#NoirSummer : Daily Dose of Darkness 2

A film takes us on a journey, often from point A to B to C, but not always. This opening scene drops us into the action in progress-no orienting of location or to character.  The engineers are mostly wordless, performing their difficult, dirty work by habit and by gesture. No immaculate sound set and perfectly coiffed hair here-this is where the word "gritty" gets applied to noir.  The men are sooty, the fire smokes. Just as the train's progress seems inexorable, so too does the sound design. The racket is deafening-the men couldn't have a conversation if they wanted to. And the shriek of the train whistle!

This film does not whisk us away to some fantasy where every barista is adorable with a giant NYC apartment, but rather sets us firmly in the real world of hard work. (See also Italian neorealism *name drop*)

The camera attached to the side of the train gives the viewer the feeling of clinging on like a bug.  We get no comfy seat inside, but rather we ride in the "danger zone" where we can sense the speed of the train and the danger of being plunged into darkness.  I was sorry to be watching the clip on my computer rather than in a dark theater for the shot in the tunnel!

And then, finally, after having our nerves rattled by the sound, the speed, and the darkness, the train slows and pulls into the station.  We finally have a signpost-Le Havre.  But where is everybody?  The silence is deafening.

#NoirSummer : Daily Dose of Darkness 1

Who's watching the kids? 

Dread is the word.  Lang juxtaposes domestic tranquility against danger in such a way that the viewer can sense that something is definitely off-kilter.   The children in the ring play happily, but sing a dreadful song.  Little Elsie's mother smiles because it's time for her to come home from school, but Elsie nearly gets squashed by a car. The opening elevated shot demonstrates that Mother can see the children, but so can anyone else.  The cintog highlights how vulnerable they are out in the open.   The most concise image is that of the ball bouncing up against the warning sign on the post--in our minds a child's toy should never occupy the same space as murder, but here it does. The shadow falling across the sign plays with our notions of what we have seen on the screen, because we see M, but not his face.  Our minds don't rest well with that ambiguity.

The sound design keeps us off-kilter, too, with the long silences and proto-jump scares of the car horn and the cuckoo clock. The writing underlines the seriousness of the problem.  Mother is clearly quite rattled, otherwise why make such a big deal of a ring-a-round-the-rosy type game?  She's frightened, and she takes it out on the kids.

These notions of the off-kilter feeling and domestic tranquility merely as a sheer overlay diffusing the evil underneath are threads that run through noir as a style.  Noir is LA Confidential digging below the glitz of Hollywood for find that "Everything is suspect...everyone is for sale...and nothing is what it seems." (official tagline) It's that final phrase that captures so much of the essence of noir.  

Sweet Home

Here's a fascinating history of the Blues Brothers.  I had no idea.  I have the movie soundrack, I'm going to have to pick up "Briefcase Full of Blues."

Diner

I wrote a tribute for the 30th anniversary of "Diner."

Wayne's World is 20

Party on, Garth!  Party on, Wayne!  At Edward Copeland on Film.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

My latest review at Edward Copeland on Film.

Respect for Time on an Acting Blog

I've been interacting with a local actor whom I haven't even met IRL yet, and he's started his own blog about acting and the biz.  Evidently one of my comments sparked an idea, so here's a link to his post about what time management means to we "creative types."

Respect for Time

Harold and Maude

My piece at Edward Copeland on Film

I Wrote Something

Just not here.  50th Anniversary of the release of West Side Story at
Edward Copeland on Film and More

Happy MeDay

Today is my birthday, and I took the day off work. Here's a rundown of what I've been up to, what I've seen recently, and what's coming next.
1) Monday Meetings. We're getting good feedback on our sketches and are working on a 1/2 hour pilot. If you haven't seen them, take a look and please please forward the link to those who may be interested in teh funny.

2) WatchingTreme.  The season is over, and S3 goes up next Spring, but I still have some link roundups to catch up on, as well as some new content.  Slowly but surely...

3) Something's Afoot at Taproot Theatre.  This was extended through August.  Got a ticket from one of the performers, and laughed the whole way through.  The tone was just right-just serious enough, just meta-aware enough, and just goofy enough.  The cast is incredible.  Seattlites should make the effort to catch this one, IMHO.

