Archive
The Film Experience
I was honored to be invited to cover for Nathaniel over at The Film Experience today.
Jump over and follow along! I’ll be posting a few entries throughout the day.
An introductory one on some of my favorite female performances –
And a bit about a video essay that was recently published at IndieWire Press Play –
Some brief thoughts on two different sides of the great cinematographer Gregg Toland –
I only crack the surface of Arrested Development‘s use of memory –
Video Essay: There Will Be Blood & Symmetry
I’m excited to show everyone a project I’ve been working on for a while. After an extensive study of Paul Thomas Anderson’s career, I decided to make a video essay on his use of symmetry — particularly in There Will Be Blood. What’s even more exciting is that it’s running at IndieWire Press Play, a blog that I’ve watched and loved for a long time. Thanks to Matt Zoller Seitz for helping this thing get some legs. Hopefully there will be more to come.
Here’s the video, and make sure to head over to IndieWire to read a small introduction –
Dog Day Afternoon: Stress, Disappointment, & Bigotry
*Written for the “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” series at The Film Experience*
Al Pacino’s work in the 1970′s will always be one of the most impressive streaks of virtuoso performance in any art form. His work in both Godfather films, Serpico, and Dog Day Afternoon rank among the finest acting exhibitions post-Brando. Pacino took a risk by portraying Sonny Wortzik, but created an unforgettable portrait of stress and disappointment.
Dog Day Afternoon has a traditional Hollywood climax at the end, but the emotional peak comes earlier. The audience watches Sonny speak to the two loves in his life — one man, one woman — for almost 14 minutes. While his lovers are held in wide shots and middle shots with the occasional close-up, Sonny is always held in a tight frame the entire time. The difficulty of sustaining a character during a phone conversation for this duration cannot be exaggerated. Remember that, when filming, Pacino isn’t hearing another voice on the phone. At best, the other end is represented by a reader standing off-camera. [Edit: A reader just informed me that Pacino and others were on the phone with each other during shooting. A rare, fantastic call by Lumet.]
The “best shot” above comes at the very end of this masterful segment and we see the burden of kindness begin to crush Sonny to death. Sidney Lumet is not necessarily a great director. With 12 Angry Men, Network, and Dog Day, the films for which he is most remembered, Lumet basically succeeded in realizing a breathtaking script. His imagery is mostly tame and rarely adventurous. Surely, his ability to crank out acceptable (and sometimes extraordinary) renderings of the best Hollywood writing is what made him so indispensable to producers. This frame is not bold or particularly revealing, but it does demonstrate Lumet’s ability to recognize a gold mine when he finds one.
Pierson’s script and Pacino’s performance combine to create one of the best character studies of the decade. It’s a true human tragedy amplified by Pacino’s intense internalization of bigotry.
Singin’ in the Rain: Preserving the Illusion
*Written for the “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” series at The Film Experience*
Singin’ in the Rain shares a lot of DNA with Sherlock Jr., the previous subject in “Hit Me With Your Best Shot.” They’re both movies about movies. They celebrate the fantasy — the dream — of cinema. Most importantly, they emerge from an examination of their art with joy and enthusiasm. These films feed our reveries about what movies can do. The pleasure and warmth we associate with Hollywood is stored in the images of Singin’ in the Rain. And below the bold colors, blasting brass, and exuberance, there’s a very nuanced art at work. It’s easy to get lost in the whirlwind, but Singin’ in the Rain is a carefully calculated Hollywood production. The reason it is still considered one of the greatest examples of cinematic expression has less to do with its joyful abandon and more to do with its immaculate craftsmanship.
The film, directed in 1952 by Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, is an account of Hollywood’s shift from silent pictures to talkies. For a film with such a gleeful veneer, it is surprisingly frank in dealing with the roughest period in filmmaking history. It finds great comedy in what had to be terrible headaches — look no further than the scene where Lina is incapable of speaking into the microphone — “Well, I can’t make love to a bush!” While a number like “Make ‘em Laugh” is meant as an hommage to silent comedians like Buster Keaton, Singin’ in the Rain can cut sharply, not unlike its distant cousin, Sunset Blvd. — Lina is a distortion of Buster’s (and so many others) ghost, incapable of surviving the switch to talking pictures and studio hierarchy. It’s impossible to ignore the ecstasy of Singin’, but it takes movies very seriously. Otherwise, would we ever accept the ludicrous pretend-plot of The Dancing Cavalier? Most of the magic that we immediately associate with Singin’ comes from its deconstruction of filmmaking. The overwhelming joie de cinéma that we all remember is attributable to the film’s ability to acknowledge and illuminate the history of movies as a product without fully recognizing itself as one. Musicals that keep themselves contained — the ones that don’t say “Gee, isn’t it crazy that we’re all dancing and singing?” — are the ones that access the enchanting power at the core of the genre.
