2008-Mar-11 - If you ever want to see the biggest collection of halfwits..
Go to any IMDB message board.
It's amazing how many people you can find who think they know what they're talking about.
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2008-Feb-20 - Short films deserve more recognition.
Many people have lists and lists of favorite feature films, but few have lists of favorite short films. In fact, if someone doesn't personally know another film-maker, chances are they haven't seen many short films to begin with. This is a shame, as many budding film-makers focus on shorts before they tackle features. There is little market for short-films, and there is also no demand.
Older generations of film-makers didn't have to make short-films, but presently, the general steps towards making a feature include making a good short. Festivals include the only collection of people that both watch and respect short films. Film-makers have the opportunity to make short films, send them to festivals, hopefully win awards and recognition from people at the festival, and use their contacts and acclaim to secure backing for a feature film. Festivals are a good place to see these shorts, but going to a festival isn't exactly as simple as going to the theater or renting a film on Netflix. Recently, certain festivals have put shorts on their websites. The Sundance Film Festival has all of their shorts on their website, and the Haydenfilms festival is dedicated entirely to short films, letting viewers vote on the best. There are also some short film collections that you can rent or buy, such as the Cinema 16 series. Things are slowly getting better, and short films are slowly finding a wider audience and more acknowledgment, but more can be done.
When in a theater before a movie starts, often the time is spent scrolling silly "Movie Trivia!" before the commercials and trailers kick in. These are somewhat amusing, but end up being repeated seven or eight times before the "pre-show countdown" even gets begins. Rather then waste a huge amount of time on this, time is better spent showing a short film before each movie, or even better, before the trailers. It could be treated the same way as these slides, with the theater lights still on, that way whoever wants to pay attention to it can do so. This would expose people to many more short films, and they could see what an art it is to captivate the audiences and hook them in for 10 minutes rather than an hour and a half. Spending that much time on character development, it is easy for an audience to care and be into what's happening. For short films, it's harder, and in turn, the result can be much more interesting. With the short attention-span of the YouTube generation, it even seems like a better idea to show something short rather than something long. Audiences might even feel like they're getting more bang for their buck by getting a short film or two along with their feature presentation.
It wouldn't be too much of a problem, that is, getting rid of the IMDB trivia slides, as it doesn't hold any advertisements. The only thing it really advertises is other contemporary movies, but ones that people already are well aware of. If advertising was such a concern, though, a scrolling advertisement could be at the bottom of the shorts, out of everyone's way. This would make both sides happy.
It's a far off dream, though, as huge AMC theaters would never adopt this policy. It's hard to wonder what would stop them from doing it, as no harm is being done, but it requires a certain degree of care that huge theaters don't have the capacity to even fathom (just look at those ticket prices!). The big guys at the helm don't really care about what's being shown (though if effort was put into having advertisements run during the short, they'd probably be more interested). However, there's no reason for the smaller indie theaters not to adopt this policy. Places like the IFC Theater in NYC already do it, and other places such as the Clearview Cinemas (who seem smaller run and give off an attitude that they care about what they show) have little reason to not want to do it.
Young film-makers spend a lot of their time watching and being influenced by features, when they should be watching shorts. Since it is rarely in their power to produce a feature, they make a slew of shorts, but having a vast knowledge of features doesn't always translate well when trying to make a short. Often, film-makers end up making shorts that feel like mini features or trailers. This isn't their fault, though. Because shorts are so hard to come by, they have no choice but to turn to what's available to them. If there was an easier access to good short films, or any at all, the quality of the output and even the output itself would grow tremendously.
These brief-timed movies should be taken just as seriously as features are. As stated above, it is easier to get an audience to feel for a character or for the whole piece when given plenty of time to do it. It's much more difficult when you only have ten minutes to work with. That said, though, it isn't easy making a feature completely engrossing and enjoyable without filler. There is no doubt that a feature would spend more time in someone's head than a short, simply because more time is invested into a feature film. This is the same problem with short stories and even poems- they go by too quickly, and a special kind of effort should be put into these forms of art to get into peoples' minds quickly and remain there. Making a ten minute film that remains in peoples' minds right after they see it isn't a breeze; it's hard work.
That's not to discredit making one, though. Making a short is not only creating art but it's also a good exercise for directors. Creating a short and making it interesting and enjoyable for the entire duration of it will teach the director to carry this same mindset over to their feature. This would ensure that the feature doesn't end up having a few great scenes with the rest being filler (which is often the case nowadays).
Short films have taken a back seat for far too long. Not only are they great entertainment and display what people can do in such a short amount of time, they're also a great exercise for directors and future film-makers. As of now, though, short films are looked down upon as merely being exercises for film-makers in school. Some progression is being made, such as putting shorts on the Cinema 16 series and showing them before features like at the IFC Center. There are even films that get together directors to all make short films with a certain theme, these films like Paris J'etaime and Lumiere & Company are all a collection of short films place after one another, all keeping a certain theme or style. Even so, these are just small steps. The best shorts should get just as much recognition as the best features do, rather than being at the beginning of awards shows and the like. Short films serve a purpose other than securing directors a chair in the next big feature. They should be respected and easier to see.
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2008-Feb-11 - CGI Know!
Movies have come a long way since the Lumieres. Not only has there has been inclusion of both sound and color, but the story-telling aspect of film-making has evolved a tremendous amount. Special effects have come quiet a long way, as well. Gun fights are no longer as silly as they used to be and the moon looks less like a cardboard cut out. Computers have stood up tall and lent their hand to help, providing the ability to easily hide wires when a character really needs to fly and to arousement appropriate (see: Donnie Darko). Though once used sparingly, computers now have quite a heavy place in film-making today, much like in everything else. From aliens to gorillas to sets, computer generated images aren't hard to come by in modern cinema. This, however, is not necessarily a good thing.
In 1993, Steven Spielberg unleashed his next blockbuster to the public. Jurassic Park told a story in which dinosaurs existed in today's world. There was much work put into the dinosaurs, and they were mostly represented by animatronics, robots not unlike the ones seen at big theme parks. To aid them, a small amount of computer graphics were added to make the whole project better. This combination and small use of computers made it very believable, people bought it, and Jurassic Park was a success.
