Wednesday, November 30, 2011

 

No easy resolutions, but one spectacular performance


By Edward Copeland
It's always difficult to comprehend the sick and twisted minds that would sexually abuse, molest or rape children, whether a disgusting Penn State or Catholic Church scandal is in the news or not. In the movie Trust, which came out earlier this year, it attempts to tackle the particularly sleazy world of Internet predators, but does so in a way that challenges a black-and-white approach to the subject — an attempt that sometimes comes perilously close to crossing lines — not so much into inappropriateness but retreats to formula. Fortunately, it avoids most of those traps, thanks mainly to the magnificent work of the teen actress Liana Liberato whose character the movie revolves around.

Trust marks the second feature film directed by actor David Schwimmer (though I haven't seen his first effort, the Simon Pegg comedy Run, Fatboy, Run) and Schwimmer performs adequately at preventing the screenplay by Andy Bellin and Robert Festinger from veering too far into melodrama and ratcheting up plot points from countless other movies by keeping most of the film's focus on its provocative and complicated nature.

The film stars two of my most welcome screen presences in recent years, Clive Owen and Catherine Keener, as Will and Lynn Cameron, suburban Chicago parents of three — two daughters, 14-year-old Annie (Liberato) and little sister Katie (Aislinn DeButch), and oldest brother Peter (Spencer Curnutt), who has left for his first year at college.

There's hardly a dysfunction to be found in the family as British transplant Will earns kudos for his work in the advertising and marketing field and Lynn serves dutifully as a loving earth mother to the clan. Their lives seem to be ideal except for the part of Annie's life that her parents don't know about, a life taking place in another world that exists within the walls of the Camerons' own home.

Annie has a boyfriend, albeit a virtual one at first, named Charlie that she has met online and grown very attached to through their computer chats. Those chats eventually lead to actual phone conversations. It bothers Annie slightly that Charlie's story keeps changing. When they first talk online, he's 16, though he ups it to 20 soon after. Later, he admits he's actually 25. Annie quizzes him about the lies, but every fabrication that Charlie explains, the teen she chooses to buy the reason he gives for having lied. Why? It's not that Annie is a particularly dumb 14-year-old girl, but she's vulnerable, enjoying the attention she gets from the virtual Charlie that the real boys at school don't give her.

Inevitably, Charlie talks her into a face-to-face meeting, claiming that it might be their only chance since he's told her that he lives on the West Coast and might not be in Chicago again soon. Of course, 25 was a lie as well and Annie feels betrayed, but Charlie (Chris Henry Coffey) charms her enough despite being at least in his mid-30s (if not older) to get her to stay and before Annie knows it, Charlie has taken her to a motel and what he views as seduction, anyone else would call forcible rape. The surprise comes that since Annie denies so much of the truth about Charlie, she claims it was consensual as well even though she fought him as it happened. Her personality changes and she all but brags about experience, which is part of what makes Trust more challenging than you'd expect.

Despite Annie's outward attitude, her best friend Brittany (Zoe Levin) realizes that something bad occurred and she tells school officials, who report it to the police. The film really takes its unusual turn at this point. Her parents, understandably, can't believe this happened without their knowledge. The FBI, in the form of Agent Doug Tate (Jason Clarke), gets in on the case since the assumption is that Charlie, whomever he might be, probably crossed state lines. It's Annie's reaction that proves to be shocking. She feels utterly betrayed — not by Charlie but by Brittany for reporting the incident and getting Charlie in trouble because she's "in love" with him. Then her anger turns on her parents who become overprotective (a bit too late), so she resents them for preventing her from being able to contact him and when she agrees to try with the FBI setting up a trap to try to locate, the cover gets blown and he never calls again. The interference of her ex-friend, her parents and the police have cost her the only person she feels found her special and beautiful.

Liberato, who was 14 when she made the film, gives a phenomenal performance that overpowers everyone else in the film, no minor achievement when the cast not only includes Clive Owen and Catherine Keener but also Viola Davis in the small role as a psychiatrist that Annie is forced to see. The film in no way argues that Charlie and Annie should be allowed to pursue their "love" and eventually Annie gets wise and her breakdown when realizing it is both heartbreaking and harrowing to watch. Liberato truly amazes, giving one of the best performances by an actress that age that I've seen in quite some time.

On the downside of Trust, while it makes Annie so complex and interesting, the screenplay doesn't flesh out her parents or any other characters in the same way, especially poor Keener whose gets a terribly underwritten role. Owen comes off better, especially when he gets some quiet moments toward the end of the film. Unfortunately before he gets there, he's stuck with not one but two clichéd reactions: First, he almost turns into a potential vigilante in the mold of a an infinite number of parents (or siblings or friends, etc.) in an infinite number of films (abetted by yet another portrayal of an inept FBI agent who lets Will steal his computer and files on potential pedophile suspects) that threatens to turn Owen into Liam Neeson in that godawful movie Taken. Second, he gets the ideal career so that he can reassess how he makes his living when he sees how his firm's latest ad campaign peddles young teen girls as sex objects. (The script even gives him a lecherous jerk of a co-worker played by Noah Emmerich to represent the evils of the ad industry.)

Those reservations aside, Trust contains enough thought-provoking material and its avoidance of easy and pat resolutions make up for the parts that border on silly and melodramatic. The credit for smoothing those bumps fall almost entirely on Liberato's young shoulders. I look forward to seeing where this young actress's career goes in the future.

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Monday, October 31, 2011

 

Paradise Lost


"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."

By Damian Arlyn
An elderly Catholic cardinal stares intensely at us, his hard facial features betraying an expression of complete ambiguity. Is he angry? Sad? Afraid? We don't know. After several seconds he begins to speak. He is dictating a letter to the pope, relaying details of a past event which the film proceeds to show in flashback. His narration explains how Jesuit priests, who set up missions in South America for the education and protection of the local natives, journeyed into the depths of the jungle "to bring the word of God to those Indians still living in their natural state and received in return, martyrdom." We then see one such cleric, stripped to the waist and wearing a makeshift crown of thorns on his brow, being tied to a wooden cross and carried by a group of these Indians (whom we later learn are called the Guarani) down to a river where he is thrown in. He floats away silently, still alive but seemingly resigned to his fate. We watch as he travels further downstream, a grotesque living crucifix adrift in a series of rough rapids, before sailing over the edge of an immense waterfall and plummeting to his death. Thus opens the breathtakingly beautiful and tremendously powerful historical drama The Mission (which celebrates its 25th anniversary today), one of the finest films I personally have ever seen.

Based on actual events that occurred in the territory that borders Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina in the mid-18th century (and, knowing Hollywood's track record for distorting history, no doubt embellishing it), The Mission primarily tells the story of two very different, and yet remarkably similar, men. The first is Father Gabriel (Jeremy Irons), a kind, noble and patient Jesuit priest who, after the death of his friend, decides to bravely enter the domain of the Guarani tribe. In one of many memorable and visually spectacular sequences, Father Gabriel climbs up the waterfall from the film's prologue, slipping and almost plunging to his own death in the process. His conquering of the falls is the first of many obstacles he must overcome in his quest to finish what his unlucky colleague began.

In a subsequent scene, Gabriel sits calmly on a rock and plays a sweet but elegiac little tune on his oboe as Guarani begin to slowly surround him with their weapons drawn. Though he notices them approach, he continues to play on, his face clearly betraying fear and yet his will proving strong and resolute. Suddenly one native shouts at him angrily, grabs the oboe, breaks it in two across his own knee and storms off. Another one picks up the pieces, examines the instrument as if trying to understand how such a lovely sound could come from it and meekly offers it back to Gabriel who tries to fix it before shaking his head. The native then takes Gabriel's hand and with the consent of everyone else present leads him back to their home. It is a phenomenal dialogue-free sequence about the universal allure of music and the kind of respect that can exist across vast ethnic, cultural and linguistic barriers. In courageously refusing not to be intimidated by these dangerous "savages" as well as not responding with anger or hostility to their destruction of his beloved property, Gabriel begins the first step in earning the trust and admiration of these understandably scared and suspicious people.

