Truth, Ruth.

"But in terms of the film critic landscape, it’s just weird that these people get into these arguments. There’s all this weird drama. Like, people are talking about being afraid to say bad things about “Boyhood?” Who the fuck is afraid to say bad things about “Boyhood?” Who gives a shit? People say, “We need a culture that embraces dissent.” It’s not dissent! Dissent is… (impersonates old Russian Grandmother) "Dissent is when you’re living in Soviet Russia and you’re put under house arrest!" Big fucking deal, you have a different opinion. We don’t have to embrace different opinions, it’s called arguing. It’s what we do. “Oh, poor me, I’m the only person who didn’t like ‘Boyhood.’” Just get the fuck off the cross, man, we need the wood."-Glenn Kenny

Never Meant

Re-posting.  Wish I had made it…

Little Children

On Zion's Holy Ground

Come Life, Shaker Life

I Hunger and Thirst

The Rolling Deep

I thought I'd try something a little different and since I've deactivated my Facebook account, I basically have nowhere to promote this blog.

Therefore, I can do whatever I want!

I was inspired this weekend by seeing Kelly Reichardt's new film, Night Moves, and what I believe to be her superlative visual style.  Not that I think Reichardt represents some kind of experimental distancing from the traditional language of film but I have been thinking a lot about how cinema distinguishes itself from television in a media landscape where (or so we are often told) the two forms have almost become one.

Scratch that, I don't know how mainstream hollywood cinema should go about doing that (and from the looks of the latest in the Marvel slate, they've given up entirely) but independent or otherwise studio sanctioned smaller films have an interesting opportunity on their hands.  My view is that cinema should scale down while television attempts to scale up.  Instead of focusing on characters and drama (which has always been television's specialty), cinema should instead focus on the larger world.  If that sounds vague then it is quite possible I haven't worked this all out in my head, but I'll try to elaborate as much as I can.

What cinema does best (and better than any medium) is experiential.  You sit down, in a dark theater, surrounded by strangers, and you are supposed to feel something.  It's an experience, wether you're seeing the new Transformers movies or watching Shoah in an uninterrupted marathon.  Obviously those experiences are very different with regards to personal taste and objective merit, but both films represent an attempt to extract some kind of feeling from their perspective audiences.  I say, strip that down to the bare essentials and instead of showing us a horde of rampaging somethings from the something something system, show us instead what it's like stop at the intersection of a busy street corner and take a deep breath.  What it's like to hear the first sound after waking up, what it's like to feel the force of the wind, I know these sound hopelessly naive and unpractical but in the right hands, they can yield what i believe to be the very essential nature of cinema itself.  As the 3-D, interactive, never-have-to-leave-your-couch-to-travel-through-space aesthetic threatens to overwhelm all visual media, I think all one needs to do is remember that we are part of a planet that is beautiful, banal, wondrous, and terrifying.  It's all out there waiting for us.  So to close, I will present this image without comment:

Here is part 1-5 in a series of images I have captured inspired by the album Early Shaker Spirituals performed by The United Society of Shakers. They were meant to be inspired by instinct and have no larger purpose or meaning other than whatever one feels necessary to invest (possibly to escape the boredom).  Again, since nobody will read this, I feel I am relatively safe from any well-deserved criticism. 

Pickup On South Street "So I don't get to have the fancy funeral after all…"

    365 Films

Entry #161

Pickup On South Street (1953)

Directed by Samuel Fuller

*WARNING

The following clip contains whatever constitutes as SPOILERS for a sixty-one year old movie.  Proceed with caution. 

One of the trickier aspects to the new vantage point of this blog (specifically focusing on just one sequence in a film), is that devoid of context, these particular moments might not have any meaning.  Sure, one can admire them in a vacuum, but if I have any aspirations for this blog (aside from winning a pulitzer) it would be to inspire whatever fraction of an audience exists to catch up on the films that intrigue them.  That being said, I hope I can establish right here and now that the point of admiring individual moments from a film is not to suggest that these pieces effectively sum up the entire film.  More that they are the ingredients with which the filmmakers may concoct their diabolical recipes.  If I understand how food works, sometimes certain ingredients pop at certain moments, I believe that reference is quite apt to the film world as well. 

Which brings us to today's entry, Pickup On South Street, a film that was introduced to me by a co-worker almost as a blind taste but one I took to immediately (more food references!).  I hope it is also known that there is an unimaginable plethora of films that have gone un-watched by me (including still, Ferris Bueller's Day Off! I am still not sorry about it!), so do not conclude that this is any kind of viewing history to which one must aspire.  If you're wondering why I keep going off on tangents, it's because it's rather difficult to discuss this scene without giving away from major plot elements crucial to the entirety of the rest of Pickup.  The best I can offer you is that Moe Williams (played beautifully by Thelma Ritter) is a stool pigeon returning to her cramped apartment after a long day when she is suddenly confronted by the most nefarious of mid-twentieth century villains: a commie.  Beyond that, I'd rather not say much else but only implore you to watch Ritter's performance as she conveys a lifetime of bone-shattering and nerve-weakening compromise that most likely began as a one off but has since consumed her within the span of five minutes.  Fuller also gives her a shattering monologue and wisely lets Ritter dictate the blocking, cutting, and compositions of the scene.  It's telling that the character facing the business end of a pistol is ultimately more relaxed and dignified in her bed with a makeshift halo formed above her head in the guise of a bedroom lamp.  While the character who is seemingly in control is constantly pacing, sweating, darting in and out of the depth of the frame, and when he is shown in close-up, it's the look of a truly corrupted and rotting soul.  As previously stated, Moe is a stool pigeon, willing to sell anyone to everyone for the right price.  She's nefarious and untrustworthy for sure, but she has a line, and her bankroll needs to be padded in order to afford a nice, regular funeral and not be buried in one of the anonymous graves in Potter's Field, the place where all the unclaimed bodies wind up in New York City.  Fuller spends the film peeling away layer after layer of Moe's character, yet it's in a way that never feels exploitative or unearned.  Like all great story-tellers, the characters in Fuller's films are never the one thing they appear to be at the outset.  That's why his contributions to cinema are so important, he took sturdy and briskly effective genre plots and suffused them with frail, vulnerable, and achingly complex human beings.  Pickup on South Street is just one example of the multitudinous gifts his filmography preserves.  Discovering his work was one of the truly miraculous moments in my cinematic life.  In conclusion, thank you, Adam.  

