Anyone who’s been on my blog before, anyone who’s actually had to go through watching it with me before, will know loathe the Oscars. Yet being a fan of movies, I can’t get away from them – and so I’m not going to be a grown up about this thing I hate, and ignore it. I’m going to be childish and bitch, at some length, at why it is the most trivial, smug and meaningless night of the year.
Fans of the concept, with happy naïve ideas that the winner is always the most deserving, should look away now.
Firstly – I don’t believe in it in principle, that you can judge five different films and pick a winner. Between five horror films, you can at least pick the best horror film – but between a romance, historical, drama, comedy and horror, how can you even begin? Out of Africa is a better romance than Saw was. Is it a better film? Not remotely! In this contest, Out of Africa is the best film involving lions, Africa and Meryl Streep, and Saw is the best movie about a leg on the floor. Sure, you can prefer one over the other – but I thought the Oscars were about the “best” movie, not a mere popularity contest?
Which it blatantly is – how can it not be? – yet it keeps up this façade of rewarding merit. Your vote is almost certainly going to go to the genre you prefer. I love buddy movies, and so I’d naturally enjoy a buddy movie more than a horror movie. Sit me down in front of The Sting and the Exorcist, and I’ll always pick the former, regardless of quality. Same goes for performances, same for music, for costumes.
An enterprise which involves this sort of arbritary voting is always going to be a bit crooked, but the Oscars almost turn it into a sport. Isn’t it funny how all five Best Picture nominees are English or American? Now, of course, this might just be because us superior Westerners make better films than anywhere else in the world – but any sane human can tell you that’s balls. A serious line up for this years best movie might involve one or two English language movies, but would also encompass the variety world cinema has to offer.
As soon as you notice there’s rarely a foreign film up for awards, except in a token way, you wonder who the show is for. It’s not like the Korean audience are going to go “ooooh, American films are better than Korean films because they win more Oscars”. No – the institution is designed by Hollywood as an exercise in back-patting and marketing, for the English-speaking audience. To the rest of the world, they’re meaningless. So why should it matter to us?
And the Oscar voters love sentiment. Real people. Real lives. Drama, angst – weighty topics. It’s favouritism, not merit. Is a story intrinsically better because it is deep and meaningful than fantastical and frothy? Not a jot! Yet as a body, their votes always reflect a love for Americana, social commentary and above all, a healthy dose of slush.
An example. Did Al Pacino win an Oscar for the Godfather, for the widely acknowledged best performance of all time? No. Except if you count the Oscar they gave him for the Godfather in 1993. He received it, supposedly, for Scent of a Woman – but it was Michael Corleone who went on stage to pick it up. Same thing happened with Martin Scorcese and his Oscar for Goodfellas, which he won a few years ago for Gangs of New York. Of course, Al was good in Scent, and the direction was good in Gangs. But that's not what it was about. It was about the sentiment. A friend blog, Hilarity Ensues, suggests Meryl Streep and Sean Penn get more nominations for being Streep and Penn than because they actually deserve it.
I admit, there's a personal vendetta here too - Titanic won because of the noise it made. Everyone was mad for it! Screaming, crying, fangirls. Again, it won because it was Titanic, for being groundbreaking, for causing such hysteria. Not because it was the best film of that year. Even among epic-tragic-romances-in-pretty-dresses, it's not well regarded. The punchline is the moment it beats L.A. Confidential, one of the most stunningly impressive films I've ever seen, to the best Oscar gong.
Now bear with me. One of these films had classy direction, four great central performances, a plot so gorgeously complex that even after five viewings I can't appreciate the detail, and a fantastic, subtle script, which only becomes more impressive when you see the laberynthine source material from which it was adapted. The other one...well, the other one's Titanic.
Certainly Titanic is very enjoyable, and if you're a fan of period slush you'll obviously love it more than my precious crime epic. You can't deny it does what it does - ludicrously romantic melodrama - very well, and I'm pretty fond of it in my own way. But on any just system you've got to admit that L.A. Confidential is a better crime epic than Titanic is a romance.
And that was the moment I lost faith in the Oscars. 7/10 movie critics will tell you I'm right. Empire and Total Film both think I'm right. The Imdb list things I'm right.
And Oscar history is packed with this - A Beautiful Mind beat Fellowship of the Ring, Chicago beat Two Towers. Look at the above lists. It's not just the Oscars, either - Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead beat Goodfellas at Cannes, and see how many film buffs you can find who think that's fair! Here's a whole list: http://www.filmsite.org/worstoscars.html
The point of all this is, people rarely if ever win Oscars because they deserve it. If they do, well, that's nice as well. And if Greatest Director Of All Time Alfred Hitchcock lost all 5 of his nominations, then how can the list mean anything at all?
Which brings us around to Mr Ledger, the cause of the rant. You might recall me saying words to the effect of "the Joker was a fantastic role, certainly deserving an Oscar - but if he wins, he'll have won for being dead." And I stand by that.
You can say there's never been a superhero film like Dark Knight before (there hasn't, but wait until next week...); you can even say there's never been a peformance like that in a fantasy movie before. But the rule still stands - you don't get actors in fantasy! Actors make films, not movies! It's why Johnny Depp didn't win an Oscar for Pirates of the Carribean: World's End, Ian McKellen didn't get one for Fellowship of the Ring, though both were nominated. "But Johnny Depp and Ian McKellen weren't very good...", to which I say come off it. They never had a chance. Neither were playing schitzophrenic black lesbian single mothers in wheelchairs.
Fantasy movies - by which I mean dungeons, dragons, sci fi, superheroes et al - get Oscars for sound design and special effects. Period. Sometimes costume, music if they're lucky, maybe editing.
Return of the King, of course, won everything (see: sentimental voting, Al Pacino winning an Oscar on behalf of earlier achievements - the King Oscars were actually for the whole trilogy). It's the only Fantasy film to ever win a best film Oscar, unless you extend the definition to include Around the World in 80 Days or Wings. Same goes for directors - Return of the King is the only one. What about Blade Runner, I ask? What about 2001: A Space Odyssey?
A 1931 Best Actor Oscar was won for Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, although that technically comes under mental illness. Someone managed to get Best Supporting Actor and Actress for Cocoon and Fisher King respectively, though both do have strong elements of real life in them. And without meticulously researching the content of every film I've never heard of, that's it for Oscars. Heath Ledger's achievement is even more impressive than previously thought.
I was surprised to find myself giving a spontaneous cry of joy at hearing he’d got it after all, instead of rolling my eyes as you might have expected from the rant above. Which just proves that we all get pretty sentimental at times, and I find myself wishing, if only for a moment, that the whole system was fair....
Showing posts with label rant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rant. Show all posts
Adaptation...
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
...is felgercarb. I think I've got a handle on what it should be now; all the same, it's an impossible subject, and one currently much on my mind. As indeed is "felgercarb", a nice piece of swearing from original Battlestar Galactica. Oh how times have changed.
It is possible to make a perfectly true adaptation, but usually only of very slim books. Age of Innocence - still, believe it or not, my favourite Scorcese - is a word for word transfer. Even descriptive passages are lovingly transferred; even the scene where our hero imagines his love interest walking up behind him. Another one that comes to mind is Brideshead Revisited, the TV show. You'd be hard pressed to find a line missing from that adaptation (well, I can, but only because they had the misfortune to cut my favourite line...).
It's also a good 17 hours long, and herein lies the rub. Cuts have to be made. Books are not films, films are not books - it's part of the excitement. If you don't, then you end up with something like Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet, nicknamed "the Eternity version" for good reason. And the film still managed to waltz off with a nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay, despite the fact he'd done nothing to the script but choose one Folio over another, and juggle the odd soliloquy.
I actually handle cuts with some equanimity. As a film student, I understand that a perfect copy of the book is rarely possible, nor even desirable - to an extent, if it's the same as the book, why not read the book? And as PJ justified, Frodo and Sam didn't not go to see Tom Bombadil, they just didn't show it on screen.
Changes are worse - for one thing, the author knew what they were doing. By changing small details, other facets of the story fall out of kilter, important themes fall by the wayside - it's the literary equivalent of going back in time and stepping on a butterfly. A personal example is Denethor in Return of the King. This isn't a subject I can speak fairly on - you see, he has always been my favourite character in the books. He's human and flawed, makes some bad decisions, is worn out and weak. But he's not evil - as far as I know, Tolkien never wrote Bad Guys. Saruman is given sympathy; and there are quotes pointing out that even Sauron was not born evil. The film does make him a bad guy - and like that, a whole layer of complexity is gone from the plot. It would have only taken two lines to give him some much-needed motivation. Stories are always better when all the characters are sympathetic.
Little things matter less. Does it matter that Gregory Peck plays New-Zealander Mallory as an American in Guns of Navarone? Or that David Niven plays American Dusty Miller as a Brit? Not really, because their characters are preserved. Apparently, the Cirque du Freak fandom is kicking up a fuss because a white girl has been cast as Debbie - again, this is far less henious a crime than, say, making her an ass-kicking Vampire babe, or giving her a terminal illness, or killing her off in a weird way.
For me, it's TONE that is the great killer. The Denethor complaint is a tonal one more than anything else - it kills the atmosphere in Gondor. A good example of this is L.A. Confidential, a terrific movie which I respect twice as much through having read the book. Which is significantly different, and about 6 times as complex. Characters are killed in different times and places, names are swopped, subplots dropped and switched. But it still FEELS like the movie of the book, because the tone is so close. The nastiness (nastier in the book, I'll add - it made me feel sick in a way that nothing has since), the corruption, the interweaving plots. Unless you'd been paying great attention to the book, and making notes, your synopsis would be identical to one of the film - something about three policemen, a vice ring, the Victory Motel, the Nite Owl, Piers Patchett, Lynn Bracken. Who has about three pages in the book, but they're memorable ones. The shootout at the Victory happens at the end, instead of the start - but who's counting? Because it's there.
Or maybe it's because all these are films I've loved first, which is why I take it well, as opposed to the Denethor case, which I take oh-so-personally.
What muddies the issue further is that after the success of the film, Alaister McLean wrote Force 10 from Navarone as its sequel - which means characters which die in the first book, but survive the first film, are there in the second book. I want to go back to Force 10 now - which I read first - and see whether Miller is still an American...
It is possible to make a perfectly true adaptation, but usually only of very slim books. Age of Innocence - still, believe it or not, my favourite Scorcese - is a word for word transfer. Even descriptive passages are lovingly transferred; even the scene where our hero imagines his love interest walking up behind him. Another one that comes to mind is Brideshead Revisited, the TV show. You'd be hard pressed to find a line missing from that adaptation (well, I can, but only because they had the misfortune to cut my favourite line...).
It's also a good 17 hours long, and herein lies the rub. Cuts have to be made. Books are not films, films are not books - it's part of the excitement. If you don't, then you end up with something like Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet, nicknamed "the Eternity version" for good reason. And the film still managed to waltz off with a nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay, despite the fact he'd done nothing to the script but choose one Folio over another, and juggle the odd soliloquy.
I actually handle cuts with some equanimity. As a film student, I understand that a perfect copy of the book is rarely possible, nor even desirable - to an extent, if it's the same as the book, why not read the book? And as PJ justified, Frodo and Sam didn't not go to see Tom Bombadil, they just didn't show it on screen.
Changes are worse - for one thing, the author knew what they were doing. By changing small details, other facets of the story fall out of kilter, important themes fall by the wayside - it's the literary equivalent of going back in time and stepping on a butterfly. A personal example is Denethor in Return of the King. This isn't a subject I can speak fairly on - you see, he has always been my favourite character in the books. He's human and flawed, makes some bad decisions, is worn out and weak. But he's not evil - as far as I know, Tolkien never wrote Bad Guys. Saruman is given sympathy; and there are quotes pointing out that even Sauron was not born evil. The film does make him a bad guy - and like that, a whole layer of complexity is gone from the plot. It would have only taken two lines to give him some much-needed motivation. Stories are always better when all the characters are sympathetic.
Little things matter less. Does it matter that Gregory Peck plays New-Zealander Mallory as an American in Guns of Navarone? Or that David Niven plays American Dusty Miller as a Brit? Not really, because their characters are preserved. Apparently, the Cirque du Freak fandom is kicking up a fuss because a white girl has been cast as Debbie - again, this is far less henious a crime than, say, making her an ass-kicking Vampire babe, or giving her a terminal illness, or killing her off in a weird way.
For me, it's TONE that is the great killer. The Denethor complaint is a tonal one more than anything else - it kills the atmosphere in Gondor. A good example of this is L.A. Confidential, a terrific movie which I respect twice as much through having read the book. Which is significantly different, and about 6 times as complex. Characters are killed in different times and places, names are swopped, subplots dropped and switched. But it still FEELS like the movie of the book, because the tone is so close. The nastiness (nastier in the book, I'll add - it made me feel sick in a way that nothing has since), the corruption, the interweaving plots. Unless you'd been paying great attention to the book, and making notes, your synopsis would be identical to one of the film - something about three policemen, a vice ring, the Victory Motel, the Nite Owl, Piers Patchett, Lynn Bracken. Who has about three pages in the book, but they're memorable ones. The shootout at the Victory happens at the end, instead of the start - but who's counting? Because it's there.
Or maybe it's because all these are films I've loved first, which is why I take it well, as opposed to the Denethor case, which I take oh-so-personally.
Yet I have said, and with a single exception believe, that no story is unfilmable. There's always a way. I find it hard to imagine people thought Lord of the Rings was unfilmable - it's so cinematic! Look at The Message - a movie about the life of the prophet Mohammed...who isn't allowed to be depicted in art. What do they do? Never show him on screen, and when he and another character are speaking, the other character speaks to the Fourth Wall and falls silent "listening" to his reply. It's genius - crazy, but genius - and the film gets on with it so that you barely notice the daftness.
If you can get over a main character who's not allowed on screen, you can get away with anything. A lot of people are calling Watchmen unfilmable. They're wrong, and I hope Mr Snyder is going to prove them wrong in the new year. It too is so terribly cinematic - the comic borrows liberally from film techniques, particularly intercutting, but also flashbacks and the use of sound. A lot of the depth will have to go - but like Lord of the Rings, it never hurts to have more material than you need. Because you can feel in the film that Middle Earth is massive and ancient, because of those tiny references. Thus with Watchmen - I think you'll believe the world because those things are cut, but under the surface.
The single exception is Sandman. Terrific TV show, perhaps, but it'd make a lousy movie, mostly because there's no plot. or rather, lots of plots - Sandman is a twelve volume omnibus of the best fantasy short stories you've ever read, linked by the central character of Morphius, who's basically the god of sleep. The only way to do it justice would be dump it on a freewheeling first time director, who'd be able to capture the ambling from one thread to another.
A typical issue of Sandman will start with a little story about a man; that man will go to sleep and dream a story, and inside that story there are three characters who sit down and each tell an anecdote about their lives. Maybe an anecdote about storytelling. That's six plots, all equally vital and equally superfluous to juggle. Which is why it can't, and shouldn't be made, except as a Tales from the Crypt style weekly show, filming the longer and better ones. And as soon as you give it to the telly, the budget is unachieveable. Sandman is currently the sole exception to my rule.
What's got me on this?
