Lyrics I see a red door and I want it painted black No colors anymore I want them to turn black I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes I have to turn my head until my darkness goes
I see a line of cars and they're all painted black With flowers and my love both never to come back I see people turn their heads and quickly look away Like a new born baby it just happens every day
I look inside myself and see my heart is black I see my red door and must have it painted black Maybe then I'll fade away and not have to face the facts It's not easy facin' up when your whole world is black
No more will my green sea go turn a deeper blue I could not foresee this thing happening to you
If I look hard enough into the settin' sun My love will laugh with me before the mornin' comes
I see a red door and I want it painted black No colours anymore I want them to turn black I see the girls go by dressed in their summer clothes I have to turn my head until my darkness goes
Hmm, hmm, hmm,...
I wanna see it painted, painted black Black as night, black as coal I wanna see the sun blotted out from the sky I wanna see it tainted, tainted, tainted, tainted black Yeah!
Hmm, hmm, hmm,...
This is quite an awesome song by the Rolling Stones. There isn't much else to say really. The timing of this post was pretty much excellent. Currently in the Netherlands there is lots of discussion about Zwarte Piet, the black (usually a white person in blackface) help of the Dutch Santa Claus. So I chose a movie about that deals with blackface and wrote something about it in Dutch for my internship at MovieScene.nl
The Movie: Bamboozled (Spike Lee, 2000)
I am not going to write again about this movie, but will just link to my piece on it. It is in Dutch though.
I'll just mention that this is not one of Spike Lee's best movies. It is watchable, because his movies are always stylistically interesting, but his satire doesn't really work and there are too many unnecessary digressions.
Lyrics There's no time for us There's no place for us What is this thing that builds our dreams yet slips away from us
Who wants to live forever Who wants to live forever....?
There's no chance for us It's all decided for us This world has only one sweet moment set aside for us
Who wants to live forever Who wants to live forever?
Who dares to loove forever? When love must die
But touch my tears with your lips Touch my world with your fingertips And we can have forever And we can love forever Forever is our today Who wants to live forever Who wants to live forever? Forever is our today
Who waits forever anyway? This is not one of my favorite Queen songs, but it is another example of their genius. They manage to seamlessly combine opera with rock in a way that I've really seen no one else do. In the song the sentiment is expressed that you wouldn't want to live forever. So I chose a movie that deals with the quest for eternal life.
The Movie: The Fountain (Darren Aronofsky, 2006)
I think The Fountain is Darren Aronofsky's best movie, which doesn't say much coming from me. I haven't seen Requiem For A Dream (or Pi) yet, but I didn't really like Black Swan. And I completely and utterly disliked The Wrestler and its banality. As for the Fountain, this movie certainly isn't banal. It may be in fact a bit too ambitious for it's own good. As IMDB claims "The Fountain is a story of love, death, spirituality and the fragility of existence in this world, spanning over one thousand years and three parallel stories." All that and it lasts only 97 minutes. Now that may be to studio interference, but I am not sure if the movie would have been better if it took longer. Even at 97 minutes Aronofsky seems to completely run out of ideas and imagination. But for the most part this is an interesting film with some inspired filmmaking.
There is actually one main story here and it is set in the present. Hugh Jackman plays Tom Creo, a doctor who performs tests on monkeys, trying to find a cure for brain tumors. For him these experiments are even more urgent than usual, as his wife Izzy (Rachel Weisz) has a brain tumor. In their early scenes we don't know this yet, so we are left guessing why Tom is so concerned for Izzy and why her behavior seems a bit odd. It is quite unnecessary to keep Izzy's tumor a mystery (although he does it through some clever filmmaking), as the movie becomes a lot better once we know what's going on. Suddenly the scenes between Tom and Izzy become more moving and gain urgency, so does Tom's obsession with finding the cure. And when a monkey's tumor seems to miraculously shrink in such a way that Tom seems to believe he's actually found the cure for death, he is rather frustrated (but also fully understands) he has to follow medical and scientific procedures before he can apply it to his wife. Aronofsky makes Tom's frustration quite palpable, and he raises several interesting questions what Tom's discoveries mean and their ethics. It is just unfortunate that he never really explores these questions much further. What is fortunate is that he added some humor to this story. After The Wrestler and Black Swan I thought Aronofsky was incapable of that.
The two other stories are meant to show us the inner lives of the characters. Influenced by her disease Izzy has written a book called The Fountain. It is set in Spain during the inquisiton. The Spanish queen (played again by Rachel Weisz) asks the conquistador Tomas (played again by, you guessed it, Hugh Jackman) to find the Tree of Life which is supposed to be somewhere in South America. And if the existence of this Tree of Life can be proved supposedly the inquisiton will be over. Why this will be so is never really explained, and Aronofsky films a bit too many dull battle scenes in the dark. But these scenes do flesh Izzy's character a bit more out. In the main story she presents herself as a brave woman, who is unafraid of death, but through her story we realize that's just a (brave) facade. This story also shows us how much she loves Tom and how enormously grateful she is for his unrelenting experimentation. It is an interesting way show us a character's inner life, but Aronofsky completely wastes Rachel Weisz in this movie. She never gets to act out all these thoughts and feelings. Apart from a nice scene as the queen of Spain she hardly has anything to do. In the main story she only has to be a sickly woman and in the third story (which I'll discuss later) she is merely Tom's memory. It's a bit of a shame. Weisz is one of the best actresses working now, while I think Hugh Jackman is one of the dullest actors. He is not bad here, but he is nothing special.
