312. Friends

Song - Michelle (The Beatles)

Movie: Friends (Lewis Gilbert, 1971)

Paul Harrison (Sean Bury) drives around Paris in a classic open-roof Mustang. He wears a suit and tie, complemented by a leather hat and sunglasses, as he picks up Michelle (Anicee Alvina). They've only met recently, but she is intrigued by his take-charge demeanor, even when she finds out the car is stolen. "Stop it", she says, secretly hoping he won't. "You'll get into trouble." "I am always in trouble. I am thinking of taking it up professionally", Paul quips in return. It is clear, Paul is the embodiment of suave sophistication, with a hint of danger. Paul is also 15 years old.

Lewis Gilbert knows exactly what he is doing here. Before Friends, he had directed Alfie, with Michael Caine as a womaniser in Swinging Sixties London, and Sean Connery as James Bond in You Only Live Twice. It's compelling for teenagers to see themselves as these kinds of men (or as the women that appeal to these men) and Friends lets them live out that fantasy, or so you'd think. Things become more complicated when Paul and Michelle keep on driving, escaping from their adult guardians. They end up in Arles, in the holiday home of her deceased parents. Life is bliss until they run out of food and Paul has go out every morning to look for work on the downlow. Long scenes of hard manual labor in the morasses of the Camargue (a wetland in Southern France you immedately want to visit) are followed by difficult conversations, confronting the challenges of poverty. 

The film shows Paul being angry with his dad for typically adolescent reasons (he reprimands his son for missing classes, and is about to remarry a proudly posh woman), while hiding its own 'mature' criticism in plain sight; the father is a Brit living in France making business deals over the phone with faceless Americans. For her part, following the death of her parents, Michelle has been taken in by her cousin who organises drugged up parties that try and fail to revive the magic of flower power. Meanwhile, her no-good philandering husband Pierre keeps trying to make a move on Michelle. In other words, all main adult characters are essentially symbols of the lost ideals of the 1960's and the kids' new life on the land is a rejection of contemporary society. That's fair, but much less recognisable as an appealing mainstream teenage fantasy. The question of who the film is for becomes more relevant when after many scenes teasing it, Paul and Michelle finally have sex. It results in some stretches that can be described as 9/12 Weeks with - but not for - teens, which is not quite the tagline you want. Sean Bury and Anicee Alvine were respectively 17 and 18 when the film came out, but their characters are heavily eroticised 15/14-year olds. What makes the whole thing more unseemly is that the film wants to be both a serious consideration of what happens when a pregnancy forces teens to act beyond their age, and coyly melodramatic smut. 

I can't find any reference to the film being inspired by the Beatles song, despite it being about an English "Paul Harrison" (with a hairstyle that definitely reminds of the relevant Paul and Harrison) falling in love with a French girl named Michelle. It even seems to go out of its way to not directly associate with the band by having Elton John compose the entire soundtrack, including "Michelle's Song'. It plays during a montage and has lyrics literally describing what's on screen. The official story is that Lewis Gilbert wanted to make a version of The Blue Lagoon, but couldn't get the rights for it, and then decided to adapt the story that originally inspired The Blue Lagoon. That's probably true, but it would be very easy to believe that the film started off as a Michelle-adaptation until, seeing what shape it took, The Beatles decided to run as far away as possible from it.    

311. The Phantom of the Opera

Song - Wereld Zonder Jou (Marco Borsato & Trijntje Oosterhuis)

Movie: The Phantom of the Opera (Joel Schumacher, 2004)

Opera used to be the domain of the royal courts; bringing it to the people requires Oprah. "You get an aria, you get an aria, EVERYONE GETS AN ARIA!!" If stirring climaxes are the highlight of opera, why not make a show that consists of nothing else? The stage version of The Phantom of The Opera did become the most popular theater production in history, even if all the songs sound pretty much the same. Every single lyric is composed and performed in exactly the same way, building up to a climactic note supposed to give the impression that every single emotion is a powerful one expressed powerfully. And whenever you don't hear a rousing orchestral schore, the music's sole purpose is to ostentatiously build up to it. These principles of overwrought excess also apply to scene composition and set design. Entire scenes play out with the actors in the background, simply because that allows more room to stuff the frame with kitsch. There can never be enough roses, chandeliers, ornaments, gowns, wigs and other symbols of conspicuous wealth on screen, and the audience can never be allowed to feel sold short. 

