"Let's Not Talk About Movies"

Don't Make a Scene: Vertigo

2012-01-29T11:39:00.000-08:00

95 SCREEN-CAPS

EXT. HIGHWAY 101 - (NIGHT)

Scottie's car enters the avenue of tall trees we saw once

before along this road. They look sinister in the moonlight.

INT. SCOTTIE'S CAR - (MOONLIGHT)

Shooting forward, we are as though in the front seat of

Scottie's car, traveling fast, looking up and ahead to the
distant end of the tunnel, and the tall trees flashing by.

INT. SCOTTIE'S CAR - (MOONLIGHT)

Scottie is staring straight ahead, concentrating on his
driving. Judy is staring up at the tall trees, wondering,
her brow furrowed. Her memory is stirred, but she can't think
why.

INT. SCOTTIE'S CAR - (MOONLIGHT)

Shooting forward and up through the windshield. The tops of
the tall trees flashing past. Judy's face, highlighted from
the dash lights below, faintly reflected.

INT. SCOTTIE'S CAR - (MOONLIGHT) - CLOSE SHOT

Judy turns her gaze from the flashing tree tops and looks
off at Scottie.

INT. SCOTTIE'S CAR - (MOONLIGHT) - CLOSE SHOT

Scottie, still concentrating on his driving, and looking
straight ahead.

INT. SCOTTIE'S CAR - (MOONLIGHT)

Judy looking at Scottie, puzzled and slightly apprehensive.

JUDY Where are you going?

SCOTTIE (wryly) To complete my cure.

He glances at her and smiles nicely.

SCOTTIE One final thing I have to do...

SCOTTIE ...and then I'll be free of the past, ~~forever~~.

He looks ahead thoughtfully.

DISSOLVE TO:

EXT: MISSION SAN BAUTISTA - (NIGHT) - LONG HIGH SHOT

Quiet, empty, sinister, bathed in moonlight. Far below we see Scottie's car crawl into the square and pass along the road around the green and come to a stop near the entrance to the church. A distant church clock chimes the half-hour.

INT. SCOTTIE'S CAR - (MOONLIGHT) - CLOSE SHOT

Judy's face, rigid, frightened, her eyes filled with apprehension. Then, with an effort, she composes herself and glances at Scottie with calm questioning. But he is turned away from her, opening his door to get out.

EXT. SAN JUAN BAUTISTA - (NIGHT)

Scottie comes around the car and opens Judy's door.

JUDY Scottie, why are we here?

SCOTTIE I told you.

SCOTTIE I have to go back into the past.

SCOTTIE Once more. Just once more. For the last time.

JUDY But why? Why here?
SCOTTIE Madeleine died here, Judy.

Pause.

He holds out his hand. She shrinks, frightened.

JUDY No, I don't want to go. I want to stay here.

SCOTTIE I need you.
JUDY Why?
SCOTTIE I can't do it alone. I need you, to be Madeleine for a while. Then, when it's done, we'll both be free.

He draws her out of the car.

JUDY I'm scared.
SCOTTIE ~~So am I, But it has to be done.~~ No, no. I have to tell you about Madeleine, now.

He closes the car door and leads her slightly away, and they
stop and look across the green toward the Livery Stable.

SCOTTIE Right there...

He points to the Livery Stable, bathed in moonlight.

SCOTTIE ...We stood there and I kissed her for the last time.

SCOTTIE And she said, "If you lose me, you'll know that I loved you --

JUDY (Pleading) Scottie --

SCOTTIE (Going right on)-- and wanted to keep on loving you." And I said, "I won't lose you."

(pause)

SCOTTIE But I did.

He turns slowly, and Judy with him, and he looks up. Her

eyes follow his.

FROM THEIR ANGLE

The high church tower in the moonlight.

SCOTTIE'S VOICE She turned and ran... into the Church...

SCOTTIE AND JUDY

He puts his arm around her protectively but firmly, and begins
to impel her gently to the church.

EXT. CHURCH, SAN JUAN BAUTISTA - (MOONLIGHT)

SHOOTING from the door. Scottie impels Judy to the door.

SCOTTIE ...And when I followed her, it was too late...

The CAMERA PULLS AROUND as his free hand goes to try the
door.

JUDY (Frightened) I don't want to go in there!

Scottie pushes the door open.

SCOTTIE ...too late...

He pushes her into the church with gentle firmness.

INT. CHURCH, SAN JUAN BAUTISTA - (NIGHT)

The darkness is relieved by shafts of moonlight. Scottie
impels Judy toward the foot of the tower.

SCOTTIE I couldn't find her.

SCOTTIE Then I heard ~~her~~ footsteps on the stairs,

SCOTTIE ...she was running up the tower.

INT. CHURCH TOWER - (NIGHT)

It is lit by shafts of moonlight through the slit window.
Scottie comes into the area holding Judy. He looks up.

FROM SCOTTIE'S ANGLE:

the open stairway spiraling upward.

SCOTTIE'S VOICE She ran up those stairs...

SCOTTIE and through the trap door at the top of the tower, ~~and locked it behind her. Then she~~
~~jumped.~~

BACK TO SCOTTIE AND JUDY

He is still staring up. Judy is rigid with fright and the
memory of that moment.

SCOTTIE ~~And I couldn't follow her.~~ I tried to follow her but I couldn't get to the top.
(He closes his eyes in the agony of remembering)
~~God knows I tried~~. I tried but I couldn't get to the top.
(He glances down)
One doesn't often get a second chance. I want to stop being haunted. You're my second chances, Judy. You're my second chance.

JUDY (A frightened whisper) Take me away...
SCOTTIE You look like Madeleine, now. Go up the stairs.
JUDY No!

SCOTTIE Go up the stairs.

SCOTTIE Go up the stairs, Judy. (Pushing her to the step) I'll follow.

She starts up slowly, unwillingly. Scottie follows behind her, fighting to keep the impending vertigo under control, trying to keep his eyes fixed on her back to avoid looking up into space.

They move up in silence, and in shadow, their faces occasionally lit by the shafts of moonlight that stream through the open arches of the tower. Judy's eyes are wide and staring; her face and body are stiff with the struggle to keep from breaking under the strain of remembering the last time she went up these stairs.

And Scottie fights his way up behind her.

Judy slows down and comes to a halt at the landing that Scottie barely reached the last time, at the moment of death. She leans her back against the wall for support. Scottie struggles up and comes to a halt near her.

PAUSE, as he gathers himself for the last assault.

SCOTTIE (Quietly) This was as far as I could get. But you went on. Remember?

She stiffens and stares at him.

SCOTTIE The necklace, Madeleine. That was the slip. I remembered the necklace.

A moment, then suddenly she ducks and tries to run past him,
down the stairs. He grabs her wrist and holds on.

SCOTTIE We're going up the tower, Madeleine.
JUDY No! Let me go!
SCOTTIE We're going up the tower.

JUDY You can't. You're afraid!

SCOTTIE ~~I'm going to. It's~~ We'll see. We'll see. This is my second chance.

He starts to drag her up the stairs and she fights it, close
to hysteria.

JUDY Scottie, please...!

SCOTTIE But you knew, that day, that I wouldn't be able to follow you didn't you. Who was at the top when you got there? Elster? With his wife?
JUDY Yes!
SCOTTIE Yes! And she was the one who died. The real wife. Not you.

SCOTTIE You were the copy, you were the counterfeit, weren't you?.

SCOTTIE Was she dead or alive when you got there?

JUDY Dead. He'd broken her neck.

SCOTTIE He'd broken her neck. Wasn't taking any chances, was he? And when you got there, he pushed her off the tower, was that it? But you were the one who screamed. Why did you scream?

