Unlike many Harry Potter readers, when it comes to ranking the various installments, I enjoy Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix more than any other except the first book in the series. I agree that “Caps-Lock Harry” (as the brooding, shouting adolescent Harry has been nicknamed) wears on the reader’s patience, but I find him much more tolerable in Jim Dale’s reading of the audiobook (Dale doesn’t shout, for one thing). Most importantly, however, Order of the Phoenix ranks high on my list of Potter volumes because I think it’s the book in which Rowling most successfully shows the effects of evil. I’ve said before, probably so many times that my regular readers are ready to place a silencing charm on me, that I’m not impressed with Rowling’s depictions of good and evil. “Good” always boils down to some vague notion of “loyalty” or “friendship,” ungrounded in any deeper principle (and unaccompanied by virtues such as “honesty” and “trust”). And, since I believe that evil is not the opposite of good but rather its absence, it’s hard to paint a convincing portrait of evil unless you have first shown us the good.
However, in Order of the Phoenix, we see evil’s side-effects, rather than its head-on portrait. In one of the best scenes of the new film (which I saw today at 12:00 a.m.), Luna Lovegood reminds Harry that Voldemort partially accomplishes his purposes by sowing discord among his opponents. The primary source of friction in Order of the Phoenix? Disagreement over whether Harry can believe that Voldemort has indeed returned. Though I’m cautious about trying to find Christian parallels in the Harry Potter books, I am reminded here of Screwtape’s advice to junior devil Wormwood when he impresses upon him the advantages of keeping humans from believing in demons like themselves.
More than any other film in the series, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix has a central theme: the internal strife within the “good” wizarding community, and Harry’s resulting isolation. At times, the theme is even overly stressed, such as when Hermione repeatedly tells Harry, “We’re in this together.” In spite of a bit of hitting the viewer over the head, though, the film does at least achieve a unity that the others really haven’t (not even Alfonso Cuarón’s Prisoner of Azkaban, which is still my favorite of the films).
Some critics have complained that this fifth film doesn’t have the “magic” of the earlier films, while some have claimed that, given the fact that Voldemort has just returned, the film doesn’t seem dark enough. I found the tone highly appropriate for the film’s themes. I liked (well, from an aesthetic standpoint) watching Voldemort work obliquely, as it’s how Satan most often works in the world, too. Sure, the grand apocalyptic confrontation we’re headed for in the seventh book may be more exciting (or it may not, given Rowling’s propensity to write disappointing climactic scenes), but the everyday struggle against smaller manifestations of evil is actually rendered with more complexity in Rowling’s work (and David Yates’s film).
I was also pleased to discover that angry Harry is rendered much more sympathetic on film than in Rowling’s prose–possibly because we’re not barraged with a stream of Harry’s self-pitying thoughts, as we are in the book. When we see him calling desperately after Dumbledore’s retreating back, we sense his feeling of abandonment more powerfully than we (or at least I) ever do in the novel.
Yates and new-to-the-series screenwriter Michael Goldenberg have made a good many changes to the plot that do help to streamline the movie, as well as to keep it centered on its theme. There’s one apparently superfluous diversion (Grawp), but I remember hearing rumors of a character who was going to be cut from the film who gained a reprieve because Rowling he insisted he was important later in the series (i.e., Book 7). My money’s on Grawp. At least, I hope he turns out to be significant, because otherwise he’s just a big waste of space. Literally.
(UPDATE: My latest issue of Entertainment Weekly informs me that Kreacher is actually the movie character saved by J.K. Deus Ex Machina Rowling for his important future role. Which makes me wonder . . . why then didn’t the film contain anything about his treachery? And WHY was Grawp still in it?)
Have some things been lost in the plot’s condensation? Of course. Again, most of the cut material isn’t really necessary, but several times I wondered whether someone unfamiliar with the book would be able to make sense of everything. And several of the missing elements seem particularly important to the story (SPOILERS to be found below):
- Dumbledore’s discussion of how the prophecy about Harry could just as well have been about baby Neville Longbottom—until Voldemort, acting on partial knowledge of the prophecy, determined the other part of it by choosing to attack baby Harry. It’s an interesting combination of fate/free will stuff, and I’m always in favor of anything about Neville, as I think he and Snape are the two most interesting characters in the whole series.
- Ginny’s conversation with Harry about what it’s like to be possessed by Voldemort (she has been; he hasn’t). In addition to better explaining what’s going on with Harry, this conversation lays the groundwork for their future romance.
