The Sacred Space of the Originals

I often think I like a movie better if it follows its source material faithfully.

But I might be looking through silver-colored glasses. In revisiting The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King last night on TV, I noticed that I still enjoy this film immensely, despite the tweaks to much of the dialogue found in J.R.R. Tolkien's book. There's at least one precedent: I also love David Lean's brilliant Great Expectations, though the movie's end, in which Pip tears away the curtains hiding Estella from the world, is nothing like the novel's finale.

So why am I fine with the changes in these adaptations...yet horrified by the ones in Garth Jennings' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?

I know--I'm comparing two masterpieces to a misfire. It's not fair. But I'm trying to find a pattern, and the only one I can see is a significant difference in quality, resulting from better direction, scripts, editing, and other elements.

Could that be it, then? Could I like something that, theoretically, could be completely different from its source material if it's just done well?

I'm not going to discount that. I'll have to mull it for a while. Maybe I'm not the purist I think I am. Or maybe I'm a purist just with movies.

I know that if it's good, I'll like it. Maybe I'll just go by that.

Yes, Let's By All Means Admit Impediments

Are we sure no one else but Meryl Streep would've fit the bill as Margaret Thatcher?

I'm a little befuddled by these casting choices--though I recognize the need for star power.

But Meryl Streep? What's next, Dustin Hoffman as Charles de Gaulle?

It might be another Oscar this year for Streep, considered by many to be one of America's greatest actresses...though I often find her performances forced and mannered. I'm wondering, though, whether this kind of portrayal also takes the spotlight away from less well-known, though more deserving actresses, such as Rooney Mara and Viola Davis. Streep seems to be specializing these days in historical impersonations, which sometimes appear to be judged on how close they are to the real thing rather than how much they work within the context of the films.

I'd like to see someone else get recognized for a less showy role. Maybe this year's Academy Awards will accommodate. I'll be cautiously optimistic.

Go Gently into that Good Night, Will You Please?

It's high time a number of film franchises were retired.

Transformers, head to the hills. Chipmunks, get outta Dodge.

And Final Destination, let this be your last slaughterfield.

This void should not be filled, because, as Woody Allen remarks in Love and Death, it's an "empty void."

What needs to arise is a spate of quality sci-fi and fantasy pictures.

Sorry, Conan, you don't fit the bill--not until your script's as strong as your biceps. But I'd like to see some escapism in a similar vein, from great source material.

A smattering of Isaac Asimov. A dose of Ray Bradbury. Slices of Theodore Sturgeon.

There's a surplus of content out there. Why aren't we seeing more of it...and I'm not talking about travesties such as I, Robot? Faithful adaptations that trust the viewer. Where are they?

We can update these stories so they're even more relevant, without losing their "heart." And we've got all the CGI we need to lure eyeballs.

Let's lure the brains, too. We're primates, not chipmunks.

Bridging the Cinematic Divide

I'm at a loss. Trudi and I like different movies.

OK, we're of one mind on some films--mostly those directed by Billy Wilder. And we're in agreement on the Marx Brothers, though she doesn't care for The Cocoanuts. (Consternation! Uproar!)

But almost anything else released after 1929...pffft.

I admire Trudi's taste. It's impeccable. But I wonder why I was so enthralled with The Damned and she wasn't. Or why I can't convince her that Throne of Blood is one of the best interpretations of Shakespeare on the silver screen. Or why, for that matter, any flick featuring a battle scene lasting more than 10 minutes isn't something to avoid.

Or why I struggle through the Jennifer Aniston oeuvre and she embraces it.

I've decided this can't be chalked up to purportedly innate differences in taste between the sexes. I like some "chick flicks." Really. For example: Stolen Kisses.

I provide crummy examples.

Fine, so I prefer a great epic. A drawn-out drama. That's not for all viewers, though Trudi at one point admitted to me that it's hard for her to watch the Lord of the Rings movies, as she needs to absorb each in its entirety rather than piecemeal, as I tend to watch things on TV.

So my feeling is, she probably has an inner jidai-geki.

Perhaps we're destined never to cross this divide. I've tried, though--I've watched Mad Men. I've sat through Ryan Reynolds comedies. And to her credit, Trudi has tried, too. She sat through most of Kwaidan. I give her many props for that.

I just think now that taste...I can't believe I'm writing this...may be subjective.

What an admission.

An Unexamined Battle Scene Is not Worth Viewing

The biggest problem with cinematic battle scenes today is that they don't have a perspective.

Gladiator is the film that most comes to mind. Also Braveheart, and the abysmal Troy and Alexander. In these movies, the primary purpose of the staged conflicts seems to be a Peckinpah-esque revelry in blood and guts, as well as an "isn't it cool how that guy killed the other guy" sensibility catering to the Grand Guignol set.