Gabriel begins to establish a mission named San Carlos in the heart of the jungle, a sanctuary where the Guarani can hear the Gospel and also be safe from the brutality of the slave traders who capture (and sometimes kill) them. It is here that the film introduces its other primary character: a mercenary named Captain Rodrigo Mendoza (Robert De Niro) who is so notoriously ruthless that when he encounters father Gabriel in one of his many hunting excursions, Gabriel's assertion that they are "building a mission here to make Christians of these people" is met with the callous response, "If you have the time." However, when Mendoza discovers his younger brother Felipe (Aidan Quinn) in bed with his own fiancee, he angrily kills Felipe in a duel and, unlike his spiritual ancestor Cain, immediately regrets his fratricide afterward. Although the law can't touch him, Mendoza is consumed with guilt and punishes himself by wasting away in a cell refusing to eat or speak to anyone. Into his misery comes none other than Father Gabriel who, in a manner very similar to his initial encounter with the Guarani, bravely confronts Mendoza for the coward that he is (not only refusing to be intimidated by his threats but actually daring him to act on them) and offers him a chance at redemption. "For me there is no redemption," Mendoza laments. "There is no penance hard enough for me." Gabriel asks: "But do you dare try it?" to which Mendoza replies: "Do you dare to see it fail?"

What follows is another magnificent extended sequence wherein Mendoza accompanies Gabriel and a few other members of his order back into the jungle all the while dragging behind him a huge bundle of metallic weaponry (swords, shields, armor, etc) at the end of a rope. It even involves climbing the same waterfall (which becomes a sort of character in itself) Gabriel did. It all culminates in another dialogue-free scene of almost immeasurable emotion and profundity; indeed it's one of the most moving depictions of forgiveness I've ever seen on film (although there is a comparable one in Terrence Malick's latest opus The Tree of Life). Mendoza soon becomes an active part of the seemingly idyllic existence at San Carlos. Grateful for his "second chance" at life, he asks Father Gabriel what he can do in return. Gabriel hands him a Bible and we see Mendoza reading passages from the apostle Paul's first letter to the Corinthians ("Though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing. Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up…But now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love."). Indeed, much like Paul, who persecuted Christians only to become one of their greatest proponents, Mendoza transforms from a murderer and trader of the Guarani into their friend and advocate.

Having witnessed enough death in his life Mendoza swears off all violence (as is seen in a sequence where the Guarani invite him to help slay a boar they've hunted and he refuses) and even joins Gabriel's order vowing to protect and serve his fellow man. This, however, proves very difficult as the signing of the Treaty of Madrid reallocates the previously protected lands inhabited by the Jesuit missions to Portugal, which unlike Spain permits slavery. This leads to the section of the film where Cardinal Altamirano (Ray McAnally), the stoic priest who narrates the film, is sent by the pope to appraise the Jesuit missions and decide whether they should continue to fall under the protection of the Roman Catholic Church. In some emotionally charged scenes (where the disparity between good and evil is rarely so starkly drawn), the Jesuits defend the humanity of the Guarani and the virtues of the missions while the plantation owners assert the inferiority and animal-like natures of the Guarani and apply political pressure to Altamirano for a favorable decision. They are such despicable, sorry excuses for human beings that it actually borders on the comical.

Unfortunately, even after visiting the San Carlos mission and seeing the "paradise on earth" that the Jesuits and the Guarani have built together, Altamirano comes to the inevitable conclusion that in order to save the whole body (the body in this case presumably being the "body of Christ," or the church) one must sometimes hack off a limb (the limb being the missions), not unlike another pragmatic religious leader named Caiaphas who determined centuries earlier that it is "better that one man should die for the people than that the whole nation should perish." He tells the Guarani that they must leave the mission, but they do not want to leave. It is their home. When they question the wisdom and authority of this priest, he asserts that they must learn to submit to the will of God. Confused, the Guarani say that it was the will of God that they came out of the jungle and built the mission and they don't understand why God has changed his mind. The Guarani decide to stay and fight. Altamirano tells the Jesuits that they must not fight with the Guarani but that they must instead return to Rome with him. Angry at this betrayal by the church, Mendoza literally takes up his sword again and, along with several other Jesuits (including a young Liam Neeson), joins with the Guranai in defending their home against the colonialists.

The only one who doesn't take up arms is Father Gabriel. Heartbroken at this turn of events, but still unwilling to abandon the Guarani to their doom, Gabriel chooses to stay with them, but he will not kill. On the eve of the impending battle, Mendoza comes to Gabriel to be blessed for his efforts, but Gabriel refuses to do so. "If you're right, you'll have God's blessing," he says. "If you're not, my blessing won't mean anything." The two men embrace and the climactic final showdown soon follows. Alas, the outcome is hardly unpredictable. Nearly all of the Guranai who resist are slaughtered. Mendoza and the other priests are killed in battle. Father Gabriel, who stages a nonviolent demonstration with many of the Guarani women and children, also is killed and his mission is burned to the ground.

Shortly thereafter, Altamirano is seen eating with the plantation owners and he is utterly sickened not only by the news of this massive loss of human life but by their ambivalence to it. "And you have the effrontery to tell me that this slaughter was necessary?" he asks. Calmly and coldly, they tell him that they believe it was. "We must work in the world, your eminence," one of them says. "The world is thus." To this Altamirano replies, "No, Señor Hontar. Thus have we made the world," before gazing out the window and somberly admitting his own culpability in the affair. "Thus have I made it." The film concludes with Altamirano finishing his letter to the pope and, in one of my favorite post-credit movie codas (right up there with Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Young Sherlock Holmes), stares intensely back into the camera as he did in the film's opening image.

The Mission was written by Tony Award-winning playwright (A Man for All Seasons) and two-time Oscar-winning screenwriter Robert Bolt (Doctor Zhivago and A Man for All Seasons), whose credits also include other historical epics with decidedly intimate focal points such as Lawrence of Arabia and The Bounty. The Mission was directed by the English filmmaker Roland Joffé, whose only prior feature film, The Killing Fields, won him much critical acclaim and seemed to signal the promise of a great director. Unfortunately, his career since The Mission has been notably unimpressive, with his failures (such as Super Mario Bros., The Scarlet Letter and Captivity) looming much larger than his successes. Nonetheless, in spite of its flaws, The Mission is an extraordinarily compelling piece of work with many superlative elements to recommend it. The performances are uniformly solid but Jeremy Irons and Robert De Niro are especially good. The spiritual journeys of these two men are the real heart of the film and both actors imbue their parts with subtlety and soul. De Niro's reticent warrior is perhaps a bit more complex, but Irons' faithful Father Gabriel is no less interesting or sympathetic.

One of the things I love about The Mission is how it doesn't cast its lot with either character at the film's finale. Both men are clearly trying to do the right thing in an otherwise awful situation and even though they disagree as to what that is, the film doesn't judge the actions of either. The film also boasts some gorgeous locales beautifully rendered by cinematographer Chris Menges (who won an Academy Award for his efforts) and the highly evocative film score by legendary Italian composer Ennio Morricone not only stands out as one of his best works but has become one of the most popular soundtracks around…even for those who don't typically notice/collect film music. The piece "On Earth as it is Heaven" (the tune played by Gabriel on his oboe early in the film) is a bittersweet melody that haunts much of the film's imagery and the celebratory choral "Guarani" theme (made up of exotic instruments and native-style chanting) lingers in the memory long after the film is over.

Although it received a handful of awards (including the prestigious Palme d'Or at Cannes) and numerous other nominations, The Mission was lukewarmly received when it was released in 1986. Nobody panned it but few critics praised it as a masterpiece either. Most labeled it merely mediocre and remained rather indifferent to it. Roger Ebert wrote that it felt "exactly like one of those movies where you'd rather see the documentary about how the movie was made" (incidentally, the DVD and Blu-ray release of The Mission includes the hour-long doc Omnibus, which chronicles the making of the film in case he, or anyone else, ever wants to actually do that; I have and although it is fascinating, I still prefer the film itself). Considered by many to be muddled, ponderous, pious and with characters who seemed more like "types" than fleshed-out human beings, it grossed a meager $17 million at the box office and faded into relative obscurity thereafter. Over the years, however, as more and more people have discovered this little-known treasure of a film, it has gained a somewhat more prominent reputation …particularly among religious folk who are drawn to its themes of redemption, forgiveness, faith, courage, love, compassion, goodness, evangelism, etc. In fact, the weekly Anglican publication Church Times picked it as No. 1 on a list of the "Top 50 Religious Films" and in 2004 Arts & Faith ranked it No. 54 on their "Top 100 Spiritually Significant Films."

