Tuesday, March 13, 2012
There are things in that paper which nobody knows but me, or ever will
By Kevin J. Olson
Through a Glass Darkly is interesting if for no other reason than Bergman didn’t seem to really care for it all. One could chalk it up to the usual case of the artist’s self-deprecation, but when reading his book Images: My Life in Film you understand that Bergman had a different film in mind before he shot Through a Glass Darkly, and the result — which is certainly one of the most seminal foreign films of the ‘60s — was not to his liking. I think Bergman is too hard on himself and critiquing the movie he had in his head instead of the one he actually filmed. What’s important about this film, aside from helping Americans ingratiate themselves into the foreign film world (along with Fellini and Antonioni), is that it marks a shift in tone for the auteur. With Through a Glass Darkly, Bergman worked out the kinks and used its aesthetic and its themes as a catalyst for what would be the Bergman tableau that everyone recognizes today.
Sparse seems the appropriate way to describe the film — Bergman himself declared the film a “chamber film” with its use of only four actors, minimal sets and essentially no music apart from the occasional chord of Bach’s “Sarabande from Suite No. 2 in D minor” (which is used effectively). Bergman and frequent collaborator Sven Nykvist use the film as a kind of practice round to establish the kind of aesthetic they would become known for, especially in terms of close-ups and two-shots that have an eerie way of simultaneously having the effect the shot is supposed to have but also being able to show the distance between two characters or a character and inner turmoil.
This is a “chamber film” due to its simplicity. It doesn't establish where or even who these characters are; they simply emerge from the waters, hand-in-hand, in the film's opening shot. The characters are a family that consists of Karin (Harriet Andersson), her husband Martin (Max von Sydow), her somewhat estranged father David (Gunnar Bjornstrand) and her brother Minus (Lars Passgard). The family is vacationing somewhere off the Swedish coast, and it is here that I will stop for a moment to recognize the film’s setting. There’s an opaque beauty to the location and sets (the broken-down ship being my favorite set piece). Nykvist always was a master at shooting anything anywhere, but these characters inhabit a real sense of place here. The film’s location actually was Fårö, which would be the setting for future Bergman pictures and, eventually, his home. The austerity of the island — its remoteness — seems an apt place for the director to call home.
Back to the plot: The film's events take place over 24 hours as we learn about Karin in the opening scenes as she walks along the shore with her brother. Karin has been released recently from a mental hospital where we find out that she endured electroshock therapy. While on the island, the family celebrates David’s birthday during his visit before he must run off again. Running off to do other things is somewhat of a habit for David, and we soon learn that he always was distant with Karin and her mother — and apparently Minus, who tells Karin that all he wants is to be able to talk to his father — and that he really is using this time on the island with his mentally unstable daughter to overcome a bad case of writer’s block. Disgusted by this, Martin confronts David who confesses his intention of exploiting his daughter’s illness. One night, Karin hears a distant foghorn and follows it up to the attic. As she stands in the middle of the attic, she begins to hear things that cause her to collapse; it’s the voice of God — and it’s coming from behind the wallpaper. And so it goes for Karin as she slowly devolves before she finally gives up and admits to Martin and her father that she can’t go on living between two realities.
The film has an eerie light to it — most everything happens during daylight adding to this effect — and it reminded me of what Roger Ebert says in his “Great Movies” review where he likens Nykvist’s lighting to being “another character,” and that you could “freeze almost any frame of this film and be looking at a striking still photograph” that mirrors the disconnect and unreliability of what our heroine sees and hears. Even when characters talk in close-up, something still is visible just enough in the background that is canted or split or decaying (my favorite set piece being the ship Karin finds herself retreating to near the end of the film; it’s one of the most perfect set pieces in all of Bergman’s films). It’s a perfect example of how Bergman and Nykvist were masters of stark mise-en-scene; despite its seemingly simplistic aesthetic, there’s something profound in every shot.
Sound is used to great effect in the film: the sound of rocks being walked upon, water breaking against the shore and, most significantly, of the foghorn that beckons Karin to the wallpaper where she begins to wait for something — a god or God — to emerge from the walls. I love the scene where Minus simply looks out at the sea, hears the foghorn and utters, “God.” I think for Bergman, God does seem that distant here; Like the boat, God makes Its presence known in a way that almost mocks the characters, letting them know via foghorn that something exists out there — you just can’t see it snd it won't intervene. Multiple sounds such as that echo in the film, and that’s one of the things that always affects me most about Bergman’s films: his attention to silence accentuates even the most mundane sounds so they become haunting.
The aesthetic and its sparseness is a bit showy (there’s a reason why the sometimes super-serious Bergman is so easy for people to riff on), but I’ve always loved Bergman for that. In no way does he shy away from big ideas and his aesthete aims. In today’s cinema, it would be hard to get a film such as this made without the filmmaker being tempted to at least let a little bit of irony seep in (but, hey, that's postmodernism for ya, and I think that's part of the reason why so many people are uncomfortable with a film such as The Tree of Life because of Malick's super-serious pretensions). Sure, the final set piece in the decaying ship is showy, on-the-nose and pretentious. But so what? What’s wrong with being overtly arty? It’s a beautiful metaphor for Karin’s own dug-out and decaying psyche, and I think in today’s cinema the crucial mistake that would get made — and the reason people would jump all over its pretentiousness — would be that too much attention would be given to the metaphor and not enough to the subjects. Here, the ship works perfectly because we’re invested in Karin as Andersson is just absolutely brilliant in the final moments of this film as she confronts her father about their relationship and how it’s been affected by her illness.
Through a Glass Darkly would retroactively be a part of a trilogy that included The Silence and Winter Light. What would become known as the “faith trilogy” set the tone for what would be Bergman’s darkest decade and his increasingly harsh explorations into spiritual wrestling. Bergman himself declared the film’s part of a trilogy only after he saw similar themes running through the films: "These three films deal with reduction. Through a Glass Darkly — conquered certainty. Winter Light — penetrated certainty. The Silence — God's silence — the negative imprint. Therefore, they constitute a trilogy." The ‘60s are the decade of Bergman's work I appreciate most, perhaps because this period if Bergman’s films often reflect my own uncertainties surrounding religion. Not everyone loves Through a Glass Darkly the same way they revere other Bergman films. I think that Bergman's own quote explains why as the movie's ending displeased himh — a kind of trite addendum that too neatly explained things, but I think in the light of how Bergman describes the “trilogy” above, Through a Glass Darkly still holds a tremendous amount of truth and power. Sure, “conquering” certainty isn’t nearly as interesting a thesis as penetrating it or looking at it though a nihilistic lens (I suppose that’s the juicier stuff), but I think love is a pretty interesting theme, and I like the biblical approach Bergman takes at trying to understand love.
