Fides and Film

Burn After Reading: Laughing at What We See in the Mirror

2008-10-06T23:20:00.000-07:00

After winning Best Picture with their suffocating somber No Country for Old Men, Joel and Ethan Coen’s Burn After Reading marks a return to the eccentric brand of screwball comedy that produced such classics as The Hudsucker Proxy and Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?. At least that’s what I had been told and believed upon entering the theater. Though Burn After Reading was certainly eccentric with a touch of screwball here and there, the movie certainly doesn’t comfortably fit any category currently available; indeed, what makes the Coen comedies great is the sheer impossibility of marketing them accurately to consumers. Familiar labels like the broad and inclusive genre “comedy” or even more narrow subgenres like “screwball comedy” cannot even come close to conditioning our expectations accurately to what we see on screen. What we end up seeing is more expansive and complex than what we signed up for.

In typical Coen-esque fashion, Burn After Reading hurtles the audience into an impressively interwoven plot. Characters as widely diverse as an ex-CIA analyst, two oddball clerks at Hardbodies Gym, a philandering federal marshal, and an icily condescending pediatrician are elaborately connected in a web of philandering, light treason, involuntary manslaughter, absurd plain-view homicide, and bucket loads of pure bungling and human folly. The appropriate backdrop for this mayhem is Washington D.C., our country’s center of intelligence, and the Coens derive a couple of their best laughs from their send-up of CIA culture.

“Intelligence,” we’re told in the movie’s tag-line, “is relative.” Most everything in Burn After Reading is relative. The plot veers slightly towards coherence before losing all meaningful intelligibility. Relativism hangs over this movie like a palpable cloud, and we’re forced to watch the moral confusion, chaos, and irrational paranoia that results from losing contact with the light of day. The characters and the events they get inextricably wrapped up in are elaborately and smartly connected, yet one cannot call Burn After Reading a story, since that implies a beginning point and movement toward a meaningful conclusion. The vast array of characters grope towards happiness that the Coens continually tell us doesn’t exist.

What separates Burn After Reading from the Coen’s previous unclassifiable comedies is the nature of the laughter. In previous Coen offerings the facile label of “screwball comedy” hid a more complex movie; in Burn After Reading the label is entirely misleading. Sure I laughed a lot, but not in the way I’m used to laughing having been bred on the Marx Brothers, the Stooges, and David Zucker. Burn After Reading relies on absurdity, the same comedic formula as Groucho Marx; yet it hits uncomfortably close to home in a way no true comedy ever does. The absurdity is terribly discomfiting because it’s an awfully accurate portrait of our culture, and the Coen’s trademark comedic exaggeration barely veils the nihilistic reality underneath.

At several points in the movie, the Coens make it patently obvious that Burn After Reading was never intended to be a conventional comedy. Without blinking an eye they break the cardinal comedic rule of “do no real harm” to startle us from the feeling that this is a true comedy and thus a caricature and removed somewhat from reality. An unexpected and particularly brutal homicide forces us to judge their “comedy” in a different light; perhaps the farce is not so much a farce as a depiction of a real disease. The characters are indeed overly eccentric, but their obsessions, paranoia, and blind groping for transient happiness could be found in every city in America.

Burn After Reading could, as Michael Medved labeled it, be considered a “dark comedy”, though even that genre tag is misleading since dark comedies traditionally accentuate and dwell on the darkness, while Burn After Reading does no such thing. Despite its genuinely hilarious screwball moments, Burn After Reading is still a thoroughly uncomfortable movie. Most of the laughter it generates can be aptly compared to raucous mirth that reportedly followed novelist Franz Kafka’s private reading of his short story Metamorphosis, a particularly morbid tale of a traveling salesman who copes with the horror of having been transformed into vile bug. Metamorphosis certainly isn’t known for its clever zingers, but the laughter was generated by the story’s spot-on encapsulation of the modern dilemma of man’s plight severed from God. In Burn After Reading we also laugh at what we see in the mirror, and I think most of us would rather not pay for the pleasure.

It makes sense that Burn After Reading’s initial boom of box office success was short lived, considering they marketed it with one of the most misleading trailers in film history. Our culture hungers for meaning, and postmodernism will never sell outside of academies. If only the Coens had the faith to offer a little transcendent meaning and a little hope that there’s a way out of our predicament. Unfortunately, all we get is terrible absurdity.

Supernatural Evil and Divine Providence: The Dark Knight Gets It Half-Right

2008-07-24T13:40:00.000-07:00

The pure camp of the 1960’s Batman will forever be etched in our cultural memory. Even young adults, born decades afterwards still sigh and reminisce about the fight scene exclamations “EEE-Yow!” and “Urkk!” as if it were yesterday. The Batman franchise in the 1990’s did little to shake itself free from its enduring link to the sixties, releasing a series of sub-par movies culminating in the 1997 abomination Batman and Robin where George Clooney and Arnold Schwarzenegger did their utmost to revive the campy feel. It’s this tired and caricatured franchise that Christopher Nolan took over in 2005 with Batman Begins. To many people’s surprise, he was able to shed the franchise’s cultural baggage, reviving it through an injection of tonal seriousness layered with psychological and philosophical complexity.

Hype leading up to The Dark Knight promised an even greater transformation for the Batman series. Wall Street Journal critic Joe Morgenstern called it “suffocating.” Most critics echoed that thought. “Psychotic,” “brilliantly nihilistic,” and “sinister epic” are merely a few of the synonymous phrases used to echo the same sentiment: Batman was once more going through a 360 degree transformation, one which put ticket buyers in a flurry of anticipation.

The Dark Knight does more than merely continue shedding the cartoonish camp. It is the first comic book franchise movie to transcend its genre and become arguably a masterpiece in its own right. Many critics have cited Heath Ledger’s iconic performance, Nolan’s stunning direction, and strikingly original writing as proof of The Dark Knight’s potential Oscar windfall. It accomplishes, however, something rarer than a mere coalescing of top acting, direction, and writing performances. It achieves a thematic coup not easily accomplished in mainstream cinema.

The Dark Knight takes us to the depths of spiritual evil without turning audiences away or trivializing the subject matter. Only a handful of movies can be said to have done this. Schindler’s List, The Passion of the Christ, and The Lives of Others are three in recent history that have taken audiences deeply into the mystery of evil without inducing us to upchuck our last meal or stay away from the theater. It’s much easier to go the route of 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days, a brutal Romanian movie about a woman who pursues an abortion, which goes beyond reasonable viewer endurance in an attempt to show the depth of evil (Schindler’s List nears that boundary, but without crossing it—the heroism of Oskar Schindler adds enough paradox to get the audience through the brutality).

It’s even easier to trivialize the reality with a superficial caricature. A majority of slasher, horror, and crime dramas give us images of unmitigated evil, but without the underlying spiritual reality. The villains are merely horrifying aberrations, humans with a couple of fuses blown in their minds, but are the stuff of nightmares, not reality. There’s no mystery here—just a matter a few crossed wires in the human mechanism. We needn’t be afraid of that evil: it’s rare, outlandish, and safely removed from our daily lives. Evil, then, is not part of our nature, but the equivalent of a computer crash, avoidable through consistent upkeep and an occasional therapy group. In other dramas, evil is purely exterior. In these movies, human nature isn’t the source of evil—only the objects of desire are. If only we would stop pursuing money or power, then our problems would simply disappear.

The Dark Knight derives its power from eschewing trivialization. The conflict between order and the maniacal nihilism of Ledger’s Joker is the real reason The Dark Knight transcends its genre. Nolan turns the Joker into a realistic, physical manifestation of Satan. He’s seemingly demonic, always ten steps ahead of his short-sighted human victims, wanting nothing but evil for its own sake, drawing human souls into its vacuum of nothingness. The Joker’s efforts are frightening, because he understands and manipulates fallen human nature. The potential for evil and nothingness is not safely removed from our lives but intimately a part of our being. The Joker explains that all we need is a little demonic push and gravity will pull us into chaos. The confrontation of the Joker’s evil catapults The Dark Knight from merely entertaining and well-made to genre transcendence.

While Christopher Nolan hits a chord in creating a truly terrifying manifestation of spiritual evil, he misses the mark in fully understanding how to confront it. Secularism limits his imagination. Courage, a little nifty technology, and refusal to capitulate principles are enough to bring the Joker down. The implication is that we have no use for Divine Providence: if we trust in our own strength and goodness, we can defeat evil. Best Picture Academy Award-winning No Country for Old Men similarly shows the limits of secularism when understanding how to confront the horrifying spiritual reality of evil—resignation and passivity is the path presented.

Despite the shortcomings of Nolan’s worldview, he does our culture a great service. Nihilism is a real threat to us, when we tend not to believe it. We’d like to believe that we can form our own cosmopolitan truth without having to risk falling headlong into the void. We’d like to believe that order and truth will always keep us moored despite our infidelity towards it. When our culture considers nihilism, it sees the effeminate, posturing German nihilists of The Big Lebowski hissing hilariously “we believe in nahthing.” We owe Christopher Nolan our gratitude for reminding our culture that evil exists and it’s not trivial.

Lilies of the Field

2008-07-08T14:23:00.001-07:00

Sunday night, Martin and I watched the 1963 film "Lilies of the Field," for which Sidney Poitier won a Best Actor Oscar and numerous other awards. Martin had never seen it before; I had, countless times, as a child at my grandmother's house.

What a great film. It's a refreshingly simple, honest story, told without playing on emotion or artificially revving up drama, supported by wonderful performances. As I mentioned, Poitier won an Oscar for playing the itinerant construction worker Homer Smith; Lilia Skala was nominated for her supporting role as the Roman Catholic Mother Maria, who is trying to get Smith to build her and her sisters a chapel (or, in her thick German accent, a “schappel”). She gives the kind of performance that makes you forget she’s even an actress – you can’t imagine her as anyone other than her character. (The character, a severe German nun, could easily have been cartoonish – Smith even makes fun of her for this.) But she does a remarkably convincing job.

The film is notable, too, in the way that it treats Mother Maria’s faith. She trusts in God so completely that nearly every character thinks she’s a lunatic, but (without giving away too much) she’s vindicated. And it doesn’t have the cloying relativism of many faith-based films that tone down the spiritual in order to draw as many paying customers as possible. There are differences in people’s faiths, struggles within faith, but all are respected without the equivocation that tries to value any and every belief but ends up tearing every belief down (cf. Evan Almighty).

It’s such an honest story, too, without sacrificing good storytelling for absolute realism, or exacerbating vice to make people grittier or “more human.” It travels at a realistic pace – changes of heart take the time they would in real life, and hard work is depicted in a way that actually shows the hard work (no montages skipping right to the result).

The honesty continues in the depictions of the relationships between very different people, who are treated as people and not as peons of demographics. It’s often remembered as a very 'racial' film - Poitier's Oscar, for example, was the first awarded to a black man and the first given to a black person in a leading role. But the references to race are underplayed, rather than a focal point of the film. Smith, in teaching the sisters English, describes his skin as black like a stove or a record - just that, an observation, not an obsession. His accomplishment in the movie is a real achievement, valuable for the thing achieved and not because or despite the fact that's he black. In fact most characters never refer to or seem to notice his race at all. The result is a movie that's focused on humanity and not color. Watching the film as an adult, I noticed racial references that I never picked up on when I was younger. But that layer of the story never mattered, really: what I remembered was the very compelling story – a strong man being implored by a stronger Mother invoking the Strongest, God.

The Magnificence of Wall-E: Pixar Simply Gets It

2008-07-01T23:53:00.000-07:00

My childhood introduction to anthropomorphized robots occurred when I first witnessed R2-D2 sass an up-tight C-3PO and subsequently ignore the chorus of passive and ineffectual complaints from “The Professor” in Star Wars: A New Hope. Science fiction has never been my particular brand of nerdom, but the first three Star Wars movies greatly appealed to me as a youngster as they still do today. Unlike many of my generation, the principle appeal of Star Wars for me has never been its intricately layered galaxy, so well known for its technology, social makeup, Gnostic religion, and epic conflicts—the stuff of which has inspired legions of B-grade novels.

I had never reflected on this until George Lucas bludgeoned the world with his prequels and I witnessed the potential for an entertaining story and likeable, empathetic characters wash away in a flood of highly manipulated pixels. The Star Wars galaxy in the prequels was still complex and deeply detailed, but essentially soulless, a stunning story world with nothing in it. Even a lovable moppet like Jake Lloyd failed to evince the slightest amount of empathy in a movie where the cast droned their lines with less life than the droids they fought. Say what you will about Mark Hamill’s heroic struggle to act, but the first trilogy won over a generation, not because of the ingenuity of the Star Wars universe, but because it was an incredible story that forged bonds between the audience and the characters. It’s the human element that counts, not the spectacle; it’s no wonder that the prequels failed to revive the Star Wars frenzy or win over the younger generation. Eye candy, once consumed, is digested and never thought of again.

George Lucas embodies an odd paradox: As technology expanded his capacity for filmmaking, the more his ability to tell a story visually receded. When you spend enormous amounts of time and money building a precise model of Jar-Jar Binks’ eyebrow, it becomes a self-sufficient work of art in itself, and there is no needs to actually have that eyebrow express something of significance.

And finally, this brings me to the subject of Wall-E, Pixar’s latest masterpiece. Pixar has made movie after movie that has challenged and expanded the limits of animation. After seeing a preview of Wall-E, it became obvious that this movie was going to take animation to even greater heights than the stunning Ratatouille. Would this be the movie in which Pixar would finally succumb to the Lucas paradox? Would they toss aside what made them great? I witnessed quite the opposite. As technology has expanded Pixar’s range and ability, they have returned to the subtle visual power of the silent age, and created a story about anthropomorphized robots that captivate us and shed light on our humanity.

For director Andrew Stanton and his colleagues at Pixar, the story is central. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Stanton adamantly denied that he had created a powerful environmental message movie, which warned of the dehumanizing consequences of excessive consumerism. It simply didn’t factor into the equation at all. According to Stanton, the primary thing at Pixar will always be the story. Thank God for that.

The upshot for Christians is that Wall-E gets its message across powerfully to all ideological shades without trying. I am certainly not a global warming enthusiast. In fact, I have grown tremendously sensitive to the fervent religiosity and misanthropies of excessive environmentalism, and thus was not well disposed to accept a priggish lecture from an animated movie. Wall-E, however, did not prick any of those sensitivities. It made me reflect on how reactionary I had become on the real dangers of consumerism, spending more mental energy reacting against the pervasive Marxist agenda-driven environmentalism than reflecting on what Christian environmental stewardship might mean. Wall-E is an effective message movie because it doesn’t subsume story by becoming pedantic or lapse into extremism. In the end of Wall-E, it’s clear that our Earthly environment serves the human spirit, not the reverse.

The more the message looms over the movie like a threatening cloud, the less disposed we are to accept it. Pixar gets it: the story is and should always be the cornerstone of a film.

Through a Screen Darkly: A Christian Watches Secular Film

2008-06-23T23:41:00.000-07:00

In a rare excursion last week to San Diego’s downtown Central Library, I came across an interesting new title from Jeffrey Overstreet, a film reviewer for Christianity Today. His first book, Through the Screen Darkly, chronicles his odyssey from a culturally isolationist Baptist home, one that distrusted serious engagement with popular culture, to a profound appreciation for cinema art and its ability to advance Gospel values. A movie critic, yet seemingly sensitive to criticism, Overstreet uses the book to defend himself on two fronts, each the polar opposite of the other. Through the Screen Darkly is his personal justification of his vocational choice from Christians suspicious of secular film, contending against the prevalent idea that movie criticism’s sole end should be the chronicling of objectionable content. With equal vigor, Mr. Overstreet ruffles at the label of snobbery, the notion that he may be paying insufficient attention to mainstream secular film in favor of languidly paced art house fair. His response to both criticisms makes for an interesting, insightful, and genuinely affecting read.

