FilmMonthly » Matthew Fagerholm

Blue Valentine

Matthew Fagerholm — Mon, 09 May 2011 16:21:48 +0000

No film in 2010 moved me as deeply as Derek Cianfrance’s mesmerizing heartbreaker. Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams delivered performances so authentic that they transcended all boundaries of artifice. Many recent pictures have charted the beginning and end of a passionate yet short-lived relationship, yet Cianfrance is one of the only filmmakers who managed to capture a startling level of documentary realism. His approach is not entirely unlike that of micro-budget, highly improvisational auteurs such as Chicago’s own Joe Swanberg, whose bittersweet 2008 romance Nights and Weekends also stages scenes of intimacy and awkwardness that feel downright voyeuristic. And yet neither film is exploitative or pornographic. The NC-17-rating initially slapped on Valentine is solely reflective the MPAA’s allegiance to bigger studio products, such as the R-rated yet equally graphic psychosexual thriller Black Swan.
“Graphic” may in fact be the wrong word to use in the case of Valentine. The film contains no explicit sex or gratuitous nudity. It’s the emotional nakedness of the actors that makes the film so unflinchingly powerful. Like Swanberg, Cianfrance allowed his cast to work as close collaborators. In a 13-minute featurette on Anchor Bay’s excellent Blu-Ray edition of the film, Cianfrance refers to Gosling and Williams as uncredited co-writers (as well as executive producers), while admitting that the label of “independent filmmaker” does not apply to him. “I’m a dependent filmmaker,” Cianfrance said, yet it’s precisely the experimental, liberating relationship he develops with his actors that makes their combined work so extraordinary.
After laboring on a project for over a decade, some directors would be utterly uncompromising in pushing their meticulously prepared vision once they finally arrived onset. Yet Cianfrance was willing to toss out his script on a moment’s notice, allowing his actors to spark off one another in ways that simply couldn’t be planned for. The film juxtaposes the early pangs of love with the descent into disillusionment that occurs five years later, yet the director wisely chose to shoot the film in a linear fashion. Production on the first half was preceded by extensive one-on-one meetings between Cianfrance and his leads. Neither of the stars had the opportunity to interact with each other until the first day of shooting, which allowed the camera to capture the spontaneous energy and electric charge of organically evolving chemistry. Many of the film’s most indelible elements were dreamed up by the actors themselves, such as Gosling’s choice of a song for Williams: Penny and Quarter’s haunting rendition of “You and Me.” His performance of the song, “You Always Hurt the Ones You Love,” accompanied by Williams’ playful tap-dancing, makes for one of the most delicate and sublime cinematic moments in recent memory.
In preparation of the film’s later section, the actors spent a month living together in their characters’ house, accompanied by the actress (Faith Wladyka) who plays their daughter in the film. Over the course of this period, the actors began developing their fractured dynamic as a couple, though Gosling and Williams were both initially hesitant to break down the mutual trust and respect they had built for their characters. Cianfrance describes in the feature-length commentary how he would ask the actors to fight before taking their daughter on an outing, while pretending that all was fine between the two of them. He also had the actors record a series of home movies, one of which is included on the disc. Cinematographer Andrij Parekh (Half Nelson) shot the earlier footage on film, resulting in grains that mirror the dream-like haze of hormonal attraction. In contrast, the brutal clarity of the later scenes (shot on digital) deflate the characters’ mystery, illuminating the pores on their once flawless faces.
Valentine may sound like a downbeat dirge, but Cianfrance’s assured command of the craft makes it exhilarating. Jim Helton and Ron Patane’s editing effortlessly navigates through the time jumps without once losing the narrative momentum (or the viewer). Without clichéd psychoanalysis or pat motivations for the relationship’s derailment, the film instead focuses on subtle nuances that provide clues for how the end was always, in a sense, built into the beginning. The final fade-out intentionally lacks a sense of finality, since Cianfrance ultimately allows the audience to decide about what happens to the couple down the line. Perhaps the most resonant truth lying within the broken heart of Valentine is the inherently enduring nature of life’s meaningful connections, even those that have long since died. Every so often, certain memories of a lost love will burst forth with the same power and intensity, much like the sudden, futile flame of a firework.
Available on DVD and Blu-Ray as of May 10, 2011!

Interview: Derek Cianfrance Stages True Love in ‘Blue Valentine’

Matthew Fagerholm — Wed, 04 May 2011 15:22:45 +0000

For many moviegoers, Blue Valentine cut close to the bone when it debuted in art house theaters during last year’s Oscar season. The film’s raw and uncompromising depiction of a damaged relationship had the authenticity and visceral impact of an uncommonly intimate documentary. By intercutting between the origins and breakdown of his love story, filmmaker Derek Cianfrance was able to indelibly illustrate how the end of a romance is often built into the beginning. Neither Dean (Ryan Gosling) nor Cindy (Oscar nominee Michelle Williams) is portrayed as the “bad guy,” allowing audiences to draw their own conclusions as to why their flame fizzled out. Yet Valentine is anything but a depressing dirge. Cianfrance elicits extraordinary performances from his actors, who spent a month living together in order to develop their own dynamics as a couple. The resulting film felt so real that the MPAA initially slapped it with an NC-17 rating, despite the fact that it was no more explicit than R-rated fare like Black Swan. Perhaps even the ratings board could sense that Cianfrance and his crew had captured something intangible, something that hit all too close to home.
Film Monthly spoke with Cianfrance about his instincts as a documentarian, his close collaboration with Gosling and Williams, and his methods for setting the stage in order to capture moments of spontaneity.
Film Monthly (FM): How did your background in documentary filmmaking influence your approach to scripted narratives?

Derek Cianfrance (DC): Documentary filmmaking really transformed me as a filmmaker. For my whole life, I had been making short films. I made a feature when I was 20 years old called Brother Tied, which was a very stylistic flourishing of a narrative. After I made that, I went and wrote Blue Valentine. That was back in 1998. I wrote the first draft of it, but it just never got off the ground. I collected unemployment checks for a while. Eventually, I had children, which [motivated me] to make a modest living and get some food on the table. So I started directing documentary films. In making documentaries, I learned to listen.
I think there’s an archetypal image of the movie director—which was based on Cecil B. DeMille—of a guy sitting in a chair with a megaphone, pointing with his finger and projecting his voice to tell people what to do. In documentaries, I did not have that experience because I didn’t always have a choice about what was happening. Things wouldn’t happen the way I would necessarily expect them to happen. I wouldn’t get a “take two” for things. I would ask people a question and imagine getting a certain answer and they would give me a completely different answer. I realized that all the things that surprised me ended up becoming my favorite moments in the editing room. I started to train myself on how to capture these fleeting moments, so I tried to take all my documentary aesthetics and bring it into Blue Valentine. In the context of the Cecil B. DeMille metaphor, I felt that as a documentary filmmaker, the megaphone is turned on your ear and used as a funnel to listen to the world, not to tell the world what to do. So I just tried to use that training while I was making Blue Valentine. I think it’s a good time for it because audiences have become so sharp. They see these moments on YouTube, whether it’s the double rainbow guy or whatever, and you see these moments that can’t be faked. As an audience member and as a director, I have an allergy to fake moments in movies. I just tried to fill up Blue Valentine with a series of real, living, breathing moments.

FM: In a Blu-Ray featurette, you describe the intimate collaboration you developed with your actors, and how they ultimately became co-writers. Can you name an example of a scene or character trait that they contributed?

DC: Yes, the classic scene of him playing the ukulele and her tap dancing in front of that shop window. Of course, there was so much more than just that. There were all these things that they had come up with, such as the history they had created for each of their characters…I had written [Ryan’s] character as a musician, so about a year before I started to shoot the film, I called him up and was like, “What instrument do you think this guy plays?” Ryan said, “How about a ukulele?” and I said, “Uh…how about not? Can you pick another instrument?” He said, “No, the ukulele is the one, just trust me.” So about a week later, he called and left me a voice message where he played that song, “You Always Hurt the Ones You Love.” It was so great, it reminded me of Elvis in 1955 recording for his mother. And I was like, “Keep that in your back pocket. Whatever you do, don’t tell Michelle about it.” Meanwhile, I spent time with Michelle and asked her if she had any special talents. She said, “I can read palms,” and I said, “Good. What else?” She said, “I can tap dance.” I said, “Great, that’s going to be your secret talent. When you have an opportunity to show it in the film, that’s what you’re going to do.”
Then I built a night where we walked down twelve blocks of a small town called Honesdale in Pennsylvania. We had this street and we walked up and down it. We didn’t have any lights and we were shooting at night, so we basically paid every store owner twenty bucks to keep their lights on and that’s what lit our scene. And then I spent all night, from dusk till dawn, just following them. Ryan as Dean was getting to know Michelle as Cindy. They were showing each other everything that they had been discovering over the years about their characters. It was really like shooting a documentary about two people falling in love. My direction to them was, “When they reach the shop window, that would be Ryan’s cue to ask Michelle about her special talent.” Each of them knew they had a special talent but neither knew what it was. So that scene, as it plays out, came from them. It came from Ryan’s choice to use the song and learn how to play the uke and Michelle with her history of learning how to tap dance and practicing a little bit. All of a sudden, they were showing [these talents] to each other. It was the first time Ryan was experiencing it, it was the first time Michelle was experiencing it, and the first time I was experiencing it, and then, the first time that the audience experiences it. It’s a real, fresh moment. We tried to do a “take two” of that, and it was great but it didn’t have that intangible [feeling] that it was real. That was just the spirit of the film. There were no bad ideas. Everyone’s ideas were valuable, everyone’s thoughts were worth something. I tried to encourage the actors to embarrass themselves and to try everything that they could try. I think you can feel that in the film.  
FM: Was it true that Ryan risked life and limb by climbing over the fence of the Manhattan bridge? That felt very real.