   

The Deep Blue Sea (Molly Malone)

    365 Films

Entry #160

The Deep Blue Sea (2011)

Directed by Terence Davies

The moment in question from Terence Davies' ravishing film The Deep Blue Sea occurs a little past the midway point of the story.  Hester Collyer (Rachel Weisz) has just phoned her lover Freddie Page (Tom Hiddelston) in a vain attempt to reconcile before he leaves town with a promise of a new job.  The entirety of the film is set the day after Hester attempted to commit suicide because Freddie, the man she left her high society judge husband for in the first place, forgot her birthday.  Therefore, the series of shots that begin what is essentially one long, uninterrupted tracking shot through a track of the London Underground, remind us that this character has oblivion on her mind.  She races down the stairs before pausing right at the tracks, yet we don't hear a train approaching the station, so we begin to wonder what exactly she's doing down there.  Davies' transitions from a shot of Hester's POV looking down the dark tunnel, to the aforementioned tracking shot that lasts for a little over two and a half minutes, but speaks volumes.  

It's rare when you can remember such an exact moment when a film became "great" for you in your mind.  It's that moment when, if slouching, you are suddenly sitting upright and your eyes become attached to the screen as though magnetized.  This sequence was that moment for me.  Which is not to suggest that everything else in The Deep Blue Sea is lackluster, merely that, I'll probably never forget the intense reaction this shot stirred within me.  I'm very thankful for it too, because up until this film, I was gallingly unaware of Mr. Davies prior film work and speaking from experience, if you share a similar affliction, acquit yourself of that burden immediately. 

Back to the sequence, the aforementioned phone call with Freddie was an attempt at reconciliation because he had, in fact, discovered her suicide attempt and decided quickly that the affair was no longer worth his time and effort.  Hester spends a large portion of the present day scenes of the film in an intense isolation.  It is only fitting she would seek solitude underground.  And that's what is perhaps the most captivating element to Davies' handling of Hester's very personal memory of the London Blitz, it's almost calming. Davies' previous biographical films Distant Voices, Still Lives and The Long Day Closes (among others) display his absolute mastery of flashbacks that double as memory.  While never tipping into pointless nostalgia, Davies is able to simultaneously preserve a moment in amber and at the same time, achieve an aching distance from it as well.  This sequence is a perfect encapsulation of his abilities.  The dust that rattles loose from the tunnel walls is the only indication of the violence occurring above-ground but the devastating impacts of those bombs are felt in the faces of each and every person the camera passes by in that graceful tracking shot.  As we slowly creep down the tunnel, we see a civilization attempting to adapt by clinging to their former lives as much as humanly possible.  People are playing cards, tiny UK flags are adorned like christmas lights, and war propaganda posters are posted on about every available inch of tunnel wall.  The lights are dim and the mood is somber (the people almost look like diorama pieces from the Natural History Museum), but there is a deep sense of resilience to this new found community.  The Irish traditional Molly Malone, which begins as a solo performance and coalesces into a group sing-along whenever it reaches the chorus, doubles as a way to pass the time and remember the past.  When those voices muster the strength to collectively join in the procession, it was one of the most galvanizing moments of that movie year.  There isn't a director working today who can wring the magic out of a shared moment of song like Terence Davies.  There is no doubt in my mind about that fact.  Finally, the camera comes to a stop and lingers on Hester and Sir William Collyer.  Everything we have seen prior to this in the film suggests their marriage was one devoid of passion.  Yet in these moments, Hester seems to remember that even when they were cast out of their comfortable upper class lifestyle, they could face the onslaught together.  Holding onto each other while never forgetting to sing, nor look ahead of them into the darkness to ponder the surrounding devastation together.  

That push-pull, between the devil and the deep blue sea perhaps, (sorry that was terrible and I couldn't resist, but I'll do it again for sure in later posts) is at the heart of the dilemma for the character of Hester.  The war was a disastrous event, the effects of which are entirely visible even in the present day sequences of the film (the present day is set in 1950).  Yet, it has left Hester and William with a calamitous experience they shared in each other's arms, and from which neither can escape.  Her affair with Freddie is volatile and exciting, but he too has been damaged by his experience in the RAF, not to mention the rogue and somewhat naive nature of his personality in general.  What this suggests is that neither choice represents any kind of edenic ideal for Hester, which is refreshing for a film about infidelity, especially one where a female is the main focus.  Most movies that revolve around an affair (again, especially when a woman is concerned) have to present their current partners as devil incarnates or utterly boring ignorant dopes.  So much so, that we begin to wonder what they were ever doing with that person in the first place.  The genius of Davies' film (and Terence Rattigan's original play) is that the choice is never made clear for Hester.  This is a film about grief and mourning, and like the makeshift society formed in the London Underground, Hester can neither forget nor move on.  As if it were ever that simple. 

