Comments on The House Next Door: 5 for the Day: Mia Farrow

Well you certainly didn't scrimp on that answer, M...

2008-12-02T19:22:00.000-05:00

Well you certainly didn't scrimp on that answer, Matt. Nice explication. Thanks.

You have a real gift for communicating ideas simply and accurately -- even, or rather, especially when the subject matter is subtle and complex -- and I think you've got Brando's scenes in AN pegged in terms of content, tone and implication. I wonder whether or not you credit his improvizations with too much, however, since the whole film seems designed as a series of (negative) epiphanies -- a slow tearing down of moral boundaries -- that climaxes with Brando's (rather on-the-nose) elucidation of the central theme. (An elucidation, by-the-by, that takes advantage of a fictional atrocity -- the hacked-off innoculated arms, etc. -- which some have perhaps rightly complained does a historical and ethical injustice to the Vietnamese. But if we get started on the subject of American filmmakers and their historical mistreatment of foreign peoples and cultures -- especially in war films -- we might never get done with it, so setting that aside for the moment...)

Brando...play[s] Kurtz as a man who's been to the outer edge of barbarism and realized he's rather comfortable with it, that it's surprisingly easy to become comfortable with it.

The crux of the issue lies in this statement, I think, which subtly implies the near-casualness with which Brando's Kurtz not only enters the film, but also proceeds to navigate the existential crisis at its center -- an aesthetic, rather than thematic concern, in my mind. Your ensuing discussion of the film's philosophical center (society's ongoing conflict with the savagery at its heart, and the genuine threat posed by an amoral and chaotic conception of the universe) is dead-on-balls accurate, but it's not the content of the scenes that bothers me (nor their philosophical implications, which are all pretty much on-target), so much as the muddy and deflating presentation. Aesthetically, Brando just doesn't embody the kind of shock and psychological horror required by the part* -- a shock that should sear through the audience like fire through flash-paper, even if, naturalistically speaking, the character has become comfortably well-acquainted with his dark conclusions -- which leaves the film feeling rather anticlimactic, until the sacrificial ritual cranks up the dwindling sense of urgency.

(*I.e., if we consider "the part" as an element of the film's design instead of just "a role", a human being with his own psychology and interests, etc. Kurtz is supposed to be the central representative of nihilistic savagery, as well as the discoverer of this dreadful "truth" at the heart of civilization, at the heart of war. He is an abstraction, to some degree -- or should be, anyway.)

The brand of metaphysical meditation on display here has been pretty central to the Western artistic tradition since as far back as Shakespeare (the major tragedies, in particular), also appearing to powerful effect in the works of Dostoevsky (to pick a rather arbitrary, if exemplary, figure), before Conrad takes a run at it in HoD, with Coppola and his team following suit in AN. A common element among these works is the aesthetic impact (on the work itself and, by extension, on the reader/viewer) that comes part-and-parcel with the diegetic impact (on the events and characters within the narrative world) of a nihilistic character or worldview.

In Shakespeare, the poetry becomes more dense, meaning becomes harder to pin down, narrative coherence is sometimes affected (e.g., Hamlet defies or transcends all theatrical conventions associated with revenge tragedy) and the whole thing ends with a cataclysmic destruction of the play world. In Dostoevsky, character psychologies and motivations are kept wilfully obscure, the reader is forced to intuit the gaping abysses the nihilist characters see, and suicide often shuts the door on them, making them eerily unknowable even though we seem to have experienced the height of intimacy with them.

Conrad I'm not as familiar with (having only read HoD once some years ago), but I recall the narrative being filtered through two consciousnesses: Marlow's and then an unnamed narrator. This has an obfuscating effect similar to Dostoevsky's approach and constantly keeps us on our toes. Kurtz is made similarly obscure, but if one thing is clear, it's that his sojourn amongst the natives as a ruler-king has had a highly debilitating effect on him. We're unnerved by him, but no, we don't really "know" him. The real punch comes when Marlow encounters Kurtz's betrothed, who so astonishingly misreads the man she claims to know and love so well that all is converted into narcissistic vanity. This immense gap between the "true" and the perceived has a pretty debilitating impact on the reader...

Coppola tackles the subject with an increasingly stylized approach, so that the farther up the river we get (and the deeper into Kurtz's consciousness), the more unhinged and lunatic becomes the experience. Everything is running along swimmingly, but then Brando shows up and gives us realism instead of a continued escalation of the film's stylized approach. This steals the shock of discovery (which Welles handles so expertly in his treatment of HoD -- on the page, at least) and pulls us out of the growing sense of dread -- though it does make infinitely clear the nuts and bolts of the origins of that dread.

I might be obfuscating my point now instead of clarifying it (I've really let my thoughts wander while composing this piece), but I'm hoping the idea is clear: Brando's pondering aloud, leading us through the subject verbally, has less impact than genuinely embodying "the horror" would.

