When it was announced that J.J. Abrams would direct and co-write Episode VII of "Star Wars," the mounting pressure on him began. "Star Wars" is one of the most beloved movie franchises of all time and Abrams had astronomical expectations, particularly after the first three episodes were so controversial (and in my opinion, mostly bad). "Star Wars" fans are so protective that they currently have a love/hate relationship with its author, George Lucas, over his lackluster prequels and his decision to modify Episodes IV-VI for little or no reason. This phenomena is chronicled in a great documentary called "The People vs. George Lucas." And to be clear, Han shot first and miti-chlorians are BS.
But George Lucas was on the sidelines for this round and it was all up to Abrams to invigorate the franchise. And that he did. "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" is so good, in fact, that it didn't have the immediate feel of being a "Star Wars" movie, which all have a delightful campiness to them. But this is partly because Abrams was so effective in revamping "Star Wars" with a new cast of characters for the future. I cannot deny, however, that my favorite aspect of the film was the return of old friends: Hans Solo, Chewbacca, Leia, Luke, and the droids. And how great was it to see the Millenium Falcon again? This intermingling of past and future was a great way to pay homage to the films everyone loves while also moving them forward.
Speaking of homage, it was quite clear that "The Force Awakens" conspicuously modeled itself on "A New Hope." Rey, the new female hero, works with robot parts on a desert planet and has a knack for technology, just like Luke Skywalker. Her planet lives in the shambles of the former Empire---I loved all of the fallen Empire ships and defunct imperial walkers. Rey rescues a droid, which turns out to be a cute, more expressive version of R2D2, with valuable information. She then meets two smugglers named Hans Solo and Chewbacca who help her get to safety. Oh yeah, the new version of the Empire called "The First Order" has constructed a new planetary doomsday device that the rebels have to destroy. Sound familiar? I have to wonder, maybe even hope, that the subsequent movies follow the homage pattern and make versions of "Empire" and "Jedi."
Perhaps the most interesting new character is Finn, a black storm trooper with a conscience who spontaneously joins the rebellion after he saw one too many of his friends killed in battle. While I think his character brings a new perspective into the hero lot, he does raise some questions. In the prequels, we learned that the storm troopers were all clones of Jango Fett. How then did we end up with a black storm trooper? The movie doesn't explain this, so I must assume that The First Order had new recruits or clones. Likewise, never in the history of "Star Wars" has a storm trooper second guessed his place in the Empire or had a moral change of heart. Again, we can only assume that The First Order's cloning or brainwashing protocol is inferior to that of the Empire.
The best acting in the film belongs to Adam Driver (of HBO's "Girls") who plays Kylo Ren, a fantastic new villain in the making who happens to be the son of Han and Leia. While most "Star Wars" villains are calm and collected, Kylo Ren is very emotional, which will probably cause problems, even redemption, in the future. I must admit that I did breathe a sigh of relief when the movie thankfully did not include idiotic characters like Jar Jar Binx, a sin that George Lucas must consider changing in the future versions of his prequels. You did it once, George, why not again when it really matters?
Overall, "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" is a great film filled with dazzling special effects, a new yet familiar story, and a cast of new good guys and bad guys for the future. Still, as I said before, this movie lacked the B-movie quality that endeared all of us to "Star Wars." The dialogue wasn't hokey, the acting wasn't unintentionally funny, and, most jarringly, blasters actually killed people. Compare that to the other movies in which a ridiculous barrage of of lasers might kill one person. This isn't your mama's "Star Wars" anymore. While it may take a bit of recalibration for this film to seamlessly morph into the franchise, it was as successful as a reboot can be, especially for something as sacred as Star Wars. Hats off to J.J. Abrams.
In Charlie Kaufman's second film, "Anomalisa," Michael Stone, a businessman and noted author, travels to Cincinnati to give a speech at a conference. In the speech, Michael explains his secret to good customer service: "Look for what is special about each individual, focus on that." But the events that take place around Michael's speech make us ponder more deeply about individuality and whether it even exists. How do we perceive individuality? Why do we fall in love with "extraordinary people" but then waiver in our feelings? In a familiar Kaufman theme, we are forced to confront the loneliness created by our emotional whims and the ultimate failure to connect (or reconnect) with others. And did I mention that the entire film, which plumbs the depths of the human condition, is inhabited by stop motion animation puppets?
The use of puppets is an interesting choice for Kaufman but not totally unprecedented. In "Being John Malkovich," Kaufman posed questions about identity and the desire to control others as puppets in order to satisfy our desires. And control is exactly why Kaufman chose to use puppets; his thematic vision demanded it. Michael inhabits a mundane world in which everyone is insufferably the same. In his view, though they wear different accouterments, every person literally and figuratively shares the same face and voice (all the voices in the film, save two, are played my one man). As Michael lands in Cincinnati, he is haunted by a romantic break-up that occured ten years ago. He checks into a hotel named The Fregoli, which turns out to be one of Kaufman's psychiatric jokes. The Fregoli Delusion is the name of a psychiatric condition in which sufferers believe that all the people around them are really incarnations of just one person, who is tormenting them. While the one person tormenting him seems to be an ex-girlfriend, she is really an emblem of Michael's relationship failures and difficulties achieving lasting intimacy. The one person tormenting Michael is *drum roll* Michael.
Michael is a mopey fellow, a character trait that is noticeable in his posture and countenance. Much of the movie relies on facial expression and small movements, a challenge admirably met by the puppeteers. The facial features and movements are so good, in fact, that "Anomalisa" could easily have worked as a silent movie. At his hotel in Cincinnati, Michael clearly needs a connection, something he's not getting from his wife and family. He calls an ex-girlfriend named Bella and she agrees to meet with him that night. Although Bella seems uneasy about meeting the person who hurt her ten years ago, you can tell that Michael was very important to her and that his exit was extremely damaging. Upon meeting, Bella is very self-conscious and uncomfortable with revisiting her past. After Michael's plan to have a one night stand with Bella becomes apparent, she leaves disillusioned and hurt. Michael then meets two women attending the conference who idolize his business acumen. He pursues one of the women named Lisa, who exhibits a hyper self-consciousness and the self esteem of a teenager. Immediately, Michael comments on how Lisa is so different from everyone else. Physically, she differs from everyone else in the film in that she has a female voice and an individual face compared to a sea of people who look the same. When Lisa asks why he thinks that she is so extraordinary, Michael replies "I don't know yet. It's just obvious to me that you are."
While one can read "Anomalisa" as a positive and beautiful story celebrating individuality and profound connections, I think Kaufman has a more skeptical attitude. Michael's infatuation with Lisa is transient and stems from his emotional needs at the moment. In other words, Kaufman is suggesting that we may be attracted to certain people at certain times under very particular circumstances. There is not one person meant for us because circumstances change. Would Michael have found Lisa so "extraordinary" if he were not so unhappy in his marriage or recently rejected by an ex-flame an hour prior? "Individuality" may be a perception of others instead of inherently existing. Maybe we are all the same until the right circumstances align and fulfill the passing needs of two people.
Michael's attraction to Lisa owes to the fact that she is obtainable because of her low self esteem. Could Michael be rationalizing, even mythologizing his pursuit of an easy target by fooling himself that he has met his soulmate? Remember that Michael had a similar situation with Bella: he loved her but then left abruptly. Lisa and Bella are very similar in that they both lack confidence and fell for Michael's wild promises and overblown emotions. In a way, Michael is trying to re-find past love in his pursuit of Lisa. He wants a brand new yet familiar woman. Michael finally confronts his selfish rationalizations in a dream in which the hotel attempts to provide him with the ultimate "customer service" by hooking him up with employees who idolize his work and want to sleep with him. After all, wasn't it the hotel and Michael's book that brought he and Lisa together?
In the end, "Anomalisa" is not about love or soulmates; it's about the intoxicating emotion of meeting someone new and sharing a passing moment of passion and infatuation. It's about a short lived connection in which, as Michael says, you feel as if you are "the only two people in the world." In reality, Michael's fling with Lisa is more about his own selfishness and exhilaration, a fantasy to escape his everyday boredom. For Kaufman, those small moments are among the only true episodes of happiness that a person can feel because of its all encompassing, irrational nature. That's why Michael immediately fears that the world will conspire to separate he and Lisa.
