Actually: first and second thoughts.

Karl Paniczny suggested that I watch Synecdoche, New York, the directorial debut of Charlie Kaufman. He suggested that it might be my kind of film. I don’t have much to say, because I’ve seen it only once. But that was more than enough to have first and second thoughts.

It is a remarkable film. And it may not be successful. But if it is a failure, it is the failure of genius. Anyone can make a mainstream film.[1] It takes hard work and great talent to make a film like Synecdoche, New York.

A couple of things struck me while watching it. One was that there were many allusions to other films. I don’t know if this was intended, but I was reminded of other films several times. Also, the film is filled with brilliant ideas. Just a few: Hazel buying a house that is always on fire; Caden reading his daughter’s diary that apparently fills in automatically as she grows older[2]; the final theater project that is utterly confused with reality.

To me, the film is about the fiction (or “theater” if you insist) of life. In particular, it is about the duality of a writer’s work and his life. Speaking as someone who knows, I think it is more true of a failed writer than a successful one. It is easier for a successful writer to compartmentalize these two lives. The failed writer is always asked what his work means whereas everyone can understand commodities.

This leads me to my greatest concern about the film. At one point Caden tells his assistant:

That’s pretty heavy handed, all by itself. But later, roughly the same line is repeated. All I could think was that Kaufman gave in to the money men.

Regardless, I look forward to watching the film a few more times. Even more, I look forward to seeing his new film Frank or Francis, which Wikipedia describes as, “a musical comedy about internet anger culture.” It makes me feel like dancing. And shouting.

[1] Ever notice that any given movie star manages to direct (And often write!) a passable movie? It’s because they get loads of help and all the department heads they surround themselves with are professionals. Note how no actor goes on to be a focus puller in movie. They are “directors” with a nod and a wink. I would say the same thing about most celebrity writers. Recently, I spent about 90 seconds reading Stephen Colbert’s entire I Am a Pole (And So Can You!). That’s 32 pages for $15.99. Can you guess how it ends? I did! The only intelligent thing I ever heard Russell Crowe say was that if they ever used his music in a movie of his we should shoot him. Any star who is an aspiring writer (or whatever) should send their work out anonymously to figure out if they really have talent. In general, I’m sure the answer will be a resounding, “No!”

[2] There is a similar sequence involving a self-help book sold to Caden by his psychologist.

I recently read the Angel Flore and Muriel Kittel translation of Lope de Vega’s Fuente Ovejuna. It was written right at the end of Shakespeare’s career, when he was writing such gems as Henry VIII and The Two Noble Kinsmen. Fuente Ovejuna is not a perfect play by any means, but by the standards of the time, it is a classic.

The main thing one notices while reading it is that it has great dramatic momentum. It certainly has speeches and songs, but they are short. It resembles nothing so much as what a group of high school students would create if asked to put on a play about this historical event.

The synopsis of Fuente Ovejuna is really quite simple. The lord of the town is misbehaving by raping many of the young girl. Finally, the town men rise up and kill the lord. Given that the plot is so simple, the play can deal with the characters, and more important, their interactions.

No character is more important or well written than Laurencia. I know of no female character in all of Shakespeare who can compare with her. There are reasons for this, of course. Vega had actual women actors playing his female characters whereas Shakespeare had boys. As Gary Taylor has noted, this tended to limit the females in his plays to pretty young things and old hags. The only Shakespearean character that strikes me at all like Laurencia is Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing. But even Beatrice is at heart a sad sop. Laurencia is captured by the lord, but manages to escape before being raped but after being beaten. She finds the men of the town and yells at them for allowing all that has happened. She shames them into action.

One of my great annoyances about Shakespeare is the density of the text—the overuse of allusions and puns. It is hard to say if Lope de Vega suffers from these problems, because I read an English translation. But it doesn’t seem as though he does. It also seems likely that he didn’t have time for such nonsense. Shakespeare wrote 38 plays (more or less); Lope wrote many hundreds. I’m all for craft, but not when it just annoys me.

