrew Johnston is the television critic for Time Out New York.
Generation Kill Mondays: Episode 7, "Bomb in the Garden"—Take 2
By Jeremiah Kipp
So now it’s all over, and I suppose there’s some relief in wrapping up a series I thought wasn’t particularly great, for reasons I attempted to outline in each recap. The same week I finished Generation Kill, I also completed viewing Season Five of The Wire. To compare the two shows would be unfair, because The Wire had many years on Generation Kill, and you had more of an opportunity to get to know the various cops, drug dealers, politicians, dock workers, addicts, and survivors. It grew from being a really solid cop show into a vast panorama of urban corruption and decay. Generation Kill, despite its epic tale of the first weeks of a war that has gone on to become a seemingly never-ending nightmare, is actually a smaller story, much of it taking place inside the camps and vehicles of a traveling group of marines, many of whom we never get to know.
There’s something else about the show that feels strange, and finishing Evan Wright’s book (the inspiration for the miniseries) helped me put my finger on it. When Wright is asked by colleagues what war film would shed light on the experiences of soldiers fighting today, he suggests Groundhog Day, the film in which Bill Murray is trapped in the same day of his life again and again. Now, I loved that film, but sitting through nearly seven hours of repetition and routine in Generation Kill was, in many ways, tedious. In the comments section, many readers said they felt like they connected to these marines (on the show) far more than I did, and that they saw the characters evolve and change as they marched from Camp Matilda to Baghdad.
I felt like it was Groundhog Day without Bill Murray learning about himself, only getting a little more frustrated and a little more irate about his situation. When some viewers looked into Colbert and Person and Scribe, they seem to have understood them, but they always felt so far away from me, kept at arms length. In contrast, Wright's book gave me the details about who the marines were, where they came from, what they were about, all the stuff that is difficult to dramatize and yet, when done right, results in characters so fresh that we have to admit, since they were drawn from life, to never having seen them in movies or TV shows before. Exhibit A: Omar Little in The Wire.
Things change during this final episode of Generation Kill when Bravo Team finally lands in Baghdad. We’re taken out of the humvee, and Colbert (Alexander Skarsgård) steps into the background, perhaps simmering a little while his friend Lt. Fick (Stark Sands) is reprimanded for speaking his mind, and Kocher (Owain Yeoman) is unfairly punished for “abusing” a prisoner of war while Captain America (Eric Nenninger) walks away clean. The scribe (Lee Tergesen) gets to walk around and observe the marines, so he does slightly more than just react to the wiseacre comments and wartime horrors around him—he even has to run away from enemy fire at one point, going in a zigzag pattern like he learned from watching The In-Laws. Person (James Ransone), the chatterbox Southerner, is quiet to the point of being wrapped too tight. Things seem like they’re gonna blow up.
Osmosis being what it is, while we haven’t really had the chance to “get to know” the marines in the television series the way we do in reading Evan Wright’s book, the faces by now are familiar enough that when the scribe says his goodbyes it has some meaning. Generation Kill wisely underplays these moments, as it has underplayed everything else, with no crocodile tears or sentimental hugs. The moments of farewell to the various characters are quiet and circumspect.
Captain America orders his men to go sweep a minefield at night, and it leads to a rare moment of mortifying horror. A soldier winds up so deep in shellshock that he can’t see or feel an injury as plain as the nose on his face. Since so much of Generation Kill revolves around the boring routines of marine life (little sleep, constantly on the move, knowing very little about their missions, occasionally involved in a firefight, figuring out strategic times to run out of the humvee to take a dump), this graphic moment has an affecting power, to the point that even the sitcom idiocy of Captain America takes on a strange resonance.
If Generation Kill allowed moments like this to simply exist, as if they were a pearl on a string, then the show would be a profound accumulation. Little moments in time speak larger truths than the so-called big moments, like when Scribe says goodbye to Godfather (Chance Kelly). The scene would work just fine if it were simply about the reporter attempting to understand Godfather’s theory about why he does or does not demote Fick or Captain America. If it were just about revealing character, that would be enough. But the TV show can’t resist being a TV show, and so Godfather overreaches his point (as if wanting the reporter to not only understand but to agree with him) and the camera lingers on the scribe’s reaction as he shows, in no uncertain terms, what he thinks of Godfather’s theory.
Moments like this hit the nail on the head and the scene is nearly derailed by its message-heaviness. The characters, instead of simply having a personality and point-of-view, become message bearers for the TV show itself, making a statement for the audience to glean. When my editor-in-chief Keith Uhlich, ever patient with my disenchantment with Generation Kill, asked me what I thought of the show (and suddenly making me feel like the scribe having to fess up to Godfather—talk about life imitating art imitating life!), I told him that scenes such as this one were “Almost Good!”
Scene after scene is almost good, and the final sequence, love it or hate it, sums up the series quite nicely. Coming off of a football game where one of our major characters has a stress-related freak out and attacks a superior officer, the marines sit around watching a movie that one of their teammates has cut together on his computer, incorporating footage from their various adventures. The Johnny Cash song “The Man Comes Around” drifts in, which is surprising, despite it being an obvious song about the apocalypse and destruction (Zack Snyder used it in Dawn of the Dead, which is a similar videogame meets violence meets modern times movie without the self-awareness, and, yes, subtlety of Generation Kill). The marines watch a montage that, in a way, recaps the sights and sounds of the entire seven-episode series. And, one by one, they react to the screen almost as if they were a hive mind, with a chain reaction happening between them, started by Iceman, that announces to the viewer what these marines think and feel about the movie.
Is it a meta-movie moment where the marines are genuinely reacting to their situation, or are they characters becoming part of that dreaded Message That Is Bigger Than They Are? Would this moment happen in real life, or has the TV show allowed itself the room to take on a Big Poetic Gesture? Like so much else in this series, I file this climactic scene under A—for “Almost Good.” I’m glad the show, at this moment, strives for poetry, but weirdly, it doesn’t come off that way. I felt like I was watching the final song in a Broadway show, where instead of each character jumping into the aria, they wander off behind the curtain until one solo voice is left. Indeed, the last man left watching the video says a lot about the show as well. By isolating this character the way they do, I file it under B—for “Big Statement.” The actors on the show are never better (because when they’re acting in a scene that is so self-aware, it doesn’t matter if we see the acting), and hey, the Johnny Cash song may be an obvious choice, but at least it’s got rhythm and sadness and anger and a kind of open, all-American sagacity.
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Jeremiah Kipp's writing has appeared in Slant Magazine, Filmmaker, Fangoria and other publications.
Generation Kill Mondays: Episode 7, "Bomb in the Garden"—Take 1
By Keith Uhlich
"Jesus Christ, that's a lotta city," observes Sgt. Brad Colbert (Alexander Skarsgård) at the start of Generation Kill's final episode (entitled "Bomb in the Garden"). The Baghdad skyline stretches before them and Cpl. Josh Ray Person (James Ransone) marks the moment (and the territory) by writing "USA" with his piss. But the sense of momentousness is put-upon and manufactured, destined to be short-lived.
The arrival of First Recon in Baghdad is one of the great anti-climaxes—by now, the ineptitude of the Battalion leaders is accepted as old hat, so when they proceed to screw up the restoration of law and order among an increasingly prickly populace, it's greeted with a sigh, a shrug, or, in the case of Lt. Nathaniel Fick (Stark Sands), a long, sad stare off into the distance.
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To read the rest of the review at UnderGroundOnline (UGO), click here.
Links for the Day (August 25th, 2008)
1. "Daniel Radcliffe Farts Sunshine": Ah, Gawker, how I love thee...
["Daniel Radcliffe, our avian-mugged Harry Potter of the cinema, is, as I'm sure you're all painfully and tinglingly aware, making his Broadway debut very soon in the 1970's sex play Equus. He's supposed to be fantastically brilliant in the show, and smart as a whip both on and off the stage. But, yes, most importantly he is naked in the play and gets his jibblies whilst astride a mighty steed (or mare, who the hell knows). And, evidently, he farts sunshine. You know, if this Annie Leibovitz portrait of the actor and his costar, Richard Griffiths, is any indication."]
2. Let Dr. Ronald Chevalier irrigate your barren earth with fresh cream. (Viral marketing for Jared Hess' latest, Gentlemen Broncos, featuring Jemaine Clement from Flight of the Conchords). (Hattip: David Dixon)
["Greetings Readers, I'm Dr. Ronald Chevalier, acclaimed author of science fiction novels and novellas such as Cyborg Harpies, Brain Cream, and the all-new novel Brutus & Balzaak. Welcome to my official internet website. Celestially Yours,"]
3. "Walking a Tight Rope and Swinging for the Fences: Across the Country, Non-Profits React to SFFS Announcement": By Eugene Hernandez at indieWIRE.
[""The rules of the game are in flux," noted Gabe Wardell via email last week, reacting to the news of the San Francisco Film Society's expansion into filmmaker services in the wake of the demise of the 32 year old Film Arts Foundation. "While some say the sky is falling, and others make bold predictions about the future of our independent film, the truth is that no one knows for sure what the future holds." Wardell, who runs the Atlanta Film Festival organization in Georgia, formerly known as the Image Film and Video Center, was just one of the veterans of the non-profit film sector surveyed by indieWIRE via email this week."]
4. Dan Sallitt writes on John M. Stahl's When Tomorrow Comes.
["One of the first things you notice about Stahl is that there’s a lot of weather in his films. Though his career is heavy on melodramas, and though adverse weather is one of the prime motifs of melodrama, Stahl invariably deploys weather against melodrama: he uses it to create a steady, conspicuous signal that remains more or less constant across dramatic vicissitudes. In the scenes before this clip, a storm whips up as the couple are boating, and the wind and rain drive them to an unexpected pit stop at Boyer’s house. The storm having served the narrative purpose of forcing a sexually charged situation, we might expect the filmmakers to let it lapse – but in this clip we see Stahl beginning to create a secondary focus on the weather, turning its sounds and sights into a continuous background texture. In the impressive thirty minutes that follow this clip, the storm will begin to drive the narrative, all the while serving as a sensory drone that is deployed in counterpoint to the ups and downs of the lovers’ adventure."]
5. "More Batstuff": Dave Kehr highlights a comment (by Larry Kart) from his site's extensive Dark Knight thread, and offers a few more thoughts of his own.
["KEHR: As an aside, I’d just note that the “circle the principals” move Larry describes has become as ubiquitous in contemporary films as the zooms of the 1970s – to me, it’s just another sign of lazy direction, like Altman’s slow zooms in on a single figure in one of his clothesline ‘scope compositions. You see it in romantic comedies as well as action films. The other night I was watching a tiny Poverty Row picture – “A Shot in the Dark,” directed by Charles Lamont for Chesterfield (1935), and at the moment one character tells another that an apparent suicide was anything but, Lamont dollies about 90 degrees around the latter, just enough to suggest that something fundamental in his view of/relation to the world has changed. In this context, it’s an expressive, even subtle device – but a whole film shot that way expresses nothing more than the director’s lack of confidence in his own material, his gnawing need to “punch things up” and “keep things moving” for today’s restive audiences. My sense for some time has been that the two principal emotions expressed by Hollywood films are anger and self-pity, both of which are spectacularly on display in “The Dark Knight.”"]
Quote of the Day: Lane Olinghouse
Image of the Day (click to enlarge): A 21 lb catfish caught with a Barbie fishing rod. (Hattip: Preston Miller)
Clip(s) of the Day: A belated special announcement (be sure and call that number...). Plus, how long will the flavor of CareFree Sugarless Bubblegum last?
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"Links for the Day": Each morning, the House editors post a series of weblinks that we think will spark discussion. Comments encouraged. Suggestions for links are also welcome. Please send to keithuhlich@gmail.com.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
2000+: Rules Remain the Same, Except Some Changes
I missed our 2000th post exactly (this is #2002), but still wanted to mark the moment. Jason Statham helps us celebrate, and points the way to 3... thousand! (See you there.)
Links for the Day (August 23rd & 24th, 2008)
1. A pre-bedtime wrap-up of the Obama VP announcement: CNN; MSNBC; CBS; FOX; ABC; NYTIMES; WSJ. (Recent as of 11:30 PM, 8/22/08.)
["CNN: Sen. Barack Obama's choice for running mate will be announced to supporters in a text message Saturday morning, senior Obama campaign officials told CNN on Friday night, and a senior party official said it won't be Sen. Hillary Clinton.
MSNBC: Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh and Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine have been told by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's campaign they will not be his vice presidential choice, NBC News reported on Friday, quoting sources. The Associated Press also reported that a Democratic official close to Kaine said the Virginia governor told associates of Obama's decision on Friday. The source spoke on condition of anonymity because he's not authorized to discuss the development, the AP report said. Speculation about Obama's choice has centered on Bayh, Kaine and Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden. Other names in the mix include Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and Texas Rep. Chet Edwards.
CBS: On a day and night of political suspense, Delaware Sen. Joe Biden emerged as a leading contender Friday to become Barack Obama's vice presidential pick as two running mate rivals learned they had been eliminated. Virginia Gov. Tom Kaine spread word he had been ruled out and Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana was told he was not Obama's choice, according to party officials. The normally loquacious Biden maintained a low profile as associates said they believed - but did not know - that he would be tapped. They added they had been asked to stand by in case their help was needed. Additionally, several associates of Obama - including some at his campaign headquarters in Chicago - said they believed Biden was the choice, though they cautioned they had not been told directly. Compounding the mystery, conservative Rep. Chet Edwards of Texas emerged - however briefly - as a contender.
