I saw a headline on slate.com a few weeks ago which asked the question: Is Murakami the Japanese Walt Disney? I didn't read the story, mostly because I wasn't interested in Takashi Murakami but also because I was annoyed by the Disney comparison. If Murakami is the Japanese Walt Disney, he's the third Japanese Walt Disney we've had. The first was Osamu Tezuka, a Japanese doctor who, not wanting to practice medicine, created a whole new art form: manga. All of manga and anime can trace their genesis back to the day that Tezuka, inspired by his animation hero Walt Disney, first put pen to paper.
The second of the three Japanese Walt Disneys is the more recent animation genius Hayao Miyazaki. Miyazaki may be the world's greatest living filmmaker (although, Godard is still kickin'). Miyazaki is certainly the world's greatest living animator (competition: John Lasseter and Matt Groening, with Brad Bird a competitor in training) and may be the greatest animator of all time. Since becoming a director in 1980, Miyazaki has directed only 9 feature-length films (with a 10th coming out this summer in Japan), but not a single one of them isn't excellent, and most are masterpieces. Of the 9 films he's made, only one has received less than 4/5 stars from allmovie.com, and that one, Castle of Cagliostro, is the only one not based on Miyazaki's original source material. Furthermore, Miyazaki has a giant advantage over his Japanese contemporaries: Disney has picked up each of his films for localization, which means that the films are as enjoyable dubbed as subbed, as they feature voice talent like: Patrick Stewart, Mark Hamill, Billy Bob Thornton, Christian Bale, Emily Mortimer, Lauren Bacall, Billy Crystal, Gillian Anderon, John DiMaggio, Anna Paquin, Shia Lebeouf, Dakota Fanning, Phil Hartman, etc.
Miyazaki is renowned for a number of reasons beyond his animation prowess. Each of his films are imbued with a sense of wonder at the workings of the worlds he has created, one that is simultaneously childlike and born of wise understanding of the working of things. From this sense of wonder comes one of Miyazaki's two most famous attributes: his appreciation for the environment. Almost every one of his films features a subtle or explicit message that humans affect the environment, and that science and progress must tread carefully in this area, or truly disastrous consequences await us all. His film's are also famous for their protagonists: every film features at least one, but usually several, powerful female figures, women and girls whose talent and strength of will overcomes that of the males around them, and who are as likely to be explorers, pirates, and generals as they are princesses or damsels in distress. On a lighter note, Miyazaki is also responsible for the creation of hundreds of fantastical creatures, which run the gamut from adorable and charming to outlandish and dangerous. But above all, as I started with, the Miyazaki name is synonymous with excellence in animation, with works of art that are simultaneously awe-inspiring, deeply wise, and beautiful to look at.
With that in mind, here are my top 5 (of only nine!) Miyazaki films, to be intertwined with Mrs. Moviesetal's top 5. If you haven't seen any of them, you're missing out on one of the three or four strands of great 20th Century animation (the others being, of course, Disney's two golden ages and Lasseter's Pixar.)
My #5: Castle in the Sky
Castle in the Sky is a fast-paced steampunk adventure that follows the adventures of a young boy, Pazu, searching for Laputa, a floating castle in the sky, with Sheeta, a girl being chased by air pirates and the military alike due to her mysterious connection to the legendary sky-city. It's probably the most action-packed of all of Miyazaki's films, filled as it is with a dazzling array of chases both on the ground and in the air. Steampunk and airship fetishists get a treat, as Miyazaki has outdone himself here by designing any number of creations which could probably never actually get off the ground but are a joy to behold, including some dragon-fly winged two-seat aircraft and a giant and fearsome air destroyer. Air pirates, evil military intelligence agents, a classic Miyazaki heroine and environmental message, and a beautiful, doomed steampunk robot from Laputa combine to make this film one of the most fun and moving experiences in the Miyazaki canon. It's also got a great deal of similarities to Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials series, so I'd recommend it for anyone who likes that trilogy.
Mrs.' #5: Princess Mononoke
While Princess Mononoke barely made the Top 5 on my list, I think it's a great Miyazaki movie to begin with for those unfamiliar with his work. It immediately introduces you to the important recurring themes listed in the introduction - particularly the conflict between human progress and the environment, and the conflict between races of people (or, perhaps better put, ways of living). The story is of the prince of a small village, Ashitaka, and his search to resolve the war and destruction caused by conflict between Irontown, a large human settlement, and its surrounding animals and animistic gods. The most touching character for me is San, a human girl raised by wolves, who meets Ashitaka and bridges the gap between mankind and nature. While Princess Mononoke is the most violent Miyazaki film, it is also one of the most loved - it was the highest grossing movie in Japan until Titanic.
My #4: My Neighbor Totoro
Miyazaki's 1998 film My Neighbor Totoro probably bears inclusion on this list simply because it includes Miyazaki's cutest creations: the Totoros, adorable hamster-shaped forest spirits that rule the forest in My Neighbor Totoro, and range in size from rabbit to Mack truck. The largely plotless film follows two young girls who have moved from the city back to the old family home in the country with their father. Their loving father is frequently absent for work, and their mother remains in the city in the hospital, adding poignancy to this tale, so the girls explore the surrounding countryside and find the adorable, friendly, but unpredictable Totoros living nearby. Adventures follow, some of them involving another classic Miyazaki creation: the Catbus, which is exactly what it sounds like. My Neighbor Totoro is Miyazaki's most charming film, and its the one most suited for audiences under, say, the age of four. But its simplicity is its strength, and even it is not without its thrills and chills as the young girls try to reintegrate themselves to a countryside that has grown unused to humans, and must be persuaded, not coerced, to accept them.
Mrs. #4: Laputa: Castle in the Sky
If you're looking for action, Castle in the Sky is your answer. The movie kicks off in the middle of a chase scene - as pirates board an airship, we watch a man signal SOS, then get knocked unconscious by a desperate young girl named Sheeta who can wield a bottle. But as the pirates break in and try to seize her, she falls from the ship - only to float harmlessly to the ground through the magic of a powerful crystal pendant. There, a boy named Pazu finds and cares for Sheeta. But Pazu and Sheeta have many adventures to come as two different groups of adults chase Sheeta to try to steal her necklace. Along the way, Sheeta and Pazu learn the true importance and power of the magical crystal, which relates to a magical floating island called Laputa. Ultimately, Sheeta must decide how best to care for Laputa and protect it from greedy and evil men.
My #3: Princess Mononoke
Like many Americans, Princess Mononoke was the first Miyazaki film I saw, seeing as it was the first to be released in US theaters by Disney, with a strong marketing campaign. As the Mrs. pointed out it was a giant hit in Japan, and although it made less than $3 million at the US Box Office, it raised awareness of Miyazaki in American and did better on video. When I first saw it, I didn't like it very much, but everything I disliked about it then are the exact things I love about all Miyazaki movies now. It's environmental message and moral ambiguity confused me; I was never certain how the characters stood in relation to each other, or why Miyazaki kept insisting on showing different aspects of every character, ensuring that there was so simple way to empathize with various characters. Everyone in Mononoke is implicated, in one way or the other, in the violence that is sweeping the land - and it is violent, as Hilary pointed out. It's the only Miyazaki film I can think of that shows blood. But the violence, like everything else in Miyazaki, is problematic, and raises more questions than it answers. The harshest and most adult of Miyazaki's films, Princess Mononoke implicates everyone in violence and the disordering of things, and offers only provisional answers to these problems.
Mrs. #3: Kiki's Delivery Service
In contrast to Laputa, Kiki's Delivery Service offers a lighthearted romp through Miyazaki's magical universe. Kiki is a young witch, who must spend a year on her own to come of age and learn how to harness her powers and spells. During her year alone, she moves to another town and earns a living through her only unique skill - her ability to fly on her broom. She meets many interesting people through her delivery service, and through it all she's accompanied by her cat friend Jiji, voiced by Phil Hartman, who gives her alternating advice and wry commentary until he develops a crush on the fancy white cat who lives on a neighboring balcony. While Kiki's Delivery Service forgoes most of the environmental commentary we've discussed as a major theme in Miyazaki's works, the love of steampunk inventions that my "better half" mentioned as a theme in Laputa are included in a few amusing anecdotes. For this film, Miyazaki focuses on whimsy and character development more than the gorgeous vistas and philosophical statements that are also integral components of his aesthetic.
My #2: Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
The first film made by Miyazaki and his frequent collaborators after leaving the studios to go their own way (technically made before Studio Ghibli, their house studio, was founded), Nausicaa is the film that establishes every feature of Miyazaki's films that we've mentioned so far. In a post-apocalyptic world, humanity is threatened, living in the few small pockets not poisoned by the insect forests that now cover much of the globe. One particularly adventurous human is Nausicaa, the young princess of the idyllic Valley of the Wind, who regularly flies into the insect forest to gather materials and explore the parts of the planet that humanity no longer regularly reaches. In true Miyazaki fashion, Nausicaa soon meets a companion, Asbel, and the two are caught up in a vast web of political maneuvering, as rival countries seek to use fabulous steampunk airships to gain advantage over each other, and some even seek to harness the powers that lead to the apocalypse a thousand years prior. While still suitable for children, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind has more in common with Dune than any Disney fairy tale; it's an engrossing, tense, and action-packed film that offered us our first glimpse into Miyazaki's vision of the world. Commence airships, plucky young heroines, and environmental messages!
Mrs. #2: The Castle of Cagliostro
Made in 1979, The Castle of Cagliostro was Miyazaki's first full-length anime feature. It lacks some of the polish and grandeur of more recent works like Spirited Away or Nausicaa, but it's a captivating story filled with exciting plot twists and surprises. Lupin III, a character already established by the time Miyazaki cowrote and produced this movie, is a young thief learning his trade in some of the richest areas of Europe. Unfortunately, he's not that successful yet - the movie opens with the revelation that Lupin's first major heist nets him only counterfeit bills. As Lupin tries to track down the source of the "goat bills" and find a more lucrative theft target, his travels take him to the Duchy of Cagliostro, where he meets a damsel in distress, a damsel most definitely not in distress, and many other interesting characters. The Castle of Cagliostro is so fun, you'll want to watch the other Lupin III movies -- but if you're like me, you probably won't ever get around to it, since they weren't made by Miyazaki.
