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Volume I
Issue 7
November 1999 |
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Cinema Everyday by Therese Schwartz [An artist and art critic, Therese Schwartz took some time away from her studio this fall, to attend the New York Film Festival. Of the 31 films screened, she chose to write about ten. Ed.] I first went to the movies when I was about five years old and I am still doing it. It's my favorite spectator sport. There are times when a movie stimulates an idea that I use in painting - when it captures the flavor of a time, when it is a fast and loose representation of a place. Every year I go to the New York Film Festival. A friend sends me a press pass and for two weeks it is cinema every day. The Festival is an international show: hundreds of filmmakers around the world submit their work and a jury decides who is in. This year 31 were chosen. The New York jury was completely nonpartisan, and the films screened came from the US, the UK, Japan, France, Iran, Spain, Belgium, Portugal, Finland, Austria, Canada and Egypt. This year it seemed to me that the jury decided to be thoroughly democratic, as though they wanted to base their selections on the widest variety of entries rather than on individual quality. Along with very good films there were also some that were dull and heavy. Since I am not writing about the Festival as an official movie-maven, I thought it could be interesting if I made just two distinctions - the films which seemed influenced by Hollywood super-productions and those that tried to run as far away from them as they could. These are not meant as complimentary or perjorative labels, but a way of describing content.
In the category of big, splendid, showy productions was British director Mike Leigh's TOPSY-TURVY. Unusual for Leigh, whose previous films were penetrating and sympathetic stories of ordinary people, this movie is a brilliant musical about W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan, the famous librettist and composer of celebrated comic operas. Everything here was done with nineteenth century luxe - the voices were superb, the costumes and sets in gorgeous color and fabric. The action involved the creation of their greatest hit, the Mikado, and here Leigh let his technique take over. He took a biting look at the team - who were they? Although I've seen almost all the popular repertoire, I had never thought of the people who made them. Gilbert, the librettist was a conventional, carefully married man, but Sullivan was not. Publicly correct, in his private life he was a typical Victorian high-liver, a great consumer of exotic food, expensive wine, beautiful women, and private nudie shows. Although the plot centers around the near breakup of the team and its rescue by the new show, the movie is really about the nineteenth century stage, the money, the producers, the actors, the intrigues and the risks. In its own way it's a kind of documentary and might explain why Leigh should go back into history and enhance it with the most advanced state-of-the-art the-art equipment.
TIME REGAINED, a French film directed by Raul Ruiz. is a re-working of Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past. Another history piece, it was rich, elaborate, decorated with glamorous period props and costumes. peopled with past and present stars and a dud. Rather than a story line, the structure is a series of impressions, possibly going through the mind of the dying writer. To flesh out the non-action there are appearances by a stately but still beautiful Catherine Deneuve and John Malkovich as the dissolute Baron de Charlus. Also thrown in are bits of early cinema history (i.e. the pioneer Méliès). Running almost three hours, this film is characters come forward to make literary declarations, evil aristocrats indulge in expensive sadomasochism, gorgeously dressed people meet to plan intrigues and delicious food is eaten. ln discussing this later with a critic, she defended the film by saying that you would have to read Proust before seeing it. My defense for being so negative was that whatever the art form the product must be able to stand on its own feet. It can't carry a label: "first read the book."
The Belgian brothers, Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne co-wrote and directed ROSETTA, a film in French. This was a socially conscious but wholly unsentimental story about a young penniless woman who lives with an alcoholic mother in a trailer on the trashy fringe of a city. Life is primitive, cooking fuel must be begged from the proprietor and water comes from one common tap. The bare-bones existence is heightened by slow motion and the periodic use of a hand-held camera. There are no "special effects," no decorations. The intention is to delineate the character of Rosetta, who because of her helpless situation can't afford the luxury of moral obligation. A young man who sells waffles from a truck befriends her; she sees that he steals some of the stuff and reports this. He is fired, and she gets the job. Finally, there is some hope for their future but only just. In remorse Rosetta leaves the job and the man returns to forgive her, Not really a Hollywood up-beat solution because now both are out of work.
