Unbroken

Posted on January 16, 2015 by Mark DuPré

Analyzing Unbroken so far after its release, and the day that the Oscar nominations came out, makes this a different kind of analysis:

Unbroken is a great sophomore effort by a young director with limited directorial experience. She happens to be half of the most famous couple on the planet, and will always be remembered as an Oscar-winning actress. It was assumed (one supposes) that between the scope of Unbroken and her star power that this was a guaranteed Oscar nominee, if not winner. It’s gotten three nominations, all in the technical area. It probably won’t win any.

Based on the early life and grueling POW experience of Olympic runner Louis Zamperini, the film is bumpy in pace, beautiful to look at, and curiously cool considering the events covered. Legendary non-Oscar-winner cinematographer Roger Deakins (nominated for his 12th time for the film) has created a variety of looks for the film, most of which work for the scene they are recording but which makes the unsteady pace seem that much more so; flashbacks are sepia and dark in the Zamperini home before the war, then it’s crystal clear, then we have a typical blue-grey scene that achieved its apotheosis in the LOTR movies. Then we have some Gone with the Wind shots of orange skies with silhouettes. All of it’s beautiful, and it’s as all over the place as the pace is.

Perhaps there is simply too much story to tell. Young boy becomes world-class runner and makes it into the Olympics with Jesse Owens and der Fuhrer. He gets shot down and endures an excruciating 47 days in a life raft. Then he gets captured by Japanese soldiers and finds himself in a camp run by a sadistic corporal who seems to have a psychosexual fixation on the poor guy and beats him at every opportunity. And that’s only the beginning of his life.

Director Angelina Jolie opens the film well, though the entire beginning is a little Norman Rockwell-ish. But once the plane crashes, she is literally and figuratively lost at sea. Perhaps in an attempt to make us feel the long languishing experience of three men lost in the ocean, Jolie spends far too much time on the experience. Instead of constructing the sequence to make us understand or even feel the weight of thinning bodies and seemingly endless time, the sequence goes on and on and we become emotionally disconnected at the same time we are mentally gathering the data that tells us how very long these guys were suffering.

In fact, “feeling” is something the film is strangely distanced from. We see the horrific action, but the film never gets inside the experience, only showing it to us from the outside. There is so much here to work with that perhaps Jolie, carrying her own reputation for extremes, was reticent to make too much emotional and dramatic hay with situations that were so inherently intense and violent. But throughout, we see alternately beaten, starving, or coal-covered POWs at a bit of a remove, witnessing their agonizing situations from just too far away to be anything but horrified. Jolie even goes so far as to keep the hitting and slicing of fish out of the frame, as well as much of the violence. It’s a welcome change from the rub-your-face-in-it of a Tarantino and so many others, but the loss is one of connection to the depth of pain undergone by the characters.

Happily for the film, there is Jack O’Connor as the lead. This is this year’s star-making performance, and O’Connor has won the Breakthrough Awards from many an organization to prove it. The film is completely his, and he carries it on his ever-thinning shoulders from the moment we see him until the end. He is the one that brings us as close as we get to experiencing the personal drama going on as Zamperini makes it through one abusive beating after another. The film won’t get close enough to the gut-wrenching emotional center of the entire years-long ordeal, but O’Connor carries that angst within his performance and keeps the entire film centered. This wouldn’t be the film it is without him. What the film doesn’t give us, he does. Acting-wise, he should be able to do anything he wants for quite a while.

There were great expectations awards-wise earlier in the year, but really for no good reason other than Jolie’s fame. This is a beautiful looking film that has a few set pieces in it, with a great central performance by a future star. It’s well directed, but not anywhere near expertly so. (For heaven’s sake, it’s the woman’s second feature, and for a second feature, it’s great.) Jolie is a director to watch, though, especially with actors.

There was an attempt to sell this to a faith audience because of Zamperini’s later experience, becoming converted at a Billy Graham rally and extending forgiveness to his captors. In the coulda, shoulda column, it may well have had a much more passionate dramatic arc if it hadn’t ended with his arrival back at the States, but instead with his later meeting with his tormentors. It’s true that the film gives short shrift to his faith, but what little there is is honest and respectful, an increasing rarity in mainstream films these days. Some people of faith were disappointed that what Zamperini felt was the real center of his life story was just barely addressed, but at least his future experiences were addressed—albeit barely—and were done with proper deference to faith and forgiveness.

Unbroken is a good film about endurance that could have been a stronger film about endurance and forgiveness.

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An open letter to the creators of Exodus: Gods and Kings

Posted on January 12, 2015 by Mark DuPré

Note: Normally, I write a critique of a film in the standard way. After viewing Exodus: Gods and Kings, I felt a note to the director, screenwriters and producers of the film seemed more in order.

Dear Mr. Scott, Myriad Producers and Several Screenwriters:

I managed to see Exodus: Gods and Kings just before it slipped out of town. Obviously, I wasn’t in a hurry, but due to the duel role of Christian pastor and film professor, I felt obligated to see it. I know the film didn’t succeed on the level you hoped, and I believe there are some good reasons for that. First, what’s good about the film, which is a lot:

The film is gorgeous, even in standard 2D, which is how I saw it. You, Mr. Scott, are a master of the visual, and that is perhaps the strongest part of the film. It’s difficult to make a classic epic in our cynical age, and your images are striking and sometimes breathtaking. You created a world that I believed in, a major challenge in epics of such scope.

You chose good actors for the main roles. Though I thought Moses looked particularly great for 80 (!)—which he was in the Biblical account—it was a wise decision to cast the intense and talented Christian Bale in the role. Perhaps you were following in DeMille’s footsteps with Charlton Heston from back in 1956 in casting a younger man. But whatever the reason, Bale is a solid choice. He brought a great deal of commitment to the character, and can handle both the broadest action sequence and the most tender intimate one.

Joel Edgerton is an underrated, talented actor, and he fit the part of Ramses well. His character wasn’t always clearly defined, but Edgerton’s screen presence more than makes up for that. Any film is improved by the presence and abilities of Ben Kingsley. His authority and acting talent were close to a perfect match for the part of Nun. That couldn’t have been done better.