Bergman felt uneasy about the film, even when it was released, as he felt it let viewers off a little too easily:
“Through a Glass Darkly was a desperate attempt to present a simple philosophy: God is love and love is God…So here we started with a falsehood (on the part of the filmmaker), largely unconscious, but a falsehood nevertheless. In a weird way, the film floats a couple of inches above the ground. But falsehood is one thing; the weaving of illusions is another.”
His initial plans for the film were really to focus the lens on schizophrenia, specifically how schizophrenia affects someone with religious tendencies. The film's working title was The Wallpaper, suggesting that perhaps Bergman was going for more of a Charlotte Perkins Gillman feel for the film. In his notes on the film, Bergman states, “Karin wants Martin, her husband, to worship the god; otherwise the god might turn dangerous. She tries to force Martin to do so. He finally gets David to help him give her an injection. Then she disappears into her world behind the wallpaper.” Bergman later goes on to describe that he wanted the film to be more about Karin pulling Martin into her descent in order for him to understand the god behind the wallpaper better. Martin is a character who needs the tangible to understand, and so Karin’s schizophrenic downfall is a lonely one because Martin’s attempts to understand what she sees and hears and feels are in vain. The tone of these notes is eerier than the tone the film produces; however, that’s not the product on the screen, and I think what Bergman did put on there is profound and moving, and somewhat eerie, too.
I didn’t find anything false about the theme, no matter how simplistic it may be, of love. Bergman brilliantly juxtaposes the mission of modernity (there is a moment where, prior to David and Martin setting out to fish in the cold, they say, “if it’s good enough for Hemingway…”) with the mission of love. For David and Martin, confronting and dealing with Karin's schizophrenia requires an unending kind of love; the kind of love Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians (the book of the Bible from which the film gets its title), and completely
By the end of the film, David somewhat atones for his sins of misapplied love as he assures his son — after Karin has been helicoptered off the island back to the mental hospital — that the reality they live in is different than the one Karin does; and yet, they can help her — cure her in their own way — by loving her. As the apostle Paul writes:
"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. 2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have allfaith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing. 4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part. 10 But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known. 13 And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love."
It seems to me that that is why, even 50 years later, Bergman’s film still holds up. It doesn’t move me the same way that Winter Light or The Silence moves me, but it’s an important film nonetheless because it marks a clear shift in Bergman’s tone; a shift toward the Bergman who wrestles with polarities: the darkly nihilistic and the light of grace — the kind of love — that saves.
So, yes, I don’t quite understand Bergman’s distaste with the ending. Sure, it may seem a little trite to some in how it so cleanly mitigates the problems the characters go through but, like the title of the film suggests — and what many Greek scholars talk about when they talk about Paul’s famous letter to the Corinthians — love, or better to understand God vis-à-vis love, is a riddle; there isn’t an easy answer just as one cannot look clearly through a murky mirror or dark glass. And so I like the dual endings presented in the film because it allows for the viewer to explicate those murky waters: is Karin, and our interpretation of God is love, “safe” because she’s surrounded by the people that love her most making it easy to better understand the pain she goes through, or do we understand God to be a passive one that allows for Karin to be haunted by some kind of demiurge shaped like a spider that will continue to emerge from walls, crawl up her body and possess and haunt her mind?
Just as easily as one could say, “God is love” so too could someone say, “God is not love” because it refuses to act on Karin’s behalf. That’s why, yes, even though the ending may seem sugary-sweet and wrapped up a little too neatly compared to how Bergman would fine-tune these ideas in better films such as Winter Light and The Silence, the film packs a punch because it leaves the viewer looking through the glass from all angles, trying their hardest to spy God and any kind of answer that helps make sense of the madness that surrounds us on a daily basis. Through the wrestling with these religious and existential quandaries that we learn the most (I firmly believe this, and it’s why I respond so strongly to Bergman’s ‘60s output). Through a Glass Darkly may contain an ending that seems too neat and tidy for some, but it’s an important film because it marks the beginning of the auteur's most inspired run of films. Looking back on it after a recent viewing, I understand even more clearly why the film still holds a special place for me: that ending gets me thinking and wrestling with the question of whether or not is as simple as just “love.” I believe it is.
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Labels: 60s, Antonioni, Beatles, Books, Ebert, Fellini, Ingmar Bergman, Malick, Movie Tributes, Von Sydow
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Monday, March 12, 2012
Is the magic and the meaning in the movies or ourselves?
was meant perhaps to suggest a mixture of horror movie and automated toyshop, but now just provides noisy irritation. Films
have become a lot quieter since then — at least in the music department. And above all the acting seems weirdly dated,
with its deliberately sought-out stiffness and posing.…Now the performance just looks arch, and we know that stylisation in film requires more extreme measures — a real marionette-effect, for instance. It's notable that in this film Resnais succeeds best
with his anti-naturalist note when the actors are either quite still — so still you don't know whether they are in a moving picture
or a photograph — or dancing, rocking slowly, dully, to the sounds of an unearthly waltz.”
— Michael Wood, The Guardian, July 14, 2011
By Edward Copeland
The above quote appeared in a piece Wood wrote on the occasion of a 50th anniversary engagement of Last Year in Marienbad. Despite the way it reads, Wood's overall tone was positive. Putting aside that he must not go to new movies that often if he thinks film scores today have become a lot quieter, his words about the acting in Marienbad struck me as another reason why Resnais' film entrances me in a way other films that could be called "similar" don't. I can't imagine anyone, fan or foe of the film, watching it thinking that acting or
As for Von Trier, we got off on the wrong foot with poor Max von Sydow's voiceover leading the somnambulistic tone of Zentropa. Somehow Emily Watson overcame his traps to give a good performance Breaking the Waves, which I otherwise rejected. I admit that I still would like to see The Kingdom and I liked Dancer in the Dark. Never saw The Idiots. Never wanted to see Dogville. The Five Obstructions sounds interesting as an experiment, not necessarily a movie. Perhaps a reality TV show. Then came Melancholia — ay caramba — though you definitely see the Marienbad influence there: He even had similarly sculpted trees. If you want to see a 2011 film that involves the sudden appearance of a planet in the sky, rent the indie Another Earth. It's shorter, better written and contains actual characters. It will mean sacrificing Udo Kier's appearance as a wedding planner complaining that the bride ruined his work. I'm certain I've said enough in this section to get blood pressures boiling, so now I can move on to what too many people — both moviegoers and critics alike — tend to do: Take what's said about their favorite movies and filmmakers way too seriously. Forgetting that the things I wrote above are my opinion and, more importantly, opinions about movies and filmmakers. This is hardly the equivalent of, let me think of a recent example, Rush Limbaugh calling a law student testifying to Congress about a friend's medical reason for access to contraceptives a slut who must have lots of sex and if health insurers cover female contraceptives, he should be allowed to see tapes of her having sex on his computer. Big difference between that and me saying I don't think Melancholia is a good movie. I'm giving a subjective opinion. Rush is being an asshole.
