1957: War

In light of a recent wonderful year end roundup essay from one of my favorite critics, I have been given the incentive to ditch ranking movies by year. To sum up his point; it’s pointless (for me) to attempt an objective list based on rank when different movies set out to achieve different goals and when I don’t really know how to quantify something as elusive as “importance.” This is a dangerous distinction, often the reason many puffed up entertainments (Foxcatcher) garners more serious consideration than those pesky termites. But I feel the need to at least briefly grasp those qualities that draw me to certain works, especially the ones that appear on the opposite ends of the brow chart. So what better year to start with than 1957, a year that two of my friends have argued is the year of 3:10 to Yuma, the rest be damned. I can’t say I disagree with this sentiment wholeheartedly. Scratch that, I disagree with it wholeheartedly, not that Daves film deserves anything less than adoration but that one great film ought to render a whole slew of great films rubbish in comparison. 1957 (as was much of the 50s in general) was blessed with an overabundance of great works, specifically in the war and western genre.

Paths of Glory pisses me off. I clench my teeth and curl my toes every time. I want to crawl into the screen and fix everything, but that’s part of the frustration because nothing can be fixed in a world set so firmly in its ways. It’s one of the most effective movies I’ve ever seen, so much so that my dad can’t even watch it. He gets too upset. I think it’s also a nice example of a war movie having the utmost respect for soldiers, binding together in their tight fortified hell, yet matching that passion with a deep and rampant hatred for the hierarchical entities that orchestrate the madness spacious/snug quarters. ---- Ugh! I can’t help but sounding like a kid fresh out of college, locked away in his parent’s house awaiting the real world, shocked by the horrors that have been shocking young stupid kids like me for years, except that I’m not a kid anymore. Oh well, I’ll continue on my righteous rant. ---- There is a big emphasis on juxtaposition (housing, clothing, food, custom, luxury) between soldier and officer, and after all of the cruel formalities take their course and the viewer is left feeling not only helpless but also disillusioned to the point of anger. In most films that involve a courtroom, the built in drama revolves around the law being upheld (the truth being proven) while here it’s just the opposite. The law is part of the problem and there is nothing to swoop and protect us from its mulish procedure.  And then, just as the movie goes where most viewers hope it won’t,  a young fearful girl (played by Kubrick’s wife Christiane) --- a similar victim of war’s brutality and cynicism ----  sings “The Faithful Hussar” to a group of rowdy soldiers who suddenly fall silent and/or hum along. I don’t really even know how to process this scene; I just know it gets me every time. It doesn’t offer any resolution. I have seen it three or four times and with each viewing I had to wait a few minutes before reentering the real world. The battle that these men are fighting is futile, their lives are not valued, their blood won’t solve anything, and their common sense/love for each other will only earn them a date with the firing squad. It’s as anti-war/authority/fascism as anything ever made. And for anyone tempted to count Kubrick as cold and detached, I offer this movie as evidence of his humanism, not to mention his grasp of the film language at a young age. For all of the griping (undoubtedly matched if not dwarfed by the rampant deification) about Kubrick, I think we can all agree that he had a freakish talent that may or may not hit some on a personal level.

It makes sense that the overall war sentiment was that of, shall we say, less reverence than the “flag-wavers” made during the conflict and after. Don’t get me wrong, I often prefer that era of war but it’s nice to see the tide shift a bit, though John Ford’s The Wings of Eagles --- which I always felt could have been the bastardized fourth Calvary movie ----- proves that supposed antiquated notions of war can still make for riveting entertainment, especially since much of the focus here is on the home front. And to be fair to Ford, who accomplished more in five years than I will in 65, his attitudes towards authority in general probably paved the way movies like Paths (his visual command certainly did), just look at Henry Fonda’s Owen Thursday for heaven’s sake, not to mention Paths could have easily been called They Were Expendable. Either way, the Frank “Spig” Wead biopic lost $804,000 so perhaps audiences were slightly disillusioned at this point especially considering what nabbed the top box office spot. The #1 draw of 1957 --- which also won Best Picture and ushered in a new era of “epic” filmmaking for its director whose previous films were technically more “intimate” but not as different in scope from where I’m standing ---- was The Bridge on the River Kwai. I’m not going to try and ascribe a cultural or political analysis of (Paths of Glory pretty much earned back what it cost) its success measured with its fog of war sentiments, but it raises a few questions. The movie has become (or always was?) one of those AFI/Academy obvious picks for “greatest of all time” which has undoubtedly curdled some of its myth for postmodern audiences. Me, I saw it many times when I was younger and at least three times as a young adult. I revisited it recently, not necessarily to pinch myself but because I genuinely love looking at it. I also don’t lament Lean’s post-Kwai “epic” course, and even if I did it wouldn’t do me or anyone else any good.