But Bale was hobbled by an unsure focus on the character of Moses, and this is where the film began to break down. Is it a must nowadays to so severely deviate from the stories in the Bible and how they are presented? The average moviegoer understands that conversations need to be created and context needs to be given to famous events. You brought a strong sense of reality to scenes of life in the desert, for example, as well as personal conversations and the before-and-after scenes of the parting of the Red Sea.

But what you all did with the character of Moses was the strand that undid the whole film. And this is where two elements of missing the mark come in: You missed gaining the audience of Jewish and Christian believers and you tore the dramatic heart out of the story at the same time. This weakened the film immeasurably and took away your chance to be the huge hit (and classic) it could have been.

Following the same tortured logic that crippled Noah, you’ve added the wrong kind of psychological complexity to your main character. What the Noah team did so wrong (aside from the ancient Transformers that ruined the film for so many), was to take an incident that any common Bible reader knows happened later (Noah’s drunkenness) and attach it to the ark ride, using the future incident to give Noah an edge of cray-cray that wasn’t justified and made the whole film careen out of control from that point on.

What you did here is bonk Moses on the head, and therefore turn all his conversations with “God” into a possible set of hallucinations. That wasn’t bad enough, but then you validate “God’s” presence and reality through all the plagues. So is your “God” real, or not?

Then there is the most confusing and offensive artistic decision, and that is to present God as a petulant boy. I understand that visualizing God isn’t the easiest thing in film, and I applaud your attempt to forego the usual deep baritone voice with reverb and search for some kind of visual expression in a visual medium. But seriously, this was a huge misstep that kept too many folks from enjoying and therefore recommending the film. You might have gone the “angel of the Lord” route (ask your religious advisor), and that might have been some kind of justification for creating a more human-like being. But you have the boy say, “I am,” and that puts him right in the God camp. Then “God” gets touchy and begins to deviate from the Biblical account, and just like that you’ve lost your audience.

Then the worst decision of all was made. You shot an arrow through the dramatic heart of your story and simultaneously alienated the audience that knew something of the story: You took Moses completely out of the plagues. Check your Bible again. Moses and his staff were an integral part of the plagues.

Then you compounded that error by losing any chance of retaining the core of the drama, which would have been the Moses vs. Pharaoh confrontations. Seriously, a version of the Exodus without the phrase “Let my people go!”? Were you so loathe to stay away from anything in The Ten Commandments that you let that central line slip? And then you made the real confrontation the unsubstantiated and truly unbelievable one between the two men just as the final huge wave engulfs them—as if pulling out the “this time it’s personal” dynamic? What could have been a powerful dramatic series of clashes gets cut out and replaced by a silly, unsupported face-off that’s dwarfed visually and dramatically by a big wave.

Now I must stop for a compliment. We certainly didn’t need to see all the many Biblical accounts of the direct conflicts between Moses and Ramses, and you presented the plagues (mostly) so well. We will forgive the crocodile thing, which was unbiblical and didn’t make sense; and really, were those sharks I saw, in a river, or what I just dreaming I saw them?

But moving from one plague to another was creative and beautifully done. The momentum you created in doing that helped bring some energy to those scenes, and unfortunately, that was the only energy they got. They could have been incredibly intense if you had connected them to the Moses/Ramses conflict; then they would have been full of suspense and real drama. Instead, you gave the agency to “God,” which made the whole thing unconnected from anything to do with Moses or Ramses. And doing all that took the tension out of the whole “Let my people go!” dramatic arc. So not only did you alienate anyone who believed in the Biblical account of the Exodus by doing this, you gutted the dramatic heart of the film. Huge mistake all around.

I understand that the new gold standard for films about faith is The Passion of the Christ, and everyone has been looking to re-create that lighting in the bottle ever since that film’s success. Yes, all his faults aside, Mel Gibson has a good eye (and hired a great cinematographer), and is a rough-and-tumble director, just the thing to add some energy to his Biblical epic. But there is something else Gibson brought to the table that none of the other epics have done: genuine faith in the story and the material. Clearly the final decision-makers for Noah and Exodus didn’t have faith in the original accounts, and it shows. Gibson did, and that is the single biggest difference between his film and these others. If you had simply done a straightforward account of Moses actually hearing from God without questioning his mental state, and of Moses being involved in the plagues, running into Pharaoh’s pride and stubbornness, you’ve have created a new classic.

There are other quibbles to be had, of course. The film has an uneven pace, characters are given short shrift (why bring in Sigourney Weaver if you’re not going to use her character or is her performance is left on the cutting room floor—to use an outmoded expression?), and there is little relation between the soft, intimate, tender scenes and the big long shots and epic battles? (See any of the Lord of the Rings films to see how to do that.)

Also, as good as most of the effect were, The Good Earth did a better job with the locusts, and the birds in the background of one of the beautiful long shots seemed a bit large for supposedly being so far away.

What a lost opportunity this film is! Such beauty, such talent, such an epic scope. Here’s an idea. You don’t have to believe the Biblical accounts yourself. But trying following it with sincerity, letting that challenge be your greatest artistic hurdle. The results have to be better than what we’re seeing now. And if you had, this film coulda been a contenda.

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Big Eyes

Posted on January 10, 2015 by Mark DuPré

When we talk about “story” in my film class, we often talk about how much it means to American moviegoers and how little it can mean to filmgoers from other cultures. Many students come into class professing that their sole interest in the film is the story. While that changes by the end of the semester—one of my goals for the class—story is sometimes the one thing that holds a film together.

Case in point: Big Eyes. It could and should have been so much more. Amy Adams and two-time Oscar winner Christoph Waltz as the two leads. Consummate stylist Tim Burton directing. None of those elements really work. What does is the amazing and true story of Margaret and Walter Keane, she who created all those “big eye” paintings and he who marketed them and took credit for their creation. The story is the glue that just holds the various parts together—parts that never add up to a coherent whole.

It’s a David-and-Goliath story of sorts. She is shy but has something of a talent. He is anything but shy and has a talent for schmoozing and marketing. The screenplay provides a few “reasons” why she would allow him to take credit for her work, but nothing adequately explains her continued acquiescence to the scam. Yes, we’re told she rushed into the marriage because he was in need of support for her and her son. He is clearly presented as the brains behind the business success of the paintings, something the film makes clear she could never have accomplished on her own.

But even after the feel-good final scenes and the victory, we are left with some confusion. Why did she take so long to stand up to her husband? Why did she put up with his abusive behavior, aside from the Big Lie?