JUDY I wanted to stop it, Scottie, I ran up to stop it --

SCOTTIE You wanted to stop it. Why did you scream? Since you'd tricked me so well up to then?!! You played his wife so well, Judy! He made you over, didn't he? He made you over just like I made you over. Only better! Not just the hair and the clothes! and the looks! and the manner! and the words! And those beautiful phony trances! That jump into the Bay, didn't you? I'll bet you're really a strong swimmer, aren't you! Aren't you!! Aren't you!

The blind, frantic nodding of her head as she struggles
against him is his affirmation.

SCOTTIE And then what did he do? Did he train you? Rehearse you? Teach you what to say and what to do?

JUDY Yes!

SCOTTIE And you were such an apt pupil, too, weren't you? You were a very apt pupil! ~~What~~ ~~fun you two must have had, playing~~ ~~games with me!~~ Why did you pick on me?!! Why me?!!

JUDY Your accident...

SCOTTIE ~~Ah, yes!~~ The accident. I was a set-up, wasn't I? I was the set-up. I was the made-to-order witness.

~~Where is he now?~~

JUDY I don't know... Switzerland?

SCOTTIE We'll find him.

They have reached the door to the tower and he stops, with a
grim, almost triumphant smile.

SCOTTIE I made it.

SCOTTIE I made it.
JUDY (Apprehensive) What are you going to do?

SCOTTIE We're going up to look at the scene of the crime. Go ~~on in.~~

He pushes the door open. She shrinks back.

SCOTTIE Come on, Judy!
He pushes her through and follows her in.

INT. BELL TOWER - (NIGHT)

The black shadows are cut by shafts of moonlight. Heavy beams
support the great bell hanging at the center. There are
additional temporary support beams. Judy backs up against
the stonework as Scottie looks about.

SCOTTIE You both hid back there, didn't you?... 'til everything was clear... then sneaked down and drove into town.

SCOTTIE (Glances at her) And then? You were his girl, huh?. Well, what happened to you?

She stares at him, wide-eyed with apprehension.

SCOTTIE What happened to you? Did he ditch you?

An almost imperceptible nod from her. Scottie almost laughs.

SCOTTIE Oh, Judy!! With all of his wife's money, and the freedom and the power...

SCOTTIE ...he ditched you? What a shame!

SCOTTIE But he knew he was safe. You couldn't talk. Didn't he give you anything?

JUDY (Faintly) Some money.

SCOTTIE And the necklace. Carlotta's necklace.

SCOTTIE That was your mistake, Judy.

SCOTTIE One shouldn't keep souvenirs of a killing.

SCOTTIE You shouldn't...you shouldn't have been that sentimental.

A moment, as he stares at her, then he advances on her slowly.

JUDY (Apprehensive) What are you going to do?

SCOTTIE I loved you so, Madeleine.

JUDY (Desperately) Scottie! I was safe when you found me,

JUDY ...there was nothing you could prove!

JUDY But when I saw you again I couldn't run away, I loved you so! I walked into danger and let you change me again

JUDY ...because I loved you and wanted you!

(She throws herself into his arms)
JUDY Scottie, please!

JUDY You love me now! Love me! Keep me safe!

And she is in his arms, pressing tightly against him in
desperation, and he holds her tight, and they kiss, deeply,
passionately. The kiss ends but they remain together, holding
together, and Scottie's eyes are tight with pain and the
emotion of hating her and hating himself for loving her.

JUDY (softly, pleading) Love me... keep me safe...
SCOTTIE (Whispering) Too late... too late... there's no bringing her back.
JUDY Please.

Suddenly Judy's eyes, looking past him, go wide with horror.

FROM JUDY'S POINT OF VIEW

The figure of a woman draped in black stands motionless in
the shadows by the door.

JUDY, IN SCOTTIE'S ARMS, TRANSFIXED

FROM JUDY'S POINT OF VIEW

The black figure moves forward, seems to merge with the shadow
and become part of them.

JUDY

Pulls out of Scottie's arms and backs away, terrified.

JUDY (Whispering) No... no...

She is backing perilously close to the edge of the drop below.
Scottie stares at her for a moment, then swings around to
see what she is looking at.

FROM SCOTTIE'S POINT OF VIEW

The black figure advances into a shaft of moonlight. It is a
nun.

THE NUN (Simply) I heard voices...

There is a terrible scream. Scottie swings around again, steps quickly to the edge and looks down. He backs away, his face tight with horror and holds the stonework for support.

The nun comes into the SHOT. She steels herself to look below.

She crosses herself.

THE NUN God have mercy...

She reaches out for the bell cord.

INT. THE BELL TOWER - (NIGHT)

The church bell is tolling. It swings in and out of the picture.

Through the archway we can see the Mission garden

below.

Figures are hurrying across toward the church.

Vertigo

Words by Alec Coppel and Samuel A. Taylor

Pictures by Robert Burks and Alfred Hitchcock

Vertigo is available on DVD from Universal Home Video.

* And this is an interesting point. In the screenplay, Judy blurts that he may be in Switzerland and Scottie says that "We'll find him," but it is left out of the scene as played...probably to keep the audience focussed on the issues at hand and maintain the emotional pitch. There is a lot of explanation going on here—during a particularly frenzied dramatic moment...and Hitchcock, the players, whomever, have simplified the screenplay to keep it on "point" (and I've crossed out those sections of the dialog that were excised, and taken pains to reflect the dialog as spoken in the breakdown). Ferguson's dialog is less formal than in the screenplay, and there's a lot of repetition, not only to reflect Ferguson's agitated state, but also to reinforce key points that might be going by too fast for an audience, and, after all, the whole movie and its hidden plot is being completely revealed for the first time. One could get lost without the careful repetition of information and the changes help audience understanding, both story-wise and dramatically. Rather a nifty solution to a problematic situation, and only shows that, at this point in his career, what a master director Hitchcock was, anticipating the audience's needs, without taking away from the drama...and, in fact, adding to it.

Carnage

2012-01-28T11:22:00.000-08:00

Get a Room!
or
Who's Afraid of Nibbles the Hamster?

A schoolyard brawl between two kids escalates into a meeting between the parents that only proves the kids are amateurs at it in Roman Polanski's new film Carnage, based on the play by Yasmina Reza. The meet-and-greet takes place at the New York apartment of Penelope and Michael Longstreet (Jodie Foster, John C. Reilly)— he's in hardware sales and she's an arts afficianado and rights activist, writing a book about African genocide—with Alan and Nancy Cowen (Christoph Waltz, Kate Winslet)—he's in lawyery and she frets. It all starts well enough: cobbler is served and coffee offered, everyone's uncomfortable and on their best behavior. But the niceties don't last any longer than the cobbler. Penelope starts getting self-righteous, Michael, overly conciliatory, while Alan loses his laser-like focus from a series of interrupting cell-calls that from a client with a wonder-drug for high blood pressure that may have all sorts of side effects.

Then, Nancy...well, things go down-hill fast after Nancy...

It's basically a one-joke black-comedy that isn't remotely funny (the anti-punch-line comes at the end) turned up to 11 by an all-star cast and a director confined to a minimal set and probably going a little bit insane day by day. Bear in mind that Polanski was probably giggling and encouraging extremism all through shooting, but all these terrific actors have their moments of masonry mastication—Foster coming off the worst, and Winslet the best, with Reilly and Waltz being alternately obnoxious and snaky. Fairly soon, lines are drawn in tasteful carpets and there's a constant tying and untying of boundaries and bonds, that fall along lines of sex, politics and whatever the last subject talked about was.

There are histrionics galore, and while there are no real baring of souls, there are all sorts of baring of inhibitions and not in the fun way. These people seem to have absolutely no sense of decorum or restraint or any illusions that their opinions might not be the most pertinent to the proceedings. It's all out there, vomited at projectile force and with no dolby/no squelch. That would appear to be the comedy of it, but unfortunately it comes off a little forced and a little unrealistic. It doesn't matter how set in their ways and high-strung these people are, at some point there is going to be re-assessment and back-pedaling, even if the trajectory is straight down-hill.

