Monthly Archives: May 2012
Let the Right One In (2008) – What happens if you fall for a vampire…
What happens if you fall in love with a vampire? Released the same year as the first installment of the Twilight saga, Tomas Alfredson’s low-key adaptation of John Ajvide Lindqvist’s novel attempts to answer the same question. While the conclusion reached is more frightening, the central romance is certainly more touching.
Do I Not Like That (1994) & Mike Bassett: England Manager (2001) – The Impossible Job…
Football caught me at an impressionable age – I was twelve when England lost on penalties to Germany at Italia ’90. Before the tournament, I’d never kicked a ball or even thought about football. I was into Fighting Fantasy gamebooks and writing – football existed on a different wavelength to me.
The moment that caught me forever was not the shootout defeat, or Paul Gascoigne’s famous tears, or arch-goalhanger Gary Lineker’s two nerveless penalties against Cameroon in the quarters. It was David Platt’s late, late hooked volley in the last-minute against mighty Belgium that sold me on the nerve-shredding wonders of football.
I’d never watched football, I’d never been abroad before, and those glowing images coming out of Turin on that fateful night against Germany looked so romantic, with a soundtrack of Pavarotti, that they looked like signals from a distant planet.
A Time To Kill (1996) – Morally Dubious Manipulation from Schumacher & Co…
There are plenty of things that wind me up about A Time to Kill, and the first is that title.
Not because it’s pretty meaningless, but because it makes it sound like a second-rate Bond movie, rather than a lusty courtroom melodrama set in the Deep South. So fans of the John Grisham novel approaching the film for the first time will be pleased to find hotshot lawyer Jack Brigance played by Matthew McConaughey and not by Roger Moore. (Although in my parallel universe-cinema, that casting choice sounds oddly intriguing…)
The Tree of Life (2011) – Malick’s Meaning of the Universe…
If you liked all the dreamy tree-gazing poetry that broke up the fighting in Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line, here’s another two hours of it for you. Malick’s latest isn’t for everyone, as it tells a family drama without traditional methods such as plot or dialogue, taking in the creation of the Universe for good measure.
Malick likes to take his time making a movie, and “The Tree of Life” is only his fifth feature in thirty-eight years. That means it takes Malick almost as long to make a film as it does for the audience to watch it.
Tropic Thunder (2008) – Get Some!
Tropic Thunder starts off in your face, and spends the next two hours blaring and honking, tooting and parping, like the world’s biggest, most expensive, attention seeking one man band. The man with the cymbals and the washboard is Ben Stiller, and he plays his assorted instruments as loudly and enthusiastically as possible. Tropic Thunder is never less than entertaining.
The jokes are obvious, the music choices are cliched, and the satire is broad, but Tropic Thunder also possesses a manic energy, powered by three monstrous comic performances. Robert Downey Jr picked up the plaudits and the nominations, but Tom Cruise’s demented turn as a brimstone-spitting movie mogul is just as memorable.
Stiller deserves credit for starting off offensive and having the courage to stick with it, and mounting a Hollywood satire with a Hollywood blockbuster budget. Satires about the movie making industry are ten a penny, but few come with a $90 million price tag.
Tropic Thunder follows the disastrous adaptation of an acclaimed memoir by a Vietnam Vet, “Four Leaf” Tayback (Nick Nolte), who lost his hands saving his comrades in battle.
The bloated production is stuffed with assorted Hollywood types. There is the over-the-hill action star, Tugg Speedman (Stiller), sniffing out another hit after his creaking franchise, Scorcher, left audiences cold, and his ill-advised stab at credibility, Simple Jack, is regarded as the worst film ever made.
Also onboard and striving for credibility is Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black), a drug addicted bad boy famous for a string of fart-based comedies; and rapper Alpa Chino (Brandon T Jackson), fresh from a lucrative endorsement of “Booty Sweat” energy drink and trying to go legit in the movies.
Contrasting sharply with Speedman and the others is Kirk Lazarus, five time Academy Award winner, an actor so method he undergoes surgery to darken his skin to portray African American Sgt. Lincoln Osiris. So method, in fact, he stays in character all the time and doesn’t emerge until after he’s done the commentary on the DVD.
The warring egos cause trouble on the location shoot, and rookie director Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan) is unable to control his cast. The chaos on set causes the cameras to miss a $4 million explosion, attracting the attention of the movie media, reporting the production as over budget and a month over schedule after only five days.