DC: That scene was two pages of dialogue. [Cindy] has a secret, and [Dean] is trying to get her to tell him her secret on the bridge. And right before we started shooting, I told Michelle to throw away the script. I had spent twelve years working on the film. I had written 67 draft of the script, storyboarded 1,224 shots and had written a manifesto. As soon as we started shooting, I was nervous that the movie would be stale. So I told Ryan and Michelle to surprise me, and I tried to give them an opportunity to surprise me whenever they could. So we’re on the bridge that day and were ready to shoot. I went over to Michelle and said, “Don’t say any lines in the script. Your only job is to not tell him anything. Don’t tell him what’s wrong with you.” And then I went over to Ryan and said, “You gotta do what you gotta do to get her to tell you her secret.” And then I said, “Action.” We started shooting and about 45 minutes in, my producers are freaking out because we’re shooting so much film. My DP is freaking out because the sun is going down and we’re losing the light. Ryan is freaking out because Michelle is tough as nails and he can’t for the life of him get her to say what’s going on. So finally, in an act of desperation, he climbed on the fence of the Manhattan bridge. There are no safety nets, no stunt double, no insurance, that kind of thing, and thankfully, she told him. And thankfully, that bridge is long and my producer, Jamie Patricof, is slow at running, because we got the whole scene out before he came up to us and shut us down. That was the spirit of making the film: ‘How do we find a real, living moment? How do we remain patient enough to wait for a moment like this to happen? And when that moment comes, let’s make sure we have film in the camera.’

FM: How was Penny and Quarter’s “You and Me” chosen as the couple’s song?

DC: That’s another choice of Ryan’s. I had a number of songs that I thought Dean could give to Cindy, but when we got closer to shooting, I thought it would be much more personal if Ryan could give Michelle a song. Ryan’s got great taste, and he found “You and Me.” I was like, “It’s f—king great, give her that song.” So the scene where Dean gives Cindy the CD, and she listens to it for the first time, that’s really happening, and it’s a real gift that we’re watching onscreen. We’re watching these two people share a gift. If I were to choose a gift for him to give her, it wouldn’t have been as good because it wouldn’t have had that intangible [feeling]. I wanted the film to fill up with that feeling. As a documentary filmmaker, there are a certain amount of choices that you have no control over. For instance, I was shooting a documentary on Puff Daddy at his home. His house is going to look the way it looks. I’m not going to be able to go in there and move around [furniture]. He’s going to have his own personality and make his own choices. I like dealing with real people who have choices to make, and when you deal with two great actors like Ryan and Michelle, they bring a lot of choices to the table, and in doing so, they bring a lot of life.
FM: How did you go about appealing the MPAA’s initial NC-17 rating for the film?

DC: Well first off, it was absolutely shocking to us when we received the rating. We never set out to make an X-rated film. We set out to make a film about relationships, and [paint] an honest portrait of a relationship. We thought that sex was a crucial part of that, and thought we should look at sex in the movie in the same way we would look at any other scene, with a kind of raw naturalism. Sex between two people would be a dialogue when they were falling in love, and a bone of contention when they were falling out of love. We decided to treat it very respectfully. I didn’t want to exploit anybody. So when we were handed that rating, we were shocked and insulted. But we had the backing of the whole industry and the media. Fans came on our side, and there was just a lot of good will. It became a universal fight for artistic freedom and freedom of speech. I think it opened a dialogue in America about why violence is okay and why sex is taboo. It’s kind of a double standard. Ultimately, we had petitions that we sent out. Harvey Weinstein hatched a brilliant idea in the 24th hour, the night before our appeal. He decided to four-wall a theater in Kansas City and invite 300 parents to come and watch Blue Valentine. After the movie, the research and development team asked them how they would rate the movie. Seventy-five percent of the parents said it should be rated R, five percent said it should be rated PG-13 and twenty percent thought it should be rated X. With that information in hand, Harvey went in, fought it and won. We weren’t going to touch a frame of the film anyway, but what it ended up doing was allow more people to see the film.
Blue Valentine on Blu-ray and DVD on May 10th, 2011.

Interview: Elaine Hendrix Loves Acting and Animals

Matthew Fagerholm — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 22:02:31 +0000

