Following the 'Power To The Pixel' presentation, one pioneering young filmmaker is utilizing parts of the discussed concepts in film distribution. Tim Clague is proposing to make his film aided by carefully placed ads and sponsorship, thereby offering the film for free across the net! We're already seeing a lot more of this and the concept deserves support! Take a look... the movie's called Circumference and is a romantic drama set on the south coast of England. More interestingly for filmmakers, it offers an alternative in the way you create and market directly to your audience while keeping them involved in the process and the journey.
Where to
begin with Todd Haynes’ biopic of Bob Dylan? It looked like it was going to be
the kind of variation on a theme he’d made when he revived Douglas Sirk in Far
From Heaven, only this time with D.A. Pennebaker’s Don’t Look Back as the blueprint.
While the black and white Cate Blanchett segment is at the core of this curious
six part journey it never falls simply into stylistic imitation. I can’t recall
any other film so bent on a tour of narrative styles with the exception of the
haunting 32 Short Films About Glenn Gould. Indeed, it moves with such a restless invention it isn’t that much
concerned with fidelity to the actual life of Dylan. No bad thing if we survey
the erratic and mostly under-performing history of movie biopics.
We begin with an 11 year old black boy riding in a boxcar,
he has a guitar, on its case is written, This Machine Kills Fascists. As much
as we’re going into a very peculiar fantasy – the boy’s name is Woody Guthrie –
with quite specific allegorical aims and debts to the lore of Dylan, the intimacy is never forced. By the time he
plunges into a lake and falls deep into a beguiling dream-like sequence which
suddenly takes us back to a kind of American South magical realism we have
already been introduced to another Bob Dylan. Throughout the film literalism is denied. So, there is Dylan as played
by Ben Whishaw, Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Heath Ledger and Richard Gere.
It sounds very tricksy having another 5 actors play essentially the same
figure, and it sounds a waste of time if you don’t much care for Bob Dylan but
I’m Not There is something very rare, a film with a unique ambition which
leaves you completely elated. Memorable films get made and sometimes a film
comes along which push that bit further into the uncharted, and “makes it new”.
There are a great many directors who helm interesting and highly crafted films
but utterly lack the spark of magic which sends you out from the picture-show
into the nearly total negative of the outside world with a confirmed faith in
man.
The main
contrast is with No Direction Home. Worthy enough but lacking in inspiration.
Here the incendiary arrival of the electric Dylan at Newport is announced as
Bob and The Band turning on the audience with machine guns. Weaving a reflexive
spell through the “music and many lives of Bob Dylan” it’s like watching a
how-to on bringing together quite disparate influences from Fellini, Godard,
and crystalline moments of texture from others like Truffaut, Peckinpah,
Richard Lester, Sirk and so on. Always in this prismatic work is a critical
sense of what makes identity and the difficulty in tying it down alongside a
vigourous questioning of how much Dylan’s art resides in ruse rather than
conviction.
Broadly
speaking it follows a chronology of Dylan as child of the blues to protest
singer to electric pop star to the retreating movie star and a reclusive Billy
the Kid and to born-again Christian. Dominating the film is Cate Blanchett as
Jude, the clearest impersonation of the singer. At times it works almost as a
paraphrase of the Pennbaker documentary till embracing the dreamier side it
starts to trip out on the drug excesses of the 60s. The Beatles, Ginsberg,
disgruntled folkies, a knife wielding fan, and Swinging London hipsters pass by
and notably, Bruce Greenwood as Mr Jones, a pedantic interrogative journalist
with whom we enter a mysterious world of connection, as Stephen Malkmus sings
Ballad of a Thin Man.
The
surrealist flights of imagery in the songs can get a little wearing for me,
such an immature abundance - the fish
truck that loads while his conscience explodes - here its mediated by a formal
understanding of film as a musical expression – like Scorsese or Tarantino – so
everything is instilled with a sense of its timeliness. It unfolds like a song
which is taking you back to something that seemed lost. There is an exquisite
care for detail, for the passing of the 60s into a more remote 70s. From a
traditional black meal-time in the South to an increasing distance, mirrored in
luxurious furnishing to the fantasy of a Wild West alter-ego, it speaks the
allure of art as interpretation.