This small use of CGI is hardly noticeable. In today's industry, however, that is not the case. Brought to the public are CGI-ridden films such as The Matrix series, the prequel Star Wars, and King Kong. These are films with an over abundance of CGI, and instead of things looking believable, they just look phony. It takes away from the enjoyment of a film when everything looks like it's completely mocked-up. Although these are all science-fiction movies, that doesn't give them an excuse for looking silly.
There is no need to completely devote an entire film to include both live action and CGI. The prequel Star Wars have their moments, but are often criticized for having wooden performances. This could be true, and the only reason would be a director deciding to place actors in front of a green screen for the entire duration of a shoot. The original Star Wars trilogy's actors aren't always on the dot for every scene, but at least the characters believe what they're saying and doing and react to their real surroundings. In turn, the audience buys it. If we are shown Luke Skywalker in a space-craft shaped like an X but are shown it to be a real vehicle, with a believable inside and wear and tear on it, it works. If we are shown Obi Wan Kenobi in an almost cartoony space vehicle, it doesn't. Film is a visual medium and the audience is meant to believe what they are seeing on the screen, and they should be treated to not only something that looks good but also to something they can find somewhat plausible given the film's context.
The film King Kong tried in spending much time perfecting the king himself, however, all it amounted to was having the best, believable CGI creature in any film in completely corny surroundings fighting things that clearly look like they're made from a computer. Spending time making one thing look amazing is, ultimately, a waste of time if less time is spent on the rest of the world that also, incidentally, happens to be CGI.
Picking on science fiction films is easy, though, because they will obviously be riddled with CGI. Be that as it may, CGI in science fiction movies are still more passable than CGI in any other film. Andrea Arnold, director of the very awful Red Road, made a promising short called Wasp before her feature. In it, an unfit mother raises four daughters on her own. We are taken along with the family as the mother takes her children to a date, and leaves them outside to fend for themselves. Without money for them to eat, the children take it upon themselves to grab a plate of half-eaten barbecue wings from the ground. The film remains very interesting, and watching the kids outside is nerve-wracking because it goes back and forth between them outside and alone at night and the trashy Mother trying to get in some guy's pants. The film takes a turn for the worse when the baby of the four is given a bone to lick on. The baby gets the mess around it's mouth, and a wasp lands on her face. The wasp ends up in her mouth, the children scream and the Mother runs to them to see what is going on. It could have been gripping, but, unfortunately, the wasp they use happens to be CGI. The wasp, looking like Robo-Bee out of Richie Rich, lands on the girl in a close-up and then crawls into her mouth. This inclusion destroys any of the realism the film was going for, and it makes one wonder why a close-up of the wasp was even needed if it wasn't even going to be handled appropriately.
Not to completely knock CGI, though, it does have it's value. CGI is definitely an improvement over what the industry mainly used to use, such as stop-motion. Films like Ghostbusters have very silly stop-motion moments. The one that comes to mind is the demon dog-like creature that emerges from a statue. When stationary, an elaborate puppet/animatronic is used which looks convincing (aside from the fact that it looks like it's coming from the floor). When moving, the creature clearly looks like something out of Gumby. These scenes, however, are forgiveable because they are few and far between. Ghostbusters manages to use special effects, models, animatronics and the whole bag a lot more effectively than most films use their excessive amount of CGI.
Recently, the film Cloverfield had the right idea. The monster in the film was CGI'd, but because of the shooting style, it is barely seen until the end. The monster is constructed very well, and because it is only looked at briefly (in passing!), it is very believable within the context of the film. Of course, the camera stays on it for a good minute in the end and everything good about the CGI usage is thrown out the door, but at least it was used sparingly to begin with. The film-makers had the right idea, for the most part.
By using CGI in films, it has to be inserted and handled in a way that it doesn't look like the result is made using a computer. It can't be as excessive as it usually is. CGI has not progressed as much as film-makers think it has, it is not the answer to their greatest fantasies. Animatronics, robots, puppets, etc. done well don't look like the aforementioned things. They look like whatever they were created to look like. CGI still has a long way to go, and unless the same amount of time is put into everything CGI that was put into the King Kong creature, it should be used much less in films.
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2008-Jan-20 - Cloverfield
Few people weren't intrigued when they saw an untitled teaser shot by a hand held camera about something attacking New York City. Produced by the main man behind TV-epic Lost, people wanted answers (which is ironic, given the whole shtick of Lost). The following months brought story details, a trailer, and even a name! However, it was easy to lose track of the film during the December rush, that is, running around trying to see all the worthwhile Hollywood movies that were saved until this time so they could hopefully get the Oscar 'nom. The film finally showed up in theaters on the promised date of 1/18/08, and the movie itself is a pleasant surprise considering most after-December stinkers.
The film follows around a group of four, trying to escape death from a giant monster attacking the city. The film is shot in hand-held digital, and is meant to be from the perspective of whichever character in the group is holding it. Because of the need for amateur-style camera work, the entire film is very shaky. Normally this would be considered ridiculously fake and annoying, but it works within the context of the film. Although it's obvious, the shaky digital camcorder-esque hand held is very effective. It adds an interesting layer to the film, not only because of it's realism, but also because the camera the characters are using holds a tape with footage already on it. Within the movie, the footage becomes mixed and we see the main character with his love interest visiting coney island and having a splendid, happy time. These scenes are admittedly very cliche and corny, but they don't overstay their welcome and bring a nice contrast to the film, no matter how obvious that contrast is.
The film mainly suffers from it's overall lack of creativity. It's a strange case, though, because the film is smart about many things. It is shot well and is very engaging. However, the dialogue can sometimes be very poor and characters go in and out from being believable human beings in a crisis to monster/horror movie characters.
