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35mm at Film Forum
A lot more scattershot than I expected. Multiple movies smushed together, albeit fantastic ones. Morality play then rote procedural then descent into hell. Restrained then heightened aestheticism. Social commentary that is at once both loudly communicated and irreconcilable. Somehow ceaselessly compelling.
Train Expert and Guy Who Burns Things are the stars of the show—sorry Mifune.
Saw this at the beginning of high school, and I could barely remember one bit of it. Holds up.
There’s the obvious comparison to Apocalypse Now, but stylistically this feels more like a precursor to something like On the Silver Globe—less calculated, more rugged. And the wide-angle close-up lensing. Camera as a character, along for the ride. Its general approach is realist (speaking in a visual sense, not regarding historical accuracy), but certain elements elevate the experience beyond a simple simulacrum of failed 16th century conquest. For instance, we linger on faces far longer than is practically needed (thinking right now of one particular shot of the Native musician; even after he finished his song and put down his instrument, we stayed on him for a good 30 seconds). It creates this aura of uncertainty that always has me questioning, “Why do we do these things? To the land, people, ourselves?” Greed and hubris, of course, and it’s probably as simple as that for Aguirre. But I can’t help but think there is some other key to unlocking human behavior buried in here. Maybe in that shot of the abandoned horse… slowly exiting frame as the boat drifts away… I guess that’s the film’s charm.
Admittedly the Popol Vuh soundtrack does a lot of heavy lifting.
DCP at Lincoln Center (Mike Leigh retrospective)
“This little car is going to change my life.”
Spoiler: it did not.
Walked out of the theater behind two women who were seemingly very offended by the film. I heard one say that it was a “disappointingly one-dimensional depiction of being an older single woman”—which was pretty funny since she herself was probably only in her early 30s. Then on the other side of the spectrum, one young man in the middle row was flipping through his phone the entire film, evidently unengaged with what was going on on the much larger screen in front of him. I always find it interesting that a single movie can evoke such varying negative reactions, from vitriol to complete disengagement.
Well jokes on them—I’m that single middle-aged woman, and I think Another Year is pretty accurate!
Of all his films, this one reflects Leigh’s admiration for Ozu the most (Tokyo Story is one of the few movies he picked for both the 2012 and 2022 Sight and Sound polls). Much like with Ozu’s films, pleasantries account for 95% of the dialogue, but that makes the sorrowful glances, the discordant body language, the briefly dropped smiles all the more piercing. Most of Leigh’s work—Secrets and Lies, Vera Drake, All or Nothing, etc—have major revelations and heated confrontations littered throughout while Another Year places its emotional heights in the quiet moments: racking focus on a look over the shoulder, holding on an embrace, panning slowly to a silent woman at the chattering dinner table. Secretly, maybe, his most powerful work.
Lesley Manville is basically alcoholic Noriko if that makes any sense.
This is a hybrid review of The Brothers McMullen and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Contains minor spoilers for the former.
Cinema has long been a conduit through which varying ethnic groups can express their troubles and triumphs. Particularly in the United States where immigration has shaped the entire trajectory of the country, many of its films directly reflect these ideas. Italian Americans have molded much of the entertainment industry in their image—it is certainly Martin Scorsese or Francis Ford Coppola who most people think of first when considering directors whose immigrant ancestry deeply influence their filmmaking—but the Irish diaspora has also had its share of representation in American movies.
One such film is 1995’s The Brothers McMullen. Directed by Edward Burns, it follows three Irish American brothers as they struggle with their love lives and with whether or not the values taught to them during their childhoods belong in the modern world. Jack Mulcahy is the eldest brother, Jack, married to Molly but tempted by an extramarital affair. Burns plays the central brother, Barry, an aspiring screenwriter who resists any sort of long-term relationship with a woman. The third and youngest brother is Patrick, played by Michael McGlone, who has issues in his relationship with his girlfriend and is seemingly the most religious of the bunch.