Eventually, Michael experiences a withdrawal from transient bliss. He begins noticing all of Lisa's imperfections until she gradually becomes like everyone else and returns to the sea of faces. We get the feeling that all of Michael's past loves, including his wife, were once different too, but have sense regressed in his mind to ordinary. Still, as Michael returns home to his humdrum family life and Lisa copes with being used for a one night stand, both reflect that the rejuvenating experience was well-worth the sorrow because it was special and brilliant for a moment. Echoing Kaufman's themes in "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," life experience, whether it causes sadness, joy or both, is the meaning of existence because it what makes us who we are, even for a moment.
As Leonardo DiCaprio traverses the barren American northwest in search of revenge in "The Revenant," one quote continuously percolates in his mind: "As long as you can still grab a breath, you fight. You breathe... keep breathing." This is no easy task, as the film takes place in a desolate tundra teeming with bloodthirsty Indians, mercenary fur trappers, roaming wolves, and, most dangerously, as we find out, grizzly bears. There are many amazing adventure stories in the film canon, but none as profoundly intense, personal, and engrossing as "The Revenant," a feat that stems from the amazing directing of Alejandro González Iñárritu, fresh off his Oscar win for "Birdman." Iñárritu's style is very intimate and constantly weaves cameras in between people, trees, and animals in long unedited shots, which gives a feeling of actually experiencing what the characters are experiencing. He is able to show the vastness of the wilderness while also whittling it down using natural light to create a white out effect for smaller scale scenes. Most importantly, these close range shots highlight both the mental and physical suffering of the characters.
The plot is straightforward yet powerful. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Hugh Glass, a fur trapper on a group expedition somewhere deep in the American northwest. The trapper's camp is ambushed by Indians and a few of the trappers manage to escape into the wilderness. The battle scene between the trappers and Indians is a spectacular portrayal of anarchy, terror, and face to face combat. We are not shown two people fighting from a camera angle far removed from the action. Instead, Iñárritu weaves around the combatants so you can feel every stumble, every gasp for air, and every sharp feeling of pain. As the trappers venture out, Glass stumbles upon two grizzly bear cubs and is subsequently mauled by the protective mother. Again, the bear attack is shot with monstrous intensity, as if the audience were lying on the ground with DiCaprio next to a violent maelstrom. When Glass becomes incapacitated, three men stay behind, including Glass's son, to take care of him until he recovers or dies. When the men disagree on what to do with Glass as he continues to ail, one of the men, John Fitzgerald, ends up killing Glass's son and then tries to abscond. Glass makes a heroic recovery and then seeks revenge against Fitzgerald.
As expected, Leonardo DiCaprio gives an Oscar-worthy performance. He is an intense actor and perfectly suited for the role. Tom Hardy also gives a noteworthy performance as John Fitzgerald, who is an interesting, if not sympathetic villain. While many villains commit atrocities out of pure evil, Fitzgerald is more a jaded, rational figure who does what he needs to survive. He carries a battle scar on his head from an attempted scalping at the hands of an Indian warrior, an ordeal that undoubtedly taught him a cruel lesson. One interesting contrast between the characters of Glass and Fitzgerald is what each took away from the Native American culture that permeates their world. Fitzgerald carries a harsh savagery with him while Glass learns spirituality, family and a sense of oneness with nature.
"The Revenant" is the best movie of the year. It is an original contribution to American film and boasts bravura directing and superb acting. To be sure, the film is truly a raw experience and can be emotionally draining at times. But, most of all, "The Revenant" is a celebration of the film medium and how it can be used to externalize the emotional innards within a character.
Quentin Tarantino's last few films have examined, even rewritten, the darker parts of modern history. We saw him create a new and satisfying ending to World War II in "Inglorious Basterds" and then inflict revenge on those who contributed to American slavery in "Django Unchained." In his latest movie, "The Hateful Eight," Tarantino once again revisits history with his sights on the social, political, and economic hardships of post-Civil War America. To this end, he uses a simple plot device to bring together a ragtag group of symbolic characters into a cultural time bomb. Several men from different backgrounds are caught in a blizzard and must take refuge at a country inn called Minnie's Haberdashery. In such close quarters, the men slowly come to realize who their friends and enemies are, and the distinction is minimal. The impending conflict is foreshadowed by Ennio Morricone's truly amazing score, a sinister and fractious piece of music that creates an unsettling suspense.
Kurt Russell plays a bounty hunter named John Ruth who symbolizes true justice. He's known as "The Hangman" because he always delivers his bounties alive so they can be executed in the locality in which they committed the crime. Russell comes dangerously close to chewing the scenery with a John Wayne-style delivery. Interestingly, Ruth is considered the most virtuous part of the cabin despite the fact that he continually and brutally beats up his bounty, a woman named Daisy Domergue. I suppose this is Tarantino's not-so-subtle commentary on the lack of women's' rights on the frontier. While "The Hateful Eight" has the requisite amount of N-words to make it a Tarantino film, the famed director still trades many of them for "bitch," now aimed at Daisy. Samuel L. Jackson plays Major Marquis Warren, a retired union officer who became famous for two things: his cruelty towards "Johnny Reb," and his long distance correspondence with President Abraham Lincoln. In many ways, Major Warren is the most interesting character in the film, one who represents the reality of emancipated slaves after the Civil War. His obvious hatred for white people is palpable. In fact, after taking away the guns of everyone in the cabin, he proudly states, "Only time when black folks are safe is when white folks is disarmed." Later, we find out that Warren's alleged Lincoln letter is a forgery designed to endear himself to white folks by taking advantage of their admiration of the slain president. Indeed, it is telling that Warren had to forge a letter from Lincoln congratulating him on his courage in the war.
The cabin also hosts Sheriff Chris Mannix, a semi-famous figure because of his father, who headed a post-war rebel army of Confederates who just didn't think surrendering was an option. He speaks of earning "dignity in defeat" and professes the self-serving beliefs that Confederate revisionists would savor for a century: that the war was about honor and state rights. Mannix is in good company with General Sandy Smithers, a famous Confederate general played by Bruce Dern who's living out his days in a world that no longer makes sense to him without slavery. Tim Roth plays Oswaldo Mobray, an English immigrant who serves as the actual hangman for a nearby town. With Tarantino swag, he talks about the difference between frontier and civilized justice, the latter being dispassionate and righteous. Roth gives one of my favorite performances of the film. Michael Madsen plays John Gage, a timid cow-puncher who made some quick money on a ranch and is now visiting his mom for Christmas. Indeed, Tarantino quickly sets the stage for what will surely be a fascinating and bloody coming to terms with America's past. The most unexpected aspect of "The Hateful Eight" is that Tarantino totally blows it and takes the story into a silly Agatha Christie murder mystery that ends up being kind of dumb. I have the unfortunate duty of reporting that Tarantino has finally made a disappointing movie, one in which his flowery dialogue, gratuitous violence and childish revenge stories have become woeful and tiresome. He created the mortal sin of dressing up "The Hateful Eight" without anywhere to go. The film gets bogged down in a mystery about a poisoning and barely takes advantage of the cultural dynamic it created. Tarantino has been obsessed with revenge as of late, making films that seek to empower the historically downtrodden, specifically women, Jews and African Americans. Samuel L. Jackson's character has his revenge on the Confederate general but in the stupidest, most infantile way imaginable. The plot devolves into something that is well beneath Tarantino who previously made seven excellent films.
Since the release of his "Kill Bill" franchise, Quentin Tarantino has continued to make slightly different versions of his Kung-Fu revenge epic, just changing the names of the good and bad guys. It's time for him to move on and create something wholly original, a trait that made him a household name. "The Hateful Eight" is not only lesser Tarantino; it's lazy Tarantino. While watching the film, I couldn't help but think of other great filmmakers who made similarly substandard films. Many auteurs are guilty of at least one or two. A comparative film that repeatedly came to mind was the Cohen brother's remake of "The Ladykillers," a ridiculous gaff by brilliant artists. The Cohen brothers quickly recovered their reputation with one of their best films, "No Country for Old Men." One can only hope that Tarantino makes a similar recovery so he can step into the pantheon again.
