A different kind of classicism

I expect that with talk of an Oscar nomination for Jeff Bridges' performance as a down-on-his-luck country singer in Crazy Heart, people will start taking another look at Tender Mercies (1983) for which Robert Duvall won an Oscar for playing a down-on-his-luck country singer.

Frankly, I avoided the film on initial release because, while screenwriter Horton Foote (who also won an Oscar for this film) was often brilliant at dramatizing other writer's works (To Kill A Mockingbird being only the most notable example), his own pieces tend to meander and lack dramatic tension.

True to form, Tender Mercies almost completely dispenses with tension, with conflict, with three-act structure, with all the things that critics say Classical Hollywood (the "golden age" from 1920-1960) relied on, and which is usually insisted on by modern film development executives. We have to identify with the hero, and we have to get him in jeopardy by page 37, and we have to have a turnaround here and a this and a that.

Tender Mercies is a simple tale of redemption; a redemption rooted in forgiveness freely and openly given. The structure is that of short scenes strung together as if on a clothes line; no inexorable movement toward an inevitable climax. Sort of like life. Could go this way, could go that way. Yet the film moves quickly enough, eliding the obvious points (the wedding which is the turning point for the main character is completely omitted) that it holds interest every single moment.

But there is another way to define classicism, and that is the concealment of artifice, the concealment of art. And here the film is elegantly classical. Neither Foote nor director Bruce Beresford ever tip their hand at what they are up to. Turnarounds, good or bad, come without preparation, just like in life. People cope with them as best they can, usually by putting their head down and keeping going, just like in life. And Robert Duvall's performance echoes this reticence. One of his most important scenes is played with his back to the camera, looking out a window. And his longest speech, in which he admits--without a trace of melodrama--that he does not trust happiness, is rendered in a long shot embracing him, his wife and the garden in which he appears to be hoeing lettuce. It looks almost as though the film was afraid to invade the character's privacy.

Despite its unorthodox structure, there is a balance and simplicity to Tender Mercies which can only be called classical.

Words vs. pictures: false conflict

Jason Reitman's films have characters who think they know what they think and are unafraid to tell you, often near the start of the film: Up In The Air (2009) is no exception. George Clooney's Ryan Bingham has a monologue (it is part of a motivational speech) which is going to tell you all about who he is and what he is about. We are breaking Conventional Cinema Rule #37--telling when we should be showing.

But fact is, we like words, especially smart, funny words and there is nothing inherently uncinematic words. The great American masters, Ford, Hawks and Hitchcock (and that IS the official triumvirate these days) all were happy to let their characters talk, even for a long time. Sometimes the talk was the point and sometimes it was beside the point, but it was OK.

But no matter what, pictures trump talk. Except that in Up In The Air, the pictures lie and the talk tells the truth. I usually don't care about spoilers, but let me be a little careful here, as the film is still in the theaters as I write this. Pay more attention to what people say than the happy faces you see, especially in the very charming wedding montage. Don't trust those pictures--they're going for your emotions, and you're going to get hurt. The words--they are the real deal.

I see the DGA has named Reitman this year, and there is no better deserved nomination (although I suspect James Cameron will win every award in sight for Avatar--it looks like so much hard work.) But while they're handing out awards, please let them not forget this film's editor, Dana Glauberman, who cut Mr. Reitman's previous films. There is a cut toward the end of them film from George Clooney's face when he learns a colleague and friend has left, to the sight of that person moving away from us on an airport conveyor and back to Clooney's face which is as stunning as anything I've seen since Eisenstein.

Hey, and isn't it great that Zach Galafianakis is such a big star, he gets top-of-the-film billing for a one-scene cameo?

Transferring loyalties

We've just watched Psycho (1960) in film class, primarily to reflect on how the brilliant underscore by Bernard Herrmann is so critical to the effect of the film.

One thing struck me even more forcibly about the film this time around (I've seen it literally dozens of times). By now, everyone must know that the nominal star, Janet Leigh, is killed one-third of the way through the movie. It is hard to overstate how shocking that was to the 1960 audience; not because of the violence of the movie, but because the removal of the star left the audience without a character with which to identify as it moved through the narrative. This was considered completely indispensable in the classical Hollywood cinema. Now that the protagonist is dead, who is the protagonist?

