I just got back from seeing this movie and wow, was I surprised. I honestly didn't expect too much from John Turturro's first film. He's a great actor but that skill doesn't necessarily carry over to the other side of the camera. Originally released in 2005 in a limited fashion, the movie is only now being shown to a wider audience. The tag line: A Savage Musical could not be more appropriate. If Bob Fosse, Joel Coen, Lena Horne and Matthew Barney all met at a singing, dancing, cinematic orgy this is what their illegitimate spawn might look like.
To say that this movie is ambitious would be an understatement. When you feature with Mr. Soprano himself, James Gandolfini belting out torch songs you know that you're talking about a movie outside of the status quo. In fact, within the first ten minutes this movie kills the status quo, buries it and pisses on its grave.
The remarkable thing is that with the exception of some pacing issues in the third act this movie works perfectly. The cast is incredible from top to bottom. Gandolfini plays the hapless lout, Nick Murder and Susan Sarandon his wife and foil, Kitty. Kate Winslet has a hilariously over-the-top turn as Nick's fowl-mouthed mistress, Tula, complete with a ridiculously affected Anglo-accent. Mandy Moore and Mary-Louise Parker (of Weeds fame) are Nick's daughters, Constance and Baby who along with Aida Turturro have formed a terrificly-bad rock band. Steve Buscemi has a great cameo as Angelo, Nick's warped coworker whose love advice is comedy gold. Eddie Izzard has a small but perfect role as Gene Vincent the leader of the church choir and the aforementioned Christopher Walken practically steals the movie as Kitty's neurotic Cousin Bo.
This movie is all over the map: one minute it hits you with a serious scene (Kitty has just discovered poems that prove Nick's infidelity) and the next second characters are bursting out with a song. Normally this sort of haphazard transitioning would be a recipe for disaster but when Nick joins the neighborhood garbage men for a song and dance number in the middle of the street the results are too spontaneous, too absurd to argue with.
For two acts, the movie never lets up; bouncing along, like a kid in a candy store eager to sample the next yummy treat. We're introduced to Fryburg (Bobby Cannavale) - probably the most ridiculous character in the movie - whose infatuation with Baby proves introspective impetus for Kitty and Nick. Having Kitty alternate between bitterly singing love songs to warning Baby of the fleeting impermanence of love is part of this movie's charm. Credit goes to Turturro for the guts to so recklessly mix this fantastical stew of song, dance and emotions.
The casting could not be more perfect. When Christopher Walken (who was born to be in this movie) says without irony, "She was my first love; I traced her name in cow shit", the whole weight of how funny this movie truly is comes crashing down like a wave. More than any movie in recent memory, this movie is fun; when I wasn't laughing my ass off I was grinning like the Cheshire cat.
The only blemish on this otherwise perfect monster of a movie is the final act. Things take a sudden serious turn and the movie just seems to skip a beat. It's not that the seriousness seems out of place when the emotion has been red-lining for half the movie, there is just something jarring about the transition from the silly antics of this truly dysfunctional tribe into sadness at the fate of the patriarch. But to fault the final act is to quibble; this movie is so wonderfully outrageous from beginning to end that you cannot help but love it.
Showing posts with label review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label review. Show all posts
Friday, December 7, 2007
Monday, November 26, 2007
Beowulf Killed The Movie Star
After seeing the Robert Zemeckis film Beowulf last night I was left with the sinking feeling that I witnessed a sad milestone for popular cinema. When purchasing tickets I failed to notice that the theater near me had 2D and 3D showings of the movie so I ended up seeing the movie in boring-old 2D. Incidentally, I did really appreciate the creative tweak that Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary put on the plot of this traditional heroic tale.
Seeing the movie presented in 2D did not (as so many reviewers have claimed) ruin the movie for me. In fact, I found the visual effects to be quite impressive without any added illusion of depth or "holy crap the dragon is flying right at me!" moments. The quality of computer rendered animation continues its inexorable crawl toward the holy grail of truly life-like. That said, I have not seen the movie "as it was intended" so I will leave a critique of the multi-dimensional visual spectacle for others to write. The problem that I have with this movie is not the visual effects but rather with a cognitive dissonance that this style of animation causes me to experience.