As you may have guessed by now, Izzy dies in the main story. She couldn't finish writing her book in time, so she ordered Tom to write the final chapter. Tom's writing is the third story in the film. And again Aronofsky does some things right and some things wrong. Tom turns Izzy's historical fantasy into a science-fiction fantasy. He now lives in something like a bubble in space with Izzy who has taken the form of a tree, the tree of life in fact. It is tough to describe this image really, because Aronofsky has truly created an image we haven't seen before. Only again, he doesn't much know what to do with it. He shows it to us in many different angles and we see the now future Tom being haunted by the tree and memories of his wife in living form. Aronofsky connects this story in an interesting way to the main story. In this story Tom starts an imaginary dialogue with his wife and mid-dialogue Aronofsky then cuts to the main story where the same dialogue continues. Still this is the worst part of the film since here Aronofsky seems most unable to engage with the ideas he introduces. It doesn't come as a surprise then that the film eventually ends with a special effects extravaganza that's completely meaningless. Aronofsky incoherently meshes ideas of different religions on eternal life without ever going anywhere with them. It is a bit of a shame that these are the obvious religions like Buddhism and Christianlity. The concept of eternal lfe has been explored countless times in our (popular) culture through these religions. What was also intersting about Izzy's story was the fact that the tried to explore this concept through Mayan myths.
I sound a bit too dismissive of this film, but as I said before I quite liked it actually. Aronofsky does show here that he is a really good and rather unique filmmaker who knows how to play around with the medium. And he plays here with grand ideas few filmmakers are even interested in touching upon. Unfortunately he doesn't really know how to explore them and what to do with them. This maybe could have been a great movie if he only focused on the 'main' story and looked at how our ideas on eternity (which used to be processed through religions) are being changed by scientficic progress. Or if he took these ideas even less seriously and followed through on his pulpy sensibilities he exhibited in the last part of the move. In any case, I am now a bit more interested in seeing Aronofsky's previous, and future films, though there is still no big release I anticipate less than Aronofsky's upcoming Noah.
Lyrics Pistols shots ring out in the barroom night Enter Patty Valentine from the upper hall She sees the bartender in a pool of blood Cries out "My God they killed them all" Here comes the story of the Hurricane The man the authorities came to blame For something that he never done Put him in a prison cell but one time he could-a been The champion of the world.
Three bodies lying there does Patty see And another man named Bello moving around mysteriously "I didn't do it" he says and he throws up his hands "I was only robbing the register I hope you understand I saw them leaving" he says and he stops "One of us had better call up the cops" And so Patty calls the cops And they arrive on the scene with their red lights flashing In the hot New Jersey night.
Meanwhile far away in another part of town Rubin Carter and a couple of friends are driving around Number one contender for the middleweight crown Had no idea what kinda shit was about to go down When a cop pulled him over to the side of the road Just like the time before and the time before that In Patterson that's just the way things go If you're black you might as well not shown up on the street 'Less you wanna draw the heat.
Alfred Bello had a partner and he had a rap for the corps Him and Arthur Dexter Bradley were just out prowling around He said "I saw two men running out they looked like middleweights They jumped into a white car with out-of-state plates" And Miss Patty Valentine just nodded her head Cop said "Wait a minute boys this one's not dead" So they took him to the infirmary And though this man could hardly see They told him that he could identify the guilty men.
Four in the morning and they haul Rubin in Take him to the hospital and they bring him upstairs The wounded man looks up through his one dying eye Says "Wha'd you bring him in here for ? He ain't the guy !" Yes here comes the story of the Hurricane The man the authorities came to blame For something that he never done Put in a prison cell but one time he could-a been The champion of the world.
Four months later the ghettos are in flame Rubin's in South America fighting for his name While Arthur Dexter Bradley's still in the robbery game And the cops are putting the screws to him looking for somebody to blame "Remember that murder that happened in a bar ?" "Remember you said you saw the getaway car?" "You think you'd like to play ball with the law ?" "Think it might-a been that fighter you saw running that night ?" "Don't forget that you are white".
Arthur Dexter Bradley said "I'm really not sure" Cops said "A boy like you could use a break We got you for the motel job and we're talking to your friend Bello Now you don't wanta have to go back to jail be a nice fellow You'll be doing society a favor That sonofabitch is brave and getting braver We want to put his ass in stir We want to pin this triple murder on him He ain't no Gentleman Jim".
Rubin could take a man out with just one punch But he never did like to talk about it all that much It's my work he'd say and I do it for pay And when it's over I'd just as soon go on my way Up to some paradise Where the trout streams flow and the air is nice And ride a horse along a trail But then they took him to the jailhouse Where they try to turn a man into a mouse.
All of Rubin's cards were marked in advance The trial was a pig-circus he never had a chance The judge made Rubin's witnesses drunkards from the slums To the white folks who watched he was a revolutionary bum And to the black folks he was just a crazy nigger No one doubted that he pulled the trigger And though they could not produce the gun The DA said he was the one who did the deed And the all-white jury agreed.