Thinking about how upset people can get when a favorite film has been attacked takes me back to my days as a working critic. I usually received angry letters or phone calls, since my paper fortunately didn't run movie critics' photos. I preferred anonymity, like a food critic. Ironically, given my physical state now, I once received a letter from an organization for disabled people taking me to task for referring to a character in a movie as being "confined to a wheelchair." They were right and I never used that phrase again even before I learned the hard way why those words are inaccurate. I recall the woman who called the day I gave The Beverly Hillbillies movie the smackdown it so richly deserved. (That's one plus to this nonprofit blog thing — with the exception of my
The other issue I wanted to address was whether meaning matters, though the person who responded most specifically to that query answered it more than 45 years ago and died nearly seven years ago. Susan Sontag's "Against Interpretation" struck me like a lightning bolt this week, probably quite annoyingly since I imagine many out there had read it long ago and I'm cheerleading it as if I just found out the world was round and am telling everyone I know. Sontag quotes a famous saying by D.H. Lawrence that I had heard before that might be the most concise warning against reading too much into art, be it literature or film: "Never trust the teller, trust the tale.” Sontag drops his line into Part 6, which I quoted a couple times in my review. She also writes there, "Interpretation, based on the highly dubious theory that a work of art is composed of items of content, violates art. It makes art into an article for use, for arrangement into a mental scheme of categories." Sontag carries it further, questioning (in 1966 remember) what role criticism should take. In Part 8, Sontag wrote:
"What kind of criticism, of commentary on the arts, is desirable today? For I am not saying that works of art are ineffable, that they cannot be described or paraphrased. They can be. The question is how. What would criticism look like that would serve the work of art, not usurp its place?
What is needed, first, is more attention to form in art. If excessive stress on content provokes the arrogance of interpretation, more extended and more thorough descriptions of form would silence. What is needed is a vocabulary — a descriptive, rather than prescriptive, vocabulary — for forms. The best criticism, and it is uncommon, is of this sort that dissolves considerations of content into those of form.…
Equally valuable would be acts of criticism which would supply a really accurate, sharp, loving description of the appearance of a work of art. This seems even harder to do than formal analysis."
Her essay really builds up a head of steam, so by the time she reaches Part 9, Sontag's words ignite a virtual bonfire of ideas, ideas that she had placed on paper decades earlier that I'd said and thought often before without knowing her essay existed. Part 9 added more to contemplate:
"Interpretation takes the sensory experience of the work of art for granted, and proceeds from there. This cannot be taken for granted, now. Think of the sheer multiplication of works of art available to every one of us, superadded to the conflicting tastes and odors and sights of the urban environment that bombard our senses. Ours is a culture based on excess, on overproduction; the result is a steady loss of sharpness in our sensory experience.…
What is important now is to recover our senses. We must learn to see more, to hear more, to feel more.
Our task is not to find the maximum amount of content in a work of art, much less to squeeze more content out of the work than is already there. Our task is to cut back content so that we can see the thing at all.
The aim of all commentary on art now should be to make works of art — and, by analogy, our own experience — more, rather than less, real to us. The function of criticism should be to show how it is what it is, even that it is what it is, rather than to show what it means."
"Against Interpretation" is an essay divided in 10 sections, though Sontag's last section consists of a single sentence calling for "an erotics of art." As I've said, I've never been one who spent much time trying to decipher a film's meaning. As I read Sontag's essay, the words sounded like an echo of my present sent from someone else's past. When Sontag added how overburdened her senses were — in the early to mid-1960s — compared to the overload now, it was as if I'd found a holy text by accident — but I promised you a punchline and I will give it to you, but first I'm going to share all the friends kind enough to contribute to this with thoughts on Last Year at Marienbad, films they love but can explain, style vs. substance, etc. Thanks to all who replied. Here they are, in alphabetical order:
"I would offer Syndromes and a Century as a movie that defies conventional understanding yet totally transported and transformed me: I left the theater in an elated state, but not sure how I got there. Couldn't begin to tell you what it 'means': there's no 'story' in the usual sense, yet I knew I was in the presence of a masterful filmmaker casting a spell I didn't want broken. Apitchapong Weerasethakul's films are both abstract and down to earth, so that they never feel pretentious the way, say, the late (Theo) Angelopoulos often did, where every gorgeous frame asked you to admire his (sometimes ponderous) brilliance. But of course many people find these Thai films baffling and boring. Chacun a son gout."
"Great art fills you with awe and wonder — whether it’s through substance, a particular style (the hallmark of a great artist, who may eventually seem like a friend on the same mental wavelength as you) or usually some combination of both. Being able to explain it eventually helps, but ultimately art is an emotional experience that changes you or takes you to a different place. If you are in the same frame of mind afterward as you were at the beginning, it’s probably not great art."
(1) “Why does Movie X work for me, but not for Critic A or others?” Because something “working” is a two-way street between the text and each member of the audience. We all have movies we love that we know we shouldn’t, and we all have movies we greatly admire
(2) “How can a director…have either fans who think he walks on water or people such as myself who mock him mercilessly but seemingly few who look at him dispassionately from the middle ground?” In the case of Lars von Trier, it’s because he’s an agitator; his work is designed to provoke extreme reactions, and he wants you to either love or hate his movies — and I think he’d actually prefer you hate his work. (I’m actually on the dispassionate middle ground with him.) And remember that critics have agendas, too; some are simply provocateurs. More generally, directors/authors make connections with some people and not with others.
