October 31, 2008
It's the Halloween
before Tuesday’s election, so the big question is -- how is the political situation reflected in horror
movies? And, specifically, those that deal with that fundamental source of
horror, the Undead.
There are basically two types of undead, zombies and
vampires (Frankenstein fits in uneasily somewhere), and I think it’s safe to
say that up until recently the zombie contingent has dominated the genre. Being
the socialist film critic that I am, I would interpret zombies as representing
the lumpen proletariat. Thay have been so exploited by the capitalist system that
they’re not just downtrodden — they’re dead. But they rise again — the return
of the repressed — to destroy and devour those who subjugated them.
In other words, they represent that “redistribution of
wealth” that the Republicans are scaring everybody with.
On the other hand, they also embody the Joe the Plumber
fantasy that the right wing is trying to sell to the working stiffs of America. The
working stiffs, so to speak. Those real Americans that their fellow real
Americans John McCain and Sarah Palin want to defend against the “liberal
elite.”
In other words, the Republicans are trying to co-opt genuine
working class discontent, as they have so successfully done so in previous elections, pretending to
be the supporters of the common people when in fact they are those who have
victimized them. And movies like “28 Weeks Later” and “I Am Legend” and "Diary of the Dead" are
expressions of the masses’ ambivalent fear of and attraction to their potential
revolutionary fervor.
But those are the old undead. The trend now seems to be in the direction of vampire,
a trend spearheaded by the expected success of
the upcoming adaptation of Stephenie Meyer’s YA bestseller “Twilight” in
which a teenage girl falls for a gorgeous, demi-godlike vampire boy. The trend
should gain momentum as we reach 2011 and the scheduled release of Tim Burton’s
adaptation of “Dark Shadows” starring
Johnny Depp as Barnabas Collins.
And why not? Vampires are sexy. No one wants to have sex
with a zombie. If a zombie comes snuggling up to you, you don't want to have sex with it, you want to blow its goddamn head off.
Why is that, political subtext speaking? What do vampires represent
beyond confused adolescent hormonal agitation? To find out, I consulted one of
my socialist criticism guidebooks, “Signs Taken for Wonders” by Franco Moretti,
and his essay “Dialectic of Fear” in which he quotes Marx’s observation: “Capital
is dead labour which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labour, and
lives the more, the more labour it sucks.”
Well, that kind of sounds like the zombies described above.
Or maybe it describes the Wall Street parasites responsible for the collapse of
the economy. And nobody likes them anymore. There must be another explanation.
So, so much for Marx and Moretti. Could these sexy new vampires be representing neither capital or Wall Street CEOs or the aristocracy but the “liberal
elite” that the Republicans have tried to demonize? Could this mean that
instead of hating and fearing this elite, regular people might actually be
drawn to those who are smart, beautiful, educated and talented? Even if they
want to suck their blood?
Beats me. Maybe we’ll know by next Wednesday. Or better yet,
on the opening weekend of “Twilight” on November 21.
October 31, 2008
Wim Wenders’s great 1987 film “Wings of Desire” inspired
Lance Hammer to consider a career in moviemaking, but it took a stint at a studio
doing set design for blockbusters like “Batman and Robin” to convince him to
make films his way. His “Ballast” took
years to bring to the screen and involved spending several winters soaking up
the ambience of the Mississippi Delta where the film is set and casting
non-professional local people and devising a story with dialogue and events
that were true to the reality and people with whom he worked. So he doesn’t
cotton to those who say that a white filmmaker can’t make a film about black
people. Otherwise, he’s a very nice guy, humble, idealistic and committed to
his art, or such was the impression I got during the following interview.
PK: Were you here for the Independent Film Festival of Boston ?
Lance Hammer: I was, yeah. We won the grand prize.
PK: And you won at Sundance also. Were you surprised
yourself that this film that you’ve toiled on for ten years is setting the
world on fire?
LH: It was extremely surprising. I think its very difficult
for any artist to have any concept of whether their film is any good or not,
.or their poem or their song or their novel, you know, and that’s definitely
the case with me. When I finally locked picture, when I looked at the answer
print, I just kinda looked at it and thought, all I saw was its flaws, you know,
and I was just kind of hopeful that Sundance would see past the flaws.
PK: You’ve worked on fine tuning it for a period of time..
LH: Yeah, like five years. I often think everything I do is
pretty bad, you know, so this is no exception.
Pk: so this must be difficult for you to talk about it over and
over again with journalists and audiences and so forth
LH: It’s stressful because I’m kind of private, so. There’s
about a years worth of time where you have to be very open to everybody, but it’s
very important for the film, and I believe in supporting the film and I’m very
thankful that people care. The fact that you’re here, and you’ve watched the
film...
PK: Twice.
LH: Twice, I mean I cant even fathom why you would do that.
I just really appreciate that you’ve watched my film twice, it kind of staggers
me, you know.
PK: Part of the reason is the first run through is, not all
of it is immediately clear, and even on the second viewing some of the dialogue
is intelligible. Is that intentional?
