Lust blinds. Love confounds. “Happy, Happy” is the feature-length debut of Anne Sewitsky. Each of us has faced the questions of whether someone is the one for us. Sometimes the answer to that question is easy; it’d be great to know that life. What happens when you have to face the fact that you chose the wrong partner and lover?
“Happy, Happy,” a Norwegian film, confronts that question in sensitive and sloppy ways. There are two very different couples, neither of which is happy. One man is fleeing from the memories of his wife’s infidelity. One woman isn’t sure why her man feels nothing for and in fact belittles her. And why he’s fine with ignoring his reasons why.
A happy marriage – each to someone else. (Courtesy: Magnolia Pictures)
Love is often a compromise, but how much do you give or give up for happiness? In this story of love, which might not be a love story, an educated couple Sivge (Henrik Rafaelsen) and Elisabeth (Maibrett Saerens) rents a house from and is greeted by a provincial and friendly couple, Eirik (Joachim Rafaelsen) and Kaja (Agnes Kittelsen). Elisabeth and Sivge are professionals, while Kaja and Eirik do…we don’t know what. Each couple has a son. Elisabeth and Sivge is adopted from Ethiopia. Why they are in this story is a mystery – neither helps the story. Mysteriously Kaja no longer interests Eirik. Some months ago Elisabeth cheated on Sivge.
Kaja, made vulnerable by Eirik’s chronic disinterest in and belittling of her, finds a role model in Sivge and Elisabeth, and a distraction in Sivge. He finds a refreshing and welcome warmth and sweetness in Kaja. But Eirik faces a different, confusing problem: why’d he choose Kaja? What does he want?
This is a competent film with problems, which make you scratch your head: there’s a bizarre, awkward subplot concentrating on Elisabeth and Sivge’s adopted Ethiopian son. For an inexplicable reason, after having found a children’s book on slavery, Kaja and Eirik’s son decides to play “slave” games with the boy. He somewhat playfully treats him as one.
How does love look when you want the other's partner? (Courtesy: Magnolia Picture)
These distractions work like a musical segment from a circa mid-20th-Century movie: a Negro band plays a song, which is irrelevant to the movie, and, which when played in the South, could be removed so that it wouldn’t offend that region’s sensibilities.
There’s a palate-cleansing devise bombs: a choral group, which sings between acts. While the songs suit the story sometimes, they don’t serve it. The subplots don’t support or propel the main story – they give nothing to it. If the director had omitted either of these problems, she could’ve also omitted at least 15-minutes from the film.
This is a competent film with a nice, quiet and smart story. But doesn’t need to run for much longer than an hour.
Griff, a 20-something social misfit, claims a haven from a wider world, where he’s a nerd. “Griff the Invisible,” an Australian film, directed by Leon Ford, is a story of 20-something and left over teen angst burst to life, on-screen.
When most people don’t get or appreciate you, it makes for a small life. You might question your sanity or at least stability. You’re often isolated, and bullied.
The last time you felt like a misfit, how’d you try to fix that? Did you reach out, strain yourself to become social, more sociable? In 1986′s “Lucas,” the title character tried, but that fell flat. In 1953′s “From Here to Eternity” after his girl wonders if he takes her seriously, Pvt. Pruitt tells her, “No. No one lies about being lonely.”
Griff the "Invisible?" (Courtesy: Indomina)
But you try to fix the misfitness, quash it. Did you reach into your imagination, into a comic book-like mental tool kit?
The movies’ opening title: Oscar Wilde “Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth,” lays out how we’re to take reality.
Griff (Ryan Kwanten) takes this to heart. What if you were a hero with super powers, which made you special, interesting to others (if they knew) and provided a sense of self and power that you don’t have in real life? Would you take that? Griff did at least according to his imagination’s eye. As real as the John Nash’s delusions in 2001′s “A Beautiful Mind.”
This highly stylized film opens at the Lagoon Cinema on September 9th.
Griff has a banal job with a banal company, where he’s bullied and misunderstood, as he was throughout school. He finds an outlet in acting out like a small town Batman, after work, wearing a costume. Small ones; he wants to help vulnerable women. He sees himself as a hero, but only neighborhood-bound – within a few bus stops from his apartment!
Soon we’re introduced to Griff’s brother, Tim (Patrick Brammall), who feels responsible to Griff as his one sympathetic anchor to “normalcy.” Tim visits Griff with his introverted girlfriend, Melody (Maeve Dermody), in tow. Soon it’s clear that she clicks with Griff, while not with his brother. They exchange glances while big brother is oblivious.
Can nerds find love? (Courtesy: Indomina)
What! The introvert might just get the girl? Each starts to bump into the other, and trying to avoid Tim, and inevitably awkward questions. After a while Melody tells Griff: “I live in a bubble that no one gets in! Griff. You get into my bubble.”