As we now know, it will become Norman Bates--which is outrageous in and of itself, as Norman becomes both hero and villain. But Hitchcock has knocked away the moral substructure of classical Hollywood, and severed the link between "good" and hero, between "bad" and villain. He attempted this twice before, in The Lodger and in Suspicion but in both cases, the films had to tell the audience "just kidding"--the hero really can't be the killer, especially if he's Cary Grant.

But Norman Bates is hero, villain and victim all rolled into one. And the scene that clinches it begins right after the still I've put at the top of this post. It is the famous clean-up scene. What's remarkable is not just that it's in the film at all; a film from an earlier generation might have shown the beginning of the clean-up followed by a fade-out to the finished job. It's not just that the scene has no underscore, showing that Hitchcock is not worried about the audience being bored. But what does the scene consist of? A man cleaning a bathroom. (I know a lot of wives who consider such an idea worthy only of a fantasy.) That's it. Just a guy cleaning a bathroom. But next time you watch it, note the sheer detail of the scene. We linger on every thing that could give away the murder. We start to mentally urge Norman on: "Don't forget that little corner; be sure and wash the sink; don't forget to look over there..." Our anxiety grows and grows for fear that Norman will leave a telltale trace.

And, as many have remarked before, the telltale clincher is the moment the audience holds its breath when the car pauses in its descent into the swamp. When that descent resumes, you can literally hear a collective exhalation and relaxation. The process is complete, we have accepted a new hero with which to identify, and he is an insane serial killer. None of this would have been possible if Hitchcock hadn't been willing to take the time to delineate the details of the cover-up of the murder in deliberate, unhurried detail.

Speaking of details, I noted that the cinematographer of Psycho has no other major credits. His career existed almost entirely in television, and the success of Psycho did not bump him into the major leagues. In fact, Hitchcock's filmography includes very few well-known or star cinematographers--no John Altons or Gregg Tolands are to be found. Moreover, he does not repeat photographers from film to film. Whereas, he used screenwriters, composers, and most especially editor George Tomasini in film after film, he was completely fickle when it came to photographers. Is it that Hitchcock didn't want to hack the competition, or that his visual ideas were so certain he only wanted an uncreative craftsman to execute those ideas?

Why I am not worried about the killer robots

Judging by Terminator Salvation (2009) we have nothing to fear from killer machines from the future. Clearly, computers are TERRIBLE at engineering. First of all, when creating robots they have adopted one of the worst features about human beings, which is that their central processing unit is all contained in one tiny area which is attached to the rest of the body by a skinny little passage, which is easily severed or broken. Most robot designers have the sense either to put the processing unit in an easily protected area or to distribute processing around the machine, or indeed distribute around several machines. Skynet, the evil network of machines from the future has clearly seen too many zombie movies and leave themselves open for the killshot.

Also, for surveillance vehicles they have copied the motorcycle, which is inherently unstable and easily overturned and otherwise disrupted. The only reason anyone invented a two-wheel motorized contraption is that it is fun, not because it is efficient, reliable or safe. It is none of those things, which is what motorcycle fans love about them. These evil computers from the future were clearly built and programmed by idiots. Or just maybe the movies about them are.

A few other things struck me while watching the movie. (In a movie like this, which is in structural terms just a musical in which explosions substitute for big notes and high kicks, you have plenty of time for your own thoughts.) Has the existence of the Jewish Holocaust permanently changed storytelling? Before the Holocaust, could we conceive of a completely implacable, irrational lethal foe which would come after you and kill you for no reason whatsoever except that you are who you are, and which cannot be stopped except by means which threaten the entire world? I would be interested if any sci-fi or fantasy fans could let me know if this story idea predates 1945.

Another thing--did they have to go to Schwarzenegger to get permission to use an image of his face from about 25 years ago to paste it onto an old Terminator? Or did his original contract cover that? (Use of likeness in perpetuity, etc., etc.) If that latter is the case, agents and lawyers are going to have to be a lot more careful about contracts for their actor clients.

Finally, as I was enjoying one of the little encounters in the movie between good guys and bad guys, one which incorporated its own beginning, middle and end, I was thinking about the old canard that what people like in their entertainment is stories. Clearly, this is not true. Let's take professional wrestling. What they LIKE is guys hitting each other with chairs and leaping off the ropes and pretending to get their legs bent the wrong way. But for some reason, they like these things a little BETTER if they're couched in a little story--bad guy wants revenge on good guy for beating him in a previous match, etc. The story isn't what makes it good, but it gives it context in which to enjoy one guy pummeling another.