One last example: Othello suffers so greatly by Iago's relentless insinuations that he literally has a seizure (an experience that Dostoevsky was intimately familiar with, and also uses for aesthetic effect in his novels): psychological suffering is actualized by an extreme physical response. But what does this really represent artistically? Why should Othello go into convulsions over mere jealousy? He doesn't. It's more than that. It's an existential crisis.

Orson Welles illustrates this brilliantly in his film version -- what with the wild cutting, the jagged and criss-crossing shadows, the unhinged fast-tracking pans and zooms, all climaxing with a freeze-frame of Othello's open-mouthed grimace of horror before transitioning into a swaying POV-shot (almost vertical) of an empty sky, with gulls drifting in and out of frame sans reference point, glimpses of the castle parapets yawning in from the top of the screen, the world turned upside-down, its foundations shattered, all sense of orientation and stability obliterated. It's flat out genius. Aesthetically perfect.

Coppola gets around to this kind of visceral aestheticized impact with the ritual slaying of Kurtz,** but for awhile there it's all engine's stopped while Brando casually fills us in on the absurdist details of a "civil" society at war. (And isn't it Hopper who references T.S. Eliot, rather than Brando? The "with a whimper" line at least. Either way, the film still ends with a very appropriate stumbling-out-of-the-wilderness exit. Can we ever really leave though? Were we ever really anywhere else? Or is it just our illusions that convince us we live apart from "the horror"? Yeah, I still dig the movie.)

(**The character's ready embrace of death suggests a kind of nihilistic despair that otherwise seems missing, so I'll give them that. A recognition that society -- human beings, even -- cannot function without some kind of order, and so Kurtz must be killed to destroy that despair, to preserve some hope...)

Alright, I've been at this for way to long. Thanks for reading.

Kevin H: The "Brando section" of AN (as it's [some...

2008-12-02T10:08:57.867-05:00

Kevin H: The "Brando section" of AN (as it's [sometimes un]affectionately known) is often criticized for its groping, lumbering lack of focus, the muddiness of its thought, and Brando's (actually rather subdued) turn as the colonel-in-existential-crisis -- so understated that he fails to communicate the sense of "horror" supposedly at the center of the film.

That's precisely what I like about Brando's performance. Kurtz in Conrad's Heart of Darkness is likewise a cipher, an unknowable abstraction made disappointingly concrete and given a lot of philosophical/explicative rumination that seems rather gaseous and unhelpful. I think Coppola went into Apocalypse Now hoping to communicate more of a sense of horror (and moral terror, as Brando puts it in one of his many improvised monologues). But Brando ends up setting the tone for his section and retroactively redefining everything we've seen up to that point by playing Kurtz as a man who's been to the outer edge of barbarism and realized he's rather comfortable with it, that it's surprisingly easy to become comfortable with it. (That's what he's getting at in the "horror and moral terror" monologue where he says that when he saw the aftermath of the VC rampage in which soldiers had hacked off every arm of children inoculated by Americans, he realized "like I was shot, shot with a diamond bullet right through my forehead...that they were stronger than we...that they had the strength to do that." For Brando, the "horror" at the heart of the movie is the realization that morality is just a social construct, that it doesn't exist, and that in war, the side that is willing to admit and embrace that, and eliminate any restraint or hypocrisy and unleash its inner caveman, is the side that always wins. (In another moment, Brando's Kurtz ruminates on the hypocrisy of the American military, which lets soldiers "drop fire on people, but we won't let them write 'fuck' on the side of their airplanes because...it's obscene!")

Brando approaches the character and the story as a set of philosophical propositions and works his way through them (haltingly but as thoroughly as he can), and in so doing, defines the whole film as a gigantic, spectacular essay on civilization vs. savagery, and how the former, while useful and desirable, is basically a cage constraining a beast.

These are enormous issues that he's struggling with, and he's attacking them head-on, in a very personal and idiosyncratic way -- and, I would argue, with a depth and sincerity that raises the entire movie up a level, and that binds the entire film together. Coppola wanted to make a statement on Vietnam specifically and war in general, but Brando is posing a set of questions and propositions about the individual's capacity for decency and cruelty -- an altogether more humane and useful approach, one that applies to every area of life.

I think that's a very impressive accomplishment -- an example of an actor taking an impossible assignment and redefining it into something that's equally difficult but more worthwhile. That the movie becomes a muddle at the end, and finishes with a whimper rather than a bang (to quote T.S. Eliot, who is rather pointedly quoted by Brando) seems altogether fitting. These are the sorts of issues that learned people spend their entire lives considering, never arriving at any satisfactory conclusions.

Of all the things one could clip out from Secret C...

2008-11-30T16:31:00.000-05:00

Of all the things one could clip out from Secret Ceremony I would not have chosen this clip, but I think it is sweet that the poster genuinely likes the prayer.

Anon

It's drifting off topic, but I'd love to hear an e...

2008-11-29T12:56:00.000-05:00

It's drifting off topic, but I'd love to hear an elaboration of this thought, Matt:

If there were a "5 for the Day" on unplayable parts played well, I'd definitely rank her up there with Brando's Kurtz.