4) Speaking of theater, I was asked to take part in a staged reading of The Normal Heart in November.  I read the script and was blown away.  It's a work about the beginning of the AIDS epidemic in the 80s in NYC, and it grabs you by the gut as well as the heart.  One scene, I just don't know how I'm going to be able to listen to over and over again in rehearsal.  Proceeds will go to the Lifelong AIDS Alliance.  Watch this space for more details as the time gets closer.

5) Luther. This had blipped across my radar and because I really liked Wallander and Sherlock I thought I'd give it a try.  Idris Elba of "The Wire" fame is a frazzled, intuitive homicide detective.  It's reminiscent of Sherlock in the deductions he makes, and reminiscent of Wallander in that he's barely functional.  Written by Neil Cross, it has the pedigree to be outstanding.  However, as entertaining as it is, I find the directing to be too on-the-nose.  After a tragedy, Luther stumbles down several flights of stairs.  Okay, Orpheus, I get it.  After a certain happy ending, he and a friend get ice cream.  In London.  In winter.  I could see their breath, and they're eating ice cream.  It's symbolic of a return to innocence with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.  Maybe I'm being unfair-maybe you do go get ice cream in London in winter-people sit outside on patios in Seattle in the rain to drink beer.  Although it seems more likely that they were going to cram in that metaphor no matter what.  I do like the series, though, so maybe I'll write more later about what they get right.

6) Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead. A documentary about an Aussie man's 60 day juice fast and road trip around America.  Interesting stuff, well backed up by nutritional science.  I think my sister put it best though when she posted on Facebook, "I like what he's selling, I just don't like that he's selling it." Because of course now he's got books, and plans, and all the rest. On the other hand, I'm eating way more fruits and veggies now because of watching it.

7) Big Sam's Funky Nation. Incredible concert.  Just incredible. Highly recommended wherever you are, whenever they're touring.  New Orleans based, and they do the old school really well, but they also adapt other styles to their own brand of nuclear funk rock.  Lady Gaga?  Cee-Lo?  Yeah, they got that.  Crazy.

8) Crocheting.  I'm thinking I may get some things ready and reopen Two Sisters Crochet for the gifting season.

Like I don't have enough to do.

First Big Screen Experience

Got the DVD of the feature, A/V, I'm in that actually got screened on the big...well, screen. Will also be screened at STIFF in June. Here's me as reporter Magda Johansson.

Scary.

Review: Fish Tank

At Edward Copeland on Film.

Although Fish Tank is not particularly plot heavy, the film unfolds inexorably. There’s just no way that things will go right for this family. Even the very sky lowers down upon them, but that makes the sweet moments, when they occur, that much sweeter.

Review: Centurion

Centurion is another swords and sandals movie, although it's set in Scotland, so there aren't any sandals. The Romans are still trying to subdue the Picts but are suffering the triple threat of homesickness, the weather, and very successful guerilla warfare. Quintus Dias, the centurion of the title, is spared after a Pictish raid because he can speak the language and may be "useful." He escapes, and totters through the snow shirtless (because he's played by Michael Fassbender) and bound. This is actually the opening scene of the film, and Dias informs us that "This is neither the beginning nor the end of my story."

Noir City Seattle-Saturday Night's Double Bill

A couple of things before we get into the post-mortem of the films, They Won't Believe Me and Don't Bother to Knock.  First, this is not my official blogathon entry (see right) although any chance to remind everybody to donate to the Film Noir Foundation should be taken.  Click away!

Second, I just have to rant a little about the people at the festival who laughed uproariously at the things-that-look-funny-in-2011. Why did you even go to Noir City?  I get it--one patient lying in a hospital bed offering another patient a cigarette, yeah, that's funny now.  But the movie is not a comedy, it wasn't meant to be funny, so don't treat the cinema like your living room or dorm room or whatever.  You take the rest of us out of the mood of the movie.  Watch it with your 1947 eyes. Get off my lawn.

Film Noir

Film Noir-either a genre or a style, depending upon who you ask, but pretty much all of us know it when we see it. Beyond the fedora and the rain, beyond the private eye and the femme fatale, noir is the pessimistic downer at the party-that grumpy uncle in the corner who reminds us that none of us will make it out alive.

