Things in movies that made me feel as if my head would explode, in joy or disgust or both, during 2010.
Shot of the year: That's part of it, up there. "Sweetgrass" (Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Ilisa Barbash)
Best opening shot: "Mother" (Bong Joon-ho)
Best final shot: The terrifyingly comedic/nihilistic ending of "The Ghost Writer" (Roman Polanski). It all comes down to this: meaningless chaos, scattered and swirling in the wind...
Most astounding shot: A slow zoom-in on a mountainside that outdoes the opening of Werner Herzog's "Aguirre, the Wrath of God": "Sweetgrass"
Best movie-star shot: The one on the Staten Island Ferry that glides up behind Angelina Jolie and turns into a magnificent profile close-up. "Salt" (Phillip Noyce)
Best ensemble: Annette Bening, Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Mia Wasikowska (!!!), Josh Hutcherson. "The Kids Are All Right" (Lisa Cholodenko)
Gaudiest credits sequence: "Enter the Void" (Gaspar Nöe). Of course, just because it's flashy and unwatchable doesn't make it any good. (See Budd Uglly Design.)
Best credits sequence: "Mother"
Best love scene: "The Killer Inside Me" (Michael Winterbottom). Also a harrowing death sentence: "I love you. Goodbye."
Best arguments for remakes: "Let Me In" (Matt Reeves), "True Grit" (Joel and Ethan Coen)
Real or Not Real? It's all very coy, but who cares?: "Exit Through the Gift Shop," "I'm Still Here," "Catfish," etc., etc., etc.
Best voiceover cameo: J.K. Simmons, "True Grit" (as Mattie Ross's lawyer)
Best dance: (tie) Kim Hye-ja, "Mother"; the sisters in "Dogtooth"
(Notice how the brother/guitarist stays in frame, bouncing from one side to the other, in the last four shots... Makes it even stranger/funnier.)
Most accurate subjective depiction of a hallucinogenic experience (complete with lapses of consciousness and situational awareness): "Enter the Void"
Best homage to "Night of the Hunter": The snake-poisoned night ride on Little Blackie: "True Grit."
Best film about sociopathy/psychopathy/violence in a very, very crowded field: "The Killer Inside Me."
Worst performance as a con artist: Jim Carrey, "I Love You, Phillip Morris." Carrey telegraphs the inauthenticity of his every emotion, as he always has. Problem is, that makes him a terrible con man (nobody would believe this guy), although he's supposed to be a good one. Ewan McGregor, however, inhabits his character completely, without commenting on his own performance.
Garret Dillahunt Award: Garret Dillahunt, "Winter's Bone." Any movie is immeasurably improved by the presence of Garret Dillahunt in it. Or Harris Yulin.
Rebecca Hall Award: Rebecca Hall, "Please Give," "The Town." I'd watch her anywhere, anytime.
Best original musical score: Stuart Staples, Tindersticks, "White Material" (Claire Denis)
Best score based on American folk songs/hymns ("Rally 'Round the Flag," "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms"): Carter Burwell, "True Grit"
Best song score (serendipitous anachronism division): Olivier Assayas, "Carlos" (The Feelies, Wire, etc.)
Best explanation of how music works in movies: Olivier Assayas: "I tried period music, I tried everything, it's just that the film kind of rejected it. I had no idea what kind of music I was going to use, I had no preconception. All my initial choices were wrong, so at one point, I was nowhere and (thought) maybe the film didn't want any music, but still, at some point, I just looked into my music library and just copied like 50 tracks, and thought, 'I will do it via a process of trial and error,' and somehow, luckily, I for some reason I tried this track by the Feelies at the beginning of the film, and all of a sudden it worked. It was like magical. All of a sudden you just have stuff that doesn't work, that seems completely redundant and boring or with the wrong energy and all of a sudden, you have this music that lifts the whole thing up and you're like, 'Wow,' so that was the starting point. Once I had the first Feelies track, I sort of understood the energy the film wanted and needed, so I knew which direction to go, so I started using pop songs, I started using post-punk like Wire even though it was much later."
Napoleon Dynamite for the downtown crowd: "Tiny Furniture"
(Writer/director/star Lena Dunham is so in love with herself she feels the need to hide it behind a mask of phony self-loathing.)
Best sheep (singular): You know the one. "Sweetgrass" In the film's second long take (right before the title), the movie turns around and sees you. A long shot of a herd is followed by a close-up of an intently chewing animal whose every jaw movement clangs the bell around its neck. And then... there's somebody there. In a movie that's all about the ancient, symbiotic relationships between men and animals, you can never quite look at the sheep the same way from this point onward.
