The Coppola Interview (reading)

This is a great interview for anyone interested in screenwriting or directing. If nothing else, Coppola offers some comfort to the artist who, during sustained periods of dedication to one project, discovers a distaste for their own work. I often wonder how many great works of art have been miscarried by an artist who gave up in the face of self doubt. Coppola recognizes the importance of plugging along despite the loss of understanding or even appreciation of the work at hand. Few people would guess that Coppola would associate The Godfather with failure; not because of the end product but because of the experience of that film's creation. I also appreciated the personal importance that he places on his indefinitely gestating "Megalopolis" script. I am sure that it is an effective tool in staging off complacency and maintaining hope for future work. As a writer I sometimes feel frozen by even the slightest doubt about my ideas and imagine that having something like Megalopolis up one's sleeve might help in freeing up inhibitions concerning "lesser" projects. It was also interesting to read a little bit about Coppola's strategies for working with actors, particularly in preproduction. I have achieved a practical understanding of the importance of back story, especially with respect to fully fleshed characters, but Coppola's method of rehearsing scenes from the back story seems truly inspired.

The Parallax View

This film had a really fun style. Among its most adventurous elements: the surreal courtroom/panel of mysterious authority figures scenes; the unusually prolific wide lens; and of course, the montage. Personally, I'm a sucker for a wide lens. It is important to be aware of the inherent abstractions involved in using a wide lens - especially a very wide lens, but The Parallax View was well served by those abstractions. The central theme of the movie seems to be that nothing in this world - Parallax's world - is as it seems.

While I found the movie entertaining and thought provoking I thought that it fell short on some of the key criteria of the genre. However, before I launch into a hypercritical evaluation of what I mean by that last statement, I should qualify "fall short" as "not among the very best of all examples, past and present." For example, I recently went to go see Scorsese's Shutter Island and I found it superior in the "who-do-you-trust dilema," that is a hallmark of the conspiracy genre. While The Parallax View featured periods of sustained tension, overall it was less effective in that respect than All The President's Men or The Fugitive. On the other hand, this film is very effective when it comes to providing questions such as: Is this real? Is this not real? Could this really be going on?

Coming Home

Hal Ashby - and the screenwriters - accomplished a wonderful thing with the film Coming Home. Here is a movie about Vietnam but it is not a war movie. It is not anti-war and it is not pro-war. Coming Home is also about love but it is not a love story. It is - quite simply - about people and their capacity for loving other people. These days I find myself growing tired of movies that are about a concept or an issue, rather than characters. While I enjoyed Slumdog Millionaire - and perhaps it is unfair of me to single that film out as an example - I was frustrated by the story's generic illustrations. Slumdog seems to say: "here is what is happening in India... look how bad it is"; while Coming Home seems to say: "here are some people... take a walk in their shoes." After all - in my opinion - there is nothing more real, nothing more true, nothing more honest, and nothing more insightful than our capacity to empathize with another person - provided that person or character seems real, true, honest, and insightful. I might even tolerate a generic illustration - so long as it is a generic illustration of a character who manifests human qualities.

Captain Bob Hyde (Bruce Dern) is one such generic illustration - as is his counterpart, Luke Martin (Jon Voight). The are each modeled after a specific group of people who were victimized by the Vietnam War, and their respective qulities, circumstances, and means of dealing with the events that unfold over the course of the film make up a truely compelling theme. Both men entered the war looking to play the hero - hungery for the glory that had been besowed upon the gerations of WWI and WWII - hoping to recapture the glory of the high school football field - but Vietnam turned them both back, having shown them the hopeless foolishness of such expectations. Of course, here are where the similarities end. Luke Martin comes back from the war and - though he may have been a hero - he has lost the use of his legs. On the other hand, Bob Hyde never got to play the hero but he has learned that many of the real heros will never be coming home. What is more, they each deal with their shattered expectations in different ways, and the reasons for their respective reactions provide us with a beautiful insight.

Though he struggles mightily at first, Luke learns to welcome people into his life, and love provides him with a means of continuing on. Luke may have started out as a misled youth, but in the end, his adulthood takes root in the lasting virtues of his love for his fellow man. Bob Hyde is quite a different person. Bob has never valued anything but combat. He has never even given a thought to his own wife's pleasure. I doubt very much that his "fellow man" means anything to Bob. There is certainly nothing that is more important to him than his military career. Of course, when that career is revealed as an outright sham, it is little wonder that Bob has no reason left to live.

I would love to get into all kinds of other things that are going on in Coming Home. I have almost totally neglected Sally Hyde (Jane Fonda), and as the main character she is arguably the most important. In many ways she is us. I know that hardly does her justice but I think that I have probably rambled on enough already. Anyway, I would actually welcome a debate on how I have contrasted Coming Home and Slumdog Millionaire. I kind of went with my gut on that one and I would be interested to know if anyone agrees.

The Long Goodbye

I need to watch The Long Goodbye again. That's a good thing, by the way. I remember thinking that the first half of the film was fantastic. That Marlowe goes to such lengths to feed his cat - brilliant - is so indicative of the kinds of risks that American filmmakers were starting to take in the 1970s. The second half of the film - I say half, but that's not really a hard and fast percentage - seemed to me somewhat disjointed. Being fairly familiar with the director, Robert Altman's work, I suspect that this perception is due to certain subtleties that I might not have adequately appreciated on the first viewing. Of course, I could just as easily lay the blame on Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose brief appearance might well have stuck out like a sore thumb even in 1973, as a relative unknown. I have to admit that I was taken by surprise when Marlowe - SPOILER ALERT - murders his friend. At the time, it did not seem to make a whole lot of sense, but the more I think about it the incident reveals an aspect of Marlowe's character that may be less evident earlier in the film but may have - arguably - been present the whole time. It is the definitive bit of evidence that, beneath Marlowe's facade of cool disinterest, the man is all business. Another factor in the confusing nature of the ending is likely due to - and we ought to applaud the filmmakers for it - the fact that every detail of Marlowe's investigation was not spelled out with the kind of detailed clarity that today's filmmakers often butcher their stories and their characters trying to include.

On a vaguely related note... One of my favorite films is The Big Lebowski. I have made an extensive study of the Coen brothers' classic; but thanks to my recent viewing of The Long Goodbye I have seen The Dude in a whole new light. I now think that quite of bit of The Dude's detective persona is influenced by Philip Marlowe.

Five Easy Pieces

Among the most essential themes of the film Five Easy Pieces - and the one which was, for me, the most powerful - is the idea of a generation gap, which the older generation is unwilling to reach across.  Jack Nicholson's character (the younger generation) is struggling to make a life for himself without his father's approval.  He has realized that he does not need that approval, but that does not change the fact that he is suffering from the lack of it.  The Father has never been willing to try to understand his son.  This is beautifully illustrated by the climax of the whole film, when Nicholson's character (Bobby Dupea) enjoys a conversation with his Father, whose stroke induced impairment has - as Bobby observes - made it possible for Bobby's voice to be heard.  Tragically, that same impairment has finally put the Father's approval forever out of reach.  Of course, there is also the famous cafe scene, in which Bobby confronts a waitress who is similarly insensible to Bobby's otherwise reasonable pleas.  Here is the comedic side of an ultimately tragic issue - an issue with which audiences of the 1970s resonated with most readily.

My First Post

So... this is my first blog post.  It is a short one.