There is a palpable unease that I experience watching an eerily life-like representation of a well-known actor. Let me be clear, I do not just mean that the representation is life-like in the general sense, I mean that the representation is a dead reckoning of the actor in question (perhaps aged or in period-specific garb but unmistakable nonetheless). Anthony Hopkins as Hrothgar is the most obvious example as his character is rendered as a jovial and rotund Danish doppleganger of the actor. This decision to render the characters as near-exact likenesses of the actors makes sense on multiple levels: not only do realistic renderings naturally follow from the motion-capture technology used to record the actor's movements but the movie is, like all Hollywood vehicles, banking on the marketability of it's stars. I understand this decision but it significantly detracts from the movie.
For me, the worst example of this visual friction is the character of Unferth (voiced by John Malkovich). Every time Unferth's mouth opens and Malkovich's unmistakable voice comes out I am struck by just how wrong everything looks. To be sure, the animation is still a bit wooden at times but this is not the cause of my uneasiness. The problem is not that Unferth is too wooden in his mannerisms as Malkovich is talking; in fact the animators have done a very good job of making the character come to life (certainly much-improved from Zemeckis' past attempts such as The Polar Express).
The problem with Unferth in particular, and all of the characters with recognizable voice actors in general, is not that he is poorly animated, it is that his mannerisms don't match those of the actor. It is as if they have bottled John Malkovich's voice and are uncorking it from some other actor's mouth. As a big fan of anime I had never thought that it would be an issue for a character to be voiced by an actor that looked vastly different, or more importantly one that emotes in a vastly different way. Indeed some of my favorite Miyazaki films feature characters that are voiced by actors that look and perform much differently than their on-screen counterparts.
There is a fundamental difference between an animated character in a Miyazaki film and the characters in Beowulf. In Miyazaki films (and traditional animated films as a whole) the animators are not trying to make the character look like the actor. An obvious example would be the Witch of the Waste from Howl's Moving Castle (voiced by the great Lauren Bacall). The animators are not trying to evoke images of Lauren Bacall (either as ingenue opposite Humphrey Bogart or as the wise matronly persona that she inhabited in her later performances). Instead they rendered The Witch of the Waste as well, a witch. When the witch speaks I may recognize Bacall's unmistakably deep timbre but my mind is not locked into thinking of the character as Lauren Bacall because the character looks so different.
The same cannot be said for Unferth or many of the other main characters in Beowulf (Hrothgar, Wealthow and Grendel's Mother among them). When I see an actor's likeness (or close enough for my mind to chunk it as their likeness) and I hear their voice I am subconsciously going to expect their mannerisms, their gesticulations. All of the subtle visual symbols that come with an actor's years of training and experience. These visual queues are what makes an actor unique, what separates them from all of the other nameless faces trying to make it in Hollywood. Incidentally, these characteristics are also precisely why it is so hard to do a really good impression of someone - it's not just the voice you have to mimic, it's is the entire visual presentation. This visual expectation is happening for the viewer on an a subconscious level. It is not something that one can simply turn off, no more than one could chose to forget the countless times you've seen Anthony Hopkins or John Malkovich on screen.
This is one of the primary reasons that hand-drawn animation has eschewed rendering characters in the actor's likeness. In order to pull this off an animator would essentially have to be able to impersonate all of the voice actors that will be performing. In any case, since the animation is created before the voice acting is even recording this is literally impossible in traditional animation. I believe that this represents a constraint that has served animation well over the years because it frees the animator (and thus the viewer) to use their imagination and not get stuck on the instinctual need to match a face with a voice
Bold claims are being made about the 3D version of this film ushering in a new kind of cinema. In all cases I believe that there is a better alternative, whether it be the blue-screen approach used in movies like Sin City (where the actor's image is cut into digital sets), traditional animation like Howl's Moving Castle (where the actor is completely divorced from their character's representation, often to a comic degree) or in more recent techniques such as the rotoscoping used in A Scanner Darkly (where the actor's likeness is computer-rendered but their mannerisms are left essentially intact). Sadly, I believe the success of Beowulf will only convince others to follow Zemeckis' lead to the detriment of cinema as a medium. If the 3D computer-animated picture takes off, and they continue to render characters in the form of their voice actors, I will be content to take my place with the curmudgeons who refused to accept the talkie or the barbarism of Technicolor.
