Tag Archives: Thomas W. Campbell

Compliance – Film Review

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On August 14, 2012 I moderated a Q&A after the National Board of Review screening of Compliance with director/writer Craig Zobel and actress Ann Dowd. It was a relaxed and fun conversation, moving fluidly between considerations (and implications) of the material and discussion of technical, acting and logistics. It’s a film that stays with you so I have finally gotten to write about it. I was thrilled to learn on Wednesday, December 5 that the NBR had given Ann Dowd the best supporting actress award. It was a nuanced and disturbing performance – Dowd created a character who was a “good” person drawn into orchestrating the systematic humiliation and psychological destruction of an innocent young person.

Originally published on the web site of the National Board of Review

Compliance
A film by Craig Zobel
Film Review by Thomas W. Campbell

Compliance may be the most unnerving non-horror film released this year. Based on a true story, it is one of those films that truly benefits from the seemingly ubiquitous tagline. Watching it you can’t believe that the main characters would be willing to play so deeply into the hands of another person – but they did. And numerous and well-known social experiments (and historical events) have proven that people having been doing so for some time.

Compliance is the second film written and directed by Craig Zobel, who founded the successful and funny flash animated web site homestar runner in 1996 with Mike Chapman. Famously resisting offers to turn it into a television show, he directed the dry and well-acted independent comedy The Great World of Sound in 2007. Great World, which stars John Baker, Keen Holliday and Pat Healy, is a funny and slightly melancholic look at two salesmen who travel across the south peddling record deals that are ultimately bogus. Despite the obvious signs (Baker’s sleazy record executive being the most obvious) the characters played by Holliday and Healy struggle to retain their faith in the services they are peddling. Because we empathize with them we also hope that, against all odds, the dreams they are selling might somehow be real. It is a strong debut for Zobel with a theme that offers interesting parallels to his latest film.
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A Discussion with Film Composer and Performer Makia Matsumura

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Makia Matsumura in a recent silent film performance

Thomas W. Campbell

After finishing college and moving to New York I saw my first silent film in a movie theater, probably at the Bleecker Street Cinema where I was working at the the time. Even more memorable were the occasional silent film screenings at the Carnegie Hall Cinema with live accompaniment. Silent films were never really silent and here was a link to the past, to the time when movies were performed by musicians who, at their best, really understood the art of the live cinematic experience. The Carnegie Hall Cinema is probably where I first saw Lee Erwin, an elegant man then in his late sixties, accompany a silent film. He played at least once a month, and did so with such dedication, precision, and joy that he seemed to lift the films from the past and deposit them directly into the theater. But the real revelation was hearing him perform on the huge pipe organ of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. The precision and power of the massive organ and its towering tubes was like an adrenaline injection straight into screen.

These memories flooded back to me when I learned that Makia Matsumura, who I had met within the context of her band m2duo (a collaboration with violinist Machiko Ozawa), was performing for silent films. I was intrigued. Since 2003 she has accompanied silent films in Japan and Italy, and began, in 2008, to play in the United States, including at numerous theaters and museums in New York. She also scored the soundtrack for the Kino International DVD release of the 1923 Frank Loyd feature Within the Law. Makia first began performing at the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center in 2010 and, on September 8 and 9, 2012 she performed in the Film Society of Lincoln Center series “Capturing the Marvelous: Ukranian Poetic Cinema”. Both films were classics by Alexander Dovzhenko: Zvenigora (1927) and Earth (1930). We met in the busy Indie Food and Wine Cafe at Lincoln Center before her accompaniment of the screening of Earth. Makia was gracious enough to discuss her work before crossing the street and sitting at the piano to play for an audience eager to turn back the clock to the days when films were silent but the music that accompanied them was anything but.

Thomas – What is it like to prepare for each of the films? This will be the second film that you perform this weekend. What is the preparation process like to prepare for the performance?

Makia – This time I was lucky to see the film beforehand so obviously I could learn how the story develops, what the background will be, what the visual tone of the film will be. How the story would proceed, is it an action narrative, slow paced, like that. It helps a lot to have that information. Depending on the film I might do some research. If a movie is set to a certain historic period, if there is a dance hall scene or something that might call for a specific reference to a certain type of music, then I might do some research. I might not play that exact referential piece from my research, but it helps me to get an idea as to what kind of music could go with the film.
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Robot and Frank – Film Review

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On Monday, July 30, 2012, I had the wonderful experience of leading an NBR Q and A with actors Susan Sarandon and Frank Langella following a screening of Robot and Frank. They were joined by the young filmmaker Jake Shreier, who was directing his first feature, and writer Chris D. Ford, who was also having his maiden feature experience. Each enjoyed discussing the evolution of characters from script to real-life, the experience of production, and the implications of robots in our near future. Of all the filmmakers and actors I have had conversations with, Langella stands out as one of the most compassionate and thoughtful. Some of it may have been his commitment to the role, which is the mark of a professional. But he is also unusually attentive, thoughtful, and funny.



Robot and Frank
Directed by Jake Shreier
Review by Thomas W. Campbell
Originally published on August 17 on the website of the National Board of Review.

 

Robot and Frank, set in a small affluent upstate new york town, is the first feature by director Jake Schreier and the story is built around a fascinating premise. Taking place in “the near future,” the film explores the dramatic possibilities of a relationship between a man who may be losing his mental bearings and a household robot. Frank Langella plays Frank, a loner who has sheltered himself into a small country house and is determined to get by on his own. He is especially dismissive of the two people who try, in their own ways, to help – his son Hunter (James Marsden) and daughter Madison (Liv Tyler). Madison is a world traveller who occasionally checks in with short video communications from far off lands while Hunter, who lives within a long driving distance, has lost patience with his father’s declining state. Meanwhile Frank’s life is becoming more chaotic, his house is a mess, and he seems to relate to only one person – a helpful librarian named Jennifer, played by Susan Sarandon. Sarandon makes much from a relatively small role, creating a warm and believable small town character who seems protective of Frank, even allowing him to lightly flirt with her. Jennifer is also facing a transition as the quaint library is being taken over by a young, rich, and very stylish man (convincingly played by Jeremy Strong). Jake is drenched in the quasi-religious fervor of a mission based on modernism and new technology. One day Frank steps up to the reference desk and is befuddled to confront, instead of Jennifer, a short squat robot  – effectively a refrigerator-like appliance with an eagerness to assist him. Later, when confronted with his son’s plan for an automated caretaker, a white robot the size of a small teenager with a blank face and helpful personality, Frank refuses to cooperate. True to the buddy-film genre, there is a gradually developing relationship about to unfold.