Then we have a dramatic wrinkle: we see that Griff’s powers, his alternative world, is closed to the known world; it’s solely a figment of his imagination. The super suit we see is seen through his mind’s eyes only. And then doubly powered by his and Melody’s. That’s an interesting crack in the fourth wall of movie “reality” and imagination! Comic book movies, such as “Spiderman” or any of the “Batman” or “X-Men” franchises and others omit the possibility of those questions.
Griff contrasts a reality of social isolation with one of a comic book reality and Griff’s need for release.
Late in the movie harsh reality seems to intrude. Melody joins Griff as his back up on a mission to save the mayor, with Tim in tow. Here Tim insists on talking reality with her. Breaking down the pieces of their “mission” and “special equipment.” She tells Tim: “He’s a freak. He’d never fit in at dinner with my family. But so am I!” A crisis: Griff overhears this, but only until the signal was dropped.
He wants her. He’ll change! But then there’s a grand, tragic irony: after he has decided to grow-up, has thrown away all his hero crap and tried normalcy, Melody turns cold. I would have loved you forever.” Separated by his apartment door, they both cry over an opportunity gone.
“Griff the Invisible” is brief, fun, smart and semi-innovative.
“Vincent Wants to Sea” is a German-made story of escape and healing, both real and imaginary from director Ralf Huettner. The original German title: “Vincent will Meer.” Vincent’s a young man with the socially isolating Tourette Syndrome, who’s mourning his mom’s death, and also has to deal with his dad. A dad whom he barely gets, and who barely gets him. With all this in his head and heart, he simply wants to escape or vacation to the sea. In Italy. Where his mom finally wanted to be.
Troubled young people on a roadtrip in "Vincent Wants to Sea" (courtesy Boston.com)
But he’s left with his dad. Vincent’s (Florian David Fitz) tics seem to be worse with his mom gone and his dad not.
This worthwhile small German story is showing at the Lagoon Cinema from August 12th.
Vincent’s Alpha-male dad, Robert (Heino Ferch), fits a stereotype. He doesn’t understand, how to help his son, or even want to. When life events clash with his plan, as with a dead wife and a troubled son, he acts like a child: picture Gordon Gekko’s infantile outbursts in 1987′s “Wall Street.” Robert finagles a spot in a therapeutic clinic, and drops his son there.
Soon after, Vincent clashes with his obsessive-compulsive and anti-social roommate, Alexander (Johanne Allmeyer) and might click with a curious, coy anorexic woman, Marie (Karoline Herfurth). But the clinic is too much for this odd, needy fledgling couple. Vincent and she decide to seize and flee in the doctor’s car, and take the at-times man-child Alexander with them so, he doesn’t tattle. They become a surprising team.
A healing, erotic connection? (courtesy fanpop.com)
After the clinic’s doctor, Dr. Rose (Katharina Muller-Elmau), tells Vincent’s dad about the incident, he comes to help her bring them back. The duo cooperates to find the trio. They also become a team of sorts. Their teamwork is the sort, which we’d expect to amount to kisses and more. But maybe not.
“Vincent Wants to Sea” is a simple, amusing road trip with wit. Laughter marks the teams’ run-ins with car theft, petty gas station robbery and car accidents. There are touches of 1986′s “Stand By Me,” albeit with different brush strokes on power, self-discovery and adventure from that.
I spoke with Justin Chadwick, director of “The First Grader,” one day after having seen it at Minneapolis’ Walker Art Center – for free! Always the right price, but particularly so during a toilet bowl economy. As with many independent film-makers, he is down-to-earth and pretty much a straight shooter.
"The First Grader's" director, Justin Chadwick, with Will Wright (courtesy Wright's Words)
Will Wright: It’s common and typical for Anglo film-makers to make movies about black people, where the anchor of the story isn’t black him or herself. It’s refreshing to see that there isn’t a heroic, superior Anglo who comes in to “save the school.” We had “Dangerous Minds,” 15 years ago, and “Freedom Writers.” How concerned were you, being a man from Manchester, who wasn’t introduced to all the dynamic and violent politics coming in and doing this story?
Justin Chadwick: Well I was very aware from the outset that I am from Manchester England. And I had not been to Kenya before, and it dealt with a period of history, as well as Kenyan history that hadn’t been told. There’s very few records remaining of that time. At the time of making this film, the British press side of things. They’re represented as being these guerilla army that basically murder people in their beds. There’s that, but this other side.
So I knew going into Kenya, that, I was from outside. I had to use that to its advantage, to use it as a way of me being able to go in as a guest in their country. The first three or four months I was there I basically observed, and listened and let people tell their stories. I’d go speak to the elders in each village that I’d go it. And because of that approach, everywhere I went I was open-heartedly received. I wasn’t like the other movies that’d been there: “Tomb Raider,” “Out of Africa,” even “Constant Gardener,” had shipped everything in to that country. I was living with the people I was working with, living in the community where the school was. Even from the very first, I was with Kmani Maruge in his hospice. I would go in with Kikuyu, which were his tribe. So they built an openness and between me and the people I was representing and also the people I was working with.
