Things, arranged.

Yorgos Lanthimos Changes Everything in "The Favourite"

The way Lorgos Lanthimos envisions the nature of a dramatic scene is entirely unique and utterly connected to true life. Instead of the standard "rising action" model, where characters overtly escalate tension and conflict leading to a breaking point, Lanthimos has his characters withhold much of what is going on with them; sort of a very slow, almost imperceptible boil until at the last moment, one character almost nonchalantly sticks a knife in the other character. Sometimes literally and metaphorically. If you've ever seen a horrible scene unfold before you in real life, you know that very often things seem very under control until suddenly, things get out of control. Often this occurs without warning.

Lanthimos creates relationships and worlds filled with real stakes, to be sure. In The Lobster, characters must either begin a meaningful relationship or choose an animal to become for the rest of their lives. In his new film The Favourite, the characters played by Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone vie for the favor of Olivia Colman's Queen Anne with their futures at stake.

There is an intriguing social critique at work in both films that suggests the things we fight for or fight our way out of are far beyond our own control, and are the result of some strange cosmic absurdity on the scale of Samuel Beckett. Nevertheless, the characters in his films struggle, and struggle mightily. Yet the tone he sets is one of discomfort and impending doom, with an avoidance of revealing emotional indications on the part of the characters that we are so used to. This restraint makes Lanthimos' story structure astonishingly dramatic and tension filled in a completely unique manner.

Whimsy also plays a part in the worlds Lanthimos creates. Manners, behaviors and societal rituals are turned into hilarious, sometimes grotesque displays of human excess and vanity. This touch enhances the sense that the world we strive so hard in is often childish, clownish and even depraved. Watch the scene with the oranges and the naked man in The Favourite to experience this touch.

It takes a particularly disciplined actor to work in Lanthimos' worlds: one must find a way to carry the inner yearnings of the character while at the same time appearing to toss away any overt need. Weisz and Stone do this with great detail and depth, as the volatility of Coleman's Queen Anne puts both of them at risk at every moment. Playing it cool has never been this good.

Cinematically, Lanthimos' breaks new ground by employing extreme wide angle lenses that give the audience a literal "fish eyed" view of the world of The Favourite. The ornate palace rooms are captured as sprawling, distorted landscapes in which our characters to and fro in a strange, balletic manner. Lanthimos was involved in experimental and physical theatre early in his career, and his ability to choreograph actors bodies in space and time adds a deft layer of tension to the film as well. 

Without special effects or CGI / digital excess, Yorgos Lanthimos changes everything. He reminds us that the cinema is a young medium that is still evolving and ripe with possibility.

Time

 At the end of Ridley Scott's 1982 classic sci-fi film BLADE RUNNER, we hear a voice over as we see a vehicle heading towards a dystopian horizon.

"I didn't know how much time we had. Who does?"

In 2017, the Film BLADE RUNNER 2049 was released.

That's 25 years after the first film, which is set in a dystopian version of 2019. The story of the new film takes place 30 years after the original.

The original film was based on the Philip K. Dick book DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP? That book was written in 1967 (published 1968), 15 years before the original film was made.

There is a lot of numerical symmetry going on here. Or is there?

We mark millennia, centuries, decades,  birthdays and year ends as if the dates and numbers hold some power or indicator of a greater truth. This is a uniquely human trait. We also see patterns,  cycles and symmetries in numbers and days. 

According to the tarot, a reading does not portend future events or explain past experiences; instead the cards present us with a pattern or canvas upon which we impose meaning, should we choose to do so. 

We are who makes meaning out of the pictures before us.

Time is a kind of picture: we look back, look ahead and act accordingly. We can remember the past, we can imagine the future. We can live in the permanent now, although this is becoming a more difficult task in our “what’s next” culture.

How then, shall we decide what to do next? Like travellers along a road, we walk along and take in the signs around us. Some of the things we encounter have meaning: another person, a task to be done, the people we care about. Some of the things we encounter are more enigmatic: a murder of crows, a sudden change in the weather, the coming of night. We consider,  contemplate and consternate.

And then, as if all of sudden, we turn off the path and walk towards unknown destinations. 