The screenplay, by Christopher D. Ford, is based on a short film he made in graduate school and it hits home in a number of ways: it addresses the encroachment of technology into all aspects of our lives, explores the question of how close to human the computer mind can become, and, most succinctly, gives Langella the resources as an actor to confront memory loss, old age, isolation, and the will to rise above his circumstances. Although it is not an action story the narrative moves forward in physical ways that often do not rely on dialogue.  The first thing we see, for instance, is a man in a dark room, slowly searching through drawers and desktops, peering through the shadows with a small flashlight, his half-hidden face seeming to look for anything of value to steal. But our perception of the moment is suddenly clarified when the “prowler” picks up a photograph and examines it closely. It is him (Frank) as a younger man, with his arms draped around a young man and a young woman. He is jolted by the image and we, the audience, realize that Frank is a man in conflict with his own mind.

The story plays the generational card quite effectively, pitting Frank and Jennifer against a young and encroaching world that seems intent to use technology to marginalize and ultimately replace them. She is experiencing the demise of the classical library profession, having been displaced by a work robot, and he’s been left by his family alone in the house with a metallic walking talking computer. This unlikely bond between two seemingly very alone people, will develop in surprising ways as the plot develops.

Peter Sarsgaard’s robot voice is very effective and grows on the viewer as it begins to endear itself to Frank – he sounds a lot like Hal from Kubrick’s2001, but more mellow, friendly and helpful. Not much more high tech than the unnamed robot (played by Bob May) in the 1960’s TV series Lost in Space, Frank’s robot (also unnamed) is a played by Rachel Ma, who performs inside the the costume as though it were a giant puppet. Programmed to assist Frank in every way, the robot first annoys him but then begins to get his attention with healthy meals and good advice. The narrative kicks in when Frank’s troubled past and his confused present intersect with his recognition that he can exploit the robot’s abundant skills and desire to help. There is an inevitability to the relationship that develops between the lonely senior citizen and his quaint mechanical assistant. After a series of capers that are both comic and moderately suspenseful (one involves the “liberation” of something valuable from the library that Frank touchingly and wrongly thinks will endear him to Jennifer), the story elevates the emotional stakes when it becomes apparent that Frank’s accomplice is also becoming his friend.

Langella’s enthusiasm and dedication to the role of Frank lifts the film on his broad and skilled shoulders and makes everything else feel real and believable. His portrayal of a man who is proud, aging, and struggling with memory loss is pitch perfect. An actor who has excelled on stage and screen for almost fifty years, Langella knows how to create a character in front of the camera with subtlety, nuance and conviction. There is nothing to pity or feel sorry for in the character he creates. On the contrary Frank’s ingenuity and self-sufficiency, combined with the slowly evolving acceptance of the robot as a useful and desired companion, can be seen as a hopeful celebration of how we can embrace the journey into old age – and still have fun.

Robot and Frank will play well with older audiences – but it is probably not a film that younger people will be drawn to. The robot, endearing but intentionally retro, does not have the flair of a CG creation. It has no special powers, no laser weapons, and feels more 1940’s than futuristic.  Though written, directed and shot (the workman-like cinematography is by Mathew J. LLoyd) by thirty-something filmmakers the perspective on generation Y is humorously (and refreshingly) dark. If there is cinematic justice,Robot and Frank will find its niche and do well, especially in relation to the film’s low budget. It is opening in New York City at the Paris, a boutique theater that caters to the film’s demographic and should be a good place for it to develop word of mouth enthusiasm among thoughtful film goers. Robot and Frank is a fine debut by Jake Schreier, who really knows how to let Frank Langella take over a role.

Thomas W. Campbell

ParaNorman – Film Review

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On July 24, 2012 I had the great pleasure to lead a question and answer session with directors Sam Fell and Chris Butler following the NBR screening of their new film ParaNorman. They are not kids but their youthful excitement and creative energy was a testament to the many years of dedication and love that each has devoted to the craft of animation. Before beginning the Q and A they were thrilled to hear about the advertising for the film I passed on 42nd street on the way to the theater. During our talk they discussed some of the more difficult technical achievements of making the film, were open and receptive to every question from myself and from the audience, and ultimately made everyone in the room sit up and appreciate the mystery and magic that movie making can be.


ParaNorman
A film by Chris Butler and Sam Fell
Review by Thomas W. Campbell
Originally published on August 17, 2012 on the National Board of Review web site.

Stop-frame animation, says British director Sam Fell, is a long and complicated journey that finally pays off when life is brought to something that should not have it. Teaming with writer and co-director Chris Butler, Fell has brought energy, style and great storytelling to the screen with ParaNorman, Laika studio’s follow up to Henry Selik’s 2009 Coraline. The roots of the story go back to Butler’s childhood, in which he, like the main character in the film, was bullied by older kids. He longed for escape and finally found it in classic horror films, especially any film with zombies and other flavors of the undead. For over a decade Butler played with the premise of a boy who was “different”, mixing youthful experiences with his love of scary films before coming up with the opportunity to see his script turned into a feature length animation.ParaNorman is a wonderful mix of storytelling and technology – it has a retro feel that can be traced back to the classic animation technique of stop-frame (known as stop-motion in the U.S.) and the witty and familiar setup of the story. The story takes place in an Eastern town known as Blithe Hollow, which, like Salem, Massachusetts, has become known for infamous witch trials three centuries ago. Norman (Kodi-Smit-McPhee) is a misunderstood high school student who happens to be cursed (and blessed) with the ability to see ghosts – and the ghosts are as responsive to him as he is to them. Norman’s “difference” is established from the start.The film opens with a scene from a low-budget horror film before revealing Norman pinned in rapture in front of the television. We meet his parents, mom with an improbably large derrière and dad with a belly that gravitationally should make it impossible for him to move forward without tumbling to the floor. Both are tired of Norman’s eccentricities and just want him to be “normal”. But Norman is anything but, as we soon learn in what at first seems to be a regular stroll down the town’s main street. As the young man walks along, greeting some neighbors, being ignored by others, it is clear that he really is somewhat odd. He pauses to talk to a bit of roadkill before pressing on. Then, as he walks towards us, the camera begins a slow movement that accelerates as it swings 360 degrees around him until it lands in an over the shoulder position that finally reveals his point of view on the world. We experience life as Norman sees it – one in which the departed are sharing their “lives” in the same space as real people. And they are also sharing it with Norman – he jokes with a woman parachutist who is “just hanging around” in a tree with a broken branch through her chest, meets a peaceful hippy who must have had an overdose, and greets a tommy-gun toting gangster with cement feet. Later we will see an owl fly across screen with a six-pack plastic holder around its neck and meet a dog that has been sliced in half but still enjoys a happy jaunt around the backyard.

