Defenders of Freedom, Real and Imagined

Lincoln and Skyfall.

Lincoln, directed by Steven Spielberg.

There is a moment, a very small moment in Steven Spielberg’s very large film Lincoln that I found to be the most telling portrait of the somewhat mysterious 16th president. Lincoln is loafing–and that’s the only way to describe it–around the bedroom of the White House, discussing politics with his wife Mary, and we see him, papers in his lap, on a chair. His legs are extended and he’s bootless. At the end of those stilts are a pair of gray woolen socks, their ends flopped over as if he’d just pulled off those boots. Discussions of the 13th Amendment, the crux of the film, have found their way into the bedroom, and this beleaguered man must stretch out and rest his dogs. Here is Lincoln in repose.

These small details are a welcome sight in Spielberg’s film, and augment what might be the best performance of the year. Daniel Day-Lewis plays Abraham Lincoln, and he’s a marvel: Day-Lewis chewed the scenery as Daniel Plainview, a man who shaped mountains and sea in There Will Be Blood. Here he makes Lincoln a man with a higher pitched, decidedly Midwestern accent, but he’s a more humble man, a man who spoke softly and moved others to shape mountains and sea. When his Lincoln speaks, his audience smiles and nods, happy to hear the stories he spins, proud that such a man is their leader. And then something twists in his fable, the stories he tells turn on the slightest note, and the listeners–politicians, citizens, soldiers–begin to find themselves stirred, roused somehow to fight for this man’s every cause.

Lincoln, based on Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book Team of Rivals, attempts to be a film about this politician, Abraham Lincoln, and specifically his attempt to pass the 13th Amendment. Lincoln takes place in the weeks following the 1864 election, when Lincoln won in a landslide, and Republicans swept to take decisive control of the House of Representatives and the Senate. This should make passing the Amendment easy, where once voted through it will go to the state legislatures for ratification.

But these were the days when there was hardly any party unity. To pass the Amendment required a two-thirds majority, so some Democrats had to be on board. To make matters even more intriguing, you had to have hard-line Republicans, like Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones, enjoyable, but chewing his lines a bit), men for whom compromise is seen as a weakness. The 13th Amendment is not enough for men like Stevens, he wants more, and he doesn’t want to compromise. Then you had old-school Republicans who demanded that Lincoln sue for peace, to end what remains the bloodiest war in history.

Problem was, if Lincoln ends the war, then, according to the story (and I don’t disbelieve this), they’ve lost much of the impetus for the 13th Amendment. Bring back the Southern States, secure peace, and they’ll demand that peculiar institution. Lincoln knew damn well that he needed to get the Amendment through before peace. He knew that unless there was a permanent end to slavery, the war would have been for naught, that more bloodshed would come.

To achieve this end, Lincoln ally and Secretary of State William Seward (David Strathairn, playing himself), works with three wicked men to try and forge that two-thirds majority. Here we see Spielberg’s best moments: the trio, played by a freshly corpulent James Spader (the weight and the grease suit the man well), John Hawkes, and the woefully underused Tim Blake Nelson, work the taverns and restaurants and back alleys, follow beleaguered Democrats as they duck hunt, making a variety of promises (“you can be postmaster general!”), bribes, and threats to secure a vote.

This is somewhat exciting stuff. I say “somewhat” because this political football is almost entirely the wrong tack for a filmmaker of Spielberg’s sensitivity. Spielberg, as usual, drenches this film in dappled light as it dribbles in past dark curtains, brilliant from stardust. As is always Spielberg’s bane, he seeks to telegraph every moment for the grade school educated audience he thinks is watching Lincoln. Has a movie been so awfully didactic as this one? Each new conversation on the subject begins with a brief summary of what we’ve already seen and heard, even his wife saying things like “I know you’re worried about the 13th Amendment…” Scenes in the halls of Congress should feel energized, instead seem like we’re watching a reenactment video you might catch at some Civil War museum.

The film drags along, diffused with long asides about Lincoln’s family, Mary’s madness (she’s played by Sally Field, who gives a remarkably nuanced performance in spite of itself), and some worthlessness about his elder son, Robert (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), who wants to join the Army against his parents’ wishes. In a regrettable scene that could’ve been cut entirely, Lincoln hauls Robert to an army hospital to dissuade him from enlisting. A couple of black soldiers push a wheelbarrow dripping blood past the young man who sees–horror!–that it contains the amputated arms and legs of soldiers, which must’ve come as a surprise to literally no human being who watched this movie.

There’s no pop and crackle to the film, and the compromises, the chasing after votes, seem oddly clean, oddly without emotional impact. Sad, too, are a pair of bloody scenes from the war: an opening battle pitting black soldiers against white, and so staid and dull that you’d think Spielberg had just grafted in a moment from Glory. Then, toward the end, we see Lincoln touring a battlefield, and moved almost to tears. “I’ve never seen anything like that before” he admits to Ulysses S. Grant (Jared Harris.) Would that we could say the same–there are literally battlefield moments in Monty Python and the Holy Grail that have more impact, more blood and gore and meaning.

It is pretty clear that Spielberg’s great focus as a filmmaker is on history, but mostly World War II history. Schindler’s List, Empire of the Sun, Saving Private Ryan, even Raiders of the Lost Ark and Tinin reflect his love of that era. There’s moments of genuine madness in those first two films, and I couldn’t help but imagine how potent the long discussions of the 13th Amendment would have been had they been framed by battles that had even a tenth of Saving Private Ryan’s intensity. But perhaps the Civil War doesn’t pique Spielberg’s innovative nerves as the Second World War.

And that’s a shame, because it wastes that central performance, and wastes a lot of that beautiful detail, and frankly it wastes a decent subject in how political compromises shaped, and continue to shape, this nation. I’ll give Lincoln a hesitant recommendation, because if anything else it reminds us–Day-Lewis reminds us–that Honest Abe was a man, a remarkable man, whose words had incredible meaning, and whose heartfelt expression of those words changed history. If only Spielberg understood what Lincoln did so well–that the telling of the story is just as important as the facts.

Skyfall, directed by Sam Mendes.

I really hope that someone can tell me the name of the screenwriter who clearly died during the making of the newest James Bond film, Skyfall. For the sudden death of the writer is the only explanation for a movie as schizophrenic as this one.

Frankly, I’m at a loss about the trend towards seriousness in our most shallow stories. James Bond, Batman, Star Wars–these are great entertainments that have all taken a sudden turn in the last two decades toward a strange sort of respectability, as if these goofy stories should soberly reflect modern terrorism, faith, the role of government.

The newest Bond once again sees Daniel Craig suiting up in his tight-fitting, slightly retro gunmetal blue suit with the four-in-hand knot in his tie (that’s my knot, too–it’s awesome. But I digress.) We open with a great fight on the top of a train, this following a most ridiculous motorcycle and SUV chase through an Istanbul street. From the top of the speeding locomotive, Bond is accidentally shot pursuing a bad guy who has a hard drive (inexplicably dangling from his neck) with the names of NATO spies across the globe. With this list, their secret identities will be revealed, and they’ll be killed.

This being a Bond film, I’m happy–very happy in fact–to set aside all the gaping plot holes, like the fact that the spy Bond always seemed to relish using his real name. Or the fact that the shrapnel from Bond’s shoulder, from a wound suffered in the opening sequence, can be traced to only three people on entire planet. Anyway, Bond is shot off the train, falls from five hundred feet into ten feet of rushing water with a quarter-sized hole in his chest from his own side’s weapon, somehow ends up on an island taking bets that he won’t get stung by a scorpion while drinking whiskey, and fucks a beautiful island girl. This is all in the first half hour.

