DrBikeShorts is Now Watching

John Carter (2012)

Andrew Stanton’s John Carter is a film you need to meet half way.

Right from the title, John Carter is a film of compromises and I found myself having to compromise to like it. Of course, you don’t have to. You can hate and leave it behind. That’s your choice. I’m choosing to like John Carter, because I want to like this film; I like the book, I like the idea, and there’s enough good things here for my glass to be half full.

At its very foundation, John Carter, based on Edgar Rice Burroughs’ novel “A Princess of Mars,” is a successful depiction of a typical Hero’s journey. And much like the recent films Avatar and Tron: Legacy, in John Carter our hero travels between two distinct worlds. I found the beginning of the film to be quite cumbersome: it starts on Earth, ostensibly a framing story for how John (Taylor Kitsch) is living and how he will get to Mars. At the resolution of the film I found the framing story to be quite unnecessary. It devotes too much screen time to explaining a narrative that needs no rationalising. “A Princess of Mars” was written at a time when not much, if anything, was known about Mars. Certainly most people knew nothing about the red planet. With John Carter, it’s as if Stanton and his screenwriters, Mark Andrews and Michael Chabon, were trying to explain to a contemporary audience something about Mars we know not to be true. I say skip the pseudo-rationale; I’ve already bought my ticket and I just want to get to Mars. It’s worth noting here that the friends I saw the film with had no problem with the framing story.

Once the action gets to Mars the narrative picks up pace and begins to race along: Two cities are at war; John adjusts to Mars’ gravity, effectively discovering he possesses great strength and a superheroic jump; the Tharks and their alien culture is established; the princess of Mars, Dejah Thoris, is introduced and clearly established as the prize if John chooses to help her. Soon, John has new companions, including an awesome dog-like monster, and a mission.

The cast in this film is truly incredible: Willem Dafoe is the voice of Tars Tarkas, Mark Strong is Matai Shang, a high priest-like creature called a Thern and the manipulating hand behind the brazen baddie played with requisite relish by Dominic West. Ciarán Hinds is the noble father of Dejah, and even James Purefoy , Bryan Cranston and Samantha Morton are there. Lynn Collins is Dejah Thoris. Lynn Collins is also ridiculously beautiful.

I feel somewhat conflicted by the casting of Taylor Kitsch as the titular hero. He lacks the wry humour of Tron: Legacy’s Garrett Hedlund and Avatar’s Sam Worthington. But then again, the characters in those two films have their emotional baggage established and resolved early in the first act; they’re angry and they’re motivated. It allows more opportunities during the rest of the film for the actor to have some fun with the role. After all, they are just playing classic heroes on an adventure. In John Carter, the emotional baggage of our hero is held back and slowly teased until it can come rushing out as the motivation and the dramatic force at the climax of the second act. It’s a strategy that works for the drama of the film, but it doesn’t give Kitsch much of an opportunity to give John a sense of humour and the character comes off as a little two dimensional. The film is not without laughs; it just feels like it could have used a few more.

There are countless other films depicting the symbolic journey of the hero; however both Avatar and Tron: Legacy seem tailored for comparison. All three are not without faults, but each is a competent and fun example of the heroic/fantasy/sci-fi genres. If I had to rank these three (and I don’t have to, but I will anyway), I think it would be Avatar, John Carter and then Tron: Legacy. Avatar seems so much more precise in its exposition, possibly because of James Cameron’s penchant for future technology and previous successes in the sci-fi genre (just quietly, I don’t really think science-fiction is a genre); Avatar’s exposition also feeds very neatly into its themes and subtext. Tron: Legacy eschews much exposition in favour of a heightened and bombastic abstraction of the hero’s journey. Daft Punk’s score does not provide an emotional support for the drama; it is a locomotive that drives the action and pumps the adrenaline. John Carter is somewhere between the two: the exposition often feels clumsy and forced, but the mystery of John’s back-story adds gravitas when revealed, reinforcing the drama and emotion within a specific conflict, as well as in his eventual relationship with Dejah.

John Carter has strangely become this lightning rod of a film for both excessive criticism and hyperbolic praise. Sure it has got its problems; sure it has got its qualities. However, the John Carter I saw has not earned the praise I’ve read and it certainly doesn’t deserve some of the vitriol. It is just a film about a guy who goes to Mars, meets a princess and saves his new world from destruction. I’m looking forward to seeing it again and hopefully my glass will be just a little more full.