It’s Time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Against the Archive

A still photograph admits its true nature: when one looks at a photo, the photo attempts no more than it it is capable of: the capturing of a moment in time, now past.

The cinema is a shapeshifter, a kind of trickster. Since it was born of the still image, it maintains its innocence: "I am only seeing what it there. I am only recording these moments."

However, cinema also knows it is a liar.

In its very nature, the cinema seduces us by convincing us that it is only a mechanical recording device, but in reality, because it records IN TIME and not simply a moment in time, it actually suggests a lived, objective reality that does not exist at all.

When you play back the cinema recording of any event, you are looking at an event that happened in the past. In this sense, the motion picture camera tries to behave like a still photo. But something happens in the viewers mind when the moving image is presented to them: they begin to believe that what they are seeing actually happened, that the moments captured between the beginning of the filming and the end are begin faithfully recalled by the footage.

And this is the big lie.

The cinema image is actually a specific reality unto itself, and it beguiles us with the sales pitch of "recording device" in order for us to be be captured by the second reality it would have us encounter. Which is never reality itself.

It is, in fact, a second reality. A compressed, two dimensional image that moves in time, but in no way captures the human event that did occur at the time of the recording. It is soulless, empty, cruel, a death mask of sorts.

That is because the meaning, the tangibility of moments we experience in real life are dependent on a thousand or more circumstances, nuances, truths, lies, insinuations and suggestions.

A still image admits that it only trying to preserve less that one second of a moment. The cinema can record an entire day of events, but does not tell you one single valuable thing about that day.

This truth about cinema is why filmmakers spend so much time and effort into creating, controlling, defining and articulating the images to be shot. They know that the augmented or "false reality" that is being presented must rely on its "believability", which is a function of the arrangement of elements, fro text, to actor, to shot, to lens, to lighting, to sound, etc.n This is how a filmmaker brings "life" to a recorded image, and therefore value and meaning.

Even with the upmost care regarding the creation of the physical circumstances that go into the image, there is another, essential component regarding narrative or fictional films: that is, "suspension of disbelief". The audience enters into a contract with the filmmaker which says, "I know that which I am seeing did not really happen this way, but I will accept the reality I am being presented as real for the time being in order to access the work itself."

We know the movie star's life is never in real danger, but we need to believe it in order to experience the narrative with value.

So where does this situate so-called "documentary" footage, or "archival" footage?

Documentary films are there own kind of fiction, and are always subjective in nature. The use of "real" footage" is another illusion here, because the angle, moment, lighting, relationship to subject, etc. by definition changes the event that is being observed.

This concept is embedded in the current thinking about quantum physics: that the act of observing a phenomenon changes the phenomenon itself. Reality is subjective, always.

There is a growing acceptance of the idea of "archiving" live theatrical productions. I am not sure I have heard yet a compelling reason for this, and I am completely against this impulse.

This is because the archival footage is the worst kind of lie: because it photographs an imagined set of circumstances created by theatre practitioners, it triggers in the viewer the impulse to make meaning of the images. But the performance was never created for the specific nature and demands of cinema. To me it is the ultimate example of "apples and oranges", but worse, in that the collision results in the worst kind of Frankenstein monster. This is because usually there are actors, dialogue, costumes, lighting, etc. that was created for the live event. But the cinema camera tries to usurp these theatrical circumstances and convince us one can glean meaning from the recorded event. It is a kind of seduction for the viewer, and it is a dangerous one.

To me, setting a camera up to record any live creative act that is not specifically staged for the cinema, is akin to turning on the spigot on the wall of your house full blast, and walking away. Eventually the yard is watered, but at what cost? Would it not have been better, if one desires to water certain elements in the yard, to attach a hose, a sprinkler, walk to where the sprinkler can best cover the elements in an even and judicious pattern and then check back and move the sprinkler at the appropriate time? In other words, if you have the impulse to create a cinematic record of something, then make that record inherently cinematic. There is no other artists tool wielded with less respect and understanding in out world that the motion picture camera. From paints to canvas, to musical instruments to clay, all other art forms maintain a diligent respect of relationship between the artists and the tools employed. Only the theatre lacks the foresight or will to consider that in a rampant cultural effort of egotism and narcissism ("I need to preserve my live theatre work!"), it is actually killing what makes the live theatre unique and beautiful. 