The only major flaw of Fuente Ovejuna is that it throws in scenes about the higher lords and the King. This is a problem that Shakespeare shares, but to a much worse extent. In most of Shakespeare’s plays, you can get nauseous from the rapid scene changes. This is not the case here. And there is a reason for these scenes. But it is clear that the play could have focused entirely on the town with what must be more recent theatrical innovations.[1]

Just like Shakespeare is rarely performed in the Spanish speaking world, Lope de Vega is rarely performed in the English speaking world. There is a whole Spanish filmed version of the play online. But mostly, even in Spanish, Fuente Ovejuna is performed in adaptations. Here is a collection of scenes from a caberet act based on the play:

Overall, Fuente Ovejuna is an excellent play, especially for its time. We English speakers should definitely pay more attention to Spanish golden age theater. Theater that begins and ends with the English Renaissance is a very poor theater indeed.

[1] This is the one thing that most defines early 17th drama: the inclusion of lots of narrative that the audience just doesn’t care about. Think of Romeo and Juliet. Did we have to see the apothecary scene? We learned everything we needed when Romeo dies, “Oh true apothecary! Thy drugs are quick.”

I just watched Moon, the film about He3 mining on the moon that stars Sam Rockwell. It is a deeply affecting film.

There are no such things as spoilers. Even films with surprise endings like The Sixth Sense are better if you know the plot. So as usual, I am not going to worry about spoiling this film.

What most struck me in Moon was the relationship between Sam 5 and Sam 6. They lie to each other in the most humane way. For example, Sam 5 has managed to make a call to the original Sam’s house where he finds out that his baby daughter is now 15 and his wife is dead. While Sam 5 is asleep, Sam 6 plays the call log and gets the same devastating information. Think about it: if you learned that you were a clone and that all the memories you have of life had been implanted, you would not deal with it well. Especially if you learned that your spouse was dead. But that’s not what I’m talking about.

Later, Sam 6 tries to convince Sam 5 to escape to earth. As an incentive he says, “Maybe you can meet Eve [the daughter] in person.” But both of them know this is impossible. They both know that Eve is grown and that she has a real father. And they don’t let on. It is a sweet moment. And it is this moment and many others like it that elevate this film to something more than an intense existential rumination.

But the intellectual part of the film would be enough to make Moon well worth watching.

The film brings up some profound questions. How do we know who we are? Do we belong to ourselves? After our memories are gone, did we ever exist? And what does it matter anyway? I have no answers.

Moon is really well made. According to Wikipedia, it was produced for only $5 million. I guess this is an indication of how cheap simple special effects have become. The entire film was shot in Shepperton Studios, where so many other fine films have been shot (e.g. Gosford Park and the whole Beckett on Film project). Sam Rockwell is great in the film, but then he always is. He may well be the best actor of his generation. The fact that he isn’t a star says much about how screwed up the film industry is. But any industry that can produce a film as good as Moon is doing okay.

Have we seen this before? The Raven is coming out next month. It stars John Cusack as Edgar Allan Poe. Sometime on or about 1835, there is a serial killer who is getting inspiration from the stories of Poe. The police turn to him for help. But when the murderer kidnaps Poe’s fiance, well, it’s personal. Edgar Allan Poe: kicking ass and taking no prisoners. He’s no girly man, just watch:

Several problems occur to me. First, all the Poe stories that we know and love (and the once referenced in the trailer) were written the last few years of his life—long after he was married in 1835. And he married his 13 year old cousin—facts I’m sure the movie will gloss over. For a long time, I’ve thought that Cusack looks older than his 45 years, so I also have a problem with him playing a 26 year old Poe. I will admit that he looks sort of like Poe, so that’s a good thing. And where does the raven come into all this?

What is most troubling is seeing an author I identify with in too many uncomfortable ways turned into an action hero.

Of course, I’ll be first in line on opening day. It’s fucking Edgar Allan Poe!

