filmcave - Tumblr blog

[filmcave]

Not the Same

There is an unusual battle going on right now in the world of cinema. But it also acts as a microcosm and sort of shard of a hologram for other battles happening.

Like every battle there plusses and minuses to each side and naturally the other side sees each other as a kind of threat.

At its core is a philosophical question: Does size matter? The Sophomoric and silly undertones of sexual innuendo aside in this question, it is entirely genuine.

When Louis and Auguste Lumiere screened the first public movie ever in 1895, at the Grand Cafe in Paris, certainly the size of the screen was not the fascination. How could it be? The magic of the moment was seeing flickering light and shadow images dancing on a plain surface transporting the audience to another place and time.

Employees leaving the Factory (in Lyon)

What an incredible moment and experience this mst have been for this audience. Even if they could not have sensed the economic and cultural impact, they were seeing something no one had publicly seen before.

The “moving pictures” were the attraction. The fascination, fear and amazement they felt must have been palpable. This was not an innovation in cinema, it was the creation of it!

From that point forward changes in the production, distribution, performance and experience of cinema are all that was left.

And we know that those changes have proliferated and in many cases advanced film. With the exception of one area - film analysis and discussion. This area has languished in the scrap heap of literary criticism. This is not to say people don’t have or choose not to 'advertise their opinions (far from it). As a conglomerate of disciples of film critics commentary has de-evolved and been reduced to a range of thoughts that can be best described as the binary “I liked it” / “I didn’t like it” dialectic. Yawn, how uninteresting.

When this is typically combined with a lack of understanding of that “that on the screen” came to be the discussion becomes an exercise in auto asphyxiation. Straining and stressing under the weight of its own limitations.

If we begin to look at the individual components of “how its made” we can chart a path towards understanding better the purpose and mission of the film. Most people depart the cinema soon after the final shot of the story. But even as they leave they are well aware there is a very long line of credits. In so e simple sense they probably understand that each one of those people played a role in the creation of that film. But a movie is Spam in a can, if it never gets shown.

This is the point where the evil genius of Netflix enters. Over the 120+ years that cinema has been made public. Many advancements in the movie going experience (and dubious ones) have been cauterized by a single ethic of the social contract. A movie goer needed to get off their fat ass and find their way to an actual physical theatre, buy a ticket and watch the movie in the temporary co-habitation with strangers.

At one point in time the cinemas who screened these films figuratively had a captive audience. There was one or two cinemas in town. They showed one movie for an entire week and then it was gone. Limited supply (number of seats, days and films) made for high demand. People dressed up and went in droves. The film studios owned the theaters, production equipment and the actors were “under contract”. It was an oligarchy of the wealthy. They had immense power and influence.

This power began to fade as independent distributors and cinemas began to crop up. Like in professional athletics actors became free agents where they could take their skills and reputations where they wished. Unions formed and the power dissipated. The website statista estimates the global film industry will be $50 billion dollars in 2020. Thats a pie a lot of people would like to stick their snout into.

Enter Netflix et al. Otherwise known as the Satans of Silicon Valley. Before I pontificate on SVS it might be helpful to philosophize on the question of what kind of value they bring to this world to begin with.

To begin with they are a society. An insulated, top down culture presided over by people with certain kinds of brilliant intellect and intelligence around a few extremely limited things. On top of this there is a self perception that is also pointed outwards as a marketing message cum “social good”. For them to see themselves as valuable parts of society at large they must perpetuate and proselytize this ethic/message. It is a nearly completely corrupt mentality especially devoid of emotional intelligence and a genuine sense of greater good. For many of the FANG stocks (a prescient acronym for Facebook, Apple (Amazon), Netflix, Google) the trick is to write some code, give it to a “user” for free and then have that user do all the work to build a successful revenue generating business. Its genius and entirely immoral. The users are the product, they develop and refine the product, allow a given company to take or steal their information which that company can then use to sell shit right back to them In the words of Karl Marx, the workers are the means of production AND the product.

Allthe company needs to do is continue to convince the users they need to keep working. They fo this by “engaging them” in things that touch in fears, dreams, hopes and deficiencies.

Ok, so a bit of a deviation here but the core point, relative to our topic of screen size, is to examine what value (if any) Netflix is bringing to the movie game.

Lets start with their motivation. First, middle and last Netflix is a growth and consumption machine. But if we look at the content they “recommend” it is created, design and directed to appeal to YOU. Their business wet dream is to have you intravenously fed chemically and neurologically customized euphoric content. Like the masses in The Matrix they need you to have a stable income and an all you can eat mentality. Why else would they continue to push new movies and episodes having them start before the last has finished.

So, how about the quality of said content. Well, financially speaking, they are agnostic on that. However, to steal your attention away from other content (including real life) they need to convince you its better.

This is where awards come to play. Any kind of award will do but of course when you’re talking about insatiable appetites, you’re talking the big awards. Golden Globes, Grammy’s, Oscars. And winners from the elite festivals. And when you’re taking in obscene amounts of cash, there’s lots to spend..and spend they do. For many years Amazon was a money losing venture. Not any more.

According to Statista Amazons Q4 revenue in 2018 was $72.38 billion

Apple - $62.9 B in the same period

Netflix - $4.19 B

Google - $33.7 B (reported for Q3 as parent company Alphabet)

Those four quarterly revenue streams combined (over $173 billionj is more than the annual GDP in Rhode Island, Vermont and New Hampshire.

So, yeah...its all about the Benjamins

Right. So no surprise there. Its not illegal to make money.

But this is the kernal of the issue for chain cinemas. Netflix is taking revenue from them.

Lets look at the core matter regarding quality of work. At this point the poster chold for this is the astounding and impressive film: Roma.

Its is the brainchild of Alfonso Cuarón and it is making waves (if you’ve seen it this is a pun) because of the awards and recognition is has garnered but also by the way Netflix has accomplished it. They have a brilliant beautiful film on their hands the credit to which needs to firmly given to them. They are exploiting the opportunity to attract filmmakers by giving them broad artistic license and backing movies studios shy away from or don’t support due to a personal beef with the artists.