Mr. Chadwick directing "The First Grader"
I didn’t know what it was going to be like in Tudor England, or with the “Other Boleyn Girl,” or I didn’t know what it was going to be like when I did “Bleak House,” in Victorian England. With this I actually talked directly with the people that this story involves, to try and find the truth. And I think that’s what stood me in stead for it really.
W: You’re the second film-maker I’ve met recently who’s spoken of having that observational approach, attitude. Can you tell me how many of your peers use that approach?
Ang Lee, when he did sense and sensibility – I remember reading how he felt like an outsider coming into English, period, costume drama, would use that eye that he had, and that sensibility that he had to try to understand. He made a film from being like that, in that way. He made a film that was really true. And yet you know, he was from a different world, and a different country. And I remember that was something that was in my mind when I was going into this.
This began for American newsreaders in 2004, when the New York Times’ Marc Lacey wrote a Sunday profile piece. There he described what “changed when the Kenyan government declared a year ago that primary school education would be free through grade 8. Millions of new pupils showed up at neighborhood campuses, swelling enrollment from 5.9 million students to 7.3 million virtually overnight. Mr. Maruge, with his gray beard and weathered face, was among those in line.”
According to Robyn Dixon’s reporting for the Los Angeles Times, a year later, “As a young man, he was angered over his lack of education. He put those feelings away, but the thirst for education lay dormant most of his life. Now it has burst out, perhaps too late to keep up with the whirl of his belated ambitions: primary school, secondary school, university and a career in veterinary science.”
Oliver Litondo as Kimani Maruge in "The First Grader"
W: How did you design the proportion of Mau Mau flashback scenes to the proportion of the present-day, desire to learn kind of scenes?
To get that kind of balance is tricky in a film. I wanted to put in that backstory because it was so important to the man that he was when he went to the school to learn to read, he wanted to understand his past, to move on.
I worked with an editor called Carol Littleton; she’d done films like “ET” and “The Big Chill,” and she’s a brilliant editor. She always talks about the playability of a film; you go into a cinema, and the film has to play. That you’ve got to sweep your audience with you to the end of the film.
It was something, from the very beginning, that I’m very conscious of, when I’m working on the script: it was, yes, a simple story about a man going back to school and being educated. But also it had to propel forward with an energy. So that was something – just the pacing of the film, how we put the flashbacks. Each time there was a scene, it pushed on to the next. So there was a momentum to the film; it always had pace to it.
As Mr. Lacey reported in 2004, having access to lessons and a great teacher is splendid. But then to have that teacher plucked out from under you, like the first rug and hint at stability, was rough and short-sighted. Mr. Chadwick mentioned an anecdote that Jane Obinchu, Mr. Maruge’s sole headmaster in the film, told him about how her students reacted to her having been away from that school, and aborting her trouble-making.
“Jane Obinchu was the one who told me about the riot at the end of the movie; that was something that wasn’t in the film’s original script, that Ann had written. Jane said,’Oh did they tell you what had happened? Let me tell you about what happened when I was thrown out of the school.’ And then she told me about these amazing children. This stand, as their parents were welcoming the new headmaster for the school, the children closed the gates of the school, stood-up against them with rocks, not plastic rocks and bits like it is in my film. And they refused to open the gates to the school. There was this big, huge riot. The parents climbed over the gates of the school. The police had to be called to break it all up,” Mr. Chadwick said.
He continues, “Yes, it feels extraordinary that kids rise up, against their parents.” That climax wasn’t in the original script. He mentioned it because, that is something like from a Hollywood film, but it wasn’t. I know, when people see that in the film, they’ll think gosh that’s a figment of a writer’s imagination. But it’s absolutely true there.”
Click, if you’re hunger for the second half of this conversation with Justin.
“Circo” is a 75-min documentary, by Aaron Schock, about a family-run Mexican Circus. This is a very interesting tale of a job on the margins, in a country, Mexico, that’s on the margins of the Western world’s media radar. In “Circo,” a family, the Ponces, is born into, grows up in and lives and works in its own small, struggling family-run circus. Compromises, troubles and strained & clashing loyalties make the circus that is the family and its work.
A grand entrance (courtesy Hecho a Mano Films)
The Mexican economy isn’t kind or gentle to this family. Too many small-scale circuses compete among one another for dwindling and poor audiences. Ironically the Ponces are among them.
This opens at Minneapolis’ Lagoon Cinema for a week on May 20th.