LH: Yeah I mean I think that’s the way it works when you’re in
the field. It took a lot of time to figure how much I should leave
unintelligible or quiet, either unintelligible because, for example, JimMyron
[Ross, who plays the character James, a troubled teenager] doesn’t enunciate a
word very clearly, or he’s talking very quietly. But I think holistically, a
film is about communicating something through many different ways -- images,
sound, words -- words in this particular film are kind of minimal, of minimal
importance in many ways
PK: It’s sort of like ambient sound.
LH: Exactly. But then there is some narrative that has to be
communicated with words, so its important to make sure that comes through. And
I went back a year later to the same houses and brought JimMyron with me, and
Mike and we did some ADR in the field in the same places again, for some words
that were really critical and had to be understood and weren’t, you know. So it
was a careful modulation to figure out how much to show and how much just not
to care about.
PK: When people review the movie, are there certain spoilers
you hope they don’t reveal?
LH: No, I think it’s basically fair game. You put a film out
there to the world and in doing that, you sign an unwritten agreement that
people can do whatever they want and say whatever they want. It becomes public
property. I get upset when I saw the first reviewers at Sundance giving away
the spoilers because I think everything’s a spoiler. To say that there’s geese
that fly into the air in the opening scene of the film, is like, ‘oh, don’t say
that!’ I don’t mind, I don’t want to be part of that process, it’s your own
writing process.
PK: I’ve read a lot of interviews that you’ve conducted
about the movie and nobody has asked this question: what does the title mean?
LH: Oh no, that’s the most popular question. Number one
question. Do you know what ballast is on a ship?
PK: It’s supposed to give it stability.
LH: It’s also the rock bed that rails lay on, for the same
purpose. It’s a word that popped into my head one day when I was writing, I
remember when it happened, it was kind of out of reach, and I thought it felt
right. Its about people in a state of chaos in their lives, seeking more than
anything else, just stability, just looking for grounding. To be more specific,
I think they find it in each other, in a relationship with each other. Even
more specifically, they find it in being selfless. Lawrence’s [the protagonist]
chaos, his un-tethering, is corrected by his realization that he can be of use
to a child. And being of use to a child is a purpose to live and that purpose
gives grounding. Probably the boy is the ballast for everybody.
PK People have compared your movie to Bresson.
LH: Yeah, He’s my big influence, yeah.
PK: However, you got your filmmaking start working on “Batman
and Robin.” Was it the nipples on the batsuit that drove you to make your own
movies?
LH: Yeah, I think it’s fair to say that. The truth is that
when I was 19 years old I became a cinephile. I went away from my childhood
house for the first time to live somewhere else in Tucson, Arizona, and a
newfound independence was expressed by venturing to the arthouse cinema I
discovered and I saw “Wings of Desire” and was overwhelmed with joy and sadness
and I couldn’t believe that film could move somebody in this way, and you could
be so poetic and say something important about the human psyche and the
existential longing for something you can’t have. And so, at that point I
wanted to make films, but I didn’t think it was a realizable goal, so I studied
architecture instead, and that kind of led me into art directing. But, all this
time I’ve been a cinephile you know. You’re right, as I begin to be fearful for
my soul as an art director, working on these industrial films that are totally
empty of meaning. I came from watching Bresson and Godard and Pasolini...and
they contribute to society in a very important way, in the same that you know,
TC Williams’s poetry contributes something, I’m sure its not very profitable
for him, but its hugely profitable for the world and that’s meaningful to me.
So I started to write, I said “if you really feel this way you better see if
you have it in you to make something. If you have anything to say, anything to
express.” So I began writing, a lot, for years.
PK: So what happened to the all the writing?
LH: Most of its in the toilet. I had a complete screenplay
and I shot some scenes from it even.
PK: Was that that short film that you made?
LH: Its not really a short film, its excerpted scenes from a
feature script. I did cut them together in a way that could be somewhat
cohesive. It was a device to try to raise money for the future script. That’s
why I did it.
PK: In that version of the story, were the characters from a
white family?
LH: In that first
version? It’s a white family and a black family.
PK: Ok. In the finished version, many of the characters are
African-American. Did you feel uneasy that a white man from California probably isn’t supposedly that
qualified to make a movie about black people from the Mississippi Delta?
LH: Yeah, I mean, having gone to the Delta now for about ten
years, I learned quite a bit, and I became obsessed with learning everything I
could, reading everything I could, meeting as many people as I could, spending
as much time as possible there. Over a long period of time. I know a lot about
this place, but there’s nothing that will change the fact that I wasn’t born
there and that I’m white. The reason why I started over, threw away the first
script and started over was because at a certain point I realized that more I’ve
learned about this place the more I’ve learned how little authority I have to
speak about this place. Specifically the most important issue being the
African-American and white relationship, which is extremely complicated and
nuanced, and steeped in generation upon generation of, you know...one thing
that’s clear is there’s a tremendous brutality of whites against blacks.
PK: But in this movie the whites seem very genteel.