The film doesn’t make that clear, and neither does Adams’ performance. Apparently Adams hesitated doing the film for a while because she didn’t feel she could get into the character of someone who was so (apparently) easily used. She was right. She couldn’t. Adams is such a sympathetic actress, especially in parts like this, that we take her side from get-go. She hits the beats required of her by the action, but she never locks down on a character we can understand and, yes, fully respect.

Waltz, never one to be afraid of chewing any furniture on the set, here overreaches the entire time. While Adams is a soft and naturalistic presence in most films (even when she’s trying not be), Waltz almost can’t seem to help going bigger than life. On paper this might have worked for the enthusiastic salesperson that was Walter Keane. But Waltz never lets up, and it’s just too much.

Burton, of course, is something of a legend, but look at this previous work: Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and Dark Shadows. Not much of an emphasis on naturalism or anything from a woman’s point of view. That’s one reason some people were excited to see what Burton would do with such a different story—and one based on real events. Miss Peregine’s Home for Peculiar Children and Beetleuice 2 are his next announced works, and perhaps that tells us something.

Burton succeeds in creating something of a slightly cartoonish version of the ‘50s and ‘60s, and that is consistent throughout. If he’s taking his cue from the paintings or his own view of that time and place, it works. The tone, however, is all over the place. There is one Burtonesque seen for those fans looking for evidence that this is a Burton film, but it’s jarring and seems out of place.

Between a story that’s both amazing and strange, Adams’ sweet, soft and slightly unfocused performance, and Waltz’s one-note high-intensity, Big Eyes is a mixture of elements that only barely coalesces. This time, however, the story is strong enough to contain the multi-directional acting and unsure direction. Even with those three artists at work, the story is still the best reason to see it.

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Foxcatcher

Posted on December 31, 2014 by Mark DuPré

Foxcatcher is disturbing almost from the first moment, and never stops being so. Directed by Bennett Miller (Capote, Moneyball) and only his third feature-length film, it seems the director is attracted to true stories (his other two major films are documentaries) with unexpected twists. Foxcatcher is no exception.

Foxcatcher (“based on a true story”—always something that gives me a skeptical pause) is about Olympic gold medal wrestler brothers Mark and David Schultz, and their connection with multi-millionaire/ornithologist/wrestling aficionado John E. du Pont. Mark is played by Channing Tatum, brother David by Mark Ruffalo, and du Pont by a surprising Steve Carell.

We open with a post-Olympic Mark living in his brother’s shadow, and subsisting on Raman noodles and uninspiring motivational presentations. An unexpected call from one of du Pont’s “people” to Mark brings him into the entitled and disquieting orbit of du Pont, who wants to use Mark as the starting point for a training facility for elite wrestlers.

There is a world championship and another Olympics, plus all kinds of training at the facility. There is also some beautiful brother love demonstrated between Mark and David, most emanating from David’s grounded, profound affection. Finally, there are some seriously strange vibes coming from du Pont, some of which are given context (an overpowering judgmental mother, for example) but none of which are fully explained. What happens is stranger than fiction, and the uncomfortable feelings of dread we experience throughout the film reach a conclusion.

What works for the film is the acting. Everyone is doing his best work here. Channing Tatum generally plays a big, diffuse, unfocused slab of meat. He does that here, too, but it works for the character. This may be more of a director’s triumph than an actor’s (I’m still not convinced of his abilities, as some of my cohorts in film writing are). But it’s important to look and wrestle the part, and Tatum does it well.

Mark Ruffalo is probably the best of the three, and gives a warm, rich performance that makes us always want more of his character on screen. He is the clearest character among the three, and the closest thing the film has to a heart. It makes one wonder if his character should have been the focus instead of Mark.

Most of the ink spilled on this film (to use a retro term) has been about Steve Carell and his false proboscis. Google du Pont and you’ll see that while he doesn’t really look anything like Carell, he has quite a prominent nose. There’s more make-up at work here than the nose—and more facial adjustments to Tatum’s face as well—and if that is what helped get this performance, then it was the right choice.

Comedians who move into drama are often hard to watch. They are usually keenly aware of where the camera is, and seem to have problems not performing to it; early Robin Williams and a lot of Jim Carrey are only a few examples. But Carell disappears into the make-up and the role. Instead of performing outwardly, as is the tendency of comics, he rightly plays the role centripetally, looking down that long snout and drawing his thoughts and feelings to a dark, entitled, imprecise center somewhere in du Pont’s mind and heart. It’s a bravura performance that refuses to chew the scenery. His measured speech, his thinking pauses, his alternating moments of noblesse oblige and spoiled brat—these are all lovingly created and presented. Many comic actors want to make the leap to drama, and Carell has already done that (The Way Way Back; Crazy, Stupid, Love.). But what he’s done here is create a believable complex character while completely obliterating his comic persona in the process. A rare feat—and treat.

Where the film falters is in its psychology and its tone. We really don’t know why anyone except David does what he does. Mark is an unfocused mess, and the film tells us how much he needs a father figure. But why he would stay as long as he did at the Foxcatcher facility isn’t clear, and that may be due to the skewing of the chronology of some real events. Carell’s du Pont is rich and entitled and all those things we Americans don’t like. But he’s also nuts, and ever more dangerous. But other than his overbearing mother (a completely wasted Vanessa Redgrave—really?), we aren’t sure what’s wrong, and we’re aren’t really prepared for where his character goes, or how he got there.

Much of his may be laid at the feet of the director. Bennett’s style is minimalist, and almost astringent at times. He’s something of the opposite of a Paul Greengrass (Bourne movies, Captain Phillips) in that the style is slow and deliberate. We haven’t seen that as much because the performances, stories and action in Miller’s previous feature films have been so energetic at times that it all balances out. Think of the titanic performance of Philip Seymour Hoffman in Capote, along with the wonderful Catherine Keener. Add to them the murders in Kansas and the tension between real life legal events and Capote’s struggles with the ending of his historically important book. Then think of the rousing story of Moneyball and the vibrant performance of Brad Pitt in the central role (and even the supporting role of Jonah Hill).

Foxcatcher has one performance that is full-blooded—Ruffalo’s—and he’s not given enough screen time. The other two are too hard to read, which diffuses our interest. Tatum has made a career of playing rather dense unfocused jocks, so the casting is right. But he’s so quiet, so suppressed (talk to your brother already, Mark!), so withdrawn, that it’s only the actor’s innate likability that keeps us interested. And even if we’re interested, he’s still too opaque a character for us to get a handle on.