There have even been suggestions made about bringing the motion picture camera into the acting studio, where actors are developing the skills needed to do their eventual work. The idea of recording a formative, transient and out of context moment and then playing it back for the actor to "self-critique" is to misunderstand the entire nature and reality of a recording event. The actor, seeing themselves in the playback, observes only the exterior representation of what they did, in two dimensions and through an electronic device which changes the nature of their appearance and sound. There is no connection the the reality of the moment that was experienced, and is now gone. All that remains is the embarrassment.

In fact, isn't this rare, ephemeral quality of live performance one of the central arguments behind treasuring live theatre as an art form?

Jacques Derrida pointed out that we have a problem knowing whether we love the Other in total, or whether we are in love with the actions and behaviors and beliefs of the Other. How can we know? He talks about the privilege the hands enjoy in society, in that their freedom of expression is somehow expressive on an inner, subconscious truth that is only read by the Other. One is rarely conscious of one's own hand gestures, but to the Other, they are powerful signals and signs of intention and psychology. The live theatre exists in this relationship of the Other seeing the the One, and the observer / observed. Part of the contract that has sustained live theatre for thousands of years is this concept of "I allow you to observe this now, here, at this place, and you make meaning of it in your observance of me. We agree that after it is over, it is over and was shared by only us,"

When you film an event and play it back in time, you are showing a version of the events that were recorded. It cannot be the events themselves, by definition. How connected to the truth of the event is this version? How much artifice is added? What does the presence of a device that records "permanence" do to an environment that was created specifically for a live event?

Today, artists of all sorts are struggling to employ the power of the moving image into their work. And it is a struggle, as the cinema image can be both scalpel and bludgeon. It does continue to surprise me that artists I respect often tell me with glee how they recorded their living work with a video camera, but have little or no interest in: film grammar, lens choice, lens height and position, exposure, shutter speed, f-stop, etc. etc. etc. As if they were to say: "I will paint, but the color, brush, canvas matter not." This is because they see the camera as no more than a recording device, something that truthfully records what is there without interference. I wonder, how would the react if I brought my camera into their studio, office or home and said: "Don't worry...it's just a record, an archive."  What truth would they be afraid of then?

From the Rodney King beatings, to the cinema of our masters and contemporary, to the video taped beheadings of prisoners on YouTube, combined with the instant availability of the recording device in your hand, the moving image is gaining in influence and power while at the same time is a repository for a world of nonsense. That is the way of all media, from the first Gutenberg bible to the world of Tumlbr blogs. The medium becomes available to all who want access in the end.

The question is, who among us will pause and ask, "What is it for?"

Imagining the Authentic

Actor:

A paradox exits in the acting process that lives in a Dialetic:

What you are in, the story, is not real.

What you must do to make this story impactful is to be real (authentic).

The bridge across the paradox is the imagination, which resides not in conscious effort, but in the subconscious.

The subconscious - the deep wellspring of our true creativity.

All the conscious elements of the craft, from text to stage to scene partner, to director, to costume, to lights, to scenery, to audience must become servants to your imagination, which emerges when the subconscious is free to interpret and respond to the world you present it.

That means self-consciousness is the first thing that must be eradicated from your work.

Manufactured emotion

Planned outcomes

Expected responses

Indicated states of being and action

Showing instead of Doing

Attention to yourself and what you are doing vs. attention to the other person.

All of these barriers, and the myriad others that come along with them, are aspects of the conscious mind "performing" a role.

Breask down these barriers in order to allow your true creativity to inform your work.

To me, that is at the core of Stanislavsky's "Magic If".

Ridley Scott's THE COUNSELOR - Literary Images of Existentialism

The idea of human life as nothing more and nothing less that the totality of our actions was expressed as Existentialism by Sartre before the global conflagration of World War Two.

Ridley Scott's 2013 film project with Cormac McCarthy explores Existentialism through a unique and challenging cinema experiement where the literary and the cinematic meet somewhere on the American border with Mexico and at the intersection of laconic greed and destiny.

Scott is in the late phase of his oeuvre, and seems to be selecting projects with a distinctly philosophical identity as he takes stock of a sometimes masterful, sometimes disappointing career. 