Speaking only for myself, I find it to be an incredibly deep and thoughtful piece of work; indeed one of my favorite films. In the interests of full disclosure though, I should probably make it known that I am myself a Christian (though I don't belong to any particular denomination) and as such tend to respond favorably to stories that involve people who share my faith and the struggles that they deal with as they attempt to live it out. Many people already now this about me, but it's still a little nerve-wracking to admit that about myself because I realize it is not a popular thing to be right now. There are a lot of Christians out there who are making a lot of noise (as well as a lot of enemies) and as such people tend to lump us all in the same category.

As I believe Dr. Peter E. Dans observes in his book Christians in Movies: A Century of Saints and Sinners, it is becoming more and more difficult to find positive portrayals of Christians in movies and TV and far more commonplace to see them depicted as sanctimonious, hypocritical, judgmental, right-wing ignoramuses (see movies such as Paul, Footloose and Easy A as well as TV shows such as 30 Rock, The Big Bang Theory and The Office). Consequently, a film such as The Mission, where the church may not come off particularly well but individual believers are depicted quite sympathetically, resonates with me simply because it goes against the recent trend.

I'd like to think, however, that I can still be objective enough to recognize a good movie (which I think The Mission is) when I see one, whether it tends to paint Christians in a good light or not. I am not particularly interested, for example, in so-called "Christian" movies, partially because they are essentially works of propaganda and I tend to respond to all propaganda the same (whether it propagates something I happen to agree with or not), but also because they tend to be as many critics (including this one and this one) have pointed out, pretty bad. Nonetheless, there are some films that I think could be classified as "Christian" (though I personally don't even really consider that a viable category) that don't fit the usual "faith-based" mold we have come to expect and which I think are far more powerful, existential and artistic (films such as Shadowlands, Chariots of Fire, The Exorcist, Dogma, Chocolat, etc). I think The Mission belongs with those films. It might not be a "Christian movie" per se (whatever that is) but it is a movie about Christianity and its admittedly checkered past (I am not naive enough to think that the real-life missions were as idyllic as they are depicted here) and it appropriates into its worldview many of the truths about life and human nature that draw me to the Christian ideology.

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Tuesday, August 30, 2011

 

From the Vault: Husbands and Wives


Into every life a little rain must fall and in Husbands and Wives, Woody Allen summons a sizable storm. The inclement weather take many forms in Allen's new and much talked-about film and Rain (Juliette Lewis) is just one of the cloud formations in this documentary-style look at the aftermath of one couple's decision to split.

Jack and Sally (Sydney Pollack and Judy Davis) start a chain reaction when they tell their longtime friends Gabe and Judy (Allen and Mia Farrow) that, after 15 years of marriage, they plan to separate.

That announcement causes upheaval for all involved, forcing Jack and Sally to re-enter the singles scene and Gabe and Judy to re-evaluate their own relationship. Jack pursues a relationship with a New Age aerobics instructor (Lysette Anthony) while Sally gets fixed up with Judy's co-worker Michael (Liam Neeson).

Secretly, Judy pines for Michael herself while Gabe becomes attracted to one of his students at Columbia, the 20-year-old Rain who reminds him of a long lost love.

While similar to other Allen works, Husbands and Wives diverges from his usual path in terms of its language and, at times, its harsh, unblinking ugliness. The film chronicles these events not only by showing them but through conversations the characters conduct with an off-screen interviewer. The movie never explains this device and much of the film begs questions about the movie's intentions as well.

Allen films most of Husbands and Wives with a hand-held camera that darts around rooms like a camcorder being used for the first time by a technologically inept man after the birth of a grandchild. The desired effect doesn't quite work because instead of the jerky movements subliminally mimicking the chaos on screen, it simply distracts from the content.

While few screenwriters produce as much good dialogue as Allen and he's shown success at varying script structures, each time he embarks on something adventurous in terms of direction, it comes off more as a stunt than as the proper way to convey his story.

As usual, Allen wears his symbolism on his sleeve. He not only creates a lightning storm for a pivotal scene but makes a point of explaining its significance to the audience. When he delicately suggests that time is the true enemy of all relationships, Husbands and Wives works. Too often though he beats the audience over the head with his points. The subtle moments though work, especially those dealing with truths and half-truths that cause people to be uncertain of what they know.

Pollack delivers a solid performance as the blustery Jack who finds himself drowning in his own midlife crisis. Lewis fulfills much of the promise she displayed in Cape Fear as the tempestuous Rain, getting many of the film's best lines and scenes, especially in a sequence that visualizes what she thinks as she reads Gabe's unpublished novel.

Without question, the remarkable Judy Davis earns the prize for cast MVP as the hyper and aggressive Sally. She was robbed of Oscar nominations last year for solid supporting work in David Cronenberg's Naked Lunch and the Coens' Barton Fink and for her lead role in Impromptu, but hopefully this performance will garner a stream of awards.

As for Allen and Farrow, Woody is, as always, Woody, and Farrow, who has done her best work with Allen, comes off as somewhat sad and pitiful in a role that makes her unsympathetic. Given recent events in Allen and Farrow's real life, it's impossible not to read things into much of the dialogue and situations. Despite that, Husbands and Wives hits some universal nerves. Though it fails to live up to Allen's best works, it still deserves a look.


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Wednesday, December 22, 2010

 

The Greatest Film I've Ever Seen


By Damian Arlyn
The phrase "I know it when I see it," uttered by Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart regarding pornography, is an expression that, at one time or another, we've probably all heard used to encapsulate the frustration of failing to define something whose basic nature seems otherwise unexplainable. I mention it only because I've been wondering lately if art isn't also like that. It is nigh impossible to define and/or analyze a great work of art to such a degree that the elements that make it timeless and brilliant can be adequately determined, nor a basic "formula" be found. It's like the color yellow. You can't really define it. You have to just point at it and say, "See that? That's it." When I think of some of the works of art that I consider to be among the greatest ever created — Shakespeare's Hamlet, Mozart's "Requiem," Vermeer's "Girl With a Pearl Earring" — I find myself struggling to find the proper words to capture their greatness. In the end, I can't really articulate what makes them great. I have to just point it out to others and see who "gets it" and who doesn't. Well, this piece that I am writing for the "Spielberg Blog-a-thon" (organized and run by Adam Manzie of Icebox Movies and Ryan Kelly of Medfly Quarantine) is about a film that I think falls into that category.

To be clear, I realize how absurd it is for any individual to declare a particular film the "greatest ever made," because there's just no way that anybody can possibly know that (unless maybe they've seen every film ever made...which, of course, nobody has). However, I do think that a person can make a definitive statement about the greatest film that he/she has ever seen (based on whatever criteria he/she wishes to use). Nevertheless, you would be hard-pressed to find a cinephile who's willing to commit to such a monumental claim (the most you might get out of them is their personal "favorite" film, but even that is rare). Why is this? Well, my theory is twofold: first off, they know that their pick could change with the very next film they watch and secondly, they are well-aware of the fact that it's really just a subjective opinion which says more about them than it does about the film itself. I myself possessed this reluctance for the longest time. Whenever I was asked what my favorite film was (or, even more rarely, what was the best film I'd ever seen), I hemmed and hawed for a while, throwing out several disclaimers and mentioning a list of about eight or nine films that could qualify for that honor.

Over the years, though, I have found myself returning to one film over and over again: the film that had a profound impact on its director, on the culture at large and on me personally (as a cinephile certainly but also as a human being). It was the film I held up as the standard by which to measure all other films. It was the film I thought of whenever anyone spoke of "cinematic high art" or how the motion picture medium could achieve its true potential. I would discover new and profound truths contained within its frames every time I watched it. Far from diminishing in quality with each viewing, it actually improved in my eyes. I finally had to admit the truth to myself. This is the greatest film I've ever seen and probably ever will see.

It's Steven Spielberg's masterpiece Schindler's List.

I first heard of Spielberg's "Holocaust flick" in the summer of 1993 when I was reading an issue of Entertainment Weekly. I was flipping through their "Winter Movie Preview" section when I turned the page and saw the above photograph of Liam Neeson as Oskar Schindler addressing "his" Jews staring back at me. I knew who Spielberg was because I had grown up with E.T. and the Indiana Jones adventures and had only recently become interested in him again because of the movies Hook and Jurassic Park. Like a lot of people at the time, my reaction was one of confusion and skepticism. This did not seem like the kind of film that Spielberg was typically known for. Could he pull it off or would it be a failure on a massive scale? I was curious to say the least.