So far as this empowerment to the creators I say “good for you Netflix”. It is certainly their right to distribute it in whichever wsy and to the degree they wish. Its their toy. Obviously it gives them a monopoly in who sees it when its not in cinemas - their customers. This cultural shift might be upsetting or off putting to many for many reasons. But the notion of adopting technologies that already exist comes to mind.

Some credit does need to be accorded to Netflix. They fully funded the vision and sensibility of a Director, cast and crew and single handedly provided access to an extraordinary mvie to millions of people who might not otherwise have access to see it. Kudos.

However...

I first saw Roma on my large screen TV and loved it. I begrudgingly gave credit to Netflix for this coup. But...it haunted me and got me to thinking. The “what about” questions began to creep to my consciousness. It was too good and I wanted more. But the “tiny” 45” screen and schmaltzy TV speakers were incapable of delivering the full, Director intended experience.

But I was stuck. Netflix had cleverly rigged the game. To qualify for the Oscars, the film needed to be shown on a movie house screen in a minimum number of locations. Netflix complied - but barely.. And so, under carefully controlled limited release it was made available. But if you have the misfortune of not being close enough to a legitimate movie screen, you were out of luck. Nay, this lack of good fortune extended further when I learned there were a few 70 mm high definition sound copies out there.

For a cinephile, large screen format is nirvana. Seeing a movie conceived, shot and meant for a large screen is an experience irreplaceable. It can’t be recreated anywhere else.

So sticking this instant classic into a small screen is like telling a great writer they can only use half the alphabet. A musician half the notes. Or a chef food but no spices. Whats the point of trying?

If Netflix wishes to keep its toys to itself, so be it. But really how much farther do they think they have advanced cinema beyond Employees leaving the Factory. Not very far to me.

And watching an epic film like Roma on anything other screen than a large cinema screen, with stereo sound...not the same.

[filmcave]

Cannes can

The indomitable, cantankerous, criticized, brilliant, controversial, cinematic visionary Terry Gilliam, like the Phoenix immortalized by Pliny, Ovid, Herodotus et al has risen - yet again - to finally (perhaps) tell the story he has been subverted from telling for nineteen years.

The tale of Don Quixote in his soon to be premiered The Man who killed Don Quixote at the 2018 Cannes film festival is a film that has been besieged by sickness, flooding, insurance and financial difficulties, the comings and goings of numerous A list actors. And still Mr Gilliam has been persisting through eight attempted efforts since 1998. Its fateful history even catalogued by the documentary Lost in LaMancha.

If there was ever a sign of the apocalypse locked in conquest against the “will to survive” then TMWKDQ is that sign. But after such a treacherous journey are we now finally at that point where Mr Gilliam genius is again unveiled in what seems to be his life work. Maybe his Magnum Opus.

So now it seems fair to ask: Is this a cap to a long, successful cinematic career or the beginning of a new direction?As is celebrated in the jewish holiday of Pesach - “it would have been enough”..

Had he only made the brilliant dystopia universe of Sam Lowry in Brazil - it would have been enough

Had he only defined a new style, aesthetic and essentially oeuvre of film, Gillianesque as it were, - it would have been enough

Had he only crafted stories, themes and subplots which embodied both eternal social commentary and topical hypocrisy, political intrigue and human foibles - it would have been enough

Had he only created marvelous, curious, frightening, compelling characters, at once greek archetypes, at another time funny, genuine and oh so human - it would have been enough

But he has done all these things and more (see my other voluminous posts on him) and all the while continued to persist. Unless Paulo Branco and his Alfama Films Productions pulls the coup to, yet again, thwart Mr. Gilliam you should mark Saturday May 19th on your calendar.

On that date: The world will not stop rotating. Famine and disease will not be eradicated from the earth and most people won’t notice it but it will be the first official screening, to conclude the Cannes International film festival., of The Man Who Killed Don Quixote!

[filmcave]

HBO’s Succession: TV or not TV

(Yes, there are spoilers in this)

This is a deviation vrom my stated purpose of this blog but without conventions there would only be a riot of non-conventional styles - which would in turn then be the convention.

I’ve already broken a maxim of my blog (no reviews) and now will be doubly at fault in reviewing a TV episode. Sacré bleu

Succession, season one episode seven - otherwise known as - Austerlitz was a virtuoso presentation. It was greek tragedy and Shakespearean drama all wrapped into one. It was a hologram of the history of a family, a Haiku and a stand alone “slice of life” movie at once. I haven’t seen this kind of high quality work on TV, behind and in front of the camera collaboration, since the early days of The Sopranos and the better days of Six Feet Under. SS1E7 might even surpass those.

Its not TV, its HBO in this instance is more than a catchy marketing line.

In SS1E7 we learn more about the characters, their relationships and dreams and fears than at any previous time. It was entirely captivating nearly start to finish. The characters really came to life because gone were the veils, deceptions, proxies and covers for the sublimated emotions that were hinted at in prior episodes.

We also have the pleasure to see the actors talents and the production skills, restrained and nuanced. At work is an incredible stylistic dynamic both the bold and raw set against a pastoral setting. A smoldering kindling on which a splash of psycho-therapy gasoline hogwash sets off a wild ride.

Logan, Marcia, Connor, Roman, Shiv and Kendall all have a new stage and unknown surroundings here in the middle of New Mexico - at Austerlitz, Connor’s newly renamed ranch. The familiar physical environment is no longer the polished steel city or lustrous posh of the Hamptons and we see how this new environs affects them. The environment is all highly symbolic but at the same time part of the natural aesthetic.

The dialogue is sparse but precise. The direction moves the story forward but doesn’t get in the way (There seemed to be far fewer annoying zoom jump cuts, for example). The dialogue was snappy, emotion filled, poetic and well balanced. The family joking and jostling ranging from mean and cutting to tender and toying.

