February 2008
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February 24, 2008
Good Oscar Quote
From the producer of No Country for Old Men: "With the opportunity of making a movie comes the responsibility of making it good."
Despite the usual omission of more deserving nominations, it was an all in all good night for the Oscars as far as winners: there was nothing too unreasonable compared to the last few years. Though you could tell that the writer's strike hurt Jon Stewart's stint as host. I am glad I didn't skip it.
Posted by Fran at 11:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Good Call
I just wanted to chime in about the surprisingly good call of having Once win for best song. Even having the worst song on the film be nominated against 3 (!) songs from a major production said nothing about how much of a surprise this is.
It's a terrific film. And believe me, hearing sappy singer songwriter ballads for an hour and a half did not sound like a good time to me, but I was completely won over after about a minute.
Posted by Fran at 10:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
February 22, 2008
L'AVVENTURA TO L'ECLISSE
This is a short argument I wrote for one of my classes which I ultimately abandoned. I decided not to throw it away and post it here; perhaps there is something interesting in it.
Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’Eclisse is as much a continuation of L’Avventura as it is an evolution of it. I will argue that it is its sequel, of sorts, much in the same way that Wong Kar-wai’s 2046 is to his In the Mood for Love; meaning that though the film’s narratives have no straightforward connections, the sequels are the progression of the first film’s main character’s archetype in a tangent journey.
The most obvious connection between the two films is Monica Vitti, arguably the protagonist of both. She plays women suffering from a malaise brought upon by the inability to connect to their modern social class and country. She does not play as prominent a role in La Notte as in the films that bookend it, so it is safe to ignore it in this context; though one interesting point is that her hair in it is different, in style and color, from the one she shares in the other two. Vitti is made up as the same person in them; Antonioni makes no effort to create a visually different person. Her use of expressions, which move from sullen blankness and distance to quick, occasional outbursts of joy, are also the same.
The films play like a continuing story. L’Avventura ends with Claudia coming to terms with who she and Sandro are. It is implied that she will be leaving him with her gesture of pity. L’Eclisse begins with the actual breakup of Vittoria and her boyfriend, Riccardo. Causes for this are not explicit, but we can make out that he shares a quality of neediness with Sandro. In the first scene they are placed in the same configuration Claudia and Sandro are in at the end of L’Avventura: she standing and he sitting. The balance of power remains intact as the scenes flow in a logical progression.
Vitti’s characters spend their time with similar men. In addition to similar personality traits, Riccardo looks suspiciously like Sandro. Even Piero is the equivalent of what Sandro must have been like in his youth: a rich, confident, playboy in an elite field of work in which his heart is not fully immersed. Piero is connected to the upper class through birthright and his work, but his clients are housewives that gamble with their extra income, not important financial giants. Like Sandro, he is not great at what he does and never will be. It is no surprise that Vittoria hesitates to, and ultimately does not, connect with him.
The spirit of Sandro permeates physically through L’Eclisse. The location of the Esposizione Universale Roma (EUR) is exactly the modern Italy men like him built. Throughout L’Avventura, Sandro is overwhelmed by rich and complex ancient architecture. The simple and uninspired EUR is the opposite of that older tradition and it reflects the type of architecture he is capable of creating. This has an adverse affect on the setting. “The whole layout of a city can thwart communication and connectivity…It is not only a place where a representative couple fail to meet but a culprit for that failure.” (Chatman, 108) The EUR is a psychodynamic space that is an important element through which Antonioni, with his form of subtle, realistic expressionism, conveys the emotion, or lack thereof, that haunts Vittoria. Since she, in essence, is a continuation of Claudia, who previously gave up on that world, it makes sense that no explanations are explicitly given within L’Eclisse as to why she wanders through EUR unable to relate to it.
Through the use of architecture, Antonioni marks a progression from the natural to the man-made. The final shot in L’Avventura sets this theme up for us by splitting the frame between Claudia’ emotive and natural half and Sandro’s barren and man-made half; visually portrayed through Mt. Etna and a wall, respectively. Because of an increasing absence of nature in urbanizing Italy, it becomes a refuge. Vittoria is most emotive when she is in the presence of it: whether it is materialized by wind that moves flag poles or clouds she flies by. Vittoria does not find solace in the man-made objects which begin to take over the roles of the natural; items which, in addition to the buildings being constructed throughout the EUR, include fans and street lights.
In addition to portraying Claudia and Vittoria rejecting a relationship, both films’ endings project the same relationship between them and their malaise. Since the films have progressed away from the natural toward the man-made, the metaphor made by the volcano in L’Avventura is made with nuclear weapons in L’Eclisse. This is the only man-made object that has the equivalent power of a volcano. The film moves between the worlds of Vittoria and Piero: hers open and desolate and his compact and manic. Therefore, it can be assumed that the ending and reference, which take place in the EUR, project feelings that belong to Vittoria. Both objects reference the respective women’s malaise because they are objects which, once erupted, are beyond the control of them. Not only that, the power represented by them is dormant. The objects are also at a distance from the women. Mt. Etna is much further away from Claudia than the wall is from Sandro, despite the flatness created by the camera lens, and the nuclear weapons are presented theoretically through a newspaper. These characteristics clearly describe Vitti’s characters’ malaise. The progression from the natural to man-made can also be explained through the relationship of the women to it. Claudia is a victim and thus her problems are external, and conversely, Vittoria is conscious of her problems from the beginning, and therefore, they are internal.