  

Rushmore "I'll take punctuality…"

365 Films

Entry #159

Rushmore (1998)

Directed by Wes Anderson

One of my regrets about abandoning the previous incarnation of the 365 blog the way that I did was that I was not able to complete a series of Wes Anderson posts to coincide with the release of Matt Zoller Seitz's wonderful book from last year, The Wes Anderson Collection.  So for those of you who know me and are fully aware of my undying love for Mr. Anderson's work, just remember, these could have been A LOT longer. 

To boil down Mr. Anderson's sophomore feature, Rushmore to one essential scene, moment, glance, or gesture is a fool's errand at best.  One of the most rewarding aspects to Anderson's work is how thoroughly his attention to detail and style burrows into his character's essential beings as well, resulting in the most devastatingly human moments that reveal themselves to you upon subsequent viewings.  Sure, there are uproarious moments in Rushmore (Murray's deadpan "never in my wildest dreams…" line comes to mind) but there has always been one moment that's stuck with me the most and it's when Murray's Herman Blume meets Bert Fisher (father of Max) for the first time.  The short little scene comes after both characters have reached their spiritual nadir with regards to the mutual admirations they both shared for Rushmore elementary school teacher Rosemary Cross along with the ensuing personal consequences their affections warranted.  There's a telling shot in this sequence which occurs right after we are geographically introduced to Blume standing in front of Mr. Fisher's barbershop.  Cat Steven's accompaniment in the background is rudely interrupted by a splash of water created by a passing cyclist.  It's obvious that the most likely freezing and dirty water has made contact with Herman, but his expression (perhaps best understood by comparing him to a human Eeyore) conveys this as just being another shitty, miserable thing that has happened to him today.  The defeat in his eyes is almost unbearable.  The camera cuts quickly to a low angled shot of his feet getting splashed and then immediately back to his reaction shot.  We never see a wide, master shot of the actual splash but we don't need to because this quick cutaway establishes the most important aspect to the beginning of this scene: Herman Blume's disconnection from even himself.  Yet at the same time, in the previous scene, there is a very similar shot of Max and Dirk Calloway's feet as Margaret Yang's radio controlled plane touches down for a smooth landing.  All of this could be best understood by Rosemary's earlier proclamation upon learning Max has tricked his way into her bedroom with fake blood: "You and Herman deserve each other, you're both little children."  An understanding followed through upon by Max when he presents Herman with his choice of the punctuality or perfect attendance pins from Rushmore.  The weary acceptance with which Blume chooses the punctuality button is not only absolutely heartbreaking, but also establishes the intense personal bond between these two characters.  Blume may have sorely let Max down in the past, but now he's here and now he's ready to show up.  

Max then takes Blume inside and introduces him to his father.  The background music changes to (perhaps being played on an old radio or record player in the barbershop) "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" from the Charlie Brown Christmas Soundtrack.  Not only is this significant in terms of the long-standing influence of the Peanuts over Anderson's work , but also because I can not think of another moment in the history of American television that denotes reconciliation like the final shot of A Charlie Brown Christmas.  The specific moment of forgiveness in this scene, however, occurs because Blume had been under the impression that Bert Fisher was a neurosurgeon (and by under the impression, I mean Max flat out told him this). The moment of sad acceptance on Murray's face when he realizes this fact gets me every single time.  What's most astounding about it is that it's just the slightest shift of his eyes, all of a sudden everything he thought he knew about Max has been radically altered within the span of a sentence.  Bert, oblivious to Blume's minor crisis occurring in his mind, gently requests that Blume refer to him on more congenial terms (Bert instead of Mr. Fisher) and then leads him into the chair reassuring him that what's about to happen is a relatively painless procedure.  Blume, taking one look at himself, and Anderson brilliantly staging the scene in such a way where Murray looks out into the audience so that we see exactly what he sees, can only offer "I just don't know, Bert…"  I may be way off base on this but the way Bert leans Blume back into the chair and places the towel on his face before commencing with the haircut, brings to mind a baptism of sorts.  The point (to me) hammered home by Max and Blume emerging from the barbershop, Blume offering a gentle wave goodbye to Bert and re-engaging with the world anew as a man reborn.

The two main character actions in this scene best personify Mr. Anderson's multitudinous and venerable gifts.  Often accused of being far too interested in his character's perfectly manicured wardrobe to the point of sacrificing what's going on inside their head, here we have three characters embracing the detritus of their world while at the same time refusing to be defined by it.  Max and his pins, Blume in his dilapidated appearance, and Bert with his barber occupation.  These physical things are not the point of their existence, but they are how the characters shelter themselves from the cruelty and disappointment brought down on them by the world at large.  And if we think about this scene, particularly from Blume's perspective, we see a man who is physically, spiritually, and mentally broken inside.  But rather than simply end his story with that realization, Anderson (ever the empathetic humanist) instead has the man call a truce with the rest of the world, and more importantly, with himself.     

Editor's Note:  Sorry, I couldn't provide a corresponding video clip with this one.  If anybody knows a legal, and relatively easy way to do that, I'm all ears.  I doubt that to be the case though.  In any event, I hope this suffices. 