The intelligent handling in some aspects is a blessing and a curse. The producers breathe new life into a now dead (with the exception of last years overrated The Host), usually silly genre, throwing out a lot of interesting ideas. There are no awful, 'let's feed the audience' back story scenes. The film focuses on the people dealing with the disaster, and doesn't cut to scientists talking about what exactly is going on. Of course, the audience and the characters want to know what's going on, but it's not absolutely necessary. There are hints dropped here and there, but it's all just side stuff. What's important here is how the film-makers steer away from shoving things down the audiences throat and follow a group of people trying to make it out alive. It's engaging.
But for every smart thing the film-makers do, they leave a few stinkers behind. There are some very, very hokey lines coming out of these characters' mouths, mostly for comedic effect but sometimes for dramatic purposes. For every piece of back story the director doesn't feed you, he gives you ample portions of characters saying how scared they are to the camera, characters expressing love before they die, and quirky comedic conversations amidst a crisis situation. Some of these are surprisingly passable given the scene there in; if there's a lot going on and a lot of suspense then it doesn't really matter. Others are more glaring, such as one character stopping a group of people from freaking out by saying that familiar line in all deadly thriller movies, something along the lines of "Look, we don't know what it is but it's coming after us so we all have to get out of here!"
Aside from dialogue problems, there's also a few visual annoyances. The camera man makes use of everything a good digital camera would have, such as the cam-light and the night vision (that's some camera, by the way!). These work in their scenes, but one can't help feel that they were implemented solely to push the fact that these characters were using a dinky old camcorder. Rather than proving to the audience that what they're watching is real, it just comes up as forced. It's forgettable because the scenes are interesting, but it remove the viewer for the moment, and sometimes all it takes is a moment to completely dissatisfied with a film. The film also spends it's time not focusing on the monster visually. We only really see glimpses of it as the characters are running away from it, which adds to the suspense. Nobody's going to stop and stare at a monster if it's annihilating a city. This is one way the camera was used well. Unfortunately, all the time spent on barely showing the monster is wasted as we see one scene in which the monster (who was previously violently destroying a city) stops to stare down at a character before eating him. Here we can fully see the monster in all it's fake CGI glory, and it's really disappointing. Not the design of the thing itself, just the fact that a scene like this was included in the film. The movie tricks you into thinking it's smarter than this convention, this convention of not showing a monster or thing, and then showing it towards the end. What seemed like smart film-making/story telling is nothing but build-up to his close up.
Criticizing the film, though, is a problem in itself. For being a monster movie, the film is very engrossing and entertaining. For all it's "problems", it's still a very, very enjoyable experience. Are it's problems even legit? After all, it is just a monster movie. It's no here to win any awards or be the next Citizen Kane. In fact, one could argue that it's inclusion of monster movie conventions and corniness are nothing but homage to the genre. The film-makers themselves said that America needed it's own monster movie, and that's a huge reason why they were creating this film and setting it in New York City. It's unfortunate that it chose not to completely reinvent the genre and be smart about the entire thing, but it's forgivable. Unfortunately, because of this, many viewers will not overlook it's problems (or homages, depending on how you think) and will easily condescend it. At the end of the day, though, Cloverfield is an absorbing film, monster movie or not. It is completely entertaining, whether you're appreciating the interesting things that it does or you're laughing at the amusing, unrealistic dialogue.
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2007-Dec-22 - Juno
A pleasing cast. A good soundtrack. A main character that's dealing with things way beyond her maturity level. All of these things add up to a fun movie that is definitely wanting to be the next "best movie of all time." Juno is about a girl named Juno (it's a good thing that it's the title of the film) that becomes pregnant and decides to keep the child. What could have been a strong film tries out too many different things and tries to milk the most from it's audience, but it just comes off as too artificial.
Juno is mostly an annoyance. Most of the characters tend to talk exactly the same, and that type of speech gets really old after the first few scenes. Juno, played by Ellen Page, is wonderfully portrayed but never knows when to shut her mouth. Her speech and sarcasm are amusing at times but not always welcome. The supporting characters' personalities are also irritating, and borderline unbelievable. What comes to mind is the "romance" between Jason Bateman's character Mark and Juno. It is often that a younger girl can fall in love with an older male, and it is also quite common that an older man can have feelings or urges for a much younger woman. Their relationship, taken at face value, is just a bunch of name-dropping and one upping each other. It's cute, and it doesn't reach the atrocities of Garden State, but it's very throw-away. It's not hard to see past the conversations to see what's really going on- both of the characters filling a void in each other's life. However, the relationship escalates at a strange rate, and at the peak, Mark's actions and thoughts are absolutely ridiculous and fake. It has little to do with how immature he is as a person and more to do with poor, forced writing.
Scenes tend to go on for too long, as characters demand to be respect and watched as they go on and on, whether it be Juno's step mom yelling at the sonogram nurse or The Office's Rainn Wilson making jokes at Juno's expense. Another example of poor writing is the way the parents handle the discovery of Juno being pregnant. Juno herself begs for mercy before she comes out with it, but for the most part, the parents sit back without really reacting. Afterwards they talk about how heavy the situation is, but their reactions during the conversation isn't believable in the least. The father jokes around, then gets serious and fed up for one line, then returns to not really reacting. It's not asking for the parents to freak out and yell at her, it's asking for some sort of human-like reaction. The scene is glaring in the sense that it was written just so the story could progress without any reason. Some sort of interaction between parents and their pregnant teenager would've been very welcome and, in fact, it was very expected. Unfortunately, what the audience gets is a piss-poor hasty scene with parents barely reacting to their daughter being pregnant. This scene is important, and it should have had more time spent on it rather than coming off as a writer thinking that there were more important and cool scenes to take care of.
Much of Juno suffers from in-genuine moments and characters. Absolutely everything feels fake, and the movie hides behind it's witty dialogue and zany characters. What's most interesting is the chemistry between Juno and Michael Cera's Bleeker character. The scenes including them are very touching and done well. They're a little sappy and lovey-dovey, but they absolutely work. As opposed to the rest of the scenes and situations, these are real. Had the film focused more on their relationship and less on trying to force the audience to feel uncomfortable via weird sexual tension between Mark and Juno, it would have been much stronger overall.