John du Pont is an absolutely fascinating character, and Carell succeeds in making him mysterious and strange, even creepy at times. But once we’ve moved past the phony nose and the familiar, loved comic almost lost underneath, and even after we move to admiration for a surprising, complex performance, we just feel…uneasy and unsure. But as with Tatum/Mark, withdrawal is not enough. What defines and motivates du Pont is pushed too far into the background, and we never get to really know the person or his motivations. There is plenty of “possible” homoeroticism to catalyze any number of analytical articles and papers, but there isn’t enough to indict the film for homophobia or for even making any kind of related statement about subliminal subtexts in wrestling (or is there??) If we’re going to care about the people and the actions in Foxcatcher, we need to know more. And because we don’t, we don’t.

When all is said and done, the film becomes something of a curiosity. It’s certainly a triumph for all three major actors—especially Ruffalo and Carell. Yet with all the wrestling, psychological neediness, sporting events, guns, money and surprise action, it’s still ultimately too underplayed and withholding. It will likely remain the definitive story of du Pont and the Schultz brothers, but Bennett might have better served the actual events with one of his documentaries.

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The Imitation Game

Posted on December 31, 2014 by Mark DuPré

The Imitation Game is lovely to look at, features two excellent performances and several good ones, and is something of a mess. That’s not all the film’s fault, as Alan Turing’s life doesn’t fall easily into a three-act structure. Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch) was the genius breaker of the WWII Enigma code and developer of the computer. To keep with the British vernacular, it’s a “ripping” story, but the film hasn’t solved the problem of how to cover this complicated life.

Chronologically, Turing’s life—according to the film—goes something like this: He is a young gay boy in boarding school who develops a crush on his sole supportive friend (spoiler alert!) who ends up hurting him by dying. Later, Turing’s brilliance ends up overcoming his social deficiencies and he stumbles into helping at Bletchley Park, the center of code breaking for the British during the Second World War. There he meets the “plebeian” brilliant minds that simply can’t compete with his genius. With the help of Winston Churchill (it’s never really explained), Turing takes over the shop. He fires some, alienates everyone else, and works toward creating what he calls a universal machine—and we would call a computer.

Along the way, he develops an affection for co-worker (and only female code breaker) Joan Clarke, played by Keira Knightley. They get engaged. (More spoiler alerts) Alan breaks it off with Joan because of his sexuality. He genuinely likes her, but more than anything wants her to stay and help. The team eventually breaks the code, a feat that must be kept secret to be effective, even it if means lost lives in the process.

At the end of the war, they must all be sworn to secrecy, i.e., they have never met one another and haven’t worked at Bletchley Park, etc. As Cold War fears arise, an investigation into Turing’s alleged political proclivities stumbles onto his then illegal sexual activities, and he is arrested. He chooses what he believes is the lesser of two evils in terms of punishment, and eventually comes to a sad end.

What do you do with all that? Well, the filmmakers have chosen to make a framing device of the investigation of Turing’s politics that turns into an accidental discovery of illegal sexual activities. It’s the weakest part of this film dramatically (something that happens accidentally to a third party) and doesn’t adequately support the rest of the film. Then they move us around from Turing schoolboy years (to explain or at least demonstrate his sexual preferences?) to the exciting war years to the police investigations. The pace doesn’t move fast enough to “whip us around,” so we don’t get dizzy. But we don’t have a clear story to latch onto. Is this a biopic? Is this something like Lincoln or Selma, where we focus on a great man’s life by slicing out a piece of it to examine? Or is it ultimately a sociopolitical statement about the treatment of gays, whether in 1950s Britain or now? Turing’s life doesn’t make it easily, but the film can’t make up its mind.

What we do have, though, is a couple of performances to enjoy and admire. Thank God for Benedict Cumberbatch, who is finally getting the attention and respect he deserves. Yes, he’s amazing as Sherlock. But he was also amazing in 12 Years a Slave, and odious in Atonement, and terrific as Smaug in the Hobbit films, and touching in August: Osage County. He’s an actor’s actor who’s broken out and become not only popular, but a staple of popular culture (which seems, thankfully, not to have affected his work). For those few who are not familiar with him, you won’t know him by his work here in The Imitation Game. As Turing, he has a posture, accent and way of getting his words out that is different from anything he’s done before. Sherlock he ain’t.

Just creating a character like Turing is accomplishment enough. It includes intellectual brilliance, social cluelessness that’s not cute or endearing, and as the New York Times’ A. O. Scott puts it, “[Cumberbatch’s] curious ability to suggest cold detachment and acute sensitivity at the same time.” Then watching this character go through the paces that Turing’s life threw him is something else. The focus, the work, the rejection, the trials of leadership, the isolation of genius, the struggle with being so very different in so many ways, and the physical challenges of the last few years of his life—these experiences are what makes this performance such a joy to watch, and what will make this film worth viewing more than once.

Nearly as good as Cumberbatch is Keira Knightley, who proved nearly a decade ago in Pride and Prejudice that she was more than a star, but an actress capable of variety and depth. She proves it once more here with a part another actress might have settled into nicely (or sailed through). Knightley brings her usual spark and charm, but creates a real, intelligent, full-blooded character who grows up emotionally in front of our eyes (but only if we’re really looking). It’s a great reminder of what she can do, and brings some exciting anticipation to a career that seemed to have artistically plateaued.

The rest of the cast is solid and typically British-excellent. Downtown Abbey’s Allen Leech (Branson, the Irish driver who married Sybil) makes an easy transition into film in what is a bigger part than it seems at first. Charles Dance (Game of Thrones, Bleak House) as Commander Denniston, however, is in slight danger of becoming the go-to moustache twirler of entitled British bad guys. He needs a comedy or romance in his résumé, stat.

The two lead performances hold this film together, but otherwise, The Imitation Game doesn’t add up to the sum of its many, many parts. Perhaps it is a sign of our times that the film had the multiple focuses it had, and that it couldn’t have presented Turing’s life—or even part of it—in any other way. Over time, the performances will be what will be remembered, and the rest of us academicians can study what other alternatives to the story might have worked better for the film.