Studio Boss Les Grossman (Tom Cruise) is furious, and threatens to pull the plug unless Cockburn can control his stars. Cockburn follows Four Leaf’s suggestion, dropping the prima donnas in the middle of the jungle and rigging cameras along their route, and use pyrotechnics to elicit a realistic performance.
Things don’t go quite to plan – the crew attract the attention of a local gang of druglords, who mistake the heavily armed Americans as the DEA. Soon Speedman and crew find themselves in very real danger…
The idea of pampered actors finding themselves in peril without realizing it isn’t exactly original – Three Amigos! and Galaxy Quest – and Tropic Thunder, seemingly conscious of this, takes a little while to get rolling. Stiller seems to try covering up the unoriginality with a lot of shouting, noise and swearing.
Once the gang finally realize they’re in trouble the film finds the right gear. The cast warm to their characters and Tropic Thunder actually becomes an effective action movie in its own right, as Lazarus and the remaining actors break into the cartel’s base to rescue the others.
The satire is broad, but packs a mighty punch. The film attracted the wrath of disability advocacy groups in the States, objecting to the repeated use of the word “Retard”. In one of the film’s most memorable moments of dialogue, Lazarus explains to Speedman the fatal mistake he made in Simple Jack, of going “Full Retard”.
If anything, the disability advocacy groups should celebrate Tropic Thunder & Simple Jack for naming and shaming high profile actors who use disability as a surefire shot at another trophy in their cabinet. The joke is not on people with disabilities, it is on high profile public figures who use people’s disabilities as an easy win. Dustin Hoffman, Peter Sellers and Tom Hanks are all name checked, but poor old Sean Penn – “…2001, I Am Sam…went full retard, went home empty handed…”
Eyebrows were inevitably raised about Downey Jr’s character going “Blackface”, but once again, the joke is not on black people. The joke is on a character so shameless and so wrapped up in “Method” methodology he believes that he can be Black by being black.
Downey Jr’s jive talking Lazarus/Osiris is the film’s outstanding performance, as layered as it is. What is happening in Lazarus’ head? He is so in character, he doesn’t back down from racial stereotypes even when called by the real African-American on set.
Downey Jr is almost trumped by Tom Cruise’s grotesque cameo as Les Grossmann. Demonic studio bosses have been done many times before, but you have to think back to Michael Lerner in Barton Fink to find one this fickle, ferocious and slimy. Who knew Tom Cruise had a sense of humour?
Stiller, who has made a career of portraying angry little men with huge egos, is more likeable here than he has been for quite a few years now, and generously lets Downey Jr grab all the plaudits with the flashier role. Stiller puts in some good work here though, and draws considerable sympathy. And of course, there’s his deliberately excruciating moments as Simple Jack.
Of the cast’s big names, Jack Black is the most disappointing. His Portnoy is a jarringly one note, mean-spirited performance, as the meaty wild child spends the whole movie screaming and shouting through cold turkey in the jungle.
Nick Nolte is predictably gruff and grizzled as Four Leaf, the vietnam vet whose experience of the war may not have been as grueling as he described in his book. In a neat cameo, Matthew McConaughey is convincingly slick as Speedman’s shallow, materialistic but ultimately loyal agent, Rick Peck.
The film has the look and feel of a glossy Hollywood blockbuster, although some of the music choices are rather familiar. This may be a deliberate choice – if movies have taught us anything, it’s that guys riding in helicopters loved listening to the Rolling Stones & Buffalo Springfield while machine-gunning “gooks”.
Tropic Thunder is worth catching on the small screen for some tasty comic performances and some juicy, controversy-baiting dialogue. Sure to develop a separate cult following away from the big screen.
Robocop (1987): If you can, buy it for a dollar. (I’d pay up to $10)
Paul Verhoven’s deliriously brutal satire Robocop was unfairly written off as a Terminator cash in, although it has very little in common with Cameron’s relentless sci-fi hit. Notionally fitting the Sci-Fi genre, it is more like an old western, where a stranger rides into a bad-ass town and cleans things up…the hard way.
Detroit, sometime in the near future – the city is plagued by crime. The beleaguered police force is fighting a losing battle against the ruthless villains controlling vast swathes of the city. We meet officer Murphy (Weller) on his first day in the precinct – he is partnered with a sassy, butt-kicking Anne Lewis (Nancy Allen), who is immediately drawn to the calm, slightly arrogant new boy. Top on their agenda is notorious cop killer Clarence Boddicker (Kurtwood Smith), a snide and vicious ganglord who is running riot in the city with his cackling band of hoodlums.