FOX: Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine and Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana are out. Could Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware be in? Sources told FOX News that Kaine had been informed he was out of the running for Barack Obama’s vice presidential pick, and the Associated Press cited a source who said Bayh had been informed of the same. As for Biden’s position as the leading contender, the truth might not be told until Saturday afternoon. Obama plans to notify the country of his vice presidential pick Saturday — possibly sometime in the morning — before the candidate and his chosen appear at a 2 p.m. campaign event in Illinois, FOX News learned Friday night."]
2. Jeremy Heilman's 2008 Toronto Fest blog is live. Keep checking back for updates.
["When it’s all said and done, Wendy and Lucy (Kelly Reichardt) could very well turn out to be the best film playing at the festival. Anchored by a soulful performance from Michelle Williams, this small-scale drama packs the same heart-destroying punch as neorealist classics like Umberto D. and the same immersive approach to characterization as the best films from the Dardenne brothers. Stripped down, but thematically rich, it’s able to produce reverberations about America at large, while never betraying its ultra-specific scenario."]
3. "The Movies About Movies Blog-a-Thon": Running through the weekend at goatdogblog. (Hattip: GreenCine)
["Welcome to the Movies About Movies Blog-a-Thon HQ. Entries are already pouring in, and I'm looking forward to a torrent of great posts on movies about the movie industry's favorite subject—itself."]
4. "Warner Bros Confirms Superman Reboot": From Cinematical. (Hattip: Mike Peterson)
["So much for Warner Bros really taking their time deciding what to do with the Man of Steel! Group President Jeff Robinov confirmed to The Wall Street Journal that they plan on rebooting the franchise, a'la The Incredible Hulk. "Superman [Returns] didn't quite work as a film in the way that we wanted it to," says Robinov. "It didn't position the character the way he needed to be positioned. Had Superman worked in 2006, we would have had a movie for Christmas of this year or 2009. But now the plan is just to reintroduce Superman without regard to a Batman and Superman movie at all.""]
5. "The breeding properties of M&Ms": Roger Ebert gets himself a bizarre blog comment. (Hattip: Ross Ruediger)
["Whenever I get a package of plain M&Ms, I make it my duty to continue the strength and robustness of the candy as a species. To this end, I hold M&M duels. Taking two candies between my thumb and forefinger, I apply pressure, squeezing them together until one of them breaks and splinters. That is the "loser," and I eat the inferior one immediately. The winner gets to go another round."]
Quote of the Day: Jean Rostand
Image of the Day (click to enlarge): Yoda, the cat with four ears.
Clip(s) of the Day: All you men ready for your robotic chicks? (Maybe with a side of death metal dog?)
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"Links for the Day": Each morning, the House editors post a series of weblinks that we think will spark discussion. Comments encouraged. Suggestions for links are also welcome. Please send to keithuhlich@gmail.com.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Landmark Parable: Macario
By Vadim Rizov
[Macario screens as part of "Wounded Pride, Simmering Passion," a Film Society of Lincoln Center retrospective of the films of Mexican filmmaker Roberto Gavaldón. Click here for screening information.]
Macario is a landmark in Mexican cinema; Lincoln Center says so, and so do I. From my limited vantage point on Mexican film, Macario isn't the all-time champ—that'd be Jaime Humberto Hermosillo's 1976 Matinee, a sorely underrated children's adventure/bank-robber action comedy—but it's got a flavor I've never quite encountered, from that country or otherwise. Whether or not it's the highlight of the Film Society of Lincoln Center's Roberto Gavaldón retro is a question I can't settle (it's the only film I managed to catch in advance), but it's certainly a missing piece of the puzzle.
A Brothers Grimm parable refracted through the politically agitated lens of author B. Traven, Macario pivots on the title character (Ignacio López Tarso), a hard-working woodsman. Dia De Los Muertos is on its way, and even the dead aren't immune to class animus: even on a holiday, Macario's family, though envious of their rich neighbors, have to make their humble offering a point of self-aggrandizing pride. Delivering wood to a kitchen, Macario—previously silent, self-sacrificing and noble to the point of Marxist caricature—snaps when he sees all the turkeys being prepared. He vows to not let another piece of food pass his lips until he can have a whole turkey to himself. A selfish but understandable impulse; his wife (Pina Pellicer) caves, seeming to understand that if he dies, there'll be no more food to filch from his plate. Stolen turkey in hand, Macario retreats to the woods.
Up to this point—a lurid dream sequence featuring "Pepe y los marionetas" aside—Macario treads a stolid and slightly dreary realist line. When Macario retreats to the woods, though, everyone wants a symbolic piece of his turkey: God, Satan, and Death all take a crack at him. Death wins, and enjoys his feast so much that he gives Macario water which can cure any sickness unless he indicates otherwise. Macario quickly develops a reputation as a healer, which is when the angry Inquisition shows up.
Until Macario gets his powers, we're in terrain I'm not particularly interested in: one part class anger, one part Catholicism, two parts folklore and imagery. But then Macario abruptly shifts into blunt, angry satire: it's not subtle, but it works, taking the greedy and abusive to task in the most explicit terms. The previously disdainful rich fawn before Macario, the church is mad someone is stealing their thunder (or they really, sincerely think he's a heretic, which is worse), and everyone's a hypocrite. Except Macario: all he wants is to finally make his family comfortable. The film punishes him for this, both in mythic outlines (you can't outrun fate) and practical ones (society wants nothing it can't contain). If I'm let down by the film's ending, it's because it retreats back to where it began: away from satire and back into the mystic, refusing to validate Macario's all-too-understandable impulses. It's like Ace In The Hole got garbled with a sincerely told folk tale, but the sheer audacity of the experiment makes it well worth attention.
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Vadim Rizov is a New York-based freelance writer. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, The Onion AV Club and Paste Magazine, among others.
Links for the Day (August 22nd, 2008)
1. "When 'The Blob' came to town": From CNN. Late addition: Roger Ebert's latest journal entry, "Confessions of a blogger."
["There is a man. He carries a can, and inside it is a weird, blood-red hunk of goo the size and consistency of a generous bowl of lumpy raspberry Jell-O. Each summer, man and can climb into the car and drive to a small town on the edge of the Philadelphia suburbs, not far from where Washington spent that bitter, long-ago winter in Valley Forge. The town, Phoenixville, is a place of history, too. Fifty years ago, this place was touched by the spotlight. A small production company two towns over made a film that no one expected to go anywhere. Instead, it became one of the iconic sci-fi horror flicks of the 1950s and introduced the world to an actor named Steve McQueen."]
2. "Jacques Rivette shoots new film at Cinecittà": From Cineuropa. (Hattip: GreenCine)
["At the famous Cinecittà studios in Rome, shooting gets underway this week on 36 vues du Pic Saint-Loup (“36 Views from the Pic Saint-Loup”), the new feature by seasoned director Jacques Rivette, whose latest work (Don’t Touch the Axe [trailer]) screened in competition at last year’s Berlinale. The cast includes Jane Birkin, who appeared in Rivette’s La belle Noiseuse (“The Beautiful Troublemaker”, Jury Prize at Cannes in 1991), and Italian actor Sergio Castellitto (whose international reputation has grown further with The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian) who graced screens in Who Knows? (in competition at Cannes in 2001). The film also stars Julie-Marie Parmentier (Murderous Maids) and André Marcon."]
3. On Hamlet 2, John Simon cringes, A.W. rocks-it-sexy-Jesus.
["How many times have I bored my poor spouse stiff by returning from a screening with a stentorian, "This was the worst movie I've ever seen!" and proceeding to a litany of grievances. It is not that I am given to exaggeration: Most of those movies were the worst I had seen up to then, given that recent American film production specializes in worst-ever-movies, so that, given the general dumbing down, they may triumph at the box office. And, of course, it is ridiculously easy to make the worst-ever-movies, seeing that excellence can go only so high, whereas downward the pit is bottomless. Even so, I think I was more than ever justified, returning from Hamlet 2, in trumpeting my old jeremiad. That catastrophe is not only as bad as a movie can get, it also has the potential of hanging on to that distinction for quite some time to come. It is, furthermore, not only bad in some conventional, everyday way; it is also pretentious, distasteful, stupid, smug, and unutterably boring."]
4. "Neurotic Libertine: Vicky Cristina Barcelona and Polyamory": House contributor Lauren Wissot's latest column at Spout Blog.
["Queen of Bad Sex Catherine Breillat could learn a thing or two from Woody Allen. Not only is his latest celluloid psychotherapy session Vicky Cristina Barcelona a phenomenal work of intellectual porn, but it also happens to contain one of the sexiest, most hysterical and poignant portrayals of polyamory to come along in a long, long time. Allen actually gets that those of us who choose to live outside of hetero monogamy are not voracious sex addicts lacking in morality – on the contrary, we simply abide by a different set of desires and ethics than that of the mainstream."]
5. Robert Koehler raves about Religulous in Variety.
["The only recent comparable example of entertainers venturing into such serious cultural-political territory is Penn & Teller’s Showtime series, “Bullshit!,” which skewers sacred cows from a skeptical-libertarian perspective. Charles’ previous smash, “Borat,” used funnyman Sacha Baron Cohen to make satirical/political points, but the particular intensity and seriousness of Maher’s project are nearly unprecedented. Indeed, its arrival shortly after the death of George Carlin -- a profound influence on Maher’s standup act and politics -- suggests the kind of film Carlin might have made in his prime. "]
Quote of the Day: Jean Cocteau
Image of the Day (click to enlarge): Henry Winkler and sons unveil the bronze Fonz. (Hattip: Ali Arikan)
Clip of the Day: "The Explanation," a short film by our own Editor Emeritus.
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"Links for the Day": Each morning, the House editors post a series of weblinks that we think will spark discussion. Comments encouraged. Suggestions for links are also welcome. Please send to keithuhlich@gmail.com.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
"Man on Borrowed Piano Wire" Follow-Up
By Godfrey Cheshire
[Editor's Note: This is a follow-up response to an article written by Godfrey Cheshire and published on The House Next Door on July 23rd, 2008. Click here to access the original piece, entitled "Man on Borrowed Piano Wire." The three replies from James Marsh, the film's director, are here (1st), here (2nd), and here (3rd). Related material: Lauren Wissot's Tribeca Film Festival review of Man on Wire can be found here. Her interview with James Marsh and the film's subject, Philippe Petit, can be found here.]
While this is intended to respond to several comments about my earlier post concerning Man on Wire, I would like to start by thanking James Marsh for his genial and interesting responses. He obviously got the spirit of the debate my post was meant provoke. His clarifications prompt me to make some of my own, beginning with a couple about the context in which I wrote my piece.
First, as I alluded to therein, when I came away from my brief encounter with MOW, I turned to the film’s press notes in hopes of finding out why the Nyman/Greenaway music had been used so extensively. Rather than offering an explanation of that use, the notes almost seemed intended to disguise it: Nyman was discussed as the film’s composer without any mention that he had written nothing original for MOW; the individual tracks were listed by their titles without reference to the films in which they previously appeared. One reason I wrote my piece was to let other critics know the actual provenance of the film’s score, which I still believe the press materials should have clarified.
Second, before writing I did a Google search to see what had been written about the film’s use of music. Regrettably, this did not lead me to the Filmmaker Magazine interview with Marsh, which would have obviated my speculation as to the score’s origins. What I did learn, though, was that most reviewers appeared not to know that the Nyman score wasn’t original; and of those who did, none raised an eyebrow at the recycling. Thus the second reason I wrote my piece was to suggest that the practice of borrowing so heavily from other movies’ scores was very much worth discussion.
In retrospect, I regret bringing in the issue of using actors and reenactments in documentaries, as well as the speculation just alluded to. The former is a separate (if obviously related) issue. The latter does not, contrary to Marsh’s suggestion, comprise the basis of my argument; rather, it’s extraneous, a distraction. Without it—or with the origins that Marsh explains—the argument is just the same.
I also realize in looking back that my reaction to the use of the Nyman/Greenaway music combined a very visceral, personal response with a more general aesthetic point. These two perhaps deserve to be disentangled.
The visceral response was reflexive, one might say even say automatic. Marsh (who’s certainly entitled to his own speculations!) imagines that I was looking for such a reaction in order to weigh against the film’s “hype.” Actually I was not aware of any hype. (I don’t mean to suggest that Magnolia’s hype machine wasn’t working overtime. But if it was, its products hadn’t reached me.) On the contrary, I went to the film because I’d heard such good things about it from people whose opinions I trust. I expected I would enjoy it and want to write a favorable review. The musical jolts that catapulted me out of the screening were a surprise, and not a welcome one.
I now see that that this reaction was virtually a solitary one. I’ve long known—and been told by friends—that my feelings about music are often hyper-sensitive if not downright eccentric. The reader who suggested that the critical view expressed in my piece applied only to the person making it was not entirely wrong. Yet I don’t believe an opinion is any less valid for being held by one person rather than the entire audience (critics exist to pit individual perception against mass imperception, after all), especially if it raises or illuminates larger questions.
The question here is whether it’s a good idea for filmmakers to appropriate as their own the original scores of previous movies, especially famous movies with famous scores. My argument is that it’s a bad idea—even if the composer approves and benefits financially, and even if only a tiny percentage of the audience is bothered by the borrowing and objects.
I object, obviously. And I wrote my piece in hopes that MOW will prove to be an unusual case, an exception, rather than the beginning of a noxious trend.