Not in this self-contained universe. There is no tentativeness here, no sticking the toes in to test the waters, everybody belly-flops into the pool from the high-minded-board. Even "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" is subtle by comparison, although there are some nice behavioral touches, like Penelope raising her level of discussion to an obviously uncomfortable volume to drown out Alan's phone-call. Common sense is forgotten along with the kids argument and everything degenrates to a tag-team grudge match between and among the couples.

Ultimately, it's a bad night out that you want to forget about in the morning.

Carnage is a Rental.

The Artist

2012-01-27T11:05:00.000-08:00

Portrait of the Film as a Young Medium
or
Silents is Golden

First off...GREAT sound-design.

(tap, tap, tap...is this mic' on?)

It's easy to be positively giddy over the success that The Artist has enjoyed (this week garnering ten Oscar nominations, including for Best Picture). I've enjoyed Michel Hazanavicius' previous pairings with Jean Dujardin—the spy-spoof OSS-117 films*—even if they were a little uneven, they managed to nail the ambiance of the films they were parodying, while also chortling over their excesses, even while embracing them.

And Dujardin is a terrific performer, light on his feet and hitting his comedy points with deft left jabs. In the "OSS" films, it was pretty obvious that he was a superb cross-over entertainer, believable when playing it straight (if ever), but also knowing just how far to push things to trip it into comedy. Unlike Peter Sellers, whose agents always seemed to be harboring deep-set inferiority complexes underneath their pompous egotism, Dujardin was always blissfully clueless, truly believing that he was terrific, and that the strings of pratfalls, misfires and collateral damage were just temporary set-backs, no matter how regularly they occurred, followed by a laugh that was too loud and went on far too long.

The Artist has no problems of pace, or of sequences that fall flat. It takes its strengths from the medium it cherishes—the silent films on the cusp of sound, when the visual art of story-telling was at its peak and was somewhat quashed to accommodate the large pieces of equipment that could squeak and rumble and ruin a fluid camera movement, and when expression was King. The world of film was silent and focused on image—I was struck in a sequence that showed a high angle of a motion-picture theater audience watching a film being projected with symphonic accompaniment, that the eye always wandered to what was on screen—it tells its story with the directness of vision of that particular era (okay, some close-ups belie the time and the film dispenses with fog-filters and other tricks employed then) and the clean image of glamour, even to the simplicity of a cold-water flat of an apartment. Faces are carefully chosen for contrast and specificity of character, rather than overall performance, and one can only imagine the voices that accompany the expressions—appropriately, dialog cards are used, but sparingly—nothing aural spoils the picture contained within the frame, widening it or presenting the intrusion of a world outside of it, a point that is made quite literally at one point in one very clever sequence. One is clued in early on, when movie star George Valentin (Dujardin) stands behind the movie screen as his film ends and awaits acknowledgment from the crowd. Haznavacius holds on his image as he waits—there is only silence—until he raises his fist in triumph at the applause we cannot hear, and which is verified only by the enthusiasm of the crowd in the next shot. The rules are set—we have to trust in what we see, not in what we expect to hear. This is not verisimilitude—the illusion of reality imposed by sound and image—this is a heightened and false world of industrialized artifice, concentrated and crystallized in glamorous black and white fiction, flaws be damned.

"...the eye always wandered to what was on screen"

But, it's more than that. Haznavacius isn't satisfied (as Mel Brooks was in his own Silent Movie of 1976) with just making a film without sound. He takes pains to evoke the era in which they were made, choosing the Los Angeles locations of the film extraordinarily carefully, to emphasize the arid spaces and chiaroscuro-deco architecture of the time (one nice sequence of a chance meeting on a studio staircase between Valentin—on his way down—and plucky starlet Peppy Miller—Bérénice Bejo, on her way up—is filmed in the beloved Bradbury Building, as if Fritz Lang or King Vidor had filmed it—straight on—as if to emphasize the ant-like activity of the personnel. And there is a visual grace to the story-telling that evokes the poetry that silent films were capable of in getting their point across without words.

Anything wrong with it? Not really, even the "controversial" use of Bernard Herrmann's "Scene d'amour" from Vertigo is appropriate (far more than it was in 12 Monkeys), with its combination of dramatic urgency and heartbreak, for a sequence it was clearly designed for. There are other films that were released last year with more reach (The Tree of Life) and depth (The Descendents), but The Artist is a great evocation of the joy of cinema, and its possibilties to entertain, even with limited means.

"...when the visual art of story-telling was at its peak"

The Artist is a Full-Price Ticket.

* They were OSS-117: Cairo, Nest of Spies and OSS-117: Lost in Rio (full reviews linked to the titles). They were resuscitations of a James Bond knock-off series (although the literary source preceded Bond), where first film managed to recall the spare look of the early Connery-Terence Young films, while the second aped the scaled down characterizations and monument-based action set-pieces of the Moore era. That second one didn't get much of a release in the U.S., either, being released straight to video.

Don't Make a Scene: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

2012-01-22T11:51:00.000-08:00

We start the new year with endings—what I ironically call "Happy Endings." They are not entirely happy, they might even be tragic, but those last frames hang in the air, changing the dozens of minutes that preceded them, perfect endings for what has gone before.
A Warning: these scenes, coming as they do at the end, are so SPOILERIFIC, that seeing them, without the accompanying film, will, at the very least, leave you guessing and confused, and at the most, ruin the entire movie for you. If you have not seen this movie, read no further, but instead, seek out this film. You won't regret it.

The Story: "Remember?"

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance resonates more and more with me these days. The ironic story that was the last Western directed by John Ford (but maintained his themes of the parallel train-tracks of the mythic hum-bug of Nation-building, that run alongside the should-be heralded real accomplishments that don't make headlines) tells the story of three men who might influence the destiny of the frontier town of Shinbone: Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin), an anarchic villain without constraint or morals; Ransom Stoddard (James Stewart), a book-learned "pilgrim" schoolteacher, for whom word is law and principals; and the man-in-between, Tom Doniphan (John Wayne), a pioneer trying to tame the land, for whom the law might be a hindrance to his way of doing "what has to be done." The fates of these men reflect a political struggle of what "freedom" means, and the torturous course that can come with the establishing of "civilization"...and the bodies that that high-minded process can leave behind, in the interests of the many over the few.

A few key things about this scene, then a summation. Prior to this scene, it had been revealed that it wasn't Ransom Stoddard, but Tom Doniphon, in the shadows, who shot Liberty Valance in the stand-off on the street in Shinbone. Valance lay dead, but the fortunes of the other two men rose and fell in the instant of those simultaneous shots—Stoddard was hailed as a hero, while Doniphon, the actual perpetrator, disappeared into history, a forgotten and abandoned man. With the telling of The Tale on the occasion of Doniphon's death (and revealed in a flashback-within-a-flashback), the Shinbone press is made aware of the truth. But they don't print it, with the elegant words "This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend"—the word "becomes" being used, not as a verb of passing transformation, but as a flattering reflection. The legend is not the truth, but it reflects well on the man who has done so much for the city and the state, and so it is consigned to the furnace, as the publishing of it would do no real good for the living.*It is buried, along with the dead. May not seem fair, but neither is life and fortune.

And Pompey (the amazing and versatile Woody Strode)—Doniphon's ranch-hand and confidante is given a great deal of respect by Sen. Stoddard's wife, Hallie (Vera Miles), who reaches out and touches his arm earlier in the film when she first sees him after so many years, something that probably upset the Southern U.S. states in the early 1960's when the film was made. When the Stoddards take their leave of Doniphon's coffin, he is left with his hand outstretched, which the Senator surreptitiously fills with cash, during their parting hand-shake. I don't think it even occurs to Stoddard that the gesture may not be appropriate. He may think it magnanimous, but it is a small sacrifice...just good politics.