- Snape’s motivation for kicking Harry out of his office and canceling his Occlumency lessons. In the book, this happens because Harry has, unwisely but deliberately, trespassed in the Pensieve where Snape has been keeping his private memories. In the film, he accidentally gains access to Snape’s memories while protecting himself against Snape’s efforts to read his mind. Since this is what Harry is supposed to be doing anyway, it doesn’t seem logical that Snape would throw him out. (UPDATE: Porpoise has now seen the movie too, and he pointed out that, as it’s presented in the film, Harry’s attempts to defend himself from Snape’s Legilimency aren’t supposed to involve his wand; he’s supposed to control his mind. So when Harry pulls out his wand and shouts “Protego!“, thus breaking into Snape’s memories, he actually is transgressing. Further support for Porpoise’s reading of the scene: as I’ve been re-reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, I’ve begun to suspect that Goldenberg, when screenwriting for Order of the Phoenix, drew inspiration from the next volume in the series. The relevant scene is on page 180, if you want to look it up for yourself. It involves Harry using “Protego!” against Snape when they’re supposed to be learning nonverbal spells in class. With this additional information, I withdraw my initial complaint about this point in the movie.)
- The night of the attack on Mr. Weasley, which is skimmed over too quickly. As soon as we learn that Mr. Weasley has been found (but before we know anything about his condition), Dumbledore whisks Harry off to an impromptu Occlumency lesson with Snape. Their apparent lack of concern over Mr. Weasley’s fate somewhat undermines the film’s insistence on love, friendship, and loyalty as the triumvirate of virtues.
Those gripes aside, though, I have to salute the filmmakers for including a shot of Hermione’s otter-shaped Patronus, the one component of the movie I was most eagerly anticipating. It gamboled very nicely.
July 11th, 2007
I think it’s safe to say that Ratatouille is now my favorite Pixar movie. I think it’s also safe to say that no Pixar movie will ever be my favorite animated Disney movie. To attain that lofty title, a film would have to surpass Beauty and the Beast, and unless some unforeseen ingredients manage to creep into the Pixar soup, that ain’t gonna happen (maybe I’ll elaborate more on the reasons in a future post).
First of all, let me say how much I enjoyed Ratatouille, as I did The Incredibles before it. There’s no question that writer-director Brad Bird is making today’s best animated American films. They’re visually stunning, and the plot and script display evidence of human thought, rather than being assembled by a committee intent upon bashing the message of “Just believe in yourself!” into youngsters’ heads. There are many moments in Bird’s films that genuinely amuse, rather than trying for pop-culture-savvy or below-the-belt humor.
And yet, in the days since I’ve seen Ratatouille, little lasting impression has remained with me beyond, “Gee, that rat had cute paws,” and “I’m hungry.”
Critics have been lauding Ratatouille almost unanimously—in part, it seems, because it prominently features discussions about art and criticism. Our rodent protagonist, Remy, is, we are told, an artist in the kitchen. He seems to know instinctively when a soup calls for chervil or tarragon. But is it instinct? Is it a “gift,” as some moments in the film seem to imply? What does it mean when Remy’s inspiration, Parisian (and human, though deceased) chef Auguste Gusteau, repeatedly voices his motto, “Anyone can cook”?
It’s clear that not just anyone can cook, because the young chef-wannabe Linguini never rises above miserable failure in his own culinary efforts. Apparently having the desire and the training (as well as “talent in the bloodline”) is not enough to make an artist. True? Sadly, yes, as many an aspiring artist has no doubt realized. Linguini’s story is a somewhat tragic one—or it would be, if it were fully explored. Instead, he is supplied with a brilliant rat in his hat.
Toward the end of the film, the acerbic food critic Anton Ego tries to clarify Gusteau’s motto: “Not everyone can be a great artist,” he says. “But a great artist can come from anywhere.” Perhaps Gusteau should have said it more clearly from the beginning: “Anyone who has the gift, even a rat who has the gift, can cook.” Those who don’t have the gift apparently can be placated by romance: Linguini’s artistic ambitions rather suddenly disappear as he becomes enthralled with Colette, the restaurant’s only female chef.
While the film’s message is a welcome relief from the aforementioned “believe in yourself” drivel, it still seems confused. Bird seems to want to celebrate the democracy of art, at the same time that he has to acknowledge that, realistically, the feast isn’t available to all. This is, indeed, a difficult issue for anyone to wrestle with—which is the reason I’d like to see it done more completely and honestly in Ratatouille.
But, you say, surely a kid’s movie doesn’t need a comprehensive and consistent philosophy of art! Well, first of all, Bird has said that he didn’t intend Ratatouille exclusively for children—a fact that should be obvious to anyone watching the film. Sure, children will enjoy it, for many of the same reasons that I did: bright colors, funny dialogue, and cute, fluffy rodents. But I think they actually would enjoy it even more if it dealt more fully with the pain of wanting to be an artist and not succeeding. Kids know what failure means. They face it every day, in some arena or another, and a chorus of “believe in yourself” isn’t going to help them know how to deal with it. All the more reason for a thoughtful, independent-thinking movie to step up to the plate and show someone wrestling with the realization that he isn’t an artist—at least not in the way that he had hoped to be. And once that realization dawns, perhaps he will see new, previously unsuspected gifts unfolding in the wake of the defeated dream.