Those readers who noted other examples of scores being recycled added to my perspective on the phenomenon, while also pointing toward a necessary distinction. When Tarantino borrows from Morricone or Wong Kar-wai from Peer Raben (an example that wasn’t mentioned), the move has obvious meaning in the eclectic context of post-modern auteur cinema; it makes a point concerning the filmmaker’s aesthetic precedents and thematic concerns. The use of Nyman in MOW, on the other hand, is more akin to a Beatles song being laid under a Nike commercial; the appropriation is simply for scoring purposes, and by no means justifies the five-dollar appellation “recontextualization,” at least insofar as that term suggests intrinsic artistic intent.
Again, this is partly a personal reaction, and inevitably involves the context and the extent of the borrowing. I recall being irked when Wayne Wang’s first film, Chan Is Missing, swiped a passage from Michel Legrand’s score for Losey’s The Go-Between, but this was petty larceny committed with merciful brevity by an ultra-low budget film.
A far more grievous assault came one day when I walked into the Union Square multiplex and heard a portion of Hans Zimmer’s ravishing score for Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line wafting through the air. Looking around, I realized it was coming from a TV monitor playing a trailer for—of all things—Michael Bay’s Pearl Harbor. This was the closest I’ve ever come to violence in a theater lobby, and it galled me for days afterward, to the point that I considered contacting Malick to ask if he was aware of the desecration. (By the time it hit theaters, of course, Pearl Harbor had acquired its own score.)
While in no way meaning to liken Marsh (or any other real filmmaker) to Michael Bay, the jumping-out-of-my-skin reaction I had to the heavy, recurrent use of Nyman’s music in MOW reflects the same intermeshing of reflex and principle. To the publicist who angrily objected to my “review” of MOW: my piece was not a review of the film. I couldn’t review it, because I hadn’t seen it; that was prevented by my reaction to the music. Believe me, I would love to see the film without that constraint, which is why I offer Marsh this less-than-half-joking suggestion: On the DVD, have an audio option where the Nyman borrowings are replaced by something else. It doesn’t matter what—Tchaikovsky or Talking Heads—as long as it’s not another famous film score. I’ll be first in line to buy the DVD.
A final point: Besides not being a review, my previous piece was meant to spur discussion about film music among a very select readership, which is why The House Next Door was the ideal place for it. I would have been extremely reluctant to publish it in the mainstream press for fear of negatively affecting the film’s public reception—and this for reasons, I readily admit, that are far less magnanimous than self-interested.
Which brings us to a fine irony. As a critic whose first film, a feature documentary, is going into release next month, I’m faced with a situation where the poor box office performance of many docs in the past year has led some pundits to predict the imminent demise of the theatrical documentary. Since I wrote my previous piece, MOW has given the lie to that grim forecast by opening in New York to land-office business. No one could be happier than I about that success, and I hope it continues.
I only hope that no one ascribes it to the film’s having borrowed big chunks of its score from earlier movies! Otherwise, we all risk walking into next year’s hit doc and being blindsided by the Overture to Lawrence of Arabia booming from the speakers.
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Godfrey Cheshire is a film critic for The Independent Weekly and a filmmaker whose feature, Moving Midway, opens nationally on September 12th.
923 (64). Grey Gardens (1975, Albert and David Maysles, Ellen Hovde, Muffie Meyer), featuring video commentary by Vadim Rizov
By Kevin B. Lee
[Editor's Note: This is the latest entry in House contributor Kevin B. Lee's Shooting Down Pictures, a record of his ongoing quest to see every title on the list of the 1000 Greatest Films compiled by They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?]
Arguably the most complex and controversial work in the storied career of cinema verite pioneers Albert and David Maysles is this intimate study of Edith Bouvier and “Little” Edie Beale, two relatives of Jackie Kennedy Onassis secluded in a dilapidated estate in the Hamptons. Detractors may cite it as a watershed in unleashing the documentary medium’s most exploitive tendencies, and draw a damning line connecting this “reality” expose of the sordid lives of two pseudo-celebrities to its legions of modern television progeny. However, one attribute that sets the film miles apart from its successors is its non-linear, fugue-like narrative structure, in which time seems to stand still and the same day seems to be lived over and over with slight variations, emblematizing the experiences of both mother and daughter. The film is a masterpiece of editing, weaving over a hundred hours of footage to create a world that is hermetically sealed while containing dozens of fragmented moments reflecting two lifetimes of recycled memories and shattered dreams. The surreal outcome - perhaps inevitable given the subjects’ remove from reality - further conflates the film’s status as both documentary and fiction. The Maysles’ draw attention to their own active role as documentarians (as well as instigators) of the daily drama being played out between Big and Little Edie, while fulfilling Edie’s long-deferred dream of stardom. Their self-reflexive veracity only raises further questions about the methodology of this documentary, as well as that of all others._____________________________________
To read the rest of the article at Shooting Down Pictures, click here. Read more!
Links for the Day (August 21st, 2008)
1. "Random Roles": Noel Murray speaks with Brian Cox at The Onion A.V. Club. Deadwood fans take note.
["Deadwood was a great experience. Working with David Milch, who's one of the real geniuses of Hollywood. I'd seen the series, and Ian McShane, I've known for years. We didn't know each other well—we've subsequently become great friends—but we'd been around one another for 40 years. And I just thought that Ian was giving the performance of his career. The acting on that show was just second to none; it was amazing. And the scripts just dazzled. This whole look at the West and what it really constituted… David's premise was that the Hays Office kind of propagandized the old West. Because in reality, there was this mixture of the Bible and cuss words. And also the classics, because everybody was much better read than people gave them credit for. When you signed up for Deadwood, all you had was your character. You didn't know how he was going to be used. They described my character to me and told me he was someone they'd wanted to bring in from the word go, but HBO thought it would be too expensive to have a theatre and all that stuff. So they didn't bring me on until the third series, and I had a ball, I just loved it. It's not for everybody, because you have to really trust that you're going to be taken care of. I had faith that if they used the character, he was going to be used well. I was sad we didn't do a fourth series, because I felt they were about to get into my whole relationship with Swearengen, and the fact that I ended up being his only friend, and clearly was going to be the guy who ultimately was going to help with his removal. It's just a fascinating, fascinating show. A great piece of work."]
2. "Bush says 'hope is marching on'": Ow! My tongue!
["Standing in a freshly rebuilt operations building at Jackson Barracks on Wednesday, President Bush highlighted a litany of achievements that he said demonstrate the Gulf Coast's revival nearly three years after Hurricane Katrina and praised the industriousness of residents who have shown that "hope is marching on." Speaking nine days before the third anniversary of the flood, Bush focused on signs of recovery, from the return of students this fall to more than 80 New Orleans public schools to the return of Saints running back Deuce McAllister to the gridiron. "Not to be an 'I-told-you-so, ' but I was in Jackson Square, and I predicted that New Orleans would come back as a stronger and better city, " Bush said. "That's the prediction I made.""]
3. "Josh Brolin’s Bush Impersonation": Courtesy Spout Blog.
["After watching the trailer for Oliver Stone’s W. a few weeks ago, I had the impression that the George W. Bush biopic wasn’t going to be an impersonation fest. Of course, we only really got to hear James Cromwell as George H.W. Bush, and he didn’t seem to be bothering to sound like anything other than himself — not that I was expecting him to do Dana Carvey doing the senior Bush, but a bit of a change in voice, in order to make me not feel I’m watching the junior Bush getting yelled at by L.A. Confidential’s Captain Smith, would have been appreciated. Fortunately, as we can now see in some new behind the scenes footage courtesy of Access Hollywood, Josh Brolin is making an effort to sound like the man he’s portraying."]
4. "On Campus, Legal Drinking Age Is Flunking the Reality Test": From the Washington Post.
["The Amethyst Initiative, the brainchild of former Middlebury College president John McCardell, is an effort to push lawmakers and the broader public to do something that is politically tough -- consider making it legal for younger people to drink. How could making teenage drinking easier possibly help reduce teen drinking? When I was in college three decades ago, 18-year-olds could drink openly and legally and generally did so in public settings, including at cocktail parties with faculty members and at a college-run pub where professors and staffers mixed with students. The result -- of course with plenty of extreme exceptions -- was that kids learned moderation. Nobody had to hide, and adults were around considerably more often when students were drinking. The very notion of lowering the drinking age is flabbergasting to groups such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving, which this week put out a statement arguing that a 1984 federal law forcing states to raise the legal age to 21 has saved 25,000 lives. MADD agrees that campus bingeing is a big problem and says the answer is to tighten alcohol policies, punish violators and go after adults who provide alcohol to kids. But Mote and other presidents can point to long lists of enforcement, education and counseling efforts that are in place, with little real impact."]
5. "Amish population nearly doubles in 16 years": From MSNBC.
["The Amish are expanding their presence in states far beyond Pennsylvania Dutch country as they search for affordable farmland to accommodate a population that has nearly doubled in the past 16 years, a new study found. Also known as Anabaptists, the Amish are Christians who reject most modern conveniences and rely on horse-drawn carriages. They dress in plain, old fashioned clothing and strive for modesty and self-reliance. Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana continue to be the geographic center for the Amish, accounting for about two-thirds of the faith's population. They also accounted for more than half of the total population gain."]
Quote of the Day: Thomas Paine
Image of the Day (click to enlarge): Gana, a gorilla at a zoo in Muenster, Germany, who will not let go of her baby's corpse. 
Clip of the Day: YouTuber Philip DeFranco's Wednesday News Report. Get Phil-ed in.
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"Links for the Day": Each morning, the House editors post a series of weblinks that we think will spark discussion. Comments encouraged. Suggestions for links are also welcome. Please send to keithuhlich@gmail.com.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Understanding Screenwriting #2
By Tom Stempel
COMING UP IN THIS COLUMN: Wall-E; The Order of Myths; Sailor of the King; The Da Vinci Code; 300, but first:
MAILBAG: When Keith, Matt, and Sarah Bunting were hustling me into writing this column, they assured me that HND has a really smart bunch of readers who would start interesting discussions. Since the only thing I like better than having an interesting discussion is starting one, I was delighted to see from the first comments posted that they did not lie. For a variety of reasons, I will probably not be responding to each comment as they come in, but will hold them for the next column, especially since some of them can be dealt with at once. For example, several people brought up Titanic. I won’t deal with it here because I have dealt with it at much greater length, discussing most of the issues the readers brought up, in the book that preceded this column, Understanding Screenwriting: Learning From Good, Not-Quite-So Good, and Bad Screenplays. It is, as you might imagine, one of the scripts discussed in the Bad section. I go through the first draft, why it’s bad, why it’s better than the film (unusual for a film directed by its writer), what went wrong, and why I think it was such a big hit in spite of a bad script. For the book I deliberately picked bad scripts that had been reasonably successful commercially just so I could discuss that angle.
Matt and others brought up the whole question of audiences and their responses, which has always fascinated me. When I was about five or six I went to a Saturday westerns matinee and could not understand why all the other boys were running around the theater shooting off their cap pistols instead of sitting there watching the movies. As with Titanic, I have already had my say about audiences. The black sheep of my books (the only one not about screenwriting) is American Audiences on Movies and Moviegoing, which deals with audiences from 1948 up through the late nineties. It came out in 2001 and the University Press of Kentucky would love for you to take a few copies off their hands.
Several readers talked about writers and the visual element of films, and you will see that discussed in some of this episode’s films. “Withnail” would like me to look at failed screenplays, and since I loved doing the Bad section of my book, I am happy to comply, as you will see below. The only problem with doing bad movies is having to see them. I am experienced enough to be generally able to know if a film is not going to work for me and to avoid it. Matt would like to see scripts that break the rules and still work. To some extent Tell No One was like that, although I see some readers disagreed. There will be more rule-breakers. “JJ” would like to see unmade screenplays discussed, but I will probably avoid that, since I would be the only who had read the script, which sort of closes down the discussion. On the other hand, I would love to see one of the scripts he mentions, Robert Bolt's two-film version of Mutiny on the Bounty, so if anybody has a copy of it... And to “MovieMan 0283,” yes, there is a Fox Movie Channel, and the only good thing about Time-Warner taking over from Comcast in my neighborhood was that I finally got it. In the middle of the night, they tend to run really great old stuff, as in most of the films that were in the "Ford at Fox" DVD box set. Thank goodness for DVRs. And now on to the main events:
WALL·E (2008. Story by Andrew Stanton and Peter Docter. Screenplay by Andrew Stanton and Jim Reardon. 98 minutes): Well, I was wrong. As my wife and I came out of a screening of Pixar’s Cars in 2006, I said to her, “This is the beginning of the end of Pixar as we know it.” Previous Pixar films (the Toy Story films, Monsters Inc., even The Incredibles) focused on characters and story. Cars, especially in the neverending opening race, seemed much more interested in how dazzling the animation could be. Pixar, it appeared, was declining into its decadent years. Last year’s Ratatouille left the question open.
In Wall·E Pixar has returned its focus onto character and story. Look at the ways (plural) Wall·E is introduced. We learn about him from what he does. We learn about him from how he does it. We learn about him from how he reacts to what is around him, including his little bug friend. What details do the writers pick to tell you about Wall·E? Why the songs from Hello, Dolly!? And why the film clips from Hello, Dolly!? Look at how the actions in the film clips (the hats and the handholding) are later used. And that’s just in the first fifteen minutes, which is all about character.
What do we learn about Eve when she first shows up? How is she different from Wall-E? What does she do that he cannot? What does he do that she cannot? Even before they zip off to the Axiom, we have one of the most detailed relationships between two characters in any recent American film. Screenwriting is writing for performance, and the writers here have written two great characters for the animators to “perform.”
