Movies movies movies
Aug. 8th, 2013 04:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
charloweenI saw three very different movies in the last week, all of which I enjoyed for different reasons.
On Friday I stewarded Werner Herzog's Aguirre, Wrath of God (1972) - apparently it was a huge influence on Apocalypse Now, as much or more than Conrad's story, and the connection is very apparent. On Twitter, I said that the relationship between the two is like the relationship between La Jetée and Twelve Monkeys: the Hollywood versions are bigger, more sprawling, certainly more epic than their smaller counterparts. That explanation doesn't capture the charming chaos and creeping despair of the film. And it's sheer oddness. Because it's a film from the 70s (made by Europeans, no less), there are many long takes without non-diegetic music, shots of people staring at each other or nothing, and a self-consciousness that doubtless comes from working outside Hollywood, with a low budget and small crew, making a nominal period piece about conquistadors on the Amazon, all shot on location. It's rarely clear if a sequence is meant to be darkly comic, satirical, actually just bleak, sweet, ironic... etc. Apocalypse Now shows up with its D: face from the first frame, but Aguirre doesn't give as many hints.
The dialogue was apparently all filmed in English, but released as a dubbed German version because the sound guy (?) ran off with the masters. Having such a strong and always-present reminder of the disembodied post-synch voices (with the dubbing never possibly matching the lip movements) adds to the overall surreality of the film. And Klaus Kinski pouts through the whole film - again, apparently this is because Herzog let him rant through a tantrum and then started shooting, so Kinski's entire role is performed en sulk. Scowling in a purple puffy shirt.
There's a scene early on where Kinski's cuddling a baby sloth and the experience of watching the film is like that moment: you want to cradle it in your hands and ask it, What are you, you strange creature. And it just blinks at you and keeps on being its strange little fuzzy self while arrows take down everyone else on the raft and you tip into madness.
On Saturday night, we couldn't get staff to steward Cleopatra (1963) so instead of doing my proper job, I sat in on the film. All 4+ hours of it. Today, long films feel like bloated normal-length films, if that makes any sense. But back when studios would back things like Cleopatra and Lawrence of Arabia, a long film was designed to be an epic rather than an indulgent mistake (I know Cleopatra was conceived as two mega-films, then smooshed together, but it still feels planned).
I wasn't expecting Cleopatra to be as funny as it was, for Richard Burton's Roman skirts to be as short as they were (i.e. really short! this was about as long as they got), or for the art direction to be so completely 1960s. Another amusing detail, and it took about a quarter of the film to pick up on this, is that every ancient equivalent of a boardroom or living room had an ancient equivalent of a decanter and tumblers; to my 2013 eye it looked like those 1963 actors wouldn't be able to get through a scene without someone walking to a sideboard and pouring a drink. I wonder how much was the director and how much was a habit of blocking.
Another 60s thing I wonder about is regarding how familiar the film's audience might have been Shakespeare's versions of things, and what assumptions the filmmakers might have made about that. The sets are very theatrical, and there's a feeling that everyone involved was conscious of filming something closer to a play than what we'd think of as a biopic. This thought is half-formed and indistinct, but there. Still another half-thought is about this film's role in bringing down the Production Code - not just in the near-bankruptcy of the studio, but in how far they bend Cleopatra's character. There's stuff about making sure adulterers get punished, and how much skin and ambition people could show, and how disinterested the film sometimes seems in making a moral point. Again, fuzzy half-thoughts.
With films like this (and Aguirre) it's difficult to watch as if I didn't know the stories about the actors and the production. So while Caesar (Rex Harrison) was talking about how he felt about Cleopatra, I was thinking, Yes - you've grown accustomed to her face. (I'm looking at you, vidders. [but that would be hilarious, amirite? no?]) But the thing that the film is most known for is the Burton/Taylor story. While Caesar and Cleopatra definitely work together, it's hard to favourably compare this part of the film to the Shaw play (particularly the 2008 staging with Christopher Plummer) where the pair of them snark at each other wittily for a few hours.
