quint's film blog - Archive

The most ambitious movie ever made

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The Sacrifice (1986)

Since the beginning of Spout, all I've wanted to talk about has been Tarkovsky. I would talk myself out of it. Who wants to talk about Tarkovsky? Tarkovsky is hard. For some he is completely opaque. And yet his sensibility is one that resonates with me the way that Lorca's does.

In a literary sense (as Tarkovsky is a literary figure, a poet of film) Tarkovsky descends from Pushkin and Kafka. His spirit sours like Bergman. His triumphs are aesthetic. He is always singing. Sometimes of the soul, sometimes of the window sill, often interchangeably.

There are some essential facts I don't know about the production of this film. I like to make it up for myself. Here's what I see:

Tarkovsky is in exile, in Europe. He has cancer. He has left his family behind in Russia. He is dying.

Enter Bergman. Bergman offers his crew, his country, asylum from death. Make your movie, he says. Go on, great man, have your say. Take my opportunity. Take Sven.

Swedish crew, Russian director. Impossible subtleties to translate between great artists.

So Tarkovsky is making his last film and then he will die. It is with death on his mind that the director concocts this story. He gets us half way in with the moral stagnation of aesthetes. Then he blows the whole thing up to ask his burning question of every single character: what would you do if you were about to die?

It's slow. It's talky. It's not out to pique your interest with clever wordplay. It is a decidedly blunt instrument Tarkovsky wields. Let everyone go mad with the same griefs and rages that plague him in the making. Let some last triumph of will create the impossible. Burn that frickin' house down and watch it all so closely as if God might appear after all and change the thing.

Is this a great movie?

Who cares?

This movie is a great act.

The most ambitious movie ever made to my sense of things.

Posted Wednesday, June 27, 2007 8:14 PM by quint | with 0 comments

Try, wait, try again

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Clean (2004)

To me, Olivier Assayas is like Los Lobos: I like him, but I never really like his work. I am always waiting for something to gel that never really happens.

The cinematography is always outstanding, the acting always seems strong, but something seems misguided in his efforts. Irma Vep and Demonlover were both interesting, but somehow disappointing in what they went for.

Clean goes some way towards redeeming Assayas for me.

I was happy to finally see this movie because Maggie Cheung is fresh on my mind from 2046. She does a great job here. Nick Nolte shows what it would be like to have Tom Waits for your grandfather and that alone makes it worth seeing. It's a beautiful film to look at.

The whole thing is quite understated: wait for a fresh chance, try all your avenues, eventually someone still has some faith in you and that is enough to start again. Enough said.

I like this movie better than his others because the filmmaking doesn't get in the way of the story. These are extremely charming actors performing really well.

Still, some things bug me. Maggie can't really sing and that makes it a little grueling at times. It's a risk to let actors sing, It was a risk worth taking, and the musical support is certainly giving it their best. The first hour felt like "waiting for Tricky" and that was okay. His performance is rather ingeniously mute and that works well. Let him do what he does best. Nod his head, shake his head, stand, walk, seduce a microphone. Passing him off as a humanitarian was a bit odd, but hey, I'll roll with it.

Her recovery felt a little too easy. She crashes through a lot of safety nets, but everyone genuinely tries to offer a helping hand. All the secondary characters bend over backwards to help her out, so she never loses a sort of prima donna luster. Also, Maggie is too charming to do downtrodden.

I feel like my entire understanding of heroin comes from the movies. How many times have I seen someone shoot up? The rubber hose, the needle, the blissful nod. I'd say Maggie shoots up well enough for what it's worth.

The movie is well scripted. There is really nothing in particular to fault it for except for the persistent problem with Assayas: (dare I say it) he lacks depth.

If you are going to jump into strong emotional themes, jump in, damn it. Give me Bergman if you want to wrench my heart. I expected Maggie to find some hope in the end. I expected things to work out as they did, and that's okay. I don't mind a predictable emotional drama. Knowing what's coming can often strengthen my emotional ties to the character. But somehow I was never thrown deeply into her situation. I never lost my own faith in her as a character and so the true dramatic tension never came to light.