Screenwriters also write for the performance of the other members of the creative team. Wall·E’s world on Earth is conceived by the writers so the design team can use the wide screen to isolate Wall·E in the desolation. (The Simpsons Movie is one of the few other recent animated films to use the wide screen. How and why does The Simpsons Movie use the wide screen differently than Wall·E?) The Axion is also written for the designers to show off, but unlike the opening race in Cars, it is at the service of the story and especially the characters. Yes, the chases may go on a little too long, but if we are with the characters, and we are, then we want to know what is happening to them in those chases.
Oh, yeah, screenwriters write dialogue. But there is very little dialogue in here, which should tell you something that silent filmmakers learned years ago: you can tell a story without a lot of dialogue. Although you should know in this case the writers did in fact write out in English dialogue what Wall·E was saying. Then they gave it to the sound genius Ben Burtt and he “translated” it into “Wall·E”-speak. See what I mean about writing for performance?
THE ORDER OF MYTHS (2008. Written by Margaret Brown. 77 minutes by my count, 80 minutes by the Los Angeles Times’s count, and 97 minutes by the imdB’s count): But this is a documentary, and documentaries are not written, they’re just photographed life.
Guess again. There are at least three kinds of screenwriting going on in many documentaries, although only two here. The missing one is narration, although there are some details given in words in titles throughout the film. The second form of screenwriting in a documentary is a selection of a subject, which may automatically suggest a structure to the film, and as William Goldman so eloquently put it, screenwriting is structure, structure, structure, and structure. Here Brown is making a documentary about the preparations of organized groups, both black and white, for Mardi Gras celebrations in Mobile, Alabama, which rightly suggests the structure is going to be one that follows the processes the groups go through.
The third and often most crucial form of screenwriting in a documentary is in the editing of the material into the final structure. Here Brown gives us the complex look at Mobile that makes the film one of the best documentaries so far this year. One way she does this is by giving us material that we don't immediately understand as connected to the basic structure. For example, there is a brief essay on how people in Mobile feel about their trees, with reference to the importance of roots, both with trees and culture. That is followed up later in the film by a reference to Mobile being the site of one of the last lynchings in America. In a tree. Then both of those scenes add a double context to a simple shot later in the film of someone removing a string of beads from a tree during one of the parades. Likewise, the single shots spread out early in the film in which young black girls read their essays about moon pies seem to have no relation to anything else in the film. But they do.
Brown “lets” us “discover,” or perhaps rather “uncover” the meanings as we go. A question that almost always comes up with documentaries is: what are we not seeing? What got left on the cutting room floor? The Order of Myths peels away a lot of information about Mobile and its history, but Brown is aware it does not tell all (as compared to some filmmakers who insist they have told the whole story). So the final shot is essentially an outtake from the rest of the film, with a character about whom we have at that point only recently learned several interesting details, suggesting there is a lot more that is not, and will not, at least this time around, be told. It is, one critic said, one of the most haunting movie endings in years.
SAILOR OF THE KING (1953. Screenplay by Valentine Davies. Based on the novel "Brown on Resolution" by C.S. Forester. 83 minutes): I promised you that I would from time to time deal with screenplays from older films that showed up on cable and/or DVD. Sailor of the King is a virtually unknown jewel that never appears on television, not even on the Fox Movie Channel, was never released on videotape, and is only now finally being released on DVD. One reason its studio, Twentieth Century-Fox, probably ignored it was that it was one of the last small-screen black-and-white films Fox released before the company went whole hog for CinemaScope and color.
The script is based on a 1929 novel by the author of the Horatio Hornblower stories and novels, so you will rightly suspect it will be about naval adventures, with lots of duty, honor, and courage thrown in. Even though the story and production team is British, Davies was an American screenwriter, best known for his Oscar-winning work on the original Miracle on 34th Street. So while the script and film have British restraint, it also has American narrative drive.
It begins in 1914 with a young Royal Navy Lieutenant Richard Saville meeting and falling in love with a young British woman, Lucina. Look at how quickly Davies gets them together, without seeming to rush it. When Lucinda has to turn down Saville’s marriage proposal, she does so using the same logical reasons a navy officer should not get married that Saville has already said. And Davies is smart enough to put the Production-Code appeasing “What we did was wrong” (have sex without being married) up front in the scene so he won’t have to dwell on it, which would make it even stupider than it already it is.
Twenty minutes into the picture we are in the early forties and Saville, now a squadron commander, is chasing a German ship raiding convoys in the Pacific. On one of the ships is a signalman named Brown. Look at how long it takes for Davies to give us hints, and what those hints are, that Brown’s mother is Lucinda. Brown’s ship is sunk and he is taken aboard the German Raider. The Raider has to put into a large cove (talk about writing in a great visual location) to do repairs, and Brown, encouraged by the one other English prisoner, Petty Officer Wheatley, steals a gun and a life raft and sneaks ashore. (It will come as no surprise to modern viewers of the film that Wheatley can convince Brown to take action; he is played by Bernard Lee, who went on to play M in the first 6,734 James Bond films.) Brown, up in the hills of the cove, picks off the crew and slows down the repairs. The other British ships arrive in the nick of time and sink the German ship.
In the final scene, Saville, now an admiral, is with Brown as Brown is about to be awarded the Victoria Cross. Brown credits his mother with teaching him all about the Navy, as well as the marksmanship that proved useful. The two gallant men, not knowing they are father and son, await the King. The ending is touching and restrained and it has stuck with me since I first saw the film in 1953.
It was not the only ending. The new DVD has an alternate ending in which Brown dies, and it is his mother who is with Saville to accept the Victoria Cross. The first ending tested better (and it lets Jeffrey Hunter live; gay guys will love this film, by the way, since Hunter spends most of the second half with his shirt off), and it is better because we know what the characters don’t. The problem with the second ending as Davies wrote it is that Saville never twigs to the fact that Brown must have been his son. Lucinda does not tell him, and he seems stupider than he has been in the rest of the film not to guess. Part of the limitations of the scene may have been the Production Code again, since them talking about her having an illegitimate child would probably have not been allowed in 1953.
But let us think for a minute, as reader "Withnail" had wondered, about other ways Davies could have run the scene. We the audience knows who’s who, so a simple exchange of glances will tell they know. Or what if she recognizes Saville but he doesn’t recognize her? Or he recognizes her, but she doesn't recognize him? Make the scene a little more complicated and have Brown there as well, and then what happens? Do they tell him or not? Does he guess? You could all do this in such a restrained way that you could have sneaked it past the Production Code.
I am not suggesting the film be remade now, since the film is perfect at 83 minutes, and making it into a two-and-a-half hour blockbuster would probably kill it. Besides, how many contemporary box office hits do you know that are serious about duty, honor, and courage?
THE DA VINCI CODE (2006. Screenplay by Akiva Goldsman. Based on the novel by Dan Brown. 149 minutes): I recently caught up with a couple of bad movies I deliberately avoided paying to see when they were in the theatres. This was one of them, and its primary value is to show you how not to adapt a novel. Brown’s novel is full of ideas, and Goldsman assumes (not entirely in error, given the box office success of the film) that audiences will care about the ideas. Mostly we don’t, and you can see why in the film. It means that Goldsman gives us enormous hunks of exposition, such as in the long, long scene with Sir Leigh Teabing. The scene has the kind of talk we will follow in a novel, where all we have are the words, but gives the actors virtually nothing to do while they talk. Sir Ian McKellan tries his best, and as an acting exercise it is almost but not quite fun to watch. The ideas of the novel are what Hitchcock called the MacGuffin: what everybody in the movie is concerned about, but about which the audience generally does not care. Quick: what were they chasing in North by Northwest? Yeah, but what was inside the statue? And what was on the microfilm inside the statue? We never find out. Did it make you hate the film?
300 (2006. Screenplay by Zack Snyder & Kurt Johnstad and Michael B. Gordon. Based on the graphic novel by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley. 117 minutes): And this one was a lesson in the generic problems of adapting a graphic novel into a film. First, there is seldom much characterization in most graphic novels, and here it consists of everybody yelling at each other. The characterization is so shallow that when, in the middle of the picture, Queen Gorgo (Lena Headey) and Theron (Dominic West) behave for a minute like real human beings, it is jarring because it goes against everything else in the picture.
Second, graphic novels are graphic, not so much in bloodshed, although that is true here, but in stunning visual images. Reading a graphic novel in half an hour or so can be fun. But making that visual dazzle so relentless for nearly two hours simply becomes exhausting, like all those first features MTV directors make. Yes, screenwriters should write for the performance of the designers and the CGI folks, but give the latter a variety of images to conjure up. As the writers of Wall·E did.
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Tom Stempel is the author of several books on film. His most recent is Understanding Screenwriting: Learning From Good, Not-Quite-So Good, and Bad Screenplays.
Links for the Day (August 20th, 2008)
1. The slate for the 2008 Toronto Film Festival has been announced. You can access the full selection at indieWIRE. And Girish Shambu wants your input on what films to see.
["The balance of the lineup for the 33rd Toronto International Film Festival, set for September 4 - 13, 2008 in Canada, has been announced. A total of 249 feature films are on tap for the event, 76% of which are either world, international or North American premieres. 61 films mark a filmmaker's feature directing debut. A total of 312 films from 64 countries will screen at this year's festival, compared to last year's 349 films from 55 countries. indieWIRE also posted an interview with TIFF co-director Cameron Bailey in a separate article."]
2. "My Top Ten Criterions": The great Robin Wood chooses his favorites. (Hattip: GreenCine)
["This month we asked critic Robin Wood—whose books include Hitchcock’s Films and Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan and who recently wrote essays for the Criterion releases The Furies and Le plaisir—to pick his ten favorite films released by Criterion. Newly retired from teaching, Wood told us he intends to spend the remainder of his life enjoying himself with movies, operas, and concerts on DVD, while writing books and articles on Michael Haneke, Tsai Ming-liang, Satyajit Ray, and others, and spending a happy old age with his partner, Richard Lippe, and their cats."]
3. At Moving Image Source, David Schwartz converses with Paul Schrader about the late Manny Farber.
["The first thing they would do in a Manny Farber School of Film Criticism is shut down! One thing he said to me early on which seemed to have really informed a lot of his thinking—because he was first and foremost a painter and he was a great admirer of Jackson Pollock—he said the insight of seeing Jackson Pollock's work is the insight of seeing something designed on the vertical presented on the horizontal. Before Pollock, painting was seen horizontally and made horizontally and I think he liked that idea, that you would do something vertically and view it horizontally. My point being that that kind of perception difference, to try to see things in a different way, at a different angle, that was underneath everything he wrote about films. He was not in the great American critical mainstream. His job was to take that odd approach, find that unexpected insight. He couldn't imagine himself writing the way a professional film critic does, like David Denby works—Manny simply couldn't do that."]
4. Karina Longworth notes that the Bill Maher/Larry Charles collaboration Religulous is now playing an unadvertised, awards-qualifying run in Manhattan.
["Sure enough, a Moviefone search reveals that the film is currently playing a publicity-free two matinees per day run at the Creative Entertainment Coliseum Quad on 181 Street–the same theater where Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired had its qualifying run last spring. So far there’s been no surreptitious Manohla Dargis review of Religulous, so if you find yourself in Claremont or in the noseblood section of Manhattan and decide to check it out, by all means, report back."]
5. "Gasp! Bigfoot 'body' is a rubber Halloween costume": What a surprise...
["Melting ice uncovered a hoax this week, as the "Bigfoot" found in a Georgia woods turned out to be . . . a rubber Halloween costume. Bigfoot hunters Matt Whitton and Rick Dyer had tossed their find in a freezer and frozen it in a solid chunk of ice - to preserve it, they said. The two men finally turned over the freezer and on Aug. 17, Bigfoot enthusiasts waited with bated breath as the apparent 7-foot-7 inch "body" slowly defrosted at an undisclosed location. After hours of waiting, a dark patch of hair emerged. Steve Kulls, Executive Director of Squatchdetective.com, told Fox that he extracted a hair sample and burned it. It was apparently made of synthetic fibers and "melted into a ball uncharacteristic of hair," Kulls said. An hour later, the group's fears were confirmed when further melting revealed a rubber foot. "It's heartwrenching," said Bob Schmalzbach, Vice President of Searching for Bigfoot, Inc., in an interview with Fox News. "We thought it was the answer to a mystery that's been going on for too long." As today, the two Georgia men who perpetrated the hoax were nowhere to be found. According to the Web site of Searching for Bigfoot, Inc, the organization plans to pursue legal action against the men."]
Quote of the Day: Michael J. Fox
Image of the Day (click to enlarge): For all you Sopranos fans... (Hattip: Ross Ruediger)
Clip of the Day: A (pretty funky) reporter meets the wrong end of a zorb ball.
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"Links for the Day": Each morning, the House editors post a series of weblinks that we think will spark discussion. Comments encouraged. Suggestions for links are also welcome. Please send to keithuhlich@gmail.com.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Links for the Day (August 19th, 2008)
1. "Manny Farber, 1917-2008": This one really hurts. Ray Pride remembers and gathers links. More at GreenCine Daily. On Glenn Kenny's blog, poster Tony Dayoub points us to a Paul Schrader short film on Farber's painting "Untitled: New Blue."
["Farber was one of the indispensable prose writers of our time, a great entertainer in his own write, yet deeper concerns than his own words permeate these pages. “One of the joys of moviegoing,” he once wrote, “is worrying over the fact that what is referred to as Hawks might be [screenwriter] Jules Furthman... and that, when people talk about Bogart’s ‘peculiarly American’ brand of scarred, sophisticated cynicism they are really talking about what Ida Lupino, Ward Bond, or even Stepin Fetchit provided in unmistakable scene-stealing moments.” These essays are ripe with an appreciation for texture, for the depth or shallowness of cinematic space, for stolen moments, for the wiles of Hollywood’s cheese-headed bores. Writing on films as diverse as those of Preston Sturges, Werner Herzog, Don Siegel and Nicolas Roeg, Farber does not blink. He remains our best: a curmudgeon, but a painstaking one who concedes that his effects are like the layering and smearing and reworking of layers of paint, that he is “unable to write anything at all without extraordinary amounts of rewriting.”"]
