February 2011 Archives

Take a look at all that's going on in the image above. Who is talking? What are the relationships between the characters? How much is packed into this one frame?

Since it came out last fall, I'd almost forgotten what an exhilarating information-overload experience David Fincher's "The Social Network" is. Cut and composed and performed with breathless, jittery speed, it's a movie that consists of virtually nothing but conversations in rooms (the attempted, missed, short-circuited, coded connections that struck me when I first saw it). It's action-packed -- enough to give you whiplash, watching all the elements interacting within the 2.40:1 widescreen frame -- even though there are no "action sequences" (car chases, shootouts, fist fights, acrobatic stunts, etc.); the filmmaking is charged with energy without falling back on today's routinely frenetic, handheld run-and-gun/snatch-and-grab camerawork (the camera is generally mounted on a tripod; when it moves, it's on a crane or a dolly -- often for establishing shots or a shift in perspective that brings a new element into the frame). Smart, quick, efficient.

The crunchy guitar riff starts over the Columbia Pictures logo and then the crowd noise comes up, the music drops down, and before the logo fades to black and the first image appears, we hear Mark (Jesse Eisenberg) speaking the movie's opening line -- a question that's also a challenge: "Did you know there are more people with genius IQs living in China than there are people of any kind living in the United States?" What follows is a blisteringly fast-paced screwball comedy exchange ("His Girl Friday" through a 64-bit dual-core processor) between Mark and his girlfriend (not for very much longer ) Erica in which nearly every line is a misunderstanding (intentional or unintentional), a sarcastic jab, a leap of logic, a block, an interruption, a feint, an abrupt shift in the angle of attack, a diversion, a retreat, a refinement, a recapitulation (I'm sure there are many fencing terms that apply to the various conversational strategies employed here)...

(Photo by Dean Parker)

"Carter Burwell's score, drawing from themes from American folk music of the era, is one of his greatest."
-- Glenn Kenny, review of "True Grit" on MSN Movies

1.

I had missed the news, quietly announced in late December, that Carter Burwell's score for the Coens' "True Grit" (which includes Mahleresque orchestrations based on the traditional hymn, "Leaning on the Everlasting Arm") and Clint Mansell's Tchaikovsky-influenced music for "Black Swan" (of course he's going to interpolate "Swan Lake" into the score -- that's the challenge!) would not be eligible for consideration in the Oscars' Best Original Score category. But the category is for score, not Best Original Tune. The presence of a hymn melody or passages from a famous ballet are key to what these compositions set out to accomplish, and how they are integrated into their respective movies. Those things shouldn't be held against them.

Orchestral composers have worked with folk music and other melodic sources for centuries. Mahler used "Frehre Jacques" in his first symphony and other traditional Jewish and folk tunes are found throughout his works. (For that matter, the melody -- and even part of the arrangement -- for TV's "Star Trek" theme is right there in Mahler's Seventh!) And Tchaikovsky -- jeeez, the 1812 Overture is just the French and Russian national anthems. But the composer fragmented them, wove them together and otherwise re-composed them into one of his most famous pieces.

(Besides, we've known for months that Hans Zimmer's score for "Inception" -- which is nominated -- is built on a slowed-down, sampled and otherwise manipulated recording of Edith Piaf singing "Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien." That's using an existing tune in a movie score, too, isn't it? Seems to me that all of the above are legitimate compositional techniques.)

Whenever research confirms something we feel we already knew intuitively, or from our own experience, there are always people who'll scoff and say, "Well, I could have told you that!" And maybe they could have, but that's not the point. Science is a discipline involving systematic observation and empirical evidence, not unverified hunches. Movies, of course, are optical illusions -- photographic, electronic and/or mechanical phenomena that exploit the peculiarities of our eyes and brains... and elicit all manner of feelings. They are science and they are sometimes art, and the methods of studying one or the other can be complementary.

Take one of my favorite David Bordwell posts ("Hands (and faces) across the table"), which has recently been revived (resurrected! It's alive!) through the eyes of science, thanks to DB's guest-blogger, Tim Smith ("Watching you watch 'There Will Be Blood'"), of Continuity Boy, the Department of Psychological Sciences at Birkbeck College, University of London, and The DIEM (Dynamic Images and Eye Movements) Project.

In 2008, DB wrote about the map scene in Paul Thomas Anderson's "There Will Be Blood," in which the camera remained fixed during a long take while the looks and gestures of the actors "directed" the viewer's gaze. He wrote:

This e-mail pitch has been going around (with all the identifying information that I've stripped out), and I'm just not sure what to make of it. A "celebrity film critic" is "representing [yellow tail] Reserve wine" and wants to talk about movie-and-wine pairings... and the Oscars:

As you prepare your content for the Oscars, I'm wondering if you're available for an interview with celebrity film critic Ben Lyons? Ben is available for interviews... for either phone or Skype interviews. If you prefer Skype, we can record it and provide back to you as a YouTube video.