Rubin Carter was falsely tried The crime was murder 'one' guess who testified Bello and Bradley and they both baldly lied And the newspapers they all went along for the ride How can the life of such a man Be in the palm of some fool's hand ? To see him obviously framed Couldn't help but make me feel ashamed to live in a land Where justice is a game.
Now all the criminals in their coats and their ties Are free to drink martinis and watch the sun rise While Rubin sits like Buddha in a ten-foot cell An innocent man in a living hell That's the story of the Hurricane But it won't be over till they clear his name And give him back the time he's done Put him in a prison cell but one time he could-a been The champion of the world. I think Bob Dylan has written some pretty great songs. I just often find hs voice to be very irritating. I am actually more a fan of his long-time girlfriend Joan Baez. I do like this song though, and I consider it his best. The story of Rubin Carter is quite interesting, so it's no surprise that it has also been turned into a movie. The Movie: The Hurricane (Norman Jewison, 1999)
I had seen The Hurricane once before, but I didn't remember anything about it, except the fact that I absolutely loved the movie. Watching it now I didn't love it that much, but still thought that this was a very good movie. It is also a movie that tries to be a bit different from the usual biopic. But above all this is a movie that's just pleasant to watch, despite the dramatic subject. An important reason for that are the actors It is full of famous ones who are all used in a way that seems to suit their talents perfectly. It is a treat to see an evil Dan Hedaya scheming around. And there are few people who can portray a normal, decent man as well as Liev Schreiber. But of course the movie belongs to Denzel Washington. He knows both to convey Carter's goodness, as his wit and coolness. This is the kind of movie that makes you want to watch every Denzel Washington movie ever made. In fact he is a bit too good. Vicellous Reon Shannon, the young actor playing Lesra, for whom Carter is an inspiration is not a very good actor, and is completely dwarfed by Washington in their scenes together.
But the character of Lesra is key to what makes these movie really interesting. As I've written earlier there are too many biopics which dutifully show important moments of their subject's life, without ever conveying what makes their subject so interesting, inspirational or influential. Jewison spends only the first third of the movie detailing Carter's life. And he does these through Lesra's reading of the autobiography Carter wrote, while in jail. By crosscutting between the scenes from his autobiography and Lesra's reactions to these events, the movie very easily conveys the importance of Carter for a black boy. There is also a nice shot in which we see a white woman reading the book. While she likes it, the book doesn't have the same effect for her as for Lesra. It is also intersting that the scenes of Carter's life are not filmed as a dull chronologic representation of his life, but as a series of freewheeling memories, showing how Carter was influenced by the 60's and how many African-Americans were influenced by Carter. These scenes are enhanced by Roger Deakins' great cinematography and the fact that nearly every scene is accompanied by some great American folk/protest song from the 60's.
The rest of the movie never reaches the heights of this first third. It sometimes comes pretty close to being a standard, but above average, courthouse thriller. But it never becomes dull and Jewison doesn't flinch from showing us the sheer (sometimes latent) racism that led to Carter's imprisonment. Especially damning are the scenes involving the main witness, Alfred Bello. The reason Bello saw those murders was because he was on the lookout for a bunch of thieves wanting to rob the joint where the killings took place. After the murders he enters, sees the dead bodies and still takes the money from the counter. He is seen by a woman doing that and would be the main suspect, but he simply states that two 'niggers' killed everybody and is believed. He doesn't think that Carter was guilty though, but sergeant Della Pesca (who did not exist in real life) wants to frame Carter so much that he forces Alfred to witness against Rubin. Alfred has to do this as he is a criminal who will go to jail otherwise.
It is also quite interesting that the movie, even when it becomes a courthouse thriller, is as much about Lesra as it is about Rubin Carter. Lesra lives with a group of people having a dynamic quite unlike we've ever seen in a Hollywood biopic. He is a Brooklyn-born kid who now lives in Canada with two men and a woman. These are some sort of do-gooders who, it is hinted have helped children like Lesra before. But what they do and what their relationship really is never becomes clear. And the movie doesn't have any problem with that. It understands that all that matters is that these are decent people who try to do good and who really are a good influence on Lesra.
But because of this, there are also valid reasons to criticize this movie. It rather uncritically presents the fact that Lesra is better of living with some white people in Canada, than with his black parents in New Jersey. That is pretty problematic for a movie that's supposed to be about black empowerment. But still this is forgivable, because it makes us understand better why a black role model like Rubin is so important to Lesra. More problematic are scenes which seem specifically inserted to comfort the wihite audience, that whites, despite their many crimes, are really good people. This is pretty obvious when out of nowhere a line like 'not all white people are racists' is uttered. Or during the completely unnecessary scenes in which Rubin 'learns' that there are really good white people. And that only when he does so, he really has a chance for freedom.