What is most compelling and what elevates this simple TV episode to a higher level - nay a filmic level - is the extraordinary way it exists as a stand alone artistic entity while it fits in perfectly with the series narrative, arc and history. It advances the prior story lines yet could easily and satisfyingly be enjoyed as its own single entity,

What also helps this stand in stark relief are the fullness of the performances. We learn so much about each character and how they relate to each other. We see Logan railing, fuming, frustrated, patriarchal. Shiv - confused, frustrated, ambitious, Roman as lost, dismissed, sardonic, mean and desperate. Connor seeking solace and connection, peace and harmony, family unity and relationship building. Kendall as jilted, angry, posturing - and resentful. Deeply resentful.

This stew of these personalities are seasoned with the orbit of “satellite significant others” who play out their own personal turf battles. Tom Wamsgans, Marcia Roy and Willa

To this all we add in the “well known, highly respected, Harvard educated corporate therapist” Alon Parfit who does a fabulously good job of doing a fabulously terrible job. This performance by Griffin Dunne is understated, completely serious and comically perfect. He starts the session off with a ditty/limerick that is more stand up than kickstarter for insightful therapy.

While there are lots of rich and interesting moments in the “family unity event” but the one that really helps the wheels come off are when Logan, un-ironically states: Everything I have ever done, I’ve done in the best interest of my children.

It is one of the most stultifying and astonishing statements which no one but Logan believes is truthful. From here the kids start to figure out there is an alternative agenda. Pictures of everyone becomes pictures and interview (“its optional” says Logan) and as a fraudulent and deceptive connivance.

This whole vignette becomes a kind of “who’s afraid of Virginia Wolfe” for the whole family.

And then...things really start to unravel. Dr. Parfait (how symbolically perfect of a name) suggest they get into their “good bodies” and go for a swim and then everyone follows their genetic code. Shiv runs off to Santa Fe for a job interview as a political consultant,

Connor tries to corner Willa to kind of, sort of, maybe being together with him..in New Mexico, but no not maybe all the time - so she could be in New York, uh..and have an allowance,,,and uh, uh, uh...”we’d be together but in a different way”.

Roman hangs around for the photo op with Daddy (“sure, I give good cheek”) and Kendall (which just sounds so much to me like “Ken doll”) well, in addition to his aspiration of becoming a meth head decides he’s no wheres close to done with his failed palace coup in the boardroom.

But the pieces that really powers and accelerates this super charged race car of a family are the exceptional direction/cinematography/editing and Lucy Prebble’s script. Miguel Arteta‘s direction shows us what we need to see, how to see it and tells the visual story. Even simple moments like Kendall’s car rental and subsequent slide from sobriety at the bar tells us a lot about the character. There’s the aloof, voyeuristic distant camera shot and angle as he finishes up with the rental guy underscored with equally aloof and sarcastic throwaway lines:

Rental agent: “Its gassed up and ready to go. Big plans while you’re here?”

Kendall: “ Maybe. Patricide? Fratricide?”

In addition there is an incredible soundtrack that adds to the mood. Haunting, foreboding, lyrical, sad. The score too really adds to the flavor of this episode in a clear but subtle fashion.

The music and scoring is really complimentary to the entire aesthetic of Succession. Brilliantly done by Nicholas Britell (of Moonlight fame) it sets the mood for the soundtracks of the show episodes and the Roys family. As it should it adds to the storyline.

Its unfortunate that thus far the combo of Prebble and Arteta only collaborated in this one episode because their efforts truly reveal the inner lives of the story and characters versus the intriguing but more mundane soap opera like quality of most the other episodes. Prior to this episode the primary quality was a kind of prolonged exposition with the foreplay teaser of things to come. From SS1E1 through episode 6 each one ends with a kind of cliffhanger.

As I’ve already suggested even the non characters have meaning here. Austerlitz for example (Connor’s renamed house).

I had to look it up but was surprised and amused to learn it was the site of Napoleon’s greatest battle victory. According to Wikipedia:

also known as the Battle of the Three Emperors, was one of the most important and decisive engagements of the Napoleonic Wars. In what is widely regarded as the greatest victory achieved by Napoleon, the Grande Armée of France defeated a larger Russian and Austrian army led by Tsar Alexander I and Holy Roman Emperor Francis II

How perfect the symbol of a battle as foreshadowing for a family battle. That’s the historical part, even with echos of King Lear. The hysterical part is as Marcia and Willa explain:

Marcia: Austerlitz? Was this the name when you bought it?

Willa: Oh, it was racially insensitive, so he picked a new one.

Ha! How perfect, how prescient. They’re dropping hints before anyone’s even walked into the house (called a ranch but which is really an estate)

Its all brown, as Shiv puts it, but if you look a bit closer the accoutrements, nick-knacks and decorations are anything but vintage old world west. The furnishings, art work, ersatz homage to the history of the land, all “put together”. Very Pottery Barn meets Restoration hardware, meets Sam Shepard.

Connor, at this point the most self deluded of the bunch, even welcomes them by saying “Welcome to the real America”. How innocent and ignorant.

But Connor is an aspiring maven and bon vivant so he delights in his cursory knowledge of history.

So he doubles down as he proudly introduces everyone to his “humble” Abode and that the chapel next door dates to 1878. While he gives no context for the importance of 1878 (or his reason for mentioning it).

A bit of research seems to suggest this was an important period for New Mexico, commerce and local history. According to the National Park service and other online sources, this was the timeframe when the Santa Fe trail (the primary commercial route between Independence, MO and New Mexico) was being developed (possibly through hostile means) from “highway” to railroad way. The war with Mexico (over territory) had ended just thirty years earlier and the Republic of Texas had seceded from Mexico about a decade before (1836 Texas revolution). Again, signs of war, conflict, antagonism..could this be an over interpretation of a line of dialogue. Sure, but who goes to the length to not only name a house for Napoleon’s greatest victory but the entire episode and stop with the clues there?

Theres so much layering of elements in this episode, its hard to pick what to highlight.