Shame (2011)

There’s plot-spoilers here – you’ve been warned.

I skipped the early hype on director Steve McQueen, having missed his acclaimed debut, Hunger (2008), so I was pretty keen to see Shame, particularly as it and Michael Fassbender’s performance are also acclaimed. I think there’s a wider discussion about excessive hype and unwarranted acclaimed, but for the most part I was impressed with McQueen’s direction and Fassbender really is a bold actor.

The basic narrative is simple, marking Brandon Sullivan’s (Fassbender) gradual descent as he starts to lose control over his addiction to sex. It’s a tried and tested narrative trajectory, except McQueen pushes against a few boundaries by focussing on sex, rather than well-worn (to death) drug or gambling tropes. There is always a voice-of-reason character in these films; here it is Sissy (Carey Mulligan) Brandon’s sister, who has intruded uninvited into his carefully controlled routine, however she has brought along her own baggage. Sissy says late in the film, “We’re not bad people. We just come from a bad place” and you wonder if that is enough to explain away their behaviour. I feel it is and the narrative gives you enough to know neither are happy, but are trying to find solace through opposite choices: Brandon through a lifestyle of casual encounters, impersonal sex with strangers and prostitutes, whereas Sissy is desperately seeking love and attachment.

McQueen makes some good and some bad choices here; I’ll start with the good. Brandon’s date with Marianne (Nicole Beharie), one of the beautiful office girls, is shot almost entirely in one take. Rather than gimmicky, as so many long takes can be, this simply seems a straight forward choice to allow the actors to relax into their characters and explore the strange awkwardness of a first date. In fact, the film is populated with many long takes, most with stationary framing, to allow the audience to really get a feel for Brandon, to see the pain in his eyes.

McQueen has re-teamed with his cinematographer from Hunger, Sean Bobbitt, and once again they have chosen to shoot in widescreen using the Techniscope format – I didn’t even realise it was still in use. Once upon a time, this format was popular with Spaghetti Westerns, but now, used in conjunction with a digital intermediate, it has a very crisp and sharp image. McQueen and Bobbitt know how to fill the frame naturally, eschewing show-off compositions, and favouring a narratively motivated style.

The bad is not so bad, but it is worth noting: too much Bach (would you believe). It is such a perfect choice when Brandon pops his headphones in and goes for a midnight run to escape the sounds of Sissy and his boss (James Badge Dale) fucking in his bedroom. Diegetically motivated and dramatically appropriate, it accompanies Brandon jogging down the street in an extremely long tracking shot you never want to end. So how is it motivated during the dramatic climax of his relationship with Sissy when he discovers her bloody suicide attempt? Brandon’s crying and wailing and fumbling attempts to revive her and staunch the bleeding of her wrists should be an excruciating scene, one perfectly placed to wrench sympathy from your heart. Instead, I found it to be a clinical and clichéd choice by McQueen, and it certainly is not helped by foreshadowing the suicide attempt twice.

Getting back to long takes focussing us on Fassbender’s face, another poor choice is having Brandon’s emotional breakdown at the end of the film directed in such a perfunctory way in an almost arbitrary and clichéd locale; Brandon walks along some sort of abandoned pier or wharf for no narrative reason until he gets close enough to the camera to cue his crying. Oh, and of course it is raining. McQueen and Fassbender should have been wringing my heart, but instead my cynical warning bells were going off; it’s unfortunate, but I began to imagine McQueen telling Fassbender that his motivation for this scene is to win an Oscar. It is particularly unfortunate, because Fassbender’s performance throughout Shame really is fantastic.

The bad notwithstanding, Shame really is a good film and McQueen is a director with talent. He’s re-teaming with Fassbender for his next film, Twelve Years a Slave, and bringing along a lot more talent with Brad Pitt and Chiwetel Ejiofor. I just hope it doesn’t have too much Bach.

The Chronicles of Riddick

A friend lent David Twohy’s The Chronicles of Riddick (2004) to me, apologising that it was stupid, but still a favourite. But why should we apologise for the things we love and make excuses for them? And what’s so stupid about a film such as The Chronicles of Riddick?