What fun! Skyfall moves swiftly, with a bang and without any regard for the realities of the world. This is what Bond is all about–car chases, whiskey, sex, guns, gadgets. It’s all here, but with some neato twists: Q is now a weird kid, a hacker with horn-rimmed glasses, mussed up hair and crazy cardigans, and the new Moneypenny, meant to be a surprise (though pretty damned obvious), is a great choice, sexy and intelligent and dangerous.

You’ve got strange Bond girls, showers with said Bond girls, and a fight in a luxurious Macau casino that ends ends with a massive thug being hauled to his death by a Komodo dragon. Who cares that this is a ridiculous scene? It’s a welcome moment (if not a slightly disappointing use of the one gadget in the film), a genuinely Bond moment. This is why we still watch these movies after a half century of play.

Then there’s the evil villain: Javier Bardem plays Silva, a former “00″ agent who is on the warpath. Bardem is totally over-the-top, isolated on an island, upending the world with computer hacking that is unparalleled. He’s toppling financial institutions, blowing up buildings, and having a blast.

And so are we. Skyfall, despite Craig’s lack of Conneryesque charm, is still fun to watch, and the filmmakers, this time Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes, borrow wholesale from the newer spy films, like the Bourne series, and even X-Men to a degree. This is all well and good, servicing a fairly creaky franchise.

There’s other sweet little moments. Bond, hands tied behind his back, is caressed by our villain, Silva, in what is the most overtly homosexual moment in all of the movies. And we find ourselves rooting for Silva, who is certainly distressing Bond more than he lets on (welcome to the 21st Century, Mr. Bond.)

From the great chases, to the very strange Silva, from a tower assassination in Shanghai to a weird island off the coast of China, with its abandoned buildings and toppled statues, Skyfall is a Bond film for the ages. Well, at least until Silva is captured.

And here comes the Macguffin: Silva was betrayed by M years ago, in 1999 to be precise, when Britain was handing Hong Kong over to the Chinese. He was tortured for months, bit into a cyanide capsule that didn’t work, but that ate away most of his upper jaw and his insides. “Life clung to me like a disease,” Silva says, through plate glass to a stunned M, played for the last time by Judi Dench.

See, Silva was M’s favorite. Now Bond is her favorite. We see that she is risking her career by keeping Bond in the field, when he’s in fact failed both his physical and psychological tests. She loves Bond like a son, and Skyfall quickly becomes this weird movie about warring sons, the good against the bad.

This would not necessarily be a bad thing were it not for the fact that Silva’s character becomes, well, something else entirely–maybe Bardem’s Anton Chigurh, from No Country for Old Men? Up to the point in which Silva escapes, he was a hacker extraordinaire, who skills exceeded even Q’s. But when he’s free, what does he do? Well, for the rest of the film, Silva will literally walk around shooting his guns and throwing hand grenades, and doing neither very well. It was hinted that he was a better spy than Bond, though we suddenly see none of that–he’s instead a lousy shot, not very nimble, nor very smart.

And the filmmakers make some serious errors in their entertainment judgment. Called to the carpet for losing the list of spies, M is brought before a government panel to defend herself amidst calls for her retirement. Like the long, boring moments of parliamentary debate that made The Phantom Menace such a drag (admittedly among many other moments), here we get Dench’s M defending, in a long speech, the merits, not of the real MI:6, but of these “00″ agents, who aren’t actually real. We don’t need to hear why these spies are important to make the world safe–they’re fantasy. Note to filmmakers: don’t explain or try and make real the fantasy during the fucking fantasy. In closing her speech, M tearfully reads a quote from Tennyson, perhaps the most misguided use of poetry in cinema history.

Silva is hell bent on killing M, just as Bond is hell bent on keeping “Mum” alive. The character of Silva as he’s been developed in Skyfall will never be seen again–the strangely mannered, brilliant man has been replaced by a scowling dude with a bunch of thugs who walk up in broad daylight to a Scottish castle where Bond and M are hiding to kill them. Even by the often weak standards of James Bond, these villains are remarkably tedious–a good dozen or two are dispatched by an old man (Albert Finney, here for no apparent reason except to give us more backstory–this time about Bond) and M. There’s more needless gunplay, and a showdown in a church, and the bad guy is defeated. Gone is Silva’s wit, his genius, the use of computers to achieve his evildoing, gone is really everything that made him appealing.

This is terrible news especially for a movie that started so promisingly. Why this need for endless backstory, for a government hearing, for tearful emotional moments between Bond and M? I mean, I don’t give a rip about M–I care, if you can call it that, about James Bond leaping and jumping and having fights with his gadgets and then marveling as an exotic and beautiful woman is tossed fantastically naked into the mix. I’d love to see updates–maybe a female Bond, but the young Q and Silva’s stroking of Bond’s pants will do for now. But what I don’t need (and what we also saw in this summer’s The Avengers) are filmmakers trying to show us that these falsehoods are really quite important. Of course they’re important–fantasy is important. Until it seeks respectability. And then it’s lost its honesty, and really its heart. Skyfall, like Bardem’s Silva, has been betrayed by good intentions, and has its insides rotting out.

The True Cost of Filmmaking in the 21st Century

Wes Anderson behind an Aaton 16mm Motion Picture Camera on the set of “Moonrise Kingdom”

Myth

As a college professor teaching filmmaking students in the “digital age,” I often encounter many misconceptions as to the true cost of shooting and finishing a film on celluloid.  Students mistakenly believe that if it was not for the “digital revolution” and the “democratization” of the moving image that they would never have had the means or capability of producing a film due to the “high” price tag of film stock and lab costs.  Guests visit our campus and say the same thing “we could not have done this if it wasn’t for digital.”  When the guest artist is then asked about how much their project costs, they say “$60,000.”  Wow!  I have priced out feature 35mm films for under $20,000.  What about the many young filmmakers who made films on film for over 120 years?  They shot many films on celluloid and made masterpieces…on low budgets!  As moving image artists, we should feel free to use the medium of our choice and know the truth about the tools we use.  The unfortunate thing is that students and new producers and directors are sincerely unaware of the actual cost of shooting on film.  The intention of this article is not to disregard the creative attributes of digital technology, but to make the reader mindful of the price tag that comes with working with digital video as well as film.

Cost
Indeed film does cost money, and this is nothing new.  Motion picture film has always had an expense, but that expense is very manageable over time.  Also, that expense encourages expertise and also helps to elevate the quality of the project.  If you spend $300 on a five minute short that screens in twenty festivals, is not the investment of shooting on film worth it?  If you put quality in, you get quality out.  If you respect your work to invest in it with both time and money – it certainly shows on screen.  Film has a unique way of encouraging everyone from the director to cinematographer to actors to perform her/his very best.  Movie-makers who work with film, commonly refer to this attribute as the “film discipline.”

Cinelicous Quote: Thursday, February 16th, 2012

Film Takes Top Dramatic Awards at SUNDANCE. Think Indies can’t afford to shoot film… Can they afford not to?

“Here’s a surprising fact that independent producers may want to consider before they write off film as “too expensive”: There were 120 films in competition at Sundance this year. Based on our research and conversations with Kodak and Fuji only 5% were shot on film… and yet that small minority took 100% of the most coveted Jury and Grand Jury prizes in the US and World Dramatic competitions, as well as winning the Excellence in Cinematography Award in the US Dramatic category.  It’s true that producers of sub-$1M independent film need to watch the bottom line… but isn’t the ultimate goal to win awards and thereby sell the movie?”