   

Ali (Opening Credits Sequence)

365 Films

Entry #158

Ali (2001)

Directed by Michael Mann

I suppose I should begin this entry by explaining the school year length absence of posts.  All I can offer is that they're very good customers, and I'm not answering any more questions.  One of the initial problems I ran into with this blog is that, since I started it right before turning 29, I realized quickly that it would be a rather herculean effort to keep it updated on a day by day basis before turning 30.  Apparently, what you're supposed to do is write all the entries well before the actual year, that way you can just automatically post them as each day comes.  The idea of harnessing preparation before embarking on a task is an entirely foreign one to me, though I hope to become hip to its appeal over time.  In any event, re-watching, writing about and subsequently posting about one film a day proved to be too much for me and my incredibly dedicated team of whatever they're called.  Subsequently, I have decided to take a new approach.  This may not appeal to some of the 365 purists out there, but it works for me and since the only eyes that will ever read this site will be mine as I'm writing it, I have my full support. 

Instead of an entire film, I will write about a sequence, a moment, a look, a music cue, any smallish bite size portion of a larger whole.  I will try to personalize each entry and talk a little about my feelings regarding the overall trajectory of the film itself, but honestly, the more contained I can keep these posts, the more likely I'll be to finish them.  There you go folks, that's how the sausage is made, laid out on right on display for you.  That's how we do it here at Anti-Fanboy industries, we keep things real.  So to begin the re-boot of 365 Films in 365 days, I will take a look at the first 10 minutes (approx.) of Michael Mann's ambitious and undervalued 2001 biography film, Ali.  Bon appetit.

One of the things I find so remarkable about this opening sequence to Ali is the fact that the title character says merely two rather innocuous words for its duration.  He remains silent, dormant, and constantly in motion like a spinning top.  The rest of the film opens up Ali (and one can see it a bit at the very end of this clip), to examine his stage persona vs. his real life personality.  One thing becomes remarkably clear about both variations, he never shuts up.  To begin the film with him in a monk-like near vow of silence is to suggest a kind of passivity, but I feel that the images construe an entirely opposite scenario, this is a mind that can not stop thinking and a result, can not stop reinventing itself.  The opening title card displaying the date to be February 24, 1964 reminds us that he is still Cassius Clay and more to the point, NOT yet the world champion.  This sequence is about how he becomes not just a man but that man.  

Director Michael Mann, working with the mind-boggingly talented cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki achieve a special kind of documentary lyricism with the images in this sequence.  From the impenetrable wall of blinding white light held fast by the spot on Sam Cooke, to the flickering blur of the boxing bag that Ali works with a speed that appears to be beyond the human brain.  In the wrong hands, these images could appear rather commonplace and occurring in somewhat banal settings. They are certainly filled with the kind of laser focused attention to period detail for which Mann is known, and in his and Lubezki's skilled hands, they mange to flow evocatively from one gorgeous, impressionistic moment to the next.  The idea here is a mind, body, and soul in flux, constantly in motion, refusing to stand still.  A distinction one of Ali's trainers makes as he's jumping rope, "Never jump in one place, bad for the heart.  Forward, backwards, sideways, that's the most important thing."  In addition to defining Ali's fighting style in future bouts, we watch him take these words to heart while also making cognitive associations with his brain.  When then world champ Sonny Liston taunts him with "beat ya ass like I's ya daddy", the film cuts back to young Cassius watching his father paint a white Jesus and then taking a trip on a segregated bus as the newspaper images of a brutally murdered Emmet Till are literally shoved into his face.  This is followed by an adult Clay watching a speech given by Malcolm X wherein it is explicitly stated what Black men and women should do when somebody lays a hand on them.  Ali's father may not have beat him physically but he brought him into a world, a society, and a culture that seemed determined to beat him into absolute submission.  Again, we see Mann layering and constructing his images in a way that suggest a human being in evolution and he does it while never having to resort to distracting and unconvincing scenes of exposition like so many other biopics must do.  

Even the live performance medley of Sam Cooke serves as a harbinger of reinvention.  Up until the Harlem Square Club performance, Cooke was a cross-over gospel pop star with mainstream appeal.  This particular tour in 1963, however, saw him performing to predominately black audiences and giving a much more visceral, loud, and raw type of show that would have most likely scared the living shit out of his mainstream pop fans.  As a result, the record was shelved for fear of the damage it would do to his relatively clean cut reputation.  Watching Cooke in the film (at least the actor playing him) we see an artist truly engaged with his devoted audience.  Physically reaching out to touch them, and recreating a gospel style call and response with the jubilant Bring It On Home To Me chorus finale.  A style of recitation that Ali, himself would come to adopt in the film and his boxing career.  Particularly with his weigh-in orations and declarations of physical and mental superiority over all of his opponents.  Not to mention Ali's obvious contempt for mainstream acceptance of black  culture.  Again, the way Mann selects and cuts these images, it's almost as if we're watching Ali absorb the culture and radically alter it to his will through his work and through his mind.  

This is an electrifying ten minutes of essentially pure filmmaking.  It does come as somewhat of a let down when the rest of the run-time maintains a more conventional narrative while hopping and skipping around the best of Ali compilation disc.  That's not meant to write the film off completely, it certainly has its moments of pure transcendence, but on the whole it is perhaps Mann's most uneven work.  It is in these opening ten moments that we see what Mann utilizing the the skills of what Manhola Dargis refers to as those of a "thinking filmmaker."  The exactness of the ideas being conveyed by Mann and his images impart upon us a dedication by the filmmaker to fill every frame with as much thought and execution as he possibly can.  In a way, he's explicitly trying to keep up with Ali himself, who didn't merely throw punches so much as he expertly manipulated pieces on a chess board.  That's not to say those punches didn't have a super-human level of severity and accuracy, it's just that each one meant something.  If that is how I wrap this up (if there's been any trajectory to this post at all), it's to leave you with the idea that when you're watching a Michael Mann film, it is imperative that you pay very close attention.  Every image counts.