Similarly in an action film, we like the explosions, gunshots and punches. But we know that a de-contextualized compilation of explosions would get boring. So we want a frame to set these things in. It's not that we enjoy story, per se. It's the flour in the cake. Not yummy, but essential for cake.

Another way to describe it is that story in film is like Russian nesting dolls. There's the great big overarching story--often mythic in scope. Inside that are the particular details of the character. Inside is each of three acts. Inside each act are several scenes, each of which has its own narrative arc. And a scene may have a discrete event within in it--a punch, a kick, a joke, a gag, a kiss, a leap, a high note--which provides a direct visceral pleasure, which is most satisfying to the audience when it's position within the nesting dolls is completely understood and enjoyed.

Cured ham (I know, it's trafe!)

I don't know if I realized consciously that Jeff Goldblum has been a largely wasted natural resource this last 30 years, but Adam Resurrected (2008) is surely proof of the fact. Much of the film is off-putting, either in bad taste, degrading to its characters or solipsistic (if a film can be said to be self-absorbed). But Goldblum's realization of Adam Stein, the guilty Holocaust victim magician clown is both miraculous, warm and somehow natural.

For good or ill, the clown has found himself in a film by Paul Schrader, a director (and sometime writer) who evidently always wants to tell the audience to go **** itself. If Taxi Driver didn't make that clear to you, Hardcore should have. Happily, he has dropped his neo-classical stylistic trappings and caught up with 21st century filmmaking: hand-held camera, digital media, jump cuts, mismatches, CGI, etc. Given his usual challenging subject matter, in this case, madness and the Holocaust, the style seems appropriate.

The film meanders around, Adam saves a little boy from madness which seems to balance the scale for his own humiliation (and his loss of his family) and he recovers. Well, that sucks. Because a madman-clown who gets better is no fun at all.

I hope more sane people than Paul Schrader have seen this film and will cast Goldblum again as an entertainer. I think he out-Penns Penn Jillette.

Is the future here yet?

Together with the billions of dollars spent on tickets, doubtless billions of barrels of ink or electrons or what-have-you have been spilled on the aesthetics of Avatar (2009). Certainly there is no reason to attend the film to see great acting, groundbreaking themes or surprising storytelling. All of these elements are run-of-the-mill Hollywood quality--good, mind you, but not innovative. There is only one reason to attend the movie, which is to see the quality of the 3D imaging and the extent to which it is an integral part of the narrative scheme.

On the basis of Avatar, I would rate 3D as significant a development in film storytelling as the arrival of color. Not as great a change as sound, which changed nearly all the rules--except that film is still composed of the juxtaposition of images. But the grammar and syntax of those images was drastically amended. Color, on the other hand, simply changed the conventions by which the world is abstracted in film. Color, as we see it on film, is not identical to color in real life. Moreover, the most skilled artists manipulate it, both during and after production, for the greatest expressivity. Lately filmmakers are deliberately limiting the palate, draining the image of color (often electronically) to literally set a tone.

I would argue that 3D accomplishes the same thing for the illusion of depth. The present-day 3D camera still does not perceive the world the way we do. Avatar, in fact, uses fairly shallow depths of field to strengthen the perceived distance between foreground and background objects. In life, we see everything more or less in focus unless we are concentrating on an object within about 18 inches of our eyes. Yet no one, not even the people who object to music in movies because they want to know where the orchestra is, balks at an image like the one on the right because it is "unrealistic." It is simply a convention to which one has become adjusted.

Avatar gives the lovely sense of peeking into a shoebox diorama of a strange world. It makes perfect sense for the story being told, this sense of peering or probing into an alien world--a world which can occasionally touch us in the form of falling cinders or blossoms, but in which we are fundamentally an observer. (Some writers say that 3D makes one feel more involved and integrated in the action, but I had the opposite feeling. The action was visceral, yes, but I was keenly aware that it was happening somewhere else.)

Moreover, 3D is approximately at the stage of aesthetic development that color was at the time of Gone With The Wind. GWTW has very good and very expressive color, but it is nearly always throwing the color up in your face--most notably the lurid sunset over the twisted tree that closes each half of the film. Avatar feels the need to assert its qualities of depth nearly all the time. It will be interesting to see how this develops when 3D becomes as ho-hum and everyday as color is now. I expect the advent of 3D television will hasten this development. As of this post, Direct TV, Discovery Communications, Sony, Imax and ESPN have announced plans for 3D channels by 2011.