Ratios
It may sound ludicrous to electronic ears, but shooting film can actually be cheaper in a lot of situations.  If one shoots at a shooting ratio under 5:1, film will come in below the cost of purchasing or renting electronic equivalent cameras.  My career has focused on shooting on Super 8mm, 16mm, and 35mm on modest budgets.  To some, these modest budgets of $300 are too often misinterpreted as a lot of expenditure for a short film because digital costs nothing, right?  Wrong.

The Secret is Out
What’s actually happening is that students and newcomers are sold inaccurate statements about film by the electronic companies and by people who have never worked with motion picture film.  They say that film is “costly, cumbersome, and risky.”  The majority of these comments come from RED, SONY, CANON, and PANASONIC.  These companies want you to BUY cameras.  Of course they are going to downplay the importance of shooting on film and give film a bad press.

These major digital camera makers prey on the vulnerable newcomer to attract them to their product.  Once hooked, these companies know you are likely to be addicted….for life.  Or at least this is what they hope.  Unlike film cameras that last forever, digital cameras depend on resolution and software upgrades.

This addiction to upgrades focuses on the false promises that your project will be better because it was shot on the newest RED camera (like the RED Epic or RED Scarlet).  Much like any addiction, the substance abuser does not see the expense in their actions.  They go for the fix every two years or even sooner!  Like the iPhone, each new upgrade promises more.  If you do not upgrade in six months, you become an outdated fossil – left behind.

Truth
Okay, we film users are addicted to celluloid, but with film, the addiction to camera upgrades does not exist.  Let’s take a look at some well made clockwork 16mm cameras as a case study.  A Bell and Howell Filmo 70DR, Kodak K100, or a Krasnogorsk 3 camera with three prime lenses or a zoom will only set you back $500.  Most of the 16mm camera models out there were made from 1950-1990 and are still going strong.  They may need a $200 clean, lube, and adjustment every 15-30yrs depending on use.  Why are Arri, Aaton, and Panavision not making any new motion picture film cameras?  The answer is: there are so many excellent used film cameras out there……one cannot make a profit since film cameras can last forever.  Pick up a used Kodak K100 and run some film through it and you’ll see what I mean.

Resolution

These $500 film cameras give one the resolution equivalent of a 3K sensor with no color compression. A 3K digital camera like the RED Scarlet will cost you $10,000.  Ten grand is quite a chunk of change and many short films can be shot on 16mm and 35mm for less than this price.  Super 8mm is equivalent of HD video (properly, lit, exposed and shot with  a professional grade camera of course), Regular 16mm is 2K, Super 16mm is 3K digital equivalent, and 35mm is 8K digital equivalent.

Planned Obsolesce

In fact, one can make ten 15 minute short films with a 3:1 shooting ratio for the price of the RED Scarlet.  If you make a short film once a year, it will take you ten years to add up to the investment of the RED Scarlet.  RED, CANON, and SONY marketing departments should give themselves a pat on the back for getting folks to buy into purchasing these cameras.  Newness sells.  If you are the business of selling cameras, digital has opened up a whole new market since digital video cameras have built -in/planned obsolescence.  You can market a whole new line every two years and turn a big profit from young and old users.

Film School Investment
It’s crazy that even the largest film schools have bought into buying $6,000-$70,000 cameras.  I have heard Universities dropping as much as $300,000 on buying Sony Professional HD video cameras.   Many programs have been operating with the rugged ARRI 16S cameras since the early seventies.  Talk about an excellent investment.  How many purchases has the average American made that last 42 years- lifetime?  Keep thinking………perhaps your toilet?  These Sony cameras are mostly made up of cheap plastic and are nowhere near the quality of the ARRI 16S cameras in craftsmanship and durability.  The Sony cameras have about a 5 year lifespan, if they don’t break first, the film department will likely upgrade in 5 years.  Dropping $300,000 every few years sounds like a large waste of money.  Would not that money be better spend on student project grants?

ARRI-16S

Computer and Software

In fact there’s more hidden expenses when working with digital video.  These expenditures are easily overlooked due to their prevalence in our society. However, these costs need to be taken into account in order to gain an accurate picture of the digital workflow.  On top of your camera package, you need a computer, a monitor, and editing software.  The major players here are Apple, HP, Adobe, and Avid.  What’s their upgrade cycle?  You’ve guessed it… about 2 years.  Without education discounts, a computer w/ monitor for editing will cost $2,000 and a software package will cost $1,800.  Think of every news channel who switched to video in the early 1980s.  How many expensive video cameras and editing systems did they purchase over the last 30 years?  These news stations missed out on archiving history in the switch.  Film’s shelf life when properly stored is 500 years, making it future proof to be scanned into any electronic format in the future.  Digital video must be migrated to a new hard drive every 5 years.  Just take a look at my office, and you’ll see twelve hard drives.  One TB (terabyte) costs around $100.  Now times that by two.  One for the project and one backup.  Oh, but you really should have two back-ups.  We’re up to $300 every 5 years.  In a New York Times article, “The Afterlife is Expensive for Digital Movies,” the paper reported on the results of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences archival research. “Titled “The Digital Dilemma,” the council’s report surfaced…..: To store a digital master record of a movie costs about $12,514 a year, versus the $1,059 it costs to keep a conventional film master.”

Film and Digital for Education
“What about DSLRs, can’t I pick up a Canon T4i kit for $1,000?”  Yes, we currently live at the height of the DSLR proliferation.  Canon released the T1i in 2009, now in 2012 they are already on the fourth incarnation, the T4i.  The professional 5DMKII was released in 2008, now they sell the 5D MKIII.  Talk about out of control upgrades.  The DSLR shoots in 1920x1080p HD, this is the equivalent to Super 8mm ($200 for Canon 1014E, Nikon R10, Nizo Professional .)  The difference here is that the film has infinite color where the DSLRs utilize highly compressed H.264 codec and have shutter jingle and moire. Super 8mm has limitations too, such as inconsistent registration and prominent grain (if shot with high speed stock).  Obviously one makes concessions in any format and chooses the right tool for the right job. Below will be a comparison on a student budget as well as a pro budget.  In order to make the comparison fair, the following criteria will be used: 2K resolution, lowest camera price w/ lens, native workflow, and finishing.

Canon Rebel T4i

Estimates
The following gear and prices are general ballpark figures and in no way are absolute.  If you are resourceful, you can manage with lower prices in any of these work-flows.  You may be the percentage of people who hold on to software and equipment beyond their designated expiration date.  Perhaps your parents bought you a camera.  Good for you!!  You are saving money!

Professional Digital Package

1. Black Magic Digital Cinema Camera + Quality Zoom Lens – $4,000
2. Apple Macbook Pro w/Retina Display+AppleCare- $2,600
3. Adobe CS6 Production Premium (Professional) – $1800
4. Lifespan of software and gear – 2 years

Total: $8,300/15 minute short a year cost = $4,250

Professional Film Package w/ Photochemical Finish

1. Bell and Howell Filmo 70DR w/ C-Mount Lenses – $500
2. Viewer/Rewinds/Splicer/Projector – $200
3. Film Stock – 1500ft/45 minutes  - $450
4. Processing/Workprint – .$40/ft – $600
5. Photo/Chemical Finish Print – $1000
6. Lifespan of gear: lifetime (Equipment cost is subtracted for the second year.)

