Queue it up!

Add this to your Netflix queue: King Arthur, 2004. Just popped in this 2004 classic and loved it. Granted I'm in a bit of a Game of Thrones mood as I'm reading the saga, but the film was a quintessential Arthurian tale that hit all the high points of young Arthur's first years as a knight (pre-Camelot). Clive Owen as Arthur partners with Merlin to defeat the Saxons - led by none other than Stellan Skarsgard (Pirates of the Caribbean) who with every whispered battle command the volume on the TV must be turned up.

The photography takes on a noir effect with blue hues, especially on Guinevere (Keira Knightly) who first meets Arthur in this tale. It's hard to believe that Guinevere is a feared Woad (the wildling group that later fights alongside Arthur), and seeing her run around the battlefield with two belts as a shirt does not paint the picture of our classic lady fair.

The cast of Arthur’s knights of the round table is impressive, and the battle scenes will have you gripping the edge of your seat with the best sword fighting I’ve seen in a while. However, some scenes wane over-dramatic with Arthur yelling to God and asking why....why, are his knights dying. Well, this is war, Arthur. There are other scenes that have Clive Owen displaying his stage presence with goosebump raising vigor, stating things like "There is no worse death than the end of hope." So it’s a trade off.

All things said, if you like knights, kings, and maiden's fair, this is a great film to put in your Netflix queue. The lack of CGI and animitronics that we have today lends a realistic effect to the film. A particularly harrowing battle is fought on a frozen lake that begins to shatter and take the enemy into its icy depths. The film is shot on location across Ireland and Britain. Also, as a horse lover, seeing the gorgeous breeds from that area is an extra treat galloping across the screen. The soundtrack is uber-dramatic but just right for the content, making you want to jump on a horse yourself and help Arthur out. If you can ignore the cheesy chivalry that peeks through at opportune moments, its certainly worth the 2.5 hours.

The Ides of March

George Clooney has tried his hand at directing again with The Ides of March. Based on the 2008 play, Farragut North by Beau Willimon, the name was fittingly changed to reflect Ceasar’s days of betrayal as well as Shakespeare’s great work Julius Caesar. Clever Clooney puts many literary allusions to work. The plot, in short, focuses on a political race for the democratic seat where the real players are the men behind the scenes calling all the shots. On a larger scale, the film is a psychological drama set in a political arena that revolves around thematic ideals of loyalty and allegiance - but at what cost to individual honor? The opening scene shows Stephen, the young campaign manager played by Gosling, as he checks the stage and microphone for the Governor’s (Clooney) debate already suggesting that he is the puppet master. The film continues with the fight for the democratic seat, as the moral ambiguity of the central characters (played by Gosling, Clooney, Hoffman and Giamatti – all finely acted, we already know they are good at their craft) creates a thrilling power struggle until the end. It also makes us question who the good guy is and who the bad guy is as ideals and allegiances change.

The film contains realistic character studies of people in the political realm which will strike close to home with the upcoming elections in Washington. Aside from the political jargon that might float over your head, Clooney and his team did a great job with the script adaptation and dramatic dialogue. But the climax of the film that shifts the choice and path of the characters has holes. The intern, a title that already makes one think “sex scandal,” played by Evan Rachel Wood, lacks character development. Her eventual situation with the governor and tragic demise (however Ophelia-esque it might be, since Clooney is clearly thinking of Shakespeare) lacks credibility. We don’t know enough about her past to make her actions realistic, which unfortunately leads to plot holes, and takes away from the film at a pivotal moment.

The visuals and camera work border on corny, and Phedon Papamichael’s cinematography plays it safe. The camera lingers too long on Gosling silhouetted by the giant American flag that takes up the screen. In another emotional moment, he cries as the rain beats down on the windshield. The lack of subtlety leaves nothing to the imagination. However, I did like the close ups on intimate conversations. For example, the shot of Gosling and Wood flirting in the bar draws us in and suggests the secrecy of politics in general; the framing is suggestive and dangerous. The musical score creates a jarring turn that reflects the anger and revenge Gosling feels towards the Governor. But other musical moments, for example the random jazz song that gets too much camera time in the bar, seem out of place and without reason.

