33rd Five Films, 2007
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Grapes of Wrath (John Ford) at MoMA. I was reminded of They Were Expendable by the somber mood. The shots are darker here, though; sometimes only silhouettes are visible, like when Tom and Casy enter the old Joad homestead to find no one there. Those two seemed to me like spectral figures, with haunted looks in their eyes and crazy ideas about social justice floating around in their heads. They'd both given up their earlier roles in the community and then floated back just in time to make the trip out with the Joad family to California.
Not having read the book, I wonder if Steinbeck compares the loaded-up jalopy to a covered wagon, since the connection seems very clear watching a John Ford film, particularly at moments like when they linger before crossing the border into California, gazing up at the desert hills.
An interesting sign of the times that the family finds refuge at a goverment-run camp, away from the brutal, capitalist landowners and taskmasters.
There's quite a bit of speechifying, probably most of the first reel and several again toward the end. Some of them are all right but it feels like kind of an awkward way to make your points in a film.
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Silent Light (Carlos Reygadas) at Rose Hall as part of the New York Film Festival. At times the framing and the long shots almost struck me as so conspicuous that they unbalanced the movie, but I suspect that had to do with my seat. (Near the lower left corner of the screen which was so large that it seemed a little distorted from my vantage point.) Though there isn't an exact correspondence, it's interesting how the sun figures as a kind of manifestation of God's presence. The natural elements are always very present: the clouds, the hills, the dust from the dirt road.
I'm intrigued by the idea of farms as visually rich settings for contemplative, "syrup-paced" art films like this (that pejorative is from The Onion AV Club), which of course brings Satantango to mind. Most of the time people talk about cinema as a largely urban art form, based on the particular kind of social dynamics you find in cities. There was even some ill-informed guy who attempted to ask why there weren't any urban scenes, although it's hard to see how that would make sense in a nature-centered film about an unworldly community of Mennonite farmers.
I had an idea after watching Fargo last month about a movie with similarities to this one and Satantango, Gus van Sant's Elephant and especially Last Days, and various other influences, with a couple of deadbeats on a rundown farm, with the present shot in black and white and recurring scenes, shot in color, of a more productive past on the same property. The soundtrack would be entirely diegetic, either performed or played on a radio, and would feature far too much pedal steel guitar.
The guy standing in front of me at the box office was perusing the entire festival schedule mentioning titles to the attendant as he found screenings he liked. He had already started when I got there and probably took ten more minutes to finish. The whole affair seemed pretty ostentatious to me, from the ticket prices to the people attending to the venue (inside the Time Warner building), etc. That's kind of sad in my opinion because the programmers and the films are really good, and it seems like the whole deal caters directly to residents of the Upper West Side rather than anyone who not already into these sorts of movies.
Quote from the women behind me: "Gus van Sant… where have I heard that name before?" Their conversation made me kind of wonder how they wound up paying twenty bucks for something like Silent Light in the first place.
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Lust, Caution (Ang Lee) at the Landmark Sunshine Cinema. The critical consensus is right: this movie is really boring except for the few scenes that earned the NC-17 rating. The prologue seems just peremptory, full of flat dialogue and uninteresting characters. Particularly the camera work indicates to me that not much attention is paid to the less integral moments in the movie, of which there are a lot over 158 minutes. Scenes are rarely well-conceived, shots mostly cut from one close-up to another, sometimes almost at random. Maybe Ang Lee knows things about these minor characters (the acting troupe, the mah jongg players) that he fails to reveal effectively, but it seems appalling that we spend so much time watching go-nowhere characters through an uninspired lens.
The few high points: there's one scene where the camera is set near the ceiling, craning down toward the couple, and it kind of circles around as one of them leaves, reframing around the other. It's not worldchanging by any means, but it reveals just how dull most of the other similar scenes are. Then you've got the sex scenes, and maybe even better, Joan Chen's monologue about what her role as a Mata Hari is doing too her emotionally, which is obviously much more than her supposedly tough intelligence liaisons can handle. In particular her description of the longed-for assassination of her target/lover as a kind of metaphysical and bloody Cronenberg-esque orgasm feels really inspired.
Tony Leung's character in 2046 was similar in many ways, but somehow his muted emotions in that film resonated whereas here they almost don't even register.
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Control at Film Forum for my final Stylus review.
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Baby Doll at home on DVD with Amy. Karl Malden mostly just yelled a lot. Eli Wallach was more interesting. The large cast of crazy Southerners, white and black, were memorable but not ultimately all that interesting. I suppose that since this is the first movie I've seen directed by Elia Kazan, I need to watch another with a bigger reputation pretty soon.
