Devil (2010)

The Details of the Devil

The Sixth Sense, Mr. Shyamalan’s breakthrough feature, was clever enough. The gimmick of Bruce Willis’ death/life worked. Signs and The Lady in the Water were not clever at all. In fact it is amazing that these efforts failed to drive a steak into his career. Anyone who has attended a film production course knows the student who behaves in the same manner as the boss on the Television Show “The Office”. The class will watch in polite horror as the fellow student's abominable footage rolls on. The “auteur” prattles on and on and on with some sort of mystical gibberish or appalling unfunny comedy. Fellow classmates nod with grimaces of pity and try to be encouraging. What they fail to realize is their opinions are completely immaterial. This is an impregnable ego that magically turns even the harshest scorn into praise. Mr. Shyamalan is that student; with a multi-million dollar career. It is an unfortunate combination for the entertainment industry. M. Night Shyamalan meditates on divine beings working on occult machinations. No need to watch his films, the career is a confirmation that God does work in mysterious ways.


Having pondered: the nature of mortality, the creation mystical worlds, good and evil, the supernatural, the natural, the religious, the post-mortem, the philosophical, Nation Geographic Magazine, brass buttons, the kitchen sink – M. Night Shyamalan will weigh in on… the Devil; or in this case Devil. Perhaps a more apt title would be A Light Meditation on the Christian Nature of Sin and Repentance in an Enclosed Space. Might not be catchy, but it certainly would be an honest representation of the ponderous nature of the work. It should be noted that Shyamalan was the writer and perhaps the indictment should list the director as the main perp. In this case the state believes Shyamalan is the guilty party. There is a paper trail of previous offenses. God may work in mysterious ways… but unfortunately for audiences Shyamalan doesn’t… neither does his Devil.

There is a well established history of captivating cinematic works which take place within a single set: Hitchcock’s Rope or Lifeboat, Polanski’s Knife in the Water, Lumet’s 12 Angry Men, the Twilight Zone Perandello based episode “Five Characters in Search of an Exit”… and so on and so on… As a student of film (Tisch graduate) and a citizen of the Universe, one would have thought a brief perusal of these classics might inspire. But once again why listen to old-fashioned masters when you’ve single-handedly created: the cinema of big ideas for small minds. In this space you are the god… or someone else. Devil has mediocre creations being punished by a super-natural demon due to past transgressions. The sins are ostensibly in the context of a Christian world-view. Mr. D took the elevator to settle the score – a little preview of St. John’s vision. There are innocents: the building workers and the initial suicide – these are sacrifices to the box-office god who demands at least a few grisly, random deaths if your feature is taking place in an elevator shaft. It’s difficult to have sympathy for this devil, or anyone else, as their motivations are contrived, the acting is poor and the direction is forgettable. It also committed the cardinal sin of any horror flick: it wasn’t scary.

The opening sequence possesses clumsy dialogue indicating the lead detective is still recovering from the death of his young family in an unsolved hit and run accident. You’ll never ever ever ever ever ever guess who one of the people in the elevator is… no need for a spoiler alert as the feature itself is the definition of the word “spoil”. The opening sequence shows a panoramic shots of Philadelphia that are presented upside down. Get it. And guess how Philadelphia looks in the closing title sequence? Here’s a hint – the devil doesn’t get his way… so Philadelphia is now… right side… you got it… great minds think alike.

Perhaps this work is merely a misdemeanor. There are many who believe the state might be squandering valuable resources by pursuing the case against Shyamalan. It’s merely a crappy horror movie from a crappy filmmaker. It is doubtful he even gives a damn, as long as the checks clear. What’s the big deal? The case can be made, however, that the rap sheet is growing. Responsible film executives should put an end to these pretentious, tiresome, sophomoric, projects. Mr. Shyamalan is not in any danger. Egomaniacs with no cloths never feel the sting of public contempt. The trouble isn’t in the star; it’s in the industry. There are many unknown souls who possess interesting ideas and untapped creative power. Why keep backing this ridiculous charlatan? It’s a crime… actually it’s a sin. The executive who approved this film should have been in the elevator… facing the elevator music.

