Luhrmann’s Gatsby

Hugo says just about everything interesting there is to say about Gatsby here (and himself links to Richard Brody, who covers the remainder), but I thought I’d add my meager insights below.

I was never too crazy about Gatsby the book (more of a Winter Dreams man myself), but it would seem that any worth it holds lies in the unique perspective it offers on its subjects. Luhrmann’s version willfully fails to offer any perspective on the characters, the source material, anything – it lives entirely within the dullest most trite stories its characters tell themselves. This is underscored by the selection of one of the least self-aware figures in modern media (Jay-Z) as executive producer/music supervisor. Hove’s music and rhymes wander in periodically, clearly intended as a kind of decadent assault but evoking nothing more than yawns. By the time Lana Del Rey, herself no stranger to good times in Long Island, stumbles in with the embarrassingly earnest love theme, it’s clear Luhrmann has no clue what to do with this material whatsoever.

The movie’s problems are best analogized for me within one scene towards the end – Gatsby, having just aided in the killing of Myrtle, sits with Nick, telling him of his beautiful dreams and ambition. The camera pushes in on Tobey Maguire’s admiring face, the score swells, and – wait, didn’t a woman just get violently killed like thirty minutes ago? Why the fuck is Nick just sitting there smiling? He saw the body! To the extent that this scene makes any sense at all, it’s in the peculiar cocktail of shock, sociopathy and Stockholm Syndrome it depicts. But nobody told Jay-Z, who layers on the syrup as we smile with Nick at this great self-made man (who, again, just helped commit vehicular manslaughter).

There’s some interesting stuff in here about Nick as watcher vs. Nick as participant, but the movie itself has no idea how to adjudicate which approach is appropriate at which time. We get to watch a bit at the beginning, but by the end it’s all intense close-ups and over-crafted drama. 2013 has brought me two great cinematic experiences thus far – Spring Breakers and To The Wonder – both of which knew when to watch and when to dive in. I’m starting to think that understanding this distinction, even if only on an intuitive level, is a basic requirement for engaging filmmaking.

But Gatsby is dull as dishwater. When I wasn’t trying to figure out where I’d seen the actress who plays Jordan Baker before (turns out she’s a dead ringer for Rooney Mara), I was busy composing this post in my head. The guy next to me in the theater slept through the whole thing. Here’s to him.

Self-Portrait, Corpus Christi, May 2013

Childhood Home

Post-Production Notes – Panopticon

So the other night I was editing and I got stuck in the middle of the film. Some context on what’s happening in this part: the relationship between filmmaker and subject has grown toxic. The subject naively goes poking around in the filmmaker’s past, triggering a disintegration, the filmmaker attempting to pull the subject down with him. The problem with this sequence is that it detracts from the promise of the film’s first act, the breezy hopeful relationship between filmmaker and subject. The simple floating is pulled down to Earth and made complex. There’s a high risk of losing the audience here.

I emailed my collaborator Hugo, telling him I was stuck. I had to stop editing, I was spinning around in circles. Knowing that Hugo usually takes a couple days to get back, I came up with a plan to get his feedback without hearing from him. Taking Hugo’s comments on this post as a jumping-off point, I picked three movies I hadn’t seen from three of the filmmakers he recommended that were available on Netflix streaming – A Woman Is A Woman (Godard), Minnie and Moskowitz (Cassavetes) and Stardust Memories (Allen). I watched them in chronological order, which also happened to be the order in which I liked them.

• Godard – I don’t really like Godard. I find his movies kind of entertaining, but I don’t think I like the guy himself very much. I feel sympathy for his characters because they’re stuck in his mannered artificial self-conscious world, and they seem so bored they’ll do anything to get out. This one’s about a stripper who wants to have a baby with her boyfriend, but he’s not into it. I imagined the subject as stripper and filmmaker as boyfriend; the subject wants a film (baby), and the filmmaker wants death. The filmmaker is interested in the subject and film only to the extent that he can pull them into the void behind him. 
• Cassavetes – I liked this more than the Godard but to be honest it didn’t really make me think of anything. Moskowitz loves Minnie and Minnie doesn’t love him back, until he finally convinces her. Part of his convincing her involves punching her in the face; half an hour later they get engaged to be married. Every Cassavetes character is an impulsive co-dependent psychopath. I don’t know. I liked this one because the ending was sweet and unexpected.
• Allen – I don’t know Allen’s work as well as I should, this one is great. There’s a scene towards the end where Allen is asked to remember the last time he saw a former lover. The remembrance is played out as a series of close-up takes in which the woman tells Allen she’s met someone else. The takes are cut together in quick repetitive succession, until they begin cutting into each other in staccato broken rhythm. It’s pretty brilliant and thrilling.