Charlie Kaufman's first film, "Synecdoche, New York," is likely to polarize audiences for years to come. Some critics, such as Roger Ebert, called it the best film of the new millennium while others complained that it was totally incomprehensible. I have to admit that the film is one of the most challenging that I have ever seen. It has taken me more than a few viewings to get an idea of the film's symbolism and meaning. I think there is a legitimate debate as to whether movies should be this difficult to decipher. "Synecdoche, New York" is at many times frustrating, even challenging to watch because of its hermetical nature. Still, the philosophy behind the film, which Kaufman has been working toward in all of his previous filmography, is very fascinating. While the moviegoing experience is atypical, the process of finding meaning in the film's seemingly impenetrable shell is both satisfying and edifying.
I think it is worth a moment to reflect back on Kaufman's other films to see the artistic progression toward "Synecdoche, New York." Although he was the screenwriter of the following films rather than the director, they are unmistakably Kaufman films and it is clear that the directors were inspired by his vision. "Being John Malkovich" is a film that explores the philosophical implications of a simple thought experiment: what if you could inhabit someone else's life? Are you still you? Is the vector still an individual? Why do human beings have a desire to live vicariously through others and even control them? In "Adaptation," Kaufman wrote about the difficulties of writing a screenplay and the limits put upon him by both Hollywood and the mass audience. Just as lifeforms must adapt to survive in the natural environment, Kaufman argued that his story had to adapt and become palatable in order for it to be made. Finally, "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" provided yet another thought experiment: if you could erase all the painful memories from your life, would you? The film demonstrates the connection between identity and experience as well as the ultimate inability to control relationships and the direction and growth of others. In total, Kaufman's films reflect on failed desires and the limitations of our own perspective and perception.
The plot of the film serves as a springboard for many of the philosophical questions noted above. Caden Cotard, played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman, is a depressed playwright who is currently directing a production of "Death of a Salesman" at a local theater. After growing apart, his wife, Adele, now a famous painter, moves to Berlin with his daughter, Olive. Caden takes the separation badly and vacillates in an on again, off again relationship with a friend named Hazel. Caden is awarded a MacArthur Fellowship to produce a theatrical production "of great truth." He tries to realize a massive project which essentially creates an alternative version of his life in which he has total control.
One of the key elements of "Synecdoche, New York" is Caden's individual perception of time and his obsession with it fading away. In the beginning of the film, Caden hears a radio report telling him that it is September 22. He then looks at a newspaper and the date changes to October 17. If you watch closely, the date on the newspaper speeds ahead as the family talks. In addition, Caden remarks that a quart of milk in the refrigerator has expired----the date on the label is October 20. Notice the continuous changing of dates in short succession. The movie appears to be shot in real time but calendars, appointments and dialogue alert us to the passage of days and months rather than shorter increments. Caden's sense of time is relative to everyone else. His experience of days and weeks turns out to be months and years to others. As the dates move forward quickly in the background, Caden continues to be obsessed with his own perceived illnesses, bodily functions, injuries and the feeling that he is moving towards his end. In the background, the television flashes animations about viruses and natural disasters around the world.
This obsession with loss of time and opportunity is mirrored in Caden's current theatrical production of "Death of Salesman," in which he casts young actors to play the jaded, hopeless characters beaten down by the world in Arthur Miller's work. He instructs an actor by saying "Try to keep in mind that a young person playing Willie Loman thinks he's only pretending to be at the end of a life full of despair. But the tragedy is that we know that you, the young actor, will end up in this very place of desolation." Caden's overarching view on life and his obsession with worldly issues out of his control adds to his relative fast experience of time. Time is slipping away because the present is filled with distractions. His relationship with his family deteriorates because of his inward obsessions and dark lens through which he views the world. Note: The main character's name is Caden Cotard. A psychiatric disease was identified in 1880 called Cotard's Disease, which described jaded people who believed that they were already dead.
Caden's perception of time becomes horrific after his wife, a burgeoning artist, and their young daughter move to Berlin. While he ages in loneliness, the lives of his family continue without him. From Caden's perspective, his daughter is frozen in time as an eight year old. Although years have passed, Caden still hears his daughter's young voice when reading her diary or correspondence. He often tries to send his daughter gifts, most of which are meant for a little girl and not a teenager or adult. Likewise, in addition to lost time with his family, his inamorata in the movie, Hazel, moves on to other relationships and even gets married after Caden quells her advances. Near the end of the film, when Caden and hazel finally reunite, Caden expresses his sadness over his lost time with Hazel, remarking "I wish I had this when we were young."
While the film ruminates over lost time and opportunities, it also stirs up issues about fate and its connection to the choices one makes. Kaufman seems to espouse a predestined fate by consent. In one surreal scene, Hazel decides to purchase a burning house. As we find out later, Hazel dies of smoke inhalation during a fire in that very house. While there is not necessarily a god guiding her way, Hazel's free choice has consequences far into the future. Before the sale, the realtor even comments when Hazel expresses fear that she'll die in the house that "it's an important decision how one chooses to die." Likewise, Caden's decisions early in his life to avoid intimacy, particularly with Hazel, directly leads to debilitating loneliness in his old age. In fact, Caden essentially becomes one of the young actors in his production of "Death of Salesman," one who is cognizant of an impending life of misery. As Hazel says later, "The end is built into the beginning."
In "Synecdoche, New York," loneliness is forever tied to one's limited perspective and unattained expectations, particularly when it comes to personal relationships and art. A beautiful song called "Little Person" permeates the entire movie, giving heed to the fact that we are all alone in the universe because we live in our own minds. We desperately search for connection with others, even if it is for fleeting moments:
I'm just a little person
One person in a sea
Of many little people
Who are not aware of me
I do my little job
And live my little life
Eat my little meals
Miss my little kid and wife
And somewhere, maybe someday
Maybe somewhere far away
I'll find a second little person
Who will look at me and say
"I know you
You're the one I've waited for
Let's have some fun."
Life is precious every minute
And more precious with you in it
So let's have some fun
We'll take a road trip way out west
You're the one I like the best
I'm glad I've found you
Like hangin' 'round you
You're the one I like the best
Somewhere, maybe someday
Maybe somewhere far away
Somewhere, maybe someday
Maybe somewhere far away
Somewhere, maybe someday
Maybe somewhere far away
I'll meet a second little person
And we'll go out and play
After Caden gets his Macarthur fellowship, he embarks on a massive theatrical undertaking that will encompass all of his life. In effect, he will create a duplicate universe in a warehouse and direct this alternative life as he envisions it. For starters, this idea is destined to fail because of its magnitude. Caden quickly discovers the production requires an alternate world with subsequent never-ending alternative worlds. In other words, Caden has to build a warehouse within a warehouse within a warehouse, etc to totally capture the full reality of this world. Echoing the themes in "Adaptation," Caden is unable to capture something so large, intricate and wondrous as life. Caden's macro view of artistic expression can be contrasted to his wife's artwork, which consists of tiny miniature portraits depicting single moments. Recall that she is wildly successful compared to Caden. She is celebrated as a genius in Europe and appears in magazines while he vacillates for 17+ years in creating one work. While the macro view of expression is admirable, the micro view is what can be realized in the short term. Finally, much like Kaufman's experience in "Adaptation," Cotard learns that his therapist, a woman who seems more a hack than an innovator, has figured out a way to market herself with a collection of lackluster books. Again, by aiming lower and taking a micro view, yet another artist succeeds in place of Caden.
The most important theme in "Synecdoche, New York" is that all human beings are prisoners of perspective. This fact leads to perpetual loneliness and disappointment at other's inability to adequately fulfill the roles we assign to them in our lives. Besides the overwhelming size of the concept, Caden's play ultimately fails because others will not follow his direction. In an ironic moment of optimism, Caden explains that he has figured out how to realize his concept: "There are nearly thirteen million people in the world. None of those people is an extra. They're all the leads of their own stories. They have to be given their due." Caden's failure is built right into that optimism. If people are leads and decision makers in their own stories, how can they always follow Caden's direction? This question is Kaufman's allegory of limited perspective in life. We are all in control of our lives. We make sense of the world by categorizing people into roles with expectations. We want a person to act this way, to perform these tasks, to love us in this particular way. Bitter feelings of loneliness and frustration ensue when people fail to follow our expectations. Someone does not do what they are told. We are not loved how we want to be loved. In a way, Caden wrestles with accepting people in the film as they are versus who he wants them to be.