My #1: Spirited Away
Spirited Away was the second Miyazaki feature that I saw; not coincidentally, it was the second Miyazaki movie that Disney brought to American theaters with a marketing campaign, this time getting $10.5 million dollars for their efforts. But I don't want to be concerned with such crass things, not right now.
I saw Spirited Away in the Varsity Theater in Chapel Hill, on my very first visit to Chapel Hill. Although I have been to the Varsity many times since then, my fondest memory remains the day that I wandered into Miyazaki's world and got stuck there. Spirited Away is probably the least plot-driven of Miyazaki's other films, and certainly the least violent of any of his more mature films. But that doesn't mean it's not unsettling. The film follows Chihiro, a little girl moving to a new town whose parents, taking a short cut, wind up gorging themselves at a deserted fairgrounds. Soon Chihiro's parents are pigs, under the influence of a spell, and Chihiro herself is transported to a different world, a world of magic and wonder, a world of potential malevolence and enslavement, and above all a world containing Miyazaki's most profoundly inspired fantastical creations. Nothing is as it seems in the new world Chihiro finds herself in; she seems to have allies and enemies, but who is which is not clear, and transformation spells mean that different people assume different shapes. In the world of Spirited Away, Miyazaki has created his most mature fantasy to date, the world that all children dream of, the like of which we saw in Pan's Labyrinth as well. It's a beautiful, mesmerizing, hypnotic world, full of all of the things that we dream of - including those terrors we'd rather forget. After seeing it, I was forever under its - and Miyazaki's - spell.
A final note: The best costume I have yet seen on Franklin St, on Chapel Hill's annual Halloween festival, is No-face from Spirited Away. Keep a keen eye out this October.
Mrs. #1: My Neighbor Totoro
While my Mr. has pointed out that Totoro is the Miyazaki creation best suited to those who, say, aren't yet potty trained, for me it's the most easily beloved for adults as well. The story encapsulates emotions that everyone can relate to -- uncertainty, family love, exploration and friendship, to name a few. That, paired with some of the most charming creatures ever imagined, makes Totoro a film that viewers of any age can not only appreciate, but instantly adore. One look at the poster image for the movie should sell those still on the fence - it shows a schoolgirl, standing at the bus stop braced against the night rain. Next to her is a giant hamster/owl/cat, with a tiny leaf on its head to shelter it from the downpour. The girl and Totoro both face forward, hardly acknowledging each other's presence. I don't know how much this all means to someone who hasn't seen the movie, but to someone who has it conjures up the hilarious and poignant scenes, most of which are silent, of a small child befriending a silly and magical forest creature. At a time when her father is at work and her mother is far away in the hospital, Totoro is a welcome friend in a world of lonely and often scary uncertainties. And really, don't we all wish we had a giant fuzzy friend that followed us around lending its support at all times, even in the rain?
Well, that wraps it up for the both of us. Let us know which ones you prefer! If you haven't seen any, go rent them (use my list, not Hilary's...)
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Friday, June 6, 2008
The Ten Best Westerns of the Last Ten Years, pt 2
Alright, and now the list. The Ten Best Westerns of the last 10 Years:
10. Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Type: Modern Day
By the Numbers: Metacritic 87/100, Allmovie.com 4.5/5
Brokeback Mountain received all of its acclaim mostly for being a gay-cowboy movie, although some observers cynically pointed out that it was actually about bisexual sheep ranchers. Well, I don't know about the gay/bisexual part, but a cowboy is a cowboy, even when he's herding sheep, and Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger are cowboys - rodeo riding, ten-gallon hat wearing, modern day cowboys. I admired the film most for its stunning cinematography, featuring breathtaking vistas of the mountains of Montana. Otherwise, it was a fairly standard, albeit masterfully rendered, modern day western, with a "twist." And that's a pun.
9. Kill Bill, v2 (2004)
Type: Samurai
By the Numbers: Metacritic 83/100; Allmovie 4/5
Unlike Kill Bill v1, which was an over-the-top live-action anime, Kill Bill v2 is clearly an old-fashioned, black-and-white western, although admittedly one where the samurai semantics are firmly in place (see here). Michael Madsen, who was once supposed to be the next great action star but has been under- and un-utilized by every director outside of Tarantino, plays the regretful western villain perfectly. Add that to great performances by Darryl Hannah and David Carradine, almost adequate acting by Uma Thurman, the inspiration for Kobe Bryant's nickname, and several eyes being snatched from peoples' faces, and you've got a great neo-western.
8. Shanghai Noon (2000)
Type: Traditional (with Jackie Chan!)
By the Numbers: Metacritic 77/100; Allmovie 3.5/5
Shanghai Noon offers a whole host of pleasures. It's a broad buddy-comedy western, deeply indebted to the ultimate buddy-comedy western, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. But it's chock full of references to other westerns, ranging from outright scene recreations to silly puns, and manages to put it all together into a satisfying package. Plus it's got Owen Wilson's first (and possibly still best) mainstream star turn, and offers up Jackie Chan's best Hollywood slapstick. By far the most fun film on this list, save perhaps #1.
7.The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005)
Type: Modern Day/Revisionist
By the Numbers: Metacritic 77/100; Allmovie 4/5
Tommy Lee Jones made his directorial debut with a modern day western that was so influenced by revisionist master Sam Peckinpah that I had to name it revisionist as well. Barry Pepper, a border agent, mistakenly kills rancher Tommy Lee Jones's legal immigrant friend, so of course the perfectly reasonable Jones decides that the only logical course of action is to kidnap Pepper, steal the corpse, and take them both on a journey to bury his friend in his Mexican hometown. Rather gruesome craziness ensues. You can't go wrong.
6. Tears of the Black Tiger (2000/released in US 2007)
Type: Traditional/Insanely Colorful
By the Numbers: Metacritic 69/100; Allmovie 4/5
The only way I can describe this movie is: if Romeo and Juliet were adapted for the screen by Sam Peckinpah, then directed by Douglas Sirk, while set in Thailand. One of the most colorful films I have ever scene, quite gory, but also quite traditional in its western hero and love triangle. Early in the film, our hero The Black Tiger makes six-gun shot that's impossible to believe, as the bullet ricochets multiple times before finding its target (someone's face). At which point a title card asks "Did you manage to see what happened?" and proceeds to show the shot again, this time in slow motion, for your viewing pleasure. Also, The Black Tiger's gang includes an armed and angry dwarf. Tarantino and Rodriguez would be proud to have made this film. So would a group of colorblind toddlers interested in fingerpainting fluorescent paint all over the screen.
5.Deadwood (2004)
Type: Revisionist (TV)
By the Numbers: Metacritic 85/100, Allmovie 3.5/5
Did you know cowboys used to say "cocksucker" in every sentence? At least, so this revisionist HBO TV show would have us believe. The second western on this list to feature a son of the classic western actor John Carradine, Deadwood gives us Keith Carradine (as Wild Bill Hickock), Timothy Olyphant (Die Hard 4), Ian McShane (Deadwood), Powers Boothe (Tombstone), and the lovable Ricky Jay (every PT Anderson movie) all in a mining town with no law, lots of hookers, and, as I mentioned earlier, plenty of profanity and a great deal more obscenity. The show unfolds slowly, and I haven't finished it yet, but it's a pitch-perfect western with a number of interesting strands criss-crossing as the plot develops. Its success is at least partially responsible for all the other westerns we've been seeing lately.
4.The Proposition (2006)
Type: Revisionist (Australian!)
By the Numbers: Metacritic 73/100; Allmovie 4/5
As you know, John Hurt (Hellboy) and Ray Winstone (Sexy Beast) were both recently featured in Indiana Jones 4, which greatly pleased moviesetal, seeing as they're both moviesetal favorites. In The Proposition, a gritty and metaphysical Australian western written by gothic rocker Nick Cave, the local lawman Winstone gives outlaw Guy Pearce an unenviable task: find and kill his homicidal older brother (played by Anjelica Huston's half-crazed half-brother Danny Huston) or he'll hang their slow-witted youngest brother. The result is a mesmerizing postcolonial exploration of Australia, flies, heat, aboriginal dream-time, the disastrous attempt to bring English customs and mores to the outback, and Nick Cave's clear love of Sam Peckinpah.
3. No Country for Old Men (2007)
Type: Modern Day
By the Numbers: Metacritic 91/100; Allmovie 4.5/5
Everyone, I'm sure, is familiar with this Best Picture winner. Classic Texas sheriff (Tommy Lee Jones). Modern day cowboy (Josh Brolin). Homicidal Madman with a pneumatic bolt gun and Ringo Starr's haircut (Oscar-winner Javier Bardem). Creepier and more painfully violent than any horror film I have ever seen. Also, pit bulls.
2. 3:10 to Yuma (2007)
Type: Traditional/Revisionist
By the Numbers: Metacritc 76/100; Allmovie 4/5
There's no way that 3:10 to Yuma is a better film than No Country or The Proposition, but it's a remake of a 50s western which was right on the curve of revisionism, and it delivers an experience superior even to that classic. It has by far my favorite two actors working today (Crowe and Bale) with Bale delivering a classic method performance by disappearing into his character and Crowe giving a showier performance that's so charismatic that everyone in the film (including a female bartender, Bale's wife, and even his own second-in-command) practically swoons when he looks their way. Although the ending still gives me pause, this film captures everything that made both traditional westerns and revisionist westerns successful; both traditional masculine honor and revisionist moral ambiguity are on display. This is the one to show to any fan of classic westerns who's looking for a contemporary example of the genre. This is the one that shows that today's Hollywood knows a great western when it sees one.
1.Cowboy Bebop (1999)
Type: Space! (and occasionally samurai)
By the Numbers: Allmovie 4/5 (Metacritic gave the movie 61/100, but the movie was not up to the show's standards. Still excellent, though)
Cowboy Bebop is not only the best Western to have been made in the past 10 years. It's also the best space western ever, best Japanese TV show ever, best sci-fi TV show ever, and quite possibly the best TV show and western ever. In fact, it might be the best anything ever.
