She, the Wifey, surprisingly, liked it more

Than I did.  And, I liked Ruby Sparks a great deal.

 2012, the Summer of Young Love continues unabated.

My biggest issue with the film was a crucial scene towards the end, which confused me, and strained my normally massive threshold for a Suspension of Disbelief.  But, Renee brought up a couple of good arguments, including a crucial one that had never occurred to me while watching the film -- and, which I can not reveal here as it would spoil the movie -- and I am beginning to wrap my head around it, liking the film more and more the further I get away from it.

There is a sizable opposition to Ruby Sparks on tumblr, due to Fox Searchlight's ad campaign there, and many young women tired of Manic Pixie Dream Girl movies.  Renee hates those types of movies, too.  Movies about crazy, beautiful young women with bangs, who wear colored tights every day, with names like Summer or Ruby.  I imagine she entered the cinema warily.  But, she did know that the star, Zoe Kazan, wrote the script, as well.  Which might of alleviated her concerns somewhat.

Make no mistake, Kazan's script calls for the initial incarnation of her character, Ruby Sparks, to be just that, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl Supreme.  But, there is a very important scene before her appearance between Paul Dano and his brother Chris Messina that also illustrates very bluntly that Ruby is a fanciful creation of Dano's and not at all a real person.  Messina says, "You're a great writer, but you don't know shit about women."

Kazan gently subverts the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope whilst still living it large on the screen, which is a pretty canny thing to do.  (And, is probably really good for business.)

I respect those young women's opinions on tumblr.  I understand why they might not like the picture, and Ruby Sparks is certainly no feminist manifesto.  (I have already created an "alternate feminist ending" in my head that only someone like Todd Solondz could get away with.) But, the film still has valuable things to say about the nature of controlling, self-absorbed personalities; the importance of freedom in relationships; the very fragile nature of all relationships; and the risky, dangerous power of all-consuming love.

Dano, one of my favorite actors right now, does an excellent job, and he is just starting to remind me a bit of Kevin Kline, which is fine by me.  Dano's best moments are his comedic turns when Ruby makes her first appearance.  And, I love that I am seeing Chris Messina (Julie & Julia "Lobster killer, qu'est-ce que c'est!") in so many things right now.  Both of us really enjoyed Annette Bening and Antonio Banderas in their small roles, as well.

I thought the direction by the husband and wife team of Jonathon Dayton and Valerie Feris showed real panache, particularly in a sequence of scenes in the first act of the film, culminating in Ruby's arrival.  Their obligatory arcade "falling in love" montage with Plastic Bertrand's Ca Plane Pour Moi playing over it, was smashing, too.

In fact, the entire soundtrack was fantastic.  They hired an indie rock musician to do an original orchestral score, used some obvious classical choices, and some spectacular French pop songs, new and old.  I have a new favorite band, thanks to this movie, Holden, who are actually are most famous in Chile, of all places.  The soundtrack was used sparingly, too, which was such a relief. Normally, films like these have every scene plastered with pop songs.  It was nice to just hear actors' voices, playing scenes.

Ruby Sparks is really good, and Renee and I are proud of Ms Kazan, who has probably had some tough battles with Hollywood and Broadway folks, due to her relationship to her grandfather, Elia Kazan; definitely not one of my favorite persons, to say the least, artistically or personally.

It is not something we would like to own on bluray or dvd, perhaps, but I will definitely watch it again on cable when that happens, and give you an update then.

************

Meanwhile, I wish I had good news for you about The Artist, the film that won Best Picture, and a film that many of you have already seen, I am sure.

I will be honest, the reason I did not see The Artist, a film I was extremely excited about, in the theater, was because Renee did not want to see it, and I never found the time to see it on my own.

Well, Renee was right.

We watched it at home on Saturday night and were massively underwhelmed, the both of us.  If you are going to beg the indulgence of a modern day iToy/TMZ/Housewives culture with a two hour silent film, could you at least make it mean something? Could it not be important? Even great comedies often speak profoundly about life, most often about love.  

This film said nothing to me about life, or love, or relationships, or even its' own theme, that Pride Kills, a theme I have mined and recognized throughout my entire life.