These failures happen frequently in Caden's theatrical production and in his own life. He begins by assigning his roles: "Each day I'll hand you a paper, it'll tell you what happened to you that day. You felt a lump in your breast. You looked at your wife and saw a stranger, et cetera.....All right, I'm not excusing myself from this either....I will have someone play me, to delve into the murky, cowardly depths of my lonely, fucked-up being. And he'll get notes too, and those notes will correspond to the notes I truly receive every day from my god! Get to work!" The most dramatic example of a failed role is Sammy, an actor who tells Caden: "I've been following you for twenty years. So I knew about this audition because I follow you. And I've learned everything about you by following you. So hire me. And you'll see who you truly are." Sammy presents himself as the perfect actor to portray Caden; he proclaims that he knows Caden better than Caden knows himself. Philosophical questions stemming from "Being John Malkovich" immediately come to mind. Can Sammy really inhabit Caden? Can any of the other actors really inhabit their roles? If a man is hired to play a janitor in Caden's vision, is he considered an actor or a janitor? What designates both roles?
As much as we all try to meet the expectations of others, we will fail when that desire threatens our own life and needs. Sammy fails in his portrayal of Caden by falling in love with the wrong person (the actress who plays Hazel instead of Hazel) and by committing suicide when he can't realize his own happiness. As Caden explained after Sammy jumped to his death from a building, "I didn't jump, Sammy, I didn't jump!" Most people do not follow Caden's expectations in real life: his wife and daughter leave him; he and Claire, his second wife, fail to meet each other's needs, and, fittingly, Caden does not even meet his own expectations as a director.
To complicate things further, the roles that others chose for us or the roles we chose for ourselves may be falsehoods. Furthermore, sometimes we play roles for others without them knowing or condoning it. To remain close to his lost family, Caden anonymously takes on the role of a cleaning woman named Ellen Bascom. He plays the role of doting father and husband to his family, even though they are absent. Another powerful example of a false role involves the adult version of Caden's daughter, Olive. After he finds out that she's dying, Caden meets Olive in the hospital and discovers that his ex-wife's lesbian partner, Maria, has been slowly poisoning Olive against him, as depicted metaphorically by tattoos that cover her body, a decision that Caden had protested earlier in the film. Olive says that she could only have peace if Caden admits to the role that Maria had planted in Olive's mind: a closet homosexual who left his wife and daughter for a lover. Although this is a lie, Caden agrees to the false role in the hopes of receiving his daughter's forgiveness. As Olive dies, she gives him no reconciliation. So it goes.
Near the end of his life, Caden's life and theatrical production begin to fade. He metaphorically lives out his days in the apartment of his first family, trying desperately to make up for his failures. Caden finally comes to terms with two harsh facts about life. The first epiphany comes from a priest giving a sermon about choice and fate at Sammy's funeral:
"Everything is more complicated than you think. You only see a tenth of what is true. There are a million little strings attached to every choice you make; you can destroy your life every time you choose. But maybe you won't know for twenty years. And you may never ever trace it to its source. And you only get one chance to play it out. Just try and figure out your own divorce. And they say there is no fate, but there is: it's what you create. And even though the world goes on for eons and eons, you are only here for a fraction of a fraction of a second. Most of your time is spent being dead or not yet born. But while alive, you wait in vain, wasting years, for a phone call or a letter or a look from someone or something to make it all right. And it never comes or it seems to but it doesn't really. And so you spend your time in vague regret or vaguer hope that something good will come along. Something to make you feel connected, something to make you feel whole, something to make you feel loved. And the truth is I feel so angry, and the truth is I feel so fucking sad, and the truth is I've felt so fucking hurt for so fucking long and for just as long I've been pretending I'm OK, just to get along, just for, I don't know why, maybe because no one wants to hear about my misery, because they have their own. Well, fuck everybody. Amen."
Those semi-poetic memories of mistakes past meet with Caden's final realization that life is ultimately meaningless, a collection of choices and actions not amounting to much on a grand scale because most of it occurred in his head. His great masterwork begins to crumble into obscurity along with the artistic works of others in his life like those of his enterprising but vapid therapist. Caden finally relinquishes control of his life to Millicent Williams, who symbolizes fate or ultimate self-realization. As Caden dies, he receives his final instructions from a higher intelligence:
"What was once before you - an exciting, mysterious future - is now behind you. Lived; understood; disappointing. You realize you are not special. You have struggled into existence, and are now slipping silently out of it. This is everyone's experience. Every single one. The specifics hardly matter. Everyone's everyone. So you are Adele, Hazel, Claire, Olive. You are Ellen. All her meager sadnesses are yours; all her loneliness; the gray, straw-like hair; her red raw hands. It's yours. It is time for you to understand this.
Walk.
As the people who adore you stop adoring you; as they die; as they move on; as you shed them; as you shed your beauty; your youth; as the world forgets you; as you recognize your transience; as you begin to lose your characteristics one by one; as you learn there is no-one watching you, and there never was, you think only about driving - not coming from any place; not arriving any place. Just driving, counting off time. Now you are here, at 7:43. Now you are here, at 7:44. Now you are...Gone.
Die."
As I finished watching "Synecdoche, New York," I couldn't help but think of one of my favorite books, "Moby Dick," by Herman Melville. While the book makes for a long, often frustrating read about themes too broad to adequately explain, it is filled with philosophical symbols and themes that have inhabited my mind ever since: the meaning of existence, man vs. nature, the creation of myth and the illusion of control. The book may not be fun to read but the ideas have stayed with me for years. "Synecdoche, New York" is that kind of artistic work, one that is more fun to talk about than watch. How many movies have you seen that demand that type of attention and commitment? In the vein of Stanley Kubrick, Kaufman has elevated film to a high intellectual level of philosophical conversation, puzzles and thought experiments. For better or worse, "Synecdoche, New York" is an exercise of the mind.
The film, "Steve Jobs" begins with noted author and scientist, Arthur C. Clarke, speaking in a 1960's documentary about something called a "computer," which, at that time, took up entire rooms. Echoing the optimism that he exhibited in his other works, particularly in "2001: A Space Odyssey," Clarke discussed how one day every family would have a computer in their home and how it would change life as they knew it. In the first few moments of the film, we are led to believe that Steve Jobs will represent the ultimate fulfillment of that promise. After all, he pioneered personal computers as the penultimate extension of self, a tool for total expression of the soul. In one crucial scene, when those around him were questioning his philosophy, he let his daughter play around with a new model of the Mac. When asked what a child will do with the Mac, he turned the monitor around to show an abstract drawing that his daughter had created in a painting program. Pointing to her creation, Jobs asserted "She will make this."
The problem with "Steve Jobs" is that it doesn't even come close to explaining how and if Jobs fulfilled that promise. In a film billed as a "character study," there was little if any insight into the man or the business that he helped to create. For some inexplicable reason, the screenwriter, Aaron Sorkin, chose to separate the movie into three acts that mirror the launch of three different Jobs projects: the Macintosh, the NEXT Cube, and the iMac. The film hovers around the hour or so before Jobs goes on stage to present his newest creation. Apparently, Sorkin thinks that these are the crucial moments that explain Jobs' life: the moments in which Jobs repeatedly obsesses about his products while ignoring his daughter and mistreating colleagues. To Sorkin, Jobs' life is that reductive.
The only time the film even flirts with being a character study is when it harshly judges Jobs for his bizarre denial of his daughter, despite the existence of DNA proof. The film uncomfortably forces the question of whether one's career accomplishments, particularly those as big as Jobs' endeavors, can outweigh failures in one's personal life. Even if that question were a legitimate one, the film does nothing to answer it except to point out the fact that he denied paternity of his daughter. So much for an interesting exposition. Additionally, it would have been interesting to know about Job's magnetic qualities and how he was able to motivate others and bend people to his vision.