Lyrics Life is bigger It's bigger And you, you are not me The lengths that I will go to The distance in your eyes Oh no, I've said too much I set it up
That's me in the corner That's me in the spotlight Losing my religion Trying to keep up with you And I don't know if I can do it Oh no I've said too much I haven't said enough
I thought that I heard you laughing I thought that I heard you sing I think I thought I saw you try
Every whisper Of every waking hour I'm choosing my confessions Trying to keep an eye on you Like a hurt lost and blinded fool Oh no, I've said too much I set it up
Consider this The hint of the century Consider this The slip that brought me To my knees failed What if all these fantasies Come flailing around Now I've said too much
I thought that I heard you laughing I thought that I heard you sing I think I thought I saw you try
But that was just a dream That was just a dream
That's me in the corner That's me in the spotlight Losing my religion Trying to keep up with you And I don't know if I can do it Oh no I've said too much I haven't said enough
I thought that I heard you laughing I thought that I heard you sing I think I thought I saw you try
But that was just a dream, try, cry, why, try That was just a dream, just a dream, just a dream Dream
I only started to appreciate R.E.M. when they broke up. But even when I didn't care much about them, I thought this to be a great song. I linked it to one of the most famous movies ever made, about a man who is well, losing his religion.
The Movie: The Seventh Seal (Det sjunde inseglet) (Ingmar Bergman, 1957)
The 1950's and 1960's are considered to be the golden years of European art cinema. I have yet to see many of these movies made in this period, but I have mostly liked those I saw. It is also considered very highbrow, very intellectual cinema, that might be offputting for many people. Perhaps no one has that reputation more than Ingmar Bergman. The DVD cover of The Seventh Seal explicitly proclaims that Bergman, along with Andrei Tarkovsky and Michelangelo Antonioni rejected the simplicty of Hollywood movies, and strifed to make art that would stimulate the intellect. Now, I consider myself a pretty open-minded movie watcher, but I was a bit intimidated by the prospect of his movies, so this viewing of The Seventh Seal was the first time I saw a Bergman movie. I thought it was very good, for the expected reasons and for some unexpected ones.
I had many misconceptions about this movie, based on what I read about it. As I read someone tweet once, I basically expected this whole movie to be about Max von Sydow and Death playing chess on the beach, while discussing the mysteries of life. Well, they do that (but for a small part of the movie) and Bergman also does deal very extensively with questions of God. Does He exist? And if He does, why doesn't He show Himself to us? The two main characters of the movie are Jons and Antonius Block (he is played by Max von Sydow). They have just returned to Sweden from the crusades and they are pretty disilussioned. Jons has become a cynical man who has lost his faith in God completely. Antonius is in the process of losing his. When he is visited by Death he challenges it ( he, she?) to a chess match. If Antonius wins he'll be set free, if he loses, he'll die. They play with a lot of hiatuses, during which Antonius contemplates concepts like God and heaven, and whether he can ever know for sure whether these exist or not. To have true knowledge about these things is in fact for him even more important than whether they exist or not. Jons and Antonius have good reasons to doubt God. Everybody in Sweden has, as the country suffers from the plague. Did God send this plague? If He did, why would He be so cruel? And if He didn't, why doesn't He do anything about it? As you see, Bergman is not interested in subtlety here. His themes are very bluntly outlined. I think that's a good thing. Subtlety has become a pretty overrated concept in movies.
So yeah all these writers that praise the movie because it deals seriously and intelligently with such existential questions are absolutely right. And the image of Death and Antonius playing chess on the beach has become rightfully iconic. It is quite unfortunate though that writing on this movie focuses so much on this, thereby making the movie seem more 'highbrow' and inaccesible than it is. A couple of entries ago, I wrote about Chicken with Plums and how it is inspired by traditional folk tales. The Seventh Seal often reminds of one too. It feels like an original, filmed folk tale. This may be especially clear in the lauded final shot, when we see Death being followed by a group of people. They all are dancing. But this is also pretty clear in the story structure. The drama is conrasted by humor and touches of light romance. The heroic intellectuals are contrasted by cowards and fools, and ordinary farmers.
Yes, indeed this is often times a very humorous movie. Woody Allen always claims to have been heavily influenced by Bergman, and you can see it very well here. Especially the influence this movie has on Hannah and Her Sisters is very evident. There is this famous scene in Hannah and Her Sisters in which Woody Allen is depressed by life and tries to kill himself, only the gun doesn't work. In shock he wanders through the streets and ends up in a cinema that plays a movie by the Marx Brothers. The joy expressed in that movie gives him back his joy in life. There is a scene here reminiscent of that when we our characters happen upon a performance by a comedy troupe. Watching them perform, they forget all their troubles and enjoy life. The sequence becomes even more interesting when a performer starts singing a romantic, joyous song and Bergman cuts to backstage where an actor is wooing a girl. For about three minutes we are watching a tender romamtic comedy. That Bergman has no problem shifting tones expertly becomes even more clear when the comedy performance is disrupted when a group of harbingers of the apocalypse arrives at the scenes and starts singing dark songs about the end of times. All of these scenes flow seamlessly into one another, without the tone feeling off once. Bergman is clearly a serious director, but also a technically great one. Someone who even in a film of often such serious contemplation, commits to a very playful style, executing it greatly.
Not only is this often a humorous movie, it's humor and style often feel much more contemporary than they are. Jons has some lines which are so typical of Woody Allen, they nearly pull you out of the movie. The most obvious such line is perhaps 'Our crusade is such madness that only a real idealist could have thought it up.' Jons in general is being given several oneliners to say, which nowadays we would call zingers. Some of them go beyond Woody Allen's humor and would be right at home in the Lethal Weapon movies. The movie's mix of humor and romance with existential questions and serious drama is perhaps best exemplified by the characters of Jof and Mia. They are a husband and wife who are part of the comic troupe I wrote about earlier. They are presented as pretty loving and ordinary people, only Jof often has religious visions (this sets up the final shot with the dancing people following death). He sees for example Maria and baby Jesus. These visions pose interesting religious questions, but they are handled with a lot of humor. And then there is the scene where Antonius joins them for a dinner, which is one of the most simple, but beautiful expressions of the pleasure of company ever filmed.