LH: Yeah, because this is something that’s also true. All
these things exist at the same time. It’s complicated, it’s paradoxical and
when you’re from there, you get it. When you’re not, it’s just confusing. So
when I realized that, I realized I can’t be another outsider coming in to make
a film about the blues, or civil rights, you’re just an outsider trying to say
they know how the Delta works. I’m doing the opposite thing. I’m going to take
a camera and document the place, as it exists and have no judgment, as much as
possible. Most importantly, I’m not contribute the words, I’m going to cast
people from the place, we’re going to work together, they’re gonna develop the
language themselves, they’re going to choose the words, if the scene structure
isn’t working, they’re going to tell me what is ringing false with them.
They’re gonna tell me what they would do, and that’s what the script will be.
The camera will be detached. I will never be the POV. I don’t know if you
noticed this watching the film, but there’s no POV shots. We’re never looking
through the eyes of a character. If the character’s watching something, we’re
watching them watch something. There’s a dispassionate, objective, detachment.
PK: Like the angels in “Wings of Desire?”
LH: Yeah, I mean it probably comes from that, honestly. But
of course that’s complicated too, because I wrote the script, I wrote the
narrative. That’s based upon a lot of my experience there. A lot of its based
on locations I had found through the years, and they influenced me in such a
way that I would write narrative around them, you know, or the manor house,
which is across the street from the two tenant houses, that’s part of the
architectural history of the Delta and it speaks of..In the final film you
don’t really see the geographical arrangement. The white guys house is this
1700s or 1800s manor house and it used to have..you know it’s the farmer’s
house.
PK: So it used to be his plantation.
LH: This exists all over the south still, all these tenant
houses, which are first, where slaves lived, and then they became tenant
farmers and it’s the same system. Its basically the white power structure
suppresses, and requires the working force of the black families.
PK: But they own their property in this movie
LH: Yeah and this is a common thing too. I’ve spoken to so
many people, and I’ve basically clinched together the scenarios from real
stories that I’ve heard from people I’ve met. And the things that I’ve seen
there. I brought that script with some of that stuff intact, to these people
that actually live here now, and said ‘you are going to be the human beings
that populate this landscape. Tell me if this works’. And it took a long time.
We edited all of these things out in the rehearsal process, in the discovery
process. You know, is this true? Like, the whole thing with the drug scenario
thing..
PK: Does that actually happen in that part of the country?
LH: Yeah, and I knew that, so I wrote it that way, and then
I went there, and I talked to the narcotics agent of the Delta and then I also brought
in a bunch of teenagers, like 20 of them in, and we all sat down together for
like a week and talked about the whole situation, the whole drug element in the
script, because I don’t really know how it works, you know. And we brought drug
dealers in..
PK: Those were actually drug dealers in that scene?
LH: One of them in the film has done that, and I won’t tell
you who it is, but the other ones weren’t, but we brought a lot of other
teenagers that were, in to talk about it. And the narcotics agent said, ok, I
wont be a narcotics agent, I won’t bust anybody, because we’re interested in
communicating something truthfully in this film about the way this really
works. There was an agreement that there wouldn’t be any of that. All of the
language, all of the dynamics of those deals were explained to me by this group.
PK: Never trust a narc.
LH: Right, well that’s what all of the kids told me. Its
funny, they all wanted to make a film so they all resolved their differences
for a moment. With them, we would turn the camera on when they didn’t know we
were shooting. They knew we were going to do that, but we would always be
rehearsing with the camera. Half of that
was kind of a loose script that we all created together and half was completely
candid.
NEXT: Enter the contrarian.
October 29, 2008
Speaking of repetition compulsion, the conflict in the Middle East shows no signs of a happy ending. The latest
major installment was the Israeli invasion of Lebanon
in 2006, a brutal campaign which ended with no clear winners but definite
losers -- the people of Lebanon.
Talented local filmmaker Jocelyn Ajami (“Queen of the Gypsies” ) visited the scenes of destruction with a group of American journalists,
scholars and politicians six weeks after the cessation of hostilities. Her 35
minute documentary about her experience, “Postcard from Lebanon,” includes
shocking images of destruction and heartbreaking testimony from survivors.There
is even a terrible beauty in the shots of block after block of shattered white
rubble occasionally broken by a stunned looking armchair, a battered doll or a
dusty shoe — reminders of the people who once lived there.
But the film has a larger purpose, too. As a UN spokesman
explains, the Israeli army’s “unprecedented” use of cluster bombs (notorious for their "dud" rate) blanketed villages in Southern
Lebanon with tiny unexploded bomblets powerful enough to blow a child
to pieces. They have infested peoples homes, gardens and hang from olive trees
like Christmas tree ornaments -- about a million in all, the spokesman
estimated.
Ajami hopes the film will encorage people to demand that the US sign an
anti-cluster bomb treaty that is scheduled to be ratified December 3. 107 countries have signed already. The US is lagging, and Senators Leahy (VT) and Feinstein (CA) are pushing for Congressional resolution to do so.
“Postcard from Lebanon”
screens at the MFA tonight (October 29) at 6:30 p.m. and November 8 at 2:15
p.m. The director will be present and will conduct a discussion.