The larger and more interesting issue that the movie almost totally avoids is why Jobs is considered such a genius. Many engineers, programmers and electronics experts had a significant role in our modern computing age. Jobs' business partner, Steve Wozniak, hits the nail on the head: "You can't write code... you're not an engineer... you're not a designer... you can't put a hammer to a nail. I built the circuit board. The graphical interface was stolen from Xerox Parc. Jeff Raskin was the leader of the Mac team before you threw him off his own project! Someone else designed the box! So how come ten times in a day, I read Steve Jobs is a genius? What do you do?" Again, the movie does not come close to answering this question. We do not get to see the magic behind the man. While Jobs had a gift for envisioning user friendly interfaces and welcoming computer designs, I think he also had a gift for designing and marketing himself as a genius and someone who has the ability to "Think Different[ly]," as the slogan goes. Instead of any interesting discussion of this point, the best we get from Sorkin are cool sounding but ultimately sterile phrases like "the orchestra plays their instruments and I play the orchestra."
"Steve Jobs" is a sizable flop for both Aaron Sorkin and director, Danny Boyle, both of whom have produced great films in the past. In fact, Sorkin had great success in writing about cyberspace innovators in "The Social Network," a truly great film about Mark Zuckerberg and the creation of Facebook. Sorkin was able to trace the history of Facebook while also examining the social and cultural implications that derived from lives relived on the internet. From Sorkin's latest film, what did we really learn about Steve Jobs and the development of the personal computer? Not that much, except that Steve Jobs is both a genius and jerk for reasons that go unexamined. To be sure, "Steve Jobs" is a sizable, missed opportunity. Do yourself a favor and watch the documentary, "Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine." You can even learn more by watching Ashton Kutcher's performance in "Jobs," which was once the worst Steve Jobs movie. Not any more.
One of the most striking aspects of Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining" is how many varied interpretations of it exist. Even more than his seminal film, "2001: A Space Odyssey," the adaptation of Stephen King's horror classic has garnered interpretations running the gamut from western imperialism, the holocaust, Kubrick's alleged faking of the moon landing, and paganism. When Kubrick made "The Shining" in 1980, he was immersed in the study of subliminal messages in advertising and the use of hypnosis and subconscious suggestion in filmmaking. The movie is festooned with imbedded imagery and a confounding sense of place, both of which add to its growing suspense. One of the many reasons why many consider this to be one of the greatest horror films ever made is that it manages to be deeply disturbing without much physical violence or gore. The terrifying aspect of "The Shining" is almost wholly psychological in nature and is reinforced by unforgettable visuals which seek to unravel our sense of safety and subvert our trust in civilization. The film has spurred so many different theories because it was intentionally made to be a mental and physical puzzle, one that continues to bewitch audiences because of the need to explain and categorize the unknowable.
The major criticism of "The Shining" is that it radically diverts from Stephen King's novel, so much so that King complained that he hated the movie. Kubrick had a very specific way of making films; he watched a genre unfold, contemplated the themes he wanted to explore, and then made one of the best films of that genre. In the film, Kubrick not only distills the essence of what scares people in horror films, but he also uses the concept of "shining," the ability to see the events that have marked locations in the past, to elucidate larger points about humanity and history. Kubrick's film is decidedly not an adaptation of King's book; it is a springboard, a scaffolding that Kubrick uses to dissect larger questions.
The driving force behind "The Shining" is the growing insanity and erratic behavior of Jack Torrance coupled with his son Danny's slow discovery of the evil past that resides in the hotel. The film is Kubrick's treatise on what he thinks constitutes true horror: the breakdown of civilization and reason. While even Kubrick describes the movie as a ghost story, the supernatural elements are more symbolic than temporal. For one, the ghosts signify the inner emotions and thoughts of the characters as they endure extended isolation and a growing uneasiness with each other. Every time Torrance talks to ghosts in the film, for example, he is actually talking into a nearby mirror. At one point, Wendy, Jack's wife, alludes to the Donner Party massacre in which western pioneers were stranded in a snowstorm and were forced to eat the dead to survive. Mention of this event is important as it foreshadows the erosion of familial relations that will occur in the ensuing weeks. As the family becomes more aware of the other's brutal intentions, they themselves become violent and devour each other. In an ironic statement about the Donner Party, the manager, Dick Hollorann tells the family about the abundant amount of food they will have for the winter: "You folks can eat up here a whole year and never have the same menu twice"
The movie opens with a signature helicopter shot of Jack Torrance (played by Jack Nicholson) riding in a car to the Overlook Hotel in Colorado, where Jack has landed a caretaker job during the winter. The car is dwarfed by massive mountain ranges and dense miles of forest. We are left by a profound sense of isolation, an exit from the protection of civilization and immersion into the savage wilderness. In a directorial motif throughout the film, the camera follows the action like a floating apparition. When Jack drives to the Overlook Hotel in the opening scene, and when the entire family makes the trek later, there is a sense that they are running away from the camera and from the audible shrieks in the background. The family is, indeed, escaping a bit of harshness back home; Jack is a recovering alcoholic who "accidentally" pulled on his son Danny's arm and subluxed his elbow (a common childhood injury). This incident prompted Jack to quit drinking and make amends to his family by taking the hotel job in order to spend more time with them. Jack's descent into madness is a slow one that starts with mild annoyance and ends with full blown homicidal rage. In contrast to "2001: A Space Odyssey," which depicts the evolution of apes to human beings, "The Shining" shows a devolution of a human being to a groaning, violent ape. One of Kubrick's overarching themes in all of his films is that despite any progress or degeneration exhibited by humans, the qualities of civilization and barbarism are imbedded in all of us and can exist at the same time, one justifying the other.
The fundamental unit of civilization is the family, and "The Shining" depicts a man who is driven mad by the confines imposed by that very unit. Jack Nicholson's performance is so over the top that it is at once funny and deeply disturbing. He carries himself with such overwhelming energy that it emanates from him and permeates the air around him, adding to the overall creepiness of the hotel. Jack Torrance comes to the Overlook Hotel with both physical and figurative baggage. The first issue damaging the integrity of the family is his history of alcoholism and that he injured Danny. While the family is on the mend, Jack still lives in the shadow of his guilt. This guilt comes to a head later when Jack complains to Lloyd, the bartender, that his wife will not let him forget his indiscretion against Danny. Additionally, later in the film, when Danny is beaten by the ghoulish woman in Room 237, Wendy immediately assumes that Jack did it.
As the movie progresses, Jack gets more and more disenchanted with his family life. He views his marriage as an impediment to his career success. After Wendy interrupts his typing, for example, Jack boils over and yells "Whenever you come in here and interrupt me, you're breaking my concentration. You're distracting me." All of this drives Jack back into alcoholism, or at least imagined alcoholism, the prototypical vice that breaks up families. Jack also experiences temptations outside his marriage in the form of a beautiful woman who turns out to be dead. He is fully ready to cheat on his wife at the expense of his family. All of the above themes and frustrations percolating within Jack finally surface in one of the best scenes of the film. Jack finally subverts a healthy, loving relationship by sarcastically juxtaposing love and hate in one sentence: "Wendy? Darling? Light, of my life. I'm not gonna hurt ya. You didn't let me finish my sentence. I said, I'm not gonna hurt ya. I'm just going to bash your brains in!"
The subtext behind "The Shining" is humanity's coming to terms with the mass genocide perpetrated against the Native Americans during American western expansion. Through his gift to shine, Danny progressively becomes aware not only of the hostility brewing in the household, but the long history of violence that has taken place at the Overlook Hotel. His visions begin with the famous scene of blood spilling out of an elevator, conveying that a massive amount of killing has occurred there. Danny rides his big wheel through the lowest floor of the hotel, and later, when he ascends the second floor, he sees the terrifying massacre of twin girls that was perpetrated by the previous caretaker. It's as if Danny is rising in his consciousness both literally and figuratively. His curiosity peaks as he passes Room 237, a place in which he obviously senses some sort of evil or disturbance. After he finally investigates, he returns damaged with the knowledge of what he has seen. Danny is not the moral compass of the film, but more a moral medium who is tortured by images of the past.
Kubrick does not limit this violent history to just the Overlook Hotel; he uses the brutality exhibited on the familial level to gain insight to killing on a grander, genocidal scale. In typical horror films, fear stems from a lack of safety in a confined space (a house, a car, a town, etc). In "The Shining," there is no safety wherever human beings exist. In the beginning of the film, the hotel manger tells Jack that the hotel was constructed on an Indian burial ground in Colorado, as if to say that the hotel, signifying civilization, was built on the bodies of indigenous peoples. Moreover, when talking with Lloyd the bartender, Jack describes his familial frustrations as "White man's burden, Lloyd, my man, white man's burden."
