Harvey Weinstein, the legendary man behind The Weinstein Company, and Miramax before that, is talking about his film “Bully” being itself bullied by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). That’s America’s largely anonymous movie rating organization.
The crisis: bullying in itself is even more barbaric and cruel in our social media epoch than it used to be. It devastates youngsters in their formative years. For a myriad of complicated reasons schools seem disinclined to punish the bullies.
This film aggressively exposes the crisis, and the filmmakers aren’t timid with the profanity that the children use. The politico-artistic problem: the MPAA disputes how appropriate the profanity in the film is, and in-turn gave “Bully” an R rating. Historically subtlety is not their friend. The vital subtlety is about why the use of the “F-word” in different contexts, and stories, for different reasons can have different meanings.
In the interest of fairness, I am opining without yet having seen the film. But concerns about the rating associations’ usefulness have persisted at a low hum for years.
This specific dispute has made headlines from Los Angeles, which is often conflated with Hollywood, to the world.
Here’s one argument more potent and memorable than Mr. Phillips’ words: this 2006 documentary “This Film is Not Yet Rated.”
Before the MPAA came, movies were censored by the Motion Picture Production Code, aka the Hays Code, which reigned from 1930 through 1967. And, then, in 1968, two years after its birth, the Association established and offered basic sense ratings. But that basic sense got lost when it came to films being judged beyond the MPAA’s provincial standards.
Why do so many Americans still heed our movie ratings system?
Why should or would a nation-wide standard reign when every region, and state in-general has and abides by its own sensibilities?
Amid the enthusiastic, but shallow and proforma coverage of movie’s anniversary and its significance, no one asked what the summer movie experience was before “Jaws” bit down.
How? Why?
These are fundamental reportorial questions; it’s strange and awkward that those questions interested no one. No network news reporters seemed to pose them.
Curious, I strove to report on this topic and found a surprising and bemusing response from scholars and production experts: they were all contained by the same, typical talking point. “It changed everything.” No one felt prepared to elaborate; it was as though they these questions caught them off-guard – like those seemingly impromptu questions were off-script.
Elementary research shed some light on this topic: summer had been a dumping ground for those movies, which studios only expected to make a thud. They had rarely made any profit.
Why didn’t these questions interest any network TV newsrooms? We’re accustomed – or have resigned ourselves – to blockbuster movies’ dominance. Some people in the audience probably want to understand that part of film and cultural history.
Independence Day. I suspect that few of us reflect for any meaningful time about what this holiday, this day of remembrance, means to our lives. For the most part, we just don’t have to ask ourselves if our rights will be acknowledged. For peoples on America’s margins, their rights to literacy and education, or their personhood were ignored or denied. Of course, these are natural rights for which the U.S.’ founders fought, tooth and nail.
Now how about July 4th movies?
Identifying films about this holiday’s theme, which emphasize well-developed stories and well-drawn characters over spectacular visual effects, is a trial; they’re mostly about action. I suppose that independent and documentary films treat those lofty, incisive questions far more frequently and deftly than commercial ones do. They’re coveted along a different part of our society’s margins.
Some movies remind us of just how grateful we should be for the founders. Although “Nightjohn” does not refer to the Fourth of July, the made-for-TV film fits the bill.
Struggle.
This word rarely pops to mind when you think about access to education; mostly when you’re struggling to make the grade.
It’s also only a popular movie topic when bullets are flying and bodies are dropping. ”Nightjohn” tells a compelling story about a people’s yearning and struggle to simply, merely read; to understand themselves and their world. It stars a thoroughly talented actor, and Minnesota native, Carl Lumbly; He, as well as scores of other actors, seems terribly under employed and underappreciated.
Carl Lumbly
“Nightjohn” is a coming-of-age story to some extent. It was adapted in 1996 from a 1993 novel by Gary Paulsen. This film is a fantastic and fascinating reminder of a people for whom the pursuit of literacy, education, and personhood meant a death sentence. It’s intense, but in a great way; just like all the other Independence Day films.