There is probably no Dutch artist who has more succesfully incorporated Andrew Llyod Webber's overblown theatricality in his (live) performances than Marco Borsato. De Toppers are kitschier, but they do it with a wink. Borsato is sincere and would have probably remained on top of the Dutch entertainment world if not for his own personal hubris - he is currently on trial for sexual misconduct. I am not a fan, but I knew what I was getting into and can't complain too much about not liking things I was never going to. But then there is Minnie Driver... My love for Good Will Hunting has been well documented, but Grosse Pointe Blank was an early favorite too, making Driver one of my first celebrity crushes. She is an actress I've always rooted for and been happy to see, but her performance here is embarassingly unwatchable. She plays an Italian self-aggrandising diva everyone wants to run away from. She is supposed to be unsympathetic, but plays to the rafters so much she effectively breaks the fourth wall. It doesn't help that she, like most other relevant characters, is introduced during a meta rehearsal scene. A documentary of the same actors having lunch may in certain instances be preferable over a movie; a documentary of the same actors being petulant irritants definitely isn't.

With the exccption of Simon Callow and Ciaran Hinds, as the profit-driven new opera owners who are too excited about their latest acquisition to fully grasp the implications of a phantom haunting it, all main actors struggle with the suspension of disbelief. That's partly on Schumacher and Webber who treat them too often as nothing but conduits of their pomp. It's hard to reach a meaningful climax without foreplay, but because the film is only interested in the former it takes short cuts turning all songs into exposition dumps. Conveying the deep love expressed by the centerpiece song 'All I Ask Of You', without having shown any scenes of the lovers falling for each other or even meaningfully interacting, requires the actors to have both a natural chemistry and completely uninhibited acting styles, unafraid to show that even the smallest gesture of their partner has an unimaginable effect on them. Patrick Wilson and Emmy Rossum lack it; Sarah Brightman and Cliff Richard have it. There is a video clip on YouTube of them performing All I Ask Of You that's better than anything in this film. 

310. Cinema Paradiso

Song - Musica E (Eros Ramazotti)

Movie: Cinema Paradiso - Nuovo Cinema Paradiso (Giuseppe Tornatore, 1988)

Filmmakers hold an obvious fascination for fires caused by film stock. Cinema Paradiso contains many wonderful sequences, but Giuseppe Tornatore reserves his greatest talents for the burning of the titular cinema. When its regulars demand a new movie just before closing time, projectionist Alfredo (Philippe Noiret) gives them an even more special experience, screening the film on the walls of a house on the main square. It's such an enrapturing sight the audience doesn't even mind that parts of the film are blocked by the balcony. Watching the magic happen outside, a glowing Alfredo forgets to pay attention to his equipment, and right before the climactic gunshot the screen dissolves in a sea of flames. As the cinema catches fire, Tornatore places the burning building in the middle of the frame, with the tonwfolk running away from it in all directions,. The night is only illuminated by the frightening orange glow seen through the projection booth window. It's a spectacular sequence that becomes even more exciting when little Toto, Alfredo's 'assistant' starts running towards the cinema to save his friend. He does, but Alfredo will be blind the rest of his life, strengthening his conviction that being a film projectionist in a little Sicilian village is a waste of one's time and abilities. When Toto grows older, Alfredo urges him to leave, take the opportunities he wasn't able to and never come back or talk to him again. The film starts 30 years later when Salvatore 'Toto' De Vita, now a succesfull filmmaker in Rome, remembers his childhood as he prepares to go back to Siciliy for Alfredo's funeral. 

Reading between the lines, yes, I will always be happy to find parallels with Inglorious Basterds and Good Will Hunting, but the scenes in question do add interesting nuances to Cinema Paradiso, making it a little more ambivalent about the 'magic of cinema' than I expected. Noiret turns into Ben Affleck, because he views film in much the same way Affleck looked at working in construction and drinking with his buddies. In one of the funniest scenes, Alfredo returns to a classroom for his umpteenth attempt to pass his high school exams. Visibly struggling with some math problem (he keeps starting over counting his fingers) he unsuccessfully turns to cheating. The pupils, who may well be his grandchildren, clock him and shade their papers. Working in film is the only thing he is capable of and he finds it sickening that a bright young man like Toto would be willing to squash his potential to follow the same career path. When Toto eventually departs for the big city, Alfredo's goodbye wish is that he will find something he will love as much as he loved the film camera and the projection booth, with the unspoken implication that those things should preferably remain in his past. 