However I am also drawn to another unique interplay of moments. There are two occasions when Shiv, beginning to sow her seeds, compares her father to the earthly elements of Fire and Water. At one point exclaiming in reference to the chapel: “do you think he can cross the threshold or will he spontaneously combust? And later explains why her father won’t take a dip in the pool, “he doesn’t even trust water..its too wishy washy”. But in the end we see the ramifications and scars from the encounters...

Shiv is brought to tears

Kendall climbs a mountain to gain perspective and snort some drugs

Connor realizes his illusion of family unity was never to be and

Logan, Logan goes into the pool (a very high end infinity pool) amidst the mountains, and cactus, tumbleweeds, dirt with steam rising to wash away the stress and as he emerges crawling out of the depths we see what appears to be lashes or scars in his upper back with Marcia there, his protector and defender to wrap him in a towel as an acoustic guitar melody plays under the scene.

Succession Austerlitz Haiku

Roys go West together

seeking salvation in sand

No one’s left unhurt

[filmcave]

Review - Three Billboards

ALERT, THIS REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS

There are certain truisms in life. Hype and marketing can never add up to a good experience. One person’s idea of a good burger is never the same as another’s. A creative business idea is an oxymoron.

Here’s some more to add to the list:

Three billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri is a movie Frances McDormand is in it It is about deep, raw emotions

Having seen this Martin McDonough creation on opening weekend allows a kind of advantage in not seeing or hearing much about it via personal reviews and the hype machine. This prevents the inexorable priming that happens once the rumor and scuttlebutt begins. But still to review it requires an extension of that avoidance of bias.

Taking a cue from the title I will divide my thoughts into three sections: what happened? Why it happened? And what it means?

In a movie like Three billboards what happened is as much about style & craft as well as content.

As a whole this is an intriguing composition (both like a musical score and a collection of “things”). It had for me, a sort of David Lynch, Sam Shepard, Samuel Beckett quality to it. Sparse, dark, eerie and weird. The cinematography, editing and soundtrack all evoke other times and places but also otherworldly places and yet, in a Beckett-esque way, an “eternal now”.

The oblique, fast moving shots of the billboards in the beginning (as viewed from a car racing down the street) where we are not able to even easily read what each says, says something in itself. It is arresting, off putting and throws our sense of reality into question.

The anachronistic message of “something out of place” brings to mind Lynch’s opening sequence in Blue Velvet, a hovering steady cam, moving through the white picket fence, idyllic Suburbia to eventually, a homes garden to settle on a severed ear - bloody and on the ground. From the very start it should be clear, “this ain’t no party, this ain’t no disco, this ain’t no fooling around”. From here, things get bleak.

So to get to the meat of this section and in some sense the entire movie, what happens is: A woman’s daughter is kidnapped, beaten, murdered, raped and burned. But don’t worry there’s comedy in it too! Belly laughs in fact.

In the course of the story we are introduced to a cornucopia of odd, quirky, idiosyncratic characters. They are partly Greek stereotypes. Stock figures that are frequently cartoonish, simplistic and often just devices for the film. The ditsy young girlfriend, the protective wayward son, the ignorant hick, redneck racist cop, the infuriated mother enraged by her loss and the apparent absence of justice…It may seem patronizing for me to use these archetypes, but I didn’t create them or write the dialogue.

Because of this backdrop much else about what happens in the movie isn’t important. It is filler.

However there is effort necessary to speak about craft, on both sides of the camera.

First and foremost, whatever accolades Frances McDormand earns will almost certainly be accurate. Without her this is a well crafted, well intentioned, third rate “arthouse” film. She gives a virtuoso performance that is the embodiment of anger, rage, regret, struggle, resentment and perseverance. Often she does this all at the same time. As the raison d’etre of the film she carries it start to finish. If she is not the most under rated actress, she’s one of them. And just to be clear on this her performance is as good as any, anywhere, by anyone. Pretty incredible. Now, how’s that for setting unrealistic expectations if you’re planning on seeing it?

However, 3Billboards is more about what it means than what it is. In this regard it is a parable. A parable without a moral.

But before I get to “what it means” a preamble is required.

This will be trickier to parse out though. Sticking strictly to the story the “why?” is connected to the archetype of the characters. This is how McDonough transforms a story of “another tragic event” into a good old fashion passion play. Except for Mildred (Frances McDormand) the other characters are not only archetypes, they are uni-dimensional. No one grows, there are no character arcs and only one changes (Dixon / Sam Rockwell). So, as already stated - why?

My answer is this is what allows McDonough to advance his themes. One theme (a la Beckett) is nothing changes. Emotions are eternal. Pain, hatred, regret and anger are a state of nature outcome. Its depressing but - it is what it is. Deal with it. There are some striking and stark ways this message is smashed over our heads. With language from the dialogue, violent acts, inflammatory encounters. Its in our state of nature, our DNA - get it?!

It would be easy to criticize the films lack of predictability and convention. The reaction we expect. The comeback in dialogue, fluid directorial storytelling, etc..Don’t look, its not there. But what is, I think McDonough would say, is worth looking at. In a way its kinda a big “F#*k you” to a world filled with empty platitudes of “Amazing” and “Awesome”.

One throwaway moment (played brilliantly by McDormand) is when in an argument with her husband it comes out he committed a terrible act she is upset about. Her husbands slip of the tongue is met with a stunned silence of amazement and awe and a speechless, open mouth agape, unable to utter a word - or even a sound. This is the sublime awe we feel that is beyond words.

In a way this is really brilliant restraint in dialogue, acting and film making. And its witty too.

Two other moments which play interesting roles in advancing the themes come to mind.

One is an interaction between two characters. There is discussion revolving around how upsetting Mildred’s actions are to the town and a slur about homosexuals is brought up, to which another character says “you must be thinking of Laramie”. But Three Billboards message is bigger than the message of the heinous acts in Wyoming that inspired The Laramie Project.

The second and really the only part of the movie you need to see to “get it”, is when the bimbo, airhead girlfriend ends up comically quoting from a book about polio (she is corrected the book is about Polo) when she says: “they say violence begets violence”. There you have it.