At the end of the film, in a shot that has confused many, the camera focuses on a group picture at the hotel on July 4, 1921 that inexplicably includes Jack Torrance even though he wasn't born yet. The date is crucial here. July 4 is, of course, the birthday of the United States while 1921 was the year the hotel was completed. In other words, using the hotel as a metaphor, the picture commemorates the beginning of American western expansion, a decorated victory of civilization over barbarism. As Mr. Grady tells Jack in the bathroom, "But you are the caretaker. You've always been the caretaker. I should know sir - I've always been here." Grady tells of a continuing battle of violent civilizing forces, a notion that is again reflected near the end when Wendy sees a ballroom of aristocratic skeletons.
Jack is anachronistically in the picture because he represents a pervasive human attribute: the perpetration of "justified" violence and the subsequent almost necessary forgetting of it. One key aspect of the characters in "The Shining" is that they have no recollection of their brutal past. Grady does not recall brutally murdering his twin girls; Jack justifies injuring Danny to the bartender: "But it was an accident, completely unintentional. Could have happened to anybody, and it was three god-damned years ago! The little fucker had thrown all my papers all over the floor. All I tried to do was pull him up – a momentary loss of muscular coordination, all right? A few extra foot-pounds of energy per second." The film brings up the concept of a "convenient forgetting" in American history of those who perpetrate evil and then move on as if it never happened. The Overlook Hotel is a spiritual receptacle for a lost, brutal history.
"The Shining" is filled with examples of duality and mirror images: the female twins, the bifurcation of Danny's personality into Danny and Tony, people looking into mirrors, the coupling of Jack and the previous caretaker, who has two names: Grady and Delbert as well as many props that are conspicuously doubled: refrigerators, elevator doors, and others. All of this doubling represents a duality in man, or more specifically how man can compartmentalize atrocities and replace them with justifications, creating a dual interpretation of all actions. On a small scale, we see Jack and Grady justify the beating or killing of their children as discipline, or as Grady called it, "correcting them." On a large scale, we can see violent American western expansion and the destruction of Native American culture under the guise of civilizing or "correcting them.". Depending on the perspective, a concept that is always muddied in "The Shining," the civilizing forces of history are either pure evil or a necessary justification for progress. In the film, all of the characters, and even the audience, are forced to witness the horrors of history. A cathartic moment is when Danny, shrieking the confounding word "redrum," points to a mirror and reveals the true nature of what's going on: murder.
Kubrick places subliminal messages throughout the film to conjure up images of the massacre of Native Americans. In the kitchen, there are several scenes in which a can of Calumet baking powder is meticulously placed next to actors. Before you call this placement random, look how the cans are perfectly placed in frame with the characters. There is no doubt that Kubrick wants the audience to see the prototypical symbol of an Indian. As a side note, there are other interesting examples of hypnotic symbols, including a plethora of eagle imagery and a typewriter that can signify Nazi Germany and the holocaust as well as imagery of Jack falling down a pyramid of stairs after he is hit with a baseball bat that is supposed to signify the Aztecs and their period of mass human sacrifice. While these images correspond to the themes of genocide, they sit as small islands in a larger sea of imagery that seems more concerned with American history specifically.
One viewer pointed out that Kubrick's dissolves between scenes are very precise and juxtapose the content of two scenes at once. A great example is a dissolve that shows a janitor sweeping the colorado hills, foreshadowing the theme of Native American extermination and Western expansion. Look closely.
As the film continues, there is a loss of reason and rationality, demonstrated not only through Jack's growing madness, but also in the confusion as to what is actually happening in the hotel. Are there really ghosts? If so, who are they? One central question of the film that largely goes unanswered is who exactly has the ability to shine, and, thus, whose perspective represents reality or the reliable point of view. While it is clear that Danny and Dick Hallorann can shine, it is unclear whether Danny's parents can. After all, not only is shining a genetic trait (Hallorann said his grandmother had it too), but Jack and Wendy also see the supernatural events in the hotel by the end of the film.
The distrust of perspective is furthered by many disorienting aspects of the film, notably the confusing setup of the hotel and the purposeful lack of continuity in shots. Like the hedge maze which plays a big visual and thematic presence in the film, the hotel itself is a labyrinth that changes in structure as the movie progresses. In fact, if you watch closely, the entrances of the actual hedge maze change drastically as the film moves forward. To add to the disorientation, Kubrick tricks the audience into thinking that they understand the surroundings. Notice how many times the audience tours the Overlook Hotel: in the beginning with the manager, when Danny rides his big wheel, and at other times when following characters. Yet, despite multiple explorations, a firm grasp of the hotel's geography is still elusive. You never quite know where you are in relation to another location. Experts have drawn maps of the hotel as portrayed in the film and have pointed out impossibilities and a changing structure, an attribute that disorients and unnerves the viewer who never feels safe. The most famous example of a geographic paradox in the hotel is the infamous "impossible window" in the front office which shows the outside despite the fact that it is completely indoors.
A lack of continuity in parts of the film, an unthinkable Kubrick faux pas, creates disorientation and a sense of dread. While some of these changes are small like a chair disappearing or Jack's typewriter changing color, others are quite striking. My favorite example is when Danny is playing in a hallway and a tennis ball (previously used by Jack to distract himself from boredom) rolls down an open section of the carpet pattern. When the scene changes, Danny's position has changed in that he is now closed off in the carpet's pattern. With this lack of continuity, the film shows the characters trapped in the labyrinth, surrounded by a growing sense of doom. Again, subconsciously, these paradoxical shots and prop changes unnerves the audience who constantly second guess what is going on.
In the culminating scene of the film, Jack chases Danny through the hedge maze with an ax. Danny outsmarts him by retracing his steps through the snow to prevent his father from following him. He exits the maze and finds his mother, both of whom escape in a snowcat, leaving Jack to freeze in the snow. Symbolically, in order to deal with the horrors of the past, we must retrace our steps to understand our actions as a species to achieve ultimate safety, leaving our violent instincts suspended from action. Jack freezing to death also echoes what eventually happens to the Donner party; after attempting to devour one another, they freeze to death in the mountains.
"The Shining" is my favorite horror film and a tradition on Halloween. In the end, Kubrick has given us a horror film with secular ghosts that lack a theological or even supernatural quality. They are not spirits, but horrific memories of the past waiting to be uncovered and realized. Even worse, they follow humanity and continue to repeat themselves, an atheistic brand of original sin. As Jack and his family slowly turn against each other and become violent at the Overlook Hotel, they are ensconced in the screams of past victims and by an audience seeking to understand events that occurred in our shared past.
In 1977, Pink Floyd was one of the biggest bands in the world. Fresh off the massive success of their albums, "Dark Side of the Moon," "Wish You Here" and "Animals," the band went from playing small clubs to huge stadiums. This new found popularity, however, created a number of artistic limitations for a band used to creating an intimate, psychedelic experience. The band's main songwriter and creative force, Roger Waters, often complained that audiences in these stadiums paid no attention to the music, electing to set off fireworks, indulging in drunken behavior, or even mindlessly screaming during performances. Water's frustration came to head one night as an audience member scaled the barricade in front of the stage at one of the shows. In a fit of rage, Waters spat in the man's face and called him a "swine."
Feeling unable to meaningfully connect to his audience, Waters sunk into a period of depressed introspection, contemplating why he had grown to hate performing, opting instead to build a figurative wall between himself and the audience. The result was Pink Floyd's "The Wall," an album exploring Water's own isolated youth, lonely experiences as a rock star, and emotional meltdown. The album came with a live show that physically manifested the story behind the concept by building a wall on stage. The plot of "The Wall" follows the life a rock star named Pink (half of Pink Floyd) who turns into a disaffected, fascist demagogue, spewing the hate of his inner demons upon the audience. As in Water's own life, Pink loses his father to World War II, is coddled by a controlling mother, abused into conformity by teachers, and lost in meaningless sex and failed relationships. Pink creates a figurative wall around himself (made physical in the show) and wallows in drug induced isolation and self pity.
In 2010, Waters resurrected the production with stunning updated technology and a new perspective that tied his themes of building walls and personal feelings of isolation as a way of describing modern world politics. His story became a larger narrative of a world separated by war, political ideology, religion, wealth inequality. For Waters, the concept of walls goes far beyond individuals and into global institutions and nation states as well as social media, all of which govern the life of people in the twenty-first century.