The film takes place through all four seasons, and each of the season's characteristics are present and appropriately pretty. Occasionally there is an interesting shot or camera angle, but for the most part the film is pretty by the books. A major problem with the film is how talky it is, and when every character basically sounds the same and is trying to be funny, the film gets boring pretty quickly. There are a few visual things, but strangely enough, they are mostly squooshed together in the beginning. They also managed to be as contrived as most of the other elements in the film. These sights range from a cartoon title sequence to a scene in which Juno explains what kind of woman a guy likes, and the camera is static on a woman that is being pushed around by an unknown entity and dressed like a librarian. These scenes scream out towards the audience, begging to be accepted as cool.
If anything in the film is awkward, its the yearning from the film itself to win the hearts of the audience and be the next cool, quirky comedy. Unfortunately, the film comes off as meaningless and boring, sprinkled with a few great scenes featuring Cera and Page (which are mostly at the end, unfortunately). Juno isn't an awful movie, but it's not mature enough to stick to it's strengths. It often goes out of it's way to be different and takes on more than it can handle - much like Juno herself. However, for the movie's sake, it doesn't work. Had the movie been simpler and just focused on the relationship of Bleeker and Juno, it would've been a stronger film. Maybe more cliche, but at the same time, it wouldn't have felt so fake.
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2007-Dec-11 - The Forcefulness of Reality TV, and the dawn of Reality Movies
Going to the cinema is a nice escape for some, and it's a nice dose of reality for others. It all depends on taste. Some people will want a romanic comedy to make them feel good about things (Love Actually), some will like a fantasy where peoples' souls are in the form of animal companions (The Golden Compass), other people will enjoy a truly frightening experience that is unlike any other (Inland Empire), and some people will enjoy lifelike characters at their worst (Margot at the Wedding). Directors have different ways of pleasing or exciting an audience, and it's not a bad thing that people go to the movies to escape reality. Television is often used in the same way, but the rise of reality television has put a strange twist on things- people are escaping reality by putting on their televisions and engaging in "reality" television. Although the fact that these shows are written is supposedly common knowledge, to many people it is still unknown. Others simply don't care. The once 'real' show is now just a poorly acted and poorly plotted half hour waste, and it still engages them. With the Writer's Strike, the thought-to-be dead Reality genre will now make a leap away from it's grave. Well, at least there's always the cinema. Or is there?
Aside from the Writer's Strike causing studios to go into production with pretty awful scripts (not to blame them, though), the reality plague seems to have reached the theater. A trailer recently surfaced for a film called Look, directed by the genius who brought us Detroit Rock City and The Chase. The film takes place in post-9/11 America (of course) and follows five "private" stories of people in random cities in just a week, told entirely by security cameras. The stories range from a cheating high-school English teacher to a lawyer dealing with a sexual dilemma, which is nothing we haven't heard before (sarcasm). It's understandable that most ideas have been done before, and in order to make them fresh and original, they need to be told and shot interestingly. However, a big worry is the fact that this movie will rely solely on the security camera gimmick, and tell very simple stories we've all heard before. On a more pessimistic note, this can spawn a ton of copy cat movies that tell simple stories under the notion that it is "real" because of the quality of the footage, which is just a static crappy camera in the top right corner of a room.
That idea of the future of film is highly unlikely, as people are more likely to buy television being unscripted than a slew of movies being the same, even if they look like that. The idea is different, too, as this isn't trying to hide that it's fiction. However, by making this film in this way, it is forcing the audience to accept that these are real people because the story is told from security cameras. Because of the low-grade quality and placement of the camera, the film tries to get the audience to be as intrigued as they are when they're watching "World's Most Annoying Baby Sitters That Keep Hitting My Kids."
You don't need to be in the "reality" guise to make an audience truly care about characters and what's going on. Are the characters in the film Look any more real than the characters in Margot at the Wedding or Juno because the audience watching them from a security camera? Absolutely not. Many (if not all) writers pull from real occurrences in their life or in others', and they use these to construct their stories and characters. I've seen more real people in a Noah Baumbach film than in I Love New York. Sure, that example is a little rough, but the point is still made. There's no reason to use the reality backdrop to force an audience to feel for characters, and it doesn't make them any more real, it just ends up feeling very lazy and forced.
You don't need to tell people something is real. If it is done well, they will believe it. They'll completely buy it, they'll completely care, they'll be engrossed in it. The reality appearance is just an unnecessary crutch that is a slap in the face to all viewers, it is a disparagement to all whose a viewer. Of course, by some chance, the film could be done very well. But should the audience be insulted by being told 'These are real people so you better feel for them because anything that happens to them was on that camera and that camera and they're being watched'? It's almost okay to have goofy reality shows that mean nothing, but to have a film with simple stories shot on candid cameras expect people to be intrigued off the bat, it's more than forced, it's ridiculous unnatural.
Any and all characters are being watched, and they don't know it. This is the very subtle thing about things like television and film. It's not thought of very often, but it's true. We, as an audience, are in these characters' world and we're watching them at their best and, more often, their worst. Certain directors really show us these truly slice-of-life moments, such as Michael Haneke does in Code Unknown and P.T. Anderson in Boogie Nights. The former has the wife character dubbing over a scene while flirting with her cast mate. The scene overstays its welcome, and the original flirtatious feeling digs a little deeper than originally thought. The latter has Philip Seymor Hoffman's character trying to kiss Mark Wahlberg's, him getting rejected, and then him sitting alone in his car crying and yelling at himself for being such an idiot. A happier moment graces a character in Todd Solondz's Happiness, in which the young boy character masturbates for the first time. These moments are very private but shown to us very raw, they are largely personal but true moments of life that we rarely see on the big screen. With each of the three mentioned, not only is there the emotion that one is to feel for these characters, but there is also an discomfort in seeing these people in their most vulnerable, whether they be sad or happy. These scenes elicited the same thing that Look is going for, but without being overly gimmicky and being way more meaningful.