Unfolding over 26 episodes, Cowboy Bebop is the story of gunslinging gangster-turned-space-bounty-hunter Spike Spiegel. The story alternates between Spike's episodic bounty hunter adventures and his samurai-esque attempt to redeem himself after the fall of his master. Along the way, the show does noir, space-opera, horror, kung fu, and con-man stories, all within its space-western framework. Plus, every episode comes packed with wall-to-wall jazz tunes (hence the Bebop in the title), save Pierrot le Fou, where the absence of music makes Spike's monstrous adversary even more terrifying. The last six or so episodes, when the shit really hits the fan and each character must slowly come to terms with both their past and their commitment to Spike's journey, never fails to move me. I have the whole series if anyone wants to watch it. As long as you don't give up on it, it won't disappoint.
Honorable Mention: Trigun
I didn't want to have more than one anime space-western on the list, so Trigun, from the same year as Bebop, gets only an honorable mention It too follows a gunslinger in space who must slowly work his way back into conflict with enemies from his past, although this particular gunslinger, Vash the Stampede, is a much kinder, gentler figure than Spike. This is a great series, but the first few episodes especially are really heavy on all of the manga/anime idiosyncrasies that drive western viewers insane (giant eyes, giant sweat beads of nervousness, characters assuming a weird cartoon shape to express their current emotion, etc) and that can get on anyone's nerves. Still, this is one of the finest anime series I have seen, and it's the first thing you should watch if you've seen Cowboy Bebop and the Cowboy Bebop movie and want more.
So, outside of the 4 I mentioned in the previous post (Assassination of Jesse James, Firefly, Open Range, and Seraphim Falls) what do you guys think. Are there any other westerns from the last 10 years that I should see? Do you hate any of the westerns I chose? Does it enrage you that I called Kill Bill v2 a western? Let me know.
10. Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Type: Modern Day
By the Numbers: Metacritic 87/100, Allmovie.com 4.5/5
Brokeback Mountain received all of its acclaim mostly for being a gay-cowboy movie, although some observers cynically pointed out that it was actually about bisexual sheep ranchers. Well, I don't know about the gay/bisexual part, but a cowboy is a cowboy, even when he's herding sheep, and Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger are cowboys - rodeo riding, ten-gallon hat wearing, modern day cowboys. I admired the film most for its stunning cinematography, featuring breathtaking vistas of the mountains of Montana. Otherwise, it was a fairly standard, albeit masterfully rendered, modern day western, with a "twist." And that's a pun.
9. Kill Bill, v2 (2004)
Type: Samurai
By the Numbers: Metacritic 83/100; Allmovie 4/5
Unlike Kill Bill v1, which was an over-the-top live-action anime, Kill Bill v2 is clearly an old-fashioned, black-and-white western, although admittedly one where the samurai semantics are firmly in place (see here). Michael Madsen, who was once supposed to be the next great action star but has been under- and un-utilized by every director outside of Tarantino, plays the regretful western villain perfectly. Add that to great performances by Darryl Hannah and David Carradine, almost adequate acting by Uma Thurman, the inspiration for Kobe Bryant's nickname, and several eyes being snatched from peoples' faces, and you've got a great neo-western.
8. Shanghai Noon (2000)
Type: Traditional (with Jackie Chan!)
By the Numbers: Metacritic 77/100; Allmovie 3.5/5
Shanghai Noon offers a whole host of pleasures. It's a broad buddy-comedy western, deeply indebted to the ultimate buddy-comedy western, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. But it's chock full of references to other westerns, ranging from outright scene recreations to silly puns, and manages to put it all together into a satisfying package. Plus it's got Owen Wilson's first (and possibly still best) mainstream star turn, and offers up Jackie Chan's best Hollywood slapstick. By far the most fun film on this list, save perhaps #1.
7.The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005)
Type: Modern Day/Revisionist
By the Numbers: Metacritic 77/100; Allmovie 4/5
Tommy Lee Jones made his directorial debut with a modern day western that was so influenced by revisionist master Sam Peckinpah that I had to name it revisionist as well. Barry Pepper, a border agent, mistakenly kills rancher Tommy Lee Jones's legal immigrant friend, so of course the perfectly reasonable Jones decides that the only logical course of action is to kidnap Pepper, steal the corpse, and take them both on a journey to bury his friend in his Mexican hometown. Rather gruesome craziness ensues. You can't go wrong.
6. Tears of the Black Tiger (2000/released in US 2007)
Type: Traditional/Insanely Colorful
By the Numbers: Metacritic 69/100; Allmovie 4/5
The only way I can describe this movie is: if Romeo and Juliet were adapted for the screen by Sam Peckinpah, then directed by Douglas Sirk, while set in Thailand. One of the most colorful films I have ever scene, quite gory, but also quite traditional in its western hero and love triangle. Early in the film, our hero The Black Tiger makes six-gun shot that's impossible to believe, as the bullet ricochets multiple times before finding its target (someone's face). At which point a title card asks "Did you manage to see what happened?" and proceeds to show the shot again, this time in slow motion, for your viewing pleasure. Also, The Black Tiger's gang includes an armed and angry dwarf. Tarantino and Rodriguez would be proud to have made this film. So would a group of colorblind toddlers interested in fingerpainting fluorescent paint all over the screen.
5.Deadwood (2004)
Type: Revisionist (TV)
By the Numbers: Metacritic 85/100, Allmovie 3.5/5
Did you know cowboys used to say "cocksucker" in every sentence? At least, so this revisionist HBO TV show would have us believe. The second western on this list to feature a son of the classic western actor John Carradine, Deadwood gives us Keith Carradine (as Wild Bill Hickock), Timothy Olyphant (Die Hard 4), Ian McShane (Deadwood), Powers Boothe (Tombstone), and the lovable Ricky Jay (every PT Anderson movie) all in a mining town with no law, lots of hookers, and, as I mentioned earlier, plenty of profanity and a great deal more obscenity. The show unfolds slowly, and I haven't finished it yet, but it's a pitch-perfect western with a number of interesting strands criss-crossing as the plot develops. Its success is at least partially responsible for all the other westerns we've been seeing lately.
4.The Proposition (2006)
Type: Revisionist (Australian!)
By the Numbers: Metacritic 73/100; Allmovie 4/5
As you know, John Hurt (Hellboy) and Ray Winstone (Sexy Beast) were both recently featured in Indiana Jones 4, which greatly pleased moviesetal, seeing as they're both moviesetal favorites. In The Proposition, a gritty and metaphysical Australian western written by gothic rocker Nick Cave, the local lawman Winstone gives outlaw Guy Pearce an unenviable task: find and kill his homicidal older brother (played by Anjelica Huston's half-crazed half-brother Danny Huston) or he'll hang their slow-witted youngest brother. The result is a mesmerizing postcolonial exploration of Australia, flies, heat, aboriginal dream-time, the disastrous attempt to bring English customs and mores to the outback, and Nick Cave's clear love of Sam Peckinpah.
3. No Country for Old Men (2007)
Type: Modern Day
By the Numbers: Metacritic 91/100; Allmovie 4.5/5
Everyone, I'm sure, is familiar with this Best Picture winner. Classic Texas sheriff (Tommy Lee Jones). Modern day cowboy (Josh Brolin). Homicidal Madman with a pneumatic bolt gun and Ringo Starr's haircut (Oscar-winner Javier Bardem). Creepier and more painfully violent than any horror film I have ever seen. Also, pit bulls.
2. 3:10 to Yuma (2007)
Type: Traditional/Revisionist
By the Numbers: Metacritc 76/100; Allmovie 4/5
There's no way that 3:10 to Yuma is a better film than No Country or The Proposition, but it's a remake of a 50s western which was right on the curve of revisionism, and it delivers an experience superior even to that classic. It has by far my favorite two actors working today (Crowe and Bale) with Bale delivering a classic method performance by disappearing into his character and Crowe giving a showier performance that's so charismatic that everyone in the film (including a female bartender, Bale's wife, and even his own second-in-command) practically swoons when he looks their way. Although the ending still gives me pause, this film captures everything that made both traditional westerns and revisionist westerns successful; both traditional masculine honor and revisionist moral ambiguity are on display. This is the one to show to any fan of classic westerns who's looking for a contemporary example of the genre. This is the one that shows that today's Hollywood knows a great western when it sees one.
1.Cowboy Bebop (1999)
Type: Space! (and occasionally samurai)
By the Numbers: Allmovie 4/5 (Metacritic gave the movie 61/100, but the movie was not up to the show's standards. Still excellent, though)
Cowboy Bebop is not only the best Western to have been made in the past 10 years. It's also the best space western ever, best Japanese TV show ever, best sci-fi TV show ever, and quite possibly the best TV show and western ever. In fact, it might be the best anything ever.
Unfolding over 26 episodes, Cowboy Bebop is the story of gunslinging gangster-turned-space-bounty-hunter Spike Spiegel. The story alternates between Spike's episodic bounty hunter adventures and his samurai-esque attempt to redeem himself after the fall of his master. Along the way, the show does noir, space-opera, horror, kung fu, and con-man stories, all within its space-western framework. Plus, every episode comes packed with wall-to-wall jazz tunes (hence the Bebop in the title), save Pierrot le Fou, where the absence of music makes Spike's monstrous adversary even more terrifying. The last six or so episodes, when the shit really hits the fan and each character must slowly come to terms with both their past and their commitment to Spike's journey, never fails to move me. I have the whole series if anyone wants to watch it. As long as you don't give up on it, it won't disappoint.