For one thing, I've been reading Guns of Navarone, and enjoying it immensly. It's one of my very favourite films, and the book doesn't disappoint. As for the film, some cuts - the German patrol thinking Stevens/Franklin is their own missing guard, the boat which gets blown up in the movie searching them twice instead of once - most of which I can justify. Changes, very interesting changes - because the film is actually more complex, where changes are mostly made to simplify the book. For example, film folks will remember Greek tough-guy Andrea had sworn he was going to murder Mallory once the war was over. This element isn't in the book - they're just good buddies. And while Miller puts himself in charge of their injured teammember, Stevens is just a random extra. In the movie, the injured Franklin is also his longterm buddy, adding a layer of complexity and emotion. It's this deep relationship which causes all sorts of tensions and arguments later on, and is directly responsible for the movie's best three scenes. It'll be interesting to see if they're there at all, and how they'll play out in the book. Anna, the girl - I think I already spotted her in the cast, but in the book She is a He. And Jensen's role is cut down almost completely.And then there is the sheer irritation factor of Miller being American - he's my favourite character in the film, because of his crumbling British stoicism, his wry British sarcasm, and the fact he's played by David Niven, who's so British he couldn't locate America on a map.
What muddies the issue further is that after the success of the film, Alaister McLean wrote Force 10 from Navarone as its sequel - which means characters which die in the first book, but survive the first film, are there in the second book. I want to go back to Force 10 now - which I read first - and see whether Miller is still an American...
I feel the film is a fair interpretation of the book so far. All the major events are there, and the tone is the same - exciting, tense, and heroic. And just bubbling underneath that, the insane mental and physical hardships of war. I'm just looking forward to seeing how they treat those three scenes...
And also because last night, we went to see Twilight. Against the odds, it wasn't "High School Musical with emos", as I'd feared - it was actually a pretty darn good movie. Especially when you compare it with rival movies for teen girls. This is what set me off - because the vampire novels of my childhood, Cirque du Freak by Darren Shan and its 11 sequels are coming to a cinema near you sooner than I'd like.
They're very special books - if for no other reason that I reread them last month, and they are still incredible:
- Reinterpretation of vampire legend gets full points. Everyone has their own blend - I'm writing three vampire stories at any one time, and they all conform to my rules. If Darren Shan's is the most gritty, it's also the most realistic. Not necessarily a recommendation - after all, I love Anne Rice's gothic aristocracy of the night as much as the next gal. This is a world where the police notice the civil war going on among the undead; where sun exposure can kill you after a while, but gives you the worst suntan in the world first (instead of blowing you up on sight, which is lousy, or making you look like David Bowie, which is worse); and the gamut of vampire powers is restrained by common sense. It must be said that the vampire stories I'm writing only conform to one of these...
- The characters deserve special mention, because I'm not sure exactly what it is or how he does it, but by the time they started getting killed, I really minded. Gavner! Arra! Mr Crepsley! Mr Tall! Kurda! Annie! Debbie! Steve! Lefty! Evra! The book is written from Darren's point of view, so while he's a character you like, it's not the same deep fondness as you aquire for the people around him.
- I've neglected to mention Mr Tiny, mostly because he's just too scary. Great character, but not as adorable. Incidentally, why haven't they cast Sylvester McCoy yet...?
- Aimed squarely at young teenagers, they never patronise and never shy away from being dark, even though the writing style occasionally reminds you you're no longer 8. Yet there are scenes which still upset me, shock me, make me wince and think.
I'm upset about the movie. Partly, it is true, because I wanted to make it. And it would be incredible. But as I said, it's all about TONE. This is a book for young adults, and they're going to pitch it at children. They'll *ahem* take out the fangs and the blood and grit, and neuter it completely. Which is a shame, because the world has no lack of sanitised kid-fare. To work, it needs to be the same level of intensity as the latest Harry Potter - but no studio is going to take a risk on making it a 12.
What's worse is that it will suck stylistically. My movie would look like the photos of my favourite artist, Eugenio Recuenco, filmed in the style of Night Watch, all deep contrast and dark, sticky blacks, with the occasional splash of intense colour. I adore the whole circus aesthetic, designing the Cirque would be terrific. As would Vampire Mountain. They've moved it from Europe to America - if anything, perhaps this is is better? Our heroes spend the time in anonymous towns and empty nowheres, and America still has a lot of those.
But they're just going to drown it in CGI, forgetting that Shan-pires aren't magical, romantic or supernatural - they're scarred, earthy, and basically just humans a tiny bit more dead. Not to mention that they'd never let me make their precious child-friendly movie with these images in mind. My use of CGI would be as limited as possible - as Guillermo del Toro has proved, you can get away with a suprising amount without it.
It can't all be bad. I do like the fact that they're compressing books 1-3 into one film - even though you could do, say, Tunnels of Blood as a seperate film, setting them all at the same time is much better. In book 1, Darren goes to a circus and as a result becomes a vampire - you can cover that in the first twenty minutes. You could very effectively set book 2 (Sam, the Cirque, R.V. and the Wolfman) and book 3 (Evra, Murlough and Debbie) at the same time, by parking the Cirque near the town where Murlough is.
More importantly, it sets up a good precedent for the rest of the series, which occurs in natural slim trilogies. Next up come the three at Vampire Mountain - I don't recall the details so clearly, but they could easily make one good movie; what I remember of the hunt for the Vampanize Lord also could do with some heavy trimming.
I would cast a different boy as Darren in every movie. He's going to have to stay looking young, so instead of having Actor A for three films, and replace him with Actor B just when things get intense, it would be an accepted fact of the series that it will always be someone new. Perhaps it's the Doctor Who in my system making me think that this is a Good Thing. Still, it'd make for some interesting comparisons across the series as a whole.
Most importantly in attaining a unique tone, I'd find a good composer. I do not want someone to think "Children's film - lets have strings and magical flutes!". In the book, vampire music is heavy slow drums. That'd be an interesting sound; or Dark Knight's Joker theme, or anything electronic and offbeat. As little music as we can get away with, and with a composer willing to experiment with sounds.
Enough of the movie I'm never going to make, and you're never going to see. What about the one we've got. Time for some internet research...
Monday, November 17, 2008
Today we are going to talk about the Bechdel-Wallace Test, a cunning little observation which originated in this comic strip.
Pay attention, because you're going to be really scratching your head in a few minutes time. For a film to pass, it only has to have three little critera:
1) it must feature two named female characters...
2)...who have a conversation...
3)...on a subject other than a man...
...
thinking? Good, because I sat down with the only other film student in my kitchen, and it took us about 15 minutes to come up with anything. Apparenly only 5% of films pass, and it hardly suprises me.
Without even thinking about it, I know none of my favourite movies do. Reservoir Dogs has no speaking female roles, Zulu shunts our only representative off in the first 20 minutes, and Signs doesn't have more than two in the same timeframe, let alone the same scene.
The problem is, women just aren't interesting. Really. Lets consider this:
Pay attention, because you're going to be really scratching your head in a few minutes time. For a film to pass, it only has to have three little critera:
1) it must feature two named female characters...
2)...who have a conversation...
3)...on a subject other than a man...
...
thinking? Good, because I sat down with the only other film student in my kitchen, and it took us about 15 minutes to come up with anything. Apparenly only 5% of films pass, and it hardly suprises me.
Without even thinking about it, I know none of my favourite movies do. Reservoir Dogs has no speaking female roles, Zulu shunts our only representative off in the first 20 minutes, and Signs doesn't have more than two in the same timeframe, let alone the same scene.
The problem is, women just aren't interesting. Really. Lets consider this:
- Women are interested in men, the family and the home. And nothing else.
- Men, the family and the home are not interesting, because that's where the audience is
Unless you're into real life dramas, of course...In most films, the female role is to be the representative of this area. Connie and Mrs Micheal Corleone are both images of innocence and family stability in The Godfather while the men get all the fun. Sissy Spacek's role in JFK is to be more or less chief villain. I hate, hate, hate any actress who ever demeans herself to say "Oh honey, you work such long hours, why not stay at home with us and the kids?" - especially if the husband's character is working on something really interesting. You know he's going to ignore her, because no one wants to see Oliver Stone directing Kevin Costner in three hours of tree houses, piggy backs, and cookie baking - even if he does then produce a thoroughly annotated screenplay about it.
Even if you are a fan of real life drama, there has to be more than life than a career as a) girlfriends b) mothers c) wives d) whores e) prepubescant horror movie fodder. And f) glamorous newscasters, for disaster movies. Sometimes, you get male characters concerned with the home. And that's fine too - the Prez in Air Force One. But when you don't, and it's not seen as unusual. Perhaps because it isn't - maybe all there is for a girl to aspire to is one of the above roles. The number of female characters who don't conform is very small. Take Kill Bill - Uma Thurman plays an asskicking ninja assassin...taking vengeance for the attack on her wedding and death of her daughter. The ideal mothers day movie. Or La Femme Nikita- her transformation into a femme from a streetpunk is as important as her transformation into a contract killer. Or one of the strongest female characters I've ever seen, Jill in Once Upon a Time in the West, who nevertheless is only allowed to be items a-d on the list above.
To on extent it's the modern equivalent of non-white characters in the 60s and 70s - they weren't there unless it was a role a white actor couldn't play. We've more or less got that one straightened out now. These days, it's very rare to have a character who "just happens to be gay", whose sexuality is not part of the plot (Captain Jack off Torchwood and Doctor Who was one of those, originally). So when will the reclamation of womankind come?
The one case I can think of is Ripley in the Alien movies - playing a role written for a man. The problem is, female roles are still written for "women", as opposed to just people. I don't see myself as "female" at all - I mean, I am, it's a simple fact of biology. But very little in my behavior is defined by the fact. It doesn't affect the movies I watch or the life decisions I make. I would eat no differently, my room would still be a tip, my interests would be unchanged were I male. Hath not a girl eyes, hath not a girl hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a bloke is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die?
There are no characters which represent me in film - not androgynous, certainly not, just don't give a damn or see why it makes such a difference. Not obsessed with "being a woman", and occupying that narrow band of not-very-interesting-interests. Did you just say Juno? Yes, intelligent teenager, teenager into her movies, pregnant teenager. We need characters who just happen to be female, in the same way that a black and white actors can now (with obvious exceptions) play interchangeable roles. Why can't I play Hamlet?! Sarah Bernhardt did...
Does it matter? Well, it strikes me that no woman should ever say the phrase "female characters aren't interesting" as loudly as I just did, so there is a genuine problem somewhere. And the fact that I've never noticed this imbalance until now probably suggests a deeper problem - that through this imbalanced media, we're taught to accept these passive and pointless roles in both film and life.
Perhaps this is why I never cement anything when I write. Characters have no certain age - somewhere between 12 and 20 is pretty accurate in my book - and often remain nameless. I can't recall ever placing them geographically - the racial mix makes certain assumptions, but they could be anywhere in America, the UK, Europe, Denmark, et al - or anywhere certain it time. "About now" - but my stories develop over many years, rarely being written down, so "now" can again represent a period of about 10 years. Occasionally, class will come into it - I usually have a fair idea of their background - but this very rarely governs their behavior. I assume they're straight in the same way everyone assumes someone else is straight the first time you shake hands - until given proper evidence to the contrary. Like everything else, it's not something I decide, because I prefer to work with a person, not an "American", not a "90s kid", not a "lesbian", not a "teenager", and a lot of the time not "a woman". Because every now and then - two characters spring to mind - I don't give them gender either. They're "probably female", but I've never given the matter too much thought. All that matters is what they do, and what they say.
All this probably says more about me than about cinema - I'm not saying this is universally the right thing to do. For one thing, people are certainly defined by their backgrounds - a teen will talk differently to an old woman, an American from a Brit, a guy from a girl. In terms of plot too, working this way ignores the genuine rules of our society entirely. There are things which, as a [stereotype], you cannot do - you could recast any of the Reservoir Dogs female, but it wouldn't make any narrative sense, because those characters have social prejudices too. And if my system was adopted by everyone, we could never make films about people from X group trancending their traditional limitations, and lose the (percieved) shock contrast of, say, Jodie Foster's scarily masculine Madeline White in Inside Man, or Sidney Potier's fish-out-of-water Virgil Tibbs in Heat of the Night. I'm writing in a purely fantasy world - no dragons, no magic, but still as alien - because these things are impossible in anything resembling a reality.
But maybe, just maybe, it's something to think for Hollywood to think about. And please, never have the "stay at home, darling!" cliche ever again...
Probably says something about the industry too - male dominated, it's no wonder the movies they make are male dominated too. Before discovering this test, I used to ask people to name me five female directors. Which is actually easier - there's Sofia Coppola, Leni Riefenstahl, Mira Nair, Kathryn Bigelow...as a gal who wants to direct, and direct "guys with guns" movies at that, Kathryn Bigelow is something of a heroine: Point Break, a heist movie; Near Dark the vampire western and K-19: The Widowmaker, a war film.
I'm not normally an angry feminist, except on this topic - because I'm not given any interesting female rolemodels on film, and because I know that short of a sex change, my chance of a job in The Industry is even more infantessimal. There are some angry feminists who go way too far in trying to right the wrongs of the world, and making sweeping assumptions on the slightest evidence. Yet there are problems, and without trying to be radical about it, they are probably rooted in the fact that films are made by and for the Middle Aged Affluent White Male.
I got quite angry at The War of the Roses, for example - a film my dad has always praised for the sacharrine-free depiction of a collapsing relationship. He's right, it is good - the dialogue between the Roses especially remind me of a thousand fractious arguments watched, avoided or taken part in. The problem is that it's Mrs Rose who mysteriously, abstractly decides she's unhappy and strikes the first blow while refusing to give a reason. And it's Mr Rose, poor Mr Rose, who has to cope with this impossible, motiveless female Other. It angered me for expecting the audience to accept that couples break up due to feminine whims - she hasn't got children to look after, she hasn't got a house to decorate, so she's going to take it out on him. Naturally. Very little suggestion, for example, that it's the fact he works too hard that she's decided to ditch him.
That's just one example that irritated me recently, but the problem is so endemic in Hollywood that once you open your eyes to it, it's hard to ignore.
So with no further ado, here are some movies which pass the Bechdel-Wallace test:
Heavenly Creatures, School of Rock, Ghost World, Kill Bill, Pan's Labyrinth, Tideland, Serenity...
Plus everything I've ever written. It might be interesting to note that all those films are either for children, or have a strong root in fantasy...
The challenge: how many can you think of? Leave it in the comments...
Surf Nazis must die!
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Looks like QT is taking the rap for his leaked Inglorious Bastards script for, I quote, being disrespectful to German soldiers.
Calm down, folks. The Nazis have been reliably eeeevil bad guys ever since the 40s, just like the Russians in 60s Bond. And even if we're all big boys and girls now, and we understand things are more complex, we're still talking Tarantino.
Remind me of the last time he's made a movie remotely resembling Real Life as we know it? The sticky irony of Mr Orange's situation is as realistic as its ever got, and even then his actions at the end of the movie are governed by a Samuri concept of honour or something. Pulp Fiction was one massive homage to a genre - none of those people were meant to be real. Jackie Brown moreso, but it was also busy being a blaxsploitation tribute at the same time. And Kill Bill! That's my entire argument boiled down into two 2-hour chunks!