Having attended three of Waters' remarkable performances, I knew that he and co-director, Sean Evans, had a formidable task with their new documentary film, "Roger Waters The Wall Live." They had to capture the biggest concert spectacle in rock and roll history, a show that was physically gargantuan in size and teeming with complex and meaningful visuals giving life to a master performance by Roger Waters and his band. I was worried that a film could not do justice to a concert that itself was an experience. Could the film be cut in such a way to include all the perspectives of the stage, each with their own special vantage? Given that the enormous scope of the show was a defining factor, could a film demonstrate the largeness of a show that donned a 40 foot high wall spanning an entire stadium yet preserving the intimacy of Water's performance? Finally, could a film capture the meaning behind the album and Water's reinvention of it?
The concert footage is INCREDIBLE, easily the best filmed and recorded concert in the history of rock music. I actually felt chills watching the film, as if I were there seeing the amazing performance all over again. It brilliantly captures the most impressive part of the concert, which is that it manages to be both large in scale yet very intimate. One of the great ironies of Water's new production is that "The Wall" grew out of his frustrations with connecting to a massive stadium audience. Yet, his show is strikingly intimate because of the large scale of the wall projections and use of special effects that satisfy both the front row and the last seat up in the grandstands. The movie seamlessly connects beautiful, long tracking shots, presenting a wall that dwarfs an audience in the tens of thousands with closeup shots of the superb band. The cameras show every interesting angle one could fathom, including shots from behind Waters and ones that move back and forth on both sides of the wall, showing all the interworkings of the concert. All of this footage is a fitting and celebratory document to rock's grandest spectacle.
The movie intertwines the massive concert with scenes of a road trip that Waters and company takes through some European battlefields to pay reverence to his father and grandfather, both killed in the world wars. Some of this footage works brilliantly. The movie is bookended by moving scenes of Waters going to the graves of his family and softly playing the trumpet, creating a perfect tie-in with the trumpet used in the concert. Waters even cries at one point reading the letter sent to his mother documenting his father's death. Other scenes, however, seemed unnecessary, inarticulate and even staged. One particularly excruciating scene involves Waters at a bar yammering about his story to a French bartender who doesn't speak English. Another has Waters and a friend driving in a car and talking about meaningless non-sequiturs. Despite the fact that Waters has been very articulate about his motivations behind "The Wall" and its new production, he has few interesting tidbits to say in the film. I think that the movie would have been much better in cutting many of the documentary scenes or intermixing silent versions of them with the concert. To be honest, I found myself longing for the concert footage when it wasn't on the screen.
"Roger Waters The Wall Live" certainly sets a new standard for filming a concert both in sound and film production. While I left the theater again inspired and bewitched by Water's work, a part of me couldn't help but be disappointed in the direction of modern music. Who today has the talent or ambition to stage a show of this physical and intellectual magnitude? With the exception of Green Day who produced "American Idiot," a story of disaffected youth in George W's America, most rock stars today think small and play small. While the pop star du jour may have the pyrotechnics and staging, they don't have the ambition to make a complete, conceptual work and contribute to a larger cultural discourse. It is crucial that a film document "Roger Waters The Wall Live" because it is a bar by which serious artists seeking cultural importance should measure themselves.
M. Night Shyamalan's new film, "The Visit," is his best movie in years. Still, this is not saying much given his recent swan dive into oblivion with garbage like "The Happening" and "After Earth." For Shyamalan, it is actually a compliment to say that one of his films is at least watchable or that it does not provoke blinding anger or excruciating annoyance. I am happy to report that "The Visit" works well as a thriller, even as a pseudo-horror film. Shyamalan's career chart, which previously had a remarkably steep downward trend, now has a small upward spike.
The plot is very straightforward, as it always is for Shyamalan: two kids decide to visit their estranged grandparents in rural Pennsylvania. Luckily for us, one of the kids is an aspiring documentary filmmaker and brings along her camera. The children arrive by train and meet their weird, cold, and uneasy grandparents. A progression of frightening vignettes continue to happen until the film reaches its plot twist at the end. What would an M. Night Shyamalan movie be without a Hitchcockian twist? Thankfully, he uses the plot twist as a small, spooky aside in "The Visit," rather than the gimmick for the entire movie as he did in "The Village," a film that will live in infamy for its utter stupidity.
Another signature plot device used by Shyamalan is a set of arbitrary, inane rules that almost completely drive the story. In "The Village," the townspeople couldn't go past a boundary line; in "The Lady in the Water," there is a cornucopia of nonsensical rules governing fairytale characters (a scrunt couldn't go near a narf during a blood moon on a Tuesday unless it's a leap year, etc). Thankfully, Shyamalan only has one simple rule in "The Visit:" don't leave your room after 9:30 PM due to the dangerous geriatric transformations that take place thereafter. This simple rule immediately takes hold of your imagination and creates the plot: what could be going on after 9:30 PM? How do we find out? What happens when we find out?
"The Visit" is an homage to cheaply made but effective horror films like "The Blair Witch Project" and "Paranormal Activity," except that it's shot with a high quality camera. While the constructed realism of this genre adds to the scariness, one drawback is that the camerawork must look spontaneous and amateurish to seem real. One aspect that I admired about "The Visit" is Shyamalan's decision to splice in artsy still shots with the chaotic documentary footage. This inclusion helps to tell the story from two perspectives, a spontaneous one from the kids and their camera and one from an omnipotent position that seems to edit the film to heighten the eeriness. As in a Tarantino film, we become aware that we are watching a movie and celebrate the cliches of the genre.
It is undeniable that Shyamalan is a good director. The film is full of great shots, inventiveness and suspense building. One can only hope that he will continue to improve so that mere mention of his movies does not induce reactive cringing or recurrent projectile vomiting as they have for audiences in the past.
"Mulholland Drive" is a masterful film that unflinchingly embraces the subconscious and explores the need for fantasy as a coping mechanism in life. David Lynch is unlike any other director in the history of film; he has the ability to enthrall audiences with stories that follow dream logic rather than rationality. Linear plot is not terribly important to Lynch, as it would just get in the way of the emotional narratives, fantasies, and desires of the characters. Lynch is a true original, someone who takes the mundane, sends it to be broken down by a blender in his mind and then reconstitute it according to his way of viewing the world. While he has many amazing films like "Blue Velvet," "Inland Empire," and "Eraserhead," I think "Mulholland Drive" is his masterpiece. The best attribute of all Lynch's movies is their ability to inhabit your mind as you try to put the pieces of the plot and characters together. His films can't help but be memorable because your mind continues to work out their vague, seductive meanings. Below, I will offer my interpretation of "Mulholland Drive" keeping in mind that the film is open to an infinite amount of personal meaning. Warning: there are spoilers galore.
One other note: to increase the curiosity of fans and moviegoers, Lynch released a list of clues to help decipher the film. While I think it is possible to interpret the movie without these clues, I have reproduced them below:
1. Pay attention in the beginning of the film; at least two clues are revealed before the credits.
2. Notice appearances of the red lampshade.
3. Can you hear the title of the film that Adam Kesher is auditioning actresses for?
4. An accident is a terrible event...notice the location of the accident.
5. Who gives a key, and why?
6. Notice the robe, the ashtray, the coffee cup.
7. What is felt, realized and gathered at the club Silencio?
8. Did talent alone help Camilla?
9. Note the occurrences surrounding the man behind Winkles?
10. Where is Aunt Ruth?
To understand this film, I think it is necessary to divide it into two non-linear thematic sections, each of which collide throughout the film. The first part, most of which takes place near the end of the film, represents the reality of the story, that is, what happens in a factual sense as opposed to any sort of fantasy. Diane Selwyn, played by Naomi Watts, moves to Los Angeles from a small town with the dream of becoming a Hollywood actress. The opening scene of the film shows Diane winning a jitterbug contest which builds her confidence and drives her to Hollywood. She represents the small town American girl, beloved and praised in her hometown for her beauty, seeking a career in show business.
