The friend I went to see Bright Star with liked the movie, but mentioned she liked The Duchess better. The comparison is interesting: both movies, set less than half a century apart, are about women who express themselves mainly though clothing, and who cannot marry who they wish. It surprised me at the time that I enjoyed the Duchess quite a bit, but in my eyes, Bright Star is a much more interesting – if flawed – film.

Part of this is aesthetic: Campion repeats the marvelous trick she performed in the Piano, which is to make the world of the film both specifically of its time and tangible, real. There are period costumes, and they are beautiful, but you can see the stitches – you can imagine how stiff the cloth would feel against your skin. When Keats climbs a tree and rests on the branches, it’s a wonderful, poetic image, fit to inspire some typical romantic verses, but you can tell he isn’t floating, that the branches would be pricking his back, and that it’s not that pure and simple.

Still, how authentic the world feels is just one thing. More important is the authenticity of the character, and it’s here that this film distinguishes itself most. Keira Knightley in the Duchess is a somewhat anachronistic feminist prototype, at times astonishingly naive and incredibly ahead of the times depending of the needs of plot and allegory. Don’t get me wrong: I appreciate female ass-kicking regardless of verisimilitude. But Fanny Brawne, in comparison, is such a fully realized character. Most importantly, while she is undoubtedly (and refreshingly) the main character in this movie, she’s hardly a hero. She’s stubborn, overly melodramatic, more than a little conceited. She thinks she has all the answers – she thinks she’s the first one to discover what it’s like to be in love. In other words: she’s believably 18, and how often do you see that?

I’m not a big fan of the romantic poets, to be honest. To be more precise, I like the poems well enough, but I have little patience for them. I prefer post-modern experimentation: poems that are not merely beautiful, but which surprise me. But it works in this film, and Campion’s tactic works: she doesn’t seem to mind that the audience will sometimes think Fanny and Keats a little silly, their emotions a bit exaggerated. She doesn’t mind, because she knows that the ending is heartbreaking enough even if we think they are overdoing it – it’s hard not to be touched by Fanny’s breakdown, hysterical as it is. In the meantime, she portrays the thrill of emerging love perfectly. She even gets kisses right! Their first kiss is not a Hollywoodian climax, standing in for the sex to be had later, but tentative, exploratory. She knows how fascinating someone’s face can become, how absorbing even the slightest touches.

She does, unfortunately, keep things pretty chaste. More in keeping, perhaps, with the sentiment of romantic poetry, all unfulfilled longing and sublimated desire. But it disappoints me to see a movie which, yet again, portrays the only “true” love as “pure”, with the boar Charles Brown (by the by, why isn’t Paul Scheider in, like, every movie? He should be) as a sharp contrast. It’s as if a love story cannot be suitable tragic if it is consummated…

Pillow’d upon my fair Love’s ripening breast
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest;

Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever,—or else swoon to death.

*Chap. 1: at first, the switch from French to English proposed by Landa seems a cheap trick from the director, to avoid more subtitles. I didn’t wonder about Landa’s motivation, because I assumed it to be artificial. However, as it turns out in the crescendo towards the end, Landa did have a very specific motivation for the switch, indeed, and it was no QT ploy.

*Chap. 2: After the western opening, we now move to farce. I love how there are nested stories here. There’s what really happened: that the soldier betrayed his fellows to save his life, and was let go accordingly. There’s the story Aldo Raine feeds him: that they let him escape to strike fear into the hearts of the nazis. And then there’s the story that Hitler, after hearing (the fake) story #2, orders the soldier to tell: that he daringly escapes. Thus the coward becomes a hero – all it takes is two propagandistic spins. In fact, propaganda really is (one of) the continuing thread(s) through this movie: from Chap. 1, wherein Landa references the portrayal of Jews as rats, all the way to the end.

Also in chapter 2: the delightful introduction of Hugo Stiglitz (complete with explanatory voice-over)… which unfortunately doesn’t lead to anything later on. I think Til Schweiger is the most threatening of the Basterds (putting Eli Roth’s “Bear Jew” to shame), and I’d loved to see more of him. However, the cut from the first scene with the Basterds to “nein nein nein nein nein nein NEIN!” is pretty brilliant.

*Chap. 3: I think this is the weakest chapter, and the one most transparantly used to set up the ending. Don’t get me wrong: I like Melanie Laurent just fine in this part, but in the beginning of the chapter she isn’t given much to do besides rebuffing Fredrick Zoller and looking glamorous smoking a cigarette and drinking a glass of red wine in a bistro, an icon of Frenchness. I also found the business with Goebbels a little tiring – and that insert of him fucking his translator was a mighty cheap joke, the only real misstep in the film as far as I’m concerned.