Winter's Bone (2010)

Squeal Like a Piglet

The rape in Deliverance forever scarred 1970s American moviegoers. A Faulkner-like depravity laid threadbare in Technicolor. Inner city poverty might be an illness; the rural, specifically Southern, underclass is the embodiment of the American nightmare. Unbridled self-made individualism mixes with the God from the book of Job. It’s life, liberty without the pursuit of happiness. Not a pretty picture and complaints will be punishable by death… capital punishment also extends to speaking to outsiders. Yankees might be clever but we’re tougher… even though we lost the war… and we remember that at sunrise cause everyone needs a good hate to get through the day.

The last shot in Deliverance is the gothic-horror “hand” unexpectedly rising from the water. Now Winter’s Bone shows us what it was trying to grasp. The landscape of the rural South, always very distance from any economic booms, has been hit with the plague of meth and crank since Burt Reynold’s and his buddies decided to go canoeing. There is an unrelenting grimness that seems to extend beyond the decrepit houses and broken people. There is a scene in which some squirrels are “dressed” for a stew. Lucky squirrels.

I’ve always wondered about the cradle of Southern monsters. Charles Manson learned the good book in West Virginia with his aunt and uncle – might have been just down the road from where our protagonist’s house is being foreclosed due to her father’s failure to meet a bail-bond obligation. We’ve seen the male demons starting with Huck Finn’s father – but what about the hand the rocks the cradle? Winter’s Bone illustrates the other side of Scarlet O’Hara. Put away you’re Antebellum gowns and pick up your 12 gauge. The only Southern Comfort you’re getting from these ladies is in a bottle; which might end up being smashed against the side of your head.

Winter’s Bone has an odd way of reinforcing and tearing-down myths. The first seems to support the adage that backwoods family trees are similar straight edge rulers. Everyone we see in this film is related. Men are also kings of their castles with women as honorary serfs. There is a line where a particularly brutal good-ole-boy admonishes his wife: I told you once with words. No doubt fists are the secondary mode of communication. Yet despite these truisms there is a surprising amount of female empowerment. Under the surface of male domination there is a sense that women run the show. Everyone in these towns has a fear of grandpa; but grandma seems to be the enforcer/policy-maker. In fact the only beating we witness is when the women decide to deliver justice (against another woman). The men are frozen in reputation and rumor, as exhibited by the cowardly sheriff; it is the women who are the movers and shakers; literally.

The mechanics of Winter’s Bone are solid. The writing is strong; although the spare script might have benefited from even less dialogue. (e.g. was it really necessary to have the protagonist verbalize her wish that her mother would give her advice – it was already clear in the moment without the words). There were other literary devices that might have been excised, as they appear overbearing on the big screen. (i.e. the uncles giving the young chicks to his young niece and nephew signaling a rejuvenation of their relationship; ditto for the passing of the banjo). The pacing slowed in a couple of segments but all these are minor notes in otherwise strong film. The director, editor and cinematographer delivered the goods by painting all the rusted dirt-brown dishevelment with care. It is one of the ironies of filmmaking that the accurate portrayal of random chaos relies on methodic craftsmanship and painstaking attention to detail. This brings us to the actors themselves.

There is a level of genuineness in these performances that is a rare in American films. This is an ensemble piece with no “stars”. This is a rendering of a place and its people; not simply a vehicle for one actor to demonstrate their virtuosity. The result is a feeling as if you’ve turned down and unmarked dirt road and were lost amongst the locals. It is a relief to see real people rendered with dignity. This work rescues the underclass from daytime TV clichés and brings a Shakespearean drama to these heretofore-unmarked lives. Make no mistake, the heroines save everyone from the heroin… and crack, crank, meth, murder, mayhem….

Winter’s Bone is a tale of redemption. The gothic-horror hand that ends Deliverance becomes a saving totem; a magic ring which delivers the innocents… It is the choice of focusing on the women that gives new life to the old South. It’s not all unspeakable violence and ignorance. There is tough love delivered by tough women who understand that perseverance is the antidote to self-loathing and self-pity. Frankly my dear, she does give a damn. And so should you.