If you watched Nancy Meyers’s inspired 1998 remake of “The Parent Trap” as many times as my sister and I did, you undoubtedly remember Elaine Hendrix, the gorgeous and wildly inventive actress who brought the character of villainous publicist Meredith Blake to deliciously devilish life. Her exuberant screen presence and gift for physical comedy have distinguished her work in film and television throughout the years. Moviegoers will have the chance to view Hendrix in a slew of new projects this year, from acclaimed indies and hit TV shows to short films on the festival circuit. She constantly balances her acting career with a variety of philanthropic work. Her love of animals led her to co-found the Animal Rescue Corps.
Film Monthly spoke with Hendrix about her busy, busy year—encompassing everything from “90210” and “Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2” to “Dear Lemon Lima” and a short film set to screen at SXSW.
Film Monthly (FM): How did your background in dance influence your approach to acting?
Elaine Hendrix (EH): I think it really does boil down to the physicality of it. As a dancer, you become very in tune with your body. You know how to use it, you know what it needs, and that translates directly into acting. The primary word in [acting] is, “act,” to have movement, to be active, and the more physical a character can be for me, the more I have fun, and I think the better I am at it. And in fact, to that end, that’s why, for me, auditioning has always been the hardest part of acting because there’s no real physicality in the room. You’re not fully doing a scene, and so my brain doesn’t—I’m not a very good auditioner, which is unfortunate [laughs]. But when I can have props to work with or other actors to feed off of and actual scenes to move through, it makes all the difference in the world to me.
FM: Are there any physical comediennes you grew up admiring, such as Carol Burnett?
EH: Well, I definitely grew up watching Carol Burnett. I love her. For me, though, my real affinity lies in the screwball comedies of the ’30s and ’40s. I would give anything for those to come back fully in vogue and be able to do some of them. “The Thin Man,” “Adam’s Rib,” “The Philadelphia Story,” “My Girl Friday,” “It Happened One Night.” Women just don’t get to move and act like that as much anymore. I hope that’s going to change since comedy is making a comeback right now. I’m attracted to those [films] because women get to be feminine as well as powerful. You can also be quite silly and it’s totally acceptable in that realm.
FM: My sister and I watched “The Parent Trap” obsessively while growing up, and loved your performance as Meredith. Did you have the freedom to build that character from the ground up?
EH: I did. Nancy [Meyers] and Charles [Shyer] started with a great script. Yes it’s a Disney movie, it’s a family movie, but it’s just flat-out a great script, and they developed great characters. So they were already on the page, which makes my job a lot easier. There’s a saying in the acting world that ‘if it’s not on the page, it’s not on the stage.’ So that right there was half the battle, and then Nancy really did give me the freedom to bring everything that I could to it. She was very encouraging and would give me little tweaks here and there, but for the most part, I was able to create this full character in Meredith Blake, with all her little nuances. One of my favorite moments in the movie that people may not fully remember is when I’m on the raft and I get woken up, and my leg kicks up in the air. That was something I wanted to do, and it wasn’t written that way, and I don’t know if anybody else would’ve thought of that, but Nancy was like, “I love it, keep doing it.” So she allowed me to do little crazy things like that.
FM: You done a great deal of work in television as well as film. Do you enjoy going between the two mediums?
EH: I do. I must say I prefer film only because I get to change characters that much more often, and I usually get to travel to really cool locations, and be with all different kinds of people, and get to know them for that period of time. But television has its benefits, especially if I become a recurring role or a series regular. It provides some stability and a little longevity to the role, and that’s fun too because you get to develop things and create things as you go along with the character. Then you become a part of the family.
FM: You currently play Renee on “90210.” What are your thoughts on the recent trend of shows about the insular societies of privileged teens?
EH: Well, I don’t know if you could really call these [characters] privileged, but my absolute favorite show is “The Vampire Diaries” right now. [laughs] It’s a show that could’ve started off being really cheesy and I don’t think it did. Especially for a teenage show, it gets pretty hardcore. I was just watching it last night and they have torture scenes and blood and guts and I’m going, “God, this is really intense!” You couldn’t pay me to go back to being a teenager. I think it’s so hard to be a kid in the world these days. There’s some really sophisticated programming out there. And then shows like “90210”—I have no idea how close to reality it is, but it certainly gives kids an opportunity to live vicariously through them.
FM: What makes “90210” stand out from the group of similar shows like “Gossip Girl”?
EH: I think maybe because it’s Hollywood and Beverly Hills, and the fact that it already has an iconic brand, kids are drawn to it. I don’t know about any other part of the world, but here in Hollywood, I do see young kids driving far more expensive cars than I have, and wearing things where I’m like, “Wow, okay…” So I think it’s the style of it, the legendary lure of it. There’s several elements as to why “90210” stands out. I mean, have you seen the kids? They’re gorgeous on the show!
FM: One of your most memorable recurring roles was Ms. Lischak, the Physics teacher on “Joan of Arcadia.”
EH: I loved working on “Joan of Arcadia.” It’s funny—they decided that the “god” element wasn’t really working on the show, and then we ended up getting replaced by “Ghost Whisperer.” So I guess ghosts tested higher than god. [laughs] That’s the only thing I can think of as to why we got replaced because it was such a great show. We were getting ready to go into some darker subject matter, the whole fight between good and evil. It was so smartly written. That was another instance in which the character was written, and I made her very physical. I would get to spin and turn and throw things and dance and they just let me go. I got to improvise, and then little things I did started to be written for me. One thing I would do is call the students pet names like ‘grasshoppers’ or ‘bunnies’ or ‘butterflies,’ and then they started writing things like that. It was a lot of fun, which is what acting should be. It’s about play, it’s about pretend and getting to be kids again.
FM: Speaking of physics, let’s talk a little about “What the Bleep Do We Know.” Had you been interested in quantum physics prior to making this picture?
EH: It was something that I already was interested and involved in, so when I went in for a fifteen minute talk with the director, we ended up being there for an hour. We’re throwing ideas back and forth and talking about different subjects within it, and it just ended up being a good fit all the way around. I’ve seen the movie at least fifteen times now and every time I watch it I see something new. The thing about “What the Bleep” that people have to remember and that it was also criticized for is that it’s just the tip of the iceberg. It’s a very broad, brushed scope of a science that’s very new and very heady. It’s a very intellectual thing. In talking to the doctors and the scientists, it’s mind-blowing [to consider] what they’re thinking and what they’re doing, and the potential consequences of it all. It’s just astounding, and “What the Bleep” was the launching pad for a whole movement, from “The Secret” to the spiritual entertainment circle to a whole slew of other movies. It was a really special and phenomenal thing to be a part of.
FM: Even moviegoers who don’t buy into the film’s scientific theories would at least find it to be a great conversation starter.
EH: Yeah, absolutely. And we had some really unique audiences. [The film] is huge in Russia, it’s huge in Germany, it was huge in Texas. But then England basically banned it. They wouldn’t allow the distributors to distribute it there. So, places that you wouldn’t expect to be open to a film like that were and other places that you thought would be weren’t. Some people thought it was blasphemy, some people thought it was tied hand in hand with other religions and brought in a great new [perspective]. You’re right, it opened up a big conversation for people.
FM: One of your most recent films was the comedy “Good Intentions,” which looks like a cross between “Waitress” and “Fun With Dick and Jane.” What inspired you to co-produce the film as well?
EH: [laughs] It was a chance to be a great female lead in a quirky comedy. I kind of hate that word ‘quirky,’ I think it’s a little overused. I don’t really know what word to use to replace it. I got to be very physical with [the character], from the robbing to the handling of my kids. I’m from the South and this was the first time that I’ve played a Southern character. There were a lot of things that attracted me to it, and we started getting the rest of the cast onboard, [including] Jon Gries, who I just worked with again—I absolutely adore him—and LeAnn Rymes, who I had been friends with for years. It was her first real theatrical role where she wasn’t playing herself. And then Luke Perry…speaking of “90210”…
FM: Are you attracted to films that capture some essence of small town life?
EH: Yeah, I think so. “Napoleon Dynamite” is one of my favorite films. I like movies that capture a little corner of the world that people wouldn’t otherwise think about or pay attention to. Yes, these are movies, but people like that really do exist out in the world. Where is the line between art and real life? Art imitates it, so you know these things have to be happening somewhere.
FM: You also have a film scheduled to be released in the near future, the acclaimed coming of age film, “Dear Lemon Lima,” where you play the tough-as-nails Coach Roach. When I saw the trailer, I swore for a second that you were Jane Lynch.
EH: So many people are starting to say that now and here’s the thing: we shot that before “Glee” was on the air. Everybody’s had a Coach Roach at some point in their life, everybody’s had a Sue Sylvester at some point in their life. Jane and I are tapping into the collective conscience.
FM: The film also looks beautifully shot…
EH: It’s gorgeous. There are three things that I judge a script by: the story, the character and who’s doing it, and as long as I’m good with those three elements, I’m in. Having Melissa Leo and Beth Grant and some of the youngsters in it—their careers are going to absolutely blow up, they are so talented. The script was great. To me, it was a “Napoleon Dynamite” type of film, a “Bottle Rocket” type of film, one of these small independent films that I knew if it was done right, it would do well, and it is. So I was very excited to do that, and I had never played a character quite like this. “Joan of Arcadia” may be sort of close to it, but not really. And again, I get to do some great physical stuff in this movie. Then it was also about working with all women. We had women producers, virtually every department head was a woman and it was a story written by a woman about a young girl. So every aspect about it was kind of a dream. They’ll be doing a slow roll out of the film in March.
FM: You’ve also been involved in many short films. Can you mention a couple that you particularly hope people will seek out?
EH: I have one that’s playing at SXSW and is also going to air on PBS. SXSW and PBS teamed up for a special program and did ten short films about different aspects of social justice issues. They’ve chosen six out of the ten to play at the festival and one of the ones that I did will be [included]. It’s going to premiere and will air on PBS afterward. It’s called “The Beholder,” and it’s basically a sci-fi look into the LGBT community and the idea that you can vaccinate the gay gene. It’s very smartly written, especially for a short film, and the filmmaker, Nisha Ganatra, is just tremendous. I was excited to be a part of that. I’m part of another project called “Girls Girls Girls,” but the short that I did for it is called “A Hidden Agender.” It’s about a misogynistic woman who doesn’t want anything to do with her own gender and is thinking about giving up her baby because she thinks it’s a girl. I won’t say the rest because I’d spoil it, but it’s actually both funny and poignant, and that’s going to be a part of a whole anthology of women’s films. Jennifer Lynch is involved and Beth Grant and all these other great women. Those are two shorts in particular that I’m excited about. I’m getting ready to do a whole revamp of my website, ElaineHendrix.com, and I’m also going to start having links to the films so people can actually see them.
FM: You also had a recurring role on the online series “Poor Paul,” for which you did a self-deprecating promo where you seemed less than enthusiastic about co-starring in the recently released “Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2.” Was it freeing to work on a microbudget?
EH: Yes. To me, I’m not as concerned about the budget as much as I am about the story and who is involved. They had a lot of groovy people on “Poor Paul.” Nicholas Braun and Kevin Schmidt were a part of it, and of course to play Richard Riehle’s wife was a hoot. That was an ongoing web series, and at one point they were looking to cross over into television as an actual show, and I don’t know where that stands. They did two full seasons. It was very silly and a lot of fun. You brought up the self-deprecating promo—that was my idea and I wasn’t really putting down “Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2.” It wasn’t about that so much as it was about being a part of the sequel, and the idea that sequels never really do as well as the original movie. I was being tongue-in-cheek there.
FM: Both of your new Disney films—“Treasure Buddies” and “Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2”—involve dogs, and I’m wondering if that’s a coincidence…
EH: [laughs] I think at least every Disney movie that I’ve been a part of, which is now like four or five, have had a dog in them. Animals are a big franchise for Disney. But it has a personal meaning for me, in that I’m a huge animal advocate and it gives me a chance to help connect my own personal humane brand to these movies. Kids watch them and families watch them, kind of like you and your sister. You grew up watching “The Parent Trap” and grew up loving the movie and now here we are talking. So if my humane message can then rub on to you and extend to you or to your sister then that’s one of the benefits of doing these types of movies.
FM: As co-founder and Director of Marketing and Public Relations for Animal Rescue Corps, what are some of your future goals for the organization?
EH: Well, the founding team has over forty years of rescue experience, so even though we’re a new organization, nothing about us or what we’re doing is particularly new. We’re very well-versed in our services, which is primarily large-scale rescues, puppy mills, hoarding situations, dog fighting rings, exotic trade—there’s not really any type of animal that we can’t handle. There’s virtually no situation that we can’t handle. We work with government agencies and local law officials so that everything is done by the book. We’re not some rogue, wild group. We can also do shelter services, shelter assessments and training for other rescue groups. We have some rescues in the works, I can’t talk about them yet, but I will say it’s very, very exciting. We’re just starting and once the wheels are rolling, there’s nothing like being there to not only witness but facilitate another being’s freedom. I’ve had the great honor to do that on several occasions, and to me, it’s the best work in the world.
FM: Can you tell me about the experience of caring for rescued animals in your home, and why would you encourage others to do the same?
EH: Great question! I have at the moment three dogs and two cats. I’m also about to rescue a goat, something that I’ve always wanted to have. Let’s just take your local animal shelter, or as some people know it, the pound, as an example. Most people think that you will go there and get some sick or damaged dog, and that’s where all the bad and unwanted animals are sent away to live, but that’s so not true. This country euthanizes about four to six million animals every single year simply because they don’t have a home. The reason they don’t have a home is not necessarily because they are sick or damaged. Way more often, 9.9 times out of 10, it’s because people are breeding their animals when they shouldn’t be breeding them. They are moving and they just want to give it up. They get tired of it, or they don’t realize that the puppy is going to grow up into a full-size dog. All these kinds of reasons, so the thing I would say to people is that you can get pure breeds, you can get very healthy wonderful dogs through rescues, through shelters, through adoption, but the thing is, you have to make sure you’re ready because it’s a lifelong commitment. You don’t want to have that animal until it’s 7, 8, 9 or 10 years old and then send it off to a shelter, because unfortunately, more likely than not, it’s going to be killed.
There’s just something about rescued animals. They know when they’ve been rescued. They know when you have literally gotten them off of death’s door. I’ve traveled the country working on behalf of animals and everywhere I go, people always say the same thing. All of my animals and I have a very unique bond with each other because they have their own sort of instinctual gratitude. It’s not like human gratitude, it’s animal gratitude. I’m not trying to turn them into humans in any way, but animals are smart. They’re very instinctual and I just think they know.

Angela Ismailos Converses with ‘Great Directors’

Matthew Fagerholm — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 23:24:59 +0000