Best flora: The blood-red branches of the deciduous foundation-planting shrubs by the front door of former Prime Minister Adam Lang's beachside house in the otherwise desolate grey/brown winter landscape of "The Ghost Writer."
Scariest performances: John Hawkes, "Winter's Bone"; Ben Mendelsohn, Jacki Weaver, "Animal Kingdom"; Niels Arestrup, "A Prophet"; President Richard M. Nixon (as himself on White House tapes), "The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers"
Please Make Her Head Explode Award: Natalie Portman, who manages to maintain the same expression on her face (fear, distress, about-to-cry) up until the last few minutes of "Black Swan" (Darren Aronofsky), when her one-note performance finally becomes a one and one-thirty-second-note performance.
Basil Exposition Award for explaining everything (at least) three times, even when it doesn't matter: "Inception"
Most Tantalizing Trailer:
Most Horrifying Trailer:
(Is there an easy gross-out cliché they forgot to include here, along with the Bob Seger rock 'n' roll song?)
68 Comments
Just what is it about that shot that has us Sweetgrass-heads saying "Far out, man?"
It's my favorite shot of the year too, and it's certainly been mentioned elsewhere. It's a direct manifestation of the power of the Cinema of Attractions (a la Tom Gunning) from early cinema. That form of direct address to the audience that almost functions like an introduction or an invitation to a show. "Step right up."
But it's more than meeting the gaze. It's the look itself. I just wrote this about it: "Is this the look of “bottomless stupidity” that Werner Herzog talks about, the dull-eyed reflection of an indifferent universe, or a rare moment of connection in said universe? I vote for all of the above." I also saw it soon after watching "Antichrist" and I can't help but hear the sheep bleating "Chaaaaaaa-os reigns."
My second favorite shot of the year is the opening of Nenette, a long close-up of an orangutan's eyes (though not meeting the camera on a direct axis like the shot in "Sweetgrass.") What's the power of looking deep into an animal's eyes on film? Though not deep at all, of course, since it's a two-dimensional image. Are an animal's eyes just the perfect Kuleshov object? I'm going to guess that everyone that grooves on the "Sweetgrass" and/or "Nenette" shot has "Au hasard Balthazar" in his or her pantheon.
And speaking of "Sweetgrass," another award.
BEST STREAM OF PROFANITY: "They´re heading back to the pass. C***s***ers!... "Mother f***ers! You can´t f****ng leave the c***s***ers five f****ng minutes!"
Gosh, I hope this gets through the blog's profanity filter.
I expanded on my second mention of the shot, above. I don't think the sheep is the chicken or the bear (there's no evil in the sheep -- not even Herzog's projection of evil). But I do believe, as you say, it's a form of inter-species connection, with all the unsentimental limitations acknowledged.
Curse my late-night attention span. I was mesmerized by the screen shot of the sheep and didn't read your second comment on the sheep. I have looked at that shot hundreds of times and it just transfixes me every time. It's definitely, as you say, a matter of a sudden presence. It's all an illusion, obviously, but it's undeniable.
We've had plenty of humans look into camera and that (apparent) direct gaze has a unique power. But there's a whole different dynamic at play when it's an animal staring center axis. It's a connection, yes, but for me at least, there's also some kind of primitive jolt, a kicker. Not evil, as you say, not by any means. Just something... primordial ("ancient" to use your word). The gaze draws you in in a good way (into the movie) but there's also the threat of not just being drawn in, but swallowed up. It's a connection, but a connection with something that doesn't give a rat's behind about you because it can't.
Kubrick: "The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile, but that it is indifferent."
I'm exaggerating. This isn't a terrifying shot. But it's not warm and woolly either. No cute animal moment, this. Beautiful, mystical nonetheless.
"Sweetgrass" also deserve Best Soundtrack of the Year.
The Philip Larkin Award for Awesome Parenting: Ma and Pa Dogtooth
From the very few I saw on this list, I have to agree with the Polanski shot at the end. It was awesome. That's something he seems to know how to convey through his filmmaking: the awesome.
Yulin tops my list of people who should be Coen Brothers regulars but aren't (they really dropped the ball there).
A splendid list, Mr. Emerson. I still have to catch up with most of the titles, but the final shot of 'The Ghost Writer' has stuck with me as well. On first viewing I thought that's exactly and the only way in which a 'ghost writer' can die/disappear: off-screen/off-sight. Now I think this shot places a more urgent question: is memory alone enough to legitimate the fact of one's existene?