There is no point in seeing a film that begs to be taken seriously because it not only takes place in 'post 9/11 America where we have no privacy' (which is another sad and pathetic crutch) but because it features real stories of real people in only a week (stories, I might add, that were done way better in other films such as Funny Games and Dirty Pretty Things, and those similarities were only derived from the summaries of two of the five stories, so imagine seeing the actual stories in action). Once again, there is a chance that the film is done tastefully, but it has absolutely everything going against it, and even if it does somehow manage to work out in the end, there's still no getting around the fact that the director felt the film needed to be told like this, that he needed to make some sort of unintelligent statement on the status of America and how people should wonder if they truly do have privacy.
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2007-Dec-4 - Violence in Film, Haneke and Kubrick
The other day I was reading an article on Austrian film-maker Michael Haneke. The article was very informative and interesting, and spent a lot of time on what Haneke thinks of the world and of cinema. A lot of what he said excited me, but one thing really stood out to me. In the article, Haneke speaks of Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange and speaks of how it is a failure. Haneke goes on to say that he respects Kubrick, and is really grateful for his mistakes, as he has learned a lot from them. He doesn't claim to be smarter than Kubrick, just luckier solely because Kubrick came before him. What he is claiming is that A Clockwork Orange is a failure because audiences that liked the film liked it because of the stylized and almost upbeat violence in the film. But should Kubrick be faulted for audiences taking his film the wrong way?
A director knows what he is doing. Especially a director like Kubrick. In defense of his film, many of the violent scenes that feature strangely upbeat music are intentional. This was a time in film-making when directors were putting unfit music to certain scenes simply to say that music shouldn't show you how to feel during a certain scene (something Haneke is also a believer of). Also, the upbeat music was also supposed to represent the joy that the main character Alex felt while committing these acts of violence. The "well calculated violence" and "dance numbers" are done to make the characters seem even more psychotic.
When spoken of in that terms, it seems understandable that a person would really enjoy A Clockwork Orange, and even think it was "cool." However, thinking more into the film and the acts of violence (and all jokes aside), is cutting the clothes off a woman and raping her while her husband watches and gets beaten really enjoyable? No, not at all. If people truly enjoy it, then that's definitely not the fault of Kubrick.
So people are missing the point, clearly. This seems to happen with many Kubrick films, and although I don't want to sound like a down-and-out art film critic, it could very well be because the films found mainstream success. Once, when I worked at Best Buy, I had a manager who could recite every line of the drill sergeant's dialogue from Full Metal Jacket with a smile on his face. Its another movie that people enjoy for the wrong reasons. I feel like, again, the sarcasm is lost and people focus more on the humor of it all, when in reality, there was nothing funny about the Vietnam War at all. There's nothing really funny in the movie, period. Sure, the drill sergeant talking down to his troops is amusing, but is it really that funny after he is murdered and disrespected? Joker's quips are amusing, but what of the ending scene, where he remains speechless as he stares at the Vietnam sniper who lays there dying slowly?
Maybe Haneke's got it all wrong. Maybe everyone does. Maybe Kubrick wanted the scenes to be enjoyable, and in that sense, he wanted people to look at themselves and realize what they were enjoying were things like murder and rape. Although I don't agree with this theory, it's very possible, as the over stylizing of the scenes and the unfit music would really make it obvious in that sense. It may not be as obvious a message as it is in Haneke's own Funny Games, but it certainly is there if that is what one chooses to believe. If this is the case, then the film is much too subtle and audiences are taking it for face value. But then one must wonder- is a film that includes a milk bar and rehab centers where doctors perform dangerous experiments really a film that any audience member should take at face value and not think about? Some people don't spend as much time thinking about film as others do, some just see film as entertainment and nothing else. Though I disagree with that mindset, I can't not acknowledge it's existence. These films aren't failures because some audiences are overlooking the bigger picture. Ultimately, it's the audience that is failing to recognize the many layers of these films, even if they're painfully obvious. Maybe the humor and sarcasm in these films are distracting, but some of the best storytellers use these techniques to deliver their message further.
However, I do think it is wrong to put the blame entirely on the audience. Film-makers today insult their audience time and time again with their force-fed movies, when in fact the audience is smarter than they think. I also think Haneke is wrong in believing that a good amount enjoy the violence of A Clockwork Orange. To denounce a film because of a certain audience that doesn't get it is just silly.
The whole thing brings up a good topic, though. Is violence enjoyable? Why? Movies like Saw focus on the violence and the gore factor to excite audiences, and they keep coming back every Halloween for more. One can argue that if violence is maybe very realistic and gruesome, than it serves it's purpose because acts of violence shouldn't look cool and only be added to a movie for entertainment purposes. However, what if a movie bases it's whole existence on gruesome death scenes? A film-maker can do whatever they want to do in a film and it's up to the audience whether they enjoy it or not. It's also true that Saw is supposed to be a horror film, and each and everyone of the deaths are absolutely terrifying. They're definitely not realistic situations, though I suppose if a man's head was smashed between two huge ice blocks, it'd look like that. What Saw does is it drives the audience to want these characters to get out of the situation they're in and not get murdered in these torturous ways because they care for some of the characters, and they also wouldn't want anyone to die like these characters do. It's not meant to look cool (and it certainly doesn't), it's meant to scare you.
Violence in movies like Sin City isn't realistic, and it's very cartoony. Movies like these and even regular action movies pride themselves on their action which is, of course, rooted in violence. By downplaying the violence and having it occur often and cartoonish, they're doing exactly what Haneke thinks Kubrick did, and it's very intentional. It's hard to knock on those films like Grindhouse and Sin City because they are well-made films and they're more tongue-in-cheek than anything, but maybe the way they present violence isn't a good message to send an audience. Violence shouldn't be "awesome", it should be sad and disturbing and frightening.
So violence is enjoyable only if the movie sets out to make it enjoyable. But maybe the movies like Grindhouse conditioned a certain audience to enjoy violence no matter what, and because of those kind of movies, others like A Clockwork Orange are taken the wrong way. So maybe it's not Kubrick's fault and it's not the audiences fault, but the way other directors present their movies and thus condition the audience to think a certain way about every movie. Should one think that the "dance numbered violence" in A Clockwork Orange is trying to make a statement if the gorey movie 300 is just trying to be "fun"?