When the film was eventually released during the winter of my senior year in high school, I went with my dad to the movie theater on Ninth Street in Corvallis, Ore. to see it. I wasn't entirely sure what to expect. I knew the film was going to be serious. I knew it was going to be heavy and, not least of all, I knew it was going to be very violent, but I also had a sense that it was going to be worth seeing. I didn't realize it at the time, but I was at a crucial point in my development as a cinephile. I had always loved movies, but I approached them primarily as a form of entertainment. The idea that they could also function as a means of artistic expression was a concept I was only beginning to become vaguely familiar with (prompted especially by a film history class, led by my good friend Tucker Teague, which I had recently attended). Needless to say, I was also moving rapidly toward a major crossroad in everyone's life. I was 17 years old. Graduation was just around the corner and I was preparing to leave home and head off to college to try and figure out who I was and make something of myself. All this served as the context for my introduction to the film and may even help to partially explain why the film had such a big impact on me.

When the lights went down and the movie started, I was actually bewildered at first because I had understood that the entire film was in black-and-white. What I was seeing was in color. A hand was striking a match and lighting some candles. A Jewish family was gathered around a table in a small room celebrating the Sabbath. The patriarch was singing something in a language I didn't understand. Was this a mistake? Were my dad and I in the wrong movie? Soon the family faded from the scene (though the song/prayer could still be heard) but the candles were left behind. As one shot dissolved into the next, clearly signifying the passing of time, the candles burned further and further down (this also was when the main title appeared on the screen indicating to me that this was indeed Schindler's List, though I was still somewhat confused). Finally, the camera showed only a solitary candle with the flame about to burn itself out. I didn't notice it then but the candle and the background were already in black and white. Only the tiny flicker of flame was still in color. The flame soon extinguished and the resulting thin streak of smoke that flowed upward from it was followed by the camera. A train whistle was suddenly heard and the movie cut to a cloud of thick, gray smoke that poured forth from the smokestack of a locomotive. Now the film was completely in black-and-white and I knew I was in the right movie.

The greatest films have openings that are unforgettable. The Godfather has that wonderfully slow zoom-out with the heartbroken father seated in a dark room relaying his tale of woe to a mysterious figure ("I believe in America."). Citizen Kane has the magnificent montage of shots of that fortress Xanadu which culminates in a single whispered word ("Rosebud.") and a shattered snow globe. Schindler's List has the sequence I just described. There is so much going on just in that brief collection of sounds and images (Spielberg's symbolic use of color and its lack thereof, the imagery of the candles being snuffed out and the ensuing smoke, etc) that I could write the rest of my piece on it alone. Suffice it to say that from that opening, I already was engaged by the film. Indeed, I was captivated and that sensation never let up for the next three hours and 14 minutes (during which I wept a couple times). When it was completely over and the lights came up I noticed that most of the people who were in the theater with us also were still sitting there, dumbfounded. We all looked like we'd been sucker-punched. Slowly and silently, everyone started to get up and walk out including my father and I. As we often do, we talked about the movie in the car, though I don't remember much of what we discussed. What I do remember is his taking me by Fred Meyer on the way home and purchasing the film's soundtrack for me because among the many things that stood out to both of us was John Williams' sad, but achingly beautiful, musical score.

Like a lot of folks, my initial reaction to the film was one of shock. I was horrified by what I had seen on screen. I was shaken to the core of my being and consequently couldn't revisit the film for a long time afterward. I just knew that I loved it. It reached me in a way that very few films can or do. I also remember thinking that this was a different kind of movie than most of the other films I had seen...not just in terms of content but in terms of style. My clumsy way of characterizing it back then was to say that it felt "like a foreign film only it was in English; it didn't feel like a Hollywood movie at all." I was also astounded that it had been directed by the same man who was responsible for the movie I had seen only six months earlier that featured giant dinosaurs eating people. "This is not the same man. This can't be the same man," I thought to myself. Nowadays when I watch the film (having in the interim become far more familiar with the subtleties and nuances of Spielberg's general technique), naturally I can see his hand in the execution of this story, but in a sense I was right in my initial reaction. Schindler's List was not helmed by the same Spielberg who did Jaws, E.T. or even his previous serious efforts such as The Color Purple and Empire of the Sun. Schindler represented a major challenge for Spielberg. In bringing this story to the screen, he pushed himself in a way that very few filmmakers ever do. He did so not only technically but emotionally and spiritually as well. He re-connected with something in himself that he had denied for a very long time: his own Judaism. Making Schindler's List changed Steven Spielberg just as watching it changed me.

Although controversy has always surrounded Schindler's List, I myself wasn't aware of most of it upon its release. All I heard was praise for the film. This was probably just as well since my passionate love for the film would've blinded me to anything negative anyone would've said about it. As the years have gone on, and I've watched it numerous more times as well as familiarized myself with the various writings on it, I feel I am in a better position to understand and appreciate the problems that people have with it (David Mamet famously called it "emotional pornography"). I can acknowledge that Schindler's List may not be a "perfect" film (if such a thing even exists), but as the great Pauline Kael (who, incidentally, did not care for the film) once said, "Great movies are rarely perfect movies." There may be legitimate criticisms of Schindler's List, but they are not significant enough to undermine the overall greatness of the finished product. If Schindler missteps occasionally it does so because it reaches higher than most other films dare to. I've long thought it's better to strive for greatness and "fail" than aim for mediocrity and succeed.

I could talk at some length about the true story that the film represents, but by this point everyone already knows it. I could also go on and on about how impressive the film is in all of its technical areas (the stunning cinematography by Janusz Kaminski, the aforementioned music score by John Williams, the impeccable screenplay by Steven Zaillian, the striking editing by Michael Kahn, the excellent performances by all of the actors, etc) but since this piece is already getting too long I am going to conclude by attempting to explain not only why the film means so much to me personally but why I feel it belongs in the pantheon of the greatest art ever fashioned by humans. To those who have heard me expound on this subject before, some of this might sound a little familiar.

Schindler's List is more than just a Holocaust movie. Like all great works of art it transcends its subject matter. It is a meditation on the extremes to which we human beings can go. Not only is its depiction of human darkness, brutality and evil (as personified by the psychotic Nazi officer Amon Goeth) the most honest I have ever seen, but its portrayal of human goodness, courage and nobility (as represented in the complex, but ultimately righteous, person of Oskar Schindler) is the most compelling I have ever experienced. Rarely does a film so successfully highlight both the best and worst of humanity simultaneously. Like most Holocaust movies it doesn't shy away from showing the cruelty and inhumanity of the atrocities that the Nazis inflicted, but it also dares to depict the love, mercy and compassion that many exercised in the midst of so much bleakness and tragedy. Schindler's List not only opened my eyes to what cinema is capable of (particularly in how it can dramatize a serious subject with passion and dignity while still reaching a massive audience), but it also made me want to be a better human being (how many films can you say that about?). As I told someone recently, I would rather be inspired by goodness than merely repulsed by evil. Schindler's List does both. Like the film's opening sequence, it is more about lighting a candle than cursing the darkness.



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Tuesday, August 24, 2010

 

Darkman is everyone — and no one


By Damian Arlyn
Although it may be hard for young people to imagine, there was a time when the name "Sam Raimi" did not arouse any excitement in movie lovers. Indeed there was a time when Sam Raimi was just another unknown, ambitious director trying desperately to carve out a place for himself in the world of cinema. Like a lot of filmmakers who made a name for themselves in the late '80s/early '90s — including Spike Lee, Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, Steven Soderbergh and the Coen brothers (with whom Raimi was friends) — he was an independent, but what he really wanted was to make mainstream "Hollywood" movies and with only three features under his belt (including the "no-budget" horror flick Evil Dead and its semi-sequel/remake), Raimi was given the opportunity to helm a major studio picture. The result was Darkman and it was released (unleashed?) 20 years ago today.

The genesis of Darkman lay in Raimi's troubles securing the rights to make a movie of The Shadow (something Russell Mulcahy would do with mixed results four years later) which eventually forced him to concoct a superhero of his own. While the imprint of Walter B. Gibson's famous crimefighter on Raimi's character is apparent, so too is the influence of classic monster movies: the "mad scientist-creation" of Frankenstein, the bloodlust of The Wolfman, the split-personality of Jekyll and Hyde, the bandaged visage of The Invisible Man and the scarred, ominous figure of The Phantom of the Opera to name just a few (It is very appropriate that Raimi's film bore the Universal logo). In fact, Darkman is just as much a horror film as it is a superhero movie. The story of a horribly disfigured innocent seeking revenge on the despicable criminals who made him so provided Raimi the chance to indulge not only in some spectacular action sequences but in some delightfully gruesome acts of violence.