In other words, a lot of posing and yelling, but little substance. That contrasts greatly with the best cinematic battle scenes, which always have something to say.

Mind you, such commentary doesn't have to be anti-war. In fact, oftentimes, it isn't. Alexander Nevsky's frozen fight is exhilarating. So is The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King's massive (and beautifully directed) orc-a-thon, which incites viewers to cheer against the forces of evil. And Kwaidan's otherworldly boat contest in which the Heike clan meets its doom is like some gorgeous scene from a Kuniyoshi print.

All of these movie battles provide superb direction, varying camera angles and beautiful cinematography. That's not to say that they encourage viewers to enjoy the splattering of blood; instead, they make you care, involving you in the decisions and the developments leading up to them.

Here is my list of the greatest battle scenes in film, in no particular order:

Alexander Nevsky: Still the top, owing to a combination of logistics and sheer cinematic skill
Ran: perhaps the greatest anti-war battle scenes ever depicted on film; confusing, sad and powerful
Chimes at Midnight: brutal, anti-war banging of maces in the mud--terrific Wellesian comment
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King: CGI used in the best possible way
Kwaidan: like a painting, both gorgeous and disturbing
Kagemusha: you don't really see the fighting in the climactic battle, but you do see the results. Brilliantly anti-war; an assault on the waste of life
Red Cliff: nicely handled direction of a popular tale, with a bit of preternatural powers thrown in to support the good-versus-evil thrust

Do I Have to Watch the Oscars This Year?

I still have nightmares about that dreadful "dance" number en hommage to The Adventures of Baron Munchausen on the Academy Awards so many years ago.

Did we really need to see people in fancy dress fall all over themselves--literally--for the sake of "comedy"? And the movie wasn't that broad, was it?

It's the prospect of viewing travesties such as this that makes me wary of turning on the Oscars later this month. Another factor is the thought of seeing great films not get the attention they deserve. (That's right: I still haven't gotten over why Pan's Labyrinth didn't win Best Picture.)

Sure, there are delights to be noshed on, such as Akira Kurosawa's speech after winning an honorary Oscar more than 20 years ago. But I'm not sure it's worth getting through the dross to find the diamonds.

Heck, I liked The King's Speech a lot, but is it really a Best Picture-type of movie?

Then again, is Braveheart?

I'm just hoping there's no pseudo-period "dancing."

In Classical Music We Cineastes Trust

I'm starting once more unto the breach with The King's Speech, but this time from an angle that I forgot to cover in my previous post.

One of the biggest reasons Colin Firth's speech at the end of the film was so successful, in my opinion, was that it was tied to a bit of music from the old Ludwig van: specifically, the brooding second movement of his Seventh Symphony.

Of course, the segment was edited superbly, cut to convey a tenseness that helped drive the scene. But without that second movement, would it have been so great?

I don't think so. Which leads me to think about other films that have been so inextricably tied to masterpieces of classical music.

You've got to start, methinks, with Alexander Nevsky and Ivan the Terrible, Parts I and II. That's kind of like cheating, though--Eisenstein brilliantly melded Prokofiev's sublime scores to his films, which were a perfect fit right off the bat.

But what about something like "Il Mio Tesoro" from Mozart's Don Giovanni being used in Kind Hearts and Coronets? I can't think of that film without thinking of the aria, which threads the flick like a serpent. Or the ominous use of Schubert's "Unfinished" Symphony in Carol Reed's Odd Man Out, which sets the tone as two of James Mason's cronies wait in a "friend's" living room before being betrayed?

These moments are just as important to the contexts of these films...and wouldn't have been so without the help of certain masterpieces of classical music.

We can always go back to 2001: a Space Odyssey, with its famous use of music by two Strausses. But again--that's kind of easy; those works, though not expressly created for the film, are now nearly impossible to think about without it. And composer's biographies are out, too--especially any Ken Russell bizarre-o-thon--owing to the natural link of the music to the movies.

I guess what I'm talking about are the more unheralded, but no less vital, choices. The use of Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana in the opening of Raging Bull and the final scene of The Godfather, Part III, for example. Or the Ravel chamber music in Un Coeur en Hiver. Or the use of the prelude to Act I of Wagner's Lohengrin in The Great Dictator, where Chaplin plays with the world.

Were these pieces made for these films without actually being made for them? Did the directors have the same aesthetic sensibilities as the composers?

I wonder if they were all part of each other in previous lives.

Speaking the 'Speech,' Firth, Rush Shine

Even though I knew The King's Speech would be entertaining, it wasn't a movie I was jumping to see.

Part of the problem was the subject (not the king's, ha, ha, but the movie's), which seemed, to my mind, rather a strange, trivial focus. It was almost as if the filmmakers were homing in on minutiae, rather than the important elements of the period (such as World War II), while producing what appeared to be an Oscar-targeted picture featuring components generally regarded as being agreeable to voters (kings, an early 20th century setting, fine British actors, etc.).