But then Antony shows up in his Roman miniskirt and crushing anxiety about ~not being Casear~ and things get fun. Again, the film doesn't seem concerned with finding excuses for Elizabeth Taylor to look amazing and to be smouldered at by Richard Burton. I don't even remember how hard the film tried to explain why they were together, other than both Cleopatra and Antony want Caesarion (Cleopatra and Caesar's son) to, like, rule everything. Because Caesar wanted to rule everything.* This is only the second Burton/Taylor film I've seen - the first being Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, nightmares forever - so it's neat just to watch what everyone's been talking about. And woah, lots to talk about.
*(That was a great scene. Cleopatra's all, Why are you crying at Alexander the Great's tomb? And Caesar's all, Because I want to rule everything but I'm old now. And Cleopatra's like, Let's make babies and then they can rule everything! So then they have sex. Amazing.)
I definitely need to see the film again, because I was caught up in the spectacle of it: the costumes (Taylor's dresses, omg), the acting, the epic scope, the weird little details (in the naval battle, some of the guys have octopus decals decorating their armour - a quick Google hints this is not historically accurate), Richard Burton's entirely distracting thighs... It's so spectacular, as in full of spectacle, that I'm very glad the first time I saw it was on a big screen. With an intermission.
And finally, for another completely different film, last night I saw The Wolverine (...2013!). I didn't see the other Wolverine solo film, but in contrast to the other times he's shown up in various other movies, it was neat to see what Hugh Jackman does with the character when he's not part of an ensemble cast. His quips and one-liners sound more natural, he's funnier and more likeable, but still no one can explain why he thinks Jean was so great. (Go away, Scary Eyebrows.)
Plot-wise and premise-wise I can respect a film that throws up its hands and says, YES OKAY FINE JAPAN HAS NINJAS and doesn't care about explaining it. Yukio and Mariko had a few tiny conversations about their relationship, which was nice. Hugh Jackman's improbable body: sublime, in the great-to-look-at-but-also-terrifying sense of the word. Hugh Jackman's preppy haircut: adorable, though my colleague says (from the trailer) that he thinks it looks too Hollywood. I told him that's probably explained by the scene. I liked that the film didn't actually have to remind us of the poison-dipped arrow from the beginning; either it forgot to point flashing lights at the retrospective ambiguity of Logan's assault on the hunter, or it figured we were smart enough to notice there was one character who kept poisoning people and could figure out maybe the hunters were set up to provoke Logan into coming down off his mountain.
I also enjoyed the Molson Canadian logo's cameo in the bar. Wolverine'll be in Alberta or the Yukon, not Alaska, because he's not American. This is my headcanon, and it's supported by the first X-Men film. I therefore move that 0% of this summer blockbuster is set anywhere in the US.
Also interesting about this film is the director, James Mangold. On the one hand, Kate & Leopold and Knight and Day; on the other hand, Girl, Interrupted and Walk the Line. I think The Wolverine is closer to the latter (biopic/memoir adaptations) than the former (whatever Kate & Leopold was supposed to be, ugh). Like what I had to say about Cleopatra, this is more pointing-at-the-thing than having deep thoughts. In The Wolverine, no one stops to make a big deal about mutants existing. Mangold's almost created a superhero movie where someone's just as likely to make a big deal about jeans existing, that is, not very likely. Maybe a bit more fuss on the science fiction side would've been nice, because I did wonder if I'd missed Mariko's mutant power (I don't think I did - I think there was a lot of talk about genetics and things skipping generations only to explain why Mariko's dad was a weenie.
I haven't seen the 3:10 to Yuma remake, but the fact it exists means Mangold survived directing a film co-starring Russell Crowe and Christian Bale.
Okay, I've used up today's brain power on this post. Time to go home and maybe flail at work tonight. (Unlikely, but one can hope. All this unstructured time isn't good for my mood or productivity.)