Inception (2010)

INCEPTION

The great untold truth about most “action” films is: they are dull. This is especially true in an age where advances in computerized special effects can render movies primitively obsolete in less than a decade. Whereas I might have found the car chase in Steve McQueen’s “Bullit” dazzling decades after the premiere; most audiences would find the 2007 film “Transformers” quaint when compared with “Avatar”. In order to retain an interest in this genre the script need to rise above the spectacle. Unfortunately most blockbusters focus and the fireworks resulting in mind-numbing sequences of explosions, fire-balls, carnage, tidal waves, meteors, volcanoes… Don’t get me wrong – I love a good car chase or Armageddon sequence – but I don’t think it should be the main entrée… just as I wouldn’t go to a restaurant and order a stick of butter with some salt and sugar. In this light I was really looking forward to “Inception”. Here is someone who mixes the mental with the physical. Christopher Nolan’s debut was the cult hit “Memento” – an action film predicated on the protagonist debilitating brain injury (no short term memory). His blockbuster debut, “the Dark Knight”, tried to lend some gravitas to the Batman franchise. I thought there were a few too many explosions. I had visual indigestion etc… but I loved the Joker. But who am I to judge anyway: it was the highest grossing film of the decade! Chacun son gout. But hey I didn’t hate it. What’s a good Indie to do once he’s joined the “real” world of Hollywood anyway.

I had high hopes. Nolan directing an action blockbuster of his own choosing and returning to the realm of the mind: Would it be an update of Hitchcock’s “Spellbound” or an action version of “Enternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind”? Well… yes and no. The film is centered around dreaming and memory but, well, ah, I don’t think I’d call it an “action film”. Call me old-fashioned but I think most summer fun shouldn’t feel like homework. I haven’t been so confused in a movie theater since Jack Nicholson worked his directorial magic in the sequel to “Chinatown”. Oh I “got it”: Leonardo DiCaprio is working in commercial espionage that focus on harnessing secrets of the mind… he is on the run for supposedly murdering his wife – he didn’t do it, sort of, but she blamed him in an attempt to get him to return to their sojourn in a deep sleep netherworld where they had spent a life-time together… meanwhile he needs to return to see his children – apparently they are unable to take an airplane to visit him – which is odd as I thought there were commercial flights to Hong Kong and Africa – back to the plot: DiCaprio decides to work for an Asian mogul, whom he initially was spying against. Mogul promises him he will get all the charges dropped in the U.S. if DiCaprio decides to plant an idea in the head of the son of another Mogul who controls the worlds energy supply. DiCaprio goes and locates his former mentor/father-in-law, Michael Caine, who introduces him to the girl who was the star of “Juno”. That actress appears looks even younger than she did in “Juno”. I thought I had been transported to an Episode of Blues Clues. Back to the plot: she discovers that his DiCaprio’s ex-wife is stalking him in his sub-conscious so she is scared of “what will happen”. Of course it doesn’t stop her from taking the job. Now they have to dive down to the three levels of consciousness and each level there is an exponential shift in time so if something… I can’t go on.

The problem with “Inception” is that it isn’t a movie: it’s a logic game – the kind of brain-teasing nonsense that haunts law school applicants on the LSAT or is the pastime of commuters with obsessive compulsive disorder. There are some people who enjoy these exercises… and there are people who willingly expose themselves to Sudoku and word cross – I’ve considered these activities to have their food equivalents in olive loaf and vegemite. An acquired taste that is, fortunately/unfortunately, not my thing. Now the special effects are fun and the acting is professional so… dream on.

Shutter Island (2010)

Not Spellbound

Martin Scorsese was 3 years old when Hitchcock released his psychological thriller “Spellbound”; choc-a-bloc with Freudian dreamscapes with Salvador Dali art direction. The same year one of the first Technicolor noir films,“Leave Her to Heaven”, featured Gene Tierney drowning her character’s husband’s paraplegic brother in a lake. Two years later Richard Widmark made his debut in “Kiss of Death” by guffawing while pushing an old wheelchair-bound biddy down a flight of stairs. When Scorsese turned 18 Hitchcock gave birth to Norman and his dear mother. Two years later Robert Mitchum would terrorize the upstanding Gregory Peck and his virtuous family in “Cape Fear”. Scorsese was so moved by the psychotic jailbird that he had Robert DeNiro reprise him in his remake nearly 30 years latter. Scorsese spent his youth devouring these and a slew of other dark movie classics centered on tormented, psychologically damaged, people struggling with the world. His childhood viewing would have an impact in his later work in addition to “Cape Fear”. One senses that the goodfellas in the mean streets would be very much at home being in “Public Enemy”; There is a raging bull in every “Scarface”.