Honorable Mention: Trigun
I didn't want to have more than one anime space-western on the list, so Trigun, from the same year as Bebop, gets only an honorable mention It too follows a gunslinger in space who must slowly work his way back into conflict with enemies from his past, although this particular gunslinger, Vash the Stampede, is a much kinder, gentler figure than Spike. This is a great series, but the first few episodes especially are really heavy on all of the manga/anime idiosyncrasies that drive western viewers insane (giant eyes, giant sweat beads of nervousness, characters assuming a weird cartoon shape to express their current emotion, etc) and that can get on anyone's nerves. Still, this is one of the finest anime series I have seen, and it's the first thing you should watch if you've seen Cowboy Bebop and the Cowboy Bebop movie and want more.
So, outside of the 4 I mentioned in the previous post (Assassination of Jesse James, Firefly, Open Range, and Seraphim Falls) what do you guys think. Are there any other westerns from the last 10 years that I should see? Do you hate any of the westerns I chose? Does it enrage you that I called Kill Bill v2 a western? Let me know.
The Ten Best Westerns of the Last Ten Years, pt 1
It seems inevitable that film noir will eventually be viewed as the most important of all the film genres, but it's also hard to imagine a world when the western isn't the most important genre in film history. On the other hand, since the western's last true period of importance was the Eastwood pictures of the 1970s, it's been decades since the western seemed relevant outside of a historical context. Until last year, that is, when Hollywood released two critically and financially successful westerns with high profile stars, 3:10 to Yuma and the Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, another unsuccessful western with high profile stars, Seraphim Falls starring Pierce Brosnan and Liam Neeson, and imported an insanely melodramatic Thai western, Tears of the Black Tiger. Couple that with the fact that last year's two most important films, No Country for Old Men and There Will be Blood, are both arguably westerns, and 2007 was a banner year for westerns. With that in mind, I want to do a list of my favorite 10 westerns from the last 10 years, and I'll conclude with a few more I've heard are good - I'm curious if you've seen them. But first, the types:
Traditional: The good men are good, the bad men are bad, the townfolk are upright, and the only good Indians are the dead ones. Takes place in most of the 19th century, most frequently in the decade or two after the Civil War.
Standard Star: John Wayne
Classic Examples: Stagecoach, My Darling Clementine, Shane
Revisionist: One or more aspects of the traditional western are reversed - the West becomes one dirty, violent, unpleasant place, often at the end of the age of the West (1890-1910).
Standard Star: Clint Eastwood
Classics: The Wild Bunch, Unforgiven, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Modern Age: The Western age is over, but cowboys are still around. They might go to rodeos and ride horses, but they also drive cars, fly airplanes, and are sad the West is gone. 1910-today
Standard Star: Tommy Lee Jones
Classics:Hud, The Misfits, Bad Day at Black Rock
Samurai: Many of the samurai films of the 30s, 40s, and 50s were Japanese remakes of westerns. Many of the westerns of the 50s, 60s, and 70s were re-remaking the Japanese films. In short, there's usually no difference between a samurai movie and a western, except clothes and weapons. The westerns are set in the 19th century; the samurai pictures are usually set in feudal Japan.
Standard Star: Toshiro Mifune/Clint Eastwood (again!)
Classics: The Magnificent Seven, A Fistful of Dollars, The Last Samurai (just kidding!)
Space!: Look, it's a western - in space! It's exactly like any other western, except it takes place in the future. There might be horses and six-shooters; there might not be, depending on the writers mood. Time period: space!
Standard Star:Harrison Ford
Classics: The original Star Wars trilogy, Outland
Hmm, well, I may have written enough on this damn blog for now. I'll be back tomorrow with the list, but for now, I'll give you the notable westerns from the last 10 years I haven't seen. Let me know if you've seen one and if it's worth my time.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Revisionist)
Open Range (Traditional)
Seraphim Falls (???)
Serenity (Space!)
Traditional: The good men are good, the bad men are bad, the townfolk are upright, and the only good Indians are the dead ones. Takes place in most of the 19th century, most frequently in the decade or two after the Civil War.
Standard Star: John Wayne
Classic Examples: Stagecoach, My Darling Clementine, Shane
Revisionist: One or more aspects of the traditional western are reversed - the West becomes one dirty, violent, unpleasant place, often at the end of the age of the West (1890-1910).
Standard Star: Clint Eastwood
Classics: The Wild Bunch, Unforgiven, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Modern Age: The Western age is over, but cowboys are still around. They might go to rodeos and ride horses, but they also drive cars, fly airplanes, and are sad the West is gone. 1910-today
Standard Star: Tommy Lee Jones
Classics:Hud, The Misfits, Bad Day at Black Rock
Samurai: Many of the samurai films of the 30s, 40s, and 50s were Japanese remakes of westerns. Many of the westerns of the 50s, 60s, and 70s were re-remaking the Japanese films. In short, there's usually no difference between a samurai movie and a western, except clothes and weapons. The westerns are set in the 19th century; the samurai pictures are usually set in feudal Japan.
Standard Star: Toshiro Mifune/Clint Eastwood (again!)
Classics: The Magnificent Seven, A Fistful of Dollars, The Last Samurai (just kidding!)
Space!: Look, it's a western - in space! It's exactly like any other western, except it takes place in the future. There might be horses and six-shooters; there might not be, depending on the writers mood. Time period: space!
Standard Star:Harrison Ford
Classics: The original Star Wars trilogy, Outland
Hmm, well, I may have written enough on this damn blog for now. I'll be back tomorrow with the list, but for now, I'll give you the notable westerns from the last 10 years I haven't seen. Let me know if you've seen one and if it's worth my time.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Revisionist)
Open Range (Traditional)
Seraphim Falls (???)
Serenity (Space!)
The Rise of a New (New) Realism
As near as I can tell, we're currently undergoing a renaissance of realism in film. As a student of American literary realism and someone frequently bored by realism, I approach this development with a mixture of excitement and boredom. Most importantly, even as I see realism as perhaps the dominant force in world cinema, I have to ask the question: will it ever make a dent in the American art house box office? (Related Question, to be Answered Later: Does the American Art House Box Office Exist?)
A historical primer: Realism was the dominant mode of 19th century literary expression, superseding Romanticism and also birthing with Romanticism a filthy and disgusting literary offspring: Naturalism. It was superseded by the modernist revolution at the turn of the century and, in large chunks of the world, lay mostly forgotten as both a literary and cinematic mode for the bulk of the 20th century, cast aside by the fervor of modernism and its far-reaching successor, post-modernism
.
The primary exception to this is historical arc is Italian neo-realism, a post-WWII form of realism which looked upon post-Mussolini Italy and saw the perfect setting for realist cinema. Which leads us to:
A Partial Definition: Realism as a literary form was a repudiation of Romanticism, particularly (in the American context) gothic Romanticism. It wasn't interested in gothic castles, ancient bloodlines, quothing Ravens, epic metaphysical sea voyages, Ivanhoe, or anything of the sort. It was a literature of surfaces, but not in a shallow way; it took simple people, either middle- or lower-class, and depicted them as it found them, on their own terms, with an interest in their daily lives. It was not a genre devoid of metaphor, nor did it eschew standard plot formations of rising and falling action, built around conflict and building towards a climax. It just calmed everything down and gave us traditional stories based on the basic, surface perception of bourgeois reality. Also, unfortunately, Dickens.
Italian Neo-Realism: Emerging after Mussolini and the wild modernist fantasies of the fascist futurists, Italian neo-realism sought to reclaim the realist project and apply it to the grim post-war Italy. The middle-class more or less didn't exist, so the primary subject was the lower-class. Lighting was naturalistic, actors were amateurs asked to more or less play themselves, and standard plots frequently existed but were slower, more observational, and less interested in a transformative climax than standard Hollywood filmmaking. And although the films weren't necessarily political, they were always socially minded. The most famous example of Italian Neo-Realism is The Bicycle Thief, in which a man gets a job putting up movie posters, but loses it when his bike is stolen, and must go on a long search for the lost bike with his son. Starring almost completely amateurs, with a keen eye for social injustice and a deeply convincing portrait of a simple man whose livelihood is endangered, The Bicycle Thief is the standard for cinematic realism.
Neo-neo-Realism: For the last 30 years or, cinematic realism has been going strong, but almost exclusively in Iran, in the form of Abbas Kiarostami and like-minded Iranian filmmakers. Realism proved to be the perfect form for Iran; as the cinematic mode of restraint, it made sense in a country where female actors can't be seen and people can't touch, and as a socially minded but not political form, it only earned the privilege of not being shown in Iran government, not imprisonment and death for its creators. Iranian realism is, like other forms of realism, frequently metaphorical and concerned with weighty issues, but it is never overtly so and is often frustratingly subtle, especially for audiences unused to realism (or, like myself, who wish they would just get on with it). Nevertheless, it is a beautiful and deceptively lyrical art form.
Today!!!: Ok, so, finally, what this post was supposed to be about. Italian/Iranian style realism has recently started showing up elsewhere. Here's where:
Romanian: In the last couple of years, no two international films, save perhaps The Lives of Others, have garnered the same level of critical acclaim as two Romanian films, The Death of Mr. Lazarescu and 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days. Both of them are wrenching, nearly unwatchable gloomfests revolving around Romanian citizens unable to get the health care they need. Mr. Lazarescu is moved from ER to ER till he dies; the two friends in 4 Months have to wrangle out an illegal abortion. Both films are socially minded, hide deep metaphorical frameworks behind surface depictions, and feature all the hallmarks of a realist aesthetic: naturalistic lighting, naturalistic performances from amateur actors roughly playing themselves, and scathing insights about social situations expressed in the most subtle way possible. And when I say they're gloomfests, I mean that quite literary; apparently every room in Romania is a murky greenish color with 5-foot ceilings and no windows. I'm barely exaggerating. Death pulled in barely $80000 in the US; 4 Months did a whopping $1.2 mil, which is only about 1/800th of what Titanic made. Death got an 84 on metacritic; while 4 Months, with 97, received the second-highest score of any non-re-release ever. Did I mention they're both terminally (literally) boring?