Compared to what Doniphon sacrificed, it is paltry. Whatever Stoddard has given up, he has realized large rewards. Rewards was not on Doniphon's mind, in the course of doing the right thing. In Doniphon's way, you do what has to be done and take the consequences—for the future of the country and for the benefit of the woman he loves. He takes the steps and pulls the trigger on the events that will throw Hallie into Ranse's arms. Later ("Remember?") he will say "She's your girl now. You taught her to read. Give her something to read about." He's bitter, he's suffered, but like Richard Blaine does at the end of Casablanca, he doesn't look back, accepting his fate. And that parting shot has echoes of the blunt last words of Captain Miller in Saving Private Ryan, where you want to grab the benefactor of your actions by the scruff of the neck and say "Earn this." It is only grace that chokes off the "you lucky bastard."

Not fair? Maybe. But History runs roughshod over all of us, folding us into itself. Whatever fates we reap, eventually, as was so scrupulously noted in Barry Lyndon, we will all be equal.

The Set-Up: It's big doin's when Senator Ransom Stoddard (James Stewart) comes back to the town of Shinbone. The former lawyer-schoolteacher who became the state's first Governor is not here on business, but for a personal matter that has the town's newspaper digging for the story of who and why. The man Stoddard and his wife (Vera Miles) are paying their last respects to is a local nobody, Tom Doniphon (John Wayne), and the accomplished politician who rode into public life as "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" (Lee Marvin) decides to—finally—tell the story. Truth being told, we fade back to the present day.

Fade In

SEN. RANSE STODDARD: Well, you know the rest of it...

STODDARD: I went to Washington.

STODDARD: ...and we won statehood.

STODDARD: I became the first governor.

SCOTT: Three terms of governor. Two terms of the Senate. Ambassador to the Court of St. James.

SCOTT: Back again to the Senate.

SCOTT: And a man who, with the snap of his fingers, could be the next Vice-President of the United States.

(Scott rips out the notes...)

(...then tears them up)

STODDARD: You're not going to use the story, Mr. Scott?

SCOTT: No, sir.

(Scott throws the notes into the furnace, slams the door shut)

SCOTT: This is the West, sir.

SCOTT: When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.

CHARLEY: He's right, Ranse.

(The newspapermen take their leave.)

(In the distance, the train whistle blows, and Stoddard gets up, looks at his stop-watch and slowly closes it.)

(Stoddard glances at the undertaker, who now has Doniphan's boots to put on the body in the coffin.)

STODDARD: It's getting late, Hallie--

STODDARD: We'll keep in touch with you, Pompey.

STODDARD: I promise--

(Stoddard uses the occasion of shaking Pompey's hand to place some bills in it, and he protests.)

POMPEY: But, Mr. Ranse

STODDARD: No, no...

STODDARD: Pork chop money.

STODDARD: Hallie--

STODDARD: Hallie, would you be too sorry, if once I get the new irrigation bill through...

STODDARD: ...would you be too sorry if we just up and left Washington?

STODDARD: I...I sorta have a hankerin' to...come back here to live. Maybe open up a law office.

HALLIE: Ranse! If you knew how often I'd dreamed of it.

HALLIE: My roots are here.

HALLIE: I guess my heart is here.

HALLIE: Yes, let's come back.

HALLIE: Look at it. It was once a wilderness.

HALLIE: Now it's a garden.

HALLIE: Aren't you proud?

STODDARD: Hallie...who put the cactus rose on Tom's coffin?

HALLIE: I did.

JASON: Here, got a brand new spittoon for you...uh, "cuspidor," Hallie...

JASON: And Luke the engineer's got a full head of steam in this old tar bucket.

JASON: We're gonna make 25 miles an hour or bust a boiler tryin'

JASON: And (ha, ha) we wired ahead to Junction City. They're gonna hold the Express for ya. Ranse, in two days and two nights, you're gonna be right back in Washington.
STODDARD: Thank you, Jason. Thank you.

STODDARD: And I'm gonna write a letter to the officials of this railroad and thank them for their kindness and for going to all this trouble.

JASON: You think nothing of it.

JASON: Nothing's too good for the man who shot Liberty Valance.

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

Words by James Warner Bellah and Willis Goldbeck

Pictures by William H. Clothier and John Ford

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is available on DVD from Paramount Home Video.

* Ford did something similar in the cavalry film Fort Apache, where Wayne's Captain Kirby York decides to present a more heroic image of the foolish and vainglorious attack and subsequent death of the Custer-like Lieutenant Colonel Owen Thursday (Henry Fonda), with whom he'd had strategic disagreements. For the good of the Corps, York (whose character would appear in the third and final Cavalry picture She Wore a Yellow Ribbon.) paints a more "becoming" picture of Thursday and his intentions, for good or ill.

Phantom City Posters

2012-01-20T11:19:00.000-08:00

One of my film obsessions (along with sound design) is movie-posters, something that's seen a dearth of creativity of late. But, there are always alternatives. Here are some posters designed by a group called Phantom City, out of Toronto, Canada.

Magic and Light: The Films of Steven Spielberg

2012-01-18T20:59:00.000-08:00

Matt Zoller Seitz and Ali Arikan have done a brilliant multi-part video essay on the films of Steven Spielberg over at the site Press-Play. The preview of it gives you a taste (Caution: there are disturbing images in this preview).

Chapter One: Introduction

Chapter Two: Blood and Pulp

Chapter Three: Communication

Chapter Four: Evil and Authority

Chapter Five: Father Figures

Chapter Six: Indiana Jones and the Story of Life

Don't Make a Scene: The Diary of Anne Frank

2012-01-16T01:17:00.000-08:00

ANNE (VO): And so it seems our stay here is over. They've given us just a moment to get our things.

ANNE (VO): We can each take a bag...and whatever it will hold of clothing.

ANNE (VO): Nothing else.

ANNE (VO): So, dear diary...that means I must leave you behind.

ANNE (VO): Good-bye for awhile. P.S. Please, please, anyone, if you should find this diary...will you please keep it safe for me. Because someday I hope that—

FRANK: No more.

MIEP: I had gone to the country to try and find food. When I got back the police were in the building.

KRALER: We made it our business to learn how they knew. It was the thief who told them.

KRALER: We know the thief. He was...
FRANK: It seems strange to me now. But we were so full of hope in the camp in Holland where they first took us. The news of the war was good. The British and Americans were sweeping through France. We felt sure they would get to us in time to--

FRANK: But--

FRANK: In September we were shipped to Poland. The men to one camp. The women to another. From there, they were sent to Belsen. I stayed in Auschwitz. In January, we were freed, the few of us who were left.

FRANK: The war was not yet over, no. It took us a long time to get home. Each time the train would stop, we'd all get out, you know, at a siding or a crossing, and...walk from group to group.

FRANK: "Where were you?""Were you at Belsen?" "At Buchenwald?" "At Mauthausen? Where?

FRANK: "Is it possible that you ever knew my wife? Did you ever see my husband, my son?" "My daughter?"

FRANK: That's how I found out about my wife's death...Margot's, Van Daans, Peter, Dussel.

FRANK: But...

FRANK: Anne...

FRANK: I still hoped.

FRANK: Yesterday I was in Rotterdam. I met a woman there. She'd been in Belsen...with Anne.

FRANK: I know now.

ANNE (VO): In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.

FRANK: She puts me to shame.

The Diary of Anne Frank

Words by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett (and Anne Frank)

Pictures by William C. Mellor, Jack Cardiff, L.B. Abbott, and George Stevens

The Diary of Anne Frank is available on DVD from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment.

Trespass

2012-01-14T11:54:00.000-08:00

Trespass (Joel Schumacher, 2011) Two A-listers in this thing and it goes straight to video? A casual viewing can see why. It's a dimly written variation on the typical home-invasion story (The Desperate Hours—either version, Panic Room, Firewall), with more than a smattering of Michael Haneke's cruel Funny Games (also either version) directed by that "master" of subtlety, Joel Schumacher.