The Counselor is more a visual mediation built around the extended dialogues/monologues of Cormac McCarthy. Those hoping for an action thriller film will be very disappointed. However, those interested in the potentials of cinema to get at the essence of something approaching "The Big Idea" might find the film worthy.

Cinema has always struggled as a platform for serious thinking. Especially in America. While many of the great directors have transformed and transcended the pedestrian into the sublime, few have been able to deal directly with philosophical concepts with much success. Tarkovsky to be sure, Bergman in some cases, Godard perhaps back in the day.

Ridley Scott is by no means a giant in the cinematic pantheon, but films like Alien, Blade Runner, Thelma and Louise and Black Hawk Down suggest his ability to elevate genres and infuse films with thoughtfulness, if not true gravitas.

With The Counselor, Scott employs the genre of the action thriller that is well known to audiences.  He chooses here to structure the film around a series of scenes where members of the stellar cast engage in decidedly uncinematic dialogues. These dialogues are meditations on the events unfolding around the characters, meant more as examinations of purpose than harbingers of action. Brutality, mortality and inevitability comprise the rather predictable plot, which is textured by an extended opening vignette of explicit sex talk between the doomed protagonist (Michael Fassbender)  and his bride-to-be (Penelope Cruz).  The plot of this film is certainly not where Scott's interest lies. He focuses instead on the literary musings of the characters in order to excavate a deeper examination of action and consequence.

The final rendering of Fate and the need to accept the consequences of one's actions is delivered by a cartel king pin played by Rueben Blades, who explains that when one comes to a certain crossroads, there are a couple of choices, but going back is never one of them. Accepting oblivion is the only rational thing to do, certainly better than prolonging the inevitable.

The Counselor  is enigmatic, sometimes obscure and certainly challenging, but it is a worthy exploration into the possibilities of cinema. 

 

Tarkovsky

"I find poetic links, the logic of poetry in cinema, extraordinarily pleasing. They seem to me perfectly appropriate to the potential of cinema as the most truthful and poetic of art forms."

"But film material can be joined together in another way, which works above all to lay open the logic of a person's thought. This is the rationale that will dictate the sequence of events, and the editing which forms them into a whole. The birth and development of thoughts are subject to laws of their own, and sometimes demand forms of expression which are quite different from the patterns of logical speculation. In my view poetic reasoning is closer to the laws by which thought develops, and thus to life itself, than is the logic of traditional drama."

"The artistic image is always a metonym, where one thing is substituted for another, the smaller for the greater. "

"It is obvious that art cannot teach anyone anything, since in 4000 years humanity has learned nothing."

"Time cannot vanish without a trace for it is subjective, spiritual category; and the time we have lived settles in our soul as an experience placed within time."

"Time, printed in its factual forms and manifestations: such is the supreme idea of cinema as an art, leading us to think about the wealth of untapped resources in film, about its colossal future."

Meta-Zombies: Our Fight Has Just Begun

It will be useful in examining the meta-layers of the Brad Pitt film 'WWZ', directed by Marc Forster as if looking at stratified layers of a geological excavation.

First, there is the timely relevance of the film to Brad Pitt's equally famous spouse Angelina Jolie's heroic battle with breast cancer and her decision to undergo a pre-emptive double mastectomy. In the film, Brad Pitt's character Gerry Lane impulsively hacks off the left hand of an Israeli soldier in an attempt to outrun the zombie virus from a bite she has received. Later in the film, the soldier asks Lane how he knew cutting off her hand would save her. He replies, "I didn't."

Then there is a iconography of Brad Pitt himself, traversing the world in a psuedo Curt Cobain haircut in search of a cure for the zombie virus. When he finally finds one, ironically in the form of another lethal infection, bacterial this time, he stops at a Pepsi vending machine for a refresher. However, it is not Pepsi he enjoys, but rather some generic looking grape soda (speculation based on the purple colored can) before walking Moses/Jesus-like through a wave of zombies without a scratch. Somehow the image of Pitt casually drinking that soda before transcending to Buddha status just gets at something about America's obsessive narcissism.

