Letter Never Sent

My second Kalatzov film after the Cranes Are Flying and another emotionally wrenching film. What continually amazes me about his films is that he frames and moves the camera in a way that does not mimic the tone but somehow enhances it. He creates a space around the film and the viewer that allows for greater immersion in the lives of the characters. It is in this that the film is a triumph of the cinematic form. And the long sequences of walking through the forrest fire.....wow.

The God of Civilized Chaos

Carnage is a middling effort from Polanski, a filmmaker who we have all come to expect greatness (at least in his craft) from. His camera is generally pretty straightforward and it has never been more stripped down than in this film. Other than the shots of the boys playing at the park that bookend the film, the frames are all straight out of a textbook which is arguably appropriate for this material. Taken from Yasmina Reza's stage script, the film attempts to underline the tenuous walls of decorum amongst accomplished adults. It fails as much as it succeeds in this endeavor, but where it succeeds is in (most of) the casting. 


The film world is quite taken with Christoph Waltz, and he gives us yet another reason to jump on board. His character seems to be the thesis of the film, though still not without his failings and hangups. He even punches a bit too hard on the "God of Carnage" line for my taste, but he otherwise navigates the role of the reluctantly "doing-my-part," resigned father, and busy lawyer with a slight sneer once the movie gets going. This is similar to the worldview that Polanski seems to always be driving toward. We conduct ourselves with a certain decorum, but once things start to tip in one direction or another, begin to show others the parts of ourselves that lean toward the sociopathic. If you accept this perspective whole heartedly as Polanski seems to, you will likely enjoy the rest of the film.


But then we have the other characters to compete with, each representing a different philosophical vantage. John C. ("Give us your bones") Reilly is turning out to have a wonderfully varied career as of late. He shines in this part as well. His character, too, is thinly veiling his contempt for his idea of a "certain kind of people." Pragmatic and humble in profession, he has acquiesced to his more liberal wife's (Jodi Foster) ideas of how to see the world, but this is dropped as well as the film settles into its unpleasant character exchanges, and begins offering everyone scotch and cigars. 

Winslet is her expectedly wonderful self in a role that requires her to be weaker. She wants to play nice, keep up the veneer of good will and she succeeds for a while, but it is eventually ripped from her grasp. Foster is the only disappointment. Some have praised her brash, almost schizophrenic portrayal of her character, but for me, it was a bit over-the-top. She contorts her face in such ways when she is lashing out that don't seem to fit with the circumstance, though it's not all bad. Her moments of exhaustion from what is transpiring around her are spot on. 


The last thing that movie does well is let us see the shifts in alliance and then sometimes revokes them almost as soon as you've realized they've formed. When Reilly's character agrees with a specific point of view that Waltz's character espouses, he will say so and provide some other anecdote that supports the position only to hurl a barb back after Waltz further clarifies his intention. 


Carnage is best seen for its study of character and space, but beyond that, the content is thinner than its words would seem to suggest. 

Anatomy, Indeed

Time for some more backlogging.

Preminger has always seemed such an oddball in American cinema. It's quite

remarkable to me that he got a gig as an American filmmaker in the time that he was working. Sure, film noir was an established and popular genre at the time, but he took his own tack through the brooding, often mechanical pedigree of cinema.

Anatomy of a Murder is rightly considered a classic. The ticking, ever forward momentum of the film is one of the prime examples of pacing from the period. It is more accomplished than any film I can remember at depicting a profession with all of its idiosyncrasies and small details and incorporating them into integral parts of the plot. This is one of the things that cinema does best: finding the pertinent, sometimes infinitesimal details and exploiting them, something that even a form like literature (which is my other passion) has a much harder time accomplishing. Preminger knew this perhaps better than any other American filmmaker in his time.