Remarkably, Brothers McMullen cost only $28k to produce. It was a passion project of Burns’—he reportedly shot it only on weekends over an eight-month period, all on affordable 16mm film stock. The film’s lucky break came when he encountered Robert Redford and gave him a copy of the film. It then premiered at Sundance Film Festival where it went on to win the Grand Jury Prize which then led to a distribution deal with 20th Century Fox, ultimately allowing the film to gross $10 million at the box office.
There were a number of similar films from the time period which saw much less success. Hal Hartley’s The Unbelievable Truth also cost in the $25k-100k range and was similarly shot on Long Island. While critically acclaimed, it didn’t pick up much distribution and finished its run with a box office return of less than $1 million. Greg Mottola’s The Daytrippers, although being set in Manhattan, has even more in common with Brothers, having come out within a year and concerning itself with similar themes of infidelity. It only grossed one-fifth Brothers’ box office.
What set Brothers apart from the rest of the pack? Mainly, it contains many signifiers of Irish New Yorker identity, themes that play out in a great number of Irish American lives, and it loudly declares them. Burns takes a very utilitarian approach to screenwriting—he is a self-admitted admirer of traditionalist screenwriting coach Robert McKee, and it shows with many of the film’s themes plainly stated in the movie’s dialogue.
The film begins with a scene taking place a few years before the rest of the film. We see Barry with his mother in a cemetery, standing in front of his father’s grave. His mother abruptly tells him that she is returning back to Ireland and to her long-lost love, a man named Finbar, claiming she wasted her life away with Mr. McMullen. That is all we see of his mother before the film takes us swiftly into the future. This simple scene begins developing the film’s theme of generational trauma. Tied directly to this idea is Catholic guilt.
Monica McGoldrick, a family therapist and professor of clinical psychiatry, writes in Ethnicity and Family Therapy, “For the Irish in the United States, just as in Ireland, the Catholic Church was their primary cultural force and national unifier, with the Church being valued even more than the family.” Although the McMullen brothers might seem very contemporary in their thinking, shame permeates their every action. Toward the middle of the film, a few scenes after he started his affair, Jack corners Patrick in the bathroom. He says, “Look, let me ask you something. You’re Mr. Ten Commandments, right? How bad a sin is adultery?” The entire film is filled with the various characters agonizing over their actions but never actually using that shame as inspiration to do anything otherwise.
This is one of the ironies or paradoxes of Irish Catholic guilt. McGoldrick notes that “pregnancy prior to marriage has not been uncommon” among Irish Americans “because a moment of ‘sin and weakness’ was less unacceptable than planning to have sex and taking precautions against pregnancy.” She credits a specific religious movement with the Irish Church for this phenomenon called “Jansenism” which essentially emphasizes “the evil and untrustworthy instincts of human beings.” Because of this idea being prevalent, “the Irish tended to absorb the belief that human beings were by nature evil and deserved to suffer for their sins.” Any hardship was contributed to personal wrongdoing, and given the fact that the Irish have historically been a group to experience long periods of hardship due to factors completely outside of their control, this shame and self-doubt became ingrained.
“I don’t want to become like my father: a miserable fucking prick who isn’t there for you, isn’t there for the kids. The thing is, I don’t even know if I could be a good father,” says Jack toward the end of the film to his wife. Brothers McMullen depicts an unfortunate cycle where religious fundamentalism combined with historic oppression leads to destabilization of the family unit, particularly the father figure, which then continues generation to generation. Partially as a consequence of this, “A very high percentage of Irish men never married at all, and those who did were sometimes thought of as ‘married bachelors,’ more loyal to their mothers than to their wives. The Irish for a long time had the latest age and lowest rate of marriage of any nation in the world.” Even more so than his brothers, Barry embodies this reluctance to enter any sort of long-term extra-familial relationship.
