Yes I'm aware how superficial and self-centered predicting MY OWN awards seems, shush. But I wanna get a feel for awards season this year so I'm slapping together a quick list of films I've seen and liked from this year, and films that are not yet out but I think I'll like, so with that, let us begin!
BEST PICTURE:
The Birth of a Nation
La La Land
Nocturnal Animals*
10 Colverfield Lane
Live By Night
BEST DIRECTOR:
Nate Parker, The Birth of a Nation*
Martin Scorsese, Silence
Tom Ford, Nocturnal Animals
Damien Chazelle, La La Land
Ang Lee, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk
BEST ACTOR:
Ryan Gosling, La La Land
Brad Pitt, Allied
Tom Hardy, Legend*
Danzel Washington, Fences
Oliver Masucci, Er Ist Weider Da
(apologies in advance for how messy this review is, but it's very late and I'm very tired but I just had to get my thoughts out there.)
I have something of an unfortunate habit of having rather unrealistic expectations of films that receive praise from everywhere. As my consumption of cinema ever increases as though it's some form of mental meal, as do my opinions of expectations of their respective creators. So, near the end of 2014 and into 2015, I became aware of a new filmmaker as I myself was new to the film blogging community, that filmmakers name is Xavier Dolan. He had been active for the past 5 years or so already with acclaimed films with subjects ranging from bigoted families, impossible love triangles, a trans-gender epic, and a Hitchcock inspired thriller about abusive relationships. So when his 5th feature "Mommy" began making the rounds, needless to say, I was intrigued.
I took over a year to see it since a proper home video of the film doesn't seem to be the easiest thing to find. As mentioned above, my expectations were extremely high since I spent most of that year letting the rave reviews it had gotten soak in. Upon seeing it, was it the best film I had ever seen? No. (Ingmar Bergman's "Cries and Whispers" still holds that title) but that's fine. It doesn't have to be, and after seeing it twice more, it still isn't, but it doesn't have to be, I'm only one person in an enormous sea of people, what do I matter?
The film does, however, have some of the best uses of cinema as a dramatic art form I can say I've ever seen.
The story revolves about Diana "Die" DuPres, a middle aged widow living in near poverty. She is forced to take care of her teenage son Steve, who has recently been expelled from a care facility for special needs youths after causing it massive damage and injuring a student. Diana cares deeply for Steve, who goes into almost psychotic fits of rage when put under great emotional distress. Diane has trouble coping, until her neighbor Kyla becomes involved in both her and Steve's lives. Kyla is a former teacher now on medical leave for unexplained reasons, and also suffers from an apparently nervous stutter. She becomes an outlet for both Diane and Steve, for Diane as a friend and confidant, and for Steve as a teacher. The three form an off sort of family unit, Kyla seeming neglecting the daughter and husband she already has.
Eventually, Die receives papers stating she's being sued by the parents of the injured student. After seeking out a lawyer, who is driven away by Steve who beeves he's interested in his mother for sex,Diane attempts to have Steve commuted again, taking him to the hospital under the guise of taking him and Kyla on a road-trip. Diane immediately regrets the decision, but by then, the damage is done. Things fall even farther when Kyla reveals she and her family are moving to Toronto, leaving Die completely alone. The story ends with Steve attempting to make an escape from the hospital he was incarcerated at, the screen cutting to black before we see what happens as Lana Del Ray plays over.
The layers of complexity involved in the characters conveyed from their looks and actions rather then through straight dialogue is astounding. Firstly there's Diane's behavior which is at times almost as immature as Steve's. Her style of wardrobe and makeup are both far to young for a woman of her age. Mix that with her odd quarks like dotting I's with hearts and the pride she displays when hearing Steve curse out the guards on the radio at the beginning, and you have quite the leading lady. Kyla is also a bit of a mystery, we;re never told why she stutters or is on leave, but I have to wonder. She doesn't community with her own family well at all, to the point they're almost a complete non-entity in her life, and the scene in which she ferociously threatens Steve made me think, did she attack a student and that's why she's on leave? Either way, she becomes a sort of secondary mother figure Steve as well as a mentor.
Another thing this film both exemplifies and rewrites is the craft of film-making itself. Not is the editing, particularly the use of slow motion and depth of field superb, but so is (for me) the real star of this show, the cinematography. The film is shot in the virtually unheard of aspect ratio of 1:1, which gives off a feeling of intense claustrophobia as well as telling of the character's emotional states. There is also some extremely clever trickery involved in the use of this style of shooting that must be seen to be believed, and for that, I give you easily the film's best scene:
And so there you have it ladies and gentlemen. One of 2014's finest films and pieces of art in general is a masterwork from one of the medium's newest and so far finest artists. It truly is an experience that must be seen to be believed, and I hope that you'll all be able to see it very soon!
Following the incredibly pathetic
community theater production of Cyrano De Bergerac, the main director of said
group retires, passing the reigns on to her right hand. He gets the group’s
most talented actor, Charlie for the lead in “A Streetcar Named Desire”, the
camera appearing to be shaking and hand held, possibly meant to represent a
confused mental state or frame of mind. However, there’s no actress for the
role of Kim. After meeting the socially awkward Helena at the store, he decides
to invite her to audition, what fallows will change both her and Henry’s lives
for good.
Among certain details to be found rather interesting is
how Helena can be seen waiting for her turn to audition wearing warm, earthy
colored clothes but is sat completely alone, while everyone else is happily
bantering and chatting, but dressed in cooler, more subdued colors. Helena’s
audition starts rocky, her acting robotic and mechanical, showing she has
difficulty empathizing with other human emotion, either real or fabricated,
like the pages of a script. She’s also uncomfortable with great amounts of
physical contact, when we see a point of view shot from her perspective showing
the librarian’s face so close to both her, and us. But when Charlie arrives and
undresses for his audition, which makes use of the “zoom in-pull out” dolly
shot famously put to use in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo”. When their intense
duel audition is over, both need to take time to decompress, the passion of the
page having bled into reality for the pair.
Overnight, Charlie has undergone a very literal
transformation in the role of Stanley, his acting and devotion to character
reminding us of actors such as Meryl Streep or Daniel Day-Lewis. Helena has
fallen very much head-over-heels for him as well, that is, with Charlie as
Stanly, rather than Charlie as Charlie. Poor, broken, hollow Charlie, found on
a doorstep and unable to develop a proper familial connection with anyone, only
able to express how he feels through the words pf others, rather than his own. This
information comes too light when after rehearsal one night, Helena invites him
on a “picnic” with a view of a “vista”, in reality only a theater backdrop.
Once again, replacing the actual thing with a man-made imitation of said thing.
After the show ends, Henry goes back to being the awkward
man-child of before, and Helena realizes this while still so passionately in
love with him. She is shattered, and isolates herself again, but now wares cold
colors. Helena soon, however, makes the connection we have already made, and
begins talking to Henry via the great romantic texts of antiquity. The story
ends with her being proposed to through the words of Oscar Wild’s “The
Importance of being Earnest”, so now, she’s married a man pretending to be someone
else, with the help of a story about man romancing a woman while pretending to
be someone else, how very Meta.
Another thing that should be mentioned is this films use
of mise en scène. While only a low budget TV movie, it has quite an interesting
use of camera work, movement, and composition. This is worth mentioning seeing
as how many TV productions made during the early 80s had a very static and uninteresting
style (ironically) reminiscent of stage and theatre productions, which this
film just so happens to be about.
Where to start? Carol, directed by the wonderful LGBT filmmaker Todd Haynes and based on the 1952 novel "The Price of Salt" by thriller./crime author Patriciaa Haighsmith, was one of last year's most acclaimed films, and with good reason. It tells the story of Tarez (Rooney Mara), a young and naive shop girl who meets Carol (Cate Blanchett), a socialite with quite the scandalous secret. I'll admit, when I first saw the film, I was more then slightly disappointed... my only other exposure to Haighsmith's work was Anthonly Mighnella's 1999 adaptation of her book "The Talented Mr. Ripley". That film will easily go down as one of my top 10 films of all time! And my only exposure to Hanes' work was his 2002 masterpiece "Far From Heaven", another work that'll most likely end up on my list. While FFH was extremly devoted to the style of 50's melodrama, going so far as to crcreate the camera movment, composition, and color schemes present in such films of the time, Carol has a far more "realistic" style designed to resemble 50's street photography. The colors are soft pastels which are given a lovely texture by the use of 16 MM film stock. Another thing I noticed was that many of the images in the film were heavily layered frames-within-frames, similar to Wong Kar-Wei's In the Mood For Love. As far as acting is convened, Rooney Mara's Tarez is technically the protagonist of the film, as she apparently was in the original novel. While I'm not overly familiar with Mara (No, I haven't seen The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo), I can say she gives a fantastically realistic and lovely performance as a girl stepping into a worl she is not familiar with, and how she adapts back to her old life upon laving in. Indeed, a similar performance and character i was reminded of while watching was Saoirse Ronan in last year's Brooklyn. The crown jewel in the acting crown of this film however is Cate Blanchett as Carol Aired. When we first meet Carol, she's extremely calm, cool, and collected, and draws in Tarez like a spider into it's web. She reminded me much of Greta Garbo and the way she perused her men way back when. But as things begin to fall apart, the tables turn, with Carol becoming the delicate and scared one while Tarez becomes the stronger of the two (to me, anyways). Rounding out the performances is Kyle Chandler as Carol's stubborn ex-husband Harge. He's a man who you could say is the antagonist of the story, but given the circumstances of the time, he's a man who only wants what's best for his daughter, as does Carol as well, so he has a good character arc, you both feel for him, and hate him at once! Good show! All in all, this is a fantastic, romantic, and unique film, you have to see it!
Hello pretty people! And by people I mean Drew, Josh, Matt, and whoever else happens to see this, I'd like to introduce a new series called "Best Cinematography of..." Where I display what I feel are the best shots from some of my favorite films. For the inaugural post, we have 1973's The Exorcist, with its beautifully cold and desaturated color palette, chilling use of light, and even more chilling and at times iconic composition, lensed by the great Owen Roizmen and Douglas Slocombe. Enjoy!