Then again, there is a great conversation with Landa, and while it’s not as suspenseful as the one in the opening scene, nor as entertaining as the one in the café, it has some great touches: Landa really plays with her, ordering her a glass of milk, smilingly but firmly telling her to wait for the cream with her strudel (followed by amazingly icky shots of said cream), announcing another question before “forgetting” about it…

*Chap. 4: Operation Kino! The opening scene here is again farce, with Rod Taylor immediately recognizable as Churchill (not quite as stereotypical an image as Hitler, but close), and a grating performance by Mike Myers that almost ruins the scene… but it is redeemed by Lt. Archie Hicox giving a lecture on UFA, and Goubbels’ aspirations to be David O. Selznick. Then follow what’s seen by some as the weakest part of the movie: the half-hour scene in the cellar bar. It’s a scene that takes its time, definitely, but everything in it is essential. The detail I love most is the Gestapo officer who suddenly appears: like in a Leone film, nothing here exists until it enters the frame.

Think about it. During the introduction of “the Good” in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, how does he sneak up to the three guys surrounding “the Ugly”? The terrain is bare, you can see for miles. But Clint Eastwood simply doesn’t exist until the camera calls him into existence. Likewise, the Gestapo officer is not necessarily hiding: it’s just that nobody notices him until the camera does.

*Chap. 5: seriously, how hilarious is Brad Pitt’s mangled Italian (or should I say Eye-tahlian)? The funniest part is that he doesn’t even realize how bad it is, and that he’s been made as soon as he opens his mouth (if not earlier). This chapter, though, truly belongs to Landa: watch how he’s honey-sweet to Bridget von Hammersmark, watch how he orders her -politely, of course- to indulge Tarantino’s foot fetish in a perverted version of Cinderella, watch how he flips and reveals the rage simmering below… then calmly, deliberately, and without any hesitation negotiates an exit for himself.

I would be remiss, of course, if I didn’t mention the “giant face” of the title, but truth be told, I don’t have much to say. It’s interesting that the largely anonymous people who are killed in the blaze are the same ones who earlier were applauding and laughing at the sight of Fredrick Zoller mowing down countless anonymous “enemies”. If you get only one level more meta, we’d be getting killed in some gruesome way. The power of cinema, indeed: by the way, was I the only one who was most upset seeing all that nitrate film going up in flames, wondering what great old movies were in that pile? It’s like with In the Name of the Rose, where the fire in the library was much more disturbing to me than the deaths of all those monks.

Admittedly, the giant face did look impressive: once the screen goes up in smoke, the smoke becomes the screen.

Feel free to share your observations below!

Who’d have thought: Tarantino does it again, “it” being making a quintessential Tarantino movie, talky, slow, yet exhilarating too, at moments horrifying, and veering wildly from authentic dread to over-the-top absurdism. In one word, it’s awesome – though admittedly not unproblematic.

The main objection to the film, from venerable people like Daniel Mendelsohn at Newsweek and Jonathan Rosenbaum, is that the film is morally despicable, “akin to holocaust denial”. I can see the point… or could if it was unambiguous that Tarantino wanted us to root for the Basterds and cheer their vicious tactics, wanted us to glory in this revenge story, the third in a row in his recent filmography (counting Kill Billas one film). However, I’m not sure his intention is so crude. In fact, I think the case can be made that in all three films, there are significant question marks* as to whether the revenge is satisfactory and/or fully deserved. (warning: here be SPOILERS)

There are two examples I’d like to discuss from Inglourious Basterds. The first is the one most often cited: the first Nazi we see the Basterds kill is presented as a brave, loyal, patriotic man, unflinching even faced with the scare tactics the Basterds employ. He’s rather humorless, and Aldo Raine**’s verbal dexterity puts him at an advantage, but his jokes also make him seem callous. We start to feel for this Sgt. Werner Rachtman – and then Tarantino rather bluntly shifts our sympathies to the Basterds again by letting the Sgt. call Raine’s men his “Jew Dogs”. He exonerates us, in a way, by reminding us that while this man is loyal, it is to a truly despicable ideology. But it’s the bare minimum he offers us, letting us wonder whether it’s enough. It would have been easy to make this man a caricature of an evil nazi, but he doesn’t.

The second – and in my opinion more potent – example is the treatment of Fredrick Zoller. He is introduced to us in uniform (and thus, in the universe of this movie, as de facto evil), but the rest of his presentation is as innocent as can be. He’s good-looking, soft-spoken (in French, no less), and what’s more: he’s a cinephile. Granted, he likes Pabst and Riefenstahl, but even Tarantino has copped (or, depending on your interpretation, provocatively declared) to admire these two directors. Also in what follows, he is consequently presented as a nice guy: he fits into the stereotype of the “good nazi”, and we are even inclined to ask ourselves why Shosanna/Emmanuelle doesn’t just give him a chance. After all, he might have killed 200+ men – but he can’t watch himself re-enacting it on screen, so he has a tortured conscience. Right?

In short, Tarantino makes sure our sympathies lie with the guy… and then, once again, showing off how perfectly he controls audience perception, he takes that sympathy away in less than ten seconds: the nice guy turns out to be a “nice guy”, i.e. one who feels entitled to the girl if he just puts in enough effort.

