Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
Ummmm... ouch.
Walking out of Chelsea Walls.
Harry,
These days I’m teaching a producing class at NYU and we decided to see Ethan Hawkes Chelsea Walls. I got 12 preview passes from the lovely folks at the NYU program board. At about five minutes in, a couple of people got up and left. Then after about ten minutes, a few more. And at about half an hour in, over twenty people had left this free screening. My students and I managed to make it for forty five minutes in, and then left to go hang out in a bar. In the middle of a Kris Kristofferson scene no less.
This has to be one of the flattest scripts ever. There is no sense of drama, no story. Just random sort of non-events that happen to people. As a mood or tone piece, it fails to resonate. Because the scenes are so weak, the actors, and some mighty fine ones, Uma Thurman, Steve Zahn, Vincent D'Onofrio have little idea what to do. And they seem to receive little help from the director.
The camera never seems to be in the right place – and talking about this with my students afterwards, we realized it is because there is no right place for the camera in a film like this. Since the scenes have little sense of drama, people just seem to talk about nothing, the camera doesn’t have to be anywhere.
This film was produced under the Indigent program. One hundred thousand bucks to make a digital video feature. Let me tell you, digital video looks terrible blown up to 35 mm. I want to see an actor’s eyes – and in this format, the eyes are blotchy. Partly due to mediocre shooting and lighting, partly due to limitations of the format. Many people say that digital video is the future of independent film. Until the technology improves, it is doing independent filmmakers, and especially actors, a disservice.
What is astounding is so many people signed off on such a terrible script. From Indigent to the actors to Lion’s Gate who is distributing this bomb. Our class also watched Kissing Jessica Stein, which although I had issues with it, at least was somewhat charming and did manage to tell a story. And you could see the actors. Did I mention that Kris Kristofferson was filmed nearly in the dark?
Anyhow, I haven’t walked out of a film in awhile, nor ever had ten people walk out with me. But they say you learn more by watching bad films than good ones. And as we dissected the film afterwards, I have to say it may be true.
Yours,
The Maus
Yeah. Like I said... ouch.
"Moriarty" out.