Three views from a display of the actual Stop-Motion puppets and sets of ParaNorman, seen at the Loews AMC on Broadway and 68th street in Manhattan during the initial release of ParaNorman.

Butler has said he was also inspired by the animated television series Scooby-Doo (Where are you?), which brought together a team of very unlikely young people to fight the ghosts and monsters of the world. For his story he wanted the “team” to make sense and for the audience to believe that they could be allies. Norman is befriended by Neil (Tucker Albrizzi), a pudgy boy who is also alone and picked on by Alvin (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), a dim-witted kid who’s sole purpose in life seems to be to make Norman’s existence an unhappy one. Meanwhile his sister Courtney (Anna Kendrick) can barely believe that she has such a brother, only acknowledging him when she meets and goes gaga over Mitch (Casey Affleck), Neil’s buff older sibling. Thrown together by the unfolding curse that hangs over the town dating back to the celebrated witch trial, this is the team that will have to learn to work together or face the wrath unleashed by the walking dead.

ParaNorman mines humor from a well-crafted script and inspired (and flawless) visual execution. Borrowing from the rich history of slapstick comedy, the filmmakers create a number of hilarious scenes worthy of Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. One standout sequence involves the death of a strange old man named Mr. Prenderghast (John Goodman), a book that might contain the secret of preventing the plague of zombies, and Norman’s attempt to wrest it from the deceased man’s hands. In the town itself are many appropriately weird characters (an oppressive theater director who gets caught with beauty clay on her face when the zombies attack, a bizarrely overweight policewoman who just wants to kick some butt, a boy scout who transforms into a lethal zombie hunter) that ultimately create more trouble for Norman and his friends than do the zombies.
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Waiting for the Dark Knight to Rise – Film Reviews

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Only a few days until The Dark Knight trilogy concludes – until then here are some recollections on a few films from the past couple of months.

Film Reviews by Thomas W. Campbell


The Raid: Redemption
Directed by Gareth Evans

The National Board of Review screened The Raid to members on March 23. I had the pleasure to do a Q and A with director Gareth Evans after the screening. Evans is a young (under 30) Welch director who went to Indonesia to study martial arts, was exposed to Pencak Silat, a traditional fighting style, and made the martial arts film Merantau in 2009. The Raid (“Redemption was added to distinguish the film from other “Raids“). Both films star Silat martial artist Iko Uwais, who plays a young man leaving his village for the dangers of urban life in Merantau, and a Swat team member fighting a vicious gang in The Raid. Evans was incredibly open and enthusiastic about his work as a director – to a degree that is rare and quite refreshing. His discussion of a certain stunt gone wrong in the film was the kind of thing that would send shivers down the spines of lawyers for any major film studio.

The Raid is a must-see film for anyone with an interest in martial art films – it is essentially a police versus crazy gang in an enclosed location story (the police execute an ill-planned raid on a public housing building infested with an army of drug users and a angry and determined drug lord). The film plays around and unending sequence of action scenes – most featuring Iko Uwais, who is essentially in a continuous life and death fight. The only exception is a brief interlude, a momentary lull in the eye of the storm with his estranged brother. Uwais does all of his own stunts – some of the most incredible fighting occurs between him and Yayan Ruhian, who plays the ultimate antagonist. Ruhian is a drug soldier known only as “Mad Dog”, a wild man who refuses a gun when offered because he literally delights in the physical sensation of breaking his victim’s necks. Ruhian also worked with Uwais as co- fight choreographers for the entire film. If you can find The Raid still playing in a theater don’t hesitate. Evans is already working on a follow-up, which thankfully won’t be called The Raid 2 (It is named Berandal).



The Lucky One
Directed by Scott Hicks

The NBR screened The Lucky One on April 19 for members, students and guests and I had the good fortune to do a Q and A with director Scott Hicks after the screening. Hicks has made a documentary about Philip Glass, directed Snow Falling on Cedars with Ethan Hawke and Max Von Sydow in 1999 and, most famously, Shine (1996) a real life story centered around the talented and eccentric pianist David Helfgott. It’s a film fixated on the odd and emotionally engaging talents of Geoffrie Rush. Hicks is lean, soft spoken, has shoulder length blond-grey hair, and is quite relaxed and thoughtful.

I try to prepare for meeting and talking with directors, (and to some extent actors), by reading the source material that the films are based on. If a film is not an original script then it is most likely adapted from a story – either a novel or a short. I am alway curious about story telling decisions and love to compare the novel (starting place) to the script/film that is made from it. With Almodovar I was able to find a copy of the source text for his film The Skin I Live in. It is a very creepy French novella called (in translation) Tarantula, by Thierry Jonquet. Knowing the original text made it possible to identify the key moments when Almodovar made the story his own and to explore the adaptation process in a thorough way.

The Lucky One is based on a novel by the successful and popular writer Nicholas Sparks. My exposure to him was through a number of the film students – all girls -, at one of the Universities where I teach. For writing assignments there were students each semester who felt compelled to choose The Notebook, based on Sparks novel about a man trying to get through to his wife, who suffers from progressive alzheimer’s disease. I can visualize each scene in my mind, though I have never seen the film, thanks to the many students each semester who feel compelled to take on this melodramatic romantic touchstone of a film.

Published in 2008, The Lucky One is a novel that is an all-too-predictable potboiler that is also quite successful in bringing a tear to the eye and a flutter to the heart. Logan, an American soldier, in Iraq feels that something is keeping him alive – and decides that the talisman is a photo of a beautiful young woman from somewhere in America. He returns to the states to hunt her down and runs into a bad sheriff, who happens to be the ex-husband of Beth, the woman in the picture. You can imagine the possibilities.

