Spiritual quest porn

Back to basics: Movies are pictures. They do pictures well. They even do pictures of things that are better experienced than viewed: hence there are successful movies about sex and food. But pictures do not reveal depths of meaning. There is no accurate picture of the inside of the mind. Sure, you can have voice-over narration, but that still needs to be concise and pithy in a way that naturally reduces and homogenizes a complex task like a spiritual journey. As Liz Gilbert, protagonist of Eat Pray Love (2010) says to her friend Richard (see illustration), "Do you always talk in bumper stickers?" The whole script is sort of a bumper script pasted onto a Range Rover taking the viewer on a marvelous journey which is less than the sum of its parts.

One symptom of the problems with this film is that never once does it explain how Liz is living for this 12-month quest. Pains are made to tell you that her bitter ex-husband has taken all her money and her house. Let's see, broke and homeless--time to travel around the world! What?? I've been gainfully employed for many years and only just got to Paris a couple of years ago, and then for just a few days. My wife tells me that the book explains that this whole one-year sojourn was on assignment. Not only does the film omit that, but it omits any sequences indicating that she is writing. She sends a couple of desultory e-mails, but as for being a disciplined professional, dependent on her skills to make a living, it is typical of the Hollywood fantasy machine that all that icky real-life stuff is overlooked. Even worse, the filmmakers seem to be unaware that anyone would want to know such things. Or else, they just don't care if we believe in the story they're telling. (Which is a hint that they don't believe it either. Sad for a story based on real life.)

Ryan Murphy comes from television and seems to believe that filmmaking is nothing but script and acting. He does not seem to be aware of how the camera, the editor or the composer could help him tell his story--it is hard to see if his technique is invisible or non-existent.

Frankly, only the first part of the film is executed with complete confidence, as it focuses on food and sex, albeit Liz abstains from the sex herself. Nonetheless, the sexual vibes are pervasive, along with red sauce and red wine. It begins to lose its bearings when it gets to India, where everyone is eager for Liz to have a spiritual experience, especially Richard, played by Richard Jenkins, a wonderful actor who almost makes this character seem to be a person, although the writer has given him nothing but a propensity to give unsolicited advice. He has a teary monologue about being a drunk and NOT hurting his kid. That gives you a clue to the kind of stakes the movie likes to play with--everything is close to being real, but just doesn't get there.

Everyone else who has the key to spiritual enlightenment in India seems to be English--Michael Cumpsty and Sophie Thompson. But the key seems to be held by a magic elephant who appears, rather delightfully to tie up that sequence. (There is an Indian wedding, but those are getting to be a dime a dozen in movies these days.)

Finally, the film arrives in Bali and its willpower completely collapses. Liz falls into a blindingly predictable romance with Javier Bardem, who is both Natural Man and Brilliant Businessman. She shows she is now strong and independent by shying away from his romantic proposition, then seeing her spiritual advisor and then accepting. How disappointing--she learns that her problem is that she has to learn how not to be with a man all the time. So she goes out and finds a man to be with. Problem solved. It feels like a bad Audrey Hepburn movie once removed.

Which takes us to the principal asset of Eat, Pray, Love. Julia Roberts is made to be in movies. Her large expressive features are completely legible at all times, and although she is not bad at delivering lines, the movie is better when it is most quiet, focusing on food, landscapes, sunsets, ocean views and Julia's big brown eyes. It doesn't get deeper than that, but since I couldn't afford an August vacation this year, this will have to do.

Why doesn't The Godfather: Part III work?

There is little debate that The Godfather: Part III (1990) is not of equal stature with its predecessors, and many contend that it is not worthy to be considered part of a trilogy, but merely a commercially-drive appendage to a brilliant diptych consisting of the first film and Part II. But looking at it again for the first time in 20 years, it would have been considered a pretty fine film if it had not borne the same name as two undisputed classics.

The conception is fine, and a logical complement to what has gone before, especially when one considers Coppola's original intended title, The Death of Michael Corleone. The film concerns Michael's desire to atone and bring peace to his life. He is trying to shift his business into legitimate pursuits and reconcile with his family, and particularly to make peace with his ex-wife, Kay. To that end, he bestows his blessing on his son's career choice as an opera singer, although he considers it odd and risky. That thread pays off beautifully with the final sequence being intercut with a performance of Cavelleria Rusticana, which not only provides an internal counterpoint with its Sicilian-set story of betrayal and vendetta, but an outer echo with the baptism scene which concluded The Godfather.

What works less well is the idea of moving up via using connections through the Vatican Bank. Clearly the notion was that Michael moves away from organized crime in the higher reaches of finance, and find they have the same morality and modus operandi as the Mob. And it was logical that Michael would have such connections, plus Puzo and Coppola had some real-life scandals connected to the Vatican to base the story on, just as the first two films echoed real-life legends and events.

Problem is--who cares about the Vatican bank? They're all foreign and mysterious and weird and they don't seem respectable to Americans under the best of circumstances. So the whole "Credit Immobilier" plot seemed confusing, murky and pointless. Now that we are all a little smarter about international finance and credit, it makes a little more sense, but it still has no emotional impact. European businessmen are corrupt? Pass me another Cinzano.

Of course--there's the problem. At what institution would we be shocked to find corruption? Cynicism, borne of real events, has drowned our capacity to be shocked.

The most common criticism of Part III is the casting and the acting of Sofia Coppola. Actually Francis Coppola puts his finger on the problem in his commentary track--it's her flat California accent. Young people in California seem to speak with no resonance and their vowels spread and adenoidal. Sofia's face, however, is perfect. Beautiful, but flawed in that mysterious Mediterranean way. If she had cultivated a deeper tone and covered her vowels, she might have pulled it off. As it is, her scenes with Andy Garcia (as contrasted with those with Pacino) are really very good, leading one to wonder if Garcia did not pull her aside on his own and rehearse scenes with her. She is remarkably more at ease and fluid with Garcia than anywhere else in the film.

And of course, the finale is perfect. Coppola credits Murch with removing the sound of Pacino's scream from the soundtrack, and there should be a special Oscar just for that. In fact, the restoration of production sound seems like a mistake. Pacino's actual scream is much smaller, more specific to a person from a particular place, and thus loses the power of the silent scream, which is the scream of all fathers everywhere in the world that ever lost a beloved daughter. For a moment the universality and expressive power of the silent film is rediscovered and celebrated, and I for one regret the clunky return to earth that follows.

Was the final shot of Michael dying (and dropping the obligatory orange) put in to try and dissuade Paramount from making any more Godfather movies? How much you want to bet that they make a deal for the next one on the trip back from Coppola's funeral?