Still the best scene of the movie may be the scene where Bergman gets self-referential. In a church Jons has a conversation with a mural painter, asking him why he is painting such depressing images. The painter to that responds that depressing images scare us, and thus makes us think and ask important questions. When Jons asks him what happens when they think, the wonderful answer of the painter is that they only become more scared. Jons than asks him what he'll do if the people stop caring about his art, because of all those horrific images. The painter responds to this that he'll start making some funny mural paintings and the people will come back. This seems basically like the method Bergman uses in this movie. This is by the way not just a throwaway scene. There are other scenes here in which Bergman deals with how an artist can be capable of making the art he wants. That is just as much a subject here as the silence of God.
Lyrics I may not always love you But long as there are stars above you You never need to doubt it Ill make you so sure about it
God only knows what I'd be without you
If you should ever leave me Though life would still go on believe me The world could show nothing to me So what good would living do me
God only knows what I'd be without you
God only knows what I'd be without you
If you should ever leave me Well life would still go on believe me The world could show nothing to me So what good would living do me
God only knows what I'd be without you God only knows what I'd be without you God only knows God only knows what I'd be without you God only knows what I'd be without you God only knows God only knows what I'd be without you God only knows what I'd be without you God only knows God only knows what I'd be without you God only knows what I'd be without you God only knows God only knows what I'd be without you God only knows what I'd be without you God only knows God only knows what I'd be without you God only knows what I'd be without you God only knows God only knows what I'd be without you This is the best song by The Beach Boys, a band I've never been much interested in, even though all their songs are quite good. I don't have much else to say about it, except that it was used to great effect in Boogie Nights. The Movie: Boogie Nights (Paul Thomas Anderson, 1997) Boogie Nights is one of my favourite movies. Sometimes its seems to exist mostly so Paul Thomas Anderson can show off his film making skills. As we know, they are considerable. But the movie has more than only style. Without ever moralizing Anderson paints a very harsh portrait of the world of porn movies. Despite that he makes us care for all his characters, Not only that he manages to make them quite sympathetic, even though they (or at least some of them) are pretty awful people. The movie has often been compared to Pulp Fiction, especially in that regard. Sometimes it even goes further than that movie in making us root for awful characters. John Travolta at least helps a woman who OD's because of him. In Boogie Nights our heroes secretly dump her in front of a hospital. I did not like The Master very much, but that doesn't change the fact that at this moment Anderson may be one of the three best American filmmakers. The other two are Tarantino and the Coen Brothers. I probably don't anticipate any movie more right now, than Inherent Vice, Anderson's next film. Boogie Nights was only his second movie. It feels as if he knows exactly what he is doing in every shot and every scene. It all starts of course from the great one-take opening scene. The scene is more than simply showing off. It is a very clever way to introduce most of the characters and to make us understand the relationships between them. By shooting it in a single take he also makes expertly clear that all these characters are connected to each other and dependent on each other. All these characters sure enjoy making porn movies and they sure as hell like each other. But Anderson doesn't let us forget that their presence in the porn world, around director Jack Horner is a neccessity for them. It is a world that's enclosed from the real word, in which most of these characters cannot survive. The porn world, whether they like it or not, is their only lifeline. And when near the end of the movie we hear The Beach Boys singing 'God only knows what I'd be without you', that's the perfect summation of what the porn world means to these characters. Anderson by then has shown us their adventures in the real world and it's clear they can't function there at all. They are pretty much hopeless there. Anderson basically divides his movie in two parts. The first part takes place in the 70's, porn's golden years. Our heroes have work, fun, success and porn's newest star Dirk Diggler (Mark Wahlberg in his best peformance). They have dreams that one day they'll make a porn movie, that wil also be considered a great film. It's quite moving how serious they take their job. The cinematographer is concerned with the look of the film, the screenplay writer really wants to write a story that makes sense and the actors, well they'll do anything to make it look as convincing as possible. But beneath all the joy, there is still some misery here. Some of these characters can't even fully function in this world. Especially tragic are Amber Waves (Julianne Moore), a mother who constantly uses coke to forget her sadness for not being able to see her son. Then there is Little Bill (a classic and typical William H. Macy role) who must cope with the fact that his wife fucking with everybody (even out of work) without caring one bit whether Bill knows or not. Lastly there is Scotty J. (Philip Seymour Hoffmann) a deeply closeted homosexual with a crush on Dirk. And could it be that the same can be said about Reed Rothchild (John C. Reilly), Dirk's best friend. There are some truly extraordinary scenes in this first part. There is for example the scene in which Dirk 'acts' for the first time. We see how unglamorous porn filmmaking really is. It happens on a cheap stage that's basically a made-up cellar. It is filmed with cheap material and Anderson certainly doesn't want to leave us with the impression that the sex is in any way sexy or romantic. Then there are the Brock Landers movies, a wonderful parody of the fourth-rate (if that) action movies they made in the 70's. If that parody wasn't great enough it ends with a wonderful punchline when Jack Horner proclaims it the masterpiece by which people will remember him. The best scene is the most tragic one though. At new year's