I could talk about the hammy performances delivered by a group of game actors doing the best they can with the material (including a "pre-Oskar Schindler" Liam Neeson attempting some kind of American accent and wife to one-half of the team of Raimi's filmmaking friends, the Coen brothers, Frances McDormand, with whom presumably Raimi had some difficulty working), but the truth is that Darkman isn't really about the acting because it isn't really about its characters. Darkman is about its visuals and they are stunning. Raimi has always been a purely "cinematic" filmmaker and Darkman feels like the work of a child finally allowed to play with big toys. His unbridled passion and enthusiasm infuses (infects?) nearly every frame of the film. Classic "Hollywood-style" montages, extreme camera angles, outrageous special effects and an ostentatiously operatic music score provided by frequent Raimi-collaborator Danny Elfman (who, sadly, is currently estranged from the filmmaker) all testify to the fact that this is a movie made by a director who doesn't have a single subtle bone in his body. His two subsequent films (Army of Darkness and The Quick and the Dead, both of which I love for the exact same reason as I do Darkman) exhibit the same "no-holds-barred" approach to filmmaking. It wasn't until 1998's A Simple Plan that Raimi pushed himself as a storyteller and fashioned a moody, atmospheric thriller-drama that then allowed him to deal with more mature, complex themes in future films (such as the under-appreciated For Love of the Game and the creepy Gift). When the Spider-man series brought Raimi back to the comic book genre, he was able to create a far more "balanced" product than he had attempted to do more than a decade earlier (likewise with his return to horror on Drag Me to Hell).

Though reviews were mixed, Darkman was successful enough at the box office to spawn two direct-to-video sequels. I was 14 when it came out and remember very well the thrilling trailer, TV ads and movie poster tantalizingly declaring "Who is Darkman?" I missed seeing it in the theater but viewed it finally when it came to video. The violence disturbed me somewhat, but I loved the film nonetheless and even purchased the novelization. I caught it again once or twice in the following years but hadn't seen it in a very long time when I sat down to watch it again recently. I found my affection for the film had not waned in the slightest and, in fact, my appreciation for what Raimi was able to accomplish (given his relative lack of experience and the number of obstacles he reportedly had to overcome) only increased. However, much of the film not only seems incredibly silly but patently absurd to me now. The fact that lean, 6'4" Liam Neeson could possibly pass himself off as the 6-foot-tall, overweight minion Pauly just stretches credulity pass its limit. It occurred to me while watching Darkman that the film was made only three years after the similarly cartoonish and ultra-violent Robocop, but that the latter holds up much better today. Raimi's vision is perhaps not as dated as Verhoeven's (except in the area of special effects) but it is also not nearly as moving or intelligent.

The most important thing that Darkman provides for contemporary audiences is a chance to see a supremely talented and eminently creative artist at a crucial point in his career. Though still a little "wet behind the ears," Darkman displayed the enormous potential that Sam Raimi possessed. It was a potential that he would fulfill much later with projects that were just as visually sumptuous but which didn't sacrifice characterization and emotion in the process. Now, when his name is mentioned (as it has been in connection with the upcoming comic book-inspired action-thriller Priest), movie-lovers have good reason to get excited.


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Friday, May 21, 2010

 

When the son bested the father


"For the sins of your fathers you, though guiltless, must suffer."
— Horace, "Odes," III, 6, l. 1.


"He thought I was going to fail. Which was reasonable."
— George Lucas, talking about his father, 2008


"They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do."
— Philip Larkin, This Be The Verse


By Ali Arikan
The interwebs was abuzz last week with the news of a letter George Lucas sent to the producers of TV’s Lost. In it, Lucas apparently stated that he had made up the whole story of the Star Wars saga as he went along — a nonadmission, really, but one on which the fanboys pounced anyway, as if a meticulously detailed trope from the start were automatically greater than a naturally evolving one in service of its characters (it isn’t). Since Lucas is the great pariah when it comes to genre fiction, the backlash — such as it was — was hardly unexpected, but most definitely unfair.

The unjustly despised prequel trilogy has had such a retroactive fallout on the original three and their reputation that Lucas’ involvement in the Star Wars saga (and, to an extent, the Indiana Jones films) can be boiled down, by many, to ultimate responsibility for all the saga’s missteps, and none whatsoever for its triumphs. Spectacularly unfair, this claim, nonetheless, has become a shibboleth amongst the most ardent fans of the saga, as well as its saner aficionados. One doesn’t need to be well versed in Star Wars lore or Lucas’ biography, however, to see how major an influence the latter had on the former (and, naturally, vice versa) — even in the two films that he did not direct. In fact, it is in the beloved first sequel that the saga reached its philosophical apex, and it was because of Lucas’ direct involvement. The Empire Strikes Back is not just the finest chapter of the Star Wars saga, it is also the most personal.
On this day in 1980, Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back was unleashed on movie screens in the United States to almost universal acclaim (for the sake of brevity, and sanity, from this point on I shall abbreviate the film’s full title to the colloquial ESB). Coming on the heels of the previous film’s unprecedented — and unexpected — success, the second chapter of the saga (retconned to serve as the fifth within the in-movie chronology) had a completely different feel from its predecessor, and this narrative contrast was hammered home during the film’s first few minutes.

Whereas 1977’s Star Wars (re-titled Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope in 1978) opens on the desert planet of Tattooine (after the initial space age shenanigans, natch), ESB sets the action on the ice planet of Hoth. Even though both environments are extreme wastelands, the direness of the situation is made more explicit by the expository opening crawl (“It’s a dark time for the rebellion”) as well as the dialogue: there is almost no life on this planet, and what there is of it, is hostile. On the run from the Empire following the destruction of the Death Star at the end of the first film, the Rebel Alliance has taken refuge here, but they are soon discovered by Darth Vader (body by David Prowse, voice by James Earl Jones) and the Empire, and have to flee for their lives. The heroes are separated: Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) goes to the swamp planet of Dagobah to train under the tutelage of the impish Jedi Master Yoda (Frank Oz), while Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) end up going to Cloud City, where the betrayal of Han’s old friend Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams – Billy Dee! Billy Dee! Billy Dee! Billy Dee Klump!) will have dire consequences for everyone involved.

The first Star Wars was admittedly more a cacophonous, albeit endearing, hodgepodge of boys’ own and pulp stories of yesteryear than a holistic tale. Auteurist touches were sprinkled like fairy dust, haphazardly, and not coherently. It was in ESB that this earlier promise was fulfilled: multifaceted and rich, George Lucas’ sequel, directed by his film school mentor Irvin Kershner, implied to the world just how personal an affair these films would end up being, from a philosophical as well as psychological standpoint. I recently struggled through the film while suffering from a particularly bad spell of food poisoning (not that there are good spells of this messiest of ailments), and was struck by the fiendishly systematic way themes and motifs are built up to culminate in one of the most depressing, yet hopeful, finales in the history of genre storytelling. One fully comprehends the gravity, and sheer precision, of both those notes only after seeing ESB’s 1983 sequel, Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi; but to contextualise it, appreciation — or, at least, experience — of the Prequel Trilogy is also equally crucial.

Of all the movie brats, George Lucas is commercially the most successful one and also the most maligned; and I doubt the two are completely unrelated. Even though people with short memory spans tend to make a direct connection to the auteur’s general deprecation with the prequels, they are wrong: as far back as 1977, people were upset with Lucas for daring to opt for levity rather than portent. Recently, the inimitable Girish Shambu published on his Facebook feed a quote he discovered of Lucas, which originally appeared in Jonathan Rosenbaum’s Sight and Sound review of the first film:
“Rather than do some angry, socially relevant film, I realized there was another relevance that is even more important — dreams and fantasies, getting children to believe there is more to life than garbage and killing and all that real stuff like stealing hubcaps — that you could still sit and dream about exotic lands and strange creatures.”