October 28, 2008
Why do people watch the same movie over and over? For pleasure,
no doubt, and because a great movie like a great book or piece of music doesn’t
reveal everything on a first or second or nth go-through. But then some
repeated viewing habits sound a little pathological. Like the guy in Norway who saw
“Mama Mia!” 162 times. Given the film’s opening date in that country that means
he must have seen “Mama Mia!” twice every day. I made it through a complete screening without walking out only because I felt
professionally obliged. The CIA might want to look into this as
an enhanced method of interrogation.
And how to explain the “High School Musical 3” phenomenon? It
topped the box office at $42 million last weekend. Most of the tickerts were apparently bought by grade school kids
watching the film over and over again. From what I’ve heard from parents, this
is common behavior regarding this series. The kids are compelled by peer pressure
or cathode rays or some subliminal Disney magic to compulsively watch. It’s as insidious as advertisements for
sugar products on TV. Eye candy, indeed.
Most disturbing, however, is the repeat business for “Saw V.” It
placed number two, taking in about $30 million. Again, I barely sat through
“Saw I.” The others seem to be minute variations on the same themes of
entrapment, ingenious torture, certain death, all rendered with (for me)
excruciatingly graphic detail. All I can suggest as an explanation for the
appeal of this kind of entertainment, this need that can be fulfilled
only by repeated consumption of horrific imagery, is to refer to Freud’s notion of
the repetition compulsion, or the recurrent nightmare, in which traumatic memories (or
anxieties or repressed desires?) are reworked by acting them out in
metaphoric or imaginary versions in order to attempt a mastery of them. Or
maybe, as Freud dourly suggested, as a surrender to the allure of Thanatos, the
Death Wish. For me, a second viewing of “Mama Mia” would be enough for that.
October 21, 2008
As George W.’s career in politics fades into history and
ignominy, could his future in show business be just beginning? Could Oliver
Stone’s “W,” which opened last weekend, be the first in what might prove to be
an entertainment gold mine?
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. How did “W” fare among
the critics and those in the know? Like the President himself, the film has
stirred extremes in opinions, some mutually contradictory.
For example, right-leaning "New York Post" critic Kyle Smith’s
review excoriated the movie partly on the basis that it is a liberal hatchet
job full of typical Oliver Stone distortions of the truth. He concludes: "Stone and his cast plainly don’t understand George W. Bush so they ... settle for
a two-hour “Saturday Night Live” sketch that skims every surface.”
On the other hand, the "New York Press’s"
ever-contrarian and crypto-reactionary Armond White hails the movie for
opposite reasons: he claims it vindicates the president from 8 years of lies
from the liberal media. His conclusion:
“Our mainstream media’s vindictiveness toward George W. Bush
has dismantled even the illusion of fairness. For the past eight years, the
media elite have fought back against Bush winning the presidency in 2000,
corrupting the purpose of journalism and entertainment by being vehemently
partisan and ferociously illiberal. By opposing the mob mentality that would
hang Bush in effigy, W. imaginatively sympathizes with the most maligned
president in modern history.
They both can’t be right. Maybe neither one is.
So what do the experts say, those who actually knew the President
personally? Scott McLellan, former toadying Press Secretary and current administration
squealer with his tell-all book “What Happened,” has an opinion. After commenting on the film’s
Oedipal angle (Could be true, he opines) and some of Stone’s cheaper shots (W
was no dummy, he reminds us) McLellan concludes:
"My guess is the most vocal Bush critics will view Stone’s account
as too soft on Bush and his top advisers, while Bush’s chief advocates will ignore
and dismiss it. But I think the average Joe just might find it entertaining and
thought-provoking. I won’t go as far as to borrow a line from Bush 43 and say, 'Heck of a job, Stonie.' But I will borrow one from Bush 41 and say, 'It’s
good, not bad.'"
Bush 41 -- what a phrasemaker.
As for Jeb Bush, former governor of the state that gave W the presidency
back in 2000, describes the film as “hooey.”
But what about the only opinion and poll that matters, the box
office? Though some predicted the film would be a flop, it held up surprisingly well, placing fourth
in top grosses for last weekend at some $10 million and taking in a respectable
$5,000 or so a screen. More intriguing, perhaps, is the fact that it’s the only film,
at least in my recollection, for which political exit polls were conducted (for example,
89% of patrons said they disapproved of Bush and 78% said they were voting for
Obama. 6% said they were voting for McCain and only were watching “W” because
the liberal weasel theater owners said they were buying tickets for “American
Carol.”).
So maybe the George W. Bush franchise will flourish. Will Ferrell
thinks so. No doubt stirred by my description of his impression of the
President as the “edgiest and funniest,” he is taking it to
Broadway for a one-man show called "You’re Welcome America. A Final Night
With George W Bush."
October 15, 2008
Just the other day I was curled up with my copy of Cormac
McCarthy’s “The Road” thinking to myself how cozy it was reading a story about
civilization reduced to frozen ash and roving bands of cannibals while the real
world was tottering on the brink of the same! Because obviously we're doomed, since not just is the economy
tanking, but the Red Sox and Patriots are as well. Not to mention that the likely
election of Barack Obama is a sure sign of the coming Tribulation. The
end is near! But it doesn’t seem so bad if it’s in a book, or, since “The
Road” is coming to the big screen (for those who found the adaptation of
McCarthy’s “No Country for Old Men” too lighthearted, this might do the trick) on
November 21 (Happy Thanksgiving!), in the comfy confines of a movie theater.