Plus, the film seems to have been directed and/or shot by different directors and DPs.  Some shots, sequences are gorgeous to behold, only to be followed by the most pedestrian of set-ups and production design.

The dog is the best thing in it.

The original score is awful, and the dance numbers are terrible, too, particularly the last number that ends the picture.  Do you really think that there is any way that Busby Berkeley would have made a musical with that atrocious set construction behind his precious chorines? No way.

I knew coming in to this that director, Michel Hazanavicius, and his star, Jean Dujardin, had built their career to date on the Bond spoof OSS films, but I expected The Artist to be a step forward, an honest to goodness statement on the magical erotic power of Silent Cinema.  Instead, I received yet another silly, haphazard spoof film, full of references to Singin' in the Rain and Gene Kelly.

Massive let-down.

I took FW Murnau's The Last Laugh with me to bed after watching The Artist.  And that was after Renee and I watched some real dancers on YouTube, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.  TCM showed a marathon of Astaire/Rogers films yesterday, which i dvr'd, but they are all available on dvd.  Watch those instead.

Here are some clips:  (one of which I have already posted here, but it is so good, I am posting it again.)  Enjoy!

All my Monday love,
Ardent Henry

No. 3: Sunrise (Murnau)

Remember that this is my personal ballot and not the final compiled ballot that will be published in this space on 2/29/12.


Well, I had to include at least one artsy-fartsy pick, right? And I do not know if I can get more esoteric than Sunrise, a silent film made in 1927, directed by F.W. Murnau.

Sunrise absolutely deserves its place here.  It is a breathtaking, complete marvel of a film that was decades ahead of its time.  And seeing Sunrise has become a magical treat for me that makes me feel a child again every time I watch it.  I am completely under the spell of this film, helpless as it plays.

It is not the melodramatic story that transports me.  It is the intoxicating reverie of the country and the city that Murnau and his smashing team created on the back lots of Hollywood.  Charles Rosher and Karl Struss shot the film (and won Oscars for their work), while Rochus Gliese handled the superb art direction, and Frank Williams assisted with special effects.  Sunrise is a phenomenal technical achievement that would not be matched until Welles got his own paintbox fourteen years later for Citizen Kane.

In fact, Sunrise was the Terminator or Avatar of its time.  It was so groundbreaking and astonishing to the Academy that they awarded Sunrise a special Oscar for being the most unique and artistic production that year, an award that has never been given to any other film in all the history of the Oscars.

Murnau was a German director who had already made a significant name for himself at Ufa, making other masterpieces such as:  Nosferatu, Faust, and the most highly regarded, The Last Laugh (Der letzte Mann).  Murnau had been a trailblazer his entire career and could work in any genre.  His films could be expressionistic in style, realistic, supernatural, surrealistic, or often times a blend of all or some of these styles in a single film.  He would do anything and everything to create the film's milieu, including forced perspective, models, cut-outs, midgets, mattes, opticals, what have you.  But his biggest breakthrough was the way he moved the camera.  In the The Last Laugh Murnau made the camera a subjective observer in the film, an actor.  And the camera now went everywhere:  through walls and glass, up and down, so free and expressive. Murnau's imagination seemed to know no bounds.  And he changed the American cinema because of it, perhaps more than any other filmmaker ever.

William Fox hired Murnau to make a 'prestige' film, like The Last Laugh had been, in Hollywood, one that would win a lot of trophies.  Fox gave Murnau and his team carte blanche to make the picture.  And two big-time movie stars were in it, Janet Gaynor (she also won an Oscar for her performance in Sunrise and two other films) and George O'Brien.

Sunrise was a flop, of course, like so many masterpieces.  The critics loved it to pieces and sang its praises but audiences were not impressed.

Despite the critical approbation and the Oscars for Sunrise, Fox eventually lost patience with Murnau and eventually forced him out.  One of Murnau's Fox films, Four Devils, has been lost forever.  We only have still photographs of the film.

Just as Murnau was to announce signing a new deal with Paramount he was killed in an car accident.  He was forty-three.  The most famous and poignant 'story' related to his death is that Murnau, who was gay, never picked his chauffeurs for their driving abilities.  He always picked them for their looks.