Underneath these interesting layers there is the fact that the only cure for the zombie virus is bacterial infection. That is, only by getting terminally ill for a time can one successfully dissuade the zombies from biting you. It seems the zombie hordes have some culinary snobbishness to go along with their manic Mick Jagger-esque punk-rock gyrations and super human speed and agility. Illness alone can combat illness. The bacterial versus the viral. Fight fire with fire, our elders used to say. In the end, the fires go out and there is only oblivion.

The bedrock of this self-aware pop culture foray into multi-million dollar zombie apocalypsing is the notion that the rabid virus has no apparent starting point, but suspicions lie in Asia and then ultimately in India. Shiva, destroyer of the world and residing at it's navel, could be manifesting himself as a very nasty bug this very minute. The countpoint to this hyper-Zenophia is the conspiratorial notion that Israel knew of the virus' emminent arrival long before everyone else in the world, and were able to build walls to keep out the mid-east hordes. For a time, that is. The Jews, as always, it is suggested in this film, play a dark role in catastrophic historical events. I'm not sure what is being suggested here, but the images of Jerusalem being overrun and ablaze certainly evoke some biblical passages worthy of Ezekial. 

If we look at these layers that together suggest a kind of meta-Z beneath this mega-film, we see a suggestion of a singularly 21st century kind of paranoia: that which will destroy us comes from nowhere and from everywhere, most likely from the east, and all we can do is live in fear of the inevitable tsunami of torrid and rotting flesh that will possibly overwhelm us all. Nature herself, (referred to by the whiz-kid scientist from Harvard as "a bitch") will turn on us simply because she can. Fear is fear, and it now has become the only constant that binds the world community together. Except in Wales and Nova Scotia, where things feel positively pleasant, and there are no ethnic minorities (except for the obligatory clever, compassionate,  overachieving vaguely dark hued assistant scientist female.)

It is important to note that Pitt's character works for the UN in some capacity, and it is said he was present at some terrible international events before the film begins. Perhaps this is what caused his character to become unable to cut his hair. Nevertheless, the guffaws about his UN link that come from David Morse's scene stealing moment as a rogue CIA operative again serve to underscore the apparent self-awareness the movie touts. Or maybe Morse was just laughing at Pitt in his face. I like to think so, anyway.

One interesting side note: Pitt's character's daughter suffers from asthma, and in a rather interesting scene during a hording frenzy Pitt is given Albuterol by a gun toting looter in an act of odd altruism. Is it just me, or did I sense that the looter actually recognized that the guy who wanted the Albuterol was Brad Pitt, and gave it to him because he was Brad Pitt?

You see how looking at these films this way can be both fascinating and maddening at the same time.

Is the lesson here that we deserve what we deserve because we have wrought so much harm against Nature? Or rather should we simply soak in the wide screen fear of fear itself that is so much the legacy of World War Z?

Let's leave it at this: World War One and World War Two were wars of opposition between conflicting political and economic convictions. World War Z is not really about a war at all, and if it is, then surely it is about the war within us, where the gnawing dread of something yet to come threatens to render us into zombies of banality.  If the previews of coming attractions were any indication, we are in for a 2013 of rehashed fright films, inane and prurient comedies and a movie about a guy who is very angry about his long, sharp fingernails. And he has a bad haircut, too.

The State of the Actor in Cinema

 

"The actor has to be in a psychological state that is impossible to feign. What cinema demands is the truth of a state of mind that cannot be concealed."

Love

INT. LUXURY HOTEL SUITE  - DAWN

She emerges from the french doors, the dimness of the
bedroom and the tumble of sheets on the bed behind her.

                    WOMAN
          I set a warm towel aside for you,

          dear. Don’t you catch cold on me.
          Haha. Sweet one...I’m so hungry...

The sounds of the shower running, and the glow of the  light
from an open bathroom door.

She wears a sheer camisole. Her hair is reckless, her
expression is post-orgasmic.

She move slowly towards the other side of the impeccable
living room area towards the waiting silver laid breakfast
cart near shaded windows.

                    WOMAN
          Ah. The sun is just waking up, too.

          And they brought us fresh berries!
          I’m not going to wait for you to
          eat. Is that okay?

There is no answer from the bedroom, just the sounds of the
shower.

She moves to the breakfast cart and pulls aside the
curtains. The morning light frames her face as if for the
first time, and she closes her eyes in satisfaction.