The brilliant thing here is that the reveal is not unearned. Zoller displayed somewhat stalkerish behavior before, after all. He more or less had Shosanna abducted, too- though he acts like he doesn’t know about it, whether he ordered it or not is never explicitly addressed. Goebbels even complains about his entitlement! What Tarantino really shows here is that he doesn’t just know a lot about WWII flicks and German propaganda and spaghetti westerns. He knows rom-coms, too, and he understands how they’ve brainwashed us into considering all these traits – in movies, at least (cf. Twilight) – as sort of romantic. A sign of infatuation, and not of potential danger.

What these examples show above all is that Tarantino knows exactly what he wants the audience to feel, and likes to play with our expectations and sympathies. The claims that the movie turns the Jews into Nazis would only be legitimate if QT did everything in his power to make all nazis worthy of having their head banged in, of being scalped or having a swastika carved into their forehead. Some nazis (most notable the “real” ones), are cartoonishly evil, yes. But the total picture is quite a bit more complicated: after all, even the ultimately evil one is designed to be an audience favorite (I’ve already lost count of how often BF has said “It’s a bingo!” since friday night), and while it’s gratifying to see him get his comeuppance, it’s almost disappointingly easy.

As for the final act of revenge, the blaze of glory that illustrates the literal power of film, it’s climatic – but not cathartic. Not even for the instigator: her giant head cackles and oversees the death and destruction, but it’s only an image. The lady in red herself is already dead, making her revenge on those hundreds of nameless nazis seem not only over-the-top, but futile.

There’s so much to talk about in this movie. I barely touched on how (in)glorious the character Hans Landa is, or on the myriad ways in which Tarantino has made this a movie that’s first and foremost about movies. I fear I’ve been too analytical, when the pleasures of this film are also very simple and visceral, so playful too (the Hugo Stiglitz flashback comes to mind). I haven’t talked about how brilliantly and meticulously the suspense is built up in the opening (clearly Leone-inspired) scene, and in the cellar scene later. I need to mention so much: the revelation that Kruger CAN, in fact, act, or that Michael Fassbender is delicious as Archie Hicox (Mike Myers as his commanding officer? not so much). Even in the context of my argument, I haven’t even mentioned poor Willy. But this piece is already too long, and much of it has already been written about extensively, so I’ll point you instead to the Auteurs for a great many links, and urge you to check out Craig’s great piece here. And who knows… I might just write another thousand words tomorrow – the film’s worth it.

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*not to digress, here are some: in Kill Bill, Vernita Green’s killing is triumphant only for a few seconds, until we see her daughter standing there. Furthermore, Bill, who’s been a looming, threatening presence throughout the first movie, a true antagonist, is then presented as a charismatic and sympathetic character in pt. 2, and his death is without joy, in fact, it’s almost a tragedy. In Death Proof, Stuntman Mike is a much less ambiguous villain, and his distress after the tables are turned is more pathetic than endearing. The glee of the final girls is absolutely infectious, but the overkill they employ does make me cringe a little every time, and I think that’s intentional.

**what a performance by Pitt, by the by, he’s pretty impressive in comedy mode, when he can let loose his movie star charisma instead of playing dour and serious (I’m looking at you, Benjamin Button).

I love gangster movies. I love the fedoras, the guns, the cars. I love the patter, the clothes, the robberies. I love how inherently tragic they are: in these movies, crime is exiting, seductive, but ultimately fatal. It used to be because of the production code, of course, but I can understand why it stuck: it’s part of the allure of the gangster that he’s not only pursued by the police, but also, more figuratively, by the inevitability of his (and sometimes her) own death. They live life as fully as they can because they feel so acutely that it could end at any time, try as they might to convince others – and themselves – that they’re immortal. Ironically enough, of course, they are immortal in a sense, because they survive in the public’s imagination. They survive in those gangster movies, and they would probably not live on so fiercely if not for their magnificent deaths. If they were not doomed.

Ok, ok, I’ll scale back on the hyperbole and try to avoid using one platitude after another, but Public Enemies has gotten such a lukewarm reception overall (and admittedly the occasional rave), that I just want to embrace it all the more. I loved this film. Wait, not past tense. I love this film, and I want to go see it a second time as soon as I get back from France (they’re only screening the dubbed version close to where I am). I am in love with this film, somehow. And I don’t agree at all with the detractors that call it cold.

Oddly enough, I’m not even such a big Mann enthusiast. I like and admire his films, but up until now, I’ve always considered them a bit too dour, a bit too earnest. I’ll admit it’s been a while since I’ve seen most of them (and after this great piece and Matt Zoller Seitz’ great video essays, I certainly want to revisit some), but I never really sensed much pleasure in them, or thirst for life. Public Enemies, in my experience, has those – maybe not in spades. I hesitate to say this since it’s not grand or exaggerated, but it’s there in the gracious movement with which John Dillinger jumps over a counter when robbing a bank, it’s in the brash way that he seduces Billie Frechette, it’s in his fascinated expression as he watches Clark Gable on screen at the Biograph.