Brothers is not without fault. Particularly in one area, the film suffers in its accuracy toward depicting the Irish American experience. Looking at a similar film from a different time period—in fact, exactly half a century earlier—highlights the issue: 1945’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.
Directed by Elia Kazan, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is based on a novel that tells of a poor Irish American family in the first two decades of the twentieth century. The central character is a 13-year-old girl named Francie Nolan. She has a hard-working mother, Katie, who cleans the tenement building they live in for little pay, and her father is Johnny, a kind, charming man who works as a singing waiter.
Alcoholism plays a major part in A Tree Grows, much more than in Brothers. Johnny is very rarely employed, and although everyone in the movie seems to like him personally and enjoy his company, he can’t seem to keep a steady job. He is too much of a “pipe dreamer.” Consequently, he turns to alcohol.
The Irish tend to have a different relationship with alcohol than other cultures. A common point of comparison is with Italian’s drinking habits: McGoldrick writes that “Italians tend to drink primarily while eating, whereas the Irish do the opposite. They often avoid drinking when eating because food diminishes the effect of alcohol.” For the Irish, often times alcohol is means of escape from the oppression and socio-economic conditions they are enduring.
Irish alcoholism also ties back to their religious upbringing, “The male alcoholic cycle in an Irish family may correspond to the religious cycle of sin, shame, guilt, and repentance, allowing brief periods of emotional contact without threatening the rigid distances usually maintained within the family.” Here McGoldrick begins to touch upon the primary differentiator between The Brothers McMullen and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. The characters in Brothers are very open with each other—they’re constantly talking over their sexual exploits, their feelings toward their significant others, and the guilt they feel regarding these things. The physicality of the performances in the film reflect this openness. In the aforementioned bathroom scene, the two brothers are half naked in very close proximity to each other discussing their feelings. Additionally, the film itself is extremely honest about its goals and intent. The dialogue contains overt allusions to the themes discussed in this paper: the word “sin” for instance is said many times.
A Tree Grows is much more reserved and so are the characters (when they aren’t drunk). Often times the characters don’t face each other when they are talking or emoting. The camera is always carefully placed in order for the viewer to see this misalignment. In one scene, Katie talks to her sister about the struggles she’s facing financially. We don’t know it yet as an audience, but she is pregnant with her third child and hasn't told anyone yet. As they talk, Katie lies down on her bed. She stares at the ceiling as she talks, avoiding her sister’s eye line. They cut to a medium shot of her, for the first time in the scene excluding her sister from the frame. Visually, the film is communicating the act of its characters, and Irish Americans in general, partitioning off their internal sorrows from familial judgment. McGoldrick writes, “The few studies we have of ethnic differences in response to physical pain suggest that the Irish show minimization, confusion, and inaccuracy in describing their pain, have high pain tolerance, and are likely to suffer in silence. … Unlike Jews, for whom the very experience of shared suffering is meaningful, the Irish believe in suffering alone.”
The Irish have a long-standing tradition of developing their “verbal skills.” Poetry in particular has “always been highly valued by the Irish and closely associated with their love of dream and fantasy.” Similar to alcohol consumption, writing can lend an Irishman the ability to lift themselves out of their material conditions, both literally in the financial sense and psychologically. “Their tradition of verbal obfuscation is a typical adaptive strategy for oppressed peoples, but the Irish raised this ability to a high art. They have come to place great value on complex, even convoluted, mystification and double entendre in their language.” McGoldrick compares this phenomenon in the Irish American vernacular to the “similarly rich and colorful language” developed by African Americans, although conceiting that their “‘double language’ does not entail such ambiguity, perhaps because, unlike the Irish, they could distinguish each other from their oppressors.”