2. Just 'cause. This book is indispensable. A favorite passage follows, from the 1952 essay "Blame the Audience." (Photo from Ray Pride, linked above.)
["While Hollywood, after all, still makes the best motion films, its 1952 products make me want to give Los Angeles back to the Conquistadores. Bad films have piled up faster than they can be reviewed, and the good ones (Don't Bother to Knock, Something to Live For, The Lusty Men, My Son John, The Turning Point, Clash By Night) succeed only as pale reminders of a rougher era that pretty well ended with the 1930's. The people who yell murder at the whole Hollywood business will blame the current blight on censorship, the star system, regimentation, the cloak-and-snit types who run the industry, the dependence of script-writers on a small group of myths, TV, the hounding of the Un-American Activities Committee, and what I shall laughingly call montageless editing. There is plenty of justification for trying to find what is causing this plague, and I point my thumb accusingly at the audience, the worst in history. The present crowd of movie-goers, particularly the long-haired and intellectual brethren, is a negative one, lacking a workable set of values or a sense of the basic character of the medium, so that it would surprise me if any honest talent in Hollywood had the heart to make good pictures for it."]
3. "Fishburne officially joins 'CSI'": From Variety.
["Laurence Fishburne, who first emerged last month as the leading candidate to fill the leading actor void on "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" next season, has officially joined the cast. Fishburne joins the show following thesp William Petersen's decision to depart after eight seasons (Petersen continues as an exec producer). Fishburne will first appear in "CSI's" ninth episode this season. He'll star as a former pathologist turned college lecturer, who focuses on why people turn violent - including traits that he's disturbed to find in himself. The character joins the Las Vegas Crime Lab as a Level 1 CSI after assisting in a murder investigation. It's a homecoming of sorts for Fishburne, who played Cowboy Curtis on the Eye's classic Saturday morning series "Pee-Wee's Playhouse" in the mid-1980s."]
4. "SAVE US! Warner's 'Watchmen' In Legal Peril After Judge Won't Dismiss Fox Suit": A Nikki Finke report making the rounds.
["EXCLUSIVE: A federal judge has denied a Warner Bros motion to dismiss 20th Century Fox's legal battle over the rights to develop, produce and distribute a film based on the graphic novel Watchmen. This is huge Hollywood news because Warner Bros plans to release on March 2009 its highly anticipated big-screen version of the popular comic book written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons. Fox was seeking to enjoin Warner Bros from going forward with the project, and U.S. District Court Judge Gary Allen Feess on Friday refused to dismiss the lawsuit filed by Fox on February 12th of this year. "In essence, the Judge appears to conclude that Fox retained distribution rights in Watchmen through the 1991 Largo quitclaim, and he concludes that, under the 1994 turnaround, producer Larry Gordon acquired an option to acquire Fox's remaining interest in Watchmen that was never exercised, thereby leaving Fox with its rights under the 1994 agreement," a 20th Century Fox source just told me. "While the Judge's opinion is preliminary and his views could change in the course of the litigation, his current take on the facts is consistent with our position." I'm told the court is still contemplating Fox's motion for an injunction. This is indeed a stunning development which could imperil Warner Bros' entire 2009 movie slate. Sources point out to me that Warner Bros had a similar problem with the Dukes Of Hazzard movie before Judge Feess and had to pay tens of millions of dollars to release the film."]
5. "Cow chases bear away from her favorite tree": From MSNBC.
["Residents of a rural Colorado town said a cow named Apple chased off a bear that had climbed into her favorite apple tree. Jack McDonald of Hygiene, about 30 miles northwest of Denver, said the bear had climbed out of the tree when the cow approached it Sunday afternoon. McDonald said the animals touched noses and hung out together for a bit before Apple chased the bear off. "It was hilarious," McDonald said."]
Quote of the Day: Isaac Asimov
Image of the Day (click to enlarge): 'Cause you can never get enough Cowboy.
Clip of the Day: ...never enough...
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"Links for the Day": Each morning, the House editors post a series of weblinks that we think will spark discussion. Comments encouraged. Suggestions for links are also welcome. Please send to keithuhlich@gmail.com.
Monday, August 18, 2008
Mad Men Mondays: Season 2, Episode 4, "Three Sundays"
By Andrew Johnston
A more accurate title for “Three Sundays” might be “Seven Sundays”: The episode spans three consecutive Sundays, true, but with two of them we see how the day unfolds from Don and Roger’s perspectives as well as Peggy’s, and their stories are compelling enough (and sufficiently disconnected from Peggy’s) that they don’t necessarily deserve to be lumped together by the title. This week’s episode is longer on housekeeping than any in season two, and it assumes a fair amount of background knowledge of the show, but in the grand Mad Men tradition it’s nonetheless remarkably self-contained.
I realized this on my second viewing of the episode, when I saw it with my mother (who recently devoured season one in less than a week and became obsessed with the show but had only seen the first episode of S2 yet) and my stepfather (who had never seen the show before at all but who’s planning to watch S1 when my mom gets it from Netflix so she can watch it a second time). I was afraid that my stepfather would come away spoiled for all of S1 and that my mom would learn far too much about what had happened in “Flight One” and “The Benefactor”. As an alternative, I suggested we watch a couple more episodes of Spaced instead, but she realllly wanted to watch Mad Men (and I really needed to see it again for this recap), so the die was cast.
To my great surprise, the episode spoiled very little for either of them: While Don’s rough childhood plays a big role in things, no reference is made to his transformation from Dick Whitman into Don Draper or to anything else (Adam Whitman, for example) that would require serious explanation on that front. And while he was of course spoiled as to both Peggy’s pregnancy and the fate of her baby (my mom was spoiled viz. the latter, unavoidably), Pete’s status as the father is never mentioned (ditto the death of Pete’s father, despite the large role the American Airlines plot plays this week). In short, while I thought this would be an awkward episode to use as an introduction to the series, it turned out to be a fine jumping-on point.
Since Sunday is the Lord’s day, it’s only appropriate that church-related scenes and Peggy’s friendship with the young Jesuit, Father Gill (Colin Hanks, in a performance I hope brings him a lot more work), gets more screen time than any other story. The smokin’and drinkin’ Jesuit has become something of a movie/TV cliché by now--I guess filmmakers feel that showing Padres indulging in the few vices allowed them (and which are often denied to Protestant clergymen) is convenient shorthand for the hypocrisy of the church. In this case, it didn’t feel like a cliché, both because of Father Gill’s age and because of the time period. I started to groan when Hanks offered Peggy a lift to the subway, but was relieved and intrigued when it became apparent there wasn’t going to be a forbidden love angle and that he was interested in Peggy’s professional abilities above all.
The version of the episode that AMC sent to the press contains a massive screw-up that makes a mess of the timeline for Roger’s story, but it’s something that could easily be fixed digitially--if the fix wasn’t applied before the episode aired, I sure hope they do it for the DVDs and Blu-Ray discs: At the seafood restaurant where Ken and Pete take the client from Gorton’s Seafood (and where Roger meets the escort), the scene begins with a close-up of a chalk board listing the day’s specials--and, in giant letters, the date “Monday, April 16”. This makes no sense, as his tryst with the escort (played by Marguerite Moreau, who I’ve had a massive crush on since I grudgingly saw the otherwise-unwatchable Queen of the Damned and who I’ve followed through a zillion canceled series and guest appearances since) takes place on Palm Sunday, April 15, when everyone else at SC is crunching on the American Airlines presentation (am I the only one who wondered why none of the folks working on Sunday--including Bert Cooper--ever stopped to say “Where the hell is Roger, anyway?”). A digital scrub to turn the “16” into a “9” seems like it would be pretty easy; here’s deciding Lions Gate and AMC decide to spring for it.
Bobbie Barrett’s return (which required remarkably little explanation to my mom--“she’s the wife of this celebrity spokesman from last week” covered everything) makes it pretty clear that she’s a fairly voracious sexual predator, and her line to Don about “I’ve been trying to figure out how to not get bored with you” is, by my lights, enough to get Don off the hook for his behavior last week, which some have equated with rape. As I see it, Don sized up Bobbie last week and too steps that he knew would please her but also catch her completely off guard, thus making her readily susceptible to Don’s demand that she withdraw the $25,000 price tag she put on Jimmy’s apology. What he did was a classic, highly polished (if admittedly ethically questionable) piece of expectation management, which is of course his great specialty. If Bobbie had felt in any way taken advantage of, either financially or sexually, I highly doubt she would visit Don at SC so soon after “The Benefactor”. One thing about their encounter seemed odd to me, and it’d be great if someone who knew more about the TV biz and the advertising world in that era could clear it up: Why would Jimmy need to get out of his Utz endorsement contract to do a TV show? Bill Cosby didn’t have to stop shilling for Coca-Cola and Jell-O Pudding Pops in order to land The Cosby Show two decades hence, and there are plenty of other semirecent examples of actors who’ve held onto endorsement contracts when moving from one TV show to another. How strong was the primary-sponsor paradigm by 1962? As far as I can tell, the practice of working the sponsor’s name into the title of the show had pretty much dried up by then.
The meatiest drama in the episode comes from the contrast between Betty’s anger at what she perceives as Don indulging Bobby and Peggy’s sister Anita’s envy of how (from her POV) their mom indulges Peggy, allowing her to do whatever she pleases with no consequences (as she says in confession). In Don’s case, his motives are pretty simple: He wants Bobby to grow up without experiencing the abuse he endured as a child (I love the moment when Betty asks “Would you be the man you are if your dad didn’t spank you?” and Don keeps quiet). In the case of Anita, it’s a little more complicated--I think she’s envious of Peggy’s working-girl life because she’s in denial about being the architect of her own misery. She’s stuck in what appears to be a loveless marriage to a boor, and while we haven’t seen enough of her kids to judge their behavior, I wouldn’t be surprised if she saw them as tiny terrors. All of that unhappiness is the result of choices she made, which put her in a situation where whatever talent she has is never going to be recognized (clearly, it’s the help Peggy provided Father Gill which got her more steamed than anything else). She may have the potential to be a great writer or artist, but she’s never gonna be recognized as more than a housewife. If, as appears to be the case, Peggy’s child is being passed off to the world as her sister’s third offspring, it would prove that the family sees her as nothing more than a child-rearing machine, thereby rubbing more salt in the wound.
Her confession of her envy of Peggy is entirely understandable; what’s uncertain is whether she entered the booth intending to rat out Peggy as an unwed mother or if that was something she just blurted out in the heat of the moment. Either way, it drives an immediate stake through the heart of any potential friendship between Peggy and Father Gill, who--disappointingly to me--seems content to accept Anita’s story (complete with the BS line about how she “seduced a married man”) at face value.
This week’s Don/Bobbie scene seems designed to balance out Don's rough treatment of Bobbie last week and shift viewer sympathy back toward Don. But shoving match with Betty could very well start the whole debate about whether Don committed a form of sexual assault (or had at the very least become difficult to sympathize with) all over again -- or reinforce the convictions of those who didn’t forgive Don after Bobbie’s visit to SC. As I see it, the scene makes Don more sympathetic than ever: The last thing he wants is to behave like his father and perpetuate a cycle of abuse that could fuck up Bobby as much as it did Don himself. When Don shoves Betty, he’s out of control, no two ways abut it, but he’s also giving Betty a glimpse of his father’s behavior, without which he couldn’t make his point (another wrinkle here is my mother’s theory that Betty fundamentally doesn’t like Bobby, which makes each of his Dennis the Menace antics sting all the worse). Fundamentally, however, where both Bobby and Sally are concerned, Don proves himself a more doting father than usual this week, albeit in his own way and to the best of his ability.
The outcome of the American Airlines situation would seem to insulate Don from any short-term threats posed by Duck, as it’s hard to argue with the logic of “we hired him to bring new business, not drive away old business." But argue is just what Roger does with his comment that “old business is old business." The scene illustrates some of the key differences between Roger and Don’s approach to advertising: for Roger, it’s all about the chase, and it gives him the same charge he gets from seducing women (indeed, with his sexual capacity diminished--his run-in with the hooker this week notwithstanding--it’s easy to imagine him transferring a lot of that energy into work, further vexing Don in the process). The whole situation also illuminates the fundamental differences between how Duck and Don approach advertising: Duck’s intent to let AA choose from amongst three fully designed campaigns suggests a “the customer is always right” mentality, while Don’s insistence on bringing a single, unified vision to the table is consistent with what we’ve seen of his approach to advertising since day one (to a lesser extent, it’s an approach Bert Cooper shares). As Cooper said when preparing a team to work on spec for the Nixon campaign, SC knows (or ideally should know) what the client wants better than the client himself does. If Don’s strategy is about taking a feeling he feels in response to a product and making the consumer share that feeling, the first step is making damn well sure the client feels it, too.