Some have complained about the lack of a coherent story line. It’s true that there are loose strands in the narrative, particularly concerning Billy Crudup’s J. Edgar Hoover, who basically disappears after a promising debut, but compared to the borderline abstract Miami Vice, I had no complaints. In fact, I rather like the somewhat impressionistic snatches we get of Dillinger’s life: they cohere enough not to feel like isolated scenes, and Dillinger himself probably wanted to see his life as nothing more than a collection of highlights. Another criticism is that Dillinger is a cypher, and that Depp’s portrayal too inscrutable, but I disagree. “What do you want?” “Everything. Right Now”. It’s almost literally Antigone’s “Je veux tout, tout de suite!”, from the play by Anouilh I saw in high school. In that play, Antigone is portrayed as a stubborn teenager, and it’s a profoundly teenage feeling she and Dillinger express. He might be 30, but he is stuck in a teenage mentality, as evidenced also by his clear sense of invulnerability.

Speaking of invulnerability (and here be SPOILERS, so skip the next paragraph if you haven’t seen the movie): can we talk about how astonishing the scene is with Dillinger at the Chicago police headquarters? It’s possibly the best scene in the film, and it’s amazingly filmed, with a gauzy kind of lightning, and a great sense of motion. You’re walking along with Dillinger, barely believing what you’re seeing. Like Wile. E. Coyote: the trick is not to look down, or gravity will kick in. Dillinger isn’t the type to look down, and he soars.

Don’t I have any nits to pick? Sure. For instance, about twenty minutes before the ending, I thought “see! You can film great, engaging, possible to follow action scenes without using slo-mo! Take that Zack Snyder!”… and then the final scene arrives (Dillinger’s final scene, anyway). It felt like the movie, which up until then had dexterously walked the line between realism and mythologization fell over the edge towards the latter. I understand Mann’s motivation, and in all honesty it’s a gorgeous scene, but I think it might have been even better without it – or maybe I’d just like to be the movie to be more like Bonnie and Clyde.

Public Enemies is no Bonnie and Clyde, but it comes a lot closer that I thought it would, and it does put a (slightly) new spin on a very old and venerable genre. Mostly, it gives the genre a new feel. I’m not digital video convert yet, but Mann’s managed to make a thoroughly movie-ish movie with it, that both pays homage to the classics and manages to be fresh and relevant.

I was reading the famous Kael essay about Cary Grant, “the Man from Dream City“. The excerpt below was a revelation: ironically enough, I finally understand now why I’ve always found Clark Gable (whose mustache Johnny Depp sports in the amazing last fifteen minutes of Public Enemies) infinitely more seductive than the suave, but distant Grant:

The romantic male stars aren’t necessarily sexually aggressive. Henry Fonda wasn’t; neither was James Stewart, or, later, Marcello Mastroianni. The foursquare Clark Gable, with his bold, open challenge to women, was more the exception than the rule, and Gable wasn’t romantic, like Grant. Gable got down to brass tacks; his advances were basic, his unspoken question was “Well, sister, what do you say?” If she said no, she was failing what might almost be nature’s test. She’d become overcivilized, afraid of her instincts–afraid of being a woman. There was a violent, primal appeal in Gable’s sex scenes: it was all out front–in the way he looked at her, man to woman. Cary Grant doesn’t challenge a woman that way. (When he tried, as the frontiersman in “The Howards of Virginia,” he looked thick and stupid.) With Gable, sex is inevitable: What is there but sex? Basically, he thinks women are good for only one thing. Grant is interested in the qualities of a particular woman–her sappy expression, her non sequiturs, the way her voice bobbles. She isn’t going to be pushed to the wall as soon as she’s alone with him. With Grant, the social, urban man, there are infinite possibilities for mutual entertainment. They might dance the night away or stroll or go to a carnival–and nothing sexual would happen unless she wanted it to. Grant doesn’t assert his male supremacy; in the climax of a picture he doesn’t triumph by his fists and brawn–or even by outwitting anybody. He isn’t a conqueror, like Gable. But he’s a winner. The game, however, is an artful dodge. He gets the blithe, funny girl by maneuvering her into going after him. He’s a fairy-tale hero, but she has to pass through the trials: She has to trim her cold or pompous adversaries; she has to dispel his fog. In picture after picture, he seems to give up his resistance at the end, as if to say, What’s the use of fighting?

Many men must have wanted to be Clark Gable and look straight at a woman with a faint smirk and lifted, questioning eyebrows. What man doesn’t–at some level–want to feel supremely confident and earthy and irresistible? But a few steps up the dreamy social ladder there’s the more subtle fantasy of worldly grace–of being so gallant and gentlemanly and charming that every woman longs to be your date. And at that deluxe level men want to be Cary Grant. Men as far apart as John F. Kennedy and Lucky Luciano thought that he should star in their life story. Who but Cary Grant could be a fantasy self-image for a President and a gangster chief? Who else could demonstrate that sophistication didn’t have to be a sign of weakness–that it could be the polished, fun-loving style of those who were basically tough? Cary Grant has said that even he wanted to be Cary Grant.

