Insomnia

2002
Director: Christopher Nolan
Writer: Hillary Seitz

Following the sad news of Robin William’s death not long ago, there were a whole host of tributes on TV, and many of his films were shown. It had been a few years since I’d seen any – they were mostly films I watched whilst growing up like Hook, Jumanji and Mrs. Doubtfire. When I saw that Insomnia was on, I thought it’d be a great chance to see a Robin Williams film that was new to me, as well as getting to see one of the last Christopher Nolan films I’ve haven’t watched yet.

It stars Al Pacino as Will Dormer, an LA cop who is flown to a small fishing town in Alaska, along with his partner Hap Eckhart (Martin Donovan), to help with the investigation into the murder of a 17 year old girl. Relations are strained between the two men – Dormer is under suspicion of tampering with evidence in a previous case, and Internal Affairs have asked Eckhart to testify against him in return for immunity. Not long after, while pursuing a suspect, Dormer accidentally shoots and kills Eckhart, but, knowing his explanation wont be believed, disposes of the evidence and blames it on the suspect. This move brings Dormer into contact with the girl’s killer, as they both share their secrets. Meanwhile, plucky young investigator Ellie Burr is called upon to determine how Eckhart died.

For his second feature, Nolan played it pretty much safe. This is his only film in which he doesn’t have a writing credit. Indeed, whilst this is a genuinely sturdy and watchable thriller, it’s a very generic one, filled with many features borrowed from other more successful films. The acting all round is great though. Pacino plays the older and driven cop, not exactly a great leap for him, but he’s very engaging nonetheless, and it’s fascinating seeing him play someone who looks so much older, who looks tired and stressed (and is it just me but does he look a bit like an older Christian Bale here?). Far more exciting is Robin Williams, who as far as I have seen anyway, is in one of the few roles where he plays it totally straight. It was a bit strange at first seeing him like this, but just a few minutes later and I was absorbed by the intensity of his performance. 

The film is less about who the killer is or what happened, but more about the Hannibal Lecter-Clarice Starling style relationship between the cop and the killer. Again, this can hardly be called original, although the way it builds and how their quid pro quo relations fit into the plot are the most satisfying aspect of the film. The biggest quirk of this film, it’s high concept if you prefer, is the fact that it takes place entirely in daylight. This town is in the Arctic Circle, and so during summer experiences perpetual sunlight. This does make a nice change from the usual dark screens and black shadows of these types of films, and is an interesting metaphor for Dormer’s sense of guilt over the shooting of his partner, causing his insomnia.

Whilst the editing does do a nice job of showing how this lack of sleep affects Dormer’s perception of reality in the later parts of the film, it is the editing which I have a problem with in other parts of the film. Maybe I was watching too closely at the expense of other things, but I couldn’t help finding some scenes were over-edited. Even relatively simple scenes such as the arrival of the floatplane, or conversations in the office seem to busy – too many unnecessary cuts. I wasn’t sure if this was intended to create a sense of dynamism or urgency, but I couldn’t help finding it distracting. Shots held for slightly longer could well have been just as effective, especially during dialogue. I also wish they would have made more of the setting. The icy rural surroundings could have been a great feature in creating a sense of tension or danger. There are some nice shots of the vast glaciers and the empty streets in what seems like daytime, helped by Wally Pfister’s as usual fine cinematography. A chase across floating logs is one of the most exciting scenes. But apart from that, the nature of a lot of the script meant it could have been set in any city, and I feel it would have been more rewarding to have made a bigger feature of the distinct setting.

But these are all just minor faults I’m personally finding with the film. I can never say this is a bad film; it’s far from that! I enjoyed it while I watched it. But looking back in hindsight, I can’t help seeing it as the work of a director in progress, one who is still finding his voice as it were. This is a good solid thriller, but one which doesn’t leave much of an imprint.

“It’s a strange world” – Delving into the dreams of David Lynch

Finally, my first original blog post! In a long time, admittedly. And I’m not making things easy for myself by deciding to attempt to decypher the films of David Lynch. This has all come about because part of my summer viewing, trying to fill the post-uni void, has been the two series of Twin Peaks (1990-1991). I’ve been wanting to watch it for a while but simply kept forgetting about it, especially when I have so many other shows on the go. But I’ve finally started, and am currently making my way through season two, and I’m so glad. It’s really something special!

For a show that’s over 20 years old, it still feels remarkably fresh. Daring even, with many of the show’s plot twists, stylistic flourishes, strong directing, bold (and quite large) cast of characters, and surrealist elements coming across as pretty radical even now. Which makes it all the more remarkable considering this preceded the rise of the supposed third golden age of quality television, usually signalled as beginning with The Sopranos (1999-2007). Twin Peaks has a distinctly cinematic feel to it which I can’t help feeling has been a huge influence on later shows (someone please tell me if there are other more important examples!), such as its careful and expressive use of lighting and framing, and the importance of visions and dream sequences.

The show is centred around the investigation into the murder of Laura Palmer, a popular schoolgirl and homecoming queen from the small rural town of Twin Peaks in Washington state, near the Canadian border. Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) of the FBI is brought in to investiagate. However, the murder mystery actually only makes up a small part of the show, which is more concerned with the lives and stories of the eccentric townspeople including Laura’s boyfriend Bobby (Dana Ashbrook), her secret lover James (James Marshall), her best friend Donna (Lara Flynn Boyle), her grieving parents (Ray Wise and Grace Zabriskie) as well as the insidious goings-on of wealthy businessman Ben Horne (Richard Beymer) and his sultry daughter Audrey (Sherilyn Fenn). For me, Agent Cooper is fast becoming one of my favourite characters ever – both immensely practical and infectiously positive, he’s a joy to watch.