The US:
Tom McCarthy: After his mostly realist whimsyfest, 2003's The Station Agent, Tom McCarthy's recent film The Visitor once again has all the hallmarks of realism. It's perhaps more explicit about its social and political criticism than the other films on this list, and features an uber-professional actor (Intolerable Cruelty's Richard Jenkins) in its starring role, but it's otherwise textbook realism: naturalistic performances from mostly amateurs/newcomers, a traditional plot devoid of sensationalism and uninterested in an easy ending, and restraint practically bleeding from every scene. So far, it's made $5.5 million at the US box office, which is probably more than all of the other films on this list combined; metacritic rated it at 79/100.
Raman Bahrani: An Iranian-American born in North Carolina, Bahrani has made to films pretty much indistinguishable from Kiarostami films, except they're set in New York City. The first is Man Push Cart, about a Pakistani immigrant adjusting to life as a coffee cart runner in Manhattan; the second is Chop Shop, about a pair of orphans trying to make ends meet in a seedy stretch of body shops in Queens. Bahrani is a visual poet who does his best to hide his poetry behind the numbingly destitute situations of his protagonists, which explains why the films made $36 000 and $104 000 respectively, and received metacritic scores of 71 and 83.
Take Out: Just released in Manhattan, Take Out is another neo-realist paragon: amateur actors, made for nothing, shot in New York City, follows an impoverished immigrant, has been mistaken for a documentary, has a %100 fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and will make roughly $100 in theaters and not come to the Chelsea. Woohoo
Conclusion (assuming anyone read this far): Neo-neo-Realism has left Iran and traveled anywhere people are poor and live in depressing post-Industrial urban landscapes - ie. Romanian and New York City. My guess is, film textbooks will hail all of these films and link them together into an important movement with both Iranian and Italian roots, but the demise of the American art house ensures that no one will ever see them until they take my community college class at the Juneau Community College on Neo-neo-Realism, at which point some survivalist will probably murder me for making him watch Mr. Lazarescu die. I have so much to look forward to.
A historical primer: Realism was the dominant mode of 19th century literary expression, superseding Romanticism and also birthing with Romanticism a filthy and disgusting literary offspring: Naturalism. It was superseded by the modernist revolution at the turn of the century and, in large chunks of the world, lay mostly forgotten as both a literary and cinematic mode for the bulk of the 20th century, cast aside by the fervor of modernism and its far-reaching successor, post-modernism
.
The primary exception to this is historical arc is Italian neo-realism, a post-WWII form of realism which looked upon post-Mussolini Italy and saw the perfect setting for realist cinema. Which leads us to:
A Partial Definition: Realism as a literary form was a repudiation of Romanticism, particularly (in the American context) gothic Romanticism. It wasn't interested in gothic castles, ancient bloodlines, quothing Ravens, epic metaphysical sea voyages, Ivanhoe, or anything of the sort. It was a literature of surfaces, but not in a shallow way; it took simple people, either middle- or lower-class, and depicted them as it found them, on their own terms, with an interest in their daily lives. It was not a genre devoid of metaphor, nor did it eschew standard plot formations of rising and falling action, built around conflict and building towards a climax. It just calmed everything down and gave us traditional stories based on the basic, surface perception of bourgeois reality. Also, unfortunately, Dickens.
Italian Neo-Realism: Emerging after Mussolini and the wild modernist fantasies of the fascist futurists, Italian neo-realism sought to reclaim the realist project and apply it to the grim post-war Italy. The middle-class more or less didn't exist, so the primary subject was the lower-class. Lighting was naturalistic, actors were amateurs asked to more or less play themselves, and standard plots frequently existed but were slower, more observational, and less interested in a transformative climax than standard Hollywood filmmaking. And although the films weren't necessarily political, they were always socially minded. The most famous example of Italian Neo-Realism is The Bicycle Thief, in which a man gets a job putting up movie posters, but loses it when his bike is stolen, and must go on a long search for the lost bike with his son. Starring almost completely amateurs, with a keen eye for social injustice and a deeply convincing portrait of a simple man whose livelihood is endangered, The Bicycle Thief is the standard for cinematic realism.
Neo-neo-Realism: For the last 30 years or, cinematic realism has been going strong, but almost exclusively in Iran, in the form of Abbas Kiarostami and like-minded Iranian filmmakers. Realism proved to be the perfect form for Iran; as the cinematic mode of restraint, it made sense in a country where female actors can't be seen and people can't touch, and as a socially minded but not political form, it only earned the privilege of not being shown in Iran government, not imprisonment and death for its creators. Iranian realism is, like other forms of realism, frequently metaphorical and concerned with weighty issues, but it is never overtly so and is often frustratingly subtle, especially for audiences unused to realism (or, like myself, who wish they would just get on with it). Nevertheless, it is a beautiful and deceptively lyrical art form.
Today!!!: Ok, so, finally, what this post was supposed to be about. Italian/Iranian style realism has recently started showing up elsewhere. Here's where:
Romanian: In the last couple of years, no two international films, save perhaps The Lives of Others, have garnered the same level of critical acclaim as two Romanian films, The Death of Mr. Lazarescu and 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days. Both of them are wrenching, nearly unwatchable gloomfests revolving around Romanian citizens unable to get the health care they need. Mr. Lazarescu is moved from ER to ER till he dies; the two friends in 4 Months have to wrangle out an illegal abortion. Both films are socially minded, hide deep metaphorical frameworks behind surface depictions, and feature all the hallmarks of a realist aesthetic: naturalistic lighting, naturalistic performances from amateur actors roughly playing themselves, and scathing insights about social situations expressed in the most subtle way possible. And when I say they're gloomfests, I mean that quite literary; apparently every room in Romania is a murky greenish color with 5-foot ceilings and no windows. I'm barely exaggerating. Death pulled in barely $80000 in the US; 4 Months did a whopping $1.2 mil, which is only about 1/800th of what Titanic made. Death got an 84 on metacritic; while 4 Months, with 97, received the second-highest score of any non-re-release ever. Did I mention they're both terminally (literally) boring?
The US:
Tom McCarthy: After his mostly realist whimsyfest, 2003's The Station Agent, Tom McCarthy's recent film The Visitor once again has all the hallmarks of realism. It's perhaps more explicit about its social and political criticism than the other films on this list, and features an uber-professional actor (Intolerable Cruelty's Richard Jenkins) in its starring role, but it's otherwise textbook realism: naturalistic performances from mostly amateurs/newcomers, a traditional plot devoid of sensationalism and uninterested in an easy ending, and restraint practically bleeding from every scene. So far, it's made $5.5 million at the US box office, which is probably more than all of the other films on this list combined; metacritic rated it at 79/100.
Raman Bahrani: An Iranian-American born in North Carolina, Bahrani has made to films pretty much indistinguishable from Kiarostami films, except they're set in New York City. The first is Man Push Cart, about a Pakistani immigrant adjusting to life as a coffee cart runner in Manhattan; the second is Chop Shop, about a pair of orphans trying to make ends meet in a seedy stretch of body shops in Queens. Bahrani is a visual poet who does his best to hide his poetry behind the numbingly destitute situations of his protagonists, which explains why the films made $36 000 and $104 000 respectively, and received metacritic scores of 71 and 83.
Take Out: Just released in Manhattan, Take Out is another neo-realist paragon: amateur actors, made for nothing, shot in New York City, follows an impoverished immigrant, has been mistaken for a documentary, has a %100 fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and will make roughly $100 in theaters and not come to the Chelsea. Woohoo
Conclusion (assuming anyone read this far): Neo-neo-Realism has left Iran and traveled anywhere people are poor and live in depressing post-Industrial urban landscapes - ie. Romanian and New York City. My guess is, film textbooks will hail all of these films and link them together into an important movement with both Iranian and Italian roots, but the demise of the American art house ensures that no one will ever see them until they take my community college class at the Juneau Community College on Neo-neo-Realism, at which point some survivalist will probably murder me for making him watch Mr. Lazarescu die. I have so much to look forward to.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
A Film History Lesson, by Way of Etymology
VS
Today I watched one of the hundreds (thousands?) of classic Hollywood films that I haven't seen, Harvey, starring Jimmie Stewart. It reminded me of a distinction that a professor of mine always harped on, an important distinction representing the bifurcation of American comedy in the 30s and 40s. I don't know how many of you will have seen any or many of these films, but this little primer should make sense of them.
The distinction that my professor always harped on was the term "screwball comedy." It enraged him that everyone invariably called the movies of the Marx Brothers and W.C. Fields screwball comedies. They aren't screwball comedies at all. People who call them screwball comedies do so (and they frequently did so, according to Dr. Streible, on his final exam) by misunderstanding the etymology of screwball. This false etymology of screwball comedy is a film that is screwy or screwbally - a film that is zany, off-the-wall, crazy, etc. But a screwball comedy isn't "screwy" - it's a comedy about "screwballs," which is an entirely different matter.
Even if you have seen Harvey, or my other favorite example of this term, The Day the Earth Stood Still, you probably don't remember the word "screwball" in those films, but it's there. In Harvey, Stewart's niece tells her mother that she won't be able to enter society since everyone knows that she's "the biggest screwball in town." In The Day the Earth Stood Still, a young boy tells Klaatu the undercover alien, after Klaatu repeatedly is confused about how and why Americans do things, "boy, you sure are a screwball, aren't ya?"
A screwball comedy, as created by Frank Capra in the 1934 film It Happened One Night, is a film about screwballs. It's not "screwy" or "slapsticky" like a Marx Brothers film (although it could be) , but it's about people on the outside of society. People who don't quite fit in. People who have a screw loose. The screwball in screwball comedy represents not the nature of the film or its characters' actions, but its characters' status in society as outsiders. And since Capra invented the screwball comedy, its characters are almost always a little kinder, a little gentler, a little more welcoming and understanding than the rest of society. At the worst, even if they're not so kind or gentle, they aspire to something higher or better than regular society has to offer.