The circus is surviving, squeezing out enough money for the Ponces to subsist. Theirs is a nomadic lifestyle. They’re nomadic entertainers in a world that has little use for that entertainment; their story is special, maybe unique.
The mom, Ivonne Ponce, wants her children go to school, to prepare to have choices and careers away from the circus. Instead the dad, Tino Ponce, was raised holding his loyalty to parents above all (where his dad relies on and expects him to keep the one successful family circus afloat). His father has three other sons, each of whom is struggling with his own circus.
Ponce daughters preened to promote Circo Mexico (courtesy Hecho a Mano Films)
The children want for a 20th-Century childhood, with playtime, school and neighborhood playmates. This brand of childhood, before labor laws and longer life expectancies, takes us back the eras when people toiled until their 30s, and didn’t know a playful youth. There’s a scene, just beside the entry to a trailer, where grandpa trains his youngest grand daughter in contortion; as she cries and wails it brings back images from the abusive training that made parts of Jet Li and Jackie Chan’s training infamous.
This documentary raises several interesting topics about family loyalty, zeal for “old-time” or “by-gone” values, work ethic and child rearing; unto themselves these are worthy of an essay, but not here. Very few movies deal with any of these in smart or interesting ways, much less all in one story.
“Circo” gives us a gander at a way of living, of working, of loving and is foreign to the U.S. It’s a well-told tale that deserves to be scene. Even though the final act is confused about its purpose or how it wants to leave us; it should be trimmed by 15-minutes – it drags.
Close your eyes. Imagine having just been born, and then opening your eyes to a man doting on you from behind a camera lens. He’s your dad, documentarian Doug Block, and has just shoved that in your face. Maybe that’s how his daughter, Lucy, felt after the thrill and fun of being recorded wore off, …and teenhood came?
Well, he kept that up, particularly when an empty nest loomed.
Mr. Block has recorded Lucy from her toddling days through her last ones in high school. He didn’t begin with this film as a goal, but to document her life. With her flight from home to college imminent, he feels “a new urgency” to make something of the footage. Lucy’s story, “The Kids Grow Up,” is just as much one of her dad’s terror over losing his little girl, as it is hers of trying out her newly sprung wings. This is a special, personal documentary film.
The Film Society of Minneapolis/St. Paul shows this one at St. Anthony Main from Feb. 25th through Mar. 3rd. Mr. Block will attend the 7:15pm screening and be available to answer questions.
The story. The irony. the drama.
Doug introduces his daughter’s story as a record of her last year in high school. As he says, early in the film, Lucy “had the great misfortune to be born right at the dawn of the consumer camcorder. And the double misfortune to have a documentary filmmaker for a father,” Mr. Block said. Prophetic. Does he know just how prophetic?
“The Kids Grow Up” meanders along a sentimental path that this its maker seems to need in order to let Lucy go and become the woman she needs to be – on her own. It seems to follow a stream of consciousness, having been organized more emotionally than with intention. It’s mixed with Mr. Block’s thoughts about his relationship with his own father; and how Doug’s father himself learned to be one, on-the-job just as Mr. Block did.
As Doug’s wife, Marjorie, notes, “And when she works all this through in therapy,” the footage can be entered as evidence.
Even so, dad’s lovingly invasive lens provides several witty and amusing moments.
Little Lucy Block playing...maybe posing
The best bits
A hilarious moment comes during vacation when a teenage Lucy entertains her French beau, Romain, who’s on a European-style vacation. Doug and Marjorie discuss the probability that Lucy and Romain have already had sex – in the apartment.
Doug doesn’t like it. While she isn’t happy about it, Marjorie’s rational (maybe because she’s a lawyer).
Doug asks “How is it you’re so comfortable with Lucy and Romain doing it?”
Marjorie, “Well, I know they’re sleeping together elsewhere. …Sexual pleasure is so nice!”
Doug, “Yeah, it’s something you can do by yourself…” She chuckles and turns away.
Another guffaw comes as Lucy awaits her behind-the-wheel exam. ”I’m about to take my road test. I’m really nervous. And being filmed isn’t helping…” She breathes deeply in order to calm herself, which seems futile. “I have to pee. I feel like I’m gonna throw up…” Just then she sees the examiner is primed to put her into and then right out of her misery. The moment is concise, hilarious and genuine; and a potent summary of the stress that Doug’s and dad’s camera adds.
Pushing his daughter away in order to be closer?
But somehow Mr. Block doesn’t know when to stop. Late in the film we see that his gentle, persistent inquisition pushes Lucy into fatigued tears – punishing her. He’s pissing her off, she says. A beat later, we see a brief scene of her toddler self, thrilled with the fun and ego boost from being on-camera.
“I like videotaping. I like seeing myself on TV…rather than looking in a mirror,” Lucy says.
That juxtaposition is remarkable. And telling.