What I admire most about this show, and indeed all of Lynch’s work, is its sense of tone. The show has the cold seriousness of a mystery investigation, but also contains many melodramatic elements of a soap opera when focused on the other characters. Many scenes even have a weird sense of humour to them which can be genuinely and unexpectedly funny. The first season even parodies its soapy roots, by having many plot elements run parallel to those of an in-show daytime soap called ‘Invitation to Love’. Finally, there is a supernatural undercurrent which blurs and layers the show, giving it added depth and making it more mystifying and unique. What I really respect is how even within scenes, this tone can veer from deeply creepy and unnerving, to sublimely ridiculous without it feeling forced or off. This is partly helped by Angelo Badalamenti’s near-omnipresent soundtrack, which can be both jazzy and atmospheric. A lot of it comes down to the consistency of the show’s writing and directing though.

This all got me thinking about David Lynch, and how, from the few films I’ve seen so far, his work seems so distinctly… well, Lynchian. He has the most impressive control of atmosphere, and puts a real importance on sound design and iconography. So I decided to go on a bit of a mini-Lynch marathon and see how some of his films compare to Twin Peaks, which I’ve found so inspiring.

Wild at Heart (1990)

“You got me hotter than Georgia asphalt”

I think this was quite a weird film to start with, because Wild at Heart seems fairly different to the films I’d seen before. Much of the darkness and disturbing dream logic isn’t present. Instead this is a pulpy thriller, one with a broad and pretty crass sense of humour which you aren’t supposed to take too seriously. I really wanted to like this film, and the first half hour or so seemed promising. A young lovers on the run tale, it follows the road trip of Sailor (Nicolas Cage) and Lula (Laura Dern). Sailor had been imprisoned and separated from Lula for killing a man who had attacked him with a knife, but he’s done his time and now they escape together, much to the chagrin of Lula’s deranged mother Marietta (Diane Ladd). Maddened by jealousy and the thought of her daughter with a criminal, she sends both a private detective and a hitman after them.

I’m not sure whether this differing tone is perhaps due to this being the only one of Lynch’s films I’ve seen which is an adaptation, being based on a pulp novel by Barry Gifford (I haven’t seen Dune (1984) yet). The problems I found with this film is firstly that I began to find it boring towards the middle, as the story became more self-indulgent and plodding. A lot of the plot involves various flashbacks as characters describe events or reminisce, which I found messy storytelling. Indeed, I couldn’t help feeling Lynch in this case was far too interested in iconography and deranged excess, that it comes at the expense of proper context and characters.

I do really like Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern in this; they give it their all despite the limited development of their characters, like his Elvis-style drawl and awesome snakeskin jacket (“a symbol of my individuality, and my belief in personal freedom”), to her high-school wild charm. An early scene where Sailor wins a fight in a club, then leads the band in a rendition of an Elvis Presley track is pretty cool. A lot of the dialogue is snappy and quotable. But many of the characters are pushed to the point of cartoonishness, from Marietta’s screaming and smearing lipstick all over her face, to Willem Dafoe’s slimy bad-toothed gangster. A scene where he sexually threatens Lula leaves a nasty taste in the mouth, coming across like the film is almost sneering at Lula’s abuse. Yet even the two leads are barely drawn more than pop culture cliches. It all begins to undermine the seriousness of the storyline. On top of that, the film’s frequent references to The Wizard of Oz as an attempt to comment on the plot begin to feel heavy-handed after a few mentions. Some of Lynch’s surreal twists are here, but they feel out of place with the rest of the film which ends up a mess for me.

Blue Velvet (1986)

“I don’t know if you’re a detective or a pervert…”

It was a few years since I’d seen this, and what surprised me on both viewings is how straightforward I found Blue Velvet. Not to say that it’s simple, it’s still a weird and psychologically complex film about destructive sexuality and voyeurism. But more that the storyline is surprisingly grounded and driven – it has a definitive beginning, middle and end. College student Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle Maclachlan) returns home to the quaint suburbs of Lumberton to visit his father who has been hospitalised. One day when walking through a field, Jeffrey finds a severed ear, which he takes to the police. Through this, he begins a friendship with a detective’s daughter Sandy (Laura Dern), and through her learns how the ear may be linked to investigations into a nightclub singer called Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini). His curiosity piqued, Jeffrey begins investigating Dorothy himself, which takes him into a seedy world of crime.

What’s so great about Blue Velvet, similar to Twin Peaks, is its hybridity of tone and genre. Blue Velvet plays out like a neo-noir detective story, but also contains elements of horror, erotic thrillers and teen films. It’s this combination of teen drama, and the innate curiosity and innocence of its protagonists, as contrasted to the darker elements of the story, which I find so interesting. As many have pointed out, this film is about the sinister underbelly of everyday America, the disturbing events hidden beneath the ordinary surface, often symbolised through images of insects such as in the iconic opening scene. This is a major theme in Twin Peaks too, and watching this back, I can see how this theme had such a big influence on later films like Donnie Darko (2001) and Brick (2005). For me, this film also has some of Lynch’s most well-developed and interesting characters. From Jeffrey and Sandy’s natural awkward teen dialogue and 1950s throwback style, but especially with Dorothy’s vulnerable and tortured sexuality and Dennis Hopper’s foul-mouthed character Frank Booth, with his iconic gas mask and disturbing recession into violent sexuality which is almost childlike.