(3) “Does the magic reside in the movies or within ourselves?” Yes! The best critics don’t merely provide summary judgment; they show you how something worked or didn’t work for them. Essentially, they’re articulating and supporting a deeply personal reaction.
"'Substance' is such an abstract term when it comes to any discussion of the movies; I suppose, if you go by the conventional definition, Amistad has substance, whereas Bringing Up Baby does not…but does anyone reading this regard the Spielberg entry as the superior example of the filmmaker's craft? I think you need to accept each and every film on its own terms, and judge them based on how well they succeed in achieving their own objectives; you can't measure them all by the same scale, and it's probably a mistake to use subject matter, or even stylistic aesthetics, as your guide in determining the worth of any particular enterprise. There isn't a particular 'type' of film that I'm more inclined to like more than any other — you take them all on an individual basis (in reference to Marienbad, which I haven't seen, there are some very oblique films — The Tree of Life is a recent example — that have really connected with me…whereas others have left me absolutely cold.) That's the nature of the beast — whether it's gourmet cooking from a Five-Star Chef, or a damn good cheeseburger, a good eat is a good eat."
"I've always been a big believer in the idea that style is substance. I like this quote I found in the comments section of a Jim Emerson blog post: 'Style is supposed to express content, dammit — not disguise a lack of it! The meaning of a film is in what these images on the screen (and don't forget the sounds!) do to you while you experience them. (As you so eloquently put it: a film is about what happens to you when you're watching it.) If you ask me, we should stop seeing style and content as separate entities. In a good film, they're a natural unity.' I understand that this person is using 'content' instead of 'substance,' but I thought it still applied here. In fact, I liked it so much I used it as one of my blog's epigraphs."
"I, too, like Last Year at Marienbad. I like Delphine Seyrig. The formal garden. The chorus line of cypresses. It had the order and mystery of a de Chirico painting. I've often wondered why Pauline Kael and Manny Farber were so tough on it. But I saw it in the '70s, when it was an artifact of another civilization and not an expression of contemporary weltanschauung.
"When Pauline begged to be disinvited to the "Come-Dressed-as-the-Sick-Soul-of-Europe Parties" and Manny described the star of La Notte as 'Monica Unvital,' they were fighting a stealth battle against the New York intellectuals who assumed that film art came from Europe. (Manny and Pauline both grew up in the Bay Area and were somewhat suspicious of East Coast intellectuals. They saw art in American movies. My hunch is part of their irritation at the more Symbolist of the French and Italian new wave was because the intellectual quarterlies didn't respect American movies. Interestingly, Susan Sontag — who was raised in North Hollywood! — was one of those NY intellectuals they railed against.)
"As to the basic question: When we go to films we project ourselves and values on the screen. The beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
"Malick represents pure visual storytelling, which I find exciting as long as there are no lava lamps or dinosaurs."
"Last Year really builds on its predecessor, Hiroshima Mon Amour, which was a collaboration between Resnais and Margeurite Duras, the screenwriter/novelist. It kind of pushes the techniques of Hiroshima to the next level, juxtaposing elliptical or poetic editing and voiceover to create something very close to an experimental or puzzle film. I admire it more than I like it, and I think some of the people who made fun of it at the time as a film that was flattering art house audiences for 'getting' it when there was nothing to get might have had a point. It's mainly a stylistic and atmospheric exercise, I think, ultimately far less effective than Hiroshima because it's not rooted in psychological and historical specifics. It's a bit more aware of itself as a tour-de-force, as an attempt to top what the director had done before. It verges on self-parody rather often, and Resnais is not known for his humor, so I suspect most of this is unintentional."
"It doesn't take much for people to disagree about a movie, and that's partly because there's always so much to like or dislike: the story and the dialogue, the tone of the cinematography, the settings and costumes, the actors and their performances, the director's point of view. The closeness or distance of what's onscreen from your sensibility, and then how you feel about that. And it's complicated — loving a movie and respecting it are two different things. I don't care for Citizen Kane and I love Myra Breckinridge. I can't defend this preference on any sort of critical grounds…I know intellectually that Kane has all the virtues of script, acting, art direction, photography, and theme ('meaning,' in other words) and that Myra is an incoherent mess. But we don't evaluate movies intellectually. More than any other art form, they're an experience, and no two people have the same experience, even of the same event."
"I was once in a play called Slow Love. It was written by an Australian man who had epilepsy. He envisioned his work to come in a series of staged images that would be framed by lights up — some kind of abstract action — blackout. This would repeat maybe a hundred times to make up the content of the play. Of the many referenced works in the play was Last Year at Marienbad, which was quoted throughout. I think in the play it was meant to mirror what the writer was feeling, about the echoing of brief but substantial, memorable images. I suppose that film, therefore, does much of what every other art form does — it can be both abstract and entertaining. I think ultimately there is some kind of deeper meaning people take from even the most abstract works. It probably isn't a shared experience, the way it would be with a more accessible, universal story. In the end, I think it comes down to you, on that
But I guess I'd have to say that, ultimately, the magic resides within us — and depending on how much energy we have that particular day to struggle with a meaningless film. This year seemed to offer up many fairly abstract, challenging stories that sort of meant what you wanted them to mean. But too many of those and you tune them out, reaching instead for the ones that tell stories that aren't open to interpretation. Marienbad stands out because it was one of a kind. It's hard to find anything that is one of a kind now.
The great thing about it all, I guess, is that there is room for both — frustratingly opaque art and pleasingly transparent entertainment."
"All I can say is that I do think movies cast a kind of spell when they work for you. I've seen movies under different circumstances and have had totally different reactions, other times my attempt at rediscovering something I thought maybe I was unprepared for only leaves to the depressing realization I was 'right' the first time."
"At the risk of polarizing some people here, I'm one of those biased moviegoers who thinks movies always need to be entertaining and — for the most part — have a plot, in order for me to be invested. At times I'm willing to bend the rules, of course; whenever kids at my college campus tell me they can't finish 2001 because it has no story, I always try to tell them that the film is meant to be an experience, full of ideas, and that a plot doesn't emerge until two-thirds into the movie…but at least it's telling a story. On second
Again, though, being — for the most part — a proponent of movies with stories, I do have a bit of problem with movies that are all about exercises in style. This is why I have a more difficult time appreciating Godard than some of my peers in the blogosphere, or why I can't watch Soderbergh's Ocean remakes. The actors are clearly having fun on the screen, but I'm not having any fun watching them.