Here’s a thrilling summer movie for anyone fatigued by the endless zombified conga-line of retreads, remakes and reheated leftovers currently parading through cinemas. As America’s mainstream film industry continues to become more and more of a business, it’s especially refreshing to see a documentary like Great Directors, which celebrates cinema as an art form capable of much more than producing record box office grosses. In the film, director Angela Ismailos interviews ten extraordinary filmmakers about their evolution as artists, their own inspirations, their struggles to create meaningful art within a money-driven business, and the intriguing role of politics in their work. For true cinema lovers, Great Directors is a must-see movie event. And best of all, it’s not in 3D!
We get to hear Bernardo Bertolucci describe the experience of making his first film. Stephen Frears and Ken Loach discuss how they were able to be at the center of public discourse while working the BBC. Todd Haynes gushes over Rainer Werner Fassbinder, while Catherine Breillat says she’s wouldn’t have become a filmmaker if she hadn’t seen Ingmar Bergman’s The Naked Night at age 12. Richard Linklater talks about growing up poor in East Texas, John Sayles rants against the phoniness of American blockbusters, David Lynch calls Eraserhead his “most spiritual film,” and Liliana Cavani admits that she was somewhat offended by the success of her daring Holocaust-era drama, The Night Porter. And then there’s Agnes Varda, the grandmother of the New Wave, whose exuberance for creating art is as fresh as it was when she began directing in the mid-50s.
Director Ismailos recently spoke with Film Monthly about the experience of meeting with her cinematic heroes, and the challenge of juxtaposing their unique stories. The interview is followed by Netflix recommendations for moviegoers eager to explore the worlds of these essential cinematic artists. Many of the selected titles are available for viewing on the Netflix website, and provide a welcome alternative to paying twelve bucks for a forgettable seasonal blockbuster.
FILM MONTHLY (FM): What first attracted you to the cinema?
ANGELA ISMAILOS (AI): From a very young age, I had my father to guide me. He was a very big cinephile, and he introduced me to all sorts of different filmmakers, from Renoir to Eisenstein, from Rossellini to Godard and Ingmar Bergman and on and on. So I had this background from a young age. My grandmother was an opera singer, so I did grow up in a very artistic environment. I went to law school and got my master’s degree in political science, but from a young age, my passion was writing. I produced little acts in theaters, and I came into becoming a filmmaker very naturally. I just want to capture everything through the lens; that’s how I live everyday.
FM: In your opinion, what makes a truly great director?
AI: Basically, it’s an uncompromising personality. A great artist will always create precisely what he wants without any consideration of commerce or what the audience likes or what the popular conception is of what cinema should be. They do exactly what they feel is right for them.
FM: How did you go about choosing this particular group of filmmakers?
AI: I wanted to have directors from different backgrounds; from Italy, France, England and the United States. I did have some Asian directors that I could not include in this volume because I had so much footage, so I wanted to create volume one and then eventually continue with volume two. I basically wanted to cover different ethnic backgrounds and different historical points of view.
FM: Are you planning to make a second Great Directors documentary?
AI: Yeah, I do have the footage, but I think I’m going to take a break because this project was really exhausting. On June 22nd, we’re going to have our U.S. premiere. It’s been four years in the making. So I want to take a break and come back to the next documentary in a year or two because I am exhausted. [laughs]
FM: How did you go about approaching your interviews with these formidable filmmakers? Was there a structure to your questions, or were they more spontaneous?
AI: Actually, I did not have a [structure]. I just wanted to meet the director and according to the situation, I was going to create my questions on the spot. So the first one who said yes was Bernardo Bertolucci. He had received a very long letter from me about my love for cinema and neorealism and how I grew up loving De Sica and Umberto D. and The Bicycle Thief. It was a ten page letter, and he was really touched. So he called me and asked me when I wanted to come to Rome. The second person who said yes was Robert Altman. Unfortunately, he had health problems and his office would keep postponing the filming. Then the inevitable happened. After that, the rest came in very easily, I have to say.
FM: Did you find yourself coming up with some of your best questions in the moment?
AI: Yes I did. One question that actually made it into the film occurred during my meeting with David Lynch at his house in the Hollywood Hills. I asked David, “If you were to be born by the same parents in a different country, do you think your films would have remained the same?” And he goes, moving his hand, “I think I would have always been fascinated by America.”
FM: Like many of these filmmakers, Lynch is famously guarded about discussing his art. How did you get them to open up?
AI: I think they accepted me as a filmmaker and didn’t perceive me as a journalist. We started by talking about other things before the camera started rolling. And the fact that I was sitting next to them and not behind the camera made them feel more comfortable in opening up. I started by talking about politics and societal issues and then went into their career.
FM: I think Lynch acutely described his cinema when he said, “You know the feelings a particular work of art expresses, but you can’t put them into words.”
AI: Yes, exactly. I also liked when he said, “When you don’t have final cut, you die the death, and die I did.” [laughs] I have been listening to these voices for four years so they have seeped into my subconscious. I also like the line where Ken Loach says, “The more money you have to make a film, the less freedom you have.”
FM: There’s a lot of fascinating sociopolitical discussions in the film about a variety of topics, such as the psychology behind Nazism and the unacknowledged class system in America. The political views of these filmmakers seemed to blend together through the editing.
AI: The editing was a very long process. It took me two years because there were so many film clips and historical events to incorporate. I used a lot of archival footage from the BBC. So it was a really hard choice to decide what to keep in and what to cut out. I remember before I met Bertolucci in Rome, I was reading the Communist Manifesto. He’s a communist, and most of my directors are Leftist. In the states, this term doesn’t exist, but in Europe, most artists are Leftist or have Leftist beliefs. It was fascinating when Bernardo told me, “I lost my identity after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. I didn’t know who I was anymore, so I had to go to the Far East.” Right after he says that in the film, I cut to Todd Haynes’s I’m Not There about Bob Dylan’s changing identities.
FM: That’s one of my favorite cuts in the movie. Was it a conscious decision on the part of editor Christina Burchard to juxtapose these filmmakers in a way that highlighted their similarities?
AI: Absolutely, I wanted to find a common thread between their personalities and their films and who they are, and I think I succeeded in that. But cinema is not only what I see, but what I fail to see. Every time I see the film, I wish I would’ve added something in or do another thing differently, but I had to let it go, because it never ends. With 340 hours of footage, I have to let it go.
FM: Were you closely involved in the editing process?
AI: Everyday.
FM: Was there a creative team that you worked with?
AI: Yes, I had Sabine Hoffman as well as Xan Cassavetes. She’s a dear friend, and we’re both big cinephiles. We collaborated in the editing room for hours and had many conversations about everything Freud to globalization. It was an intellectual project for me, even though it may not appear that way in its 90 minute running time.
FM: I was going to ask you about your collaboration with Xan, since her father [John Cassavetes] is one of my personal filmmaking heroes.
AI: Her father is a constant forge. Have you watched [Charles Kiselyak’s] documentary about him, A Constant Forge?
FM: I’ve seen parts of it, but have been meaning to Netflix the whole film.
AI: You will be amazed. He was a genius and a very unique director. It’s an interesting coincidence that Xan and I befriended each other, since her father and my father came from the same city. When I told her where I was going to film my next movie, Xan couldn’t believe it. She said her father had always wanted to film there but never had the time. I believe that sometimes things happen in life for a reason. It’s all about timing and how you connect with people.
FM: Was there a particular interview that you found especially challenging?
AI: No. I thought at the beginning that it was going to be challenging, but throughout the two years of filming, everyone had something special to say or offer, from Agnes Varda’s Parisian courtyard to Catherine Breillat’s sexual cinema to Liliana Cavani’s Night Porter to Todd Haynes’s segment when we talk about Wim Wenders’s [1982] documentary Room 666.
FM: That’s the documentary where various great directors discuss their vision for the future of their art form.
AI: You see all of these directors come humbly into the same room, sit in a chair and talk about the future of cinema. We hear from Antonioni, Godard, Fassbinder, and then Steven Spielberg comes in and brags about the box office grosses for Jaws. [laughs] So cinema has become all about the weekend blockbuster. It doesn’t seem right, but it is what it is. I think everywhere in the world, from Korea to England to Iran, everyone tries to do a film that’s not an industry product. But unfortunately, in the United States, we are the masters of marketing.
FM: I liked how John Sayles described his method for balancing commercial and personal projects.
AI: He uses screenwriting to make his money which he then invests in his own films. He’s very unique. Both John Sayles and Todd Haynes were with me in Venice when the film premiered and we all became good friends because we share the same values for cinema. Venice is a very special town because they truly love cinema there. It’s not like Cannes; it’s wonderful, but it’s much more commercial. When the movie stops, even before the end credits roll, the lights come up and the audience has to get up and turn around at the balcony where we’re sitting and applaud the film. I received a standing ovation that lasted for ten minutes, which I couldn’t believe. I started crying, I got so emotional.
FM: Was there a particular insight from these filmmakers that you found most surprising?
AI: Bernardo said, “Always keep a door open. You think that you have an idea set before you go into your location, but always keep a door open.” He told me about how he had first met Pasolini through his father. Pasolini asked him if he’d like be the assistant director on his directorial debut [1961’s Accattone], and Bernardo said, “I’ve never worked on a film before. I know nothing about being an assistant director.” And Pasolini answered, “I don’t either, I’m going to learn how to be a director on the set.” So Bernardo basically told me that you truly become a director on the set.
FM: Are there any deleted scenes that you particularly treasure that just couldn’t fit in the rhythm of the final cut?
AI: Oh, I have many. I had some huge segments on neorealism and Renoir and Godard. I think I will include them in the DVD extras. We have gotten a lot of proposals to make it into a series and bring into light the rest of the footage that I have. It’s hopefully going to broadcast for TV purposes.
FM: How did you go about deciding how you would include yourself in the film? There are shots in which you seem to be walking within the worlds of these filmmakers.
AI: We tried many approaches in the editing room until my collaborators told me that this film was my personal journey, and that it needed my narration. We couldn’t have done it another way because otherwise it would’ve become very ordinary. I simply did what I like cinematically. Being in locations such as the Vatican in Rome, I did everything I love in filmmaking and I did it with a Bolex, not a digital camera or 35 mm. I’m like the old school. I like this kind of style cinematically, and that’s what my next film is going to utilize. I just finished writing it. It’s a psychological, intellectual drama called The City of a Dead Woman. It takes place on an island in a monastery where this woman goes to find a refugee, and meets a priest and a bullfighter.
FM: I thought it was interesting how Great Directors doesn’t end with a monologue neatly tying everything together. It allowed viewers to take what they wanted from it.
AI: You thought there would be more and then it stopped. Because we don’t have the answers. Everyone who sees the film will find their own answers. I think the film not only celebrates cinema, but celebrates everyone in any field of the creative process. I received a wonderful letter from a Chinese student who said, “I was so inspired, I went back with hope to continue my career and find a unique path, rather than surrender to commercialism. That’s what your film did for me.”
FM: What did you personally take away from this experience?
AI: When you meet the people that stay humble and true to their beliefs, then you realize that you’re not the only one. It’s different meeting these filmmakers in person, rather than just knowing them from their work. I’m very honored that these directors gave me their time and really opened up to me. I think this documentary will benefit many film lovers and film students. You learn technical things in school, but you don’t learn how to become a director in film school. You do it on your own. Bertolucci said, “I always tell students to watch films, a hundred films, thousands of films, and then they will find what is unique and most appealing to them.” You really have to watch all kinds of films, just like how you have to go to a museum and see paintings. Everything is stimulating for an artist.
NETFLIX SUGGESTIONS: (I = Instant Viewing option available)
BERNARDO BERTOLUCCI: Last Tango in Paris, The Last Emperor (I)
CATHERINE BREILLAT: A Very Young Girl, Anatomy of Hell (I)
LILIANA CAVANI: The Night Porter, Ripley’s Game
STEPHEN FREARS: Dangerous Liaisons, High Fidelity
TODD HAYNES: Far From Heaven (I), I’m Not There
RICHARD LINKLATER: Waking Life, Tape (I)
KEN LOACH: Sweet Sixteen, The Wind That Shakes the Barley (I)
DAVID LYNCH: Eraserhead (I), Inland Empire (I)
JOHN SAYLES: Lianna (I), Lone Star
AGNES VARDA: Cleo from 5 to 7 (I), The Beaches of Agnes (I)
OTHER RECOMMENDATIONS:
Room 666, directed by Wim Wenders
Accattone, directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini (I)
Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Sawdust and Tinsel (aka The Naked Night), directed by Ingmar Bergman
A Constant Forge: The Life and Art of John Cassavetes, directed by Charles Kiselyak

Cass Warner Sperling Discusses ‘The Brothers Warner’

Matthew Fagerholm — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 13:49:35 +0000