I discussed this doomsday trend at some length last year
and it still seems to be going strong. A couple of weeks ago I went to a press
screening of what I thought was a kids’ movie called “City of Ember” and it starts upwith a voiceover narrator intoning, “When the world ended...” Sheesh! At least
get through the beginning of the movie before you end the world is my opinion.
Not even Bill Murray could lighten this one up.
And there’s plenty of competition. There’s the end of the world
as inexplicable, allegorical pandemic in Fernando
Meirelles’s adaptation of Jose
Saramago’s “Blindness.” There’s
the end of of the world as it might be if the world was a microcosm set
in an
apartment building which is the case in “Quarantine.” There’s
the end of the world as it might be if the world was a microcosm set in Charlie
Kaufman’s head like in “Synecdoche, New York” (opens November 7). There’s the
end of the world (maybe) as remake of a classic science fiction movie in “The
Day the Earth Stood Still” (opens December 12). And upcoming in 2009 there’s
the end of the world as fulfillment of ancient Mayan prophecy in Roland
Emmerich’s “2012”and as fulfillment of the box office potential of a lucrative
franchise in McG’s “Terminator 4:Salvation.”
That is, if we get that far. I’m concerned not so much about the
prospect of the world actually ending but of this trend losing its audience
appeal. “Blindness” vanished in a blink of an eye. “Quarantine” was easily
snuffed out last week by the number one hit (for the second week in a row), “Beverly Hills Chihuahua” (more a portent of the end of Hollywood
than the end of the world). Why pay $10 to see the end of the world when you
can watch it on TV for free?
October 09, 2008
As many have suspected, there seems to
be something fishy about the poor box office showing of David Zucker’s right
wing satire, “An American Carol.” After all, who doesn’t enjoy a hearty laugh
at such witty notions as Hollywood being renamed “Bin
Laden City”
with billboards pitching “Victoria’s
Burkas” (okay, that is kind of funny). So, no surprise that the filmmakers report they have been
getting complaints from would be patrons who were mysteriously sold the wrong
tickets or otherwise misdirected by those crafty, left-leaning theater owners
and exhibitors.
Seems like they might be taking a page out of
the RNC playbook for disenfranchising tens of thousands of voters. Meanwhile,
Zucker and company are “investigating.
Predictably, as the movies become more like elections, the
elections are becoming more like movies or, more exactly,like movie promotion.
Just the other night after I had turned on the mute button when the latest
McCain ad came on I noticed something odd. The scare quotes that appeared over
the demonic images of Obama and other “liberal Democrats” were attributed to “The
Washington Times,” that Moonie-owned rag that’s a rubber stamp for the Repuublicans.
That’s about as valid as a movie ad with a quote from Pete Hammond or Earl
Dittman! Or more like one from David Manning, the fictitious critic invented by Sony Pictures a few years back to serve as a
source for their own bogus encomiums.
Confirming my suspicions about this strategy is this boo
boo in which the RNC put out an ad with a glowing review of her debate performance (“She
killed. It was her evening. She was the star.”) with the attribution “Famous
Person.” Like they hadn’t quite gotten around to getting anyone to put their
name on the quote they had already written up. It's just like what happens at a movie
junket when a publicist passes through a room full of "critics" with a list of quotes
and asks which one they want to be blurbed for.
/
October 08, 2008
Now that the main Republican talking point has been refined from “Osama
is an elitist" to “Osama is a terrorist,” it’s only a matter of time before they
bring up the old canard about him being a Muslim. Which begs the question -- so
what if he is? Nobody running for President lately has been excoriated for
being Catholic, or Jewish, or Mormon, or whatever religion
believes that man walked with dinosaurs and preachers should run witches out of
town. Clearly, when some voters confuse the religion with a common textile,
some attempt at education is in order.
Thus the relevance of a couple of film festivals taking place
these days in the area. The Palestinian Film Festival, already underway at
various venues including the Harvard Film Archive and the Museum of Fine Arts,
features on Friday a lecture at Northeaster University on Palestinian Cinema by
veteran auteur Michel Khlefli, whose visually striking and profoundly affecting
Wedding in Galilee, in which Palestinians and Israeli soldiers achieve a reconciliation
of sorts at the title nuptials, 
also screens on Saturday at the MFA.
The second event is The Muslim Film Festival: Art Under Fire!
which opens Monday with Nina Davenport’s mordant, sad and hilarious “Operation
Filmmaker,” a
microcosmic look at the Iraq
debacle through the experience of a young Iraqi looking for a break in Hollywood. That’ll screen
at the Brattle Theatre.