P.S. I hope it doesn’t sound as if I’m advocating that movies deliberately insert a moral for kids about dealing with failure. Rather, I’m just irritated because it seems like this theme was already there in Ratatouille, and it wasn’t dealt with truthfully. Instead, there was more of the “family opposition to art” theme than there needed to be in Remy’s story.
P.P.S. Ratatouille’s “art” theme was also a bit confused in its treatment of commercialization. We are supposed to despise Gusteau’s successor Chef Skinner because he has used Gusteau’s name to market a line of frozen TV dinners (and several critics have seen here an allegory of Disney’s decline). Parts of the movie could read as an advertisement for the Slow Food movement. But our hero Remy dreams of becoming a culinary artist because he has seen Gusteau’s cooking show on television—a medium which, in the U.S. at least, is dependent upon the marketing of products. His secondary education comes through Gusteau’s cookbook, itself a kind of commercial product. Gusteau’s democratic theories about art can’t be spread without the aid of commercialism. The two arenas aren’t as separate as the film’s surface suggests.
P.P.P.S. The presence of grumpy critic Anton Ego in Ratatouille makes it a dangerous enterprise to say anything negative about the movie, for fear of being labeled a snob. I’m undoubtedly a snob in some respects, but I hope it’s not snobbish to expect that an animated movie could, in fact, deal with the theme of art in as complex a way as the artsy-est independent drama.
July 5th, 2007
There’s no denying that Judi Dench is a great actress. She may not have deserved her Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her few minutes on screen as Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love, but we all know she won that because Academy voters felt guilty about not giving her the Oscar she deserved the previous year for Her Majesty, Mrs. Brown. She’s great. However, when she’s allowed to get away with playing a charming/cantankerous upper-class British elf, she does. Goodness knows she’s earned the right, and she’s still enjoyable even when she’s on autopilot. Still, if the Dench-moxie is all a movie has going for it, it’s not going to work.
Thus, Mrs. Henderson presents . . . not much interesting. It’s the tale of a rich British widow who, on a whim, buys a theater and hires an artistic director with whom she charmingly spars (and, apparently, loves?) for the rest of the movie. But—gasp!—this darling old bird suggests that the theater gain novelty status by featuring topless girls in its shows. My, my, she’s cute and naughty. Cue tittering here.
About halfway through, we stop with the twee and turn to the melodramatic, as World War II begins, and the nude musical revue bravely soldiers on through the Blitz. By the end of the film, we learn what we’ve already sort of guessed, that Mrs. Henderson has an entirely noble motive for exploiting naked young women: her son died in the First World War, and, afterward, as she was going through his things, she discovered a nude postcard among them. She realized that he had probably never seen a naked woman in real life. So, brave Doughboy lads, it’s all for you: thanks to Mrs. Henderson, you can see some live bosoms before you’re blown to bits! How touching.
If you’re expecting any sort of meaningful meditation on the ethics of nudity in art, you won’t find it here. According to the British government, the show is okay as long as the girls remain motionless—because that’s more like the nudity you’d see in great works of art in a museum. I have friends both in the fine arts and the theater who have wrestled with the ethics of nudity in their fields (particularly from a faith perspective), and there’s nothing here to help in weighing the issue. According to Mrs. Henderson, what did God give women these parts for, if not to show them off?
I’ve heard several people describe Mrs. Henderson Presents as “The Full Monty, only with women”—which it decidedly is not. For the record, The Full Monty is one of my favorite movies, so this is hardly an unbiased view, but one of the things that’s so great about that movie is that it’s not about the nudity. It’s about a lot of things: working-class industrial Britain, men and their body image, male bonding, how various characters deal with failure. And it has an alternately hilarious and poignant script. Mrs. Henderson Presents is about, well, Judi Dench acting cute.
One of the most puzzling things about the movie is that it’s directed by Stephen Frears, who recently guided Helen Mirren to near-goddess status this past awards season for The Queen. Mirren’s performance in The Queen is everything that’s lacking in Judi Dench’s performance in Mrs. Henderson Presents. As you’re watching, you don’t think, “Wow, that Helen Mirren is doing an amazing job”; you forget about Helen Mirren herself, because she melts so completely into the role. She never steps outside it for a knowing wink at the audience. Part of this may just be the difference between the two actresses, but, as I’ve said before, Dench can still pull off a great, unself-conscious performance: from what I’ve heard, she does so in last year’s Notes on a Scandal.
So does the problem lie in Frears’s direction? Maybe in part, but he did such a fabulous job with The Queen that I’m not willing to lay all the blame at his feet. He’s directed a wide variety of films in his career, some of them much better than others. I think one of Frears’s own comments may be important in understanding why his movies are of such varying quality: “I can’t write,” he says. “I don’t think I’m even particularly good at telling a writer what’s good or what’s missing. So, actually having someone who can do that is a godsend.” I don’t think God sent him a very good screenwriter for Mrs. Henderson Presents, whereas The Queen’s writer Peter Morgan seems to be one of the best working today. After all, the (screen)play’s the thing . . .