Meanwhile, over at the sinister multinational corporation OCP (Omni Consumer Products), they’ve just won a contract to run the police force. In order to do so, two rival executives are pitching high-firepower alternatives to fragile human law enforcers. Dick Jones (Ronny Cox) unveils his crude and fatally flawed ED209, a walking gunship with a ferocious growl, in a boardroom bloodbath that is one of the movie’s standout scenes. ED’s malfunction is both frightening and hilarious.
The murderous debacle opens the door for Robert Morton’s (Miguel Ferrer’s) brainchild, the “Robocop” programme, which is lower key than the military-style ED209, and will feature a law enforcer that is half human, half machine. All he needs is a volunteer…
Hot on the heels of Boddicker and his gang, Murphy and Lewis chase the crew to an abandoned factory, and unwisely decide to continue without back up. Our two heroes are separated, and Murphy is soon caught, tortured, and blown to bits. Morton now has his candidate.
Murphy is resurrected as a gleaming knight in shining armor, and it’s not long before he’s cleaning up the streets in old Detroit. However, the techies haven’t wiped Murphy’s memory properly, and he goes renegade, looking for clues to who he once was. Robo is also back on the trail of Boddicker, who happens to have a connection with vindictive exec Dick Jones…
Robocop is extremely violent, and scenes such as Murphy’s demise are visceral enough to hit hard 25 years on. However, the violence is undercut by Verhoven’s energetic direction, a sly and subversive sense of humor, satirical swipes at Reagan era 80’s America, and tremendous performances from actors making the most out of 2-D roles.
Standout is Weller as Murphy/Robocop. He has only a few scenes with his full face showing, and fewer still as a living human being. Weller maximizes on his strange, ethereal features and calm delivery, His few early scenes with Lewis establish their instant bond and get the viewer rooting for him.
Once transformed into Robocop, his performance is threefold. He showcases some truly remarkable mime work as he creates Robo’s way of moving, with determined striding arms and jerky head movements. Notice how his head turns first, then the body follows. Most people who try doing the robot – apart from Peter Crouch – just look ridiculous, but Weller pulls it off brilliantly.
Then there is his monotone voice, which can be very funny. Listen to his cadence when he advises “Come with me or there may be…trouble.”. Later, the monotone becomes sad and melancholic once he discovers his former life, and realizes he can never go back.
Thirdly, is how much of an emotional performance Weller creates considering his face is covered from the nose up for the majority of the movie. He manages to convey recognition, disbelief, confusion, anger, and sadness with just a few minor twitches of the lips. Weller gives the movie it’s emotional punch that makes it a more rewarding film than Terminator or other genre pics of the era.
Nancy Allen makes the most of her brief scenes with Murphy; Kurtwood Smith makes a deliciously sleazy villain; Ferrer and Cox enjoy themselves as the warring, greedy executives, undermining each other for the big buck.
Verhoven enjoys himself thoroughly, handling the B-movie material wonderfully, investing it with some satirical bite – the TV Adverts are delightful, particularly the “Nuke Em!” board game.
Some of the shoot ’em up sequences are rather generic, as when Robocop storms a cocaine lab. We are also treated to some wonderful moments – Murphy’s gut-wrenching last few seconds; a POV sequence intercut with flashbacks as Murphy lays dying on a operating room table; Robocop’s visit to his old house, where flashbacks vanish as he walks through them.
Everyone has their favorite Robocop moments and quotes. Give it another visit if you haven’t seen it for a few years, because there is sure to be some detail you’ve forgotten.If you haven’t seen Robocop before, then you’re in for a treat – forget its dated look and give it a bash.
Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010): Everyone’s An Artist Nowadays…
Here’s a curious piece for you. Exit Through the Gift Shop is a documentary about street art, supposedly directed by ultra-anonymous and ultra-famous graffiti artist Banksy. It starts as a Banksy doc by an obsessive frenchman Thierry Guetta; but turns into a documentary about Guetta by Banksy, using Guetta’s own footage.
Confused? You won’t be. You may have your own opinions on Banksy, good or bad, but it’s hard to deny that the man has made an extremely assured and thoughtful film debut with Exit Through the Gift Shop.