So, after that dense preamble, my vote for “best shot”:
Don (Gene Kelly) has fallen for Kathy (Debbie Reynolds) and they share a sublime love scene on a Hollywood stage. This is only one image that exemplifies the energy Singin’ in the Rain knows how to access — it just happens to be the most beautiful. Don is working through Hollywood’s toolbox and, at this point, has turned on the lights to reveal a sunset and a little bit of mist that you can see creeping into the left side of the frame. He’s not done with the tricks — there’s still more light to be added and you can expect him to switch on the giant fan. But here, the two of them exist in a half-world twilight. Don is showing his love for Kathy by giving her a dream. She’s experiencing the same miracles as the audience. Silhouetted against a fake sunset with fake mist, their love is made to feel very convincing because the film takes itself seriously. Singin’ in the Rain succeeds because it positions itself confidently between awareness and illusion — like a magician still in awe of his own tricks.
Above is another spectacular image showing Singin’ at its best. Don and Cosmo chat as they walk by a series of active set pieces. The camera embraces the deep background and the audience gets to see a director (positioned between Don and Cosmo), a batch of extras being sprinkled with fake snow, all the way back to the ladders and walls of the stage. The sausage being made in this film is organic, free-range, no-antibiotic, happy, and probably inedible, but it is precisely what makes it so exciting and enjoyable. Problems and repercussions involved with this attitude are for a different post.
About 20 minutes before the end of Singin’ in the Rain, something remarkable happens. It throws everything out the window and hunkers down for a 10-minute Gene Kelly fantasy ballet. Some have condemned this segment, some have embraced it, and most have walked away just assuming that it was great. It’s a vital part of the film and, in my opinion, the climax. As I’ve been discussing, the movie’s success depends on its ability to deconstruct several aspects of filmmaking without fully acknowledging itself as a product. Singin’ in the Rain loves to pull back and reveal enormous stages as if showing the limitless force of cinema.
The camera also likes to cuddle up with Gene Kelly’s face as he stares straight into the camera. At the beginning, this device is used to prepare a flashback.
However, as the final ballet comes to a close near the end of the film, the camera does something quite unexpected.
It pulls back to reveal the stage but also preserves a close-up on Kelly. This is both the climax of the ballet and the climax of the film. It rounds out some important symmetry with the opening by using the mirror of the device that accompanied Don’s initial flashback. Most importantly, it inserts the chaotic background behind him. This image is the runner-up for Best Shot only because it lacks the sensuality and warmth of the other. Not only does this frame capture the ecstatic spirit of Singin’, it demonstrates how the movie is able to come so close to recognizing itself as a film without spoiling the illusion. Singin’ in the Rain portrays film as a fantasy or a dream, much like Sherlock Jr. The entire ballet takes place inside Don’s imagination and we allow acknowledgment of the camera to happen because it isn’t interested in the Meta Wink. By taking itself seriously, it becomes a legendary example of comedy and one of the most joyful expressions ever set to celluloid. In a time when there’s an awful lot of winking going on, it feels great to see a film rely on craft rather than cleverness.
***As a final note, make sure to check out the special features on your new Singin’ in the Rain Blu-ray’s. They have all the original filmed performances of these songs — taken from movies between 1929 and 1939. It’s a remarkable insight.
Bernie [Linklater, 2012]
I won’t hesitate in saying that Bernie is one of the best movies released this year. It sports a dangerously good performance from the unexpected Jack Black, playing a genial assistant funeral director who befriends & eventually murders a widow played by Shirley MacLaine. It’s compulsively watchable. Linklater retains an old-school independent touch but he has become a very skilled professional, crafting a number of sequences that are cinematically impressive. The movie doesn’t commit to some ideas that might seem to require it (Is Bernie a homosexual? Where should our sympathies go?). The writing is so well done that the townspeople start to seem convincing when they argue for Bernie’s innocence! Ultimately, Linklater gives us a very complex look at the justice system, guilt, and East Texas.