During the interview, Ben can discuss his Oscar picks, as well as Oscar party planning tips. He is representing [yellow tail] Reserve wine and can also discuss suggested movie and wine pairings. Appreciate your feedback. We only have a few slots left for the day, so I appreciate it if you could get back to me as soon as possible.

Who has accepted this remarkable interview opportunity? I googled "ben lyons" and "movie and wine" and learned that WPIX, former employer of Ben Lyons and Lyons Sr. (Jeffrey), did -- just last September, which is either seven months after the Oscars or five before, depending on how you're counting.

"Something tells me that if I wasn't here you guys would be drinking [yellow tail] Reserve anyway," said Ben Lyons at the top of the segment.

The Muriels are back! Everyone's favorite movie awards, the Muriels feature the longest presentation ceremonies of any other movie awards. They go on for weeks -- from February 16 to March 6. Take that, Oscars! And there are no musical numbers or acceptance speeches, just pithy essays about the winners. Created by Paul Clark and Steve Carlson, and named after Paul's guinea pig, the Muriels are now in their fifth year, and feature some categories that are even newer than before! (They are, in other words, new.)

So, in addition to Best Cinematic Moment, Best Cinematic Breakthrough and retrospective honors from 10, 25 and 50 years ago (plus, this year, a look at the best films of one of the best decades for movies ever, the 1950s), we have... Best Editing. Sure, the Academy has one of those, too (and they say a film can't win Best Picture without an editing nomination), but you won't find a better examination of why the winners deserve to win than this one by Muriel voter Michael Lieberman -- which I feel compelled to quote in its three-paragraph entirety (no editing here!):

Please consider this my contribution to the For the Love of Film (Noir) blogathon, now in progress.

This room is haunted. By shadows from out of the past... and by my failure to ever complete the thing. I notice I had pledged to finish it by September, 1999. Looks like the date may have slipped. There's one way to enter The Dark Room, and that's to go through here. (There is, in the tradition of noir, no way out -- except through the gift shop.) I originally thought of it in 1995 as a film noir feature for the CD-ROM movie encyclopedia I was editing, Microsoft Cinemania. But it wasn't something we could do in the Cinemania format at the time. Not until I left Microsoft and launched Jeeem's CinePad in 1998 did I try to build the thing myself.

There are (at least) three ways to explore The Dark Room, as explained in the room. But two of them you can do from right here: 1) Take a look at what's going on in the room. How many of the elements (and the films from which they've been lifted) can you identify? Leave 'em in comments below. 2) If you like to spin stories (and webs), maybe you'd like to come up with a noirish tale or situation based on what you see in this image. What's the rumpus? Who's the dead guy? Who's doing what to whom? How did things come to this (is it time for a narrated flashback?), and what will happen next? Again, if you feel like letting your imagination roam, please share your scenarios in comments.

It's Valentine's Day, and what better occasion to coincide with the second annual Film Preservation Blogathon, For the Love of Film (Noir)co-hosted by Self-Styled Siren and Marilyn Ferdinand. Not only is it great readin', it's a benefit for The Film Noir Foundation. Last year, the project raised $30,000 for the Foundation.

This year... well, I'll just quote one of the blogathon contributors, Leonard Maltin:

The film to be rescued this year is Cy Endfield's "The Sound of Fury," also known as "Try and Get Me!" (1950), a lynch-mob drama written by Jo Pagano, starring Frank Lovejoy and Lloyd Bridges. It's an "orphan" picture that's in need of proper preservation, and the Film Noir Foundation is spearheading the project. Blogger Marilyn Ferdinand of Ferdy on Films, who has once again organized this mass fundraising project along with The Siren of Self-Styled Siren, explains, "A nitrate print of the film will be restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive, using a reference print from Martin Scorsese's personal collection to guide them and fill in any blanks. Paramount Pictures has agreed to help fund the restoration, but FNF is going to have to come up with significant funds to get the job done. That's where we come in."

So, a big black-and-white Valentine goes out to the Siren and Marilyn -- and a special one to Greg Farrara of Cinema Styles, who created the splendid, atmospheric montage above to help publicize the event. Watch it, get into the spirit, and get yourself over to For the Love of Film (Noir), Sugar -- here or here.

This five-foot-tall baby giraffe named Margaret has subtly changed the way I look at creature design in science-fiction and fantasy movies. I haven't been able to stop oggling her. Margaret is small for her age, and was having difficulty suckling, so she's being fed by humans at the Chester Zoo in the UK, where she was born. Now, if I saw a creature like this in a movie I would probably think the filmmakers were pandering to the audience. I mean, come on -- those eyes!?!? They're too much! We are evolutionarily adapted to respond to big eyes (from Maurice Sendak's Wild Things to E.T. to the Na'vi in "Avatar") -- which is why I nearly got in trouble once when I started to blurt out that a stranger's baby looked just like a pug. I meant that as a compliment, but realized in the nick of time that the mom might not.