Then came a number of comments that chastised Lucas, some going as far as pitching him as some sort of a modern Pied Piper, leading an unsuspecting audience to piffle (because, obviously, if it weren’t for Lucas, we’d all be lining around the block for the new Kiarostami); until Glenn Kenny The Wise sagely offered these words of observation:
“Let us remember, however, that 'angry' and 'socially relevant' do not automatically equal 'good.' In fact, more often than not, in art they tend to equal 'strident,' 'obvious,' 'condescending,' etc.”

This conversation was nothing new. Lucas was ostracized by a bunch of his contemporaries, and a fair few of the critical establishment, in 1977, for breaking from the pact, and having the audacity to discover edge, and profundity, through subtext rather than text. Art is subjective, and if any work of art, be it a film, or a book, or a piece of music, doesn’t work for one, it just doesn’t work for one, but secondguessing the reasons why is silly, and is a direct road to mind-numbing vacuity and conformism. It wasn’t the Ewoks wot killed Lucas’ reputation, and it wasn’t Jar Jar. It was because he did not make THX-1138: he made Star Wars.

Even though disapprobation of Lucas is relatively old news, a recent trend, which could be dated back to the lukewarm (boom, boom) reception of 1999’s Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, is the attribution of the saga’s failures to Lucas, while crediting its triumphs to his collaborators. Since ESB is generally regarded as the finest chapter, it’s no wonder this oversimplification applies to it the most.

A period of De-Lucasisation began around 1999, the gist of which was, “Irvin Kershner and Lawrence Kasdan (ESB’s writer) did all the hard work, and made the film what it is while Lucas crunched numbers in Marin County.” It is unfair to downplay the importance of Kershner and Kasdan, but to completely write Lucas off is egregious. However, blame, in this case, also rests with Lucas.

According to Laurent Bouzerau’s 1997 book Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays, work began on a sequel to the first film almost right away. Lucas put together a number of story conferences with friends, and then hired Leigh Brackett to write the first draft of the script (which was recently leaked on the interwebs).

These initial conferences show some major diversions from the final film. First of all, Darth Vader and Luke’s father, by the later drafts that bear at least a modicum of resemblance to ESB, are two very separate people. In fact, records show that Lucas came up with the idea of their being one and the same well into the development of Empire. From the first transcript of the story conferences between Lucas and Leigh Brackett, entitled Chapter II: The Empire Strikes Back, through to the two subsequent treatments written by Lucas, to the imaginatively titled first draft, Star Wars Sequel, Vader is most definitely not Luke’s father (in fact, even the concept of Ben Kenobi’s (Alec Guinness) Force-ghost only appears in the first draft — in all the previous treatments, Luke uses a talisman that used to belong to Ben to find out about Yoda).

The notion of Vader’s being Luke’s father appears in the second draft. Lucas nowadays argues that that was the idea all-along, and that he kept it quiet. Through five separate treatments and a full first draft of the script? OK, from Leigh Brackett maybe, but from himself? Eh? That’s either bullshit, or batshit insane. Besides, it makes no sense whatsoever as, in the earlier treatments and the first draft, Luke contacts Ben during his training, and the latter brings along with him Luke’s father from the netherworld for an interplenary father and son tête-à-tête.

Hell, the possibility of romance between Luke and Leia, already pretty icky, is full-on in the earlier drafts. And even though Yoda says, in ESB, that “there is another,” Irvin Kershner explains in the DVD commentary that it was a later addition to unsettle the audience with regards to Luke’s apparent invulnerability. It’s clear that Lucas never thought ahead to the third film, and this, too, attests to Lucas’ aversion to coming up with an overall storyline (even though Star Wars lore argues otherwise).

Fans have used this to wag their fingers at Lucas, for not having figured out the plot to the saga when he first sat down to write it in 1972. I’d like to invoke a favorite quote here from Stephen King: “Plot is, I think, the good writer’s last resort and the dullard’s first choice. The story that results from it is apt to feel artificial and labored. I lean more heavily on intuition, and have been able to do that because my books tend to be based on situation rather than story.” Plot, obviously, is different from story — and while Lucas worked out the plot as he went along, he must have known the story, subconsciously, from the start. And that’s because the films have all been so deeply personal to him. And, albeit directed by Kershner, in retrospect, ESB is the most personal film in the saga, and betrays a true auteurist touch.

First of all, certain motifs are delicately worked in to the narrative like subtle melodies in a symphony. Take, for example, the cave motif, one that figures out in all drafts going as far back as the first story conferences. Earlier in the film, Luke gets attacked by a Wampa, and is dragged into its cave. When he comes to, he is suspended, head down, from the ceiling: it is in this cave that his world is turned upside down for the first time. Luke’s lightsabre has fallen off his belt, resting gently on the snow a few feet away. Luke can’t reach it. Finally, he closes his eyes; and as the “Force Theme” — the true leitmotif of John Williams’ Star Wars scores — begins, Luke starts to concentrate, uses the Force, and, for the first time, wills an object to his hand. The transformation to his true self has begun.

Later, Luke confronts the image of Darth Vader in a cave in Dagobah, and, after a brief clash, decapitates the mirage, as the exploding mask reveals Luke’s own face underneath. Similarly, Han and Leia first kiss while hiding from the Imperials in a cave (which turns out, literally, to be the belly of the beast), and what is the Carbonite Chamber in Bespin but a metallic cave: one where both Luke and Han pay the heaviest price. Cave allegories go all the way back to Plato, and Lucas, having immersed himself in the Campbellian idea of the monomyth, employs it to splendid thematic use in this film.

Further, Lucas (and Kershner) play around with masks, scars and revelations: when we first see Luke, he has his face covered to protect him from the blizzard: he looks like an outlaw. After the attack, as he heals in the Bacta tank, an iron lung of sorts is attached to his face, and, in hindsight, gives Luke a sort of proto-Vaderesque look. On a practical level, masks not only act as a way of hiding one’s identity, but also as protection against damage. Or, once that damage is done, to conceal its effects. The way Darth Vader’s helmet is lowered over his scarred, corpse-like head, and the way Luke gets pulled out of the bacta tank, work as mirror images: in the former the helmet hides Vader’s scars, and, as we know from the next film, his true identity. The latter learns from his scarring experience, and has an epiphany to set off on his journey. The Wampa attack leads Luke on his way to Damascus.

Of course, there is a more obvious reason why Lucas went to all that trouble to underline the contrast: in one of the most memorable scenes in the history of cinema, Darth Vader reveals to Luke that he is, in fact, his father. The revelation comes after Vader bests Luke in a lightsabre fight (“The Force is with you, young Skywalker, but you are not a Jedi yet”), and chops off his right hand. For all intents and purposes, this is emasculation at the hands of the father. Lucas’ uneasy relationship with his own father, especially as he was growing up, rears its head.

Lucas said in an interview in 2008 that, “(My father) wanted me to go into his business. I said, 'I'm absolutely not going to do it. He sold office equipment in a store. I said, 'I will never go to work every day doing the same thing day in and day out.'” As Anthony Breznican of USA Today noted at the time, “It sort of gives a new perspective to all Darth Vader's talk of, "Join me and together we can rule the galaxy!" Lucas’ father hated his love of fast cars, and chastised him when he got into an almost-fatal accident. Later, he was less than enthusiastic when his son decided to become a filmmaker, and not a businessman (though he ended up being both, which is also interesting).

Unable to receive support from his father, Lucas sought other paternal figures, fathers, if you like, by proxy. Francis Coppola was one of them, and their master-apprentice relationship is analogous to that of both the Jedi and the Sith. Kershner was another paternal influence: Lucas’ hiring of his old mentor to make a film about rising up against the legacy, the sins, of the father was no coincidence.

Nonetheless, ESB never offers a true black-and-white view of Luke and Vader’s relationship — the dichotomy of good father vs. bad father is not clear in any of the films, especially with regard to Luke. For one, Luke’s proxy parents all lie to him, from his aunt and uncle in the first film, to Obi Wan and Yoda in this one. They, too, want to use him for their own ends: to destroy Vader and to destroy the Empire. The latter is also Vader’s ultimate objective. Both parties want power, and they want Luke to help them get it. But, Luke is not the only one to suffer from the sins of his father. In Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Darth Vader becomes a slave to the Emperor (Ian McDiarmid), his “bad father,” but only after being betrayed — according to him — Obi Wan and the Jedi Order (his “good father”). And Obi Wan is forsaken by his “father,” Qui Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson), who, in The Phantom Menace, takes on the responsibility to train Anakin Skywalker (Jake Lloyd) when the Jedi Council refuses to do so. It is only after the murder of Qui Gon that Obi Wan is handed the burden to train Anakin, something he’d initially protested. “Man hands on misery to man. It deepens like a coastal shelf.” Indeed.