The Brothers Bloom is a mess of film. And yet, I own it and watch it a bit. It is the kind of film that is better on DVD because of all the stuff that comes with the film. In particular, it comes with almost 40 minutes of deleted scenes. As is often the case, the best stuff was left on the cutting room floor. What’s more, the deleted scenes show an original that is far richer and more complex. I can see why they cut it as they did. Even in its original version, the film was a mess. Why writer/director Rian Johnson didn’t see that his screenplay desperately needed at least one more draft, I can’t say.

And yet, the film is filled with some much that is wonderful, I’m glad it was made. There are two scenes that really stand out. The first is the opening of the film that tells the story of how the bothers started on their life of crime. It is narrated in verse and can be seen on YouTube. The second stand out scene is not in the film. It is very simple. The Curator, played brilliantly by Robbie Coltrane, tells the story of the death of his daughter and the stone golem.

I’ve been checking for the last year to see if anyone had put this scene on YouTube, but I guess no one could be bothered. It may be that the scene speaks more to me than to others. Certainly no one I have shown it to has thought as much of it as I do. I love story telling and this is just one man telling a story. But what a story and what a telling! So I went ahead and put it on YouTube. Enjoy!

Here is the text:

One of my very favorite movies is His Girl Friday. I watch it about once a month—any time I need cheering up. It has two of my favorite actors: Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell. I will always be in love with Russell, or perhaps more accurately, I will always be in love with the character she plays in this movie, Hildy Johnson.

In her autobiography, Life is a Banquet, Russell discusses the making of His Girl Friday, in a chapter titled, “Back Door to The Front Page[1], or How I Was Everybody’s Fifteenth Choice.” She says that she thought the screenplay “could stand some improving.” But she doesn’t say why.[2] Her brother-in-law was Chet La Roche, who was the president of Young and Rubicam, a big advertising firm. She writes:

So she hired one of his writers, who came to her house for dinner each night during the production of the film. (Russell goes out of her way to say that the writer never ate; he only drank. So we know he was a real writer!) Apparently, it was obvious what she was doing—at least to Cary Grant. She wrote, “It got so every morning when I went in to work, Cary would meet me, asking, “What have you got today?”

I’ve known this story for years. What I didn’t know was what Russell put in a parenthetical paragraph block:

This is exciting information, because I think it means that some enterprising young historian could figure out who this writer was. He must have worked for Young and Rubicam in 1940 and then he must have worked for Harry Cohn at Columbia Pictures some time later. The film she was working on when she had this conversation with him had to have been My Sister Eileen (1942), What a Woman! (1943), The Guilt of Janet Ames (1947), Tell It to the Judge (1949), or Picnic (1955).

It doesn’t matter, of course. Whoever this anonymous writer is, didn’t write His Girl Friday. He only punched it up. But he clearly was a very funny guy. And it would be interesting to see if he went on to do any other interesting films.

[1] His Girl Friday is based upon the play (already produced as a film twice by that time) called The Front Page. The big change is that in the original, Hildy is a man who is about to get married and become an insurance salesman. Although The Front Page is an excellent play, His Girl Friday is better.

[2] Wikipedia claims Russell stated that it was because she felt that Cary Grant had the better lines. This (along with much else about their history of the film) is not true. She points out that what she had added to the film included laughs for Cary Grant as well as herself.

I’m a freak. I got Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, Two Historic Productions on Two DVD. The two productions they are referring to are the 1977 production starring Hal Holbrook and the 1989 production starring Spalding Gray. I’d seen each of them before at the time they were first released. And they didn’t affect me one way or the other. I had never thought much of Our Town. Yesterday, I decided to, in one setting, watch the two productions and compare them.

I was destroyed. I cried buckets during the 1977 production, so I thought I would be well steeled for the 1989 production. Nope. I cried so much in the third act of this production, I had to change my pants; the tears were pouring off my face onto my lap.