day Bill, for the umpteenth time finds his wife in bed with another man. While the joyful music plays in the background Anderson then follows him to his car where he takes a gun from and shoots his wife, her lover and himself. It's a genuinely shocking and sad scene, because of the joy by which it is surrounded. The second part of the movie takes place in the 80's. The dream that you could one day make an arty porn movie is now dead. The movies will now be shot on video, instead of on film. As Jack's cinematographer sadly exclaims, it all looks the same now. Jack resists the cheapening of his movies for a long time, but when his financier is caught with child pornography and has to go to jail, he has to give in. And cheapening his movies means working with amateur actors. For many of our heroes there is no room anymore in the porn world. They have to go out in the scary, 'real' world. It doesn't end well. It is in these section that Anderson really shows his great skills. At one point he is cutting between three subplots, while the same song plays on the soundtrack (no idea which) There is Amber fighting for custody over her son. There is Buck (Don Cheadle) trying to get financing for his own hi-fi stereo store. And there are Dirk and Reed who try to do everything to get some money. These are quite moving scenes. We know, for various reasons, that there is no chance these people will get what they want. But they want it so much and with such frenetic desperation that we can't help but feel a little sad for them. In this section we also find the best scene of the movie. It is not the rightfully celebrated scene with a completely deranged Alfred Molina. That too is a great scene, which really has to be seen to be believed. But the best scene is the scene just before, when Buck finds the money he needs for his store. It is a scene which could interest the opening narrator of Anderson's next movie Magnolia. After all, he loved coincidences so very much. In any case after much hopelessness eventually all the characters find their way back to the safe confines of Jack Horner. They'd better as God only knows what would have happened if they didn't.
There are nine million bicycles in Beijing
That's a fact
It's a thing we can't deny
Like the fact that I will love you till I die
We are twelve billion light years from the edge
That's a guess
No-one can ever say it's true
But I know that I will always be with you
I'm warmed by the fire of your love everyday
So don't call me a liar
Just believe everything that I say
There are 6 billion people in the world
More or less
And it makes me feel quite small
But you're the one I love the most of all
We're high on a wire
With the world in our sight
And I'll never tire
Of the love that you give me every night
There are nine million bicycles in Beijing
That's a fact
It's a thing we can't deny
Like the fact that I will love you till I die
And there are nine million bicycles in Beijing
And you know that I will love you till I die
As I explained in my first post on this blog, Radio 2 has published a list of its 2000 best songs for every year since 1999. I use the list published in 2008, the ten-year anniversary of Radio 2's contest. In 2008 the Dutch couldn't submit a list of their 10 favorite songs, but all the votes of all the previous years were accumulated to create a sort of ultimate top 2000. As you can see Nine Million Bicycles is placed 58th on the 2008 list. I like the song, but that's a joke. It has no business being placed in such vicinity to all these classics. But it's high placement does show Katie Melua's enormous popularity in The Netherlands. Nine Million Bicylces came out in 2005, which means that it in three years it gained more votes than, for example, any Michael Jackson song did in 10 years. That is quite incredible. In any case I didn't think much about what movie to link to this song. I am really very unfamiliar with the Asian cinema, and because Bejing is mentioned quite prominently I chose to watch a Chinese movie from the early 90's, a period considered revolutionary for Chinese movies.
The Movie: Raise the Red Lantern (Da hong deng long gao gao gua) (Yimou Zhang, 1991)
"Good or bad, it's all playacting. If you act well, you can fool other people; if you do it badly, you can ony fool yourself" This quote from the movie sums up pretty well, what this movie is mainly about. One can discuss all day long whether this film is a critique of the authoritarian Chinese state, but in the end this is a movie about power and sex. Or more specifically, it is about the nasty games being played to obtain power and sex. And its view of the world is even bleaker than that sounds. The only reason to have power here, is to obtain sex and vice versa. And if real power cannot be obtained its characters are even satisfied with the illusion of it, even when they are fully aware that they are only deluding themselves. This is indeed a bleak, suffocating movie, but it is very good. Yimou Zhang (this is the first movie of his I've seen) is not only audaciously relentless in creating a bleak, suffocating atmosphere, he also knows exactly how to do it. If for nothing else, the movie would be watchable because of Zhang's sheer confidence in himself that's at display in every shot.
Gong Li plays Songlian, a 19-year old woman who had drop out of college after her father's death. Out of poverty her step mother sells her as a concubine to a rich Chinese man, in the film only known as 'The Master'. Songlian will become The Master's fourth mistress (or wife), and no The Master did not divorce his previous three. While each wife has her own room, The Master, his four wives, and his many servants all live together in the same enormous house.According to tradition, each night the four wives (together with their personal servants) have to go to the central corridor, where it will be announced with which wife The Master will sleep that night. The corridor and the bedroom of that particular wife will then be lit by red lanterns. Also that wife will get a foot massage. Not surprisingly The Master at first favors Songlian, his newest, and youngest, wife. But sex means more than just sex here. Whomever sleeps with The Master has (some) control and power over the whole household. So the competition between the women is enormous. It aren't just the three other wives that plot against Songlian; her personal servant is jealous, because she expected to become The Master's fourth wife. And Songlian herself, who doesn't need really need any time to adjust to the games being played, is no saint either.