Kwai, like Paths and Fort Apache, finds hysteria in the ruse of military etiquette. You have a few individuals operating on a somewhat sensible --- albeit allegedly opprobrious -- level only to be gunned down by the same people they are supposed to be fighting alongside. This not-so-friendly-fire is so on point, the scenario so damned-if-you- do/don’t/what’s-it-all-for that you can wonder if we really needed to “madness” postscript to drive it all superfluously home. But again, I’m not complaining. More madness from Andrzej Wajda in his fictional account of the Warsaw Uprising’s doomed attempts at staving off Nazi forces whilst waiting for Soviet aid that deviously won’t arrive in, Kanal. We’re down til we’re underground. There is a lot of words spilled on Polish bravery, though you get the distinct impression that Wajda is also accentuating a needless cultural imprudence. I think he did a great job of assimilating rousing with exasperating, especially as they slide down into the depths of hell. There they wander around in excrement, lost, gassed, doomed. There is something to be said for their fortitude and our innate survivalist predisposition, even if their final stand is spurred on by their adopted ethnographic principles on valor. The final shot is cruel, funny, and acerbic. It perfectly encapsulates everything that came before.

Due to their staggering losses during WWII (ten percent of the population), it would make sense that the government would want to keep a watchful eye over their film industry, ensuring that this loss was worth the price. By 53, Stalin was no longer and Khrushchev’s critique of his totalitarian rule opened the door slightly for a broader sense of an individual’s value in the face of war. This gave way to intimate histrionics, where the greater good had to finally faceoff with personal loss a la Mikhail Kalatozov’s, The Cranes Are Flying. It follows a family (including a lover) torn apart by war, specifically the enlistment and death of our hero, Boris. Much of the action and conflict revolves around the home front once again with Boris’ girlfriend Veronika and her various tribulations. Though Kalatozov and his cinematographer Sergio Urusevsky shot things that boggle the mind and eye, the movie simply wouldn’t resonate without a central performance as good as Tatiana Samoilova’s. At least I can honestly say that this is what struck and stuck with me. Anthony Mann's Men in War follows a group of foot soldiers through a series of awful predicaments. It's Mann through and through and since I'm feeling extremely lazy I'll leave it at that and trust you to know what I mean.

Maybe I’ll post more on 1957 later. No promises.

1949: Top Ten

1.       Late Spring (Ozu)
2.       White Heat (Walsh)
3.       Reign of Terror (Mann) 
4.       The Third Man (Reed) 
5.       Adam’s Rib (Cukor) 
6.       Battleground (Wellman) 
7.       Kind Hearts and Coronets (Hamer) 
8.       Obsession (Dmytryk) 
9.       They Live By Night (Ray) 
10.   She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (Ford)

Honorable Mentions (Alphabetical Order):  Africa Screams (Barton),  The Big Steal (Siegel), Bitter Rice (De Santis), Border Incident (Mann), Caught (Ophuls), Colorado Territory (Walsh), Criss Cross (Siodmak), Flamingo Road (Curtiz), The Great Madcap (Bunuel), The Heiress (Wyler), House of Strangers (Mankiewicz), I Shot Jesse James (Fuller), I Was a Male War Bride (Hawks), The Inspector General (Koster), Intruder in the Dust (Clarence Brown), A Letter to Three Wives (Mankiewicz), On the Town (Kelly and Donen), The Quiet Duel (Kurosawa), The Reckless Moment (Ophuls), Sands of Iwo Jima (Dwan), The Set-Up (Wise), Le Silence de la mer (Melville), The Small Black Room (Powell and Pressburger), Stray Dog (Kurosawa), Thieves Highway (Dassin), Whirlpool (Preminger), Whiskey Galore! (Mackendrick).