Again, though, there's always that Killer of Sheep-style of filmmaking: slow, slow case studies of slow characters. Uncle Boonmee and Gus Van Sant's Last Days both come to mind, and I love those movies, too. But those are the films in which all entertainment value derives from exploring those slow, introverted characters through repeated viewings. I had an even easier time appreciating Melancholia and Tree of Life because they have more of a narrative to them, though they're clearly also exercises in style.
I guess what I'm trying to say is: if I were a director, I'd want to be a storyteller, first and foremost. Have a good style, sure, but good substance first. Some of you guys are bringing up Howard Hawks, whom I do like, but the fact that most of his movies *are* mostly just full of talky sequences of camaraderie and bonding without much plot to them is probably the reason why you don't hear me raving about his work as much as others. Maybe that's why I enjoy John Ford's movies a little more.
By now, it certainly will seem anticlimactic, but as I previewed, I also stumbled upon an essay Susan Sontag wrote. Titled "Thirty Years Later," the essay was published in the Summer 1996 edition of The Threepenny Review to mark the reissuing of Against Interpretation on its 30th anniversary. What Sontag had to say as she looked backward began promising enough.
"The great revelation for me had been the cinema: I felt particularly marked by the films of Godard and Bresson. I wrote more about cinema than about literature, not because I loved movies more than novels but because I loved more new movies than new novels. Of course, I took the supremacy of the greatest literature for granted. (And assumed my readers did, too.) But it was clear to me that the film-makers I admired were, quite simply, better and more original artists than nearly all of the most acclaimed novelists; that, indeed, no other art was being so widely practiced at such a high level. One of my happiest achievements in the years that I was doing the writing collected in Against Interpretation is that no day passed without my seeing at least one, sometimes two or three, movies. Most of them were 'old.' My gluttonous absorption in cinema history only reinforced my gratitude for certain new films which (along with my roll-call of favorites from the silent era and the 1930s) I saw again and again, so exalting did they seem to me in their freedom and inventiveness of narrative method, their sensuality and gravity and beauty."
Then the essay turns decidedly toward the pessimistic side, not that you could argue with her much even though that is now almost 16 years old. "The world in which these essays were written no longer exists," Sontag wrote. "Instead of the utopian moment, we live in a time which is experienced as the end — more exactly, just past the end — of every ideal. (And therefore of culture: there is no possibility of true culture without altruism.) An illusion of the end, perhaps — and not more illusory than the conviction of thirty years ago that we were on the threshold of a great positive transformation of culture and society. No, not an illusion, I think." If Sontag felt this way in 1996, imagine what she'd think of our world today where the GOP presidential candidates try to outcrazy each other, little of good, substantive policy can be created in D.C. since both parties in Congress would rather do nothing that let the opposing team take partial credit for a "win" and, though film lovers such as myself hate to admit it, while television played a primary role in the debasing of our culture and still does with the various Real Housewives and Jersey Shores, the best shows that TV produces regularly exceed in quality the best in movies whether the films come from Hollywood studios or are produced independently. What grabbed me the most in "Thirty Years Later" were when Sontag wrote these words:
"So I can’t help viewing the writing collected in Against Interpretation with a certain irony. Still, I urge the reader not to lose sight of — it may take some effort of imagination — the larger context of admirations in which these essays were written. To call for an “erotics of art” did not mean to disparage the role of the critical intellect. To laud work condescended to, then, as 'popular' culture did not mean to conspire in the repudiation of high culture and its burden of seriousness, of depth. I thought I’d seen through certain kinds of facile moralism, and was denouncing them in the name of a more alert, less complacent seriousness. What I didn’t understand (I was surely not the right person to understand this) is that seriousness itself was in the early stages of losing credibility in the culture at large, and that some of the more transgressive art I was enjoying would reinforce frivolous, merely consumerist transgressions. Thirty years later, the undermining of standards of seriousness is almost complete, with the ascendancy of a culture whose most intelligible, persuasive values are drawn from the entertainment industries. Now the very idea of the serious (and the honorable) seems quaint, 'unrealistic,' to most people; and when allowed, as an arbitrary decision of temperament, probably unhealthy, too."
Surely, she can't be serious. I think she was and her name was Susan, not Shirley. It was enough to break my momentary spell. While I certainly agree with much of what Sontag wrote, where would we be without a little levity? (Watching nothing but Terrence Malick films, he said, followed by a rim shot from the drummer.)
I wish that I had had more time to organize these posts more coherently and given the number of comments I've received on the first two parts, I doesn't seemed to have sparked the conversation I'd hoped for either. Oh, well. Do you all think there was a subliminal message in Airplane!?
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Labels: Books, Coens, Criticism, Dunst, Godard, Hawks, John Ford, Kael, Malick, Oliver Stone, Resnais, Sean Penn, Soderbergh, Spielberg, Van Sant, Von Sydow, von Trier
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Monday, January 23, 2012
The Trier of strife
By Edward Copeland
As Lars von Trier's Melancholia opens, I thought for a moment that the DVD I was watching wasn't his movie but some sort of mashup of images merging von Trier's film, Terrence Malick's more cosmological portions of The Tree of Life and perhaps a little Return of the Jedi thrown in for good measure. (How else do you explain scenes of Kirsten Dunst cavorting beneath a dark hood and sending lightning bolts from her fingers unless it's an homage to Emperor Palpatine?) As for Lars von Trier himself, Melancholia provides more evidence that this emperor has no clothes or, at best, covers his privates with a fig leaf occasionally.
I haven't seen the complete Lars von Trier filmography. I haven't even disliked all of his films I've seen (I did like Dancer in the Dark) and someday I actually would like to watch The Kingdom. I also admit that the idea behind The Five Obstructions intrigues me, since it's not a traditional remake and Martin Scorsese plans to take part in a new version of the experiment.
Now that I've said a few nice things about von Trier, let's get to my problems with the Danish director: Must he make most things such a chore? It's miraculous Emily Watson delivered such a good performance in the teeth-gnashing Breaking the Waves. I think the course for my cinematic relationship with von Trier was set the first time I saw a work by him — Zentropa. My good friend Matt Zoller Seitz summed up that film best when he said he kept expecting Max von Sydow's voicover to start intoning, "You are getting very sleepy" because that's the overriding way Zentropa affected me. It only lacked the image of a swaying pocket watch to put me in a hypnotic trance, but not in the good way some films can but like professional tricksters do where afterward you recall absolutely nothing that transpired.