Seeing the movie presented in 2D did not (as so many reviewers have claimed) ruin the movie for me. In fact, I found the visual effects to be quite impressive without any added illusion of depth or "holy crap the dragon is flying right at me!" moments. The quality of computer rendered animation continues its inexorable crawl toward the holy grail of truly life-like. That said, I have not seen the movie "as it was intended" so I will leave a critique of the multi-dimensional visual spectacle for others to write. The problem that I have with this movie is not the visual effects but rather with a cognitive dissonance that this style of animation causes me to experience.
There is a palpable unease that I experience watching an eerily life-like representation of a well-known actor. Let me be clear, I do not just mean that the representation is life-like in the general sense, I mean that the representation is a dead reckoning of the actor in question (perhaps aged or in period-specific garb but unmistakable nonetheless). Anthony Hopkins as Hrothgar is the most obvious example as his character is rendered as a jovial and rotund Danish doppleganger of the actor. This decision to render the characters as near-exact likenesses of the actors makes sense on multiple levels: not only do realistic renderings naturally follow from the motion-capture technology used to record the actor's movements but the movie is, like all Hollywood vehicles, banking on the marketability of it's stars. I understand this decision but it significantly detracts from the movie.
For me, the worst example of this visual friction is the character of Unferth (voiced by John Malkovich). Every time Unferth's mouth opens and Malkovich's unmistakable voice comes out I am struck by just how wrong everything looks. To be sure, the animation is still a bit wooden at times but this is not the cause of my uneasiness. The problem is not that Unferth is too wooden in his mannerisms as Malkovich is talking; in fact the animators have done a very good job of making the character come to life (certainly much-improved from Zemeckis' past attempts such as The Polar Express).
The problem with Unferth in particular, and all of the characters with recognizable voice actors in general, is not that he is poorly animated, it is that his mannerisms don't match those of the actor. It is as if they have bottled John Malkovich's voice and are uncorking it from some other actor's mouth. As a big fan of anime I had never thought that it would be an issue for a character to be voiced by an actor that looked vastly different, or more importantly one that emotes in a vastly different way. Indeed some of my favorite Miyazaki films feature characters that are voiced by actors that look and perform much differently than their on-screen counterparts.
There is a fundamental difference between an animated character in a Miyazaki film and the characters in Beowulf. In Miyazaki films (and traditional animated films as a whole) the animators are not trying to make the character look like the actor. An obvious example would be the Witch of the Waste from Howl's Moving Castle (voiced by the great Lauren Bacall). The animators are not trying to evoke images of Lauren Bacall (either as ingenue opposite Humphrey Bogart or as the wise matronly persona that she inhabited in her later performances). Instead they rendered The Witch of the Waste as well, a witch. When the witch speaks I may recognize Bacall's unmistakably deep timbre but my mind is not locked into thinking of the character as Lauren Bacall because the character looks so different.
The same cannot be said for Unferth or many of the other main characters in Beowulf (Hrothgar, Wealthow and Grendel's Mother among them). When I see an actor's likeness (or close enough for my mind to chunk it as their likeness) and I hear their voice I am subconsciously going to expect their mannerisms, their gesticulations. All of the subtle visual symbols that come with an actor's years of training and experience. These visual queues are what makes an actor unique, what separates them from all of the other nameless faces trying to make it in Hollywood. Incidentally, these characteristics are also precisely why it is so hard to do a really good impression of someone - it's not just the voice you have to mimic, it's is the entire visual presentation. This visual expectation is happening for the viewer on an a subconscious level. It is not something that one can simply turn off, no more than one could chose to forget the countless times you've seen Anthony Hopkins or John Malkovich on screen.