Cass Warner Sperling was born with filmmaking in her blood. Her father was Oscar-nominated writer/producer Milton Sperling, and her grandfather was Harry Warner, the founder and president of Warner Bros. Pictures, whose goal was to “educate, entertain and enlighten” through filmmaking. Visiting him at his deathbed, young Cass made a promise to keep her grandfather’s legacy alive, and has done so through various mediums. Her acclaimed book chronicling the Warner studio and family history, “Hollywood Be Thy Name: The Warner Brothers Story,” is now in its ninth printing (under the new title, “The Brothers Warner”), and has been optioned for a feature film adaptation.
Cass’s own production company, Warner Sisters, made an award-winning documentary based on the brothers’ extraordinary story (also named The Brothers Warner), which was released by Warner Home Video on March 9th. The film contains many revelations, from the family’s birth name (“Wonskolaser”), to youngest brother Jack Warner’s family betrayal (and the guilt he expressed in a poignant postcard that Cass discovered). Film Monthly spoke with Cass about the experience of making the film and researching her family history, as well as her feelings toward Jack.
FILM MONTHLY (FM): What are some of the memories you have of visiting the Warner lot with your father?
CASS WARNER (CW): Well the fact that I could go with my father [to work] every Saturday, because they worked six-day weeks, was something I looked forward to. It was like going to the circus, really, but better. And I had total freedom. I didn’t have to be escorted or anything, I would just wander. And if the red light wasn’t on, I would go in and see what was happening on the sound stages. If you don’t get bit by the bug by seeing that…[laughs]. Early on, I was very fascinated by the whole magic of making movies. My father was key in that because he was a wonderful storyteller, writer and producer and used to invite me to sit in on his story meetings even before I could read. He would give me a script like I was part of it, and I would sit there and listen to them talk story. It was very god-like in a way, creating people and characters and [deciding] what happened to them. It was just great.
FM: Were there any particular Warner films that left an impression on you as a child?
CW: Every other Saturday night, we’d have a film night. My father had a 35mm projection booth and a screen would come down in the living room. We’d have people over and watch double features. I’d watch so many wonderful films. It’s hard for me to remember one in particular that really made an impression on me. They all did in some way.
FM: What was the promise you made to your grandfather on his death bed? Did you articulate a promise in your head, or was it something more intangible?
CW: That’s a great question. I was ten years old when that happened, the last time I saw him, and it took me a while to confront the importance of that moment. When I was in my early twenties, I recalled what happened, and understood it better. I do remember that I was told before I went in that he couldn’t speak because he had a stroke. So when I went in and he recognized me and reached out for me and sat up and said my name, everybody kind of freaked out, because he hadn’t been speaking or recognizing people. That was very meaningful. He wanted to take my hand and squeeze it because he couldn’t really express whatever he was thinking. It was left up to me to interpret that. We were so close, and I had so many wonderful moments of spending time with him on the weekends at his ranch and having him come to our house. He was very much a grandfather and very down to earth; a true patriarch, not only of our family but of the studio employees.
When I was twenty-ish, I started to look at how I wanted to make a difference. I thought about [the people] who really impacted my life and gave me certain wonderful foundations and gifts of understanding and kindness and caring. He came up and I went, “God, I really know so little about him.” I started to ask more information about him, and nobody really had much to say about him. Then I realized, as I was researching, what was important to my grandfather and the brothers: to “education, entertain and enlighten” using film. They believed in making socially conscious films, having a certain integrity, and realized the responsibility [brought about by] of the power of this communication tool. That really aligned with my own beliefs. I interpreted the hand-squeezing and the calling out of my name as him sort of saying to me, “Take the torch; get people to remember that this is really what’s important.” So that’s my interpretation of the promise.
FM: It’s hugely inspiring to think of how these four men literally started from scratch and worked from the ground up to eventually form the studio.
CW: Yeah, that was the other thing that was completely inspiring. These guys came from nothing, and had this huge dream. The odds against them were just enormous, but they kept going, they never ever quit. They agreed they were going to do this, and their love for it obviously was there. When they were told they couldn’t do something, they knew that they were on the right track. They would use a challenge or barrier as an incentive to do the next thing, which to me is a philosophy of life that I think is lacking [today]. It takes hard work, there’s no doubt about it. These days, I feel like we’re so easy to quit, and say, “Well that didn’t happen, so I guess I’ll try something else.” But what’s your dream, what’s your original goal, not some goal someone else gave you? What really excites you, and are you just taking the next step and acknowledging that you’ve achieved the next step and figuring out what the next step is? If you think that you can be a prima ballerina, you can’t just instantly become it. Sorry, no fast food here. You’ve got to exercise, do all the steps, and if there’s a barrier, figure a way around it. Get a mentor, get someone who’s done it.
FM: How long did it take you to compile the research for your original book?
CW: For me, the actual research started in ‘77, and it happened because I went to the 50th anniversary of the studio. Jack was the only one alive. He was getting presented a commemorative stamp, and in front of me was an actor named William Demarest. He found out who I was and took me aside at intermission. He confided in me as if he had a deep dark secret. It just intrigued me, because I suddenly became the family private investigator. I was just fascinated by his story and his viewpoint of what happened to Sam [Warner, who started the studio along with Harry, Albert and Jack]. Then I started interviewing family members and found out that my cousin, Jack Jr., was doing a book on the family. So I went, “Oh great,” and waited until that book came out, which was in ’83. He fictionalized it because he was terrified of his father, and his father ended up taking it off the market anyway, because it was obvious who the characters were. Then I pulled my bootstraps back up and started my work. So ‘83 to ‘93 is when it was pretty much full-time, back to interviews and collecting things, piecing it altogether and the book came out in ’93.
FM: Was it difficult for you to reconcile your feelings about Jack, in light of how he betrayed the family?
CW: No, I wanted to be a fair person. I don’t like to judge others, especially when I don’t have all the information. I really was just fascinated by him. There’s a film called Rashomon that changed my life early on, and I decided that’s how I was going to tell this story, because what it does is it gives me distance. The other voices in the book were the people who were there and saw what went on, and I just presented that information. And then from that, as well as other information that’s not in the book, I was able to understand Jack a bit better. The really telling thing, which was quite moving to me, was the postcard [of his] that I found and read a portion of in the film. The fact that he wrote it in his own handwriting is very poignant to me. It means he had a conscience, and that he was aware of his foibles, or some of them. It was very telling that he didn’t trust others. It just had a lot of information in it. And because I grew up appreciating the importance of knowing your characters whenever you tell a story, he’s still a bit of a mystery to me because his reality is so different from my own. His way of dealing with things is so [different]–how he could disown his son and betray his brothers…But at the same time, I’ll tell you this, whoever plays him in the film coming out will win an Oscar.
FM: I was going to wait till the end to ask you about this, but I must know how this deal came about at last year’s Cannes film festival where your book was optioned…
CW: Oh gosh, I get chills when I think about it, because this is my ultimate dream. When I wrote the book, I wrote it very much because of my background in screenwriting. I wrote it in that format, even though it’s a nonfiction book, and I had to have someone help me put it in the nonfiction form because it’s not my forte. But anyway, I thought for sure someone would read this and go, ‘this is a no-brainer.’ I shopped it as a miniseries and a feature film for a good long time, decades, and then when I read a spec script and saw that they were going to focus on all the dirt and scandal, I pulled it. That’s why I did the documentary. In October of last year, the wonderful, talented French producer Alain Goldman, of La Vie En Rose, contacted the family and said that he read the book. He said that it’s become his bible, he’s hired [Goodfellas screenwriter] Nick Pileggi, and this is the story they would like to tell and could we meet? We met, I became a co-producer and they optioned the book. I mean, what an honor. First of all, he’s a true gentleman, as is Nick, and I couldn’t have pulled in a better team. So now where it’s at is Nick is about to deliver the first draft of the script. Here’s a one-liner [for the film]. My father taught me to pitch things with one line. It’s “Cain and Abel Go to Hollywood, Create Camelot, Told Jewish Godfather Style.”
FM: I smiled when I saw the “Warner Sisters” logo pop up at the beginning of the documentary. What led you to form this company?
CW: I’ve been an actress and I’ve been a writer. When I was an actress, I went, “This is embarrassing, the roles they have for women.” I went to writing, and then I asked who really gets the things done? A producer, and I went, “Time to form a production company.” I was in the kitchen with a bunch of friends, and I said, “Okay, what do you think of this: Warner Sisters?” And they just went, “Woah.” [laughs] And that was it. It’s perfect, and it makes people laugh.
FM: And Wonskolaser Sisters is just too big for the logo…
CW: [laughs]
FM: Before we run out of time, could you tell me a little bit about one of your projects in development at Warner Sisters: A Shade of Gray. It sounds reminiscent of the social problem films that your grandfather was famous for.
CW: It’s my favorite project. It’s something I developed from a talk with the writer [Jack Skinner] about an incident that happened to him as a child, and I just went, ‘That’s it.’ I stopped dead in my tracks and said, ‘You’re telling this story.’ It was so close to him. He did it as a short story and a novel, and we worked on the screenplay together. It really is so much like To Kill a Mockingbird, which was another one of those films that changed my life, because it was told through the eyes of a child recalling what happened. This has that same narrative style: a white kid talking about what happened to his best friend, who was black in 1943 in Oklahoma, and how their friendship survived despite all the prejudice and indoctrination. And it’s full of great characters and a time period that’s quite fascinating.