Wishlist/Blindspots: Beyond the Forest, Easy Living, The Fountainhead, Impact, Festival Day, Knock on Any Door, Manon, Slaterry’s Hurricane, Twelve O’clock High, The Spider and the Fly.

2014: Top Ten

I get such pointless anxiety when I try and put these lists together. My thought process is complicated and annoying. For instance, I think you can see that my first four picks are all awards sirens, three of which reek of prestigious domestic auteur status. I genuinely feel stupid for going so steadfastly with the grain, but I can assure you I am being sincere in my adulation. I guess I’d feel equally stupid disingenuously throwing lesser known and loved films at the top if I didn’t truly love them as much.  I’ll admit that I’m the type to go into a Wes Anderson, Richard Linklater, and Paul Thomas Anderson (not to mention Jarmusch, Fincher, and Dardenne) with high expectations and said expectations don’t usually prove in detriment to my overall impression. However, I’m convinced that I’m not completely blind to the likely flaws in each of my top movies and I hope I’m not the type to “carry anyone’s water” so to speak. In a way I guess I’m relieved to find the Andersons continuing to challenge even their most steadfast champions either by burrowing further into their inimitable worlds or possibly throwing the final mound of dirt on most of what we’ve known before. Inherent Vice is many things, but the thing that stuck the most with me appears in the book’s epigraph where Pynchon writes “under the paving stones, the beach!” I didn’t really know what to write about it after seeing it as I was trying to arrange all of the information and hopefully make sense of it. I saw today that Glenn Kenny wrote a wonderful essay on said epigraph’s “end of an era” theme and how this worked its way into the movie. For me, Inherent Vice felt like a eulogy buried within a romp about the encroaching extinction of Doc’s way of life. His act of altruism towards Coy Harlingen and his family truly moved me and took it to that next level of adoration that maybe was missing from some of his previous works. Reading the book is certainly helping fill in the voids that mind couldn’t possibly process in a theater (some of the lines were damn near inaudible).

And how about Wes Anderson, whose style and vibe has been mocked and parodied ad nauseam by his fans and detractors. Here he’s created a mock world to ape that of WWII, with a similar encroaching neighbor-sellout-neighbor-malady and a similar (yet fatal) act of selflessness from a dodgy antihero. I’ve spoken to many friends around the same age (early thirties) ---- for whom Anderson’s first three features proved critical to their development  ---- about the weird fatigue that has been setting in even while not necessarily loathing his recent work. I’ve urged them to ignore this and watch The Grand Budapest Hotel as I think it’s got the cure for whatever trivial ailments we thought upset us. And similarly, I think many feel some fatigue from Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s Two Days, One Night. I can’t disagree that the film is schematic and predictable, and I’ll admit that it took longer than expected for me to get fully engulfed in the drama, but seeing these two masters land this with such elegance and control (thanks also, obviously, to Cotillard’s second great performance of 2014) was truly incredible.

I’m in agreement that movies are lacking a genuine representation of all walks of life. We are oversaturated with white, patriarchal, middle/upper class, heteronormative, and entitled protagonists and we need this remedied now. There were a few films to broaden our perspective, I’m hoping 2015 brings us more. They certainly aren’t remedied in Richard Linklater’s Boyhood but I’m not complaining. Linklater and company have honed in on and highlighted the moments in a family’s life (at least a 12 year span) that stuck with me, not by hopping from one milestone to the next but filling in the gaps with those crucial junctures that seem to stick in the back of our minds. Yeah, and it hit me on a personal level, mostly because I’m a new dad and I’m looking forward to some of these milestones and gap fillers, but also because I was once a child with a mom and dad and sibling and life happened. And as for the scenes that elicit what I would consider justifiable grief over either broad caricatures, odd abrupt transformations, and strained reunions I’d like to remind you that these scenes make up about fifty seconds of a film that runs about two hours and forty-six minutes. I completely understand those who don’t connect with it or even find it slight or annoying but for those who try to pin the film’s failure overall on those brief lapses in judgment I just want to remind you that it’s in your embedded nature to blow the negative aspects of life out of proportion. And I hope I don’t ruffle feathers to suggest that David Fincher’s Gone Girl, while probably not the “laying the institution of marriage to waste” masterpiece that so many proclaimed, is also not claiming that Nick and Amy represent manhood and womanhood incarnate. I dread the day in which villains cease to exist, or where writers and directors tread lightly when selecting their antagonists various sexual, gender, racial, or mental health characteristics. I can’t justifiably call out Fincher and Flynn and still be a self-respecting Leave Her to Heaven fan after all. I thought this was a sly, funny thriller with the director’s distinctive knack for pace, space, and atmosphere. I’m reading a lot of gushing about how Michael Mann is able to elevate “high concept junk” via his expressive style and atmosphere, AMEN, but I guess I’d wager that Fincher is doing the same for now. I especially loved how the movie eventually flies gleefully/preposterously off the rails. Still, I’m not impervious to the thought of Fincher and Anderson being knocked off their demigod perch.