Avatar story breakdown discovered

Transplant attempt fails

Film noir, like jazz, Broadway musicals and other examplars of the best of American culture comprises a fusion of two cultures. In this case, it's the meeting of the American hardboiled fiction genre, descended from Hemingway by way of Hammett and Chandler with European expressionist art, as typified by Lang, Murnau, Siodmak and others, with their moody low-key lighting and fatalistic view of life.

The Long Night (1947) has re-surfaced as an example of little-known noir, but its flawed paternity explains why it falls short of full-blown noir. A remake of the French classic Le jour se leve (1939) which starred the inexhaustibly fascinating Jean Gabin, it lacks the hard crime element that marks the best American examples of the form. Without that "left handed form of human endeavor" (to quote The Asphalt Jungle) one is merely reworking themes from Les Miserables and other mid-19th century works calling out for social justice.

Even with its steeltown setting, The Long Night feels European--the cramped, darked settings, the limited horizons of the characters, who feel trapped by their economic status, devoid of any vestige of the American dream. Workers think of themselves as just workers. Clearly, too much of the French script still clung to this project. There is a difference between thinking things are hopeless because you were born to the wrong family (European pessimism) and thinking things are hopeless because Fate (often in the person of a bad woman) has ganged up on you and stuck a thumb in your eye (the noir ethic). (Incidentally, Ann Dvorak turns up here as an example of the fun kind of noir woman, the wisecracking type who's no better than she should be. The film has a European frankness about what she and Henry Fonda have been doing in her room.)

Hungarian-born director Anatole Litvak made a number of dark, moody films, including Confessions of a Nazi Spy, Out of the Fog, Blues In The Night, Sorry Wrong Number and The Snake Pit. But while all of these films intersect the noir aesthetic, none truly qualify as noir.

The film's strongest claim to noir credentials is the gorgeous photography by Sol Polito and the remarkable production design, which comprises some of the most remarkable studio-built exteriors, using detailed miniature work and multiple rear screen projections. But without that hard-boiled perspective, The Long Night must remain just outside the noir canon.

Comedy is hard; families are harder

The difficult family reunion has become such a staple of filmmaking in the last twenty years it may be worthy of consideration as a genre of its own. The American version is generally served up with either melodrama or slapstick or both, plus a heart-warming ending.

Arnuad Desplechin's A Christmas Tale (2008) offers little comfort and joy for the season, other than the exhilaration of seeing an artist at work. The film is most reminiscent of Rachel Getting Married, with a death-haunted family of eccentrics, a tolerant father and chilly mother. But where the Anne Hathaway character made you afraid for what gaffe she would commit, Henri, the analogous substance-abusing screw-up character in Christmas Tale is more likely to inspire laughter, if laced with a bit of pity.

It's dry, like a quality sparkling wine; if you're sick of the sweet stuff, try this next Christmas--but probably after the day itself, as it may be a bit of a buzzkill. In the French manner, use of the medium is limited to mise-en-scene and the incomparable faces of the actors. Not much montage, suspense, irony, etc.; rather like filmed theater. But there's no drama like family. And as with chocolate, I like my comedy bittersweet. Better for your heart, they say.

Applause, but not laughter

"I'm not a comedian. I'm Lenny Bruce." Perhaps the same should be said for Sacha Baron Cohen, whose film Brüno (2009) offers more social criticism than laughter. Unlike Paper Heart, which takes the rules of documentary and cheats on them, Cohen is fair and consistent. His characters are completely fabricated, but he proceeds to engineer real situations and have real people interact in them. His work is almost Candid Camera writ large.

Cohen has said that homophobia is the last acceptable prejudice. The film demonstrates that conclusively, most particularly in the finale in which an audience primed to see violence against gays becomes outraged and violent itself when presented with love and tenderness.

There is not much to be said about the craft or the aesthetics of this film. It is a document of its place and time. The problem today for me is that it didn't make me laugh. Bruno himself is the kind of brainless idiot character of the Adam Sandler-Will Ferrell variety that just falls flat for me. His terminal clueless narcissism is just depressing. It's like laughing at Down Syndrome children. Compounding this is Cohen's sad picture of a world in which parents will agree to liposuction for their small children in exchange for fame; in which charity is merely a tool for the attention-seeking; and in which one's sexual orientation can put one in fear of one's life.

Please forgive me if I find it bold, stunning, admirable, but not funny.

You lied to me!