I went into this documentary expecting a straightforward and self-aggrandising film about Banksy. Banksy is ubiquitous these days, and I’ve always had a strong ambiguity towards his work.
On one hand, I’m suspicious of his arch sloganeering and his occasional pandering to trendy political views, which can encompass anything in the scope of Banksy’s anti-authoritarian, anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, anarchy with a very small “a” worldview.
But then – there are moments when I can’t help but delight at some of his images, and I prefer his less overtly political stencils, and prefer the ones where he uses the environment around him to make a visual pun. I liked the maid lifting up the wall to sweep dust underneath like a curtain; or the double yellow lines that veer off the road, across the pavement and up a wall to form a flower.
So, a Banksy film. After a nice opening montage of graffiti artists doing their thing, we are introduced to “Banksy” – a guy with his face hidden in the shadow of his hoody, and a digitally altered voice. Banksy, with some degree of modesty, claims the man the film eventually turns out to be about is more interesting than him…
Thierry Guetta is a French immigrant living in LA with his wife and kids, where he makes a comfortable living running a vintage second hand clothes store.
Thierry seems an amiable, friendly type, and instantly seems comical, with his gigantic sideburns, tubby frame and silly little hat. But there is something blank about his eyes, and we soon learn Thierry has an obsession. He films his whole life with his camcorder, and stores the tapes in a haphazard collection which he never labels, let alone watches.
Thierry’s life takes a new course when he visits family in France and finds out his cousin is the street artist Invader, who’s shtick is placing mosaic aliens from the ancient Space Invaders video game in locations around the world.
He accompanies his cousin as he goes about his nocturnal work, and is later introduced to Shepard Fairey, another street artist famous for his mock-totalitarian Obey campaign, featuring wrestler Andre the Giant, and the Hope poster for Obama.
Fairey is a little puzzled by Thierry’s enthusiasm and relentless filming, but finds the Frenchman a willing assistant and lookout as he goes about his work on the city’s walls and rooftops. Thierry also films a number of other street artists, and announces his intention to make a documentary about Street Art. But he is missing one famous British street artist in particular…Banksy.
The two eventually meet, and the film gets stranger from there, as Thierry first completes his documentary, and then becomes a street artist himself.
By the end, the big question is – what is art? Banksy and Shepard Fairey are bitter about their contribution in Thierry’s eventual success as “Mr Brainwash”. They’ve devoted years honing their craft while Thierry just flung a load of cash at a Warhol-like studio. But does that make Mr Brainwash’s “art” any less legitimate than Fairey’s or Banksy’s?
The latter in particular has been provoking the “But is it art?” question for years. Banksy says at one point: “Warhol took cultural icons and repeated them until they became meaningless, but in an iconic way. Thierry made them really meaningless.”
True, there is a complete witlessness to Mr Brainwash’s images compared to Banksy, but both wouldn’t exist without Warhol. For anyone to “get” pop art, they need to have some awareness of the culture around them, and their appreciation of the painting or image is informed by what they already know about the world.
Take for example Banksy’s image of a policeman searching Dorothy from “The Wizard of Oz”, reaching for her picnic hamper. The look on Judy Garland’s face is suitably worried about what he might find.
The initial juxtaposition of riot helmeted copper with an innocent young girl from an old family movie is humorous enough; but then we also know of Judy Garland’s unfortunate trouble with drugs throughout her life, which hints at what the policeman might be looking for.
Banksy, if his work isn’t art, then at least it’s great pop art, and falls into the same category as Chuck Jones and Terry Gilliam.
Like some of Jones’ more experimental and post-modern Looney Tunes, Banksy is aware his audience is aware of the “frame” or “canvas” he’s using, which allows him to turn the meaningless (derelict buildings, shabby, peeling walls) into something meaningful.
And, like Gilliam’s surreal, free association animations in Monty Python’s Flying Circus. there is a kind of nostalgic, retro conformity to the images Banksy uses for his stencils.
Exit Through the Gift Shop features some fine footage of street artists at work, often by dangerously climbing out of windows and over rooftops, and avoiding the police as they go.
It also turns into a very interesting character study of Thierry Guetta. Here’s a man who films his whole life, but never watches it back. He has a normal looking wife and kids, so he can’t be that crazy, but it’s clear his obsessions run deep.