On paper, it's a wonderful film. This squeaky clean style works well for many directors. It feels textbook perfect. In Wong Kar-Wai's hands, this is art. Assayas gives an enjoyable effort. I'm sure he will continue to develop. All his masterpieces are before him yet. I look forward to seeing them.

Posted Tuesday, June 19, 2007 11:03 PM by quint | with 0 comments

Available once more

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Giù la Testa (1972)

This movie has at last become available on DVD as part of a Sergio Leone box set that includes the big three Clint flicks. It is being released under it's original title "Duck, You Sucker".

This is great news to me as I caught this once on late night TV and have been anxious to see it again. I love Rod Steiger who is vaguely convincing as a Mexican bandit, but the James Coburn really gets to shine in a role that would typically have been Clint's. An under-rated Leone classic.

Posted Thursday, June 14, 2007 8:21 AM by quint | with 0 comments

What's wrong is right

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Four Eyed Monsters (2005)

Everything that's wrong with this movie is actually right. It lacks story because it is made from life. The acting that works the best is not acting at all. Whatever is self-consciously "movie-like" ends up feeling a bit superfluous to an otherwise fascinating process.

This is a long movie for what it is. Weened on short forms, both the staid videography it so eagerly lampoons and the raw authenticity of YouTube confessions, it struggles for what length it achieves. It is made out of small things that have their own cohesiveness. I thought the Studio Vermont promo was hilarious.

It has all the symptoms of a new kind of direction born in the editing and processing of raw material. What doesn't work is processed until it does somehow, creating an aesthetic cohesion that is true eye candy. Rotoscoping, hand animation, screencasts, home grown effects of all sorts combine to inject the smallest moment with intention. Resourceful.

I thought of Tarnation and Scizopolis because I was supposed to. When a movie tells me what I am thinking, I have to think I am reacting appropriately. It is self-consciously reflective precisely because life is. Anything I might be drawn to fault the movie for, I just as quickly acknowledge as appropriate in this context. New rules apply. If the ending is unsatisfying, I can watch the video podcasts. The same logic that applies to a blog. This thing is alive. I fault the form of feature films more than I fault this for being one.

It is not criticism I am drawn to, but a more emotional reaction. You can't talk about this film without talking about Arin and Susan themselves. Their bravery and exhibitionism are the raw material. They are trapped in this movie. They are prisoners of their own invention. They've made their relationship their art.

I think Arin is ingenious. The viral marketing of this film is a part of the film. Writing this review is a part of the film. Where art ends and life begins is perhaps a moot point. What is said and done are needful things. Life is art, art is life, etc. etc.

The filters and modifications of the raw materials are an expressionistic way of seeing. The proliferation of technology has opened the door to a new intimacy with the filmmaker. The work is personal and fluid. What doesn't work can always be re-edited. This is a living document. It is perhaps the ultimate wedding video. It makes me think of the process of writing poetry.

The trap then is the anxiety I feel for them. That their relationship is purely extroverted. That they depend on us watching in order to know themselves.

The conceit is that it is all a setup, a fiction. Either they need us or they've played us. They've created an excellent appeal for our help. They've involved us in the moviemaking process in just those ways we've craved. We want the proliferation of creativity. We want our small contributions to help make something lovely. They give us myriad avenues. If it is a fiction, then it satisfies our own appeals.

What do I think of the movie in the end? I loved it. I am willing to make that leap with them and hold firm to my belief that they are real people struggling for expression. I want that to go on as much as I want to express things myself. I believe in the free exchange of inspiration. I am grateful for their contribution.

So my wife and I stayed up too late and let our own lives find parallels in theirs. The fragility of their relationship is the fragility of our own. The joy of connection, the joy of artmaking, as well as the insecurities, the anxieties, the self-indulgence, the telling, all our own as well. Thank you.