The "Brando section" of AN (as it's [sometimes un]affectionately known) is often criticized for its groping, lumbering lack of focus, the muddiness of its thought, and Brando's (actually rather subdued) turn as the colonel-in-existential-crisis -- so understated that he fails to communicate the sense of "horror" supposedly at the center of the film.

If we compare AN to Orson Welles' unfilmed treatment of the same source material by Conrad, these criticisms might be true, since the fragment of Welles' screenplay that I've read has all the searing clarity and genuine dread one might expect to see at the end of Coppola's feature. But I've often flip-flopped on the matter myself, sometimes finding Brando rivetting, sometimes finding him blandly forgettable. (One of the film's most interesting tricks, really -- to be both things at the same time.)

Anyway, I've now spent more time asking the question than you likely will in answering it, Matt, so let the rest be silence (from my end).

I was thinking of including "The Great Gatsby" in ...

2008-11-29T11:28:33.707-05:00

I was thinking of including "The Great Gatsby" in this list, but when I saw it again, Farrow seemed way too out-there and neurotic. It's an extreme, very affected performance that might click if she had more support from the rest of the film.

The "Broadway Danny Rose" performance is impressive as a change of pace, but when I saw it again, it really just boiled down to blond hair, dark glasses and a New York accent. The screenplay doesn't give her much to work with past our initial impression.

She is very good in "Hannah," especially in her reactions to Dianne Wiest's Holly, and especially when Holly asks for money.

Everyone has to see "Secret Ceremony" as soon as possible. It's not on DVD yet, unfortunately, but it turns up on the IFC channel sometimes, and it was on video. It's the funniest movie I've ever seen, hands down.

THE FUTURIST! loves Mia as Tina in Broadway Danny...

2008-11-29T00:52:00.000-05:00

THE FUTURIST! loves Mia as Tina in Broadway Danny Rose. Quite a character.

Hey, Dan--Great choices (haven't seen "Secret Cere...

2008-11-28T22:56:41.742-05:00

Hey, Dan--

Great choices (haven't seen "Secret Ceremony," though I'm with Goran in wanting to seek it out thanks to your description). I'd also want to put "Hannah" in there because she's so convincing.

Hannah is a paragon of virtue whose impossible standard of goodness emboldens her loved ones to act out (because they'll never measure up to her). The scene where she realizes this dynamic and wonders whether she is, in fact, too perfect is an unnerving visualization of a strong, good person interpreting her strengths as flaws, simply because everybody else around her seems so incredibly fucked-up. She starts to wonder if they're normal and she's a freak. I think Farrow exposes herself as bravely here as she does in "Husbands and Wives," though the notes she strikes are necessarily a lot more subdued. I wouldn't be surprised if Farrow had experienced Hannah-like moments of self-doubt hanging out with the likes of Roman Polanski, the Rat Pack, and the Beatles during their India excursion. I don't believe there was ever a phase during her public life where she didn't seem more grounded than the other celebrities in her orbit. The wallflower at the orgy.

I'd also throw in a dark-horse vote for Farrow as Daisy in the nice-try, sorry-it-didn't-work version of "The Great Gatsby." It's entirely possible that every major role in that novel is unplayable onscreen, except maybe for Nick Carraway. Yet Farrow somehow manages to humanize Daisy while still conveying her allure as a romantic abstraction. If there were a "5 for the Day" on unplayable parts played well, I'd definitely rank her up there with Brando's Kurtz.

Great list (and I've seen Secret Ceremony--great t...

2008-11-28T14:02:08.467-05:00

Great list (and I've seen Secret Ceremony--great trashy minds think alike) but I'd have put also her over-the-top performance in Widow's Peak on mine.

I think in my earlier piece here about Rosemary's Baby, I said that Farrow's performance was my third favorite by any actress, behind Davis as Margo Channing and Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond. I'm not sure if I would have let my name be associated with her scalp job if I were Vidal Sassoon, though.

I'd never heard of 'Secret Ceremony' and I'm not s...

2008-11-28T08:27:00.000-05:00

I'd never heard of 'Secret Ceremony' and I'm not sure if you made me want to seek it out, but this was a great read. There are maybe two or three actresses in total that I would rank above Farrow and it's such a shame that the soap opera that is her life has led to her work being so underappreciated. And how she gets stuck in things like Arthur and the Inivisibles and The Omen is beyond me.

My 5 key Farrow performances are pretty much the ones you cited, with Hannah and Her Sisters taking Secret Ceremony's place. Hannah is the unusually withdrawn Mia where she pitches her unusal-withdrawn-ness so that for once it doesn't take centre stage. But it's no less note-perfect than her other variations on this character, and it's her most comfortable, 'wisest' performance. She allows the character's fierce intelligence and equally fierce neurosis to manifest without unnecessary fuss, and she's very generous to her co-stars too.