What’s an old director to do? He’s finally got his statue with “The Departed”. There is an irony in being awarded “best director” for one of your lesser works (does this film compare to “Raging Bull”, “Goodfellas”, “Taxidriver”?) – but after so many years of being snubbed; it’s well deserved. But now that you’re a cultural icon, a popular success, lauded by your peers…. how do you avoid becoming irrelevant? It’s easy for someone born three years after “Gone with the Wind” to feel ill at ease in a world of iPhones; especially when you have made your name being one of the top feature film directors. It would be very dangerous to try and compete with the present. Do what you know: return to the past.: not “The Age of Innocence” but YOUR age of innocence: those Film Noir years when televisions were props in Sci-Fi movies or trinkets in exclusive homes. Bring it back and show everyone that past is prologue. However mesmerizing and dizzying our present world seems – nothing can compete with the timeless verities of well - crafted demons. This old man will scare you just as much anything on Grand Theft Auto or “Avatar”.

The only episode of Saturday Night Live not available for re-broadcast is Milton Berle’s 1979 appearance. This is especially significant since other hosts were banned from re-appearing but their original shows have been grinding through syndication for years. Berle earned the extraordinary banishment for making the hippest show on Television seem “old fashioned”. Mr. Television of the 1950s needed to be excommunicated by the young Turks who’d taken over the medium. We need to underline the fact that this is NOT your father’s Oldsmobile. The cardinal sin in cutting edge entertainment extends beyond merely being bad: it’s being old, stale AND BAD. No doubt Scorsese, a show business vet, knows the horrific scorn of appearing “old news”. “Shutter Island” is a bid to dispel any hints of being long in the tooth. It’s ironic to break out the old, to establish yourself as new – but like his “best director” Oscar shows – the world is filled with irony.

“Shutter Island” doesn’t work. Despite box office success this is a jumbled grandiose mess with enough craftsmanship to make the 2 hours pass moderately quickly. Mr. Scorsese, the master of small thugs in big worlds, tries to master the big world. This film touches on crime, punishment, Freud, the holocaust, justice, eternal love, revenge…. If you thought Scorsese had bitten off too much in “The Last Temptation of Christ” you’re eyes will roll when you see the first flash-back of Dachau. One wonders if Scorsese had seen episodes of the current entertainment industry Island fixation, “Lost”. That show does a marvelous job of keeping everyone in the audience, and on the island, guessing. In Scorsese’s Island the mood is more ponderous. Is not so much “what is going on?” but “what the hell is this?”. A serious parody/tribute? A stylized commentary? A meditation on old time movies? The justice system? Contemporary America’s anger towards the mentally ill? Maybe all. Maybe none. But the overarching question becomes: who cares? Not me. I’m glad he’s doing well financially. I’m happy he’s able to attract top rate talent but, judging by this work, his time has past.

Unfortunately one might think that “I didn’t get it”. Well let’s just say that I felt that I could have rented myself out to many groups of perplexed audience members as a guide to the action. I have no special talent – I’d say, judging by the mystified chatter, that 1 out of 6 people could actually follow the plot – not that this ability is the “end all” in movie appreciation. I still don’t know what happens in the last 1/5 of “2001” – but like the film. No, this is a more basic failure. “Shutter Island” is all dressed up – with absolutely nowhere to go. The endless music swells, superb acting, wonderful set design fail to mask that this pudding “lacks a theme”; or maybe it’s the potpourri of themes: The parallels between the protagonist’s crime and the perceived wrongdoing of others; the links between the Nazis in his mind and the actions of 1950s psychiatry; the line between cop and criminal – yep… check, check, check…. Ahhhhh what a bore it all is – I’m actually looking forward to one of Scoresese’ contemporaries newest production. Yeah I know he’s a rapist – but as someone who actually experienced the holocaust he’s smart enough not to drag it into a B movie. It used to be that when Scorsese asked the question “You talkin’ to me?”. It produced a shutter – now it’s just polite nod. Yep.