Jacques Perrin gives an interesting performance as the now successful Salvatore. He is introspective everytime he is on screen, remembering his old friend, and wondering why he became a filmmaker in the first place. Does he even really like movies that much or is it something else he is chasing? The fire being the key event is entirely in line with Tornatore's general approach. He is far more interested in showing the communal 'events' and social relationships the theatre's existence makes possible than the effects specific films have on the audience in general, let alone on Toto in particular. During a screening of a film promoted as being highly emotional (most of the films shown are not identified) Tornatore highlights how everyone in the theatre is crying in unison, suggesting that this is in fact the main objective of their presence here; the film is more an excuse to be emotional together, rather than the source of these emotions. There are many more scenes showing how the cinema enables people to observe each other, find love, develop friendships, overcome class differences, and escape the duties of ordinary life. The actual films sometimes feel like incidental distractions, especially for teenage Toto who spends his work time thinking more about pretty Elena (Agnese Manano) than about editing techniques, and is oblivious whenever Alfredo quotes some famous actor. 

The burnt down cinema is restored by an especially entrepreneurial guy from Naples. "These northerners know how to make money" note the Sicilians, one of the most wonderfully tickling lines of dialogue I've heard recently - in the same category as "In America, we can finally live as Australians" from Ali's Wedding. Cinema Paradiso contains many such moments of sharp wit and humor I didn't expect from the guy that made The Best Offer. I don't remember much of that film, except thinking that Tornatore was utterly out of touch with modern sensibilities. Cinema Paradiso suggests that he is fully aware of that and embraces it. Throughout the film, Tornatore keeps returning to a bird's eye view of the main square, showing its modernisation to be inversely proportional to its communality. At the beginning, the whole town gathers on the square to play around, flirt, gossip and socialise, often inter-generationally. By the end, Cinema Paradiso is about to be destroyed and the square has been turned into a parking lot, occupied by cars and billboards, each advertising a product to a different market-researched target audience. Everyone goes their own way, with only the funeral procession for Alfredo as a memory of a different way of living. 

309. Amelie

Song - I Have A Dream (ABBA)

Movie: Amelie - Le fabuleux destin d'Amelie Poulain (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001)

"Is this film more interesting than a documentary of the same actors having lunch?"

When The Fabelmans came out some fans dived into Spielberg's filmography, trying to find examples where Spielberg had followed (or not) John Ford's advice. It's a fun exercise that will probably teach you a lot about scene composition, as long as you don't miss the forest for the trees. The Fabelmans shows many of Sammy's home movies and the process of their creation, emphasising all the practical obstacles Spielberg had to overcome and think through to get his scenes filmed. The Fabelmans' final shot on the other hand would work equally well if the horizon is in the middle, going against Ford's words. Spielberg's camera adjustment to put the horizon on top is an aesthetic choice made blatantly obvious, highlighting why I am not entirely on board with Gene Siskel's popular aphorism quoted above. As singer/comedian Tim Minchin recently noted: "Even if AI came up with the same poem, it wouldn't be the same, because the reason you found it entertaining is because you knew that I made those choices. It's valuable not only because of its content, but because of it's intent."  

This is the third time I've started Amelie and the first time I've finished it. Hypothetically speaking, if you would mount an automated camera to roam around Montmartre, randomly filming its streets, its bars, and the steps of the Sacre-Coueur, you will probably end up with more colorful sights and sounds, more fascinating people and conversations, and a more appealingly romantic outlook of Paris than what Amelie has to offer. However, Amelie is art, while the automated camera images are not. There is a lot of noise these days from AI evangelists about how AI is supposedly democratising art. The argument here (both implicitly and explicitly) is that for something to be art it has to reach a certain (abstract) threshold of beauty, versimilitude, edificaction and/or wisdom most ordinary humans aren't able to reach without support from a superior technology. That's a far less populist notion than the simple idea that art is the end result of aesthetic choices reflecting personal preferences, regardless of whether these preferences align with other people's or some objectivist ideal. 