What happens in the screwball comedy is that Capra, et al. ask us to reorient ourselves so that these screwballs become the norm. In It Happened One Night, Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable are a pair of screwballs - Colbert wants to be free of her rich father's world of wealth and privilege, and Gable imagines a world outside of American society where he can meet a girl who can share his dream of adventure. They clash repeatedly over their different dreams, but their repartee is constantly witty and enjoyable. At one point, while on their journey, they have to pretend to be married in front of the police, and they put on a show of a completely different type: they yell at each other incomprehensibly without any kind of mutual understanding until the cops leave. The motel worker who opened their room for the police says: "See, a perfectly normal married couple." That's what marriage looks like in mainstream society; the screwballs are ostracized for wanting something different.
Along the way, screwball comedies are often full of witty dialogue, ridiculous sight gags, and slapstick comedy, particularly in Bringing up Baby and any film made by Preston Sturges. But what makes a screwball comedy a "screwball" is that its characters don't fit into mainstream society, but want to create a new world, better than the mainstream one. The screwball comedy is the comedy of the creation of a new society, from the fringes of that society.
Now, The Marx Brothers and WC Fields movies are the exact opposite of screwball comedies. Sure, Fields and the Brothers might seem like screwballs, in that they don't fit into mainstream society, but they're not the right kind of screwball. Fields repeatedly makes it clear that he hates dogs, women, politics, America, and people. The Marx Brothers, particularly Groucho, hate governments, fair play, truth, honesty, justice, society, and yeah, again, women. In other words, if a screwball comedy is a movie where the asylum inmates imagine creating a whole new, kinder, gentler world, these other movies have been labeled by Andrew Bergman "anarcho-nihilistic laff riots." They have no desire to fix society; they want to tear it down, rip it to pieces, dance on its grave and, above all, be left alone by it so that they can have a drink and throw things at respectable people in peace ( this is how Duck Soup ends...and the person having things thrown at them is of course Margaret Dumont, the women who is hoodwinked and mocked by Groucho in nearly every Marx Brothers movie).
So, the anarcho-nihilistic laff riots and the screwball comedies do have some things in common. Sight gags and physical comedy are staples of the laff riots, but they do often show up in screwball comedies. Both genres usually feature witty and rapid-fire dialogue, and both of them empathize with those outside of the mainstream of society. But the screwball comedies imagine a better world that can be built out of the often quaint values that mainstream society has discarded, while the laff riots heap nothing but scorn on those exact same ideals.
Harvey makes this distinction incredibly clear. Harvey has no rapid-fire dialogue, virtually no slapstick, no zany characters, nothing that in any way resembles a Marx Brothers picture. But it's about a man, Elwood P. Dowd, who believes he can see a 6-foot tall rabbit, and who believes that the world is a nice place, and that everyone should be happy, and that you should invite bums to dinner and that you should marry whoever you want, regardless of social station. Since it's a comedy about him, and one that empathizes with him, that makes Harvey a screwball comedy.
Viewing:
Frank Capra: The Inventor
George Cukor: The Refiner
Preston Sturges: The Master of Physical Comedy
Leo McCarey:The Marx Bros Director
Howard Hawks: The Cynic
The Coen Brothers: The Updaters
Also, I'm working on a post about the 20 greatest American directors of all time, and all of those I just mentioned besides McCarey are locks to be on the list, so you could say I recommend their films. Happy watching!
If you're interested in watching the other kind of film in this post, they're easy to find - pretty much any movie made by Fields or the Marx Brothers. I recommend:
Even if you have seen Harvey, or my other favorite example of this term, The Day the Earth Stood Still, you probably don't remember the word "screwball" in those films, but it's there. In Harvey, Stewart's niece tells her mother that she won't be able to enter society since everyone knows that she's "the biggest screwball in town." In The Day the Earth Stood Still, a young boy tells Klaatu the undercover alien, after Klaatu repeatedly is confused about how and why Americans do things, "boy, you sure are a screwball, aren't ya?"
A screwball comedy, as created by Frank Capra in the 1934 film It Happened One Night, is a film about screwballs. It's not "screwy" or "slapsticky" like a Marx Brothers film (although it could be) , but it's about people on the outside of society. People who don't quite fit in. People who have a screw loose. The screwball in screwball comedy represents not the nature of the film or its characters' actions, but its characters' status in society as outsiders. And since Capra invented the screwball comedy, its characters are almost always a little kinder, a little gentler, a little more welcoming and understanding than the rest of society. At the worst, even if they're not so kind or gentle, they aspire to something higher or better than regular society has to offer.
What happens in the screwball comedy is that Capra, et al. ask us to reorient ourselves so that these screwballs become the norm. In It Happened One Night, Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable are a pair of screwballs - Colbert wants to be free of her rich father's world of wealth and privilege, and Gable imagines a world outside of American society where he can meet a girl who can share his dream of adventure. They clash repeatedly over their different dreams, but their repartee is constantly witty and enjoyable. At one point, while on their journey, they have to pretend to be married in front of the police, and they put on a show of a completely different type: they yell at each other incomprehensibly without any kind of mutual understanding until the cops leave. The motel worker who opened their room for the police says: "See, a perfectly normal married couple." That's what marriage looks like in mainstream society; the screwballs are ostracized for wanting something different.
Along the way, screwball comedies are often full of witty dialogue, ridiculous sight gags, and slapstick comedy, particularly in Bringing up Baby and any film made by Preston Sturges. But what makes a screwball comedy a "screwball" is that its characters don't fit into mainstream society, but want to create a new world, better than the mainstream one. The screwball comedy is the comedy of the creation of a new society, from the fringes of that society.
Now, The Marx Brothers and WC Fields movies are the exact opposite of screwball comedies. Sure, Fields and the Brothers might seem like screwballs, in that they don't fit into mainstream society, but they're not the right kind of screwball. Fields repeatedly makes it clear that he hates dogs, women, politics, America, and people. The Marx Brothers, particularly Groucho, hate governments, fair play, truth, honesty, justice, society, and yeah, again, women. In other words, if a screwball comedy is a movie where the asylum inmates imagine creating a whole new, kinder, gentler world, these other movies have been labeled by Andrew Bergman "anarcho-nihilistic laff riots." They have no desire to fix society; they want to tear it down, rip it to pieces, dance on its grave and, above all, be left alone by it so that they can have a drink and throw things at respectable people in peace ( this is how Duck Soup ends...and the person having things thrown at them is of course Margaret Dumont, the women who is hoodwinked and mocked by Groucho in nearly every Marx Brothers movie).
So, the anarcho-nihilistic laff riots and the screwball comedies do have some things in common. Sight gags and physical comedy are staples of the laff riots, but they do often show up in screwball comedies. Both genres usually feature witty and rapid-fire dialogue, and both of them empathize with those outside of the mainstream of society. But the screwball comedies imagine a better world that can be built out of the often quaint values that mainstream society has discarded, while the laff riots heap nothing but scorn on those exact same ideals.
Harvey makes this distinction incredibly clear. Harvey has no rapid-fire dialogue, virtually no slapstick, no zany characters, nothing that in any way resembles a Marx Brothers picture. But it's about a man, Elwood P. Dowd, who believes he can see a 6-foot tall rabbit, and who believes that the world is a nice place, and that everyone should be happy, and that you should invite bums to dinner and that you should marry whoever you want, regardless of social station. Since it's a comedy about him, and one that empathizes with him, that makes Harvey a screwball comedy.
Viewing:
Frank Capra: The Inventor
- It Happened One Night
- You Can't Take it With You
- Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
George Cukor: The Refiner
- The Holiday
- The Philadelphia Story
- Adam's Rib
Preston Sturges: The Master of Physical Comedy
- The Lady Eve
- Sullivan's Travels
- Palm Beach Story
Leo McCarey:The Marx Bros Director
- The Awful Truth
Howard Hawks: The Cynic
- Bringing up Baby
- His Girl Friday (probably an anti-screwball comedy)
The Coen Brothers: The Updaters
- The Hudsucker Proxy (retro-screwball)
- The Big Lebowski (the quintessential 90s screwball)
- Intolerable Cruelty (retro-screwball)
Also, I'm working on a post about the 20 greatest American directors of all time, and all of those I just mentioned besides McCarey are locks to be on the list, so you could say I recommend their films. Happy watching!
If you're interested in watching the other kind of film in this post, they're easy to find - pretty much any movie made by Fields or the Marx Brothers. I recommend:
- Duck Soup
- A Night at the Opera
- Horse Feathers
- The Bank Dick
- Never Give a Sucker an Even Break
- The Fatal Glass of Beer (short)
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Sex and the City Haters
Hilary sent me a piece from Newsweek that was headlined "Criticism of 'Sex and the City' is Mostly Sexist." The article's thesis is that the Sex and the City movie (henceforth SATC) has received undue and sexist criticism. This might be true, but man, is this article wrong about lots of stuff. If you'd like to read it before reading my response, it's here: http://www.newsweek.com/id/139889
First, this winner: When you talk to men about SATC: "The talk turns hateful. Angry. Vengeful. Annoyed. It's not just that they don't want to accompany their significant others to the movie. How dare Carrie and her girls hijack the box office during a time when the Hulk, Iron Man, Indiana Jones and the good old boys of the summer usually rule?"
Now, Ramin Setoodeh may hang out with a different set of friends than I do, but they must be really different if they're mad about a movie they don't plan on seeing making lots of money. These are ridiculous straw men: leering Hulk-lovers angered that women have the audacity to go to a movie in May/June. Can anyone make sense of this? It's one thing if they're mad that they might get dragged to it, but Setoodeh makes it clear that it's more than that. These imaginary, unidentified quoted men he talked to are upset that a movie for women is succeeding in the summer blockbuster season. Who are these people, Clarence Thomas and Rush Limbaugh?
Setoodeh also points out that "Movie critics, an overwhelmingly male demographic, gave it such a nasty tongue lashing you would have thought they were talking about an ex-girlfriend. "Sex" mustered a 54 percent fresh rating on RottenTomatoes.com, compared to the 77 percent fresh for the snoozefest that was "Indiana Jones" (a boy's movie! Such harmless fun!)."
There's so many things wrong with this. First, he used Rotten Tomatoes, not Metacritic, and Tomatoes is useful in some ways but will index practically anyone. One way around this is to use Rotten Tomatoes Top Critics, where only legitimate critics are indexed, and the scores are: SATC 56, Indy 61. Oops. Those scores aren't so different.