Both productions are really good. The acting is amazing. I prefer the way the 1989 production was staged, which was traditional, as a play. The 1977 production was staged as a TV drama and uses some special effects that look dated, but wouldn’t have worked for me at time. But the biggest difference is in the performances of Holbrook and Gray as the stage manager. Frankly, Gray is a little hard to take. It isn’t that he doesn’t do a good job. However, as a performance artist, he hauls around a lot of baggage. So when, as the stage manager, he says, “Nice town, y’know what I mean?” I couldn’t help but think that he meant something entirely different from Hal Holbrook, when he said it. Gray didn’t say the line sarcastically, but I heard it that way. As a result, I spent the first act trying to figure out what his take was on the character. It was only in the second act that I realized he had no modern “take” on the part; he was doing it straight.

Another important difference in the productions is the part of Emily. In the 1977 production, Glynnis O’Connor plays the part; in 1989, it is Penelope Ann Miller. I’m sure it will come as no surprise to you that Emily is dead throughout the third act. (Everyone had to read this play in high school, right?) And the part can be played tight (O’Connor) or broad (Miller). I prefer broad. If I’m going to be sobbing throughout the third act, I would prefer some company. Miller cried almost as much as I did. Check her out:

When I was young, I never really got Our Town. Despite the fact that this play is done all the time by school children[1], it really isn’t one meant for children to see. The play is very clever. It is about the inexorable march of time. It is about the time from 1901 to 1913, but told from the perspective of 1938. Children do not see the world from that perspective—they cannot. It is only old people, like me, who see the world largely in the past tense. Our Town presents us with two acts about small town life, just for the purpose of showing us a third act that tells us we can only ever appreciate the past by understanding that we didn’t appreciate it in the present. Emily asks the stage manager, “Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?—every, every minute?” It is not an ironic question, although I wonder whether it should be; after all, the dead seem to be committing the same error.

You could do worse than spend three and a half hours watching these productions back to back. In fact, you probably will. And that seems to have been Wilder’s point. Although I think he would have suggested that whatever you do, you should do it with someone you love.[2]

[1] I don’t know if it is still true, but until about 30 years ago, Our Town had been performed somewhere in the United States every day since its premiere in 1938. This is largely because the play doesn’t need much in terms of sets or costumes. Of course, the same can be said for Six Characters in Search of an Author, a more brilliant but less affecting play.

[2] Fifteen years after Our Town, Samuel Beckett wrote Waiting for Godot. Beckett’s work seems so different from Wilder’s, but the third act of Our Town certainly anticipates a lot of what Beckett went on to do. This is not so much true of Godot but of Endgame and Play and, perhaps most of all, Happy Days.

In Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Blackbeard abuses Jack Sparrow by carving something that looks kind of like a pitchfork into his voodoo doll, and thus onto the right side of Jack’s chest. But there’s a problem. We know from Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, that Jack already has two scars there. Check out this video:

Now, I understand that the scene from the first movie was deleted and is therefore not canonical. But really: couldn’t they have been consistent? The deleted scenes from the island are the best, and this particular one is my favorite. What’s more, the deleted scenes are more than just discarded. They were in the final script—the shooting script. They were shot. Surely they can be considered back story. As far as I was concerned, Jack had those scars all the way through the first 3.5 films. Sudden gone! Perhaps it was voodoo?

I just watched Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. As entertainments go, it is an excellent film—the best of the series. It is everything that it tries to be.

Gore Verbinski, who directed the first three films, likes his action sequences long—far too long. Rob Marshall, like the good musical-loving fag he is, knows just how long to push a scene. His instincts (or his editors’ or producers’) are dead on. (In his defense, Verbinski directed Rango, which was also an excellent entertainment.)

By this time in the series, it is impossible for Barbossa to be a villain. (That was always true for me, given how much I love Geoffrey Rush.) This time, they bring in the wonderful Ian McShane (who I also can’t help but like after 36 hours of Deadwood) as the villain Blackbeard. I don’t know anything about pirates, so I looked Blackbeard up on Wikipedia.[1] It said:

That really struck me: he sounds just like Jack Sparrow.

[1] Do I need to provide a link? Just go to Google, enter “blackbeard” and click, “I’m Feeling Lucky”!