So find “Nightjohn.” Pull it from your library, rent it from wherever, or buy it. Watch it; Appreciate it and reflect for at least a few moments. When that’s over, talk to your children about independence and gratitude. And then go back out for a swim or light up the grill again.
On June 22nd William M. Kunstler’s story, Disturbing the Universe, will be the slam-bang audacious start of the independent film series POV’s 23rd season. Sixteen years after his death his daughters, Sarah and Emily, made this documentary to show us his legacy, a snap shot of his life story, and the lessons born from them.
Mr. Kunstler’s friends and family say that you either love him as a radical lawyer or desired him dead as a national heretic and traitor to the “original intent” of America’s founding fathers. That binary “range of opinion” comes from the troubling positions and clients that he took on during his increasingly public career and life.
During the 1960s and 70s he attacked housing discrimination, defended the Chicago 8, strove to help to negotiate the hostage situation in New York’s Attica Correctional Facility, and he claimed the Natives’ cause when they occupied their own land at Wounded Knee, S.D. He became an icon, a litigious icon for the era’s liberal righteousness.
If these historical marks are hazy, maybe you “know” Mr. Kunstler just from the movies. He played a judge for a moment in Spike Lee’s film, Malcolm X, from 1992. After attaining a certain degree of public exposure Mr. Kunstler turned a corner; He defended alleged and brazen terrorists and murderers. Neither moderation, nor subtlety seems to fit beside his name in any phrase.
As a documentary, Disturbing the Universe is like a love letter both to the daughters’ father and to those whom he still inspires. That specialness comes from the film’s intimate, poetic, and memoir-like tone. Sarah and Emily employ excerpts from home movies, playful Q&As with their dad, and other recordings that children will make when they’re bored and curious enough; these elements are as incisive as they are innocent. Those elements distinguish the film from typical documentaries that rely on archival footage and standard source interviews.
Dad and daughters
The film opens by introducing Kunstler’s daughters from what was his second marriage. But they in-turn introduce the disturber of the universe himself in his high profile hey day. After that they slow the pace by telling us that his life and career began meekly, as with most extraordinary and unreasonable individuals.
Here is a film about a flamboyant and brilliant bombast who strove to bend the laws to his and a generation’s will. Disturbing the Universe poses questions. Then we feel like we have to respond, asking other questions. This film demands that you think.
The daughters Kunstler use the story of David and Goliath as a consistent narrative motif, and as a personal analogue for their dad. Disturbing the Universe lifts that motif into being a subplot of a sort. It asks many questions in doing so; those questions are slippery and rarely comfortable: What is justice? How reasonable or wholesome should the pursuit of it be? To what extent may you question the government, more specifically its wisdom or agenda without being a threat? That’s intense, off-putting stuff. So were Mr. Kunstler, and his work, and the zeal that he invested in it.
Mr. Kunstler during the Chicago 8 trial
The man had contradictions that glared at us. The pleasure he took in having a high profile seemed to trump, or even usurp, his rowdy insurgent zeal. That’s ironic, but it’s also all too common. What happens when “the fix” you get from public love and media exposure beguiles you more intensely and far more often than the satisfaction that righteous clients and causes give you? I’ll borrow the title of George Stephanopoulos’ political memoir as I call Mr. Kunstler “All Too Human.” Those contradictions and that lack of congruence are some of the major reasons why he polarized some individuals. Those also confused the heck out of his daughters and other people who held him dearly. Mr. Kunstler had a few versions of himself, disparate parts of his persona. We all do. But since he was public, extremely public, so were these.
The colossal questions that he and his legacy raise are fascinating, They also belong in a lecture or a seminar. The more interesting and probably illusive answers come in response to this question: what was it like for his no-longer-little girls to ask “Why is daddy fighting for a terrorist?” How confusing is it to start off seeing your dad as a defender of a child’s known universe and then see apparently villainous clients? The kind of client whom no amount of Herculian rhetoric jousting could convince you they deserved his counsel.
There is a reason why some people saw William M. Kunstler as having disturbed the universe. I don’t know whose story should interest us more, the dad’s or either of his daughter’s?