For some
this is too much of a hike, a highly indulgent foray into auteurism without a
centre. The problem lies in how anything like a conventional portrayal would
have got even faintly close to the enigma of Dylan. When Heath Ledger plays a
movie star version of the protest singer Dylan (Bale) it captures exactly how
the style of apparent imitation falls short. Frankly, the level of style in this film is so nuanced it’s full effect
is for only a very few, but this is hardly reason to condemn it. How dull had this been content to be a
typical studio movie. Instead, it works as much as a Todd Haynes’ creation as
it does a well researched account of Bob Dylan. It would have been easy enough
to rattle off a Dylan Greatest Hits on the soundtrack but thankfully, it mostly
steers clear of the obvious featuring many cover versions from the likes of Tom
Verlaine, Sonic Youth and others. Like
the title, I’m Not There much of the soundtrack has sought inspiration from The
Basement Sessions and goes for the overlooked.
The last
part with Richard Gere as Billy the Kid is regarded as the weakest. Having
survived Pat Garrett he now lives quietly in Riddle with a dog, at least until
his nemesis Garrett returns to flatten the town for a railroad (or was it a
highway?). This addresses the recluse, the Dylan of the 70s and, to some extent
the Western he appeared in, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. It does play with a
more traditional form but also its use of space has been completely missed,
particularly, how it contrasts with the alienated life-style Heath Ledger part.
It ends aphoristically, Gere’s voice-over drawing together the fragments, like
a line from Pynchon more than Dylan, as Billy jumps on a train and finds a
guitar, and written on its dusty case: This Machine Kills Fascists. The film
coalesces all of its previous versions into a series of cuts quite movingly and
then finally there’s Dylan himself.
It’s
raining. A typical slate grey October
London by the South Bank. A good day to be inside watching movies! I’ve got
high hopes for Angel, the new film by Francois Ozon who’s back with another
literary adaptation with Charlotte Rampling. It was well received at the Berlin
Film Festival and the word is it harks back to the gloriously rich melodramas
of the past á la Douglas Sirk. The story of a girl who goes from being a
grocer’s daughter to successful writer of romantic fiction, it stars Ramola
Garai who impressed in I Capture the Castle. I’ve never read any Barbara Cartland but that seems to be the world of
Angel. Her life seamlessly flows with the dream-like quality of those romances.
Confection is very much to the fore, indeed while I accept it doesn’t fall into
pastiche it feels so sweetly fabergé, you’re waiting for the night to draw down
on the splendour of Paradise House. I start to feel as though the dull outside
world would be a relief.
It does bring
to mind a curious fascination to revisit those TV mini-series of the 80s so
beloved by ITV. I remember Lace and wonder if that kind of soap opera might
have gained a certain vintage? I recently saw the original Bourne Identity and
while most sane viewers would see it as a horrid and dated 80s adaptation – why
did Richard Chamberlain have to wear blusher when he was playing a trained
assassin? - Jaclyn Smith is all about post-disco sophistication – so good! But
as for Angel, I’ve had enough. I decide to walk out. I guess by the end things
become more troubled but this looked to be a long way from achieving any real
emotion. The point with Sirk’s melodramas, (homaged well by Todd Haynes in Far
From Heaven) is that you actually feel moved.
Overall,
this Festival has had a good line-up of Films. Todd Haynes’ I’m Not There was a
real highlight; it’s a biopic I suppose, but before that it stands as a truly
original work. It takes it’s form as much from the history of cinema as it does
Dylan. You don’t need to be a fan of Bob Dylan to admire it. There is the
surprise screening later on which I’m hoping is going to be something better than The Prestige which showed in the
same slot last year. It’s a Hollywood
film and there’s a rumour it’s There Will Be Blood, P.T. Anderson’s epic tale
of greed and loss with Daniel Day Lewis, which would be a treat as its release
date isn’t till Jan 08. After Angel I see there’s a Rita Hayworth Musical which
should be an uplifting release from the resolutely miserable weather.