Next, he argues that film critics are "overwhelmingly male." This is true, but many publications have multiple reviewers split between the genders. This means that "women's pictures" are often reviewed by the woman reviewer, and that was the case here: 14 women weighed in on SATC for metacritic, but only 7 for Indy, even though Indy received 40 reviews to SATC's 37. But it gets worse.
The metacritic score for SATC is 53; for Indy 65. If you look at only women reviewers for SATC, the score jumps to 65, meaning that women reviewers did like SATC more than male reviewers, but only enough to move it from "mediocre" to "decent," not "good" or "great." Furthermore, the 7 female critics that reviewed Indy have an average score of 66 for that film. This means:
1. Female reviewers liked Indiana Jones 4 slightly more than they liked SATC
2.Female reviewers liked Indiana Jones 4 slightly more than male reviewers liked Indiana Jones. Or if you don't think the single metacritic point has value, let's just put it this way: Female reviewers found Indiana Jones 4 and SATC to be of exactly equal value, and although male reviewers preferred Indy to SATC, female reviewers liked Indy more than male reviewers did.
Finally, I have to deal with one more point of confusion: Setoodeh repeatedly calls Indiana Jones "a boys movie." Although I have only anecdotal evidence against this, I think that's crazy. Yes, the Indy series is made by and stars men, but it is designed for and beloved by both genders. Hell, it's designed for and loved by both genders, all ages, the US and all foreign countries save Germany and now Russia, and yes, probably Extraterrestials as well. Spielberg and Lucas invented the blockbuster, the movie that appeals to everyone simultaneously. And so, although the Indiana Jones movies certainly bear all the trimmings of a classic boys serial, they clearly appeal to everyone - anecdotally, it seems to me that women, in fact, prefer Indy to men, at least those women that I know. That may not be the case for this most recent picture, but Indy as a franchise seems to me just as driven, if not more, by female interest than male interest.
Setoodeh does have a whole paragraph that's just quotes from negative reviews of SATC by men. Which is great and all, but I can play that game too: Manohla Dargis of the Times says "It isn’t that Carrie has grown older or overly familiar. It’s that awash in materialism and narcissism, a cloth flower pinned to her dress where cool chicks wear their Obama buttons, this It Girl has become totally Ick."
Ooh! Sound the alarms! Women critics hate SATC!
Or how about this, from Robert Wilonsky of the Village Voice, on Indiana 4: "it's almost unfathomable that this hoary mishmash is the best that George Lucas and Steven Spielberg could cough up."
Grr! Men reviewers don't like Indiana Jones 4!
If we remove Setoodeh's bogus claims about the critics and his wrong-headedness in insisting that Indy is a boy's movie (or at least, that it's for boys), all that we're left with are:
1.Unidentified hateful men dislike Sex and the City for making money in the summer, their rightful domain.
2.The state of women in today's Hollywood, both as creators and viewers, is woeful (this is the last two paragraphs).
Since I don't buy #1, all we're left with is #2. And yeah, we knew that already.
First, this winner: When you talk to men about SATC: "The talk turns hateful. Angry. Vengeful. Annoyed. It's not just that they don't want to accompany their significant others to the movie. How dare Carrie and her girls hijack the box office during a time when the Hulk, Iron Man, Indiana Jones and the good old boys of the summer usually rule?"
Now, Ramin Setoodeh may hang out with a different set of friends than I do, but they must be really different if they're mad about a movie they don't plan on seeing making lots of money. These are ridiculous straw men: leering Hulk-lovers angered that women have the audacity to go to a movie in May/June. Can anyone make sense of this? It's one thing if they're mad that they might get dragged to it, but Setoodeh makes it clear that it's more than that. These imaginary, unidentified quoted men he talked to are upset that a movie for women is succeeding in the summer blockbuster season. Who are these people, Clarence Thomas and Rush Limbaugh?
Setoodeh also points out that "Movie critics, an overwhelmingly male demographic, gave it such a nasty tongue lashing you would have thought they were talking about an ex-girlfriend. "Sex" mustered a 54 percent fresh rating on RottenTomatoes.com, compared to the 77 percent fresh for the snoozefest that was "Indiana Jones" (a boy's movie! Such harmless fun!)."
There's so many things wrong with this. First, he used Rotten Tomatoes, not Metacritic, and Tomatoes is useful in some ways but will index practically anyone. One way around this is to use Rotten Tomatoes Top Critics, where only legitimate critics are indexed, and the scores are: SATC 56, Indy 61. Oops. Those scores aren't so different.
Next, he argues that film critics are "overwhelmingly male." This is true, but many publications have multiple reviewers split between the genders. This means that "women's pictures" are often reviewed by the woman reviewer, and that was the case here: 14 women weighed in on SATC for metacritic, but only 7 for Indy, even though Indy received 40 reviews to SATC's 37. But it gets worse.
The metacritic score for SATC is 53; for Indy 65. If you look at only women reviewers for SATC, the score jumps to 65, meaning that women reviewers did like SATC more than male reviewers, but only enough to move it from "mediocre" to "decent," not "good" or "great." Furthermore, the 7 female critics that reviewed Indy have an average score of 66 for that film. This means:
1. Female reviewers liked Indiana Jones 4 slightly more than they liked SATC
2.Female reviewers liked Indiana Jones 4 slightly more than male reviewers liked Indiana Jones. Or if you don't think the single metacritic point has value, let's just put it this way: Female reviewers found Indiana Jones 4 and SATC to be of exactly equal value, and although male reviewers preferred Indy to SATC, female reviewers liked Indy more than male reviewers did.
Finally, I have to deal with one more point of confusion: Setoodeh repeatedly calls Indiana Jones "a boys movie." Although I have only anecdotal evidence against this, I think that's crazy. Yes, the Indy series is made by and stars men, but it is designed for and beloved by both genders. Hell, it's designed for and loved by both genders, all ages, the US and all foreign countries save Germany and now Russia, and yes, probably Extraterrestials as well. Spielberg and Lucas invented the blockbuster, the movie that appeals to everyone simultaneously. And so, although the Indiana Jones movies certainly bear all the trimmings of a classic boys serial, they clearly appeal to everyone - anecdotally, it seems to me that women, in fact, prefer Indy to men, at least those women that I know. That may not be the case for this most recent picture, but Indy as a franchise seems to me just as driven, if not more, by female interest than male interest.
Setoodeh does have a whole paragraph that's just quotes from negative reviews of SATC by men. Which is great and all, but I can play that game too: Manohla Dargis of the Times says "It isn’t that Carrie has grown older or overly familiar. It’s that awash in materialism and narcissism, a cloth flower pinned to her dress where cool chicks wear their Obama buttons, this It Girl has become totally Ick."
Ooh! Sound the alarms! Women critics hate SATC!
Or how about this, from Robert Wilonsky of the Village Voice, on Indiana 4: "it's almost unfathomable that this hoary mishmash is the best that George Lucas and Steven Spielberg could cough up."
Grr! Men reviewers don't like Indiana Jones 4!
If we remove Setoodeh's bogus claims about the critics and his wrong-headedness in insisting that Indy is a boy's movie (or at least, that it's for boys), all that we're left with are:
1.Unidentified hateful men dislike Sex and the City for making money in the summer, their rightful domain.
2.The state of women in today's Hollywood, both as creators and viewers, is woeful (this is the last two paragraphs).
Since I don't buy #1, all we're left with is #2. And yeah, we knew that already.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
What Happened to the Ladies, pt 2
I wrote most of this post two weeks ago or so, but forgot to finish it. Sorry. It's up now!
I heard back from a few of you about my previous post which suggested that an entire generation of female movie stars sucked (Meg Ryan, Julia Roberts, Jodie Foster, etc) and that the one directly preceding it was unaccountably awesome (Meryl Streep, Sigourney Weaver, Anjelica Huston, etc). The one thing I didn't hear, which I expected to, was that some of you liked that former group of movie stars. No one said they liked them, so I'm not going to try to argue they don't suck. They do, especially compared to their predecessors.
Reasons:
Reasons 1 and 2: From Luke Johnson: "Dude, it was the 80's. Cut them some slack. Sure their movies sucked, but go back through your pictures of what your parents dressed you in during the 80's. I rest my case.
Also, anyone who got an Oscar nomination from being in a Woody Allen movie should just save some time and transfer it to Woody."
1. It was the eighties, stupid! Luke's right: the eighties were stupid. People looked funny, they dressed funny, they listened to bad music, they did cocaine, greed was good, and they went to bad movies. This definitely carried over into the early 90s as well. And so, just like you can't make the case that all music was bad in the eighties, most musical superstars from that era look horrendous when compared to their predecessors, and the same applies to the female movie stars. Meryl Streep:Meg Ryan::Led Zeppelin:Poison
2.It was the directors, stupid! For those of you who don't know, the Hollywood studio system was in ruins for a number of reasons by the late 60s, and the result was a decentralized system of producers and directors scrambling to make movies. The assemblyline method of making movies was over, and directors, trained in film school and raised on the European classics, were being unleashed to make the movies they wanted with modest budgets and the second generation of method acting. So, when your movies are made by Woody Allen, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorcese, Sydney Lumet, Robert Altman, Sydney Pollack, and their compatriots, your performances are probably going to be good. Unfortunately, two of Coppola's students decided to make a new kind of movie: the overhyped summer blockbuster which cost tons of money but made even more. And sure, Jaws, Star Wars, and Indiana Jones were good, but pretty soon the personal, artistry driven movies were out and crap was in, just in time to welcome the new generation of female movie stars. If you'd given Melanie Griffith to Woody Allen and Sydney Lumet, they might have made something of her. Probably not, but as it was, she didn't even have a chance.
A smaller corollary to this is the rise of the romantic comedy/chick flick, which was driven entirely by this crappy generation of female movie stars. Once upon a time, a movie about love could be made by Woody Allen, feature two (or more!) adults who might or might not end up together, and would treat the audience like they had ever met other human beings. For the entire careers of our second generation, that manner of movie has barely existed - it wouldn't have made enough money. Enter "Pretty Woman."