Mr. Overstreet doesn’t lament his somewhat sheltered upbringing, but is deeply grateful for being kept away from potentially harmful content before he could grow into a fully mature Christian man. Having gained maturity and conviction in the truth of Christ, however, he laments the desire of many Christian reviewers to throw the baby out with the bathwater by refusing to seriously watch secular art. “Christ’s incarnation,” Overstreet writes, “teaches us that spiritual things and fleshly things are not separate. The sacred is waiting to be recognized in secular things. Even those artists who don’t believe in God might accidentally reflect back to us realities in which we can see God working.” This reflection cuts, he believes, to the heart of what ails the Christian film/music industry, mainly the reduction of art to transparent message. Christians impoverish themselves by refusing to look closely at secular and morally ambiguous films, for the struggle to find meaning in a godless world reveals to us truths about reality and God.

It’s a mistake, however, to believe that this reduction is born out of naivety or superficiality, as many writers suggest. While Mr. Overstreet makes no effort to conceal his latent frustration with many Christians’ reduction of art to message, he does, however, give credence to the position he is attempting to counter. Plato and Tolstoy (in his later years) are two examples of profound thinkers who distrusted the volatile and subjective power of art. Plato famously banned it from his ideal republic, while watching Hamlet made Tolstoy shudder. For both thinkers, art was either served as unambiguous moral instruction or it was perverse.

Plato’s hostility to art was enough to turn me off in the ignorance of my undergraduate days. I once had the audacity and flat-out stupidity to declare to my philosophy professor father that I had no use for Plato’s work but only preferred Aristotle. Without mincing words, he told me I was mistaken. Mr. Overstreet’s book has force in its argument because he doesn’t dismiss art’s dangers. Overstreet draws through his gradual cultivation of his power of artistic perception in his youth and makes it clear that without such a maturation period the films he lauds may have been dangerous to him.

Art can be dangerous. Outside my window looms the giant cathedral-like edifice of the adjacent Edward’s Theater. Art can become an end in itself, rather than pointing to transcendent truth beyond itself. It can incite irrational passions and undermine reason. Without a mature faith and a cultivated power of perception, art can lead us down dangerous paths. But, Overstreet contends, the negative power of art shouldn’t deter us from encountering it. He begs us to look closely and humbly at secular art with the realization that God may reveal something to us about the nature of reality. “Mathematics, science, art,” he writes, “these are languages through which God is speaking. All truth is God’s truth. We mustn’t be afraid of science, numbers or surrealist paintings. If God is sovereign in the world, as we assert that He is, these explorations affirm and increase the faith of those who look closely.”

While I fundamentally agree with his thesis, I couldn’t help thinking he had taken it too far and my wife confirmed my suspicion. “How close are we supposed to look at secular art?” My wife pointed out. “If you ‘look closely’ at an atheist’s surrealist painting and come away with a message affirming God, aren’t you just imposing your belief on someone else’s art? Can anything then be communicated through art, if observers just ‘look closely’ to see what they want to see?”

My wife reminded me of a letter to First Things regarding classical music. A musician wrote, defending classical music against some review or other, to say that they thought a particular symphony “irrefutably” affirmed the resurrection of Christ. The author of the original piece said that if that was the case, then every hearer would have to be converted. We can’t look too closely, or we may come away with a horribly blurred vision of the work. All things considered, however, Mr. Overstreet’s thesis is valuable for Christians who are embracing evangelization through media. If we refuse to engage secular art, how can we ever expect to compete in the marketplace and actually move secular souls to truth?

First Thoughts on Bella the Movie

2007-10-28T09:20:00.000-07:00

What can I say about Bella the movie? It's beautifully filmed, beautifully acted, beautifully paced--it has everything a "nice" "inspiring" film has--except it has some unnameable other thing, something more. Director Alejandro Monteverde has given his vignette a subtlety of symbol that filmmakers like Spielberg and Shyamalan should study. The film has a couple of moments in which the significance of people, things, and events deepen beyond their simple appearance--moments and images which, like icebergs, drag with them the immeasurable bulk of Something More below the visible tip.

The best example of this is the Edenic imagery of the film: riding the train out of the city, Bella gives José a very green apple, then pulls another one out for herself. What distinguishes this from all other tired references to the fall of man is that it inverts it: the apples become a communion, a shared meal. It is a refiguring, not a replay of Eden. Stepping off the train, they walk to Jose's parents' house, and meet his father (read Father?) who puts them to work planting his garden. "It will be Paradise," he says in Spanish. Again, the film takes the simple act of gardening--taking with it the events of the fall of man--and refigures it as Eden should have been--man and woman working together WITH the Father, to "till and keep" the garden.

Perhaps more on this later.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

2007-10-15T23:00:00.000-07:00

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford has received as many critical awards as its transcontinental name has letters. Some critics love to have their sense of established film conventions jostled significantly, but not this critic. The sprawling episodic plot never departed enough from its literary source (Ron Hansen's novel) to become a good movie in its own right. The haunting riff that signaled the transition between loosely connected episodes grows more clangy and less haunting with each hour that passes until the central story line--Robert Ford's obsession with the glory, power, and mystique of Jesse James, who he follows and eventually murders-- finally gets some steam about 2/3rds of the way through the movie.

The last third of the movie is worth the wait. With all the superfluous characters (and oddly well-developed) dead or in jail, we can focus on the primary psychological conflict between Jesse James and Robert Ford. It's compelling though the camera can never quite reach inside the character's heads the way Ron Hansen's prose can. The camera strains to tell us what's in Jesse James' head through close-up after agonizing close-up, but can never quite articulate it. That's the problem with adaptations that aren't adapted. The beauty of the original is lost in an extended effort to be faithful to the source.

I don't get all the fuss surrounding Brad Pitt's performance either. It was neither striking nor powerful. I guess people are just floored that he took a complicated role.

Central Station - A Film from Brazil

2007-10-01T08:11:00.000-07:00

Last night I watched a great foreign film, titled CENTRAL STATION, or in Portuguese, CENTRAL DO BRASIL. I was totally surprised. Director Walter Salles brings together a hardened, selfish retired teacher and a little boy whose mother has just died in a car accident. The retired teacher is a letter writer at the Central [train] Station in Rio, and gets drawn inexorably out of herself as she tries to decide what to do with the boy. The result is a search for the boy's father that becomes a pilgrimage of its own--almost a spiritual journey for this woman who has given up loving others.
Salles directs a paradoxically gritty and transcendent film; the poverty and shocking depravity of Rio contrast greatly with the simplicity and natural beauty of the poorer rural villages. I can only describe the film's visual style as luminous. The picture is filled with shining Light. Not shining lights, but Light. Salles tells a story of a woman who has never been a mother, but who becomes a Mother in the fullest sacrificial sense.

A beautiful and moving film; put it on your list of things to watch.

If only Hitler had denounced British imperialism...

2007-09-16T22:49:00.000-07:00

I know I'm late to the bandwagon, but Forest Whitaker's portrayal of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland is perhaps the finest performance I've ever seen. While Whitaker perfectly embodies the irresistible charisma and brutal egomania of the man, director Kevin Macdonald's accomplishment is no less great. It's probably the finest, most emotionally engrossing movie I've seen since The Lives of Others.

If you don't currently appreciate the the virtue and restraint of our American revolutionaries, this movie will definitely give you time for reflection. Bloody revolutions only lead to more perpetual cycles of blood as the liberators become the oppressors. If there's one lesson the 20th century has taught us repeatedly, it's this one. It's interesting, however, to see the fascination liberal intellectuals still have with the figure of Idi. A documentary accompanying the movie hardly dwelt at all on Idi's genocidal tendencies, preferring to sentimentally recall Idi's relentless verbal jabs at the British crown. The interviewees were fascinated with the way Idi "gave it" to English imperialist pigs. This then is what they consider to be the majority of Idi's legacy, rather than the mass, lazily unhidden graves constructed by his regime.

In the Valley of Elah

2007-08-23T20:17:00.000-07:00

It shouldn't bother us much when big screen stars patronize us daily with their moral superiority, or when they sound off on politics with inflated self-importance, or when they do all of the above while sporting the latest fashions trademarked by murderers like Mao and Che Guevara. It's all part of that frivolous pageantry that forms the background static of our national culture and without it we'd have to go back to thinking about something meaningful. It should only cause annoyance when the seriousness employed when sounding off in the public square inspires film. The "war as irrationality" stance taken by so many Hollywood elites may make for good posturing in the public eye, but produces terrible drama. Anyone who saw Troy, or The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, or Jarhead knows that the theme of alienation doesn't translate well to the screen. Who wants to see Achilles mope around like a disaffected teenager mourning the irrationality of war? Alienation may work in a Camus novel, but not in a movie. Combine the theme of alienation with the inflated sense of seriousness and self-importance and you have Paul Haggis' latest movie In the Valley of Elah. Haggis admittedly wanted this movie to be an important statement concerning the Iraqi War. I just wish Mr. Haggis would have confined his serious statements to the background static that we live with daily rather than awkwardly converting it to film. Read this interesting Variety article about the flick.

Fellini's 'La Strada'

2007-08-16T17:19:00.000-07:00

Martin and I recently watched Federico Fellini's La Strada (stay tuned for his more sophisticated opinions), on a special edition DVD introduced by Martin Scorcese. Scorcese cites Fellini as a seminal influence; watching La Strada, it's easy to see how.

La Strada (meaning The Road) tells the story of a young, simple woman, Gelsomina (played by Fellini's wife Giuletta Marsina), who is sold to a travelling circus strongman to work as an assistant clown, cook, and concubine. She is simple-minded, innocent, sweet, and loving; he is brutish, arrogant, and very angry. The film was mostly about him brutalizing her in spite of her efforts to love him, and his eventual self destruction because of his own anger.

Sound familiar? It was very much like Raging Bull, only this one at least had one sweet and likeable character. Gelsomina stays with Zampano despite being given opportunities to leave him; the idea, I suppose, is that her love will ultimately redeem him. The tragedy of the film, however, is that it doesn't; at the end we see Zampano miserable and, we can assume, remorseful, but is that enough after Gelsomina has sacrificed her life loving him?

The story was practically the definition of tragic, but I couldn't help wanting to give Gelsomina the most basic piece of advice ever given to a young girl: you can't change that man! I suppose,though, that wasn't the point - we were meant to watch her tragic innocence trampled by the brutal cruelty of a world that doesn't care how sweet your intentions are.

What it comes down to, then, is that this is just a genre of film that I don't like - I don't enjoy watching angry self-destruction and pointless tragedy. I'd rather see a compelling story or some sort of anecdote to the anger and sorrow of daily life. There are so many angry people in the world - you only need to go as far as the grocery store to see people yelling, shouting into phones, suffering from the angst and anger of going through life concerned only with yourself. I think I'll avoid Fellini's and Scorcese's furious, 'raging' characters and turn to cinema for beauty and something uplifiting - escapism, I guess, but isn't that the point of film anyway? It's what I'd prefer, at least.

Michaelangelo Antonioni, RIP

2007-08-13T11:18:00.000-07:00

Check out this video of Monthy Python making reference to Michaelangelo Antonioni, another great film director who died on July 30, the same day as Ingmar Bergman. Anontioni was a mid-century Italian neorealist, whose desparate dramas focused on characters suffering from ennui and malaise. (Keep listen to the character speaking after the credits and music start to roll).

And speaking of dead directors, Alfred Hitchcock was born on this day in 1899.

Becoming Jane

2007-08-06T14:32:00.000-07:00

While Martin was on business trip to Wichita, I went with my sister to see Becoming Jane. It's a biopic (sort of) about the early life and romance of Jane Austen. (It's very much a fictional tale, based on a relationship mentioned in about two sentences of Austen's letter.)

It wasn't a bad movie, but it wasn't great. One of the biggest problems was the male lead, Tom Lefroy, played by James McAvoy. He's introduced as a sort of rogue, and his first scene did not endear him to me at all. It also didn't help that he looks too young and scruffy for elegant Jane. So, I knew they wouldn't end up together (the real Jane never married) and from the very beginning I was happier for Jane that way - the whole time I was thinking she was being saved from making a huge mistake. Lefroy does get better, and we see his sliver of a good side. He's supposed to win us over with his witty comments and sharp mind, but the writing didn't really exhibit this and was not very clever.

There's also a lack of a narrative thrust carrying the entire movie. When Jane first meets Tom, she overhears a disparaging comment he makes about her writing. Although she's a strong, independent proto-feminist, the offhand comment of a complete stranger wounds her so deeply that she destroys the particular piece of insulted writing. This bizarre event leads to what one assumes will be a major story arc - worldly Tom helping sheltered Jane with her writing. But after he suggests to her in a rather nauseating way that she needs to widen her horizons through sexual encounter, and recommends the novel Tom Jones, that storyline disappears. It's not an extremely obscene encounter, but the aforementioned scene suggests that sex is a singular gateway to acquaintance with the world, without which a novelist must remain prurient and obscure. Ironically, Jane Austen describes romance as affection, honesty and genuine love, without extramarital sex - what love is meant to be, in other words. It's a ridiculous insinuation and a pointless scene.

So after Tom criticizes her writing, recommends Tom Jones, and listens to her criticisms of his favorite novel/justification of his promiscuity, and then they're in love. The story then ambles over their ensuing romance with its predictable hurdles, and - well, I won't tell you what happens to conclude the movie, but let me just say that knowing Jane never gets married really punctures what little suspense there was.

The filmmakers were clearly trying to arrange Jane's life to parallel her most popular work (especially popular of late, with two new film adaptations and a 10th anniversary of the best one), Pride and Prejudice. Unfortunately, Becoming Jane is much the worse for the comparison. Darcy, supposedly modeled after Tom, follows the pattern of jerk-turned-lovebird, but Darcy really was a noble man underneath his brusque prejudiced exterior, whereas Tom seems like he's truly just a jerk, who does some nice things. Elizabeth Bennett seemed so much more mature that Anne Hathaway's Jane, who is played like a petulant teenager making irrational decisions. It's hard to sympathize with a character you think should really just grow up.

The film's major flaw is its adopting of the mistaken modern notion that love must be passionate, and to be rational when making decisions concerning marriage means one is cold and dull. This, of course, is the antithesis of Jane Austen. Overall, the film wasn't terrible, but its ambling pace and dull story lacked a compelling narrative that could have turned the sparse story of Jane Austen's single romance into an interesting film.

The Gospel According to the Simpsons

2007-08-03T19:03:00.000-07:00

Here we go, another Simpsons post....

This morning talk show host Laura Ingraham was talking about Mark Pinsky, a journalist with the Orlando Sentinel and author of the book The Gospel According to the Simpsons. The book is about the religious nature of the Simpson family - they pray, go to church, and turn to God in need. According to a quote from Pinsky posted today on Laura's website, "For 'The Simpsons,' [religion] is just a part of their lives, but in that way it's in marked contrast to most commercial television where religion is almost wholly absent."

I had never really thought about that before, but it struck me as very true. As I complained in my review of Evan Almighty, it seems that characters can't pray or attend church without the film being labelled "Christian" and therefore not mainstream, but of course it's different in the Simpsons. (For better or for worse: that doesn't mean that their portrayal of God or religion is something I endorse or even always enjoy, but perhaps it's better than nothing.) Either way, the book might make an interesting read. Another interesting tidbit: although the Simpsons are Protestants of the Western Branch of American Reformed Presbo-Lutheranism, Pinsky is Jewish.

And here's a short Simpsons' take on where Catholics fit into all this (an excerpt from the Season 16 episode "The Father, the Son, and the Holy Guest Star," in which Homer and Bart convert to Catholicism).

Ingmar Bergman Dies at 89

2007-07-30T10:35:00.000-07:00

The associated press reports that Ingmar Bergman died at the age of 89. The only movie I've seen of his was the abstruse and densely allegorical Seventh Seal, an existential tale about a knight's game of chess with Death. Despite his obsession with the theme of existential crisis (which apparently permeates many of his films), he was quoted as saying he was quite comfortable with the idea of nothingness beyond death and his lifestyle certainly seemed to corroborate this quip. It's fascinating that figures like Bergman and Sartre are obsessed with the idea of existential despair, yet possess none of it themselves. Sartre loved to talk about the horror of war, while eating chocolates behind the lines. Both Bergman and Sartre basked in celebrity lifestyles.