This is one of the primary reasons that hand-drawn animation has eschewed rendering characters in the actor's likeness. In order to pull this off an animator would essentially have to be able to impersonate all of the voice actors that will be performing. In any case, since the animation is created before the voice acting is even recording this is literally impossible in traditional animation. I believe that this represents a constraint that has served animation well over the years because it frees the animator (and thus the viewer) to use their imagination and not get stuck on the instinctual need to match a face with a voice
Bold claims are being made about the 3D version of this film ushering in a new kind of cinema. In all cases I believe that there is a better alternative, whether it be the blue-screen approach used in movies like Sin City (where the actor's image is cut into digital sets), traditional animation like Howl's Moving Castle (where the actor is completely divorced from their character's representation, often to a comic degree) or in more recent techniques such as the rotoscoping used in A Scanner Darkly (where the actor's likeness is computer-rendered but their mannerisms are left essentially intact). Sadly, I believe the success of Beowulf will only convince others to follow Zemeckis' lead to the detriment of cinema as a medium. If the 3D computer-animated picture takes off, and they continue to render characters in the form of their voice actors, I will be content to take my place with the curmudgeons who refused to accept the talkie or the barbarism of Technicolor.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Drawing Way Outside The Lines
I saw Tool at the Frank Erwin Center last night and it exceeded all expectations. For them to sound this good seventeen years into making music is a testament to their dedication. As with their tours for Lateralus and Ænima the light show was in full effect with many songs accompanied by their respective music videos and some new material. Maynard's voice sounded great and the acoustics of the venue were perfect for Tool's expansive sound.
Following them through the years it has been interesting to see their evolving sound and the way that it informs their live performances. I know that there are some fans that feel that Ænima is the high water mark of their career; as good as that album is, I have to disagree with this sentiment. Last night was undeniable proof that Tool's transition from alt-rock vitriolics to prog-rock epics has been one for the better. Don't get me wrong, I love Ænima, along with OK Computer, it is one of the few true masterpieces of post-Nirvana 90's rock. The difference is one of cohesion.
One can certainly make the case that, taken individually, tracks on Ænima are better than tracks on their more recent albums but I believe that this is failing to see the forest from the trees. Tool albums are no longer about individual tracks, this is especially telling when one looks at which tracks are played on the radio. The radio format is all about three to four minute time slots for listeners with short attention spans and it has become increasingly difficult for their label to get Tool tracks on the air. When even the shortest Tool songs (excluding segues) often stretch to six or seven minutes the only option for radio play is to chose on of the shorter songs and hack it down into a four minute "radio-edit". The reality is that Tool has long since left the land of easily packaged, radio-friendly "popular rock" music. Tool's more recent work is not about tracks, but concepts.
Take, for example the "Wings for Marie (Pt 1)" and "10,000 Days (Wings Pt 2)" song cycle from their latest album. What starts slowly with a quiet brooding over the course of seventeen minutes builds into a cathartic release that to experience live borders on some kind of religious epiphany. This is not about seeing your favorite band crank out rock songs so that you can sing along and wave your lighter. At the risk of sounding maudlin, this is about the experience of seeing a group of dedicated artists create something positive and beautiful. This is all the more powerful from being made in a medium that so often is just used to sell iPods and Volkswagens.
It's been a few years since I've gone to a big stadium rock concert and there is a new trend that has become disturbingly pervasive. Three of the people sitting in the row in front of me spent most of the night alternatively texting their friends (presumably about being at the Tool show) and taking video clips and picture snapshots with their camera-phones. Did I miss a meeting? Since when is it not sufficient to just experience something? I can understand the juvenile need to show off the fact that you were at a big rock show, but to spend the whole evening watching the show through the blurry two megapixel lens of your phone just boggles my mind. I must say the irony was certainly delicious to look out over a stadium thronged with thousands of fans, cell phones held aloft to capture the moment, singing along:
Cause I need to watch things die
From a distance
Vicariously, I
Live while the whole world dies
You all need it too - don't lie.
Following them through the years it has been interesting to see their evolving sound and the way that it informs their live performances. I know that there are some fans that feel that Ænima is the high water mark of their career; as good as that album is, I have to disagree with this sentiment. Last night was undeniable proof that Tool's transition from alt-rock vitriolics to prog-rock epics has been one for the better. Don't get me wrong, I love Ænima, along with OK Computer, it is one of the few true masterpieces of post-Nirvana 90's rock. The difference is one of cohesion.