Bottom-line: “The Kids Grow Up” is a sweet and candid dual portrait of a dad and his beautiful, level-headed grown young daughter. Daughters’ll be sure that it’s a story for and about them. Dads’ll differ, saying that it’s clearly for them. This documentary film provides a different angle on how it is to be either one of them.
Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.
Author Gene Fowler once said that. That raises a question. Well several…
What is bad writing?
Can it be bad?
Who cares?
Why ask?
Whether or not you’re creative or artistic, if you’ve attended an English class or especially one on creative writing, you’ve been asked, or have asked yourself these questions?
poster (courtesy Morris Hill Pictures)
A smart, seriously funny documentary is taking a round about road to our screens, no matter which kind you watch. “Bad Writing” is a fun, witty and mostly great documentary from Vernon Lott. The film, from Morris Hill Pictures, deals with writing good – or well, that is.
If you’ve written before, at least before twitter came, you’ve wondered whether “it” was bad writing or good? And if you’re serious and diligent with your writing, that anxiety is deeper. For many people this is a routinely serious, even Sisyphean personal trial. The prospect of writing anything, especially something creative and that people will like, stirs agony among writers.
The early- and mid-20th Century had the Great American novel as the ultimate literary artistic goal those generations’. Vernon Lott, the film-maker, knows this. He strove for several years to be a poet, half-way sure that the stereotypic and romantic agonies of an artist’s path were needed. Then he woke up, shook himself and decided to ask renown writers about the craziness of that craziness.
Vernon Lott and George Saunders (courtesy Morris Hill Pictures)
According to imdb, “Bad Writing” was released on December 10th. It’s treading a narrow, cautious college-like screening tour. It’s a small, unconventional, fun and potent film that deserves attention. But it’s a documentary; few people seek out documentaries for an evening’s pleasure. In late October 2010, “Toronto Globe and Mail” columnist Liam Lacey concluded that the web, under the guises of Mubi and SnagFilms, is the new art house cinema.
“Bad Writing’s” a gem because it’s funny, has wit and answers many questions, both writerly and not, which nag people. You might call it a literary or artistic courterpart to Woody Allen’s 1972 film “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex,* But Were Afraid to Ask,” (if that movie had taken that question seriously, that is. …But not too too serious.) One of the dozen or so take aways comes when one of the writers tells Mr. Lott that “it’s” bad writing “if it doesn’t make sense outside the writer’s head.” That’s a howl. Hers is also an earnest answer. The film is just this reverent and serious.
Movies about writing are hard, or hardly dramatic because it’s a solitary activity. That’s probably part of why those movies made about it are about either people’s aptitude for or access to social support network, like “Freedom Writers.” Otherwise where’s the conflict? “Bad Writing” shows us.
But it’s flaws show in the last act. Sadly, this 60-minute film, on the romance, the rigors and the realities of writing, and one’s own ability, for it, is stuck in a 90-minute form that someone forced up on it. That last act peters into considering digital technology and Web 2.0 bode for writers meant for the tactile; it clashes with the romance and fun of the first hour. The clash doesn’t damage it, but wastes much of that hour’s momentum.
Vernon Lott and Steve Almond (courtesy of Morris Hill Pictures)
He interviews renown authors and professors to ask “what’s bad?,” “who cares?” and “why ask?” Of those dozen or so, Nick Flynn, George Saunders, Steve Almond and Daniel Orosco are among the funnest.
The mediated and educated worlds take writing seriously enough that “Bad Writing” strives not to; instead it releases some of the most rank of that bad, hot and self-congratulatory air. That technical irreverence sets the filmmaker up, and us, for a cute aside. While Mr. Lott meets with the founder of a San Francisco writers’ community, “Mortified,” (where people read often private, even intimate pieces that were never meant to be heard – and certainly not in public) He stumbles at least twice as he edits himself in the middle of asking it’s founder a question.
This documentary stands out in another funky way. The lighting stands are in the shots at least half of the time, cameraman’s hands and it even boasts screwed-up shots of only David Sedaris’ hands. It’s interesting to find a film that plays with or mocks the fourth wall, which is rarely discussed outside of film lectures. This film isn’t slick in the usual way. But it is; it’s potently executed (except for that darned last act). The substance of “Bad Writing” is more important to it than, how it’s dressed. You can laugh out loud while learning. How long’s it been since you did that?
The “New York Times’” writing on film trends is idiosyncratic. While the lead film critics often spend more and bigger words than are necessary to make their points, as in intellectual self-congratulation, it’s rarely easy to slight their insights, even though reporting is rarely involved. On December 26th, their Brooks Barnes wrote about “Hollywood Moving Away from Middle-brow” movies, and having opted to improve its bottom-line and culture in the process. He thinks it’ll focus on new, original voices.