I'll be blogging about Brick, Rian Johnson's neo-noir set in a Southern California high school. The blogathon is to raise funds for the Film Noir Foundation, which will preserve an early Lloyd Bridges noir, Sound of Fury aka Try and Get Me.

And SIFF is participating in "Noir City," a week (Feb. 11-17) of noir double bills curated around the theme of insanity-who is, who isn't, and who gets driven there. I'll be seeing Don't Bother to Knock, featuring  Marilyn Monroe in a  surprising role, and They Won't Believe Me, featuring "Father Knows Best" himself, Robert Young.

So keep your specs on for my posts later on, even though "the cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter, eh?"

Review: Red

Now up at Edward Copeland on Film.

Willis, Freeman, Malkovich, Mirren, Cox. Throw in a Borgnine and a bit of Dreyfuss, and you've got a cast worth watching. RED (Retired and Extremely Dangerous) marketed its lineup heavily, and for good reason. These international treasures hopefully will not abandon making high art, but it's grand to watch them having a great time.

Review: Baaria

It's interesting that I so recently saw I Am Love because as cold and restrained as most of that film was, Giuseppe Tornatore's Baaria is warm and gregarious.  Tornatore is the Italian director who won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 1988 with Cinema Paradiso, and after a foray into the thriller with The Unknown Woman, he's returned to his typical themes of family, history and memory.

Review: 101 Dalmatians 50th Anniversary

My latest post at Edward Copeland on Film.

The art design was completely new because they moved away from the realistic representations (particularly for humans and landscapes) that had characterized previous films such as Snow White and Cinderella. The backgrounds were filled in with blocks of color that did not always “stay within the lines” and the art designers purposefully set reference lines and items within the scene asymmetrically. It was the first time since Fantasia that the art design was dedicated to being “art” — a fully realized vision with its own syntax and vocabulary.

Two degrees of Roger Ebert

I'm a contributor to a blog that got mentioned in Roger Ebert's recent article "Film Criticism is Dying?  Not Online" in the Wall Street Journal.  Namely, Edward Copeland on Film. 

My next piece will go up on Tuesday--I'll link here of course.

w00t!

Public Enemies

Michael Mann takes on Dillinger's last days in this 2009 film starring Johnny Depp and Marion Cotillard.  Mann seems the perfect choice for director, given that he's so associated with the crime film-Heat, Collateral, (UPDATE:  an excellent analysis here.) all the way back to Manhunter.  Unfortunately, this experience doesn't give him the inspiration to make a film to swoon over.

Johnny Depp plays Dillinger so straight, it's difficult to register how exceptional Dillinger was, even in scenes designed to highlight that very quality.  The exception is the tension created when Dillinger strolls right into a police station, just as he did in real life. Christian Bale plays Melvin Purvis, the FBI agent assigned to bring down the notorious gang, and he's nicely buttoned up here.  The scene in which he's forced to tell his boss J. Edgar that moral, clean, helpful young men are not going to get the job done is a nice juxtaposition of insecurity in telling the man what he doesn't want to hear, but with the courage of his convictions, as well as foreknowledge of what bringing in the gunslingers means for the community.

It's a Mann movie, so it's gorgeous, not the least reason for which is his reliance on closeups of Depp and the leading lady Cotillard. She plays Billie, the woman Dillinger woos with a fur coat nearly instantaneously.  She is devoted to him, and he swears to protect her.  Of course she would not need protecting if she were not John's girl.

There used to be a fantastic article about Mann's use of the extreme closeup, but that site seems to be gone now.  Here's a quote by Mann, cribbed from a 3rd party, which gets at the point, I think.

I look for where or how to bring the audience into the moment, to reveal what somebody’s thinking and what they’re feeling, and where it feels like you’re inside the experience. Not looking at it, with an actor performing it, but have an actor live it, and you as audience, if I could bring the audience inside to experience.

There are plenty of "that guy" actors, including David Wenham, Steven Dorff, Billy Crudup, and Jason Clarke, but I got a huge kick out of Channing Tatum as "Pretty Boy" Floyd.  What a sport. 

No big glamor, no big existential crisis-it is what it is.  Dillinger robs banks.  Purvis chases after him.  People get shot, some die.  Ultimately, Dillinger can not be taken alive, but the final confrontation is not even a confrontation so much as a shooting in front of a movie theater.  It is what it is.