June 30th, 2007
A couple of days ago, Cinematical posted an interview with Amelia Warner, the 25-year-old actress who plays Maggie Barnes in The Dark Is Rising (which has apparently finished filming!). She doesn’t come across as extraordinarily eloquent, but there are a few items of interest in the interview.
First, given her description of her own character, it seems the movie veers off a bit from the book’s plot (which may be fine, if it’s well done–but I’m not reassured of that yet). Warner says of Maggie, “I’m not really allowed to say very much about her — she’s kind of like a mystery. You don’t really know what side she falls on, and in the story, she appears to be a new girl at the school. The character of Will sees her in the village and kind of develops a crush on her, and she’s just kind of lingering around. But she’s there to look after Will and to make sure that nothing bad happens to him, and she’s going to protect him.”
Hmmm . . . an 11-year-old boy has a crush on a 25-year-old girl at his school? Granted, I assume Warner is playing younger than her actual age, but still . . . why add adolescent sexual tension when Will is still very much a child, albeit an Old One? In the book, it’s Maggie who has a bit of a crush on one of Will’s older brothers. And she’s very much on the side of the Dark.
The next bit has to do with director David L. Cunningham’s religious affiliation (he has family connections to Youth with a Mission and University of the Nations, both evangelical Christian organizations, and has spoken of himself as a missionary to Hollywood). Here’s the Cinematical question and Warner’s response:
“There’s been some talk about why Fox chose David Cunningham, who is known for being an outspoken evangelical Christian, to helm this movie — did you get that vibe from him on set?”
AW: “No! I didn’t know that David was kind of known for that. I didn’t know that he was at all until, like, two days before we wrapped. I’m really unobservant. But I mean, you know … people say that Walden is really Christian as well. It’s difficult because the story, in essence, I guess it is about those kind of things. It’s about light and dark. So you could look at that and say ‘that’s really Christian,’ but I mean, I think the themes of most stories could be seen that way. So I don’t think that he … I didn’t get the feeling and there was absolutely no talk of Christianity or those kinds of things being pushed forward, I don’t think. I mean, you could definitely read the script and go ‘Oh wow, that has a real Christian undertone’, but I think you could say that about a lot of things that are kid’s stories. They’re always about good and bad, and about being on the good side.”
I’ve been interested in the choice of Cunningham as director since I first heard about it. The only previous work of his that I’ve seen is his World War II prison-camp movie To End All Wars, which, in addition to numbing you with gruesome violence, suggests the healing power of forgiveness. But, given that, in spite of the good-vs.-evil themes (and it doesn’t really turn out to be as simple as that) in Cooper’s books, there’s a bit of a condescending–some would even say “hostile”–tone towards Christianity in The Dark Is Rising, and I’ve been curious to see what Cunningham would do with that. I still don’t know. The tone of the question-and-answer is interesting, though–it seems almost akin to “Did you know your director was a neo-Nazi?” or something like that.
June 26th, 2007
Check out Alan Jacobs’s speculations about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The first few are fairly common consensus: R.A.B. is Regulus Black, Snape will die a noble death, Dumbledore used Legilimency to tell Snape to kill him. There are thoughtful observations here, but the argument gets really interesting on the issue of Harry as Horcrux. Here’s Jacobs’s theory:
“Among Potter fans, an idea which has gained in popularity over the last two years is this: When Voldemort tried unsuccessfully to kill the infant Harry, he made Harry himself, or perhaps the scar which the boy received at that moment, a Horcrux. There are two problems with this theory. First, we are told that when a Horcrux is made the soul is placed in “an object outside the body,” but it is not clear how that “object” could be someone else’s body, since there would already be a soul located there. Second, the theory assumes either that Voldemort didn’t try to kill Harry at all—which contradicts Voldemort himself, who says that he tried to kill Harry—or that a Horcrux can be made accidentally.
I do not think it possible that a Horcrux could be made without intent and care; but the idea that despite what he has said Voldemort did not mean to kill Harry at all, but rather to make him (or his scar) into a Horcrux, is intriguing. I have been extremely skeptical of the whole scar-as-a-Horcrux idea until one thought came to my mind. It concerns Godric Gryffindor. Bear with me for a moment, please, as I descend into the bottomless cavern of sheer speculation.
- Dumbledore believes that Voldemort wanted four of his Horcruxes to be associated with the four founders of Hogwarts: Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Voldemort’s own ancestor Salazar Slytherin.
- But one problem with this scheme, if indeed it is Voldemort’s scheme, is that the only known relic of Godric Gryffindor, a great sword, rests safely in the office of the Headmaster of Hogwarts.