Total: $2,750/15 minute short a year cost – $2,050

SUPER 8, 16MM, 2K/DSLR WORKFLOW PRICE CHART
Chart Based on a 15 minute Short Film w/ Shooting Ratio 3:1.    Estimates come from the lowest lab and camera costs online.  Sources are at the end of the article.

Class	Cam	Lens	Edit	Stock	2K Scan	Soft	Lab	Total
Pro 2K Digital	Back Magic Kit 3,500	Canon $500	Apple $2,000	N/A	N/A	Adobe $1800	N/A	$8,400
Pro 16mm	70DR $200	C-mount $300	Splice$200	$450	N/A	N/A	$1600	$2,000
Pro 2K 16mm Scan	70DR $200	C-mount $300	Apple $2,000	$450	$620	$1800	$180	$5550
EDU DSLR Digital	T4i $1,000	Kit Lens $0	Apple $2,000	N/A	N/A	$450	N/A	$3450
EDU S8mm Film	1014 $200	Kit Lens $0	Splice$200	$150	N/A	N/A	$180	$730
EDU S8mm Scan	1014 $200	Kit Lens $0	$2,000	$150	$360	$450	$180	$3,340
EDU 16mm Scan	$200	$300	$2,000	$450	$620	$450	$180	$4,200

35MM, ARRI ALEXA, RED EPIC WORKFLOW PRICE CHART

Class	Cam	Lens	Edit	Stock	4K Scan	Soft	Lab	Total
Buy 35mm Finish	Arri 2 C $2,000	$1,000	$500	$360	N/A	N/A	$4,000	$7,860
Buy 35mm + Scan	Arri 2C Buy $2,000	$1,000	$2,000	$360	$2200	$1,800	$540	$8,440
Buy ARRI ALEXA/RED	$60,000	Zeiss $15,000	$2,000	N/A	N/A	$1,800	N/A	$95,000
Rent RED	$4,500 3 days	$1500	$2,000	N/A	N/A	$1,800	N/A	$9,800
Rent 35mm Scan	$600 3 days	$1500	$2,000	$360	$2200	$1,800	$540	$8,700

Stanley Kubrick with ARRI-2C 35mm Motion Picture Camera

Choice
The choice is up to the artist.  There are many ways to save on any of these processes, whether film or digital.  Both mediums can be inexpensive or very expensive depending on one’s resourcefulness.  The longevity of film equipment, the low cost of archiving, and low shooting ratios are the biggest ways film saves over digital in the final race.  From the above chart, one can see that a 35mm motion picture camera can be purchased for $3,000.  That camera is the legendary, ARRI 2-C – a favorite of Stanley Kubrick.  Research, be selective and if you want to shoot on film, go for it!  Expense should not be an issue, especially with so many passionate resources out there, Kodak, AlphaCine, Colorlab, Cinelab, Duall Camera,  Super 16 Inc, and Process Blue to name a few.  If you do not exercise your creative right to choose film, you may lose the option.  Film is not just for the big budget projects of Steven Spielberg, Christopher Nolan, and Wes Anderson.  It’s for all of us.  There are ways to work on celluloid, even on a modest budget.  As Nolan and others have professed (as seen on the chart), working photo-chemically all the way to the finished print has advantages and saves money.  Educate yourself and your producer.  Super 8 is a superb low cost option for students and ultra low budges.  Let your imagination soar and do not get caught up in camera marketing.  Celluloid has given us Chaplin, Keaton, and Murnau and continues to be a catalyst for creative filmmaking.  Own your vision and stay true to your artistic process!

To see a list of projects shot on Kodak film, visit: http://motion.kodak.com/motion/Customers/Productions/index.htm

For independent and experimental works, visit:

http://canyoncinema.com/catalog/films/

Sources

1. Labs
   1. Alpha Cine Lab
   2. Color Lab
   3. Dwayne’s Photo
2. Film Camera Purchase
   1. Ebay
   2. Duall Camera
3. 2K/4K Film Scanning
   1. Process Blue
   2. Cinelicious
4. Digital Camera Purchase
   1. B&H Photo Video
   2. ARRI Group
   3. RED Digital Cinema
   4. Black Magic Design
5. Rental
   1. Abel Cinetech
   2. Gearhead Camera
6. Film Stock
   1. Kodak Motion Picture Film
   2. Kodak Education Store
   3. Releasing.net
7. Software
   1. B&H Photo Video
   2. JourneyEd

Your No Nonsense Night at the Movies

John Goodman, Alan Arkin, and Ben Affleck anchor “Argo”, the most solid entertainment of the year.

Howard Hawks, perhaps the most reliable director of filmed entertainment in American history, once said his goal was to make every movie have “three great scenes and no bad ones.” I swear that most of the crap from this summer didn’t have one good scene, much less three, and were filled with bad ones, thanks to a crappy script, directing, or acting.

Hawks’ pictures are masterpieces, but they hardly call attention to themselves, and maybe because he has so damn many great films that his work doesn’t make it on canonical games like Sight & Sound’s Top 50 Films of All Time poll. But check out his oeuvre: The Big Sleep, Bringing Up Baby, His Girl Friday, Red River, Rio Bravo, Scarface, Twentieth Century, Only Angels Have Wings, Ball of Fire and, well, you get the point.

The point is this: there’s a few of directors out there today who try and emulate the Kubricks, Ozus, and Altmans of the world, and that’s fine (that’s more than fine, it’s awesome) but I wish, sometimes, that more of them would emulate Howard Hawks, if only to make a solid, entertaining picture. Three great scenes and no bad ones. How hard is that?

Well, Ben Affleck appears to have a well-worn copy of the Hawks playbook by this side, as his newest directoral effort, Argo, is the most thoroughly entertaining movie I’ve seen this year, a solid picture that, while no masterpiece, tells a damn good tale. And the older I get, the more I appreciate damn good tale.

The story is pretty incredible. We all know about the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis, when protestors stormed the U. S. Embassy in Tehran, holding at gunpoint the entire staff for over a year. If you lived at that time, you may remember the grinding weariness of seeing the news, day after day, the poor hostages with their eyes covered by a ripped cloth, trotted out for the world to see next to an angry man with a gun, the yellow ribbons on the trees, the repurposing of the Beach Boys’ “Barbara Ann” into “Bomb Iran”, the wondering how this will end, if it will end.

But what we may not have known is that six members of the embassy escaped, working at the time in the passport office, with an easy exit onto the streets. THey found refuge at the Canadian embassy. Problem was, these escapees were almost more in danger than their counterparts held hostage. By escaping, they were thumbing their noses at Iran, and if captured, were probably going to meet certain, and certainly painful, death.

Enter the CIA. Supervisor Jack O’Donnell (Breaking Bad’s Bryan Cranston) and agent Tony Mendez (Affleck), an expert at “exfiltrating” (getting sensitive subjects out of tough situations), try and hatch a plan to get those six out of the toughest country on earth from which Americans could escape. The State Department’s staff is full of thoroughly stupid ideas, including one lamebrained idea that involves issuing six bicycles to our subjects so they can make a 300 mile trek over mountains.

But the “best bad idea” comes from Mendez: he’ll fly to Iran, pretending to be a Canadian movie producer of a Star Wars knock off called Argo, a space epic that needs ‘exotic locales’ like Tehran, with its deserts and minarets, and leave with his ‘crew’–the six embassy workers–in tow. “It’s the best bad idea we have,” O’Donnell admits to the Secretary of State Cyrus Vance (Bob Gunton) and his assistant, played by Philip Baker Hall.