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Into the Woods

Posted on December 28, 2014 by Mark DuPré

The long-awaited film adaptation of Steven Sondheim’s and James Lapine’s Into the Woods has been released, and most of the fears of Disney being involved have thankfully been proven needless. For many, Sondheim is an acquired taste, and that will likely prove to be the greatest single factor of a viewer’s enjoyment of the film.

For those of us who love music, musicals, and Sondheim, the film is a bit lightweight, but a success on many other levels. There have been some plot and song “rearrangements” which will likely bother many (yes, change is experienced as loss in so many areas of life). But what is here mostly works well, and is delightful at times.

The tone is dark for Disney but light for this story. Some of the sharper edges of the original are softened, and the bleaker aspects lightened. But director Robert Marshall (Chicago) succeeds in creating a world of combined realism and fantasy that is comfortably scary and provides a believable context for the characters and the plot. Everything is heightened as in a classic musical, but is just little more somber and a whole level creepier (but not too creepy, of course).

The central plot, for those unfamiliar with the musical, is the Witch’s (Meryl Streep) curse on a young childless couple—the Baker and his Wife—that sets in motion this twisted mélange of elements from a variety of familiar fairy tales. We see these well-known stories turned on their heads in rather dark and perverse ways. (After all, this is all brought to us by “the producer of Wicked”).

The entire story is a tightrope act, especially as adapted to film. It may be a musical based on fairy tales, but its appeal to young children is compromised by (spoiler alert) surprising deaths, adultery, mutilation, and an occasionally unnerving wicked witch. In some ways, it’s more akin to the original fairy tale stories before they were sanitized and Disneyfied.

If story is what peaks a viewer’s interest, Into the Woods may have limited appeal. Due to its being a riff on old familiar tales, it’s tasked with following familiar story lines while simultaneously having to twist or even smash them, all in a way that tells yet another good story. It succeeds, but a feel-good fable this is not.

The greatest appeal is the Sondheim score and the excellent interpretation of it, due to the musical and vocal direction, and especially to the cast. The casting is a miracle in itself, and if there were such a category in the Oscar race (which at this point there should be), this ought to be the clear winner. These are actors who sing, rather than actors with singing voices, with one slight exception. The vocal approach is Broadway rather than pop, which makes for a crisp, clear presentation of the words, and is a blessed, blessed relief from today’s pop and jukebox musicals, which re-present radio instead of the stage. A near-operatic Sondheim score is a whole other animal than those found in these kinds of films, of course, and demands a vocal dexterity and musical acting skill not seen on the screen since Les Misérables, and done better here.

Anna Kendrick, with the central role of Cinderella, is an appealing personality and something of a cult figure to her followers. The former child Broadway star knows how to act through her singing, and is a fine choice for the role. Yet, all political correctness aside, she hasn’t the classic beauty that is part of the role, and since the rest of the film plays into the handsome prince/lovely maiden scenario of most fairy tales, her casting is just a bit incongruous. (I’m bracing myself for the reaction now.)

James Corden, best known for British television and comedy, is near perfect as The Baker. Most surprising for American audiences may be Emily Blunt as his wife. She interprets Sondheim marvelously, and makes us forget that she is a film star. The two youngsters are excellent. If Daniel Huddleston as Jack reminds you of Gavroche in 2012’s Les Miz, it’s because he was Gavroche. As good as he was in terms of acting and singing a difficult score there, he is even better here. He possesses a clear, intelligent voice, and he surmounts the sizable challenge of getting a lot of words out quickly and clearly—not an easy task with Sondheim. Equally strong and talented is the equally young Lilla Crawford as Little Red Riding Hood. Her voice and musicality are years beyond her chronological age, and she sings and acts with a great maturity while still acting her age—another difficult task among younger performers.

Chris Pine brings a surprisingly lovely sound to his singing (who knew?), and the right satiric touch to a less than princely Prince. Unhappily, his big number, “Agony,” which he sings with his “brother,” Rapunzel’s Prince, (Billy Magnussen) is underplayed and poorly photographed. The song is still a comic delight, but the long shots used keep us away from the spot-on musical interpretation of the two singers. It’s a lost opportunity.

The Wolf is a short-lived part, and is played by Johnny Depp. The concept has changed (and been defanged a bit for public consumption), but Depp plays it well. Sometimes his characters, like Bill Murray’s, seem set apart and belonging to another film. That’s not the case here, and Depp’s limited musical gifts are maximized by what I can only assume is tight musical and acting direction.

Getting most of the press and all of the awards consideration is The Greatest Actress of Our Time, Meryl Streep. As always, Streep as the Witch creates a fully developed character; it seems she can’t sail through a role that’s not completely thought out and deeply felt. That sets her apart here, which works for her character. But Streep, with all her acknowledged acting and musical gifts, is still an actress who sings, not someone who can act through her singing. While she acts up a literal storm at times (and makes a virtue out of gnawing at the entire design, not just the furniture), she is still an actress who also sings, rather than an actor acting through the song. Literally all other leads here do that, and Streep is the exception. There is a gap between what some actors can do in terms of acting and singing (see Russell Crowe as the most recent painful example of that in Les Miz). All the other major and minor characters in the film don’t have that gap, but Streep still does, though she nearly succeeds in hiding it.

Streep has sung before, sometimes tolerably (Postcards from the Edge) and other times not (Mamma Mia!). Here she has been musically directed to the nth degree, and her best voice and her most sensitive musical interpretations have been brought out. She has finally been made a real singer on film. But while it’s been made as small as it possibly can be, there is still that gap between song and acting that she is likely to never close. Yet her natural voice, prodigious acting talent, and the precise musical direction given to her nearly put her in the same camp as the rest of the cast. Happily for her, being the Witch and creating such a powerful character all but obliterate any awareness of “the gap.”

Students of stage-to-film adaptation will have plenty to work with here, with all the major and minor adjustments made by Lapine, Sondheim and the powers that be at Disney. But it still stands as a musically first-rate example of what can be done in successfully bringing Broadway to the screen. For some, the plot will always be challenging, and the music a little odd. But what a glorious presentation of that music on film. May this be a start of a new trend.

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The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

Posted on December 27, 2014 by Mark DuPré

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (hereafter referred to as Hobbit 3), was always going to be a big hit. Those who supported the first two-thirds of the trilogy had to see how it was all going to end, especially in the light of changes to the book that director Peter Jackson was making. Plus it presented the last fumes of the juggernaut that was The Lord of the Rings trilogy. After the maximal dollars and minimal cinematic impact have been measured, this film may well sum up the strengths and weaknesses of Jackson as an adaptor and director.