I certainly don't like how Jean-Pierre Jeunet films Paris, but getting a glimpse of how someone thinks about the world, and the actions they take to communicate that, is still an entertaining way to spend two hours. I hope some day to write more abot the similarities between watching sports and watching films, but I think much of the fun in both comes from seeing people struggle to put in an effort to achieve something. Someone in a really Marxist mood could take that idea much further arguing that sports gambling and the use of AI in art are two sides of the same coin, erasing human endeavour for the sake of profit that I think will ultimately not work. Even setting moral objections aside, in the end in both cases the business model depends on watching people take meaningful actions to put the ball in the basket, or evoke the magic of Paris. It's a matter of supply and demand too. If everyone can evoke the magic of Paris, doing so will lose its value. Jeunet's way is definitely singular, but it would have been more appealing if he didn't apply every color filter in much the same way, taking all texture and personality out of city life to make everything look drably similar. He tries to make up for it by inventing a whole bunch of quirky characters, but then proceeds to also take all personality from them, turning everyone into cardbord cutouts, never moving beyond their carefully molded types. All of this leads, especially in the second half, to a lot of endlessly repetitive scenes. 

I did appreciate the movie a bit more than on my previous viewings. Combining elements of collage and stop-motion animation and applying them to a narrative film does create a fascinating look and feel sometimes. Audrey Tautou essentially plays an introverted scale model come alive and even in that context, her charisma and her comic talent come through. In fact, everyone in the film has a wry sense of humor, including Jeunet, but even that can be a source of frustration. The tragedy that will come to define Amelie's life is played for laughs, successfully. I guffawed, while being annoyed that it's completely at odds with the tone the film is going for. It's the kind of Looney Tunes death that works in an existentialist black comedy like In Bruges, but not in a sentimentalised morality tale about finding the purity of heart to see the good in everyone. The moment comes off douchey and glib, signalling that the film doesn't really care about any of its characters, as long as it can milk the right emotions and messages out of them.  

308. The Fabelmans

Song - Summertime (Brainbox)

Movie: The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg, 2022)

I've never been happier to see Greg Grunberg and his shit-eating grin. He is playing a 1960's television executive knowing he can afford a lot of playful indulgence. His industry is rapidly capturing America's hearts, minds and pockets, with no sign of decline, and he has no qualms showing how much he enjoys being part of it. When young upstarts enter his office looking for a way in, he welcomes them with a giddy glint in his eye communicating that they obviously should want to be part of his world. Everything's a win here all the time. It's not necessarily a great idea to throw a talented director-in-waiting into the deep end with an unarranged visit to a legendary curmedgeon, but who cares. At best, the meeting will help the kid become Steven Spielberg. At worst, Grunberg will have a fun anecdote to tell at parties. 

Grunberg always looks as if he is auditioning to be Jimmy Fallon. It's no different here, despite him portraying real-life figure Bernie Fein, a producer of Hogan's Heroes. He does so with barely any sense of period- or character-specific detail, always coming off as his contemporary self. This looseness, in combination with the brighter and more naturalistic set design and lighting, is a welcome respite and a clean break from the oppressive gloom of the Fabelmans. In all but name, Mitzi (Michelle Williams) and Burt (Paul Dano) Fabelman are Spielberg's parents and seeking to recreate his childhood memories, he has designed everything in their household to an inch of its life, from the dining room table to Williams' red fingernails. Spielberg has of course made many serious historical dramas, all meticulously crafted. However, that craft has always been in the service of both the period he depicted and his own populist instincts, allowing room for more charismatic characters than the history books would dictate, compellingly ahistoric banter, and directorial flourishes that make even less significant events feel more propulsive. There is very little of that here, with the excpetion of the scenes in which young Sammy Fabelman (Gabriel LaBelle) prepares his films. The process of making early 16mm cameras and editing equipment work, and more generally of setting up the technology that makes filmmaking possible, is filmed with the familiar awe-inducing showmanship ordinarily used for aliens, war heroes and adventurous archeologists.