Margaret, with her spindly legs, long neck, exotic fur patterns and adorable saucer eyes, is an improbably designed creature. And yet, there she is. And she's not a special effect. Maybe movie creature designers aren't so far-out in their conceptions after all...

Also: I find myself appreciating the 1960s work of Walter and/or Margaret Keane in ways I never imagined.

There are two of them that matter most to me, I think -- and not in the Best Picture category. ("The King's Speech" over "The Social Network"? Really? I can only shrug. Forget it, Jim -- it's the Academy...) I'm much more interested in seeing Roger Deakins and Skip Lievsay get their due recognition. DP Deakins, unquestionably one of the handful of great cinematographers working today, is nominated for "True Grit" -- his ninth nomination in 16 years, and he has yet to win. How can this be? For the record, here are the films for which he has been nominated by the Academy: "The Shawshank Redemption," "Fargo," "Kundun," "O Brother, Where Art Thou?," "The Man Who Wasn't There" (black-and-white widescreen, my favorite format), "No Country for Old Men" and "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" (both in the same year!), "The Reader" (co-nominated with the also-great Chris Menges, who should have won for "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada") and now, "True Grit." (What? No nomination for "A Serious Man"?!?!) He also photographed "Sid & Nancy," "Stormy Monday," "Mountains of the Moon," "Homicide," "Barton Fink," "The Secret Garden," "The Hudsucker Proxy," "Dead Man Walking" and "The Big Lebowski," among many others.

Watch the impressive featurette/interview above for a few examples of Deakins' brilliance (and, for once, that term is actually intended to refer to the intensity of light!).

The Carpetbagger has a short interview with Deakins today, too (which contains spoilers, although this excerpt does not):

Andrea Arnold's "Fish Tank" was shot in Essex and several boroughs outside of London (IMDb lists Barking, Havering and Tower Hamlets among them) and these landscapes -- variously industrial, suburban, undeveloped -- look as chilly and otherworldly as anything in Antonioni. Only shabbier. It took me all year to get around to seeing "Fish Tank," but as an admirer of Arnold's nightmarish 2006 "Red Road," I'm not terribly surprised to discover that it's one of the most vividly directed US releases of the year. And I say that even though it consists almost entirely of hand-held camerawork (which is not a style I generally appreciate). Through Arnold's lens, this slice of soggy Britain takes on the surreal look of a dream, or science fiction.

The film follows (literally, much of the time) 15-year-old Mia (Kate Jarvis), who lives in a run-down apartment complex with her thirtysomething party-girl mum and bratty younger sister. Mia is headstrong, abrasive, foul-mouthed (did I mention she's 15?) and always seems to be storming off, exiting one situation and headed somewhere with a purpose in mind -- though we rarely know what it is until she gets there. Sometimes she's not so sure herself, even after she appears to get where she's going. Her refuge is an empty flat in one of the apartment towers where she surreptitiously practices hip-hop dance routines.

I'm not going to say much more about the story, except that I think "Fish Tank" would make a fine double-bill with "Winter's Bone," as they're both movies about teenage girls looking for their daddies, as it were. In Mia's case, though, it's not her father -- it's her mum's new Irish boyfriend (Michael "Hunger" Fassbender), and her desires are no more familial than his are parental.

When Andy Samberg (as Mark Zuckerberg) asked Oscar nominee Jesse Eisenberg how he played Zuckerberg in "The Social Network" (shortly before the real Zuckerberg joined them onstage during the opening monologue on "Saturday Night Live"), he said: "I speak in short, clipped sentences and I keep my head very still."

David Bordwell has an ingenious look at The Social Network: The faces behind Facebook at Observations on film art that examines the film's direction and performances in terms of its emphasis on facial expressions and body language.

Anybody who's seen Eisenberg before (say, in "The Squid and the Whale" or "Adventureland") will recognize that his Zuckerberg is indeed a stylized performance. And anybody familiar the real Mark Zuckerberg will recognize that Eisenberg's work is not based on the actual Facebook founder, but on the character created in Aaron Sorkin's script. (In fact, Eisenberg and Zuckerberg had never met until Saturday. Watch how eager for approval Zuckerberg is, smiling and repeatedly turning to the audience in expectation of laughs during his backstage bit with Lorne Michaels. That is not something the movie character would ever do.)

Have you seen the Weinstein Company's Oscar campaign ads for "The King's Speech"? The canny tagline goes straight for the heart: "Some Movies You See. Others You Feel." That sums up the case for the picture right there. So, don't be bothered feeling that maybe it's not all that much of a movie -- the acting's swell and it gave you a lump in your throat, didn't it? After the Directors Guild and Producer's Guild awards, it could become "Shakespeare in Love 2010."

So, what if other Oscar ads were even more straightforward? Here are a few ideas from If the Best Picture nominee posters told the truth at TheShiznit.co.uk: