"Make visible what, without you, might perhaps never have been seen." -- Robert Bresson
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December 21, 2006.
The 2006 indieWIRE Blog Poll
Earlier this week, when indieWIRE announced the launch of its 2006 Critics Poll, I spoke to Eugene Hernandez about organizing a parallel poll for bloggers who would like to participate. He agreed to the idea, and so for the next few days, you'll hopefully be seeing indieWIRE's network of bloggers (and others... everyone's invited!) posting their own ballots in the 2006 indieWIRE Blog Poll. If you want to join the conversation, feel free to post your own ballot on your blog or email it to me (see address at right) and I will be happy to post it here. My official ballot in the poll is below. Thanks again to Eugene for the opportunity to participate! The 2006 indieWIRE Blog Poll Best Film I miss one film at The New York Film Festival and it turns out to be a classic; Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Climates was, hands down, the film of the year. I caught up with the film on its opening weekend at Film Forum and I was deeply impressed and moved; A gorgeous, languid story of the manipulations, revelations and emotional torments surrounding a painfully indecisive break-up, Climates was the one movie that broke my heart over and over and over again. I've read a few pieces of criticism that describe the film as some sort of masculine fantasy, but that's pure bullshit; Bahar (a stunning Ebru Ceylan) is the revelation of the movie, the heart and soul that keeps us wishing and hoping for her happiness. By the time the film ends, the devastating impact of the affair is felt precisely because we care so deeply for her. A tremendous accomplishment. Zeitgiest, one of my favorite distributors, continues to fight the good fight; They released Climates back in October and I see the film has grossed around $50,000 to date. That's FIFTY THOUSAND dollars. I'll ask my obligatory question; Where are we as a culture when a great film like this can't make it in the marketplace? Shame.
Best Performance To be honest, I'm a little tired of the Great Actor theory of performance. Instead of singling out an individual in an individual category, I would like to draw attention to two performances in a single film; Daniel London's Mark and Will Oldham's Kurt inhabit Kelly Reichardt's Old Joy with deep familiarity while exposing the inarticulate space that has grown between two close friends. Two moments stand out; Kurt's impromptu campfire revelation about his life's travels bring his character alive with uncertainty while Mark's reaction to Kurt's massage at the hot springs, his wedding ring sinking below the water line, underscores his own discomfort with his quickly-developing responsibilities (and hints at a depper connection between the two men than we might have imagined). To exclude one or the other actor from mention is impossible, and so my vote goes to both.
The physical embodiment of the fascist aesthetic and pure villany, Sergi López's Capitán Vidal is the baddest bad guy to grace the screen in a long, long time. Lately, most movies seem to so wrapped up in feel-good depictions of heroism that the villains have become almost an after-thought. This has a two-fold effect, nullifying the impact of the heroism depicted by having the stakes set too low (Superman Returns being the best example of the lame villain ruining an otherwise entertaining film) while simultaneously boring audiences silly. How about a bad guy who raises the stakes to the level of life and death? In Pan's Labyrinth, López, an actor who has made a living playing creepy bad guys, plays Vidal with such a believable level of zealotry and evil intent that the fantastic elements in the movie feel absolutely valid; By the time the shattering final scene arrives, the tension and heartbreak are almost unbearable. Without a good villain, this movie would have been The Spirit of The Beehive meets Alice In Wonderland. With López, it transcends and is, in my book, an instant classic. Best Director I saw The Death of Mr. Lazarescu in 2005, but the film was released by Tartan USA in 2006 and it remains the best piece of direction I have seen this year; Dante Lazarescu's slow fade to black at the mercy of an indifferent health care system is at once harrowing, absurd and hilarious while packing a giant emotional punch. The pacing alone is worthy of accolades, but Puiu also draws such amazing performances from his actors that sometimes you feel as if you are watching a documentary. A wonderful achievement.
Best Screenplay Actually three films shot over the course of the past decade, Pusher I, II and III are the cinematic equivalent of the great European novel, and since all three films saw their US theatrical debuts in 2006, I couldn't resist awarding Nicolas Winding Refn and Jens Dahl with my Best Screenplay vote. I challenge any doubters to watch all three films, with their overlapping characters and long, tightly focused stories, and not be blown away by the humanity of the series. Magnolia Pictures put these films out this fall, and they came and went without making much of an impact. But again, I encourage you to grab the films on DVD as soon as you can and experience them for yourself; Mads Mikkelsen's performance as Tonny in the first two films is worth the price of admission, but beneath the thrilling surface of these tremendous stories is a deeply human portrait of men who can't seem to find a way out of their own contradictions. Best First Film In my opinion, The Puffy Chair is the funniest movie of the past year (yes, better than Borat!) and is a terrific feature debut from the Duplass Brothers. Kathryn Aselton and Mark Duplass have real romantic chemistry, and Rhett Wilkins' turn as the touchy-feely brother from hell is great, but for me, Mark Duplass' frustrated attempt to get by and do the right thing is the funniest performance of the year. A highly gifted comic actor who always seems to make the unforeseen choice in order to perfectly illuminate his character, Mark is someone I could watch all day long and never get enough; Just watch that opening scene when he pops in the cellphone ear piece while sitting at the dinner table or that look of surrender in the doctor's office while sporting a newly-minted cast on his forearm. It's all gold. Plus, The Puffy Chair has the courage to finally deliver a downbeat ending that is both satisfying and totally earned, and for that, my cap is officially doffed. Best Documentary My Herzog-o-mania reached its apotheosis this year when I was able to program a 14 film retrospective of Werner's documentaries at the 2006 Sarasota Film Festival. I was lucky enough to host the Southeast Premiere of The Wild Blue Yonder, Herzog's sci-fi fantasia on space travel and exploration. Using found footage of Space Shuttle crews in zero gravity and cutting it with scenes of scuba diving under Antarctica (or is it soaring through Andromeda?) while "interviewing" physicists and having Brad Dourif ranting and raving about the decline of human and alien culture, The Wild Blue Yonder is a film unlike any other, blurring the lines between fiction and non-fiction with classic Herzogian curiosity about the wonders of human experience.
Best Cinematography Laurent Cantet drew mixed reviews for Vers Le Sud, his blistering look at feminine longing and sex tourism, but I have no idea why; I loved this movie. Charlotte Ramplng's award-worthy performance aside, the one thing that stands out for me is the look of the film; The bright sunshine, the deep blue sea and the almost creamy beaches are juxtaposed with the stark contrast of the character's flesh. Race, class and gender are at the heart of the movie, but Pierre Milon's photography does more to describe the sensual and transgressive attraction between sexually empowered, rich white women and the working-class young black men who fuck them for money than a million film theory books could ever articulate. Gorgeous and underappreciated; Kudos to Shadow Distribution for releasing the most beautiful movie of the year.
Best Undistributed Film At this year's Sarasota Film Festival, we were able to feature the US Premiere of Nobuhiro Suwa's A Perfect Couple (Un Couple Parfait) which, in my opinion, is the Best Undistributed Film of 2006. This movie will not be everyone's cup of tea; The story of a married couple who arrive in Paris for a friend's wedding at the precise moment when their own marriage is collapsing around them like a house of cards, A Perfect Couple features two great actors (Bruno Todeschini and Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi) working with Suwa on a hushed and still movie that feels like a collaboration between John Cassavettes and Tsai Ming-liang. Like Tsai, Suwa's camera is usually absolutely still as the actors move in and out of the frame, while the actors' improvised dialogue and their character's personal failings recall Faces-era Cassavettes. For me, the combination works perfectly. I know that some will find the film a little slow, but that is precisely what makes it feel so alive to me; When everything falls apart, sometimes there is nothing left to say. I have no idea what the commercial value of this film might be, but I know what I like when I see it. Interestingly, audiences will have a chance to see more of Suwa's work later in 2007 when Paris je'taime lands in theaters; His moving Place des Victoires starring Juliette Binoche and Willem Dafoe is one of the highlights of Paris je'taime and will hopefully bring Suwa the attention his work deserves.
Best Film Best Performance Best Supporting Performance Best Director Best Screenplay Best First Film Best Documentary Best Cinematography Best Undistributed Film December 17, 2006.
One: Cut A Hole In The Box
Caught SNL last night, which was mostly disappointing, but much like last year's terrific Lazy Sunday video, this year's Christmas episode featured a new SNL Short Film starring Andy Samberg and Justin Timberlake called... well, you'll have to watch and see for yourself. I was watching the show with a friend and he made a great point that these shorts have been the absolute highlight of the show in recent months, and we both wondered why it was that whoever writes these shorts doesn't do more writing for the show itself. This is what SNL should be doing all the time! The clip was immediately posted to YouTube by NBC, which is great but also raises the issue of Time Magazine's Person Of The Year, which the editors awarded to You (and me); The people who have been democratizing media and have been creating (and simultaneously consuming) the information exchanged on the internet. I am not sure how me linking to a silly video that NBC posted to YouTube qualifies as all that revolutionary (although a million other user-created YouTube videos certainly count), but I like this award on Time's behalf. More on this at another time. At any rate, enjoy this note-perfect R&B (well, at least Color Me Badd circa 1991) treat which is, by the way, in no way safe for work (unless you work in a really cool place like I do). Happy Holidays! December 08, 2006.
The Forgotten Christmas Special
It's that time of year; Time to grab your favorite brand of holiday treat and sidle up to the TV for a heavy dose of the ol' Rankin/Bass magic. For those not in the know, you're probably in the know but just don't know it; Rankin/Bass is the studio famous for its stop-motion and hand-drawn animated holiday specials, the most famous of which, Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer, airs tonight on CBS at 8:00pm. I'm a fan of these movies as they are the touchstones of my youth, but also because they are timeless in their melancholy; As I get older, I tend to appreciate the bravery of the more bittersweet elements of the Rankin/Bass films over the sticky-sweet holiday specials of today. I love things like the near-death experience of the Abominable Snow Man in Rudolph, when Frosty melts in Frosty The Snowman, the fed-up Santa in The Year WIthout A Santa Claus, the evil, kidnapping Winter Warlock in Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town... Trauma. It makes the holidays a special time. In the realm of the bittersweet and traumatic, there is no holiday special that can beat Nestor, The Long-Eared Christmas Donkey which premiered in 1977 (I was 7) and made me cry like a baby. I haven't seen it since and most of my friends and colleagues under the age of 35 refuse to even believe me that the movie exists, but the experience of watching it some 30 years ago is STILL with me. It is the Au Hasard Balthazar of Christmas movies and that is neither an exaggeration nor a coincidence; The stories are so closely linked, with suffering donkeys as protagonists, you almost have to believe that the folks at Rankin/Bass found inspiration in Bresson (only to alter the ending to suit children). One of the things about this movie that I had forgotten is its outright religious message, not only in its plot (Nestor is chosen by an angel to give Mary a ride to Bethlehem where she will give birth to Jesus), but also in its thematic insistence that religious purpose is central to discovering one's destiny. Looking at the film through my own atheist's eyes, I have always tended to see past the religious themes and have read the film more as a story about class and the bravery of human will against prejudice, but its clearly an overtly religious holiday story. The film is both heartbreaking and hopeful; The story of the underdog who accomplishes more than he could have imagined, Nestor makes for the mother of all teary-eyed holiday specials.
Thankfully, ABC Family is airing a marathon of Rankin/Bass specials starting tomorrow, Saturday, December 9, at 9:00am. I have, like a small child on a Saturday morning, carved out a large swath of time to watch as many of these specials as I can take in, but I am really looking forward to seeing Nestor (12:30pm EST) for the first time in decades. » Continue reading "The Forgotten Christmas Special"December 05, 2006.