Now for the big finish. What does it mean?

Because of the odd nature of the writing, directing, editing and even acting (to a degree) it is hard to see and understand Three Billboards as merely a naturalistic, story & character driven film. It is very non-conventional.

It must be a parable since it is through that lens in which it makes the most sense. As such, it is an unresolved passion play. It has characters that become deep expressions of raw emotions. Some are more obvious, some less so. The characters are consumed by their emotions and we become drawn to them because each is genuine and eternal. There’s lots of anger - lots of it. But there’s gallows humor (quick and biting). There’s resentment, frustration, sublime awe, regret..all deep and all dark. The messages come out in “moments of illumination” like a black sheet stretched across the night sky pierced by shards of glass that rip, poke and tear holes that let the bits of light through. It is these bits which embody the central themes. They point to the inner core of our state of nature and the fatalistic lives we lead. McDonough takes away the simple conventional tones exposing what is the quintessence of post-modern 21st Century life - existential life.

In Three Billboards Mildred is the magnet and origin of everyone else’s deep emotions but at the same time she is the undisputed victim even though she is the victim by proxy. It is her daughter (whom we see in flashbacks) who is the motive for Mildred and purpose of the film. At the screening I attended the audience audibly groaned with the final words from her and her daughter which are offered as screams in an argument that in turn become prescient in a flash for us, the viewer (which is a flashback to a retrospective future). We know already what those carelessly spat words come to mean but which is invisible to the characters at that time.

In an odd way this almost follows the format of Christopher Nolan’s Memento in that the story is told backwards but from the end of the film.

There are two other points that illustrate the proof of these themes in symbolic gestures. On both occasions each represents how Mildred’s message of the billboards remains eternal. The first is when a mystery supporter pays for her next months rent on the billboards (after we learn she doesn’t have the money). The second happens when after her message is burned away that the billboard painters offer her a copy of the billboards (because “we always keep a copy in case of accident). Coincidence? I think not.

For me, ultimately this film didn’t work as a movie experience, since I was not drawn in viscerally but it certainly did work symbolically, as craft and given the themes and messages in it. Of course anyone who is a Francis McDormand fan should see it for her extraordinary performance. She will be tough to beat at Oscar time.

[filmcave]

A Conundrum

Here’s a quiz that will try to offer a set of questions using (as John Rawls would say) a “veil of ignorance”. What do these movies have in common?

K-19: The Widowmaker

American Psycho

Wayne’s World

Awakenings

Twilight

To some, the answer will jump right out (if I didn’t know the answer, I wouldn’t get this). It’s kinda tough to construct the logical story here. Fantasy and the other worldly? Action/Suspense? All made in the same decade? Nothing??

How about this riddle: Which film DOESN’T fit in the following list:

Valley Girl

Julie & Julia

The Notorious Betty Page

The Hurt Locker 

Laura (1944 version)

This one’s actually a bit tougher because it’s been spiked with a red herring.

In both of the above quizzes there is a common theme and one which is invisible to many because of the inherent biases we hold culturally based on our expectations about how films are made and who makes what films

 Working backwards here one might have chosen “The Hurt Locker” as the odd man out. Perhaps because it won an Academy Award, perhaps because it does NOT have a title about a woman or the female gender…perhaps another reason but I am willing to bet anyone who picked Laura probably didn’t because it was directed by Otto Premminger. That’s right it is the only film in the list NOT directed by a woman.

By extension you can guess that the common bond with the first quiz is that all films were directed by a woman.

What should be surprising about both these lists is that except for Laura, it is a non issue that they were directed by a female director. And there’s many more to point to.

Bend It like Beckham, female director (Gurinder Chadha)

Big (the Tom Hanks film), female director (Penny Marshall)

Deep Impact (Robert Duvall, Morgan Freeman), female director (Mimi Leder) 

The reason some of you (many of you?) may not have thought “female director” is what we might call the Jackie Robinson effect. Or for any baseball purists, the Curt Flood effect. Jackie was the first black player to play on a major league baseball team and Curt was the first free agent. Eventually, there’s always a first. And then, again eventually, there are many more.

Hollywood, like Silicon Valley (and like the world at large) seems to have a problem with women. (Remember the Sony Pictures hack of emails detailing Jennifer Lawrence being paid less than her male counterparts?).

In these cases the issue is not enough women directing films. Certainly some of the reasons are biases. The reasons are legion and multitudinous and scores of internet trees would need to be cut down to write about it all.

If you asked people to guess the reasons more women aren’t directing Hollywood films, I have to imagine one would be: “because they do too many ‘girl pictures’”. Yet some of the most humanistic, sensitive and beloved movies—like Shawshank Redemption, Terms of Endearment, Life is Beautiful and The Intouchables—were directed by men. So clearly, sensitive films aren’t only directed by women.

Another might be, they can’t direct a “man’s movie” but as I have already listed: The Hurt Locker, American Psycho and Deep Impact were directed by women.

Yet another explanation (excuse) might be, “they don’t direct successful” films but to that you can look at:

Zero Dark Thirty ($95 million)

The Proposal ($144 million)

Fifty Shades of Grey ($166 million)

Pitch Perfect 2 ($188 million)

Shrek ($267 million)

Frozen ($400 million)

The above six movies, all by women, amounted to ~$1.2 billion dollars in gross box office. That’s real money!

The list can go on in terms of lack of awareness of or appreciation for female directors and I haven’t even mentioned: Sophia Coppola (The Beguiled, Lost in Translation), Nancy Meyers (Somethings Gotta Give, It’s Complicated, The Intern), Nora Ephron (Sleepless in Seattle, You’ve Got Mail), Jane Campion (The Piano, An Angel at my Table). And scores of up and comers.

The summer of 2017 has been the worst box office in 25 years for Hollywood. Attendance was down over 10%. According to IndieWire (link below) from now (Sept 2017) to the end of 2019 92% of Hollywood films will be directed by men. Yet the top grossing summer film this summer is Wonder Woman, directed by a female director and clocking in at > $400 million.