Another high point is
Jocelyne Saab’s“Dunia” (2005) in which the young Egyptian woman of the
title is torn between pursuing the dance career of her late mother, studying
poetry with a charismatic professor who crusades for artistic freedom, and
marrying an asshole. Though suffering from occasional kitsch, platitudes and
tweeness, the film more than compensates for these weaknesses with some
stunning images and a real feel for the ambience and atmosphere of Cairo. It even-handedly
shows some of the less attractive aspects of Egyptian culture, such as female
circumcision, sexual repression and violent intolerance. But it also touches on
a side of Islam that doesn’t get much play in the West these days, most notably
the Sufi tradition that emphasizes the power of love, self-fulfillment and
ecstasy.
It screens at the Egan Center at Northeastern University
and like all the films in the festival, it’s free. 
October 06, 2008
Enough with the polls. Maybe the only reliable window into the
souls of American voters is what they’re willing to line up for and pay $10 to
see on a movie screen. In which case last weekend’s box office provides an
excellent test case, with two politically antithetically movie satires playing
mano-a-mano.
On the right is David Zucker’s “An American Carol,” which, as
noted in previous posts, is a variation on the Dickens’s classic featuring a
Michael Moore stand-in serving as punch bag for patriotic icons like Gen.
Patton, John Kennedy, George Washington and Bill O’Reilly. On the left is Bill
Maher and Larry Chrles’s “Religulous” in which believers like George Bush, a theme park Jesus and assorted
televangelists, Jews for Jesus and one US senator provide kindling for
Maher’s anti-faith auto-da-fe.
A look at the box office numbers shows, that, on the face of it,
the right has eked out a narrow victory, with “Carol” taking in $3.8 million to
“Religulous”’s $3.5 million. However, “Religulous” appeared on a third as many
screens, so the per-screen average comes to $6,972 for “Religulous” and $2,234
for “Carol.”
Conclusion? The election is too close to call!
Unless you concur with what the pundits -- i.e, critics -- have
to say. There, “Religulous” wins in a landslide. “Rotten Tomatoes” gives it a
“Fresh” rating of 65% while “Carol” stinks up the joint with a truly rotten 15%
Big surprise, you say -- the critics are all a bunch of
hand-wringing, God-hating left wing pansies anyway. Well, not so fast. Consider, for example, the assessments
of the usually reliably right wing “New York Post.” Lou Lumenick gives “Carol” a brutal 1/2 star
review, opening with the observation:
“Even if it
weren't three years too late to parody Moore (ineptly played by Kevin Farley),
Moore's ridiculous tribute to Cuban health care in ‘Sicko’ is far funnier than
anything in this desperately laughless farce from David Zucker (‘Scary Movie 3’).”
Ouch.
On the other hand,
the “Post’s” Kyle Smith gives “Religulous” an enthusiastic three star review
(true, you don’t have to be religious to be a conservative -- just don’t admit it and try to
run for any political office). He observes:
“We know there is no God because Bill Maher is not immediately struck
dead...”
But the hardcore
pinko rag “The Village Voice” doesn’t agree. J. Hoberman finds the whole thing
a little sophmoric, describing it as “a
dog that has more bark than bite.”
Speaking of dogs,
what about the film that topped the box office (“Carol” and “Religulous” were
#9 and #10, respectively)? “Beverly Hills Chihuahua” took in over $29 million, and the irony of a
comedy about a spoiled rich pet unleashed in the mean streets of Mexico City being released
the same week that the nation’s economy collapsed was not lost on astute
reviewers.
Notes Nathan Lee in
that pillar of the Liberal press, The New York Times:”
“As
multimillion-dollar frivolities about the pets of the ruling class go, ‘Chihuahua’ is reasonably
diverting. As one that happens to be opening in the middle of an economic
meltdown, its mere existence feels utterly insane.”
But Anne Hornaday
in that other Liberal pillar, “The Washington Post,” is not so sure:
“The economy is in
freefall. Congress is a circus of dysfunction and demagoguery. The White House
is under investigation for violating the Constitution. Things are heating up in
Pakistan.
What we need now is a talking Chihuahua
movie!
“Okay, the concept
for the movie is admittedly lame, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with
watching a passel of adorable pooches wrinkle their brows and bark while human
voices come out of their mouths.”
As for Smith in
the “Post,” he pretty much sums up the whole relationship between moviegoers
and Hollywood,
if not the electorate and politicians, with what might be the best lede of the week:
“The film is ‘Beverly Hills Chihuahua.’
The audience is the fire hydrant.”
October 02, 2008
Many of the eulogies for the late great Paul Newman have focused on the
saintliness of the man, an aura of goodness that emanates from him both on and
off the screen. “Someone Up There Likes Me,” indeed. Truth be told, he always
had a knack for playing an asshole, whether an outlaw or a rogue or an outcast
or a downright villain, that twinkle in his beautiful blue eyes could just as
easily evince malice, irony, corruption or anarchy as benevolence and
beatitude. “The Left-handed Gun” (1958), “The Hustler” (1961), “Hud” (1963), “Hombre”
(1967), “Cool Hand Luke” (1967), “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” (1969), “The
Sting” (1973), “The Hudsucker Proxy” (1994)... I think most fans would prefer
these over, say, “The Silver Chalice” (1954).