The film moves quickly and seems effortless because of a massive series of faux-documentary interviews and vernacular intertitiles. It had to be frightening, knowing that so much of a picture is resting on the shoulders of silly townspeople. They could have easily made Bernie collapse, but they are its biggest triumph. It is clear that Linklater shares a powerful bond with East Texas. I haven’t seen this kind of affinity and compassion for a geographical region in a long time. In fact, the representation of Carthage, TX in Bernie only finds cultural companionship with Pawnee, IN from Parks & Recreation. The film doesn’t rush to convince you about these townspeople. It doesn’t suggest that we should trust them or ignore them. Instead, they paint the picture for us. And in the end, when we finally take a step back, we realize just how incredibly bizarre but understandable their responses were. Bernie’s trial was a spectacle in the town. Everyone came out to support him. They tell us that the trial needed to be moved to another county so as to avoid sympathy in the jury. Among many things, these townspeople show us how strange our relationships can be. It doesn’t seem ridiculous for some of these older ladies, to whom Bernie gave the royal (at least) treatment, to totally ignore or repress the fact that Bernie murdered someone. And Linklater does a great job of letting them be a little bit convincing. It’s an old trick — the ‘correct’ characters are insufferable while the ‘wrong’ characters are as nice as can be. Still, it’s the best dramatization of that trope resting in my recent memory.
Linklater’s spirit for subtle cinematic flair peeks out sometimes. When Marjorie closes her gate to trap Bernie, the camera reacts with a dramatic gesture. It pushes in on Bernie in the car and then cuts to a POV shot that shows him trapped in this oppressively beautiful environment — a cross hangs from his rear-view mirror, out of focus. And the murder scene is done with such astonishing, careful craft that it took a while for me to understand what Linklater was trying to do. The camera pushes in on Bernie and, again, cuts to his POV. But we see him looking at her in a flashback, in one of her most annoying moments. Then, we are shown, unquestionably, Bernie shooting her four times in the back. However, Linklater employs full cinematic force to coach us into a corner where he plants another seed of sympathy for the hero. Later, Bernie says that he “felt as though it wasn’t him” who was shooting Marjorie. The dissociation that a person like Bernie must have felt in a moment of such uncharacteristic brutality is understandable. Linklater, again, does a marvelous job of using a touch of cinematic panache to visually communicate how we should feel about the characters.
I am hoping that Bernie has its day. It deserves it. Not least because of a trio of dynamite performances. Jack Black is shockingly good at playing this character. His physical roundness, his stocky but light legs, and his easy arms all relay the kind of rural super-geniality that most of us understand to some degree. His moments of anxiety and sadness are done with exquisite pathos. Linklater understood that Black’s comedic charm was the necessary ingredient in creating audience sympathy for Bernie. It’s silly to speculate on Oscar considerations at this point, but I’ll be silly and hope for Jack Black to get a deserved nod. Two supporters, Shirley MacLaine and Matthew McConaughey, lend balance to a couple of potentially volatile character roles. MacLaine is most dominating and maddening in silence and McConaughey is just slimy enough.
Bernie is must-see material. A very intimate and compassionate character study that embraces setting as a supporting player. A very good movie.
83.6
Lingering In the Golden Gleam: Sherlock Jr.
Over at The Film Experience (a marvelous blog), there’s a series called “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” where, each week, some writers pick their favorite shot within a given film and explain why. This week’s movie is Sherlock Jr., which reigns supreme over so many other movies that I just couldn’t not give it a try. Special thanks to Andreas at Pussy Goes Grrr (an equally marvelous blog) for tipping me off on the opportunity. My vote for “Best Shot” goes to:
This is the best kind of Buster image. At its heart, it’s a gag. Buster, who works as a projectionist, has fallen asleep on the job. In his dream, he hops out of his corporeal body and begins to see his own life projected on the screen. At the precise moment of this frame, Buster is trying to deal with the fact that he sees his nemesis and heartthrob on screen together. It’s a gut reaction to seeing our imagination on display.
While the gags and giggles will always be the heart of Buster’s work, there are a number of intellectually satisfying things happening that form the brain — and the heart can’t work without the brain. Keaton’s genius relies on this hierarchy. He used his filmmaking skill to inform and enhance the gags, rather than the other way around. So often we see filmmakers try to use film as a highway for jokes. Unfortunately, the wit doesn’t always translate to visual facility. This is one reason I feel Tati is so often compared to Keaton — they were kindred spirits who knew that comedy is dependent on craft.