I can’t recommend Blue Velvet highly enough, it really is terrific. Dealing with fairly disturbing subject matters, it nonetheless still has a human soul beneath all the extreme events, and this comes down to the strength of the script and characters. It’s easy to see how this is Lynch’s most personal film, from the small-town American setting to the deliberate evocation of 1950s pop culture and music. And that really shows through with the overall essence of the film.

Lost Highway (1997)

“Dick Laurent is dead”

These are the words that start the bizarre and hyperstylised madness of Lost Highway. I’m not going to admit to fully understanding this film, not all of it made sense to me. I doubt it’s even meant to make sense or have broader meaning, or it simply probably does only in Lynch’s head. Fred Madison (Bill Paxton), a nightclub saxophonist, lives with his wife Renee (Patricia Arquette) in their angular minimalist house in Los Angeles. They begin to receive packages containing videotapes of their home being filmed. These tapes become increasingly intrusive, going on to filming the inside and even the couple as they sleep. The police can’t help. Fred later meets a mysterious man at a party, who informs him that they’ve met before. And after this, well, it’s hard to explain. Not without giving away too much. However, my overall reading of the film seems to be that Fred, through a combination of jealousy and grief, tries to transform himself, to mask the terrible things he’s done even from himself.

Lost Highway saw the revisiting of some of Lynch’s most prominent themes. The darker, seedier side of American life is here foregrounded however by the LA underbelly setting. It’s still undeniably creepy, from the home invasion-horror vibes at the start, to Robert Blake’s chilling pale faced man. The hybridity of genres continues, borrowing from film noir to psychological horror. But I feel it lacks some of the subtlety of Lynch’s best work. Full of brash visuals, an overabundance of sex (Patricia Arquette seems to spend a great deal of the film naked and/or screwing), bursts of pounding Rammstein songs – this attempt to depict a decent into madness tends to work best in the quieter moments, those that build a sense of dread. Overall though much onscreen seems designed primarily to shock.

Looking back now, it can be seen that a lot of Lost Highway seems to build towards the completeness of Mulholland Drive. Both films share similar themes: storylines in roughly two parts, characters/actors playing dual roles, violently jealous lovers, LA settings, mystery men secretly pulling the strings.  As a result, this can’t help Lost Highway seeming like the lesser film. There’s much to admire, especially in the more enigmatic and atmospheric moments. But the patient pacing, sudden shifts in content and focus on such unlikeable and often impenetrable characters made this hard for me to like.

Mulholland Drive (2001)

“Hey pretty girl, time to wake up.”

Mulholland Drive has certainly developed a formidable reputation for itself. One of the most critically adored films of the 21st century, but also one of the more divisive and challenging films. Watching this again now, I certainly agree. This film is so incredibly rich – in ideas, in depth, and in quality of production.

Like Lost Highway, I’m not going to admit to fully understanding this film. Many questions are left ambiguously answered, and lot of theories abound online attempting to answer them: what is it about? which parts, if any, are dreams? who is dreaming? (This theory I stumbled on is one of my favourites, and definitely one of the more entertaining ones). I’m not going to attempt to explain what I think it’s about, I don’t think that’s the point of this film. And frankly that sort of writing and analysis deserves a post to itself. Hopefully I can attempt one in the future, definitely after another viewing.

Featuring a collection of seemingly disparate vignettes, the story focuses on Betty (Naomi Watts), a naive and eager small-town girl who arrives in Los Angeles in the hope of having a career as an actress. As she moves into her aunt’s apartment, she finds a woman (Laura Harring) hiding there, scared and lost after losing her memory in a car accident. The woman takes on the name Rita after seeing a poster for Gilda starring Rita Hayworth. Whilst preparing for Betty’s first audition, the two women investigate Rita’s past. Meanwhile, a Hollywood director (Justin Theroux) finds his latest project being sabotaged by gangsters, demanding he give his lead role to an unknown actress called Diane Selywn.

Watching this again, I enjoyed and appreciated it a lot more. I think the first time I was so caught up in trying to understand it all that I got lost. This time, like with Lynch’s other films, I got caught up in the atmosphere, the mood of it. Many parts of this film are disturbing in ways I can’t really put my finger on. Shamelessly calling back to my degree, this brings to mind Susan Sontag’s belief that the overinterpretation of artworks reduces the affective power of the work by attempting to shoebox it in to pre-existing interpetative ideas and theories. She calls for an increased focus on form over content, to regard more how a film affects us on an emotional and sensorial level, rather than attempting to force supposedly hidden meanings upon it. Lynch’s films I feel are appreciated best when viewed in this way. They are studies in mood, time and place. Whilst the complex story is certainly impressive, I personally didn’t feel the need to fully break it apart. The way Mulholland Drive made me feel told me everything I needed to know about what it wanted to convey.

The quality of this film really comes to the strength of the directing, which expertly conveys the feelings of the characters at different points of the film, which are often radically contrasting. The very careful focus on often small details – the distorted features of a gangster behind a glass screen, the relay of phone calls between criminals, the appearances of lamps and keys at vital scenes – all creates a sense of both dread and curious anticipation. Similarly, by having the main characters both naive and, in Rita’s case characterless, they become blank slates for the audience. They discover clues as we do, and we can see their development as the malevolent forces within the diegesis begin to affect them. The very self-conscious referencing of film noir cliches, but tinged with an almost supernatural twist, turns this into a scathing critique of the Hollywood system, one where creative freedom is restricted and skewed.

Finally, I have to mention Angelo Badalamenti’s score, which is simultaneously both his darkest but also his most romantic. It gives real presence and depth, and displays the contrasting feelings within the film, as well as genuine affections between characters.