Last year, von Trier gave us Melancholia, which has been on an awards and nominations spree since the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, hailed by those who confuse piss-poor screenplays lacking the depth of '80s TV perfume commercials as profound, and believe half-baked ideas and cookie-cutter metaphors are insightful. Melancholia reaps rewards from the type of critical reviews that drive me up the wall. While it's true that all opinions about movies are subjective, so no one's positive or negative take on a film can be wrong, these types of assessments put that truism to the test. When boiled down, these write-ups scream, "I have no idea what [insert film here] is about — it must be genius." When you read between those laudatory lines, you detect the whiff of people not being truthful for fear they'll be ridiculed by the intelligentsia if they don't lionize movies such as Melancholia.
Melancholia revolves around two sisters — Justine (Kirsten Dunst) and Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg). The film divides itself in two halves, one devoted to each sibling. Part I is titled "Justine" and details the reception being thrown for her and new husband Michael (Alexander Skarsgård) at the mansion belonging to Claire and her husband John (Kiefer Sutherland).
Many consume too much liquor and say things they shouldn't. All sorts of strangeness seems to be transpiring. Justine's boss (Stellan Skarsgård) interrupts the beginning of the reception to try to get all the guests to think of a tagline for his ad campaign. Justine keeps making excuses to disappear and notices a bright star in the sky which John, a noted astronomer, identifies as Antares — only the star eventually vanishes. John explains it's because the "rogue planet" Melancholia has passed in front of it, but he doesn't get around to explaining that to Justine until Part II so her mood just gets worse. One of the many things that amuses me about the pomposity of Melancholia stems from the notion that a new planet would be discovered by astronomers on Earth and they'd name it Melancholia. That's simply because whenever people on Earth find new planets and label them, they always give them cheery names such as Melancholia. I assume it resides in the small Woeisme galaxy that also includes the planets Anhedonia, Fullofhimself and Onemoodysonofabitch.
At least the wedding reception half of the movie includes the two most welcome presences in the film: John Hurt as Justine's sloshed father Dexter and Charlotte Rampling as her bitter, divorced mother Gaby who makes a speech about why she didn't attend the wedding because of her opposition to the institution of marriage. Her character eventually locks herself in a bathroom (perhaps hoping that no one noticed she agreed to appear in the movie) alienating hosts John and Claire because the reception's strict scheduling requires cutting the cake at a certain time. John knocks on the door and pleads with Gaby to come downstairs to view the slicing of the dessert. "When Justine took her first crap on the potty, I wasn't there. When she had her first sexual intercourse, I wasn't there. So give me a break, please, with all your fucking rituals," Gaby tells John through the door.
All of the chaos, much of which Justine causes herself, prompts the wedding planner, played by director/iconoclast Udo Kier, to declare, "She ruined my wedding! I will not look at her!" Besides being badly written, this section reminded me of two vastly superior films. Toward the beginning, the sculpted trees arranged in rows in front of the mansion brought to mind Alain Resnais' incomparable classic Last Year at Marienbad, in which I've been immersed of late in preparation for an upcoming tribute. The second, and more generalized, similarity belongs to a very good work by one of von Trier's fellow Dogme 95 practitioners, Thomas Vinterberg's 1998 film The Celebration. What happened to Vinterberg anyway?
In Part II, titled "Claire," Justine has sunk deep into depression, presumably because she assumed that she was the sole lead of the movie and now her sister has taken over. Claire, who in Part I was annoying and a bit high maintenance about the details of a wedding reception (Justine didn't even throw the bouquet fast enough for her schedule, so Claire took it from her and tossed it herself), now has become obsessed with this rogue planet Melancholia. John assures her that while Melancholia now can be seen by the naked eye, it will pass Earth safely and she needn't fear collision. Claire isn't convinced and fears for the lives of John, Justine and her son Leo (Cameron Spurr). It's an interesting coincidence that two films released in 2011 — this and Another Earth — should both have Earth-like planets appear in the sky out of nowhere, except Another Earth, with a budget of less than $200,000 and no major stars versus Melancholia's $9 million budget and well-known cast, told a better, more moving story and grossed almost exactly half what Melancholia has in the U.S.
John keeps on a brave face for his wife, but he has his concerns as well. Justine thinks that the possibility of the end of the world sounds sort of cool. The two sisters have one exchange of dialogue so ridiculous that I actually laughed out loud at it because it reminded me of the scene in Woody Allen's Love and Death between Woody's Boris and Diane Keaton's Sonja the night before he's going to fight a duel. Boris confesses his love as they discuss death and God, but somehow the talk keeps coming back to closeups of Woody rambling about the harvest and various forms of wheat. "The crops, the grains. Fields of rippling wheat. Wheat. All there is in life is wheat.…Oh, wheat! Lots of wheat! Fields of wheat. A tremendous amount of wheat!…Yellow wheat. Red wheat. Wheat with feathers. Cream of wheat."
I couldn't believe that someone actually put down the Melancholia exchange between Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg in IMDb's memorable quotes section.
JUSTINE: The earth is evil. We don't need to grieve for it.
CLAIRE: What?
JUSTINE: Nobody will miss it.
CLAIRE: But where would Leo grow?
JUSTINE: All I know is, life on earth is evil.
CLAIRE: Then maybe life somewhere else.
JUSTINE: But there isn't.
CLAIRE: How do you know?
JUSTINE: Because I know things.
CLAIRE: Oh yes, you always imagined you did.
JUSTINE: I know we're alone.
CLAIRE: I don't think you know that at all.
JUSTINE: 678. The bean lottery. Nobody guessed the amount of beans in the bottle.
CLAIRE: No, that's right.
JUSTINE: But I know. 678.
CLAIRE:Well, perhaps. But what does that prove?
JUSTINE: That I know things. And when I say we're alone, we're alone. Life is only on earth, and not for long.
What differentiates the sequence in Love and Death from the one in Melancholia though (besides the humor that is) is that Allen's 1975 spoof of Russian literature actually has more significant things to say on the big philosophical issues than Melancholia does. The comedy holds deeper thoughts in its hilarious head than the emptiness of the Melancholia vacuum. Trust me: Rent Love and Death instead of this von Trier time-waster. You'll be better off.