One can certainly make the case that, taken individually, tracks on Ænima are better than tracks on their more recent albums but I believe that this is failing to see the forest from the trees. Tool albums are no longer about individual tracks, this is especially telling when one looks at which tracks are played on the radio. The radio format is all about three to four minute time slots for listeners with short attention spans and it has become increasingly difficult for their label to get Tool tracks on the air. When even the shortest Tool songs (excluding segues) often stretch to six or seven minutes the only option for radio play is to chose on of the shorter songs and hack it down into a four minute "radio-edit". The reality is that Tool has long since left the land of easily packaged, radio-friendly "popular rock" music. Tool's more recent work is not about tracks, but concepts.
Take, for example the "Wings for Marie (Pt 1)" and "10,000 Days (Wings Pt 2)" song cycle from their latest album. What starts slowly with a quiet brooding over the course of seventeen minutes builds into a cathartic release that to experience live borders on some kind of religious epiphany. This is not about seeing your favorite band crank out rock songs so that you can sing along and wave your lighter. At the risk of sounding maudlin, this is about the experience of seeing a group of dedicated artists create something positive and beautiful. This is all the more powerful from being made in a medium that so often is just used to sell iPods and Volkswagens.
It's been a few years since I've gone to a big stadium rock concert and there is a new trend that has become disturbingly pervasive. Three of the people sitting in the row in front of me spent most of the night alternatively texting their friends (presumably about being at the Tool show) and taking video clips and picture snapshots with their camera-phones. Did I miss a meeting? Since when is it not sufficient to just experience something? I can understand the juvenile need to show off the fact that you were at a big rock show, but to spend the whole evening watching the show through the blurry two megapixel lens of your phone just boggles my mind. I must say the irony was certainly delicious to look out over a stadium thronged with thousands of fans, cell phones held aloft to capture the moment, singing along:
Cause I need to watch things die
From a distance
Vicariously, I
Live while the whole world dies
You all need it too - don't lie.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Ambiguity Made In America
My thoughts on the series finale of The Sopranos
**WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS**
I finally had a chance to watch the series finale of the Sopranos over the weekend. Long gone are the hype that preceded its airing and hysteria that followed. The sheer volume of critical attention given to this one event is staggering. In the end, this is just a TV show and as much as viewers of the show are outraged about the ambiguous and anti-climatic ending there are more important things in life worth getting upset about (one of them, the Iraq war, is even an underlying theme of the last season of the Sopranos).
Now that the disclaimer is out of the way, what is the meaning of this abrupt conclusion to the series? Does Tony get shot? What about his family? Does he escape with his life only to be indicted? So many questions left unanswered, and what does it all mean? Bob Harris has an excellent, and exhaustive, analysis of the religious symbolism in the final scene (along with some fascinating ties to the Godfather trilogy). No doubt many others have mined the rich depths of symbolism in this episode so I will leave it as an exercise to those with curiosity (and time) to look into this further. Rather than simply rehash others' analysis I want to focus on what for many was the main point of contention with the finale. The lack of a definite conclusion, of not knowing Tony's fate is the single biggest criticism being leveled by fans and critics alike.
It seems almost laughable to me that anyone would be surprised when the conclusion to the single most morally ambiguous show on television is itself ambiguous. Like the show, the protagonist Tony Soprano, one of the greatest anti-heroes ever created, is a melting pot of conflicted emotions and paradoxical motivations. A merciless killer who can suffocate his self-described "son" and heir apparent with his bare hands. A family man brought to tears when a family of ducks that was living in his pool flies away. Over the course of seven seasons the show paints these two (along with many other) completely contradictory pictures of the same man. Far from the stereotypical one-dimensional mafioso, Soprano is so multi-faceted it is at times hard to keep track of which Tony we are seeing. In fact the way that Tony can switch from one persona to another at a moment's notice leads to some of the show's funniest and most dramatic moments.