So the chase is on. But first to Hollywood! To make this thing plausible, there needs to be some gravitas to this fake movie. Mendez has a pal in Hollywood, Oscar-winning make-up man John Chambers (John Goodman), most famous his work on Planet of the Apes. Chambers takes his friend to meet producer Lester Siegel (Alan Arkin), a composite of every crazy producer who’s ever walked this earth. They create a fake company, find a good, weird script, have a press event to get the thing in Variety, make storyboards, the works. Once Argo looks like a real production, Mendez leaves the sunny funny farm of Los Angeles for the near-frozen revolutionary crucible that is Tehran.

Argo is not a complex film, but this lack of complexity actually works beautifully. This is a patriotic, fun movie that, like many of Hawks’ pictures, is about men (and some women) faced with a dilemma, disagreeing but ultimately respecting one another, and then working their tails off to get the job done. I’m happy to see a lack of scene-chewing bad guys (even the Iranians are given a lot of respect, and their motives are crystal clear, the script allowing for the Shah’s years of abuse to be a focal point.) Argo moves from point A to point B with no fooling around, much like the CIA operation itself. That works perfectly.

Argo captures three very disparate worlds, and it does each one well. From Washington to Hollywood to Tehran, director Affleck fills each location with tons of rich detail, but never lingering over each to drive home that you’re in the 1970s. The clothing, the music, the cars, even the politics are kept at arm’s length but help give Argo its credibility.

Affleck moves his plot along at a steady place, allowing you to settle into each and every location, and it’s surprising that his risky choice to have himself play the lead is effective–his Tony Mendez is confident, and exactly the guy you want to follow for a whole movie. He’s got a simple backstory–separated, misses his son–that is never dwelled on. His quiet confidence is the perfect fit for an actor of Affleck’s limitations–and it’s a strength for an actor to realize that in himself. Mendez is never more than a solid, intelligent man, not some hunk (though he’s dressed like a 70s swinger), nor some Bond-like hero.

Affleck is well-cast, but, again like Hawks, like a well-composed baseball team with a deep bench, his supporting cast is, well, fucking brilliant. Every actor and actress stands out, but doesn’t overplay their hand, from Arkins’ producer to Cranston’s CIA supervisor to the Canadian ambassador played by Victor Garber to Omid Abtahi the Iranian cultural liaison who escorts the “crew” around the central bazar. With this solid crew, every scene in Argo is so well executed you start to relax into the story, confident you won’t be let down. The script gives them some great dialogue, at times funny, at times nerve-wracking, without seeming overwrought.

While a great, visionary director might have made Argo an homage to the paranoia of the 1970s, contrasting D.C. with Hollywood with Iran (which admittedly would have been great), Argo is, simply put, not that movie, and Affleck is not capable of making that movie. This is not a multi-layered film, but a story about heroes, while at the same time not bludgeoning us with the flag, not spelling out this desire to celebrate these people and their actions. Affleck, unbelievably, never overplays his hand.

Until the unfortunate ending. Argo is the story of the removal of these six people from a terrible situation, and even those unfamiliar with anything but the basics of history knows these six weren’t captured and executed. Like All the President’s Men, Affleck manages to keep us on the edge of our seats despite knowing the rough outcome. But when his nervous, unprepared crew makes it to the airport, Argo almost becomes a joke, as nearly every Hollywood cliche from every cliffhanger makes its cameo appearance. A last minute cancellation of the operation? Check. A phone call at the eleventh hour? Check? Critical people who are detained from getting to the room to answer that critical call? Check. A guy racing across an airport to deliver a key message (that he could’ve called or paged)? Check. A phalanx of jeeps and cop cars chasing a moving airplane down the tarmac? Sigh. Check.

And where Argo should have ended with its bizarre nod to Raiders of the Lost Ark, instead it goes deep into backstory we didn’t need, and a string of scenes that seem to suggest that Affleck thinks you didn’t get his point. His Mendez comes back to his wife, hugging her while the flag whips in the background (awful), falls asleep with his son in his lap (please…), and then we see the Canadian ambassador receiving a plaque, shots of the real people, and even, for God’s sake, a voice over with Jimmy Carter recounting the heroic deeds.

Still, that makes up maybe ten minutes of a really straightforward, totally entertaining movie about interesting people and a wild event with a crazy twist. A good script, good actors, and a director who doesn’t want to get in the way. Three good scenes and no bad ones–would that most of our movies follow this simple, straightforward recipe. We’d all have a much better time at the cinemas.

Television Recommendation: Svengoolie

Television and cinema have much in common: namely the moving image.  A good portion of these respective technologies’ histories are bound together in a sometimes uneasy symbiosis.  Cinema is regarded as the higher form of art, the more glamorous image.  Yet television, both the physical technology that dwells within our residences and the various entities that pump programs into that glowing rectangle, promotes and expands the amount of cinema available to us.  Even before the internet and Netflix, television continually expanded to show more and more film; HBO, Showtime, and other channels sprung up as stations designed to broadcast film, not their own productions.  The enormity of channels and the ability to live stream almost any film at any time make the television (or the computer screen) the perfect cinematic conduit.

One of television’s earliest cinematic distributors, one that predates cable, premium channels, and live streaming video, still exists today. Svengoolie, which airs every Saturday night at 10:00 p.m. on MeTV, is one of the best ways to watch cinema on television.  Svengoolie, and shows similar to it, were quite common in the 1960s and 70s.  Prior to the domination of cable movie channels, local stations would produce their own late night movie shows that provided viewers with an opportunity to see films that they would not have otherwise had a chance to view: cult films, B-movies, and classic horror films.  Remember, shows like Svengoolie existed in an era that predated VCRs.  The only films you could see were the ones played in movie theatres or ones that television stations decided to air at days and times of their choosing.

The current program still performs the vital function of providing opportunities to see hard to see cinema.  Sure, while in theory I might be able to find DVDs or streaming versions of the various horror and science-fiction flicks that Svengoolie broadcasts, in reality I would neither never stumble upon them nor watch them. Films such as The Mole People (1956), Dr. Cyclops (1941), and The Deadly Mantis (1957) would remain unwatched by me and others.  And in anticipation of a likely question, I will simply say no, these are not great films.  Yet they are fun and, in a certain way, valuable.  Gobs of B-level horror and sci-fi flicks were produced during the middle decades of the twentieth century, enough to keep Svengoolie around for years to come. These films have a curious relation to both future films and television itself.  Many of these films pioneered the special effects and make-up that later films with higher budgets would later perfect.  The special and practical effects that are now seen as rather pathetic were, in their day, often regarded with tremendous awe. Dr. Cyclops was particularly adept at creating special effects: miniature people who had been shrunk by the maniacal Dr. Cyclops.  (By the way, Dr. Cyclops is one of the best movie titles of all time.  It ranks right up there with Death Rides a Horse.)

These B-movies also predicted future television entertainment.  Major studios and production companies no longer produce these type of B-flicks for cinematic release.  They are too busy producing crap such as The Green Lantern (2011) and any Adam Sandler film.  Instead, the parallels to The Mole People and The Deadly Mantis are to found on the Syfy. (Yes, that is how the Science Fiction channel now spells its name.)  Similar to contemporary television productions, B-movies often utilized canned sets and stock footage and worked on minimal budgets.

The linkage between old Hollywood B-movies and contemporary made-for-television productions can also located within the actors who appeared in some of these B-flicks.  Many of them often went on to work (and find greater fame) in television.  The Mole People alone produced the father from Leave it to Beaver (Hugh Beaumont) and Bruce Wayne’s butler (Alan Napier) in the Adam West Batman show.  In one sense, films such as these were always and already made for television.