There’s no doubt that The Chronicles of Riddick could be described as overblown: the action is preposterous, the production design is excessive and baroque, and the narrative is a galaxy-spanning epic. However, the film self-consciously positions itself in the pulp science fiction genre, with classical myth and Shakespearian overtones.

Setting the film’s tone with his deep, gravelly voice, Vin Diesel stars as the eponymous Riddick, a hardened criminal, perpetually on the run, just as he was in this film’s surprise hit prequel, Pitch Black (2000). It never really matters why Riddick is on the run or who he is running from; he is society’s outsider. However, like so many cool, kick-ass outsiders, Riddick is better than the so-called civilised world.

At the same time Riddick is outwitting his would-be pursuers, a powerful race of inter-galactic invaders, the Necromongers, are attacking Helion Prime, a planet whose significance I forget. Lead by their Lord Marshal (Colm Feore), the Necromongers seek the Underverse, a mirror world where death has no meaning. Or something. Whatever. Sounds cool. And the Lord Marshal has some sort of powers using Matrix-like special effects, which serves the dual purpose of setting him up as a worthy nemesis for Riddick and allowing an actor of Feore’s calibre to play the role.

The Necromongers are a Shakespearian den of political manipulators and deceivers, plotting their own succession within the upper hierarchy. Vaako (Karl Urban) and his wife Dame Vaako (Thandie Newton) are clearly modelled on Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Purifier (Linus Roache), ostensibly the Lord Marshal’s high priest, has his own agenda, as does Aereon (Judi Dench), a priestess (of sorts) for Helion Prime. It’s worth noting that this supporting cast is ridiculously good. Seriously, how did they get Judi Dench?

During an extended prison sequence, including an obligatory prison break, Riddick demonstrates a particular kinship with animals and that even amongst criminals he is an outsider. It is this subtext that neatly aligns the two Riddick films with Robert E. Howard’s character, Conan, and John Milius’ film, Conan the Barbarian (1982). The trope of the outsider bringing order to society by defeating an external menace is common enough, particularly in Westerns. However, in Howard’s opinion, from numerous correspondences with H.P. Lovecraft and references within his Conan stories, it is the outsider, the barbarian, that is better, more civilised, than civilisation. “Barbarism is the natural state of mankind. Civilization is unnatural. It is a whim of circumstance. And barbarism must always ultimately triumph.” (Beyond the Black River, 1935)

Such is the case with Riddick and the societies of Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick, where the good are weak and the strong are corrupt, and it is Riddick’s barbarity that is pure of purpose. Riddick can either run from society, from civilisation, or he must inevitably conquer it. But, what does a barbarian, like Conan and like Riddick, do once they have vanquished their foes and won the throne? To paraphrase the Wizard (Mako) in Conan the Barbarian: “success can test one’s mettle as surely as the strongest adversary.” This is why the final image of The Chronicles of Riddick is a clear reference to the final image from Conan the Barbarian. And no film reverential to Conan the Barbarian is stupid.

The Night of the Hunter

The first time I saw Charles Laughton’s The Night of the Hunter (1955) it suffered from two (possibly related) problems: it was lauded as a masterpiece and I really didn’t know shit.

This nagging suspician that I didn’t know what I was talking about when I was younger has led me to re-visit certain films with a more mature perspective. The nagging suspician that I don’t know anything still persists, however something has changed, like a lightbulb going off above my head, and I can now watch a film like The Night of the Hunter and loudly proclaim, “I get it!”

In fact, it’s entirely possible that I still don’t get it, however I certainly loved watching it again. When I was younger, the film had tacky sets and ham-fisted performances from Robert Mitcham and Shelley Winters. Now, the film mixes a heightened artifice with expressionistic cinematography, creating a magical, gothic realism. Winters’ intensity and wayword naivity make her poor judgment in husbands and her subsequent religious zeal all the more touching. Mitcham delivers an extraordinary physical performance that is a brazen combination of barely restrained menace and violence with manic, screwball antics.

Note: these images were stolen from blu-beaver.ca, www.cinemasquid.com, and carnageandculture.blogspot.com.

The Music Room (Jalsaghar)

Satyajit Ray is considered one of cinema’s greats. And I only just caught up with one of his films.