Kyle Miller (Nicolas Cage) is a diamond broker with a security fortress for a house, a tense marriage with his wife, Sarah (Nicole Kidman) and a teenager (Liana Liberato) who's a shade on the rebellious side. While the kid is off sulking in her room (actually, she runs off with a friend to a party—fine security system that house has), the home is invaded by a gang of three guys and a girl, who threaten the Millers and want the diamonds that Kyle has squirrelled away in an elaborate safe. Kyle won't do it, even at the threat of a pistol aimed at his temple or his wife's. Kyle is arrogant enough that he starts to negotiate with the burglars over what they want and what an alternative take-away might be. Cash? Sarah's jewels? Insurance money? And the thieves are the type that hesitate at every negotiating point. Pretty soon, it turns into a competitive play-off of who's the greediest and the slimiest, the crooks or the capitalists? It would be entertaining if there was anybody worth rooting for.

Fact is, the burglars are stupid. Most criminals are, but these guys aren't even competent to take the cake. They're the three "D's"—dumb, dysfunctional and (a)ddicted, and pretty soon, everybody is squabbling, the burglars with the Millers, the burglars amongst themselves, and the Millers against each other (Thanks, if I wanted to watch something like this, I'd watch the Republican primaries coverage). It's one of those movies where you sit, staring at the screen (when you're eyes aren't rolling back in their sockets) and you think "why doesn't everybody just get a good night's sleep" (and, in fact, Miller even suggests that at one point).

The only engaging question about the whole enterprise is why would Cage and Kidman appear in such a poorly executed "bottle" movie, in the first place. After all, there is no brilliance in Karl Gajdusek's script, not even something juicy for the two thesps to sink their acting chops into. The only reason must be is that they owed director Schumacher a favor: Cage for appearing in Schumacher's earlier 8MM, and Kidman for having her career emerge from Tom Cruise's shadow due to Batman Forever. Loyalty is fine and all, but if they'd moved on to other projects and let this one rest in the dumper, the rewards would have been far greater—they'd have done the rest of us a favor.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

2012-01-13T11:01:00.000-08:00

Spies Like Us
or
Eyes Wide Shut* (The Fine Art of Concealment)

I love spy movies. Growing up in the 1960's, with the advent of the James Bond films—an amalgamation of Ian Fleming's novels and the films of Alfred Hitchcock (particularly North By Northwest)—and concurrent with the 60's embrace of the "anti-hero," my perceptions of movies were warped and laser-beamed with the image of duplicity, secrecy and emotional coolness. Spies are not nice people—it doesn't matter what kind of cars they drive—they are both untrustworthy and trustworthy, they make moral judgements (sometimes snap decisions) of who is worthy of each. Keepers of secrets, cataloguers and manipulators of weakness, spies use people as weapons, ignore collateral damage and sleep the sleep of the just knowing that the ends justify the means. Fleming's secret agent was the last vestige of the romantic spy (despite the many imitations that ensued), a double-crossroads between the old and the new—a "gentleman-spy," chivalrous, but more than willing to plunder the spoils of war, and a thug...but with exquisite taste.

But the gold standard ("finger"-less division) for the times, which embraced the Cold War** were the novels of John le Carré (French for "The Square," which reflected the author's choice of creating novels around the moral rectitude of naive and sentimental men in an amoral world) who wrote about spies as functionaries and bureaucrats, rather than super-men with toys, and the epitome of those was "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy," the first novel in "The Karla Trilogy,*** which pitted two spymasters against each other in a fight to The Brandenburg Gate—the mysterious Russian, Karla, and George Smiley, an agent for British Intelligence (which le Carré dubbed "The Circus"). Smiley had appeared as a minor character in previous le Carré books, but with "Tinker..." he became the focal point, not only the best man in the service, but also its weakest link, intellectually smart as a whip, but emotionally dull as a stump. In it, he is called upon to investigate his own former Intelligence agency, as there is suspicion that there is a "mole"—a double agent—very high up in the ranks.**** A thick book, filled with intricate detail and Dickensian characterizations with deep motivations, it was adapted (like the film, without commas in the title) in 1979 into a 7-part mini-series by the BBC and director John Irvin with Alec Guinness as Smiley, a version which was considered definitive.

When word that Peter Morgan had scripted a film version, it seemed inconceivable that such a compressed time-frame could do the novel justice.

And, incredibly, it does...even at times going the mini-series one or two better...by integrating sequences that le Carré never bothered with or thought of that throw in a lot of information in a very short space of time, the difference between a novelistic and cinematic experience: a Christmas party at the Circus, where knowing glances are exchanged between brother-spies and covert operations are, even there, in effect;***** the shooting of Jim Prideaux (Mark Strong, quite different from how we've seen him before in his villainous roles of late) on a secret mission from Control (John Hurt) to try to learn the identity of "the mole" in their ranks; a warning to Peter Guillam (Benedict Cumberbatch) to "get his house in order" that leads to a painful personal decision that reflects certain issues among the suspects; and an interrogation scene that adds tragic ramifications to the story of Ricki Tarr (Tom Hardy), but also illuminates the cruel humor of the Russian Karla.

And the "Cold War" scenario gets even chillier given Swedish director Tomas Alfredson's handling of the film. The men investigating and being investigated (Ciarán Hinds, Colin Firth, Toby Jones, and David Dencik) are already cold fish, but with the script and Alfredson's direction, they're almost completely cyphers, the only glimpses of a personal life are revelatory of each man's weaknesses. Also, Alfredson's framing schemes involve as much mis-direction as direction, shooting above, over, around and through as many obstacles and distractions, frames and panes of glass, a maze of obfuscations that confuse the path to true seeing, putting us in the same position as the story's primary Truth-Seeker, George Smiley (Gary Oldman).

Early on, Smiley visits an oculist to get a new pair of huge owl-like glasses to see more clearly before embarking on his secret mission for the government. Those glasses also provide another barrier to his eyes, the window to his soul. Oldman's performance is brilliant, deceptively simple—but that's not the point. One is struck, perpetually, throughout the film, of how much Oldman conveys with the simplest—and smallest—of movements. It is to the actor's credit (and Alfredson's) that so much of the actor's performance is seen from behind, his face unseen, but it matters not; George Smiley is not given to overt actions, but covert ones, minor moves of chess-pieces that mark the battles in intellectual wars. His brevity and economy in everything—that weighs so heavily on his personal life and makes him vulnerable, comes to the fore here, making this odd performance a perfect encapsulation of the role and is a further refinement and definition of the character of le Carré's greatest creation—George Smiley—betraying nothing, always betrayed.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a Full-Price Ticket.

* The origin of the phrase "Eyes Wide Shut," the title of Stanley Kubrick's last film, originates as a colorful turn of phrase in le Carré's original novel "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" (Kubrick and David Cornwell— le Carré's real name—were good friends, although Kubrick never enticed him to work on a script with him). It's the scene where Connie Sachs is explaining what happened to the Russian double-agent Polyakov and how he was seduced by a "honey trap" (le Carré spy-code for a female counter-agent) and how Polyakov, against his better judgement, walked in with "his eyes wide shut." That turn of phrase is not in the movie, probably BECAUSE of the association with the Kubrick film.

** When detente eased the tensions between the West and East, le Carré presciently set his rifle-sights on the next enemies of the state—capitalists and industrialists who pledged allegiance to the almighty dollar rather than to any flag or deity. Supposedly, trade partners don't war against each other (hence, the genesis of the EU and NAFTA), but has the damage those entities wrought on the world economy really been beneficial? Is anyone winning, when we all go down together?

*** The others in the series are "The Honourable Schoolboy" and "Smiley's People."

**** This parallels the true life upheaval MI-6 went through in the 1950's, with the Cambridge Five scandal.

***** One inspired touch is The Circus Crowd singing along with an old song that I only thought I remembered—the title tune from a long-forgotten Bond knock-off (sung by Sammy Davis, Jr.) called The Second Best Secret Agent in the Whole Wide World, which nicely plays in with British Intelligence's subordinate view of themselves as "also-ran's" to their American "Cousins" in the CIA.