There seem to be two contemporary types of legitimizing one's existence: the name (as representative of one's personal details issued by the institution) and the body (as a physical objectivity with which the institution is faced). The name places oneself in history (the official collective memory) and the body - in the existencial being of the present. Polanski strips Ewan McGregor's character of both: 'The Ghost' is nameless and after the last shot he's also bodyless. Before history he doesn't exist, but after the last shot he's also devoid of existence in the present. So, without a name and a body, is the memory of him enough to legitimate his existence? To paraphrase the question, can we trust memory as a legitimator of existence? I guess the question could then swing into the century-old issue of how trustworthy is memory and sensual remembrance.
A haunting shot indeed...
"Into the Void"?
Oops. How did I confuse Jon Krakauer and Gasper Noe?
Krakauer's book is INTO THIN AIR. The non-related but also excellent mountain climbing book/doc is TOUCHING THE VOID.
Krakauer wrote "Into Thin Air" and "Into the Wild." In one of my mentions of Noe's film I accidentally typed "Into the Void" instead of "Enter the Void." But I fixed it.
Great call on Rebecca Hall Jim. I'd also add that she's incredible in Red Riding: 1974.
I didn't care for the True Grit score. It seemed sort of lazy to me - that use of Rally 'Round the Flag made me think I was watching a Ken Burns documentary and took me out of the film for a moment. Beyond that, I dug the movie.
As always, a fascinating list, Jim!
I don't want to belabor this point, because I've already gotten into debates about this on Twitter a few times...but re: Tiny Furniture: I'm just not seeing the narcissism many others seem to be seeing. Where do you get the sense that her self-deprecating stance in that film is B.S.? Maybe I'm just too willing to give Lena Dunham the benefit of the doubt...?
Best restoration: Metropolis.
I love that you mention that shot from Salt. When I wrote my little blurb on the movie I was thinking of a single shot that I wanted to head-up that post...and then I remembered that one. It's a beautiful shot...for a couple of reasons.
Man, I really need to Sweetgrass!
Oh, and yes a million times on Burwell. He's the best working today and wrote the best score this year. Although True Grit had the best score this year, I do think the best music is in Shutter Island with its ominous score that reminded me of the best exploitation movies, the use of Robbie Richardson's arrangements, the haunting Dinah Washington/Max Richter mashup of This Bitter Earth/On The Nature Of Daylight, and, of course, Scorsese's use of Mahler's "Quartet for Piano and Strings in A Minor." Amazing stuff!
The Rhonda Byrne Award for Observations that Even Intuitively Ring False: Inception, for pretending to believe that it's harder to plant an idea in someone's head and make them feel it's their "own," rather than extracting one...yet the same film that asserts this expects us to believe that another person will plausibly accept a sprawling Ariadne-designed cityscape is a product of their own subconscious.
The Sexism Award for Hypocrisy in Gender Double-Standards: The internet, for throwing a fit over Natalie Portman's "performance for the ages" being even a little threatened by Annette Bening's "obvious career honor" for the Oscar...even if the veteran actress gave a more natural, versatile performance and no one raised a stink about Jeff Bridges receiving an obvious career honor last year.
Worst Color Palette: Alice in Eyesoreland, for it's urine-stained cinematography permeating an already hideous looking film.
Most Repetitive Actor: Leonardo DiCaprio, for playing three psychologically-tormented protagonists with a psychotic dead wife three times IN A ROW. Time to branch out a little.
Scene That I Could Watch Forever: Isabelle Huppert on the overcrowded bus in White Material.
Scene That Seemed to Go On Forever: Alice falling down the rabbit hole in Alice in Eyesoreland. After a while it started feeling like an extended videogame level.
The *True* "I Didn't Know They Could Do THAT!" Award: Pierce Brosnan, an actor who has never before interested me in the slightest, gave a precise and taut performance as the ex-Prime Minister in The Ghost Writer. Easily the best work of his career.
Biggest Annoyance of This Oscar Season: Hailee Steinfeld being a front-runner for Best Supporting Actress in True Grit...even when she's in nearly every scene and the entire film is about her character. Shoving her in a supporting slot is SO disrespectful to the women that the category was specifically designed for.
Funniest Line: "Oh, so you the one doin' the bendin'?" from For Colored Girls. That line alone makes Tyler Perry's most ambitious film a competitor with Precious as a funnier kitchen sink melodrama about the suffering of black women.
Parents of the Year: Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson in Easy A. It's not awesome enough that they're Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson, they also have some of the best lines that make you truly envy Olive Penderghast even with her dilemma.