ESB shows that the old guard, good or bad, are intrinsically manipulative: that the children live with their parents’ sins, and end up having to atone for them. By the end of Return of the Jedi, Luke becomes a tragic figure; as Robin Cross put it in his 1985 book Science Fiction Films, “Like John Wayne’s Ethan Edwards in The Searchers (1956), he has saved those around him, but can find no peace for himself.” Since Lucas identifies so much with Luke (Luke-Lucas, etc), is this how he sees himself? I wonder. Even when taking a stand against his father, and redeeming himself through his actions, does he, nonetheless, become a slave to his past? The answer is ambiguous.
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Note: Some parts of this essay were appropriated from the author’s previous writings on Star Wars.


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Friday, June 26, 2009

 

The Wright stuff


By Edward Copeland
After having sat so recently through the pointlessness of the "thriller" Taken, Tom Tykwer's The International engaged my brain and my senses more than it probably had any right to, but I'll take two hours of riveting, if muddled at times, intelligent thrillmaking to an hour of mindless violence (let's face it: Taken's first half-hour was just domestic squabbling to stretch out the running time) any day.

Tykwer, who had showed his stuff with films such as Run Lola Run and The Princess and the Warrior, teams Clive Owen and Naomi Watts as an Interpol agent and an investigator in the NYC district attorney's office trying to take down an international bank involved in some worldwide arms dealing. Get this: the film doesn't even try to shoehorn a romance between its attractive leads into its compelling story.

The film also works as a wonderful travelogue bouncing to recognizable sites around the world. I hate to keep going back to Taken since the plots of the two films are so different, but where Liam Neeson's character never runs into any roadblocks in his quest in that film, Owen and Watts seem to be thwarted every moment they start to get somewhere and it only ratchets up the suspense.

What's even braver of Tykwer and the script by Eric Warren Singer is that it has the guts for ambiguity in its ending.

All the actors are strong in the film, including supporting turns by Armin Mueller-Stahl and Jack McGee, but Owen really powers the enterprise. His obsessed, running-on-fumes agent with a checkered past is a great character turn instead of your standard leading man action hero turn. Watts doesn't get as much to do, but she does fine as well.

Tykwer's direction is taut and the film's fabled Guggenheim Museum setpiece deserves the kudos it received. It earns comparisons to Hitchcock, not because the film, as good as it is, is anywhere near his level but by using such a recognizable landmark for an exciting piece of cinema.

If the thought of a new Michael Bay-directed large-pieces-of metal-blow- things-up-real-good turd deafening theatergoers this weekend depresses you, stay home and save your ears and your brain cells by watching The International instead.


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Tuesday, June 09, 2009

 

Taken not stirred


By Edward Copeland
For some reason in the past few years, comedies keep getting longer. Most of the best ones are usually never much longer than 90 minutes, but they've been stretching that clock. So I was surprised when I rented the thriller Taken, figuring it would be closer to the usual 2 hour or 2 hour plus range, to see that it only came in at an hour and a half. I hoped that perhaps this foretold a taut tale to come but while the film unspooled quickly, not much of an impression was left behind.

Liam Neeson is fine as a former CIA agent whose experience in the agency has made him a bit of an overprotective father, especially after a bitter divorce. When he reluctantly agrees to allow his daughter and her friend to go on a trip to Paris, he happens to overhear their abduction and soon he's back into superagent mode to get his daughter back.

Some of the action scenes composed by director Pierre Morel are nice, but they all seem to run together and Neeson seems to put together what's happened to his daughter far too easily. Wouldn't he ever stumble upon a false lead or go down a road that leads nowhere? I guess that's a little hard to cover in 90 minutes.

In its own none-too-subtle way, Taken also seems to be made by a P.R. firm working for Dick Cheney, showing the efficacy of getting accurate information out of torture. Now, I'd be lying if I didn't admit that there is part of me (and probably part of a lot more people than would like to admit it too) that enjoys the vicarious thrill of beating the shit out of people who have harmed your loved ones, but that alone does not a movie make.

It also seems so determined to get to its final destination that some essentials get lost in the shuffle (Don't blink or you'll miss the fate of Neeson's daughter's traveling companion, not that anyone seems too worried about her).

By the time they get to the inevitable ending, I almost expected one of those fake freeze frame laugh endings they used to have at the end of Police Squad.

There's a reason films such as Taken get released early in a new year where they'll soon be forgotten.


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Wednesday, March 18, 2009

 

Natasha Richardson (1963-2009)


I, like everyone, am totally devastated by the sudden death of Natasha Richardson. The term 'life force' seems trite but that is what she was: a woman who powered through life and fascinated everyone she encountered. I have been thinking about the times I spent with her since I heard the news of her tragic accident, and the strongest memory I have is of her laughter, her unmistakeable throaty laugh. I think that's a great way to remember someone.
Alan Cumming

By Edward Copeland
Hattip to Nathaniel R. for leading me to the Alan Cumming quote. The first notice I took of Natasha Richardson was in one of her earliest films, Paul Schrader's Patty Hearst in 1988. The film itself is one of those I like to call a brilliant mess. It was flawed, yet somehow perfect and a great deal of its perfection came from Richardson's performance in the title role. Her family announced Wednesday night that she had succumbed to the head injuries she'd suffered earlier in the week in a skiing accident. She was 45.

Her film career was rather light and she tended to concentrate on the stage and being a mom. I was fortunate enough to see her on Broadway twice. The first time was in her Tony-winning turn as Sally Bowles in the revival of Cabaret. I've never been that big a fan of the movie version of Cabaret, it always felt as if something was missing. The revival opened it up for me as a piece that had much more to it than just a great score. While most of the cast of the revival were great, Richardson was the true standout.

I also saw her when the play Closer came to Broadway in the role Julia Roberts would get in the movie version. The play was better than the movie and Richardson was good, but it was really a story about the two men. I didn't see her Broadway debut in Anna Christie which won her a Tony nomination and a future husband in Liam Neeson. I also missed her Blanche DuBois in a revival of A Streetcar Named Desire.

Recently, she was part of a one-night only staged reading of Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music which also included her mother, Vanessa Redgrave. Josh R was one of the lucky ones who saw it so perhaps he can share, though hopes of a mother-daughter Broadway transfer now sadly are dashed.

The handful of features she made I either never saw (such as the remake of The Parent Trap), had tried to block out (such as Nell) or never heard of (Past Midnight). Still, there were a couple of hidden gems. She gave a delightful performance among a bevy of old pros in Widows' Peak.

She also was good (even though the film bored me) and got to work with mom Vanessa and Aunt Lynn in James Ivory's The White Countess.

RIP Ms. Richardson.


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# posted by Edward Copeland @ 8:15 PM 1 comments

Saturday, December 30, 2006

 

Soul Food...from a Can


By Josh R
The history of African-American recording artists in this country is one with a turning point. In the late 1950s, upstart producer Berry Gordy founded Motown Records, the specific mission of which was to bring Rhythm & Blues out of the realm of ethnic specialty and into the mainstream of American culture. From the get-go, it was an uphill battle. While there had been African-American R&B artists with some crossover appeal, notably Fats Domino and Little Richard, white audiences were, at best, wary of the rumblings coming out of Detroit. Rude, rough, racy and unapologetically confrontational, R&B was a tough sell for that segment of the population that wasn’t quite ready to accept any show, overt or otherwise, of African-American power, strength and defiance. Well-heeled suburbanites who happened into Harlem’s Apollo Theater, that inner-city musical cathedral where blues and gospel merged with the insistent beat of rock n’ roll, might well find themselves scuttling towards the exit doors in fits of apoplexy ... and it’s not hard to imagine them double-bolting their own front doors after staggering home to New Rochelle.