Once Upon A Time In America

365 Films

Entry #157

Once Upon A Time In America (1984)

Directed by Sergio Leone

              Here we finally come to the completion of Sergio Leone’s second trilogy with Once Upon A Time In America.   I will completely understand the confusion for I have not only left an enormous gap between blog entries, but I have also begun with Mr. Leone’s final trilogy of work.  It’s sort of like starting at the end of a puzzle and then waiting a month only to start right back up again at the end.  If that analogy works I’m going to submit it to urban dictionary so please let me know if it does in the comments section.  Magnum opus doesn’t even begin to describe Once Upon A Time In America.  It is a film so big that it can’t even be contained in its mammoth run time of three hours and forty-nine minutes.  A recent Cannes premiere of a four-hour plus cut only substantiates the theory that Leone had more movie to put in this than any single movie can take.  Fitting that it was his final film because I can’t think of a better send off for this larger than life cinematic presence.  Trying to condense a coherent series of thoughts from this film in the space of a few measly sentences is futile at best and insulting to the work at worse.  Therefore, I will attempt a sort of free form, free associative series of thoughts and observations on the final work of Mr. Leone and hope in some small way to at least inspire someone who stumbles on this blog to seek it out and make a night of viewing it.  In a recent conversation I had with a friend about the film he said it simply and rather eloquently: “That movie is a bummer.  That movie bums me out.”  That observation really got to the heart of the film for me because it is so wonderfully easy to spot the exhilarating spectacle of Leone’s filmmaking abilities.  The sets, the Morricone music (seriously one of the most moving film scores ever created), and the sweeping scope of Leone’s camera, collectively work their hardest to indulge in the kind of myth making he seems intent to destroy and burn to cinders.  It’s a similar approach to Once Upon A Time In The West only that film seemed to be clinging to one last vestige of hope for the way of a certain kind of life in the old west whereas this film is most decidedly an Eastern and one that seems to suggest the entire foundation of this country was and always will be rotten to the core.  Leone’s last three films all work as a triptych exploration of a land that seemingly both intoxicated and repulsed the Italian filmmaker.  And the elements that intoxicated him were more firmly situated in the fantastical Hollywood realm of our national psyche.  Once Upon A Time In America is the final attempt to wrestle both of those contradictory impulses to the ground.  Is it successful in doing so?  I don’t think I’m quite equipped yet to answer that question but what I do know is that, like a lot of the films on this blog, it’s boundary pushing imperfections make it the awe inspiring and immortal work of art that it is and always will be. If you’ll kindly indulge me in a bit of a rant, I would like to make the suggestion that perfection if highly over rated.  If anybody can remind me of a “perfect” film please do so in the comments below this post.  The idea has always been silly to me because everybody’s ideas of perfection are so wildly unique and personal that it seems a moot point to ever label a work as such.  To that extent, I also happen to find imperfect films usually more fascinating and much more rewarding in the department of conversation ignition.  Imperfect works are also always much more indicative of their creators because human beings are by definition imperfect so why should we ask our films, literature, or any other art form to rise above the status of their creators.  This is not to say people should stop seeking perfection, but only that in the pursuit of perfection does one ever push themselves beyond any standard definition of the word and into an entirely different stratosphere.  One where, in a film such as this for example, each cut seems like the work of human hands spilling open the contents of their brains and attempting to sort out the mess through images, music, and dialogue.  Those are the kinds of films that always attract me and they are why I’ll always return to Once Upon A Time In America.  Even if I never see the “complete” cut or whatever new permutation someone believes to be Leone’s final word on the matter, I’ll always recognize that film contains everything I love most about cinema.  So forgive me if this particular entry is entirely haphazard and completely without form or content.  I was trying to approximate the kind of feelings that this particular film inspires.  I don’t want to say it’s a kind of lost art of filmmaking, because somebody will bring it back someday.  But it makes the process of breaking it down element by element for a casual analysis very difficult for me.  I’m sure there is a plethora of great writing out there both pro and con for the film.  I just love this film for it’s championing of the myth of America but also its mourning of all the ways in which we, as Americans, have thoroughly failed that myth.  

Undertow

   365 Films

Entry #156

Undertow (2004)

Directed by David Gordon Green

             Editor’s Note: I understand some of you may have been under the impression that this blog was dead and done for, but I am pleased to announce that this is not the case.  I haven’t quite worked out the math yet but it’s probably statistically impossible for me to complete this blog in the stated goal of 365 days.  That being said, there’s nothing in the rule book that says I can not finish 365 films over some other pre-determined arbitrary length of time is there?  No.  There is not.  Stay tuned for what length of time that turns out to be. 