Throughout the first three quarters of the movie all these games are being played beneath the surface. Although everybody in the whole household knows what is going on, all of them keep a facade of politeness and friendliness. But behind every gesture and every word there is a single unifying motive: the quest to gain or to show power. This is clear from Songlian's first day. She is put in the spotlight and given a special treatment, as, she is told, is the custom. But this custom doesn't serve merely to make Songlian feel at comfort. We see that there is a specific servant for every part of the treatment she gets. It is clear that every servant has a specific role, which he/she is expected to fulfill. So the special treatment serves to show Songlian, that she has a specific role with a specific purpose (most importantly, to give birth to a son) in the household. And that she shouldn't really think of stepping beyond that role or challenging The Master's power, which is at full exhibit during this treatment. Everybody works for him without him even having to say anything. He is so powerful, he doesn't have to explicitly exert his power. This is quite a chilling sequence, and many more are to follow in the same vein. One includes a sequence in which Songlian fakes her own pregnancy, just to get a foot massage. But perhaps the most shocking scene is the one when we find out that Songlian's personal servant has fully decked out her room with red lanterns. That is a meaningless act, since The Master obviously isn't sleeping with her. Besides, she is the only one who knows that the red lanterns are in her room. She has no power at all, but the red lanterns give her the illusion of it and that makes her happy. Even though she is knowingly deluding herself.
In the last quarter of the movie all these tensions that were until then sub textual, suddenly come on the forefront of the movie. Songlian is the catalyst for this shattering of the facades. The games played start being explicit and can hardly be called games anymore. The conversations become more honest and some of the women start becoming friends. That's when the Third Mistress the quote from the beginning to Songlian. And she opens up even more about some of her secrets. It will only lead to her death, for which Songlian is partly responsible. And that's not the only death Songlian is responsible for.
Of course I watched this movie with English subtitles. But if you were to watch it without subtitles, you'd also get a pretty good sense of what it's about (especially if you happen to be Chinese!). Yimou Zhang achieves quite a lot by his editing and framing of the shots. It is quite interestingly for example that we never really get to see The Master's face. We either see him in long shot, sideways, or with his back towards the camera. At point we see The Master and Songlian in bed in long shot. In the next shot we cut to a close-up. Not only doe we now only see Songlian, it actually seems as if Zhang is making a point of not showing The Master's face. He wants us to notice we don't see his face. And we also don't ever, not even in long shot, do we actually see The Master having sex with any of his wives That could be because he wants us to show the power of The Master. To show that even while he is hardly present in the film, the mere fact of (the knowledge of) his existence is enough to hold power over the whole household. But it also could be that Zhang wants to grant some power to the women, by making this clearly a story about them. Zhang after all does seem to have some sympathy for their awful behavior. There is nothing else they can do really in this suffocating place. He represents this suffocation, by the choice of his shots. Most of his shots are symmetrical and when there is a person within the frame that person in the middle of the frame. He also doesn't really show us many things. We stay at all times in the confined space of The Master's house and even there, there are only about 6/7 places wherein he situates the story. He especially cuts so often to the main corridor, that it almost becomes a joke. I believe that serves to show us that whatever these women do, there is no escaping from this rather dull world. They always end up in the same position as if they are just walking in circles. This is made rather explicit with the final shot of the picture. Lastly it is quite interesting in this regard that there is one shot in which we actually finally see some trees, that are out of the confined spaces of the house. It may be telling that this shot comes at the beginning of the sequence in which the Second Mistress will be killed.
I must have left my house at eight, because I always do
My train, I'm certain, left the station just when it was due
I must have read the morning paper going into town
And having gotten through the editorial, no doubt I must have frowned
I must have made my desk around a quarter after nine
With letters to be read, and heaps of papers waiting to be signed
I must have gone to lunch at half past twelve or so
The usual place, the usual bunch
And still on top of this I'm pretty sure it must have rained
The day before you came
I must have lit my seventh cigarette at half past two
And at the time I never even noticed I was blue
I must have kept on dragging through the business of the day
Without really knowing anything, I hid a part of me away
At five I must have left, there's no exception to the rule
A matter of routine, I've done it ever since I finished school
The train back home again
Undoubtedly I must have read the evening paper then
Oh yes, I'm sure my life was well within its usual frame
The day before you came
I must have opened my front door at eight o'clock or so
And stopped along the way to buy some Chinese food to go
I'm sure I had my dinner watching something on TV
There's not, I think, a single episode of Dallas that I didn't see
I must have gone to bed around a quarter after ten
I need a lot of sleep, and so I like to be in bed by then
I must have read a while
The latest one by Marilyn French or something in that style
It's funny, but I had no sense of living without aim
The day before you came
And turning out the light I must have yawned and cuddled up for yet another night
And rattling on the roof I must have heard the sound of rain
The day before you came
This is the last song ABBA ever recorded. They sure went out on a high note. I think this is a really good and very interesting song. And it's by far the best thing they've ever done. The lyrics are slightly cheesy, but in an intelligent way. Their cheesiness seems to be the whole point. The woman is aware that her life before 'he' came was cliche and stereotypically cheesy. That is precisely the reason she is telling us about her day(s) before he came, thereby implying, of course, that after he came, her life became better. I think it is quite wonderful how she stresses the importance of her lover by actually telling us nothing about her life with him, instead focusing on her life without him. I can't think of another (popular) song really with this kind of structure.