If it was a serious director making a serious Private Ryan-esque movie about slapping the it to the hun, then we could be alarmed. But surely any Tarantino war movie would be a boy's-own men-on-a-mission tribute BEFORE it was an intelligent commentary on 1940s politics. I'm expecting comic-book level gung ho behavior, the requisite bloodbath, some truly unredeemably villanous Nazis, and I'm expecting to have fun watching it.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/aug/15/quentintarantino.secondworldwar
The guardian confirms this theory - that it's going to be pure unhistoric pulp. So what's the problem? I mean, I'm defending a script I haven't read, for a movie I haven't seen, so he could still prove me wrong. Who knows - maybe troops going on a Holocaust-vengeance mission might turn out to be tasteless? *sarcasm* But at this rate, no one's going to get to see it!
I'm a little disappointed that both Tim Roth and Simon Pegg are out of the picture - I was looking forward to the Roth vs. Madsen rematch rumoured, oh, two years back. Their replacements are interesting to say the least. But I'm willing to give it a chance. And if in a years time this post mysteriously vanishes, you'll know I bet on the wrong horse.
I've skim read this link, if anyone wants the spoilerific low-down on the leaked script - which I don't particularly, but you might:
http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2008/07/weve_got_quentin_tarantinos_in.html
And here's the telegraph, with a much more general article along the same lines:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/celebritynews/2562334/Quentin-Tarantino-angers-Germans-with-film-about-slaying-Nazis.html
Try to produce a work of art.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
The world's going to hell in a handcart.
You may remember a few months ago, I wrote an optimistic meditation on the new Brideshead Revisited film. One of my favourite books, turned into one of my favourite TV shows. A slow-paced, nostalgic story of love, religion and middle age.
Last time, I was trying hard to be gentle. I don't want to damn it out of the blue, I want to give it a chance. And I understand that of course, they have to change things. I'm prepared. But I genuinely think this new movie is going to be a trainwreck.
Its all a matter of tone, and meaning. For me, Brideshead Revisited is about a middle aged man who realises he has spent his entire life searching for something he lost at the age of 19. For author Waugh, it was about the operation of divine grace on a small group of characters. For Jarrod, the new director, its about "young individual from a poorer, less interesting background who is welcomed into this beautiful, magical, alluring kingdom with wonderful, magical people. And then he begins to realize that everything is not what it seems.”
None of those things are in the book. Waugh was a converted Catholic who, I presume, saw God in everything - and for him that would be the strongest force in his character's lives. I'm very sentimental, very nostalgic, and my chief worry on going to university is that one day that'll happen to me (pessimistic, but it could happen). When I read the book, its all about Charles trying to regain what he saw in Sebastian - whether that's true love, or what he represented in terms of the rich lifestyle, or his free lifestyle, or just the joy of being young. He's only in 3 chapters or so - but his influence is all over the place. Anthony Blanche notes "inevitably we talk of Sebastian" early on in the novel, and it happens for the rest of the book. The classic image of the show is, well, poncing about with teddy bears.
To justify my reading, my film would be all lingering shots, subtle glances and covered with bittersweet loss from the first five minutes. I might even mix the scenes up Tarantino style, interspersing the early sunny scenes with the later grey and grim ones to telegraph that things are going downhill from the start. Waugh shoved the full of very subtle hits, use of language which is ravingly obvious if you go looking for it. And a fascinating memo sent by him to Hollywood reveals that religion would be the central theme of his movie.
I do not know of Mr Jarrod's background, but for him the story is about class. To be honest, I barely noticed it, just as I barely noticed the religious undertones until they were pointed out. But having seen the trailer, just as I would play up the loss, he's playing up the class issues. The insinuation that Charles is getting in with the family for the money is no where in the book, although it is an interpretation one could follow. He sees the world of Brideshead as temptation - decadant, rich, exotic but corrupt. Again, I disagree - because he sees it as something happening to Charles, wheras for me it's something in the past. He's always looking back at it. Mr Jarrod is playing up the thriller-ish aspects of the novel, sexing up something which was perfectly fine as it was.
Tone. Chaos, eh? This was sparked off by an article on the NYTimes website. Lets do a commentary:
"THE images from the 11-episode mini-series are still vivid, 27 years later. Louche young Oxford students in crisp linen suits (and one teddy bear) drinking endless cocktails. A spectacular country estate, dripping with treasures and crackling with religious, sexual and dynastic tensions. A delicately beautiful Jeremy irons"
So lets leave the final word with Mr Waugh, from a different memo to Hollywood about seeing his books filmed: "It has lately been demonstrated that cinema audiences do not know whether the films they see are spoken in Italian or English. It is useless to write down to their level. Try to produce a work of art."
Ugh. I'm thoroughly miserable now, so miserable I've just finished off half a pack of chocolate wafers and am listening to the Beach Boys. It ain't working.
Under those circumstances, it might seem a bad idea to pre-judge another one of my favourite books about to emerge as Hollywood property.
Cirque du Freak is the story of an ordinary kid who becomes a vampire. Only please don't stop reading, because it is so much more than just that. It was one of my favourites as a kid - I bought all 12 books. What is more impressive that they still read well now I've grown up a bit. Author Darren Shan treads a fine, fine line and while the books are aimed at children (every chapter ends on a cliffhanger - "and now the spider was heading for me!"), its never patronising and satisfyingly dark. It starts out as a book about a teen vampire hero. 11 installments later, he's handling alternate Earths, parallel futures and middle age. In one novel, a newly converted Darren dates a local girl in an effort to retain a normal teenage life. Generic stuff. But Debbie comes back in 10 years as an adult with her own flat, while Darren still appears to be 13. He never shies away from making things hard, and tackling ideas like that where other kids books would make it easy.
At one moment, a desperate situation is resolved by a piece of outrageously cheesy deus ex machina. The next chapter begins "No. I wish it had happened like that, but it didn't", and all of a sudden, beloved characters are dying and you can only watch helplessly - especially because last chapter you were groaning because it was all too happy. And characters do die, lovely ones and in cruel ways. JK Rowling only got this dark in the final chapters of Book 7, and was never this ironic.
So lets have a look at the movie. It's being written by Brian Helegand, who wrote Knight's Tale. He has my stamp of approval. The cast list reveals a Wolfman and Murlough have been cast. These are the villains for books 2 and 3 - evidently the first three have been compacted. Another good move - the 12 book series vaguely falls into four trilogies anyway, and these three are similar in tone et al.
Its being directed by Paul Weitz, and suddenly I really wished I'd seen Golden Compass - his last adaptation of a dodgy kids book. If it's as average as everyone said, then I'm a little edgy about him handling my baby. I also wish I knew something about the composer - his films all seem to be indie or low-profile, so hopefully he'll do something interesting and not fantasy-default.
The cast is OK. Ken Wantabe isn't the Mr Tall of my mind, but he will do it well. I wish Mr Tiny wasn't credited as Mr Destiny, but there goes - the actor has a wonderful look. Mr Tiny needs to have presence - be creepy, without really knowing why; just as Mr Tall has to be completely trustworthy, in the same way.
The stars have my temporary approval too. Darren and Steve look perfect, although I don't recognise anything they're in. The jury's out on Mr Crepsley, played by John C. Reilly. He's not an actor I like much (from Chicago, but still), and Mr C is one of the most insanely special characters. A suggestion on the IMDb board is that he should have traded roles with Willem Dafoe, who is playing Gavner Purl. Now JCR would make an awesome Gavner, but I'm willing to give him a chance.
I just have one problem. They're gonna make it a sodding PG. Now done properly, this thing deserves an 18 rating - its still one of the most violent things I've ever read. But that's stupid - its still a kids book. All I'm asking is a 12. Don't aim it at the tweenie market, its not Harry Potter. It should be aimed at young adults. For 13, 14yrold kids who want a horror movie of their own with some proper gore. I can't think of a way that this film could be made faithfully at PG, and retain the alarmingly visceral feel. Drop the visual nastiness, and the nastiness inherent in the plot will be the next to go.
On the whole, I'm optimistic. I'm looking forward to the film I would make, which is a mistake, but I feel it'd be hard to do these books badly...if there is a mouse on set. By mouse I mean a director, a writer, a producer who will weed out the cheese. If they try to do it sentimentally, or use that awful "magical music" exhibited by current kid movies. Its a bleak piece of fiction; the world of the cirque is not wonderful in any way.
Case in point: A Series of Unfortunate Events. Another good series of books. I rather liked the film - Jude Law made a terrible Lemony, it needed to be someone far older and cynical, but the look was wonderful. But the ending! They gave it a happy ending!
Something about the film will piss me off. But I'm not going to issue a fatwah for the crew just yet, because if they steer away from sentimentality and and keep it honest as the book, then there is an awesome film waiting...
You may remember a few months ago, I wrote an optimistic meditation on the new Brideshead Revisited film. One of my favourite books, turned into one of my favourite TV shows. A slow-paced, nostalgic story of love, religion and middle age.
Last time, I was trying hard to be gentle. I don't want to damn it out of the blue, I want to give it a chance. And I understand that of course, they have to change things. I'm prepared. But I genuinely think this new movie is going to be a trainwreck.
Its all a matter of tone, and meaning. For me, Brideshead Revisited is about a middle aged man who realises he has spent his entire life searching for something he lost at the age of 19. For author Waugh, it was about the operation of divine grace on a small group of characters. For Jarrod, the new director, its about "young individual from a poorer, less interesting background who is welcomed into this beautiful, magical, alluring kingdom with wonderful, magical people. And then he begins to realize that everything is not what it seems.”
None of those things are in the book. Waugh was a converted Catholic who, I presume, saw God in everything - and for him that would be the strongest force in his character's lives. I'm very sentimental, very nostalgic, and my chief worry on going to university is that one day that'll happen to me (pessimistic, but it could happen). When I read the book, its all about Charles trying to regain what he saw in Sebastian - whether that's true love, or what he represented in terms of the rich lifestyle, or his free lifestyle, or just the joy of being young. He's only in 3 chapters or so - but his influence is all over the place. Anthony Blanche notes "inevitably we talk of Sebastian" early on in the novel, and it happens for the rest of the book. The classic image of the show is, well, poncing about with teddy bears.
To justify my reading, my film would be all lingering shots, subtle glances and covered with bittersweet loss from the first five minutes. I might even mix the scenes up Tarantino style, interspersing the early sunny scenes with the later grey and grim ones to telegraph that things are going downhill from the start. Waugh shoved the full of very subtle hits, use of language which is ravingly obvious if you go looking for it. And a fascinating memo sent by him to Hollywood reveals that religion would be the central theme of his movie.
I do not know of Mr Jarrod's background, but for him the story is about class. To be honest, I barely noticed it, just as I barely noticed the religious undertones until they were pointed out. But having seen the trailer, just as I would play up the loss, he's playing up the class issues. The insinuation that Charles is getting in with the family for the money is no where in the book, although it is an interpretation one could follow. He sees the world of Brideshead as temptation - decadant, rich, exotic but corrupt. Again, I disagree - because he sees it as something happening to Charles, wheras for me it's something in the past. He's always looking back at it. Mr Jarrod is playing up the thriller-ish aspects of the novel, sexing up something which was perfectly fine as it was.
Tone. Chaos, eh? This was sparked off by an article on the NYTimes website. Lets do a commentary:
"THE images from the 11-episode mini-series are still vivid, 27 years later. Louche young Oxford students in crisp linen suits (and one teddy bear) drinking endless cocktails. A spectacular country estate, dripping with treasures and crackling with religious, sexual and dynastic tensions. A delicately beautiful Jeremy irons"
Yes, Jeremy Irons was pretty yummy in this. You note they start with the TV show, not the book. The book was already big - but like the Godfather movie, the epic show preserved it in the public mind and made it big.
It is those lingering memories, even more than Evelyn Waugh’s novel, that anyone attempting to turn “Brideshead Revisited” into a feature film for the first time naturally has to contend with. And so as not to contaminate his approach Julian Jarrold, the director, studiously avoided the mini-series — all that elegiac emotion, spread out over 659 languorous minutes — and returned to the book. “It exposed some of the myths I’d had about ‘Brideshead,’ ” Mr. Jarrold said of his rereading. “I’d had the memory of it being a nostalgia trip about the passing of English life and a bygone era, a glorification of aristocracy — about people wearing odd clothes and poncing around Oxford.” That was part of it, he said.
But there was also a bite and a sharpness that are as relevant now as they were in 1945, when the novel was published. “One of the reasons for the book’s popularity is, it is an archetypal type of story of this young individual from a poorer, less interesting background who is welcomed into this beautiful, magical, alluring kingdom with wonderful, magical people,” Mr. Jarrold said. “And then he begins to realize that everything is not what it seems.”
I'm not going to deny the bite and sharpness. The dialogue, the observation of character is priceless. But as I've already noted, I never for a moment saw it as a story about class. It's not even mentioned. It's just an issue that doesn't matter to me personally - my family is affluent, some people I know are richer, others are poorer. So what? I don't believe in class tensions.
The film, which is to be released on Friday, is set in the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s and stars Matthew Goode as Charles Ryder, the unworldly student whose friendship with the aristocratic Lord Sebastian Flyte (Ben Whishaw) introduces him to a whole new world of money, class privilege, deep happiness and deep despair. Castle Howard, an estate in Yorkshire, stands in for Brideshead, home to Sebastian and his family, a symbol of a dying way of life and a character in itself. The mini-series was written by John Mortimer and stars Anthony Andrews as the teddy-bear-carrying Sebastian. It opens and ends with Charles (Mr. Irons), now a British Army officer, unexpectedly encamped at Brideshead during World War II. He begins to replay in his mind the role Brideshead, with its dark sorrows and bewitching delights, played in his life some 20 years earlier.
In this new version the filmmakers have, of necessity, pared down the story. World War II comes up only at the end. There is less time to dwell on the seemingly endless summer when Charles and Sebastian meet and their lives gradually become entwined. Some supporting characters given prominence in the mini-series — Sebastian’s younger sister, Cordelia, played in the original by Phoebe Nicholls, for example, or his waspish friend Anthony Blanche (Nickolas Grace in the series)— appear only glancingly in the film.
See what I mean? For me it would be paramount for WWII to open the film, to let the audience know this is all happening in the past. It would best support my interpretation as a story of lost ideals and innocence. Here, they leave it to the end. Serious mistake. Pity Cordelia will be cut down, but it was inevitable; as with Anthony. I imagine Bridey has been cut entirely.
“It was a terrible struggle, and we worked for many, many hours on the screenplay in order to make the right choices,” said Jeremy Brock, who wrote it with Andrew Davies. “But bluntly, you have a 330-page novel and a two-hour film, and you don’t have the luxury of being able to include everybody.”
Yeh, that's fair. And what they're cutting out is the least of my worries. It's what they're adding and twisting that gets my goat. So...
The filmmakers also have played up the love triangle of Charles, Sebastian and Sebastian’s bewitching sister, Julia (Hayley Atwell). An extended scene during a night of erotic possibility in Venice serves to advance Charles’s romance with Julia. (All the changes — including placing Julia in Venice — were approved by the Waugh estate, the filmmakers said.)