Duck’s moment of menschiness when he reassures the secretary that Bert Cooper won’t fire her (which is proven when we see her escort the AA executives into the SC office) is interesting. I have to say I can’t see Don acting the same way in that situation (unless maybe he was to share my belief that the gum Cooper stepped in was dropped by Sally). A lot of the time, he’s just too impatient, and too prone to getting lost in his head while hashing out ideas, to be considerate of other peoples’ feelings in such situations. The big question is, did Duck keep her around out of the goodness of his heart, or is he being a manipulative bastard and slowly assembling a clique of employees that owe him their absolute loyalty? _________________________
Miscellaneous Notes: I wouldn’t yet rule out the possibility that Don’s creative vision and raw charisma won over the AA brass despite the termination of Duck’s buddy. To be sure, AA didn’t sign on with SC in real life because, well, Mad Men is fiction. However, while most of SC’s accounts in the first season were products that are now “ghost brands”--products that were formerly household names and still have name recognition yet are no longer sold (Lucky Strike and Bethlehem Steel both qualify, and Kodak hasn’t made slide projectors in years), this season the show has featured more and more real-life brands that are still in use. I’d chalk it up to product placement were it not for the fact that the brands have generally been shown in a light that their parent companies surely wouldn’t approve of if they'd struck a placement deal. The folks at Gorton’s Seafood can’t be too pleased with one of their executives being shown gleefully patronizing a hooker, and last week’s Jimmy Barrett story didn’t exactly make Utz look like the world’s greatest potato chips. As for AA, they surely can’t be thrilled that Mad Men has reminded the world of their 1962 crash, but it’s not like they can do much since it’s part of the historical record. Point being, it seems that corporate/brand history is one area where Weiner doesn’t mind bending the facts a bit (indeed, it may be a necessity) so anything could happen.
Most ultrafancy restaurants in New York are open six days a week and take either Sunday or Monday as a day off, but in the past two episodes MM characters have patronized Lutèce on both Sunday and Monday. Can any reader more knowledgeable about New York in the ‘60s than I tell me if the restaurant was open 7 days after all, or if they took the day off at a more random point in the week (say, Monday or Tuesday)? Of course, it could just be a mistake...
The visual device of using the church programs to establish the passage of time is one that could, of course, be employed by a film; but movies being what they are, most screenwriters would insist on having the last program deliver additional impact -- making it a funeral mass for a character who didn’t make it to the end, for example. Here, the device just was what it was; although it had a very Sopranos feel to it, for me, it couldn’t help seeming like something from a graphic novel. My next thought, bizarrely, was that in a parallel universe where Matthew Weiner was turned down by AMC and decided to do Mad Men as a comic book rather than a TV show, the ideal artist would be Tim Sale. The program device is not unlike some of the time-passage indicators in his collaborations with Jeph Loeb, and he’s one of the few contemporary comics artists with a clean yet detailed style that lends itself equally well to expressive characters and panoramic cityscapes (for both, the best example may be Batman: The Long Halloween). I found myself trying to visualize Jon Hamm, Vincent Kartheiser, John Slattery and Elisabeth Moss as characters drawn by Sale; such images seemed surprisingly natural. Of course, for Sale to draw the actors would require scuttling the alternate-universe scenario and contemplating a comic book adaptation of Mad Men, which seems like something that could backfire with a vengeance; but if such a crazy idea is ever brought to fruition, Sale would definitely be the illustrator for the job.
Having Betty read a collection of stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald was a nice, subtle follow-up on her flirtation with the guy who name-checked “The Diamond As Big As the Ritz” last week. (The book is on the money: the Fitzgerald anthology Babylon Revisited and Other Stories was published in 1960, and it includes "Diamond"). Of all the strands in the episode, the Drapers cancelling their Sunday plans to spend the day with the kids, only to have the bonding count for naught when they so drunk, they forget to make dinner, is probably the scenario that would work best as a standalone short story.
Finally, because of the abundance of “juniors” on The Sopranos (though there were never really any in Tony’s crew, unless Uncle Jun counts), I couldn’t help chuckling over the end-credits reveal that one of Peggy’s nephews is named Gerry Respola, Jr. I used to attribute the phenomenon to Italian-American culture (or the specific North Jersey subset thereof), until I read an interview with Terence Winter (or was it one of his Slate TV club entries? I forget) in which he talked about how beyond a certain point in the series, it became frustratingly difficult to keep coming up with a stream of new, real-sounding character names. If I recall correctly, Winter copped to plucking random names from the phone book and borrowing the monikers of high-school classmates out of sheer desperation. Instantly, I began to suspect that The Sopranos’ parade of Juniors was a crutch. I could be completely wrong about that, but I nonetheless took the name of Peggy’s nephew as a tip of the hat to The Sopranos’ Juniorpalooza tendencies. If anyone on the Mad Men writing staff is reading this and wants to set me straight about my assumption (or--yeah, right--confirm that I’m on the money), feel free to do so.
Andrew Johnston is the television critic for Time Out New York.
Generation Kill Mondays: Episode 6, "Stay Frosty"—Take 2
By Jeremiah Kipp
As First Recon inches its way ever closer to Baghdad, the idiocy of Captain America (Eric Nenninger) continues to push those under his command toward irritation (they subdue a prisoner and he charges in with his bayonet). Meanwhile, those under the command of Captain Encino Man (Brian Patrick Wade) buckle at his strident attempt to make sure no one questions his orders. Meanwhile, Godfather (Chance Kelly) wants to get back in the game. Meanwhile, Colbert (Alexander Skarsgård) and his humvee are headed towards Baqubah, just north of Baghdad, and sustain some fire along the way. In other words, regular viewers of Generation Kill will have more of the same.
I’m trying to keep an open mind. When listening to Philip Glass, the repetitions upon repetitions can either feel like an endless drone, or if you listen for long enough you start to detect variations on the theme. If I went back to the first episode of this series, would I detect slight differences in behavior from Colbert about how he feels about this sweeping machine he’s a part of? Does he seem any more self-aware now than he did before? As for the morale of the marines on the road, it seems to have been steadily sinking, and when they’re faced with escorting fleeing Iraqi civilians along the highway, they're conflicted by (a) how much they are allowed to do to help these people, (b) how little they can do, and (c) how bad this is for their personal morale. How are they supposed to “stay frosty” when they are facing moments that are sure to psychologically scramble them?
The sequence on the highway opens up Generation Kill’s moral territory, where you have to wonder if it’s good for the marines to open themselves up to humanity. As human beings, perhaps, it’s a good thing, but as the killing machines they’re expected to be during wartime, it creates a seed of doubt, and maybe they won’t be as effective when they have to kill an enemy that now has a human face. Lt. Fick (Stark Sands), who has been a buffer between the men and the officers, and a kind of cheerleader and motivator, is frustrated by what’s happening to them, perhaps because he himself always seems to value the good of the men over the good of the military, which makes him a decent human being but, all said and done, maybe not the best commander.
In the midst of all the repetitions and the fleeting glimpses into what passes for a marine’s daily life (much is made of Colbert providing his friends with some Chef Boyardee and a porno magazine), another instance pops up quick, and is just as soon gone, that feels underlined as being part of the overall message. The members of Colbert’s humvee feel like the war is nearing its end, which bugs them because they want to see some combat before it’s over. Scribe (Lee Tergesen) brings up the lack of Weapons of Mass Destruction and is quickly shushed—once again, it’s a slight variation from what Scribe usually does on this show, which is react with a “huh, how interesting!” turn of the head whenever something happens, as if a close-up on his character registers that he’s making a mental note, or reacting to a joke someone played on him, or reacting to something goofy, or reacting to bullets whizzing by. When Scribe actually remarks on something, providing an outsider’s perspective, it feels like a Moment.
Readers who have stayed with me to this point must be well aware that I am unexcited by the show, and those rare fleeting moments of good television that I get from it are certainly welcome, but not enough to make me feel like Generation Kill is taking me somewhere, or broadening my cultural horizons, or helping me to imagine what it was like for the First Recon Battalion. I still can’t step out of the series as a dramatic construct, one that shows its gears. And I haven’t been able to separate the mechanics of its storytelling—being a fly on the wall with these young men—with the heavy-handedness of the narrative imposed on it. I feel like the show wants to sustain the immediacy and curiosity of a documentary while at the same time presenting characters, stories, an evolving narrative. And in a way, it cancels itself out.
But in my insistence in wanting to like the show, I've found myself trying to step outside the box a little. I was over at THND editor Keith Uhlich’s place debating about (a) the quality of The Wire (generally superlative), (b) inadvertently insulting him by calling him to task for his frequent use of the Holy Trinity in his reviews (mea culpa), (c) considering The Dark Knight as something beyond Keith’s view of it as reductive depictions of “Order” and “Chaos,” and (d) how heavily worn down our beleaguered (yet stalwart) editor-in-chief has become having to sift through comments and generally getting kicked in the ass for having an opinion about The Dark Knight that is clearly outside the status quo acceptance.
The conversation got me thinking about how to look at the series in a new way. I asked Keith if I could borrow the paperback national bestseller by Evan Wright and see how Generation Kill worked on the page. I found myself quite hooked, and two days later I was over 250 pages in and felt like I was getting something that the show can’t really give us, which is straight up, first hand reporting, told in a uniquely individual voice, slightly ironic, never snarky, with an eye for the tiny details that help the reader understand. The writer not only has a voice, but he’s also present in his reactions to things, and although he’s an observer, the book allows us to get inside his head.
Here’s a passage from page 17:“In my first couple of days at the camp, I’m placed in a tent with officers. I can’t tell anybody apart; they all look the same in their desert camouflage fatigues. Most of the officers seem to be square-jawed, blue-eyed white guys in their mid-to-late twenties. The initial reason I strike up an acquaintance with Lt. Fick … is that he’s easily recognizable. … [He] has a loping, adolescent smile that you can spot from a hundred meters away. He’s one of fifty men to introduce themselves to me … but he’s the only one I’m able to call by name on my way to the mess tent and ask if I can join him for dinner.”
Already, we have a sense of Wright trying to figure out where he is, and latching on to Fick as a recognizable face. When he finally starts getting to know Colbert, the description is equally evocative:“There is about him an air of Victorian rectitude. He grew up in an ultramodern 1970s house designed by his father, an architect. There was shag carpet in a conversation pit. One of his fondest memories, he later tells me, is that before cocktail parties, his parents would let him prepare the carpet with a special rake.”
Wright goes on to describe Colbert’s encyclopedic knowledge of radio frequencies and encryption protocols and weapons, and about the warrior princess babe from Heavy Metal that is tattooed across his back. The point is, we get to know Colbert, Person, Trombley and all the rest of them better through these sharp, incisive X-Rays into who they are, where they’re from, what they’re about.
Of course, you can’t dramatize this stuff because movies and television exist in the present tense, showing immediate actions and behaviors. But the show has sacrificed something so precious from the book, which is not only Wright’s accumulation of details in the day-to-day operations of the unit (which the show gets pretty well), but the way in which he is able to clearly delineate who these guys are and why they act the way they do under pressure. This is something the TV-show strives for, but the book is able to get under the skin of how these guys have been influenced by hip-hop, video games, movies and pop culture, and the way it affects the very way they think. The most the TV show can do is imply thought, and maybe create some dialogue to clarify. The result is we’re seeing scenes, not watching life unfold.
David Simon and Ed Burns did an amazing job on The Wire because they lifted the facts and the characters from real life and elevated them to epic status, placing them on a canvas bigger than they are, expanding the scope of that universe and allowing the dramatic constructs to be challenging moral dilemmas. When you have big characters making big decisions, it equals capital drama. I don’t think The Wire aspires to documentary realism—it takes real problems and makes them as big as possible, to the point that they become larger-than-life metaphors. Does Generation Kill do this? If so, the metaphors teeter over into the obvious, since Captain America and Encino Man are played so broadly, there’s no room for the subtleties that make good drama. And the emphasis on metaphor also closes down like a vice with characters like Colbert and Scribe, who are introspective to the point of being inscrutable.
There’s only one episode left of Generation Kill, and we’re in definite “wrapping up the third act” territory. As Bravo goes up against armored tanks, they are accompanied by Marine reservists, who seem like a bunch of crazy, gun-toting cowboys—and when one of the reservists accuses Sgt. Kocher (Owain Yeoman) of abusing a prisoner, it feels like he is attacking the wrong guy. Will all of these tensions boil over, or will Generation Kill remain with its cards played close to the vest? I’m sure we can expect Encino Man to make a jerk of himself, Captain America to put his men in danger, Colbert to bear the weight of the world on his shoulders, and Scribe to gaze on in wonderment and disgust. As for the subtle variations therein, let’s hope they contain some insights.
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Jeremiah Kipp's writing has appeared in Slant Magazine, Filmmaker, Fangoria and other publications.
Generation Kill Mondays: Episode 6, "Stay Frosty"—Take 1
By Keith Uhlich
"You have to become insane to survive in combat," says 'Captain America' (Eric Nenninger) to Lt. Nathaniel Fick (Stark Sands) near the end of the sixth installment of Generation Kill, a statement that resonates throughout the rest of the episode (entitled "Stay Frosty") in which the Marines of the First Recon Battalion seem to be constantly treading a fine psychological line. That it's the sanest observation made by the typically bumbling and inept team leader is not lost on Fick, nor on teleplay writer Ed Burns and director Simon Cellan Jones, which isn't to say that they overplay the inherent irony of the moment. If anything, they temper it to the point of nonexistence, as irony has little place in situations where the moral center is so continually shifting.
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To read the rest of the review at UnderGroundOnline (UGO), click here.
922 (63). The Draughtsman’s Contract (1982, Peter Greenaway), featuring video commentary by Karina Longworth
By Kevin B. Lee
[Editor's Note: This is the latest entry in House contributor Kevin B. Lee's Shooting Down Pictures, a record of his ongoing quest to see every title on the list of the 1000 Greatest Films compiled by They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?]