On this coming Saturday afternoon I'll steward Roman Holiday, which I've also never seen. If it's got anything as good as Richard Burton's thighs on display for three hours, I'm guaranteed to like it. :D
On Friday I stewarded Werner Herzog's Aguirre, Wrath of God (1972) - apparently it was a huge influence on Apocalypse Now, as much or more than Conrad's story, and the connection is very apparent. On Twitter, I said that the relationship between the two is like the relationship between La Jetée and Twelve Monkeys: the Hollywood versions are bigger, more sprawling, certainly more epic than their smaller counterparts. That explanation doesn't capture the charming chaos and creeping despair of the film. And it's sheer oddness. Because it's a film from the 70s (made by Europeans, no less), there are many long takes without non-diegetic music, shots of people staring at each other or nothing, and a self-consciousness that doubtless comes from working outside Hollywood, with a low budget and small crew, making a nominal period piece about conquistadors on the Amazon, all shot on location. It's rarely clear if a sequence is meant to be darkly comic, satirical, actually just bleak, sweet, ironic... etc. Apocalypse Now shows up with its D: face from the first frame, but Aguirre doesn't give as many hints.
The dialogue was apparently all filmed in English, but released as a dubbed German version because the sound guy (?) ran off with the masters. Having such a strong and always-present reminder of the disembodied post-synch voices (with the dubbing never possibly matching the lip movements) adds to the overall surreality of the film. And Klaus Kinski pouts through the whole film - again, apparently this is because Herzog let him rant through a tantrum and then started shooting, so Kinski's entire role is performed en sulk. Scowling in a purple puffy shirt.
There's a scene early on where Kinski's cuddling a baby sloth and the experience of watching the film is like that moment: you want to cradle it in your hands and ask it, What are you, you strange creature. And it just blinks at you and keeps on being its strange little fuzzy self while arrows take down everyone else on the raft and you tip into madness.
On Saturday night, we couldn't get staff to steward Cleopatra (1963) so instead of doing my proper job, I sat in on the film. All 4+ hours of it. Today, long films feel like bloated normal-length films, if that makes any sense. But back when studios would back things like Cleopatra and Lawrence of Arabia, a long film was designed to be an epic rather than an indulgent mistake (I know Cleopatra was conceived as two mega-films, then smooshed together, but it still feels planned).
I wasn't expecting Cleopatra to be as funny as it was, for Richard Burton's Roman skirts to be as short as they were (i.e. really short! this was about as long as they got), or for the art direction to be so completely 1960s. Another amusing detail, and it took about a quarter of the film to pick up on this, is that every ancient equivalent of a boardroom or living room had an ancient equivalent of a decanter and tumblers; to my 2013 eye it looked like those 1963 actors wouldn't be able to get through a scene without someone walking to a sideboard and pouring a drink. I wonder how much was the director and how much was a habit of blocking.
Another 60s thing I wonder about is regarding how familiar the film's audience might have been Shakespeare's versions of things, and what assumptions the filmmakers might have made about that. The sets are very theatrical, and there's a feeling that everyone involved was conscious of filming something closer to a play than what we'd think of as a biopic. This thought is half-formed and indistinct, but there. Still another half-thought is about this film's role in bringing down the Production Code - not just in the near-bankruptcy of the studio, but in how far they bend Cleopatra's character. There's stuff about making sure adulterers get punished, and how much skin and ambition people could show, and how disinterested the film sometimes seems in making a moral point. Again, fuzzy half-thoughts.
With films like this (and Aguirre) it's difficult to watch as if I didn't know the stories about the actors and the production. So while Caesar (Rex Harrison) was talking about how he felt about Cleopatra, I was thinking, Yes - you've grown accustomed to her face. (I'm looking at you, vidders. [but that would be hilarious, amirite? no?]) But the thing that the film is most known for is the Burton/Taylor story. While Caesar and Cleopatra definitely work together, it's hard to favourably compare this part of the film to the Shaw play (particularly the 2008 staging with Christopher Plummer) where the pair of them snark at each other wittily for a few hours.