At the end of the film Gosling confronts Clooney in the shadowed kitchen of a closed restaurant – an almost mafia moment – where he proclaims “you don’t fuck the intern.” This political cloak and dagger again alludes to Shakespeare’s play and shifts the power back to Gosling. For him, the end will justify the means even if it calls for blackmail. The final shot is a slow zoom to an extreme close up on Goslings face, with his ear piece, as the face of the governor’s campaign. He now has all the power, but we are left to wonder what he will do with it.

Garage Projects - film screening Friday night

What: Film screening - BRANDED TO KILL (Suzuki, 1967)

When: 8 PM, Friday Oct. 14

Where: Castleberry Hill - Garage Projects- 261 Peters St.

Spread the word!

http://garageprojects.blogspot.com/view/classic

Johnny Guitar- Oct. 11 on TCM at 10 PM

Set your DVR for an amazing post-war Western on Turner Classic Movies. Johnny Guitar (Nicolas Ray, 1954) is the focus of my 2010 Master's thesis. I've included an excerpt of my paper below.
  
Women Take the Reins: Star, Social Discourse, and the Duality of Readership in the 1950s Western

from page 20... a passage on the actions and dress of the female characters in Johnny Guitar and The Furies (Anthony Mann, 1950)

The masculine positioning of Crawford in Johnny Guitar also suggests her sexual confidence over men. Her ability to function within the masculine geography of the western creates a unique character that can function as both male and female. When Vienna first appears onscreen, one of her employees makes a comment about Johnny Guitar: “That’s a lot of man your carrying in those boots stranger.” Interestingly, this comment is off-screen while the camera lingers over Vienna. Jennifer Peterson argues that, “Despite her gender – or more accurately because her gender is not static but floating, both ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’ – Vienna is allowed to stand as a self-sufficient individualistic western hero.”[1] However, by allowing Vienna to function as a man, problems arise that question Vienna’s moral ambiguity. She is unfulfilled in her role of female and is obsessed with positing herself as a man. Ray adeptly acknowledges this with Vienna’s stance – legs always spread apart counter to a feminine stance, with a gun strapped to her leg. This illustrates Vienna’s phallic lust for power that is thwarted by the end of the film.

 

Figures 3 - Vienna in position of power

The traditionally masculine garb is more noticeable when juxtaposed to the heroines’ feminine costumes. For example, Vienna dons a luminous white dress with a layered skirt and puffy sleeves when she closes her saloon. Similarly, we first see Vance in her deceased mother’s ball gown trying on jewelry. These images of excessive femininity serve to call attention to the alternative masculine costumes, calling the viewers attention to the power that has been given to the female. The costumes serve both types of readership. Importantly, even while these women are in feminine dress, they still possess authority and strength. The dimorphic costumes of both Vienna and Vance suggest mobility between male and female spheres. On the one hand, Vance is a daughter and Vienna was a prostitute, but they now assume roles as businesswomen as their formal pants would suggest. With these costumes they move into the male position in the western. 

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[1] Jennifer Peterson. “The Competing Tunes of Johnny Guitar: Liberalism, Sexuality, and Masquerade.” The Western Reader. Ed. Jim Kitses, Gregg Rickman. Limelight Editions. New York. 1998. p. 331.

Moneyball

I'm not a huge baseball fan. In fact, I find it uninteresting, boring even. That being said, Moneyball is charming. Brad Pitt and Johan Hill lead as Billy and Peter, two men using an unorthodox method to change the game of baseball for the Oakland A’s. These two actors captivate the audience; Hill with his subtle shyness and unassuming intelligence, Pitt with his emotionally charged relationship with the game of baseball and the past decisions that haunt him in the form of flashbacks.

Typically the classic narrative of “losing team rises to stardom against all odds” would translate as stale and clichéd. However, the story of Moneyball rings true and fresh. The direction of Bennett Miller, who also directed Capote in 2005, is superb as he creates silences that speak more than any dialogue in the film. The evocative performances of Pitt and Hill are tangible, tense at times, and truly draw the viewer into the story. Aaron Sorkin, now a household name due to The Social Network, co-wrote the adapted screenplay based on Michael Lewis’s book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game. Sorkin again creates an unforgettable story.

The majority of the film explores Billy’s relationship with the game of baseball. He mentions that baseball is truly romantic. The film points to the fact that major league players are paid so much that some of the romance has been taken out of the game. For Billy and Peter, they have a miniscule budget which doesn’t allow them to pay the 12 million dollar salaries, so they work with what they can afford based on the statistics of each player. With this new form of recruiting and managing, Billy’s relationship with the game changes, and a new type of baseball is born.

Visually, the film is pretty standard and unfortunately lacks ingenuity.  The only point of deviation from classic editing seems to be the abstract charts and numbers that pixilate across the screen as Peter goes through stats and figures with Billy. But where the film lacks visually, it is made up in the writing and acting.  

Throughout the film we question what drives Billy.  Is it trying to fulfill the baseball career he never had after high school? Is he trying to right the fact that the scouts were wrong about him? And then there is a young daughter who is prevalent in his life that fuels many of his decisions and ultimately his final one. Peter’s metaphor of Billy “hitting a home run” at the end of the film reads a bit sappy, but overall the poignancy of the film is on point and worth sitting through the extra innings.  

Lust, Caution - Review

When looking at Ang Lee's body of work, including critically acclaimed Brokeback Mountain and Sense and Sensibility, Lust, Caution should not be ignored. This extraordinary piece of film exposes life in occupied Shanghai and the lengths the Chinese are willing to go for the resistance movement. A twisted story of erotic, overpowering love between a beautiful Chinese woman working for the resistance and a powerful man pulling the strings of the Japanese occupation, Lust, Caution earns an NC-17 rating due to the passionate escapades. Brilliantly photographed and composed, this film comprised of Mandarin subtitles is truly a work of art.

Wei Tang magnificently plays Wong, an innocent school girl that transforms overnight into a risk-taking seductress, snaking her way in Mr. Yee’s heart in an attempt to aide in his assassination. The dialogue of the film becomes increasingly complex and meaningful throughout, and Wei Tang expertly delivers her lines. The women of the film wear beautiful costumes by Lai Pan of 1940’s Chinese dress, and Alexandre Desplat’s original musical score melodically flows as the camera follows the seductive glances stolen between Wong and Mr. Yee.

The screenplay is based on a short story by Eileen Chang and touches on themes of sacrificial love and loyalty. By the end of the film, Wong is given a choice between letting Yee walk into his assassination or warning him about it, risking her own life, exposing her true identity. She chooses the latter, a nod to the true passion and love she has for Mr. Yee, regardless of the horrible things he does to her Chinese compatriots. At the same time, she gives up the entire assassination group, and in effect sentences everyone to death. Regardless of the consequences, the depth of the love between Yee and Wong invokes a feeling of admiration akin to Romeo and Juliet. Wong knowingly gives up her life for Yee, but he is restrained by his sense of duty and cannot return her act of passion.   

The darkness of the film does not stifle, instead it lends to the treacherous lives of lies and deceit that all the characters in the film lead. The camera work and editing are a perfect match, splicing furtive eye contact between Yee and Wong creating tension and anxiety until it is at last released in sensual sex scenes that, however graphic, are neither raunchy nor distasteful. Ang also directs a visceral scene of raw violence, when the blood hungry group of assassins takes turns stabbing one of Mr. Yee’s assistants. The camera opens to a wide frame shot, leaving nothing to the imagination of the brutal attack that the group feels completely justified in committing.

Interestingly, the film is bookended with talk of rings, bringing the story “full circle” so to speak. It starts with Wong sitting around the table with her new “friends,” the wives of top Japanese occupation officers, discussing their jeweled fingers as they play a traditional board game. The story line flashes back to before Wong meets Mr. Yee, when she is still an innocent school girl, unaware that she will soon join the resistance, and proceeds chronologically from there. The end of the film, when Wong sacrifices herself to save Yee, is set in a jewelry store with Wong trying on the “quail egg” diamond ring Yee has made especially for her. Although normally guarded and unemotional, his love for her is exposed when he says he doesn’t care about the diamond, he just cares about how it looks on her finger; she has become the treasure of his life.

Lust, Caution is a poetic film, directed with a truly artistic eye. Ang chooses the vessel of a period piece to cover topics of love and political passion. The thematic qualities of the story and the inventive direction, editing, and photography harmoniously blend into a visual masterpiece. 

Last Friday Recap on Contempt

Last Friday I had my first curated screening at Garage Projects in Castelberry Hill. I screened Contempt (Godard, 1963) and gave a brief talk beforehand which I've posted below. Enjoy! And please join us next month, 2nd Friday, for Branded to Kill (Seijun Suzuki, 1967).