Peter Greenaway launched into the vanguard of 80s Brit cinema with this BFI-funded arthouse landmark. Dressing an oblique murder mystery-cum political allegory narrative with gorgeous cinematography, elaborate declamatory wordplay and costumed sexual naughtiness, the film packages numerous art cinema conventions with a sumptuous obliqueness that almost guarantees repeat visits to puzzle over it the more. The film is most notable for its ambivalent treatment of its protagonist Neville, a painter commissioned by a landowner’s wife to create drawings of the estate (though it’s really an excuse for her to sleep with him). Artist, charlatan, lothario and subversive, Neville embodies several variations of the arthouse film iconoclast hero at once, and yet Greenaway repeatedly undermines his heroic qualities to reveal him as a pawn in the larger game being played. The film owes much to 1960s puzzlers like Blow Up or Last Year at Marienbad, while distinguishing itself through an impeccable tableaux of painterly flatness (concealing layers of intrigue) and a flippancy towards its subjects that reveals the juvenile disposition of the characters, or the director, or both._____________________________________
To read the rest of the article at Shooting Down Pictures, click here. Read more!
921 (62). Gishiki / The Ceremony (1971, Nagisa Oshima)
By Kevin B. Lee
[Editor's Note: This is the latest entry in House contributor Kevin B. Lee's Shooting Down Pictures, a record of his ongoing quest to see every title on the list of the 1000 Greatest Films compiled by They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?]
Imagine a Japanese version of The Godfather where Michael, Sonny and Don Corleone were all trying to sleep with Talia Shire’s Connie, and you have an idea of how brilliantly perverse The Ceremony is. A radical subversion of two stalwart genres, the family saga and the historical epic, Nagisa Oshima’s critique of post-war Japan centers around Masuo (Kei Sato), a Manchurian repatriate and sole remaining heir to the powerful Sakurada clan. His coming of age under his domineering grandfather leads him to bear witness to the family’s decades-long disintegration behind the most impeccable of outward appearances. Masuo’s Oedipal longings for both a quasi-aunt and her daughter are foiled by both his grandfather and cousin who molest the women while Masuo looks the other way, becoming an example of Oshima’s contempt for the individual’s subjugation to the will of authority.Oshima uses a framing narrative to flash back to rituals and ceremonies throughout the family’s history, all of which are presented as farcical displays of hypocrisy and prejudice. The most unforgettable instance involves Masuo’s wedding, in which the bride is nowhere to be found but the ceremony is held anyway, with Masuo escorting his invisible bride in a haunting matrimonial kabuki. Other rituals and activities such as funerals, nostalgic brooding, and even baseball are lampooned as empty mechanical routines in which their participants are excused from having to confront their present problems. Blending both emotionally devastating melodrama with absurdist satire, The Ceremony feels as refined and disquieting as the art camp of Douglas Sirk’s Imitation of Life, sharing that film’s outsized ambition and intricate self-awareness.
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To read the rest of the article at Shooting Down Pictures, click here. Read more!
Links for the Day (August 18th, 2008)
1. "Superheroes for sale": David Bordwell on the current prevalence of superhero movies
["The films that disappointed me on that moviegoing day were Iron Man and The Dark Knight. The first seemed to me an ordinary comic-book movie endowed with verve by Robert Downey Jr.’s performance. While he’s thought of as a versatile actor, Downey also has a star persona—the guy who’s wound a few turns too tight, putting up a good front with rapid-fire patter (see Home for the Holidays, Wonder Boys, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Zodiac). Downey’s cynical chatterbox makes Iron Man watchable. When he’s not onscreen we get excelsior. Christopher Nolan showed himself a clever director in Memento and a promising one in The Prestige. So how did he manage to make The Dark Knight such a portentously hollow movie? Apart from enjoying seeing Hong Kong in Imax, I was struck by the repetition of gimmicky situations–disguises, hostage-taking, ticking bombs, characters dangling over a skyscraper abyss, who’s dead really once and for all? The fights and chases were as unintelligible as most such sequences are nowadays, and the usual roaming-camera formulas were applied without much variety. Shoot lots of singles, track slowly in on everybody who’s speaking, spin a circle around characters now and then, and transition to a new scene with a quick airborne shot of a cityscape. Like Jim Emerson, I thought that everything hurtled along at the same aggressive pace. If I want an arch-criminal caper aiming for shock, emotional distress, and political comment, I’ll take Benny Chan’s New Police Story."]
2. "Hundreds flee after dam break near Grand Canyon": From Reuters.
["A rain-soaked earthen dam near the Grand Canyon broke on Sunday, prompting the evacuation of hundreds of residents from a flooded village in a downstream Indian reservation, a National Park Service spokeswoman said. Five helicopters from the Arizona National Guard and the state public safety department ferried some evacuees, including campers and river-runners, to higher ground after floodwaters cascaded into the remote Native American town of Supai at the bottom of a canyon, spokeswoman Maureen Oltrogge said. As of Sunday evening, 75 people had been airlifted to safety and another 350 were waiting to be flown out as darkness approached, Oltrogge said, adding some evacuees may be forced to spend the night on higher ground near the flood zone. "It sounds like all the residents and campers have been accounted for," she told Reuters. No injuries were reported."]
3. "In Switzerland, Rivero's "Paraque Via" from Mexico Wins Locarno Fest's Top Prize": From indieWIRE.
["Enrique Rivero won Mexico's first Golden Leopard as the 2008 Locarno International Film Festival came to a close this weekend. His first feature, "Paraque via," was awarded the top jury prize at the festival on Saturday night in Switzerland. The film also won the FIPRESCI critics award at the event. Garth Jennings' "Son of Rambow" won the fest's audience award. Denis Cote from Canada won Locarno's best director award for "Elle Veut Le Chaos", while Fernand Melgar from Switzerland won the Filmmakers of the Present Competition for "La Forteresse" and Eva Randolph from Brazil won the International Leopoard of Tomorrow Competition for "Dez Elephants." The Locarno fest saw a jump in admissions, hitting more than 123,000 this year. That is up from more than 117,000 last year, even though the event saw a drop in attendance of its outdoor Piazza Grande screenings due to rain on six nights of the festival."]
4. Michael Atkinson on Vicky Cristina Barcelona at Zero for Conduct.
["I’m frankly getting tired of being the kid in the crowd pointing at the emperor’s bare-naked buttcheeks, but someone (besides Chicago Reader’s J.R. Jones) has got to make the case for the achingly obvious: Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona is a sophomoric, cliched howler, so ludicrously bad in so many ways one doesn’t know where to begin."]
5. "D-minus for 3-D": From Roger Ebert's Journal.
[" There is a mistaken belief that 3-D is "realistic." Not at all. In real life we perceive in three dimensions, yes, but we do not perceive parts of our vision dislodging themselves from the rest and leaping at us. Nor do such things, such as arrows, cannonballs or fists, move so slowly that we can perceive them actually in motion. If a cannonball approached that slowly, it would be rolling on the ground. In common with most species, we have excellent perception of movement. The first rudimentary "eyes" evolved to sense the difference between light (the source of energy) and darkness (its absence). Very slowly those early cells developed an ability to sense motion. The notion that eyes had to be an example of "intelligent design" is flawed because it cannot imagine an eye evolving toward what it cannot conceive. But sight has evolved independently dozens of times on this planet, growing more complex not because it what it was evolving into, but because of what it was evolving away from: less perception of light and movement. Those few creatures who because of chance mutation gained an advantage were of course more likely to survive. Our ancestors on the prehistoric savannah developed an acute alertness to motion, for the excellent reason that anything that moved might want to eat them. Movement perceived against a static background is dominant, a principle all filmmakers know. But what about rapid movement toward the viewer? Yes, we see a car aiming for us. But it advances by growing larger against its background, not by detaching from it. Nor did we evolve to stand still and regard its advance. To survive, we learned instinctively to turn around, leap aside, run away. We didn't just stand there evolving the ability to enjoy a 3-D movie."]
Quote of the Day: Alfred Hitchcock
Image of the Day (click to enlarge): The Oakland Municipal Auditorium in use as a temporary hospital, 1918 flu pandemic. Photo and story from The Tech Herald.
Clip of the Day: Brian Williams interviews Olympic athlete Michael Phelps.
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"Links for the Day": Each morning, the House editors post a series of weblinks that we think will spark discussion. Comments encouraged. Suggestions for links are also welcome. Please send to keithuhlich@gmail.com.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
A Conversation with Malcolm McDowell
By Lauren Wissot
When I first contacted the Film Society of Lincoln Center about interviewing Malcolm McDowell (in town to support his and Mike Kaplan’s film Never Apologize, a walk-down-memory-lane tribute to Lindsay Anderson that is screening concurrently with the “Lindsay Anderson: Revolutionary Romantic” series), I didn’t honestly believe I would get the chance to sit down and chat with the man who scarred me for life at the age of ten. (O.K., in all fairness it was my father who made the monolithic mistake of taking me and my sister to see A Clockwork Orange at the local university.) I just figured, as the New York State lottery ad goes, “Hey, you never know.”
So it was a bit surreal sitting in front of this snow white-haired, otherworldly blue-eyed acting legend in a closed restaurant across from Manhattan's Mandarin Hotel, hearing him hold forth on everything from the exact moment (my patron director saint) Stanley Kubrick made the gut instinct casting decision that would anchor his masterpiece to the feeling of bearing witness to Olivier onstage; from British-schooled African dictators and film biz shysters to why England is the land of wonderful losers; and—oh yes—why he never allows himself the luxury to dream of working with any artist so as to avoid potential disappointment. Well, Mr. McDowell, I am most grateful and honored that you shared such an insightful half-hour of your time with myself and The House Next Door and, if I may so humbly point out, the following interview is definitive proof that sometimes it does indeed pay to dream.
Podcast is embedded after the break. Any problems it can also be found here as a downloadable mp3 file.
Podcast
Transcript
COMING SOON!
Brooklyn-based writer Lauren Wissot is the publisher of the blog Beyond the Green Door, the author of the memoir Under My Master's Wings, and a contributor to The Reeler.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Lightness and Dissonance: A Girl Cut in Two
By Kenji Fujishima
SPOILER WARNING IN EFFECT
[A Girl Cut in Two is now playing in theaters. See Fernando F. Croce's conversation with actress Ludivine Sagnier here.]
The opening-credits sequence of Claude Chabrol’s new film A Girl Cut in Two reveals the film’s method. Text appears against a point-of-view shot of a driver driving through French streets, but the screen is bathed blood red, and a snippet of an aria from Puccini’s Turandot plays on the soundtrack. With this mix of sound and image, an unsuspecting viewer might expect a stylized grand opera, or at the very least a gripping soap. But this is Claude Chabrol territory, a cinematic universe in which characters from all walks of life grapple privately with burning passions while the director explores those emotions with an ironic but not entirely un-empathetic detachment. Thus, illusions of something lavishly melodramatic are dashed immediately, as that blood-red tint suddenly disappears and the slick, comparably drab colors of reality set in. That operatic atmosphere never makes itself evident again, despite the nature of the love triangle it recounts: Eduardo Serra’s cinematography maintains an emphasis on unassuming tones and shiny surfaces, while Mathieu Chabrol’s score veers from ironic lightness to lightly doom-laden dissonance.
Through it all, Chabrol maintains his good surface manners, eliding certain key events so we only hear about them in retrospect, and otherwise keeping his transgression rooted at the level of technique: precisely placed zoom-ins to emphasize heightened emotion; overhead shots that suggest a character saying one thing and thinking another; deliberate TV-style fades to black; and jagged editing rhythms that abruptly cut off certain sequences before things go out of control. “Tasteful” might be one way to describe Chabrol’s style, but that doesn’t account for the film’s psychologically probing and ultimately unsettling effect.
There’s an undoubted chill in the air as the eccentric love triangle at the heart of A Girl Cut in Two plays out: It’s the chill of a filmmaker observing human beings trapped in an emotionally draining web of naïveté, selfishness, illusions, perversity, hypocrisy—in short, all of Chabrol’s usual thematic concerns, wrapped up in a package that often looks like something out of the cover of those better-home magazines. Inspired by the turn-of-the-20th-century murder of Stanford White—a famous architect and notorious womanizer who was killed by the husband of Evelyn Nesbitt, White’s mistress at the time—Chabrol spins a doozy of an anti-romantic romantic tale here.
Gabrielle Deneige (Ludivine Sagnier), a perky yet gullible TV weathergirl, finds herself torn between the constantly shifting affections of Charles Saint-Denis (François Berléand), a popular writer and ladies-man, and Paul Gaudens (Benoît Magimel), the charming but schizophrenic son of a pharmaceutical magnate. Gabrielle finds herself trying to negotiate her way through her conflicting feelings for both these problematic potential suitors: when Charles brutally abandons her at one point, she starts clinging to Paul (who has come, selfishly or not, to comfort her at her mother’s request) and even goes so far as to marry him (against the wishes of Paul’s disdainful mother), though she retains a certain passion for Charles. Meanwhile, she’s trying to move up from her weathergirl status—well, she does move up, but tellingly, the movie doesn’t even bother to emphasize the points when she does—but her romantic tête-à-tête with these two men lead her astray and eventually diminish her.