Movies should try to send some kind of message, otherwise it's a complete waste. There's no reason why a movie can't be enjoyable and somewhat meaningful at the same time. The movies that feel like they don't need to send a message, those action movies, actually are sending a message to the audience. A very detrimental one.
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2007-Nov-27 - Margot at the Wedding
Margot at the Wedding opens with the central character, Margot (Nicole Kidman) and her son Claude (Zane Pais), on a train to her old home for her sister's wedding. Through the mannerisms and dialogue in just this scene alone, we learn a lot about both characters and also discover Margot's feelings towards the marriage of her sister and her fiance. The first scene alone establishes the personalities of Margot and Claude, their relationship, their maturity level, and the mood for the rest of the film. The natural lighting gives a dark look, which more than suits the subject matter and characters. The plot is fairly simple and is an easy target for the lazy film-goer, but it is kept that way to allow the characters to truly shine and brilliantly portray an awkward, uneasy weekend with a truly dysfunctional family.
The film is hard to enjoy if you're looking for a humorous examination of a family (or people, rather) that can't get along. Sure, it does have it's humor, but director Noah Baumbach opts to stick with real human drama and have the humor as a side note. The film is tricky and even hard for some to enjoy (it got an awful reception at a Canadian festival) because the characters (especially Margot) are pretty detestable. However, they do have their merits, and it'd be very wrong for one to pan the movie because of the way the characters act, as the characters are genuine people. It's unnecessary for me or anyone to describe that a real person often has desires or thoughts that are often looked down upon, as that is a well known fact. However, its very confusing for someone to accept a real person's faults and mistakes but not be able to accept a fictional character displaying these humanistic traits. Maybe that's it, though. Maybe people are too afraid when the cinema gets real, or more simply, they don't accept when others act strangely or say the wrong thing.
"It's hard to find people you love more than your family." This is said by Pauline, played masterfully by Jennifer Jason Leigh, to her nephew Claude. In any other movie with any other story, what she said would've been totally believable and even pretty corny. However, given the circumstances and the context of the entire movie, the line has a certain sadness to it, almost rendering it pathetic. There are two possible explanations for this line. It's as if Pauline is trying to either convince Claude that she really does love his Mother so he can just enjoy himself and not worry about the family hating each other; or she's trying to remind him that that's the norm and he should feel like that, almost in an effort to steer him away from the awful relationship between Pauline and her sister Margot and towards the love and care normally associated with family. Though the intentions behind the line aren't as heart-warming as they normally are, they certainly are more interesting. And more human.
Baumbach came to fame in 2004 as writing partner with Wes Anderson for The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Through that connection, Baumbach made the very personal film The Squid and the Whale, and then had his first feature, the brilliant and very consistently funny Kicking and Screaming released on Criterion. Initial reaction to Life Aquatic wasn't very favorable, as it was long, clunky, and seemingly empty. Further viewing disproves this, much like any further viewing of a Wes Anderson film. The Squid and the Whale has characters much like those in Margot at the Wedding, dealing with a divorce that breaks up the family. The most interesting thing that Baumbach takes part in for his films are the back stories and histories that we don't know about, things that are just hinted at or briefly mentioned in or under the dialogue, or even things that the audience must just assume or make up themselves. Because Baumbach doesn't spend (or rather, waste) time on these things, it delivers a richer experience to the audience. Maybe having the characters as children an interacting with one another would've made more audience members be able to connect with the characters in Margot at the Wedding, but that is too easy. Life isn't that easy.
Although currently not working with Wes Anderson (unless we count the pre-production Slowga of The Fantastic Mr. Fox), there are some common elements between both of their new films (Margot at the Wedding and The Darjeeling Limited, respectively). This isn't new, as both explore common themes and situations, though I feel like The Squid and the Whale is often looked down upon as a lesser Wes Anderson project, when in fact it is not at all. Baumbach's movie is much more down to earth and grounded, and though Anderson paints a very real picture fairly often, he sometimes spends too much time on the background. Rarely is he missing something, though- the two just happen to focus their extra efforts on different things. Anderson has a definite focus on the art direction and entire look of the film, whereas Baumbach seems to spend much time directing his actors and bringing out certain emotions that the script merely touched upon. Also, the two seem to tackle the same issues and end up with very different results. The Darjeeling Limited has a character who is a short story writer, which is the same profession as Margot. The two both write from real experiences and publish them, however the character in Darjeeling claims its all fiction regardless of how many times his brothers claim they never said or did what he wrote. This comes off humorously, and the brothers never seem too bothered by what he writes. In Margot, however, Pauline accuses Margot of destroying her first marriage and then orders her not to write anything about the weekend that just happened. Margot also writes of her family and their situations to get away from herself, almost to convince herself that she is a good person. She is called out on stage at a bookstore, to which she replies with a different story and then runs off to be alone. There are many interesting reasons why Margot writes what she does, why she doesn't include herself or why she writes characters as herself but refuses to acknowledge that any are based off of her. The character in Darjeeling seems to write to fill a certain emptiness or void, but it doesn't seem to be as captivating as Margot's reasons.
What truly is captivating is how the film is full of instances of humans at their worst. It creates some truly uncomfortable scenes. These include Margot and Pauline talking to each other casually, bonding for at one moment and then quietly and subtly trying to out do each other at another moment. The casualty of the conversation returns, until Margot walks over to a window just closed by Pauline and opens it for fresh air. Pauline then follows Margot's next line by telling her, modestly, that she's become quite a good cook. This awkwardly placed line reveals Pauline's place in the sisterly competition that seems to have been going on since they were born, and seemed to have come out on it's own seeing as the conversation had already veered in a different direction. The scene is most interesting because Baumbach skillfully directs each woman to speak and move like they both have power, and that they both want the upper hand over one another. The scene is very uneasy, and at face, all it is is two family members speaking to one another. Sure, Saw 4 rattled everyone up when one female character's hair was being ripped out of her skull by some cleverly made chair, but it's way more interesting and effecting to see two characters play a figurative tug of war with each other, no blood or scalps involved.