Hicks makes the best film possible from the source material – keeping the basic story intact and adding a few nice twists (for instance he heightens the narrative weight of the photograph by building a secondary story from Logan’s war days around it). Hicks is great with actors (Rush in Shine, for instance) and gets everything he can from cast, crew and locations (shot in New Orleans). Zac Efron is passable as Logan – but seems to be miscast. In the novel the character has very long hair that is always falling across his face, for instance. For a soldier who has been through three duties Efron seems a bit young and maybe too much together to be believable. Blythe Danner is great as the mom figure but the performance that really stands out is Taylor Shilling as Beth, the image in the photograph. Shilling displays a range of emotions that seems realistic and impressive. At the extremes, in her pleasure to see Logan and in her despair as she confronts her former husband, Shilling has a Jessica Lange like quality that is radiant and fun to watch.



Peace, Love, and Misunderstanding
Directed by Bruce Beresford

Following the June 7th NBR screening of Peace, Love and Misunderstanding I moderated a discussion with Jane Fonda, the film’s star. Fonda was her gritty and elegant self as Grace in the film and in person, discussing not only her relationship with co-stars Catherine Keener, Elizabeth Olsen, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan but also her collaboration with Beresford. Fonda also took some time to look back to discuss acting with Marlon Brando and Vanessa Redgrave.

Peace, Love, and Misunderstanding is a somewhat too nice film by Bruce Beresford, who has directed such exceptional work as Breaker Morant (1980), Tender Mercies (1983), Driving Miss Daisy (1989) and Mao’s Last Dancer (2009). Peace, Love, and Misunderstanding makes great use of Woodstock, New York locations and real-life characters but – except for a plot line that follow the strained relationship between Grace and Diane (Keener), her onscreen daughter, and some bits about new found love between the younger actors there is little conflict or action. Still, there are fun moments and the film is probably better watched under the influence of something other than popcorn. Beresford is known for his strong work with actors and none in the film benefit more than Elizabeth Olsen, in a performance that predates her breakout role as title character in 2011’s Martha Marcy May Marlene. It’s a role that allows Olsen access into the professional world of a veteran director and some serious actors. She gives a fresh acting performance that stands out in an otherwise unengaging and light-weight film.


To Rome with Love
Directed by Woody Allen

On June 19, following an NBR screening of Woody Allen’s new film To Rome with Love, I moderated a discussion with actresses Penelope Cruz, Greta Gerwig and Ellen Page.

Woody Allen – you love him or you don’t love him (“don’t love” is often, it seems, with a passion). Regardless of opinion, on a purely objective basis it’s hard to argue against the talents of someone who has been Oscar nominated fifteen times for best screenplay and six times for best director. And, for Annie Hall, he also picked up a best actor nod. And four shiny gold statues along the way. That’s a lot of accolade and hardware for a funny little guy from Brooklyn.

Allen’s film track record has been exceptional of late, with the emotional and funny Vicky Christina Barcelona (2008), the cerebral Midnight in Paris (2011) and what feels like a collection of short stories come to life that is To Rome with Love. Whatever Works (2009) is a bit creeky, but features Larry David doing his best Woody Allen bit – and remaining mostly like Larry David. You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010) didn’t work as well – the story of a writer (James Brolin) and his wife (Naomi Watts) struggling for money, while an older generation (Anthony Hopkins and Gemma Jones) struggle with divorce, loss and making fools of themselves. Still, three and a half good films out of five is not so bad.

With To Rome with Love Allen has wrapped four stories of love – sometimes for people, sometimes for ideas – in a beautiful and varied Italian envelope, brought together a skilled and accomplished international cast, and given us a ticket to one of his supremely Allenesque tales of misunderstanding and misadventure.

There are no intertwining of destinies here – characters do not suddenly appear in a tale they did not start in. The stories are intercut as they progress and each follow their own narrative arcs. Though unnamed, I will call them The Mistaken Prostitute, The Unlikely Singer, Revisiting Love, and The Price of Fame. Although the writing quality of the four stories varies a bit (Price of Fame, absurd and intimate at the same time, is the best written, whereas Mistaken Prostitute dips slightly because of a believability factor involving the separation of the two characters). Allen polishes each section of the film with his directing, location choices and, most helpfully, his inspired casting. Roberto Benigni was born to play the perplexed ordinary man who is thrust – for no apparent reason – into the role of national celebrity. Penelope Cruz, as the prostitute who must play, in a twist of fate, the fiancé of a young boy from the Italian countryside, has fun with the role by implementing all the ways she can be helpful and supportive to the befuddled boy in front of his family. The prostitute as friend and supporter. Judy Davis plays Woody Allen’s put upon and begrudgingly faithful wife in the Unlikely Singer story. Allen’s character, a retired experimental opera producer, struggles to find a way to exploit the talents of a man (real-life opera star Fabio Armiliato) who can belt out a powerful and moving aria – but only while taking a shower. In the Revisiting Love sequence Alec Baldwin returns to Rome, where he frolicked as a youth and, in a bit of fantasy reminiscent of the time traveling in Midnight in Paris, encounters a young man and two women (Jesse Eisenberg, Ellen Page and Greta Gerwin) who seem to be reliving a potentially painful moment from his own past.

Hovering on the edge of their lives, seen only by Eisenberg, Baldwin tries to convince the younger man not to fall into the same love trap that he did. During the shoot neither Page nor Gerwin knew why Baldwin appeared in scenes but did not interact with them – relying on their trust for Allen as a director to get them through each scene.

A close friend said after the screening that Allen could have shot most of the film in any setting and the stories would have worked with little change in the writing. It’s true, but I really like to experience what it’s like to take a bit of New York, in the form of recognizably befuddled characters and situations from the mind of one of New York great filmmakers, and see how everything plays out when visually transplanted overseas. It’s a treat for a New Yorker who doesn’t get out of his apartment enough.

 

Hysteria – Film Review

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I had the pleasure of moderating a Q and A with director Tanya Wexler and actors Jonathan Pryce and Hugh Dancy, after a recent screening of Hysteria for members of the NBR. Pryce was to open at BAM in the title role of Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker on that very evening (NBR often screens in the morning) and Wexler had just arrived the evening before from a film premier in San Francisco.