Let’s think about the numerous things Keaton manages to accomplish in this single frame. First of all, it is a fine image. The foreground is out of focus, but crucial (more on that in a moment), the two Busters and a projector fill out the middle, and there is a clear backdrop. That’s at least three levels of depth established without multiple angles. Especially in Sherlock Jr., Keaton brings an outstanding sense of depth to his imagery — and for good reason. The film has as much voyeurism in its blood as Rear Window. Observe how Keaton designs the foreground. It looks like a picture frame hanging on our living room wall. So, not only are we watching Buster practice awareness of his own voyeurism, he is inviting the audience to be aware of the same. A common motif in Sherlock is that of passing through things. Many times, Buster makes a joke by moving through something that appears to be a solid object — a mirror, a wall, movie screens, even a person. Other times, he plays a simple variation on the theme of the above image. Look at this incredible composition.
Whoa depth. This picture goes on forever, tracing the power lines until they disappear with Buster’s tails wiggling in the wind and the inexplicable Washington portrait. But the image is really accomplishing the same thing as the other. It is Keaton’s way of showing us the business of looking at and through things. Here, it’s a bank vault door — and doesn’t the door frame still look like a picture frame?
Like The Cameraman, another great Keaton picture, Sherlock gives us an account of his own personal thoughts on the cinema. I’m a sucker for movies about movies, but there’s some real meat here. The image at the top of the page shows us two Busters. One of them is staring at the screen, dumbfounded and mystified — enchanted by the impossibility of his imagination. But the other is just taking a nap. Keaton was one of the filmmakers who understood the intimacy between movies and dreams, he proves it here. In fact, the “awake” Buster is really just a dream version of the sleeping one. Over all of the variations on voyeurism taking place in Sherlock, it’s heaviest power lies in its belief in human imagination. Keaton knew that cinema was the key to letting us reproduce our dreams, our fantasies, and our nightmares. That’s probably the source of the confusion on “awake” Buster’s face. In a way, he’s seeing into the future. He’s seeing his own life projected in front of him. And he has the balls to actually hop in and play along. When he does, he becomes a rakish gentleman in tails who destroys all threats to his honor at the billiard table. I’m not sure, but Sherlock might be the most earnest thing Keaton made — and it’s done by being outrageous, fantastical even.
There’s one more thing about the top image. Visually, it establishes that “frame” motif that comes back again and again, holding the picture together. The end of the film has some iconic imagery that echoes the same moment.
Finally, Buster’s got the girl and he has risen from the dream. He awkwardly (read: charmingly) enacts the love scene that plays on screen. The visual symmetry between the two moments is obvious, but its message is more subtle. In the image at the top of the post, Buster is looking at his exaggerated impression of his own life being played out in front of him. Here, he is trying to bring elements of the imagined film into real practice — he’s being more proactive. But even through this flipped circumstance, he still wears a mystified expression. It’s of a different kind than the other, but it is an acknowledgment of cinema’s ability to beguile us whether or not we think we’re the ones in control.
The image of the two Busters remains a key to Sherlock. We see so much of the film distilled into a single frame — the dreams, the wonder, and the extra layers. Most importantly, I feel Mr. Keaton might say, he’s making a funny face.
Greatest of All-Time: A Game We Need to Play
Today, Sight & Sound released a new iteration of its “Greatest Films of All-Time” list. This is a silly game that we cinephiles are only allowed to play once every decade, so it’s a special occasion. Sight & Sound‘s list is by far the most respected and celebrated of its kind. Each decade on the deuce since 1952, critics have sent in a personal top ten. Directors have done the same for a few decades now, creating their own lists. Since 1962, the second poll, Citizen Kane has managed to “win” without fail. This year, things changed a bit. Here’s the rundown:
Critics:
- Vertigo [Hitchcock, 1958]
- Citizen Kane [Welles, 1941]
- Tokyo Story [Ozu, 1953]
- The Rules of the Game [Renoir, 1939]
- Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans [Murnau, 1927]
- 2001: A Space Odyssey [Kubrick, 1968]
- The Searchers [Ford, 1956]
- Man with a Movie Camera [Vertov, 1939]
- Passion of Joan of Arc [Dreyer, 1927]
- 8 1/2 [Fellini, 1963]
Directors:
- Tokyo Story [Ozu, 1953]
- 2001: A Space Odyssey [Kubrick, 1968]
- Citizen Kane [Welles, 1941]
- 8 1/2 [Fellini, 1963]
- Taxi Driver [Scorcese, 1976]
- Apocalypse Now [Coppola, 1979]
- The Godfather [Coppola, 1972]
- Vertigo [Hitchcock, 1958]
- The Mirror [Tarkovsky, 1975]
- Bicycle Thieves [De Sica, 1948]
BFI has the Top 50 listed for now, with more things to be revealed as the issue becomes widely available.