Posted Monday, June 11, 2007 8:13 AM by quint | with 0 comments

Welcome to the 21st century

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Four Eyed Monsters (2005)

I am really proud of Spout today. In an era of media saturation, it has chosen to do something far grander with its marketing dollars than throw it to Google. When users are boiled down to dollars all around us, it is nice to think that some of those dollars actually go to support truly creative acts. I have yet to watch the movie, I'm saving it to watch with my wife, but I've been watching the little widget count money to the worthiest of causes: inspiration.

There is something else going on here as well. Spout has invited the film industry to observe how the process of viral marketing works in the world of the internet. Watch the counter, guess how it is happening. Learn if there is a viable audience for homegrown independant cinema. Perhaps the studio system is becoming a moot point. Perhaps you can make your movie just how you want, with whatever resources you have. Perhaps its worth the risk.

There is an audience that can be trusted to acknowledge good craftsmanship and hard work. Respect is worth more than all those dollars. When you struggle to speak through visual images arranged according to your unique aesthetic, you are not just pissing in the wind, but inspiring others to make their own aesthetic journeys.

The critical community is changing along with cinema. Everything has grown more personal and, along the way, more engaging to folks like me. I look forward to the day when all the creative folk I know have had their works acknowledged and nurtured in an environment of thinly mediated engagement. This is happening right now in front of us. Dialogue is an integral part of it now. It is a conversation that reaches across superfluous barriers.

I look forward to seeing this movie from the arms of my wife. I hope Arin and Susan find all the love I feel for her. I'll be watching those dollars go up as well, trying to figure out why.

Posted Friday, June 08, 2007 1:03 PM by quint | with 0 comments

Inevitable conclusions

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Queimada! (1969)

Brando is so bad. And I mean that in a good way. Although I suppose one should debate the issue, because it is the central conceit of this film. Pontecorvo hasn't done anything I haven't admired greatly. He's a phenomenal political director particularly concerned with the machinations of revolution. The version I saw was in Italian, with Brando doing a great job with the language.

1969 was a peak year for the spaghetti western and this has all the trappings of one: Morricone does the marvelous score, the opening titles are as trippy as a Leone film. The cast and crew are largely Italian. And yet Pontecorvo is out for something quite different. If this were a spaghetti western, there would be something more sly and self-serving to the characters.

Brando is a British agent who is sent by the crown to orchestrate a revolution in Portuguese controlled Antilles in the mid-19th century, to open the way for free trade in Latin America. His manipulations of a slave population to foment discord and spark an uprising are quite masterful. Brando's character is doing his job and he does it well.

When Jose Donato becomes a revolutionary leader, he finds himself in the pickle of trading one master for another. He has been manipulated so thoroughly that his only recourse is to surrender himself to the promises of more white men.

Ten years pass and things are just as they had been. Brando is again called out to sort the situation, this time to stop the 'monster' he has created. Revolutionary spirit is again in the air, but this time there is no trust. No promises can passify the desire for freedom. Jose is now a Che Guavara, spouting his own rhetoric that no one can give you freedom, you can only take it for yourself.

When the inevitable comes, Brando is now the devil offering his temptations to Jose, offering him a life that is not worth having to delay an inevitable martyrdom.

We are left with this question of whether Brando's character, who is merely following orders and his own work ethic, is evil. An intimate understanding of the workings of revolution is what he teaches. HIs own admiration for Jose is the fulfillment of a search for one good incorruptible man in a world where everyone is corruptible.

Jose proves true to himself and his intent. He learned the lesson well. Brando's system of belief is the one that is broken down. In a sense, he has created his own undoing and is perhaps grateful for the result. He is an expendable catalyst. Necessary, but inconvenient for the plantation owners. He meets his inevitable conclusion as well.

Posted Wednesday, June 06, 2007 8:28 AM by quint | with 0 comments

An inordinate number of peppers

The most ambitious movie ever made

Try, wait, try again

Available once more

What's wrong is right

Welcome to the 21st century

Inevitable conclusions

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