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I wanted to start with Contempt for this series on intertextuality. The abundance of literary and cinematic intertext throughout Contempt is what created this first Garage Projects theme for me. We are discussing intertexuality as a film that is referencing another piece of art or literature. New Wave films especially incorporate intertext and an overarching theme of reflexivity. This self-reflexive theme in Contempt is overt, showing the making of a film within the diagesis.

Contempt traces the making of Homer's Odyssey. So on one hand we get the literary reference to The Odyssey through images and through the the actual text/dialogue. There are long pans over huge icons of Greek gods looking out to sea putting the film in conversation with The Odyssey.

Regarding reflexivity, this film revolves around the making of a film about The Odyssey. Godard shows the mechanics of making a film; there are shots of boom mikes and the cameras tracking. Fritz Lang is in the film as himself which puts the film into conversation with film history. Godard makes an appearance in the film as Lang's assitant. There is also a scene when Paul, our protagonist, mentions film makers such as Lumiere, Griffith and Chaplin.

Godard called this film – “a story of castaways of the western world, survivors of the shipwreck of modernity” so with out further ado – I really hope you enjoy the film.

Garage Projects Opening Night - Sept. 9

What: Garage Projects opening Night - Contempt ( Jean Luc Godard, 1963)
When: Friday, September 9th at 8:30 PM
Where: Garage Projects Studio (Castleberry Hill Neighborhood)

261 Peters Street SW

Atlanta, Georgia 30313

This year's garage project program will start with Fall/Winter 2011
1960s New Wave Movements and Intertextuality

Be sure to check it out!

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Leone, 1966) follows three different men on a quest for gold in the form of a long archetypal narrative structure. These 3 men, named in the title as such, each have their own way of getting to this treasure, their paths inevitably crossing. Leone’s last installment of the “Man with No Name” trilogy illustrates the humanistic nature of men and how certain traits are rewarded. Most interesting is the relationship between Blondie and Tuco (Eastwood and Wallach). The position of power in their relationship is constantly shifting - Blondie using Tuco, Tuco getting back at Blondie – they use each other. When the two chance upon the infamous Bill Carson who reveals the whereabouts of the money, ironically he reveals the general location to one, and the specific grave where it is buried to the other. Tuco and Blondie have no choice but to help each other if they want to see the treasure. The third party in this story, “the bad” Angel Eyes, lives up to the name, also hunting for the money through the guise of serving in the Yankee army. Lee van Cleef is positively sinister, all in black, on his prancing black Andalusian stallion, always following through with his jobs to the death, so he says.

Rather than a story of idealism, heroism, and something “greater than man,” the film deals explicitly with the human nature of greed and fairness. Unlike some present day westerns like Cowboys & Aliens (Jon Favreau, 2011) which throws at us clichéd themes of coming together against a common enemy – yes, the whites and Indians ban together to fight the aliens – Leone takes a look at human nature, leaving idealism aside. Even “the good” has his own interests at heart, but he’s fair. Leone’s story is a depiction of what makes humans tick – in this case, money. Unlike classic westerns (specifically early American westerns by the likes of John Ford), the protagonist is not necessarily the hero. The antagonist is clearly bad - personified by Angel Eyes, he defies the code of Western honor from the beginning, shooting a child. But the hero is not quite as clear, perhaps not there at all. The question of what makes man good is not so clearly defined either. In the classic old west the rules of the game are black/white, good/evil, hero/villain; however Leone is able to muddle right and wrong in favor of showing the humanism of Blondie and Tuco, who are concerned with their own well being rather than something bigger than themselves.

Most beautiful is the rhythmic montage taken straight from the pages of Vertov, particularly at the final duel in the circular middle of the graveyard where the treasure waits at a grave marked “Unkown.” Not only does the editing cut in perfect time with Ennio Morricone's score – who frequently collaborated with Leone – but the movement from eye to gun to hand to eye over and back again creates a thrilling lead up to the demise of Angel Eyes. Regardless of the length of this film, the final scene, an editing masterpiece, is worth the wait.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly certainly takes a classic western plot line of men seeking treasure and allows us to look at the characters under a humanistic lens. It is a refreshing derivative of the classics we see with Ford and Hawks. Leone makes his autuerist mark on this film as well – a nice final installment to his trilogy.