And for women, if the roof leaks, or the car stalls, or you don’t know how to get the super to keep his paws off you, you may long for a Clark Gable to take charge, but when you think of going out, Cary Grant is your dream date–not sexless but sex with civilized grace, sex with mystery. He’s the man of the big city, triumphantly suntanned. Sitting out there in Los Angeles, the expatriate New York writers projected onto him their fantasies of Eastern connoisseurship and suavity. How could the heroine ever consider marrying a rich rube from Oklahoma and leaving Cary Grant and the night spots? Los Angeles itself has never recovered from the inferiority complex that its movies nourished, and every moviegoing kid in America felt that the people in New York were smarter, livelier, and better-looking than anyone in his home town. The audience didn’t become hostile; it took the contempt as earned. There were no Cary Grants in the sticks. He and his counterparts were to be found only in the imaginary cities of the movies. When you look at him, you take for granted expensive tailors, international travel, and the best that life has to offer. Women see a man they could have fun with. Clark Gable is an intensely realistic sexual presence; you don’t fool around with Gable. But with Grant there are no pressures, no demands; he’s the sky that women aspire to. When he and a woman are together, they can laugh at each other and at themselves. He’s a slapstick Prince Charming.

The boyfriend and I are currently at my parents’ place for a few days. He has a thesis to finish, and this was the only way we could have a sort-of holiday together. On Saturday evening, after some delicious home-made sushi, I sent him upstairs to finally get some work done, while I sat down in front of my parents’ large HD flat screen, and put in the DVD of Paris, Texas I had rented.

A word about HD screens: I’m not convinced. I know, I know, all the cinephiles are going ga-ga over BluRay and even bigger, sharper screens… I should be, too. But I like my old best of an analog TV, and I don’t mind if things are a little bit fuzzy, soft. The problem with the new and improved images it’s that they’re TOO REAL, somehow. So read that instead of the characters, I see the actors. Instead of the world of the movie, I imagine sets. As I tweeted not too long ago, I don’t want my movies to be “life-like”. I want them to be movie-like.

Still: I have to admit that Paris, Texas looked absolutely gorgeous, and for the first time, I wasn’t bothered. Maybe HD is growing on me. Maybe Wenders’ images benefit from the extra surreality (or is that a pleonasm?). Maybe it’s just because this is one of those movies you can get lost in, forgetting everything around you.

The amazing thing is that he makes so much out of so little. The plot is fairly simple, the characters are sketchily outlined, the relationships elemental. Two brothers, two wives, a son.

What makes the movie more than that are individual scenes, which probably sound corny and awkward in description, but which -against all odds- work perfectly. Take, for instance, the scenes in which Travis bonds with the son he hasn’t seen in 4 years, Hunter. First, the son doesn’t want to walk home with Travis, fleeing with a friend. But he mellows, and the next time Travis waits for him after school, they start walking home – together, but on opposite sides of the street. Hunter imitates Travis’ movements, and they smile. Then, finally, Travis joins Hunter on his side of the street.

It sounds overly symbolic, doesn’t it? Leaden, even. But it’s a moment of beauty.

Another improbable scene comes at the end, when we see Natassja Kinski, Travis’ wife Jane, for the second time. It’s a scene laden with exposition, with two characters in a tightly enclosed space, barely moving, just talking. It’s the scene in which we finally find out what, up until now, had only been hinted at, something that maybe we could have done without knowing. But the way the scene is played, the way it staged and the way the dialogue is written, not to mention the bravura performances by Harry Dean Stanton and Kinski, make sure the scene is fascinating. Unlike many other scenes of exposition, it sounds like a conversation these two people might actually have.

Furthermore, the message they want to convey is not verbalized explicitly. When Travis tells his version of what happened, it’s partly to show he understands what he did wrong, but before that it’s simply about getting her to recognize him – and making sure that she is, indeed, who he thinks she is. Later, when she finishes the story he started, it’s not to inform him of what happens, but more indirectly, it’s to tell him how she feels now.

It’s an epic scene, and it could have gone off the rails at a number of moments… but miraculously, it doesn’t.

The film is full of such small miracles. I didn’t really like the score – too twangy for me- or the fetishization of americana, but aside from that? I loved it. It’s the kind of movie that makes you realize, once more, just how much power movies have. And that’s rare enough that it deserves to be treasured.

The boyfriend has two big man-crushes. The longest standing one is on the Gubernator, but currently the most prominent one is on the guy who’s already been anointed the new big action hero: Jason Statham. I’d seen a few of his movies b.BF. (Lock Stock, Snatch, The Italian Job), but with him I’ve also dived into some of his less… reputable flicks, most notably the Transporter, The Transporter 3, Death Race, The Bank Job and now Crank.