Top 3 sequences, moments in Sunrise:

1.  The long tracking shot with George O'Brien going to meet Margaret Livingstone.
2.  The train ride in to the City, an absolute heart-rending, tearful journey about forgiveness and true unconditional love.
3.  The sequence right after Janet Gaynor and O'Brien walk out of the church, in to the street, and then a magical, bucolic, idyllic meadow, so in love again.



The clips below are not very good quality.  I encourage you to watch them but mostly to get a taste of what Sunrise is.  There is a fantastic Blu-ray edition of Sunrise that contains maybe the greatest and most illuminating commentary I have heard for a film.  It is also available on regular dvd.  For the folks that are willing to make this dreamlike journey, from the country, to the City, and back again, I most heartily recommend you purchasing Sunrise.

All my love, my angels,



Ardent

Like so many, even very great, silent films,

I love this photo.

The story for J'Accuse, dir Abel Gance (1919), is a melodramatic crock; a bros before hoes love triangle, including one bro wanting to kill the (adorable) progeny of the hoe being raped by three German soldiers.

Yeah, yeah, I know.  But you gotta believe me this time, this is a great motion picture, silent or otherwise.  (Apparently Gance did make a sound version of this film on the eve of World War II.  I have not seen it.)

How does J'Accuse transcend the melodrama? Well, how about the real World War I footage that is used in the third act, cut in to and along side the dramatic "the Front" scenes? Or, how about, also mostly in the third act, the quotes from actual letters from soldiers shown on the title cards? Or the chilling rape (the Germans are strictly cigar-smoking, pointy-headed shadows, consuming all light) "flashback" sequence? Or the dancing skeletons? Or the "Ode to the Sun" poem dramatization, incl double exposure and exquisite "Magic Hour" shots of a placid lake in France?

Or, how about this: (so French) the husband in the triangle is at "the Front" and has just received a letter from his wife that she has returned home at last (she does not mention the rape or the child, natch) and is eagerly awaiting his next leave.  He tells his fellow soldiers the good news and they start dancing.  Eventually, they decide to have a "feast", hey, it is the Front, but they are still able to rustle up a couple of bottles of Champers.  Meanwhile, the Germans, unaware of Francois' great fortune keep bombing anyway.  One of the soldiers has tied the two bottles of Champers together and is chilling them in the river.  Pretty brave, him, because that seems to be just about exactly where those German grenades are landing.  The soldier collects the Champers, starts to run back along the trench and is hit by a grenade.  There is a giant puff of smoke, the soldier falls, fade to black.  The next shot is of Francois and the other soldiers dancing and singing still, unaware of the "Garcon"-soldier's plight.  But, then, at the bottom of the frame what do we see? "Garcon" crawling towards the party, near death, but just before collapsing he presents the soldiers two untouched perfectly chilled bottles of Champagne.  "Garcon" is thrilled with his achievement and he checks the wound on his chest.  He dies, absolutely beaming, proud.  


You know, it is plain to me, after watching silent films by such masters as Eisenstein, Vigo, Lubitsch, Murnau, Bunuel, and now Gance that the Europeans were light years ahead of the Americans regarding great silent cinema.  It is not even close.  For this critic, Keaton, Griffith, and Chaplin are not even in the same league.  Or playing the same game.


The other great thing about good or great (there is a lot of dross out there) silent cinema is the voyeuristic quality about it.  How you feel as if you are peeking through a keyhole, spying on lovers, or a giant row.  When you are in the hands of a master, no matter how stupid the story is, it is one of the most truly erotic (that word is so overused) experiences a filmgoer can have.


One more thing:  Watching J'Accuse, lip reading were I, and I swear to Gawd that some of the actors in this French film were speaking English.  Perhaps, like Murnau's masterpiece, The Last Laugh, there were multiple "International" versions of this film and I was watching the North American version.  And you might want a Magnum of Champers with your popcorn or frites, watching the excellent J'Accuse.  It is a fifteen reeler, at least.


Kisses, ...