Alfred Hitchcock’s seminal suspense thriller “Psycho,” had its New York City premiere on June 16 in 1960. That was 50 years ago. It was released nationwide that August.
It’s daunting to think back through five decades of psychological thrillers to ask yourself whether any of those that followed can rival this one. Many filmmakers have dared to imitate Mr. Hitchcock’s instinct and flair; Gus Van Sant was delusional and egotistical enough to remake “Psycho” itself several years ago. There are some stories that just ought never be tampered with.
So you gotta wonder: if you’re gonna reminisce about the best, most unnerving who-dun-it films, where do you start?! But wait. Before you lunge toward an answer, consider that approximately two generations, and a very different aesthetic, separate us from that which makes “Psycho” special. The best thrillers emphasized suspense, not gore. They are mind games. A viewer’s patience was very important. The experience is about foreshadowing, wondering, and worrying about that which lurks behind dark corners or overly gentle smiles. The editing wasn’t nearly as fast with “Psycho” as we expect it to be in the 21st-Century. It’s unfair to compare any film to Hitchcock; No filmmaker’s work wins against his.
There are those titles that you might dare to compare with “Psycho,” but which are so renown that there’s barely a point in doing so. You could name Jonathan Demme’s “Silence of the Lambs,” from 1991, but it’s not like that had to crawl its way to a profit or renown. Practically everybody knows it. The film’s inspiration and source material shares common threads with the novel on which “Psycho” was loosely based. Still, “Silence of the Lambs” is strong and distinct enough to stand on its own mind games with the audience.
I can help you catch him, Clarice.
David Fincher’s “Se7en,” from 1995, is in a similar situation. While it may have earned fewer column-inches in newspapers and magazines back then, it won’t take many people very long to recall that film’s creepy and utterly grotesque crime scenes.
...The shower scene.
All you have to do is utter “the shower scene” to start a conversation about “Psycho.” And that’s not necessarily the most gringe-worthy scene. But there are a couple suspense stories that deserve your attention.
“Presumed Innocent” was adapted in 1990 from Scott Turow’s profitable 1987 novel. It’s the tale of a sometimes happily married chief deputy prosecutor whose colleague and former mistress is found dead. When his boss names him to prosecute her murderer, then all roads seem to point to him. The truth is more complex, surprising, and shocking – it presents an ethical and moral dilemma that jeopardizes his family.
Here’s the trailer:
“One False Move,” written by Billy Bob Thornton and directed by Carl Franklin, is about Los Angeles police detectives cooperating with a small town Arkansas sherriff, in pursuit of a deadly and unstable trio of murderers. The killers themselves are on the trail of a drug score. This is a thoughtful and smart take on a crime film that calmly considers questions of “race.” At the time, this film’s major actor was Bill Paxton, who plays the sheriff, Dale. He’s one of the most subtle and interesting protagonists. He’s key to the pacing and the story’s simplicity. “One False Move” is a little film. It’s a subtle psychological thriller that grows far smarter and more complex, and more engaging than you expect.
While you can probably name good solid suspense thrillers, they might lack the taught pacing and well-developed narrative that these ones offer.
On June 11, 1922 the “father of documentary film,” Robert J. Flaherty, made his most significant work, “Nanook of the North.” This film is reputed to be the pinnacle of his documentary career as “Citizen Kane” is routinely deemed the pinnacle of Orson Welles’.
Nanook of the North 1922
So roughly 90 years later, I figure that it’s good to ask two questions:
How many people watch documentaries?
Which recently released ones, by or about people of color, are worth watching?
Documentaries seem to be some of the least respected and loved films. Unless critics or viewers have raved about a film, and then it has been carried by word of mouth, it seems to be left to sink or swim in the media market place. The trailers and previews for documentaries seem to be very few and far between. One well-established and well-known Minneapolis producer, Craig Rice, an African-American, corrects us about the idea of an abyss for documentaries.
They’re “more popular now than they ever were before” Rice said. He said that, whatever fans of popular films might assume, documentaries are out there. “And they’re making money.” When asked about people of color, particularly African-Americans’ interest, he said, “I don’t think we watch documentary films! It’s always about popular films.”