Winter Sleep and The Tale of Princess Kaguya dapple with parenthood and marriage amongst other things. The Tale of Princess Kaguya is visually minimal but far from simple, thematically mystifying but far from impenetrable. It’s a fairy tale about a father’s mixed up but benevolent ideas about his magical daughter’s future and how his lavish notions displace her from her idyllic habitat and stifle her true dreams and passions. This leads to a heartbreaking finale, something Isao Takahata had perfected long ago. Winter Light does an accurate job in observing the disintegration of a marriage. At first it seems serene enough, to each his/her own with some minor hiccups, but then our "protagonist" goes from avoiding a fight to being the hammer that only sees nails. It doesn't hurt to have Nuri Bilge Ceylan's eye for composition nor does it hurt to have a cast this good, but the thing that maybe separates it from any other gorgeous movie is its ability to dismantle a relationship without pinning the downfall to a single cause or person. And I’m only highlighting one of the movies many themes, mainly because it hit me at the time personally. Pride is the key to his downfall.  A wiser man however would know when he's licked as Aydin is so clearly licked here. His arrogance (similar to the feeble "protagonist" of Listen Up Phillip) and smug infatuation with age and experience (constantly using it against his younger better half) have finally lost their sting. You see it in Nihal's tired eyes, like the wild horse Aydin pays to imprison with him at his Cappadocian Xanadu she yearns to be free of his reigns.

My friend Jackson described Under the Skin as a feature length Calvin Klein commercial, or something to that nature. I’ve heard similar complaints from other friends with very little company in the “it’s a masterpiece” camp. I get it, but I also think it’s fitting that a film that emphasizes the treachery of surfaces is seen as surface level trifle.  I also get my friend John’s comments about Only Lovers Left Alive being cute, though not any more or less cute than Jarmusch’s other work which he seems to like just fine. I found more to love in both, obviously, and I wrote at length about it. I’m also going to have to just admit that Land Ho! scratched me right where I needed it even as many found it slight. Early Lyn Nelson and Paul Eehoorn deserve awards, all of them now!

One more. Ava DuVernay's Selma hones in on a specific time, place, group of people, and climate for most of its entirety. Like Lincoln, it focuses specifically on the passing of a certain piece of legislation and all of the negotiation and compromise (or lack thereof) that comes with it. For a long duration of time I was convinced it was a masterpiece. I'm not saying it isn't a masterpiece, not yet, but I'll admit that there came a point somewhere after the second march on Edmund Pettis Bridge where the movie started to slide for me. I don't know how else to describe it other than to say that there are moments in movies or even a band's set where you feel it should end. Then the movie or set continues on for whatever reason and some of the air gets let out. I guess I felt that during a few scenes towards the end, maybe one too many meetings or visits to the oval office. So I’m sure it deserves a higher spot but for now I’m going to cheat and keep it as a tie with another timely film about our societal devaluing of human life. It’s an important movie and that goes a long way for me, at least right now.