Continuing the David Gordon Green retrospective, today’s entry brings us to Undertow, the woefully under-appreciated stepchild in Mr. Green’s wildly varying filmography.  It’s interesting to consider the amount of grief Mr. Green sustained upon the release of Pineapple Express and his subsequent “stoner comedy” period when re-visiting Undertow.  This is a film that is almost as big a leap for the filmmaker as any of his later studio pictures.  Sure, it retains a lot of the lyrical visual stylistics of his prior two films, and the southern setting certainly fits this filmmaker well, but compared to those previous films, Undertow is almost a Jerry Bruckheimer production in terms of the pyrotechnics.  Adapted from a story conceived by the master Terrence Malick (who also produced the film but is credited under a pseudonym for the story by credit), Undertow relates the tragic and somewhat horrifying family history of the Munn family and the subsequent events that led to young brothers Chris and Tim being orphaned and left to fend for themselves in the woods of Georgia.  Borrowing beautifully from a grab bag mix of The Night of the Hunter (another future 365 entry…someday) and a Dukes of Hazzard episode (decidedly not on my list), Undertow is like most great films decidedly imperfect but injected with a kind of vibrancy that can only be the product of a genuine talent figuring out his or her filmmaking philosophy.  There are scenes of earth-shattering violence juxtaposed with Green’s unique sense of goofy observational humor.  There’s a blossoming teen romance thrown in with a subplot involving younger brother Tim’s anorexia caused by his anxiety over not being able to grasp the concept of infinity.  There’s even one of the most genuinely beautiful and heartbreaking scenes ever filmed of a man sitting alone in a kitchen eating cake. Oh, and that opening credit sequence is one for the ages, one of the best of the past ten years by far.  Undertow was a big step outside of Mr. Green’s wheelhouse and he paid the price for it.  The usual praise chorus that greeted George Washington and All The Real Girls was this time replaced with indifferent shrugs.  It was the first time Mr. Green would meet that kind of hostility for stepping out of his comfort zone but it certainly wouldn’t be the last.  I remember describing the film to a friend and saying it was a southern gothic fairy tale and before I could even get the last syllable out of that description he put his hand up and said, “yeah, not interested” and walked away from the conversation.  Nearly ten years later Undertow stands as a remarkably courageous transitional work for a filmmaker barely into his career.  Which is not to say the film only has symbolic value, only that it is a thrilling and unsettling work by a true filmmaking talent.

Also here is that opening credit sequence for your viewing pleasure.  Umm, something kind of gruesome happens in it but I'll let you discover that for yourself.  Enjoy! 

All The Real Girls

365 Films

Entry # 155

All The Real Girls (2003)

Directed by David Gordon Green

In honor of my brother’s birthday today, it seemed only fitting to pick a film that he holds as near and dear as I do.  All The Real Girls is a difficult film for me to summarize, much less perform any kind of critical analysis on its filmmaking techniques.  So ingrained are some of the moments into my own memories not just of the time when I first saw it, but also images from my own life, that it seems trivial to even attempt any kind of objective distance.  Therefore, I will cop-out with my usual sentiment of suggesting that if you are not familiar with All The Real Girls that you drop everything and go see it no matter how inconvenient it is for you to do so and make up your own mind.  The best I can do, and how I will attempt to tie this all into a celebration of Nate’s birthday is explain the context and story behind why this film has become so important to the both of us.  It was a frigid February weeknight back in 2003 (at least I think it was a weeknight, Nate feel free to correct if I am wrong).  I was in the second semester of my freshman year at NYU and Nate was just a few months away from wrapping up his four year stint at NYU as well.  A bit of back-story for the back-story, as a freshman at the NYU film program (back then at least) did not involve any actual filmmaking.  You take a bunch of introductory classes and don’t get your hands on a physical film camera until the following year.  The importance of this is that I was not yet equipped with the experience of being in the “shit” at NYU, Nate had been fully immersed in it for the past three years.  Without getting into any specifics, mainly because that’s Nate’s story to tell and I do not wish to dredge up any unpleasant memories in too much sordid detail, Nate was a little frustrated with the creative progress he was making at that particular moment in his college education.  The reason I bring this all up is because he knew little to nothing about the film All The Real Girls before we sauntered into the basement of the Angelika that night to see it.  I knew very little about it as well except for the fact that the film’s director, David Gordon Green, had previously made George Washington a film for which my deep and everlasting love has already been well documented on this site.   That name being listed in the credits was reason enough for me to check out anything regardless of the content (an edict that would come back to bite me in the ass a few years later with a few of Mr. Green’s films).  I remember Nate was hesitant and I don’t think he had yet seen George Washington, but he was not entirely sold on this based on the usual marketing materials.  He was interested for sure, otherwise he just wouldn’t have gone, but to say he went in wanting to love it would be an overstatement.  The reason I’m attempting to catalogue these seemingly innocuous details is because collectively, they make his reaction to the film afterwards all the more joyous.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen my brother react to a film so instantaneously the way he did for All The Real Girls.  It was as if the film gave him a dozen shots of pure creative adrenaline, which subsequently gave him a sense of clarity in regards to the creative struggles he was having with school at that time.  I just remember walking back to our dorms in Union Square and Nate was almost unable to stop talking about what he had just seen.  People sometimes (myself included) describe the primary pleasures to be taken from watching a movie as those of the escapist variety.  You watch a movie to be transported “somewhere else” and flee the boring reality of day-to-day existence.  Movies like All The Real Girls spin that very notion on its head and in fact, offer the exact opposite.  The feeling Nate and I had that night was one of personal engagement with the larger world; we felt a pure sense of connection with not only the film and its creators but also the fact that we lived in a universe where such a film could be made in the first place.  As absolutely eye-roll worthy as it sounds, this film gave us both a collective sense of hope.  When you hear the stories about films that changed people’s lives on first viewing, they are usually associated with epics or large scale pieces that offer a “game-changing” approach towards technique and craft.  Not to diminish that sentiment and surely I’ve experienced that with those films as well.  But there is something to be said for the films that seem to be made just and only for you.  There is something to be said for the fact that even the most restrained releases of films solely being shown in sparsely crowded, subterranean cinematic pits such as the Angelika still offer us the chance to step back out into the world feeling as if we’ve just witnessed something remarkable.  Even to this day, All The Real Girls fails to retain the qualities it needs in order to be a lifeless object to me.  It grows with me and each viewing offers the chance to be opened up to a new sense of understanding with the purity of its cinematic sincerity.   It is not something to be necessarily studied or poured over detail by detail (the film is certainly dense enough for that, I just don’t have the ability to do it).  It’s more like checking in with an old friend that you haven’t seen in a very long time.  You laugh at the same goofy moments and marvel at the emotional understandings you still share after all this time.  Personally, I think there’s something else going on in my mind every time I sit down to watch this film, a feeling that perhaps lords over even the very specificity of the film itself.  Even ten years later, I can’t help but be reminded of the look on Nate’s face and the passion in his voice when he spoke that night about a film that truly and deeply moved him.  It’s a beautiful thing to witness a piece of art lift someone up like that, perhaps even more so when it is someone for whom you happen to care a great deal.  And that person in turn, imbues the film with a sense of life that will last far beyond its run in the theaters.  I don’t want to speak for Nate on this, but I know that for myself, if I ever forget why this field is worth pursuing in the first place, I simply think of that film and that night. 