Hysteria
A film by Tanya Wexler
Review by Thomas W. Campbell
Originally published on May 18, 2012 on the website of The National Board of Review


 Hysteria is a film that answers the age old question–what would happen if you made a film in the style of classic BBC Victorian dramas and mixed in the true story of the fortuitous discovery of the hand held self-massage tool commonly known as the vibrator? The answer, in the hands of filmmaker Tanya Wexler, is a great deal of fun for all concerned. She has constructed a film around an obscure historical event that is one part costume drama (set in Victorian England), one part romantic comedy (a young doctor caught between beautiful sisters who are polar opposites in temperament and politics) and one part astute social and political commentary.

The script, with a screenplay by Stephen Dyer and Jonah Lisa Dyer, crafts clearly drawn characters that fit perfectly into the conventions of the romantic comedy. The casting, and Wexler’s deft directing ability, bring characters to life that is comical, likable, and fun. Maggie Gyllenhaal’s performance as Charlotte, a ball-of-energy social reformer who has dedicated her life to helping the poor by founding a fledgling woman’s suffragette movement, is the force of change that flows through the film, influencing all she comes into contact with. Gyllenhaal is “on” in almost every moment of screen time–her eyes radiant, her posture defiant, ready for any challenge to the funding of her clinic for the indigent. Felicity Jones plays her sister Emily, a polar opposite who follows her father’s dreams of wealth and living within the conventions of upper class society. But her father isn’t conventional in all ways. Played with a strict sense of propriety by Jonathan Pryce, Dr. Dalrymple has built a booming business releasing the hysterical symptoms of upper class women by masturbating them with clinical precision and the utmost detachment.

Unable to accept the standards of Victorian medical practice (bloodletting, the use of medicinal leeches, lack of cleanliness towards patients), Mortimer Granville, played by Hugh Dancy, is injected into the Dalrymple’s lives when he accepts a position assisting the father’s hysteria-abetting treatments. As befits the genre, young Granville is rewarded the proper Emily for his hard work at the clinic but ultimately finds himself drawn to the less conventional free-spirit Charlotte. Helping Granville along the way is Rupert Everett’s Edmund St. John-Smythe, who is quite gay, an eccentric inventor (creating a working telephone prototype and the world’s first electric powered feather duster simultaneously), and has the deep pockets necessary to support both lifestyles.

There is no real surprise in the way the conflicts and personal relationships play out, which is part of the film’s pleasure. Genres have conventions and comedies are built to satisfy our cravings for these rules to follow through to their expected conclusions. When Charlotte’s independence finally leads to her arrest and trial, it comes as no shock that Granville will be forced to decide between his allegiance to her father (and the trappings of success he offers) and his mounting admirations for her. Formulaic as the moment seems, the result still manages to engage our intellect (we’ve seen the roots of Granville’s decision take hold in his earlier actions) and our emotions (the penalties faced by Charlotte were cruel yet quite realistic).

Hysteria works as an historical comedy – the script, acting, cinematography (Sean Bobbitt previously shot Steve McQueen’s Hunger and Shame) and editing are well crafted. But the film has the added complexity of social commentary and is much more than a one-joke affair. It is ultimately a story of female empowerment, told through the development of technology. The inspiration for the vibrator comes about through the necessity of compensating for injury (hands can only be used to “remedy” the female body for so long). But the creation of the vibrator for medicinal purposes, as revealed through Wexler’s storytelling, is only the beginning of a process that cannot be stopped. Once removed from the hands of the (male) doctors–through the advent of battery powered portable devices–the vibrator offered the potential for women to seek their own “remedies”. Furthermore, its use need no longer be restricted to the scientific function of “hysteria release”. Women could finally, on their own schedules, let their hair down and have some fun. Echoing Freud’s yet to be uttered words, Dr. Dalrymple explains to Granville (while treating a patient) that there is no pleasure to be derived in the process of stimulating the external body–only remedy. A woman, he solemnly reveals, can only achieve pleasure from being penetrated by a man. As Hysteria reveals, it sometimes takes the invention of a new technology to show us the error of our ways.

Where the Wild Things Are – Film Review

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Where the wild things are

Where the Wild Things Are
A film by Spike Jonze based on the book by Maurice Sendak
Review by Thomas W. Campbell
Originally published on October 16, 2009 on the website of The National Board of Review

Where the Wild Things Are is an exciting and vigorous adaptation of the seminal book by Maurice Sendak. Unlike most film versions of literary material, there are few subplots to alter or characters to drop. One of the most engaging things about the book is the power of its simplicity. There is little that could be subtracted from the story without harming the narrative. The question of adaptation becomes: how do you keep the spirit alive while expanding the narrative to fit the necessary screen time?

Director Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation) has added his own signature to the story and created a remarkable cinematic equivalent to the book, expanding the adventure in a strange world in ways that feel both familiar and at times unexpected. Jonze, who has said that it took him years to discover a way to bring the story to the screen, has found the key to adaptation in the action-oriented personality of young Max. Adding a framing story that involves an ice igloo to Max’s waking life, he creates a parallel event on the island that develops into an elaborate extension of Max’s keen imagination. The result is a tale that might have existed between the original pages of Sendak’s slim and engaging book, if he had elaborated further upon his own creation.

Played with authority by first-time actor Max Records, Max is a startling bundle of youthful aggression and determined adventurism. From the opening sequence we sense that he has more energy pounding inside him than can be controlled. Pursued by a frantic hand-held camera down a wooden staircase, clutching a very disturbing fork, he races in full flight after a terrified gray poodle, wrestles the animal to the floor, and lets out a loud animal roar. Max arrives fully formed – a screaming ball of fury.

Catherine Keener plays Max’s mom with a combination of vulnerability and determination that is truly remarkable. Struggling with work and the promise of a new relationship, even she has to throw up her arms when Max, in his wolf suit, wrestles her to the ground and sinks his teeth into her shoulder.

The heart of the film is the journey that Max takes into his own imagination. Unlike the bedroom/jungle transformation in Sendak’s book, Jonze releases Max into the streets as though he were a beast propelled from a cage. He flees his home with abandon, finally commandeering a small sailboat that takes him on an overnight journey to the mysterious island where the wild creatures live. Sendak’s characters, voiced by a cast that includes James Gandolfini (Carol), Catherine O’Hara, and Forest Whitaker, come alive in a nighttime encounter. Max confronts Carol, the big furry alpha male who parallels his own aggression and insecurities, and is recognized as a similar soul.