Look it, I don’t pick which movies to go to because they were (or weren’t) directed by a woman. I actually don’t care…I just want to see a good movie and female directors are as good as any male directors. I’m just saying, if you look, its hard to miss that women are grossly under represented when it comes to movie making. Do I like every female directed movie listed above? Certainly not, but I don’t love every film directed by men either.

There’s lots of ways to evaluate movies by female directors: style, quality, genre, box office, awards but no matter the metric you choose, they hold up against films directed by men. So why the dearth of films directed by women? That’s a quiz question I don’t have an answer to.

Sources:

Indiewire - http://www.indiewire.com/2017/03/studio-film-directed-female-filmmakers-2017-2018-1201793002/

All time box office - http://www.the-numbers.com/box-office-records/worldwide/all-movies/cumulative/all-time

Films directed by women - http://www.indiewire.com/2017/03/studio-film-directed-female-filmmakers-2017-2018-1201793002/

Highest grossing films directed by women - http://www.thewrap.com/17-highest-grossing-movies-directed-by-women/

[filmcave]

Reality & Illusion

Part 6/? (Read parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

In a crude way much of what Terry Gilliam is masterfully plying us with (and toying with) is “what is the truth” and “what is false” and the various realities each character experiences. This Reality & Illusion yin/yang is perhaps his strongest meme.

Let’s consider for a moment that his sensibility is informed by a wider range of the knowledge and skills he has—including his writing. He is, in effect, not only choosing the clay but deciding on the design, message, form and finally executing on it. This combination of skills allows him to create a unified picture which itself is a visual and aesthetic pastiche. 

Even the palest of scenes are complex and multilayered. His work is a concatenation of his style, sensibility, visual language and intellect. When they come together and manifest in his art. Because of this, the elements of his work cannot really exclusively be considered individually. 

This is perhaps one reason why his work doesn't always “hit” someone the right way or necessarily always come together as a single work. But when it does, it does brilliantly. When it comes to the reality & illusion dialectic, he can express these opposites in ways from mundane and straightforward to complex and metaphysical. Take for example the obvious occurrences in his films like Baron Munchausen, Imaginarium, Holy Grail where we quite literally see actors playing characters on a physical stage. This creation of a theatrical fourth wall is the purest form of reality and illusion. For anyone who has seen a theatrical production staged proscenium style knows (in many cases, intuitively so) that they in the audience are a kind of Voyeur, watching the events within a defined space through an invisible “fourth wall” peering through that window on the lives, events and drama of a given scene. There is a suspension of disbelief, a willful ignoring of the presence of the audience, and full unspoken agreement that the actors, set, lighting, is happening in another imagined world. This prototypical Aristotelian dramatic arc (Beginning, Middle, End, Denouement) is the core Reality & Illusion metaphor. Gilliam is constantly “staging” scenes within his movies—sometimes obviously so, sometimes subtly. 

These simple scenes in themselves are commentary on the dialectic of what is happening in that particular film at that particular time. Of the three scenes set on stages it is perhaps Imaginarium that is the most brilliant example, in that he seamlessly takes the content o the story (a traveling “theatre troupe”) and raises it, in the context of the story, to a magical and mystical world where the characters are transported incredibly into their own world of imagination. One which we can't tell if it is real, false, imagined or how in the heck it actually works. He then, in classic Gilliam fashion, breaks the illusion with the interruption of the story’s reality by angry parents wanting to know what happened to their child, female friends anxious to try out their own personal sensual fantasy and last but not least a Monty Python-esque appearance of the local constables. It’s all in good fun (and to try to make money) until a Mephistophelean-like character comes calling to collect on a wager.

Brazil, Gilliam’s masterwork teases out the deeper horrors of reality and illusion when we see Jonathan Pryce's Sam Lowry tossed and turned by the vagaries of his life turned inside out and upside down by his mission to find his “true love” as he fights against the Orwellian retro-future that separates him from learning her identity and whereabouts. Again he is twisted when he learns that his “sweet” love is an enemy of the state and vixen anti government terrorist. blinded by love he uses his mother’s connections, access at work to pull every string and push every button to ally with her and live in a better world—which to his horror he comes to discover through his “friend" Jack Lint. 

As previously noted the Brothers Grimm shows us still another double entendre of truth and falseness in the tricks the brothers play on their unsuspecting “host” villagers when they first create then defeat demons and villains only to actually stumble upon “real” villains they are not prepared to engage with yet have no choice but to do so.

[filmcave]

Horror & Reality

Part 5/? (Read parts 1, 2, 3, 4)

In most, if not all, of Terry Gilliam's films, reality is often a horror or terror and where fantasy a literal escape of a much more idyllic life. But these perceptions can reverse or appear the reverse in an instant. In The Fisher King a derailed Jack Lucas (Jeff Bridges) stumbles across a homeless bum (Robin Williams) who is living in a trash heap under a NYC highway overpass with squalid conditions only to realize that Parry is pretty happy himself singing and living with his fellow "homeward bounds". But in a moment Parry’s world shifts to on of horror when he sees an illusion of a medieval "Red Knight” coming to attack him. His newfound friends come to his rescue and ward off the villainous treachery and maintain his fantasy/horror/reality.

An even more brilliant visual and otherworldly scene is in Doctor Parnassus when Valentina (Lily Cole) and her hopeful suitor Tony (Colin Farrell) are blissfully punting in their gondola under a beautiful sunny sky. The mirror of the scene reflected in the water. The boat rocks port to starboard, further and deeper until it seems to capsize but instead the scene reverses from idyllic sunlight to dark and ominous nighttime with foreboding clouds and sky and at the same time the camera and picture spins on the screen 180 degrees, flips upside down and twists from beauty to horror.