Honorable mentions? I’m going to limit my list because it pains me to leave these movies off the top ten. I don’t know why or how Snowpiercer isn’t as good as any of the seven through ten picks other than to say that the ending felt a little rushed and expository for my taste. Still, I think it’s incredible and I’ll probably remedy my snub after watching it again. Likewise, I thought James Gray’s The Immigrant would land but I found myself feeling the complete opposite about the ending and rather begrudging some of what came before. Still, it’s another great Gray film that wasn’t seen by nearly enough people. He’ll have his day. I finally caught up with Shoah and it’s as great as I had anticipated. I kept scanning the land for something, maybe remains or even ghosts, but I found Lanzmann’s Last of the Unjust another wonderful companion piece that, once again, could have easily cracked this list. Biggest surprise of the year? I would say Tommy Lee Jones’ strange, disturbing, and consistently surprising The Homesman, my pick for movie with the best ending of 2014. I loved Ida and We are the Best a lot. Why lump them together, because I saw them both on Netflix Instant two nights in a row. John Wick was the best maintstream action movie I saw all year, with Edge of Tomorrow nipping at its heels. Both have lackluster endings however and some other problems peppered in. The Guest was another huge surprise as I’ve been underwhelmed by every long or short film from Adam Wingard. It’s satisfying genre work plain and simple. Life Itself moved me and Birdman (the movie that all of my Williamsburg pals seemed to prefer) is, to me, hopefully a sign of things to come from a director I haven’t frankly cared for in the past. I’m wrestling with American Sniper on a gut level, but that’s probably the intent here. Also, Locke was a great story with a great central performance (another reason to hail Hardy as one of our best living actors) but I struggled with the visual aspects of the movie. I also quite liked Ira Sachs’ Make Way For Tomorrow update Love is Strange and Jimmy P. That’s all folks!

My Top Ten of 2014:

  1.       The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson)

  2.       Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer)

  3.       Inherent Vice (Paul Thomas Anderson)

  4.       Boyhood (Richard Linklater)

  5.      Winter Sleep (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)

  6.      Only Lovers Left Alive (Jim Jarmusch)

  7.      Land Ho! (Aaron Katz and Martha Stephens)

  8.  The Tale of Princess Kaguya (Isao Takahata)

  9.     Gone Girl (David Fincher)

10.    Two Days, One Night (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne) and Selma ((Ava DuVernay )

Honorable Mentions: Snowpiercer (Bong-Joon Ho), The Immigrant (Gray), Last of the Unjust (Lanzmann , , The Homesman (Jones), Ida (Pawlikowski), The Guest (Wingard), We Are the Best (Moodysson), Edge of Tomorrow (Liman), John Wick (Leitch and Stahelski), Life Itself (James), Birdman (Innuaritu) Love is Strange (Sachs).

Blindspots: Goodbye to Language, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, Closed Curtain, Stray Dogs, Actress, National Gallery, Stranger by the Lake, Citizenfour,  Last Days in Vietnam, Horse Money, Top Five, Beyond the Lights, Whiplash, Lucy.

In a Lonely Place

I used to know this guy who reminded me a lot of Louise Bloom, the titular nocturnal creep played by Jake Gyllenhaal, not because he was advantageous nor starved for social status, but because he had a way of appearing out of nowhere like a ghost with freshly rehearsed subjects on deck to readily sow into the conversation that he spent the previous five minutes pretending to participate in. He lingered around for a few years while things slowly went from awkward to borderline frightening. I think it’s important to empathize and consider another’s past before breaking ties, but there came a time in which it was evident that it wasn’t healthy for anyone involved to continue speaking. To this date I can’t think of another human that I’ve cut off so abruptly and permanently. Like Bloom, he was very well articulated and spoke with rapid-fire urgency as though the words were causing him some physical discomfort while gestating within. This would indicate anxiety, at least to me, but also a need to connect in hopes to validate himself as a knowledgeable and interesting person, which he was. It makes sense considering that he and Bloom would consider their expression a social strongpoint, often oblivious to how suffocating and overwhelming it can be to be the recipient of that wave of verbiage. Above all things he was lonely and in need of social vindication, to the point where it would appear that it became an addiction, much like Bloom’s insatiable lust for standing.