Happy Birthday Nate. 

Duck, You Sucker!

365 Films

Entry #154

Duck, You Sucker! (1968)

Directed by Sergio Leone

Let me just start off immediately by pointing out that Duck, You Sucker! is an AWESOME title for a movie.  It's not the only one this one has and by far the one that makes the least sense, but it's still pretty damn awesome.  In certain territories it's also known as A Fistful of Dynamite and Once Upon A Time In..The Revolution.  The last title makes a lot more sense considering this is the second entry in Leone's "Once Upon A Time..." trilogy, but that's neither here nor there.  I think my favorite part about the Duck, You Sucker title is, as Keith Uhlich wrote in Slant for the subsequent DVD review: "It is rumored that Leone's original title for Duck, You Sucker was Once Upon a Time…The Revolution, which it did eventually, and appropriately, go under during its French release. Frayling explains in an accompanying video interview that the English title is both a loose translation of the original Italian, Giù la Testa (literally: "Keep your head down, balls") and the result of a mistaken assumption on the part of Leone, who was convinced that "Duck, you sucker!" was a common phrase of American slang."  I don't know, that shit makes me laugh.  The film opens with what must be the only example of a an introductory shot announcing itself to us with a close up shot of piss.  Leone's capacity for stripping his environments down to their grubbiest, most base components gets a good exercise with the first section of this film.  In one of the most nauseatingly disgusting sequences ever committed to film, Rod Steiger's  Juan Miranda, a mexican outlaw gets picked up by a wagon carrying the worst examples of the white race within a 1,000 mile radius.  The group proceeds to berate Juan and his countryman (along with any other group on the planet that isn't white and christian) for being grotesque savages.  Leone visualizes their brutal words literally with a devastating montage of oral close-ups as they sloppily stuff their faces and spew racial bile at record speed.  For my money, it's one of the most memorable sequences Leone's ever committed to film, especially considering there's not a gun fight in sight.  To be fair, the scene's exclamation point does come in the form of a gunshot to the head, but it's definitely the ONLY way that sequence could have ended.  The reason I'm spending so much time waxing over this particular opening is that it sets up the overwhelming sense of cynicism that not only courses through so much of this film, but through all of Leone's work.  We are introduced to the hero of Duck, You Sucker and he is a vile, misogynistic sadist who also happens to be dedicated to his comrades and family (including the children from several different women to which he lays claim).  His eventual partner in crime is James Coburn's John Mallory, an early IRA explosives expert on the run from the British.  The point being that these two rise to the top like cream when the rest of the world is as shitty as the one run and ruled by the white institutions represented by the wagon in the form of money, violence, and religious hypocrisy.  And what Miranda and Mallory learn is that in order to destroy those institutions, they have to play by their rules and that is what sets apart Duck, You Sucker from so many other films of its type.  Leone has no romantic ideals about revolution and does not for one second see them as anything remotely glorious and cinematic as his filmmaking brethren.  For him, the founding of this country and fateful meeting between civilization and the frontier were not tidy nor orderly affairs.  Much like the trail of death left in the way of the railroad in Once Upon A Time In The West, the characters in this film are dragged kicking and screaming through the idea of progress and nobody comes out clean in the end. 

        

Once Upon A Time In The West

365 Films

Entry #153

Once Upon A Time In The West (1968)

