By Dan Cohen,
NewsLanc’s Santa Monica Reporter
Last time I talked about Oscar qualifiers I admired, but with reservations. The following are those I admired with few if any qualifications.
My Week with Marilyn
On its surface this slice of movie lore, probably as much fiction as fact, appears no more substantial than an after dinner mint. But I found it more amusing and thoughtful than the far weightier prestige films of the year. Because the script is so faithful to its original intentions and so finely tuned to its characters, it actually reaches deep into a little understood phenomenon; the power that fame, and the few icons who command it, wield over the rest of us.
Michele Williams, who channels the spirit of Marilyn Monroe with wit and delicacy, doesn’t have a prayer to win the Oscar. First, her movie underperformed at the box office, for reasons beyond my limited understanding. And second, because it appeals to the generation that experienced Marilyn Monroe as a movie star first hand, while she was still alive and engaged with her public. Monroe remains an icon, whose films are never far from repertory or cable, but sixty years on it’s hard to appreciate the power she held as both personality and a movie star. Suffice it to say she was one of a kind.
Playing “Marilyn”, especially as she struggles to make her mark in a bad movie, seems on its face, a fools’ errand. Even in the best of times Monroe’s personality was something of a mystery; the task of getting under her skin during an awkward period seems even more daunting.
When Williams first appears your impulse is to dismiss her entirely. Her physical resemblance to Monroe is on a par with the kind of casual impersonator you see at a costume party. Complicating the effort, Williams has a very different physical profile, which impacts the way she carries herself. Monroe, at her height, affected an almost delirious caricature of the feminine ideals of the period, the late 50s and very early 60s. There’s no way to make that impression today; it requires time travel. But ten minutes in, you’ve dropped all reservations and surrendered to Williams’ strategy of evoking an impression of Marilyn from the inside. In this she’s truly exceptional.
The same can be said of Kenneth Branagh’s Laurence Olivier. Everything from the voice to the body language fails to jibe with our recollection of Olivier, a great actor who disappeared into his roles and was almost invisible apart from them. But Branagh brings so much conviction to the lines that, in a short while, the real Olivier ceases to exist. The central parts are complemented by a gallery of spot on supporting players; Eddie Redmayne, Julia Ormond, Emma Watson, Toby Jones, and a bunch more. Nobody disappoints.
But the movie is more than equal to its performances. The script is tartly funny and knowing from the first minute to the last. Simon Curtis, a veteran of British TV, directs with clarity and confidence. Cinematographer Ben Smithard employs a gentle color palette that eases the immersion into the low budget period recreation without drawing attention to it.
The unlikely events, the stars’ dalliance with a young writer, are set during Olivier’s attempt to hitch his theatrical fame to Monroe’s exploding movie fame. The vehicle he’s chosen to produce, direct, and star in, is a period drawing room comedy that almost everyone but Olivier recognizes as an artistic and professional misstep. After a troubled shoot “The Prince and the Showgirl,” sandwiched between the touching “Bus Stop” and the sidesplitting “Some Like It Hot” failed on every level.
What “My Week with Marylin” does so well, and so effortlessly, is to simultaneously make fun of and respect the public’s nearly slavish devotion to great icons. The Marilyn of this movie is a tortured performer at work and a selfish narcissist the rest of the time, but someone whose huge appeal simply can’t be denied. Not that there’s anything simple about that; it’s way too complicated to fully understand.
Only a few actresses have held as profound a sway over the general public as Monroe; Garbo at her height, Ingrid Bergman and perhaps Katharine Hepburn for a time. But there was a peculiar fervor around Marilyn Monroe; a collision between her personae and the period that resulted in the kind of idolatry that remains with us today. Somehow this small movie addresses that issue, without underlining it.
There’s a great scene at the midpoint, when the character played by Eddie Redmayne, the narrator, delivers an unspoken truth about the movie that’s collapsing around them, that everybody but Monroe and Olivier seem to realize. “You’re a great star trying to be a serious actress” he says, “and he’s a serious actor trying to become a great star; and this picture isn’t going to do that for either of you.” This is one of the best written lines of the year in one of the few really well written movies of the year. You savor every funny/sad minute of it.
A Separation
It’ll be no surprise if “A Separation” wins the Oscar for best Foreign Language film of 2011; it’s one of the few genuinely compelling dramas of the past few years, in any language. Movie lovers who stay away on account of the film’s setting, Iran, and its’ current status on the world stage, are denying themselves of one of the most satisfying experiences in recent memory.
In their rush to sell it to audiences, some critics have described “A Separation” as a kind of thriller, which is a misrepresentation. The movie is suspenseful, and rivets your attention, but suspense, that is, the narrative’s ability to make us want to know what happens next, is the marrow of all drama. It’s just that there are very few modern dramas rigged well enough to hold our attention the way this one does. So it gets mistaken for another genre.