What I didn't know--and I chalk this up to my own ignorance--was that the speech impediment so painfully navigated by Britain's King George VI (portrayed with literal tripping on the tongue by Colin Firth) played such a large role in the political and social climate of wartime England. This was evidenced by Firth's climactic, halting but well-paced radio speech at the end, which established a confidence in me that I supposed was mirrored in the confidence of British listeners at the time. That's not just cosmetic; it's a resonance that I expect served to inspire.

And oh, yeah: The good guys won that war.

Directed by Tom Hooper, the film suggests that the king's impediment wouldn't have been soothed without the help of one Lionel Logue, a not-at-all-board-approved speech specialist played by the Geoffrey Rush with deft charm and sensitivity. I was somewhat disappointed that there wasn't more time spent on the "unorthodox" methods employed by Logue on the King, and that the movie seems to emphasize their sessions less than their results. The chemistry between the two actors, however, is wonderful, beautifully conveying the awkwardness of a commoner-king relationship that is absent in the romantic pairing of the king's brother (Guy Pearce, good as usual) with the not-very-royal (or demure, for that matter) Wallis Simpson (a strong but underused Eve Best).

Speech, to its credit, conveys all of these politically charged developments without resorting to facile pageantry, though I can't call the film a masterpiece, despite the deceptive nature of its scope. It's just not innovative or risky enough, and certain scenes felt clipped, as if the viewer wasn't getting everything. Still, after watching it, I didn't ask myself, "What was the reason for seeing this," as I'd do after a typical Coen Brothers movie. The strength of Rush's and Firth's portrayals, among others, drives the film, and this helps it last in the memory. That's a far-reaching achievement, and come Oscar time, it may help this picture move to the forefront among voters.

You Don't Have to See a Movie to Hate It

Sometimes I feel like the character in Metropolitan who pretentiously notes that he doesn't read literature--just literary criticism.

I'm confronted with this realization following incessant exposure to advertising for Little Fockers, which I predict will be one of the worst films of the year.

And no, I don't have to see it to believe this.

I've already suffered through the first two installments of this trilogy: Meet the Parents and Meet the Fockers, both incredibly junky, cynical "comedies" predicated, in part, on jokes relating to the protagonist's nearly profane surname and his supposedly effeminate profession as a nurse.

This is the kind of humor that makes Jerry Lewis look like Moliere.

So far, I haven't yet read a review for LF, but I will...and I'm hoping whatever I read will corroborate my sentiments. I'd also like to think I can discern a reviewer with "taste" from a reviewer without it. You know--someone reliable.

Someone who can verify my belief that I don't need to see this flick...ever.

For the record, I don't surround myself with "yes-reviewers" or newspapers that only share my opinions. But I know that a good review of a bad movie will provide a reader with a feeling of support that people often relegate to therapy sessions or Sunday dinners with the folks.

"You're not alone," a good review conveys. "We're in your foxhole, too."

And that's what makes good criticism: total, unabashed obsequiousness. Maybe that's what that character in Metropolitan initially liked. Before he changed, of course, and started reading literature.

Yeah, I'm still not gonna see LF.

Will We Ever Have 'Kind Hearts' Again?

The most significant mark of a good film, in my opinion, is its capacity to show the watcher something new on every viewing.

Robert Hamer's savory classic Kind Hearts and Coronets fits that bill. I must've seen this movie about 50 times, and yet every time I review it, I notice elements I didn't see before.

On my most recent screening, however, I didn't observe anything new. I just enjoyed it. I think I'm at that stage where the film has become so satisfying for me that it's like a plate of cassoulet: very familiar, yet always tasty...despite the lack of novelty associated with it.

There's no doubt in my mind that this is a great film--the ultimate black comedy, in which the viewer is forced to side with a surprisingly scrupulous fellow who, nevertheless, decides that the best and quickest way to earn his rightful inheritance is to terminate all other potential heirs of the dukedom to which he aspires. The doubt in my mind stems from whether we'll see such a great film again.

Of this type.

I'm not a big fan of the negative comedies of today. They often seem forced and extremely poorly written, such as Gus Van Sant's lamentable "satire" To Die For, which was as dull as a potato sandwich. It's a hard genre to fit into, and even more difficult to be successful at. Which is why it's so amazing to me that KHAC ever got produced.

So will we see another one like it again? My feeling is that it's like asking if we'll get another Mozart. The product of a special time and social context cannot be replicated, though we may see further tries. The wit of KHAC, like the delicacy of Mozart, is inimitable, a historic anomaly.

I'm disappointed by this idea, but I think I should embrace it. It makes the art unique, unquenchable.

Maybe I should just be content with its greatness rather than its duplication.