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I like old movies and new movies and all kinds of movies.
Is there any genre that excites such undeserving scorn and hatred as the Musical? It seems that the very core of this hatred is nothing more than a revulsion to unceasing optimism and a complete refusal to suspend your disbelieve that normal people would burst out into song at random intervals.
I won’t say that La La Land solves this problem, nor that it is a problem. Continue reading
This is one part in a series of short essays on Todd Haynes’s Carol (2015). This part is on narrative structure and the film’s relationship to an older film, David Lean’s Brief Encounter (1945).
This is one part in a series of short essays on Todd Haynes’s Carol (2015). This part is on aesthetics and including a close reading of Todd Haynes’s film in a tradition alongside Douglas Sirk and Vincente Minnelli.
Mad Max: Fury Road is the best political film of 2015. The pleasure I take in saying that is more immense than I can explain coherently. My father raised me, cinematically speaking, on the masterpieces of the 1970s—All the President’s Men, One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Dog Day Afternoon—and if nothing else, what is apparent in those films is a steadfast political atmosphere. Today, for better or worse, the films we see on screen are politically noncommittal. One either has to dig for any political subtext, or it exists as middle ground between two more devoted extremes. George Miller, the veteran filmmaker (of the previous Mad Max films, as well as both Happy Feet—fun fact), directs Fury Road, whether he admits it or not, fully aware of the feminist charge that electrifies the entire film.
The film begins with the eponymous hero, Max (Tom Hardy). He provides us with expository detail, and as soon as we understand the post-apocalyptic context, he is appropriately done away with—captured, branded, and turned into a human blood bag, used to energize the War Boys, who do the bidding of the savage patriarch Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne). The narrative push of the film—entirely predicated upon the road/chase genre—is that Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron), an elite soldier, assists Joe’s wives in escaping to the paradisiacal “Green Place.” Joe and his War Boys promptly follow them: Joe values above all else the wives and their fertility. It is a combination of Road Runner & Wile E. Coyote cartoons with the Western civilization’s eternal yearning for Eden.
The society constructed in the film is the exaggerated extreme (though not without its truth) of the 1% vs. the 99%. Joe and his enslaved wives, along with other fraternal figures, control an apparent endless flow of water, which they eek out to the rest of society infrequently. What is continuously amusing is the vehicular quality that the patriarch has. Cars, engines, chrome—these are the things that the War Boys cherish and worship. Displays of machismo are what they live for: any particularly valiant or courageous or stupid act is preceded by spraying their mouths chrome and calling out, “Witness me!”
Antithetical to that patriarchal, self-righteous calling of “Witness me!” is the graffiti’d “Who killed the world?” echoed by Furiosa and the Wives throughout the film. And this is echoed even more powerfully, in a scene that brings to mind the universe creation sequence in Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life, by a nuclear dust storm that rages around Furiosa, Max (who gets strapped to the front of one of the War Boy’s cars), and her other pursuers. It is a great scene, masterfully handled that could be and should be studied by all other action filmmakers today. I remember reading a critique of modern action films that said that they now consist of incredibly large explosive sequences following each other; the result: desensitization. There’s no awe anymore, because it’s so monotone. Miller keeps the awe in, elevating the tragedy of the situation to transcendent levels. For a moment, we see, unfiltered, what it means to kill the world. It is beyond us, and it is horrifying.
The other striking quality about Fury Road is the silences Miller allows. When he wants to, Miller makes the action non-stop: we get extensive sequences of highly choreographed explosions and car chase gun shootouts, and just when we think it’s over, something even bigger, even more mind-blowing occurs. But Miller is adept at drama as well, and moments of quiet human tenderness keep Fury Road grounded. If superhero movies, for example, are predicated on a hopelessly unachievable everyman (or rather everyperson) desire to become greater than ourselves, to be super, then Fury Road’s human core is a return to a world where the value of life is still worth something on a fundamental level, and not because those with power determine it.
That’s the feminism of the film. The common misconception of feminism that is used to make it marketable is that it is the empowerment of women; therefore, films with strong female characters are referred to as feminist simply because a woman has agency. But feminism as a politico-social movement moves beyond that, and its true goal is the deconstruction of gender roles, and therefore patriarchy. Furiosa and the wives lead the film towards that goal. The masculinity glorified in the film is damaging, and any intelligent viewer will know this. A powerful moment comes when Joe’s son is delivered stillborn. Joe and the rest of the War Boys immediately glorify him, being a son. From day one, from birth, there is a rigid, violent, and non-negotiable male gender role enforced by this society that exists to perpetuate men just like Immortan Joe.
This is what “movies” should aspire to. The most pessimistic phrase one can say about movies is: “It’s just a movie.” And it is always used to excuse films for not doing enough; it is an excuse for the lackluster. Why can’t all big-budget blockbuster films be like Mad Max: Fury Road? Why can’t they all be technically sound, reliant on practical special effects and use CGI only if necessary or as a gloss? Why can’t they utilize the visual for storytelling in addition to spectacle? And, most importantly, why can’t we use the medium of film to say something, regardless of what it is? The best films, whether it’s Fury Road, or The Tree of Life, All the President’s Men, or Star Wars—we leave these films feeling profoundly changed, because we have experienced something that mattered: we have experienced that those who made these films have something to show us, something that has meaning. Not the backwash of opinions, diluted by a desire to please everyone. Fury Road is an angry, impassioned, uncompromising, eloquent film—made with meaning, and made by people who thought the meaning mattered.
Postscript: Mad Max: Fury Road was edited by Margaret Sixel, predominantly a documentary editor. The art of editing is under-recognized, as are the accomplishments in, and contributions to, the art of cinema by women, who have been making and working in films just as long as men.