I decided to focus on the films which I felt were more obviously within the same vain as each other. I’ve seen Eraserhead, but don’t really fancy watching that again! I’ll hopefully watch The Elephant Man, The Straight Story and Inland Empire soon when I find the time.

Holy Motors

2012
Director/Writer: Leos Carax

Compared to previous years, 2012 personally hasn’t been a standout year for new films for me. There have been some entertaining rides along the way: Moonrise Kingdom was a charming love letter to young romance, The Dark Knight Rises was a sprawling, busy, flawed but ultimately epic film about the breakdown of socio-ethical values and the superhero myth while Skyfall simply re-affirmed my love of James Bond films. But there wasn’t much that that truly inspired or enthralled me to any great extent. There was Amour, Michael Haneke’s soul-crushing study of an elderly man’s devotion to his wife whose mind is slowly dying but for me the real standout this year was Holy Motors.

Despite not winning any prizes at the Cannes Film Festival this year, Holy Motors was the film which seemed to generate the greatest amount of buzz and fervour out of anything playing on all of the websites, blogs and reviews I was finding. I didn’t know anything about the director Leos Carax (this is his first film for 13 years) or any of the major actors in it. All I knew were some bizarre details about the plot which didn’t seem to make much sense and some glowing reviews praising its originality; it was intriguing. The trailer didn’t offer much more- just a series of distinct and memorable clips and images but it was enough for me. I couldn’t wait to see it.

So what is it about then? We follow a day in the life of the mysterious figure Monsieur Oscar (Denis Lavant), during his bizarre odyssey across Paris in the back of a white stretched limo driven by his dutiful chauffer Céline (Édith Scob). His day involves him engaging in a series of ‘appointments’, for each of which he has to perform a new character in public complete with new costumes, make-up and personality. He starts the day as a middle aged banker leaving his art deco home replete with luxury cars and armed security. Throughout the film he plays an elderly crippled woman begging for change, an ordinary man picking up his daughter from a party, an assassin assigned to kill his doppelganger and an actor performing stunts for motion capture animation on a soundstage, amongst several other roles. The reason why he does this is never made entirely clear and the only thing linking them is Monsieur Oscar himself.

To put it bluntly, this film is insane. A very funny series of surrealist stories, Holy Motors is not constructed like or driven by any narrative conventions but instead takes the fundamentals of cinematic form and genre and subverts them, inviting the audience into this strange dreamscape not through narrative engagement but through bold imagery, warped humour and a strong awareness of itself. It’s a massively self-conscious film, filled with loving homages to previous French cinema and playfully running wild with ideas that don’t make much sense together and encourage the viewer to be aware that they are watching a film. Some might get frustrated by its clear lack of structure or purpose but for me the real joy of this film was never being able to guess what was about to happen next. Surrealism is so hard to do but this makes it look easy, making something that can at once be crudely funny, deliciously disturbing or knowingly tedious and existential.

Filled with unique and unforgettable setpieces, Holy Motors is frenetic, vivid and schizophrenic. It is a film about cinema- beginning with a prologue in which the director Carax himself wakes from a dream in a hotel room and breaks through a wall with a giant key embedded in his hand, he emerges at the back of a packed cinema filled with a sleeping crowd. He’s transfixed by this new world, one formed by the artistic visions of the subconscious where anything is possible. Throughout the film, it asserts itself as a cinematic vision. Everyone in it is aware that they are performing for someone watching- indeed it is their professions. Each character M. Oscar plays is within its own cinematic realm- one time it is a violent thriller, another a languid melodrama about death filled with highly emotional performances and overblown cliché dialogue; it even turns into a musical as bizarrely Kylie Minogue turns up and sings a song about loss, heartbreak and change. Clips from early cinema of dancers and male bodies on display are spliced throughout. There’s even an intermission. The best bit is M. Oscar’s third appointment, a masterful sequence; he plays a revolting sewer dweller that emerges in the Père Lachaise cemetery to the theme from Godzilla, where he discovers a photoshoot by a deranged photographer and an American model whom he kidnaps and takes to his underground lair. So ludicrously funny, it’s also a scathing satire of contemporary France (sewers filled with illegal immigrants, a woman being disguised in a burka) and of self-obsessed celebrity culture.

Holy Motors is not like anything else I’ve ever seen recently. It’s refreshing to see something which doesn’t try to force overwrought thematic subtext down your throat. Instead you’re invited to simply enjoy the ride and marvel in the spectacle of a film that doesn’t take itself at all seriously. Certainly some viewers might dislike its unconventionality and puzzling content which is full of questions and secrets, but it’s just so much fun that these don’t matter. They’re not what this is about anyway; this is a hallucinogenic experiment of the capabilities of cinema, so wonderfully formed and put together.

*Spoilers* But seriously, what is it about? It can definitely be seen as treatise on the art of acting and the nature of performance. In his TARDIS-like limo seemingly bigger on the inside and filled with boxes of props, costumes and make-up, we see the upmost care M. Oscar puts into each of his performances, the vast amount of time he spends carefully preparing for each role. The true centrepiece of the film is Lavant’s extraordinary performance, he truly throws himself fully into each character and it’s delightful to watch.