3.The lovely Mrs. Moviesetal weighs in with our third reason: "What I'm wondering is not so much whether these actresses improved by taking on more serious roles earlier - but whether you just like them better because they have more serious roles under their belts and less movies like "Nell" and "An Officer and a Gentlemen" to their names.
Chicken or egg?"
This is another excellent point. The actors in our second, crappier generation have struggled in their new lives as actresses over the age of 28; Julia Roberts, the youngest of them, has managed to move into some roles where she kind of plays an adult, but the rest of them have either tried to play the old kind of role still or just disappeared entirely. But our first generation of actors seems to have been born old, was almost never asked to be just some stupid pretty face (as they weren't all that pretty to begin with, and also see reasons 1 and 2) and thus rapidly made the transition into serious actors willing to take roles that would showcase their acting assets. The second generation, on the other hand, has tried to do the same stupid Hollywood leading lady thing for their entire lives, not noticing that women only ten years older than them have been acting like grownups in movies for decades.
4. What Happened to the Gentleman? Dooley asks: "i'd be interested in your thoughts on whether it is properly generational--do the same trends and their underlying factors apply to male actors, or is it just the ladeez?" My first response to this is that it's harder to define generations of male actors; Hollywood is constantly asking female movie stars to either disappear themselves or start playing mothers or grandmothers, while Clint Eastwood was still playing people in their forties and fifties within the last decade. So I'd have a harder time defining what the generations look like. But, loosely, I'd say the male counterparts to our first generation are: Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro, Dustin Hoffman, Jack Nicholson, Woody Allen, and Warren Beatty (all born between 1935 and 1943). I'd put up all but Warren as candidates for best actor of all time (Dustin would finish last in the voting, but he'd be there).
The next generation would be: the Toms, Cruise and Hanks, Bill Murray, Harrison Ford, and Denzel Washington (all born between 1950 and 1962, except for Harrison, who is older but didn't have any success until after most of the actors in the previous generation already had several Oscar noms). So the answer to Sarah's question is: sort of. This generation is, in my opinion, considerably better than their female counterparts. But Cruise sucks, Ford and Washington are wildly inconsistent, Hanks can be a maudlin ham, and Murray would have been a joke for almost two decades now if he hadn't reinvented himself as the go-to father figure for lovelorn hipsters. And the only reason I can give why both the male and female movie stars of this generation are so much crappier than their predecessors is #2: When Hollywood let Coppola, Scorcese, et al loose to make whatever movies they wanted, the result are masterpieces with great performances. When Hollywood asks Spielberg, Lucas, Zemeckis, et al to turn $200 million into $500 million, the result is something less.
Conclusion: For the most part, it seems we can't blame the Ladeez who sucked because they sucked. Sure, they didn't manage to keep up with their male counterparts, but neither did their male counterparts manage to keep up with their own predecessors. And much of this can be blamed on the fact that Hollywood starting making a different kind of movie with a different kind of star in the late 70s, and the great filmmaking went underground in the form of people like the Coens. The 80s got exactly the movie stars they deserved, which is to say crappy ones, and and the female movie stars were doubly handicapped by the rise of the chick flick, which is even a worse genre than the blockbuster, and one that attracted nearly all of the actors on our list. Again, that's probably not their fault.
Verdict: It was mostly Hollywood's fault, but they helped alot by not choosing the right kinds of roles or movies.
Further thoughts: Can anyone tell me what's going on with this generation of female movie stars (if they even exist)? Who are they? Will they out-perform their predecessors? Are Cameron Diaz in the same generation as say, Scarlett Johanson, or are there two separate generations (Diaz, Witherspoon, Ryder, say, then Gyllenhaal, Johannson, Knightley, etc). If you've got any thoughts, I'd love to hear them - there's definitely another post here to be had.
I heard back from a few of you about my previous post which suggested that an entire generation of female movie stars sucked (Meg Ryan, Julia Roberts, Jodie Foster, etc) and that the one directly preceding it was unaccountably awesome (Meryl Streep, Sigourney Weaver, Anjelica Huston, etc). The one thing I didn't hear, which I expected to, was that some of you liked that former group of movie stars. No one said they liked them, so I'm not going to try to argue they don't suck. They do, especially compared to their predecessors.
Reasons:
Reasons 1 and 2: From Luke Johnson: "Dude, it was the 80's. Cut them some slack. Sure their movies sucked, but go back through your pictures of what your parents dressed you in during the 80's. I rest my case.
Also, anyone who got an Oscar nomination from being in a Woody Allen movie should just save some time and transfer it to Woody."
1. It was the eighties, stupid! Luke's right: the eighties were stupid. People looked funny, they dressed funny, they listened to bad music, they did cocaine, greed was good, and they went to bad movies. This definitely carried over into the early 90s as well. And so, just like you can't make the case that all music was bad in the eighties, most musical superstars from that era look horrendous when compared to their predecessors, and the same applies to the female movie stars. Meryl Streep:Meg Ryan::Led Zeppelin:Poison
2.It was the directors, stupid! For those of you who don't know, the Hollywood studio system was in ruins for a number of reasons by the late 60s, and the result was a decentralized system of producers and directors scrambling to make movies. The assemblyline method of making movies was over, and directors, trained in film school and raised on the European classics, were being unleashed to make the movies they wanted with modest budgets and the second generation of method acting. So, when your movies are made by Woody Allen, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorcese, Sydney Lumet, Robert Altman, Sydney Pollack, and their compatriots, your performances are probably going to be good. Unfortunately, two of Coppola's students decided to make a new kind of movie: the overhyped summer blockbuster which cost tons of money but made even more. And sure, Jaws, Star Wars, and Indiana Jones were good, but pretty soon the personal, artistry driven movies were out and crap was in, just in time to welcome the new generation of female movie stars. If you'd given Melanie Griffith to Woody Allen and Sydney Lumet, they might have made something of her. Probably not, but as it was, she didn't even have a chance.
A smaller corollary to this is the rise of the romantic comedy/chick flick, which was driven entirely by this crappy generation of female movie stars. Once upon a time, a movie about love could be made by Woody Allen, feature two (or more!) adults who might or might not end up together, and would treat the audience like they had ever met other human beings. For the entire careers of our second generation, that manner of movie has barely existed - it wouldn't have made enough money. Enter "Pretty Woman."
3.The lovely Mrs. Moviesetal weighs in with our third reason: "What I'm wondering is not so much whether these actresses improved by taking on more serious roles earlier - but whether you just like them better because they have more serious roles under their belts and less movies like "Nell" and "An Officer and a Gentlemen" to their names.
Chicken or egg?"
This is another excellent point. The actors in our second, crappier generation have struggled in their new lives as actresses over the age of 28; Julia Roberts, the youngest of them, has managed to move into some roles where she kind of plays an adult, but the rest of them have either tried to play the old kind of role still or just disappeared entirely. But our first generation of actors seems to have been born old, was almost never asked to be just some stupid pretty face (as they weren't all that pretty to begin with, and also see reasons 1 and 2) and thus rapidly made the transition into serious actors willing to take roles that would showcase their acting assets. The second generation, on the other hand, has tried to do the same stupid Hollywood leading lady thing for their entire lives, not noticing that women only ten years older than them have been acting like grownups in movies for decades.
4. What Happened to the Gentleman? Dooley asks: "i'd be interested in your thoughts on whether it is properly generational--do the same trends and their underlying factors apply to male actors, or is it just the ladeez?" My first response to this is that it's harder to define generations of male actors; Hollywood is constantly asking female movie stars to either disappear themselves or start playing mothers or grandmothers, while Clint Eastwood was still playing people in their forties and fifties within the last decade. So I'd have a harder time defining what the generations look like. But, loosely, I'd say the male counterparts to our first generation are: Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro, Dustin Hoffman, Jack Nicholson, Woody Allen, and Warren Beatty (all born between 1935 and 1943). I'd put up all but Warren as candidates for best actor of all time (Dustin would finish last in the voting, but he'd be there).
The next generation would be: the Toms, Cruise and Hanks, Bill Murray, Harrison Ford, and Denzel Washington (all born between 1950 and 1962, except for Harrison, who is older but didn't have any success until after most of the actors in the previous generation already had several Oscar noms). So the answer to Sarah's question is: sort of. This generation is, in my opinion, considerably better than their female counterparts. But Cruise sucks, Ford and Washington are wildly inconsistent, Hanks can be a maudlin ham, and Murray would have been a joke for almost two decades now if he hadn't reinvented himself as the go-to father figure for lovelorn hipsters. And the only reason I can give why both the male and female movie stars of this generation are so much crappier than their predecessors is #2: When Hollywood let Coppola, Scorcese, et al loose to make whatever movies they wanted, the result are masterpieces with great performances. When Hollywood asks Spielberg, Lucas, Zemeckis, et al to turn $200 million into $500 million, the result is something less.
Conclusion: For the most part, it seems we can't blame the Ladeez who sucked because they sucked. Sure, they didn't manage to keep up with their male counterparts, but neither did their male counterparts manage to keep up with their own predecessors. And much of this can be blamed on the fact that Hollywood starting making a different kind of movie with a different kind of star in the late 70s, and the great filmmaking went underground in the form of people like the Coens. The 80s got exactly the movie stars they deserved, which is to say crappy ones, and and the female movie stars were doubly handicapped by the rise of the chick flick, which is even a worse genre than the blockbuster, and one that attracted nearly all of the actors on our list. Again, that's probably not their fault.
Verdict: It was mostly Hollywood's fault, but they helped alot by not choosing the right kinds of roles or movies.
Further thoughts: Can anyone tell me what's going on with this generation of female movie stars (if they even exist)? Who are they? Will they out-perform their predecessors? Are Cameron Diaz in the same generation as say, Scarlett Johanson, or are there two separate generations (Diaz, Witherspoon, Ryder, say, then Gyllenhaal, Johannson, Knightley, etc). If you've got any thoughts, I'd love to hear them - there's definitely another post here to be had.
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