The integration of physical puppets, animated by the actors working inside them (designed by the Jim Henson group), and 3D animation is subtle and blends seamlessly. Max’s “friends” are big, live versions of Sendak’s creations, with grace and tons of personality. The music, composed by Carter Burwell and Nancy O., is youthful, upbeat, and infectious, and works brilliantly with the brisk but carefully paced editing.

Jonze has created fully developed characters with their own mannerisms, physical characteristics, and ability/desire to verbalize. The much-expanded dialogue, designed to individualize the characters, might cause unease for some who have truly internalized the book. When you read Where The Wild Things Are, the large detailed drawings and spare narrative encourage you linger on each page, to meditate on form and meaning, to add your own sounds and action to each frame. But the process of adaptation means that the imagined must somehow become concrete.

Where The Wild Things Are is a joyful and serious reflection on childhood dreams that exists somewhere between the innocence of youth and the awakening of adulthood. It’s an honest and emotionally engaging adaptation of a truly influential work of art.

Being Flynn – Film Review

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Being Flynn poster

I did a Q and A on February 28 with Director Paul Weitz and Co-star Paul Dano following the pre-release screening of Being Flynn for members of the National Board Review. We enjoyed discussing the adaptation of Nick Flynn’s complex memoir “Another Bullshit Night in Suck City” and the ways that the cast worked together to develop the boldly crafted characters from the book.

Originally published on March 2nd on the website of The National Board of Review

Being Flynn
A film by Paul Weitz
Review by Thomas W. Campbell

Paul Weitz has a touch for comedy – his previous films include the franchise establishing American Pie (with his brother Chris), About a Boy, an adaptation which brought him a co-writer Academy Award screenplay nomination, and a perfectly adequate continuation of the Ben Stiller/Robert De Niro Meet the Parents series (Little Fockers). Being Flynn, his latest film, which he also wrote, is based on the novel “Another Bullshit Night in Suck City: A Memoir” – a complex, emotionally gripping and decidedly unfunny story. Why did Wietz make such a genre leaping commitment to a story so different in style from his previous work? And in doing so how did he manage to nail it so perfectly, to transform a book with almost no dialogue based around a painful relationship of loss and betrayal into a film that engages from start to finish?

Being Flynn is a deft adaptation of a sprawling, non-linear memoir about abandonment, self-doubt, and loneliness. It’s an emotionally challenging story about a young man named Nick Flynn, abandoned in youth by his father, left to cope with his mother’s suicide, alone without anyone to point him towards answers – or even useful questions. Working in a homeless shelter as he tries to sort out his own issues, Nick is abruptly confronted with his fathers reappearance after 18 years of silence. Angry and confused, Nick is determined to prove that he has no need for reconciliation. Weitz uses a narrative technique he honed in About a Boy, which begins with alternating scenes narrated by the bachelor (Hugh Grant) and the boy of the film (Nicholas Holt). Being Flynn pushes the dual narrative concept even further. As we meet Jonathan Flynn (Robert De Niro) going about his business as a cab driver we hear De Niro’s unmistakable voice announce that he is one of the world’s greatest writers. Not a good writer, one of the greatest. Such bravado, immediately belied by the circumstances of his work, is wonderfully Rupert Pupkin like in self aggrandizement, and also harks back to the attitude that of another taxi driver he once played. As we wonder whether to laugh or cry the film cuts to a Nick Flynn (Paul Dano), a young man scribbling frantically on a yellow pad late in the night. His voice over tells us this is not his father’s story, it is his own. From the opening moments the film is about trying to understand why father and son have gotten to where they are – it engages us early with the mystery of the past and a spiraling-down present day action.

This is serious stuff, denser and more dangerous than any of Weitz’s previous work and seemingly an abrupt stretch coming off his recent entry in the Focker series. But Weitz nails it – his adaptation of the novel is clear, poignant, funny and emotionally compelling. Hardly new to the material, Weitz has been attached to the book since first reading it in 2004, shortly after it was published. The true story he encountered – about a fragmented and disturbing father/son relationship – troubled and fascinated him. He saw echoes of his own relationship with his father and was attracted to the complexity of the narrative. It took about eight years, a number of possible studios, and according to his own count, thirty drafts of the screenplay until finally being able to decode the tale into a film script that both he and novelist Nick Flynn felt ready to proceed with.

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A Separation – Film Review

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A Separation

Directed by Asghar Farhadi
Review by Thomas W. Campbell
Originally published on January 21, 2012 on the website of The National Board of Review. 

A Separation is a small powerful film by director Asghar Farhadi that tells the story of personal choices faced by a family living in modern day Iran. The film has been compared to Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon, which in 1950 famously explored a murder from five perspectives, including that of a spirit. Like Kurosawa’s film A Separation is the story of how one unfortunate event affects many people but is almost exclusively restricted to the experiences of a middle class family – father, wife, grandfather and daughter. At numerous times, Farhadi, who wrote and directed, uses a very effective and somewhat unusual technique to create empathy for the family – a technique that Kurosawa exploited fully in his own film. A Separation opens with a shot that goes on for a number of minutes. Simin (played by Leila Hatami) and her husband Nader (played by Peyman Moadi) sit in a small office facing the camera, which has become the point of view of an authority figure who will decide if a divorce will be granted. She explains that she wants to take custody of their high-school-age daughter and leave Iran. He explains that his wife must stay to help take care of his sick father. The couple argue their case to the judge (and the audience) and we find ourselves thrust into the role of both judge and jury. We are in the middle of a complicated relationship between two intelligent and passionate people – and want to know more about who is “right” or “wrong”.