Holy Motors could also be about the performances we ourselves put on everyday- how we mark ourselves in the world through our behaviour, appearance and manner and how this is distinguished from our true selves seen only in private. We catch only brief glimpses of the real Oscar, when he is alone in the limo with Céline- he’s gradually downtrodden and tired as the day continues. One wonders if he’s grown increasingly weary of having to play so many such exacting roles while his real self grows older and is increasingly exerted. We catch a brief snippet of his strain as he takes a sneaky cigarette before entering the house of his final performance of the day, sighing, knowing he has to do it all over again tomorrow. The only glimpses of the real world he ever gets during the day is by watching the Parisian streets glide past on a television monitor in his limo. He spends his day interacting with families and strangers but everything that occurs, all the emotions he feels, are false; he’s definitely a lonely man consumed by a wider societal need to perform, to entertain and to distract. This is applicable to everyone in the film- Céline at the end of the day puts on a mask, this perhaps being the performance she puts on in her personal life (as well as being a reference to the wonderful French horror film Eyes Without a Face (1960) which Edith Scob also starred in). Eva Mendes’s kidnapped model retains her emotionless public persona required for her work, even during the chaos happening around her in the sewers away from the photoshoot.

One theory I want to propose is how Oscar could be developing melancholia over his growing old and his lack of genuine human relationships. Each of his roles could in some way reflect his own phobias and insecurities. He has no genuine family, yet the film is filled with daughters or daughter-figures (the little girl saying goodbye at the start, the self-hating daughter leaving the party, the devoted niece by her dying uncle’s bedside, the chimpanzees), perhaps stating his own desire for a child or something to give him purpose. The sewer monster’s final descent into almost childlike dependency yet one tinged with a creepy sexual undercurrent belays his desperate need for interaction. The assassin’s murder of himself (which is then repeated vice versa) could be a sense of self-loathing. The crippled woman, alone and begging, or at the other end of the scale, the banker attacked in the street, could be his future- isolated and misunderstood by the rest of the world that demands homogeneity.

It seems the world is changing around Oscar- he describes how he started this work and his love of it for “the beauty of the act”, yet he laments the loss of the beholder to appreciate this beauty. This could be a protest at the state of modern technology in the world- he decries how he unable to see the cameras anymore, perhaps because they are too small, and therefore he can no longer be aware of the audience watching him. Further, we can see the acts he performs on the soundstage with the contortionist for the motion capture- here the camera lingers on the fluidity and form of their bodies and ultimately juxtaposes this with the final product their movements are helping to create: a crude animation about copulating dragon monsters. It’s not worthy of their efforts and it masks the real artists at work- the dedicated actors. Finally there is the wickedly silly scene at the very end of the film, where fears of being replaced and made inadequate by new machines are discussed by the limos, complaints about how people no longer want to see anything beyond what they use and want.

One major question is who is Oscar really performing for? It seems he’s in the business of creating filmic fiction for someone- it’s implied he’s be doing this for some time and we meet several other actors also engaged in acting for unseen audiences. Are the crowds unseen, and if so how are they watching? Oscar says he cannot see the cameras anymore, so does that mean they are actually there? Is anyone actually watching, or is this business (that of cinema itself and the art of performance) slowly dying, to be replaced cheap imitations and lazy commercialism? Or is the camera simply Carax’s, and the audience we ourselves watching right now? Few films have taken such measures as to make the viewer alert to the fact that we are watching something artificial and staged, created for artistic and entertainment purposes. Do we simply take for granted the efforts that go into creating cinematic art, and are we ignoring the truly deserving artworks in favour of those that pride novelty, technological gimmickry and convention over creative innovation? Oscar’s performance in the mo-cap studio is restricted and dictated by a demanding unseen voice, telling him exactly what to do; this then compared to his gloriously unhinged performance as the sewer monster.

Frankly, I could be way off the mark with all of these interpretations- Holy Motors is so dense in content which is so hypnagogic that it is open to any number of readings. People could easily hate this film, simply sit back and enjoy what’s happening or try hard to engage with its deranged content, but either way they can never say that they’ve ever seen anything like this before. Its refusal to follow the rules or frankly even simply make perfect sense is inspiring to watch and consider and that’s why for me Holy Motors is the best film of 2012.

Originally posted on my previous blog on 29th December 2012.

The Modern Handbook for Girls

This blog really is ending up being a part-time side project for me, and I’ll try not to neglect it so much in the future. I’m just feeling a bit more inspired right now with my realisation that one aspect I’ve pretty much ignored this whole time is television. I don’t know why; I watch a lot of TV, and much of it is just as good if not better than a lot of film I’ve watched.

Okay so most of my viewing consists of American shows, and primarily HBO shows for that matter, which I’m a complete sucker for. Studying television at uni this year has awakened me to the fact that I’m essentially the perfect ‘quality’ TV viewer: white, from a middle-class background and educated- with a greater awareness of wider cultural practices. I’m a slave to HBO’s reputation and marketing strategies to the point now that I’ll watch near enough anything that’s made by the network, regardless of content. And to be honest I don’t really care that this happens- so many HBO shows I’ve seen have just been so bloody good and totally worth the necessary added engagement and concentration these shows require and which I actually relish.

My latest foray into the HBO canon has been Girls, Lena Dunham’s trendy and critically-divisive personal project about four twentysomething women living in New York and their various friendships, love lives and work struggles. The world they live in is undeniably privileged, despite their long-running monetary woes, but general lives are far more relatable and truthful than that of obvious comparison piece Sex and the City.

This is what attracts me to this show the most: it’s honesty and realism. It’s refreshing to see something where the characters are openly depicted as flawed and at times even blatantly unlikable- from Hannah’s (Lena Dunham) constant erring between self-depreciation and obnoxious self-satisfaction, Marnie’s (Allison Williams) boredom with loving boyfriend Charlie, Jessa’s (Jemima Kirke) recklessness and promiscuity and Shoshanna’s (Zosia Mamet) crippling naïveté. It was this quality which maintained my love of perhaps my all-time favourite show Six Feet Under, which had some of the most layered and well-drawn characters I’ve seen in anything. Their relationships are anything but rosy, with Hannah’s on-off boyfriend Adam (Adam Driver) proving a complex and debatable figure in terms of the extent to which their relationship is indeed loving or exploitative on either of their parts. Friendships too are facile, open to falling apart over the most mundane and petty of things.