Everything else is rather miserably subdued. The excessive atificiality doesn't just (or even primarily) serve to create an authentic representation of Spielberg's childhood, but to evoke its rigid environment. Everything and everyone is designed to fit the supposed mores of its time, with no space to deviate. The performances of Paul Dano and especially Michelle Williams feel odd at first, never feeling as specific characters, until you realise that's the point. Williams is playing an over-the-top archetype of a post-war housewife, because that's all that Mitzi (feels she) can be. She has no ability or possibility to express herself as an individual, repressing her feelings until they reach a boiling point. She is not much helped by her husband who is as well meaning and kind as he can be without ever understanding how his performance of the ideal family man doesn't produce an ideal family. Stuck in between all this is Sammy  whose artistic sensibilities are only fully understood by his uncle Boris (Judd Hirsch). Casting Hirsch in this context is I think a deliberate and unwise choice to connect the film to Ordinary People, mostly reminding that Redford's film is the superior one. Ordinary People is named that for a reason; it is not just about the troubles of the family at its centre, but also about how those troubles are exacarbated by the family's need to present themselves outwardly as ordinary 'functional' people, while being none of that in the comfort of their own home. Spielberg raises some similar ideas here, but is too obvious and blunt in highlighting how film shapes and distorts reality.  

I've liked most of Spielberg's films I've seen, but he has never been one of my favorites (E.T. was the first time I've been disappointed by a supposed classic). It's a fair criticism I think that many of his movies are great until their sentimentalised endings work a bit too hard to signal profundity without achieving it. The Fabelmans suffers from the inverse. By now, even those with just a cursory interest in film will know a little bit of what Grunberg's scenes set up. David Lynch playing John Ford in a film about Steven Spielberg's youth is fan service and treated as such. Spielberg and Lynch put on a show capped by the wonderful final shot correcting itself to heed Ford's advice. The scene leans in on all three directors' most beloved sensibilities and character tics, but reminded me most of the Coen Brothers. They may as well have trademarked these kinds of depictions of unaccomplished plebs seeking wisdom from a seasoned figure of authority. The first challenge to overcome is always the stoic, over-it secretary; if they pass that test they can face the Great Man, whose supposed wisdom is overshadowed by an obvious grotesque ridiculousness. Here Lynch is shown bleeding without explanation from unexpected places, and giving a gross stained tissue to his secretary as if it's the most usual thing in the world. Subsequently. he treats young Spielberg more as a figment of his imagination than as a full conversation partner. It's a very fun scene whose irreverent approach to depicting powerful figures is worth appreciating even more knowing that Steven Spielberg is currently in John Ford's position. 

307. And God Created Woman

Song - She (Elvis Costello)

Movie: And God Created Woman (Roger Vadim, 1988)

Remember Oliver Stone's glorious sunrise in Wall Street? The one that left Michael Douglas completely awestruck? "I've never seen a painting that captures the beauty of the ocean in a moment like this." The opening shots of And God Created Woman want you to feel that way about a prison complex in the desert dawn of New Mexico. In long shot we see a tiny figure descending its walls, as a catchy pop song plays on the soundtrack. Eventually. Robin (Rebecca De Mornay) gets to the open road where a limousine picks her up. Freedom awaits, were it not for the owner of the limo. James Tiernan (Frank Langella) is running for governor on a promise of prison reform and can't be seen helping criminals escape, not even the flirty ones that lavish him with sexual attention. Driven back to where she came from, Robin now has to break in and get back into her convict clothes. Just when she's stripped naked, guards pass by, forcing her to quickly hide around the corner, right in the arms of young electrician Billy Moran (Vincent Spano).  

A naked naughty woman walks into the embrace of a sexy handyman... is the exact right set up for an entertaining tongue-in-cheek sex comedy that appeals to all one's faculties except the intellectual. Getting the tone right from the get-go, all Roger Vadim needed to do from there was find increasingly elaborate, lightly humorous set ups to get his lovers in bed, preferably with some farcical misunderstandings sprinkled in between. Alas, he goes into the opposite direction, actively undermining any chemistry between Spano and De Mornay with a stale arranged marriage plot - Robin needs to prove she is a model citizen to remain on parole, and Billy needs someone to take care of the house. It can be fun watching bickering mismatched couples slowly discover they are made for each other, but only if the lovebirds aren't written to be as hateful and cruel as possible at every moment. And if they really need to be, it should at least be in the service of some interesting character development. None of that is the case here, and as a result most of the film is just tedious. It doesn't help that De Mornay and Spano know it, and adjust their liveliness accordingly. 