The Music Room (1958) is a beautiful and melancholy film about a man content to throw away everything on his hedonistic indulgence of music. Huzur Biswambhar Roy (Chhabi Biswas) is the last in a long line of aristocrats, once powerful and rich landowners, however floods have washed away much of the original holdings and Huzur no longer manages his business or finances at all. Money has been borrowed and family jewels have been hocked.

There is much that is similar between The Music Room and Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard (Il Gattopardo) (1963); both are stories about the passing of an aristocratic era being inexorably replaced by a merchant class. The fundamental difference is Huzur’s indifference to the socio-political context of his petty rivalry with upwardly mobile, yet class-less, neighbour compared to Don Fabrizio’s (Burt Lancaster) hyper-awareness of his place in history and his machinations to improve the station of his beloved nephew (Alain Delon and his moustache).

Wes Anderson used Ustad Vilayat Khan’s title music for Bill Murray’s perilous taxi ride and desperate sprint for a train at the start of The Darjeeling Limited (2007), so it was nice to hear this music in its proper context. Both films use the music in different ways, however Anderson’s homage is more than some sort of fan-boy misappropriation and is perfectly suitable. Given this film’s title, it’s no surprise the film is very much centred around music. However, so much of the film’s narrative is completely governed by the use of music to tell of Huzur’s decline. Ray’s reputation is well deserved.

Note: once again, I’ve stolen these images from Blubeaver.ca - their review for The Music Room shows a vast improvement between previous DVDs and the new Criterion blu-ray.

The Warped Ones

The Warped Ones – WOW. This film is crazy.

The opening is a rapid montage of jazz posters and a driving jazz score by Toshirô Mayuzumi. Really, this film seems to be an aesthetic attempt by Koreyoshi Kurahara to capture the free-form madness of jazz. And I think he succeeds.

Superficially, The Warped Ones (Kyonetsu No Kisetsu) follows the story of the jazz-obsessed Akira (Tamio Kawaji) and his two friends on their frenzied joyrides through the city and to the beach in a stolen car. Along the way they manage to rip off American tourists, exact revenge on a do-gooder, and Akira rapes a young female artist.

There is no rhyme or reason to Akira’s anarchistic ride. It really is a clarion call for disaffected youth, which is why there seems to be a lot of references to Jean-Luc Godard’s À bout de souffle when discussing The Warped Ones. Having watched À bout de souffle recently, I believe The Warped Ones is crazier, in both the characterisations of its protagonists, as well as Yoshio Mamiya’s dazzling cinematography. Mamiya gets his camera into some remarkably tight sets and still manages fluid movement and complicated staging. When the warped ones hit the road, the cinematography becomes even wilder, with whip-pans mounted on the car’s exterior and manic handheld work in the car’s interior. For 75 minutes, The Warped Ones is one dizzying experience.

Note: I totally stole these images from DVD Beaver and Coffee Coffee and More Coffee.

Intimidation

Criterion’s Eclipse Series of five of Koreyoshi Kurahara’s films is already proving to be a great purchase. I’d already seen Kurahara’s I Am Waiting (Ore wa matteru ze) in the Nikkatsu Noir series; a tight genre piece about an ex-boxer and a gangster’s girl who were trying to escape the inevitability of the film’s conventions. However, it didn’t prepare me for Intimidation (Aru Kyouhaku), a heist film wound excruciatingly and delightfully tight into its 65 minute running time. And Intimidation did not prepare me for The Warped Ones (Kyonetsu No Kisetsu), possibly one of the craziest films I’ve ever seen.

Intimidation is the story of a mysterious man who comes to town with the intention of black-mailing an assistant bank manager, Kyosuke Takita (Nobuo Kaneko), before he heads to the city to fulfil his recent promotion to the head office. However, Takita’s success has been built on dark secrets and shady deals and he’s forced to rob his own bank to pay the black-mailer. What unfolds is a breathtaking heist that dominates the second act; indeed breathtaking is the best description, as the soundtrack eschews music in favour of Takita’s heavy breathing. Combined with tight framing, particularly extreme close-ups of Takita’s sweaty face, half-hidden in a concealing handkerchief, Kurahara develops a lot of tension in the scene.