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Grapes of Wrath (John Ford) at MoMA. I was reminded of They Were Expendable by the somber mood. The shots are darker here, though; sometimes only silhouettes are visible, like when Tom and Casy enter the old Joad homestead to find no one there. Those two seemed to me like spectral figures, with haunted looks in their eyes and crazy ideas about social justice floating around in their heads. They'd both given up their earlier roles in the community and then floated back just in time to make the trip out with the Joad family to California.
Not having read the book, I wonder if Steinbeck compares the loaded-up jalopy to a covered wagon, since the connection seems very clear watching a John Ford film, particularly at moments like when they linger before crossing the border into California, gazing up at the desert hills.
An interesting sign of the times that the family finds refuge at a goverment-run camp, away from the brutal, capitalist landowners and taskmasters.
There's quite a bit of speechifying, probably most of the first reel and several again toward the end. Some of them are all right but it feels like kind of an awkward way to make your points in a film.
+ +
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Silent Light (Carlos Reygadas) at Rose Hall as part of the New York Film Festival. At times the framing and the long shots almost struck me as so conspicuous that they unbalanced the movie, but I suspect that had to do with my seat. (Near the lower left corner of the screen which was so large that it seemed a little distorted from my vantage point.) Though there isn't an exact correspondence, it's interesting how the sun figures as a kind of manifestation of God's presence. The natural elements are always very present: the clouds, the hills, the dust from the dirt road.
I'm intrigued by the idea of farms as visually rich settings for contemplative, "syrup-paced" art films like this (that pejorative is from The Onion AV Club), which of course brings Satantango to mind. Most of the time people talk about cinema as a largely urban art form, based on the particular kind of social dynamics you find in cities. There was even some ill-informed guy who attempted to ask why there weren't any urban scenes, although it's hard to see how that would make sense in a nature-centered film about an unworldly community of Mennonite farmers.
I had an idea after watching Fargo last month about a movie with similarities to this one and Satantango, Gus van Sant's Elephant and especially Last Days, and various other influences, with a couple of deadbeats on a rundown farm, with the present shot in black and white and recurring scenes, shot in color, of a more productive past on the same property. The soundtrack would be entirely diegetic, either performed or played on a radio, and would feature far too much pedal steel guitar.
The guy standing in front of me at the box office was perusing the entire festival schedule mentioning titles to the attendant as he found screenings he liked. He had already started when I got there and probably took ten more minutes to finish. The whole affair seemed pretty ostentatious to me, from the ticket prices to the people attending to the venue (inside the Time Warner building), etc. That's kind of sad in my opinion because the programmers and the films are really good, and it seems like the whole deal caters directly to residents of the Upper West Side rather than anyone who not already into these sorts of movies.
Quote from the women behind me: "Gus van Sant… where have I heard that name before?" Their conversation made me kind of wonder how they wound up paying twenty bucks for something like Silent Light in the first place.
+ + +
+
Lust, Caution (Ang Lee) at the Landmark Sunshine Cinema. The critical consensus is right: this movie is really boring except for the few scenes that earned the NC-17 rating. The prologue seems just peremptory, full of flat dialogue and uninteresting characters. Particularly the camera work indicates to me that not much attention is paid to the less integral moments in the movie, of which there are a lot over 158 minutes. Scenes are rarely well-conceived, shots mostly cut from one close-up to another, sometimes almost at random. Maybe Ang Lee knows things about these minor characters (the acting troupe, the mah jongg players) that he fails to reveal effectively, but it seems appalling that we spend so much time watching go-nowhere characters through an uninspired lens.
The few high points: there's one scene where the camera is set near the ceiling, craning down toward the couple, and it kind of circles around as one of them leaves, reframing around the other. It's not worldchanging by any means, but it reveals just how dull most of the other similar scenes are. Then you've got the sex scenes, and maybe even better, Joan Chen's monologue about what her role as a Mata Hari is doing too her emotionally, which is obviously much more than her supposedly tough intelligence liaisons can handle. In particular her description of the longed-for assassination of her target/lover as a kind of metaphysical and bloody Cronenberg-esque orgasm feels really inspired.
Tony Leung's character in 2046 was similar in many ways, but somehow his muted emotions in that film resonated whereas here they almost don't even register.
+
+ +
Control at Film Forum for my final Stylus review.
+ +
+
Baby Doll at home on DVD with Amy. Karl Malden mostly just yelled a lot. Eli Wallach was more interesting. The large cast of crazy Southerners, white and black, were memorable but not ultimately all that interesting. I suppose that since this is the first movie I've seen directed by Elia Kazan, I need to watch another with a bigger reputation pretty soon.
+
Posted on Tuesday, October 16, 2007
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