Spike Jonze, American director of BEING JOHN MALKOVICH has directed prize-winning music videos, and made nationally shown commercials for Nike, Levi's jeans, Coca-Cola and others, I have seen some of these - they are fresh, bright, and the music is good. It is no put-down to say there is a lot of this in this film, which is his feature-length debut. The story derives from a combination of comic books and science fiction and is original, sharp and funny. Moving away from all possible reality, he contrives a situation where some designated people can take over the mind of John Malkovich for just fifteen minutes. (Never mind that in life this would be a good reason for the actor to sue for violation of civil rights). Malkovich plays himself with his usual cool and all kinds of hilarious situations result - when a woman is the mind-invader, when Malkovich realizes who is in his head, when outsiders try to get into the act. To add a bizarre, homey touch, the mind-stealers are dumped on the New Jersey Turnpike when their time is over and that seemed a punishment fit for the crime, This film made no apologies for being just entertainment; It had no message, and while it might be too sophisticated for the 12-year-olds, it couldn't hurt them.
The French director. Leos Carax, took an early American novel, Pierre or the Ambiguities by Herman Melville, and used it for his film POLA X. In mega-production style, he enlarged the story with metal rock music, and dark smoky scenes in a nightmare Parisian underworld. Melville's original story was simple. Pierre, (played by Guillaume Depardieu, brother of Gérard) is a successful writer, living on a huge estate with his mother (Catherine Deneuve). All is well until a mysterious woman appears who claims to be his half-sister. A refugee from the Balkans, she is shabby and desolate, and Pierre decides he must help her. His desperate need to do this remains unexplained to us, but he leaves everything and runs with her to Paris where they live in a sub-city of abandoned subways, ghostly presences, and unexplained performances by atonal rock bands. The film winds down in total Chekhovian despair - the novel he writes while living this way is judged worthless by his publisher, and Pierre senses a dark emptiness ahead. Carax's work here is a strange mixture of California expansiveness and European angst.
Two films that stayed in my mind were structured autobiographically. SET ME FREE (Emporte-moi) from Canada/Switzerland, directed by Léa Pool, was a cool study of a family living in Montreal in the early 60's. The father is Jewish, a Holocaust survivor, and a writer whose work cannot find a publisher. The Catholic mother, educated as a designer, works as a seamstress to support the family, and there are two confused and unhappy adolescent children. The plot centers on the younger, the 14-year-old Hanna, who is able to deal with the heavy burden of chronically miserable parents by creating a fantasy world in which she is the 60's French movie star, Anna Karina. When the home facts of life become unbearable for her. she runs, and wanders around the city all night. Without really understanding what she is doing, she's mistaken for a prostitute, and with a middle-aged stranger she has her first sexual experience. This tragic encounter with reality forces some clarity of self, and finally, a kind of peace of mind. This could be called a "coming of age" movie, but not of the conventional genre. It takes an honest look at one teen-ager and doesn't tack on a rah-rah happy ending.
BEAU TRAVAIL, in French, directed by Claire Denis. was inspired by Herman Melville's Billy Budd, but its location was transferred to East Africa, and the action details a fatal incident occurring in a small company of Foreign Legionnaires stationed in Djibouti. The story is told mostly in voice-over by the former officer who was disgraced and discharged for his part in the tragedy. A new recruit, handsome, amiable, and admired by the men, becomes an object of unreasonable hatred by the officer. He sets up a series of impossible duties for the soldier, and finally banishes him to die alone in the desert. This is the outline of the plot, but what is quietly revealed is the futility of the lives involved - the fierce daily drilling under the hot sun, the useless military maneuvers, even though the only work officially required is to repair a road. It also pictured the aggressive and primitive behavior which can be caused by enforced male bonding. Technique and equipment were kept small here, but the result was wide and haunting.