In any case, while writing this piece I became more and more in awe with the lyrics and the structure of this song. So I decided to read around a bit, and this song just became even more fascinating. I interpreted this song as it being about her lover, but that's not ever explicitly stated in the song. The 'you' who came may not be her lover. It may not even be a man. But let's say that the 'you' who came is her lover. Then we still have to deal with the fact that we don't actually know whether she is still with him. The video clip, after all, ends in heartbreak. Imagine she's breaking up with her lover. That would add another layer to the song, and some more poignancy too. Than these lyrics would be a remembrance of a sad time, that could now come back. This is not that far-fetched an interpretation. After all, it would mirror real life. As I wrote earlier this is ABBA's final song. They were about to break up. After all this, I find it quite unfortunate to say that I linked such a 'simple' movie to this song. But the character as described in the song, did (and still does) remind of the typical role Sandra Bullock played in her romantic comedies, especially in the 90's. And I am quite happy to report that the movie I chose opens with a similar shot like the video clip.
The Movie: While You Were Sleeping (Jon Turteltaub, 1995)
I suppose this will be one of the only times that I'll have more intelligent things to write about the song, than about the movie. This is a very lightweight movie that does nothing much that's interesting to write about. But there is also nothing to really hate about it. I kind of wished it was directed by the Coens, or some other like-minded directors. They could have turned the movie into a wonderful pitch black comedy or a great satire if they fully acknowledged, and engaged with, the insanity of the characters. After all, we are dealing with a plot here in which Sandra Bullock plays a woman named Lucy who after saving a man who fell on the train rails is mistakenly believed to be his fiancee. The guy, named Peter can't do anything about it, because he is in a coma. So Peter's family takes Lucy in as one of their own. She goes along with it (mostly because there wouldn't be a movie if she didn't). But also because she is single and lives alone in the big city. And because if it now turns out that she is not Peter's fiancee, his grandmother will die of a heart attack. That's at least what Saul,who finds out Lucy's secret, tells her. Saul is not blood related to anyone in the family, nor is he married to someone who is (though he is Peter's godfather). Yet he still does everything together with the family, which obviously doesn't have much trouble taking people in. I keep referring to the family as if it is a character, because it basically is here. We hardly ever see any of Peter's family members alone. All of them are always at the same place! Except Peter's brother Jack, who while his brother is in a coma, falls in love with Lucy and starts hitting on her. Despite the fact that he he thinks she's his brother's fiancee. Meanwhile Lucy is stalked by a an Italian doofus in her flat, who keeps deluding himself that he has a chance with Lucy.
Well, you can see how this could have been a black comedy. But it's not, nor does it want to be. It wants to be a silly, lighthearted Sandra Bullock romantic comedy. And it does a good job of being that. I am not exactly its target audience, but I enjoyed it. It is of course contrived, but not too much. There isn't much drama for its own sake. In fact I liked that it sometimes actively avoided unnecessary dramatics, like when Jack tells his father that he doesn't want to work for their furniture company any more, because he has started his own successful one. His dad is (surprisingly) perfectly fine with it, and they continue their pleasant conversation. Pleasant is basically the tone of every conversation in the movie. I also liked the fact that while the movie is set between Christmas and New Year, there isn't a really big deal made out of it. This is (thank God) not a Christmas movie with all the cliches that come with it. It is just pretty convenient for it to be set around that time, because it means that there is snow. And without snow the best throwaway gag of the film would be impossible. Nor would Jack and Lucy be able to fall in live if they didn't flirtingly help each other to not fall on the ice The family members are played by actors like Jack Warden and Peter Boyle, whose roles mostly consist of saying funny one-liners, giving good advice and seeming like generally nice people. They are good at that.
Everything though revolves around Sandra Bullock and she is (genuinely) very good. She always manages to come of smarter and cuter than she should be based on her dialogue. She somehow makes Lucy a quite charming character and makes us care for her. She is clearly smarter than the material, but she never even gives the slightest of hints that she is above it. She even comes of as joyous. I am not and have never been a really big fan of her (though I also don't mind her at all), but she certainly deserves some respect. She is one of the few actresses who was a star in the 1990's and has remained so. Women like Julia Roberts, Cameron Diaz and Catherine Zeta-Jones are now a bit forgotten and mostly have small roles in films that are neither very good or very popular. The fates of the likes of Meg Ryan, Andie MacDowell and Minnie Driver are even worse. That's not necessarily their fault. Older actresses aren't always treated very well in Hollywood (that is a bit of an understatement). The only other actresses actually who were stars in the 90's and still are, are probably Meryl Streep (who is a star since the 70's and is probably untouchable) and Natalie Portman (who is much younger). That can't be just because of Bullock's acting ability. It takes intelligence too. There are better actresses than Sandra Bullock, but she has starred this year in the very successful blockbuster comedy The Heat, and later this year she'll star next to George Clooney in the artsy science-fiction drama Gravity. Few other actresses can/get the chance to do that.