Tonight
and Every Night from the fine British director, Victor Saville is a war-time
Musical set in the Windmill Theatre. It’s plot is like Terrence Rattigan’s
classic WW2 film The Way to the Stars – the girl who waits at home to see if
her dashing pilot will return safe from a mission. All very arms across the
Atlantic, and inevitably headed for a poignancy which only the awfulness of war
brings. The script is quite unremarkable but the direction sparkles for the
musical numbers. In particular, Marc Platt’s audition scene and a climatic
scene where dancers appear to walk from a movie screen onto the stage. Understandably lacking in the risque content
of the actual Windmill Theatre it does have the marvelous sheen of Hollywood
Musical reality, a long way from the miserable reality of war-time London. The
cinematography and set design are a delight and with Rita Hayworth I can see the point in its restoration.
Before
the Surprise Screening it’s off for a vital refuel in Chinatown. I’m by myself
so I seem drawn to Wong Kei’s as the respectable choice for the lone diner and
I read they’ve supposed to have improved. A shame the New Piccadilly on Denman
Street has closed its doors to make way for redevelopment. I never knew of it
existence tucked between Shaftesbury Ave and Piccadilly Circus till earlier
this year (do check Russell Davies excellent eggbaconchipsbeans blog for a
celebration of the old fashioned café). Feeling full on pork belly, duck and rice I make my way towards
Leicester Square.
The suspense
over the Surprise Screening has added a distinct buzz. The crowd seem like an
unpretentious lot of cinema-goers which is refreshing to see for a big
screening in Leicester Square. It turns out in spite of my own hunch to be The
Coen Brother’s new film No Country For Old Men. It’s been very well received so
far so a fine choice although There Will Be Blood would have been its first
public screening outside of an obscure festival in Austin. Well, firstly,
they’ve retreated from their dalliance with mainstream Hollywood, and gone
straight back to form with a dark, brutal noir set in the South. There is
certainly blood in this one. As befits an adaptation from a Cormac McCarthy
novel this is a world where the law is always overshadowed by a deeper curse of
violence. Set in the burnished country of the Texas border, the scene of drug
wars since the 80s, casual bloodletting is the order of the day. The pace is
masterfully measured. It takes some time for things to get going but when they
do it makes for the most thrilling film The Coen Brothers have done, albeit a
flawed one.
Llewelyn
Moss (Josh Brolin) a hunter wanders into the remains of a drug deal gone very
wrong. Apart from the corpses he finds 2 million dollars in a case and the
drugs cargo. Deciding to make off with
the money like most people would, he strangely returns later on that night to
the scene. Now he becomes the hunted! His main and most dangerous pursuer Anton
Chigurh, might as well be evil personified. I can’t remember the last time I
saw so terrifying a villain in a film. Bardem’s performance dominates the film
with its controlled menace, which finds in inflections a detail to the
psychopathic murderer, which have little rival. Tommy Lee Jones has a Western
statesman-like role as a cop trying to find Moss before his hunters reach him.
Although philosophically central it feels like he’s there for the sake of the
voice-over at the start and end and incidental to the main chase. Motels figure
greatly as does Chigurh’s preferred
means of death – a curious pressurized rifle. It seems you only have to wander
into his path to be visited by death. Indeed, great though all the tension is you start to wonder about
Chigurh’s casual approach to his killing. He’s distinctive looking and a mass
murderer but there’s no proper man-hunt for him!
Any
McCarthy story is going to fall short of conventional resolution and a number
of times No Country For Old Men very adeptly sidesteps audience expectation but
they have established so well a hard kernelled sense of reality that you wonder
how easily the tension is crafted. This is part reflection on the fallenness of
a hard land, a noired Western; it conjures a story that bridges too much in
tone between the contemporary and the extreme exploits of story-telling. It features
something like their best work but it finally fails to convince.
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