She is, of course, primarily referring to the fact that the English oppressors of Ireland were generally of the same complexion, but interestingly her words apply in other ways within A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. They’re a sequence midway through the film where Francie and her father take a walk to another area of Brooklyn. New York is so densely populated, even back in 1912, that wealthy and poor families live very close to each other which consequently caused strife among classes. The film hints at that dynamic when Francie points out the nicer school in wealthier area and says she wants to go there. They devise a plan to attend this school via tricking the principal into thinking she is living with an aunt nearby. As soon as her first day in this new school, it is abundantly obvious that these children are receiving a lot more attention and care than the children at her previous school. Even in the absence of ethnic divides (which this film does not delve into), wealth inequality rears its head as an oppressor.
Speaking as a therapist, McGoldrick gives a sense of what it could be like to communicate with Irish Americans as a social worker, “The therapist may have difficulty discerning an Irish family’s needs because members seem at the same time extremely articulate, yet unable to express their inner emotions. This inexpressiveness of the Irish in therapy may not be so much a sin of active resistance, as blocking off of their emotions even from themselves.” She goes on to say that “the Irish may also fear being ‘pinned down’ and may use mystifying language to avoid it. Their affinity for verbal innuendo, ambiguity and metaphor is what the English call ‘talking Irish,’ referring to their way of communicating and not communicating at the same time.” Now, this piece of commentary from McGoldrick may boarder on eroticization of the Irish, but it nevertheless is helpful in understanding the psychology of child in such an emotionally distant environment.
One of the most potent scenes in A Tree Grows is the last time we see Francie at her old school. Her teacher, framed with a long lens from Francie’s POV all the way on the other side of the massive classroom, slams her pointer stick on the chalkboard repeatedly, reading the end of John Keats poem “Ode on a Grecian Urn” with an overbearing staccato rhythm:
“‘Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty,’ – that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.’”
Then the uninterested class of students repeats after her. Expecting purely rote memorization, the teacher isn’t anticipating anyone actually appreciate the words for the work of art that they are, but Francie, clearly connecting the poetry to the struggles her beloved father is facing—his alcoholism, his self worth issues, his tragic romanticism—stands up and asks,
“But if beauty is truth and that's all you need to know, then that means it's the most important thing. And if a man, I mean, if somebody spent all his time trying to be like that, well, it's hard to put, but no matter what else he did, then it would be all right, wouldn't it?”
This bit of dialogue perfectly encapsulates McGoldrick’s description of the Irish tendency toward poetically, and covertly, subverting one’s oppressive conditions.
Family researcher Theodore Lidz, when describing the patterns that take place in the Irish American family, also gives a complete explanation of the dynamics at play between Francie, her mother, and her father, “The Irish American child may grow up influenced by the mother’s tendency to treat her husband like a grown-up child, pretending to believe the fabricated tales he tells her and admiring his ability to tell them; and while she seems to defer to her husband’s authority, she holds the family reins tightly in her own hands.” Francie’s father tells stories about how his singing career is about to take off and how they’re going to spend their newfound wealth. Everybody at the wedding reception sang along with him, he says, and it’s only a matter of time before he’s discovered. On paper, this character may sound like he’s just a big talker, but James Dunn somehow plays him in such a way that draws sympathy. These fanciful stories are not a ruse, and her father has no ulterior motives. Instead, these stories are a part of what keeps this family from drowning. He certainly does not pull his weight financially, but he plays a psychological role in his family that is essential for the development of his children. Dreaming of a better life is a valuable commodity when commodities you do not have.
The Brothers McMullen achieves all it sets out to do but does so in the bluntest way possible. No theme is left unsaid. Heavy-handedness is not an inherent evil, but using that style to depict an Irish American family is counterintuitive. It has all the surface level attributes of a realist, character-driven drama, and yet it fails to understand how these characters (given their abusive father and lower-middle class Irish American background) would be far more closed-off emotionally. The shirtless bathroom confrontation scene is simply an impossibility. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, on the other hand, accepts that subtlety, that poetry is needed to fully capture the experience of an Irish American family in the twentieth century.