By the time he gambles everything he has on staging an elaborate LA exhibition, he has learned all the techniques of street art, and can produce copious amounts of images without actually having any talent or feel for the medium.
In some ways, he reminds me of Raymond Babbitt, Dustin Hoffman’s autistic character in Rain Man – who can recite Abbott & Costello’s Who’s on First? routine perfectly, but without realizing it’s actually supposed to be funny.
And the final irony of Exit Through the Gift Shop is people show up and pay tens of thousands of dollars for Mr Brainwash’s crass, stream-of-consciousness artwork. It seems these days all you have to do is tell people they’re looking at art for them to believe it.
Twilight (2008): Why Did The Vampire Cross the Road?
You think vampires are evil? I had a girl like Twilight‘s Bella work with me once. Her attitude stank so bad I gave her a special job to do. I had a huge pile of old papers that needed shredding, and told her that the information was so sensitive, she needed to go through every page and black out every line with a marker first. It took her four days.
I’ve been building up to actually watching Twilight for so long now, just so I could form my own opinion, and I end up starting with that non-movie related anecdote. I guess I was just groping around to find a way to describe how much Kristen Stewart’s character irritated me.
The first act of Twilight plays like a less fun version of The Lost Boys, as morose teen Bella Swan moves from her hometown Phoenix to stay with her divorced dad in Forks, WA. a town so quiet, small and ordinary it looks like David Lynch’s worst nightmare.
The ungrateful sourpuss is quickly befriended by her new classmates, but her attention is grabbed by the mysterious Cullen clan, who swan around the school in a stately manner and keep themselves to their ultra-cool selves.
Bella is quick to spot hollow-cheeked hunk Edward (Robert Pattinson), although his reaction to her on first meeting in Biology class is unfortunate. When he catches a waft of her scent, he looks like he’s about to lose his lunch.
Through a series of quavering, awkward conversations, the glum pair get the hots for each other. When Edward miraculously saves Bella from being flattened by an out of control van in the parking lot, she realizes he might not be quite what he seems…
Bella and Edward fall heavy for each other, but there is a problem – namely, Edward’s a vampire. Bella’s not too fussed, though, even when he explains her scent is like curry to a pisshead for a vampire.
Questions inevitably arise; Edward wants to give her a good old sucking, and Bella clears wants to be sucked. What about sex? Edward doesn’t eat regular food, or sleep, so does he get a boner? Or does that only happen when two people are both vampires?
Or once they’re both blood-suckers, do they just waft around aesthetically together, gazing longingly at each other for eternity in a daze of deliciously fatalistic ennui? Or do they just take turns ravishing each other, sucking one another dry? I hope the rest of the Twilight Saga will answer these questions…
Other characters include Jacob (Taylor Lautner), a native American wolfboy (it’s only alluded to in this episode, but it’s hard to avoid the trailers). The Native Americans wear durable materials, check shirts and jeans, and drive pickup trucks; the genteel Vampires nonchalantly flaunt the affluence of presumably Old World ancestors. They also have lots of fast cars in the garage, although vampires need cars as much as Jaws needed a speedboat.
I enjoyed Twilight. I deliberately disengaged the movie snob and let myself go with it. I was disappointed to see what they’ve done with classic motifs of vampire lore – the vampires don’t live in the cloudiest, wettest part of the US by mistake. But it’s not to prevent them bursting into flame, it’s to stop them twinkling like a Snoop Dogg tie pin. What trauma!
They are also clearly visible in mirrors, which explains how they manage to keep perfectly groomed.
I resisted making any judgement about Twilight until seeing it, although based on the trailers, I did suggest it looked like a bit of a cheapo rush job. The trailers mainly feature two sullen teens moping around in the woods, or else running away from bad CGI in the woods. Of course, the woods, along with abandoned warehouses, are often a surefire location clue to a cheap production.
However, I thought the locations in Twilight were very atmospheric; plenty of moping in the woods, granted, but also stunning coastal scenery, lakes and glowering storm clouds.
Despite my initial desire to give Bella a sadistically large pile of mind-numbing paperwork to do, Stewart is relatively effective in the role, somehow suggesting a free spirit wanting to escape her awkward, morose exterior.
The real one to watch is Pattinson, of course. I’d never seen the guy in anything other than a Twilight trailer, so I was eager to see what the fuss was about. My initial reaction was he looked like an ultra-lifelike creation by Jim Henson’s Shop, with the bloodless line of an unsmiling mouth, a jutting nose and stern eyebrows. But, when he smiles…yes, girls, OK I get it.
