Almost everyone admires or loves Philippe Falardeau‘s Monsieur Lazhar (Music Box, 4.13), myself included. A 91% Rotten Tomatoes rating. Nominated for the 2011 Best Foreign Language Feature Oscar. Direct, simple, elegant, humane. And very movingly acted, especially by Mohamed Fellag (in the titular role) and young newcomer Sophie Nelisse, who’ll be Brigitte Fossey in a few years.
But the film has a small but significant elephant in the room. Other critics don’t seem to give a damn, but it’s a problem. For me anyway.
This film is about healing from guilt, trauma and death. Lazhar, a newly arrived Algerian teacher at a French elementary school, is recovering from his wife’s passing. And the kids in his class are reeling from the suicide of their teacher, a youngish woman who — get this — hanged herself in the classroom where she taught them. For all the students to see and freak out over. What kind of a person would do such a thing? Any teacher would know that committing suicide at home or somewhere off the school grounds would be ghastly enough for the students. But hanging yourself in a classroom?
Plus I found it completely bizarre that no one in the entire film so much as mentions what a malignant act this was. All they say is “poor sad teacher,” etc. I couldn’t get past this and felt certain distance from the film…sorry.
I talked about it with Falardeau last week on the phone. His screenplay is an adaptation of Evelyne de la Cheneliere‘s play, and he wondered about the hanging aspect, he said, but felt more or less roped into it. I asked him what kind of teacher would not only kill herself but do so in a way that would emotionally scar her students for life? When depressed people are approaching the act of killing themselves they’re swimming in a kind of insanity pool, he said, and they don’t really have their bearings. I don’t buy that. A suicidal teacher could be completely upside down with grief but she’d at least have the decency to kill herself in a way that would lessen the impact among her students — and not intensify it.
I didn’t laugh at last night’s “Bein’ Quirky” SNL skit, but I didn’t mind it. It made me smile a bit. That’s almost like saying I laughed. Sofia Vergara‘s Fran Drescher, Abby Elliott‘s Zoey Deschanel, Kristen Wiig‘s “talking out of the right side of her mouth” Drew Barrymore, and Taran Killam‘s Michael Cera. Wiig and Killam were my faves.
The Three Stooges began to come back, I believe, when Mel Gibson did a little Stooge routine at the start of a drug bust in Lethal Weapon. That was 25 years ago, and now, after relentless delays, the Farrelly brothers’ film version is opening in 4.13. 20th Century Fox publicists have been slow with the screening invites. They showed it yesterday afternoon at the Chinese to a family crowd. This morning I asked if I could please attend the Tuesday all-media, and they said okay.
From Dennis Lim‘s 4.6 N.Y. Times article: “The Farrellys agreed that it made commercial sense to modernize — no pie fights, for one thing — but Peter Farrelly said that to a large extent they strove for absolute fidelity to the original: “They had to look the same, sound the same, talk the same, dress the same.” Die-hards, they realized, would not tolerate deviation when it came to characters who had hardened into legend: Moe, the impotent leader with his mood swings and undercurrent of simmering rage; Larry, with his goggle eyes and frizzy mop of yankable hair; Curly with his trilling falsetto and subverbal yelps and nyuk-nyuks.
“The Farrellys also painstakingly preserved the famous sound effects: the boinks and thumps of all those head smacks and eye pokes and sledgehammers to the skull.”
On this, a morning of Christian celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ (and of palm fronds and chocolate Easter bunnies), I’m watching Meet The Press host David Gregory talk with guests about how religion can (or could) affect culture, politics and national policies. And I’m looking at his guest Gigi Graham, the daughter of rightwing Christian bigot and hate-monger Billy Graham, and thinking about my feelings of loathing for the Christian right and my split feelings about religion — it gets the weak and vulnerable through the night and keeps the sheep in line, but it also provides a haven for the smallest and pettiest minds. Rightwing Christians and Islamic fundamentalists are equally vile, but I hate Christians a little bit more because I grew up with them and have come to know their shallowness and complacency first-hand.
The legendary 60 Minutes interrogator Mike Wallace has died. A month shy of his 94th birthday, Wallace slipped into the after-realm “at a care facility in New Haven, where he had lived in recent years,” according to Tim Weiner‘s N.Y. Times obit. I flinched when I read that. The fearless Mike Wallace in an assisted living or medical care facility! What a ghastly, loathsome concept.
I talked to Wallace and his wife Mary a little more than five years ago at a Peggy Siegal party at MOMA. He was the youngest and healthiest looking and most intellectually alert 88 year-old I’d ever spoken to, and probably will ever speak to.
What did I say to Wallace? That being played by Christopher Plummer in Michael Mann‘s The Insider was one of the luckiest, most positive, image-enhancing things that could have happened to him. He’s portrayed as a charismatic guy who was flinty, tough and powerful, and then (a) made a mistake by kowtowing to CBS lawyers and corporate interests, (b) offered a memorable rationalization (“I don’t plan to spend the end of my days wandering in the wilderness of National Public Radio!”), (c) recognized his mistake, (d) revealed his remorse and feelings of vulnerability to Al Pacino‘s Lowell Bergman, (e) tore Gina Gershon‘s attorney character a new one (“What are you gonna do now? You gonna finesse me? Lawyer me some more? I’ve been in this profession fifty fucking years! You and the people you work for are destroying the most-respected, the highest-rated, the most-profitable show on this network!) and (f) set things right.
Plummer-as-Wallace had one other great line: “Fame has a half-life of 15 minutes. Infamy lasts a bit longer.”
I also asked Wallace what his regimen was — what he ate and didn’t eat, how much exercise, how much sleep he got, how much walking, how much reading, writing, TV time, online time…the whole rundown. Because I want to look as good when I get older. It was mostly a bullshit question since good health and a vibrant appearance are almost entirely about genetics, but I was genuinely impressed.
This was a guy who used to smoke like a chimney and did cigarette advertisements for Phillip Morris and Parliament in the 1950s and early ’60s.
Wallace’s journalistic reputation was that of an engaging and tenacious prick, “the Terrible Torquemada of the TV Inquisition.” I love this passage in Weiner’s obit: “As he grilled his subjects, he said, he walked ‘a fine line between sadism and intellectual curiosity.’ His success often lay in the questions he hurled, not the answers he received. ‘Forgive me’ was a favorite Wallace phrase, the caress before the garrote. ‘As soon as you hear that,” he told The Times, “you realize the nasty question’s about to come.'”
Nine weeks ago Plummer toldPete Hammond during a Santa Barbara Film Festival chat that Wallace “was a cruel guy but a great TV newsman.”
Wallace didn’t really come into himself and begin to mine his Mike Wallace-ness until the mid to late ’50s, when he was pushing 40. His hottest career phase happened with 60 Minutes, of course, which began in 1968 when he was 50.
Wallace’s Wiki page says he “was hospitalized [in the early ’80s] with what was diagnosed as exhaustion. But his wife, Mary, forced him to go to a doctor, who diagnosed Wallace with clinical depression. He was prescribed an antidepressant and underwent psychotherapy. Out of a belief that it would be perceived as a weakness, Wallace kept his depression a secret until he revealed it in an interview with Bob Costas. In a later interview with colleague Morley Safer, he revealed he attempted suicide circa 1986.”
Here’s an interview he did with Kirk Douglas in 1957, when Douglas had just finished shooting Stanley Kubrick‘s Paths of Glory.
“If you want mind-blowing,” I wrote at the time, “consider this quote from Wallace’s introduction: ‘Just the day before our interview, Mr. Douglas had completed shooting on The Vikings for which he had grown his hair long and he hadn’t yet had the chance to see his barber.” In other words Wallace is not only mindful of the regimented, bordering-on-military approach to men’s hair styles in 1957, but feels a need to actually prepare the audience for the shock of seeing Douglas’s coif, which is maybe a tiny bit longer and fuller than an average haircut worn by a typical Man in a Gray Flannel Suit. Lockstep conformity was the rule among urban male professionals of the ’50s, but Wallace’s remark borders on the absurd.”
In a 4.5 Indiewire piece about a recent New School panel discussion about “Film Criticism Today,” Matt Singer reports that contributing Film Comment editor Paul Brunick predicted that “the film critic of the future will be more like a DJ in a club…sampling and mixing together reviews that people have written, viral videos, and framegrabs.” If Brunick had said the film critic of the future “will randomly review movies and Blurays, lament the ComicCon-ing of film culture, dabble in political assessments, rail against 1.85 fascists and grainstorms, share personal stories about absolutely anything that happens and sampling and arguing with various film critics while posting videos and JPEGs of cats and Cannes Film Festival happenings and neon motel signs,” he would have…I don’t know, sounded more visionary-like, something.