One statement about Polanski's "meaningless chaos" -- I'm not sure Polanski would admit to believing in anarchy. His view of the world seems more deterministic to me. The fate of his characters lies in the hands of more powerful forces. Paranoia is not based on the fear of something unknown. These mysteries can be accessed; one can gain knowledge of them. But they remain private mysteries, the sole providence of the insane. They are driven mad, and are usually destroyed, after discovering these powerful forces. I think... Anyway, a more serious examination of Polanski's philosophy is needed.
I don't think it's anarchy so much as nihilism. I like the directions you suggest, though...
This isn't really a direct criticism of The Ghost Writer, but I'm getting tired of movies that preach nihilism and helplessness when it comes to problems in the world, specifically problems within "the system" (I'm thinking Syriana, as well). I'd like to think it should be encouraged that people can make a difference...although perhaps the nihilism is supposed to frustrate people into action? I dunno. Why make fictional movies about this sort of thing at all?
What I'm more sick of is movies where everything is so damned easy for the invincible hero. I personally find waking up and driving to work in the morning (without running anybody over) to be struggle enough most days but movies have a way of forgetting the little slip-ups that are possible at just about any given moment. How our minds are easily distracted and we forget to look both ways before crossing the road one day, even though on most other days we would have, but of course it was that one day... And it doesn't matter who you are, what you know.
It's from that point of view that I find The Ghost Writer ending to be highly unusual for a thriller and something we could use more of, though other examples of this sensitivity to chaos can be found in The Coen Bros. movies and in the TV masterpiece Twin Peaks--Cooper quite simply forgets about an important note under his bed for multiple episodes...which seems totally understandable to me given how much else is on his mind, that he was sleepy when he first saw it, that he got shot before he could open it.
Back to The GW though, I like how the final shot is framed, how it is all in one (shockingly) continuous shot, how we don't exactly see the car coming, that it's a car that runs him over, that it's a luxurious *sports* car that runs him over (implying a careless-because-they're-wealthy-and-can-pay-this-off driver). I like that we don't know if this run-down was planned, quickly phoned in in reaction to the revelation/confrontation that just happened, or just another day in an overcrowded, cold, stony-steely capitalist city that's a little bit like a pinball machine--things just sort of happen, people get run over, the crosswalk light changes, important pages fly away with any other loose trash, the seemingly organized system keeps going about its business with a mindlessness of its own. I like that the "accident" (is it really an accident or just a byproduct of the society we accept?) happens off screen (our view is obscured, there's things we can't see). I appreciate that we finally see this happen in a movie unlike 99% of movies in which our protagonists are never interrupted by any outside force, especially not destructive stupidity. Why aren't more heroes in movies suddenly, randomly mowed down by speeding cars, random muggings and other things of this nature? We're accustomed to the heroes in our movies being protected by some invisible bubble that magically keeps other narratives (and random violence) out of their own narrative. Life isn't always so cooperative and I don't go to the movies to have my faith in things working out reaffirmed or vice versa, I just go to see and consider.
The GW final shot is not resolved by narrative or literalism. It's a shot for those who already tried to change things and got beat up and spit back out by the powers (and blindness and corruption and stupidity) that be. It's maybe also for audiences new to the idea that the hero (or investigator looking to expose) does not usually win, which is the whole point of these sorts of investigation, that the truth is not easily outed and that's why somebody feels they need to do it. If anything this ending makes the hero more heroic by showing they exist only in flesh and blood... and in a world of so many dangers that they can't even relax once we've got all the answers and just to drive out to a publisher now when... SMACK. Dead.
But the cars keep a humming, the political schemers do what they do behind scenes, the crosswalk keeps telling us when to walk or not. This is the Polanski world, it's not pretty and beyond that you make of it what you will but how the shots are composed to make these points is powerful, persuasive.
And all understood in a dramatic moment, something our words here, taking so much time to explain, tend to lose sight of.
I don't dislike the ending of The Ghost Writer and I think your description does it justice and I agree it'd have been worse if it was about a Stallone-type guy who saved the day (although I'm almost as accustomed to seeing the main character bite it)...I'm just starting to find these sorts of endings oppressive. Not The Ghost Writer's fault.
Sorry Andrew, I didn't mean to respond to you in particular, I know you wrote "this isn't in response to TGW," I was more just exploding my head over reminiscing this great closing shot, one of many in this film worth talking about.
