Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
If I were Martin Scorsese, I’d be sweating two of the films that Ghostboy reviews today more than anything else that might end up as potential competition at the Oscars. See, Scorsese is cursed to always lose in his bid to win Best Director, and it will always be to an actor-turned-filmmaker. This year, both George Clooney and Denzel Washington are building some strong buzz for their debut turns as director, and Mr. Beaks swears that Denzel’s the one who is going to send Marty home empty-handed once again. Let’s see if Ghostboy agrees...
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen and ladies in particular,
First of all, let me just say...
Adaptation. Wow.
The Two Towers. WOW.
Anyway, in an attempt to avoid gushing about these two extraordinary films, I'll jump right into the three reviews that are the focal point of this article. First up is a film that in MY opinion is not the best film of the year nor the best film of it's director's career...but it's still damn good.
THE PIANIST
'The Pianist' is Roman Polanski's new film set during the Holocaust. On the one hand, it is a beautiful, wrenching film that is dramatically sound and technically accomplished. On the other, it is another Holocaust film, and one wonders do we need anymore?
I say yes. There are enough stories and enough suffering for many more films to be made, and all I ask is that they be honest (being well made wouldn't hurt either). Some will be better than others -- I value 'The Grey Zone,' which came out earlier this year, more than this film because it cast a new light on The Holocaust and told its story in a brand new way. 'The Pianist' is more classical in its construction, more reverent; some may draw parallels to previous films, but it stands on its own as an original tale.
And technically, it is less about The Holocaust than it is about one man's survival of it. Wladyslaw Szpilman, in real life, was a classical pianist who managed to hide in the Warsaw ghetto for the duration of the war, even after the rest of the Jewish population of Poland was taken off to concentration camps. He is played here by Adrien Brody, and we first see him in a radio station, performing with great skill. Right in the middle of the piece, bombs begin to drop; the station shakes, the ceilings crumble, but his fingers keep hitting the notes.
Not too long after that, the crackdown on the Jews begin. First they must wear armbands, then they are forbidden to walk on the sidewalk or go in most public places. Finally, they are confined to a ghetto, surrounded by a wall that the Germans force them to build themselves. Dead bodies begin to appear in the streets, and they stay there, rotting. A crazed woman constantly roams the streets, asking people if they've seen her husband. The Nazis are getting more and more liberal in their abuse of the Jews, and casual murders soon become standard practice.
Wladyslaw makes a little money playing the piano in a bar; he and his family all remain strong, glad to be together. Then the Germans announce that everyone is being transported to work camps, and as the trains are being borded, a sheer twist of fate keeps Wladyslaw off of them. His family is taken away, and he never sees them again; he manages to tell his sister "I wish I knew you better," and she tearfully thanks him. Moments later they're gone, and within a few months Wladyslaw is the only person left in the smoking remains of the ghetto, and the only Jew left in the devestated city of Warsaw.
His escapes from death are numerous; he seems too lucky at times. At one point, he ends up in empty apartment building, starving to death. There is a piano, and he keeps himself sane by playing full concerts, his fingers dancing a few inches above the keys and the music resounding beautifully in his mind. I love to play the piano, and I always have trouble restraining myself from playing just a few notes whenever I see one somewhere, and I can scarcely imagine the frustration of having one at your disposal but not being able to play it for fear of death; it is a terribly affecting scene, heartbreaking and beautiful.
The real Szpilman wrote a book about his experience, which is what this movie is based upon. I do not doubt, though, that Polanski added much from his own memories; he was a young boy in Poland during those year, and while both his parents were taken to concentration camps, he managed to escape and hide and live to make this film. There is frequent, horrifying brutality on display here, and it bears the mark of someone who has had to live with it their whole life.
But while Polanski drags us down for much of the film, he seems ultimately concerned with the essential goodness of man. There is a scene where Szpilman has seemingly reached the end of the line; he is going to die. And yet he doesn't, and it is due to the humanity of one man who must have been the most unlikely savior imagineable. What we have seen up to this point has been entirely tragic, but this surprising turn turns the film into something entirely new, something full of hope. I strongly suggest seeing this film early in the morning; when you leave, you'll have been through an incarnation of hell, but you'll walk out on a day that will seem a little more beautiful.
ANTWONE FISHER
There is technically little wrong with 'Antwone Fisher.' It is executed with a decent level of competence, it hits most of the right notes and it successfully manages a little -- just a little -- tug at the heart strings at the end. These are all pleasant enough attributes for a movie to have.
Beyond that, however, 'Antwone Fisher' is not a good movie, and I believe its problems can be summed up in the following anecdote. The other day, after viewing the film, I sent an e-mail to a friend, asking if he had any interest in viewing it; he responded negatively, going as far as to offer a beat-by-beat synopsis of the movie based on what he gathered from the trailer. He got every single beat right, including the ending.
If you haven't seen the trailer, here's the gist of it: Antwone Fisher (Derek Luke) is a young black Naval recruit who has a tendency to explode in outbursts of rage. He is assigned a psychiatrist, Dr. Benjamin Davenport (Denzel Washington), who helps him work through his troubled past. There are ugly flashbacks to Fisher's childhood; he was born in jail, abandoned by his mother and abused by his guardians, but Davenport helps him come to terms with himself and let go of his rage (what's not explained is how Fisher went from gaining a sense of self worth in the Navy to being a screenwriter in Hollywood).