Directed by Sergio Leone

Once Upon A Time In The West is a strange place to start my Sergio Leone retrospective, but then again, it's sort of strange for me to be doing a Leone retrospective in the first place.  It really is apropos of nothing; no anniversaries, no commemorative screenings, not even an exhibit at LACMA.  Then again, I should say my appetite was re-whetted after seeing The Lone Ranger a month ago and just relishing the obvious passion Gore Verbinski displayed for Leone in the film, which, along with his previous film Rango should play as a double bill Leone tribute for some enterprising repertory theater someday.  My personal interest in Leone came from a bit of fanboy marketing on the part of Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino back in 2003 upon the release of Rodriguez's Once Upon A Time In Mexico.  The story goes that Tarantino pointed out how Rodriguez had inadvertently made his own version of Leone's Dollars Trilogy with El Mariachi and Desperado, all he had to do now was make his The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.  Thus, Once Upon A Time In Mexico was born.  I can also remember my brother, while I was still in high school, talking about a class he was taking at NYU that was entirely focused on Spaghetti Westerns.  A term that all at once baffled and delighted me in that I thought it referred to some kind of cinematic cross breeding between a splatter/slasher movie and the western (I thought Spaghetti was referring to tomato sauce, as in the color of blood gushing all over the screen, it wasn't until later I learned it meant Italian filmmakers making westerns).  With all of this cross-pollination of information, my interest piqued somewhere around January of 2004 and I eventually made the momentous decision to rent a bunch of movies from the video store.  Oh shit, I almost forgot, Kill Bill came out in the fall of '03, didn't it?  Yeah, that definitely played a part, what with Tarantino's liberal cribbing of Morricone's music for the film and its corresponding advertising.  In any event, I remember a sort of week long splurge of every Leone film I could get my hands on.  Lucky for me, all of Leone's major achievements were available on DVD by that point with the exception of Duck, You Sucker.  The only problem was, I had to make due with a tiny television set in my college dorm room, which was absolutely fine for every other purpose it served, it just couldn't make Leone that memorable.  I remember being very fond of the films, but none of them really hit me the way I wanted them to.  It wasn't until I had the opportunity to see Once Upon A Time In The West at the Egyptian theater here in Hollyood a few years back.  All I can say is: holy, fucking, shit.  It was a transcendent experience, and if you don't believe me, try watching that film on a giant screen and just wait until Claudia Cardinale makes her entrance.  When the camera soars majestically over the train station building and takes its very first view of the blossoming town nestled within and Morricone's score kicks into high gear, I dare you not to be a big blubbering mess by the end of it.  I can now say with utmost certainty that not only is Once Upon A Time In The West my personal favorite of Leone's, but it is definitely in my top five of films ever made (maybe even top three).  Sure, there are minor quibbles to be had, most of them involving Leone's complicated (to put it mildly) treatment of his female characters.  That's a discussion I'm not really equipped to have in this particular forum but I will point out that I acknowledge it and still love the film in spite of it.  It just seems down right nutty to ignore the indescribable majesty of the rest of the film.  And I would also argue that Claudia Cardinale turns in an extraordinary performance that delivers some much needed shading to a precariously sketched character.  Everything about this film from the chill-inducing score (I honestly can't think of a more successful and mind-blowing collaboration between director and composer than Leone and Morricone) to the stellar performances from Bronson, Fonda, and Robards (all outstanding, particularly Fonda), to the unbelievably operatic scope of the thing.  I hate making statements like this but I'm going to do it anyway, there is a part of me that thinks if you don't like Once Upon A Time In The West, you might as well stop watching movies because clearly you just can't vibe with what they are pedaling.  This was the first in what would later be known as Leone's second trilogy (since un named) after the Dollars or Man With No Name Trilogy.  It was to be his final pure western and the beginning of a three film examination concerning the brutal beginnings of this country.  As a swan song that evocatively captures the mythic qualities of a vanishing western genre (and way of life) while simultaneously under cutting every single one of those romantic qualities with shocking and punishing reminders of the violence inherent to the American character, Once Upon A Time In The West reminds us that the western, (or any forgotten genre really), regardless of knee jerk reactions to current popularity can be re-vitalized and say something bold and relevant about the society which created it.  We could really use another Once Upon A Time In The West really soon as far as I'm concerned.  We could use more filmmakers like Leone too.   

Manhattan

365 Films

Entry #152

Manhattan (1979)

Directed by Woody Allen

I know I said I was going to devote most of this blog to Vietnam war centered films for the time being but have you tried watching one of those recently?  I needed to take a break and with the release of Blue Jasmine, I thought it would be a good time to explore some of the earlier work of Woody Allen and what better place to start than two of his most overly-analyzed classics Annie Hall and now, Manhattan.  If you haven't been able to smell the over-powering whiff of desperation from this blog, I sincerely applaud your humane inclinations towards mercy.  Manhattan came at an interesting cross roads in Mr. Allen's career.  Where Annie Hall was a tremendous box office success and gobbled up all the major Academy Awards, the follow up to that film, Interiors produced only baffled and disappointed reactions from the Allen faithful up to that point.  Editor's note: I just watched Interiors for the first time last night and was pretty mesmerized by it but I can also completely understand the reputation it holds as perhaps one of Allen's least beloved films.  In one of Mr. Allen's boldest strokes, Manhattan doesn't seem like a corrective to Interiors but more of a melding of that films obsessions with   theatrical displays of adult behavior with the goofy romanticism of Annie Hall.  That said yearning comes occasionally in the form of the forty-two year old main character Isaac's relationship with a seventeen year old high school student does put an unfortunately creepy tinge on the proceedings.  Then again, even that bit of unpleasantness does quite a number on factoring out the highly idealized vision of Manhattan that the film creates.  The buildings and skylines may be gorgeously photogenic, (and the Gershwin score, as iconic as it is, is still incapable of being described through mere words) but within those cavernous streets and avenues are housed some of the most neurotic, twisted, and mentally unbalanced people one would ever hope to find.  It is ultimately the vision of Manhattan as a cinematic paradise that wins out and it is one that continues to inspire feelings of both nostalgia and a deep intense longing for a place that quite possibly never existed in the first place.  Mr. Allen seems to be suggesting (and it is a theme that has continued to obsess him ever since) that maybe we'll never find what we're looking for in this life but we can always find it in that infinitely beautiful cerebral headspace known as the movies.