Young Adult

2012-01-11T13:00:00.000-08:00

Writer's Cell-Block
or
"He Talked to Me Like I'm Not Pretty!"

The writing-directing team of Diablo Cody and Jason Reitman reunite to present what could be the dark sequel to their sunny, funny Juno. But, instead of examining the student body sub-strata of geeks, we're looking at the sosh's side down there at the very shallow end of the gene pool and the eventual disintegration of High School Dreams.

Trouble is knowing when to wake up. That's the thing about the privileged and the entitled, they never know when the party's done and it's time to go home (and don't even bother asking them to help clean up—that's maid-service). It's the problem of Mavis Gerry (Charlize Theron): her party's over but she's still rocking in the corner, hugging her Maker's Mark bottle, and she picks the perfectly wrong time to go home to Mercury, Minnesota. A writer of moony, self-absorbed children's books (No, no...that's "Y-A's," the contradictory term "Young Adult" novels) about High School life in a series called "Waverly 128", she draws mostly from real life—her own—but with additional snatches of overheard conversations cribbed from teen conversations in fast-food joints and malls.

She need not bother with the latter. Mavis' emotional development is so arrested it should be serving 10 to 20 in "juvie." Her thought processes are still confined to Middling School concerns, even if her behaviors have become more adult in nature, with one marriage behind her and several casual affairs left high and dry, to sleep it off in her bed, and the height of a social life being getting hammered in a bar, anticipating it like a kegger, and her one constant companion an "accessory pet," an animated white hair-ball named Dolce that is left, more or less abandoned, but still capable of the one love Mavis can accept or understand—reverse unconditional. Oh, in our self-absorbed and -absorbed youth culture, she can pass for a grown-up, she's pretty, put-together, and trendy, but on the inside she hasn't graduated, pushing off her writing assignments like she was having to write a term-paper.

In the midst of burbling out her latest teen tome, she gets a message from an old flame (Patrick Wilson) that he and his wife (Elizabeth Reaser) have had their first child...and something in Mavis snaps. She packs up laptop and lap-dog and cruises back to Mercury to recapture her past and maybe new father Buddy Slade and "rescue" him from responsible domesticity, two things she can't fathom or stomach. I mean, have you seen that baby? Ga-ross!

Thing is, she's clueless. Mavis is so stuck in the past rattling around inside her head, you begin to wonder if she might be a little insane, besides insular. Fortunately, she runs into somebody she perpetually ignored in High School—the guy who had the hall-locker next to her that she never noticed existed, Matt Freehauf (Patton Oswalt, best thing he's ever done), who had his own development beaten out of him ("Oh, yeah, you're the "hate-crime" guy!" blurts Mavis, tactfully and sensitively) by High School toughs who, in a clear case of High School temperance, tolerance and judiciousness, mistakenly assumed he was gay. Matt, with his twisted body, develops a fascination with Mavis and her twisted logic, only half-heartedly trying to suggest that...you know...she might be a little out of sync with the normal, a notion that she scoffs at, before taking another slug and checking herself out in her mirror.

"You...are a piece of work," says Matt, admiringly. "And you are a piece of shit," comebacks writerly Mavis.

This can not go well, and one wonders where the movie could possibly go and if it can ever be resolved without something being destroyed. The damage being done, though, is to the expectations of the casual movie-goer. Mavis is not your charming debutante "sweet thing" that you'd find in your standard rom-com. She is, as one of her class-hates says, a "psychotic prom-queen bitch," and, though smart and clever, thoroughly unlikable, even when sometimes bordering on the sympathetic. Theron is never afraid of tackling this type of character (she did, after all, win an Oscar for her terrifying Aileen Wournos in Monster) or challenging expectations of the audience, and Cody (with Reitman) has a fine time skewering the traditional "woman-pursues-her-soul-mate" brand of romantic fiction. For that, Young Adult, as cringe-inducing and unsettling as it is, deserves an acknowledgement for being a brave film, risking a lot, while also giving a bitch-slap to the Hollywood romance. It left me in an odd place. I didn't thoroughly enjoy Young Adult, but, at the same time, I recognized that the makers were making a thoroughly professional statement...or at least an obscene gesture...to the too-easy way that love is presented in the movies, something I've railed against myself. This isn't love. It's selfish obsession. And Mavis, like so many of the protagonists in Reitman's films, is an outlier of Society, playing by her own rules, but, as opposed to the others, she reaches no self-awareness, and is absolutely clueless as to where the goal-post is (knowing Mavis, she probably would pick a random spot, easy to reach, and declare it 'good"). One is hesitant to praise or applaud such accomplishments, when the impulse is to show it the door and kick it in the ass on the way out.

Young Adult is a Rental.

Don't Make a Scene: Places in the Heart

2012-01-08T11:29:00.000-08:00

We start the new year with endings—what I ironically call "Happy Endings." They are not entirely happy, they might even be tragic, but those last frames hang in the air, changing the dozens of minutes that preceded them, perfect endings for what has gone before. A Warning: these scenes, coming as they do at the end, are so SPOILERIFIC, that seeing them, without the accompanying film, will, at the very least, leave you guessing and confused, and at the most, ruin the entire movie for you. If you have not seen this movie, read no further, but instead, seek out this film. You won't regret it.

The Set-Up: Unfortunately, what most people know Places in the Heart for is Sally Field's second (and very deserved) win of the Oscar for Best Actress in 1984, and her blurted exposition of "I can't deny the fact that you like me, right now, you like me!" in her acceptance speech. It takes away slightly from the terrific movie that Robert Benton shaped from the wheat and chaff of his boyhood days in Depression-era Texas, and that Field holds together as its center.

The movie begins with the fracturing of a family and a community—the town's Sheriff, Edna's husband is killed, horrifically and accidentally, when a town kid, drunk and randomly discharging a firearm, squeezes the trigger when the gun is pointing at him. Subsequently, the boy is lynched by town-folk, his body presented to Edna in a perverse show of community support and "justice."

Nothing is the same. Events, natural and unnatural, whirl to throw hurdles at the family and the community's existence, and the story ends at a town gathering place—church—where everyone comes together and Benton ties the story up in a neat bow.

The film ends with one of the most startling (and, for me, haunting) expressions of life, death, Love and Faith. At the communion breaking of bread and drinking of wine, the camera pans along the celebrants in a kind of roll-call of characters, and if one is paying close attention, one notices that the church-pews might be a bit more crowded than they were in the preceding long-shots of the church interior. But, it isn't until the the shot reaches the character of Moze sitting and communing in the segregated church.

"What's Moze doing there?" We'd just seen Danny Glover's character leave the farm for good, so what's he doing in the Church? Did he come back? Obviously, there's a scene missing, where...etc.

It's troubling. Troubling enough that you might gloss over the fact that John Malkovich's character, who doesn't seem particularly religious, is sitting with the Spaldings. We pause at Edna, and at that point, the film pivots and turns in the direction of the surreal...and of Faith. Sitting next to Edna is her slain husband, Sheriff Royce Spalding, killed at the very beginning of the movie and whose death shapes the events that make the movie, who takes the sacrificial wine, the blood of Christ, and hands it to Wylie, the young man who mistakenly killed him, and was subsequently lynched by a mob of Waxahachie men-folk.

We don't see Moze or Royce or Wylie in the long shot; they are not there and are either dead or missing in action. But, as the scriptures says, love never ends, and their presence is there, their spirit, their place in the community.

And in the heart.

The Story: "What's going to happen to us?"