The show does not shy away from the implications of such a conflicted existence. Over the seven years Tony's faces everything from marital estrangement, assassination attempts and nervous breakdowns. Through it all the viewer is brought to a place where we understand Tony (as much as anyone can), where we simultaneously empathize with him for his human foibles and revile him for his monstrous acts. That we can exist in such a moral limbo about the show's main character is ultimately what makes The Sopranos so successful (both commercially and artistically).
The connection between plot and abstract concepts is very tight in The Sopranos, more so that most other shows. Everything from the music playing, background images and the colors of key props is intentional and often has some deeper symbolism. In order to represent such a complex family of characters the show must make full use of the more complex aspects of art. It is only fitting then, that such a complicated and multi-layered show would be concluded in a similarly inscrutable fashion. The creators could have easily created the Godfather-esque bloodbath that so many fans anticipated (nay even hungered for), or the fairy-tale "everyone escapes to live another day" ending. But both of these would be the wrong choice, both would be an absurd oversimplification of what deserves better. To cut to black when he did, David Chase is not abdicating his responsibility as so many have claimed, he is letting his show die the way it lived, in the messy moral gray area where one man can be both a sinner and a saint (sometimes both at the same time). That the creators chose to wrap this faux-climax in religious trappings and leave the final answer on the tip of the tongue is only fitting when none of the answers in this show ever came easily. Indeed the difficult questions in life never truly get answered, at least not forever. That is, after all, what makes these questions interesting, and what makes the process of finding the answers worth while. Only a fool seeks an easy answer to a difficult question and I can't help but see the hubbub over the Sopranos finale as just a bunch of foolishness.
**WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS**
I finally had a chance to watch the series finale of the Sopranos over the weekend. Long gone are the hype that preceded its airing and hysteria that followed. The sheer volume of critical attention given to this one event is staggering. In the end, this is just a TV show and as much as viewers of the show are outraged about the ambiguous and anti-climatic ending there are more important things in life worth getting upset about (one of them, the Iraq war, is even an underlying theme of the last season of the Sopranos).
Now that the disclaimer is out of the way, what is the meaning of this abrupt conclusion to the series? Does Tony get shot? What about his family? Does he escape with his life only to be indicted? So many questions left unanswered, and what does it all mean? Bob Harris has an excellent, and exhaustive, analysis of the religious symbolism in the final scene (along with some fascinating ties to the Godfather trilogy). No doubt many others have mined the rich depths of symbolism in this episode so I will leave it as an exercise to those with curiosity (and time) to look into this further. Rather than simply rehash others' analysis I want to focus on what for many was the main point of contention with the finale. The lack of a definite conclusion, of not knowing Tony's fate is the single biggest criticism being leveled by fans and critics alike.
It seems almost laughable to me that anyone would be surprised when the conclusion to the single most morally ambiguous show on television is itself ambiguous. Like the show, the protagonist Tony Soprano, one of the greatest anti-heroes ever created, is a melting pot of conflicted emotions and paradoxical motivations. A merciless killer who can suffocate his self-described "son" and heir apparent with his bare hands. A family man brought to tears when a family of ducks that was living in his pool flies away. Over the course of seven seasons the show paints these two (along with many other) completely contradictory pictures of the same man. Far from the stereotypical one-dimensional mafioso, Soprano is so multi-faceted it is at times hard to keep track of which Tony we are seeing. In fact the way that Tony can switch from one persona to another at a moment's notice leads to some of the show's funniest and most dramatic moments.
The show does not shy away from the implications of such a conflicted existence. Over the seven years Tony's faces everything from marital estrangement, assassination attempts and nervous breakdowns. Through it all the viewer is brought to a place where we understand Tony (as much as anyone can), where we simultaneously empathize with him for his human foibles and revile him for his monstrous acts. That we can exist in such a moral limbo about the show's main character is ultimately what makes The Sopranos so successful (both commercially and artistically).