There’s a reason to be excited about all of this nonsense. Over 1,000 people voted and over 2,000 movies were mentioned — by far the most in the poll’s history. In a time when film criticism is said to be struggling or declining, it’s important to remember that it also owns a very important corner of the Internet. For example, many expected that the wider inclusion would increase the potential for a Pulp Fiction or Tree of Life to crack the Top 10. Not so. In fact, the critics chose three silent films and the average release year was pulled down by 6 from 2002′s poll.
There are going to be a lot of headlines saying “Is Vertigo Really That Great?” and “Vertigo Dethrones Kane” and “Citizen Kane No Longer Good Movie.” Indeed, the most obvious change in the poll comes from the top — Hitchcock’s Vertigo defeated Citizen Kane by a healthy amount of votes. Does this say anything about the actual value of those movies? No, it doesn’t. They are both incredible works of art and occupy a level of genius that is remarkable in any circle. It seems clear that the critical pendulum is swinging, as usual. Vertigo isn’t necessarily enjoying a renaissance and Kane isn’t getting any worse. Rather, a new generation of film lovers is beginning to establish itself. It doesn’t seem difficult to imagine some critics intentionally leaving Citizen Kane off of their list, not because it isn’t worthy of it, but because it has enjoyed a healthy half-century as the recognized King of Cinema. Brilliantly, Kristen Thompson once suggested that we “retire” films (as jersey numbers are in The Sports) after they appear in the Top 10. That methodology would give us a constantly growing canon as opposed to the Sight & Sound poll where we mostly watch for minute changes and try to apply some zeitgeisty commentary to them. Surely, a headline somewhere will be, “Vertigo Tops Poll; Internet Fracturing Consciousness” or “Internet Eating Apples” or “Internet Changing Babies” or some other nonsense. As the Sight & Sound poll functions right now, it celebrates the juggling of a couple established essential titles and bickering over the small cracks in their overwhelming genius instead of finding greatness in all the unexpected nooks in which it presents itself.
That said, there are a couple very satisfying and unexpected shifts in other parts of the list. Dziga Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera has supplanted, thankfully, Battleship Potemkin as the Soviet Constructivist representative. No segment of The Godfather cracked the critic’s list, their chances probably injured by being rightfully separated. Perhaps most important and thrilling, Tokyo Story won the top spot on the Director’s poll. It’s not the representative I would choose for Ozu, but seeing him celebrated in any way is exciting — especially among the men and women actively moving the art form ahead. The Searchers, absent from the 2002 list, takes number 7 — marking my biggest qualm with the list. I deny that The Searchers is the best representative of Ford’s catalog or even a great film, for that matter. I could be a crybaby about 2001 as well, but that’s all for another day.
The bottom line is this — we should be happy that we are so in love with a medium that somehow encourages, or sometimes requires, us to engage in childish games. In that way, I’m glad to be a cinephile today. But Sight & Sound should also take a page out of some architecture, painting, or opera magazines and try to find a way to allow a broader canon. The lists above contain only 15 different movies. They’re all essential films. For any of my readers who are a little less obsessed with movies, don’t start here, but I implore you to work up to these films someday. Diving into the top of the heap can be confusing. That’s often the reason I think Kane is thought of as “not that great” or whatever — these movies, at this point in history, ask us to contextualize them with history and, most importantly, other movies.
The most beautiful thing about these lists is that they’re so small. Ten films to define a medium? It’s hard to argue with the brilliance atop these lists. But the important part is that we recognize the wealth of greatness below the surface. For every film on this list, there are 100 films worth seeing immediately. Every director represented on those lists has another masterpiece waiting around the corner. Howard Hawks, the single greatest filmmaking human in the history of Earth, isn’t anywhere to be seen in the Top 50!!! That’s how big this world is. That’s how amazing it is.
Because the best thing about lists like this is that they encourage us to make our own and to always be on the lookout for new contenders and to always reconsider the rubric. It’s a childish game, but one that I’m glad we’re all playing.