A Separation is an extremely well crafted screenplay that builds suspense by creating an evolving and volatile domestic situation in which something clearly has to give (there is a 40 day deadline before the visas to leave Iran expire). The situation is made all the more unbearable by the literal and metaphorical weight that hangs around the family’s shoulders – they must find a way to take care of the husband’s almost completely helpless father, who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease. I could follow the screenplay from the brilliant setup through the believable and quite organic story complications – but that would spoil the viewing for the many folks who have not seen the film yet. There is so much that is authentic and moving in the way that characters come together – specifically the way that the hiring of Razeh, a woman meant to watch Nader’s father, leads to a series of events that hurt everyone involved. The acting is strong and direct. Leila Hatami portrays Simin with a single conviction – to convince her family, and the judge, that she may leave Iran with her daughter. Peyman Moadi’s Nader – torn between his love of father and responsibilities to his wife and daughter – is a man caught between anger, compassion, and duty. He is also a mystery – it is unclear whether he is being cheap by not hiring qualified help for his father or whether he really is so short of money that this is not possible. Sarina Farhadi’s depiction of Termeh, their daughter, (in real life the daughter of director Asghar Farhadi), is in some ways the biggest revelation of the film. She embraces the character with an innocence that is clearly destined to crash against the rocks of life’s brutal and rocky waters. Her reaction shots reveal the toll that is being exacted on her like slow-drip water torture. There are no easy truths in the film, and even though we are restricted to the lives of Simin and Nader’s family we also begin to understand and appreciate the “antagonists” in the story – Razeh (Sareh Bayat), her hot-headed husband Hodjat, and their quiet daughter Somayeh (Kimia Hosseini). As the motivations of each person are revealed the meaning of “right” and “wrong” becomes more and more elusive.

The sound design of A Separation is remarkable – the complete absence of soundtrack music or audio effects of any kind offers no distance or respite from the world of the film. Without a musical score, or even motifs for characters or places, we are left completely on our own as we grapple with the acceleration of events and our feelings concerning their impact on the lives of the characters. Like Rashomon, we begin to understand a terrible event from an ever widening perspective – two couples, their children, the extended family, friends of the family, the people they work with, the authorities who hold the ultimate power of judgment. A Separation is an intensely realistic and believable interpretation of the Kafkaesque absurdities that infiltrate every level of society and culture.

Using a natural and realistic directing style, director Asghar Farhadi has found a nearly perfect way to bring his superbly written script to the screen. A Separation is a realistic story of personal struggle within the bureaucracy and religious society of Iran that also feels universal in its depiction of family conflict. The film richly deserves the still accumulating accolades it has received. It is assured and bold filmmaking – a critical success that is also selling tickets through word of mouth. Neither a heartwarming or action-oriented story – the film is essentially what the title suggests, a story about two people breaking up. Which is like saying that The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo is about a kinky relationship. There is much more going on – and the details are what make the experience so deeply rewarding.

Filmmaker Interview – James Szalapski

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Heartworn Highways DVD Cover

I met James almost 20 years after he made Heartworn Highways. He came into an edit studio I was working at to cut a trailer of an independent film he had shot. We became friends pretty quickly, finding that we were interested in the same kind of things – telling stories, wrestling with technology, UFOs and government conspiracies (which led us both the X Files). James was an accomplished cinematographer with one of the brightest and most inquisitive minds that I’ve ever met. He liked to problem-solve especially in story telling and the technical ways we communicate them. But James was also a pioneer who moved to New York City from Minnesota 10 years before I moved to New York City from Vermont (He was 10 years older than me). When he came to the city he found an empty and essentially forgotten PreSoHo and moved into an incredible loft space on Spring Street, struggling and ultimately watching the region transform around him.

James was a pioneer who became a friend and mentor – he made a lasting impression on anybody who met him by being continuously supportive and always interested in what you were doing.

Whether shooting a documentary for PBS one month or directing a film with Roy Schneider later in the year James would always welcome the opportunity to actually tackle a new production problem – he was eternally ready to jump into life. Which made it all the more difficult for everyone when he finally passed away after and on and off battle with cancer that finally caught him in September of 2000.

Heartworn Highways is the great achievement in the life of someone who did a lot of pretty excellent things. It’s an honest and compelling look at a musical culture that was very much in transformation in 1976 – and was fortunately documented by James Szalapski and his small crew of merry filmmakers.

The following is an interview I did with James Szalapski in 1996, which was transcribed and printed in the DVD booklet that comes with the DVD..

T. Campbell:
At the time the movie was shot, and right up until the time of its original release, the film was called ‘New Country’ but then something happened which made you look for a new title. Could you tell us about that?

J. Szalapski:
They came out with a yoghurt called ‘New Country’, right while we were cutting the movie and there was advertising everywhere … we don’t want people to think its a yoghurt movie, so we changed it to ‘Outlaw Country’ for a while because these guys where referred to mostly as “outlaws,” and tried to go for something more evocative, threw round a bunch of titles and this one came together like a feeling.

T. Campbell:
You mentioned that these guys were kind of, kind of outlaws and they broke off from Nashville… Can you give us some background on that?

J. Szalapski:
Well, by the early seventies Nashville had sort of become very rigid. All the songs were sounding the same, they just turned out product like crazy and they kept country music in a narrow defined range. But the young guys wanted to do something different. A lot of them had gone through the sixties and had experienced the whole explosion in rock and pop music and wanted open it up a little bit. “LA Freeway” is kind of an anthem for these guys; they went to places like LA and New York and, and discovered it wasn’t where they belonged. Their roots were in the South and they had an emotional connection to their grandparent’s generation there. But when they came back to Nashville and to Austin, Texas they brought back with them the electric guitars and the raw sound of their own generation. But the music they were making connected more to a generation older than the one in place in Nashville.

T. Campbell:
They looked to guys like Hank Williams …

J. Szalapski:
They where looking, back to them, and I found that very interesting, this generation jump which I tried to put in the film with some of the older characters in the film. Another thing that was happening was that there weren’t a lot of places to play music in Nashville – outside of recording studios. There were very few clubs there. But in Austin there was and Austin kinda became a new capital for this new music. Austin is a university town, very liberal, pretty advanced and there were a lot of clubs to play music in. It pretty quickly became like a rival to the main, established, “religion” there in Nashville.
J. Szalpapski and friends

T. Campbell:
I wanna get into how this film was made, but I’m curious that you talked about this group of people, these outlaws.