THE OTHER, Egypt / France. a film directed by Youssef Chahine was a curious combination of impressive settings, gorgeous color, wonderful vocal and instrumental music, and a kind of silent-movie style acting. The story is both complicated and simple - a group of corrupt industrialists plan a multi-cultural center, which is a cover for devious international fraud, At the center is an evil scheming mother-in-law, her innocent son, and his crusading journalist wife. The intention here was to feature the disastrous possibilities of global capitalism, but the obvious gestures of the principal players, (i.e. eyes popping to suggest passion) reduced the total effect.
Jane
Campion, director of Holy Smoke,
The Australian director Jane Campion's film HOLY SMOKE investigates a recent social dilemma - the attempt by parents to rescue children seduced into guru-led cults. The theme is intelligently researched; the presentation. located in Australia and India, is visually exciting. Kate Winslet plays the beautiful pampered daughter of a comfortable ranching family, who leaves home to join a Krishna cult; Harvey Keitel, an experienced deprogrammer, is hired by her mother to bring her home. Ruth (Winslet) finally agrees to leave India with PJ (Keitel). and the cure is supposed to happen at the ranch in Australia. The family has spent thousands for this, and waits for her return to their life. The transformation is supposed to take place in a secluded cabin where the two will spend three days to fight it out. The end is a crashing non-victory for both. Ruth drops her idealism and reveals herself as an aggressive, predatory female, and PJ, after he is seduced into a sexual encounter with her, falls apart. becomes weak, whiny, and helpless. I'm not sure if there is a moral in all this - perhaps that it's best to stay out of other people's heads?
Harvey
Keitel and Kate Winslet in Holy Smoke, The Festival closed with FELICIA'S JOURNEY, from the Canadian director Atom Egoyan. Taken from the novel of the same name by British writer William Trevor, the film is enlarged with episodes of the past (which the novel only suggests) and enhanced with new characters and visually explained situations. The story is about a young pregnant Irish country girl looking for her lover in a North England city. Although he deliberately did not give her his address, she is convinced this was an oversight and thinks that when she finds him they will marry. Alone and bewildered, she is befriended by a seemingly ordinary middle-aged man (played by Bob Hoskins) who manages the employees' cafeteria in a factory. In fact, this man is a seducer and murderer of young destitute women and he manages to steal her money in order to make her thoroughly dependent. He is played as solicitous and jovial but also without conscience or even memory. Living alone in a large house, he cooks enormous meals and eats them at an elegantly set table. Reasons are suggested for his crimes and his gluttony. His mother, hardly mentioned in the novel, appears in flashback as the flamboyant hostess of a television cooking program. She is handsome, sexy, and sometimes uses him on the set where he looks fat, overdressed and miserable. His intention to kill Felicia is clearly understood by us, but when Felicia (played by Elaine Cassidy) is also aware, she escapes. Niditch (Hoskins) has dawdled either because of her appealing innocence, or because he is experiencing some change of life. When he knows she has left, he hangs himself. FELICIA'S JOURNEY was a much more luxurious production than Egoyan's successful film, The Sweet Hereafter, which was introduced in a previous Festival. The background here, a grim industrial city filled with undecorated factories,was described in generous detail, and the multi-ethnic inhabitants were screened as individuals. In this case, bigger was better.
At the end of my daily film sessions, I had some all-over impressions. I thought that the directors and producers involved had looked for strong structures on which to build their work. There were only a few comedies or fantasy pictures. Many films were based on history or social concerns and could be classed as mini-documentaries, and a substantial number were adapted from literature. I saw no crowd-pleasers made to attract the immature. These filmmakers did not indulge in stereotyped mythology, sugarcoated solutions or sermons on life style. They left that to those in other arenas - perhaps in politics? Resources: The website for the 37th New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center is at http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff/nyff2.htm For a detailed list of all the movies screened, including brief descriptions, use this link: http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff/nyfffilms99.htm [For a glimpse into Therese Schwartz's life as a writer about art, refer to Newsletter issues 1 through 4, in which her serialized essay, The Year that Was: Marching toward the Millennium, appears. Ed.]
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