Vadim's approach is to some extent understandable. His 1956 version of And God Created Woman had its cake and ate it, lavishly highlighting Bardot as a non-conformist sexually active rebel while tut-tuting her for showing off her body and her independence. It worked as a genuine reflection of the confused feelings towards the emerging youth culture of its time; most conflicts in that movie were the result of people struggling to reconcile entirely different worldviews. Here Vadim seeks to create a similar dynamic between an independent woman and a man who wants to put her in her place, but he doesn't put any effort to anchor that in anything meaningful  Instead, he simply cranks Robin and Billy's egotism and callousness all the way up, ending up with a lot of dumb unpleasantness. Frank Langella couldn't care less, and has the tme of his life playing a politician who enjoys the sleaze he gets away with, but has just enough integrity to not be sleazier than he needs.

306. Dead Man Walking

Song - Suzanne (Herman van Veen)

Movie: Dead Man Walking (Tin Robbins, 1995)

After years on death row, Matthew Poncelet (Sean Penn) is to be executed in a week for killing two teenagers. He maintains that he didn't pull the trigger, but archive footage from the trial paints a different picture, and his current behavior doesn't point to a remorseful innocent either. When his appeal is rejected, Sister Helen Prejean (Susan Sarandon) is, on her own volition, assigned to be his spiritual adviser for his final days, a job she is not entirely cut out for. The film directly connects her faith to her opposition to the death penalty and to her belief that even the worst people deserve dignlty, but it also connects her vocation to her naivety. Her conversations with the grieving families are an early example of the film's thorny greatness. Robbins lets Sarandon mostly listen as the parents dig out their deepest feelings to discuss their kids' final days, their love for them and the hurt the killings have caused. It becomes impossible to judge them for desiring Matthew's death, a desire that may well have been strengthened by Helen's own actions and sensibilites. She has never known romantic love or thought much about the feelings associated with its causes and consequences. At times, it seems as if she finds it easier to sympathise with Matthew's fear of death than with the victims' families' anger about their children being taken away from them. Susan Sarandon won an Oscar for her role and is really great. The film is as much a righteous condemnation of the death penalty as it is a portrayal of Helen discovering what it means in practice to act according to her beliefs. It's wonderful to watch Sarandon be surprised and startled by the responses to her, and think about how to settle herself in a context where she is slighlty more out of depth than she expected. 

I also enjoyed Robert Prosky, portraying Matthew's lawyer as a Southern raconteur whose jovial demeanor softens his (and the film's) moral indignation. He is the most obvious mouthpiece for Robbins' opposition to the death penalty, but his argumentative asides always play more like eccentric character touches. Still, it can't be denied that Dead Man Walking does ocassaionally veer into the kind of stodgy didacticism politically minded actor-turned-directors are sometimes prone to, but such missteps will be long forgotten once we reach Matthew's final day, and especially his confession to Helen that he did murder one of the teens and raped the other, finally heeding her lessons that redemption (whatever form that may take) is only possible if he confesses and takes responsibility for the truth and his sins. Sean Penn is good here, but the scene belongs to Sarandon, portraying the Sister's religious trance as her own version of experiencing sexual/romantic pleasure. Robbins' stylistic choices follow suit and the scene is essentially played as an exuberantly triumphant moment that has finally earned Matthew the love and dignity he was either way receiving from Helen. 

What follows is an even more provocative sequence, crosscutting between the execution process and the murders commited by Matthew many years ago. At one point the film cuts right from Sarandon's redshot eyes watching Penn get injected to the fearful eyes of his victim awaiting the fatal gun shot. It's a chilling match cut that utlimately goes beyond placing the executioners of the law on the same level as cold-blooded killers. The latter at least have no delusions about what they are doing, their inhumane conduct and unconcealed, vicious cruelty entirely fits their actions. The state on the other hand creates a sanitised ceremony where correct, perfectly scheduled formalities (the final goodbyes with the family, the final dinner, the final words, the guard screaming out "Dead man walking", the careful, orderly preparation of the tools used for exectuon) whitewash what's going on, while extending the agony of the person about to be murdered. You may question whether spiritual redemption is enough to turn a racist rapist into a profile in courage; death row will do the job anyway.