The problem is that he relies on 2010′s box office numbers and infers that the implied strategic trend will be stable. That’s a lot of faith to invest in a brief dip in box office profits for a small portion of titles. It’s premature.
Imagery based on "American Graffiti" (Creative Commons)
Now those cinephiles, who routinely avoid the middle-of-the-road movies, have yearned and awaited a return to this “trend.” If he’s correct, that’ll be splendid. Some people are frustrated by those movies that merely serve viewers who want to “relax, laugh, and empty their minds” as a French philosopher, Bernard-Henri Lévy, recently described to the “Wall Street Journal” the European and in-turn the masses’ interests in different though related questions.
After the recent flopping of high-concept films and the triumphs of higher quality ones, he wrote, “As a result, studios are finally and fully conceding that moviegoers, armed with Facebook and other networking tools and concerned about escalating ticket prices, are holding them to higher standards. The product has to be good,” Barnes said. And as morose as it is, this urgent sensibility too will pass. It’s a recurring attitude and posture that defies the masses’ desires.
This is merely one of several opinions of which he is certain, but with weak and meager evidence. This is disappointing. Commenting on this presumed about face in film tastes, according to Mr. Barnes’ reporting, ‘“We think the future is about filmmakers with original voices,”’ said Amy Pascal, Sony’s co-chairwoman. ‘“Original is good, and good is commercial.”’ That doesn’t even make sense. That circular reasoning flops like people used to say “Ishtar” did 20 years-ago.
According to Mr. Barnes, 2010′s box office is projected to fall less than 1% to $10.5 billion. While that sum is enormous, reflecting nothing of the lives of anyone we know, proportionally, it doesn’t even amount tip money. According to imdb, at least 70 percent of those top 30 titles from 2007 through 2010 were studio-made star vehicles with the “quality” ones, which emphasized story over pyrotechnics, amounting to maybe five or six out of that 30. While a “quality” film experience, as with beauty or even intelligence, is in the eye of the beholder, here’s a go at critiquing the meat or soul of Barnes’ argument.
In 2007, according to imdb, those “quality” films were “Ratatouille,” “Juno,” “American Gangster.” In 2008, those were “The Dark Knight,” “Quantum of Solace,” “Wall-E,” “Gran Torino,” “Slumdog Millionaire” and “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” At best those amount to 20% of that year’s 30 best titles. From 2009, “Public Enemies,” “Inglorious Basterds,” and possibly “Avatar,” “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.” That bodes no 2011 indie film boon, or at least neither a compulsion nor an impulsion toward it. From 2010, you might concede that a few more from the top 30 emphasized “quality” than in prior years, with “Black Swan,” “The Fighter,” “The Town,” “True Grit” and “The King’s Speech.” That’s the film-goer’s call. Does this slightly taller list of substantial films show a trend, a reliable, strategic increase?!
Maybe that fact skipped Mr. Barnes’ mind as he considered the crevasse between insipid middle American appetites and the discriminating ones which typify indie film-lovers? According to the Motion Picture Association of America in 2005, that audience accounts for about 15 percent. Middle-of-the-road movies account for more than (this ain’t scientific) 3/4′s of the titles put out in wide release (2,000-plus screens). He gives meager compelling or reliable reasons for us to buy his argument. The main problem, and the mass cultural reality is that, just as money rules the world, or most of ours, Hollywood is itself a beacon of that.
Hollywood veered toward the new, original voices two generations ago, when Steven Spielberg and George Lucas were striving and toiling to establish themselves, around the time of 1973′s “American Graffiti.” Theirs was the film school generation of 20th-Century film lore; Hollywood played with them, Martin Scorsese and several others, and kept those who made and kept making money. But there after, they discovered and clutched the blockbuster.
The phenomenon was described pithily in a more than 10-year-old episode of “Law & Order,” that took place in Los Angeles. The line is “we don’t make anything we haven’t seen before.” It’s terrible and repulsive if you presumably want to be engaged in a cinema or film experience and not to just check-out as the French philosopher acknowledged before. The meager if also middle-class sliver of society that subscribes to public radio is probably part of, if not the heart, the indie crowd.
Bottom-line is that his argument is silly without stronger reporting, compelling data and quotes that speak specifically to the situation. Mr. Barnes’ essay is disappointing and lazy. It matches the French verb “essayer’s” definition, which is “to try.”
Upon seeing this week’s headlines indicating that the Los Angeles and Toronto Film Critics Associations and the New York Film Critics Circle (NYFCC) had all lifted “The Social Network” as 2010′s best film, a question leaped to mind: what?! That?!
Yes. The masses typically highlight conventional, studio-produced films as “the best.” Those films also typically have brawny budgets lifting their wings.
Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg in David Fincher's "The Social Network"
A different question, one of money and exposure or hype pops to mind as much as the incredulousness. So which criteria did these groups use? How much of the choice came down to the intensity of the promotion? Was there some budget-based bias?