The ones that are worth watching, like those that I’ll recommend, have as much drama, or action, or whatever you want in a movie experience, as the films at the cineplexes.
I’ll recommend three films:
Ken Burns’ “Unforgivable Blackness,” from 2004, is about a brazen iconoclast. He is Jack Johnson, an African-American. He was a boxer competing with Anglo (white) foes, in the 1910s when that was neither typical, nor safe. Anglo men were expected to win and retain the heavy weight title well before the opposite was assumed. He was such a force of personality that he couldn’t have been ignored in this century and certainly not 100 years ago at the start of the 20th.
He preferred and openly romanced Anglo women. So 100 years ago, nearly 50 years before the criminal courts made miscegenation legal, he ignored the colorline and lived.
The Film:
“Unforgivable Blackness” is an exceptional film. It is a compelling story about a 20th century character, Jack Johnson, who seems barely known and rarely discussed in mainstream media. But he was larger than life. His bravura preceded, and may have rivaled, that of Mohammed Ali. At the time, boxing was one vital pillar of Anglo (white) American manhood. By wanting to compete, as an equal, with Anglo fighters, Mr. Johnson showed his desire to knock that pillar down. White manhood was at stake.
Marshall Curry’s “Street Fight,” from 2005, is about a brawling political contest in Newark, New Jersey. It was that year’s Academy Award nominee for best documentary feature. This was a mayoral contest between two strong-willed African-American men from disparate backgrounds and who carry themselves with very different swaggers. There was the 32 year incumbent, Sharpe James, and the Rhodes scholar upstart, Cory Booker. They are from disparate generations and each one fights to keep and maybe lift the beleaguered city of Newark, New Jersey out of its economic and criminal justice abyss.
The Film:
The film shows those unorthodox and guerilla campaign tactics which Mr. Sharpe’s team used to keep to his mayoral power within his clutches. He used his official power to have city employees do his crony work, while Mr. Booker strove to run a professional and civil campaign. With the way that Mr. Booker seems to have chafed against the voters, they seem to have sided with the corruption they know and understood, Mr. James, in lieu of taking a chance with a different smooth talker who might just be an updated Mr. James. “The Washington Post” called it the best political documentary since “The War Room,” which was a chronicle of James Carville’s and George Stephanopoulos’ work with the 1992 Clinton presidential campaign.
Gail Dolgin and Vicente Franco’s “Daughter from Danang,” from 2002, is a gut-wrenching story about two women’s reunion: a trans “racial” Vietnamese and American daughter, Heidi Bob, (born Mai thi Hiep) and her Vietnamese birth mother. It was that year’s Academy Award nominee for best documentary feature. Ms. Bob, now in her 30s, hadn’t seen her mother since she was taken away at seven years-old.
Their story is complicated by the context and questions of the United States’ Vietnam-era foreign policy. So, this is the dual narrative of these women’s intertwined stories and an even-handed criticism of that slim portion of American foreign policy.
The film:
“Daughter” opens with the story of how Ms. Bob, a trans “racial” adoptee, was “evacuated” you might say from Vietnam. This broaches a phalanx of rich, mixed, and probably bittersweet emotions on the parts of the Vietnamese and North American families. They each want to believe that they are acting for virtue; for the children’s, their families’, and even their respective nations’ sakes.
One stunner. An irony is that she is one of many adoptees who were relocated to the United States as supposed orphans when they were not; their families were often assured and trusted that the U.S. would reunite them with their children…at some point.
This film opens viewers’ eyes and minds to a little discussed chapter of post-Vietnam war history and the story of trans “racial” adoptees. As “Daughter” shows it is as simple and as complex as that.
It reminds me of a fiction film: Oliver Stone’s “Heaven and Earth,” from 1993. It is the third in his defacto Vietnam trilogy. In its essence it’s a very complex story, with composite characters, about making a life and recreating oneself in a new, foreign, and at times forbidding reality.