Diane gets to L.A. and meets another actress named Camilla Rhodes, played by Laura Harring, with whom she begins a torrid love affair. The relationship is short-lived, however, and Camilla meets a famous male director named Adam and begins seeing him instead. Diane is infatuated with Camilla and begs her to return. She is lost without her, a weakling who follows her around and does her bidding in the hope that Camilla will lover her again. Unfortunately, Camilla stays with her boyfriend and begins seeing great success as an actress because of her new connections. Diane is left alone and depressed, a failure in love and her life's dream.
The second part of the movie, most of which takes place in the beginning, represents Diane's dream-like fantasy, one that both justifies her career failures and retroactively changes the power dynamic between her and Camilla. This section of the film is chock full of symbolism about the underlying corruption and injustice prevalent in Hollywood. Unlike in reality, where Diane implodes and fails because of her emotional lability and lack of talent, her fantasy attributes her failure to dark forces conspiring against her that are out of her control. She is simply a pawn in the larger game of executives, directors, producers and other monied interests.
In her fantasy, Diane (now called Betty---a throwback to the sweet midwestern girl moving to Hollywood) arrives in L.A. with an affable, elderly couple. This scene is bright and full of confidence, happiness, and ebullience, the kind of emotion Diane had when she first arrived in Hollywood. Lynch carries this good natured optimism over the top by staying with the elderly couple as they quietly smile for no reason until the scene becomes creepy. Betty finds her way to her rich aunt's house where she will be staying while she pursues acting. The manager of the complex, an odd looking woman named Coco, quickly begins fulfilling a motherly role for her. Contrast this situation to Diane's real apartment later in the film which is old, dingy, and uninspiring.
Meanwhile, Camilla is shown riding in a limousine to presumably a Hollywood engagement. The limo crashes, leaving Camilla with amnesia. She wanders around aimlessly until she comes upon Betty's accommodations. Take notice that she was traveling to an affluent community on Mulholland Drive and instead wanders back to Sunset Boulevard, the center of Hollywood for all classes. It's as if she regresses from fame back to helpless beginnings. Because she has amnesia, she gives herself the name, Rita, when she meets Betty. This setup is a key component to Diane's fantasy: the power dynamic between the two has shifted. Instead of Diane being the emotionally frail, dependent one in the relationship, Camilla now takes on that weakened role, presumably to make Diane feel better about herself. Because Camilla has amnesia and, thus, no memory of her identity or of what happened to her, she is now totally dependent on Diane. This new relationship between the two continues through the rest of the fantasy.
The film abruptly switches gears to a scene with two men at a diner called Winkie's. One of the men, a weird looking fellow named Dan, relays a nightmare (deja vu really) about their meeting, in which he encounters a monstrous creature behind the nearby dumpster. Both men investigate the dumpster until they find a hideous homeless man who terrifies them. Notice the camera angles and the slow shaking of the camera, which helps to create a feeling of trepidation. Also, the lighting is key and even discussed in the movie itself; the scenes involving fantasy are more dimly lit while reality has harsh overhead light, showing all imperfections. This scene begins the other major theme of Diane's fantasy, which is the evil that underlies the entire city and film industry. Even more, this scene foreshadows the evil that lives within Diane, a trait that we will discover by the end of the film. Just as Dan discovers his nightmare in the real world, we will discover the nightmare within the real Diane.
Leaving Rita at home, Betty goes on her auditions. In one of them, she totally blows the producers and fellow actors away, so much so that they want to cast her immediately. In Diane's fantasy, she has the talent to take her to the highest level. The movie continues with a series of surreal scenes, all depicting the dark forces who will prevent Diane from getting the part. These forces run the gamut from a mysterious man in a wheelchair, two foreign investors that are so picky that they spit out "one of the finest espressos in the world," a hapless assassin who tries to help shut down production and, finally, a kingpin called "the cowboy." They clearly dictate that the actress of the film will be "Camilla Rhodes." In Diane's fantasy, Camilla's rise to stardom is based on questionable reasons while her own lack of success is out of her hands. Below, I have included the scene involving the foreign investors and the espresso. This section is a great example of how Lynch can hypnotize audiences with suspense. While the scene may not make total sense on first viewing, Lynch has the audience in the palm of his hand, unable to look away.
During the onslaught of surreal events, we follow Adam, the director of the film for which Betty auditioned. This is the same director that Camilla is dating in reality. He finds out as the audience does that the film and its casting is being taken away from him by higher-ups for reasons that are extremely suspicious and unknown. Adam's puzzled reaction to the events mirrors that of the audience as both are trying to make sense of it all. Soon after his clash with executives, Adam comes home to his wife cheating on him with the pool man. In Diane's fantasy, the director is powerless, emasculated and out of his element, somewhat undeserving of his recognition.
It is worth noting that in the scene with the cowboy, he tells Adam that "if things go well, you will see me one more time. If it goes bad, you will see me two more times." On close inspection, the cowboy does appear two more times in the film (once conspicuously to Diane and once inconspicuously at a party), conveying by the end of the movie, that things have taken a turn for the worse. In addition to his role as dark orchestrator, the cowboy represents self-reliance, a person who states that "a man's attitude goes some way....the way how his life will be." The cowboy is a creation of Diane's subconscious, an entity that advises her to stop blaming others for her failures and to take control of her own life.
Spurred by her recollection of Mulholland Drive and the name Diane Selwyn, both Rita and Betty go in search of Rita's identity. After finding Diane Selwyn (Betty's actual identity) in a phonebook, they proceed to her address and find a corpse decaying inside the dwelling. Notice that the inside of the apartment matches the decor of Diane's real one later in the film. This scene marks the first time that Diane's fantasy world collides with reality. The corpse is, of course, Diane, which foreshadows her eventual demise both physically and morally.
The film then takes one final stepping stone to reality when Betty and Rita go to Club Silencio. They sit in the audience and listen to a performer exclaim that there is no real band playing, just recordings. Diane is coming to terms with her illusion and the fantasy begins to collapse, a prospect that makes her shutter. The singer on stage then performs a song entitled "Llorando," a song about the heartache of unrequited love. Betty then pulls out a small blue box from her purse. Rita then finds a blue key and opens the box, giving rise to the reality behind the story. Indeed, Camilla had the power to open up Diane's innermost secrets, insecurities, and capacity for evil, all of which lie dormant and silent, eventually leading to their deaths. In some ways, Club Silencio is the penultimate moment of Diane's fantasy; Rita understands the depth of her longing.
The movie then takes a drastic turn back into reality, in which the characters appear in their true identities and power dynamics. Much of the first part of the film had a "Wizard of Oz" transformation in which real characters were repurposed into fictional ones depending on their true personas and symbolic value. In reality, Camilla is a rising movie star engaged to Adam, a famous, capable director. Coco is actually the director's mother as well as Camilla's future mother-in-law, a reason why Betty covets Coco's motherly role in her fantasy. The girl who replaced Betty in the movie actually replaced Diane as Camilla's lover on the side. Worst of all, Diane is a struggling actress at best, falling through the cracks of her career and doomed affair with Camilla. Her best solace is fantasizing of a better life while masturbating.
Realizing that she will never have Camilla back, Diane grows increasingly depressed and rejected until she finally decides to have Camilla killed by an assassin. It is fitting that the discussion about the murder takes place at Winkie's. Like Dan before, Diane is finding that the evil stirring inside of her mind is now manifest. The assassin informs her that she will receive a blue key once the murder has been committed. "What does it open?" she asks. The key is the final realization of her actions, her final descent into maddening guilt, the first moment beyond her redemption.
The end of the film sees Diane's revisionist fantasy collide with the reality of what she has done. It is one of the weirdest, most disturbing horror scenes that I have ever seen. A miniature version of the elderly couple who represented her optimism and innocence appear out of a paper bag held by the evil creature behind the dumpster. That same passionate optimism that brought Diane to Hollywood morphed into a monstrous emotional mess, capable of intense jealousy and murder. Diane is tortured by her guilt and life failures, symbolized by the couple chasing her in her home, until she is driven to commit suicide with a pistol.
"Mulholland Drive" easily makes my pantheon of great films. It is interesting, imaginative and courageous in its unyielding artistic vision. It is David Lynch's view of Hollywood, a place where the brave make pilgrimage, give their life and soul to their work, and then find themselves callously thrown aside. Feelings of failure and injustice replace notions of artistic merit and stardom. It is a place of shining dreams and dark, horrific nightmares.