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Labels: 10s, Diane Keaton, Dunst, John Hurt, K. Sutherland, Malick, Rampling, Remakes, Resnais, Scorsese, Von Sydow, von Trier, Woody
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Tuesday, October 04, 2011
Some movies are better if they don't meet you halfway
By Edward Copeland
Movies about ideas aren't easy to pull off — especially when they tackle religious and philosophical ones. That's what made the release 20 years ago today of writer-director Michael Tolkin's The Rapture so unusual, unexpected and challenging. Led by an outstanding but overlooked performance by Mimi Rogers, it's difficult to believe that this film came from the same man who wrote the novel and would go on to co-write the adaptation of the wicked Hollywood satire The Player with Robert Altman as well as write and direct the similarly biting comedy The New Age. The Rapture preceded both films and no matter if you were religious or not, The Rapture made you think at the same time its story kept you transfixed.
Nothing within The Rapture gets played for mockery nor is it one of those bland fundamentalist propaganda pictures that pop up in the Bible Belt with amazing frequency. (When I first saw the poster touting Left Behind: The Movie starring Kirk Cameron, I thought it told the story of his acting career following Growing Pains.) The Rapture takes place in modern times, so it's neither an old-style biblical epic nor something like Mel Gibson's multimillion-dollar snuff film, which focused so much on Jesus' torture and crucifixion, it omitted pretty much anything that would explain why Christ was an important figure in the first place. Because the nature of The Rapture proves so thought-provoking and surprising, any thorough look at the film almost merits a spoiler warning for those who haven't seen it because you can't discuss it without going into detail and if you've read or heard about its plot specifics prior to seeing it, you still might be able to appreciate the movie's excellence but inevitably, your viewing experience will be diminished. (I'm probably overstating the case since the original trailer can be seen at IMDb and elsewhere online and pretty much gives the entire film away.) However, I truly believe that unless you have seen the film, stop reading now. This piece isn't going to vanish from this site and will be easy to find through my indexes so rent it, watch it, then come back and read this and discuss. Trust me — if you watch The Rapture, you'll want to talk about it afterward.
Tolkin begins The Rapture with a fantastic opening shot, wonderfully timed to move with Thomas Newman's moody and haunting score. As the credits run, the camera moves like a rat in a maze through the grayest of rooms (despite hanging lights overhead) filled with cubicles occupied by operators. As the shot zigs and zags methodically past the workers in the depressing, windowless space, it finally settles on Sharon (Rogers), wearing a tiny headset like the others in the room. "Please hold for the number. Operator 134. What city please? Is that a business or residence?" she asks the caller. Yes, Sharon provides information, but that doesn't mean she knows the answer. In the middle of a person's inquiry, her shift ends. She gets up and another woman takes her chair and picks up where she left off, the switch as imperceptible to the caller as a reel change when handled by the best of projectionists. It isn't necessarily a dehumanizing way to make a living, but it doesn't exactly breed satisfaction with one's accomplishments or provide a job worth bragging about to others. It pays the bills and that's about all you can say for it.
Nights definitely add more flavor to Sharon's life and when we first experience her after-work activities, some degree of satisfaction — at least it appears to us that way on the surface the first time we tag along as voyeurs. Sharon and her lover Vic (Patrick Bauchau) hit
At the store, it doesn't take long for the couples to switch partners and for simple dancing to turn into something more, though the sex isn't filmed for erotic effect. It's not that it's comical or grotesque, but within the confines of the setting of a closed and empty department store, the coupling seems superficial and anonymous, which perhaps is the point of swinging. Where is the ecstasy? Where is the pleasure? When at one point, Randy, Sharon and Diana all explore one another on a plastic-wrapped mattress, Diana asks if Vic should join them, but Sharon assures her that it's OK: "Vic likes to watch." As a viewer, you are playing the voyeur as Vic is then, but it doesn't arouse or entrance, it just puzzles. What enjoyment would be gained from watching them since their sex seems as mechanical as Sharon's script as an information operator? You don't see the attraction because the sex looks so hollow and meaningless, which is precisely what Tolkin is aiming for in relation to what's to come. It's subliminal filmmaking without using split-second inserts. Of course, Tolkin faces a big challenge ahead. Orson Welles famously said, “In my opinion, there are two things that can absolutely not be carried to the screen: the realistic presentation of the sexual act and praying to God.” Tolkin wasn't trying to be real
On her day off, Sharon sits alone in her apartment, sipping on a beer and absent-mindedly ripping the subscription card inserts out of a magazine and sending them sailing across the room — it doesn't appear that she's bothering to take the time to read anything in the
Sharon's conversion to piety from her pagan ways hardly happens overnight. She and Vic go carousing again (despite her seeing Randy regularly as a solo act) and hook up with an executive (Patrick Dollaghan) and a young woman named Angie (Carole Davis). While the new pairs break off into separate coupling, it seems as if only three of them are participating in the sexcapades. The executive may be having his way with Sharon, but she couldn't be less interested once Angie disrobes and mounts Vic, revealing a back covered by tattoos. Part of the skin mural in particular fascinates Sharon: It shows a hand holding a pearl. Even though the executive continues to pump away energetically, Sharon can't stop herself from interrupting both sexual sessions to quiz Angie about the tattoo. Angie tries to put her off at first — and Vic and the exec would welcome her silence so everyone could get off — but Angie relents and asks Sharon, "Don't you know?" Sharon shakes her head. Angie explains that it depicts God's hand giving all Christians a pearl because the Rapture draws near. Many Christians have dreamed this image, Angie tells her.