Overlooked also has been his last on screen film role, “The Road
to Perdition” (2002), Sam Mendes’s adaptation of the Max Allan Collins and Richard
Piers Rayner’s graphic novel about a Depression era Chicago hit man, played by
Tom Hanks, on the lam from the mob. Newman plays the ruthless but avuncular mob
boss, who is also serves as Hanks’s ambiguous father figure. Newman got his
tenth, and last, Oscar nomination for the role, for Best Supporting Actor.
Coincidentally, it was
also the last film shot by Conrad Hall, who died in 2003. Hall won an Oscar for
Best Cinematography, his third, the other two being for Mendes’s “American
Beauty” (1999) and “Butch Cassidy” (1969).
Unsurprisingly, the best parts of the movie are Newman’s
performance and Hall’s stunning images. Hanks is pretty good, too.
I was fortunate to have attended a press conference with Newman
in Chicago when he was promoting the film. As might be evident, he is ironic,
mischievous, anarchic, with a definite aura of saintliness.
PN: [Looking incredulously at the tape recorders assembled before
him] It looks like somebody’s ready to declare a war. [laughter]. My God.
Q: is this project your swan song?
PN: No, it’s probably closer to a vulture than a swan song. I
keep trying to retire from everything and discover that I retire from
absolutely nothing. I was gonna get out of the racing business, and I’m back in
the racing business and I was gonna let someone else handle this spaghetti
sauce and I’m back with the spaghetti sauce…I just finished the first play that
I’ve done in 35 years [he played the narrator in a Broadway production of “Our
Town”], which is like sticking a rifle in your mouth. So, um, I don’t seem to
be able to retire. Maybe if you get me a different swan.
Q: anything else you’d like to do?
PN: I’d love to do another film with Joanne [Woodward, his wife
of 50 years], and we’re looking at something down the pike [presumably the HBO
TV-movie “Empire Falls” (2005)]. I can’t really discuss
it right now, but there’s still a little vinegar left in the old dog yet.
Q: [Something to the effect of... “Tom Hanks, blah blah blah?”]
PN: Strangely enough you know, Tom and I, the majority of the
work that we did was not with each other. The trouble with these interviews is
that you get asked the same question, and by the end of the day you feel like a
real moron because you have such a limited perspective of things. So the
question that was just asked me, I feel like I’m repeating myself, so should I
try to say something different about Tom, so I don’t sound repetitious, or
should I just give the same answer? He has the quality of not dodging things,
which is as true off-screen as onscreen. and there’s no fancy footwork, there’s
no approaching things sideways and what you’re lookin’ at is what you get. And
that’s refreshing.
Q: Do you approach a role differently to hide Paul Newman the
icon?
PN: No, you say I’m an icon. My grandchild is not thinking I’m an
icon. He’s three years old and he came to the door the other day and said, “I
am OBSESSED by ‘The Yellow Submarine’!” What will he say when he’s six? So the [Newman's
Own] spaghetti sauce is good to think about. Morning, noon and
night. Think about spaghetti sauce. Think about hustling other people to buy
the spaghetti sauce.
Anyway, I don’t think about any of that [icon] stuff. What you’re
able to achieve on the screen has nothing to do with you. the only thing
sometimes I think is you pick up certain mannerisms from characters you play
and they become part of the way you present yourself. the only two things that
ever stuck to me were, unfortunately, from Rocky Graziano [the boxer he played
in “Somebody Up There Likes Me” (1956)]. I never used to spit in the street. I
was with Rocky for about 9 weeks before the picture began filming, and I spit
in the street. It sickens my wife. And I never used to swear. I never used any
kind of foul language. Now it’s not worth being in the same room as me. It’s
funny, of all the attributes that could have stuck to me that those were the
two that stuck the strongest and the longest. But, I really don’t take much of
it seriously, I really don’t.
Q: Nice work with the piano. Is that you playing?
PN: the piano is great fun and we worked very hard at it
actually, cause it's not really about playing the piano, it's about doing
something together.
Q: What will the audience get out of performance?
PN: I don’t know. I just hope it will have the ring of truth
about it somehow.
Q: How do you prepare for the role?
PN: I insist on two weeks of rehearsal, which I give for nothing.
And that has happened in almost every picture I have done since 1954.
Q: why do you insist on it?
PN: You discover a lot of things on your feet, and if you don’t
have any rehearsal that anything that happens on screen is by accident.
Q: How did the loss of your son [Newman’s son Scott died of a
drug overdose in 1978] impact your performance [his character in the film has
a troubled performance with his real son (played by Daniel Craig] and his
surrogate son played by Hanks]?
PN: well that was a very long time ago…I don’t think at all. But
it obviously has impacted me in other ways. In outside work that I do.
Q: I have you noted any changes in your acting acting style over
the years?
PN: well, I certainly wasn’t on the cutting edge of Stanislavsky
or the Actors Studio. I came in late, I had a fairly long and detailed formal
education in the theater at Yale. Almost everything that I learned about being
an actor came from those early years in the Actors Studio. There’s not a performance that I can look at
comfortably until after, oh , the late 70s, without any sense of satisfaction. The
other interesting thing is that the Actors Studio has bled overseas to England
and I suspect they do it better now than we do. I also suspect they have a very
formal training in classics, which our actors don’t have.