35mm at IFC Center
An experiment in context, how the order in which we see and hear events shapes the connotations they take. Innocuous flirtations turn to acts of aggression. Hope turns to dread. All these preternatural mutations, and yet the only actual work of fiction in this film is time itself. Is this how God sees the world? What a burden that would be.
We’ve all made this movie in our heads at some point, but this is so much better than any version you could have dreamt up. Although I love a good Cage-ism, only about a quarter of the comedy was purely referential, and I think that was the key to making this work. Cage and Pascal are an absolutely perfect comedy duo. Could easily see them making another one of these. I haven’t liked a new straight narrative comedy (especially in theaters) like this in a long long time.
Caveat: it unfortunately suffers from some trashy Paul Feig movie qualities (it’s edited by one of his collaborators) which I’m not totally on board with. For instance, during a short drug sequence (the first one that is by accident; trying not to spoil), Cage sort of channels DiCaprio in the Wolf of Wall Street quaalude scene. Part of what makes that scene so brilliant in Wolf (honestly one of Scorsese’s top ten scenes) is the conservative and lucid, but striking, editing. Scorsese and Schoonmaker held back a lot and just let the scene play out. Particularly when it came to sound—the fact that Scorsese didn’t hit the Rolling Stones button during that scene is nothing short of a miracle! Massive Talent goes the opposite direction and comes very close to ruining the comedic value of the whole sequence with its generic score. Luckily the second drug trip is way better edited, and on the whole, the edit allows most jokes the space they need to land. A few edits even made me laugh based solely on the strength of the edits alone (i.e. they weren’t beats that could have been written explicitly into the script). On a scale from Paul Feig to Schoonmaker, I’d say Massive Talent is somewhere in between. I know y’all follow me for my hot takes, so there you go.
Off to buy Captain Corelli’s Mandolin on blu-ray.
Oh boy. This review/rating might come as a shock to people who have known me/followed me over the years, but watching it on the big screen again made me realize what I had been denying all along. Mulholland Drive has lost its luster.
First, a little history: I was introduced to David Lynch at a very formative time in high school. I’ve been a very committed fan for years—Eraserhead, Fire Walk with Me, Inland Empire, Dune, Twin Peaks: The Return, and Mulholland Drive have all at one point or another been on my top ten of all time. Now, I’m much more interested in the realist/humanist side of filmmaking (Mike Leigh), and so Lynch’s quirks are just not cute anymore.
Secondly, to clarify, this is around my tenth watch, so I would definitely call myself an authority on the film, warts and all.
I know a number of the issues I’m going to talk about are probably a part of Lynch’s intent, but as I’ve said in other reviews, subversion for the sake of subversion amounts to nothing. A glaring example occurs quite early in the film with Watts at the airport. The ADR is terrible. Of course, people have assigned this technical oddity with meaning, but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. If the intent was to remind the audience of the artifice of filmmaking, okay, you achieved it, David, but couldn’t you have gone further? Couldn’t you have shot it on vhs, for instance? Slightly out of focus? Anything else? The lack of commitment ruins the bit. As it stands, proper sound design would have suited it much better.
Furthermore, Lynch has an aggravating tendency to imply importance during certain moments that ultimately amount to nothing. Probably the most egregious example is the scene (at about the midpoint of the film) when Watts and Theroux are on the movie set. Theroux turns around, and they make a dramatic push in on him, and then Watts turns around, and they push in on her. They lock eyes, as if there was this connection made between them, but nothing comes of it!
Admittedly, Lynch is often a brilliant visual artist, but he could really use a writing partner. Mulholland Drive appears to be the type of story told through a series of vignettes, like Pulp Fiction, Magnolia, Love Actually, except in those films, each vignette amounts to something. Instead, there are so many loose threads left hanging. What ever happened to the purse full of cash? Theroux’s movie shoot? The cowboy? Winkie’s? The little black book (the “history of the world through phone numbers”)? That last one is probably the most aggravating because I quite enjoy that scene. Wish it continued. Very Coens-esque.