Some might say the Muppets are more expressive, but I get the feeling there’s a good actor in Pattinson waiting for better material. Twilight is ultra-safe, sanitized and focus-grouped to appeal to the widest possible audience without offending anyone, and the script is hardly giving him the chance to cut loose.
There’s a couple of good lines – I enjoyed him talking about sucking on animals being like regular carnivores eating tofu. Most of the dialogue is made up of ultra-sincere swooners aimed at lovelorn teenagers –
Edward: “That’s what you dream about? Being a monster?”
Bella: “I dream about being with you forever.”
or
Edward: “I don’t have the strength to stay away from you anymore.”
Bella: “Then don’t”
There is a disappointing lack of vampire action in Twilight, however, and I think anyone who by some miracle doesn’t know anything about it would be best approaching it as a straightforward teen romance rather than a vampire film.
If I was a teenage boy looking for a few scares and a good old vampire monster mash, I’d come away very bored indeed.
Despite all my criticisms, I got pretty engrossed. I found a stand off between the good vampires and bad vampires surprisingly tense, and I found the thing quite romantic. Bring on New Moon!
PS: Punchlines to the title joke gratefully requested…
The Departed (2006): Scorsese Returns to the Mean Streets, but Gimme Shelter from Jack!
The Departed opens as all Martin Scorsese movies will open, when you die and watch them on that big silver screen in the sky.
The Rolling Stones are on the soundtrack, Scorsese is back on the mean streets with his steadicam, waltzing around his characters in soda shops and chop shops, while the infernal Irish mob boss Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson) dispenses his hard-won philosophy to the audience.
There’s been a notable backlash against Goodfellas recently. However, for sheer headrush of eclectic soundtrack, awesome performances, audacious editing and persuasive directing, it takes a lot of beating as cinema as sensation, as an experience.
And The Departed starts with something similar – a young lad seduced by the larger-than-life characters of his neighborhood’s underworld, and the drama that will unfold from his relationship with these criminals.Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) meets Costello at an early age – clearly daunted by this dangerous man as he collects his protection money from a soda shop owner. He still pays a visit on the big man’s suggestions, and is taken into the family. Next thing, we see Sullivan as a fully grown Matt Damon, a police officer working towards promotion in the Special Investigations Unit.
At this point, we only suspect Sullivan is on Costello’s pay roll, and is actually working for the crime boss as a mole. Meanwhile, Billy Costigan’s (Leonardo DiCaprio) superiors in the Police force have another role in mind, being a young man from a poor background, whose family has a history of crime. Because of his family’s criminal ties, Captain Queenan (Martin Sheen) considers him a perfect undercover police officer – a few months in jail to make it look good, and nobody’s going to ask any questions.
The rest of the film follows the two men – unknown to each other – as they gradually infiltrate their respective organizations. Both are intimately familiar with Costello, one trying to protect him, the other trying to gather enough evidence to send him down.Fans of the original Hong Kong film Infernal Affairs won’t need telling, as the storyline is fairly faithful to the original.
Some eyebrows were raised about Scorsese’s decision to remake such an esteemed Asian classic, but those people seemed to forget the director has done remakes previously. His Cape Fear fleshed out the respected original potboiler, adding many extra layers of sexuality, infidelity and ambiguity to the sweaty plotline.
In The Departed, Scorsese remains faithful to the original while also building in his own nuances – influence of religion being one of them – and fleshing out his characters in a tough Boston environment.
His grip on the material is as tight as it’s ever been; there’s a lot of information being presented in this movie, and Scorsese is able to keep it simple, often with just a few choice cuts to show us all we need to know.
Double cross stories can be confusing at the best of times, and it’s testament to Scorsese’s mastery of the medium that you’re never puzzled about who’s doing what, when or where, and what their motivation is.
Scorsese is also assisted by a fantastic cast – Nicholson, Damon, DiCaprio, Martin Sheen, Mark Wahlberg, Alec Baldwin, Ray Winston – all making the most (in one case, too much) of their allotted time on screen.
Like Manchester United’s Sir Alex Ferguson, Scorsese knows how to change with the times, and build his team with the best of what’s available. He also knows how to build a team around his star player. For years, Scorsese’s “Captain” was De Niro, who was central to everything he did – Mean Streets, Raging Bull, King of Comedy, etc. There were many other great actors in those movies, but it was De Niro at the center holding it all together.