This honesty extends too to facets of their everyday lives: the small niggles of first-world problems and the woes of being young, from having parents refuse to pay for your maintenance, to having an overbearing pervy boss, to accidentally smoking crack. On top of that is the unflinching depiction of the girls’ sexuality and I guess ‘female’ problems(?) which at first was almost a source of exoticism for me as a male viewer but then became a frank depiction of human existence which I value in anything I watch. The sex scenes are refreshingly imperfect, from the awkward experiments with anal sex, messy fumblings with condoms and possible STDs. We see their everyday lives, from them simply getting dressed in their bedrooms to having serious discussions in the bathroom.

Some of the criticism levelled at the show is that it depicts a closeted world with only white middle-class characters. I hardly think this was a deliberate intention on Dunham’s part; instead, this being a reflection of her own life, it presents a fairly accurate picture of New York which unfortunately like most of America and the rest of the world, remains segregated, exclusive to only some. It’s unsurprising that young women in their twenties would want to hang out with other young women in their twenties.  Girls is a highly subjective view of New York and the people in it (note the near absence of skyline views of the city)- instead this could prompt questions about the position of modern women. I’m not an expert, but the show could be seen to align with postfeminist notions of individual agency and a detatched awareness of self-identity, especially with Hannah. Here women can be accepting of consumer culture and single lifestyles. However, Girls is questionably a product of pre-second wave feminist notions, such as their continuous desires for heterosexual romance and frequent reference to how their appearance is perceived to others.

So if Girls does have a target audience, does it necessarily have to be female? Hardly, at least I prove it doesn’t have to be- I really enjoyed it, devouring the first series in two days. Producer Judd Apatow said the show was intended to allow men an insight into the world of realistic women. Perhaps I’m more accustomed to the show due to my being in my (very) early twenties, making the features of the characters more relatable for me than a middle-aged viewer. The show comes across as pretty hipsterish with its distinctive apartments and costumes, as well as an indie soundtrack which actually happens to feature a lot of bands I listen to. Honestly, I’m still not totally sure what a hipster is, I don’t know whether I’d be seen as a hipster. To me ‘hipster’ seems to have become a term for any sort of postmodern counter-culture typically associated with young people, a term now linked disdainfully with smugness and irony. Perhaps this association has been the cause of some the criticism levelled at Girls?

Either way, I’m putting off watching the second series until my exams are done and I can’t wait to watch series two. The show makes a satisfying change to my usual programmes, one which is insightful, well-written and surprisingly funny. You don’t have to be a girl to watch Girls, in much the same way you don’t have to be a CIA agent to watch Homeland. Relatable and engaging characters are what make a good show, and this has plenty. The title ‘Girls’, rather than, say, ‘Women’ implies the leads are still in a state of development. Indeed they all still have a lot of growing up to do, and I’m looking forward to seeing how that goes ahead for them.

This was originally posted on my previous blog on 20th May 2013, and refers only to the first season of Girls.

Dirty Harry

1971
Director: Don Siegel
Writers: Harry Julian Fink, R.M. Fink, Dean Reisner

With far too much time on my hands during holidays, they’re always a good time to catch up with films I haven’t seen for a long time. After a year supposedly studying film academically, I suppose I wanted to see whether my opinions on any of my favourite films would be any different. To be honest, I doubt they ever would, not unless I could now see some glaring flaw in any of them I wasn’t aware of before, but I have no idea what they could possibly be. I still don’t watch them in the same way as the films we study at uni- I’m not going out of my way to note the mise-en-scene or studying the editing techniques; to me they’re still simply films I love to watch. Although I’ve found that on some base level, I do keep an eye open for these things when I watch films for fun (especially if they’re particularly distinct), just not in as much detail as during lectures.

It’s from this slightly confused standpoint that I decided to watch a film I’ve always had a lot of love for: Dirty Harry. Along with the likes of A Clockwork Orange, Pulp Fiction, Being John Malkovich and several others, this is one of the few films that are actually quite personal to me in that they were amongst the ones I watched when I was around 13/14 and being more adventurous in my viewing. These were some of the films that showed me how diverse and captivating cinema could be and ignited my passion for film which remains today. Dirty Harry also has the honour of being my first introduction to the living legend that is Clint Eastwood, a man whose sheer screen presence and effortless cool is still a pleasure to watch. Dirty Harry is still my favourite Clint film and his most memorable role, revisited across four sequels of unfortunately widely varying quality.

It had been a few years since I last watched this and so I wanted to see whether my high regard of it was still deserved or whether I was simply looking at it through rose tinted glasses. It is very different to a lot of my other top films in terms of factors like its content, scale, the period it was made in and its visuals. Of course I’d be worried if all my favourite films were especially similar but I did wonder what it was about this film that kept leading me to look on it so positively.

The time: 1971. The place: San Francisco. The city is being held hostage by a sadistic serial sniper known only as Scorpio. He has already murdered a young woman by shooting her from a rooftop and now demands $100, 000 or else he will kill another person each day. With the police on high alert, Inspector Harry Callaghan is assigned to the case. His no-nonsense style, lack of respect for his superiors and unorthodox methods have helped form the basis of many onscreen maverick cop imitations ever since. They’ve also developed his infamous reputation in the police department- many different theories are suggested as to why he’s called ‘Dirty’ Harry, from the fact that he’s the one most willing to do all the dirty jobs to the point that he is simply a bit of a perv (as evidenced several times during the film). What starts as a routine investigation soon escalates into an intense battle between Callaghan and Scorpio, with the two men resorting to increasingly offhand tricks to win their own personal wars.