Harold Ramis Invites Chicagoans To Meet The Oscars

Matthew Fagerholm — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 18:00:45 +0000

For the second year in a row, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences invite Chicagoans to the “Meet the Oscars, Chicago” exhibit, presented by Kodak at The Shops at North Bridge on Michigan Avenue.
From February 25th through Oscar night (March 7th), movie buffs will have the opportunity to see historic Oscars both old and new, as well as get their picture taken holding one of them. Academy Awards on display include the Best Actress Oscar awarded to Bette Davis in 1938 for her performance in Jezebel, the Oscar awarded to the DuPont Film Manufacturing Corporation and Eastman Kodak Company in 1930/31 for super-sensitive panchromatic film, as well as a group of Oscars in various stages of completion, as manufactured by Chicago’s R.S. Owens & Company. And until March 5th, the Oscar for this year’s Best Actor winner will be on display as well.
At the exhibit’s ribbon-cutting ceremony, various people were on hand for interviews, including filmmaker Harold Ramis (Groundhog Day, Year One), who’s serving as co-chair of this year’s Oscar Night America (ONA) Chicago committee (for the Gene Siskel Film Center’s live simulcast of the show). Film Monthly got to chat with Ramis about a variety of topics, including Second City, Judd Apatow, “The Office,” and the importance of thinking at the movies.
FILM MONTHLY (FM): The last time I ran into you was at a screening of Harry Potter 4...
HAROLD RAMIS (HM): When they announced the Harry Potter franchise film rights, I called my agents and said, “My kids read this book, I like it, could you get me the job?” They said it was already promised. Then my agent called back and said, “They’re offering you Harry Potter 3 or 4,” and I thought, ‘Well, this franchise isn’t going to last…’ [laughs]
FM: What led you to serving as co-chair of the ONA Chicago committee this year?
HR: The Siskel Center is great. I also support Facets Multimedia, which doesn’t have the profile that the Siskel Center has. They’re both great organizations, and I’ll do whatever I can to support them.
FM: What are the advantages of shooting a film in Chicago?
HR: Well for me, sleeping at home–although I’ve heard of directors who, when they’re working in their hometown, their wives tell them to go to a hotel. [laughs] I’ve shot here several times; my Al Franken movie [Stuart Saves His Family] was partially shot here, I shot Groundhog Day entirely in the area, and I shot Ice Harvest in the area. I love working here; crews are great, people are great, locations are beautiful.
FM: What was it like reuniting with fellow Second City collaborators at the reunion show this past December?
HR: Wow, that was incredible. As much fun as I assumed it looked, if you could see the emails that were exchanged among the cast members of every generation, people were glowing about the event. It was one of the nicest things career-wise that’s ever happened to me.
FM: What was the preparation like? Was there a lot of stress over which characters to include?
HR: Yeah, and you could tell which people are the most neurotic. Catherine O’Hara sent me a hundred e-mails about how we don’t rehearse enough, and how this piece won’t work. The people in the SCTV section are so hysterical and so much fun to be around. I love those people. There was an intense rehearsal that had to be jammed into two days, so it was a little nerve-racking, but so much fun once we got onstage.
FM: One thing I love about many of the films you’ve written, such as Ghostbusters, is that they emphasize character over the plot and special effects. Do you see a similarity your brand of comedy, and that of your recent collaborator, Judd Apatow?
HR: Yeah, Judd and I connected because I noticed that he kept referencing my films every time he was interviewed and it’s just generational, it’s natural. When I started looking into these chronologies, I realized that my stuff is older to young people now than silent movies were when I was their age. That’s how long ago these movies were made. But Judd and I literally grew up on that stuff. It kind of started when I acted in Orange County, then I invited him into The Ice Harvest and he put me in Knocked Up and Walk Hard. It’s a really good group of people. So for me, I feel like their grandfather. Year One literally had three generations; Michael Cera is not much older than my son, and Judd could be his father. I do see a similarity in the way we work.
FM: “The Office” writers Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg have collaborated with you on Year One, and are currently attached to Ghostbusters 3. How did you become involved working with them?
HR: Gene came to me when he just finished college. He was an intern at my Hyde Park office. I met Lee when he was working as a waiter in Martha’s Vineyard. He just finished film school, and they met working as production assistants on two different projects of mine–one a TV project, and the other a film project. That was in the late 90s, and I read all their specs and they were doing good work. They wrote a pilot spec that was so funny that it got them a job on “The Office,” and I directed four episodes. The fourth is premiering this Thursday…
FM: What was the experience like directing part two of the anticipated special where Pam gives birth?
HR: It was written as two separate episodes that were going to run consecutive weeks and then NBC wanted a one-hour event because it was sweeps week. So they combined them and that’s fine; there’s obviously continuity there. She goes into labor in part one and has a baby in part two. But I was excited about it, it’s always fun to work with that group.
FM: What’s the atmosphere like on “The Office” set?
HR: They’re so self-contained. They’re their own freestanding production facility in the middle of LA, so when you enter in there, you’re in, “The Office.” The warehouse set and the office set are part of the same building that they write in and work out of. So it’s a very complete environment; the editing rooms are right there and the cast is all around, and they’re really good people.
FM: Had you known Steve Carell previously from his work at Second City?
HR: I didn’t know him at Second City. I was gone in those years, but when we met, we got along great the first time I worked on “The Office.” I took him to the NBA All-Star game in Las Vegas that year. We gambled together and watched the game court side. He’s a great guy.
FM: What attracts you to exploring spiritual and philosophical issues within the framework of satire?
HR: The danger with all popular entertainment is that it’s trivial and forgettable, and has no real reason to be there, other than to waste your time, and provide employment for a lot of people. The employment part I get, the wasting of other people’s time I don’t get. People ask me what I watch on network television, and there’s a lot of good stuff. I wouldn’t put down the quality of it, but much of it doesn’t mean anything to me. I don’t see how it affects my life. I don’t see how it teaches me anything or makes me think about anything. Take a movie like A Serious Man, for instance. I saw it twice months ago and I’m still thinking about it. [The film explores] huge existential issues that are really bothersome–things that we’re trying to escape from with most conventional entertainment. Those are the very things I want to think about. I heard people leaving the theater saying, “When I go the movies, I don’t want to think,” and I think, ‘Well, just shoot yourself in the head!’ I was at “The Long Red Road” at the Goodman Theater the other day. Philip Seymour Hoffman directed it, and it’s very bleak, very dark and tragic. At the intermission, I heard one guy say to another, “Well, it’s no ‘My Fair Lady.’” [laughs] Well, yeah there’s a place for “My Fair Lady,” but there’s a place for this too.
FM: Do you feel that the Academy has honored films like that this year?
HR: They have, just look at the nominees….
The “Meet the Oscars, Chicago” exhibit is open Monday through Saturday from 10am to 7pm, and Sunday from 11am to 6pm, at 520 North Michigan Ave. Admission is free. The 82nd Annual Academy Awards will air on ABC on March 7th at 7pm CST.

Split Pillow Examines ‘Life as Lincoln’

Matthew Fagerholm — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 13:17:12 +0000

Everyone needs an idol, and many people have found just that in our 16th president of the United States. Abraham Lincoln is one the few figures in the history of American government whose appeal and influence transcends political boundaries, a fact provocatively illustrated by the new film, Life as Lincoln.
This feature-length documentary is the latest work from Chicago’s non-profit movie production company, Split Pillow. The company’s Executive Director, Dennis Belogorsky, served as producer and editor of the film, which centers on three different Lincoln impersonators. Belogorsky first began developing the project a year ago, in light of Lincoln’s bicentennial.
“Having grown up in Springfield, IL, I’ve seen those [impersonators] and I’ve always been very skeptical of anything Lincoln-related because it’s borderline kitsch,” Belogorsky says.
Coincidentally, Chicago journalist Caitlin Grogan had been researching Lincoln presenters around the same time, and ended up taking the directorial reigns of the project. She says that her interest in the material stemmed from her upbringing.
“I grew up with history all around me,” Grogan says. “Trips to historic homes and battlefields were as normal as a trip to the beach, in terms of summer vacations. I also grew up in an old home, built in 1847. So I was always aware of history surrounding me in a very alive sort of way. I felt very much a part of it.”
Due to budget restrictions, the filmmakers couldn’t travel far for interviews, and decided to center their film on three presenters who each live in a location that Lincoln used to call home. Foster father Murray Cox works to instill “Lincoln pride” in the youth of Indiana, which is often overlooked as the location of the future president’s formative years. In Honest Abe’s birthplace of Hodgenville, Kentucky, Larry Elliott portrays Lincoln as an almost spiritual icon, upholding the values of fundamentalist Christianity. Former theater professor Lonn Pressnall, of Forsyth, Illinois, takes a more pragmatic approach, delving into the complexities of the man without connecting his views to those found in contemporary politics.
“These [subjects] are good representations of how a lot of people in the country view history,” Belogorsky says. “Some view it through a personal prism, applying their own values to everything, and others stand back and let the history speak for itself. As filmmakers, we did not want to take sides.”
The crew was focused on making as structured of a film as possible, fitting the project into a production timeline usually used to shoot a narrative film. From conception to finalization, the film took a solid year to complete. For Grogan, the trickiest task was gaining the trust of subjects skeptical of camera crews.
“The most challenging part for me was simply trying to create relationships with subjects without even being able to shake their hand,” Grogan says. “It was very important for them to get to know us before we pulled up in their driveway with a camera and started rolling.”
“Once we actually got on location, 75% of what we planned was out the window,” Belogorsky says. “We had to improvise and make decisions on the fly in order to get the most out of our subjects. Sometimes their presentations go well and sometimes they don’t.”
The film culminates at the Lincoln presenters’ annual convention in Washington D.C, populated by nearly a hundred costumed enthusiasts of the legendary politician. Footage taken at the event exemplified Grogan’s belief that her subject matter called for “moving images rather than the written word.” She felt that it was important for people to see each man’s personalized visualization of Lincoln, from Cox’s delicately prepared mole, to Elliott’s large beard, which looks considerably more Amish than Abe-ish.
“There were moments of intentional and unintentional humor, but we didn’t want this to be a comedy,” Belogorsky says. “It’s always tempting when you deal with people who are pursuing these quirky hobbies to paint them with a broad brush as these buffoons. We wanted to do a film about what these guys got out of this hobby, and the meaning of their pursuit.”
“Everyone sees something in Lincoln that they admire, respect or even idolize,” Grogan says, “and despite our differences, we can rally around him. I hope the film stirs a conversation about the ways in which we all share a common history that affects each of us differently.”
Life as Lincoln will have its world premiere at the Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State Street, on February 12th at 8pm. There will also be two additional screenings on February 13th at 8pm and February 17th at 8:15pm. All three screenings will be followed by an audience discussion with Grogan.