I approve of this. The novel is in two sections - Charles and Sebastian and then Charles and Julia. Without making two films, they can't adequately do either, so fudging them together is really their only option. I'm not sure what "erotic possibility" means though. Actually, the word "extended" disturbs me about as much. Anyway...
“This puts Julia center stage,” Mr. Brock said of the Venice scenes. “When you read the novel, there is a sense that she is slightly the one who comes after Sebastian, that she is No. 2, and I think it’s not quite fair. The true love story for Charles is the one with Julia.”
As I said, all about interpretation and I think that's ridiculous. The true love story for Charles is the one with Sebastian - Julia comes afterwards, she's an echo of what he misses. She acnowledges it in the book; Charles notes they look similar. Mr Brock is deliberately pissing off the Valyard here. Or, to put it more simply, he's actually deciding he doesn't like something and plunging in to restore Julia to where he thinks she should be. Very chivalric. Now I know its only a story, but screwing with fiction really gets my goat - in my mind, it's like a time traveller deliberately interfering with the past. Anyone who's ever watched sci-fi will appreciate you can't change history on a whim, not just because you'll change the present (in our analogy, come up with a worse film), but because you just shouldn't - because its a law you shouldn't break.
Am I overreacting? After all, protecting the integrity of the time continuum and keeping a movie adaption canonical aren't exactly of equal importance. There is a reason why history works the way it does; and there is a reason why stories are written the way they are. Now changes must be made - every now and then, you step on the odd butterfly - but militantly deciding to go back and kill baby Hitler is always wrong. And that's what Mr Brock is doing - he's decided he wants to change things. Ach, yes Im overreacting.
Perhaps he's closer to Mr Waugh's intent: "Charles's romantic affection for Sebastian is part due to the glitter of the new world Sebastian represents, part to the protective feeling of a strong towards a weak character, and part a foreshadowing of the love for Julia which is to be the consuming passion of his mature years." Because I see the story backwards, I see his love for Julia as a result, not a foreshadowing.
And while the homoerotic longings between Charles and Sebastian are more implied than explicit in the earlier incarnations, in the film they share a quick kiss. Instantly their easy camaraderie is polluted by a new awkwardness and inhibition. “There’s a sense that maybe they’ve crossed a line that one of them isn’t ready to cross,” Mr. Brock said of the kiss.
Heh. Its all about tone, boys and girls. Whats the point in making something so obscure so obvious? Let the platonic crowd have their fun, let the "get out of the closet!" brigade prove their argument, and let the people who like it on the fence stay on the fence. Because there's nothing that clear cut about youth, and for me this is the biggest problem encountered so far. If you choose to so read it, then Charles'n'Seb can be at it like rabbits the whole time. There's way enough evidence. On the other hand, the story works just as well if its an entirely innocent relationship. I feel its a mistake to deny that it is love, but
In a surprising casting move Lady Marchmain, the matriarch whose deep religious faith reverberates so tragically through the lives of her children, is played by Emma Thompson, made up toward the end of the film to look much older.“I always associate Emma Thompson with being youthful and contemporary and playing decent, sensitive characters, whereas obviously this is the complete opposite,” Mr. Jarrold said. But Ms. Thompson can play old as well as young, lacing her character’s prodigious charm with a chilly savagery. As much as it is a story about a lost period of English history — a final shining moment before everything changed forever — “Brideshead” is a novel about the inexorable pull of Catholicism. The issues it raises are particularly relevant now, Mr. Brock said, though viewers may interpret what they see differently depending on the role of faith in their own lives. A scene toward the end, when the Marchmain family tussles over the soul of Lord Marchmain (Michael Gambon) as he lies on his deathbed, is wrenching and even shocking. After abandoning his wife and her self-sacrificing piety for a life of sensuality and ease in Italy, Marchmain has returned home to die. But what sort of role should Catholicism play, with its ability to pull in lapsed members with a “twitch upon the thread,” as Waugh put it, citing G. K. Chesterton, at the end of Marchmain’s life? To Charles’s fascinated horror, the question is of central importance to the family, and there is only one possible answer. “In that tug between individual freedom and fundamentalist religion, there’s a story that’s apposite for our time,” Mr. Brock said. “In the modern age that’s something we’re all dealing with.”An important divergence in tone from Waugh’s novel, Mr. Jarrold said, comes in the closing scene, when Charles — now back at Brideshead during World War II — talks to Lieutenant Hooper, a fellow soldier who has a rough accent and the forthright views of a modern man unimpressed by the aristocracy. How to portray him led to long discussions about the way that Waugh “is sometimes profoundly undemocratic” and disdainful of Hooper and what he represents, Mr. Jerrold said. In the book Hooper is “described as a traveling salesman with a wet handshake,” he said. “But he’s the future of England, and the hope of the 1945 generation, and we’ve put a positive spin on him.”
So lets leave the final word with Mr Waugh, from a different memo to Hollywood about seeing his books filmed: "It has lately been demonstrated that cinema audiences do not know whether the films they see are spoken in Italian or English. It is useless to write down to their level. Try to produce a work of art."
Ugh. I'm thoroughly miserable now, so miserable I've just finished off half a pack of chocolate wafers and am listening to the Beach Boys. It ain't working.
Under those circumstances, it might seem a bad idea to pre-judge another one of my favourite books about to emerge as Hollywood property.
Cirque du Freak is the story of an ordinary kid who becomes a vampire. Only please don't stop reading, because it is so much more than just that. It was one of my favourites as a kid - I bought all 12 books. What is more impressive that they still read well now I've grown up a bit. Author Darren Shan treads a fine, fine line and while the books are aimed at children (every chapter ends on a cliffhanger - "and now the spider was heading for me!"), its never patronising and satisfyingly dark. It starts out as a book about a teen vampire hero. 11 installments later, he's handling alternate Earths, parallel futures and middle age. In one novel, a newly converted Darren dates a local girl in an effort to retain a normal teenage life. Generic stuff. But Debbie comes back in 10 years as an adult with her own flat, while Darren still appears to be 13. He never shies away from making things hard, and tackling ideas like that where other kids books would make it easy.
At one moment, a desperate situation is resolved by a piece of outrageously cheesy deus ex machina. The next chapter begins "No. I wish it had happened like that, but it didn't", and all of a sudden, beloved characters are dying and you can only watch helplessly - especially because last chapter you were groaning because it was all too happy. And characters do die, lovely ones and in cruel ways. JK Rowling only got this dark in the final chapters of Book 7, and was never this ironic.
So lets have a look at the movie. It's being written by Brian Helegand, who wrote Knight's Tale. He has my stamp of approval. The cast list reveals a Wolfman and Murlough have been cast. These are the villains for books 2 and 3 - evidently the first three have been compacted. Another good move - the 12 book series vaguely falls into four trilogies anyway, and these three are similar in tone et al.
Its being directed by Paul Weitz, and suddenly I really wished I'd seen Golden Compass - his last adaptation of a dodgy kids book. If it's as average as everyone said, then I'm a little edgy about him handling my baby. I also wish I knew something about the composer - his films all seem to be indie or low-profile, so hopefully he'll do something interesting and not fantasy-default.
The cast is OK. Ken Wantabe isn't the Mr Tall of my mind, but he will do it well. I wish Mr Tiny wasn't credited as Mr Destiny, but there goes - the actor has a wonderful look. Mr Tiny needs to have presence - be creepy, without really knowing why; just as Mr Tall has to be completely trustworthy, in the same way.
The stars have my temporary approval too. Darren and Steve look perfect, although I don't recognise anything they're in. The jury's out on Mr Crepsley, played by John C. Reilly. He's not an actor I like much (from Chicago, but still), and Mr C is one of the most insanely special characters. A suggestion on the IMDb board is that he should have traded roles with Willem Dafoe, who is playing Gavner Purl. Now JCR would make an awesome Gavner, but I'm willing to give him a chance.
I just have one problem. They're gonna make it a sodding PG. Now done properly, this thing deserves an 18 rating - its still one of the most violent things I've ever read. But that's stupid - its still a kids book. All I'm asking is a 12. Don't aim it at the tweenie market, its not Harry Potter. It should be aimed at young adults. For 13, 14yrold kids who want a horror movie of their own with some proper gore. I can't think of a way that this film could be made faithfully at PG, and retain the alarmingly visceral feel. Drop the visual nastiness, and the nastiness inherent in the plot will be the next to go.
On the whole, I'm optimistic. I'm looking forward to the film I would make, which is a mistake, but I feel it'd be hard to do these books badly...if there is a mouse on set. By mouse I mean a director, a writer, a producer who will weed out the cheese. If they try to do it sentimentally, or use that awful "magical music" exhibited by current kid movies. Its a bleak piece of fiction; the world of the cirque is not wonderful in any way.
Case in point: A Series of Unfortunate Events. Another good series of books. I rather liked the film - Jude Law made a terrible Lemony, it needed to be someone far older and cynical, but the look was wonderful. But the ending! They gave it a happy ending!
Something about the film will piss me off. But I'm not going to issue a fatwah for the crew just yet, because if they steer away from sentimentality and and keep it honest as the book, then there is an awesome film waiting...
And a PPPPS to all that...
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
4. The Happening is out! And Cinecism is not a happy bunny. Why is Cinecism an unhappy bunny? Because it's not out over here. Which means I'll have to endure it being criticised by all and sundry, and won't be able to defend it. Fair enough - If i'm already resolved to defend it, why can't I do it without having seen the film first. After all, being an M. Night fan, I know what one of his movies looks like; and the trailer doesn't seem to have broken the mould. And it never stopped me with Grindhouse. But if the best the Times critic can come up with to justify his 3 star review is "the good news is this film isn't as bad as I thought it was going to be", you know there's not justice in the world.
Fair enough - that's exactly what my most recent Hulk review said. But that was the Incredible Hulk - a comic book adaptation, a sequel to a not-great film, a movie about two big lumps of CG smashing each other. Forgive me, but I'm allowed to be critically sniffy.
We're talking about one of our classiest directors here - a guy who has proved that "mainstream" and "shit" are not necessarily synonomous. Ghosts, superheroes, alien invasion! Only with style and a lot of heart. That's the deal-sealer for me - the way he takes these unlikely movie situations, and really gets into the emotions of what that situation would be like.
We're also talking about a group of petty, petty people who're still peeved about getting caught out by Sixth Sense; the same cynical people who've cheerfully struck back at everything he's done since. Until Lady in the Water that was OK. Because Unbreakable was insanely classy; Signs a brilliant thriller, even if you couldn't make a leap of faith at the end; and The Village had nice music. But Lady has become an open invitation to just lay in. It was not a terrible film! It was an attempt to do something different - and it only failed a little bit.
Michael Bay! Uwe Boll! Ed Wood! There aren't lines of people waiting to pour scorn on their movies, some of which are truly terrible. Check out his IMDB's director's board - the hate never stops and I don't know why.
Maybe it's just the undercurrents. Every director has underlying ideas and themes which he brings to every movie. For M. Night it's redemption through the supernatural, Philidelphia, great set pieces, James Newton Howard music and me crying at the end. The things the masses admired in Sixth Sense - i.e. heartstopping terror - aren't in the other films. People keep saying "ugh, but the Village wasn't scary..." But was it meant to be? No. Incidentally, the things which attracted me to Res Dogs aren't always there in QT's other movies - the sincere human drama and tension. So it works both ways.
In any case, I am peeved that I can't see it at the cinema, already on the defensive, at war with anyone who doesn't like it - on principle unless they first prove that they thought Unbreakable was a decent piece of cinema, and very annoyed.
Fair enough - that's exactly what my most recent Hulk review said. But that was the Incredible Hulk - a comic book adaptation, a sequel to a not-great film, a movie about two big lumps of CG smashing each other. Forgive me, but I'm allowed to be critically sniffy.
We're talking about one of our classiest directors here - a guy who has proved that "mainstream" and "shit" are not necessarily synonomous. Ghosts, superheroes, alien invasion! Only with style and a lot of heart. That's the deal-sealer for me - the way he takes these unlikely movie situations, and really gets into the emotions of what that situation would be like.
We're also talking about a group of petty, petty people who're still peeved about getting caught out by Sixth Sense; the same cynical people who've cheerfully struck back at everything he's done since. Until Lady in the Water that was OK. Because Unbreakable was insanely classy; Signs a brilliant thriller, even if you couldn't make a leap of faith at the end; and The Village had nice music. But Lady has become an open invitation to just lay in. It was not a terrible film! It was an attempt to do something different - and it only failed a little bit.
Michael Bay! Uwe Boll! Ed Wood! There aren't lines of people waiting to pour scorn on their movies, some of which are truly terrible. Check out his IMDB's director's board - the hate never stops and I don't know why.
Maybe it's just the undercurrents. Every director has underlying ideas and themes which he brings to every movie. For M. Night it's redemption through the supernatural, Philidelphia, great set pieces, James Newton Howard music and me crying at the end. The things the masses admired in Sixth Sense - i.e. heartstopping terror - aren't in the other films. People keep saying "ugh, but the Village wasn't scary..." But was it meant to be? No. Incidentally, the things which attracted me to Res Dogs aren't always there in QT's other movies - the sincere human drama and tension. So it works both ways.
In any case, I am peeved that I can't see it at the cinema, already on the defensive, at war with anyone who doesn't like it - on principle unless they first prove that they thought Unbreakable was a decent piece of cinema, and very annoyed.
"STOP THIS DEBASING FILM"
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Nothing gets my hackles up or piques my interest like censorship. And so i was pretty excited to see this screaming headline on the front of the Sunday Times:
MP's SHOCK AT VIOLENT NAZI FILM
To summarise the lengthy article AND editorial they dedicate to said violent Nazi film:
Films with graphic everything are being sold freely on high streets. The BBFC have just unbanned a clutch of violent films banned 20 years ago, including SS Experiment Camp, and "quietly put them on sale in high street shops". The BBFC claims sensibilites have changed since first banned. However, MPs want more power to appeal against the boards decisions. the prime minister is set to meet a committee to discuss tightening up rules against "video nasties" (incedentally, if this campaign goes anywhere, I'll be really upset, but at least there'll be some interesting news coverage). The MPs are concerned these films desensitise us - and they are particulary worried about extremely low budget 70s exploitation flick SS Experiment Camp, which they add are "being sold alongside family films at high street shops". If that comment isn't trying to stir us up, I don't know what is. Jewish groups are also worried that these films trivialise the suffering of Holocaust victims. They then give a few details about the film's content, cue wincing in middle class households all over the country. "Because it has an 18 certificate, it can be sold on the same shelves as U and PG certificate films"
Stop the press. This article has an agenda. Can't they just tell us the news as it is, instead of overdramatising. I'm not sure whether the author has ever seen this film - I've seen the DVD box in my local store, and I can guarentee you it was a long way away from the PGs.
It continues: thus film was approved by the director, present and two vice-presidents of the BBFC. A spokeswoman added this very level soundbite:
"there is nothing in this film which anyone should have concerns about. It does not include harmful sexual violence. If there was any concern about it, we wouldn'y classify it. It is tasteless, but then I find most Mel Gibson films tasteless. if you are upset by something, that is your personal take on this. We do not believe that anyone watching this title is going to become anti-semetic as a result. We accept that people are going to be offended by it, but it is not going to create an attitude towards Jewish women that is harmful".