But then, was there anywhere to go for her in the first place? In A Girl Cut in Two, Chabrol creates a world in which everyone is stuck, in their own way. Charles feels trapped in a boringly stable marriage, but even as he feels more alive with Gabrielle (in true old-man's-wet-dream fashion), a part of him can’t bear to leave his wife, whom he calls an “angel” on more than one occasion. Paul’s privilege seems to be his trap; his family overprotects him even at his most mentally unstable, and he can only express himself through resentful behavior, emotional outbursts and a climactic act of violence. And Gabrielle? Despite the self-confident way she carries herself, she is, one can say, trapped in her own naïve illusions about love and sacrifice. Over the course of the film, she is shown blowing off a couple of potentially career-advancing meetings just to meet with Charles again, and she quite possibly sees her marriage to Paul as the ultimate love sacrifice.
None of this is explicitly spelled out; all of the characters and situations are presented for our observation and contemplation, not for cheap derision. Chabrol excoriates his characters, but he does so with enough of a sense of humanity that they never quite devolve into puppets: these characters can sometimes both charm and repel you in the same scene. You may be unsettled by what they do, but you never find yourself either loving them or despising them: Chabrol keeps too much of an observant distance for easy audience reactions.
Are there any human truths to be gained from watching this sordid roundelay play out to its bitter end? Maybe Chabrol’s point by presenting all this—aside from his usual preoccupation with class issues and humanity challenged by perversity, both of which are lightly touched upon here—is, at heart, quite simple: beyond flashy tabloid headlines and surface sensationalism, there are always people dealing with emotions and desires they themselves may not totally understand. Television distances us and makes it easy for us to judge and assume; so does class consciousness, for that matter. But, as ever, the real truths probably lie in between, and that’s where Chabrol peers his inquisitive eye.
The final two shots of A Girl Cut in Two encapsulate this beautifully and bleakly: Gabrielle is now reduced to being an assistant at a magic show, and she gets involved in—what else?—the classic cutting-a-girl-in-half trick. As she is laid down on the table and the saw bears into her, she looks away from the audience. The camera glimpses her and zooms in on her face: she has tears streaming down. Certainly that would be enough to make a sobering concluding shot, but Chabrol actually ends his film with another shot, in which she jumps out of a box as the trick concludes. The illusion has been maintained. Chabrol zooms in on his heroine again, and she’s all smiles, without a trace of the sadness in the previous shot. That’s the image Chabrol leaves us with, in freeze frame: Gabrielle’s ever-cheerful mask stays intact. Oh, but how much more we know about what lies behind it!
House contributor Kenji Fujishima is a Rutgers University journalism graduate who is currently earning his keep at The Wall Street Journal's Global News Desk in New York while messing around on the side. He maintains—poorly—a blog named My Life, at 24 Frames Per Second. Feel free to check it out.
A Girl Cut in Two: A Conversation with Ludivine Sagnier
By Fernando F. Croce
[A Girl Cut in Two is now playing in theaters. See Kenji Fujishima's review of the film here.]
There’s a scene in A Girl Cut in Two, Claude Chabrol’s latest autopsy of bourgeois pomp and circumstance, in which the young heroine, an ambitious television weather-girl named Gabrielle, has to prove her love to Charles, the elegantly depraved (and much-older) novelist she’s infatuated with. The experienced bon vivant is unsatisfied with a blowjob under the desk, so Gabrielle is made to crawl across the bedroom floor in flimsy lingerie adorned with peacock feathers. It’s a moment which, extending the film’s study of sexist entertainment from the TV cameras to the boudoir, is balanced between the ridiculous and the sublime, saved from tawdriness by Chabrol’s sardonic feeling for human absurdity and, above all, by the mix of resolve and vulnerability Ludivine Sagnier brings to the role. Playing an ingénue among wolves, Sagnier provides a vibrant vision of innocence as resistance—as J. Hoberman put it in his Village Voice review, “she's humiliated but never defiled.”
In a medium that devours beauty so easily, it’s talent that’s kept Sagnier going. Not content to just lean on her Gallic gorgeousness, she has sought out a variety of roles, and, not quite 30 yet, has already played petulant seductresses, warbling romantics, aristocratic courtesans, and even fairy-tale sprites—all of them fresh, autonomous portraits. Our interview took place earlier this year in San Francisco, where A Girl Cut in Two was screened as part of the international film festival. Her English is better than my French, so we proceed without a translator. I started by bringing up her brief role, at the age of ten, in Alain Resnais’ I Want to Go Home, which I had just reviewed.
LUDIVINE SAGNIER: Are you sure that was me?
FERNANDO F. CROCE: The little girl near the end in the village, next to Gerard Depardieu? Your name is in the credits.
LS: I’m not so sure. I remember coming back from summer camp to do a scene and having a huge bump on my head from an accident, so I think Resnais used another blonde girl. I did get to star with Depardieu the next year in Cyrano de Bergerac, though.
FFC: How was it, getting started in movies at such an early age?
LS: Well, I wouldn’t really say it was a big thing because I didn’t become a “star,” for lack of a better word, right off the bat. I did a few things here and there because my parents didn’t want my life overwhelmed by the industry, so I didn’t experience this idea of celebrity until I was, thank God, strong enough.
FFC: Was acting an early interest?
LS: Yes. My friends were taking dance lessons and riding horses, while I was really interested in drama and movies. I started taking some theater lessons at the age of eight, and what began as a hobby soon became a necessity.
FFC: Tell me about A Girl Cut in Two. What appealed to you about the film?
LS: Well, above all it was working with Claude Chabrol, really a monument in French cinema. And I was moved by the character, this girl who in the beginning seems to be very ambitious yet very naïve. She thinks she can handle everything, gets humiliated but still fights back and survives.
FFC: Gabrielle seems like an innocent next to the other corrupted characters, but she’s really quite ambiguous.
LS: She is. She’s never as clever as she thinks she is, but I see her as stronger than she at first believes.
FFC: There’s a Chabrol movie called Innocents with Dirty Hands, which I always thought was a terrific description of his worldview.
LS: Yeah, I know. You don’t see many pure people in his movies, do you?
FFC: Usually they get strangled.
LS: (laughs) Right, right.
FFC: What’s Chabrol like? His stamina, year in and year out, is just amazing.
LS: He does a lot of SuDoku to stay focused, and it helps him keep precise. And he’s so funny. He plays up the old-man grumpiness, but he’s really a child on the set. He’d much rather talk about food than about the psychological details of the movie, I think to keep the situations fresh. And I think he’s rather shy.
FFC: Speaking of his humor, the scene where your character has to crawl across the bedroom in the peacock outfit…
LS: (smiles and rolls her eyes)
FFC: (laughs) Chabrol’s analysis is often very close to a kind of caustic comedy.
LS: Believe me, there was nothing funny about doing that scene. (laughs) It was also important to him to use that scene because it’s the moment where the deviant sexuality of the writer is shown, and it also shows how much this girl is willing to do for her lover. In a way, it’s a scene about purity—she declares the truth of her love.
FFC: How was working with him different from working with François Ozon?
LS: Ozon loves Chabrol, but he directs more. I mean, he talks to you more about character and motivation, he’s much more authoritative, whereas Chabrol does it calmly, indirectly.
FFC: Big fan of Water Drops on Burning Rocks, your first film with Ozon. From a Fassbinder play, no less.
LS: That was amazing, because I studied Fassbinder in theater classes. He worked on the stage as much as he did with films. François and I are both big on German culture, so we hit it off immediately on the set. It was also sort of a period movie, set in the Seventies, so we had a blast recreating it.
FFC: Moliere is another, more obvious period piece you were in.
LS: Oh yeah. I love doing period movies, especially Moliere, because the costumes were amazing. I had only four scenes, but each had a different 17th-century dress. I hope I never lose the childlike pleasure of playing dress-up.
FFC: I’m sure you’ve been asked this a lot, but how was it being part of that ensemble in 8 Femmes? Deneuve, Huppert, Darrieux…
LS: Fantastic. I think I learned more about acting just being with those actresses for two months than in ten years of theater.
FFC: I should confess that I adore “T’es plus dans le coup, Papa,” that sort of rockabilly, yé-yé number you do in that movie.
LS: (laughs) Mon dieu.
FFC: Along with Les Chansons d’Amour, I noticed you get to do quite a bit of singing in movies.
LS: I never saw much difference between singing and acting. There’s pleasure in the performance, but you can feel a bit naked doing it. Singing in musicals is usually used to reveal what the characters otherwise don’t dare talk about, so there’s this element of direct emotion to it.
FFC: Jacques Demy certainly understood that.
LS: Absolutely.
FFC: Speaking of feeling naked, you’re no stranger to sex-bomb roles. La Petite Lili, Water Drops, Bon Plan, Swimming Pool. I read in an interview that you find “sexual acting” painful.
LS: Painful in that your skin becomes the character’s, though I’ve never had problems with nudity. It’s part of being on the stage, and of giving yourself to the camera.
FFC: Do you see any differences in the way the media addresses movie sexuality in America versus in Europe?
LS: Sure. Europeans are more much blasé about sexuality, so usually they skip over the subject and focus on other facets of the movie. When I did interviews for Swimming Pool, the sexuality of the film or my nudity in it would frequently be the big subject for American critics.
FFC: Swimming Pool was your first English-language role, if I’m not mistaken. [Note: And mistaken I was. Toothache (2002) was Sagnier’s first English-language role.] How was Charlotte Rampling?
LS: Charming. And brilliant.
FFC: And from there … Peter Pan?
LS: Oh God, that was so much fun. Tinker Bell never spoke, so I got to do a lot of physical stuff and improvise, and I really got along well with the director, P.J. Hogan. It’s something I would love my children to enjoy.
FFC: Any directors you would be interested in working with?
LS: Yeah, but they’re all dead. (laughs)
FFC: Like who?
LS: Hitchcock, Kubrick, Joseph Mankiewicz, Elia Kazan, Douglas Sirk.
FFC: 8 Femmes did channel Sirk.
LS: I know. I loved the references to Imitation of Life, and Cukor’s The Women. It was a very French movie, but François had these tips of the hat to the greats.
FFC: Has becoming a mom changed the way you look at acting?
LS: Not really, but it did confirm that living life is more important than having some kind of superstar career.
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Fernando F. Croce is a critic for Slant Magazine and the creator of the website Cinepassion.
Blunt Force: Star Wars: The Clone Wars
By John Lichman
[Star Wars: The Clone Wars is now playing in theaters. The television series is slated to premiere October 3rd on Cartoon Network.]
The textbook mysticism found in George Lucas' Star Wars will forever be a case study in how to craft popular science fiction, along with the Gene Roddenberry Star Trek universe. Both created fully fleshed out universes, each possessing an engrossing history that has already occurred by the time we are glimpsing it. Granted, it has more to do with being able to eventually flesh out the back-stories and provide more content, but there is something inherently incredible about the original Star Wars trilogy and the first Trek series, in spite of the overwhelming popularity of both franchises' subsequent Next Generations.
Then there are the so-called "Expanded Series" of novels and comics that further entrance fans of both Wars and Trek. While Luke, Leia and Han remained eternal on film, their characters continued to grow through the works of Alan Dean Foster, Timothy Zahn and Kevin J. Anderson. And yet, what this inevitably gives us is more fan service than resonant insight into the elements that would shape the Empire, the Jedis, and the Skywalker family.
It gets no better with the 98-minute "pilot" for Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which takes the entire premise and character design from Genndy Tartakovsky and Henry Gilroy's mini-series (which aired from 2003 to 2005 on Cartoon Network), reformats the cel animation to clunky CGI, and creates character arcs that inevitably mean nothing more beyond a profit increase for Hasbro.
Since it's a lead-in for Cartoon Networks' second take on the franchise, we're treated to an extremely glib "Mary Sue" rendering via the introduction of Anakin's "youngling" padawan, Ahsoka Tano (Ashley Drane) who manages to be the plucky and headstrong sidekick for the man who would be Darth Vader. Not to mention, she's another original character not so far removed from the "second" apprentice Darth Vader eventually takes on in a video game, The Force Unleashed.
The Clone Wars takes place between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith with the heroicly mundane Galactic Republic battling the Confederacy of Independent Systems. Why are they fighting? Ah, no one knows. Soon-to-be-Emperor Palpatine probably did something or other with a droid or the Force or a Kessel Run. For that reason, we start on a generic planet with the Clone Army battling a Separatist Droid faction as Anakin comes to term with his new padawan, already giving her a sickening pet name ("Snips") to match hers ("Skyman" for him, "Are-Two-Ee" for everyone's favorite Astromech.)
A majority of the film revolves around the wooden—no, seriously, they're supposed to look shitty—Jedi and Clones fighting waves upon waves of droids. And occasionally they get inspired to progress the plot: "Destroy the shield generator!" "Save the child!" "Hold the line!" "Pander to the Fanbase!"
Eventually, there is a moment of clarity: someone (i.e. Palpatine and the only other three villains who aren't droids) has kidnapped Jabba the Hutt's son. If the Republic wants Jabba's help in the "Outer Rim," they're to bring his little polygonal offspring back—"within one planetary rotation," intones Obi-Wan Kenobi—or else they won't be able to harvest the Spice that Jabba produces by moving through the sand. But don't worry, you too will begin thinking of sci-fi films that had far more interesting plots when you see Clone Wars on Cartoon Network—these are the first three or four episodes strung together, if you weren't aware.
There is such rich history and potential for moving around this universe, but who really wants to? Clearly we just want to see the same situation (droid battle, space dogfight, lightsaber battle, repeat) over and over again. Why else would writers and artists design such an intricately woven history and future for a series that George Lucas solely uses as a cash cow? By far, the only interesting thing Clone Wars has going for it is the dreaded embargo that seems to confirm Warner Brothers faux-confidence that its' films are "critic proof" after The Dark Knight.
And if you think that maybe you'll find one redeeming thing in this, let me crush your dreams with three words: Ziro the Hutt.