Much of course has been made of the fact that a rather slim volume, aimed at a much younger audience than that of The Lord of the Rings books, has been broadened, stretched, and some say, contorted, into a sprawling epic that doesn’t quite suit the actions or the theme. Not being a reader of the books, I cannot bring in my prejudices or disappointments, and can only look at the film as a standalone or as the conclusion of a three-part series.

Hobbit 3 certainly looked better than the first film, whose use of a 48-frame-per-second speed made the film look amateurish and awkward at times. I saw Hobbit 3 in 3D IMAX, but not in High Frame Rate 3D (which is how the marketers are expressing things). It looked richer and deeper and more immersive, a definite improvement.

With the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Jackson was guided by a strong storyline that kept forcing him back to the plot, which resonated with Tolkien’s sad but redemptive worldview while the direction of the action and actors seemed blissfully unaware of its depths. That worked in two ways: One, there was no forcing of the beauty and profundity of the author’s deeper meanings, and the film was the stronger for it. Secondly, Jackson’s propensity for violent, gruesome creatures and their PG-13 grisly action was held in check, as there was a story to tell, and he was already cutting characters and action to fit it all in as it was.

The Hobbit (book) offers no such restraints on Jackson, and instead of telescoping the action, he was obliged to expand it. For those loving and defending the book, it wasn’t about what was left out as much as what was added. For those who didn’t read the books, we must look at what is there.

And what is there is both thin and bloated, with those elements kept in some kind of balance by the fact that this third part of the trilogy imposed upon the director the need to wrap things up and to end the whole thing. But the strong central plot line of the LOTR films is missing, and the central character is pushed nearly into the background. Imagine Frodo as a supporting character, and that is pretty much what we have here with Bilbo Baggins. He appears here and there, but almost more of an observer than an agent, which robs the film of a directness and focus it needs.

Thankfully, Bilbo is Martin Freeman, the heart and soul of the Hobbit films. This immensely likeable actor still manages to carry the film in spite of limited screen time, much of which is given to the mental and emotional struggles of Thorin (Richard Armitage), which seems the inverse to what’s happening with Bilbo in the film. Thorin’s struggle seems like a minor subplot brought to the front (and therefore given too much weight), and Bilbo’s story is shoved to the back. Jackson wraps up the story with Bilbo, as he should. But it’s too little too late, and the lack of focus on Bilbo’s story and the absence of Freeman on the screen tend to disperse the other narrative threads rather than concentrate and organize them.

This leaves Jackson his opening to bring in army after army for battle after battle. Lacking the narrative thrust demanded by the LOTR plot, Jackson fills his space with growling orcs, several instances of impending doom, and rushing armies. We all know that Jackson can organize a good fight, but it’s too much fighting for too little reason.

Yet there is a certain pleasure in seeing old friends. Any appearance of Gandalf (Ian McKellen) for any reason is a joy, even if his place in the plot isn’t always clear. The same with Orlando Bloom’s Legolas, though his connection to things is even more tenuous than Gandalf’s. Apparently part of the reason for his appearance is to add some tension to the love story that is teased and then (spoiler alert) used for tragedy, accompanied by some rather purple exclamations on the relationship between love and pain.

The special effects are generally so good in these six films that one doesn’t give a second thought to them. But the fighting with Legolas and a certain large monster looks a bit cheesy, which doesn’t help the grand suspension of disbelief the viewer has to provide for this whole sequence in terms of the believability of the action in the fight scenes.

As he did with LOTR: The Return of the King, Jackson provides several Act Threes. As a conclusion to a genuinely epic saga, the many endings in that film worked and wrapped up the story in a way that respected it as a grand legend. Here the many endings strive to do the same thing, but the only thing that is grand about the Hobbit films is the expansion given to the source material. Since the story is actually a prequel, there can’t be too grand a finale, as it has to end with a hand-off to the LOTR films and their story. So the many endings are finally not a goodbye to the story and its characters, but a farewell to the six-part cinematic saga.

For those who love the world of Tolkien and its characters, or the actors who play them here, this last film is an enjoyable last get-together. Its excesses and deficiencies will be forgiven because it’s our last visit to this particular world presented by this particular director. It’s not a great film by any stretch, but it will always be a culturally significant one.

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The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1

Posted on December 20, 2014 by Mark DuPré

In one of the few moments of suspense in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay-Part 1 (which should win most awkward movie title of the year), Finnick (Sam Claflin) speaks and speaks and speaks to mark time and distract folks from an impending rescue. Soon after, Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) does the same thing—speaking to take up time. That pretty much sums up this film. It takes up time, treading cinematic water while we await the second half, à la Harry Potter, of the last book of the series. The entire overlong movie could easily be the first third of whatever the closing film will be. What’s here doesn’t deserve its own film.

So little happens here that a plot synopsis is unnecessary. Districts suffer, the Capital is still bad, and oh yes, Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) seems to be in a bad state and may need rescuing. Thank goodness they have the talented Lawrence at the center, as she bears a great deal of the film’s weight on her shoulders as she is asked to look (and look and look), reflecting a gamut of emotions through those expressive eyes.

There is little energy, rhythm or pace in the film. It just….flatly goes forward. Slowly. Getting very little done and covering a surprisingly little amount of action. There are all of two moments of suspense. The first is so contrived and predictable as to be almost laughable, and the reason for the suspense is so foolish as to make us care less about a significant character (and we feel bad for feeling bad about the scene). The second has to do with the aforementioned rescue, and has some moments of real energy and anticipation. Otherwise, the film is, to use a word I’ve never used in print or verbally—meh.

Director Francis Lawrence, who directed the second film in the franchise (a decided improvement over the first) has directed a film that seems to stretch out every action, occasionally reminding one of those long-held shots on soap opera actors that keep staring blankly before we cut to the commercial. It’s the very opposite of a Paul Greengrass film (e.g., Captain Phillips, The Bourne Ultimatum, United 93) , and has the sluggishness to prove it.