A youngish man and woman sit before a judge to air complaints about their marriage. Their diction and expressions speak volumes about their middle class roots. The woman, stylish and well made up, wears a scarf that covers her head, so we know the two are probably Muslims. In the early scenes we may be tempted to compartmentalize them, even though they live with modern conveniences, in what appears to be the upper middle class section of Tehran. But as the story unfolds, over a full (and at times breathless) two hours, becoming ever more complicated and perilous, we can’t help but identify with each of the main players.
There’s a feeling of real flesh and blood at the heart of writer/director Asghar Farhadi’s script. This is his fifth feature as director and about his tenth as screenwriter. I haven’t seen the others but the story here is so smartly rigged that it could serve as a blueprint for a class on screenwriting. The filmmaking, from the acting to the cutting, to the cinematography (which I believe is digital) keeps us focused on the ever escalating tension. The direction, of the fluid sort sometimes referred to as “invisible,” is anything but. This is the craft of storytelling at its highest level.
The initial problem has to do with the custody of a teenager, but the conflict ultimately extends to a handful of other people and problems. Complicating matters are cultural and religious issues, all expertly developed and explained. One of the more compelling characters is a municipal judge, who is called upon to function as a detective, psychologist, and civil authority at the same time. As he struggles to sort problems and handle them with both restraint and respect for the law, we fully understand his patience, expertise, and the difficulties he faces every day.
“A Separation” has been outlawed in Iran, which is ironic because it’s more than sympathetic to the people and place. I don’t why it ran afoul of the government; maybe because it refuses to tow a party line. Regardless, “A Separation” is a terrific movie.
Pina
I don’t know a thing about dance, but I do know that “Pina,” is a stellar performance film in a class of its own, and like “A Separation,” a completely satisfying evening at the movies. If I had to rank the great films driven by dance, this one would be close to “The Red Shoes,” although is a kind of documentary. I say a kind of, because it plays more like a dream than non-fiction.
As a matter of fact, I have attended a handful of dances and ballets over the past twenty years or so, enough to appreciate the level of director Wim Wenders inspired homage to the late, celebrated choreographer Pina Bausch. It’s been reported that he and Bausch talked about a film project for more than two decades. But if the stories are to be trusted, Wenders couldn’t find a way to film Bausch’s work until 3D was perfected. It sounds like he instinctively sensed that the creative use of 3D might capture the energy and excitement of Bausch’s distinctive choreography. The amazing thing is, by using 3D as a character, he’s almost created a new genre.
Most of the movie’s running time is devoted to actual dances, some shot on a stage, some on locations, and some cut together from both. Since Bausch choreographs like an architect, regardless of where she sets her pieces, the 3D creates the kind of visual spectacle that even the theater can’t quite deliver. Not that the two can be compared; they can’t. Theater is live and spontaneous; movies are canned and calculated. But “Pina” is a thing apart from anything you’ve seen on a two dimensional plane. The vivid, space busting camera work, is a worthy substitute for the ambience of a live performance. The clever editing, adjusted to accommodate for three dimensional images, finally marries the subject and content, almost like it did in the ground breaking “Avatar.”
The movie proceeds as a series of set pieces, mainly highlights from Bausch’s better known shows. There’s a long section from Stravinksy’s “Rite of Spring,” pop pieces like Jun Miyake’s catchy jazz number “Lillies of the Valley,” chamber music, and several standards; a completely eclectic program, although you rapidly become confident that whatever comes next will be accompanied by eye popping choreography.
The characters in most live action 3D movies, (as opposed to animation, a category unto itself) have mostly seemed like moving two dimensional cutouts, as opposed to representations of actual flesh and blood. I’m thinking here about titles like “Alice,” “Hugo,” and the glut of 3D horror and sci- fi the studios have been grinding out to goose box office. 3D calls for a rethinking of moment to moment film grammar, and most directors (other than the animators) have shucked that responsibility. Their results have been mainly tiring.
What “Pina” accomplishes, is to bring the viewer into intimate contact with the dancers and their energy. The 3D camera, which seems to have a mind of its own, captures the elegance, humor, drama, and the relationship between the dancers and the spaces they inhabit.
On some level “Pina” plays like a cerebral sci fi. The only dialogue appears as voice over to images of various members of the company. Bausch, who died midway through production, also appears, adding an additional poignancy to remarks by her dancers/collaborators.
“Pina” is so charged with dynamic movement and music I’m sure it’ll play as a normal DVD, but trust me, the 3D theatrical is transporting.
Will Oscar play a role in the future of these three outstanding movies? “Pina” is a possible in the doc category, “A Separation,” likely in Foreign Language slot. “My Week With Marilyn,” is a long shot at best. “A Separation” is also nominated for best screenplay, which it fully deserves. But I won’t be hurt if Woody Allen wins for “Midnight in Paris.” Concerning the others; my hope is that by the end of the inevitable three plus hours of tedium, Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer will have gotten their just rewards, although I’m not holding my breath. And my best guess is that “The Artist” will have taken more than its share of Oscar.
Movie alert!
“Chronicle” is the best movie of 2012, so far. Unless you absolutely despise teenagers I highly recommend it. It’s a nimble sci fi about teenagers that transcends teen age. When was the last time you heard a 17 year old carry on intelligently about the ideas of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche?