When a film critic hasn’t seen a film, and when he or she has scant if any interest, they’re a fool to write about it. Hoards are preoccupied by and have latched onto Facebook, fascinated with its lifestyle utility. People are hungry to see the backstory, particularly if that boasts dirt.
A vital question: why don’t the New York film critics, in that metropolis that hosts New York University’s film school (i.e., a storied training ground for indie film-makers: Martin Scorsese, Spike Lee, Oliver Stone, Jim Jarmusch, among other lesser icons), at least consider an independent movie, a phenomenal one? The NYFCC is the one organization that stands out from its East Coast and Canadian peers by declaring, on the history page of his website, in part, to “…have consistently recognized, championed and defended films that may otherwise have been slighted by audiences and the entertainment industry.” Neither the Toronto nor the Los Angeles groups’ websites distinguish themselves with that stance on behalf of film art.
But Metropolis’ film critics circle has stood up for a film that needs no one to stand for it.
Hmm. What should a viewer make of that when the circle lauds a movie that suffered from no want for publicity? That’s ironic. It’s incongruent. After you’ve lived long enough, you learn, accept or resign yourself to the fact that organizations don’t always walk their talk. But it would be nice.
Out of a few engrossing independent stories, at least one stands out: “Winter’s Bone.” This isn’t a story many people have yet seen: a young resilient, perseverant woman must engage an odyssey in order to keep her family together, even while some of that family clash with her.
This story made its Minnesota premier this summer, around early June. What an awesome treat. It’s a new, innovative story about a young woman whose strength is way beyond her years, beyond the call of family. Also, “Winter’s Bone” was made by a woman. As a feminist, the chronic, persistent want for strong, engrossing female characters is old and tired – just backwards.
People will say that independent movies are just less popular or less profitable than profit-oriented ones. Reportedly according to Motion Picture Association of America’s numbers from early 2005, “approximately 15% of US domestic box office money came from independent films.” 2010′s Academy Awards broadcast had an average of about 41.3 million viewers over its more than three-hour-long program.
With the U.S. population at 310 million that stacks up to about 13% of America that watched the Oscars. An equal percentage of film-lovers seem to attend commercial movies as attend independent ones. Even if twice as many movie lovers attend movie theaters as watch the Oscars, that still connotes that commercial movies aren’t bludgeoning independent movies by the numbers.
Dec 10, 2010 marks 60 years since Ralph J. Bunche, Ph.D. became the first person of color to earn the Nobel Prize for Peace. He a mid-20th-Century icon, whom many – far too many – people have forgotten. He earned the Nobel Prize for his work in 1950 as the UN mediator who brought about the armistice between Israel and Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, all Arab neighbor countries. In Bunche’s era, as much of an institutional insider as he was the “ultimate model Negro,” he was also seen as an “international Uncle Tom. An enigma.” Except for the last item, Mr. Bunche was Sidney Poitier’s diplomatic contemporary.
If you wonder about Black diplomat characters in movies, Secretaries of State Colin L. Powell and Condoleezza Rice, from Oliver Stone’s 2008 film “W,” might pop to mind. But Ralph Bunche probably won’t. Most Americans probably presume that the other two were the first renowned peace-makers of color.
Ralph J. Bunche, Ph.D.
Mr. Bunche has been described in many more ways: Mr. UN. Diplomat. Scholar. Professional optimist. Nobel Laureate. Enigma. African-American. Peacemaker. That final duo is the most remarkable here: He was the UN’s first black undersecretary-general, and the first black person to earn a Ph.D. in political science from Harvard.
The dearth of educated, cool-headed, urbane characters of color is a part of a chronic stereotypes that plagues North America’s culture, psyche and attitude: the black thug, or black buck. He is malevolent, barely educated and a committed criminal, often epitomized by at least one character in myriad “keepin’ it real” type homeboy movies, which had a zenith in the 1990s. The black diplomat’s image smashes that stereotype nicely, showing a non-violent, goal-oriented alternative to quashing conflicts. We just rarely consider these characters or their stories.
There are well-known films about Anglo diplomats, even though we rarely see those stories that way:
Fernando Meirelles’ 2005 film “The Constant Gardener,” adapted from John LeCarré’s novel, about a mid-level Foreign Service officer who investigates and scrutinizes his wife’s suspicious death across real and political borders.
Robert Harmon’s 2004 made-for-HBO film “IKE: Countdown to D-Day” recounts Gen. Dwight Eisenhower’s diplomatic feat in orchestrating the joint force Invasion of Normandy, Operation Overlord.
Stephen Frears’ 2006 joint European production “The Queen,” portrays the delicate diplomacy between both Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister Tony Blair as they dealt with Princess Diana’s death in 1997. It’s a compelling window into the taciturn world of the Royals.