The character of David Foster Wallace in The End of the Tour is an overpowering presence. Director James Ponsoldt is a more than capable director, yet here his direction comes off as uneven, perhaps because of the charismatic enormity of Wallace as both a character and a thinker. Continue reading
A Most Violent Year is an exercise in that 1970s New Hollywood style that has become so common in recent films that it may as well now be a considered a contemporary genre of its own. Dark lighting, steady shots, gritty urban realism, a political atmosphere, and a cynical and stark worldview are all attributes of The Godfather, Taxi Driver, Dog Day Afternoon, and Serpico, amongst others, and A Most Violent Year utilizes all of them, which weighs on the film heavily.
A Most Violent Year is about the young owner of a growing oil company, Abel Morales (Oscar Isaac), whose trucks are being hijacked, men beaten, and oil stolen just as he is trying to close a deal on a riverfront property. He’s losing money; his drivers are getting nervous; he’s showing vulnerability. Adding to that, the DA’s office is bringing up charges against him for possible illegal activities. The year of the title is 1981, which was one of the most violent in New York City’s history. Throughout the film, radios in the background quietly play news stories about murders, shootings, and other commonplace violence.
The entire tradition of 1970s American cinema is a heavy weight to carry, and one cannot help while watching AMVY to recall those older films–and any film that has The Godfather and Dog Day Afternoon on its shoulders has a lot of heavy lifting to do. Interestingly enough, the film does an excellent job of establishing the story quickly and leanly; the film, however, feels insubstantial at first. Much of the dialogue is comprised of short, usually cryptic, phrases that feel like they contain truths about business and the Real-World, but the ultimate value of these phrases do not amount to the iconic power of “I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse,” or “Attica!” Though the film is finely shot, and many of the compositions are outright beautiful, this cinematographic gleam results in the film feeling like an exercise in style over substance.
Thankfully, the great casts that populate the films of the 70s are reflected here with Oscar Isaac and his supporting players. Isaac, who demonstrated himself as one of this generation’s finest, most subtle actors in Inside Llewyn Davis, proves himself once more with AMVY, channeling young Al Pacino with a restraint that proves to only be a façade for a furious rage. Yet Isaac’s Abel Morales is not Pacino’s cruel, ruthless Michael Corleone. He wants to do things as right as he can, as honestly as possible. That we can recognize this in Isaac is what distinguishes his portrayal as a great performance in its own right, and not just another imitation.
As AMVY moves into its second act, it takes on a greater sense of urgency and originality. Narrative pace quickens, and by the halfway point J.C. Chandor, the ambitious director and writer of this film, begins to truly captivate with flawless sequences.
Later in the film, Abel is driving when he gets a call on his radio that one of the trucks has been hijacked. He is in the vicinity, and goes after it. The chase sequence is perhaps one of the most clichéd in all of cinema, and might be considered cheap thrills. Yet, Chandor has the audacity to put such a scene in the middle of this otherwise highbrow drama. It works. Chandor even reinvigorates this tired trope of chase scenes by having Abel follow the truck into a tunnel, where the rear lights become the only source of light in an otherwise black tunnel, and even they become muddled and distorted by sand and dust picked up by the cars. Before I mentioned that the film is beautiful and finely shot, but new, incredible images like this are what elevate the film.
Jessica Chastain as Anna Morales, Abel’s wife, also reinvents an old trope of 1970s cinema: that of the gangster’s wife. Using Diane Keaton as Kay in the Godfather films as a counterpoint, Kay rarely gets to display much agency in her position as Michael’s wife. Anna, however, does. Early in the film after a man is found on the property grounds of the Morales’s home, Anna gets a gun to protect herself and her children with, saying to her husband, “I told you. I wasn’t gonna continue to stand around and let these people come and get me and my children. Unlike you, who seems to be completely comfortable just standing around like some fucking pussy, I decided to do something about it.” Women were not granted this power forty years ago. They are rarely granted this power now. Late in the film, Anna reveals that she’s been skimming money from the company, to which Abel explosively reacts, “You stole from me.” Yet, ultimately, he takes the money. Anna wins.
A Most Violent Year moves towards its climax with a very firm awareness of things drawing to a close. But with each move towards a culmination, anxieties such as Anna’s true involvement in Abel’s affairs are dredged up. The film ends uneasily. It may not be a profound, eternal masterpiece, but it merits the title of a great movie because of the ideas it brings up, the expert level of craftsmanship at hand, and mostly the quiet changes it makes to the 1970s New Hollywood mode of filmmaking. Abel has prided himself on being honest, but as the film comes to a close, after several moral failings, the business goes on, and the images of blood and corruption stain New York City like the blackest of oil on snow.
Pauline Kael wrote, after seeing Shoeshine (1946): “I came out of the theater, tears streaming, and overheard the petulant voice of a college girl complaining to her boyfriend, ‘Well I don’t see what was so special about that movie.’ I walked up the street, crying blindly, no longer certain whether my tears were for the tragedy on the screen, the hopelessness I felt for myself, or the alienation I felt from those who could not experience the radiance of Shoeshine. For if people cannot feel Shoeshine, what can they feel?”
A similar experience for me happened when watching Still Alice; a heartwrenching existential play written and directed by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland. Continue reading
Who is the star of Birdman? I ask genuinely, as director Alejandro González Iñárritu, cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki (fresh off an Oscar win for Gravity), and star Michael Keaton, seem perfectly content to live harmoniously in this wonder of a film, while also threatening to overwhelm each other to stand as the true star. It’s a film about egos though, so I suppose this is only fitting.
“Listen carefully to first criticisms made of your work. Note just what it is about your work that critics don’t like–then cultivate it. That’s the only part of your work that’s individual and worth keeping.” – Jean Cocteau
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