Talking about that movie here pushed me to go out and just buy the DVD already. Seeing it again, I realize my memory of the shot from in theatres was (surprise, surprise) not all accurate. I actually imagined the crosswalk signal (maybe it was talking about Twin Peaks, thinking green, yellow, red light, I dunno) but there is none... which in a way is even worse, street space only for cars, no consideration for people at all. As for the "sports" car, it speeds so fast it's difficult to tell. (Though from what I can tell it's better than what I drive.) Maybe it was actually more reassuring to think it was a sports car, not just some anonymous. Maybe the shot just evolved in in my imagination, as great shots have a way of doing.
Another aspect of the shot that I forgot is how perfectly directed the extras are. People do react to the crash (they aren't like the completely oblivious, undirected extras that don't stop to notice a bus pulling out of a bank at the start of The Dark Knight), the GW extras sort of half turn to notice, a couple keep walking, some are more concerned than others, most sort of half step towards the accident, as if all sensing that somebody should probably be doing something in response to this... but what exactly? Confusion. The whole thing is sort of just pathetic, everyone's body language signalling some sort of feeling about this they can't quite process. Everyday city folk, not necessarily shady themselves, but as whole they are transformed into the walking dead for a moment.
And as this goes on, the crowd looking off screen as we in the audience yell in our heads at them that they are missing the more important happening, the reason the hit man dead, the papers blow past the clueless bystanders. On Twin Peaks this would be one of those, "It is happening again" moments.
The end of The Ghost Writer was a great disappointment after an otherwise perfectly done paranoid thriller. Having figured out the Secret, which has already led to one murder, the Ghost behaves with incredible stupdity, which he has not previously shown, by instantly telegraphing to Lang's wife, in public, that he knows. Once he's done so, he's become a threat, and They clear up this new problem with an incredible swiftness. I don't think there's any doubt that we were meant to see the killing as deliberate; everything from the opening murder onward has shown us that They are vigilant, forethoughtful, ruthless, subtle, and perfectly able to make an intentional killing look like a random accident.
I've been thinking about Black Swan a lot. About all the ways it disappointed me and how Perfect Blue, most certainly the inspiration, was so much better, and just how I want to convey to people all the things that are wrong with this film.
Amen to all that. Great b-rated horror film, but a pretentious and all-too-self-aware "serious" film. The love this movie is getting astonishes me.
Best depth of field: True Grit.
Also I prefer True Grit's last shot to the one in The Ghost Writer. The Ghost Writer's papers flying around means something very specific about meaningless (concerned with the government, etc) whereas True Grit leaves you completely stranded, no idea what to think, feel or believe about what it is you saw.
I like this so much better than a top ten list. Great stuff!
Although I liked Killer Inside Me, I'd give "Best film about sociopathy/psychopathy/violence in a very, very crowded field" to "The Agony and Ecstasy of Phil Spector."
Wait, that's all you're going to say about ENTER THE VOID? Flashy (but not necessarily good or interesting?), trippy (okay, pharmacologically accurate but so what?). If you really didn't like the film, I'd be interested in hearing a few more details.
I assume that TRUE GRIT will get its own write-up eventually? If not, let me highly recommend both the novel and the audiobook -- that latter is read not by Charles Portis the author but by fellow novelist Donna Tartt, who holds TRUE GRIT as her favorite book. Her passion for the material and her voice are just right for character of Mattie, who narrates the entire tale.
I'd like to write more about "Enter the Void" -- mainly because I'm not sure what I make of it. (It's a lot to take in, that movie!) So, I just mentioned the opening credits sequence and the first hallucinogenic experience in this list...
I mistook ambivalence for dismisiveness. So maybe we'll get a close reading of some of the visuals when you get the DVD, which is due out in a couple of weeks?
I'd also love to hear your further thoughts on "Enter The Void."
Expanding on your comment, I thought the entire film was a pretty brilliant subjective depiction of a man sorting through his life in the immediate aftermath of his death. Obviously I'm not dead, so maybe Noe got it wrong, but it certainly *felt* true.
I only wish that the life being examined were a little more interesting, or at least that the acting wasn't so bad, or that they'd filmed it in French so I could concentrate on subtitles instead of Paz de la Huerta's stilted inflections.
Jim, I love that you singled out Garrett Dillahunt, too. He's been one actor I've kept my eye on since he showed up on Deadwood (the first time 'round).
Completely stole the show in Sarah Connor Chronicles too, along with Shirley Manson. That zany duo deserves a spinoff.
Great picks! I think "Mother" could have easily taken best final shot, too.
Jim, I know you're not the biggest fan of Danny Boyle, but have you seen "127 Hours"?