In The Brothers Grimm, Mr. Gilliam has a double twist on this Horror/Reality duality. While we see the depiction of a 19th century fantasy world it is a word that is a reality for its inhabitants. With Gilliam this fantastical reality is manipulated first by the protagonists Wilheim (Matt Damon) and Jakob (Heath Ledger) Grimm who, as traveling con artists set up a small German town to believe they are haunted by a witch that is the creation of the Brothers—all to turn a dollar. They find their scam amusing as well as profitable. We, as viewers through the "fourth wall". find humor in a kind of Schadenfreude moment. The second twist is when the Brothers are subjected to solving another curse—this time one they haven't set up. And so our enjoyment of Wilheim and Jakob becomes heightened because of their predicament. At the same time our perspective changes from the omniscient audience to the prickliness of the "real" horror.

His talents and facility with this duality can be turned on it's head to humor Horror/Reality. Going back to his first feature Monty Python and the Holy Grail and the oft-quoted but rarely duplicated scene of the Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog. To hilarious effect King Arthur and his men attempt to enter the cave of Caerbannog must defeat a small, cute White furry rabbit. As anyone who’s seen the film knows the rabbit turns back the force by decapitating and terrorizing the men who "run away" and declare "That rabbit is dynamite!"

The upcoming and penultimate part is about Reality & Illusion.

[filmcave]

Angle, Perspective, & Scale

Part 4/? (Read parts 1, 2, 3)

Certainly another one of Mr. Gilliam's signature flourishes is the way he teases us with our perception of the world he creates, how his characters relate in those worlds and at times the tone of commentary he is making on our 21st C lives. Like most of his work the angles, perspectives, camera movement, special effects and the growth and movement of things are often fantastical, unnatural and unsettling. They are intimately intertwined with the other components discussed to create a “Gilliam Gestalt”. Like so much of his work Angle, Perspective, & Scale can range from literal to metaphorical, blend between them or toggle back and forth.

This Gestalt is one of Place & Purpose. One of the most memorable, captivating and purposeful is the harrowing scene at the end of Brazil where Sam Lowry has been strapped to an operating chair in the middle of a futuristic elevated scaffolding and poised at the termination of a metal jetty.

In the foreground, Jack Lint (Michael Palin) attired in blue scrubs and an oversized, "clownish" Babyface mask stares toward the camera before he turns to a harrowing approach. Sam is in the distance, by perspective small, helpless and trapped while Jack towers and looms in the foreground. It is a waking nightmare and a metaphor for a man caught in the web of a faceless Orwellian bureaucracy about to undo him.

Another way he flips perspective can be seen in Imaginarium where, early in the film, some of Doctor Parnassus' crew stop their activities to view a miraculous "floating water walker". In short order they and us realize that we see this image from a different perspective and realize that the so called walker is in fact hanging (from a noose) under the bridge they are standing on, hanging by his neck struggling to free himself illuminated by the moon onto the river, before certain death. But true to Gilliam form, this water-walker / hanging man is a bit of slight of hand. Once Parnassus' troupe rescues this man we discover the character Tony has foiled death by partially swallowing a pipe that prevents his asphyxiation and neck to snap (which we learn later he has developed a habit of needing to do). And so we experience this kind of shifting of perspective and reality.

A much more subtle, but at the same time literal, example of perspective can be found in Tideland. Tideland is a story told in a very specific way from the perspective of a little girl. We see as much as possible both from her perspective and through her eyes. 

One needs to think for some time whether any of Mr. Gilliam's film has been more controversial, misunderstood and met with less box office success than Tideland. Perhaps his least accessible and understandable of his movies to a wide audience the numbers related to box office receipts bear this out. With a budget of $19 million and an opening weekend in the US (on just one screen) of $7,276 it may never breakeven financially. The story concerns a young pre-teen girl named Jeliza-Rose who becomes abandoned when both her irresponsible parents die (from choking and drug overdose) leaving her to her own wiles, imagination and the surroundings of an expansive Texas countryside. She keeps herself occupied with her finger puppets, neighbors and various peculiarities of the landscape.

What is striking about Tideland is that on more than one occasion (including as an intro to the movie) Mr. Gilliam makes it very clear, using simple direct English that the movie's intent is to be innocent and from the perspective of a little girl. He emphasizes the elasticity and "bouncyiness" of kids and how they see and experience the world. He literally TELLS us the perspective to have. The sense of perspective here is recast as "your perception" in his invitation for you to forget your adult world (as he states in the confession/intro to the movie “forget everything you've learned as an adult") and which his final imploring words to the audience are a thrice utterance of "thank you, thank you, thank you.”

Alice in Wonderland meets Psycho. Child's survival. Disturbing. Touching. Funny. These are all words that Mr. Gilliam has used to describe Tideland. In many regards the adjectives Mr. Gilliam uses to describe Tideland are the same ones that can be used to describe any of his films.

The variance is simply the degrees and emphasis he uses on each element in different films. In this way his style breathes life into his films, informs the action and writing and sets the tone. His films occupy the dual properties of distinctness and commonality.

Stay tuned for Part 5 about Horror & Reality.

[filmcave]

Gilliam Comedy

Part 3/? (Read parts 1 and 2)

Terry Gilliam has come a long way from his Monty Python's Flying Circus animations of absurd stomping feet, bulging breasts, body parts opening up to reveal odd contents as nothing more than a device to end a scene (aside from Graham Chapman or another Pythonite entering a sketch that has run its course with a "stop, stop...this is just plain silly".) His comedy and comedic elements are now much more clever, more integrated into the story lines and visual stunts. Again, he has his bald and clear cut bits and his oh so subtle nuance nudges.

One of my favorite subtle comedic moments is in the very beginning of Brazil. It is in fact the device which is simultaneously a "summation" of the film and a clever visual metaphor. We see a shot of one of the many retro- future machine that populate the film in this case some kind of typographic device which is printing out (we later come to learn) government bureaucratic directives. It is a decree to be used by the Criminal and Justice Department and just as it is about to print out the name of said offender we see an insect flying about and causing a distraction. An employee is chasing it down only to finally catch it and in doing so to kill it. The problem is that it falls directly into the typographic works, gums it up and causes another, wrong name, to print. The action takes less than a minute but the "bug in the machine" screws the very thing up and launches the action. Beautiful, clever, funny and in a kind of Schadenfreude moment too well known to us 21st century humans.