Matt’s Best and Worst Films of the Decade

Matthew Fagerholm — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 15:57:56 +0000

TOP 10 OF THE DECADE
1.) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind—Director Michel Gondry and screenwriter Charlie Kaufman forged one of the cinema’s most electrifying artistic collaborations in this spellbinding comedy of the mind and soul. Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet are revelatory as two ex-lovers who attempt to erase the memories of their failed relationship. Gondry’s brilliant playfulness fuses perfectly with Kaufman’s spectacular creativity. Mind-boggling, endlessly inventive and deeply romantic, this timeless masterpiece gets closer to visualizing the depths of the human heart than any film this decade.
2.) Mulholland Dr.—No one knows how to utilize cinema as a language of dreams better than David Lynch. This is the crowning achievement of his extraordinary career. Though its literal meaning is strictly interpretive, its emotional impact is overwhelming and undeniable. Few films have proved as rewarding upon repeated viewings.
3.) Requiem For A Dream—Darren Aronofsky uses every cinematic trick in the book to pull audiences head-first into the deteriorating mind of a drug addict. This film offers a transcendent example of how to make visual effects serve a story dramatically, externalizing the inner-life of the characters. Ellen Burstyn truly delivers the performance of a lifetime.
4.) The Diving Bell And The Butterfly—Like the previous three films, this visually and emotionally captivating drama allows the viewer to literally experience the world through the eyes of another. Director Julian Schnabel and cinematographer Janusz Kaminski masterfully adapt the book by Jean-Dominique Bauby, a paralyzed man who dictated his entire memoir through the blinking of his left eye.
5.) Angels In America—Playwright Tony Kushner’s epic ensemble piece about the AIDS crisis in the mid-80s was transformed into a masterful six-part miniseries for HBO. It cements Kushner’s reputation as the one of the most important and provocative artists of our time. It’s also the film that officially made me a lifelong fan of Meryl Streep. The acting and writing are second-to-none, while the themes and messages are as relevant and powerful as ever.
6.) Pan’s Labyrinth—Guillermo del Toro’s darkly dazzling faerie tale is guaranteed to leave you breathless. It marries the childlike awe of escapist fantasy with the brutal realism of historical wartime fiction. The creature effects are stunningly lifelike combinations of costumes and computer animation, similar to what Spike Jonze achieved in Where the Wild Thing Are. Neither film should be considered children’s entertainment, yet they both view the world through the imaginative mind of a child.
7.) WALL-E—Here’s one for all ages. As a science fiction film, it’s wondrously creative. As a physical comedy, it’s thoroughly inspired. As a romance, it’s beautifully touching. As a cautionary parable for our troubled times, it’s bold and provocative. Pixar’s track record has been unmatched this decade, and this is their finest achievement, signaling director Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo) as the studio’s most gifted filmmaker.
8.) There Will Be Blood—Also worthy of multiple viewings is Paul Thomas Anderson’s gutsy adaptation of Upton Sinclair’s novel, “Oil!.” Centered on an exhilarating performance by Daniel Day-Lewis, the film works as both an epic allegory on the ills of capitalism, and a brilliant tribute to the work of Stanley Kubrick. It’s like the dawn of man in reverse.
9.) Almost Famous—The most jubilant and warm-hearted film of the decade. Cameron Crowe’s note-perfect tale about a plucky high schooler (Patrick Fugit), and his experience covering an up-and-coming rock band for Rolling Stone magazine, is loaded with insights about the world of music, journalistic integrity, and coming of age. It’s also a hugely entertaining human comedy, filled with unforgettable performances by Billy Crudup, Frances McDormand, Jason Lee, Philip Seymour Hoffman and (in her sole great role) Kate Hudson. This is the one film in this list I wouldn’t mind living inside.
10.) Where The Wild Things Are—I saw it three times in the theater, and I can’t wait to see it again.
BEST DOCUMENTARIES OF THE DECADE
Grizzly Man—Werner Herzog’s portrait of doomed animal activist Timothy Treadwell is one of the most unforgettable and provocative dramas of the decade.
The Fog Of War—Errol Morris’ stunning interview with former US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. Includes perhaps the most haunting of score of any documentary.
Deliver Us From Evil—The most vital and horrifying investigation of the Catholic Church’s history of sexual abuse, and its repeated attempts to keep the abuse under wraps. Profoundly disturbing, yet absolutely essential.
Taxi to the Dark Side—Director Alex Gibney won a well-deserved Oscar for this quintessential look at America’s torture practices in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay.
The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters—One of the most purely entertaining documentaries ever made. Seth Gordon captures the hilariously true tale of two men whose gaming obsessions have overtaken their lives. Outrageously funny and poignant.
No Direction Home: Bob Dylan—This epic two-part documentary has as much to say about Dylan as it does about American music and culture. One of Martin Scorsese’s towering achievements.
Bowling For Columbine—Michael Moore was the star documentarian of the decade, inspiring passionate reactions from both sides of the political spectrum. This is the film that put his name back on the map, and it remains his most provocative work to date.
Lake Of Fire—The most unbiased and uncompromising film made about the abortion debate. Extremely difficult to watch at times, which is as it should be.
Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father—Kurt Kuenne’s devastating reflection on the death of his late friend, and the trouble that followed, has more plot twists than a summertime thriller, and more dramatic impact than the majority of wintertime Oscar bait.
Man On Wire—Marvelously exuberant portrait of Phillippe Petit’s life on the high wire, and his astonishing walk between the twin towers.
OTHER FILMS THIS DECADE I COULDN’T LIVE WITHOUT
Kill Bill—The ultimate guilty pleasure.
Moulin Rouge!—The ultimate love letter to theatrical exuberance
Best in Show—The ultimate improvisational comedy.
A.I.: Artificial Intelligence—An astonishing thematic coda to Stanley Kubrick’s career, and the most unsentimental film Steven Spielberg has ever made. With each passing year, this film becomes more resonant and relevant.
Nine Lives—The ultimate multiple character study.
The Wrestler—One of the most viscerally powerful character portraits I’ve ever seen. Mickey Rourke’s performance is one for the ages.
Little Miss Sunshine—The ultimate feel-good ensemble comedy.
Adaptation—Charlie Kaufman’s self-reflexive comedy may be the most ingenious film ever made about the inner-mind of a writer. Nicholas Cage’s best performance(s).
Superbad—My personal favorite Apatowian bromance. Michael Cera captured awkward teenage behavior with a spot-on authenticity that left me awe-struck. I’ve never heard more cathartic, gut-busting laughter in a theater before or since.
(500) Days of Summer—The most imaginative and insightful film about romance and break-ups since…well, Eternal Sunshine.
BIGGEST EMBARRASSMENTS OF THE DECADE
The Room—The worst film of the decade is also one of the funniest. Writer/director/producer/lead actor Tommy Wiseau’s hysterically bad infidelity drama (reportedly filmed “with the passion of Tennessee Williams”) deserves comparison with the all-time worst cinematic spectacles, such as Manos: Hands Of Fate and Troll 2. The blank-faced Wiseau has a speech pattern as hilarious and oddly fascinating as that of Christopher Walken or Borat. Since debuting on one screen in LA, it has become a midnight sensation with audiences nationwide. It’s the only film on this list that’s actually worth seeing, and trust me, it must be seen to be believed.
Lady in the Water— The first of two reputation-tarnishing, career-destroying films this decade from the once promising one-hit-wonder M. Night Shyamalan. After his previous film (The Village) was panned by critics (and audiences), Shyamalan decided to cast himself as a misunderstood writer whose work has the magical ability to change the world. The villain of the piece? A film critic, of course. In the midst of this horrifically smug failure is a marvelous performance by Paul Giamatti, who must be applauded as the “Best Sport of the Decade.”
The Happening— Here’s the other one. Shyamalan’s writing has become so awful, he makes James Cameron look like Paddy Chayefsky. A sampling: “You know, hot dogs get a bad rap. They got a cool shape.” “Why are you eyeing my lemon drink?” “Can you believe how crappy people are?” And my personal favorite, “With whom?”
Battlefield Earth—John Travolta thought this adaptation of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard’s sci-fi novel would be the most important film of his career. Instead, it was merely his most unwatchable. A loud, ugly, laughable mess, featuring Travolta in dreads and nose-tubes, spewing dialogue like, “Damn right, Rat Brain!” Hugely funny? Damn right.
Mamma Mia—Brings new meaning to the word “highest grossing.” The enormous box office success of this ABBA musical is all the more amazing, considering how profoundly inept the film adaptation inarguably is. The singing is horrid, the actors are haggard, the lip-synching is horrendous and the emotions are as phony as the tacky backdrops. Plus Pierce Brosnan sounds like a constipated David Bowie. Mamma mia, indeed!
The Last Sin Eater—Since when did Christian entertainment become synonymous with gloom and death? This was the worst film from Fox Faith, a failed distribution arm seeking to cash in on the financial success of Passion of the Christ. The story centered on a young Welch girl with a guilt complex that leads to her to daydream about hurling herself off a cliff (in one of the worst green screen effects in recent memory). Why the studio regarded such dull unpleasantness as “spiritual family programming” is beyond me.
The Dukes of Hazzard—An offensively awful excuse for entertainment. The titular heroes are “closer’n brothers” and dumber’n a bag of bolts. They spend the entire film speeding along in their car…going up ramps, smashing into things and hootin’ and hollerin’ the whole way. I kept waiting for them to crash into the inevitable tree. In my original review, I wrote, “if this film is any accurate representation of our present American society and culture, it’s no wonder why the terrorists hate us.” I stand by my review.
Across the Universe—Julie Taymor’s ambitious musical described itself as “the most original, exhilarating, spectacular, groundbreaking motion picture of 2007.” Talk about over-hype. Her actual film, a 60s-set romance scored to Beatles tunes, was over-baked, over-thought and melodramatically over-the-top, resulting in little more than an epic Beatles in-joke. A poor man’s Moulin Rouge!.
Pearl Harbor—The most juvenile historical epic ever conceived by Hollywood. Producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Michael Bay were clearly aiming for a classic tragic romance on par with Titanic or Gone With the Wind. Yet the excruciating three-hour production came up pathetically short, with wooden performances, atrocious soap opera dialogue and action sequences that succeeded in making human carnage look cool.
Death to Smoochy—The most woefully misconceived comedy of the decade, starring Robin Williams, Edward Norton and Catherine Keener in roles they would much rather forget. Director Danny DeVito comes up with dark gags that may sound promising on paper, but just look mortifying onscreen (such as the image of Williams as a kiddie host who dances with a group of midgets while singing “Friends Come In All Sizes”). The best moment comes at the end when Williams, Norton and Keener fly away to the tune of Jackie Wilson’s “Higher and Higher.” The moment rings true, since the actors seriously couldn’t get any lower.