The connection between plot and abstract concepts is very tight in The Sopranos, more so that most other shows. Everything from the music playing, background images and the colors of key props is intentional and often has some deeper symbolism. In order to represent such a complex family of characters the show must make full use of the more complex aspects of art. It is only fitting then, that such a complicated and multi-layered show would be concluded in a similarly inscrutable fashion. The creators could have easily created the Godfather-esque bloodbath that so many fans anticipated (nay even hungered for), or the fairy-tale "everyone escapes to live another day" ending. But both of these would be the wrong choice, both would be an absurd oversimplification of what deserves better. To cut to black when he did, David Chase is not abdicating his responsibility as so many have claimed, he is letting his show die the way it lived, in the messy moral gray area where one man can be both a sinner and a saint (sometimes both at the same time). That the creators chose to wrap this faux-climax in religious trappings and leave the final answer on the tip of the tongue is only fitting when none of the answers in this show ever came easily. Indeed the difficult questions in life never truly get answered, at least not forever. That is, after all, what makes these questions interesting, and what makes the process of finding the answers worth while. Only a fool seeks an easy answer to a difficult question and I can't help but see the hubbub over the Sopranos finale as just a bunch of foolishness.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
White Chalk
PJ Harvey's latest album is a rather dramatic departure from her more recent work. A minor-key piano heavy affair; Harvey uses her voice to great effect to create the somber mood of the album. Gone is the throaty growl of her early work, replaced by a ghostly timber that is startling to hear at first but ultimately works remarkably well. It is a testament to PJ Harvey's versatility as an artist that she can execute such a dramatic transformation. Her choice of delivery fits the theme of the music perfectly for ultimately this is an album about loneliness. Not the quiescent solitude of one who chooses to be apart mind you, but the bitter regret of one who has lost, who has been betrayed. She has explored these themes before but never has PJ Harvey's choice of delivery given this particular subject matter such potency.
The opening track "The Devil" along with it's sister track "Silence" underpin the major themes of the album. Both deal with the pain of lost love, they describe the pangs of need that lead one to a shared rendezvous in the vain hope that what is lost will be waiting there. This powerful metaphor runs throughout the work and we are like moths drawn to the light of her revelatory confessions. At different points the lyrics mention nakedness, in the literal sense, but this is only a metaphor for the raw emotional state of Harvey's tragic heroine. To be sure, this is an emotional excision; the feelings of loss, betrayal and blind hope all torn from her breast and laid bare before us.
Between the esoteric instruments (Optigan, broken harp, mellotron and mini-moog) and the antiquated language (ether gets prominent mention) White Chalk feels like a Victorian elegy for a lover lost in some tragic Poe short story. The raw sensuality of Harvey's work, often far more overt, here slowly builds to a roiling boil over the course of the eleven tracks until the dramatic climax on the album's devastating closer, "The Mountain". Repetition is used very effectively to establish a mood early and maintain it throughout the album making it feel more like stanzas of a single Sapphic poem than discrete tracks. Like much of PJ Harvey's other work, White Chalk took multiple listens to scratch the surface and reveal the deeper beauties hidden within but she makes the scratching hurt so right that you can't help yourself.
The opening track "The Devil" along with it's sister track "Silence" underpin the major themes of the album. Both deal with the pain of lost love, they describe the pangs of need that lead one to a shared rendezvous in the vain hope that what is lost will be waiting there. This powerful metaphor runs throughout the work and we are like moths drawn to the light of her revelatory confessions. At different points the lyrics mention nakedness, in the literal sense, but this is only a metaphor for the raw emotional state of Harvey's tragic heroine. To be sure, this is an emotional excision; the feelings of loss, betrayal and blind hope all torn from her breast and laid bare before us.
Between the esoteric instruments (Optigan, broken harp, mellotron and mini-moog) and the antiquated language (ether gets prominent mention) White Chalk feels like a Victorian elegy for a lover lost in some tragic Poe short story. The raw sensuality of Harvey's work, often far more overt, here slowly builds to a roiling boil over the course of the eleven tracks until the dramatic climax on the album's devastating closer, "The Mountain". Repetition is used very effectively to establish a mood early and maintain it throughout the album making it feel more like stanzas of a single Sapphic poem than discrete tracks. Like much of PJ Harvey's other work, White Chalk took multiple listens to scratch the surface and reveal the deeper beauties hidden within but she makes the scratching hurt so right that you can't help yourself.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Michael Clayton
**WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS**
I caught a late showing of this movie at the Alamo Drafthouse yesterday and I must say, I was very impressed. George Clooney plays the eponymous character, a "fixer" or "janitor" who cleans up messes for a high-powered New York law firm. There are a couple of visually stunning scenes in this movie which do an excellent job of emphasizing Clayton's journey from Faustian tragic hero to his rebirth as the bringer of justice. In one critical scene Clayton dons the mask of Justice, with a check for $80,000 in one hand and the damning evidence for the case against negligent bio-corp U-North. This scene has a quiet power as you can see the wheels turning in Clayton's head.