Dan Gilroy’s “Nightcrawler” is an impressive debut as far as I’m concerned. It’s both a character study and an indictment of our current media dilemma, Bloom playing the dichotomous role of the victim and benefactor of our patronage. We first meet him as he’s clipping chain linked fence to sell for scrap. A security guard rolls up on him and we get our first glimpse of his social operation (smile, talk fast, win), which ends appropriately with an act of violence that we don’t get to witness. --- I was wondering about what their tussle resulted in on my way to work today. The guard got a really solid look at him, I’m just saying. ---- He’s a thief, but he’s yearning for an honest living worthy of his effort. He’s willing to work hard wherever he ends up , and he’ll adapt easily and climb fairly quickly if he’s given the chance. The internet is his teacher. His drive carries out the rest. He isn’t looking to make an easy buck; he’s just another down-on-his-luck kid trying to work in our progressively dreary economic landscape. He finds his niche while stumbling upon a camera crew hovering around a car crash like the first vultures to a carcass. The carcass is then sold to the highest bidder on the news circuit, making our suffering a ghoulish commerce, pieces of metal at a scrap yard. After getting a foot in the door at a failing local station, Bloom begins to take his vocation to new depths only earning him more clout in the industry. The corporatized media trade preys upon our fear, lust for destruction, prying, and disengagement with pragmatic reporting. Turn on the news for thirty minutes and behold the horror.

“Nightcrawler” is strongest when working as a procedural, taking us through the mechanizations of a mostly clandestine job. We don’t know much about the procuring of footage, the price that footage goes for, and the way a producer works it into a narrative that has been tinkered to draw in an audience. There have been many great films about the news industry (Ace in the Hole, His Girl Friday, While the City Sleeps, All the President’s Men, Zodiac) but none about the men and women who sit by police scanners waiting gleefully for terrible things to happen. The scenes that I found the most engaging took place within the station headquarters where Rene Russo’s Nina Romina bids for footage and then cuts it and finds a narrative to hang it on, or in Bloom’s apartment or car where he studies police code and the fastest way from point A to B. There is a blunt but effective scene where Nina puppeteers some recently acquired footage, speaking directly into the ears of the anchors, repeatedly emphasizing phrases meant to both scare and incite the audience. Her approach is to emphasize affluent citizens’ safety encroached upon by a creeping marginalized threat. Sound familiar? It’s a fair target; I just wish Dan Gilroy’s directorial debut had sharper teeth. Where the movie fails is in its need to a: spell out the moral dilemma (there is a character planted in this movie for the sole purpose of telling us that certain footage is unethical, never so obviously than a scene in which he reveals information about the aforementioned footage) b: adhere to obligatory “lonely crazy guy” movie prototypes (the lame mirror sequence for instance) and c: the abrupt development of a narrative thread that shapes the remnants of the film in such a way that a big suspension of disbelief will be required to follow it through. This late chain of events succumbs to the same sensationalism that it seeks to indict. It nearly derails the whole damn thing.

Current Cinema Blurbs: “Land-ho!” confirms Paul Eenhorn as the wisest, most pleasant actor currently gracing our big and little screens. Tara noted that he had “a nice face.” He caught my attention first with 2013’s “This is Martin Bonner” and matches Earl Lynn Nelson’s gargantuan performance step for step. These two should make a set of Crosby/Hope road movies for our viewing pleasure. It also confirms my friend John’s suspicions that Aaron Katz is the real deal, not that we should disregard Martha Stephens’ contributions. This is easily one of 2014’s best, ignore anyone who damns it by claiming that it’s “slight” or tidy They are wrong. Doug Liman’s “Edge of Tomorrow” only falters in its final stretch, which is a bummer considering how fresh the first two thirds are. The death montages had me laughing out loud, especially when the main character rolls under a Jeep much to Bill Paxton’s baffled dismay (Paxton also whips out a refreshing performance in Nightcrawler). Cruise is top notch here, as is Emily Blunt, and the action scenes work precisely because of their willingness to embrace the absurdity of the film’s central concept. It’s an easy honorable mention. You should see it, I should see it again. HBO’s “Olive Kittredge” makes great use of its Maine setting both inside and out. It also surprised me in its reluctance to indulge in worn out archetypes and plot developments. You think you know where it’s going to go, how people are going to act, and how you are supposed to feel about them only wait and wait and wait for something to happen that would have happened in something else. Does that make any sense? It only falters a bit in its final chapters, a little here and a little there. If it was a theatrical feature it’d be one of the standouts this year. Then again, J. Hoberman put Todd Haynes’ “Mildred Pierce” on his list when that came out.