James Baldwin, Marlon Brando, Joseph L, Mankiewicz, Sidney Poitier, Charlton Heston and Harry Belafonte discussing the civil rights struggle in Washington, D.C., hours after the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which culiminated in Martin Luther King‘s “I Have A Dream” speech, on Wednesday, 8.28.63. All the noteworthy lefties of the day (including Bob Dylan) were there.
Yesterday The Hollywood Reporter‘s Alex Ben Blockquoted Universal Studios president and COO Ron Meyer as saying that some of his recent remarks about “shitty” movies were taken out of context in a Jen Yamato Movieline piece from the Savannah Film Festival. Yamato’s article ran on 11.3.11.
Benicio del Toro in The Wolfman
“I was quoted as saying Hollywood make[s] shitty movies,” Meyer told ABB. “What I said is we make some good movies and some shitty movies. [But] nobody ever sets out to make a shitty movie.”
I’m sorry, but that’s just not true. Studio guys decide to make shitty movies all the time if they believe that this or that shitty movie will make money. Even if a studio chief wants to only make quality films no matter what, he/she knows that there’s only so much talent out there, and that Sturgeon’s Law is more or less true — i.e., “90% of everything is crap.”
Actually that isn’t entirely correct, movie-wise. About 5% to 10% of films each year are excellent-to-very-good. The next 15% tend to be seen as okay, fairly good, half-decent, passable. The next 20% are not-so-hot, disappointing and/or tolerable but irritating. The bottom 50% or 55% are outright garbage.
All studio chiefs know that their job requires them to make money for the studio, and that means punching out a lot of Jimmy Dean link sausage and insipid CG Comiccon slop and whatever else might make a buck. Millions of people have no taste in movies. Look at all the dough being made by The Hunger Games, a mediocrity if there ever was one.
“We make a lot of shitty movies,” Meyer said in Savannah. “Every one of them breaks my heart. We set out to make good ones. One of the worst movies we ever made was The Wolfman. Wolfman and Babe 2 are two of the shittiest movies we put out, but by the same token we made movies we believe in. We did United 93, which is one of the movies I’m most proud of. It wasn’t a big moneymaker, but it’s a film I believe every American should see and it showed you what people can do in the worst of times and how great the human spirit is and all that, so there are moments that can make up for all the junk that you make.”
Yamato asked Meyer “what happened with well-publicized financial disappointments Scott Pilgrim, Land of the Lost, and Cowboys & Aliens?”
“Cowboys & Aliens wasn’t good enough,” Meyer answered. “Forget all the smart people involved in it, it wasn’t good enough. All those little creatures bouncing around were crappy. I think it was a mediocre movie, and we all did a mediocre job with it.”
“Land of the Lost was just crap. I mean, there was no excuse for it. The best intentions all went wrong.”
“Scott Pilgrim, I think, was actually kind of a good movie. [Addressing a small section of the audience, cheering.] But none of you guys went! And you didn’t tell your friends to go! But, you know, it happens.”
“Cowboys & Aliens didn’t deserve better. Land of the Lost didn’t deserve better. Scott Pilgrim did deserve better, but it just didn’t capture enough of the imaginations of people, and it was one of those things where it didn’t cost a lot so it wasn’t a big loss. Cowboys & Aliens was a big loss, and Land of the Lost was a huge loss. We misfired. We were wrong. We did it badly, and I think we’re all guilty of it. I have to take first responsibility because I’m part of it, but we all did a mediocre job and we paid the price for it. It happens. They’re talented people. Certainly you couldn’t have more talented people involved in Cowboys & Aliens, but it took, you know, ten smart and talented people to come up with a mediocre movie. It just happens.”
For whatever reason I’d never watched this alternate finale scene from Titanic until this morning. Obviously it’s a little too on-the-nose (i.e, Rose repeating Jack Dawson’s “make each day count”), and it too conspicuously alludes to the uproarious laughter finale at the end of Treasure of the Sierra Madre. The only good bit is when the fat bearded guy tells Gloria Suart what he thinks of nonsensical romantic gestures.