I hope we all accept the premise that art is not reality. Art is a method of ordering reality. Each art, and each art's sub-sets have rules, which we call conventions so that the audience can draw the parallels between the art and actual experience. We make diagonal lines on a flat surface to indicate the perception that things seem to recede in a three dimensional world.

Film developed a grammar and a syntax slowly and painstakingly from 1896 to about 1915. Since then there have been tweaks and changes--the fade, cross-fade and wipe have nearly become extinct--but the essential grammar remains in place. Then there were lesser rules--complete fades meant long passage of time, crossfades were shorter. You could not lie in a flashback. Actions in consecutive shots could be interpreted as being connected as cause and effect.

And documentaries were constructed of unstaged action assembled to tell a narrative or make a point; but inherently they were devoid of the inherented conventions of theater which shadow most of our filmmaking today, from the three-act structure, to exchanges of dialogue with pre-planned rising states of tension. Yes, we've had the mockumentary format, but at least that was nearly entirely fake. Known actors assumed fictional identities. Plot lines are clearly prepared and carried out. Films such as This Is Spinal Tap and A Mighty Wind merely ape the casual, unplanned bits of human life that documentaries catch in front of their lenses, but they are unabashedly fictitious.

But Paper Heart (2009) thumbs its nose at the rules and conventions. It mixes genuine documentary with improvised drama/comedy in which the actors use their real names so as to confuse us. In one case the real name of the director is assigned to a character played by an actor, a fact which we are not privy to until the final credits, deliberately deceiving us that this person before our eyes is the credited director. The real documentary bits take the form of charming interviews with real people talking about love, sometimes illustrated by star Charlyne Yi's crude wire-and-paper puppets in crude real-time animation--thus abstracting the bits of actual reality the film does contain. Intermingled with that is a cooked-up phony romance between characters called Charlyne Yi and Michael Cera, played by Charlyne Yi and Michael Cera, respectively.

Frankly, for all its charm, the film lies and cheats up and down six ways from Sunday and my final reaction to the film was simply mistrust, a mistrust I believe I contracted from the film's creators who clearly don't trust the audience enough to tell them what they're doing.

This film's use of Michael Cera establishes that he is no longer a mere actor who can be hired to interpret a role in a script, but a thing, an entity apart from the film you are seeing which survives from project to project, wrapped in its own cluster of meanings and its own history. Pretty amazing for a guy in his early 20's.

I sing to drown out the noise in my head

Both Fellini's 8-1/2 and the stage musical Nine were kitchen-sink sort of affairs. Everything was tossed in and, to some extent, left to the audience to sort out. Film musicals attempting that approach usually flounder. A strong spine must be found to hold together a naturally disparate and chaotic form. The play of Nine has been ruthlessly pared down to Guido's spiritual crisis. Lovers of the stage musical, which include me, miss some marvelous music.

The original stage production featured no men other than Guido--this was a conceit by the director, Tommy Tune, when he realized that he had an abundance of women auditioning for whom there were no roles. Opting for a lean narrative, both the mistress and the wife in the film are increased in importance relative to the many other women in Guido's life. This has good and bad points. Penelope Cruz is marvelous, but there is too much of her rather dull character. On the other hand, Marion Cotillard is spectacular in an improved role. In a way, it is her through-line as a character that holds the film together rather than Guido's anguish, which is insufficiently varied throughout.

[Although this remark doesn't fit the rest of my analytic framework, I have to say that the reworking of the character of the bombastic producer Liliane, who becomes the costume designer Lily in the film is a fine bit of adaptation. The character makes more sense and she gives Guido a sane woman to talk to. Not to mention the chance for Dame Judi Dench, who was the original Sally Bowles in Cabaret on the London stage, to strut her stuff.]

The film adheres to the modern conceit, first announced in Rob Marshall's earlier adaptation of Chicago that audiences cannot accept song as a substitute for speech in everyday situations. Therefore, all song must be placed in either an straight-forward performance context or an interior fantasy, or, as in the Marshall films, as both. It does make the numbers work, but in the case of Nine, it is hard to understand why film director Guido slips into fantasies that look like stage presentations on the same theatrical set. Is it impossible to conceive of a thoroughly cinematic treatment of musical numbers anymore? (This did not seem to trouble Gene Kelly, Stanley Donen and a number of other Golden Age directors.) It is hard to tell if this is compensating for poverty of imagination or poverty of budget--maybe there was no money left after all the movie stars were paid?