But then Antony shows up in his Roman miniskirt and crushing anxiety about ~not being Casear~ and things get fun. Again, the film doesn't seem concerned with finding excuses for Elizabeth Taylor to look amazing and to be smouldered at by Richard Burton. I don't even remember how hard the film tried to explain why they were together, other than both Cleopatra and Antony want Caesarion (Cleopatra and Caesar's son) to, like, rule everything. Because Caesar wanted to rule everything.* This is only the second Burton/Taylor film I've seen - the first being Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, nightmares forever - so it's neat just to watch what everyone's been talking about. And woah, lots to talk about.
*(That was a great scene. Cleopatra's all, Why are you crying at Alexander the Great's tomb? And Caesar's all, Because I want to rule everything but I'm old now. And Cleopatra's like, Let's make babies and then they can rule everything! So then they have sex. Amazing.)
I definitely need to see the film again, because I was caught up in the spectacle of it: the costumes (Taylor's dresses, omg), the acting, the epic scope, the weird little details (in the naval battle, some of the guys have octopus decals decorating their armour - a quick Google hints this is not historically accurate), Richard Burton's entirely distracting thighs... It's so spectacular, as in full of spectacle, that I'm very glad the first time I saw it was on a big screen. With an intermission.
And finally, for another completely different film, last night I saw The Wolverine (...2013!). I didn't see the other Wolverine solo film, but in contrast to the other times he's shown up in various other movies, it was neat to see what Hugh Jackman does with the character when he's not part of an ensemble cast. His quips and one-liners sound more natural, he's funnier and more likeable, but still no one can explain why he thinks Jean was so great. (Go away, Scary Eyebrows.)
Plot-wise and premise-wise I can respect a film that throws up its hands and says, YES OKAY FINE JAPAN HAS NINJAS and doesn't care about explaining it. Yukio and Mariko had a few tiny conversations about their relationship, which was nice. Hugh Jackman's improbable body: sublime, in the great-to-look-at-but-also-terrifying sense of the word. Hugh Jackman's preppy haircut: adorable, though my colleague says (from the trailer) that he thinks it looks too Hollywood. I told him that's probably explained by the scene. I liked that the film didn't actually have to remind us of the poison-dipped arrow from the beginning; either it forgot to point flashing lights at the retrospective ambiguity of Logan's assault on the hunter, or it figured we were smart enough to notice there was one character who kept poisoning people and could figure out maybe the hunters were set up to provoke Logan into coming down off his mountain.
I also enjoyed the Molson Canadian logo's cameo in the bar. Wolverine'll be in Alberta or the Yukon, not Alaska, because he's not American. This is my headcanon, and it's supported by the first X-Men film. I therefore move that 0% of this summer blockbuster is set anywhere in the US.
Also interesting about this film is the director, James Mangold. On the one hand, Kate & Leopold and Knight and Day; on the other hand, Girl, Interrupted and Walk the Line. I think The Wolverine is closer to the latter (biopic/memoir adaptations) than the former (whatever Kate & Leopold was supposed to be, ugh). Like what I had to say about Cleopatra, this is more pointing-at-the-thing than having deep thoughts. In The Wolverine, no one stops to make a big deal about mutants existing. Mangold's almost created a superhero movie where someone's just as likely to make a big deal about jeans existing, that is, not very likely. Maybe a bit more fuss on the science fiction side would've been nice, because I did wonder if I'd missed Mariko's mutant power (I don't think I did - I think there was a lot of talk about genetics and things skipping generations only to explain why Mariko's dad was a weenie.
I haven't seen the 3:10 to Yuma remake, but the fact it exists means Mangold survived directing a film co-starring Russell Crowe and Christian Bale.
Okay, I've used up today's brain power on this post. Time to go home and maybe flail at work tonight. (Unlikely, but one can hope. All this unstructured time isn't good for my mood or productivity.)
On this coming Saturday afternoon I'll steward Roman Holiday, which I've also never seen. If it's got anything as good as Richard Burton's thighs on display for three hours, I'm guaranteed to like it. :D
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Date: 2013-08-08 10:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-08-09 07:22 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-08-20 10:49 pm (UTC)