Even the talented actors have a problem fitting in. The probable Oscar winner for this year, Julianne Moore (for Still Alice) is a national treasure and an actress of broad range and talent, is simply miscast here as President Coin, lacking the kind of bit, fire and authority that a Glenn Close could have provided. It’s been written that the sorely missed Philip Seymour Hoffman worked to create a real character with a role that could have been one-dimensional and flat. He succeeds in creating a real person, but that person doesn’t fit into the film, as there is nothing to connect with in terms of atmosphere, pace or tone. It’s a brave attempt, but it’s isolated.

Even the usuals don’t fare well. Donald Sutherland as President Snow is still bad with great hair, but seemed tired. Jeffrey Wright and Stanley Tucci bring some life when they appear, but they don’t appear enough. Poor Liam Hemsworth as Gale, the weak leg of a love triangle, is still performing dutifully as the stiff-upper-lip but pouting puppy dog, but his continued presence seems to make Katniss appear misdirected and a little obsessed with someone who doesn’t seem to deserve it. They’re going to have to make their case for her wanting Peeta and not choosing Gale in the last film, as they are certainly not making it in this one. And seeing Effie (Elizabeth Banks) deglammed, dulled down and out of place is more uncomfortable and odd than refreshing.

The film is also dark, lacking the color and sparkle of the other two films. Having the leads spend most of the time in a dull underground bunker will have that effect.

Here’s hoping that the fourth and final film will have some energy, and bring some clarity to the romance as well as the politics and warfare. Nothing anyone will say or write will stop the franchise fan from seeing the film. But if you haven’t started, don’t. And definitely don’t start with this one.

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Birdman or (the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (AKA, Birdman)

Posted on December 1, 2014 by Mark DuPré

I show Annie Hall in my film class sometimes, and one thing I point out about its many virtues and ground-breaking elements is how Woody Allen brought the rhythms of stand-up comedy not only into the humor of the film, but the very structure of it—something still relatively unexplored in cinema since then.

Birdman (we’ll leave the longer title for the rest of this writing) is like that, but it’s not stand-up that’s at the heart of the film—it’s jazz and its percussive rhythms. Jazz rhythms don’t just accompany the film, but essentially, are the film. The film is visual jazz, and a rather stunning example of a complete marriage of film and music. The film is comprised of one riff after another, with the occasional side trip to an operatic trope or two. Its marriage of music and image is not like a typical musical at all (the film isn’t a musical as we think of them), but is a fusion not seen since Gene Kelly started directing his own films.

Birdman is “about” a former popular film star trying to resuscitate and revalidate his career by mounting a serious play on Broadway as much as 12 Years a Slave is about a guy tryin’ to get back home. Birdman is about love, obsession, art, fear, ego, husbands and wives, actors, fathers and daughters, self-centeredness, commerce, Hollywood, Broadway, critics and the role of art criticism, addiction, erectile dysfunction, poetry, tragedy, great acting, bad acting, and identity, just to name a few. It’s exhilarating and brilliant (at least until the last 20 minutes, which lose a bit of their mojo).

Director Alejandro Iñárritu (21 Grams, Babel, Biutiful) is hardly known for either light subjects or a light touch. But this film—pardon the pun—soars. Even while dealing with the most serious of subjects, Iñárritu and his phenomenal cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki (director of photography for Gravity—Oscar winner—and such innovatively photographed films as The Tree of Life, Children of Men, and The New World). As Lubezki did in those films, the camera here sweeps and swoops and moves as freely as before sound came in. Some of his and Iñárritu’s takes go on and on, only gaining in energy as the move along. This is some of the most dazzling camerawork you’ll ever see, but since it’s all of a piece with what’s happening with the film, you may just get caught up in what’s going on (on every level) and forget that you’re witnessing some master camerawork.

Iñárritu stuffs the film to overflowing. The camerawork is enough for three or four films, and would be enough to make this film worthy of multiple viewings. The story takes us into all kinds of conversations (from sweet and touching to violent), fights, flights, meditations and a heaping helping of magic realism, just in case we might settle into anything while watching. It’s a potent mixture, and doesn’t always work. But even when it doesn’t quite, it’s still an amazing ride. The energy he builds in the first three quarters of the film is exhilarating, and if it can’t quite be sustained throughout the end, what comes before is borderline thrilling.

The heady brew mixed up here wouldn’t be possible if it weren’t for the acting, which should at least win every ensemble award available this year. Most of the kudos have been reserved for Michael Keaton, with all the meta references around his portrayal of a has-been whose “greatest” success was as a superhero with wings (think Batman, and “Where has he been these past few years?”). Putting all that aside, this is still a great, if somewhat overly showy performance. He’s asked to do everything, from being loving and apologetic dad to being angry dad, to being a worried-beyond-words producer/actor/director who’s put all his eggs in one theatrical basket, to a stage actor, to a frustrated director butting heads with a talented but entitled and obscenely irritating theater star.

Keaton demonstrates perhaps the widest range of acting skills of anyone working in film this year, and pretty much nails everything. Hollywood and America love a successful comeback, and while some point to Eddie Redmayne’s performance in The Theory of Everything as the lock to win the Oscar, I hope Redmayne doesn’t count on it. Keaton is greatly loved, and this is a great comeback performance that’s layered, intelligent, and wildly emotional. Even without the backstory that so closely reflects Keaton’s real life, this is the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat performance of the year, and all the more awards-attractive because it’s not obvious Oscar bait.

But Keaton is hardly alone here. Edward Norton is brilliant as the walking and talking ego of a theater actor. He’s insufferable, talented, and as difficult as anyone could ever imagine an actor might be. Like Keaton, he gets to demonstrate a wide range of voices, emotions and shades, and does them all well. In case we forgot that he was once one of our greatest young actors, this performance should remind us.

Naomi Watts plays an insecure actress of talent, if not brilliance. It’s a joy to watch the two different styles she brings to her character in the film, and then the character she plays on stage. Like some actors can be…at times…she is anxious and vulnerable at times, and finds her voice at other times. Again, this is a good reminder of what a talented actress she is. Less well known but equally as good is Andrea Riseborough as another stage actress (this one in a relationship with Keaton’s character). Perhaps best known for Oblivion, she is an actress you know you’ve seen before, but just can’t place. This film should take care of that. Hers is a quieter performance, but she brings a welcome calming influence to the swirl of activity, and helps center the film every moment she’s on screen.