In Panopticon, the subject interviews the filmmaker’s ex-wife to dig into his past. The filmmaker doesn’t want her to be part of the film, but the subject reintroduces her, an upsetting intrusion. There’s a line, originally placed towards the beginning of the film, where the subject tells the filmmaker “it’s your film,” but I’ve now realized the line is better placed in the middle than the beginning.

After I finished Stardust Memories Hugo had emailed me back with some good ideas.

To The Wonder

In late 2010, while I was living in Austin, a friend recommended me for an post-production internship on Terrence Malick’s then-untitled new movie (released last week as To The Wonder). Emily had done special effects work on Tree Of Life, and I had told her repeatedly of my love for Malick’s work. She was kind enough to think of me for the gig; it was unpaid, part-time, menial as it gets, but it was a chance to watch my favorite filmmaker work for a few months, so I snatched it up.

As it would turn out, my time with the production would last just under a month – Candice got a job (paying) in New York City, and, on three weeks’ notice, we decided to uproot our lives in Austin and move out to Brooklyn. I knew that the Malick gig might lead to bigger better things – I’m a hard worker and likable guy, and most of his paid crew gets pulled from his interns – but I had my own life to worry about. I had visited New York for the first time in early 2010, and fell in love seconds after first stepping out of the subway into the West Village. Austin was no longer inspiring me creatively, and it was time for something new. It was a bittersweet and deeply emotional decision, but I’ve never regretted it.

So I’m probably not the person to go to looking for an objective view of To The Wonder. I felt so much during every frame of it, and how much that had to do with any of Malick’s intention is debatable and ultimately irrelevant. It’s a movie about what stays inside you, the things that don’t leave you. Watching it I could smell the life I left behind in Austin, remembering the feel of the air. Sitting by the creek under a bridge, just a few days after moving to Austin, a train rushing by overhead. Getting drunk with Candice on the patio of the first apartment we shared, talking about the future. Playing with kids on the playground at the end of the day at Open Door Preschool, one of the best jobs I’ve ever had. Filming Corpus with Sean, trying to teach Santi to play fetch when he was a puppy. Going to friends’ music gigs, in awe of their talent and courage. Meeting my filmmaking idol for the first time, at his home, his unguarded warmth and humor.

It’s too bad that To The Wonder isn’t getting a better critical reception, but it ultimately doesn’t matter much. My sense has always been, since The Thin Red Line at least, that the critical establishment politely tolerates Malick’s excesses, as long as he doesn’t pop his head out too often. But he’s entering a new phase now, making films more frequently and much more personally. To The Wonder is his most nakedly autobiographical film yet, and Tree Of Life was the most before that. With two-three more films slated for the next few years, the consensus will gradually form that the old genius faltered, lost his touch, became self-indulgent. And that’s fine. He’s got more work to do and the resources to do it, and those of us who care are better off for it.

Politics

So lately I’ve been trying to get my head out of political bullshit and more into film bullshit. This change was most immediately prompted by the disproportional amount of anger I felt based on this. I’m not linking to De Boer to in any way endorse his feeble and entirely ineffectual critique, but because he was the only person I could find who bothered to write about this Randsplaining nonsense.

It seems increasingly obvious to me that Rand Paul, through actions like his drone filibuster and active outreach to communities of color, is finding ways to solve the Republicans’ political problems going into the next election cycle, and this more than any other reason is why Democratic party operatives like Chris Hayes are going after him. They know they don’t have anyone appealing on their own bench for 2016 and they’re freaked out. These pointlessly tribal partisan disputes are only going to get uglier and dumber over the next few years, much to the delight of the oligarchs whose destructive rule will continue apace. And the Freddie De Boers of the world will keep losing sleep because they just can’t bring themselves to call this what it is.

But I’ve already thought too much about this. I’ve got a movie to finish and there’s still so many great movies I haven’t seen. Who gives a fuck about Chris Hayes?

“To the people of Syria”

Ahistorical, imperialistic, profoundly clueless – this tag perfectly encapsulates know-nothing American leftism in 2013. Tag by The Typo Terrorist, who is an idiot with a stupid name.