Q: What’s it like playing in a gangster movie?
PN: The film unlike other gangster films, is not really about
explosions, it was about family. But not even in the sense of Mafia family, but
it was really about family and vengeance and I can understand that, and not
only understand it, in some cases admire it. That they happened to occur within
the confines of the Irish mafia is what’s different. I just found everything
that happened in that film compelling and promising and it gave me chance to
deviate from the kind of stuff I usually do.
Q: Did you continue to fulfill your reputation as a practical
joker?
PN: Uh, that’s part of my life that thank God, no longer exists.
Actually, Bob Redford and I had a series of confrontations. He
was there first with something, and after he pulled it I said, ‘you made a big
mistake Bob, for two reasons. One, because I’m richer than you are, and two,
because I have more time that you have.’ I pulled one on George Roy Hill and it
frightened him and we had a terrible confrontation and he said, ‘behind every
practical joke there is an element of malice’ and that pulled me up short. So,
I’m trying to regulate to like one or two a year. 
Q: To what do you attribute the longevity of your marriage?
PN: I don’t know what she puts in my food.
Q: What’s your favorite flavor among the [Newman’s Own] salad
dressings?
PN: Italian family dressing.
Q: You don’t consider yourself an icon, but who are the icons and
legends for you?
PN: Brando, Olivier, there’s really too many...I really should
not have mentioned them because by forgetting somebody you’re beating them out
of a category in which they belong. I’d have to go through all my books, and it
would take me five days to figure it out really. And I’m not being sloppy about
it, there are just too many people that I admire. Joanne’s in there somewhere
too — I would’ve been killed if I didn’t say that.
Q: As a celebrity is it part of your responsibility to help
people?
PN: This is not a celebrity issue. This is a political issue, and
the concept that a person who has a lot holds his hand out to someone who has
less, or someone who isn’t hurting holds his hand out to someone who is, is
simply a human trait that has nothing to do with celebrity. I am confounded at the stinginess of some
institutions and some people. Bewildered by it. You can only put away so much
stuff in your closet. In 1987, what the average CEO earned against someone who
is working in his factory was 70 times. It’s now 410 times. If you eliminate
the middle class, which we are slowly doing, incidentally, Aristotle said the
greatest government is the government that has the least amount of people on
each end. I don’t think there’s anything exceptional or noble in being a
philanthropist. It’s the other attitude that confuses me.
Q: What made you go back to stage work?
PN: Joanne is the artistic director of Westport country
playhouse. She was putting on “The
Trojan Wars.” No, “The Trojan Women”…thank
you! He got it late, but he got it!
Q: What did your father do and what was your relationship with
him like?
PN: My father was a partner in the sporting business store.
probably the best sporting goods store west of the Appalachians.
he was the oldest seller of radio in the us. during the depression, 85% of the
sporting good businesses went out of business. In the middle of the Depression,
he came to Chicago incidentally, and got
$100,000 worth of goods from Spaulding, and $100,000 worth of goods from Wilson on consignment.
The reason he got $200,000 worth of goods was because both of those companies
knew that if he sold a baseball glove for $4.25 that there would be a check in
the mail for $2.18, which they were entitled to. I learned a lot from that. He
survived because his reputation was impeccable.
Q: what do you love most about your career as an actor? and
dislike?
PN: I’m in one of those positions where I have too many on both
ends of the spectrum...I don’t know. I suppose the best actors are children.
So, to that extent that you can maintain that childlike part of your
personality is probably the best part. The worst part? This. (laughs)
Q: What’s it like being here in Chicago?
PN: We shot “Color of Money” here, and Joanne shot a wonderful 16
mm film here. I’ll never forget, we were shooting “Color of Money,” and we were
staying in a hotel and the Chicago bears had just won the Superbowl and I had
to get up at 5 in the morning, and the cars were streaming down the streets
with their horns blaring and I couldn’t sleep and I looked out the window, and
15 floors beneath me the streets were still slippery from the snowfall, and
there, splayed out on the hood of a car, up against the windshield was this
football enthusiast, and the car was going about 50 miles an hour, and I’ve
always wondered whether that guy survived. Listen, 25 years ago, if you’d asked
me what the 5 greatest cities in the us were, I probably would’ve said New
York, New Orleans, San Francisco, and now I’d say Seattle, Chicago, Boston, and
New York. So, Chicago’s
a wonderful city to be in and it’s a great time for the people who live here.
Its vibrant, its got art and culture, a couple really feisty left wing
newspapers.
Q: What does it take to get you to do a movie since you’re so
picky about roles?
PN: I haven’t the slightest idea. and it changes from year to
year too.
Q: Why this movie?
PN: Well, I thought it was a pretty showy piece of work. and I
also knew that the movie was going to be wonderful . I haven’t seen it, but I
would bet my bottom dollar that the movie itself is wonderful.