The odd thing is that Ah-nuld and Statham are quite different. I want to say they’re like the immovable object versus the unstoppable force, but that’s not quite right. The main difference is that while Arnold is strong and seemingly invulnerable, Statham is less imposing but incredibly kinetic. It’s no coincidence, I think, that so many of his films revolve around some kind of clock or count-town. While he always seems reluctant at first, once he starts going he’s always in motion, always racing. The scary thing about Schwarzenegger in the Terminator was that he was unrelenting: you could outrun him for a while, but he’d never stop coming. What scares Statham’s opponents is that you never see him coming, and you never know when he’s going to show up.

Of course, in these movies, the women are mere eye-candy, and depicted in rather stereotypical fashion. In these testosterone-driven action movies, the women are mainly there to provide the man with motivation, whether it’s revenge or (more often) rescue. The romantic interest the hero has in the girl is often quite limited, often enough: she’s there to affirm his heterosexuality, but too much sappiness would undo that.

Dismissing the depiction of these girls as “sexist”, however, is a little pointless. A much more interesting way to look at gender in these movies is to focus on the depictions of masculinity, and it’s in that respect that Statham is more interesting than Schwarzenegger. The latter, despite his “Mr. Universe” title and a tendency for shirtlessness, is never really presented as a sexual object. His muscles are a symbol, and maybe even envied by some, but I don’t think many women find Arnold attractive. Statham, however, is consistently depicted as desirable, and not just because he kicks ass: his body is lingered on, for instance when a hospital stay in Crank leads to several gratuitous shots of his ass, and when a fighting scene in The Transporter finds him covered from top to bottom in oil.

Transporter 3 is the movie in which this fetishization becomes most obvious, and when I was watching it I had the vain hope (for all of 5 minutes) that the movie was doing something truly transgressive: that it was openly admitting the objectification of its hero by emphasizing the “feminine gaze”. First, during a fight, we see Valentina (the Ukrainian girl Statham’s Frank Martin’s been saddled with) looking on lustily, especially after Martin takes off his jacket, then shirt, to use as a weapon – a signature move. Later, she steals his keys, and orders him to strip for her.

I was amazed by this scene, and in a good way: it’s not often (outside of an Axe-commercial) that you see a woman showing such focused, unapologetic lust. Women are supposed to get turned on because of words, specific actions, scent. Not over someone’s chest. What’s more, while Statham is annoyed at first, he goes along with it: the woman is the agent here, the man the passive participant.

Then of course, in the next scene, they’re all lovey dovey and he’s become her sworn protector.

Can I have a *yuck*? Thus, Transporter 3 went from being the potentially most transgressive and interesting film in the Statham oeuvre to just another second sequel, with action scenes not quite up to the simplicity of The Transporter or the outrageousness of Crank.

Speaking of Crank, I think I’m a little in love with that movie. It’s not good, far from it, but at’s least it’s never boring or lazy. Its style is crazy and very disjointed, but it’s visually inventive, consistently surprising, and it knows exactly how to use Statham’s coiled energy. It’s exciting, it’s over-the-top, it’s funny… and I can’t wait to see the sequel, which -I’ve heard- manages to take it up a notch, somehow. I’m almost tempted to check out Pathology the only other film by directing due Neveldine/Taylor. Almost.

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Inspired by this great video essay by Matt Zoller Seitz and Kim Morgen, I recently re-watched In a Lonely Place with the boyfriend, who’d never seen it. I loved it, even more than the first time, for all the reasons mentioned in the essay, and had to wipe away a tear or two by the end.

The boyfriend, however, was lukewarm. This made me think, since his two main points of criticism made quite a bit of sense. First of all, he deplored that Gloria Grahame’s Laurel Gray, who starts out the film as a self-possessed, assertive woman who knows exactly what she wants (and doesn’t want), turns into a loving, subservient pillow-fluffer overnight, whose happiness depends entirely on the mood of her man, and who is scared of him to boot. His second problem with the film was that he had a hard time empathizing with Dixon Steele, because of his violent temper.

See why I love him?

Anyway, while I think it’s great that my guy likes strong, independent women and abhors mindless violence (outside of video games and karate class, that is), this leads me to the following question: why doesn’t Laurel lose my sympathy? And why doesn’t Dixon? Aside from the fact he’s played by Bogie, of course.

Lauren is easy, so let’s start there: it’s scary, to lose yourself in a relationship. It’s been more than a year, and I’m still not quite use to thinking about myself as part of a couple. It scares me that I’ve changed, in both good and bad ways: I write less, I’ve become quite a bit mellower, my hair’s much longer… It scares me how easy and unnoticeably it happened, and that I have become a less interesting individual because of how much of myself is now invested in a bond with someone else.

At the same time, to quote Kim, it’s perfectly normal to long for love, “the kind that causes characters to throw that ‘Baby I don’t care’ caution to the wind” – or even just the kind that makes this avowed feminist enjoy preparing lunch sandwiches for her guy in the morning. Laurel becomes a less interesting character when she becomes Dixon’s girlfriend, but the fact that she falls so hard is especially interesting because she started out so strong-willed. He captures her imagination, and it’s through her eyes that we fall for him.