Simpsons Movie: A Return to Form

2007-07-27T08:34:00.000-07:00

I filed into the theater last night at midnight with an eclectic throng of Simpsons faithful. While not as rowdy as the Harry Potter and Pirates of the Caribbean crowds whose wild din pierced through my adjacent bedroom window this summer, they had a similar level of devotion and expectancy. Being a Simpsons buff myself, I was paradoxically excited and scared at the prospect of the movie. The show began a sustained nose-dive as its number of seasons entered double digits, and any true fan will admit that the freshness and humor of the early seasons that elevated Homer to cultural icon status stagnated.

The problem can be boiled down to a departure from character-driven story. The Harvard cabal of Simpsons writers felt the pressure from the skyrocketing popularity of shows like The Family Guy and American Dad. Complex, character-driven plots gave way to the dumb explicit political satire featured on American Dad, while Homer morphed into the stupider, edgier, and insensate Peter Griffin of The Family Guy. The Simpsons writers tried to sustain Homer's character with nothing but static, one-sided stupidity. It wasn't enough, and Homer became as boring as his two knock-off characters in The Family Guy and American Dad. It was hard for die-hard fans to see The Simpsons gracelessly attempt to stay abreast with the tastes of a new generation of teenagers bred on South Park. They utterly failed—the world of Springfield could not sustain the violence.

The Simpson family, however, is hilarious when placed in an actual story and forced to face real conflicts on a personal and societal level. In later seasons, an overt liberal agenda trumped the story. The jokes were generated from awkward attempt at satire rather than the spontaneous effect of funny characters in odd situations. In the movie, however, Homer's humor burst forth from his irrepressible character and the conflicts created therein. The movie returns to the old formula that was so successful in the early years. The conflict between the desperate need for family and the constant threat of its dissolution was what powered many of the stories of the earlier seasons. It’s what made the family and their world engaging; the movie employs this formula with fantastic results.

From many initial reviews, I feared the movie would turn into another sermon on global warming, creator Matt Groening's religion; yet, Mr. Groening’s environmental convictions only occupied the backdrop of the movie, never controlling the story or suppressing the characters. Their treatment of the "big" issues was reminiscent of the old days when their agenda was subtly and powerfully communicated or at least balanced with insight from both sides. Many conservatives will chuckle at the choice of the EPA as the misanthropic villain, though one should keep in mind that they are portrayed as corrupted by a monolithic and corporate Republican regime.

In a side note, it’s odd that the movie connects a religious prophecy with an impending apocalyptic eco-disaster; Evan Almighty used the same connection as the basis of its plot. It leaves one to wonder if this is the beginning of trend in Hollywood identifying global warming as a critical issue in matters of faith.

In any case, The Simpsons movie is a must see for all who grew up admiring the show’s world and humor. The Simpsons return to form left me waxing nostalgic and hoping for a sequel.

"You Talking About Cuba?"

2007-07-25T09:39:00.000-07:00

Sergei Eisenstein, despite his fall from Soviet grace, left a powerful resume as the most prolific and talented propagandist to ever live. His energetic "collision montage" painted an image of drama and life onto an utterly dead and desiccated regime. I've written here about his cinematic genius, for only a man of immense talent could peddle monumental lies with such grace. After reading several initial reviews of Michael Moore's Sicko, I think we might have something greater than Eisenstein here.

"You talking about Cuba?"
-Fidel Castro's reply to Mr. Burn's request to live in his "socialist utopia" in an episode of The Simpson's.

I'm not sure even Eisenstein could make Cuban health care look glamorous. The vast majority of Cuba's population doesn't have access to the upper level hospitals that cater to party officials and the tourists who pump dollars into the regime for a cheap liposuction or face-lift. In the state run hospitals for those who can't pay, it's better to stay home and care for yourself. Patients must supply their own toilet paper, light bulbs, and other necessities, and doctors work with next to nothing. Moore glosses over the hundreds of testimonies from dissident doctors or the ugly fact that simple aspirin commands a huge price on the Cuban black market. Only the greatest propagandist of all time could make this brutal reality look like a sunny utopia.

Where have all the ideas gone?

2007-07-18T21:25:00.000-07:00

It's been a common complaint of late that Hollywood has lost its creativity. The theaters have been inundated with sequels and remakes, or both. Who would have thought a few years ago that one of this summer's huge blockbusters would be the third installment of a franchise based on a theme park ride? Or another record-smashing grosser, hailed as the summer's "most original," would be the story of a decades-old cartoon remembered primarily for its toys? The 80's are being revived with gusto, between Rocky VI, Die Hard 4, and Indiana Jones 4. And the number of "thirds" is unbelievable (Pirates, Shrek, Ocean's, Spidey, Rush Hour, Bourne - I'm sure there are more).

Anyway, the reason I'm raving is because this lack of originality has led to scores of adaptations of classic or popular older novels - many of which have gone very, very poorly. Of course, adapting stories is as old as Hollywood. The book "The Art of Adaptation," by Linda Seger, shows that of the 60 Best Picture Oscar winners from 1930 - 1960, only 9 were original stories - the rest were adapted novels, plays, or true-life stories. Then there were the Lord of the Rings movies, which were both an adaptation and a trilogy, and I had no real problem with those. So it's not adaptations per se - it's just disappointing when there's a book that you think would make a great movie, and the movie rights are bought up and produced and the film is tripe.

First there was the Nancy Drew adaptation - now, I didn't see it, but it seems that the beloved 18 year old heroine in the blue convertible from the books I loved as a kid didn't quite make it onto the screen that way. Martin wrote earlier about the Children of Men adaptation, which could hardly have been more different from the book, and he's mentioned the impending Scorcese adaptation of Shusaku Endo's Silence (it's hard to imagine how Scorcese will use his trademark expletives in a story about 16th century Japanese missionaries). And another of my childhood favorites, The Dark is Rising, is being adapted to film, with a very disappointing preview. (That was what really prompted this raving post!) Even The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, while not exactly bad, and rather well-received, was a bit lackluster and could definitely have been better.

It really could be the subject for a long debate - to what extent are movie-makers bound to stay "true to the book"? Or, once they buy the rights, are they at liberty to add, change, and omit whatever they want? Even an adaptation that I would consider successful - The Lord of the Rings - changed some key elements, like Faramir's character, who was honorable and noble in the book but lame in the movies. Books aren't movies (though it seems like current novels are being written with the movie adaptation in mind, and have a very cinematic style), so obviously they've got to change before they hit the screen, but how much? There's a difference, too, between changing the plot or combining characters to streamline a story, and then changing the intent or the theme of the work. I guess it's a question that won't ever really be resolved.

(As a footnote, may I recommend the 1981 miniseries Brideshead Revisited as the best adaptation of a novel ever put on screen? It's the most wonderful 11 hours you'll ever spend watching anything. Then again, this reminds me of the feature film version that's supposed to come out in 2008 - and again, I'm ready to be disappointed!)

Raging Bull

2007-07-17T21:31:00.000-07:00

Jake LaMotta reportedly quipped that he didn't know the full extent of his own depravity until he watched Raging Bull, Scorsese's 1980 flick based on the boxer's autobiography. It's a testament to Scorsese's genius that he was able to convert this faithful depiction of a thoroughly detestable man into a movie widely considered a classic. Jake LaMotta lacks appeal on any level. Despite the box's assertion that the movie is a "penetrating psychological study," LaMotta comes off as much more of a shallow, one-dimensional jerk than a complex set of neuroses - a problem that screenwriters are supposed to fix with a little liberal tweaking of the real life story. The movie is further damaged by its duration, and we're forced to follow him through his transformation from being an arrogant, violent, and youthful jerk to an old, washed up, fat jerk.

Stories traditionally are about moral becoming. Characters begin as bums, conflicted, or in trouble and end in a better state of reconciliation, understanding, and triumph. Movies which lack a character arc generally do worse at the box office. There's a reason why depressing, static stories are confined to independent theaters or enjoyed by the French because the common non-aesthete doesn't want to be plunged into darkness and then left there.

I understand the appeal of Scorsese's Raging Bull, however. The beauty of its form lends quasi poetic lyricism to even the most perverse pounding inflicted in and out of the ring. Young males can consume the testosterone rush with a side transcendence. Scorsese's skill balances the brutal realism and stylized form with deftness that has earned him a preeminent spot in the history of film. Still, I think it'll be awhile till I pick up a Scorsese flick. Watching The Departed and Raging Bull in short succession is like getting a chair smashed over your head.

Evan can wait

2007-07-13T10:42:00.000-07:00

Hello! This is Martin's wife Sara and I'm going to join him as a contributor to this blog. I'd like to begin by offering my thoughts on "Evan Almighty," the recent mega-million dollar "Christian" comedy that tanked (get it?) at the box-office. Martin and I went to see it mostly out of curiosity, eager to comment on a film that is supposed to appeal to us (as Christians), fully expecting a lousy film. Well, we weren't disappointed!

First, let me say that normally I would be cautious about revealing "spoilers" for those of you who hate sunlight so much that you still would want to see the film. But, if you've seen a preview, you've seen the movie. They even show the flood in the preview, which I thought could have been left as a mystery (will it come? won't it?). But no, they reveal everything.

The preview made me wonder about applying the label "Christian" to this movie. Somehow I thought that, if anything, there would be references to God and prayer but nothing particularly Christian, and I was right. The extent of the religion practiced by the characters is a prayer in the very beginning offered by Evan Baxter (Steve Carell [Michael Scott]), and his wife mentions that she has prayed with her sons, off-screen. Then, of course, there are the frequent appearances of God (Morgan Freeman), and obviously, the entire plot that's ripped from the story of Noah. So that's what makes this a religious film.

But, as Martin's said before, Hollywood has a flawed understanding of Christianity in general and what makes a film that Christians will want to see. Producers seem to think that Christianity is something that people do, like play soccer, or enjoy, like NASCAR, instead of something that people are. So a "Christian" or "faith-based" film will be one that wears its religion like a conceit. There are two aspects to the religion in this film: the religious story that makes up the plot, and the jokes and one-liners that refer to elements of Scripture, etc. The plot is substantially "religious" but operates on the assumption that when God calls you to something, he has to transform you into someone else entirely. If you must emulate an Old Testament figure, then you have to wear his ancient robes and scruffy hairstyle. Then again, it's a fantasy, and there would be no plot (and what's more, no jokes) if Steve Carell didn't suffer prodigious inexplicable hair growth, or wasn't accosted by animals from all over the world who travel from their native Africa or Asia to be saved from a local flood in Northern Virginia.

Then there are the throwaway jokes about unleavened bread and frankincense that are meant to make Bible readers feel like insiders (I know what myrrh is! Ha ha!) without making actual sense. Again it's obvious that this religion thing is just something thrown in to make the film appear Christian and attract Christian dollars, while completely lacking anything authentically Christian.

I think Christian filmgoers want to see movies that portray Christians as we really are - normal people, motivated by our Christian faith. Filmmakers don't understand that there are countless people obeying God's call to extraordinary things who aren't covered in white beards or bird poop (there really were no jokes apart from the hair and the animals). A Christian film could just show people acting on their Christian principles in normal situations, but for some reason, if a character mentions God or goes to a church it becomes a specifically "Christian" film, and is only marketed to Christians (unless they go to a Catholic church, in which case it's a mobster film). It seems that producers are so afraid of alienating atheists or whomever that if, say, the kid in "Toy Story" were to return from church one day to play with his toys or have two parents then no one would have seen the film. (Christians, however, aren't alienated by watching characters with no discernible religion because we're long used to it.)

The writer also had no idea what sort of issues or themes interest religious moviegoers, either. God's reason for the ark-building and the flood-sending was to return a developed valley to its natural state and stop some legislation that would sell off the edges of national parkland. So God sends a flood to destroy countless people's homes and inflict severe damage on Washington DC so that trees will have someplace to live. Apparently God has never seen the wide expanses of wilderness that cover the central-western United States, or almost all of Canada, or huge chunks of Russia and central Asia and much of Africa and Australia, not to mention all the oceans, so he needs to reclaim a DC suburb for the wild. And of all the human affairs in which God can interfere, he chooses national park re-appropriation. The greatest evil facing mankind, after all, is cruelty to the planet and some trees.

So overall, the movie wasn't morally offensive or anything, just another misfire from movie execs trying to cash in on the vast and apparently incomprehensible Christian market. Stay tuned for Martin's review!

Harry Potter

2007-07-11T10:05:00.001-07:00

Despite the relentless prodding of my sister to read the Harry Potter books, I've fallen too hopelessly behind in the series to care much about the release of the new movie and last book. For all those who didn't rush off to the midnight showing, Thomas Hibbs has written an insightful review of the movie.

Ignorance has never stopped me from weighing in on a subject before, so I'll say this much: Harry Potter should die in the last book. I say this not out of macabre blood-lust, but out of respect for the world J.K. has created. There's something to be said about preserving a magical world that has captivated children and adults around the globe from the law of diminishing returns. The cartoon strip Calvin and Hobbes ended much too soon for me, but its sudden finish preserved the freshness of the world Bill Waterson had created. The books still sell well, and there's always a sense of wonder and a feeling of expectancy when I go back and read them. On the flip side, Just think of how George Lucas' Star Wars universe has been written out of existence by the hundreds of hacks who write Star Wars novels. I'm afraid J.K. will grab the millions to be had by continuing the series at the expense of the world she's created.

Leo Tolstoy on Film

2007-07-09T14:56:00.000-07:00

I found a pretty cool quote from Leo Tolstoy the other day. The great 19^th century Russian author saw the immense impact film would have once it emerged on the world stage - and he died in 1910 at a time when critics scoffed at the primitive cinema technology and dubbed it mindless entertainment for the masses, many stating emphatically that it will never rise to the level of art. Tolstoy, on the other hand, prophetically foretold the revolution film would bring to the artistic world.

“You will see,” Tolstoy writes, “that this little clicking contraption with the revolving handle will make a revolution in our life—the life of writers. It is a direct attack on the old methods of literary art. We shall have to adapt ourselves to the shadowy screen and to the cold machine. A new form of writing will be necessary. I have thought of that and I can feel what is coming.”

From this cold sense of foreboding, Tolstoy continues cheerily “But I rather like it. This swift change of scene, this blending of emotion and experience—it is closer to life. In life, too, changes and transitions flash by before our eyes, and emotions of the soul are like a hurricane. The cinema has divined the mystery of motion. And that is greatness.”

"Worst Miscalculation This Side of Ishtar"

2007-07-05T11:06:00.000-07:00

A JP Catholic student recently forwarded this very interesting article about the failure of Evan Almighty in connecting with Christian audiences. Though I haven't seen the movie yet, the author seems to have exaggerated a few points ("worst miscalculation since Ishtar" is a pretty bold assertion). Still, his thesis rings true:

"The inability of Evan Almighty to connect with the faith-based audience is deeper and goes to the choices made by the studio, the director and the writers as well as the systemic problems with the way Hollywood has always done business and seems resistant to changing. The notion that millions of conservative Christians (a large majority of whom are also politically conservative) were going to flock to a movie that depicted obviously conservative political leaders as corrupt politicians going against the will of both a modern day Noah and God himself by trying to ruin the environment by opening up government-owned land for development, is nothing short of madness. It's one of the worst cinematic miscalculations this side of Ishtar....

"Despite the bomb that was Evan Almighty, millions of devout Americans are still waiting to be invited into a theater to see a film that is entertaining, affirms their values and doesn't trivialize their deeply held religious beliefs. If Hollywood continues to create films like Evan Almighty, millions of traditionalists may grow to rue the day when Hollywood, with dollar signs in its eyes, began courting them with wilted flowers and stale chocolate.Mixing religion and entertainment has been long avoided for a reason: It's difficult to do well. But if the result of this grand new experiment is films that are neither faithful nor funny, millions of traditionalists will likely find less expensive ways to be entertained and inspired."

I've already written here about Fox's inability to attract Christians with its insipid "faith" label because of similar miscalculations. One would think the prospect of loads of cash would motivate them to open their eyes and study Christians objectively.

Pixar Produces Another Instant Classic

2007-07-02T22:42:00.000-07:00

Just when you think our culture's imagination is in full retreat, taking to the comfortable hills of easy formulas, Pixar strikes again with another instant classic. Unlike the Shrek series, Pixar's humor doesn't lean upon the crutches of pop-culture references or salacious innuendo, nor is its imagination wholly derivative or reactionary. Ratatouille, while not as laugh-out-loud funny as earlier Pixar movies, is the most clever and charming offering to date. Its premise is so outlandishly creative as to seem impossible to deliver. One can just picture a Pixar writer staring at the word "ratatouille" on his menu in Paris, and conceiving a story involving a rat whose highly developed senses lead him to a passion for fine food and eventually to the position of top-ranked chef. Coming into the movie, I couldn't imagine how this premise could possibly develop into another one of the tightly structured, exciting, and hilarious movies Pixar regularly produces. Ratatouille stretches the bounds of imagination and comes out a winner.

A couple of issues ago, Ross Douthat, the prolific movie reviewer for National Review, bemoaned Shrek's insipid attempt at morality designed to "flatter the prejudices of... the most narcissistic generation of Americas in history, by imparting a moral--be thyself-- that's as old as Polonius and as new as The Secret, and as brainless as both." Ratatouille's message is much more palatable, mixing in a good dose of democratic sentiment ("anyone can cook!") with a passion for confronting intractable nature despite the impossibilities (confronting the antagonism in rat / human relations while resisting a rat's penchant for theft).

The animation is also astounding. There is no doubt that Pixar has revolutionized animation, and Ratatouille exceeds their accomplishments in The Incredibles and Finding Nemo. The rats are almost too well rendered, slightly more disgusting than cartoonish.

See this movie! It's simply a good time for every age group.

Hilarious Short

2007-06-28T22:30:00.000-07:00

Take a look at this short comedy film by uber-talented On the Lot contestant Zach Lipovsky. This is not the last time you'll hear of Mr. Lipovsky-- I can't imagine he'll lose the competition or fade into obscurity. Watch his other shorts at www.thelot.com to get a fuller idea of his talent, versatility, and endearingly dorkish charm.

Ebert's Take

2007-06-26T21:55:00.000-07:00

Last week, I struggled to put my disappointment with Ocean's 13 adequately into words. Roger Ebert's review , however, expresses my pent-up frustration perfectly. He has some interesting thoughts about the nature of the "caper" film too, though by these standards Oceans 12 (a personal favorite of mine) is equally insufficient.

The Departed

2007-06-24T14:07:00.000-07:00

The history of most genres consists of a fairly irregular pattern of peaks and valleys. A set of brilliant movies establish a given genre and its conventions as subsequent directors try to create unique and fresh stories based on the tried and true patterns; yet the possibility of new twists is not limitless, and many genres pass out of popularity before being rediscovered by a director with a new take on the old genre conventions. Ridley Scott's Gladiator renewed the old sword and sandal epic established by movies like Spartacus and Ben Hur, and its success paved the way for a glut of movies and TV shows set in classical antiquity. The organized crime / mobster genre that was so popular in the 1930's also experienced a resurgence in the 70's-90's with The Untouchables, The Godfather, and a whole host of followers. In my estimation, we've been so saturated with movies and TV shows in the narrow mobster genre in the last 15 years that I imagine success in it will be difficult down the road. One of the most important elements in a lucrative box office is how a given director approaches the genre question-- how can one produce a fresh take on a genre that's so familar as to be reduced to staleness? How can one avoid the "I've seen it before" vibe?

Not being a big fan of the organized crime genre (with the notable exception of On the Waterfront) I didn't see the Best Picture-winning The Departed until just recently and was pleasantly surprised by the novelty of its plot. For a movie bathed in blood and profanity, The Departed's plot is built around the moral insight central to the mobster genre: inexorable justice. Mobster movies generally thrive on the audience's paradoxical indulgence of mobster's violent vices and the inevitable dispensation of justice. Scorcese scores on both points. The Departed's violence, captured through Scorcese's brilliant direction and editing, is intense, real, and (for weaker stomaches such as my own) unwatchable. Scorcese also expresses the theme of justice in a new and poignant way.

Approach this movie with caution, though. The "F-word" is used quite elastically, functioning as a noun, verb, adjective, adverb and expressing the whole gamut of feelings from hatred and contempt to attraction and sensitivity. If you can stomach it, The Departed is a good movie-- it won Best Picture for a reason.

Shotgun Evangelization

2007-06-22T13:01:00.000-07:00

My recent article "Bella: A Powerful New Pro-Life Movie, but Will Christians Accept It?" has drawn a variety of responses. Here's one of the more vociferous ones:

"Color me a unsubtle simpleton, a moralistic moron, but since when is a direct, unequivocal Christian message a bad thing? Look, I understand and agree with all the criticism made about popular Christian films, like the “Left Behind” series, but because the “Jesus loves me” crowd is sadly incapable of theatrical depth and polish in no way removes the obligation of Christians and Christian media to be blunt, bold, and direct. You know, like Jesus was.

And speaking of Jesus, He always spoke the law first, before He offered grace. he told people in essence, “Turn or burn”. No sugar coating, no moral ambiguity, no subtley complex plot lines that could be interpreted as the listener liked. No, He said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Light. No man shall come to the Father except by me.” (believe that’s John 4:16) Now I don’t know if you’ve been keeping up on current events, but that sounds pretty “obvious”, and “spelled out” to me.

Christianity is all about uncompromising, harsh, narrow morality. I couldn’t care less, and neither should you, about being sophicated and worldly when talking about something so starkly moral as choosing to murder one’s unborn baby for one’s convenience or allowing the child to live and be raised to come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

And another thing, you know why Christian filmmakers are so “obvious” in conveying the essential message? Cause people, yeah including many church-goers, don’t have the first clue what’s written in the Bible and only have the vaguest, most limited concept of things like moral imperatives, natural law, absolutism, and “morally complex” stuff like that. People are stupid - clueless - morally and intellectually bankrupted - corrupted by a toxic culture of Political Correctness. Piercing that armor requires “explicit message over subtle metaphor”.

Would I like it if Christian filmmakers produced films that were to Christianity what “Saving Private Ryan” was for moral clarity and national pride. Hell yeah! (pun could possibly be intended) But Christendom and the rest of Western Society is a lil’ weak on the basics of morality right now so we need to save the “moral complexity” (whatever that means) until people are well grounded in the idea that there really, really, really is a God, and He really, really, really is Righteous and Holy, and He really, really, really will send your sinful ass to hell if you turn your back on Him. How’s that for 'obvious'?"

Bella Needs Your Support

2007-06-18T22:50:00.000-07:00

Check out my article on Bella at www.intellectualconservative.com.

JP Catholic is currently hosting one of Metanoia Film's marketing teams for the big summer push. We all have to be doing what we can to help this movie-- get the word out to everyone you know and more importantly PRAY FOR IT. Bella is such a crucial movie for our culture and the growth of the Christian film industry.

A Little Heavy-Handed Moralizing

2007-06-17T22:17:00.000-07:00

In Peter Suderman's interesting review of the new zombie flick Fido, he highlights what I consider to be a unfortunate trend in Hollywood. "Director Andrew Curry," Suderman writes, "weights his film down with metaphorical dead weight, so that it lurches from half-dead idea to half-dead idea with all the grace and wit of its big, dumb zombie characters — which is to say very little. And what it tries to say isn’t even worth getting out of your grave for: Diversity is good! Capitalism is bad! Suburbia breeds stifling conformity! Did somebody eat this movie’s brain?"

Anyone who levels the criticism of amorality at the entertainment industry simply hasn't watched much media in the past few years; the sheer number of celebs who are jockeying for moral superiority is staggering and certainly not confined to the usual suspects of Clooney, Spielberg, and Jolie. The metaphor seems to be their preferred vehicle in the race for humanitarian/activist of the year, being the most facile way to create devastating satire without the cumbersome prerequisite of clear thinking. I wouldn't mind it at all if the story remained afloat after all the moralizing; the director's diligent efforts to help the audience in drawing a clear conclusion often scuttles the story... if there's a story to begin with. Al Gore's filmed lecture An Inconvenient Truth is hopefully the beginning of the end of that genre.

Nowhere is the penchant for brainless metaphor more pronounced than in comedy. I know I'm not the only Simpson's fan who has bemoaned the loss of intelligent satire. The last few seasons have resembled modern morality plays with its conclusions as obvious and humorless as its medieval predecessors. I'd rather watch Seinfeld, a self-proclaimed show about nothing, than be beat over the head with transparent and fashionable moral conclusions. At least this trend hasn't reached epidemic status-- sitcoms like The Office and Arrested Development still provide welcome relief.

Mike Judge's Idiocracy: An Evolutionary Biologist's Nightmare

2007-06-13T23:13:00.001-07:00

I'll bet Margaret Sanger never imagined in her wildest eugenic fantasies that her principles could possibly lead human progress backwards. Idiocracy's premise introduces into the evolutionary picture the wild, unpredictable, utopia-crushing principle of free will. In its opening sequence, a sophisticated couple complain that "market conditions" aren't amenable to having children; several cuts later their contraceptive mindset ends in their irreversible infertility, while backwoods rednecks promiscuously copulate with reckless abandon. Thus, we are lead to the creation of Idiocracy, a future world where marketing slogans are elevated to the level of absolute truth and art is as obscene as it is stupid.

Unfortunately the premise, while inherently hilarious, is merely a vehicle for writer/director Mike Judge to display his impressive array of fart and sex jokes, the knowledge of which was integral to his creation of Beavis and Butthead. A few funny moments remain; all in all it was an enjoyable DVD rent. But enough from me, Steve Sailor has a great review of Idiocracy here.

Unlucky Thirteen

2007-06-10T22:52:00.000-07:00

The early arrival of my baby boy on May 15th solved a difficult conundrum for me: Peter's original due date and the release of Ocean's 13 coincided on June 8th. Of course I exaggerate the crisis-- my wife would justifiably create a much greater predicament if it were actually a conflict-- but at least it gives you a sense for the magnitude of my anticipation. With the months of giddy expectancy aside though, Ocean's 13 would have deflated my lowest expectations. Now I'm not a superstitious man, so I'll have to chalk this one up to bad writing. The predictable, lumbering plot didn't bother me as much as the flat wit and botched attempts to force comedic chemistry. Though many heaped scorn on its predecessor Ocean's 12 as a convoluted mess of a movie, it ranks as one of my favorite films because of the clever, witty banter of Ocean's gang. I'm a sucker for hilarious dialogue, and will overlook even the most egregious cinematic lapses because of it. I guess that's why I feel so let down by the latest Ocean's movie.

The undoing of Ocean's 13 was the inherent inertia in its premise. The revenge plot took so long to set up that Soderbergh was forced to cut rapidly from location to location and have characters finish each other's sentences in order to keep the pace up and avoid audible snores from the audience. There wasn't enough time left to really create the same chemistry that the all-star cast enjoyed in the last two, and the plot never recovered from the lost momentum. The finish was just as disappointing as what preceded it. My wife pointed out that it lacked the great twist of the previous two and was unable to generate even the slightest amount of suspense. Still, I guess if you put aside all comparisons with the last two, it's a mildly enjoyable movie worth a DVD rent.

Cashing In

2007-06-08T12:06:00.000-07:00

I can't believe that I'm just hearing about this now, but Fox started its own faith label. Apparently the label's definition of "faith" encompasses anything considered bland and inoffensive like Garfield cartoons and Strawberry Shortcake: Adventures on Ice Cream; there was nothing advertised on its website that seemed worth seeing. Fox wants to cash in on the Christian market, yet still does not have enough respect for Christian consumers to really break the piggy bank open. I can't imagine this label has been very successful. Its profitability will be limited until it can really break free from its stereotypes.

I guess every genius is entitled to one blunder....

2007-06-05T22:46:00.000-07:00

So I gushed here and here about the genius of Kieslowski's Decalogue parts 1-3. Sara and I rented parts 4-7 from Netflix awhile ago, and it took some gumption to actually get around to watching them-- despair and moral crises in urban Warsaw isn't the most invigorating thing to watch after a long day at work. Judging by the first three installments, I thought we'd be in for another masterpiece with part 4; yet we were instead forced to cringe our way through the longest hour of our lives. Kieslowski's penchant for plumbing man's depths gets away from him a little here-- he digs so deep that he finds madness instead of conflict and crisis. Part 4 features a mentally ill girl who believes she's found evidence that the father who raised her has no biological relation to her, developing a disturbing Electra complex on him. It's hard to identify with a character who should be institutionalized, and Kieslowski's sophisticated style in the first three installments devolves into a cheap lighting display designed to force an emotional response in the fourth. I guess everyone is entitled to a stinker. Both Sara and I hold out high hopes for parts 5-7.

Postmodernity and the Family

2007-06-03T20:29:00.002-07:00

My wife and I just finished the last DVD of Arrested Development, which, in my estimation, is one of the finest sitcoms ever created. Much like The Office, Arrested Development relies on the interaction and growth of well-developed characters through a linear plot line for most of its laughs, though its unique and hilarious manipulation of editing and narration puts it a notch above other character-driven comedies.

The story line revolves around the Bluths, a real estate developing family, whose extravagant lifestyle is disrupted by the sudden arrest of the corrupt patriarch by the SEC. The odd-ball family is kept together by Michael Bluth, who simultaneously despises and (though he rarely and begrudgingly admits it) needs his family. Michael is the hardworking, ethically driven member of the family, whose exasperation with his needy, self-centered family is a source of much of the show's comedy. The world of the family is masterfully developed, so much so that it's difficult to get into it half-way. So many jokes and character nuances become show motifs and grow in hilarity as they are repeated throughout all three seasons.

Arrested Development is interesting on an intellectual level as well. The underlying premise of the show is the inescapable importance of the family. The more dissolute and fractured the family becomes, the more they feel the urgent need to put it back together. Michael's concern for the ethical is constantly disrupted by his own sinfulness and by postmodern confusion on what comprises an ethical action. The show is provides interesting insight into one of the primary problems in postmodern life: conceptions of morality and family have been tossed aside, yet we still have a basic need for these things in our daily lives-- the show creates a multitude of funny moments arising from this contemporary conflict.

This show should not be approached without caution, however. Like all modern comedies, it has its fair share of lewdness, though I think it deals with these areas with much more humor, cleverness, and tact than any other comedy out there.

Double Feature

2007-06-01T20:54:00.000-07:00

JP Catholic hosted a double feature screening last night of two outstanding documentaries: The Call of the Entrepreneur and Champions of Faith. The former, however, eclipsed the latter in terms of production values and structure, though not to say Champions of Faith wasn't an enjoyable watch. The Call of the Entrepreneur simply was one of the best documentaries I've ever seen. It seamlessly interwove the stories of three entrepreneurial visionaries whose paths never cross, but are nevertheless interconnected in the grand scheme of things. It convincingly lays out the case for the vital role of the entreprenurial vocation in creating America's freedom and prosperity. Far from being a "zero sum game" or mere poker contest consisting of only winners and losers, the success of the entrepreneur creates wealth and opportunities for others. The dehumanizing influence of command economies is chillingly depicted as well. I'm not sure if I've ever seen a documentary as well made as this one and I heartily recommend it.

It's a shame Champions of Faith had to follow that act. While it was entertaining, it often resembled the cheap baseball highlight tapes you see in the $5 bin at Wal-Mart-- there was a ton of deadweight material that could have been easily cut. The nasal/slightly annoying voice of the narrator didn't help either. Still, it was an enjoyable ride. Mike Sweeney and Rich Donnelly's stories were pretty cool. A good pick for any baseball fan who takes his faith seriously.

Another Lost Opportunity

2007-05-30T23:44:00.000-07:00

Just as P.D. James' Catholic vision was supplanted in the blandly secular adaptation of Children of Men, it seems another Catholic classic novel is in the wrong hands. My wife and I recently finished Shusaku Endo's novel Silence, a fictional account of a Portuguese missionary's struggle with faith during the brutal persecutions in 16th century Japan, and were thrilled to find out that the film adaptation was in pre-production and would be directed by Martin Scorsese. In my unbounded naivety, I believed Martin's Scorsese, who has never been able to distance himself from his Catholic upbringing, would render a faithful and compelling adaptation. Unfortunately in a recent IMDB newsfeed Scorsese explained the story as an extended metaphor for the failure of the US invasion of Iraq and the folly of imposing Western cultural norms on foreign cultures. It would be thoroughly disappointing to see Endo's complex theological themes get subsumed into another multicultural manifesto, and I hope it's just bluster to get press attention. Proclaiming a movie to be an extended metaphor with Iraq seems to be a popular fad these days-- Mel Gibson promoted Apocalypto the same way. I'm preparing myself for disappointment though.

I take it back...

2007-05-29T22:57:00.001-07:00

One comedy short from On the Lot contestant Adam Stein made me want to retract my previous uncharitable comments about the show. Maybe I'm just a sucker for this brand of physical humor, but I thought it was hilarious. Watch it here.

Mike Judge's Idiocracy: An Evolutionary Biologist's Nightmare

2007-05-29T21:33:00.000-07:00

I'll bet Margaret Sanger never imagined in her wildest eugenic fantasies that her principles could possibly lead human progress backwards. Idiocracy's premise introduces into the evolutionary picture the wild, unpredictable, utopian-crushing principle of free will. In its opening sequence, a sophisticated couple complain that "market conditions" aren't amenable to having children; several cuts later their contraceptive mindset ends in their eventual irreversible infertility, while coarse backwoods rednecks copulate with reckless abandon. Thus, we are lead to the creation of Idiocracy, a world where marketing slogans are elevated to the level of absolute truth and art is as obscene as it is stupid.

Unfortunately the premise, while inherently hilarious, is merely a vehicle for writer/director Mike Judge to display his impressive array of fart and sex jokes, the knowledge of which was integral to his creation of Beavis and Butthead. A few funny moments remain; all in all it was an enjoyable DVD rent. But enough from me, Steve Sailor has a great review of Idiocracy here.

Snores and Spectacle: Pirates III at My Wits' End

2007-05-28T00:35:00.000-07:00

(May contain spoiler material)
Last night I went to what I hoped would be the movie event of the summer: Pirates of the Caribbean III: At World's End. We went an hour early to get good seats: we were excited and ready for a fun and entertaining motion picture.

What we got was a nearly-three-hour-long napfest of explosions and confusions.

The film opens with a grisly assembly-line hanging of like a million pirates, eight at a time, including a child. Shudder. This sets off a "time of crisis" for all the pirates in the world, and they must hold a pirate council. The rest of the movie is a "build-up" to the final showdown between the pirates and the Evil British Empire (Hey! I'm British!), whose navy is led by the octopus guy Davy Jones.

I cannot even begin to explain to you how complicated they make this: William wants to save his Dad who is a monster-slave to the octopus guy, so he wants to stab the heart-in-a-box of the octopus guy, who happens to be the octopus guy just because he's not fulfilling his job as courier-of-the-dead (it's a curse from the voodoo lady who I guess fell in love with him, but she turns into these gray crabs a lot, even though she's trapped in a human body.) Elizabeth is guilty because she killed Captain Jack (who is now in a kind of desert hell with like fifty of himself), but Will thinks she loves Captain Jack, but she doesn't, but she doesn't talk to her fiance' William about it for some reason, but the pirate council wants to free the voodoo lady who is actually the goddess Calypso and when they free her she turns into a giant naked screaming monster-of-crabs, and then she unleashes her fury on all the pirates and they have this cosmic ship battle in the middle of a cosmic whirlpool but the whole time everyone is fighting over the key-to-the-box-of-the-heart-of-the-octopus-guy-but-we-don't-
remember-why-because-every-five-minutes-of-the-movie-one-of-the-
characters-betrays-the-others-to-fill-in-the-blank-bad-guy-I-am-
pretty-smart-but-I-actually-did-lose-track.

Deep breath. . . .

My friend Caroline fell asleep at this movie.

Add to this magical goulash (it felt a little like the socio-politico-economic-hodgepodge in Star Wars Episode I) some just needlessly gross stuff (a guy gets frostbite and breaks off his toe, and it's actually a "comic" moment.)

There are too many characters (who is the mean cockney guy with the little gun again?), too many pirates (the Hong Kong pirates are pretty gross, I must say), TOO MUCH EXPLOSIONS. Seriously there was like a ten minute slowmotion woodchip explosion scene. I thought I was going to die.

Even Johnny Depp wasn't that funny the third time around--although he did have some good one liners, like the "Q.E.D." quote. I like his dialogue; it's snappy.

The actress that plays Elizabeth grows more anorexic every film, too: she looks more and more like a boy. It's sad because she's pretty.

Did I mention it was almost three hours long (also about fifty five previews).

Ok, now for the things I liked:

1) Keith Richards makes an appearance as Captain Jack's father: that was a nice touch.
2) Some great images of natural beauty: some island shots and ice shots that were very stunning--they made an odd juxtaposition with most of the grimy tone of the film.
3) That it ended.

Abortion Film Wins Top Award at Cannes

2007-05-27T23:00:00.000-07:00

Read this news story.

A Romanian director just won the top prize at Cannes for his film about a woman seeking an illegal abortion in Communist Romania. I'm surprised it didn't make the Cannes ideologues more uncomfortable, though I can see why they voted for it. On the one hand, it graphically portrays an aborted fetus because, according to the director, "there are consequences to our actions."Additionally, I can imagine the Neo-Marxists at Cannes were squirming in their seats at the depiction of gritty despair in Romania. On the other hand, I imagine they saw the film as a valuable lesson against oppressive abortion laws, which is probably what catapulted it to the top prize.

Christian Aesthetics

2007-05-24T22:05:00.000-07:00

I would never direct a scene that would embarrass the Blessed Mother," said Alejandro Monteverde, the award winning director of Bella.

Is there value in portraying vice as it is-- a destructive, disgusting, and degrading reality? Or does the Christian filmmaker become complicit in the evil act he depicts. even if he stands in judgement of that act? I can see it both ways, but I tend to side with Monteverde in favor of a sanitized aesthetic. No matter how hard a filmmaker tries to emphasizes the consequences of an act or the spiritual death of sin, a sensual aesthetic never reaches its audience on an intellectual level. Many Christians believe we can change the culture through this kind of "subversive" content, and that by refusing to glorify sin they have somehow stripped it of its luster and attraction. I disagree. I don't think the audience of The Sopranos or Kill Bill thinks much about the causal ties between endless cycles of death and the multifarious sins of the characters. It seems much more plausible to me that they are instead participating vicariously in the rush of adrenalin that accompanies such vile acts.

Top Undiscovered Talent Needs to Stay Incognito

2007-05-22T22:06:00.000-07:00

I was able to watch (between my baby's bowel explosions-- his most pronounced personality trait) most of On the Lot, Fox's new American Idol of filmmaking. The show's premise is a competition between amateur directors whose short, no-budget films earned them a place in the contest. The winner of the competition will be hired for a movie deal with Dreamworks. The first event was assembling and pitching a story from an assigned log line. Maybe it was the pressure of the moment or the lack of time, but I would renege on the deal if I were running Dreamworks. America's top undiscovered creative talent lacks the rudimentary imagination of a child. Even the top performers, the best of the bunch, spun tales that we've seen a million times on the USA network. It was a brilliant trick to weed out the contestants in the first round, but unfortunately backfired since they all deserved to go.

Robert McKee, a legendary screenwriting consultant, wrote that Hollywood's imagination is impoverished and forced to rely on the same dead ideas over and over again for sequels, prequels, and spin-offs. I was excited for On the Lot because I believed it would bring to the surface new creativity so needed in a stagnate industry. All of the contestants, however, strove to shock, excite, and entertain but ended up doing none of the above. McKee would be rolling in his grave if he were dead. I think there must be some connection between our generation's complete reliance on visceral media (TV, film, internet) and the loss of creativity. I'm not sure how that back up that assertion, but somehow it seems appropriate to me. The contestants could form visual images well enough or they wouldn't have gotten picked, but were out to sea when required to construct interesting and compelling content.

I personally can't stand American Idol; it's painful to watch people fail at something they've identified as the sole measure of their worth and human dignity. In On the Lot, the pain was even more pronounced because the contestants seemed even more insecure. I can't imagine I'll stop watching it though.

So I Wasted a Day of My Life: 24's Season Finale

2007-05-21T21:56:00.000-07:00

I don't think a TV show has ever brought out as much ambivalence in me as 24's Season Six. Is it possible to love Jack Bauer but hate 24? I don't think any male can watch Jack without a surge of adrenalin, but it was painfully hard to go between doses this season. All the down time between instances of Bauer's patriotic sadomasochism was filled with silly political intrigues and melodramatic romances. The soap opera love triangles in CTU reminded me of something my classmates and I were too mature for back in fifth grade. For the world's most intelligent tactical team in the midst of unparalleled crises, their capacity for petty jealous was unbelievably high. In the postmortem (an appropriate word if I ever used one) analysis, it's unclear whether it was the best use of a day of my life. At least the show's conceit allowed me to easily calculate the time lost.

Liberty Film Festival

2007-05-20T15:39:00.000-07:00

With the blessing of my wife, I abandoned my new parental duties for a night to attend the Liberty Film Festival in Orange County. Started by Yale grads Jason Apuzzo and Govindini Murty, the Liberty Film Festival is the premier outlet (perhaps the only outlet) for conservative filmmakers who have imprudently revealed their leanings to the established industry. As expected, the night was much more of a three hour pep rally and unabashed plea for funding than it was a film festival. Still, I had fun-- the founders of the festival put together an impressive slate of political filmmakers. David Zucker (Airplane, Naked Gun) outshone them all, but perhaps that conviction stems more from my lingering adolescence than from any profound thought expressed on Zucker's part. I'll never cease being impressed by him. Who else can build an entire career around endless variations of basically the same pun?

The whole experience brought to mind the ancient philosophical conundrum: "if a tree falls in the woods but nobody hears it, does it make a sound?" Most of the filmmakers were talented, passionate, and articulate... but marginalized. Despite the rah-rah atmosphere, it was evident that none of them were going to make a ripple any time soon. Only one of the films has a chance: a political documentary on Hillery Clinton featuring Dick Morris. This documentary had two factors going for it that none of the others did. Firstly, Dick Morris, being a long-time Clinton confidante, is a heavy-hitter; thus, it can't be smothered to death by media silence. It reminds me of advice Steve McEveety lent our students: The Passion of the Christ only received media attention because of Mel Gibson's stardom. If it had been done by any moe-shmoe the media would have simply ignored it-- McEveety told JP students to start secular and get big before making huge overtly religious films. Secondly, the film has money behind it. They don't care about being rejected by the liberal distributors because they're simply going to buy the theaters out.

None of the other films had these two factors going for them. After every clip I saw, I couldn't help thinking, "that's great, but who's going to watch this?" Even the head of Genius Products (a DVD distributor), couldn't shed any light on the impossible up-hill distribution battle for conservative documentaries without much money or a big name. Only the immortal (and at times immoral) David Zucker alluded to the answer: the new media. Zucker's zany political shorts were made for U-Tube, gaining millions of eyeballs and a number three overall rating. The truth, it seems to me, is that the future for these filmmakers is online and not in the traditional distribution channels (theaters, DVD, television). What else can they do? Go from film festival to film festival begging crowds to support them? It's unclear how that approach leads to anything.

To make matters worse, these poor political filmmakers suffer, by no fault of their own, from the Michael Moore syndrome. Moore's ridiculous antics have degraded political documentaries to the point that no one can watch one without a certain amount of resistance. He has played so fast and loose with the facts in service of an ideology that its natural for any viewer to assume these excesses are unavoidable for anyone with convictions. This is why political documentaries don't interest me as much lately because its hard to gauge their impact.

It's a Boy!

2007-05-17T17:18:00.000-07:00

I've sired an heir! Peter Martin Harold was born on 5/15 before noon. Sure I'm a little biased, but objectively little Peter is the cutest baby ever. Despite being 3 weeks premature, he popped out a whooping eight pounds, four ounces. Look at those humongous hands! I'm tempted to retire on the prospect of him playing in the NBA. I know I'm getting ahead of myself (we haven't quite taught him how to eat properly yet), but I'm on cloud nine and want to indulge myself a little.

Producer of the Passion Visits JP Catholic!

2007-05-16T22:45:00.000-07:00

Steve McEveety shared his wealth of producing experiences with the JP Catholic students today. None were more powerful than his description of the very real spiritual attacks the production team came under during the filming of The Passion of the Christ. Filming it changed the course of McEveety's life, transforming his previously nominal faith. Hearing him relive the stories brought out a comforting fact: even when Satan pulls every punch and throws the whole weight of his power against something God still triumphs. McEveety has made some good movies with Braveheart, We Were Soldiers, and Hot Shots among them. He didn't seem to want to talk about any of them except The Passion. Such was the effect it had on him.

On a side note, McEveety is involved in a very interesting start-up company. He's building a company that will censor objectionable TV content for private homes. It works like a normal cable subscription. In my estimation it's a huge innovation with fairly wide appeal. Not only does this clean up TV for those who want it, but it also provides a platform for small JP Catholic companies to deliver content. It will be interesting to see how it develops.

Disappointing Adaptation: Alfonso Cuaron missed the point in Children of Men

2007-05-10T19:45:00.000-07:00

As Europe's population ebbs dramatically these days, Children of Men's premise of inexplicable world-wide infertility takes on some added muster. Though not everyone is suffocating their parental instincts (Muslims seem to be cresting over Europe's boarders with even greater rapidity), I can't imagine the log line of total infertility carrying the same kind of metaphorical weight at any other moment in history. A culture steeped in secular narcissism cannot remain so without a slight amount of self-consciousness of the nihilistic consequences. Seinfeld, for example, spun this self-consciousness into humor; yet, despite our culture's penchant for distraction, occasionally a subconscious awareness of the consequences bubbles to the surface (what else can explain Anna Nicole's postmortem parade?). It isn't surprising that it took only a brief glance at the premise for publishers to agree to print P.D. James' novel Children of Men.

James' bleak nihilistic world is chilling because it is clean and well-ordered, efficiently administrated by a gentle despotism committed to easing England into its future of complete oblivion. Empty swing-sets, bereaved impotent mothers, euthanasia, pornography, and wild fascination with the younger generation are the constant reminders of the end of humanity and complete despair which cannot be glossed over by superficial cleanliness and order. Against this hopeless backdrop, James introduces us to Theodore Faron, a 50 year old Oxford historian who has drunk in the nihilism of the times too deeply, barely keeping himself going despite the diminishing therapeutic value of his work. Without giving too much of the story away, I will say that Faron unwittingly becomes involved in safeguarding the birth of new life on Earth. While the birth represents a renewed hope for humanity, it is only a symbol for the true source of rebirth in the book: Faron's conquest of his nihilistic narcissism by self-sacrificing love. James, a Catholic, was explicit in her prescription for nihilism; humanity's hope lies not in progress of history but in the logic of the cross.

Unfortunately, only character names and the bare bones plot skeleton remain in Alfonso Cuaron's recent film adaptation. All of James' penetrating insights were swept into his secular vacuum, and the nihilistic backdrop of the movie is distinctly different from the book. Cigarettes, mistreatment of immigrants, and general public disorder are the film's symbols of despair. Rather than being symbolic of something incisively deeper, the new birth which Faron safeguards doesn't point to anything past the surface event. In the documentary accompanying the movie on its DVD, a slew of profoundly incoherent European professors imposed a Marxist meaning on the birth. They stated (beneath a mass of superfluous jargon) that it was story of hope for Marxists living in a post-Communist era, teaching us to place hope in the progress of humanity and its ability to recover from its loss of utopia. I do applaud their ability to be intellectually excited by such a banal and boring movie, though I can't understand where they could have possibly gleaned those conclusions.

Visually, the movie was excellent. Cuaron created a convincingly apocalyptic vision of the not too distant future. Shooting with a hand-held camera and a documentary filming style add to the total disjointing effect. It's too bad Cuaron missed the insight of the book because he's a very talented filmmaker.

The Lives of Others

2007-05-08T20:59:00.000-07:00

I initially came across the preview for The Lives of Others when I went to an independent theater to see Into Great Silence. In-step with most independent film fare these days, the preview emphasized the voyeuristic sexual encounters suggested by the movie's title. For all those who live under the delusion that "independent" is consonant with "artistic", it's a hard truth that independent film has all the same vices as mainstream, except the depravity is different in nature, being more eccentric and, in my estimation, more disgusting. My initial misgivings were finally overcome by several positive reviews, which portrayed it as both spiritually deep and challenging and not the peeping-tom adolescent fantasy the preview made it out to be. I was not disappointed.

As the Clinton years were the ideal backdrop for a golden age of comedy, cold war tensions were fertile ground for churning out taut political thrillers. Director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (a name Steve Sailor described as "heel-clickingly Teutonic") has produced a movie that differs markedly from most movies set during cold-war (perhaps due to Donnersmark's lack of anglo-centric perspective). The story centers on two true communist believers, an artist and a secret policeman, and their eventual disillusionment with a political system that sucks the spiritual life out of its populace. The artist, played with boyish enthusiasm by Sebastian Koch, puts faith in man and man's ability to transform his nature; the policeman, on the other hands, ardently believes in the political system. The two character's worlds collide through the power posturing of the communist elite, a world where truth is merely a pragmatic weapon. The movie's beauty lies on the subtle spiritual regeneration of both characters-- I won't give away any more because I'm already dangerously close to spoilers.

My old political science professor loved to harp on the most prevalent feelings in communist countries: boredom and despair. Donnersmarck places these feelings front and center and powerfully dramatizes them. It's the first cold-war movie I've seen (perhaps there are others) that places such an emphasis on the rape of man's soul under communism.

Visually, Donnersmarck's austere and restrained style is magnificent. Never does he detract us away from what's dramatically important or fall into the trap of giving into the insecure need to sensually excite the audience. He doesn't even use editing's rhythmic power to force thrills on us by shortening each scene in building to a climax; he simply lets the drama speak for itself. Through dark gray color tonalities and claustrophobic framing, He effectively creates a world of stultifying despair.

See this movie! Be warned though-- It's rated "R" and for a good reason. The more salacious scenes are not gratuitous though, and are carefully filmed so as to reveal poignant insights rather than to prick our nerve endings. One particular lascivious scene, for example, is carefully filmed in a repugnant way in order to expose the character's spiritual death. Still, it should be noted before going to see it.

Concupiscence and Forgiveness in Spiderman III

2007-05-07T19:49:00.000-07:00

(May contain some spoiler material)
Last night we went to the late-night showing of Spiderman III, the third movie of one of the most successful superhero franchises ever. Sure, the special effects were cool and the film was exciting, but the film blew me away with two oft-neglected themes: concupiscence and forgiveness. The story itself isn't much different from the other two Spiderman films--humble but brilliant Peter Parker struggles to maintain a relationship with the people he loves while still fighting the ridiculously powerful bad guys that flock to his city. "Where do these guys come from?" He asks, shaking his head.

Spiderman III succeeds where the original Star Wars Trilogy shone: by showing that the fight between good and evil really begins inside the human heart, and that all the battles, wars, and conflicts of the cosmos are just manifestations of this original internal dialogue of man. There is some great symbolism with the black spider suit (which is actually an alien shape-shifter parasite/symbiont life form). The suit really does give him power, aggression, and confidence: and he really does have the choice to put on and take off the suit, after he realizes what it does.
He has the choice to put it on and take it off. . . at first. Then it becomes more and more difficult to take it off: he begins wearing it during his normal life, drawing power from it and hurting those he loves. When he finally decides to remove the black suit, he almost can't. It has become deeply joined to him, and he must physically tear it off of himself. Sin, once it becomes habitual, can be as difficult to remove as our very skin: it's significant that Peter climbs up a Church steeple and tears off his parasitic suit in the bell tower, beneath the cross of the steeple. The next scene is one of purification--Peter returns home and stands beneath the spray of a hot shower--literally and figuratively washing himself clean of his sin. Baptismal imagery anyone?

The theme of forgiveness follows on this theme of free will and sin: we see that when evil is done, vengeance does not bring closure or healing. Spiderman confronts his Uncle's ACTUAL killer (the movie explains this discrepancy with the first film), and the killer says something like "I don't ask you to forgive me, just that you understand." At this, Peter Parker says the best line in the whole film: "I forgive you." When he says it, it's almost like he's discovering the words and the feeling for the first time: it's a well-acted scene in which he himself is suprised by forgiveness and the healing it brings. This newfound Truth bears him directly to the side of his dying friend/nemesis/archrival, Harry, where he asks him for (and receives) forgiveness. TWO acts of forgiveness in the span of ten minutes. Granted, they don't satisfactorily reconcile him with his estranged girlfriend, althought it's sort of implied--they had to leave that for the NEXT film. Nonetheless, I thought it was a powerful testament to the healing that forgiveness and mercy bring.

There were a few things that I didn't like about the film: it's too long, it's full of complicated relationship stuff (a bit soap opera-y), and it's just your basic action film--the cinematography is nothing too special.

I did really like the French waiter, though: he's absolutely hilarious.

The Lighter Side of Snobbery

2007-05-05T22:13:00.000-07:00

Whether it's deserved or not, the phrase "a movie critic" conjures up a single image etched in our collective national consciousness of a corpulent blob who erects a facade of snobbery to cover up his morbidly sensitive ego. Despite Leonard Malton's svelte homeliness and dozens of other exceptions, most of us can point to a national or local critic who embodies the film snob stereotype, people who are easily identified by their tendency to laud any eccentricity simply for eccentricity's sake or fall rapturously in love with any movie that ends with the word "fin." The Critic, created by the minds behind The Simpsons, plays on this image for a hilarious two seasons (too short a life span if you ask me), twisting the snob stereotype into a lovable, empathetic protagonist starring the voice of comic genius Jon Lovitz. The Critic is undeniably an overlooked classic. Here's one of my favorite clips from the episode "Eyes on the Prize." In this clip, Lovitz's character watches a short he directed as a film student in order to inspire him to win his next Pulitzer. The clip hilariously plays on the absurdity of film elitism.

Spiderman 3

2007-05-04T14:01:00.000-07:00

Several JP students dragged themselves out of bed for the 6:30am showing of Spiderman 3, which is an amount of devotion I can't imagine giving to any human endeavor much less a movie. I'm not sure how many actually went, but the mere fact that they did go is amazing, since the student body's core competency, according to JP's president, is tardiness (and classes don't start until 10:30am). Still, I'm really excited to see Spiderman 3. For those caught in the Spiderman mania, read Peter Suderman's review.

Visual Storytelling Scenario

2007-05-03T08:18:00.000-07:00

I gave this quiz to my class last quarter, thinking it would be a fun way to illustrate the intersection between visual style and story. While they didn't enjoy my "pop test" as much as I had anticipated, it spurred on some vigorous debate. It was interesting to see the wide range of responses.

Hypothetical Scenario:

You are a producer for Paramount. After ten fairly successful years, your career hit a rocky patch last summer when both of your “guaranteed summer blockbusters” performed abysmally at the box office. After several other disastrous gambles, your position at Paramount is in jeopardy, and you’ve already noticed applicants being interviewed down the hall, possibly for your position. Your problems are not only confined to the office, since a majority of your friends have become reluctant to be seen with you in public after your last flop. You are in a state of desperation.

Searching desperately for a sure-fire hit, you come across a brilliant screenplay. You rarely read at all, much less screenplays, but this story kept your eyes transfixed for 110 pages. It sent a tingling sensation through your spine. You experienced something that you hadn’t felt for 25 years: conviction. The story awakens you to the plight of the inner city and you desperately want to do your part to help.

The screenplay dramatized the true story of DeShawne Jackson, an inner-city youth from Compton, Los Angeles. As an adolescent DeShawne was swept up in the gang culture that permeates the Compton projects, putting his life on the same trajectory with all the other poor, violent, disillusioned gang members. The death of DeShawne’s grandmother, his surrogate mother, radically altered the path of his life, awakening DeShawne to the hopeless horrors of violent street life; yet DeShawne was too deeply involved in the gang to get out. Though he is a scrawny, gaunt boy, his commanding personality and quick wits earned him a high place in the gang’s hierarchy. After witnessing the butchering of an innocent boy, DeShawne decides to fight the gang culture by breeching the one value gangs esteem: trust. He runs to the police, and must refuse their offer of asylum because he knows his younger brothers and sisters need him but won't follow. This incident ignites an intense chase with every gang member alerted to the breech of trust committed by DeShawne. In the end, DeShawne is tortured brutally and finally executed, but not after touching the hardened hearts of many of the gang members and fellow poverty stricken citizens by his commitment to not fall back into his violent ways.

This real life story moves you so much that you instantly begin the search for a director. You need someone to bring this story to life, to awaken the world to the horrors of poverty and gang life and to move people towards political action. The world needs to be moved to action. This story takes on personal meaning for you above and beyond commercial considerations, though you know your job and social life depend on being successful, and success is measured in dollars.

Several qualified directors express interest in taking on the project. Your job is to select one. Paramount demands that you defend your choice. If you think that none of these directors will do, write a few paragraphs on why you should have more time to continue searching for director.

Directors: (Note: none of these directors actually exist in real life)

1. Jacob Gilstrap: Gilstrap is a Quentin Tarantino protégé, who ascended to star director status in the last four years. He approached you as soon as he got wind of the script. Gilstrap wants to begin the movie with scenes of violence that, using slow motion photography and a mobile camera, seem almost lyrical and musical, illustrating the attractiveness of violence and dark energy to the male psyche. The violence would be highly stylized, rhythmical, and almost poetic; a song which imparts vitality, energy, and a sort of perverse meaning into the lives of the gang members. Within this song of violence, Gilstrap plans to raise a discordant note in the person of DeShawne Jackson. DeShawn’s choice to snitch threatens the “song,” the source of vitality for the gang, and he therefore is crushed.

A director of Gilstrap’s stature would bring a greater probability of commercial success, which you desperately need. Your mind is plagued with questions: does Gilstrap’s style fit the story? Does it fit your vision? Will he really bring in more money at the box office?

2. Pepé Sanchez: Sanchez graduated USC film school in 2000, and is considered one of the best up-and-coming directors. His first feature film The Chair won best picture at Cannes and was met with world-wide critical acclaim. Sanchez exhibited artistic mastery in The Chair, creating a work of art that is already considered one of the best in the history of film. The Chair is an unconventional story. The film’s linear plot is not driven by objective events, but by the subjective perceptions of the protagonist. Fantasy, reality, and dream sequences are all integrated seamlessly without clear delineation between what is real and what is dreamt. The theme of the movie that unifies the seemingly disjointed events is the protagonist’s fear of truth and commitment to it. The entire movie is a powerful study of the human psyche.

While the critics loved his unconventional story, they were absolutely enthralled with Sanchez’s cinematic skill. His deft use of lighting and color tonalities makes the viewer feel like he is watching a carefully and skillfully painted canvas. Each scene is carefully composed and photographed, and each image is painstakingly manipulated for optimal beauty and effect.

Sanchez was drawn to the story the instant he read it. In his four hour interview with you, he expressed how thrilled he was when delving into DeShawne Jackson’s psychology. He stated emphatically that with his skill he could illuminate DeShawne’s inner life in a beautiful and compelling way.

But, the question lingers in your mind, who would it compel, a handful of critics or the people in general? Yet, as you reflect on Sanchez’s ability, the more it becomes apparent that it wouldn’t matter if anyone went to the movie at all. Critics would love it; it would win awards. You would be hailed as an innovator, who defied conventions by hiring Sanchez to direct. Sanchez would probably create a masterpiece. But does it fit with your vision and convictions?

3. Nick Collins: Collins is a relatively obscure director by film buff standards. His crowning achievement was Exploitation, a documentary which told the story of plight of children in Somalia during the civil war that tore the country apart. He filmed the entire picture with a hand-held camera, creating a rough and uneven image. Poor natural lighting added to the sense that you were following Collins on a dangerous real journey. Collins refused to narrate the events, believing that it destroyed the audience’s experience of the authentic drama in Somalia.

He undoubtedly created a compelling and real image of Somalia. Even on multiple viewings, you still feel as if you are smack in the middle of the action, and your heart pumps vigorously with fear as bullets fly before the camera lens and as Collins flees a dangerous situation. The frame of the picture feels like it captures only a tiny slice of all the action, which seems like it is continually spilling on and off the framed image.

Collins’ fiction films exhibit the same rough style, because he deals with themes of poverty and social injustice. He wants to move his audience to action not awe; he cares little for pictorial beauty. In moving people to action, Collison has been extremely successful. His movie spurred the creation of several well-funded organizations to lobby Congress in Washington and the United Nations in New York. These organizations have been very effective in creating awareness for the situation in Somalia.

Collins is extremely excited about the opportunity to film DeShawne’s story. He senses another opportunity to make people aware of an impoverished and violent situation. But…you’re not sure how the public will react to such an interpretation of the story. They might see it as another piece of overly moralistic tripe and stay away. It’s not clear whether it’s an outrageous gamble or if it is a brilliant move that will compel and move audiences. Your mind lingers on one last question: Is Collin’s style even capable of telling DeShawne’s story?

What Do You Think?

Top 25

2007-05-01T18:23:00.000-07:00

Arts and Faith just released their Top 25 Films of all Time:

Ordet (6.85, 37 votes)
Le Fils (6.51, 38 votes)
The Miracle Maker (6.47, 41 votes)
The Gospel According to Matthew (6.35, 63 votes)
The Diary of a Country Priest (6.3, 55 votes)
The Passion of Joan of Arc (6.3, 62 votes)
The Decalogue (6.26, 79 votes)
Babette's Feast (6.16, 88 votes)
A Man Escaped (6.12, 35 votes)
Andrei Rublev (6.09, 45 votes)
Balthazar (6.07, 48 votes)
The Seventh Seal (6.02, 80 votes)
Ikiru (6.01, 56 votes)
Winter Light (6, 30 votes)
The Mission (5.99, 106 votes)
The Apostle (5.99, 111 votes)
Three Colors Trilogy (5.99, 76 votes)
Jesus of Nazareth (5.98, 74 votes)
Jesus of Montreal (5.93, 57 votes)
The Flowers of St. Francis (5.92, 22 votes)
Dead Man Walking (5.9, 101 votes)
Stalker (5.89, 26 votes)
Magnolia (5.84, 112 votes)
La Promesse (5.76, 31 votes)
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (5.74, 32 votes)

Check back tomorrow for a scathing review of Alfonzo Cuaron's adaptation of Children of Men. Honestly, I would have liked it if I hadn't read P.D. James' classic novel. Artistically, I think it was pretty good, but I can't forgive the liberties it took with James' work.

Bella: A Powerful New Pro-Life Movie, but Will Christians Accept It?

2007-04-30T04:50:00.000-07:00

In Passion: Films, Faith, and Fury, a recent British documentary on the history of religion in film, a Christian filmmaker was interviewed on his involvement in the 1979 epic film Jesus. Also known as The Jesus Project, the film has been translated into hundreds of languages and show at gigantic screenings across the globe. The filmmaker described the project as being inspired by Christ’s own example of reaching the crowds through parables. Neither the documentary or the interviewee heeded the glaring paradox: Jesus isn’t a parable at all, but a literal retelling of Luke’s Gospel. This anecdote highlights an established trend in Christian filmmaking. Rarely do Christian filmmakers produce films which are actually parables, metaphors, or otherwise lacking in overt Christian values or agenda. The emphasis on explicit message over subtle metaphor has impoverished many Christian films; realism and moral complexity are often lost beneath the desire to provide a neat and painfully obvious Christian message. Rod Dreher summed it up best when it described the moral blandishments of the Left Behind series as “The Gospel according to Ned Flanders.”

Metanoia Films, a new production company, has bucked this trend in their debut film Bella, which is slated for release in select markets mid-August. Its artistry and depth makes it a powerful testament to the culture of life, though paradoxically it’s not clear whether it will be lauded by many pro-life Christian viewers. Starring Mexican soap opera star Eduardo Veràstegui, Bella traces a day in the life of Nina, a young waitress who contemplates having an abortion. Nina’s position is a compelling one and her suffering is real and intense. So convincingly has Metanoia rendered Nina’s existential crisis, that many of the less observant abortion advocates see it as movie that lies within the purview of their ideology, though uncomfortably so. Their short-sightedness can be forgiven—since when has a Christian movie’s message been transmitted without fuzzy treacle?

Conflicted, alone, and steeped in a culture that lacks faith and a firm grip on natural law, Nina’s initial choice of abortion is obvious. In an age guided by the value of personal autonomy, Nina sees the birth as doubly destructive to both herself and her child. What can possibly penetrate the ideological and emotional wall that circumstances have erected within Nina’s tortured heart? The answer is clear for many pro-life activists: love, mercy, and God’s grace. The circumstances faced by many women in Nina’s position is more often than not complex, rarely alleviated by logical argument or fear of damnation, though many still try to use these to dissuade women bent on abortion.

Bella derives its power from its depiction of God’s grace working subtly and mysteriously within Nina’s troubled heart. In one particular scene, a blind man asks Nina to describe what she can see; he forces her to concentrate on the beauty she doesn’t feel like perceiving. This scene sums up the whole action of the movie: the opening of Nina’s soul and heart to grace, love, and beauty. The primary instrument of grace is Eduardo Veràstegui’s character Jose, a character rarely seen in today’s cinema: a truly virtuous and self-sacrificing soul. He is present for Nina in her hour of need and creates the haven of love and mercy that opens her heart to the possibility of life. For those women who identify with Nina, it presents a similar opportunity for grace to penetrate their desperate and hardened hearts. At the Toronto Film Festival, whose prestigious People’s Choice Award Bella won, a woman was so moved by Bella she decided to keep her child and name her Bella.

Surprisingly, many Christian pro-life advocates are not receiving Bella with open arms. At a recent screening of Bella, the MC tried to rally the Christian crowd by asking everyone who supports Metanoia Film’s efforts to stand up: barely half the crowd rose from their seats. Secondly, I received an acerbic e-mail from an intelligent Catholic film critic which lambasted me for a passing comment on my blog which identified Bella as a pro-life movie. The critic’s main objection to Bella was its ambiguity. “The film,” the critic bristled, “never mentions the life of the unborn child which seems to me inexcusable for a film made by Catholics….. People who are pro-life see the film as being pro-life, because they are told going in that the film was made with pro-life intentions. But people who are pro-choice think it is an affirmation of a pro-choice worldview.” In other words, this critic would only be placated if the movie had had an explicit Christian message.

A truly pro-life movie then is one which resembles a logically incisive pamphlet; this approach might score some points in the perpetual political power struggle, but its doubtful that it would have any effect on the Ninas of the world. Bella is powerful because it resonates on an emotional and spiritual level, penetrating through the half-baked NARAL arguments inculcated in so many women. Ultimately, reality doesn’t reflect tidy messages, and God’s grace is a mysterious reality. This movie, by not following the trend of Christian films which double as propaganda, will affect the lives of women struggling with abortion.

Cool Stylistic Elements in The Decalogue, Part II

2007-04-25T19:53:00.000-07:00

Kieslowski's motivating passion in filmmaking was the state of common man and his response to the complexities of modern life in the wake of WW-II. After suffering censorship for his social documentaries, Kieslowski turned to fiction films but maintained his passion for probing the state of common man. His cinematic style in the Part II of the Decalogue (read yesterday's post for a plot summary) reflects a commitment to realism as Kieslowski endeavors to hold up a mirror to the souls of modern Polish people. We feel as if we were present in the story, spying upon the ordinary, mundane lives of normal people and their imminently real moral and psychological dilemmas. Here are a few interesting Stylistic Elements in Part II that communicate Kieslowski's story:

Lengthy takes: Kieslowski holds the camera on his character for longer than we're used to, forcing us to endure the awkward pauses and silences that occur naturally in daily life. Since the long take exhausts the image visually, we're forced to intellectually examine the pregnant pause and to use our imaginations to penetrate the character's thoughts.
The first shot of Part II establishes the austere and monolithic Warsaw apartment block, the setting for all 10 Decalogue films. Moving in and out of the frame in the foreground of this shot is a gardener who busily rakes the grounds. This shot, while seemingly mundane, reveals an important stylistic element employed by Kieslowski throughout the movie. The gardener’s movement, unfettered by the static frame, hints at a larger reality not captured by camera’s lens. An openly framed shot like this one suggests an incomplete visual idea, with important information missing or cut off by the unaccommodating frame—the camera becomes mere window into a larger world. Kieslowski does this for the sake of a subtle realism. The Polish world he films is real, not carefully composed on stage, and exists despite the camera.
Unbalanced compositions: Kieslowski doesn't carefully compose and balance the visual weights (line, shape, movement, texture) of his images. Objects, characters, and action are not always arranged in the most visually compelling way. For example, we naturally center the object of interest when we take a picture. In Part II, Kieslowski violates this inherent sense of balance within us. The main characters are often shot at the fringes of the frame. This is another example of his subtle realism.
Emotion is never forced by speeding up the rhythm of the editing or by using close-ups. The drama is powerful enough that Kieslowski doesn't see the need to manipulate the emotion out of the audience.
While Kieslowski tends to shot his films in a realistic and unobtrusive way, he occasionally violates this tenet for symbolic purposes. In one scene, for example, he shot an extreme close-up of a glass shattering, symbolically reflecting the inner anguish of the scene. In another shot, Kieslowski inspects every crevice of the invalid husband's hospital bedroom without an establishing shot. Typically, when directors pursue realism, they generally give the viewer an establishing shot before breaking down the components of the space through closer shots. In this scene, Kieslowski creates a unified space in our mind entirely through close-ups of various cracking crevices which emit slow drops of water. This emphasizes in our mind the decrepit state of the invalid and inculcates despair for the husband's recovery.

Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Decalogue

2007-04-24T22:16:00.000-07:00

Several years ago, I had the opportunity to see Our Lady of Czestochowa and found it impossible to imagine her in any other country besides Poland; her countenance embodies the suffering of a people who have had the misfortune of settling down permanently on a level plain sandwiched between Russia and Germany. The Polish soul, laid bare by tragedy, is the canvas on which brilliant filmmaker Krzysztof Kieslowski probes the complexities and paradoxes of human nature.

Kieslowski began his career making documentaries in the seventies which truthfully probed the lives of everyday city dwellers with no regard for the standard Party rhetoric. Needless to say, though he didn’t intend to be overtly political, he quickly made enemies with the monolithic Soviet state. Disillusioned with the prospect of telling the truth under a Communist regime, Kieslowski turned to fiction films. Though a self-proclaimed agnostic, Kieslowski’s films exhibit a hunger for the truth that lies beneath the surface reality, an appetite which makes his films intellectually and spiritual challenging.

I had read in several places that the masterpiece of Kieslowski’s career is widely considered to be The Decalogue, a series of ten films made in 1988 for Polish television. The ten films were inspired by the ethical imperatives of the Ten Commandments and the effect the commandments have on modern men who cease to believe in the God behind them. I recently had the chance to see the first three and was very impressed by his talent and depth of insight.

I only have time to write about one, so I’ll choose the second installment. Part Two features a distraught woman’s plea to an elderly doctor for a prediction on the fate of her critically ill husband, who lies comatose in a hospital bed. It turns out she’s pregnant by another man; if her husband is going to live, she will have an abortion. If not, she wants to keep the baby. This thrusts the doctor into an unpleasant role of having to play God with two lives. I’ll stop the spoilers there, but I hope that is sufficient to intrigue you. Kieslowski has an incredible skill for dramatizing his ideas, taking complex reflections on human dignity and integrating them into a compelling conflict. Unlike the Wachowski brothers’ lame philosophical opus in the last two Matrix movies, you’re never aware of being lectured to. Tomorrow, I’ll post a brief reflection on a few of my favorite stylistic elements of Part II. Cinematically, I’m convinced Kieslowski is one of the best.

Yo! Yo!

2007-04-23T21:59:00.000-07:00

I finally was able to watch Rocky Balboa after agonizingly missing its theater release. All things considered, it's simply a bad movie and nothing more than Stallone's own self-indulgent nostalgia... but I loved it. It has a contrived plot, an insipid antagonist (Mason "The Line" Dixon is no Mr. T), and an ambiguous and somewhat unconvincing motivation for Rocky's return to the ring... but I would gladly watch it again. It may have been sentimental tripe on the part of Stallone, but I imagine I wasn't alone in loving every second of it. What guy wouldn't gladly indulge Stallone? Who cares if he has no real reason to get back into the ring? It's pleasure enough to see the Italian Stallion back in action even though he lumbers around the ring like a 60 year old whose make-up artists weren't able to cover that fact up.

It's no Rocky IV, of course--there really is no replacement for Apollo Creed, a juiced Russian, and Cold War tensions. I'm not sure it matters though. I was too filled with nostalgia of the old days to care about a mediocre plot. I wouldn't be surprised if this was a common sentiment. It's also interesting to note the Catholic undertones of the movie. Apparently Stallone has had a reversion experience to his Catholic faith-- the next Rambo is about a hardened atheistic Rambo undergoing conversion to Christianity in the midst of Muslims. I didn't believe it when I heard it, but JP Catholic has a connection close to Stallone that say his reversion to Catholicism is very real.

Crazy Communist Director

2007-04-23T06:31:00.000-07:00

It took only two weeks to derelict on my promise of a full movie review each Friday. I did finally finish my article on Bella, but must polish my pedantic prose and abundant non-sequiturs before publishing. I received an acerbic e-mail from a Catholic movie critic who took exception to a passing comment on this blog that identified Bella as a pro-life movie; thus, I want it to be as polished as it can be before publishing. In the meantime, I've got some great posts planned.

Last week I posted on The Lives of Others, an awesome German flick about the conflict between East Germany's state security and an artist. It illustrated the tension between art and Communist state. Today I want to post a clip from Sergei Eisenstein's The Battleship Potemkin. Eisenstein was one the foremost Communist film propagandists, and one of the finest directors history's ever produced. Even a talented propagandist like Eisenstein couldn't escape eventual censorship though, which was such a devastating blow to his tremendous ego that he promptly suffered serious health problems (an illness which eventually killed him). Eisenstein innovated a whole new style of editing. His "collision montage" strove for as much pictorial, temporal, and spatial discontinuity as possible, breaking many established tenets of film. Watching Eisentein is a disorienting experience. Each image in an edited sequence differs drastically in lighting, movement, and composition, while he also has no inhibitions against distorting the audiences' perception of time and space.

Eisenstein is the perfect director for anyone who suffers from Attention Deficit Disorder. He loves to string together radically contrasting images, which collide so rapidly that you feel like you've come down with epilepsy. This scene from Odessa Steps is famous for his distinctive editing style. The scene is really fun to watch, and Eisenstein's editing makes the action take longer than it would in real life. I'll post more on this tomorrow; now I'm off to catch a plane to Minnesota!

Click here for the scene.

Unparalled Wit

2007-04-19T10:46:00.000-07:00

My post on the classic Decalogue films, which are ten brilliant Polish movies based on the ethical tenets of the Ten Commandments, was unfortunately filled with more tangents than substance...even more than usual. I wasn't able to finish it last night and had to shelve that project while I write my review of Bella for tomorrow's post.

I decided to use today's post to wax nostalgic about my favorite movie reviewer Steve Sailer, whose wit and insight are unparalleled. Check out his incisively funny reviews of V for Vendetta and The Davinci Code. Just don't drink anything while reading, some of his more devastatingly funny passages can cause your sinuses to explode. He's the primary reason I keep subscribing the The American Conservative.

The Lives of Others

2007-04-18T10:11:00.000-07:00

Last night, my wife and I went to The Lives of Others, a German film about the secret police in East Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall. We were blown away...it's arguably the best film I've seen in years-- artistic excellence, penetrating insight into human nature, and a thrilling story are only a few compelling reasons to catch this movie before it leaves theaters. No other movie has so powerfully captured the spiritual oppression and despair that naturally emanates from Marxism's flawed conception of human nature. It is rated "R", however, and for a good reason. The more salacious scenes are not gratuitous though, and are carefully filmed so as to reveal poignant insights rather than to prick our nerve endings. One particular lascivious scene, for example, is carefully filmed in a repugnant way in order to expose the spiritual death that occurs when serving such a corrupt regime and setting the stage for that character's spiritual regeneration. I have so much to say about this movie and will write a review as soon as I finish my review on Bella.

Stranger Than Fiction's Sentimental Materialism

2007-04-16T23:39:00.000-07:00

The word "materialist" conjures up various disparate images in my head - phantasms that are paradoxically appropriate and true to materialism yet at wide variance with each other: Neitzsche's frenzied Dionysian ideal, Marx coldly calculating the human soul out of existence, the debonair and cultured nihilist, and the slavish "last man." Our country, however, is overrun by a materialism that is of a distinctly different sort. This eureka moment came to me while watching Stranger Than Fiction, a disappointingly banal movie whose novel premise couldn't sustain its unexpected grave seriousness.

At the beginning of the story, Will Ferrell, the grossly miscast protagonist, is in a state of stultified existence, calculating with insensate precision his way through a comfortably drab life as an IRS agent. The first tingle of "life" that makes its way to his spine is a feeling of lust for a young baker, a feminine Ché Guevara who (instead of killing people) exhibits her liberal ideals by refusing to pay taxes and by baking cookies for the underprivileged. Ferrell's torpid rationalism begins to undergo rapid transformation by the liberating influences of a guitar, lust, and the novelty of going without a necktie.

Sparks inevitably fly between the awkward IRS agent and this liberal apotheosis. The way in which the sparks fly, though terribly clichéd, was extremely telling for me. Ferrell approaches his lustful object with only the words, "I want you"; she, feeling wanted, invites him up to her apartment, though she cautiously "has to make sure first" before...well, you know. The confirmation she was looking for comes in the form of a sentimental song Will Ferrell reluctantly sings. This relationship, forged on promiscuous sex, is elevated to life-giving status, though Ferrell never shares with his intimate lover his struggles with imminent death, which is the driving conflict of the story.

This is nothing new; we have seen this countless times in innumerable movies. What struck me after watching it was an entirely new image of materialism for me: the sentimentalist. Squishy and sentimental Oprah-style emotion is the dominant trait of American materialists today, who build their loving relationships, ideals, values, and goals on the rock solid foundation of a poignant feeling. Ferrell's relationship in Stranger Than Fiction is the marital ideal for many people today, so full of tender feeling and absolutely lacking in anything that could be called substantial.