- When Harry fought against the great basilisk in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, he pulled that very sword out of the Sorting Hat, and Dumbledore told him that “only a true Gryffindor” could have done that.
- Harry takes the Headmaster to mean simply that the Sorting Hat did the right thing when it placed Harry in Gryffindor House—but what if there’s more to it than that? So far, we have learned nothing at all about Harry’s father’s family, though that is his wizardly side (his mother came from Muggle stock); in fact, Rowling has been curiously silent about that half of Harry’s ancestry. We do know one interesting fact, though: that Harry’s parents lived in a village called Godric’s Hollow—and the only Godric we have met in the six books so far is the great Gryffindor. Could it be that, just as Voldemort is the only known descendent of Salazar Slytherin, Harry is a (or the) descendent of Godric Gryffindor?
- If so, that would make him, from one point of view, a “relic” of Gryffindor, and therefore a potentially fit location for a Horcrux. It is at least possible that when Voldemort came to the infant Harry’s house that fateful night he had something other than Harry’s murder on his mind. In any case, I feel sure that we will learn much more about Harry’s ancestry in the seventh book, and that it will illuminate the nature of the bond between him and Voldemort. We may even discover that there is a reason why—this is something Voldemort’s ghostly image notes when he meets Harry in the Chamber of Secrets—why they even look alike.”
I like it. What do y’all think?
I have to admit, I’m not entirely looking forward to Book 7, because Rowling does humor so much better than she does anything dealing with good and evil (or anything of mythic proportions, really, except Snape–and I am eagerly anticipating Snape’s death, because it will no doubt be redemptive). I will enjoy the general cultural flurry surrounding the book’s release, and if my loving husband and I can share the book nicely, we’ll no doubt have it finished within 48 hours.
June 25th, 2007
(This review also appears at LookingCloser.org)
So many times in the past decade, we’ve heard a film lauded as “the return of the movie musical.” Evita. Chicago. The Phantom of the Opera. The Producers. Dreamgirls. Next: Hairspray. Though Chicago has its Best Picture Oscar to back its claim, these “reborn” movie musicals often seem to fall flat. Part of the problem may actually lie with the style of the more recent musicals themselves: stage shows like Phantom wowed audiences because they jacked up the “spectacle” factor of theater to new heights and in fact tried to challenge cinema’s monopoly on razzle-dazzle—but it’s actually difficult for film to convey the visceral thrill of having a three-dimensional chandelier come swooping down over your head. Film, however, can capture finely tuned emotions in a close-up on a character’s face, in a shot of calloused fingers strumming a guitar—and it’s this intimate aspect of the medium that Once, the new “Irish rock musical,” successfully embraces.
Once, which has been charming film festivals, critics, and audiences alike, is about as far from grandiosity as you can imagine. In fact, the label “musical” is a little misleading, because all the movie’s songs occur in the context of rehearsals or performances by the musician characters; no random bursting into song here. Glen Hansard, real-life lead singer for The Frames (the band for which Once’s writer/director, John Carney, was formerly a bassist) , plays a Dublin busker moping after his lyin’, cheatin’ girlfriend (as he relates in a hilarious song called “Broken Hearted Hoover-Fixer Sucker Guy”—in addition to busking, he also helps out with his father’s vacuum cleaning business, hence the “Hoover-Fixer”).
He is prodded back into life gradually through the tenaciousness of a young Czech immigrant woman, also a musician—and, even better, she’s a musician with a broken vacuum cleaner. Once’s protagonists, known simply as the Guy and the Girl, discover how well his guitar-playing and her piano-playing blend, and they wonder if this musical harmony means that they are meant to be together romantically.
Once has also been dubbed a “love story,” and it is one, but not in the standard Hollywood mode. The love between Guy and Girl develops into the true kind of love that will sacrifice self-interest for the sake of the other. In some ways, the relationship between Guy and Girl actually reminds me of the relationship between the two main characters in Lost in Translation—both pairs have other commitments, but both pairs are drawn together in part by their shared status as outsiders. Guy and Girl, however, are much more easily likable and probably less in need of anti-depressants than Bill Murray’s and Scarlett Johansson’s characters. And, as compared to Lost in Translation, Once suggests much more hope in the ability of humans to communicate with each other, at least through music.
Watching Once, I several times wished for subtitles, for the song lyrics as well as the dialogue. The Dublin accents can be difficult to decipher. In spite of sometimes making up my own lyrics when I couldn’t understand the real ones, I didn’t feel mystified at any point about what the characters were feeling. Hansard and Marketa Irglova, who plays the Girl, are not trained actors, but they are musical collaborators in real life, and they prove to be powerful performers both of their own songs and of the dialogue written by Carney. The lyrics certainly give us a window into the characters’ lives, but it’s not necessary to understand every word.