Maybe we're not supposed to connect with these characters, but it's more interesting to think of the expectation of Baumbach that we are supposed to connect with these characters, but most won't because of their refusal to accept these characters and their intentions and actions as human. Written off as detestable rather than genuine, audiences seem to be missing the points and portraits Baumbach is giving to us. Surely, there are some easy connections that everyone can make. Being the person who thinks lowly of their siblings or even good friend's love interest because they think the person can do much better, or even being in a long term relationship and thinking of cheating then accusing the other of having the same thoughts but denying your own. These are fairly common problems that I'm sure most have either experienced or witnessed.
In addition to the many layers the film already has, the look of the film is another shining achievement which adds to it. The film uses very little lighting, and has a very grey/white color to it. The result is a dark look which greatly adds to the tone and mood of the film. It is mostly shot hand held as well, which makes the film seem more chaotic.
Noah Baumbach has come a long way since his first feature film, Kicking and Screaming. Going from that to Margot at the Wedding, you can see him mature into a better writer/director from film to film. Margot is definitely his most accomplished film to date, as every aspect of the film is truly amazing. Not only is it one of the best films of 2007, it is a personal choice for best film of the year.
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2007-Nov-20 - The Long, Continuous, One Take
The long, single shot take is an art that isn't used often. It is usually disregarded as being boring, even sometimes labeled with the most thrown around word in the history of art criticism, "pretentious." Most movies today are riddled with a barrage of cuts, the average shot length being two to four seconds. Rarely is the camera left alone to linger on the characters in a scene, and rarely do we ever get to follow characters moving somewhere without seeing every angle of their bodies. The long single shot is a technique that is disregarded but should absolutely be looked into.
Certain movies have their style. Fans of movies like Domino and The Bourne Supremacy will argue that they are "fast paced," which is why they are always jumping from shot to shot. Unfortunately, that's nothing but an excuse for a director that wants to shove things down an audience's throat. By having so many cuts (especially in scenes that don't include shoot-outs and explosions), the director refuses to give the audience a chance to think about what is going on. It's an insult. Maybe some find it exciting, but there is no reason why a woman looking through a folder in The Bourne Supremacy should have more than three different angles, if even that many. Had this been in one-shot, however, there'd be plenty for the audience to look at and take notice of all at once. These include the woman's face while going through the folder, the contents of the folder, where she gets them from, how she gets them, the other things in the room, etc. By cutting fifteen times, we are shown exactly what the director wants the audience to see, and there is nothing interesting to take from the scene. In fact, why even show the inside of the folder? Let the audience put two and two together. Once again, many cuts often equals insult to the audience.
Usually, the long single shot adds to a movie's atmosphere. Regardless of the often negative feelings towards Gus Van Sant's Elephant, the technique used throughout the movie added another layer to the movie. Van Sant knew very well that people would think the long shots would be boring (as they often do), and he used this technique to show the average high school life. The film accurately portrays what it's like to go to high school on a seemingly normal day. Also, when given a chance by the audience, the long shot often builds up anticipation for something explosive to happen. Van Sant cleverly used this technique, making audiences wish that the shootings would just happen already, just so that something would happen. Bored with typical high-school life, the audience is ready and even anticipating the shootings because it'd be exciting. Then, of course, the murders are so horrific that the audience is left wishing that they could just go back to the mundane high school life.
Using the long one-shot to lead to something explosive is a great technique that isn't widely used. Michael Haneke makes great use of it in most of his films, such as Cache and Time of the Wolf. However, in Elephant, the shooters were expected to arrive at the school and begin murdering students and faculty. Because of this, the audience awaits this action, even anticipates it, and is sent into regret when the characters make it a game and find joy out of the gruesome murders. In Haneke's movies, there is no expectations for something explosive to happen, so when it does happen, it completely takes the viewer for surprise. This is thrilling, as whatever happens ends up being truly scary. Because of his use of long takes, the audience becomes accustomed to spending time with the characters in certain scenes and thinking into whatever the characters are doing or saying. Then, out of nowhere, something explosive happens and the audience is left to deal with the consequences, just like the characters. There's no formula to it, either - the explosive points in the aforementioned movies come at completely different times, and they don't lose merit upon further viewings.
Although it's doubtful that the three movies mentioned would be awful if it had the same directors but no long takes, they would be very different and certainly not as great. The build up would be different and forceful. Long takes tend to give a choice to the audience, which makes it a tricky technique to use. The style only works with audience participation and full attention, and if anything below one hundred percent is given, the film doesn't work out. Not everyone is thrilled to give a hundred percent to a film that could be (and possibly will be) boring for a good chunk of it.
Boring on purpose, though, is an interesting concept. Elephant certainly was boring on purpose, as stated above, and for a good purpose. It's finally time to be honest with ourselves and think about a regular high school day, one where nothing happened. Then realize that that was most high school days, and that they were all pretty much boring. Both Haneke and Godard don't care if audiences think their films are boring or irritating, as they believe the method they choose to show things is not only realistic, but the only way to show these important ideas. This is especially true for Godard, whose film Week End is a fantastic black comedy that follows a rich couple on a road trip to pick up inheritance money. In the film, the main characters become stuck in a vehicle where two other characters speak to the camera of their world views. When one character is speaking, the character has a long static shot of the other eating bread. Occasionally, the camera shows the main characters sitting on the truck, bored. The result is annoying and tedious... exactly what Godard wanted. By using these long takes and not only inducing boredom, but also inducing frustration, and also showing the two main characters sitting around bored, Godard holds a mirror up to the audience. This also gives the audience a connection to the two main characters, two vile people who spend the entire movie on a trip to collect inheritance and don't mind murdering the person to get it. To invoke any sort of affiliation or understanding of these two detestable characters is almost impossible, but Godard manages to do it brilliantly. This is, in fact, an even greater statement on how audiences connect with certain characters that they shouldn't, such as villains who are "cool" or even heroes that kill. Given the right scene or scenes, a director can make an audience care or like any type of character.