I think that’s where this film’s greatest strength lies: in its simplicity. It’s less a police thriller and more a study into two dark and violent men. Rewatching it this time made me realise how similar they both are; it just happens one is on the side of the law and one isn’t. Both are driven solely by single forces- Scorpio with his sadistic love of killing and Callaghan with his need to enforce the law, although as the film progresses his methods become increasingly unethical as his desire to overpower Scorpio overtakes. Very little is revealed about the lives of either man other than the events onscreen. Scorpio’s name or history is never discovered, his life seems to consist of nothing more than his insatiable urge to cause pain. A scene of him robing a liquor store shows he has no interest in money or gaining possessions; he’s simply there to retrieve a new weapon to restart his campaign, although he does slip a bottle of whisky on the way out. He’s always presented in a dehumanised manner- our first glimpse of him at the very start is simply that of the barrel of his rifle. We don’t see his face until about 10 minutes later and don’t hear his flat voice later still; even then it’s only on the other end of a telephone line where we can’t see him. The music distorts and becomes far more sinister in his presence.

Similarly, Callaghan is shown as being motivated almost entirely by his work. There is frequent reference to the fact that he doesn’t have a wife and the only time we do see him off-work, he’s using his time to follow Scorpio. We learn little more about him, other than brief glimpses into his voyeuristic tendencies and his general dislike for other people, especially those in power he sees as ineffective (although he does show increasing respect for his new partner Chico Gonzalez after he shows his capabilities in the field). Many critics and reviewers have pointed out the conservative right-wing tendencies of the character and the film and its series in general. This sort of view never really occurred to me the first times I watched this, as I tend to prefer to remain generally apolitical when I watch films, although now Callaghan’s desire to preserve justice over an need to follow rules or preserve human rights  is quite obvious. The controversy surrounding this film in the early 1970s doesn’t seem at all shocking now, although I can understand why it caused such concern over issues like police brutality and fascist ideals, with scenes such as Callaghan torturing information out of an unhelpful Scorpio or shooting a gang of African-American bank robbers being the most obvious. At times it does seem like a critique of the legal system, one which is slow, ineffectual and which preserves the rights of the criminal over those of the victim, a criticism which still rings around today. The film does definitely seem to side with Callaghan on this issue, most notably when Scorpio, having been captured, is released because the evidence is inadmissible due to it being collected without a warrant. However, Callaghan’s methods are so unusual and so extreme than they can hardly be called realistic; it seems this film is intended more as a study of Callaghan himself and how his determination to stop this criminal drives him to extreme lengths, with any sort of social commentary coming second in priority.

Dirty Harry is definitely intended to be an entertaining piece of action cinema and it’s in that sense that it works so well. The pacing is very brisk and precise; no time is wasted on showing anything which isn’t entirely relevant. Instead we get a series of strong and memorable set-pieces, the telephone chase around town and the school bus hijacking especially. Don Siegel directs this very well with a strong steady eye for detail- the violence in this film is convincingly messy and unchoreographed-looking yet retains a sense of style and clarity that makes it incredibly watchable and tense. There’s also an intelligent use of time and place; San Francisco is treated almost like a character in itself with numerous long shots of skylines tied with intimate filming right on the streets and alleys to give it a distinct feel. Several landmarks are used inventively in the action sequences; what stood out for me was the ironic use of religious imagery such as the cross in Mount Davidson Park and the neon ‘Jesus Saves’ sign outside the church, these two locations being home to some of the bloodiest violence in the film. These signs reflect the burgeoning tolerance and general peace of the city being put under threat by this maniac. The city is also distinguished here because of its association with the Zodiac killings that took place here in the late 1960s and that would have been still fresh in the memory of those who watched this when it was released. Those real life crimes were obviously an inspiration for the writers as similarities are drawn such as the sending of threatening letters and the threat of kidnapping a schoolbus full of children. This is referenced directly in David Fincher’s rich drama Zodiac (2007), based on the investigation of the murders, where investigators watching Dirty Harry at the cinema are shown to be visibly uncomfortable with how much overlap there actually is between reality and fiction.

My brother complains that Clint Eastwood always plays the same role no matter what film he’s in. I suppose there is an element of truth in that (definitely in his earlier films) although his demeanour is most definitely his own and for me that’s what makes him so watchable. Here he is cocksure and confident; you can’t imagine him taking any shit off anyone. Harry Callaghan is just such a distinct character, with a swagger and a smart-talking economy with words all to himself. His ironic tone with his superiors and the mayor are a lot of fun- I loved spotting the homage to this in The Naked Gun with Leslie Nielsen’s Frank Drebin repeating Callaghan’s ‘I shoot the bastard’ speech. And of course you can’t forget Andy Robinson’s chilling turn as Scorpio, who on first appearances seems so unlikely- director Don Siegel describes how he has “the face of a choirboy”. But often it’s simply the cold smirk on his face that makes him so horrendously unpleasant, this marring of supposed innocence with such evil. His disintegration from the calm controlled sniper to the maniacally driven monster is creepy; he is definitely one of the most horrible movie villains I can think of.