Meanwhile, a private members bill (whatever that is...) supported by senior MPs from all parties is being introduced to challenge the release of these extreme films. Brazier claims the release of said film is "a clear case of the BBFC failing to protect the public". It is not clear whether or not he has seen the film. He does add that "half of all males think that forced sex is justified under some circumstances", which I can't believe. Dunno where he's getting his facts from. They then go on to talk about the various MPs who are trying to get this garbage bill through parliament, but it's convincing enough to worry me, and they end up by adding that it's the 63rd anniversary of Holocaust Memorial Day.
First reaction - shock. The idea of all these stiffs in suits proclaiming lofty death on a film they haven't seen annoys me.
The funny thing is, I'm not sure where I stand on this. I'd be the first to defend a Real Film against such charges (say, A Clockwork Orange...), but this is SS Experiment Camp we're talking about. Even the title feels tackily exploitative (be thankful it isn't well known under it's other name, Captive Women II: Orgies of the Damned, which is even more amusingly dire)
It isn't even pretending to be art - and while the BBFC can claim it won't actively harm people who watch it, you can't deny that wanting to watch it proves you are one of a very nasty element of young men. Or women, there's no accounting for taste.
I talked about this at my Cambridge interview. Perhaps that's why I didn't get in? I was given a passage from Ovid, a Roman poet who wrote rather racy love poetry for which he was eventually exiled. The section I was given had him complaining that it is not his fault if people read his stuff then misbehave:
"If I’m allowed to present it in order, I’ll show, below,
the mind can be harmed by every sort of poem.
Yet every book’s not guilty because of it:
nothing’s useful, that can’t also wound.
What’s more useful than fire? Yet whoever sets out
to commit arson, arms his bold hands with fire.
Medicine sometimes grants health, sometimes destroy it,
showing which plants are helpful, which do harm.
The robber and cautious traveller both wear a sword:
one for ambush, the other for defence.
Eloquence is learnt to plead just causes:
it protects the guilty, crushes the innocent.
So with verse, read with a virtuous mind
it’ll be established nothing of mine will harm.
But I ‘corrupt some’? Whoever thinks so, errs,
and claims too much for my writings."
Final word: the point of the BBFC is to censor films. They are doing an awesome job. Leave them alone. Banning this (again...) is unecessary, and it sets up a dangerous precedent - SS Experiment Camp is indefensible on its own merits, but if the BBFC give in to public pressure this time, how long will it be until the same calls are being made about a film which IS art? The idea of rules being tightened up instinctively leaves a nasty taste in the mouth.
MP's SHOCK AT VIOLENT NAZI FILM
To summarise the lengthy article AND editorial they dedicate to said violent Nazi film:
Films with graphic everything are being sold freely on high streets. The BBFC have just unbanned a clutch of violent films banned 20 years ago, including SS Experiment Camp, and "quietly put them on sale in high street shops". The BBFC claims sensibilites have changed since first banned. However, MPs want more power to appeal against the boards decisions. the prime minister is set to meet a committee to discuss tightening up rules against "video nasties" (incedentally, if this campaign goes anywhere, I'll be really upset, but at least there'll be some interesting news coverage). The MPs are concerned these films desensitise us - and they are particulary worried about extremely low budget 70s exploitation flick SS Experiment Camp, which they add are "being sold alongside family films at high street shops". If that comment isn't trying to stir us up, I don't know what is. Jewish groups are also worried that these films trivialise the suffering of Holocaust victims. They then give a few details about the film's content, cue wincing in middle class households all over the country. "Because it has an 18 certificate, it can be sold on the same shelves as U and PG certificate films"
Stop the press. This article has an agenda. Can't they just tell us the news as it is, instead of overdramatising. I'm not sure whether the author has ever seen this film - I've seen the DVD box in my local store, and I can guarentee you it was a long way away from the PGs.
It continues: thus film was approved by the director, present and two vice-presidents of the BBFC. A spokeswoman added this very level soundbite:
"there is nothing in this film which anyone should have concerns about. It does not include harmful sexual violence. If there was any concern about it, we wouldn'y classify it. It is tasteless, but then I find most Mel Gibson films tasteless. if you are upset by something, that is your personal take on this. We do not believe that anyone watching this title is going to become anti-semetic as a result. We accept that people are going to be offended by it, but it is not going to create an attitude towards Jewish women that is harmful".
Meanwhile, a private members bill (whatever that is...) supported by senior MPs from all parties is being introduced to challenge the release of these extreme films. Brazier claims the release of said film is "a clear case of the BBFC failing to protect the public". It is not clear whether or not he has seen the film. He does add that "half of all males think that forced sex is justified under some circumstances", which I can't believe. Dunno where he's getting his facts from. They then go on to talk about the various MPs who are trying to get this garbage bill through parliament, but it's convincing enough to worry me, and they end up by adding that it's the 63rd anniversary of Holocaust Memorial Day.
First reaction - shock. The idea of all these stiffs in suits proclaiming lofty death on a film they haven't seen annoys me.
The funny thing is, I'm not sure where I stand on this. I'd be the first to defend a Real Film against such charges (say, A Clockwork Orange...), but this is SS Experiment Camp we're talking about. Even the title feels tackily exploitative (be thankful it isn't well known under it's other name, Captive Women II: Orgies of the Damned, which is even more amusingly dire)
It isn't even pretending to be art - and while the BBFC can claim it won't actively harm people who watch it, you can't deny that wanting to watch it proves you are one of a very nasty element of young men. Or women, there's no accounting for taste.
This film gets right to the heart of the argument - how nasty should our TV be allowed to be? Lots of other, better films have side-factors which muddy the issue - "it's funny", or "ironic", or "artistic" or "making a point", and thus defensible because it is (on some level) art. SS Experiment Camp is indefensible on those grounds; this is a purely moral argument.
So, morality then. BBFC policy is that adults should be able to watch what they like, if it isn't likely to cause actual harm. I'm not sure anyone can disagree with that too strongly. I like having the right to see this film, but don't particularly want to - and I don't mind others seeing it, particularly if it's from the desire to watch some kitch trash. I myself am a fan of really bad music, found on one of my favourite sites, the Museum of Bad Album Covers.
There has never been a conclusive study as to the relationship between violent films and real life crime, and until there is, neither side can use statistics to conclusively back up how much harm these things are doing. (I recently heard a radio interview with a batty theory that violent films decrease the crime rate, because they attract the Young Male demographic, get them off the streets and away from the alchohol. The sceptical interviewer shot it down almost instantly by asking if crime rates go up during Finding Nemo...)
It is my opinion that violent media unlocks something already within us - if you are a normal, well adjusted citizen, then these things may give you bad dreams, but it won't turn you into a psycho. And if it does, it's not the film alone that did that - and it's just triggering something which was inside already, whether from childhood abuse, genetics, mental disorder, frustration at the world or whatever scientists feel violence stems from. And that could be set off by anything. I have no proof, but it seems to make a sort of sense. Certainly films influence our behavior - I myself am very guilty of this. I fall into a fictional world, and it takes me a long time to claw my way back out. I have to make a conscious effort not to swear too much after seeing a film where language is in the rhythm of the script, I feel my opinions on war or suchlike change in response, I try to dress like my heroes. But I've never felt, even for an instant, more angry or vicious - sometimes more alive, maybe - but never more likely to rob old ladies after than before. I'm not denying that media and fiction influence us - I'm saying they don't turn us into something new. To ban A Particular Film for the protection of the public is to suggest a significant proportion of those who view it will go nuts as a direct result.
My dad's seen Natural Born Killers. He's still sane.
The BBFC are perhaps being a little optimistic when they say that "there is nothing in this film that anybody should have any concerns about". There's a lot to be concerned about any film this exploitative. But then again, they've seen it - I haven't, and neither have half those MPs, if I know anything about these debates. Mary Whitehouse never saw the films she chased; our local authorities hadn't seen Natural Born Killers when they kept it out of local cinemas. Lets see what the BBFC, who have watched it, have to say:
"The content of the film is in fact very mild and poorly executed. If anything, it was the title of the film and its original packaging that led to difficulties, rather than the content. The idea of the film may, of course, be offensive to some but that is not a good enough reason to cut or reject it. We would only cut or reject a film for adults if the content was illegal or harmful. "SS Experiment Camp" is neither illegal or harmful, just tasteless."
Amend "offensive to some" to "offensive to almost everyone", and they've got a good point there. Lets have a look at a review from IMDB:
"SS Experiment Camp" is a very, very badly made film - those of us with a taste for extremely sick kitsch watch it for its ludicrous, campy sleaziness - for which we should be thankful. If it was a well-made film, it would be pretty impossible to watch without puking your guts up."
Of course, this argument is getting close to territory I don't want to go into - if they can pass SS Experiment Camp because it's so bad it doesn't matter, what about films which are well made and nasty? A few more gems from IMDB:
"Please, do avoid this garbage at all costs."
"This film was, like The Driller Killer, banned in the UK because of the cover art; and that's hardly surprising, as aside from the aforementioned transplant and a few sex scenes; there really isn't anything here to warrant banning, or seeking the film out for."
"I really didn't expect anything this depressingly awful." (this from a guy who's set himself the challenge of seeing every one of the DPP Video Nasty list)
"a total failure on every possible level.This film was banned in Britain as a video nasty,but it surely isn't as outrageous as many people claim.In fact it's pretty tame even by today's standards. "
"Well, it is sleazy and in highly dubious taste but the execution of the film is so amateurish and unrealistic that it really sounds a lot worse than it actually is."
"If you like the worst of the worst (Or is it the best of the best?) you simply have to check out the Nazisploitation genre. They will NEVER make movies like this again. Thank God."
I'm not just plucking quotes to support my point, this is the unanimous verdict of everyone on the board. Which makes me wonder, what has this film done to deserve front-page treatment. Or, have any of those MPs seen this film - no where in the article does it mention it being rubbish. Banning this would be like New Line sueing me and my buddies for our 45 min Lord of the Rings, technically a good and lawful move, but actually a thorough waste of time.
In light of the fact this film is, supposedly, so lousy, it strikes me that they are giving it more notoriety than it strictly deserves. I mean honestly, Jewish groups are worried. I'm sorry about the Holocaust, I really genuinely am, but do you think a piece of turd like this will politicise anyone against the Jews? Of course not - hopefully, anyone watching it will take it as the exploitative trash it is. I've no doubt that anti-semetic films get made which deserve their concern; I've also no doubt that they get banned just as promptly by the BBFC as something "likely to cause harm". This is in no way a "Nazi video", as claimed by the Sunday Times - IMDB reviewers note that the Nazi element is purely background setting for an otherwise irrelevent series of events which would be much unchanged set in a normal prison, or a mad scientist's lair.
I talked about this at my Cambridge interview. Perhaps that's why I didn't get in? I was given a passage from Ovid, a Roman poet who wrote rather racy love poetry for which he was eventually exiled. The section I was given had him complaining that it is not his fault if people read his stuff then misbehave:
"If I’m allowed to present it in order, I’ll show, below,
the mind can be harmed by every sort of poem.
Yet every book’s not guilty because of it:
nothing’s useful, that can’t also wound.
What’s more useful than fire? Yet whoever sets out
to commit arson, arms his bold hands with fire.
Medicine sometimes grants health, sometimes destroy it,
showing which plants are helpful, which do harm.
The robber and cautious traveller both wear a sword:
one for ambush, the other for defence.
Eloquence is learnt to plead just causes:
it protects the guilty, crushes the innocent.
So with verse, read with a virtuous mind
it’ll be established nothing of mine will harm.
But I ‘corrupt some’? Whoever thinks so, errs,
and claims too much for my writings."
That's a translation from latin, but despite the gap of years, the video nasty debate instantly sprung to mind. Here's a little more:
"Anything can corrupt a perverted mind:
everything’s harmless in its proper place."
I love Ovid for his timeless modernity - that he can say something so true about poetry in his own time that it is still relevant today. Incidentally, I heartily recommend Ovid's Amores 1:14 to all teen girls, in which he complains his mistress is destroying her beautiful hair by dieing and straightening it - "tortured by fire and steel", as he puts it. One brilliant line complains that her hair is now " it was not black, and nor yet was it golden, but, though of neither colour, it was mixed with both". I'm sure you know what that disaster looks like...
Or, as Oscar Wilde puts it, "Books are neither moral nor immoral. They are either well written, or badly written - that is all."
SS Experiment Camp plainly doesn't deserve the fuss - if anything, it deserves to be forgotten as "badly written", not condemned as "immoral". It's a storm in a teacup over cheap, cold tea.
Final word: the point of the BBFC is to censor films. They are doing an awesome job. Leave them alone. Banning this (again...) is unecessary, and it sets up a dangerous precedent - SS Experiment Camp is indefensible on its own merits, but if the BBFC give in to public pressure this time, how long will it be until the same calls are being made about a film which IS art? The idea of rules being tightened up instinctively leaves a nasty taste in the mouth.
Top 100 Ways to Spoil A Top 100 list...(part 1)
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
I dislike the AFI - or, properly, their top 100 lists. They're too...for them, something in black and white is always better than something in colour.
To start with, by their very nature they are voting for soley American films - and anyone who know anything about film can tell you you're ignoring 70% of good movies through doing that. For me, a good list must have variety (and, obviously, pick Godfather I above Part II.) While 100 American films is good in theory, it cuts down on that variety. Argue if you like that there's plenty of variation witin the US - all to naught faced with a crowd who will vote for anything with James Stewart or Henry Fonda in it.
I don't feel that I have seen the spread of America's filmmaking ability looking at that list. My goodness, there are three Charlie Chaplin films. Now I've never seen any Charlie Chaplin, so I'm in position to judge, but it strikes me that if you're narrowing every film ever down to a fixed number, you should be throwing the net as wide as possible. They obviously have their own merits, but surely you only need one to get the idea? And don't try arguing it shows development or his comic range - it may be good, but it certainly ain't that complex. As a percentage, it implies 3% of American films are slapstick silents. (In fact, make that 4% - The General is also on that list.)
This was all tied up in a big bow by Morgan Freeman - yet again cast as a kind of "voiceover man" - providing some syrupy interludes before and after the ad breaks. Now when the Brits do top 100s, they have John Cleese or some other comedian making lame jokes in between. Accompanied by these horrible strings, that even 50s filmmakers would have rejected as "too sappy and OTT", he gravely intoned about how films touch our lives and influence both our past and our present. Do I smell stilton?
Incidentally, even though this destroys my point, it also got my goat by reaffirming the Oscar's greatest mistake - and listed Titanic at 83, and forgot L.A. Confidential (which was on the shortlist). That's above 12 Angry Men, Goodfellas, Toy Story and Blade Runner folks...
Still, I enjoyed hearing what directors had to say. Spike Lee, famous for his gritty city movies, likes Midnight Cowboy. M. Night, Mr Big Cinematic Emotion, likes The Shawshank Redemption, Rocky and - who'da thought it? - E.T.
In fact, what makes me hate this list more than anything. Two little words:
1.CITIZEN KANE (1941)
I ain't saying it's bad, just do something ORIGINAL!
The AFI revised list is here: http://connect.afi.com/site/DocServer/100Movies.pdf?docID=301
And in case my day couldn't get any worse, they're making a sequel to painfully cliched comeing-of-age-thru-dance flick Step Up.