This is exactly, in my eyes, what makes this film so alluring – and disturbing. Dixon Steele IS a very troubled guy, someone women (and men) should probably stay away from, someone mercurial and dangerous. It’s not hidden in the slightest: he almost gets into a fight right off the bat, and he’s the one provoking it. But he provokes him with such witty lines and smart quips and the guy he provokes is so obviously an asshole that it stacks the deck. Then, when he gets to the club, we understand that he’s a talented screenwriter who’s unwilling to sell out and be a “popcorn salesman”. Furthermore, while he does get into an actual fight here, the fact that it is for a noble cause – the defense of a drunk actor – and that, again, the other party is clearly not a nice guy, makes sure that we stay on Dixon’s side.

We fall for him. Like Laurel, we start off just liking his face, but then we fall in love and we start making excuses for his temper. If it’d been just another silly blonde like the coat-check girl fawning over him, we might’ve had our doubts. But because Laurel, who seems so level-headed, loves him, it gives us permission to love him too, overlooking that “he’s exciting because he isn’t quite normal.” Like her, we get more and more scared of him, let doubts enter our mind… but he never entirely loses our sympathy, because he never entirely loses her love. In effect (if you want to draw it into hyperbole, and take an analogy entirely too far), the movie puts you in in the shoes of a battered wife, forever making excuses.

I suppose that’s my argument: the two problems the boyfriend had are linked. You need to empathize with Laurel to be able to sympathize with Dixon. I don’t think the ability to do so is divided along gender lines. But it might just say something about how you see love – and how much you’re willing to overlook for it.

Ok: so, I’ve been increasingly frustrated by the fact that I’m no longer writing, and that this blog is dead. Furthermore, participating in the terrific TOERIFC discussion of Black Book reminded me that there is some tremendously insightful, engaging, thought-provoking writing about film (and all kinds of other things) being done, but not by me (unless you count twittering).

So: on this thunderstormy night I sent the boyfriend to a poker tournament, and told myself I’d write. Just write. No idea what it’ll be, but let’s start with a round-up of what I’ve been watching recently. 100 words per film. I can’t promise it’ll be worth reading, but it’ll at least be something. Ready? Set? Go.

June 2nd: The Misfits (Huston, 1961)

I’ve never really understood the Marilyn Monroe cult. The fascination with her life, I mean. She was a tragic figure, but in my opinion not so intriguing. As an actress, I find her alternately infuriating and fascinating. In The Misfits, she’s the latter: child-like but obviously damaged in some way, beautiful but frail and flighty. Eli Wallach and Montgomery Clift are great too, but to me it’s Clark Gable who elevates this movie above its rather unfocused plot, which meanders quite a bit on its way to the very poignant ending.

June 5th: Terminator 2: Judgment Day (Cameron, 1991) and June 7th: Terminator Salvation (McG, 2009) – seen in the cinema.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day is pretty much everything you want from an action sequel. It takes everything that made the first movie great, turns it up to 11, and adds some delightful elements to boot. Linda Hamilton, whose Sarah Connor was a ditzy Mary-figure in the original, is fierce here: obsessive, verging on crazy, and BUILT. The bonding between JC and Arnie as his surrogate father figure is dopey and somewhat corny, but it works. And Robert Patrick is scarier and seemingly unstoppable as T-1000. There’s even a nice undercurrent about morality, and if you can punish someone for something they haven’t done yet. In one word, it’s awesome.

And then there’s Terminator Salvation. I’ll admit: I was in a good mood and was going along with it for the most part. My expectations were low, and while I don’t believe in shutting off your critical faculties entirely even for a popcorn flick, I was just trying to enjoy the ride and the wham-bam effects, despite Bale’s boring glowering, the effects-for-effects’-sake, the lack of nuance and humor… and then came the ending, and I realized just how bad this movie is. “The power of the human heart”- seriously? Worst of all, the new movie never made clear why exactly John Connor was so crucial to the Resistance. *spoilerish* in my eyes Marcus was the more valuable asset *spoilerish*. I won’t even get into the whole nonsense with Helena Bonham Carter. I think this is best treated like the sequels to The Matrix.

June 8th: Mala Noche (van Sant,1985)

I have a confession to make: for the last couple of month, roughly until I saw L’Avventura (more on that movie later), I had a hard time concentrating on movies. I was watching quite a few, happily checking off movie from the “They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They?” list, but my netbook was always close by, and I rarely managed to immerse myself in movies. All this to say to Mala Noche: it’s not you, it’s me. I’m sure I’ll give the movie another shot: it was beautiful to look at, and I usually find van Sant’s fascination with, and observation of, young boys (cf.) fascinating. But this time around, it was a letdown.

June 8th and 9th: The Woman In the Window (Lang, 1944).