Zach Galifianakis is apparently taking a cue from Jonah Hill and finding something of a new identity as a supporting, serious actor (think Moneyball and The Wolf of Wall Street). As with Hill, it’s a good move. Then there is Emma Stone, who is extending her range on film even farther than Galifianakis with her role as the cynical, drugged out daughter of Keaton’s character. She has established such an adorable persona that she can’t shake it even with this character, but her acting is pitch-perfect. Lastly, there is Amy Ryan, playing against what we might think of as her type as the ex-wife of Keaton’s character. She is smooth, witty, subdued and real. It’s a lovely performance.

Lest this all sound a bit much, this is a very funny film. Perhaps it’s due to my being a musical performer and surrounded by artists (including actors), but some of the lines and situations are as funny as anything out there this year in their recognition of the vicissitudes and emotional challenges of life in the performing arts. Even with all the sturm und drang and heavy dramatics, this is (occasionally) a laugh-out-loud film.

There are far too many topics in the film to adequately address here. Perhaps a doctoral thesis needs to be written to cover everything that Iñárritu has presented us with in Birdman It will take several viewings to come close to getting some idea of all that’s being investigated and commented on.

But I go back to the jazz and percussion that don’t just infuse the film, but are of a piece with it. Yes, Iñárritu shows us the drummers providing what we thought was non-diegetic accompaniment (or is it still?), but they are going far beyond adding sound or even accompanying the images; they are reflecting aurally what the film is doing in image, camera movement, editing, and yes, even the acting. That element alone is worthy of some serious study and makes Birdman something of a smaller, faster companion piece to Interstellar, which also combines sound and image in unusual ways.

The many pieces that make up Birdman will get their individual attention during this awards season. The separate parts may well be worthy of such awards (especially the cinematography), but it’s the mixing and colliding of all those parts that make this one of the most unusual and inventive creations of the year.

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The Theory of Everything

Posted on November 30, 2014 by Mark DuPré

The Theory of Everything is likely to be the “adult, intelligent, emotional” film of the season, at least until Unbroken opens on Christmas. It’s well produced, very well acted, and brushes up against the idea of great intelligence while not actually challenging the viewer to attempt to understand exactly what or how the great theorist Stephen Hawking thinks.

The focus is not on Hawking’s theories, or his brain, or even his career. It’s the story of his relationship with his first wife, Jane (it’s based on her book). It could have focused more on his work and his processes, and that might well have resulted in a sharper, stronger film. But for better or for worse, it’s not. (Spoiler alert] It’s the story of a romance interrupted and ultimately destroyed by ALS (“Lou Gehrig’s disease”). It’s also My Left Foot combined with The Diving Bell and the Butterfly combined with Iris combined with A Beautiful Mind.

The survival of a relationship against such obstacles is worthy material, and while the film is a bit soft in its presentation, it finally settles into presenting something of the challenge of the mounting pressures that come with a partner who is fading physically and then, romantically. Some have argued for more advanced theory from a film on such a great theoretician, and the film does ask us to take it on faith that this man is brilliant and that his theories were earth-shaking. But it’s careful to stay focused on the romance and the debilitating disease that eventually failed to kill Hawking but did manage to be lethal to the relationship.

What everyone is talking about, of course, is Eddie Redmayne’s performance as Hawking. And yes, he is extraordinary on several levels. Redmayne played the sweet and sensitive young film go-fer in My Week with Marilyn and a sweet and sensitive revolutionary in Les Misérables. But he puts all that sweetness and sensitivity aside here and plays a completely different character. Thinking he would bring Hawking into his gentle persona, I was genuinely surprised to see a whole different person presented: one that was always the smartest person in the room (and knew it), was youthfully stubborn in his brilliance, and was at different times charming and heartless. Redmayne’s Hawking bore no resemblance to his two most famous previous characters, and this is perhaps as great a surprise as his technical prowess in the role.

Filming out of sequence, Redmayne had to portray Hawking’s deterioration step by sometimes small step based on his own charting of Hawking’s changes and losses. He apparently worked with a dancer to move and isolate his various leg muscles to present the loss of motor skills, and he contorted his face so often that it temporarily changed his facial muscles. Yet the performance is never a display of technique or a series of “moments” marking his decline, though those moments are shown. Redmayne keeps the character front and center at all times, which is hard enough for an actor without having so many possibly distracting changes to show. Like Daniel-Day Lewis in My Left Foot, Mathieu Amalric in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and even Colin Firth in The King’s Speech, this is a breathtakingly physical and technical performance that keeps the technique buried under character.

Equally as strong but completely different is Felicity Jones as Jane. Since this is based on Jane’s memoirs, the film stands or falls on her being as strong a presence as Stephen himself. She is. Jones is exquisite, equal parts strong, fighting to be strong, and barely holding things together. This is a film that leans heavily on its actors to carry the various plot points and shifts, and most of them fall on Jones’ shoulders. Without heavy dramatics, she shows the love she has for this strange and talented man, her deep resolve to make things work, and the increasing strain her character is under.

In lesser hands, these moments could have been overdone. Here they are clear but relatively restrained. She also handles the aging well. We sometimes watch externals like hairstyles, makeup and customs to signal to us the passing of time. These are all here, but they are accompanied by accomplished acting that shows us the body language, energy and speech patterns of the young Jane, the adult Jane, and even the older adult Jane. Jones’ slight shifts are as accomplished as Redmayne’s have to be, just much more subtle.

After these two performances, possibly the most intriguing aspect of the film is its cinematography by Benoît Delhomme (Lawless and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas). He (and possibly director James Marsh) often keeps Hawking isolated in the frame or via tight focusing that reminds us how little he can or chooses to relate to other people, and that he lives in his own high-IQ world. There are also formalistic flourishes in the use of color that could almost take a viewer out of the film. There is one dark and depressing scene, for example, that is noticeably grey-blue in tone that is followed immediately by one that that is unnaturally brownish red. All the choices make sense with what is happening plot-wise, but is surprisingly expressionistic in a film that is tracing the growth and trajectory of a true-life love story.

The film is solid if not exceptional, but will be remembered for launching Redmayne into both stardom and artistic respectability. Jones, already having “arrived” in 2011’s Like Crazy, will experience more adulation than ever, and likely more and better script offers. It’s ultimately a middle-of-the-road biopic, but the subjects and the two leads playing them are fascinating enough to validate the viewing.

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