To start with, by their very nature they are voting for soley American films - and anyone who know anything about film can tell you you're ignoring 70% of good movies through doing that. For me, a good list must have variety (and, obviously, pick Godfather I above Part II.) While 100 American films is good in theory, it cuts down on that variety. Argue if you like that there's plenty of variation witin the US - all to naught faced with a crowd who will vote for anything with James Stewart or Henry Fonda in it.
I don't feel that I have seen the spread of America's filmmaking ability looking at that list. My goodness, there are three Charlie Chaplin films. Now I've never seen any Charlie Chaplin, so I'm in position to judge, but it strikes me that if you're narrowing every film ever down to a fixed number, you should be throwing the net as wide as possible. They obviously have their own merits, but surely you only need one to get the idea? And don't try arguing it shows development or his comic range - it may be good, but it certainly ain't that complex. As a percentage, it implies 3% of American films are slapstick silents. (In fact, make that 4% - The General is also on that list.)
It suggests the "AFI's blue-ribbon panel of more than 1,500 leaders of the American movie community" don't know horsedung about movies. Literally, they all won Oscars. There isn't a single one I've never heard of. It's just so desperately worthy - I can't get excited about this list, not that they're not good films, but...
What do you think won it? I'll give you some clues...it ALWAYS wins if snobs are voting, but it's not Hitchcock. It's black and white (oooh, there's a suprise...) It's about Power, Age, America and the Human Condition. There's a snowglobe. And a sleigh.
I'm not denying it's good - how can I, I haven't seen it - but that doesn't mean its not a dull end to a dull show. The last top 50 I watched was exciting and vibrant - even the fact they only listed 50 was a measure of quality. Taken from all ages and all over the globe, see all of these and you could call yourself well watched. The highest film I had never heard of was listed at number five. That's a measure of the invention. Lets compare us some top tens:
10 – Manhattan – a smart and slow paced romance
9 – Donnie Darko – an unusual modern classic
8 – A Bout de Souffle - some exciting French new wave
7 -North by Northwest. - yeh, Hitchcock, but an unusual one.
6 – 2001:A Space Odyssey - interminably brilliant
5 – Sexy Beast - nasty but good natured sub-Scorcese Brit gangster flick
4- Chinatown – modern noir
3 – City of God - something foreign and worthy, but still vibrant
2 – The Apartment – a classic romantic comedy
1 – Apocalypse Now - a rock-n-roll protest film come war epic come goodness knows.
It's not so much the varying subject matter as the varying tone. They're brilliant, and good fun at the same time; they don't carry the weight of ages conferred by Cinematic Classic status, but are no less good for it. Lets see what the AFI think are the ten best things to come out of the States...
1 CITIZEN KANE - classic lengthy and serious (fictional) bio-epic
2 GODFATHER, THE - classic slow paced and serious family epic
2 GODFATHER, THE - classic slow paced and serious family epic
3 CASABLANCA - classic romance. Not too slow paced or serious, but getting there.
4 RAGING BULL - don't know enough to mock effectively. But it ain't a barrel of laughs.
5 SINGIN' IN THE RAIN - OK, I admit this is brilliant. It's fairly silly, it's pretty short in contrast too. But seriously...is this the fifth best film American ever came up with?
6 GONE WITH THE WIND - classic, studio-bound MAMMOTH of a historical epic.
7 LAWRENCE OF ARABIA - another classic historical epic, really serious, really long, and really BRITISH.
8 SCHINDLER'S LIST - very worthy film about - what else? - the Holocaust. In black and white. Serious is a given; jury's out on it's length
9 VERTIGO - Hitchcock. Serious, felt long, and has a total absence of joy.
10 WIZARD OF OZ, THE - technicolour musical, but still far too long and lacks spark.
4 RAGING BULL - don't know enough to mock effectively. But it ain't a barrel of laughs.
5 SINGIN' IN THE RAIN - OK, I admit this is brilliant. It's fairly silly, it's pretty short in contrast too. But seriously...is this the fifth best film American ever came up with?
6 GONE WITH THE WIND - classic, studio-bound MAMMOTH of a historical epic.
7 LAWRENCE OF ARABIA - another classic historical epic, really serious, really long, and really BRITISH.
8 SCHINDLER'S LIST - very worthy film about - what else? - the Holocaust. In black and white. Serious is a given; jury's out on it's length
9 VERTIGO - Hitchcock. Serious, felt long, and has a total absence of joy.
10 WIZARD OF OZ, THE - technicolour musical, but still far too long and lacks spark.
Oh, yawn. Sorry, dozed off there. Even adding the runtimes together would prove something, or scoring the number of Oscars. At some point on all of those films, a comittee sat down. I can name directors for half of them, and actors for most. There's a lack of innovation. They may be good individually, but together they're virtuallly the same film eight times over. The US has animators, comedians, indie filmmakers, purveyors of enthusiasm and energy, and people who make films WITHOUT songs.
And let me reiterate - two musicals in the top ten? Are you serious? Using my illogical percentage trick again, this implies 20% of America's best films are musicals.
It's just so very old school. Perhaps it's the lack of foreign flavour - in that company, even Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid seems a bit dull (and that's my favourite film, folks)
Recently, they did a ten-year update of their 100 films list to celebrate what's changed in the past ten years. Bit of a shock for a crowd who are still suprised by the concept of colour television. As such, they made a few basic errors, like not voting Fight Club, The Matrix, American Beauty, Memento, Donnie Darko onto their list.
By the way, those aren't films I especially love - just highly acclaimed crackers from the top of the Imdb 250 which appear on a high percentage of other lists.
They're not remotely in contact with real people. Hate populist lists if you like (and I frequently do), voting Star Wars top and all that - but this is completely out of touch. I'd have a fight on my hands claiming Saving Private Ryan, the Sixth Sense and Fellowship of the Ring were the best three films of the last ten years.
They even voted for Intolerance over Birth of a Nation, which shows an awful tendency towards being PC. This is my problem with this list - there's no suprises, nothing likely to alarm. Just very middle of the road, and very well behaved. Sample dialogue:
"ooooh, what about Pulp Fiction?" Says one panel member, "it's very famous!"
"Put it on the list," says the other, "but not near the top where any human with eyes would - after all, it has revitalised cinema and suggested a new way of doing things, it's in colour, it's unhealthy fun and doesn't involve Orson Welles. No, we can't ignore it, but we'll leave it langishing at 94 to put it in its place...upstarts!"
It's not that I especially care about Pulp Fiction (don't smirk, I meant that!). Just look at that list and tell me it's not the odd one out. We shouldn't cater to da youf, but it's like a big shield for the AFI against the accusation they only vote for cosy 50's fare. Yeh. One. Now what about everything else? Wot, no Coen brothers?
They're not films which are going to get your pulse racing with excitement. Cold blooded admiration, perhaps, but not much spice, and absolutely no quirk.
Perhaps the criteria is at fault. Even though it professes to be America's 100 greatest, the official ballot points you towards films which have:
CRITICAL RECOGNITION
Formal commendation in print, television and digital media.
MAJOR AWARD WINNER
Recognition from competitive events including awards from peer groups, critics, guilds and major film festivals. (note that minor film festivals are excluded...)
POPULARITY OVER TIME
Including success at the box office, television and cable airings, and DVD/VHS sales and rentals.
HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE
A film's mark on the history of the moving image through visionary narrative devices, technical innovation, or other groundbreaking achievements.
CULTURAL IMPACT
A film's mark on American society in matters of style and substance.
Formal commendation in print, television and digital media.
MAJOR AWARD WINNER
Recognition from competitive events including awards from peer groups, critics, guilds and major film festivals. (note that minor film festivals are excluded...)
POPULARITY OVER TIME
Including success at the box office, television and cable airings, and DVD/VHS sales and rentals.
HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE
A film's mark on the history of the moving image through visionary narrative devices, technical innovation, or other groundbreaking achievements.
CULTURAL IMPACT
A film's mark on American society in matters of style and substance.
None of those make a great film. How many people like it. What the professionals think. What bull. Historical significance and cultural impact I have more sympathy for, but it doesn't matter whether it broke gay rights records if it's still a dull film. (incidentally, as far as I can see, In the Heat of the Night is the only one with any genuine "significance", and it looks brilliant).
Or perhaps its the voters, who ignored these shortlisted films:
Airplane!, Alien, American Beauty, Austen Powers (what was THAT doing there?!), Babe (ditto!), Back to the Future, Being John Malkovich, Brazil, The Breakfast Club, Die Hard, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Fantasia, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Fight Club, Freaks, Ghostbusters, Grease, Harold and Maude, Jurassic Park, Lost in translation, The Matrix, Memento, Moulin Rouge!, Requiem for a Dream, The Rocky Horror damn Picture Show, Scarface, sex lies and videotape, Shrek, Sideways, Stand By Me, the Sting, this Is Spinal Tap, Three Kings, Traffic...
Are they good? Not necessarily. Are they bona fide classics with a meaty message about justice? NO. They're innovative, newfangled, exciting and films which real people watch. Put two of those films back on the AFI hundred, and all of a sudden you have some suprises.
PS - isn't funny how 4/5 of the modern films I said were missing were shortlisted?
At least The Jazz Singer wasn't there...
What makes an "American film" anyway? Splitting these things can be pretty tricky.
They might have The Third Man at no 57., because Orson Welles is God, but as far as I can see that's stealing - it's definitely a British film. And as if to prove my point, the BFI rank it at no. 1 on their top 100. Incidentally, the BFi also have two David Lean films in the top ten, which reinstates my faith - I could have been sure he was a Brit. So I was a little suprised to see Bridge on the River Kwai and Lawrence of Arabia listed by the AFI. I was pretty sure Clockwork Orange counted as British as well...
See what I mean? It just does little things to wind me up...
This was all tied up in a big bow by Morgan Freeman - yet again cast as a kind of "voiceover man" - providing some syrupy interludes before and after the ad breaks. Now when the Brits do top 100s, they have John Cleese or some other comedian making lame jokes in between. Accompanied by these horrible strings, that even 50s filmmakers would have rejected as "too sappy and OTT", he gravely intoned about how films touch our lives and influence both our past and our present. Do I smell stilton?
Incidentally, even though this destroys my point, it also got my goat by reaffirming the Oscar's greatest mistake - and listed Titanic at 83, and forgot L.A. Confidential (which was on the shortlist). That's above 12 Angry Men, Goodfellas, Toy Story and Blade Runner folks...
Still, I enjoyed hearing what directors had to say. Spike Lee, famous for his gritty city movies, likes Midnight Cowboy. M. Night, Mr Big Cinematic Emotion, likes The Shawshank Redemption, Rocky and - who'da thought it? - E.T.
In fact, what makes me hate this list more than anything. Two little words:
1.CITIZEN KANE (1941)
I ain't saying it's bad, just do something ORIGINAL!
The AFI revised list is here: http://connect.afi.com/site/DocServer/100Movies.pdf?docID=301
And in case my day couldn't get any worse, they're making a sequel to painfully cliched comeing-of-age-thru-dance flick Step Up.
Sunday, December 23, 2007
WARNING: below I will be defending films I haven't seen.
Movie criticism isn't necessarily about criticising things. Films should be judged on two levels - how Good they are, in a Fritz Lang sense, and how Enjoyable, in a Michael Bay sense. This involves taking into account the films target audience, and not being so keen to criticise that you forget it.
It is with that opener I introduce you to Cosmo Landesman, the stingiest critic ever to grace the pages of Culture, and the ONLY person in the known universe who has given I'm Not There anything under five stars.
CL, as he signs himself in the Sunday Times, has been getting on my nerves for well over a year now. He first caught my attention by giving every big new film a bad review. He's the polar opposite of the Hollywood "quote whores" - being overly critical to get noticed.
Now, it could be just because they are all bad. How should I know? I've seen hardly any of them? But when every film reviewed in a full page spread gets bad press, then you've got to be suspicious - especially with Empire and Total Film whispering the opposite in my ear.
Todays Sunday Times offered me the following gems for your entertainment:
Movie criticism isn't necessarily about criticising things. Films should be judged on two levels - how Good they are, in a Fritz Lang sense, and how Enjoyable, in a Michael Bay sense. This involves taking into account the films target audience, and not being so keen to criticise that you forget it.
It is with that opener I introduce you to Cosmo Landesman, the stingiest critic ever to grace the pages of Culture, and the ONLY person in the known universe who has given I'm Not There anything under five stars.
CL, as he signs himself in the Sunday Times, has been getting on my nerves for well over a year now. He first caught my attention by giving every big new film a bad review. He's the polar opposite of the Hollywood "quote whores" - being overly critical to get noticed.
Now, it could be just because they are all bad. How should I know? I've seen hardly any of them? But when every film reviewed in a full page spread gets bad press, then you've got to be suspicious - especially with Empire and Total Film whispering the opposite in my ear.
Todays Sunday Times offered me the following gems for your entertainment:
- "Devoid of any visual inspiration of its own, it draws on the cartoon gothicness of the school's creator, Ronald Searle" - CL complains that St Trinians is too faithful to the original for no good reason.
- "This is the sixth, and hopefully the last, film in the St Trinian's series...may it rest in peace" - can we trust a review by someone who hated the concept in the first place?
- "there's no narrative you can hold onto; like its subject, this film doesn't have a center", "escapes any meaningful definition" - CL completely misses the point of I'm Not There. The patchwork approach is an attempt to avoid Walk the Line style bio-dullness. I haven't seen this film I'm defending, but Empire has seen it and that's good enough for me. And all of CL's complaints can apply so well to Todd Haynes' earlier Velvet Goldmine that it's like I have seen it.
- "fantastically boring" - CL disagrees with absolutely everyone.
- "silly and and undistinguishable" - CL on I am Legend, a film he gives 3 stars.
- "two stars" - CL on The Kite Runner, that best-foreign-language give-the-kids-Oscars frontrunner you might have heard of. He complains the guilt -> redemption plot is too much of an "American message", and then complains that the adult Amir is getting on with his life like a real person would instead of moping in a strings-and-hankies American style.
- "This film is neigher a hard-hitting saga abiyt the realities of Afghan life, nor a warm uplifting tale of friendship" - this comment, again on The Kite Runner, offends me deeply. You dislike this film because it doesn't fall into these two particular boxes you wanted it in? Well, if it can't be labelled then it must be bad.
- "Foster takes us into another world - and it ends up looking just like our own" - clever last line, but I don't see that's a problem at all. Why shouldn't people from Afghanistan react to bad things exactly the same way we do? No, don't answer that.
They come to you with smiles.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Today's post is all about someone you have a lot of respect for letting you down. But more of that later.
Film Studies exam yesterday. Oh dear. Now I want it logged there wasn't much more I could have done in terms of revision. The questions weren't especially nasty, just dull and uninspiring. "How important are film websites for promoting purposes compared to other channels of getting audiences in". "What benefits are there for Hollywood in remaking other things". "How are From Russia With Love's messages and values conveyed through sound and image in the final sequence (this question was evil; I did not do well at it at all...) "Dicuss the depictions of sexual behavior in the films you have studied" NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! What did I say yesterday? Anything except gender and sex, please something I can discuss Hard Days Night, please please nothing about Darling. That was not the most fun three hours I've spent this week. But it's over now. Which isn't exactly a comfort.