However, Intimidation offers so much more than just its heist. It’s a solid psychological drama, as details about Takita’s relationships with his childhood friend, Matakichi Nakaike (Kô Nishimura), Nakaike’s sister, as well as his own wife, are slowly unravelled. There are no bold twists you can’t see coming, but the narrative turns pack a dramatic punch.

Note: I totally stole these images from The Criterion Cast.

if….

Lindsay Anderson’s if…. is probably considered tame now. And I guess it is.

Thankfully, I don’t have to contextualise the boarding school experience. However, I had enough grief at school (I assume we all did) that there is much to identify with. The story of Mick Travis (Malcolm McDowell) and his comrades in arms is that of the oppressed within the repressive structure of the boarding school society. They’re far from the bottom of the rungs, but not high enough to avoid the sting of authority and their so-called betters.

Of course, the boarding society is an obvious metaphor for society. The abuse of power and the traditional organisation of the school’s hierarchy are pretty easy targets for Anderson and David Sherwin (who based this screenplay on an earlier screenplay). However, the film was made in the late 60s and was pretty incendiary for its time.

I also have no historical context for this film. It’s easily enough to find that out before and after watching a film such as if…., but it’s really impossible to have a feel for it. That in itself is an interesting problem for me, since I love watching older films, whether classics, cults, pulps and genre. The importance of a film out its own time is academic, but is perhaps not necessarily as emotional for me as for someone watching it 40 years ago.

For example, if…. is over 4 decades old, has numerous cinematic and television progeny, and has the technical quaintness that invariably comes with age. On top of that, we now have (far too many) historical precedents of students arming themselves and running amok. if…. offers the fantasy of youthful rebellion, but that seems somewhat quaint when you consider the reality of the Columbine High School massacre.

Nevertheless, it still packs a wallop. I think its message, if not its context, will be timeless. Anderson’s bold mixture of styles, particularly the way he mixes an almost vérité style with fantasy, as well as mixing colour with black and white, is still fresh and disruptive.

The highlight is, of course, Malcolm McDowell. He has a natural ability to use his physicality and expressive face to the maximum. The play of emotions across his face is always a thing to behold. I’ve always thought it a huge shame that much of his later career is dominated by uninspiring bad guys and psychos. It’s almost as if A Clockwork Orange both made and wrecked his career at the same time.

A line much quoted from Mick Travis is, “One man can change the world with a bullet in the right place.” However, the film is not about a literal revolution, but the revolution that should properly live in all young people. For me, Mick has an earlier line that really captures the essence of the film’s revolutionary spirit: “When do we live? That’s what I want to know.”

Le Cercle Rouge

I was sure I’d seen Le Cercle Rouge before, but it seems I was confused with another of Melville’s 70s heist films starring Alain Delon, Un Flic (1972). Un Flic is famous for a complicated train sequence, but it does not co-star Delon’s moustache.

The point is, I was watching Le Cercle Rouge for the first time. However, with a genre film like this, you’re never really watching it for the first time, always aware of the tropes and moves it sets in play. But, like Michael Mann’s Heat, bringing together a great cast gives the film an exceptional vitality. Delon was, of course, iconic in Melville’s Le Samouraï, wearing trench-coat, white gloves and hat. Gian Maria Volonté I know best from Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More. I thought I was less familiar with Yves Montand, but now realise he was in Z, The Wages of Fear and Jean de Florette. The real surprise is Bourvil (sometimes credited as André Bourvil), who is best known as a comedian. He’s on the right side of the law, tracking down an escaped Volonté, and accidentally tumbles to a larger plot. When he’s not hunting his prey or getting chewed out by his cynical superior, he comes home to an apartment filled with cats!

The interaction between Delon and Volonté is minimal and Montand doesn’t even enter the narrative until the second act, but the relationship and bond between the three is palpable. Unlike a western, where three heroes might bond at the camp fire, in a noir/heist film, particularly in Melville’s hands, it’s what doesn’t need to be said that speaks volumes of their criminal histories and mutual respect.

Just like Jules Dassin’s Rififi (1955), silence is the word when it comes to the second act burglary. That wasn’t just a casual reference to Michael Mann earlier. Watching films like Rififi and Le Cercle Rouge, it’s pretty clear that Mann must be a fan of both films. Each film seems to be a predecessor for the next. To watch these films is to watch the professional criminal operating at a mythical level of competence that is only ever really plausible in a cool heist film.