I won't give away the ending, mainly because there isn't that much to give away. This is a 'troubled youth makes good' film, and it sticks painfully close to the structure established by other films in this genre, hurrying from one cliche to the next. This is curious, because the movie was written by its subject, Antwone Fisher; one would think he'd have more insight into his own life.
This is also the much-heralded directorial debut of Denzel Washington, and he does a decent enough job. There are a few clumsily staged scenes and a surreal opening sequence that might have worked better at the end (or perhaps on the cutting room floor), but overall his approach is straightforward. It is also unremarkable and offers nothing to make me look forward to his sophmore effort. His own performance in the film is much better; Denzel is the kind of actor who is always either good or great, no matter what the film, and he's good here.
So is the rest of the cast, for the most part, but the smallest role is the best: Viola Davis ('Solaris,' 'Far From Heaven') appears for a few moments towards the end as Fisher's wayward mother, and the level of talent she displays nearly takes the film to another level. Unlike everyone and everything else in the movie, she takes her time.
There is an audience for this film, of course, and they will enjoy it based on the merits described in the first paragraph, but those looking for something a little stronger -- or, dare I say, realistic -- will be sorely disappointed. I'm sure Fisher's life was indeed tumultuous and dramatic and worth telling on film, but maybe he shouldn't have tried to adapt it into a screenplay himself. Stories about people dealing with problems work best when they let us see our own reflection in the screen; 'Antwone Fisher' has neither the drama nor the depth to achieve this. It is a story full of strife and conflict without much of either, and for a movie made by and about African Americans, it is awfully vanilla.
So basically, Denzel is no George Clooney. And speaking of...
CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND
'Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind' marks the third film made from a Charlie Kaufman screenplay this year, but more importantly it marks the directorial debut of George Clooney. Clooney has been turning in one solid piece of work after another, be it merely entertaining ('Oceans 11') or challenging ('Solaris'). He consistently makes smart and risky choices, and now he demonstrates the same principals on a storytelling scale. This is a darn good start.
It is based on the 'unauthorized autobiography' of Chuck Barris, who some may know as the creator of the seventies TV hit, The Gong Show. I never saw or heard of the show before this film, but from what I can tell it was a forerunner of 'America's Funniest Home Videos' and various current reality shows, in that it consisted of contestants humiliating themselves on television for the enjoyment of the audience. Barris also created 'The Dating Game,' 'The Newlywed Show,' and, apparently, countless other programs which never made it to the air.
According to Barris' own testimony, he was also a freelance hitman for the CIA. He was recruited early in his career, when he was in dire financial straits. In the film, a mysterious agent (played by Clooney) hires him, telling him simply that he "fits the profile." Barris balances his two careers for quite a while, before succumbing to pressure and temporary madness. Upon recovery, he wrote the memoir that, in turn, inspired this film. He tells us about his troubled childhood (I won't spoil the joke there), his simultaneous quest for sex and success on television (both of which he gets plenty of), his troubled relationship with his true love Penny (Drew Barrymore) and his exploits as an international assassin.
I know that the autobiography is real, but I seriously doubt it contains much truth; indeed, it seems too good to be true, and much of it bears the insanely surreal mark of the only writer in Hollywood who can repeatedly use voice-over so well, Charlie Kaufman. He's his usual manic self here; one of my favorite moments in the script is a multi-character, multi-scene argument that is made up entirely of the word 'fuck.' It must have been a wonderful thing to read.
And it's wonderful to see, too. Perhaps Clooney is a natural filmmaker, or perhaps all that time he's spent with Soderbergh and the Coen Brothers has taught him something; either way, he knows how to get the story told and how to make quite an impression doing it. The film has a really unique look, almost like one of those old black and white films that Ted Turner decided to colorize (the cinematography is by Newton Thomas Sigel, who photographed Clooney in 'Three Kings'). There is a lot going on in the visuals; the film goes from funny to scary at the drop of a hat, and I have to express quite a bit of admiration for the really daring feats of choreography -- involving the camera, actors and sets -- that Clooney pulls off. Some of them have to be seen to be believed.
He's also a whiz with the actors. Not only does he get Barrymore to give her best performance ever, not only does he get Julia Roberts to completely eschew her mainstream persona in the role of a calculating femme fatale, but he lets Sam Rockwell, as Chuck Barris, finally step up to the plate and prove what a great actor he is. Rockwell's been laboring just under the public perception for quite some time now, appearing recently in 'Galaxy Quest' and 'Charlie's Angels' and 'Welcome To Collinwood.' He's a chameleon, but I think he'll be recognized a lot more after this film.
Now, I have to say that the only director who can turn a Kaufman screenplay into a complete success is Spike Jonze. Clooney does come pretty close, though, and I'm inclined to forgive him for the letting the pace slip over the course of the film. Rather than go for something simple his first time out, he's tackled something complex and original, and rather than coast by on the extremely talented cast and crew he's assembled, he's made it into something his own. If this is what his first film is like, I can't wait for his second -- and I wonder if I should be worried if he ever tries his hand at screenwriting.
All right, that's it for now...part two of my holiday reviews will be coming along within the next 36 hours, just as soon as I finish typing up this review of 'The Hours.' I'll also throw in a look at the new Cronenberg film for added reading value! Until then, I'm outta here...
Ghostboy
Can’t wait, man. I’ll be watching the inbox for your next dispatch.
"Moriarty" out.