All of the praise on Let Me In is sketchy. Everything positive about it is based on an idea that was done more convincingly and subtly in Let The Right One In. It seems pointless to make an argument for something that is hardly more than a shot-for-shot duplication of a great film. Why bother? Sure, there's room for both films, but is there a real need? After seeing the annoying copycat nature of Let Me In, I don't think there is. Instead of prasing the film as a "solid remake", shouldn't we be disappointed that it didn't try harder? The only major differences were color hue alterations and showier, not necessarily better, scenes of fire, growling, crashing, etc. Is it just me, or will this movie get a bit too much undeserved credit for being lazy? All I got from Let Me In was the implication that the filmmakers didn't have the cojones to truly reinvint this story the way they implied they would when production began. If their only goal was to eliminate the hassle of subtitles, then I guess they suceeded. I would like to know your opinion. Do you think Matt Reeves chickened out?
In my last comment, I didn't mean to come off like Armond White with a "This is this, this is this" argument without really elaborating. Just realized how annoying it is to read that kind of analysis.
I was re-watching "Shutter Island" last night, and I think a runner-up for "best flora" should be the flowers that the "shhhhhhh" woman is pruning in the beginning. She's not THAT freaky-looking (at least until the close-up) but that is still one disturbing shot. And like with "The Ghost Writer"it's practically the only color we see outside of the flashbacks and dream sequences.
Just wanted to add, in addition to our minor exchange from before, that yes, the trailer for "Grown Ups" is pretty awful, and a lot of Sandler & co.'s comedic hang-ups are pretty pathetic. I was somehow able to look past those and see a warm, broad comedy about quotidian balance. Hey, we all agree with Armond White some of the time.
I actually hated the first shot of Mother (though I liked the movie as a whole) and the final shot of The Ghost Writer (which was just as inane as the rest of the movie). You'd have made a better case with me if you'd reversed them: the final shot of Mother (which is not only a great shot in its own right, but echoes the first shot in a way that makes it seem better in retrospect) and the first shot of The Ghost Writer.
Had a fantastic time last night at Spago where a big party was thrown to launch the video release of The Social Network. Tons of money was spent on it with a big press line, paps and all the trimming outside. Inside was good food and the principle participants.
Jesse Eisenberg is so little and cute I felt like the world's biggest perv just talking to him. He says Marty has been in touch with him about a project, which will be perfect as they're the exact same height.
Scott Rudin was in great form. I told him he should start polishing his acceptance speech right now as the film is easily going to grab Best Picture. Though we've never met before he knows me and we got into a discussion of Film Socialisme (I told him how to download it as an avi file) and Patti Smith whose book "Just Kids" he adores. I talked about how she was way back in the day and how teriffic she is right now, in ways I wouldn't have expected in the past.
David Fincher is a fascinating mix of the reserved and the outgoing. He's shooting an english-language remake of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and showed me a picture of his lead in costume on his ipad. I told him The Social Network was like an Eric Rohmer version of Sweet Smell of Success. He said he knows the latter quite well but the former not so much as he's not that much of a moviegoer (!) I talked with him about his turning one actor, Armie Hammer, into the Winkelvoss twins and he said that came about because they weren't able to find any actual twins to work with. "There's always a good twin and a bad twin -- one who wants to act and the other who really doesn't." I told him about Laurent and Pierre Malet(who would be too old for the film alas) and the time they appeared together in Chereau's production of Genet's The Screens because Pierre (who had the part of the Lieutenant) broke his leg and as there was no understudy Laurent volunteered to hold him him and move him around on stage. Genet went into ecstasies over this needless to say. Fincher loved this.
Didn't get a chance to chat with Aaron Sorkin as he was mobbed by the paps, but I'll see him at the LAFCA dinner where we can plot how to destroy the Republican party.
Armie Hammer is VERY tall. He's going to play Clyde Tolson to Leonardo's J. Edgar Hoover for Clint. I warned him that Clint doesn't like to do many takes so he'd better be there for the first one. This greatly amused him.
The super-cute Andrew Garfield was there too. (A becoming tristesse wafting through the air about him).
But alas no Justin Timberlake.
How else do you expect Natalie Portman to emote the precise context of distress she's constantly in? Perhaps you were paying too much attention to the film's composition and not enough to the plot. In any case, you should know her consistent, tightly held expression of fear is, in keeping with the film's consistent use of claustrophobic and hallucinogenic shots, important to the duality of the her character. Not only is she portraying two characters (herself, and the ballet), Portman is portraying two expressions (mainly fear, and, finally, relief -- an emotion which comes at the end during an otherwise tense movie moment).
