On A Most Violent Year

A Most Violent Year is set during the month of January following the most violent year in New York City. There is little actual violence. The title is therefore a little misleading, but the preceding year and the increased police pressure on potential criminal enterprises influences its characters. 

This is director J C Chandor’s largest film both thematically and stylistically and feels like a natural progression from the brilliant office set Margin Call (2011) and the more experimental, technically impressive All is Lost (2013). A Most Violent Year is well acted, showing Chandor to be a great director of actors and influenced by the gritty 1980s New York City cinema. Yet it never quite manages to create the atmosphere it strives for and the one the characters act like they’re a part of. Chandor’s camera focuses tightly on the actors (of which there are not many), not allowing us to feel the environment. This makes, what should be a big film (as it has big themes) appear smaller and less significant than it is.

On Intensity in Whiplash

Eight films are up for the coveted Best Picture Oscar this February. It is moot to say that the nominations do not reflect the best of cinema, but winning one means something. That cannot be denied.

Of the eight films, four are incredibly worthy, bait for Oscar votes. The remaining four, for which the odds of winning must be unlikely, are inventive, captivating and challenging. Of these four, three made it into the 2014 top ten; the fourth only released in the UK in January is Whiplash and will feature in 2015’s list.

Whiplash throws us behind the scenes of an industry few of us will see. The phenomenonally competitive world of New York City jazz and the young musicians fighting for places to play with and for the best. Not unlike Aronofsky’s Black Swan (2010), which took us behind the scenes of ballet, Whiplash is an intense experience. Damien Chazelle’s smart script is slick and fast along with his camera that roams close and editing that matches the measured intensity. All of this contributes to Whiplash’s power.

In Miles Teller Chazelle seemingly found an actor capable of what the script required emotionally and with the necessary skill set. With J.K. Simmons he turned the established actor into a mix of Sergeant Hartman and John Keating; Simmons’s best performance since 2007’s Juno. Whiplash feels like a film that you stumbled upon without knowing what to expect and ended up hooked. It feels like a film that belongs in New York City. It feels like a film from a better time, cinematically that is now out of place.

Experience Whiplash, and then do it again. 

On Being Irresponsible with American Sniper

Clint Eastwood knows how to tell a story. And his best stories are not what they appear, taking dark twists, even if they were dark to begin with. American Sniper offers up the potential to be this. A man hailed the most deadly in American military history; his tours of Iraq and his family life. The ingredients are there for a story more than the audience expect.

Yet, American Sniper is a strange beast. Technically impressive (a shootout in a sand storm is fantastic to watch) and terrifically acted, but thematically it stands on rocky ground. The film is a bombastic, jingoistic account of American military might. The film has caused so much national pride in America (and shot to the top of the box office, a rarity for an Eastwood film) that reports say it has led to anti-Islamic attacks. Citizens in a blind, ignorant fury, mistaking it for nationalistic righteousness, unsure of what they’re angry at and so willing to follow the simplest, base message available.

This is the ideology of American Sniper’s protagonist, Chris Kyle and combined with his absolute belief that god is standing over his shoulder, authorising and assuaging him of guilt for every kill. This is a dangerous man to heroise and in retrospect an irresponsible action. Kyle is regularly referred to as legend throughout. The semantics are perilous.

Were American Sniper entirely fictional the discussion may be different, but that it is based on a real solider and that it plays fast and loose with aspects of his life, neglecting aspects that don't find the patriotic message, leads to the problem. American Sniper is divisive in a time when unification is needed. 

On the Emasculation of Foxcatcher

Director Bennett Miller has, over the past nine years, turned out three fantastic close studies of masculinity. However, this is not a chest thumping masculinity, but an exploration of the more contemporary kind. What happens when men, of certain generations and professions that subtly enforce the strong and silent stereotype, require emotional release and support? This is the question that Miller addressed in Capote (2005), when a man of immense literary talent finds a story that will prevent him from really ever writing again. In Moneyball (2011) a college student, an all round athlete, is offered the chance to play professional baseball yet fails at every club and in fatherhood. Both these films examine figures who should, because they have the skill and the opportunity, be great. Instead, they are emasculated. By their own insecurities, by other peoples’ expectations, by family.

And now comes Foxcatcher. Like Capote and Moneyball, based on a true story, this time of three men whose lives on the surface appeared successful and masculine, but took very different directions. Foxcatcher is, even before Miller got hold of it, a fascinating story of power and ambition. But it is nearly twenty years old and Miller brings in to contemporary audiences and roots it into cinema history with three incredible performances. Mark Ruffalo, Channing Tatum and Steve Carell immerse themselves in the film and in turn Foxcatcher is immersive. With the exception of a brief toy boy phase of cocaine and bleached blonde hair (which may very well be true), this is a complete experience.

Unlike Moneyball, Foxcatcher's wrestler finds his emasculation not through a lack of opportunity, but through the position wealth can have and what it can dictate. Additionally, from an older brother whose reluctant acceptance of wealth, drivers the wrestler further into himself. Success is achieved and greater success is expected, but lost. 

Thematically Miller’s films are all connected, yet stylistically, he manages to draw great tension and interest from a still or little motion camera. One of the most fascinating scenes spends time watching brothers (played by Ruffalo and Tatum) training. There is no significant dialogue, yet the scene communicates much and that this appears towards the start of the film is an achievement.

Foxcatcher fits comfortably into Miller’s body of work and is entirely gripping.  