Posted by Fran at 12:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
FILM QUICKIES
There Will Be Blood
The Death of Mr. Lazarascu
So I finally saw There Will Be Blood and learned the origins of the infamous "I drink your milkshake!" line --which I am happy wasn't ruined for me. It was a highly enjoyable film but, unfortunately, one that was a bit too hyped. Could the film have been better? I am not so sure. It most certainly needed to be tightened up, but I think that nothing could saved it based upon the thinking behind the disappointing ending.
Unfortunately P.T. Anderson provided the biggest argument against the film when he let everyone know that it was influenced by The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. There Will Be Blood simply does not compare, especially in the important moments. First of all, there really is no payoff in Blood like there is in Treasure. I left the theater thinking about the characters instead of thinking about humanity, as I did after Treasure. What you get is a rather cold and awkward last minute Stanley Kubrick moment. I simply do not understand this Clockwork Orange vibe given the 2.5 hours that came before it. Even more awkward was the scene before it, where the film threatens to turn into a sappy Howard Hughes story. I do not believe that there was enough incentive provided to us to reflect on anything that happened. Also, the son and brother "exchange" was not firmly established. I know I sound way too much like Robert McKee, but was there something more to this than just an archetype replacement? It really wasn't one anyway. In the end, Treasure is more humane, the appropriate characters in it are more sympathetic, yet it is just as vicious. Together, and only together, this makes it a more powerful film.
Since I am playing devil's advocate, I have to admit to having some problems with the music as well. The soundtrack was terrific at points but at others it was just simple man's avant guard, something which the worst of Radiohead suffers from as well. In the film, these moments stuck out like a sore thumb --the syncopated drum scene in particular. The only reason I feel as though I can comment on this is because it doesn't make sense to use avant music when you take into consideration that Anderson went as far as using vintage camera lenses--that from what I can tell narrow shot's focus (to the detriment of the film)--in order to give the film a vintage look.
For those who have seen it, perhaps you can help me out. I didn't understand Daniel Plainview's progression in the film. Did he just explode, like the burning oil derrick he stares at; or was he always like that? If its the former, it felt a bit to mythical and far removed for me --especially compared to Bogart's progression; if its the latter, then a) the Kubrick-ish ending makes a bit more sense, and b) eww.
On the plus side, the performances were terrific. Daniel Day-Lewis surprised me with his unexpectedly (and relatively) restrained performance. I must admit that I was expecting another outlandish Gangs of New York performance that would typecast him in an Al Pacino way, but he continues to dazzle. The baptism scene made the 12 bucks worth it.
Though I should be writing my film class papers instead of this, I have to say that I saw The Death of Mr. Lazarescu last night. It was spellbinding. It's similar to 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days, so you can take what I said about that film and apply it to Lazarescu. I am excited to know that we are only at #2 in Cristi Puiu's 6 film series about modern life in Romania. I expect them all to be pretty much the same, but if Eric Rohmer can get me to watch 9 of his films (and counting), then I have no problem with this. Cannes obviously pulled an Academy Awards and gave Puiu the Palm D'Or last year for this film, which came out 2 years earlier. I have no problem with that. Unlike Blood, this is a film we will be discussing in 10 years.
Needless to say, I hope you put The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, an eternal classic and new one, on your netflix queue.
Posted by Fran at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
February 9, 2008
4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days
PRO-LIFE? PRO-CHOICE?
Much to Cristian Mungiu's credit, the question does not matter so much as the situation which raises it in 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days, a film about unlawful abortion set in the end of socialist Romania. The only choice that is certain is the judges' at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival: the film was the recipient of the Palm D'Or, the highest accolade in cinema, beating out the more life-affirming The Diving Bell and Butterfly. If you pardon the awful pun, it can be said that this makes sense seeing that the film is a lovechild of the Dardennes Brothers and Michelangelo Antonioni, directors traditionally beloved by Cannes.
Mungiu uses extremely intimate and minimal aesthetic (Dardennes) to stylistically capture the transferred plight and individual incidents (Antonioni) of Otilia, who goes beyond the call of duty to help her university roommate, Gabita, set up an abortion. On a technical level, the film is a showcase in cinematic professionalism; Dardennes and Antonioni are not names to be thrown out lightly. Little flourishes of suspense throughout further demonstrate just how much in control Mungiu is of his world. The acting is also up to par; Anamaria Marinca presents a devastatingly complex character that on the surface truly is a regular, modern, student and woman.
The film manages to do something remarkable with its narrative: it presents abortion in a way that makes most pro-life and pro-choice advocates seem childish. There is no doubt that both sides will see strong arguments for their case. The government and persons involved are deeply flawed, however, what is important in the film is the complexity of the situation that extends beyond anything we can specifically point a finger to, or vote on. True morality and the social and cultural components that help shape it are what is questioned. These abstract ideas --ignore any governmental propaganda, Democratic or Communist, calling them anything else-- are brought together in the hopes of, perhaps one day, finding a tangible way for us to deal with the consequences of being human. In the mean time, we have to survive until we can.
Posted by Fran at 2:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)