                    WOMAN
          Dearest? Can you hear me? Do you

           remember the first time we stayed

          here? I was such a child. You were
          so lovely. You held me like a child
          in your arms. I didn’t know how
          to...haha. Remember? Then
          afterwards, you said to me..."There
          might be some blood, sweetheart.
          Don’t be frightened." I hid from
          you in the bathroom! Such a child I
          was!

She sits next to the breakfast cart and slowly brings a ripe
strawberry to her mouth. Her hand and the strawberry are
covered in blood.

She eats the entire strawberry, getting blood on her lips
and cheek. Then she runs her hand through her hair. Blood
smears across her forehead.

                    WOMAN
          But I’m not a child anymore, am I?

          Sweet one? I’m not afraid anymore.

With her other hand, she slowly brings a blood smeared
sterling silver steak knife up from her side and places it
very carefully in its correct place on the breakfast table.

She takes the crisply folded white napkin from the table and
begins to slowly clean her hands and face of blood.

Tear begin to stream down her face as she gazes out the
window at something only present in her mind.

                    WOMAN
          After breakfast, we can take a walk

          along the beach. We’ll go barefoot
          and we’ll hold hands like children
          do when they are playing at love.
          Maybe we’ll swim in the blue sea.
          Yes. We’ll swim out into the sea
          together, love, and we won’t ever
          turn back. We’ll swim until the
          days and the years are far behind
          us. Yes. And we will be happy then.

Occupy Gotham

"...now is not the time for fear...That comes later."  - Bane

The third installment of The Dark Knight fable that ventures into the conflicted heart of The Batman is a fascinating moment of American pop cinema and real life tragedy zeitgeist.

The main theme of the film, which asks us to consider the failures of our leaders and institutions in America and the ethics of individual action for ideals gained terrifying resonance with the shooting that left a dozen dead and 70 plus wounded at an Aurora Colorado screening of the film.

The film itself explores the moral bankruptcy of capitalism, the rising friction between classes due to the global economic crisis as well as the nature of order, governance and personal action in a time when America faces its greatest existential crisis since the end of the Vietnam war.

Throughout the first part of the film, we are haunted by the idea that " a storm is coming." There is a thickening sense of dread and forboding over an otherwise peaceful Gotham. When the storm arrives, it brings a level of mayhem and chaos that is epic and disturbing to behold.

This omnibus of terror is juxatposed against popular images of American patriotism and optimism: a football game where a child sings the national anthem, faceless numbers of metropolitan police girding for battle, the stock exchange itself.

Woven into this mosaic of Americana, The Batman tries to discover the secret of literally climbing out of the bottom of a well of despair and back to the daylight of hope above. It must be done, he is told, without the safety rope. There can be no turning back from the choice.

This is where the fear comes in. It must be faced, it must be overcome, it must be reckoned with.

Christopher Nolan understands that his Dark Knight trilogy represents a special kind of mirror for post 9/11 America. In working through The Dark Knight saga, he has woven together an epic fable that borrows from the kind of storytelling we learned from Herman Melville. No, Batman is no Moby Dick, but the echoes of how a sprawling whaling adventure got at the deep heart of something profound about America in 1851 can be felt in Nolan's treatment of the complex superhero and his beloved Gotham City.

Nolan does indict the greed, myopia and lack of true leadership America has been cursed with since 9/11, but he also poses a question about the nature of personal responsibility: is it possible to forge a national identity out of a million individual acts of decency? Since we can no longer trust in any of the institutions we have built, the leaders we have elected, the bosses we have worked for, whom can we believe in?

Going to the movies has now become an act of courage, because we no longer can count on the safety of our common places anymore. The arguments over gun control and violence in America have been reduced to the repetitive slogans and canned responses trotted out every time innocent people are killed. It's not guns, its criminals. It is senseless. It is evil. It is video games. It is....you fill in the blame.

What we learn from The Dark Knight saga is that these arguments are just noise. Hope makes despair all the more anguished, but despair without hope is unbearable. In the repemption of a city from nuclear holocaust or in a small act of kindness to a child who needs a kind word, what we see are choices being made. Maybe a few million of these can define a people again.

"The Batman must come back." Commissioner Gordon