Carney chooses the phrase “visual album” rather than “musical” to describe Once’s genre, and it’s true that, in some ways, Once is like a concept album illustrated with film. The music is the primary driving force, and the story seems to form organically around the songs—you never get the feeling, as you sometimes do in a musical, that the composers scratched their heads and said, “Now how can I make a song fit here?” No, as much as I love 1940s and 1950s musicals, I think the era of the “I’m going to break into song now” movie musical is gone. It either has to be done with self-reflexive cynicism, as in the hospital delivery-room dance scene in Woody Allen’s Everyone Says I Love You, or simply and naturally, as in Once.
Once’s low budget is almost as famous as its rave reviews: the movie was made for under $200,000. (A higher budget had been planned, and rising star Cillian Murphy was slated to play the role of the Guy, but when he backed out, the film lost some of its producers. It’s only at that point that Hansard was cast as the singer of his own songs.) One of the things I noticed about Once was that neither Guy nor Girl had a cell phone—an oddity indeed in contemporary, tech-savvy Dublin, and no doubt a symbol of their outsider status. The lack of cell phones could also be a metaphor for the movie itself: a low-tech movie without glamour or special effects, relying on old-fashioned methods of communication—and delighting us, without the razzle-dazzle.
P.S. A couple of people have reminded me that Moulin Rouge is one recent movie musical that has succeeded artistically, critically, and popularly. True. And I like it, too. However, it is different from your standard movie musical in that (1) like Once, it never was a stage show; and (2) most of its songs aren’t original. In fact, the latter characteristic is one of the reasons it’s so interesting: the anachronism of 1980’s rock music in around-1900 Paris works, strangely. The movie does have one original song, “Come What May,” which is pretty standard musical fare in that it’s two people singing their feelings to each other. Maybe I’d like this song better if Ewan McGregor’s singing voice didn’t make me cringe.
June 25th, 2007
You may know John Patrick Shanley as the writer behind 1987’s Moonstruck. Or you may be more familiar with his plays, such as Danny and the Deep Blue Sea and the more recent Doubt, which tend to explore the small operations of grace in the lives of broken people. I’ve been particularly eager to see Doubt, and though the screen isn’t exactly the same as the stage, at least Shanley will be directing the film (I hope this is a good thing).
I’m even more thrilled that Amy Adams has a role. I’ve been a big fan of hers since I saw Junebug. This seems like it will be a much less comic role than her previous ones, but I’m looking forward to seeing her demonstrate her versatility.
Doubt’s story involves a pedophilia charge against a Catholic priest (and, no, John Patrick Shanley is not that Shanley), but, from what I’ve heard, the truth of the matter isn’t entirely clear. Expect something complex and meaningful, coming to a theater near you, probably in 2008.
Mink and Ben, this post goes out to you!
June 24th, 2007
Via LookingCloser.org, here’s a response to the AFI list pointing out the lamentable lack of women directors (as in, none on the Top 100 list, and only 4 among the list of 400 nominated films). How many of the films have you seen on the counter-list of the Top 100 American Films Directed by Women? I got some catchin’ up to do, I admit.
I’m guessing there’s also a notable absence of films directed by African Americans, Asian Americans, or Latinos.
In looking over the two AFI lists again, I realized that one of the differences between the old one and the new one was the removal of The Birth of a Nation. Interesting. I’m not sure I’d be comfortable voting for The Birth of a Nation myself, as it was a piece of racist propaganda. But it sure was influential and culturally significant, which are two of the AFI’s criteria. There seems to be a greater shift towards taking a film’s message into account–which makes it all the more ironic that there are so few female directors or directors of color on the list.