“Winter’s Bone” is the refreshing story of a tough 17-year-old broad in the Ozarks, Ree Dolly, played by Jennifer Lawrence. I could describe her in more polite or delicate language, but I doubt that she would. Her story amounts to an odyssey as she locks horns with her rural, often criminal neighbors and family. Her dad, Jessup, put their house up as collateral for his bond when he was put in jail on drug charges for making meth. With his court date imminent and himself missing, Ree, hearty and hardened beyond her years, is saddled with fixing this.
Ree runs
Her mom can’t; she’s ill, seems catatonic. Her brother and sister are too young. In pleading for her neighbors’ cooperation, even empathy, she says, “they’re too young to even feed themselves yet.” You might call this film is a petty detective story is worth your time is because of Ree’s fight against the dire consequences for the family. This young broad’s story exemplifies a relentless love and commitment to her family, her siblings.
“Winter’s Bone” had its premiere, at least its Minnesotan one, on June 2nd at the Walker Art Center, where director Debra Granik introduced it and answered questions afterward.
Ree has to track down and deliver her father, even if it’s just evidence of his death, in order to keep her home. She doesn’t want to step on anyone’s toes, but those are the least of her concerns. She must feel like Harry Truman, a 20-century Missourian. After President Roosevelt died he said, “I felt like the moon, the stars and all the planets had fallen on me.” So, she’s willing to be denied, lied to, yelled at, bullied, and gang-beaten. She won’t take “no.” As long as her brother, sister, and mother are at-risk.
Location and culture as character:
Neither Ree, nor her family of sometime foes, are the only memorable characters. South Missouri and its poor, and often criminal subculture, are characters as much as “Winter’s Bone’s” characters are. The traditions dictate how people live their lives and treat one another.
In the introductory scenes, Granik, uses the sparse, poor kitchen where Ree prepares the breakfast to illustrate their poverty. The local morning radio show plays in the background. It plainly announces the community’s goings-on. This illustrates the work-a-day attitude of the area where the criminals and innocents alike make their ways. Soon enough we see the trailers and the shanty-like structures that the residents claim.
Ree comforts her brother while she has so little to spare
This ambiance reminds me of rural Nebraska, where a 1990s independent film,”Boys Don’t Cry,” takes place. So few TV or film stories, or at least good ones, about poor, rural peoples’ lives have been done; it’s very hard to spotlight useful comparisons. That’s why this film is refreshing and thankfully it’s potent story and well-developed characters make it stand out.
During the Walker Art Center’s Q&A, Ms. Granik said that “there are enough ‘ands’” that none of the details or characters should come off as stereotypes or digs at Hillbilly’s. By “ands” she describes social and moral contradictions; those people who are both tender and brutal, or aloof or cooperative, depending on the circumstance, or just how far down the wrong road their passions or uninterest have careened.
“Winter’s Bone” is memorable, maybe indelible. But there’s a caveat: The most memorable scenes are also the hardest to take. This is a world where the women’s strength must never rival a man’s. Her neighbors and family would just as soon punish her, in a way straight out of a Yakuza movie, if she won’t take their gruff, plain-spoken, yet subtle hints to back off. This is a world where contemporary gender equality is a foreign concept.
Ms. Granik describes the story and source of “Winter’s Bone” on the Sundance Film Festival’s “Meet the Artist”
Early on, when she presses her uncle, Teardrop, to stop being cryptic, but be straight with her, he grabs her up by her throat, as he might to discipline a hound, to deliver his insistent point. Basically: “Shut up and suck it up!” He sets the community’s tone and attitude toward her straights. Finally after an elder’s convinced that she’s pushed too far, his wife – who had already abundantly established that neither of them is to be troubled – leads a small gang of women to beat Teardrop’s point home to her – barbarically. It’s bloody.
And Ree pushes on. Warily.
The film’s only flaw is a dream montage that stands out so much from the whole story’s style that it distracts you. It’s very brief. But I don’t know why it was there either.
It comes out in wide release on June 11 and an even wider on June 26, depending on where you are.
Why bother?
We have a strong, perseverant female lead character
It’s a refreshing, but simple, even innovative, detective story
The narrative and characters are thoroughly developed, as adapted from the novel
We are introduced to, or reminded of, a very different way of life, in South Missouri