Even “minor Lang” (to use a The Squid and the Whale-via-filmspotting expression), like this rather straighforward little noir, is worth watching. Especially, of course, if it stars the amazing Edward G. Robinson. I’ll admit his role, as a stodgy professor who feels just a little confined in his comfortable life, is not one of his most interesting, and he makes some head-desk worthy decisions… But those are explained by the ending, which is a bit of a cop-out but not an unsatisfying one. It’s not among the great noirs, but its a testament to the genre that even the lesser films are very entertaining. Then again, with this director and star, anything else would have been surprising.

June 10th: Birth (Glazer, 2004)

Based on the premise of this film, I dismissed it. Seemed too mystical and new-agey, But I kept hearing good things about it, and I love Glazer’s Sexy Beast, so when I saw it was on television (and on one of the few channels without commercials, to boot) I relented.

I’m glad I did. It’s an odd little movie, but while I can’t say I love it completely as a while, it’s pretty much perfect on a scene-by-scene basis, from the stunning credit sequence through the modulated reactions of everyone around Nicole Kidman’s Anna to the ending, which is anticlimactic but somehow not really disappointing. I can’t wait what Glazer does next.

June 11th A Matter of Life and Death/Stairway to Heaven (Powell & Pressburger, 1946)

Come to think about it, this is not a bad pairing with Birth. Does love transcend death? I don’t think it does, but Powell and Pressburger do make a convincing case. Powell is great, I loved the fact that Heaven was in B&W while the earth was Technicolor, and the Britain vs. US discussion is hilarious.

June 13th: The Brothers Bloom (Johnson, 2009) – seen in the cinema with my dad

Like all good con movies, this one is a con on its audience, too… But not in the way you’d expect. The events aren’t that unpredictable: what’s unpredictable is that – as, according to the movie, in all great cons – you get exactly what you want in the end. I loved how Johnson played with the notion of storytelling being a con-job (though he did lay it on a bit thick at times). Also, like Wes Anderson before him, he makes great use of Adrian Brody’s long limbs and sad-clown face. The grasp he has on the movie’s tone isn’t as firm as with Brick, but when an opening scene already makes me giddy, I don’t feel like complaining too much.

June 14th: Imitation of Life (Sirk, 1959)

I liked this much more than I thought I would, and was pleasantly surprised by the inclusion of race and sexism as topics… But is it bad that I enjoy the homage (specifically Todd Haynes’ Far From Heaven more?

June 18th: In the Heat of the Night (Jewison, 1967)

I think this is the first Sydney Poitier movie I’ve ever seen… I know, I’m terrible. He’s amazing, obviously. The movie… well, the atmosphere is great. The mystery? Let’s just say I’ve already forgotten most of it. It seemed a bit too much like a message movie to me, but since the message is unfortunately still relevant, it’s hard to blame it for that.

June 20st: Bottle Shock (Miller, 2008)

I lost some serious movie-nerd cred with this one: I picked it as a safe rental for the whole family (always difficult to find, seeing how diverse and strongly opinionated my family is)…and they hated it. I didn’t quite, but let’s face it, even Rickman can’t save this formulaic, maudlin mess. Pretty postcard pictures, though.

June 21st: The Trial (Welles, 1962)

Remember I said I had some trouble concentrating on movies? This one suffered most. Will report back one I feel I’ve actually watched it, instead of just vaguely registering some scenes. The opening is aptly unsettling though, and Perkins is well-cast.

June 24th: L’Avventura (Antonioni, 1960) – seen in the cinema

The movie that ended my funk, and the last one I’ll discuss here. As readers of this blog might know, I’m quite an Antonioni-aficionado, but since his films aren’t exactly widely available, I’ve only seen a rather narrow selection of his films. In fact, I’d only seen the four I own on DVD: L’Eclisse (my only Criterion, a lovely film), his first fiction feature, Cronaca di un Amore, which is a surprisingly inconclusive variation on the wife-and-lover-conspire-to-kill-husband theme, and two english-language films I love, Blow-Up and The Passenger. I was understandable psyched when a retrospective of his work was announced, but unfortunately I could not make it to either Red Desert or La Noche.

However, I did see L’Avventura in all its glory, up on a big screen in a dark room. It was exactly what I needed: a slow, deliberate film in which very little happens, which is absolutely worthless and uninteresting if you don’t pay it your full attention. It reminded me of why films are worth immersing yourself in, about how much you miss if you focus only on the overall plot. Don’t get me wrong: I didn’t love L’Avventura, not as much as Blow-Up and The Passenger in any case, maybe not even as much as L’Eclisse. But I love that it re-invigorated my love for film.

It’s quite amazing, really, how much Antonioni’s movies pull you in despite keeping you at a distance. They lull you into a sense of security with their everyday, ordinary details, their often uninspired, pedestrian dialogues. And then you fall into the big emptiness that lies beneath his pretty surfaces. Monica Vitti had the perfect face for his movies, really, impenetrable and cool but promising something more.

That’s it for now – I’m tired, it’s late, and this post is way too long. I know the writing is very workmanlike, but I hope to build up to insightful and sharp gradually. Most importantly: I wrote. Writing something good… well, let’s see if I can do that again soon.