On the Corrupted Masculinity of Enemy

In 2013 Denis Villeneuve’s Prisoners was one of the surprise hits of the year. It snuck up quietly with a great cast and showed us how the character driven thriller should look. Little did we know that the same year, Villeneuve and Prisoners star Jake Gyllenhaal adapted Jose Saramago’s The Double as Enemy. For some reason, the film only made it to UK screens at the start of this year.

With Enemy being based on a text, about doppelgangers (at the opposite ends of the personality spectrum) and being imbued with a yellow, brown filter you would be forgiven for thinking you were seeing a remake of Ayoade’s The Double (2013), based on the Dostoevsky text. Yet, in this case it seems that great minds do think alike, and then produce vividly different interpretations of the doppelganger mythology.

Where The Double went dystopian, Enemy favours ambiguity in location, familiar in much of Saramago’s work. Even though Toronto is revealed as the setting, it is an unfamiliar Toronto located on the peripheries, unsettling for an audience who may think they know what to expect. The narrative plays out much like expected, with the two opposites switching elements of their lives, seeing what they most desire in each other. Gyllenhaal plays both fantastically.

Enemy, in a surreal stylistic addition, uses the image of a spider, in one case as an actual sized spider, another as a monster terrorising Toronto and thirdly as a metamorphosis of a female character. This spider most likely (for it is never conclusive) represents femininity as the arachnid can be a symbol of creation and the woman whose metamorphosis we witness is pregnant.

In this, Enemy becomes an observation on the control of women by an uncertain patriarchy. This is highlighted by the ‘good’ twin who is corrupted by the ‘evil’ twin’s obsession with control and women, symbolised by his taking ownership of the key to a perverse, underground sex club. And in a shocking concluding scene, the spider returns, afraid, in the face of this twisted masculinity. Enemy is not to be missed.

On the Top Ten of 2014

2014’s is a homogeneous list, British and American. This is not because foreign language cinema was not competitive, but simply because they were not seen. Films such as Ida, Leviathan, Winter Sleep and Goodbye to Language have been fantastically received and would likely be here. Maybe in 2015.

  

The number one spot was tight. Both films are inventive, emotional, challenging films, but Boyhood pips Birdman to the post, as its achievement is unique. Firstly in its twelve-year shoot, but also it appears to be universally adored, perhaps because it speaks to so many people. It would likely top the list any year.

As with last year, there are none of the larger budget films (Interstellar didn’t impress as one may have hoped), but unlike last year, none even came close. The blockbuster is a dying art and even though Christopher Nolan may not have made another Inception (2010), at least he is trying to do something with the form. Everyone else seems happy to follow the boring blockbuster blueprint. Although, Guardians of the Galaxy should be mentioned, not for breaking from the blueprint, but for having fun with it.

The list may represent only a small section of the filmmaking world, but these are all quality pieces of work, representing a nice mix of established filmmakers producing great work after years in the business and some new filmmakers making their stand. 

1.     Boyhood (dir. Richard Linklater)

2.     Birdman (or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (dir. Alejandro González Iñárritu)

3.     Dallas Buyers Club (dir. Jean-Marc Vallee)

4.     Her (dir. Spike Jonze)

5.     Inside Llewyn Davis (dir. Ethan Coen and Joel Coen)

6.     The Double (dir. Richard Ayoade)

7.     Frank (dir. Lenny Abrahamson)

8.     The Grand Budapest Hotel (dir. Wes Anderson)

9.     The Wolf of Wall Street (dir. Martin Scorsese)

10. Nightcrawler (dir. Dan Gilroy)

On the Last Great Film of the Year with Birdman (or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)

Last day of the year and one of the best films of the year. Birdman is everything film should be across all disciplines: inventive, challenging and experimental. Mexican filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu along with his screenwriters have carved a monumental piece of cinema out of the story of an actor desperate to claw back some of the passion that got him into acting that his superhero trilogy has erased.

Iñárritu creates a fluid style of filming that makes it hard to see the cuts (what few there are and making it one of the most impressive collection of acting performances this year) by roaming his camera around the theatre that comprises the majority of the setting. Characters walk in and out of each other’s scenes as the camera, close and personal, has unlimited access to their lives. Not only is this impressive technically, it mirrors the narrative as Michael Keaton’s actor/director demands honesty in performance of his actors, Iñárritu is demanding the same and is rewarded with performances that feel organic, not scripted. All of this while creating intertextual performances as both Keaton and Edward Norton play on expected media roles of their real selves.

The role of the media, whether in the form of critics or social media plays a large part in Birdman’s questioning of celebrity. Another theme it manages to weave into its complex yet flowing narrative. Keaton craves respect, which as his daughter reminds him, doesn’t exist in the form he remembers. Adapting Raymond Carver means nothing. 80,000 followers on Twitter can revive your career. Keaton struggles to come to terms with this, understandably adding to his paranoia and anxiety. The theatre critic here is venomous.

On top of everything that Birdman manages to achieve, it takes aim at the non-stop Marvel big wheel that refuses to stop turning. This criticism is apt and timely. Birdman is everything these films are not (inventive, challenging and experimental) and as Keaton reels through great actors that have been swallowed by Marvel he quips, “they put him in a cape, too”, knowing the pain all to well himself. An experience Keaton, post Batman, he may have experienced.

That Birdman is so immersive means that we don’t have time to question every issue it prods, we just get taken along for the ride. In a style similar to Anna Karenina (2012), scenes bleed into each other, removing a sense of reality, but allowing the fluidity of the camera to keep moving and mirroring the uncertain reality that exists in the mind of Keaton, a man literally haunted by past roles. This is a film that addresses much without seeming to try. It is consistently impressive and so complete in its aim and so confident in its style and of its form and structure that all we can do is sit back, enjoy and applaud the achievement.