Watching the current Svengoolie transports one into a continual time loop.  The television station, MeTV, is devoted to pre-cable era television.  The show itself harkens back to a time when local stations produced their own shows and entertainment, and the films represent artifacts of a now lost and never to be regained era from Hollywood film production.  I am glad that these old B-films have a continuing presence on Svengoolie.

My children and I have developed a tradition of staying up late to watch the show and the films.  And yes, staying up to watch a 10:00 p.m. program counts as late for me; I often have more trouble staying up than my seven year-old.  I am old, which is probably why I appreciate Svengoolie.

The Deadly Mantis is on tap tonight, just in case you are interested.

The Story of Lost Men

Joaquin Phoenix is Freddie Quell, one of the millions of lost souls returning from war in Paul Thomas Anderson’s brilliant “The Master.”

There are favorite movies and then there are movies, good and bad, that leave such an indelible impression that they’re affixed, permanently, in a sense of time and place. I remember, clearly, the days and the theaters when I witnessed, for the first time, Star Wars, The Cotton Club, Blue Velvet, Cronenberg’s The Fly, Pulp Fiction and There Will Be Blood, among many others. Some of those are masterpieces, some are merely spectacles that I’ve outgrown (you can guess that one), and some were merely wonderful diversions.

Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master is another, and it fits squarely in the category of a great movie that has also crystallized in my mind the time and place where I first watched the thing–a sunny morning at the Lagoon Theater in Minneapolis. And I honestly can’t remember when I’ve entered a movie with such high expectations and watched in rapture as those lofty preconceptions were were met and exceeded.  Though it is not without flaws–or perhaps it is better to say it is not without its profoundly perplexing moments–The Master is a cinematic marvel, one of the most beautiful films I’ve ever seen, and a searing document about a man at odds with himself.

The facts: Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix) is in trouble. The Master opens on a remote island in the Pacific, during World War II, as sailors engage in perhaps the most dangerous moment in any conflict–the waiting. A combat veteran I once interviewed noted that in war you fight, then you wait, then you fight, then you wait, that the imbalance can drive you insane, and that it is in the waiting that the insanity is nurtured. This is on full display in these scenes, as Quell and his cohorts box and wrestle, drink excessively, masturbate, and sculpt buxom women in the sand, a woman that Freddie cannot get enough of, fondling and humping her in full view of the rest of the disinterested men.

Shooting in 65mm, director Paul Thomas Anderson uses this epic canvas to expose the tough, yet fragile, personalities of these sailors, men who look as if they’ve stepped right from color illustrations in wartime Life magazines. These scenes are gorgeous, bright sunlight washing out the colors, and they’re as horrific as they are pretty, in a way that’s unique to combat situations–these men are losing their minds, but it’s almost worse to see this play itself out in the public spectacle of the sand and the ship. No one blinks an eye as Freddie mounts the sand woman, or when he guzzles fluid from bombs in an attempt to get wasted. This is mass lunacy. With his wide lens, Anderson leaves nothing hidden, the unraveling of psyches on the deck of ship, on a beach, or in a department store later on. Without a single battle scene, he drives home the madness of war with more aplomb that any film I’ve seen in the last three decades.

Phoenix is a marvel here, slimmed down to nothing but skin and muscle, looking ever so slightly like Popeye, talking out of the side of his mouth, squinting, his back hunched as if he were carrying enormous forearms, wearing secondhand suits that look shaped by healthier bodies. Freddie is sharp, eager, and broken. Crushed by both a lost love and his time in the Pacific Theater, he drinks and drifts from job to job, working as a portrait photographer, as a migrant worker, and then, serendipitously, stowing away on a ship rented by a quasi-religious group known simply as The Cause.

It is here he meets the charismatic leader of this outfit, Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman), and it is here that The Master kicks into high gear. Like Anderson’s other movies, The Master is about people seeking community where society (or their own family) has failed them. But Anderson boils down his subject even further: both the Navy and Dodd’s own organization have essentially failed both men, and we begin to see a tight friendship grow.

Why would the leader of The Cause seek friendship in a drunken, almost feral personality like Freddie Quell? The answer comes almost instantly, as we see Dodd guzzling Freddie’s potent potables, and then, as Dodd evolves from a man trying to rein in Freddie’s chaotic life to a man who needs this uncontrollable spark of energy in his life. Dodd is a man who’s got what he wanted–power, money, control–only to discover these things are, in fact, deadly dull and spiritually unsatisfying. But Freddie is never dull. And now the worlds collide.

Like Citizen Kane’s examination of William Randolph Hearst, The Master is only moderately about L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology. Like Kane, this is the story of personalities, and where Kane burrowed into the shadowy mind of a man by tracking through the inside of buildings, The Master’s wide lens seems to suggest that within every troubled soul are wet and sticky neuroses, troubles that Anderson drags out to wither and dry up in the bright sunlight.

The Master is a troubling film about very troubled personalities. On one hand, we have Freddie, wrecked by war and his own troubled heart; on the other, we have Dodd, a purely American charlatan, who finds, probably to his horror, that his spirit is in no way satisfied by this charade.  In the film’s most arresting moment, Dodd asks Freddie if he would like to be “processed”–one of the many ways Dodd burrows into the minds of his followers through a series of tough questions. Freddie is eager for processing, but mostly as a challenge, or game. This is the moment when the two personalities become indelibly linked.

Both men sit, half drunk, across a table in the bowels of the yacht streaming across the ocean to deliver the master to New York City. Freddie is twitching, Dodd is still, waiting with pencil ready to scribble down answers. In the movie’s most brilliant move, Dodd tells Freddie he must never blink during the whole of the processing.

After a couple of false stars, Freddie doesn’t blink, and his soul is exposed. By keeping Freddie’s eyes open (and demanding that they stay open), Anderson shrinks his canvas–your eyes fixate on Joaquin Phoenix’s, as you listen to his Freddie relate the first backstory of the movie, a sad and sordid tale that makes your spine tingle just as it deepens your concern for Freddie.  And when Dodd snaps his fingers and tells Freddie that it is now OK to blink, Anderson’s canvas expands to its normal size, and then we get the first flashback in The Master, as we finally witness Freddie’s heart’s desire, the woman he has pined for, the fuel in the engine of his self-destruction.

The Master’s first half qualify as probably the best hour in cinema I’ve witnessed all year. But like Anderson’s other films, There Will Be Blood most notably, the narrative flags. Or rather, it splinters–The Master, at once following the trajectory of Freddie’s destruction or redemption, becomes a series of amazing vignettes, but they never coalesce into a whole, and its ending–abrupt, bizarre–leaves you baffled, albeit mesmerized.

As usual, Anderson’s women get short shrift: Amy Adams is outstanding as Dodd’s fierce and homey wife, Peggy, and Laura Dern is on hand as a wealthy patron who is fleeced of a lot of money. Neither have any telling moments, though at times Anderson seems to be pushing Adam’s Peggy toward being a shrewish bitch who only wants these two men separated.

This is, however, a film about men, and most specifically Joaquin Phoenix’s Freddie Quell. And it is an honest, brutal examination of what World War II did to its best and finest. Read Bill Mauldin’s Back Home, watch The Best Years of Our Lives, or any film noir about a former soldier turned to a life of crime, and that’s the story of Freddie Quell. Though it may never have been told better here.

So would it be that the ending had held up to that first half. Or not–honestly, I’m left wondering whether Anderson’s capable of closing out his movies, or whether this is simply a method whose point eludes me. I can’t imagine anyone walking out of The Master feeling satisfied by its resolution. Maybe that is the point–like Freddie Quell, in his quest to find meaning or simply a place to exist, or Lancaster Dodd, in his urge to control and find peace within that control, they will never meet a satisfying resolution in their troubled lives.