Waxahachie, Texas, 1935. The death of her husband forces Edna Spalding (Sally Field) to seek other forms of income to keep her family in their home. She hires a share-cropper (Danny Glover) to oversee the planting of cotton in her field, hoping to win the bonus for bringing in the first crop. She rents a room to the blind brother-in-law (John Malkovich) of the town's banker who holds her home's mortgage. Events splinter some and galvanize others, and as school teacher Viola Kelesey and her husband (Amy Madigan, Terry O'Quinn) leave for Houston and a new life, the church they pass hold Edna and her household, as well as Margaret Lomax (Lindsay Crouse) and her husband Wayne (Ed Harris)—with whom Viola was having an affair, and affair that Margaret has only recently discovered.

Action!

"This is my story, this is my..."

"...song, Praising my..."

"...Savior..."

"all the day long..."

"This is my story..."

"This is my song..."

"Praising my Savior..."

"..All the day long."

PREACHER: This morning we take our text from First Corinthians, the thirteenth chapter, versus 1 through 8.

PREACHER: "Though I speak with the tongue of men and of angels and have not love, I am become of a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal"

PREACHER: "And though I have the gift of prophecy and all knowledge and have not love, I am nothing."

PREACHER: "And though I bestow all my gifts to feed the poor..."

PREACHER: "...And have not love..."

PREACHER: "It profiteth me nothing."

PREACHER: "Love is patient..."

PREACHER: "...kind. Love is not jealous or boastful."

PREACHER: "Love never ends."

"I come to the garden alone"

"While the dew is still on the roses"
PREACHER: "On the night before his crucifixion"

"And the voice I hear, falling on my ear"
PREACHER: "Our Lord gathered with his disciples"

"The Son of God discloses"
PREACHER: "He broke the bread and blessed it."

PREACHER: "Saying 'Take, eat, this is my body.'"

PREACHER: "And He took the cup and said 'Drink, this is my blood, which I shed for thee.'"

"And He walks with me"

COMMUNICANT: The Peace of God...

"And He talks with me"

"And He tells me I am His own"

"And the joy we share as we tarry there"

"None other has ever known"
COMMUNICANT: The Peace of God...

"He speaks and the sound"

"of His voice"

"Is so sweet the birds hush their singing"

"And the melody"

"that He gave to me"

"Within my heart is ringing"
FRANK SPALDING: The Peace of God.

EDNA SPALDING: The Peace of God.

"And He walks with me"

"And He talks with me"

"And He tells me"
SHERIFF ROYCE SPALDING: The Peace of God.

"I am His own"

WYLIE: The Peace of God.

"And the joy we share as we tarry there"

"None other..."

"has ever known"

Places in the Heart

Words by Robert Benton

Pictures by Nestor Almendros and Robert Benton

Places in the Heart is available on DVD from Sony Home Entertainment.

Red State

2012-01-07T23:00:00.000-08:00

Red State (Kevin Smith, 2011) You could actually call this an indie cult film, independently financed with an auction to distribute at Sundance (which Smith harpooned to distribute himself), only running in major markets to qualify for unlikely Oscar nominations (Michael Parks, maybe; John Goodman, possibly but not likely), then quietly announced "special showings" throughout the country, presumably because the subject matter—about a homicidal religious cult, making the "cult film" literal—is so "hot" that moving, circus-like, from town to town for a limited time will discourage the "crazies" (of whatever stripe) from making the scene, making A Scene and picketing theaters.*

Needn't have bothered, really. Any media coverage would have actually helped this film, even if it doesn't really deserve it. It's Smith stepping out of his comfort zone (and just about everybody's) making a horror film about a religious cult that attracts lustful men on a web-site, doping them, and killing them for their homosexual tendencies that are targeting America (and the world—cited examples being African AIDS, Thailand tsunamis, and Sin City hurricanes) for rapturous Armageddon.

Forget the fact that these guys are hetero's looking to score, but, now you're getting all logical on us.

The Five Points Trinity Church, led by Abin Cooper (Michael Parks, doing the Smith-riffing like it was exploding out of his head and having fine, venal fun with it) is so bent on destruction and self-destruction there's no reasoning with them or the cache of automatic weapons kept in a vast catacomb-like basement, required for your "gotta-have-'em" horror film chases. They're all wild-eyed zealots, none more creepy than daughter Sarah (last year's Oscar winner Melissa Leo, going a bit over-the-top), who's the boy-bait for the serial-sacrifices.

An evening's services (with communal execution) goes a bit south, and when a deputy is killed (oops), the ATF is called out in the reduced form of Joe Keenan (Goodman, who's lost a lot of weight) and ASAC Brooks (Kevin Pollak, a natural to be in a Smith movie, I think), who roll their eyes with memories of Waco backlash in mind. They don't want to be there. They know there will be no negotiation, the best they can do is keep the carnage down, which is not what the Church is interested in (nor, frankly, is the audience). And as interesting as a dialogue-crazy Smith directed hostage-negotiation might be, this is designed for horror audiences, so things go to hell quickly.

So, there's enough real-world identification with David Koresh and Fred Phelps** for Smith to get on his soap-box (and he does with a particularly annoying teacher character at the beginning of the film, who would no doubt lose her job for saying what she does in the film), but he's a little restrained in the wise-ass department here (other than coming up with the idea in the first place and he doesn't mention Star Wars once). He takes his template from Night of the Living Dead with the church members as both zombies AND barricaded potential victims, with a cascading story-line that starts with predators turning into victims, and their persecutors in turn turning into victims.*** Shooting on the pure-video Red camera system (maybe that's where title comes from?), the film can go just about anywhere and attach itself to anything on the run, which Smith, who also edited, hacks and slashes to cut out the transitional fat and keep the film moving unpretentiously fast. Should have cut a little faster and a bit more, as Smith uses the low-dig' horror format to make up for his short-comings as a shot-planner, but still keeps "the precious words" of his script intact. Too bad. There's a few things that could have easily gone in the out-takes bin that were redundant or not helpful. And then, just when things start turning really interesting, Smith pulls the rug out on the film, never venturing past its "potential." But it seems to me if you're going to be a barn-burner, you might as well burn it to the ground, rather than having the bucket-brigade near by to douse it half-way through.

Which is sad to me. Smith's career as the slacker's "geek-fantasy-movie-maker" still suffers from the poor execution of good ideas. A not terribly good film-maker, he still has potential as a superb script-writer. Problem is, he fancies himself a troubadour, a singer-songwriter, even though he can't carry a tune. Another director might be able to take a Smith script and hone it, polish it, and adjust it, so there are no slow spots, has a good sense of pace, and some actual composition to the frame, all things that Smith seems incapable of doing. He has a filmmaker's brio, but no taste and no judgement (especially where his own work is concerned).

His best film is the early-in-the-going Chasing Amy, but sadly, like Silent Bob and the protagonist in that film he's been incapable of doing anything better, in effect, ever since he's been chasing Chasing Amy. Still, if Billy Wilder's counter-maxim of "You're only as good as your BEST film, not your last" is to be embraced, so, too, is the career of Kevin Smith, just so we can have that one film added to the library of great films.

* Actually, Smith, whose humor has never kept him out of a fight (he joined a Catholic protest picket of his own film, Dogma) showed it to the daughter of Fred Phelps' daughter when he took it to Kansas City. Phelps brought her under-age kids, and Smith warned her that the film was "R"-rated and pretty raw. Didn't matter. But, predictably, she walked out 20 minutes in, saying the film was "filth." Um, yeah, wasn't that what Smith was saying?

** The Waco references are for the Koresh family, which was merely Messiah-based and collected weapons like lost souls with triggers, but Phelps (which is composed—if one can use that term—largely members of his family, and is mentioned in the film, so no one can say that they're being directly targetted), the guy who protests at funerals for slain American soldiers, is so extreme—and media-whorish—that Jerry Falwell called him outright "a first class nut," and the Ku Klux Klan has participated in counter-pickets, declaring Phelps' church "hatemongers." And you know how much the KKK hates that!