Film Studies over. We wrote a very nice letter to our headmistress asking her to continue it for another year, like all the other subjects. Our FS teacher told us, in advance and on the quiet, that she'd turned it down. Which was a bit of a blow, especially as I've got a great coursework essay bubbling under. It's just because our school wants a reputation for doing "proper subjects". Now I feel pretty passionate about this (especially as the school has already discontinued two other subjects me and Friend 2 wanted to take at A-level) and the obvious option is to move to one of our other local schools to continue these subjects. I'd really like to, just to make a point about how the school has just effectively screwed our futures up, but just can't. There's simply no way I could leave this school. In the light of the aforementioned refusals, it's a desperately misplaced loyalty.
It was good of him to inform us, because our headmistress hasn't had the decency to reply herself yet. It's been about two months. I even made a point of marching my co-signatories of the said letter up to assembly every day for a few weeks, in case she announced she wanted to see us. We said in the coda to our letter that we would really like to talk to her about whether it would be possible, and would be happy to talk with anybody else involved in the decision, and we need your help to work out who these other people are. Until she actually replies to us, there's not much else we can do. And it's damn rude of her not to have. More misplaced loyalty badly damaged (at least she hasn't had my family shot though; see below)
Film Studies needs more respect. It merely uses the same skills as English, and applies them to a different medium. Perhaps, in a way, its more worthy. Because you can read anything into books, but if you're reading something into a film, most likely it's been put there. On Friday, I'll be in my exam writing about how Dracula is actually one big metaphor for sex. Now of course Bram Stoker didn't sit down and think "hmmm, lets see whether I can get away with this by pretending it's a monster story" - perhaps it was subconscious, perhaps not. But this reading the smallest meaning into every word and line is tripe. I write, and most of the time that's that. I don't think "if I make the curtains vermillion, it ties in with the underlying theme of futility in the novel". I'll admit there are horrible personal allegories at work under everything I write, but I only ever notice that afterwards.
But in films, if you can see something then it's probably been put there. It's expensive, it involves hundreds of people, and you can't just accidentally use jumpy music and grim mise-en-scene and then claim it was unintentional when peeps get freaked out. I've been told that I can do anything at all I want to do at university, as long as it's not Psychology, or Sports Science, or Media Studies etc...Now I know that I'm eventually going to do English with Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. Not because I like English - I pathologically disagree with it, it's a heap of bull; see above - but because it's easy and the only way to continue my interest in film (most English courses have a few token filmstudies modules thrown in).
To get into university, you only need to demonstrate passion for your subject and get good grades. I'd kinda like to continue Latin, but I know I couldn't survive an interview for it - I enjoy it, and that's my only qualification. I haven't read many other authors, I have no opinion on where the Elgin Marbles should be, I don't care what the Romans ate for breakfast. I just like translating things in and out of the language. I could go and do English, because our teachers have started an "Oxbridge Club" in which we discuss poetry and power-read hypocritically until we can feign an interest in The Impact of Feminism on Medieval American Literature at interview. I love Oscar Wilde, for example. I've got two copies of his complete works, and voluentarily read several biographies, several times. I'm not interested in going and pulling them apart, and reading his life into them. Which is what English at uni will inevitably center around. And film? I use words like chiascuro in ordinary conversation. I have favourite directors I'm willing to talk about. There's probably as much bull about on film as there is on literature, but the point is I can discuss film.
To a certain extent, everyone is entitled to an opinion. But the more films you watch, the more informed your opinion can be. Same with books, art, opera, whatever. I've been reading through the "1001 books you must read before you die". I know whether I liked them or not, but I couldn't review them as fully as any film. Take a Certain Scene in Pulp Fiction. On one level, it's just a bog standard question of "what's easiest to kill people with: bats, chainsaws or swords?" but once you appreciate QT's love of Eastern cinema, and general superiority on all things film to everybody on the planet, the choice of a samuri weapon becomes more meaningful. It doesn't make the uninitiated's opinion less valid, but it does enhance your understanding. You can say "Jackie Brown was good", but if you've seen Foxy Brown, Coffy and sat through the Pam Grier conversation in Dogs your take will be far better informed.
Until you know there are Directors of Photography, and people whose job it is to light scenes or design sets reflecting the protagonist's mindset, how can you be expected to pick up on these things? Recently, I've caught Friend 4 using the word cinematography on occasion - I must have accidentally indoctrinated her.
Casual film watchers only appreciate the superficiality of film, but once you pick up on these things it's like a third eye opening - suddenly, you appreciate the bigger picture. It's about more than "just what happens". Can you remember the first time you realised what I director actually does? For me, it was the last 30 seconds of The Sixth Sense. It hadn't occoured to me that films were actually good before that. I'd enjoyed them, but not truly thought they were "well made". Until then, I didn't have a concept of what "well made could mean". It's the difference between saying "then she was attacked" and spending a paragraph of onomatopoea building up suspense. It's the difference between Ed Wood plonking his camera down and getting people to act in front of it and Spielburg holding the camera at child's-eye view in Close Encounters. It's why I can say "Heat and Broken Flowers were good, but I didn't like them" whereas for the latter, my mother's comment was "that was a bad film". Wrong.
I'm a casual reader - I want a good story, and most likely I miss the things which better readers pick up on which makes "great novels" great. But I'd trounce them at discussing Birth of a Nation any day. But that's it for me and film studies. Not that you need it to become a great director (QT left school at 16, so I've a year up on him...) but it's pretty unlikely I'll manage it anyway (being female and British, but especially female), and it would be more useful for the kinda journalistic work I'm going to end up in.
I've always said I wouldn't become a journalist; it's a running joke between me and the world, which keeps recommending me for journalism competitions, workshops et al. Upstairs, I've a plan a teacher drew me of the best way to start my career as a journalist. But lookie-do at this. Online movie review-and-rant blog and reviewing films for the local paper. Shitake mushrooms. How the hell did that happen?
Last night we watched Road to Perdition. I’d like to say there were a lot of things which could have been better: actually, I think it’d be closer to say there was a lot of things which could have been different.
“Gangster” isn’t one catchall category. You get cool ones, gritty ones, cheery ones. You probaby shouldn't show a girl Goodfellas on a first date - conversely, my sister is addicted to The Black Donnellys*, a now-cancelled gangster show aimed squarely at teen girls. Well this is a gangster film for mums – primarily a sentimental movie-cum-period drama about the relationship between father and son. I’d compare it to The Pursuit of Happyness, only I haven’t seen it so I can’t with any fairness. This isn’t a blinding criticism – some people will love the family focus. But the side of the story which interested me wasn’t the inevitable growing bond between our heroes, but the deep, deep betrayal between Sullivan and his own family. Sullivan loses everything. I like a good friendship, and a good friendship gone sour and broken is even better.
It’s not exactly the film’s fault it didn’t cater to me personally, but it could have tried harder to wring something new about the bonding thing. Having decided to make the journey the center of the story, the plot needed a trim – indeed, they needed to cut back on the scenes I liked. It took far too long to get going. The instant wow is sadly lacking – it falls back into the Godfather tradition of “lets have a party to introduce everyone”. The joy about, say, Run Lola Run is that the first thing that happens is the plot. Straight away, you get to see what you came to see. Road to P makes you wait for about half an hour until the setup ends and the story actually begins. While a leasurly pace can sometimes be praised, this film feels sorta uncomfortable until you get there, on tenterhooks waiting for it to start properly. The plot lurches horribly between upbeat family movie and uber-bleak crime epic. Paul Newman, Daniel Craig and Stanley Tucci (characters I wanted to see more of) disappear for the entire center and are brought back for a tidy resolution. And they make little sense in a film structured as Michael jnr’s nostalgic recollections – how much of those happenings would Mike snr have shared with his son? None whatsoever. So how did he find out about them?
Even the script needed a bit of a polish. Some of the lines were awful, especially between father and son. Not stand-out clangers, but predictable and tired. Here's a sample - it's in spoilertext just in case, but it won't significantly ruin your watch:
Michael Sullivan, Jr.: Did you like Peter more than me?
Michael Sullivan: No. I loved you both the same.
Michael Sullivan, Jr.: You were always... different with me.
Michael Sullivan: Was I? [Sullivan thinks for a while] Well, I suppose it was because Peter was just... such a sweet little boy, you know? And you... you were more like me. And I... didn't want you to be.
Even if you're thinking it, you're hardly going to say it, are you? Especially not Sullivan, who'se not a chatty emotive person. Anything else I can complain about? Seriously, I did like this film, but you wouldn’t know it to read the review, would you? Jeez…I remember. Thomas Newman…
There are very few film musicians I can say “oooooh that’s him!” before the name comes up on the credits (Danny Elfman’s a notable exception). I’ve done it twice for Thomas Newman recently – during Shawshank, and this evening – and it’s because I’ve never been comfortable with him as a composer since I mistook his American Beauty music for A Series of Unfortuante Events and realized they were identical.Is he widely respected? His music seems samey and false to me. Road to Perdition used the same piano motifs as American Beauty – I don’t like to criticize, as this complaint could be leveled at most composers, but he does seem to only ever use the same sound palette.
American Beauty wasn’t meant to be real. The locations were too perfect, the characters virtual archetypes – the plot a deliberate satire on modern life. This isn’t meant as an insult – and the surreality of the whole thing suited Newman’s style (the sad piano, the wistful strings, the occasional tang of glass, metal and I don’t know what suiting the ironic tone. Even the cheesy “perfect movie music” he creates complimented the “perfect life” veneer that that film was all about. In Road to Perdition, the same ingredients went wrong – the strange modern noises were at odds with the sepia tone, and cheesiness tipped over into uncontrolled sentimentality without the acerbic wink to reel it back. Film music should be undetectable. It should support the scene, not prop it up, except where being deliberately contrapuntal with the images. When you notice it, it should be because it is beautiful and perfect. Not because it is mistimed, too intrusive and you want it to go away.
This is a case of the parts being greater than the whole - the plot is, on the whole, average, but the film is still worth a watch for all the trimmings.
The supporting cast are uniformly fantastic - Daniel Craig, who was disappointing in Layer Cake, turns up a relistic and strangely sympathetic performance in what could have been a pantomime role. Stanley Tucci is unrecognisable, but still very impressive as the Corleone-style businessman, with sympathy and practicality turning on a knife's edge. They come to you with smiles, they come as your friends, the people who've cared for you all of your life. And they always seem to come at a time that you're at your weakest and most in need of their help.
Paul Newman is naturally all star. He just can’t say one thing and mean it – he delivers a line, yet always says at least two other thoughts with it. His paternal twinkle at the wake is charming, even as you know that he most likely had the guy scrubbed. I didn’t just enjoy the piano scene because I have a thing for pianos – it was the warm, fuzzy love you could feel. Rooney is stuck neck deep in moral turd for most of this film, and I would have loved to see more of it. As it stands, the basement conversation, the car in the rain, the moments with his son and his beautiful freefall in the Stanley Tucci scene stand out as the best damn bits of the film. I would have like liked much more of him.
Jude Law. He’s young, he’s hot, he’s in the glossies all the time, ergo he can’t act. Right? Wrong. This wasn’t Brando by any means, but I loved his character. Even the way he moved, and drove, and put masses of sugar in his tea and had a really unusual-looking gun were all tiny wonderful character quirks. It’s a beautiful films, and his death photos were wonderfully alluring. I don’t think he’s particularly handsome meself, but in this film he just looks mean.
With such a great bunch of interesting and complex characters waiting on the sidelines, it's a pity they had to focus in on the two worst and least interesting performances of the film. I mean, Tom Hanks. Can this man act? He wasn’t bad, but he was far from good – he rarely changed his expression. Argue, if you like, that it was the Al Pacino school of acting with the eyes, and you’ve got a fair point, but still…he was always wearing a costume. He looked like he was acting; at least, he never ceased looking like Tom Hanks. I didn’t believe him, he felt wrong and uncomfortable. The son too wasn’t great – pretty good by childactor standards, but Dakota Fanning could trounce him any day – which left me unsympathetic to the central plot. At times, this film is like being at a bad party - you're just hanging around hoping somebody interesting's going to show up and start dancing. It remains watchable for these brief, great boogies.
This goes without saying, but the subdued browny colour scheme made me very happy indeed. It's very very pwettyful - reminded me of M Night's films at time, perticularly Unbreakable and Sixth Sense. In fact, now I think of it, there were lots of M-Nighty touches throughout. Conrad L. Hall's a name I'm familiar with - and checking imdb, it seems he's the guy who did Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. What a legend. The ending by the beach is beautifully shot - predictable, but perhaps the fact we know exactly what's going to happen is deliberate? Even if the plot's a drag, its very watchable just for all of this prettyness. This film contains the coolest reverse dolly zoom I have seen in a long time.
Jeez, now it sounds like I didn’t like it. I did like it, It was good and I recommend it to certain people. There's a hell of a lot of fantastic things, let down by the central plot.
It's definitely not recommended for your "cliche crime-fan" who likes their gangsters to be cool, ruthless wiseguys. There's hardly any swearing, very little blood and the mobsters are all thoroughly decent blokes underneath. More Godfather than Goodfellas - more family and rose-tinted glasses, with no street-smarts whatsoever. It's a good gangster film for people who don't like gangster films - it takes out the politics, and focuses on the emotions. And even though this post has been stack full of complaints, I'd be willing to watch it again for those little moments that almost made it great.
*(Take Goodfellas, but remove the music, the slick editing and give it all the little things which make TV inferior to film. Now take a plot surrounding four brothers, including say, the nice one, the impulsive one, the fanciable-doesn’t-want-to-get-involved-but-is-secretly-a-calculating-gangster-genius (now try not to think the words Fredo, Sonny and Michael) Oh, but make it about the Irish mob so nobody notices. And structure it around an unreliable-narrator recounting the events from jail. So the Usual Suspects influence isn’t quite as jarring as the others – Joey Ice Cream is pretty cool. I’m not saying that it’s bad. It has lots of merits – particularly how Joey’s dodgy memories are woven into the storylines. The frenetic story arc (one episode=one day as the various consequences of one little murder gradually get more and more convaluted) is fun to watch, and it has some amusing moments. But it’s got the emotional complexity of a soap opera. Impulsive-brother Jimmie is just vile. His brothers love him, because he's a brother, but we aren't invited to share this affection - compare to Sonny in the Godfather, who makes as many mistakes, but is still ultimately loveable somehow. It really wants to be hip and streetwise, but doesn't manage - the criminals are all desperately nice. I'm not saying that real life criminals are irredeemably evil, but still... Meanwhile, the plot doesn't tally - the brothers are really small-time - they don't have soldiers, or even body guards yet the death toll keeps rising and they certainly don't have the clout to pay off the police. Surely somebody would start investigating if 6 people died in under 2 days? Not to mention the characters left without fingers and toes. It's E.R. meets crime epic, and compared to The Sopranos, it just can’t compete....)