But when you want to consider brown, black and beige diplomats in movies, there are slim pickin’s. Still there are some…engrossing, even atypical choices.
The $64-million question, “why are peacemakers of color, formal or not, rarely movie characters?” is best posed and considered away from here, amongst friends, over a meal. These portrayals don’t simply matter – they’re vital, so that those youngsters of color, who are curious and engaged by questions that cost them their cool points, or their street cred, can see worlds beyond their neighborhoods.
Let’s consider the few, which you can embrace:
Sir Richard Attenborough’s 1982 film “Gandhi” recounts Mohandas K. Gandhi’s extraordinarily and exceptionally patient toil toward India’s independence from Britain’s tyranny. Never
mind, that an Anglo actor, Ben Kingsley portrayed Mr. Gandhi… (shaking head – with vigor) He became more than a diplomat, transcending that over more than two generation’s time, to personify a cause.
Spike Lee’s 1992 film “Malcolm X” recounts Malcolm Little’s equally exceptional transformation: he grew from a Zoot suited hipster, through a period of self-education and ill-informed zeal for Elijah Mohammed’s version Islam, to someone, who after an epiphany in Mecca on a Hajj, commits to conventional Islam. After this, he acted as a peace maker. The film nearly omits this final phase.
Pete Travis’ 2009 British-made film “Endgame” tells a nail-biting story about the African National Congress’ [ANC] Minister of Information, Thabo Mbeki’s, negotiations for Nelson Mandela’s release and toward majority rule in South Africa.
Coming to terms with a South African black majority
As we consider commercial movies, we must visit a difference sort, the documentary, if we want to watch a film about this anniversary man: William Greeves’ 2001 documentary about him for PBS, “Ralph Bunche: An American Odyssey,” makes the “Uncle Tom” and enigma questions clear, but also shows why Mr. Bunche deserves to be revered.
“Gandhi” begins with a surprise, Gandhi’s assassination. This convention biopic about this simple man who became much more than simply a man is difficult to compare to the others. The film’s style is very different from, maybe older than, the others. The scenes in “Gandhi” seem to cycle through sequences: he speaks, he then observes the masses’ response and he leads another protest and the government responds. This with increasing tension and peril.
Few people probably consider Malcolm X a diplomat or peace-maker, either in Lee’s epic film, or because of pop culture. With the movie it’s easier to explain: it had to move at a break-neck pace. Investing a mere three hours on a person, who’s formidable and potent legacy was four decades in the making, entails agonizing cuts in order to make a film that people will go to. The film has a “History vs Hollywood” moment, as in the History Channel’s program, because Mr. Lee omits the diplomatic outreach that Mr. X did in the wake of his pilgrimage, and while he was in the Middle East and North Africa.
His fiery, volatile rhetoric fell on conservative Anglos’ ears like merciless blows, while he was never connected with violence (Ossie Davis referred to this in his eulogy), his passion, wit and candor made him seem like he was.
The most potent peace making comes at the mid-point. And it boasts shock and awe: after a member of the Nation of Islam is injured while in police custody, Malcolm leads a march from that police station to a Harlem hospital, where he patiently deals with the police. An NYPD captain [Peter Boyle] confronts him about a mass – what the captain calls a mob – of black Muslims and an angry, raucous bunch behind them. Theirs is a professional, but brusque confrontation. After Malcolm dismisses his men, the captain declares, “that’s too much power for one man to have!” Ironic.
While the last 45-mins of “Malcolm X” takes place during and after the Hajj, all the peace making that Lee’s break-neck pace gives us was a news conference. He candidly answers questions about bringing charges against the United States to the United Nations.
Thabo Mbeki sits among the minority, asking that his people not be treated as one
The negotiations in “Endgame” between Mr. Mbeki [Chiwetel Ejiofor] and Prof. Willie Esterhuyse [William Hurt] were scenes of suspense without pyrotechnics, other than rhetoric. But that rhetoric held two people’s rights, freedoms and sources of pride at stake, or maybe for political ransom. In reality, while the film emphasized Mbeki and Esterhuyse’s coming-together, it also suggests that two other supporting personalities were at least as potent as they were: Willem de Klerk, Pres. de Klerk’s brother, and Michael Young.
In a YouTube video Mr. Ejiofor describes, a minute into it, how the director, Mr. Meirelles, chose to exploit the political thriller genre in order to grab viewers to what might otherwise be a piece about talking heads. This is a quiet and cerebral experience that demands viewers’ patience.
Even though there are three titles and three exceptional films that show brown and beige men as peace makers, the most recent one, and closest to feature-length, is also tells the most direct engrossing story of peace making work. “Endgame” is that. Far fewer people will sit down for a three-hour film experience. Patience is a quickly evaporating trait. But a political thriller that lets viewers peer through an oft-guarded window can win viewers.