Cold Storage
Browsing around the internet today, I came across this article on Jim Emerson's blog detailing MoMA's continuing inaction regarding the promised re-opening of their Film Stills Archive. Four years ago, as the MoMA went about re-designing their main space, they shipped the film stills and much of their ephemera to the isolated The Celeste Bartos Film Preservation Center, a storage facility in Hamlin, Pennsylvania and, most importantly, closed the archive to the public. MoMA outlines the temporary nature of the move on their own site, saying: "Film Stills Archive The site goes on to list other film still collections that researchers may want to contact in lieu of access to MoMA's archive. A few years ago, I myself took a trip to Hamlin, PA to visit The Celeste Bartos Film Preservation Center. I took New Jersey transit to the end of the line and grabbed a ride to a small, unmarked dirt road. After negotiating the back roads, I found the facility. I did get to explore the archive and it was a truly amazing space (photos below). At the same time, it is in no way an accessible space and MoMA's decision to house a very important archive out of public reach seems to contribute to the impression that this otherwise terrific institution may not be the proper steward for this collection. The key issue for me is not only scholarship, but that in many cases, the film stills are the only visual record of films that we have since lost. I have no doubt that the stills are being well preserved in Hamlin; The facility is well run and state of the art. But the great irony here is that while the stills are in what I imagine to be good hands, the visual enjoyment of the stills, the entire reason they are being preserved, remains off limits. It's a shame. Here's hoping that like-minded individuals will let the MoMA know how they feel about the decision to keep a once-bustling and important resource away from those who fulfill the archive's mission of sharing and preserving our collective film history. The Celeste Bartos Film Preservation Center I did not photograph the interior of the space, although I did get to do some guided walking. These shots show the exterior of the Center and the surrounding environs (in the intervening years I've ironically lost some of my other pictures.) It's a lovely place, if completely out of reach to all but the most determined of us.
Update: More from Anthony Kaufman here. December 04, 2006.
Preoccupied
"They've got organizations for people like me with stupid preoccupations..." -- Vic Chesnutt Well. I've been in Florida for just about a week now and things are settling in at work, but I have been so preoccupied with transition and change that I have been a bad blogger! Here's the short list of things I should have been talking about... 1. First of all, congrats to indieWIRE for what by all accounts was a lovely 10th Anniversary celebration (which I missed due to the move) last week. You all have been so integral to the growth of community in the indie film world, and I know official praise was doled out back on the actual date, but congrats again and I wish I could have been there. 2. I got a new digital camera for my birthday and it inspired me to set up my own Flickr page, upon which I have been documenting my stay in Sarasota by trying to post a photo a day. I really admire and have been inspired by Eug's pictures and am clearly still learning how to use my camera (Manual settings... who knew?), but its been fun so far. 3. I'm writing a short film. We'll see where that goes. 4. A dear friend is working on a minor graphic overhaul of this blog. I've been changing things here and there as I await her new graphic elements, but in the meantime, I have changed the font (sweet, sweet Helvetica Neue) and disabled Comments on the site. Let me explain: I was manually approving comments on this site for a long time, often searching through hundreds of spam comments a day just to get to the one or two commenters who were legitimate. I did not and will not censor comments, but I couldn't dig through the piles of spam any more. So, new policy. If you would like to leave a comment, drop me a note at backrowmanifesto@gmail.com and I will post it under a bold COMMENTS header at the end of the post for which they were intended. This way, I can approve comments (I will not censor) and end the daily nightmare of wading through offensive porn and ridiculous financial scheme spam. Thanks for understanding. 5. Left my ATM card in an ATM. Sigh. 6. Finally, I did catch up with Žižek on Netflix and I liked it very much, although it is far less formally ambitious than the amazing The Pervert's Guide To Cinema (see #2). It does a nice job of showing the daily grid of being a rock star on the international university lecture circuit, but it also keeps at a cool distance from Žižek and his life; I'm not sure how much more I know about the man having seen it. That said, it gives a glimpse into his thinking and inspired me to look more closely at his work. Which, of course, lead me to YouTube. Few people know that there is a secret, underground society of individuals (some associated directly with indieWIRE) who took it upon themselves to attend the opening night screening of The Real Cancun a few years back. In this lecture, recorded in 2004 as part of the Theaterformen festival in Brunswick, Germany , Žižek shows off his Lacanian-Marxist stream of consciousness style by eviscerating the unreal experience of "reality" films and TV, before describing Casablanca as pornography. We join the philosopher in medias res... First... Then... | |
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"Make visible what, without you, might perhaps never have been seen." -- Robert Bresson My Bio at indieWIRE
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