J. Szalapski:
My connection to all this was very personal and direct. The film is dedicated to Skinny Dennis. Dennis played stand-up bass around LA. And Guy Clark was in LA at that point, this was the late sixties. The movie opens with ‘”LA Freeway” which Guy wrote about LA and he mentions Skinny Dennis in the song, “Here’s to you ol’ Skinny Dennis…” Dennis rambled around and for a time came here to live with me in New York City in seventy-two or so. Guy had gone to Nashville so he went down to visit Guy, and suddenly he felt at home for the first time in his life. When he came back he told me about the scene there and I was at the point where I really wanted to make my own film and I thought maybe this could be an interesting subject. So I went down there and stayed with him and then just met the people that he knew, Guy and Townes Van Zandt. He dragged me over to see David Allan Coe who was kind of very different from them, more outrageous, you know. He’s like the biker. And Townes is the poet and Guy is like superb craftsman/writer …

T. Campbell:
…
He’s the one who repairs the guitar in Heartworn Highways?

J. Szalapski:
He also does that too, yes. Townes would be one of those people who wouldn’t do anything for a year and then sit down and write five songs in one night.

T. Campbell:
Dennis died before you made the film. Was there any forewarning of that?

J. Szalapski:
Well, Dennis had Marfan’s Syndrome. It’s a birth defect. Lincoln had it. And it causes your body to get very boney and elongate. Dennis was six foot seven and weighed 135 pounds that’s why they called him Skinny Dennis. The doctor said Dennis wasn’t gonna make it to his twenties, you know. And, he was a pretty hard partying guy, he didn’t walk around on tip-toes because of his heart problems. Eventually he did die of heart failure. He was twenty-nine. But back in the early seventies he introduced me to everybody in Nashville and Austin. I shot slides, I got copies of their music, most of the guys only had demo’s, they didn’t have albums at that stage. I took all that around and showed it to people to try to raise some money for the thing. And they said things like “Go and get Willie Nelson or Kris Kristofferson as a host for the film” and we’ll think about it, but nobody knows any of these people. But I wanted to go with the guys who were on the way up, I think they, they’ve got the most interesting energy, they’re the avant-garde on this thing that’s happening. So, finally, through George Carroll, I met Graham Leader in Paris who became the producer of the film. He was an art dealer in Europe.

The energy crisis had just hit and the bottom had fallen out of the art market. I played him the music and the music won him over. I also showed him some of my slides. So we went to Nashville and Graham financed what we felt was going to be an hour documentary for television. I think we had thirty-five thousand dollars. In about a month we had a small crew and were underway. We shot a couple of things the first day we were there, it was great, we were off to a running start, but then we didn’t do anything for four days. People’s schedules, cancellations, we just couldn’t get anything happening. The crew was getting grumpy… but then it took off. Way led to way and we started getting other people into it. I’d say it was about two weeks into it we felt we could make a feature film. So Graham he raised more money, basically over the phones and, and we finished shooting everything we could to make a feature. The whole thing took around four weeks.

T. Campbell:
How did the budget determine the style of the film-making?

J. Szalapski:
We went as lean as we could. Me and an assistant cameraman…My assistant cameraman on was also my assistant director, Phillip Schopper. We had worked together before and had become good friends. Phillip’s a very creative person with a lot of good and you want people around you who will keep you honest. Then when we got to the editing room he became the editor and I became his assistant editor. He was there at the Steenbeck doing all the cutting and I was finding stuff and looking over his shoulder.

And of course we would always confer about the editing with Graham Leader who stayed in New York for pretty much the whole course of the finishing the film. The grip was Mike Harris, Skinny Dennis’s best friend, who was then living in New York also. Larry Reibman was the gaffer. Larry was working for a film equipment rental house at the time and wanted to get out of the rental house and make movies. The sound man was very organic. He was great. Alvar Stugard was his name. Like I would walk into a situation and start looking around for how the light- ing falls and where the lamps are, what this is gonna look like. Alvar would walk around with his microphone and his headphones on, and test the acoustics of the room, and he would find the best sound might be over in the corner and he would say what sounds best for the place what really gives the feeling of place too, you know.

T. Campbell:
This is a technical question before we move on. What equipment did you use to shoot this film?

J. Szalapski:
A 16mm camera. About sixty per cent of the film was hand-held. I shot with an Eclair, French Eclair NPR, which is a difficult camera to use, it’s fairly heavy and the weight is about five inches in front of your chest, so you’re supporting it all with your hands.

T. Campbell:
Did you a use a Nagra stereo?

J. Szalapski:
Nagra stereo. We made a real effort to record everything in stereo.

T. Campbell:
Really?

J. Szalapski:
And the final result was mag stripe stereo, 35mm film with mag stripe on the side. Because this film was done before optical stereo, you know, the whole Dolby optical stereo thing that came into movies happened about two years after we finished the film.

T. Campbell:
So not only the music’s in stereo but the presence, the dialogue track the chickens and the lambs and whatever are in stereo on the soundtrack?

J. Szalapski:
Right, and we tried to get it as high fidelity as possible but we only had two tracks so when someone was singing and playing a guitar we put one mic on the singer and one on the guitar. Then in the mix we would put their voice in the centre, where it is on the screen pretty much, but we’d spread the highs and lows out according to the position of the guitar. If the guitar neck is up to the right, you’d put the highs up there and put the lows down at the body and so we’d have a stereo separation for the scene.

T. Campbell:
Is all of the music performed live?

J. Szalapski:
Yeah. Oh, yeah. You know, people played music, like you and I are talk- ing then a couple of other people would drop over and somebody would say “I’ve got a new song”, and they try out their songs and sing together and so it goes. There was a lot of drinking, these things would go till three, four, five, six in the morning. Eventually people would sort of lose the ability to sing very well, you know, but they could still play. Their body seemed to remember the guitar stuff. I told them what I wanted to do and that I wanted to hear what they had to say about anything in this world, the movement, or whatever.

An official portrait that I scanned for Jim. Don't know yet who to credit...

An official portrait that I scanned for Jim. Don’t know yet who to credit…

T. Campbell:
So what, what happened in a sense is that you meet one person, they would introduce you to someone else, they would introduce you to some- body else …

J. Szalapski:
Exactly. Dennis was friends with Townes and Guy they’re both very highly respected in the songwriting community. They’ve written a lot of songs, they’re very original. Once they were both interested in the film people said “Oh, you should go talk to so and so”. Since Guy and Townes were my main characters people would say “Oh well, we’re in. Count us in. You’ve got those guys, we’re in”.

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