If that’s the case, why should we?

Clint Eastwood, Hollywood, and Conservatives

In case you missed it, Clint Eastwood talked to a chair. The chair was empty. Presumably, Eastwood knew that, but he decided to have a conversation with it anyway. Now, To be fair to both the empty chair and Eastwood’s decision to speak with it, that chair demonstrated more substantive knowledge of public policy than all the other speakers at the Republican National Convention.  If Eastwood had to choose between talking to Rick Santorum or the empty chair, then he obviously made the wiser choice.

After watching and re-watching Eastwood’s performance, I have become slightly enamored with it.  The way in which it produced a squirmingly uncomfortable feeling amongst many in attendance (VP candidate Paul Ryan most noticeably) made me think of Andy Kaufman’s comedic style.  Had Mitt Romney then followed Eastwood by lip-synching to the Mighty Mouse theme song, he could have earned my vote.  Actually, the main chorus from the Might Mouse theme song, Here I come to save the Day, was pretty much Romney’s message in a nutshell. Unfortunately, he did not deliver that message by lip-synching the Mighty Mouse theme song, thus he did not earn my vote.

Eastwood’s appearance and slightly Kaufman-esque performance at the Republican National Convention raised a few eyebrows. Many non-Republicans were disappointed that a screen idol such as Eastwood would so publicly endorse Mitt Romney. Yet Eastwood’s politics, through his personal actions and his films, should not have been a secret.  Even if he does not waive the Republican flag in the same way the George Clooney whole heartedly has embraced the Democratic party, Eastwood has been a Republican.  So a Republican speaking at the Republican convention should not surprise anyone.  Yet Eastwood’s status as Hollywood royalty creates the assumption of political leanings that do not nor did not exist.

Any honest analysis of his films would indicate a deep strain of Randian thought.  While I might find the politics disagreeable, Eastwood, unlike Ayn Rand, is capable of and has produced good art. In an earlier post, I discussed these various themes in Eastwood’s films, many of which posit that strong, white men need to lead the rest of us who are incapable of governing ourselves.  Structural inequalities do not exist in Eastwood’s film, or if they do then they can be overcome by simply putting your back into it.  Changing one’s class status comes about through the sheer dedication and will that Hilary Swank displays in Million Dollar Baby (2004). Those who do not exhibit such a bootstrap mentality are stupid, lazy, and unethical and have only themselves to blame.

And this is where I find the linkage between Hollywood and “liberal” curious.  While some big name Hollywood types (Clooney, Spielberg, etc.) donate heavily to Democrats, the institution of Hollywood is as conservative as any other institution.  It is an enormous machine that seeks to generate profits and capital and will undercut workers whenever it can. The products it produces echo a right-wing politics; American exceptionalism, individualism, the military industrial complex, and obscene wealth are constantly celebrated while collectivism is often derided.

One needs to look no further than the two biggest grossing films from this summer: The Avengers (2012) and The Dark Knight Rises (2012).  Both films impart a message that democracy, an actual democracy in which all citizens have voice is worthless at best and dangerous at worst.  A democracy might put decisions into the hands of lesser men and women, when in actuality society’s important decisions should reside with the Bruce Waynes, Tony Starks, and Nick Furys. Democratically elected representatives, constitutional law, and human rights simply interrupt the necessary duties that such great men do for all of us.  And of course, we, the people, need to thank them by either constructing statues in their honor or imitating their likenesses.

In many ways, Iron Man and Batman are oddly costumed versions of “Dirty” Harry Callahan, Eastwood’s most enduring and legendary character. Callahan did not need mayors or police chiefs telling him what to do, and if everyone would just shut up, sit down, and leave him be, he could get to work and save all of us from ourselves.  The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises should play right into the narratives of contemporary conservative thinkers.

Yet it seems as thought the political right in the U.S. would rather embrace the films of Kirk Cameron than the films of Clint Eastwood.  And that is depressing on many levels.  On one level, Kirk Cameron makes films.  That should be bad enough, but unfortunately the right in the U.S. has moved so far right that Kirk Cameron-style drek becomes the only acceptable conservative message and narrative.

I guess the Kirk Cameron-ification of the American right is why Eastwood’s appearance at the Republican National Convention was so surprising.  His politics have not changed much in forty-plus years, yet the political team that he supports would now rather celebrate Kirk Cameron. Such a proposition is sad and exceedingly scary.

Pure Presidential Material

So Eastwood roots for a team, the Republicans, that he can barely stand and in which he is deeply disappointed.  I can sympathize with him; I support the Mariners.  Watching and hoping Romney wins an election is similar to watching Mariner’s utility man Chone Figgins bat.  Trust me, no one doesn’t hit Major League pitching like Chone Figgins doesn’t hit Major league pitching.  Well, actually Romney probably hits Major League pitching worse than Figgins does.  But Figgins can probably speak and campaign better than Romney can.  Actually, there is a solution for these problems.  Eastwood should convince the Republican National Committee to nominate Figgins as their presidential candidate.  I will no longer have to watch Figgins play in a Mariner uniform and Eastwood will not have to watch Romney campaign.

Five Film Favorites: Music

The idea of this post came to me as I was driving home one day and the new Jimmy Cliff single, “One More,” played over the radio. The single, life Cliff himself, is amazing, and listening to it made me think about the soundtrack to The Harder They Come (1972), easily my favorite film soundtrack of all time.  So I decided to create a list of five films/individuals that in their own separate ways represent a different kind of cinematic and musical favorite.  Other than each item having something to do with music, there is not much logic to the list; however, I have always considered music and sound important in the production and consumption of cinema, so this was a fun list for me to create.

Favorite film soundtrack: The Harder They Come from the film The Harder They Come

To be perfectly honest, I have never seen the film, but I have listened to the soundtrack hundreds of times.  In fact, most of you probably have too.  The soundtrack’s singles by Cliff (who was also the film’s star) and Toots and the Maytals have been played in coffee shops and on cruise lines for years.  So rather than providing my readers with a song from the soundtrack, I decided to insert Cliff’s new single into this post.

Favorite biopic about a “musician”: Sid and Nancy (1986) – Directed by Alex Cox

I put the word “musician” in quotes because, by most accounts, Sid Vicious was a musician in the broadest possible sense.  By all accounts Mr. Vicious did indeed hold a musical instrument in his hands, and he quite possibly manipulated it to create certain sounds.  Whether or not those sounds constituted music is up for debate.  However, this film’s quality is inversely proportionate to Vicious’s musical ability.  Cox does a wonderful job of showcasing the glamorous and (more often than not) not so glamorous sides of the punk rock scenes in London and New York in late 1970s and early 1980s.  Gary Oldman‘s portrayal of the iconic if untalented bassist marked his first real breakout performance.  It is rather odd that an actor who truly came into being by portraying Sid Vicious is now mostly recognized as Commissioner Gordon in The Dark Knight Rises.

Favorite film score composer: Ennio Morricone

Morricone has not yet won an Oscar.  I write “not yet” because even at age 84 he still composes a few scores per year.  What Morricone lacks in Academy Award hardware he makes up for in recognition.  His scores to a multitude of Italian Westerns, most notably those for Sergio Leone, have rattled around pop culture for years.  Quentin Tarantino frequently recycles Morricone scores for his films.  The Morricone sound of the Italian Western is as important to the genre as the style and violence that became genre’s trademarks.  While I cannot claim to have listened to all 512 titles for which Morricone has composed a score, I have taken in a few; my favorite is Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970).