When Sharon takes her break the next time at work, she sees the trio of Wayne, Maggie and Conrad once again congregating together, only this time it's by the vending machines instead of one of the tables. With what Angie told her about the pearl, Sharon believes she has an in to garner more information from this group. She tells them that she had a dream about the pearl. It catches their attention, but Wayne asks her to describe it. When Sharon tries to fake it using Angie's back as a guide, Wayne sees through her right away and accuses her of lying about having had the dream. "It's a message from God. If you really want it all you have to do is pray," he tells her. Sharon, so needy and eager to learn if somehow spirituality could fill this vacuum in her life, gets testy. "If everybody is getting this dream, how come it isn't in the news?" she asks them. "Those who need to know, know," Conrad says. "And those that don't believe, won't get the dream," Maggie adds. The feeling of exclusion she gets from the three, as opposed to the two men who came to her door, sets Sharon off on a righteous tirade. "There are five billion people on this planet. There's I don't know how many religions. Why does the God of some little country on the Mediterranean have to be the God for everyone? Isn't that a little arrogant? I mean, really. The Buddhists get along OK without Jesus Christ. The Hindus get along OK without Jesus Christ. The Muslims seem to be getting along without Jesus Christ," Sharon lashes out at them. Hearing this speech, which rings just as true to me today as it did 20 years ago, I do wonder if The Rapture were being made today, would the last line about the Muslims seeming to get along OK still be in there
While The Rapture takes Sharon's journey quite seriously, that isn't to say there aren't characters who mock her or think she's lost it as she changes. The first to experience her newfound quest for meaning and God is Randy, stunned when she suddenly kicks him out of bed in the middle of the night because she's become obsessed with making herself and the bed "clean." Sharon starts ripping the sheets off the bed and replacing them with clean linens. "Randy, you have to go." She then jumps into the shower and strenuously scrubs herself, declaring, "I want to be clean." Randy, growing concerned for her well-being, asks what she's talking about. She tells him she needs salvation, she needs God. "There is no God," Randy says. Sharon sits on the corner of the bed, flossing her teeth as if she's trying to cut down a tree. "When we do something wrong, we feel bad and that's because there's a little bit of God inside all of us telling us to change our ways before it's too late," Sharon tells Randy. "Isn't that right?" Randy can't believe what's going on and does his best to talk sense to her. "No, that's not right. It's been conditioned by society. All we all are animals whose brains have become too big and too complicated for the purpose of satisfying our animal needs which are food
Her confidence grows to the point that she starts proselytizing to the faceless voices she encounters at work seeking telephone numbers which, as you'd expect becomes a problem that leads to a trip to the office of her supervisor Henry (Dick Anthony Williams). This scene proves to be another example of Tolkin surprising the audience's expectations. Henry, at first, takes Sharon to task because her average time on each call has increased far beyond what it should be, sometimes as long as seven minutes. Sharon, as does the viewer, expects that she's going to be chewed out for preaching to people calling in for information. "God made me an information operator for a reason. I'm in a position to spread His word to hundreds of people every day personally one to one," Sharon tells her boss. To her surprise, Henry responds by saying that he
Now fully committed to God, Sharon can't quite imagine a possible decade of solitude so she makes the desperation move of trying to win Randy back. When she arrives at his workshop, he isn't that happy to see her, given the way things ended. He doesn't try to mask the sarcasm in his voice as he asks her how her apartment is coming and if she managed to get it clean. When she says she did,
It's unclear where they live now, but Randy has an office manager job and Sharon stays at home with their daughter Mary at their condo. She tries to pass on their views to Paula (Terri Hanauer), a skeptical friend who doesn't buy the whole notion of a Rapture. "So do you mean if you're a Christian and you were ironing your shirts and the Rapture began, you go up to heaven right in the middle of doing your laundry? Well does God give you time to turn off the iron or do your shirts burn?" the friend asks Sharon as they lounge in the pool. Sharon's answer is that she wears permanent press. At Randy's work, life is not so carefree as he has to fire Louis, an alcoholic employee (Douglas Roberts) who says he's "tired of kissing your Christian a-hole." In perhaps the film's most chilling moment, the family holds hands in a prayer circle in their condo when suddenly one of the loudest gunshots I've ever heard erupts on the sound reel and Randy is back at his office desk. Louis marches down the building's halls, killing every person he sees. Randy goes out and leans over one of the victim's in the hallway, unaware that Louis has went inside an office, but he comes back out. "Louis," Randy says. "No speeches, preacher," Louis insists. Randy puts his hand up in a stop motion, pleading, "I have a little girl." Louis coldly says, "So what?" and fires, killing Randy instantly.
You would think that if an event were to shake Sharon's faith, this would be it, but it only seems to make her more committed. She has to answer Mary's questions about whether Daddy is in Heaven and when will they see him again and Sharon has to explain they will when the Rapture comes, though the little girl also understands that a death will do it. Paula talks frankly with her after the funeral. "You see, now's one of those times when I wish I was a believer," Paula tells Sharon who asks why. "Because I would have a rock to stand on, because I could tell myself that everything was for the better because God has a plan," Paula answers. "But it is, because He does," Sharon insists. Paula looks at her dumbfounded. "I tell myself that if we didn't tell our children about God, they wouldn't ask. It is a story we tell ourselves so everything makes sense," Paula says. Sharon's life gets stranger. She stumbles upon a group of photos that to her seems to indicate that Randy is calling her and Mary to the desert. She seeks the counsel of The Boy, who warns to be careful that it's not Satan, but Sharon doesn't think so. She's unsure of what to do. "Don't ask God to meet you halfway," The Boy tells her.
Tolkin asks the same of his audience at this point in the film: You must have faith in where he's heading or give up right then. There isn't going to be compromises to please the audience. He is going to stay true to his vision. That's why it's baffling to me if you peruse some reviews of the film that completely misinterpret it as a right-wing Christian propaganda film. It's understandable to have criticisms of the movie, some of which are very valid, but this is a movie that takes religion seriously but also has its main character make the decision to murder her child so she can get to Heaven early, then has the balls to depict the Rapture as described in the Bible as actually taking place and as a final coda has its main character decide to spend eternity in purgatory rather than declare love for a God that would demand allegiance that caused her to kill her child. As Sharon asks, "Who forgives God?" Show me a fundamentalist who would make a movie where the climax involves the rejection of God.
Some of the effects when the Rapture take place aren't the greatest in the world, but that makes them all the more harrowing as we watch the bars of jail cells start to fall away and see the galloping hoofbeats of the Four Horsemen. As I've said from the beginning, Mimi Rogers makes this film with her performance, especially in the late stages in the desert scenes, many played opposite Will Patton as Foster, a member of the local sheriff's department. "Life is some kind of punishment, isn't it?" Sharon asks him. "You have to love Him. Not me, not anymore. He's got too many rules." It is heartbreaking as she stands on the edge of the river to wash away her sins and her daughter begs her to say she loves God or she'll never see her again and as much as it hurts, Sharon sticks to her anger at God. "Why should I thank him for the gift of so much suffering on earth?" Tolkin also gives her a great final line when Mary asks Sharon how long she's going to stay there in the nether regions. "Forever." It's disgusting that in 1991 Rogers was denied an Oscar nomination for best actress but Bette Midler received one for For the Boys. Then again, Oscar isn't known for embracing films that make you think.
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Labels: 90s, Altman, Mel Gibson, Movie Tributes, Oscars, Von Sydow, Welles, Woody
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