It's no wonder that The Secret, a new book that is a cross between a New Age religion and a self-help tome, is selling millions upon millions of copies. The Secret claims to expound the one and true metaphysic, which is based on the simple principle that you get whatever you want by simply imagining it. The "universe" (whoever that is) understands nothing except the imperative to give displaced adolescents whatever they imagine. The author of The Secret is laughing to the bank, of course, cashing in on this widespread sentimental brand of materialism.

Christianity vs. Hollywood Part II

2007-04-16T15:12:00.000-07:00

A reader just posted an interesting comment:

"Very good insights. But wouldn't be better to put the exclusion of Christianity from Hollywood in the context of the movie industry's overall political and cultural infiltration by Communism, as shown in books such as 'Hollywood Party'?"

Good point. So far I've only written about one side of the issue, but I'm very aware that there's more to our failure in Hollywood than merely a flawed mindset. Currently I only have cursory knowledge of Hollywood's political and cultural history, and I've wanted to really dive into that subject for awhile. I'll definitely check out Hollywood Party by Lloyd Billingsley. Has anyone else come across any useful books on that subject?

Thank you!

2007-04-16T11:17:00.000-07:00

I am sincerely thankful to Mark Shea for his generous introduction of my film blog to his readers! Please feel free to generate discussion by commenting on my posts. This week will feature a full length review of Metanoia Film's Bella, a new pro-life film and the winner of the 2006 Toronto Film Festival, and analyses of several classic films, notably including Kieslowski's masterpiece The Decalogue, which are ten hour length short films inspired by the Ten Commandments. I hope you enjoy!

Christianity vs. Hollywood: A Brief History

2007-04-16T11:08:00.000-07:00

I have a personal interest in tracing and analyzing the history of Christianity’s tumultuous relationship with Hollywood. It’s critical for committed Christians to identify the underlying causes of our inability to have even the slightest effect on the malignancies of today’s film industry.

This is a small excerpt from my ongoing research to attempt to trace and identify the cause of our current impotence:

The splendor and inspiration that line the halls of the Vatican museum witness to the symbiotic relationship that has existed between art and Christianity throughout history, and it’s natural for believers that it should be so, since in exercising our artistic powers we participate in our divine Creator’s image within us. Century upon century, men and women have united their passionate love of divine truth with technical and artistic skill, forging masterworks in painting, sculpture, literature, music, and poetry. Catholicism’s illustrious history with these artistic mediums is well documented, especially as one bewilderedly strolls through the Sistine Chapel.

The twentieth century, however, introduced us to a powerful new artistic medium; one that, as Tolstoy foreshadowed even during his day, would eclipse the others in power in its ability to mirror and illuminate human experience. Our success in film, however, is much less significant, if not completely negligible. The joint role that Christianity has chosen for itself throughout history of film is that of antagonist and propagandist, not artist. I do not deny that there have been notable exceptions, but assert that a defensive and aggressive stance has governed Christianity’s relationship with film throughout its short history. In my personal estimation, it is this stance that is partly responsible for impoverishing our cinematic artistic output.

The Production Code, a set censorship guidelines governing movie content throughout the 20’s and 30’s, used political means to clean Hollywood’s house. The Code, given economic muscle by the Catholic Legion of Decency, was effective. Nostalgic Christians often hearken back to these years as the golden age film, since these movies were swept squeaky clean by censors backed by the economic power of a culture that abhorred glorified depictions of vice.

As the sexual revolution started to permeate the public square, the economic muscle that was wielded so deftly by the Legion of Decency began to atrophy, and Christianity’s ability to prevent the moral decay of this new powerful medium died with it; yet, so often we see Christians flex as if their economic weight still mattered, even though their boycotts are promptly ignored by producers who don’t particularly care for the purity of innocent children.

A far more egregious mistake than engaging in a doomed power struggle with Hollywood has been the use of film to create thinly veiled sermons. The Left Behind series among others hides its artistic impoverishment behind good intentions. This is a destructive development; it results in the Christian film industry confining itself to merely catering to a small Christian ghetto. This propaganda mindset has forged an unwelcome gap between the artistic talents of secular filmmakers and Christian filmmakers. Until we learn to engage the secular media and learn from their artistic and business techniques, we will not impact the industry in any meaningful way.....

As my research progresses, I will post my thoughts on this issue. I would love to hear input from readers. My ideas on this subject are still in their formative stage.

Into Great Silence

2007-04-13T09:47:00.001-07:00

While waiting for the box office to open, I inadvertently caught snippets of a cell phone conversation of a fellow movie goer, a man in his twenties whose soul patch and Family Guy t-shirt exuded hipness. He explained that he was waiting to see Into Great Silence because he had heard that it was a great escape from the fast-paced modern world; little did I perceive then how greatly the poor man had been misinformed. Far from being escapist fare, Into Great Silence plunges its audience into an arduous three hour journey. Stripped of comfortable and familiar movie conventions, one must actively follow the monks’ example of self-denial in order to share in their flight towards union with the great I AM, a search that slowly, cyclically draws you into the silence beyond time and rationality. The Carthusian path to God isn’t easy, even for those who only desire to vicariously participate in it for a brief three hours. There was much audible snoring and fidgeting in the theater, and slumber constantly cloyed its way into my mind and body, leaving no doubt in my mind as to the difficultly of the disciples’ call to watch with Christ in Gethsemane. In achieving that impossible task, I was aided by copious amounts of Easter jelly beans and a particularly uncomfortable chair.

The first scene begins with a close up of a monk’s faced bathed in shadow and tensed in prayer, an image which is immediately juxtaposed with an extreme close-up of a ponderously slow burning flame. This brief montage comes as close as is possible in cinema to visually depicting the soul’s ardent desire to fly towards the Light of Christ. Groening realizes the limits of his medium in capturing this ineffable subject matter, and never again uses editing to force meaning upon his viewer. He captures the Carthusian life as unobtrusively and artlessly as he can, forcing us to either sleep or uncomfortably enter into the silence, where, according to Elijah’s experience in the cave, one hears the voice of I AM. In the second scene, for example, we are shown a monk kneeling in silent prayer in a long take…an extremely long take. The viewer, after visually digesting every texture, shape, line, and lighting contrast in the composition, has no where to look—left stranded with an image that is visually exhausted. Since our eyes have no where to go, consciousness of time becomes ever more apparent; yet Groening still leaves us with that static image for minutes until we realize the truth: the monks are entering into a silence that transcends time. The movie invites us not only to observe the monk’s silent prayer with detached modern curiosity, but to actively participate and seek out that silence where God dwells.

Groening restrains the aural content he presents us, letting nothing distract us. When one is confronted with a rare spoken spiritual monologue, it’s evident that it was included for a vital reason. The first monologue we hear consists of a monk reading St. Basil’s explanation of the Trinity, a passage which explains the ultimate simplicity and transcendence of that divine mystery. Through this rare aural stimulation, Groening invites the audience to further enter into silence, which, reflecting the nature of the Trinity, is entirely transcendent and inaccessible to reason yet possesses a divine simplicity.

Throughout this journey beyond reason and time, Groening continually reintroduces the images of the same expressionless monks; yet each time we come across them, we sense a change that is not evident in the austere exterior. The encounter with the light of Christ has transformed them. Our suspicions are confirmed until the very end, when an older monk authentically describes his indescribable joy in knowing and loving Christ, an ecstasy that even death is unable to shake.

Into Great Silence is a torturous movie for anyone who cannot watch anything that doesn’t abide by conventional artistic and plot film mores. At times during the three hour marathon Groening seems to get carried away with the eccentricity of his movie, and its spiritual momentum dissipates. This can be aggravating for even a patient Christian viewer; yet, if one forgives Groening’s occasional excess, the movie rewards the patient heart in the end.

It also has no discernible external plot, other than the slow cyclical turning of the seasons. Even the short scripture passages Groening quotes are repetitive, seemingly leading in the audience in a cyclical rather than linear way. There is a narrative progression, however, one which is so subtle that it is easily missed. The progression traces the monk’s journey beyond time and rationality towards a transcendent Being, whose light brings about complete internal transformation and unending joy.

Into Great Silence is definitely worth the price of time, money, and effort. The potential viewer, however, should be warned of the investment before entering the theater, otherwise he or she will leave the theater better rested, but will have missed out on a great movie. I’m personally indebted to a jelly bean induced sugar high, for I would have paid $8.50 to sleep, something I could have easily done more comfortably at home.

Mel Gibson's Sacramental Imagination

2007-04-12T10:02:00.000-07:00

On Good Friday I was able to watch The Passion of the Christ for the first time in several years and the sacramental and Marian qualities of the film made an extraordinary impression on me. Gibson's Catholic vision is what makes the movie so compelling to me; his sacramental imagination, reliance on tradition, and reverence for the role of Mary all add to The Passion's distinct power. Without these aspects, The Passion would have been impoverished. I haven't seen Nativity Story, but it would be interesting to contrast the power of Gibson's vision with the Nativity Story, which, from the accounts I've heard, was slightly insipid. The general reaction of most Catholics to the Nativity Story was that there was nothing specifically "objectionable" in the portrayal; layered conspicuously into this comment is a sense of deflated expectations, of not living up to the high standards set by The Passion. Why did Nativity Story, an intrinsically compelling story, leave most of its audience feeling disappointed? If anyone can illuminate this question for me, please don't hesitate.

Thank you!

2007-04-11T11:43:00.000-07:00

I am indebted to Michael Barber for generously introducing me into the blogging community! I hope to rouse quality discussions on popular films, so please don't be afraid to post your comments.

...A Lemon

2007-04-11T11:25:00.000-07:00

I’m currently writing a review of Into Great Silence and in the spirit of stillness I decided to post a clip from Hollis Frampton’s classic Lemon, an oddly compelling film despite the fact that the protagonist is inanimate. Avant-garde filmmakers in general strike me as simultaneously condescending and silly, a perception I suspect is shared by the majority of the film going public; yet, I found myself strangely transfixed by Frampton’s lemon. I even went so far as to inflict all four minutes of it on my second quarter visual storytelling class. In Lemon, Frampton experiments with compelling contrasts of light and shadow, transforming an ordinary lemon into something extraordinary. It’s a testament to the importance of lighting in infusing mundane realities with dramatic energy.

Link to Lemon: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Frampton%27s+Lemon&search=Search

300's Expressionism without a Point

2007-04-09T15:40:00.000-07:00

It took only one comically short game of Halo to ensure that I would never receive an invitation to play Xbox ever again. Since my inability to simply walk straight exposed me to a rapid succession of execution style deaths, I voluntarily agreed to “sit one out.” Watching other people play a video game is one of the most boring activities on the face of the Earth. Neither the eye, mind, or soul is engaged on any level by viewing the random grotesque spilling of pixilated blood. I wasn’t repulsed as much as I was bored out of my mind.

Sitting through two agonizing hours of Zach Snyder’s 300 elicits the same irrepressible ennui. Rather than being a significant contribution to cinema through its Matrix-style expressionistic take on ancient Greece, 300 represents a new low in film’s brief history, and perhaps for our culture as well.

Expressionism is a general film term often used to describe a flamboyant cinematography style that distorts the surface of the material world for spiritual, lyrical, or psychological reasons. Rather than recording events objectively and preserving film’s natural photographic realism, expressionists employ high levels of distortion in attempt to express their own idiosyncratic artistic vision.

Expressionism’s heyday can be traced back to post-World War I Germany before Hitler’s absorption of the industry put the kibosh on its artistic efforts. This brief era produced the silent classics The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Metropolis, and Nosferatu. These films created their surreal and futuristic worlds through the careful distortion of shape and proportion. This manipulation of reality communicated symbolic truth, whether it be psychological, spiritual, or densely intellectual. In The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, for example, director Robert Wiene recreated the delusional subjective world of the narrator through acutely angled shapes and jagged set designs. This symbolically reflects the narrator’s skewed and psychotic reality. German expressionist filmmakers like Ernst Lubitsch and Fritz Lang didn’t distort just to create a cool looking image, but to reveal the essence of reality hidden beneath the surface.

300, though brimming with distortions of surface reality (practically all of it was filmed in front of a green screen), differs significantly from these great expressionist works. Zach Snyder distorts reality not to communicate anything of value, but to prick the nerve endings of his audience. 300’s surreal video game style contributes nothing to the overall meaning and inhibits the storytelling. Many, however, have found this sundering of cinematic form and content appropriate. Victor Davis Hanson, for example, drew a parallel between Synder’s style and the Greek’s own form of storytelling:

"The Greeks themselves often embraced such impressionistic adaptation. Ancient vase painters sometimes did not portray soldiers accurately in their bulky armor. Instead, they used “heroic nudity” to show the contours of the human body. Similarly, Athenian tragedies that depicted stories of war employed contrivances every bit as imaginative as those in 300. Actors wore masks. Men played women’s roles. They chanted in set meters, broken up by choral hymns. The audience understood that dramatists reworked common myths to meet current tastes and offer commentary."

One must take into account the reasons the Greeks employed such highly imaginative techniques, and what they communicated to the audience. Firstly, the impressionism Mr. Hanson describes was intrinsic to the artistic mediums of the Grecian theater and pottery art; thus, the Grecian audience was sensitive to the subtle truths communicated through it. The “heroic nudity” portrayed on ancient vases is a subtle distortion that communicates the greatness of the human person and the glory of the ancient Greek civilization. Similarly, the elaborate contrivances of the Grecian theater had a point: to more powerfully communicate the essence or deeper meaning of the story. The choral interludes, for example, commented on the themes of the story and helped guide the audience into a deeper understanding of them.

Like the artistic forms of ancient Greek theater and pottery, cinema also has a distinct form of communication: a powerful blending of word, image, and music. While avant-garde directors would disagree, the cinematic style is not an end in itself—it must be subordinated to the subject matter or else the audience is left with striking images and nothing else. 300’s expressionism is an end in itself and ultimately this lurid style leaves us empty, feeling as if a compelling story had just been lost under the menagerie of digital blood, ridiculously cartoonish fighting, grotesque creatures, pulsating rock music, superfluously lascivious scenes, and a whole host of other excesses.

All genuine emotion drained down this sensationalized gutter. We are supposed to feel, for example, the pain of the captain’s loss after his son’s head is graphically sundered from his shoulders, but instead feel the same amount of emotion as we would watching a cyber teammate spit blood after being shot in the game Halo. A wonderful story of Grecian heroism and sacrifice was lost, and, instead of leaving the theater with cleansed emotions and a renewed understanding of virtue and truth, one leaves with merely jangled nerves.

Yet I have been told by many people, young and old, of the emotional power and of 300—many comparing it to Ridley Scott’s masterpiece Gladiator, a comparison that fatally prompted me to see it in the first place. Gladiator is a powerfully moving story of nobility, honor, and courage—a movie that imparted on its viewers a deep understanding of the nature of evil. The most 300 can offer, on the other hand, is sensual stimulation and nebulous musings on the value of freedom, and 300’s Spartan freedom never moves convincingly from the level of abstraction. The only indications of a free society we are given are a few scattered scenes stressing (in an overly affected manner) the equality of Spartan women and the free choice the 300 make to oppose the Persians. It was not enough to convincingly establish the nobility of their freedom, and Zach Snyder seemed too busy with his pointless visual effects to bother about drawing the audience in emotionally to the importance of Spartan liberty and culture. Gladiator, on the other hand, persuades the audience of the stakes: Rome, despite its excesses and perversions, is the civilized light in a dark, barbaric world. Gladiator convinces us that Roman liberty is worth defending, and we respond emotionally to threat of tyranny posed by the ambitious emperor.

Millions and millions of people, however, left the theater compelled and in love with 300’s edgy and sensuous recreation of the ancient clash between East and West. An indication that the general public’s sensitivity to the cinematic language and the subtle truths communicated therein has been numbed. If flamboyant visual style is an end in itself, than the cinema has been reduced to the level of a fireworks display. This is also not a good sign for our culture. The general populace, or at least those who aren’t video game enthusiasts, ought to see through the cheap thrills and gaudy exterior to the nothingness underneath.