June 21st, 2007
It’s been a decade since the American Film Institute’s first 100 Greatest [American, Award-Winning, Influential] Films of All Time came out, and the new one doesn’t really seem that different. Titanic made it on at #83, so blech to that. The biggest difficulty with either list is that it pretty much limits you to big Oscar-winners (one of the selection criteria is that the film should be a “major award winner”). Thus, I’m surprised to see that The Fellowship of the Ring made it on the list, instead of Oscar-decorated The Return of the King (all three Lord of the Rings movies were on the list of 400 nominees, from which these 100 were elected). Here’s the 2008 list (you can also view the 1998 list for comparison):
1 CITIZEN KANE (Welles, 1941)
2 THE GODFATHER (Coppola, 1972)
3 CASABLANCA (Curtiz, 1942)
4 RAGING BULL (Scorsese, 1980)
5 SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN (Donen & Kelly, 1952)
6 GONE WITH THE WIND (Fleming, 1939)
7 LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (Lean, 1962)
8 SCHINDLER’S LIST (Spielberg, 19930
9 VERTIGO (Hitchcock, 1958)
10 THE WIZARD OF OZ (Fleming, 1939)
11 CITY LIGHTS (Chaplin, 1931)
12 THE SEARCHERS (Ford, 1956)
13 STAR WARS (Lucas, 1977)
14 PSYCHO (Hitchcock, 1960)
15 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (Kubrick, 1968)
16 SUNSET BLVD. (Wilder, 1950)
17 THE GRADUATE (Nichols, 1967)
18 THE GENERAL (Keaton & Bruckman, 1927)
19 ON THE WATERFRONT (Kazan, 1954)
20 IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE (Capra, 1946)
21 CHINATOWN (Polanski, 1974)
22 SOME LIKE IT HOT (Wilder, 1959)
23 THE GRAPES OF WRATH (Ford, 1940)
24 E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL (Spielberg, 1982)
25 TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (Mulligan, 1962)
26 MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON (Capra, 1939)
27 HIGH NOON (Zinnemann, 1952)
28 ALL ABOUT EVE (Mankiewicz, 1950)
29 DOUBLE INDEMNITY (Wilder, 1944)
30 APOCALYPSE NOW (Coppola, 1979)
31 THE MALTESE FALCON (Huston, 1941)
32 THE GODFATHER: PART II (Coppola, 1974)
33 ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST (Forman, 1975)
34 SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS (various, 1937)
35 ANNIE HALL (Allen, 1977)
36 THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI (Lean, 1957)
37 THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES (Wyler, 1946)
38 THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE (Huston, 1948)
39 DR. STRANGELOVE OR: HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB (Kubrick, 1964)
40 THE SOUND OF MUSIC (Wise, 1965)
41 KING KONG (Cooper & Schoedsack, 1933)
42 BONNIE AND CLYDE (Penn, 1967)
43 MIDNIGHT COWBOY (Schlesinger, 1969)
44 THE PHILADELPHIA STORY (Cukor, 1940)
45 SHANE (Stevens, 1953)
46 IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT (Capra, 1934)
47 A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (Kazan, 1951)
48 REAR WINDOW (Hitchcock, 1954)
49 INTOLERANCE (Griffith, 1916)
50 THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING (Jackson, 2001)
51 WEST SIDE STORY (Robbins & Wise, 1961)
52 TAXI DRIVER (Scorsese, 1976)
53 THE DEER HUNTER (Cimino, 1978)
54 MASH (Altman, 1970)
55 NORTH BY NORTHWEST (Hitchcock, 1959)
56 JAWS (Spielberg, 1975)
57 ROCKY (Avildsen, 1976)
58 THE GOLD RUSH (Chaplin, 1925)
59 NASHVILLE (Altman, 1975)
60 DUCK SOUP (McCarey, 1933)
61 SULLIVAN’S TRAVELS (Sturges, 1941)
62 AMERICAN GRAFFITI (Lucas, 1973)
63 CABARET (Fosse, 1972)
64 NETWORK (Lumet, 1976)
65 THE AFRICAN QUEEN (Huston, 1951)
66 RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (Spielberg, 1981)
67 WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? (Nichols, 1966)
68 UNFORGIVEN (Eastwood, 1992)
69 TOOTSIE (Pollack, 1982)
70 A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (Kubrick, 1971)
71 SAVING PRIVATE RYAN (Spielberg, 1997)
72 THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION (Darabont, 1994)
73 BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID (Hill, 1969)
74 THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (Demme, 1991)
75 IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT (Jewison, 1967)
76 FORREST GUMP (Zemeckis, 1994)
77 ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN (Pakula, 1977)
78 MODERN TIMES (Chaplin, 1936)
79 THE WILD BUNCH (Peckinpah, 1969)
80 THE APARTMENT (Wilder, 1960)
81 SPARTACUS (Kubrick, 1960)
82 SUNRISE: A SONG OF TWO HUMANS (Murnau, 1927)
83 TITANIC (Cameron, 1997)
84 EASY RIDER (Hopper, 1969)
85 A NIGHT AT THE OPERA (Wood, 1935)
86 PLATOON (Stone, 1986)
87 12 ANGRY MEN (Lumet, 1957)
88 BRINGING UP BABY (Hawks, 1938)
89 THE SIXTH SENSE (Shyamalan, 1999)
90 SWING TIME (Stevens, 1936)
91 SOPHIE’S CHOICE (Pakula, 1982)
92 GOODFELLAS (Scorsese, 1990)
93 THE FRENCH CONNECTION (Friedkin, 1971)
94 PULP FICTION (Tarantino, 1994)
95 THE LAST PICTURE SHOW (Bogdanovich, 1971)
96 DO THE RIGHT THING (Lee, 1989)
97 BLADE RUNNER (Scott, 1982)
98 YANKEE DOODLE DANDY (Curtiz, 1942)
99 TOY STORY (Lasseter, 1995)
100 BEN-HUR (Wyler, 1959)
Upset about the list? Then fill out your own ballot. I’m pasting below my list of the top 50 out of the 400 nominated films (well, out of the ones I’ve seen), including the 5 write-ins allowed to all voters. My list is kind of a combination of my favorites and movies I may not like so much but recognize as artistically good. Alas, my extreme dislike of Gone with the Wind or anything by George Lucas doesn’t allow me to even begin to consider their potential artistic merit. Apologies beforehand for my inordinate love of musicals, Alfonso Cuarón, and Gregory Peck.