When Domino’s first crossover hit, “Ain’t That a Shame,” was infamously covered by squeaky-clean Pat Boone — whose easy-listening style made The Beach Boys look like a metal band — the cover version hit No. 1 on the pop charts, eclipsing the success of the Domino original. Since the Boone track received much wider radio airplay in segregated areas, Gordy understood that a change was needed if black artists had any hope of getting their sound into the mainstream — without seeing it plundered and cannibalized by the Pat Boones of the world, who would ultimately reap the rewards of other people’s labors. A canny appraiser of what white audiences were ready to accept, Gordy deliberately steered R&B away from its boisterous origins, cultivating a milder, softer sound that was more patently listener-friendly. Thus, the raucous, hair-raising vocal stylings of Little Richard were jettisoned in favor of the smooth, silky falsetto of Smokey Robinson, Gordy’s first top attraction in what would soon prove to be an unprecedented stable of talents. It was the most nonthreatening approach he could have taken, and it proved to be a lucrative one — while white audiences of the early 1960s weren’t necessarily prepared for electric firebrands in the James Brown and Tina Turner mold, they were more than happy for the spectacle of smiling black men sweetly harmonizing about having “sunshine on a cloudy day.” Whatever you happen to think of the Motown sound as refined and perfected by Berry Gordy — and I, for one, happen to love it — it must be acknowledged that it was a sanitized, smoothed-over (if not de-fanged) version of how R&B was originally conceived.

This is essentially true of the new film Dreamgirls, based on the wildly successful Broadway musical of the 1980s and brought to the screen by writer-director Bill Condon. Not-so-loosely based on the saga of The Supremes, the trio of singers molded by Gordy into the most influential girl group of all time, the film looks and sounds like a reasonably fair approximation of the Motown style. But looking and sounding the part is only half the battle, and Condon’s effort ultimately feels less like a genuine reflection of the hardscrabble African-American experience in America (and the personalities who served as its artistic spokesmen) than a nice, safe little film pitched directly at a suburban white audience. The result feels cautious, and somewhat on the bland side — the cinematic equivalent of the kind of mass-marketed soul food that comes out of a can. To be fair, this is R&B filtered through the more conciliatory sensibility of Broadway ... nobody expected Hustle & Flow, but we weren’t expecting Mahogany either.

Dreamgirls follows the story of The Supremes closely in many respects. For anyone unfamiliar with the history, Gordy replaced the group’s original lead singer, the soulful Florence Ballard, with Diana Ross, the light-skinned beauty with the tiny little voice. While a consummate performer with star quality to spare, Ross — and I’m sure I’ll get tons of flack for saying this — was never much of a vocal powerhouse. Or really even much of a singer. If not for the science of electronic amplification, it’s doubtful she might ever have found herself on The Supremes roster, let alone serving as its lead vocalist. She was, however, a personality that could be packaged and marketed to the target audience, unencumbered by the kind of virtuosic skill that might overpower the mellow vibe Gordy was trying to create. It was about as far from Aretha Franklin as one could get — it was Nancy Sinatra and Brenda Lee. To be blunt — and go ahead, start firing off those outraged comments accusing me of stereotyping — she sang like a white girl. She also was romantically involved with Gordy at the time, which hardly hurt her cause. Ballard sank into obscurity and poverty, and died at the age of 32, a victim of depression and alcohol abuse.

The film provides its own thinly veiled version of The Supremes in The Dreamettes, a trio comprised of brass-lunged Effie White (Jennifer Hudson), demure Deena Jones (Beyonce Knowles) and pert Lorrell Robinson (Anika Noni Rose). Ambitious would-be producer Curtis Taylor Jr. (Jamie Foxx) lands them a gig singing backup for established star James Thunder Early (Eddie Murphy), a soul singer in the James Brown-Little Richard mold whose popularity doesn’t extend much beyond the R&B circuit. While romancing the dynamic Effie, whose unabashed confidence makes her full-bodied sensuality only that much more pronounced, Curtis doesn’t permit sentiment to distract him from the goal of using the Dreamettes as a vehicle for crossover success. He installs conventionally pretty, honey-voiced Deena as the new lead vocalist of the re-christened Dreams, demoting Effie to the role of backup vocalist. Her pride and vanity wounded by Curtis’ rejection of her talent, Effie’s inability to accept her diminished role leads to her eventual dismissal from the group. Unlike her real-life counterpart, Florence Ballard, she eventually rises up from the subsequent indignities of poverty to achieve success in her own right as a solo artist. Meanwhile, Deena (now Mrs. Curtis Taylor Jr.) has grown increasingly dissatisfied with the extent to which she has had to sublimate her own personality — conforming to the confining mold Curtis has pushed upon her — and tries to recover her own voice as both an artist and a woman.

It’s basically your standard rags-to-riches formula, enacted in predictably soapy fashion. The cast is undoubtedly talented, but with two notable exceptions, they fail to imbue their roles with much in the way of personality. Foxx comes across as neither dynamic nor ruthless enough to convince as the kind of upstart who could build an empire from scratch — his failure in the role is surprising given what a natural choice he would have seemed to be for the assignment (for a character who, in his own words, "step(s) up to the dark side," he seems pretty harmless). Beyonce looks and sounds like a dream, bringing a creamy luster to her vocals in what would also seem to be a tailor-made role — but she is similarly hamstrung by the soft-focus approach favored by Condon. Her character is supposed to be dewy-eyed and pliant, but without a sense of genuine drive behind the come-hither stage smile, her character arch isn’t particularly compelling. Her performance of the song “Listen,” written specifically for the film, shows off her vocal chops to great effect, and is the only moment in the film where her undeniable star quality is fully utilized. The talented Anika Noni Rose, who won a Tony for her buoyant performance in Caroline or Change?, by necessity comes across as a bit of a third wheel.

That leaves two performers — and they are, for all intensive purposes, the only thing which lends the film any measure of distinction. I watched Jennifer Hudson as a contestant on American Idol — while she impressed with her powerful vocals, there was nothing in her presence to indicate the potential for stardom. As Effie White, however, she commands full attention, at times offering enticing glimpses of what Dreamgirls could have been if brought to life with more conviction. I didn’t see the legendary stage version, but anyone with any familiarity with the show knows that its centerpiece has always been Effie’s raging anthem of defiance and denial, “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going.” Jennifer Holliday, the original Effie, sang the song with such force that it drew ovations the likes of which hadn’t been heard on Broadway since the age of Ethel Merman. Hudson puts the number over with a voracious theatricality and a shattering sense of urgency, all but blowing the lid off of a film which would otherwise seem to settle for tepid complacency when it should be going for the jugular. It’s the highlight of a performance that, while strong from start to finish, may not quite deserve the overweening praise that’s been heaped upon it by critics — truth be told, it’s only when she unleashes her spectacular voice upon the Henry Krieger-Tom Eyen score that the effect is truly riveting. If I remain unconvinced as to whether or not Hudson is, in fact, much of actress, let it be said that she is ideally suited to the demands of the role, and demonstrates a thorough understanding of the bruised feelings and fractious fits of temperament which make Effie a cyclone of a diva. Condon, who has been instrumental in drawing career-best performances from the likes of Ian McKellen, Liam Neeson and Laura Linney, doubtless deserve some of the credit.

It is Eddie Murphy, however, who provides Dreamgirls with its most effective acting performance. As the rough-living soul singer who can’t temper his electric style to suit the demands of the industry, he creates a touching study of a tortured soul struggling to bridge the gap between his natural assurance as a performer and his lack of wherewithal when the curtain comes down. Once the former has been cruelly taken away from (Curtis tries to shoe-horn him into the mold of an Al Green-style crooner), it isn’t long before his self-destructive impulses fully take hold. The advance word was that Murphy, along with everyone else in the film, would be swept away by the tidal wave of Hudson’s tour-de-force, but that proves not to be the case. Again, this is the sort of film that can only furnish good performances, as opposed to great ones, since there isn't much complexity of characterization — but Murphy certainly acquits himself well, and he and Hudson come closer than anyone else to suggesting the turbulence of the artistic temperament, and the restless, audacious spirit of a generation of musical pioneers.

The re-emergence of the movie musical has been a heartening development in recent years, even if the films themselves haven’t always provided much cause for cheer. Dreamgirls is far from a debacle on the level of The Phantom of the Opera, which was as overwrought as it was overproduced, or as disappointing as The Producers, which managed to be singularly uncinematic in Susan Stroman’s insistence on treating her original Broadway staging as if it were the Holy Grail. Hell, next to something like Babel, it could be called a masterpiece (will I ever stop razzing Babel? Not in this lifetime, kids). But Dreamgirls, while not a bad film, is sorely lacking in the one crucial ingredient by which a musical succeeds or fails — a sense of vitality. Bland and safe when it needed to be vibrant, it keeps its soul hidden under a bushel.


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