Naomi Watts is a great actress, no doubt. And I won’t deny she’s great in this, at least scene by scene. But the issue is the consistency in her performance. There’s none. For a good two-thirds of the film, she’s got this bubbly personality that I think contrasts nicely with the brooding atmosphere. Then there’s this shift, and suddenly she’s a completely different person. I wouldn’t blame Watts necessarily. She does what she can with what she’s given. The issue is that there’s no justification for this shift (i.e. a turning point in the script), so her performance ultimately falls flat.
Really, at this point I’m sick of acting like Lynch is this absolutely singular, first-to-ever-do-it director. Ever heard of Buñuel? Jodorowsky? Deren? Cocteau? Maddin? Kelly? Guterman? Plus he straight up copies Persona shot for shot in this film! And his paintings are too close to Francis Bacon’s work for comfort. Without originality, what else is there!
Unfortunately, it also must be said that I can no longer ignore Lynch’s behind-the-scenes behavior. I typically try to separate the art from the artist, but at a certain point, bad behavior starts to affect the films themselves. I read an article on the Daily Mail about how Lynch had a quarrel with Laura Harring about her nudity in the film, and even though she agreed to the scene, Lynch completely changed her narrative for the last third of the movie and butchered her character arch. It was an incredibly petty move on his part, and a disappointing one at that since I was interested in seeing her character grapple with her memory loss. I also saw some disturbing BTS footage of Lynch harassing child actors on set. Take a look if you haven’t seen it before: youtu.be/LEUlW9IDXOw
It’s been a long and winding road with Mulholland Drive, but I probably won’t be revisiting it for a while. I’ve been sitting on these thoughts for such a long time. Unfortunate timing posting this on April 1 as I’m sure not everyone will take me seriously, but ultimately it’s good to get it all off my chest. I’m free!
April fools! Still the best movie ever lol
16mm at Anthology Film Archives (introduction by Andrew Lampert who in the mid-‘00s preserved Manupelli and Lucier’s collaborations)
A series of Norm Macdonald jokes shot on gorgeous, insanely saturated reversal 16.
There is a non-zero chance that no one will ever see this film again—what a shame it is that this has never reached greater circulation. According to Lampert, who had extended contact with both the star and the director, Manupelli was quite the character. In fact, in 2008 when the Dr. Chicago movies were being shown for the first time in almost 40 years, he failed to show up to his own Q&A, and then for another screening, showed up completely high out of his mind, cackling throughout the show. He also evidently had a darker side since he was known to have burned or thrown out much of his art—Dr. Chicago Goes to Sweden is completely lost to history because he unspooled its reels out the window of his car as he drove home from its first showing.
Manupelli’s personality is imprinted on Cry Dr. Chicago: it’s manic. It has things to say, but it couldn’t care less if it really communicated anything in particular. It’s equal parts hilarious and off-putting. Much of its comedy is through the simple endurance of a gag. A lot of it doesn’t land at all.
But Manupelli was also a man of extraordinary prescience—it’s evident within and without the film. Within, we see Dr. Chicago’s voracious hankering for buying up prisons, a striking portrait of the avarice fueling the 1980s era of prison privatization. And yet, this film came out back in 1971, years before full privatization was a twinkle in America’s demented eye (and coincidentally 1971 is the same year Nixon gave his famous war on drugs/“public enemy number one” speech that triggered a wave of increased incarceration).
Then outside the film, Manupelli started the Ann Arbor Film Festival in 1963, the fourth-oldest film festival in North America, and the oldest experimental film festival. The festival continues on to this day and maintains its relevance within independent cinema.
So what’s interesting to me, then, is that this dude doesn’t have a Wikipedia page! What’s a man gotta do for a page!