In one sense I think it works for the movie: my frustration with That Unchanging Face built up so that when she did change her expression it was a huge payoff (I compared it to the soup tureen lid in "Jeanne Dielman"). But there's not just one way to play her emotional state. I felt like she looked in the mirror (ahem), found one expression, and then just put it on for all occasions (except in the latter part of the club/drug/sex scenes). I see her character as a version of Sissy Spacek's in "Carrie" (I hope to go into detail about that at some point) -- and Spacek found many ways to convey her character's fears, hopes, disappointments, frustrations, rage, etc.
Ok, I laughed. Her expression was eerily similar throughout the entire movie, although, as a somewhat casual film goer, I enjoy just "looking" at faces. She wears it effortlessly, and her facial composition, in terms of space, barely changes in between that shift from normal to distressed. Such a tiny maneuver conveys so much emotion. That's an actress.
My main issue was that you, by my interpretation at least, felt like you simplified her performance. I guess I should've read a little closer.
While I can agree with you that Natalie Portman pretty much sticks to one method of emoting throughout the movie, it somehow still works for me due to her being pulled between being changed by sexual and violent overtones of "Swan Lake" and her mother's insistence on keeping her as her "sweet girl." Most of the movie is her resisting being pulled towards the seductive nature of the Black Swan -- and thus towards maturity -- thanks to her mother's smothering. They're even tucked away into a corner of the apartment building, as far away from others as they can be. So her one method of expressing anxiety works, for me, because she has no other way of expressing herself thanks to her mother's infantilizing.
I happened to see "The Social Network," "Never Let Me Go" and "The Red Riding Trilogy" all in the same week ... which left me thinking Andrew Garfield is someone to keep an eye on. ("Boy A" is pretty amazing, too.)
Jim, we're going to have to agree on "Mother" and "True Grit" and disagree on "Black Swan", though you say nothing about the movie itself, I thought Portman was exceptional. When she broke at the end it was an exhillerating combination of directing and performance melding together, and if all you saw was on the verge of tears then there's no way I can make you see differently.
They repeat so much in Inception, because you can't understand half of what the Japanese character says...his name escapes me.
Otherwise, you hit most of what stuck with me this year - with the limited number of films I was able to see...so unlike me.
More to come if I wake up from my allergy-haze.
I enjoyed "Black Swan" -- as a rip-roaring, old-fashioned drive-in exploitation movie, with a little Polanski flavor. (Aronofsky said he was thinking "Repulsion," but there's also a taste of "The Tenant." And that obscene old man on the subway is pure RP.)
Good to hear. It was pretty invigorating, in that sense, I felt as well.
For me though too as an actor that puts a lot of pressure on himself, I connected on other levels. The purity of transformation that transcends almost any other feeling when you get there. That dynamic dug deep and spun me around.
A moment that has been added on my list - two in fact.
The final speech in "The King's Speech" when both Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush swear under their breath to get to the next word, and Elizabeth's response to King George when he asks her how he did. Simple and poignant.
Heck, that whole final speech was so well choreographed and felt. Head. Explode.
Ugh your awards for Black Swan and Inception infuriate me. Natalie Portman gave a breathtaking performance, not one note. You're lucky everyone is entitled to their own opinions.
Are the candidates for the Most Tantalizing Trailer only the trailers of films that were released in 2010 or just any trailer that was released in 2010 simpliciter? If the latter, I submit the trailer to Malick's "Tree of Life" as the clear winner.
Well I just saw Sweetgrass and I'll be damned if it doesn't take me a week to shake the strange feeling of that sheep's gaze. I suppose it doesn't help that I'm reminded of it every time I come back to this thread. That shot and several others in the film were truly incredible. I'm glad it's received attention here and a from a few others because I don't know if I ever would have come across it on my own but I'm certainly glad that I did.
Let's not forget...
"The Unnecessary Dark Cinematography Award": David Fincher for "The Social Network."
He always uses this dark kind of yellowish and dreading and haunting cinematography-lighting, and I just thought it was odd for such a kind of feel-good kind of movie. The movie felt to me like an old good-vibed 80's movie, like "Real Genius", but yet it had that kind of serial-killer-genre darkness. Well, maybe it wasn't unnecessary for the parts where one of the characters was fearing for his life and he thought someone was breaking into this room (but it turned out to be his girlfriend); so I guess it was kind of necessary since it was about the stealing of someone's idea or whatever.
And I guess that says something about how good Fincher is at that stuff, where he has us thinking, in a story about Harvard yuppies, that someone may get murdered.
I still think of the movie as a kind of feel-good movie, or one with a good vibe, but that lighting of Fincher's makes me feel cautiously so.