Truth be told, Terry Gilliam’s films are abundant with comedy of many types. Some of it bald, physical and bawdy. The exploding Mr. Cryosite in Meaning of Life, Eric Idles character, when he's informed that it’s time to donate his liver/kidney (and the ensuing musical musings reducing life to nothingness—"life's a piece of shit when you think of it".)

The next part of this essay will be able Angle, Perspective, & Scale.

[filmcave]

Terry Gilliam and the Retro-Future/Neo-Future/Revisionist Past

Part 2/? (Read part 1)

Almost above and beyond everything else what Terry Gilliam stands for are arresting visuals. His visual vocabulary is so deep and thoughtful and to, at times, be too subtle. These visuals derived from both real world phenomena as well as that landscape which exists in our own minds only.

He plays easily with the elasticity of time, place, being and the visual world we construct as "normal". For example, in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Doctor Parnassus' "home" is a multi-functional physical and metaphysical space. It is at once a place where he and his "band" of performers live. It is the his place of work, where he plies his trade of town to town platform cum stage cum "time portal" where audience members can pay a fee to having waking dreams - sometimes happy, sometimes not. It is a virtual cornucopia of images, artifacts, and stage dressing. One enters through the shiny, glimmering mirror like vertical blinds just to the rear of the performance wagon but into an immense world of fantastical landscapes, unnatural events and beings & items of extraordinary splendor. Gliding above is the multi-faced hot air balloon with it's wicker basket ready to whisk you away to another world (from the "other" world you're already in!).

His commentary about modern phenomena around things like beauty, success and progress is eye opening as well. Katherine Helman in Brazil comes to mind with her constant need to improve her physical beauty with more and still more plastic surgery, which progressively gets worse and worse each time she attempts it - "oh yes, I had the surgery but then it developed complications, and then the complications developed complications" she informs her son Sam.

Even some of Gillian's "realistic" films or rather his rendition on naturalistic cinema is offbeat and odd in its own way. Fisher King and Tideland have an otherworldly quality because of their slight comical contrast with the convention of main stream films. This is partly due to the fact that he chooses unseemly characters that aren't idealized (Hollywood-ized) and romantic visions of the world.

Part 3 will be about Gilliam’s comedy.

[filmcave]

POST OF THE FIRST

Part 1/?

Terry Gilliam.

History will remember him well.

Yes, I know this sounds like an obit and yes I know (and am happy to report) that Terry Gilliam is very much alive and well at the ripe age of 76! (DOB:11/22/40). But I raise his name because I am here to say that Terry Gilliam is one of the most under appreciated, brilliant film makers of our time. This post is to try to do him honor and praise.

His stories, his visual language, vibrant creativity, and anachronistic characters are at once all too unnerving and yet often topical with an eye towards social commentary. His films are frequently epic, gloriously frenetic and in many instances subtle and gentle. Trying to describe a Terry Gilliam film to the uninitiated is like trying to translate Gabriel Garcia Marques to someone used to reading at a grade school level. He is rich, complex, humorous, intelligent, thoughtful and insightful.

He is also unique amongst film makers in that no one can make a film like him and few even have the courage to try. Unfortunately most of his films are not wildly successful financially, but perhaps if they were it would change the tenor and independence of what he does. By his own admission on IMDB he says that he seeks to take the films of Directors like Lucas and Spielberg and to: "take whatever cinema is considered normal or successful at a particular time and play around with it - to use it as a way of luring audiences in". He suggests that those Directors have a simplistic view, which is a kind way of saying they pander to audiences. And so here's another element that puts Gilliam in the pantheon of great, groundbreaking Directors—his work challenges people. It is anything but simplistic yet it can be quite straightforward as well.

He also chooses themes that are eternal and personal. Justice, Love, & Society (Brazil) or Fantasy, Reality & Myth (Time Bandits) or Heroes & the Quest for Meaning (Monty Python & the Holy Grail, Meaning of Life). A critic may argue the he is simply telling the same stories over and over (similar stories and themes) but that would be too simplistic and miss the point of the "mimetic act". This sort of critical thinking can be reduced to the tropes of drama - Man against Nature, Man against Man, Man against Himself / Herself". Maybe all drama DOES come down to these notions, but stating so misses the point...and by extension fails to make a point itself.

The brilliance and subtlety of Terry Gilliam lies in the way his movies, and the "parts" of them (these parts can be large-ish or minuscule such as scenes, lines, visual cues, turns of phrase, etc) fit together like a massive jigsaw puzzle that is an ever expanding landscape each new part of which reveals more.

I recall a Graham Chapman line in the Crimson Permanent Assurance (the "prelude" to The Meaning of Life) musing philosophically about how something can be right in front of us but we don't notice it, except once in a while. Just at this point a building moving through the metropolis of an urban center like a gliding schooner at sea explodes into a wild glass crashing attack of beings from another world...this is how new ideas "attack" us. Surreptitiously, by chance and when we least expect it. Soon business men, attorneys, professionals are using what they can to defend themselves from the intruders of a outdated Accountancy filled with elderly accountants.

Or more directly when in Brazil Jonathan Pryce's character Sam Lowry is literally consumed in a dream sequence by a mass of overwhelming paperwork—buried in bureaucratic paperwork!

His films are not just stand alone stories, distinct to one set of people, locations, timeframe and aristotelean congruence - they are more than this. In short, they are a vast and expanding set of vignettes on a enormous canvas cutting across history, myth, drama and the themes that affect people's lives. He sees what we see but also sees things we don't and beyond what can be seen.

In summarizing & analyzing Terry Gilliam we can think of his work as falling into some broad patchworks of ideas, visual images and high level metaphors, including the visuals: perspective and colors.

Look out for Part Two about Gilliam and the Retro-Future / Neo-Future  / Revisionist Past.