The Otter’s Top 50 AFI-Nominated Films (in rough order)
Beauty and the Beast (1991)
Chariots of Fire
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Mission (write-in, if it counts as American)
Singin’ in the Rain
Fantasia
A Man for All Seasons
Gandhi
In the Heat of the Night
Casablanca
Mary Poppins
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (write-in)
The Princess Bride (write-in)
My Fair Lady
Rebecca
A Little Princess (1995, write-in)
Sense and Sensibility
Schindler’s List
The Shawshank Redemption
Young Frankenstein
Bringing Up Baby
Children of Men (write-in, again not sure whether it counts as American)
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Driving Miss Daisy
12 Angry Men
West Side Story
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Frankenstein
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
The Producers (1967)
Tootsie
The Grapes of Wrath
Hotel Rwanda
The Lion King
Roman Holiday
It Happened One Night
On the Waterfront
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
The Sound of Music
The Maltese Falcon
Vertigo
The Philadelphia Story
Rear Window
Gentleman’s Agreement
A Streetcar Named Desire
Amadeus
Moulin Rouge!
Ben-Hur (1959)
Field of Dreams
June 21st, 2007
A few weeks ago I posted about my discovery (again, thanks to Dormouse) of mystery writer Laurie R. King. I started with the Kate Martinelli series (set in the present—or near-present—day) and have just completed the first of the Mary Russell series (set in the 1910s and 1920s and featuring Sherlock Holmes). It’s called The Beekeeper’s Apprentice (who knew that Sherlock Holmes had an apiary?), and it’s delightful.
From some point in her nineties, Mary Russell, born in 1900 to an American father and a Cockney Jewish mother, recalls her teen years, during which she met and learned from—and grew to love—Sherlock Holmes. When I say “love,” I don’t mean necessarily romantic love, though it seems from summaries of the rest of the books in the series that Russell and Holmes will indeed marry at some point. This love is a meeting of the minds, a partnership that is no less passionate for being intensely cerebral, and it is one that becomes deeply grounded in trust.
Okay, now I’ve made The Beekeeper’s Apprentice sound like a romance novel, which it isn’t. Nor is it exactly what many people would consider a mystery—the several crime-puzzles contained within the novel aren’t particularly complex or challenging as a “whodunit.” Nor are they meant to be. King, I would argue, is more interested in Mystery than in mysteries. Her novels trace the enigma of finding companionship in the midst of loneliness, of the healing of a soul.
And now I’ve made it sound like psycho-babble, which it isn’t, either. King’s writing is often hilarious, and the skilled construction of her sentences is a relief from less graceful or witty prose. She even has demonstrated the ability to write as well in third-person contemporary American language as in first-person 1910’s British language (albeit with a few unobjectionable anachronisms thrown in for effect).
But, anyway, back to the Mystery/mystery point. In a passage rather similar to some essays on King’s own web site, Russell says of the period during which she was studying theology at Oxford, “I did not think of myself as a detective; I was a student of theology, and I was to spend my life in exploration, not of the darker crannies of human misbehaviour, but of the heights of human speculation concerning the nature of the Divine. That the two were not unrelated did not occur to me for years.”
Yes. Good. I like that. Not only does knowing human sinfulness help us to understand God better, but, as when Holmes admires a criminal’s brilliant, if twisted, mind, we can also see the glory that God has planted in human nature. It’s kind of like the best of Calvinism mixed with the best of the Enlightenment.
King’s Holmes is rational to the core, but he is a good deal more vulnerable than the Holmes of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (I have to admit that I’m not that familiar with Doyle’s stories, though). He is retired, after all, and before Mary Russell stumbles (literally) upon him, he seems to be wearying of life. By the way, King’s Holmes is a little younger than the canonical one, which she addresses in the novel by having Holmes say that “Watson,” as his biographer, felt that his protagonist would be more respected if he were not quite so young as in real life. Thus, we have a Holmes who is in his fifties during the 1910s.
Russell (as she is called by Holmes) is a tomboy of sorts, but not in the clichéd way of much recent fantasy or adventure fiction. “Tomboy” is not the defining aspect of her personality, nor is “bookworm,” nor any other label that might be applied to her. The undercurrent of her traumatic past also helps to keep any easy stereotypes at bay.
Russell is also 5’11”, which allows her to carry off physical feats not possible for tiny Veronica Mars (Could Russell crawl through a dog door, though? I think not!). The Beekeeper’s Apprentice really made me think about how the physical is so often a key plot point in a story involving a female detective. Do we ever think so much about a male detective’s height or weight, and how it affects the story’s action? Discuss.
June 19th, 2007
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