When that collaboration tailed off in the Nineties, presumably because De Niro became a parody of himself, Scorsese found himself a new Captain – Leonardo DiCaprio.
DiCaprio, building on his early promise of What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? and Romeo and Juliet, survived the early heartthrob image and matured into one of today’s best actors. DiCaprio, I think, is one of the most naturally gifted actors – at first, you think, “Oh look! It’s Leonardo”, but then his onscreen presence is so effortless that you forget his acting; once that happens, he just draws you into the character.
Scorsese has collaborated with DiCaprio on a number of occasions now, and his Billy Costigan in The Departedis another fine performance, and he anchors the film. With his lanky frame and dark rimmed eyes, you can feel the pressure Costigan is under as he tries to do his job and stay alive at the same time.
Matt Damon as Sullivan is also very good – but then Matt Damon usually is. Damon, once again, uses his boyish good looks to his advantage, and, like he did in The Talented Mr Ripley, uses them as a disguise for a dark amoral soul. There’s something queasy watching Damon in these roles where he uses his brilliant smile and easy-going charm to manipulate the people him.
Martin Sheen, Alec Baldwin and Ray Winston make the most of relatively small roles, but standout in supporting cast is Mark Wahlberg’s Staff Sergeant Dingham, an uptight and offensive senior policeman with a rather unfortunate way of dealing with people.
I’ve always had trouble accepting Wahlberg as an actor, with his plain, unremarkable face and strangely effeminate, lispy voice.Here he plays nicely against type as the aggressive, foul mouthed Dingham, who grabs up most of the film’s laughs and also turns out to the the story’s retributive force.
Then about halfway through the movie, he suddenly turns into The Joker. Here’s Jack playing with a severed hand, and here he is pulling silly faces and funny accents, and look! Jack’s waving a rubber cock around! The performance goes from a controlled portrayal of a dangerous, larger-than-life character, to a larger-than-life, dangerously uncontrolled performance.
Dangerous, because in such a gripping, assured effort from Scorsese, surrounded by excellent performances, the big exploding charisma in the center of it that is “Jack!” unbalances the whole thing, and makes it distractingly comic when the tension should be really biting.
So – imagine. Scorsese’s got his new team Captain DiCaprio playing his socks off in the middle of the director’s long awaited return to the mean streets. Imagine if it was his old team captain De Niro in the Costello role? That could have been something….
Black Narcissus (1947): Nuns in Heat – in Glorious Technicolour!
You know what I’d like for Christmas? Not in a real sense – I’m happy with cash this year, and if you want to contribute, drop me a line & I’ll give you my PO Box details. I mean in a “things from movies that haven’t been invented yet” kind of sense.
I’d like one of those 3D virtual reality sunbed things from Minority Report, and use it to watch old Powell & Pressburger extravanganzas.
I”d stick on Black Narcissus and stand around in an ancient pleasure palace, looking dashing while two hot nuns lust after me, trying to keep my trousers on. Then I’d come out with a ravishing technicolor tan.
If you haven’t seen Black Narcissus before, I suppose that introduction might make it sound more appealing than the standard blurb – a band of Anglican nuns are dispatched to an outpost deep in the Himalayas to set up a school and hospital for the natives.
The woman in charge is Sister Clodagh (Deborah Kerr), a stern and ambitious Sister Superior. She wants the post, although her Mother Superior has doubts about her ability. The location for this new convent is an old palace, which many years before used to house a harem. More recently, some monks also attempted to convert it to a monastery, perched far above the village and forest on a sheer cliff face.
The sisters’ contact in the area is a British agent, Mr Dean (David Farrar), a dishy and irreverent presence. He singles out Sister Clodagh with his suggestive, innuendo-laden comments, and his arrogance and lack of respect soon gets her hot under the habit.
The old palace, with it’s erotic paintings and peculiar atmosphere, soon has a queer effect on the nuns. This is most evident in Clodagh, and the poorly Sister Ruth (Kathleen Byron), who develops a fierce attraction to the brash Mr Dean.
It soon turns out that Clodagh isn’t as cold and pious as she first seems, and perhaps it’s the mountain air, but her mind starts to wander during prayer. She also secretly starts to feel a bit giddy about the British agent.
Meanwhile, the natives aren’t too keen on visiting the nuns for either their education or their welfare – it is revealed the local General is paying the villagers to visit.