Clooney is perfect in this role, playing it cool and communicating more with his grim countenance and hundred-mile stare than his trademark wry delivery. In true tragic form, Clayton takes the money; the temptation of relief from a failed business endeavor that has haunted him throughout the film proves to be too great. But ultimately this film is about those exceptional moments when an individual is presented, very clearly, with a choice of doing what is right or "making the problem go away". Clayton having made a career out of doing the latter begins to have doubts when his friend's mental breakdown reveals a more sinister effluence than he has ever had to "fix" before.
By far the most striking scene of the movie is Clayton's rebirth as a bringer of justice. An early morning stop at a remote upstate hilltop quickly transforms from a rare moment of somber reflection into a sudden and violent epiphany that his old life is, quite literally, destroyed. There is a beautiful finality when he realizes what is happening and throws his wallet, cell phone and watch - all tainted symbols of his complicity - into the burning wreckage of his old life and runs into the wilderness of danger and possibility that lies beyond.
The name of Shiva the Hindu god of destruction is evoked twice in this movie and appropriately so, for theme of destruction runs through it on multiple levels. There destruction of the self as Clayton's old life is sacrificed so that he can topple the corrupt hegemony that U-North represents. This is powerful stuff, but it should not come as too much of a surprise as the production list reads like an auteur who's who: Steven Soderbergh, Anthony Minghella and Syndney Pollack (who also takes a turn in front of the camera) were all involved in brining this movie into being. This movie is tightly wound, with understated performances and excellent pacing. Needless to say, I highly recommend it.
I caught a late showing of this movie at the Alamo Drafthouse yesterday and I must say, I was very impressed. George Clooney plays the eponymous character, a "fixer" or "janitor" who cleans up messes for a high-powered New York law firm. There are a couple of visually stunning scenes in this movie which do an excellent job of emphasizing Clayton's journey from Faustian tragic hero to his rebirth as the bringer of justice. In one critical scene Clayton dons the mask of Justice, with a check for $80,000 in one hand and the damning evidence for the case against negligent bio-corp U-North. This scene has a quiet power as you can see the wheels turning in Clayton's head.
Clooney is perfect in this role, playing it cool and communicating more with his grim countenance and hundred-mile stare than his trademark wry delivery. In true tragic form, Clayton takes the money; the temptation of relief from a failed business endeavor that has haunted him throughout the film proves to be too great. But ultimately this film is about those exceptional moments when an individual is presented, very clearly, with a choice of doing what is right or "making the problem go away". Clayton having made a career out of doing the latter begins to have doubts when his friend's mental breakdown reveals a more sinister effluence than he has ever had to "fix" before.
By far the most striking scene of the movie is Clayton's rebirth as a bringer of justice. An early morning stop at a remote upstate hilltop quickly transforms from a rare moment of somber reflection into a sudden and violent epiphany that his old life is, quite literally, destroyed. There is a beautiful finality when he realizes what is happening and throws his wallet, cell phone and watch - all tainted symbols of his complicity - into the burning wreckage of his old life and runs into the wilderness of danger and possibility that lies beyond.
The name of Shiva the Hindu god of destruction is evoked twice in this movie and appropriately so, for theme of destruction runs through it on multiple levels. There destruction of the self as Clayton's old life is sacrificed so that he can topple the corrupt hegemony that U-North represents. This is powerful stuff, but it should not come as too much of a surprise as the production list reads like an auteur who's who: Steven Soderbergh, Anthony Minghella and Syndney Pollack (who also takes a turn in front of the camera) were all involved in brining this movie into being. This movie is tightly wound, with understated performances and excellent pacing. Needless to say, I highly recommend it.
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