I think I might be rambling at this point, but it suits the film, so it’s alright. Anyways, my point is that Manupelli seemed to be prone to both contemplative thought and hysterics. And consequently Cry Dr. Chicago embodies that annoying type of person, maybe a family friend you vaguely know, who’s always spieling long-winded rubbish that many years later you think back on and go, “Huh, some of that was kinda beautiful.”
Note: I, too, would bet the villa on Sheila.
Reviews primed me to hate this—I've seen it called "the Avengers for theatre kids" which on paper is something I'd want to stay as far away from as possible. But dang it Miranda this was pretty great. In some ways, it's appeal to me is similar to an Oh, Hello on Broadway, a series of New Yorky references that give me the same satisfaction y'all Cali people get out of something like Licorice Pizza, but it amounted to much more by the end. The primary issues I had with both of the other major musicals this year, In the Heights and West Side Story, were a lack of motivation and a lack of sensible character arcs for the main cast. tick, tick...BOOM! instead makes that its primary focus—both Shipp and De Jesús are pretty incredible with their limited time, and it's clearly demonstrated (but somehow not in an overbearing way) how Susan and Michael's goals complicate Jonathan’s. It’s a simplistic narrative, one told many times since the beginning of the medium… but as I’ve said before, originality be damned. This is an extremely competent film, and can’t ask for more than that, can I! Also I cried a lil bit.
Visually leaps and bounds beyond In the Heights. Very puzzling as they both have the same DP, both shoot G Series anamorphic, both DXL2s. I will need to investigate further as I certainly had zero issue with the digital anamorphic look in this one. Although the visual effects are questionable. Especially the "Come to Your Senses" number with Susan on the roof (I assume it is a digital matte painting; I think it would have been more appropriate if they had painted the wall in the back of the sound stage instead). The more creative effects were pretty neat, though (i.e. the sheet music in the pool).
Somehow, I still never want to see Rent.
I’ve mentioned Eyes Wide Shut like 100 times since I saw it a couple weeks ago, so I think it’s earned that five. The last scene with Ziegler has definitely grown on me—might be the most pivotal scene in the whole film. The “she’s a hooker” line does a lot of heavy lifting. Everyone below Pollack is defined by their job: sex worker, costumer, pianist, hotel desk clerk, doctor (yes, you don’t have to show us your badge Bill, we get it), etc, etc. But then what does Ziegler do for a living?
Bill is at the very, very edge of being in the in-group, but he’s still defined by his servitude. He throws money at the issue, knows the right people and “passwords,” dresses the part. In the end, though, he’s worlds away from those people in the mansion. They have nothing in their lives but seeking entertainment, and the only avenue of entertainment left that holds any intrigue for them is the simple act of exclusion. I’ve seen other reviewers bring up the fact that attractive men and women, plentiful sex, and orgies for that matter are definitely easily available to wealthy urbanites, so why the secrecy? Why the occult? Certainly there’s an element of these rich folks just being bored and wanting to play dress up, but really it’s the charade of exclusivity, the artificial scarcity of sex that is the actual titillation. And it ties back to Alice’s fantasy about the naval officer. Bill occupies her bed but not her mind. Is that enough?
Note: Purchased on iTunes then streamed through Movies Anywhere as to watch the uncensored version in 4:3 and HD. I believe that is the only way to watch that version at the moment. Having seen the 1.85:1 and 4:3 versions quite close together, I think this one is the one to watch. Hopefully they go with 4:3 or at least give us an option for the inevitable UHD release.
Note 2: Maybe Kubrick’s most bangin’ soundtrack? Hard to compete with Barry Lyndon though.
Note 3: I wonder what the reception and the discourse around this film would have been like if it ended with “Directed by David Lynch.” The ritual music, fidelio (silencio), dream pondering… And the scene when the woman whose father died confesses her love for Bill—it has a particular kind of humorous timbre that’s Lynch’s go-to.
Have the people with moral gripes about Licorice Pizza seen this movie yet?