Recent First-Timers:

Masterpieces: 1943 Edge of Darkness (Lewis Milestone)

 Yes Please: 1935 Mad Love (Karl Freund), The Plough and the Stars (John Ford), The Ghost Goes West (Rene Clair), The Devil Doll (Todd Browning), Dracula’s Daughter (Lambert Hillyer), The Limey (Steven Soderbergh), A Lawless Street (Joseph H. Lewis), Jack Reacher (Christopher McQuarrie), Rosetta (The Dardenne bros), The Stalking Moon (Robert Mulligan). 

Great Big Visions

For a film about wormholes, Christopher Nolan's "Interstellar" sure likes to take the long way. Like much of his previous work, the narrative thrust lags as the plot piles on more and more baggage, becoming a new movie with its own conflict and concerns, which are almost completely autonomous from the central conflict. He seems to always struggle with the third act, or he tacks on fourth and fifth acts to squeeze things in that he’s not willing to leave on the cutting floor. He usually has a commanding finale in mind (montages set to a narrator’s impassioned epilogue over Hans Zimmer's swelling score, to a sudden cut to black) but finds the most convoluted way to get there. Even as his films stray he’s able to somehow land them manipulatively (positive) so that as I walk out of the theater I’m filled with heavy emotions and a sad score running ringing in my ears. Time, distance, and thought always bring me back down, and yet I still end up seeing his movies on opening weekend.  

“Interstellar” follows Cooper (a reliable Matthew McConaughey), a pilot sent through a wormhole to find an inhabitable planet as Earth quickly turns to dust. There are a dozen planets to survey, but obviously not enough time to do so. The wormholes were formed by “they” as a way to bridge the large expanse between galaxies. “They” are unseen and unidentified beings that can exist in several dimensions with an undisclosed providential interest in our survival. Rest assured that you will find out who “they” are, and true to Nolan’s vibe, it’s not as remarkable as you might hope. The heart of the story lies in a father's promise to return to his daughter (the fact that he doesn't seem to care nearly as much about his son sort of struck me as odd), and consequently to save mankind. His mission therefore is all sacrifice, a fight over flight mentality notably not echoed by his elder son in a later scene. This narrow focus is where Nolan thrives. He finds a way to make the passing of time (earth standard) a constant factor in the mission’s already surmounting dread and suspense. For instance, on a planet that’s almost completely water an hour spent is tantamount to a full seven years on earth, I didn’t even care about the giant waves (which are supposedly scientifically plausible for planets neighboring a black hole) about to smash the spaceship into smithereens; all I wanted was for the crew to wrap it up as soon as possible.

From that failed mission the movie finally succumbs to the Nolan bros’ trademark narrative glut. The excesses here begin when the crew, depleted after the loss of life and resources on the water planet, bicker over which planet to visit. With not enough fuel and resources to visit both, they (meaning Cooper and Anne Hathaway’s Amelia Brand) choose the planet manned by Mann. Without spoiling anything, I should note that this deviation ultimately leads to nowhere except a admittedly great “docking” sequence and a reveal about the nature of the mission itself. Both could have been accomplished without the beacon call and time spent paying redundant homage to the giants that came before, and all of the amped up chatty suspense that results. The time spent on this icy planet only exists to fulfill a quota. It’s part of the long way that I was referring to before. And even as characters fight, they talk and divulge/repeat information that frankly only strays from ticking clock that distances father from daughter, and makes it all the more unlikely for their reunion to happen within a reasonable period of time. And after that’s resolved we move on to the real “mindbender” which my friend correctly called “Shyamalanian.”

After the catastrophe at the ice planet, Cooper, Brand, and their two robots (the wonderful Bill Irwin adding some much needed comic relief) decide on a plan. First they move towards the black hole where they send their robot TARS to report back data on its singularity, while they slingshot (one of many nods to Arthur C. Clark Rendezvous with Rama) themselves towards the other planet manned by Hathaway’s implied love interest Edmund (but none of that really matters outside of her/Cooper’s subjective motivations weighed against the mission’s objectivity). Needless to say this chain of events results in some twists and turns due to an act of self-sacrifice as “Interstellar” enters its own “Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite” phase. I don’t want to spoil anything here so I’ll leave it alone other than to say that it’s a ballsy development that overcomplicates things and sacrifices the crucial reunion that the movie ultimately hinges on. In fact, I think the film could have been much better if it never returned to earth outside of the video messages that were so effective and brief.