However, this method of film-making doesn't always produce gold. Sometimes the long take isn't used properly. The film Dan in Real Life used many one shot long takes without doing anything interesting with them. That's not to say that it made awful use of them and the film was bad for doing it. The style was implemented lazily, and you often couldn't even tell that the whole scene was in one shot. One can argue that this is good, that it used a new technique so well that it wasn't noticeable, but that's not the point of it. To properly use it, the shot needs to focus on something intriguing or real, some sort of action that a character or multiple characters are doing. Unforunately, Dan in Real Life rarely has any moments of interesting action, just has the characters vocally interacting with one another. Those scenes could have been interesting, but they seemed prepared for more angles to be thrown into the equation. It was more of a wide shot than a one shot.
Although it's use wasn't very interesting, it takes a lot of guts to even shoot a scene in one or two angles. Unfortunately, the world today seems to think that movies should look like music videos. A colleague of mine once said that studios and directors always wanted to use more angles and more cuts, but it was too hard on the old flatbeds. Therefore, when things started going digital, it was easier to do and therefore they did it. This theory (or truth, as he insists) is nothing but silly- if Kubrick and Coppola would have shooting days for months at a time, then extra time spent in an editing studio would most definitely happen. Early soviet cinema weren't strangers to many cuts, either (though never to the shameless degree of movies like Domino and U Turn). Our culture has changed, maybe it is the favoritism towards music video editing, maybe it's just bad directors not knowing how to pace something on their own without having to rely on editing.
Fortunately, the fast editing style seems to be diminishing a tad, and the films that still use it are (mostly) using it well and/or sparingly. More and more directors seem to be employing the long one take, such as Dan in Real Life and Michael Clayton. Because of these films, hopefully audiences around the world grow more accustomed to the relaxed editing and start appreciating the long takes more, because long takes are the most real film will ever get.
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2007-Nov-13 - Theater Etiquette
Is the movie theater dead? The thought of that question bothers me, because I feel like I already know the answer. I have little back up, but what I have and what I know is enough to keep me away from the theater forever, especially if it gets worse (which it most likely will, because everything always does). I don't really care about box office sales - I check IMDB everyday and it's asinine how many news reports they have about box office sales either going down or being less than what they thought. People have to understand that they shouldn't shoot so high or expect a certain sequel to make a million more dollars than it's predecessor. What I think should be addressed here are not numbers, but reasons why the numbers are going down. Sure, there's sequels and book and TV adaptations, we know those reasons well. What I think really is keeping people from the theater is the lack of theater etiquette among viewers these days.
It's really hard to go to a theater and receive a quiet audience. If it's a big hollywood picture, you have teenagers and the like just going to the movie to hang out. If it's a smaller indie picture, you have the old people who don't understand what's going on and need to be updated by their spouse every 2 minutes. It's hard to fault the latter, but it's still frustrating. There's really no way to be at peace in a movie theater. Unfortunately, unless you want to go to a matinee every time you want to see something, getting quiet and respectful movie-watchers is nothing but luck.
I'm not sure what makes people think talking in movies is all right. It's distracting to hear someone comment about the current scene; it takes the watcher out of the movie world and throws them back in the real word so they can perceive and understand the usually moronic statement by the person sitting next to them. I'm not sure what makes people think they're above the film and the people around them. Of course, the worst is the comedy commentary from fellow viewers, as if you were sitting in the crowd with Mike Nelson and Tom Servo. It's rarely funny, and if it ever is, it just encourages the person and makes them comfortable, which, in turn, leads to more sub-par one liners.
It's hard not to be irritated by the lack of respect in a movie theater. There's also little you can do once someone speaks up and says something during a movie. Telling a person to "Shhh" has a small chance of working, and by doing it, the person is already out of the movie universe and must work thereafter to get back into it while trying to forget that they just had to tell someone to be quiet like an elementary school librarian. It can all be taken a step further by actually getting an usher or taking a step in a different direction by moving seats. Once again, this really takes you out of the world, gives added stress, and puts more on the mind which leaves little room to get back into the film.
Back a few years ago, I sat in front of three girls during a showing of Walk the Line. They talked throughout the trailers and into the opening sequence. I turned around and told them to be quiet. They then proceeded to laugh at me, and one of them even told me that it was "gonna be okay." So, by this logic, not only is it completely fine to talk, but to not want to hear someone else talking during a movie is something else. Not only does it make you weird, but also, judging from the tone and condescension in the girl's voice, it was also makes you lame.
So what made talking in theaters so commonplace and seemingly okay for people to do? What did this sweeping epidemic stem from? Maybe it is the more passive audience member who doesn't want to waste any more time and patience telling a person to be quiet. But what about movies like Snakes on a Plane and Freddy Vs. Jason? During both of those movies, there was much chatter and hollering from the audience. And it was a blast.
So is it hypocritical to talk during Freddy vs. Jason but get annoyed when someone talks during a movie like Crash? Probably. No matter how you look at it and no matter what you think of either movie, you're still destroying the quiet other-worldly experience of seeing a film. Though, there is a difference between a movie that understands it's audience and focuses on campiness and gore and a movie that creates characters and drama that an audience can connect with.
But whose to say what's intentional and what's not? Clearly, everything that was a part of Snakes on a Plane was intentional. But by the above logic, anyone can laugh and talk and have a good time during a showing of a movie they think is bad. By saying that it's okay to talk during Snakes on a Plane because it's purposely a bad and fun movie, the line between movies that are meant to be fun and movies that are really trying to be taken seriously becomes harder and harder for some audience members to see.
Thinking into and discussing the topic opens a huge can of worms. Is someone who chats during Freddy vs. Jason a hypocrite for telling someone to be quiet during The Lake House? And how can we truly tell when something in a movie is intentional unless it's extremely blatant like in Snakes on a Plane? Either way you look at it, there has been an extreme lack of theater etiquette and the number of people talking during ANY movie, be it a movie where venomous reptiles board and terrorize an airplane or not, is ridiculous, and disturbing people while they're trying to enjoy a form of art shouldn't be as acceptable as it currently seems to be.
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About Me
Includes film essays and reviews written by Chris Bell.
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