Yes! I noticed the obscene old man on the subway too... that's Stanley Herman, who is also in Aronofsky's "Pi" from 1998. In that film he also appears in the subway with the lead character, also wearing a suit, but in "Pi" he sings (and refrains from wagging his tongue and jiggling his naughty bits).
I'm a huge longtime Kubrick fan and have seen that quote of his many times but I'd have to say I disagree completely. To me there's nothing terrifying about the idea of an indifferent universe, or an indifferent sheep, etc. Because I think it's sheer egotism to expect that the universe or a sheep is SUPPOSED to care about us. And also (and far more importantly) because I truly don't feel the universe is indifferent. Far from it.
Excellent list as always, Jim. That shot from "Salt" stuck out to me, as well. A runner-up for best movie-star shot (from the same movie, incidentally) might be that extended close up after *spoilers!* Salt's husband is shot in front of her. Intense, thrilling, riveting. Definitely one of the best "I-can't-believe-it-was-good" thrillers I've seen in a long time.
Sorry, but you lost all credibility with your comment on Natalie Portman and Black Swan. It is the inner turmoil that Nina projects so beautiful that finally manifests itself in her final transformation into the black swan that carries the movie. The film says so much about the female psyche, sexual awakening, the obsession with youth culture, the love/loathing between mothers and daughters, & guilt complexes that it's incredible. From the other comments on this board, I know I am not the only one who thinks this is one of the finest films of the year.
I enjoyed the film. But as any actor will tell you, there's a danger in hitting the same note over and over and over again. You have to give yourself somewhere to go.
Thanks Jim. Glad to know I'm not the only one who thinks Natalie Portman's performance in Black Swan was one note. I will be incredibly disappointed if she takes the Oscar away from Annette Bening, whose turn in The Kids Are All Right was subtle and perfect.
Jim, your Exploding Head Awards dovetail perfectly with RTJ/KAM's Moments Out of Time, of course. I''m thankful for the ways that they remind me of shots that have shocked, surprised, focused my attention, and reminded me of the ways that my hours in darkened theaters have been rewarded.
I caught up with Sweetwater yesterday on DVD. The slow zoom you mentioned first lulled me, then drew me into the vastness of the landscape, and finally stunned me with movement along a steep, seemingly empty ridge. It was a Reach For The Remote, Freeze and Rewind Moment.
I must admit that your observations have elicited other "Hey, I thought of that shot/ film, too" moments. I recalled Night of the Hunter as I watched the nighttime run in True Grit. A discussion of Black Swan triggered memories of Repulsion. "Hail fellow well met" encounters such as those provided throughout the Exploding Heads Awards and Moments Out of Time are much appreciated. Potential film discussions are often curtailed when only one person has travelled a similar cinematic trail.
Thanks to Sean Axmaker at parallax-view.org for providing links both to your Exploding Heads Awards and to Richard T. Jameson and Kathleen Murphy's Moments Out of Time.
>>Real or Not Real? It's all very coy, but who cares?: "Exit Through the Gift Shop,"
Actually I did.
I know I'm nobody but I cared.
I was curious what was real and what was not in the documentary, or "documentary".
Could I just add what I should have said above: Please somebody explain to me why it doesn't matter if things are real or not in a supposed documentary.
Also, isn't it impossible to NOT wonder what is Bullshit and what is true and accurately represented in "Exit Through the Gift Shop"?
Am I merely demonstrating that I missed 'the point'?
Excellent article. I've noticed, sometimes (when you agree with me) you're entirely right and marvelously insightful; other times (when we disagree) you're so wrong it's depressing and a little sickening.
By the way, am I right in thinking "Night of the Hunter" must be the Coen brothers' favorite movie? They have little homages to it in "Raising Arizona", "The Man Who Wasn't There", "True Grit", and probably others I've missed.
Since you haven't written about Sweetgrass in full yet I thought I'd comment here about the shot that stuck with me: the nighttime scene with the cowboy riding across the horizon. I loved the way it was miked up so we could hear him quiet mutterings, as if he were next to us, even though it was such a long shot.
That shot and the way the sound was recorded was just so Altmanesque to me. Specifically, strangely, it reminded of "Popeye," perhaps due to the mumbling, cursing way the cowboy was talking, and the little ditty he was singing to himself. It had been a little while (tragically!) since a movie had reminded me of Altman, so that made me smile. Who knew it would be in a sheep documentary?
If the Please Make Her Head Explode Award always goes to someone making the same expression for an entire movie, then you could probably just rename it the Sandra Oh Award.
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