And while I’d have to ultimately have to say that “Interstellar” feels to me like a noble/fascinating/frustrating failure, I still can’t shake it. There are enough successes to warrant at least one revisit. The docking sequence that I mentioned before is a brilliantly composed set piece with some of Nolan’s best use of sound and vision. Frankly, it’s one the best things I’ve seen this year and it reminded me of a much simpler sequence in “The Dark Knight” where Heath Ledger’s head was out of the window of a cop car set to persistent ominous ringing. I was also moved by the scene where Cooper drives away from his family, set to the countdown of his space shuttle, with a crucial intimate moment where he looks under the blanket of his passenger seat. Again we have great use of sound and montage, followed by some wonderful early scenes in space. With moments like this I find it hard to dismiss him outright as others have. I’m thankful that he wants to approach big budget Hollywood genre films with intelligence and economized human vision. But thinking back to the failures of the later acts, I am reminded of slogs in the first; the derivative agitprop vision of Midwest America, the cliché angry dad deriding the NASA-hating teacher, the far too-convenient NASA station coordinates, the characters talking to each other about things that were better shown. I’m reminded of an ironic scene in which Anne Hathaway’s Brand reminds Cooper of the importance of knowing when to shut up. For a director who posits himself as the smart pop-artist against the dumb system, he’s awfully susceptible to some of that system’s worst tendencies.     

Alejandro Jodorowsky is no stranger to ambitious vision and the Hollywood system that seems to thwart it. Between “The Holy Mountain” and “El Topo,” he’s solidified himself as a cult icon with fans like The Beatles to David Lynch. He’s an interesting interviewee, with that perpetual smile that often contradicts the words coming out of it. In the 2014 documentary “Jodorowsky’s Dune,” director Frank Pavich tells the story of the doomed movie that never was with interview from adoring friends like Nicolas Winding Refn and Richard Stanley to legends-in-their-own-right like H.R. Giger. The less skeptical talking heads, like Refn, claim that the film was never made because Hollywood was afraid of his imagination. Hearing hagiographic declarations like this, you can see why the director perpetuates his own greatness so emphatically. The reoccurring line of this movie is “I did this!” which is amusing considering what was actually accomplished. Jodorowsky has his spiritual army and they are so devoted/unbending that they can’t acknowledge the importance of the only physical vestiges left behind, the concept art (constructed by Giger and Christopher Fosse). The movie also insanely alleges that the un-filmed “Dune” gave birth to everything from “Masters of the Universe” to “Alien” to “Star Wars.” The evidence is laughable (especially when you realize that they actually imply that the world would have been a worse place without Masters), outside of the fact that he put Giger, Dan O’Bannon, and Jean Henri Gaston Giraud might not have been involved in the Ridley Scott film if it wasn’t for this experience. 

I’m not completely disinclined to big egos and self-mythologizing. I understand its place in art but only if it’s there to exalt the work itself. The real conflict here seems to be the funding, though it didn’t stop the “spiritual warriors” from putting together an expensive book to help their pitch. But when the smile fades and true colors appear, this once smiling dreamer begins to rant about how he just might make the film twenty hours or ten if he likes, which might sound like a good idea to his warriors, but admittedly might not sound so good to the guy funding your film. This is common sense, and where money is concerned common sense sometimes means the difference between sinking and swimming. Jodorowsky correctly notes that money is "shit," but then proceeds to complain about people who are unwilling to give him theirs. And the more you hear this overconfident story about the little dreamer up against the machine system; you realize that he was willing to make ridiculous compromises to his vision in order to get what he wanted, like paying Dali $100,000 for every minute he appeared onscreen. The moment I realized that I hated this film came when he so eagerly besmirched Douglas Trumbull for his supposed self-importance, an attribute he so openly displayed before and after this mini-rant. Suddenly the “we are all Paul” spiritualist becomes the gossipy malicious brat who met an artist who didn’t buy into his legend so easily. He then basically claims that he is not a real artist but a technician, or a robot, which is funny when you consider who sought out whom in the first place. This story would have been better told on an episode of Karina Longworth’s wonderful podcast, “You Must Remember This.” Thankfully, Jodorowsky’s work can speak for itself because I frankly need a break from the guy.