If great wealth is lost through bad luck or some dark roll of the dice, wise men can find it in their hearts to laugh. And if a wealthy person decides to give away a large sum to a poor person or a noble cause, fine. But only fools throw valuable things into the sea.
The aesthetic fate of Catching Fire, the Hunger Games sequel, is back in jeopardy this morning. Nikki Finke and Mike Fleming are reporting that “multiple sources” have told them that director Gary Ross “has not formally withdrawn from the Hunger Games sequel”…zounds! Ross “is off on a family vacation and couldn’t be reached” — bullshit — “but these internet reports that described his withdrawal as definitive are simply not accurate,” per Finke and Fleming.
I wrote yesterday that if — if — Ross has left the franchise it’ll be a good thing all around because his direction of The Hunger Games was/is highly problematic. I also stated a suspicion that Lionsgate execs realize they can do better than Ross for the next two films, and if they’re smart they’ll nudge him toward other pastures and opportunities.
Earlier this week Hollywood Reporter critic Todd McCarthy suggested some alternative choices for the Catching Fire gig, given the mismatch with Ross. It’s unlikely Lionsgate will go for an auteur because they’ll want someone they can push around. But they’d be foolish to ignore what Alfonso Cuaron proved when he took the reins on Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (’04), which is that talented directors can up the artistic ante while still delivering what the franchise requires.
McCarthy suggested Cuaron and four others:
Kathryn Bigelow: “If The Hurt Locker and Bin Laden filmmaker wants a mainstream gig, she could elevate the pedigree of the Katniss saga.”
Mel Gibson: Don’t laugh. If Catching Fire is one-third as exciting as Apocalypto, it would be dynamite. But can Mel do PG-13?
Walter Hill: “The old-guard director (The Warriors) could provide style and an authentic feel for action that was missing in the first film.
Nicolas Winding Refn: “If modern edginess and unexpected moves are desired for the sequel, then the Drive director could be the man to deliver them.”
HE’s own suggestion: Juan Antonio Bayona, director of The Orphanage and the forthcoming The Impossible.
I don’t believe those reports about Hunger Games director Gary Ross quitting the lucrative franchise because Lionsgate wouldn’t give him a sufficient raise. If true, I suspect that Lionsgate gave Ross the oblique heave-ho because almost everyone thought his direction of The Hunger Games was bad and Lionsgate knew they could do better. In fact, I’m personally claiming partial credit for Ross’s departure as I was one of those who bemoaned his visual handlings.
Hunger Games director Gary Ross.
Consider these complaints:
“Certainly the character [of Katniss Everdeen] is strong enough to survive Gary Ross’s direction…she’s such a sensational character that she fires up your imagination, even when Mr. Ross seems intent on dampening it.” — Manohla Dargis, N.Y. Times.
“Working with the cinematographer Tom Stern, Ross shoots in a style that I have come to despise. A handheld camera whips nervously from one angle to another; the fragments are then jammed together without any regard for space. You feel like you’ve been tossed into a washing machine (don’t sit in the front rows without Dramamine). Even when two people are just talking calmly, Ross jerks the camera around. Why? As the sense of danger increases, he has nothing to build toward. Visually, he’s already gone over the top.” — David Denby, New Yorker.
“The Hunger Games is at best a mediocre effort — an obviously second-tier thing, tedious, lacking in poetry or grace or kapow. It feels sketchy, under-developed, emotionally simplistic and hambone. And it looks cheap and cheesy. My strongest reaction was to Tom Stern’s awful cinematography, which I found visually infuriating. Stern’s shooting, especially in the last two thirds, is almost all jaggedy, boppity-bop, bob-and-weave close-ups. Way too close.” — me, Hollywood Elsewhere
“The most egregious failing of The Hunger Games [is] the direction by Gary Ross. Guys, there is not a single shot in this movie that is longer than four seconds. Not one. I fucking timed them. It is a 2 1/2 hour parade of lightning-fast cuts that jumble the storytelling, allow no time for the audience to get a sense of place or relationship, and muddle every action sequence to the point where it’s almost impossible to tell what’s going on.” — Andrew Nienaber, fataldownflaw.com.
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