Even though the socioeconomic conditions are completely reversed, watching this reminded me of the latest season of Succession. Constant, painful tension, rendered as comedy because no one is to blame for the predicament except the (completely self-serving) characters themselves. I couldn’t help but recall Hillary’s infamous “basket of deplorables” while watching—but it ain’t class, wealth, or anything like it that’s put Mikey in the basket. It’s because when you look behind his eyes, behind his Machiavellian Texan eyes, there’s nothing there. To quote cousin Greg, “What am I gonna do with a soul anyways?”
I’m gonna say it because it needs to be said: Timothy Spall should be the next James Bond.
Okay, now that I’ve gotten that exceptional proposition out into the world, let’s talk about this movie…
Spencer reminds me of Robert Altman’s Secret Honor. They both follow lone, larger-than-life, almost mythical figures (Diana and Nixon)—and they attempt to give them real corporeal weight by detailing their spirals into madness. For the most part, both films are stripped of any historical context. People who know this story already, I would presume, would find this film a bit lightweight. It doesn’t come close to rivaling The Crown’s portrayal.
Yes, Spencer succeeds in communicating the ever-abiding cold stare of the royal family, but it doesn’t nearly have the impact I think it intends. Charles and Elizabeth are complete non-characters here, and it’s obviously by design. This is the Diana hour. But that just doesn’t do her justice. The key to her story, in my opinion, involves not only her internal struggles but also the deterioration of the family’s conviviality and seeming hospitality toward her.
Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip are pretty great people for the first twenty episodes of The Crown—then seasons three and four gradually tear that charade apart. Likewise, Prince Charles for all of season three is quite sympathetic before, like the rest of them, falling victim to the machine. Diana enters the picture just before Charles begins his moral decay, and in season four, we witness her dismantling (by the family) piece by piece.
In Spencer, that’s already done with. Charles is a jackass from the get-go. So what are we to think of Diana? Why’d you marry this guy? Even if you came into the theater already knowing that information intellectually, there seems to be an emotional disconnect within the film itself. Or, more generously, a very tenuous link. It leaves the feeling that Spencer’s Diana is just acting out—compared to The Crown’s Diana who’s simply responding to the duplicitous shifting sands around her. In short, Spencer would need a central performance just short of a miracle to encapsulate all that needs to be said that isn’t in the script itself, and unfortunately, Stewart doesn’t quite reach that level.
Lots of points for Claire Mathon, though. And my man Jonny of course. Oh and Jacqueline Duran is a master—she’s most famous for costuming Little Women, Price & Prejudice, Anna Karenina, etc, but more importantly to me, she’s been Mike Leigh’s designer for the third act of his career. Her first feature was All or Nothing, and she continued on with Vera Drake, Happy-Go-Lucky, Another Year, Mr. Turner, and Peterloo.
Note (spoilers): This might not be my place to say, but it seems like there are very few platonic relationships between women in movies these days. For every film with a platonic couple, there are five films about women who are friends at first but are secretly in love with each other. Both types of relationships should be able to co-exist in media, but the frequency of each type seems a bit wonky to me. Maybe it is just because the romantic variety lends itself to conflict/narrative tension more easily, but there seems to be plenty of platonic male friendships in movies (both comedies and dramas), so maybe it’s a bit of a double standard? Anyways, it struck me as odd when Maggie confessed her love for Diana (especially since she wasn’t based on any specific real person). Didn’t really have any consequences to the narrative or performances either (except maybe that little lingering shot of Hawkins in the car). It seems counterintuitive to muck up their special protective bond—a lifeboat on a sea of royal piranhas—with sexual motivations.
Edit: I see a lot of people approaching this as kind of an over-the-top, campy and arty flick which is certainly something I can get behind. Jackie led me to expect something in the opposite direction, but I might appreciate this more on its own terms with some time and another watch. Though there are a lot of other films this year already competing for that section of my brain (Annette, The Lost Daughter, The Last Duel, Titane).