*** Smith's original idea would have taken the idea even further to a Higher Plain, that actually would have been pretty neat to see. But, it would have required expensive special effects for a film done on a shoe-string (the entire effects budget was $5k). And it gives Smith a chance to have that all important tag that wraps up his film in one good line: "People just do the strangest things when they believe they're entitled. But they do even stranger things when they just plain believe."

My Week with Marilyn

2012-01-06T11:16:00.000-08:00

The Battle of Mrs. Miller ("Whose Side Are You On?")
or
"What Becomes a Legend Most?"

"We are such stuff as dreams are made on" says Prospero in "The Tempest." Prospero and Shakespeare run through My Week with Marilyn (the latest confection of young love and fictionalized reality—with appearance by Judi Dench—from the Weinstein Company) like Caliban, a spirit of confused form and intent in Shakespeare's play. All the revelers in Simon Curtis' film (written—especially well by Adrian Hodges) are real, based on real individuals and events, but how true they are to the source is questionable, given as they are to interpretation and expectations, and to the dreams of the particpants, for whom the movies and fame is a business, an art, as well as personal obsessions.

None more so than Norma Jeane Baker, who inhabited our world and our dreams as Marilyn Monroe, a free spirit trapped in prison bars formed of klieg lights, a vessel that men poured their love and lust onto and women their princess dreams of being the most popular girl in the world. Heavy, heavy burden, that, and she bore it from the lowliest, sleeziest agent in Hollywood to Kings of the Sports World and Men of Letters. She also bore it from other film stars, who looked at her fame and wanted a piece of it (and maybe her, as well), including Sir Laurence Olivier, who insisted on casting Marilyn in his production of The Prince and the Showgirl, a trifling movie if ever there was one, despite being written by Terence Rattigan.

What Marilyn saw in doing the movie was obvious; she was working with the world's greatest Shakespearean actor and director on a film written by an acknowledged writer. Why Olivier wanted to do this is less so: financial success for his unbarded film; name recognition to draw the crowds for a film out of his metier; maybe he just wanted Marilyn, as so many men did, and the new bride of American playwright Arthur Miller (not the best looking guy in the world) might have provided a world to conquer for the actor who played so much ambitious Shakespearean royalty. Whatever the reason, Olivier was constantly frustrated with the fragile, neurotic actress, who had other concerns besides working with the exacting director—it was the only film she made outside of her protective home studio, 20th Century Fox, the only film she made outside of the United States, and the first film of her fledgling production company—all unique concerns that might have distracted the actress, on top of her new marriage to Miller and a hushed-up pregnancy during filming that resulted in a miscarriage.

The film that Hodges and Curtis have crafted from the events and a tell-all written about it by filmmaker Colin Clark (played by Eddie Redmayne), is one of the better ones to be made of this type. Casting has a lot to do with it. Michelle Williams is not the first person I would picture as Norma Jean, but the versatile actress manages to capture the presence of the human being at the core of the star and suggest the winsomeness that charmed so many in her orbit. Kenneth Branagh has been linked with Olivier for most of his career, paralleling the legendary thesp by making his own film directing debut with a gritty, strapping version of Olivier's own first directorial effort of Henry V. His portrayal of Olivier might seem too easy, but there was nothing about the man that was 'easy," and Branagh has a fine time, mixing Olivier voices, accents, and mercurial swings throughout the film—his Olivier is never consistent in mood, manner or method, just as you'd expect a Master Thespian to be (he maximizes the precision of great lines like "Teaching Miss Monroe to ACT is like trying to teach URDU to a BADGER!"). Rounding out the cast are such fine performers as Toby Jones (hilariously indecent as Marilyn's publicist and future Planet of the Apes producer Arthur P. Jacobs), Dench—playing a woman she once acted with, Dame Sybil Thorndike, Dougray Scott as Arthur Miller, and Weinstein go-to girl Julia Ormond as Olivier wife-partner, Vivien Leigh, as well as turns by Zoë Wanamaker, Derek Jacobi, Emma Watson, and one of my favorites, Michael Kitchen. Redmayne is fine and callow, as he's supposed to be, eyes always a little bit wide at a new turn of events in the film business, and a tentative, crooked half-smile his constant fall-back.

The script is full of great zingers about fame, fortune, the madness of the movie business, and how hard people work to make things look effortless (and on-time), as well as loads of gossipy references for "the blue-hairs." It also has a nice undercurrent that touches on fantasy and reality—hence the Prospero—and the process by which reality and the illusion of reality can really mess us up...if we believe our own "press." Sometimes the illusion of reality is nothing more than fantasy—the very stuff that dreams are made on. And the makers of fantasy are just as susceptible as the rest of us—maybe even more. My Week with Marilyn brings to the imagination such thoughts, beyond just being a tale of the Myth of Marilyn.

She did exist in reality. And her reality had little to do with her fantasy. The camera loved her. And that's what killed her.

My Week with Marilyn is a Full-Price Ticket.

Marilyn...in the wind.

War Horse

2012-01-04T11:06:00.000-08:00

"The Lives That Pass Through a Horse"
or
"Come On, Joey! Come On!"

The one-two punch of two Spielberg movies opening within a week of each is almost an embarrassment of riches, and in going from Tintin to War Horse it's a journey from the ridiculous to the sublime. We've seen what happens when Spielberg tries to make a Kubrick film (A.I.: Artificial Intelligence), a David Lean film (Empire of the Sun) or cut up like Hitchcock (Jaws), but what happens when he makes a John Ford film?

The answer is War Horse, based on the 1982 children's book by Michael Morpurgo, which was subsequently staged as a play adapted by Nick Stafford at London's National theater. Somewhere on this journey, Spielberg got wind of it, and the tale of World War I told from a horse's point of view became Spielberg's second Christmas release. Horse movies have all the sentimental elements of fables, which is why children love them, but the circumstances of this one have little to do with childhood concerns, but have more to do with kinship between man and beast in an unsentimental, often brutal world of adults.

It has all the elements of Ford: the Irish flavor as it begins in Devon, with the Narracott family acquiring a noble, unbreakable horse for plowing their hard-scrabble field; the horse—named Joey—learning to trust its first master, young Albert (Jeremy Irvine); the family being threatened with eviction by an uncaring bank (personified by David Thewlis' examiner); the "it takes a village" atmosphere that Ford engendered in his films (and not necessarily to come together in a common purpose, so much as to comment and gossip on it); the low comedy relief of animals—Spielberg makes goofy use of a particularly belligerent farm-goose and Ford favored horses that acted against training and merely acted like horses. Even the town of Devon looks precisely like the 20th Century Fox backlot recreation of the Welsh mining town in Ford's How Green Was My Valley.

But tough economics trumps sentimentality here and the horse is sold into service in WWI to keep the family going, and The Great War passes the horse from hand to surviving hand, some gentle, some harsh as the battles change the landscapes and fortunes of those in the European theater. The war goes from planned charges to muddy trench warfare, Spielberg opens it up with a spirited run where, Joey, alone and ownerless for the first time in the film, makes a desperate run for freedom (something possibly learned by a former caretaker), through, over and past the soldiers huddled in the trenches and ironically ending his gallop in the middle of No man's Land, where warring parties must watch and wonder at the sight between them that has nothing to do with the concerns of Man.

But, where War Horse most resembles Ford's work is pictorially—Spielberg sticks to close shots for moments of drama, but when he opens up, it calls to mind advice that the old Commander gave the young director when he was still dreaming of making movies (see video below). He's definitely paying attention to the horizon in this one, and the film, especially in its final moments, seems to come from a different era, one more rich in design and purpose.

In its color, both in sentiment and photographically, War Horse hearkens back to another period of cinema, one that was simpler and more direct, but it never betrays anything less than sophistication of subject matter and maturity of purpose, while still maintaining a high level of entertainment value. At this point in his career, Spielberg is presenting a master class in film-making, evoking the past when it suits him, but maintaining a personal growth that seems to never flag.

War Horse is a Full-Price Ticket. Caution should be exercised if the kids want to go.