Film Studies exam yesterday. Oh dear. Now I want it logged there wasn't much more I could have done in terms of revision. The questions weren't especially nasty, just dull and uninspiring. "How important are film websites for promoting purposes compared to other channels of getting audiences in". "What benefits are there for Hollywood in remaking other things". "How are From Russia With Love's messages and values conveyed through sound and image in the final sequence (this question was evil; I did not do well at it at all...) "Dicuss the depictions of sexual behavior in the films you have studied" NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! What did I say yesterday? Anything except gender and sex, please something I can discuss Hard Days Night, please please nothing about Darling. That was not the most fun three hours I've spent this week. But it's over now. Which isn't exactly a comfort.
Film Studies over. We wrote a very nice letter to our headmistress asking her to continue it for another year, like all the other subjects. Our FS teacher told us, in advance and on the quiet, that she'd turned it down. Which was a bit of a blow, especially as I've got a great coursework essay bubbling under. It's just because our school wants a reputation for doing "proper subjects". Now I feel pretty passionate about this (especially as the school has already discontinued two other subjects me and Friend 2 wanted to take at A-level) and the obvious option is to move to one of our other local schools to continue these subjects. I'd really like to, just to make a point about how the school has just effectively screwed our futures up, but just can't. There's simply no way I could leave this school. In the light of the aforementioned refusals, it's a desperately misplaced loyalty.
It was good of him to inform us, because our headmistress hasn't had the decency to reply herself yet. It's been about two months. I even made a point of marching my co-signatories of the said letter up to assembly every day for a few weeks, in case she announced she wanted to see us. We said in the coda to our letter that we would really like to talk to her about whether it would be possible, and would be happy to talk with anybody else involved in the decision, and we need your help to work out who these other people are. Until she actually replies to us, there's not much else we can do. And it's damn rude of her not to have. More misplaced loyalty badly damaged (at least she hasn't had my family shot though; see below)
Film Studies needs more respect. It merely uses the same skills as English, and applies them to a different medium. Perhaps, in a way, its more worthy. Because you can read anything into books, but if you're reading something into a film, most likely it's been put there. On Friday, I'll be in my exam writing about how Dracula is actually one big metaphor for sex. Now of course Bram Stoker didn't sit down and think "hmmm, lets see whether I can get away with this by pretending it's a monster story" - perhaps it was subconscious, perhaps not. But this reading the smallest meaning into every word and line is tripe. I write, and most of the time that's that. I don't think "if I make the curtains vermillion, it ties in with the underlying theme of futility in the novel". I'll admit there are horrible personal allegories at work under everything I write, but I only ever notice that afterwards.
But in films, if you can see something then it's probably been put there. It's expensive, it involves hundreds of people, and you can't just accidentally use jumpy music and grim mise-en-scene and then claim it was unintentional when peeps get freaked out. I've been told that I can do anything at all I want to do at university, as long as it's not Psychology, or Sports Science, or Media Studies etc...Now I know that I'm eventually going to do English with Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. Not because I like English - I pathologically disagree with it, it's a heap of bull; see above - but because it's easy and the only way to continue my interest in film (most English courses have a few token filmstudies modules thrown in).
To get into university, you only need to demonstrate passion for your subject and get good grades. I'd kinda like to continue Latin, but I know I couldn't survive an interview for it - I enjoy it, and that's my only qualification. I haven't read many other authors, I have no opinion on where the Elgin Marbles should be, I don't care what the Romans ate for breakfast. I just like translating things in and out of the language. I could go and do English, because our teachers have started an "Oxbridge Club" in which we discuss poetry and power-read hypocritically until we can feign an interest in The Impact of Feminism on Medieval American Literature at interview. I love Oscar Wilde, for example. I've got two copies of his complete works, and voluentarily read several biographies, several times. I'm not interested in going and pulling them apart, and reading his life into them. Which is what English at uni will inevitably center around. And film? I use words like chiascuro in ordinary conversation. I have favourite directors I'm willing to talk about. There's probably as much bull about on film as there is on literature, but the point is I can discuss film.
To a certain extent, everyone is entitled to an opinion. But the more films you watch, the more informed your opinion can be. Same with books, art, opera, whatever. I've been reading through the "1001 books you must read before you die". I know whether I liked them or not, but I couldn't review them as fully as any film. Take a Certain Scene in Pulp Fiction. On one level, it's just a bog standard question of "what's easiest to kill people with: bats, chainsaws or swords?" but once you appreciate QT's love of Eastern cinema, and general superiority on all things film to everybody on the planet, the choice of a samuri weapon becomes more meaningful. It doesn't make the uninitiated's opinion less valid, but it does enhance your understanding. You can say "Jackie Brown was good", but if you've seen Foxy Brown, Coffy and sat through the Pam Grier conversation in Dogs your take will be far better informed.
Until you know there are Directors of Photography, and people whose job it is to light scenes or design sets reflecting the protagonist's mindset, how can you be expected to pick up on these things? Recently, I've caught Friend 4 using the word cinematography on occasion - I must have accidentally indoctrinated her.
Casual film watchers only appreciate the superficiality of film, but once you pick up on these things it's like a third eye opening - suddenly, you appreciate the bigger picture. It's about more than "just what happens". Can you remember the first time you realised what I director actually does? For me, it was the last 30 seconds of The Sixth Sense. It hadn't occoured to me that films were actually good before that. I'd enjoyed them, but not truly thought they were "well made". Until then, I didn't have a concept of what "well made could mean". It's the difference between saying "then she was attacked" and spending a paragraph of onomatopoea building up suspense. It's the difference between Ed Wood plonking his camera down and getting people to act in front of it and Spielburg holding the camera at child's-eye view in Close Encounters. It's why I can say "Heat and Broken Flowers were good, but I didn't like them" whereas for the latter, my mother's comment was "that was a bad film". Wrong.
I'm a casual reader - I want a good story, and most likely I miss the things which better readers pick up on which makes "great novels" great. But I'd trounce them at discussing Birth of a Nation any day. But that's it for me and film studies. Not that you need it to become a great director (QT left school at 16, so I've a year up on him...) but it's pretty unlikely I'll manage it anyway (being female and British, but especially female), and it would be more useful for the kinda journalistic work I'm going to end up in.
I've always said I wouldn't become a journalist; it's a running joke between me and the world, which keeps recommending me for journalism competitions, workshops et al. Upstairs, I've a plan a teacher drew me of the best way to start my career as a journalist. But lookie-do at this. Online movie review-and-rant blog and reviewing films for the local paper. Shitake mushrooms. How the hell did that happen?
Last night we watched Road to Perdition. I’d like to say there were a lot of things which could have been better: actually, I think it’d be closer to say there was a lot of things which could have been different.
“Gangster” isn’t one catchall category. You get cool ones, gritty ones, cheery ones. You probaby shouldn't show a girl Goodfellas on a first date - conversely, my sister is addicted to The Black Donnellys*, a now-cancelled gangster show aimed squarely at teen girls. Well this is a gangster film for mums – primarily a sentimental movie-cum-period drama about the relationship between father and son. I’d compare it to The Pursuit of Happyness, only I haven’t seen it so I can’t with any fairness. This isn’t a blinding criticism – some people will love the family focus. But the side of the story which interested me wasn’t the inevitable growing bond between our heroes, but the deep, deep betrayal between Sullivan and his own family. Sullivan loses everything. I like a good friendship, and a good friendship gone sour and broken is even better.
It’s not exactly the film’s fault it didn’t cater to me personally, but it could have tried harder to wring something new about the bonding thing. Having decided to make the journey the center of the story, the plot needed a trim – indeed, they needed to cut back on the scenes I liked. It took far too long to get going. The instant wow is sadly lacking – it falls back into the Godfather tradition of “lets have a party to introduce everyone”. The joy about, say, Run Lola Run is that the first thing that happens is the plot. Straight away, you get to see what you came to see. Road to P makes you wait for about half an hour until the setup ends and the story actually begins. While a leasurly pace can sometimes be praised, this film feels sorta uncomfortable until you get there, on tenterhooks waiting for it to start properly. The plot lurches horribly between upbeat family movie and uber-bleak crime epic. Paul Newman, Daniel Craig and Stanley Tucci (characters I wanted to see more of) disappear for the entire center and are brought back for a tidy resolution. And they make little sense in a film structured as Michael jnr’s nostalgic recollections – how much of those happenings would Mike snr have shared with his son? None whatsoever. So how did he find out about them?
Even the script needed a bit of a polish. Some of the lines were awful, especially between father and son. Not stand-out clangers, but predictable and tired. Here's a sample - it's in spoilertext just in case, but it won't significantly ruin your watch:
Michael Sullivan, Jr.: Did you like Peter more than me?
Michael Sullivan: No. I loved you both the same.
Michael Sullivan, Jr.: You were always... different with me.
Michael Sullivan: Was I? [Sullivan thinks for a while] Well, I suppose it was because Peter was just... such a sweet little boy, you know? And you... you were more like me. And I... didn't want you to be.
Even if you're thinking it, you're hardly going to say it, are you? Especially not Sullivan, who'se not a chatty emotive person. Anything else I can complain about? Seriously, I did like this film, but you wouldn’t know it to read the review, would you? Jeez…I remember. Thomas Newman…
There are very few film musicians I can say “oooooh that’s him!” before the name comes up on the credits (Danny Elfman’s a notable exception). I’ve done it twice for Thomas Newman recently – during Shawshank, and this evening – and it’s because I’ve never been comfortable with him as a composer since I mistook his American Beauty music for A Series of Unfortuante Events and realized they were identical.Is he widely respected? His music seems samey and false to me. Road to Perdition used the same piano motifs as American Beauty – I don’t like to criticize, as this complaint could be leveled at most composers, but he does seem to only ever use the same sound palette.
American Beauty wasn’t meant to be real. The locations were too perfect, the characters virtual archetypes – the plot a deliberate satire on modern life. This isn’t meant as an insult – and the surreality of the whole thing suited Newman’s style (the sad piano, the wistful strings, the occasional tang of glass, metal and I don’t know what suiting the ironic tone. Even the cheesy “perfect movie music” he creates complimented the “perfect life” veneer that that film was all about. In Road to Perdition, the same ingredients went wrong – the strange modern noises were at odds with the sepia tone, and cheesiness tipped over into uncontrolled sentimentality without the acerbic wink to reel it back. Film music should be undetectable. It should support the scene, not prop it up, except where being deliberately contrapuntal with the images. When you notice it, it should be because it is beautiful and perfect. Not because it is mistimed, too intrusive and you want it to go away.
This is a case of the parts being greater than the whole - the plot is, on the whole, average, but the film is still worth a watch for all the trimmings.
The supporting cast are uniformly fantastic - Daniel Craig, who was disappointing in Layer Cake, turns up a relistic and strangely sympathetic performance in what could have been a pantomime role. Stanley Tucci is unrecognisable, but still very impressive as the Corleone-style businessman, with sympathy and practicality turning on a knife's edge. They come to you with smiles, they come as your friends, the people who've cared for you all of your life. And they always seem to come at a time that you're at your weakest and most in need of their help.
Paul Newman is naturally all star. He just can’t say one thing and mean it – he delivers a line, yet always says at least two other thoughts with it. His paternal twinkle at the wake is charming, even as you know that he most likely had the guy scrubbed. I didn’t just enjoy the piano scene because I have a thing for pianos – it was the warm, fuzzy love you could feel. Rooney is stuck neck deep in moral turd for most of this film, and I would have loved to see more of it. As it stands, the basement conversation, the car in the rain, the moments with his son and his beautiful freefall in the Stanley Tucci scene stand out as the best damn bits of the film. I would have like liked much more of him.
Jude Law. He’s young, he’s hot, he’s in the glossies all the time, ergo he can’t act. Right? Wrong. This wasn’t Brando by any means, but I loved his character. Even the way he moved, and drove, and put masses of sugar in his tea and had a really unusual-looking gun were all tiny wonderful character quirks. It’s a beautiful films, and his death photos were wonderfully alluring. I don’t think he’s particularly handsome meself, but in this film he just looks mean.
With such a great bunch of interesting and complex characters waiting on the sidelines, it's a pity they had to focus in on the two worst and least interesting performances of the film. I mean, Tom Hanks. Can this man act? He wasn’t bad, but he was far from good – he rarely changed his expression. Argue, if you like, that it was the Al Pacino school of acting with the eyes, and you’ve got a fair point, but still…he was always wearing a costume. He looked like he was acting; at least, he never ceased looking like Tom Hanks. I didn’t believe him, he felt wrong and uncomfortable. The son too wasn’t great – pretty good by childactor standards, but Dakota Fanning could trounce him any day – which left me unsympathetic to the central plot. At times, this film is like being at a bad party - you're just hanging around hoping somebody interesting's going to show up and start dancing. It remains watchable for these brief, great boogies.
This goes without saying, but the subdued browny colour scheme made me very happy indeed. It's very very pwettyful - reminded me of M Night's films at time, perticularly Unbreakable and Sixth Sense. In fact, now I think of it, there were lots of M-Nighty touches throughout. Conrad L. Hall's a name I'm familiar with - and checking imdb, it seems he's the guy who did Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. What a legend. The ending by the beach is beautifully shot - predictable, but perhaps the fact we know exactly what's going to happen is deliberate? Even if the plot's a drag, its very watchable just for all of this prettyness. This film contains the coolest reverse dolly zoom I have seen in a long time.
Jeez, now it sounds like I didn’t like it. I did like it, It was good and I recommend it to certain people. There's a hell of a lot of fantastic things, let down by the central plot.
It's definitely not recommended for your "cliche crime-fan" who likes their gangsters to be cool, ruthless wiseguys. There's hardly any swearing, very little blood and the mobsters are all thoroughly decent blokes underneath. More Godfather than Goodfellas - more family and rose-tinted glasses, with no street-smarts whatsoever. It's a good gangster film for people who don't like gangster films - it takes out the politics, and focuses on the emotions. And even though this post has been stack full of complaints, I'd be willing to watch it again for those little moments that almost made it great.
*(Take Goodfellas, but remove the music, the slick editing and give it all the little things which make TV inferior to film. Now take a plot surrounding four brothers, including say, the nice one, the impulsive one, the fanciable-doesn’t-want-to-get-involved-but-is-secretly-a-calculating-gangster-genius (now try not to think the words Fredo, Sonny and Michael) Oh, but make it about the Irish mob so nobody notices. And structure it around an unreliable-narrator recounting the events from jail. So the Usual Suspects influence isn’t quite as jarring as the others – Joey Ice Cream is pretty cool. I’m not saying that it’s bad. It has lots of merits – particularly how Joey’s dodgy memories are woven into the storylines. The frenetic story arc (one episode=one day as the various consequences of one little murder gradually get more and more convaluted) is fun to watch, and it has some amusing moments. But it’s got the emotional complexity of a soap opera. Impulsive-brother Jimmie is just vile. His brothers love him, because he's a brother, but we aren't invited to share this affection - compare to Sonny in the Godfather, who makes as many mistakes, but is still ultimately loveable somehow. It really wants to be hip and streetwise, but doesn't manage - the criminals are all desperately nice. I'm not saying that real life criminals are irredeemably evil, but still... Meanwhile, the plot doesn't tally - the brothers are really small-time - they don't have soldiers, or even body guards yet the death toll keeps rising and they certainly don't have the clout to pay off the police. Surely somebody would start investigating if 6 people died in under 2 days? Not to mention the characters left without fingers and toes. It's E.R. meets crime epic, and compared to The Sopranos, it just can’t compete....)
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