Matt’s Best and Worst Films of 2009

Matthew Fagerholm — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 15:42:20 +0000

TOP 10 OF 2009
1.) Where The Wild Things Are—Few filmmakers are as deeply in touch with their inner child as Spike Jonze. His adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s classic may be the most audacious “family film” ever made in America. Instead of pandering to a young audience, Jonze’s film inhabits the mind of a child grappling with loneliness, confusion and anger–feelings that may have been partly caused by his parents’ divorce. From its brilliant performances and astonishing creature effects to its poetic insight and mind-boggling symbolism, this is the most magical moviegoing experience since Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth.
2.) Two Lovers—Joaquin Phoenix’s silly stunt on Letterman detracted people from seeing his finest performance to date in James Gray’s magnificent drama. It’s the kind of film that’s so fresh and unpredictable that the viewer ends up hanging on every frame, and there isn’t a wasted one in the bunch. Loosely based on Dostoevsky’s “White Nights,” Gray’s portrait of a deeply unstable man searching for love is utterly spellbinding. It would make an ideal double feature with P.T. Anderson’s great Punch-Drunk Love.
3.) (500) Days of Summer—Along with Two Lovers, first-time director Marc Webb’s exhilarating anti-romantic comedy offered more truth about relationships than any given episode of “Sex and the City.” It’s a resoundingly hopeful and cathartic picture for anyone who’s ever had their heart broken and is still in need of mending it. And Joseph Gordon-Levitt once again proves that he’s one of the most appealing and compelling stars in America.
4.) Food Inc. & The Cove—Both of these vital and engrossing documentaries reveal the unappetizing truth about the food we eat, from the supposed produce at the local supermarket, to the falsely labeled “sea food” in Japan. While Food, Inc. illuminates the inherent corruption of industrial food production, The Cove investigates the secret slaughter of dolphins at a national park (their mercury-laced meat is then sold to unassuming consumers). These “mad as hell” muckraking opuses offer methods to ensure that the s–t hits the fan before it lands on your plate.
5.) The Hurt Locker—Here’s the film on my top ten most likely to win the Best Picture Oscar (and I sure hope it does). Director Kathryn Bigelow is unyielding in her focus on the psychological toll of war, digging deep in to the psyche of the American soldier. The film isn’t about politics, but about the visceral experience of facing death on a daily basis, and becoming addicted to the pure thrill of it. The three central performances by Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie and Brian Geraghty are pitch perfect.
6.) The White Ribbon—Michael Haneke deservedly won the Palme d’Or at Cannes for this deeply haunting picture that works as both a worthy companion piece to Cache (the director’s other recent masterpiece) and an astoundingly crafted period piece, populated by a magnificent cast of fresh faces and goregously lensed in immersive black and white by cinematographer Christian Berger. Like much of Haneke’s work, the story is more of a symbolic allegory, yet unlike in Funny Games, the characters here resonate on a human level. Christian Friedel and Leonie Benesch (as two young would-be lovers) share the tenderest moments Haneke has ever committed to film.
7.) Silent Light—Another filmmaker clearly inspired by Tarkovsky is Carlos Reygadas, whose third feature is his most powerful and provocative to date. In a society fraught with ADD, this film is like therapy, the kind that clears your head and opens your mind to the quiet details it was too deaf to comprehend. The ambiguously spiritual story is evocative of Carl Dreyer’s Ordet, and Reygadas’ hypnotic attention to detail keeps the audience mesmerized. His opening depiction of a sunrise is the most singularly beautiful image captured on a film screen this year.
8.) The Girlfriend Experience—Steven Soderbergh reached a career high with his profoundly poignant portrait of our current alienated times. Structured as a series of intimate moments between a Manhattan call girl (porn star Sasha Grey) and her various clients, this film has as much to say about our troubled economic climate and our inability to connect as Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air.
9.) Anvil!: The Story of Anvil—This year’s King of Kong. Director Sacha Gervasi takes a deeply moving and hilarious look at washed-up Canadian metal band “Anvil” (whose story often resembles that of a real-life “Spinal Tap”). This bittersweet celebration of artistic obsession and enduring friendship is both hugely funny and oddly inspiring.
10.) Sugar—While The Blind Side is bathed in the self-congratulatory glow of condescending cliches, this sports film is grounded in an unsentimental reality that is truly inspiring. Half Nelson’s filmmaking team (Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden) isn’t illustrated in telling a story about winners and losers. Their film centers on a young Dominican man (Algenis Perez Soto, in a smashing debut), who’s one of countless fresh faces recruited to prove their potential on baseball fields across the US. His story is one of personal triumph, and the film’s final scenes are far more satisfying than any Natural-style climax.
HONORABLE MENTIONS
A Single Man—My vote for the year’s Best Actor honor goes to Colin Firth. His portrayal of a closeted professor mourning the death of his lover (Matthew Goode) is richly layered and utterly heartbreaking. A remarkable debut for fashion designer Tom Ford.
Antichrist—Lars Von Trier marries the deliberately heightened surrealism of Tarkovsky with the caustic drama of Strindberg, in this uncompromising descent into guilt and insanity. Too many labeled this film “a joke.” It deserves to be taken seriously.
Everlasting Moments—Jan Troell’s glorious love letter to the power of cinema, and how it allows viewers to observe the world with newfound clarity.
An Education—24-year-old Carey Mulligan delivers this year’s breakout performance in Lone Scherfig’s delightful human comedy.
Gommorah—Matteo Garrone’s revelatory study of Italy’s most powerful crime syndicate, the Comorra, and the effects it has on the citizens of Naples.
Hunger—One of the most striking debut films of the year. Visual artist Steve McQueen stages a brutally powerful, fact-based tale of sacrifice, while Michael Fassbender delivers a brave, tour de force performance as Irish hunger striker Bobby Sands.
Up In The Air—George Clooney’s best film to date.
A Serious Man—I’m still thinking about the Coen Brothers’ beguiling black comedy, and will continue to argue with myself about it until I see it again…
Inglourious Basterds—Quentin Tarantino’s ghoulishly entertaining commentary on war pictures, bolstered by a marvelous international cast.
In The Loop—Forget The Hangover. This pointed satire about miscommunication between the British and American governments is by far the funniest comedy of the year.
BIGGEST LETDOWNS OF 2009
Goodbye Solo—The most overrated film of the year. After his wonderful neorealistic character studies Man Push Cart and Chop Shop, filmmaker Ramin Bahrani treads through more conventional waters in this tale about an upbeat Senegalese cab driver who decides to force his way into the life of a depressed old Southerner. I didn’t buy their friendship for an instant. An uneasy melding of elements that worked much better last year in The Visitor and Happy-Go Lucky.
Whatever Works—Woody Allen should’ve taken this year off, and enjoyed his success with Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Instead, he slapped together this painfully forced comedy, wasting the talent of “Curb Your Enthusiasm”’s Larry David.
Avatar—James Cameron labored over his impressive cutting-edge visuals, but he clearly didn’t put much thought into his script, which is broad and hokey beyond belief. For a thrilling adventure about alien-human relations with a political subtext, I prefer District 9.
Jennifer’s Body—Everything that was fresh and charming about Juno feels stale and irritating in screenwriter Diablo Cody’s botched sophomore effort.
The Road—John Hillcoat’s adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s masterpiece is disappointingly derivative and sentimental, undermining the power of Viggo Mortensen’s fearless performance.
Watchmen—After the year’s best opening credit sequence, director Zack Snyder’s nearly frame-by-frame recreation the landmark graphic novel quickly derails. It’s a reverent recitation like Sin City, and every bit as soulless.
Taking Woodstock—Ang Lee dilutes the generation-defining concert of all complexity, energy, meaning and music. Nice cast, though.
Cold Souls—Paul Giamatti’s splendid performance is cast adrift in Sophie Barthes’s cluttered, unfocused mind-bender that falls short of Charlie Kaufman-style brilliance.
Julie and Julia—Another great performance marred by inferior filmmaking is Meryl Streep’s jubilant channeling of Julia Child in Nora Ephron’s chick flick, saddled with an entirely unnecessary parallel story line about an annoying blogger.
Nine—Rob Marshall has yet to learn how to utilize cinema as a language for dreams rather than a platform for music videos. A gargantuan waste of talent and time.

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Matthew Fagerholm — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 10:32:25 +0000

Terry Gilliam isn’t a filmmaker so much as a force of nature. His films are so consuming, and artistic vision so uncompromising, that viewers are faced with a decision: either get swept up in his aggressively bizarre blizzard of invention, or block his torrent of weirdness with a close-minded umbrella. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is the most gleefully whimsical and purely entertaining film he’s made since 1988’s The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (and the first since Munchausen that Gilliam personally storyboarded).
The plot is secondary to the visual experience, which is stunningly alive and richly funny. Of course, the film will primarily be remembered for its behind-the-scenes story. After Heath Ledger’s untimely death during the production, three actors (Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell) were brought in to complete his scenes. It was a true labor of love for the big-name stars, who admired Ledger’s work, and refused to be paid for their work (their income was given to Ledger’s daughter Matilda). Even if the film were a complete failure, it would be tremendously moving simply for that reason alone. Therefore, I’m all the more pleased to report that Parnassus is an utter delight for playfully adventurous viewers seeking an alternative from formulaic escapism (like Avatar).
Gilliam devotees will recognize this as an amalgamation of elements from his previous work, assembled to celebrate the vitality of storytelling. The story concerns a traveling theater company that performs for passive bystanders on street corners and in parking lots (Gilliam may be able to relate, since his last few films failed to find an audience). The sheer design of the company’s stage is marvelous to behold, particularly when it’s juxtaposed with mundane contemporary backdrops. Though the plot involves a deal with the devil, a transformative dreamworld, and a high-stakes race against time, the film never feels bogged down in exposition. The dialogue (by Gilliam and Charles McKeown) is often poetic and witty, allowing the character interactions to have an energy and spontaneity largely missing from most fantasies. Ledger reportedly improvised much of his dialogue, and his scenes (though few) stand as another enduring reminder of the profound talent and magnetism that were just coming into fruition.
As in I’m Not There (and, to a degree, The Dark Knight), there are various moments in the film that have acquired a level of chilling poignancy in the wake of Ledger’s passing. Depp has an extraordinary monologue about mortality, dreams and the eternal youth one can find through fantasy. It would be unfair to ignore the fabulous work of Ledger’s co-stars–Christopher Plummer (in what is technically the lead role), Lily Cole, Andrew Garfield and the hilarious Verne Troyer–whose solid presence helped prevent Gilliam’s overstuffed film from ripping apart at the seams. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus may be rather disjointed and disorganized, but that’s part of its freewheeling charm. I’ll take messy genius over tidy mediocrity any day.