I can't get away with talking about the film and not mentioning 2 other major assets: the exquisite casting and how it somehow passed the censors given the subject matter. Jimmy Stewart controls the film with his usual degree of virtuosity, but I must give credit to the late Ben Gazzara in an early role. He saw

something in his role that many other actors would never have seen, and it turned out to be an insightful look into the heart of young, brash men of the time, whose ends justified every means. Lee Remick was tasked with navigating her character down the very narrow path of being highly sexually suggestive and somehow keeping enough back to avoid censorship. How this film skated by

a censorship board I can only guess. Perhaps the film was simply too engaging to keep from the public or too instructive about the process of the American court system.

But what this film does best is understand the power of its script and the specific word selection within. When the judge and lawyers discuss the connotation of the word "panties" and try to find a more palatable alterative, the film shows a bit of its hand. This becomes particularly important in the field of law when word choice can make or break a case. Stewart and Joseph Welch handle this particularity with aplomb while not landing on it with so much force as to crush the viewer.

All this is highlighted by the pace-reinforcing score by Duke Ellington and Saul Bass intro (which is not one of my favorites from his oeuvre but is still of note, nonetheless). One could blame films like this for the ubiquity of modern television crime dramas, and perhaps one would be partially correct to, but it would be blind not to see how it is far more incisive and probing, that there was much more craft involved in its bit-by-bit construction, pointing at something beyond what the eye can discern.

You're-a-what?

I should say that my wife's and my trip to Europe over the summer is wonderfully chronicled over at boodandwishbone.com should you all the sudden become interested in cool pictures with some funny words to accompany them.

And here's a picture of a French cat for good measure.

Edit: Link fixed

Glenn Ligon

If you happen to be in the vicinity of Fort Worth any time before June 3rd, I would recommend that you make a quick trip (or preferably a slow one) through the exhibit at the FW Modern Art Museum. My mother accompanied me for what was her first time in the museum, we were both awestruck by the Glenn Ligon exhibit. His mixed media pieces, the neon reliefs were highly effective. And don't miss the series of wooden shipping boxes that various music of black artists ranging from Billie Holiday to Cut Killer and NTM's "Assassin de la Police". His take on race, identity, and sexuality are quite unique and worth a look.

...And the Ship Sails On

From an extended hiatus, I return.

Now...what to discuss...

An over view of my recent views is as good a place as

any. Currently, I am in the middle of the 2nd Brakhage volume from Criterion, which is rather daunting, as all of his work is for the average viewer. But more on that once I have completed it and can offer a more comprehensive analysis.

Theater going is a thing I have been unable or unwilling to do as of late; lack of time or lack of...well much of anything that looks interesting in my vicinity has been scarce. I am still looking forward to seeing Tilda Swinton and John C. ("Check the expiration date, dummy") Reilly in what I have heard to be the excellent We Need to Talk About Kevin. After Ratcatcher, I would see anything that Lynn Ramsay produces.

I guess what is left is to play a bit of selected catch up. Rosi's Moment of Truth is quite the spectacle. The un-staged footage of the matadors during bull fights is a wonder to behold, captured in a brilliant color scheme and true to the stories Spanish roots. The story, however, is largely uninspired and ripped from the fabric of standard art house fare, and the scenes outside the bull fighting ring with a false sense of the touristic. Rosi has never been known for his gift with story, and it shows in this film.

My greatest triumph recently is that I finally found a copy of Ichikawa's Tokyo Olympiad, that wasn't a hudred bucks or more used on Amazon. I finally made it to Premiere Video while staying with a friend in Dallas, and was overwhelmed with their vast collection. I found a copy of the DVD and must throw in with all the others who have heaped praise on this masterful work. The slow motion bits, the camera

coverage must have been an enormous undertaking.

It was a strange coincidence when I finished reading Reservation Blues and subsequently stumbled upon the film Smoke Signals from 1998, finding out just before watching it that they were both from Sherman Alexie. The concurrent characters in both the book and the film diverged greatly from what I imagined in my reading, but Thomas Builds-the-Fire and Victor still came alive in certain moments on screen. It is not the most accomplished film but the contemplative moments, most notably standing on the bridge overlooking the white-watered river below carried an impact. But if I had to tell you to pick one or the other, Reservation Blues is the easy choice in terms of narrative quality.