Favorite concert film: Storefront Hitchcock (1998) – Directed by Jonathan Demme

Demme’s film of a Robyn Hitchcock performance has one small oddity: it is filmed with Hitchcock standing in front of a storefront window (hence the title) with his back to that window.  The audience and film viewers have the bizarre pleasure of watching Hitchcock perform while New York City goes about its business behind him.  Robyn Hitchcock is one of my favorite personalities of all time.  Hearing him talk is superseded only by listening to him perform.

Favorite use of diagetic music: Rachel Getting Married (2008) – Directed by Jonathan Demme

While Rachel Getting Married possesses many wonderful attributes, Anne Hathaway‘s and Debra Winger‘s performances foremost among them, its use of music is most odd and wonderful.  Songs continually play in the background, but they are entirely diagetic.  Demme conceived of a narrative device, a group of musicians practicing for and playing at a wedding, that allowed him to diagetically give his film a score and a soundtrack.  At times, this narrative device becomes part of the narrative. Hathaway’s Kym admonishes the musicians so that she can discuss matters with her sister in quiet. The use of diagetic music and Kym’s insistence that it stop is a wonderful moment in which we can recognize the conventions of film as film rather than a reproduction of life.

Robyn Hitchcock also makes an appearance as one of the wedding’s musicians.  Like me, Demme must be a big fan.

Ernest Borgnine on the Bus

In October 2002, our good friend and lover of cinema Pat Doyen (read her 2002 interview with Jeff Krulik here on the old RMIC website) helped the James River Film Society (then Richmond Moving Image Co-op) arrange for filmmaker Jeff Krulik to visit Richmond and screen several of his short films, including his classic Heavy Metal Parking Lot (made with John Heyn), Obsessed with Jews and Ernest Borgnine on the Bus. In memory and tribute to Ernest Borgnine, who died on July 8, 2012 at age 95, here is Jeff Krulik’s wonderful Ernest Borgnine on the Bus. Rest in peace, Mr. Borgnine.

Five Film Favorites: Films I have seen with my children

The overwhelming majority of films that I now see in theatres are, for lack of a better term, children’s films: films made for and marketed to those younger than twelve. While these experiences have saddled me with a boatload of disappointments, ranging from the mundane to the truly dreadful, there have been gems, truly terrific films that I enjoyed watching. To be clear, I always enjoy taking my children to see films, but I do not always enjoy the films themselves.  I have limited this category to films my children and I saw in the theatres rather than the innumerable films that we have watched on DVD, so the list below essentially captures films produced in the last eight years.

My youngest child is currently six, and since she continues to age, there will be a time in roughly six years or so when I will no longer take any of my children to “children’s films.”  Even though many of the films that I see are lamentable, the fact that a certain ritual will vanish makes me sad.  I suppose that I will have to wait for grandchildren to provide me with another excuse to see children’s films.  Children’s films are like sugary cereals.  You need the presence of  children to justify ingesting and purchasing them.  (“Oh, that box of Captain Crunch is my son’s.”)

Without further ado, my five favorite films that I have seen with my children . . .

The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004) – Directed by Stephen Hillenburg and Mark Osborne

I can in all honesty say that I have seen this film more than any other film in my lifetime.  And while I grew a little bored by the fiftieth viewing, it is, in truth, a good film.  On the surface, it seems like a simple money-making ploy by Nickelodean: cash in on their biggest cartoon franchise with a major motion picture.  Yes, its creation and distribution probably was a calculated financial decision, but at least the film was fun and well crafted.

Hillenburg and Osborne simply did not take a television cartoon and distribute to theatres.  They created a film, one that played to the dimensions of the cinematic screen.  The SpongeBob cartoons are, like many cartoons, limited in terms of space.  Yet the movie played up to the dimensions of the big screen. In short, The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie felt like a movie, not a television cartoon.  And it does what the cartoon does best, present a looniness and wonderful wackiness that can be witnessed in the best of the early Bugs Bunny cartoons.  I can also say, in all sincerity, that this film represents the pinnacle of David Hasselhoff’s film career.

The Muppets (2011) – Directed by James Bobin

I am a lazy man, so I am going simply link to my previous post about The Muppets.  Spoiler alert: I liked it.

Rango (2011) – Directed by Gore Verbinski

Did I mention that I was lazy?

Pixar’s The Incredibles (2004) – Directed by Brad Bird, Ratatouille (2007) – Directed by Brad Bird and Jan Pinkava, Wall-E (2008) – Directed by Andrew Staunton, and Up (2009) – Directed by Pete Docter and Bob Peterson

I lumped my favorite Pixar films together.  Peter Schilling discussed Pixar Studios in his review of Brave. I have a feeling that I was (slightly) more predisposed toward Brave than Peter, but I am in general agreement with his assessment about the studio and what made many of its films great.  Similar to Peter, I would look forward to the annual release of the Pixar flick, and on more than one occasion, I had a better time than my children.  What I felt made these films so great is that they often seemed to ignore their target audience: children.  They were not made with the thought that they would serve as vehicles for selling action figures, Halloween masks, and various other pieces of plastic crap. These are simply great films that the studio and theatres marketed toward children after the fact.

Of course, not selling oodles of crap to children was a problem. The solution: Cars 2, one of the worst children’s films that I have seen.

Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005) – Directed by Nick Park and Steve Box

Nick Park’s indelible and lovely creations, Wallace and Gromit, had long existed in many wonderful short animated features.  The one and only full-length film about the cheese loving middle-aged inventor and his cracking dog is no less wonderful.  Park’s and the Aardman studio’s claymation have always been superb.  What makes this film and all of the Wallace & Gromit creations so magnificent is that the characters are imbued with a sense of tangibility.  The necessary human, tactile touch required to mold the clay makes these characters seem more human and tactile.

Park also has a sharp wit and sense of humor.  Again, like the best of the Pixar films, Wallace & Gromit was not written and produced for children.  It was written and produced to be an excellent film, and it is.

Quick Canada Day Recommendation: Films by Sarah Polley

Last Canada Day, I recommended Sarah Polley’s brilliant Away From Her (2006), a remarkable and emotionally draining film based on an Alice Munro short story, “The Bear Came Over the Mountain.” This Canada Day, I recommend seeing any film by Polley. True, her filmography consists of only two full length features, Away From Her and her recently released Take This Waltz (2011). Actually, film goers in the United States can only see Take This Waltz if they happen to reside in or travel to New York or Los Angeles.  So I, as a resident of Richmond, VA (Chesterfield County to be geographically accurate), do not yet have the pleasure of seeing Polley’s new film.

However, I desperately desire to see it.  A.O. Scott, one of my favorite film reviewers, lauds Take This Waltz.  Scott comments on how Polley, a Canadian and Toronto resident, uses her home town as the perfect backdrop for her love story about a married woman (Michelle Williams) who falls for a neighbor (Luke Kirby) during a sweltering Canadian summer.  Scott further notes that Polley, who wrote and directed this piece, used strains of fellow Canadian writer Munro to string together her story of complex and deep emotions. Munro is my second-favorite living writer, and I am happy to see her fiction being utilized, directly or indirectly, by a filmmaker of Polley’s caliber.

So in celebration of Canada Day, see a film by Sarah Polley: a remarkable talent.

As a bonus, Take This Waltz casts Seth Rogen as Williams’s husband.  And it would be criminal of me to discuss a Rogen film and not include this review by Texas Governor Rick Perry.