What’s stood out for me on this repeat viewing is just how unbelievably dark and grim this film is. Although age adds to this, it is definitely a grimy looking film as we’re introduced to some of the most inhospitable parts of San Francisco hidden in the shadows. Lalo Schifrin’s jazzy score does add a touch of class but ultimately this is a supremely gritty film. It’s so cheesy of me to say this but Dirty Harry is very much a dirty film, not necessarily because it is explicit but because it doesn’t hesitate from showing the dark underbelly of urban space, the impersonal machine-like working process of law enforcement and the blackest reaches of human depravity- there are no limits to which either Scorpio or Callaghan will go to which will stop them from overcoming the other. I’m surprised how much of this I missed when I watched it at around age 14. Then it was just a highly watchable thriller, one that has aged surprisingly well. It’s strange how much more disturbed I was by it this time, although I’m glad I was because seeing this in a new way was refreshing and it reaffirmed my respect for this film. I know this has ended up turning more into an essay than a review but I guess I just have a lot to think about with this- I’m glad I still like this film so much, it certainly makes my favourites list much more intriguing.

Originally posted on my previous blog on 28th August 2012 (back when I was in first year!).

 

Brideshead Revisited

2008
Director: Julian Jarrold
Writers: Jeremy Brock, Andrew Davies

I try really hard to make sure that when I watch a film remake or even adaptation I don’t let my views of the original impact how I see the film. Yet I inevitably find that’s pretty much impossible to do- there’s very rarely been a film I’ve considered better than the book it’s based upon. And this problem has been exemplified for me by finally watching the 2008 big-screen version of Brideshead Revisited. Comparisons with the seminal 1981 TV serial are inescapable in pretty much all reviews I’ve read about it. Having both read the Evelyn Waugh novel and watched the serial, really liking it to the point that I chose to write an essay about it for my TV module, using these as comparison points was going to be inevitable.

Unfortunately, this meant that the 2008 version did not fare as well in my eyes. The serial is just so iconic and beautifully put together that any picture I conjure in my mind of Brideshead is of that show. Watching this film then just felt a bit… off. For me, Jeremy Irons is Charles Ryder and Anthony Andrews is Sebastian Flyte. Matthew Goode and Ben Whishaw both do perfectly great jobs in their respective roles; in fact all the performances are excellent. It’s just they couldn’t compete with the original conceptions for me. Even the teddy bear they got for Aloysius felt wrong! It’s sad that so many people’s perception of this film are so much under the influence of the TV serial, but that was just so with-it, perfectly capturing the very mood and feel of the novel.

This tries hard to recreate the sense of melancholy and nostalgia for youthful joys but just can’t match what has been done before. But even without that mighty expectation of matching the serial, this film just can’t truly convey the essence in the same way. Everything is seemingly held at arm’s length and in the end it just ends up at times becoming just a little bit, well, dull. There was no great change in me when seeing the transition from the playful days of Charles and Sebastian’s time together to Charles’s eventual marriage and later life, the mood just didn’t shift like it should. The framing device of Charles’s wartime visit to Brideshead is relatively absent from the film, making the rush of emotions he feels about the place feel less marked and definite. This makes me realise just how much insight Charles’s near omnipresent voiceover in the serial actually granted into the characters and the overall feelings of the time.

Of course the film has slightly different intentions and interests to the serial. Whilst that was more focused on Charles’s nostalgia for the past and about the decline of the aristocracy, the film prefers to explore the more modern sensibilities of the complexities of relationships, religion and sexuality. A lot of time is spent on the subtleties of Charles and Sebastian’s relationship; Sebastian is more definitely presented as homosexual in this but Charles instead is shown less questionably as heterosexual. The film skirts around the nature of their relationship which is implied in the novel as being romantic and possibly sexual; instead it is shown more as a close friendship, with Sebastian presented as infatuated with Charles but he instead seemingly interested in sister Julia (Hayley Atwell) from the start, glossing over the idea the novel proposes that Charles’s attraction to her might be mostly dictated by her similarity to Sebastian and her links with Brideshead, both of which mean so much to him.

This is a shame, for whilst this change does give a nice explanation for the sudden worsening of Sebastian’s alcoholism part-way through, it leaves him as being a more one-dimensional character, defined only by his alcohol addiction and his infatuation for Charles. Charles’s feelings for Sebastian are a lot less ambiguous; however there is refreshingly greater focus on his flaws, namely what he calls his “hunger” for affection and the sense of home and family that Brideshed offers, and the damage that he causes and it causes for him. The sexual tension between him and Julia is nicely foregrounded, and the tension this causes for her with her Catholic upbringing is one of the things this film handles best. Emma Thompson is excellent as usual as the icy matriarch Lady Marchmain, giving us a interesting look into how her religious domineering affects her children. We really see just how dysfunctional this family actually is, I felt more so than the serial.

But comparisons with the serial aside, Brideshead as a film just doesn’t work so well. The serial took 13 hours to adapt the book, examining in really close detail and taking a near-glacial pace which actually helps express the tone. This has only 2 hours, meaning sometimes it feels rushed. Yet despite this at other times it felt quite slow, as in not much was actually happening. It all looks beautiful, the production design is excellent; but that’s just what it comes down to: surface.

Sure, the interest on setting and costume is a feature of most period dramas, but here the characters and emotions never seem to break through enough to have much of an impact. We don’t get an entire sense of just how special Brideshead is to Charles, this being a motivation for much of the plot. The painting he does in the estate, his literal imprint in Brideshead, is never shown. The film by the end feels more like a conventional period romance, characterised by its love triangle, and not an especially exemplary one at that. The novel’s “gluttony, for food and wine, for the splendours of the recent past”, the very features that have defined it, are lost in this.

Originally posted on my previous blog on 25th May 2013