Dean also lumbers them with a local piece of jailbait, Kanchi (Jean Simmons) hoping the nun’s influence will be beneficial to her, and to stop her mooning around his house making eyes at him.
All this comes to a crescendo when Sister Ruth, who turns out to be mentally frail as well as physically, throws herself at Mr Dean. She is disgraced, and begins a descent into murderous insanity…
Black Narcissus is one of a hat trick of technicolor masterpieces by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, along with A Matter of Life and Death and The Red Shoes. All three are elevated by Jack Cardiff’s sumptuous cinematography, and curiously for films almost universally regarded as masterpieces, all three are far from perfect.
A Matter of Life and Death (1946), a fantastical and warm-hearted romance about a young WWII pilot who bails out of his craft without a parachute and survives, only to be summoned to heaven on the basis of a celestial clerical error, is virtually flawless until the final courtroom scene. Then it bizarrely degenerates into a Brits vs Yanks sermon.
The Red Shoes , the tale of a talented ballerina who is destined to suffer the same fate as the character she portrays, is rather stiff and old fashioned until it’s stunning ballet sequence. Then everything is forgotten and it becomes the best thing you’ve ever seen.
Black Narcissus suffers from some rather muddled characterization, and it’s not always clear who’s who or what their motives are. Clodagh and Ruth are difficult to tell apart on first viewing, because both actresses are facially quite similar when smothered by a habit.
However, Black Narcissus hangs together better as a narrative, because it’s not as top- or bottom-heavy as the other two. It’s also an easier watch for modern audiences; although it is variously described as an adventure, romance, or a melodrama, the thing it resembles most in structure is a horror movie.
There’s the old haunted house on the hill, although it’s never explicitly made clear whether Mopu is actually haunted, or whether it’s one of those places people bring their own ghosts.
There is the story of the monks, whose previous attempt to inhabit the palace ended in failure. This is a classic touch of foreshadowing most familiar to fans of horror films.
Think of the story of Grady, the axe murdering former caretaker of the Overlook in The Shining; the derelict spaceship full of eggs in Alien; or the Norwegian base in The Thing. Bad things have happened in this place, so chances are, bad things are going to happen again…
Sister Ruth’s final, desperate, unhinged pursuit of Dean and Sister Clodagh resemble something out of a 80’s or 90’s psycho-thriller, and the final reel is full of suspense as murderous Ruth stalks her unwitting love rival.
Also adding to the tension is the tangible erotic charge, which is largely thanks to Jack Cardiff’s sublime cinematography, particularly the use of color and shade.
When we first see Clodagh, it is in close up. A pale white face in a ghostly white habit, harsh eyes and tight white lips. Our first blast of color is on our first visit to the palace – a room filled with empty gilded cages, and a first glimpse of the General, resplendent in silks, preening himself by a mirror in a bright blue room.
Later, as passions grow wilder, red come into play – most startlingly on previously white lips – and as the film builds to its conclusion, the nuns’ habits seem stained with the color.
A subplot involving Kanchi falling romantically for a young prince doesn’t really add much, apart from more eroticism. On Kanchi’s first time alone in the palace, she is seen dancing sensually by herself; she spends most of her time crawling around on hands and knees trying to get the prince’s attention. And in one unfortunate moment, she appears to be moving in to give him a blowjob.
This can’t have been by accident, given how meticulous and gifted these filmmakers were. They had oral sex back in 1947, so they must have realized it looked like she was going to nosh him off in that scene.
Aside from a few duff moments, Black Narcissus is thoroughly absorbing and at times transcendent, mainly due to the miraculous work of Cardiff and the production team. Some images from Black Narcissus are indelibly imprinted on my mind – most notably Sister Clodagh’s walk across the windswept courtyard to ring out the noon bell on the cliff’s edge for the first time.
It’s an old cliche, but they truly don’t make films like this any more. The atmosphere of lush exoticism is thick in every frame, and the ingenious model work and matte paintings create a hyper-real setting for the drama.
And because they don’t make them like this anymore, you deserve to watch it on the biggest screen possible. Perhaps invite some close friends round and have a naked Black Narcissus party.
Or instead, until they finally invent Minority Report-style 3D virtual reality sunbeds, perhaps you could petition your nearest IMAX cinema to give you a private screening of this classic? That would be the perfect way to see it…
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