Blog post #7
Some great filmmakers aren’t great writers, perhaps because they deal in images rather than words. When I read David Lynch’s memoir, I remember deflating with some disappointment, then relieved when the journalist Kristine McKenna (with whom he collaborated) returned every other chapter. The French New Wave directors started as critics, but a lot of their essays are impenetrable (I’m very happy to put that down to my own lack of intelligence). Try reading François Truffaut’s A Certain Tendency of the French Cinema and your head might turn into a boulder.
But Martin Scorsese is different. He writes intelligently yet accessibly… to a point. Maybe the extensive film references would burden many who don’t like film history as much as me. His latest essay, published this week in Harper’s Magazine, discusses the Italian director Federico Fellini at length – weaving in scrutiny of algorithmic marketing and adoration for the art of curation. It’s beautifully written, nostalgically driving me back to my teenage years: watching everything I could. It was a childish obsession, better than being with people.
I miss those days because I don’t think that love has ever returned to its peak. Studying Film Production at university disenchanted me for a while. Many students around me weren’t interested in discussing the philosophical messages in Terrence Malick movies. Or the formalist choices in Breathless. Or the real meaning behind Mulholland Drive. They were more engaged in the mythologies in Marvel and Star Wars. Worse still, my geekery was more invested in The Lord of the Rings and Doctor Who, which – unfortunately – didn’t mingle with theirs. They’d rather remake or continue their favourite films than put a piece of themselves in their work. I was the same, in some ways, but I never wanted to remake The Thing or sequelize Predator. I wanted to make profound, surreal art films. I didn’t really comprehend what that meant, but I pretended I did.
Scorsese reinvigorated those feelings right from the off. I’ve always romanticised that period in movies, the transition between the Golden Age of Hollywood and the rebellious, defiant cinema of the late sixties and early seventies. Like Scorsese remembers, at the time the popularity of world cinema was surging and Hollywood studios were struggling. It was an exciting time to be alive.
I love what he says about curation and so-called ‘content’, though I disagree with some of it. Algorithms are lamentable, often amoral, equations but they are based on one’s tastes and offer more to enjoy. I wouldn’t have found the excellent Spanish Netflix series Valeria, for instance, if it weren’t recommended for me. Then again, that came as a result for my new interest in international series, which was ultimately my choice. And curation, to a degree, does treat the audience as a consumer – just a more enlightened, educated and curious one. There’s a reason why studios opt for genre filmmaking: because it works. It was their version of an equation, a format to be gobbled by the masses like a Pepperoni Passion at Domino’s.
However, I do agree with the general idea that just because a film is exceedingly successful, and suits a lot of consumers’ behaviours, that doesn’t mean it’s good. And like him, I worry about people going through their lives without experiencing great cinema because it’s not recommended by a robot. Some at my university clearly considered these blockbusters as the routes to success and riches and fame, which is why remakes were so appealing to them. A lot of them didn’t care about the history. I remember saying something pertaining to film history, and a friend got annoyed at me. He said, ‘I just like the films.’ So do I! But aren’t you interested in how your favourites arrived here? What had to happen for them to be made like that?
Some over Twitter criticised this elitism. It can be rife on #FilmTwitter, often ostracising those who haven’t yet seen a specific classic (I imagine it’s worse for marginalised voices, too). I used to be one of those snobby elites, despite not deserving to be, but now I don’t feel it’s fair to scrutinise people – even critics – for that knowledge gap. I haven’t seen any of Pedro Almodóvar's feature films, for instance. I’ve watched very little Agnès Varda or Jane Campion. I also stare blankly when architecture is mentioned, stumble my mouth around fashion, and can’t get my head around quantum physics. But if you’re a critic or filmmaker and have no urge or curiosity to investigate the ancestry of cinema… are you actually interested in the medium?
The irony is that these fellow filmmakers made great stuff and I didn’t. Maybe that disproves my point. Maybe it’s just the critics and film buffs that need to worry about these relatively minor issues. But I still hope intelligent, non-algorithmic discussions about movies aren’t dead, and that Scorsese won’t be the last to inspire and resume these cinephilic passions.
HIGHLIGHT OF THE WEEK
The Father
The Father with Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Colman
Dementia is well-covered in the movies, but it’s been filling the film schedule over the last six months or so. Supernova, Relic, Dick Johnson Is Dead, even I’m Thinking of Ending Things touched on the disease. But none of them even attempted what Florian Zeller achieves in The Father, starring Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Colman.
This film, based on Zeller’s play, is told completely from the dementia-sufferer’s, Anthony’s, point of view. It proceeds in a maze of disfigured puzzle-pieces, which you and he gradually put together. It reminded me of the labyrinthine confusion of Charlie Kaufman and the scattered surrealism of Luis Buñuel, with a touch of Andy Nyman and Jeremy Dyson’s underseen horror film Ghost Stories. But there’s an emotional layer to this. Anthony’s confusion and distress tumbles into our own. It’s an overwhelming experience, befuddling the brain and crushing the heart. My review’s coming on Tuesday, but the official release date is up in the air at the moment.
Other highlights:
The much-discussed documentary Framing Britney Spears finally came to the UK, on Sky Documentaries. (It was announced the day before its broadcast, which probably hassled a lot of TV listings people.) Although there’s a clear absence of explicit evidence that Britney’s father is taking advantage of her career, entering into a conservatorship after her mental breakdown, her treatment is nevertheless horrific elsewhere. The way tabloids and paparazzi treat people is far from human. You see photographers rush to Britney like zombies to a fresh corpse, hoping to sell newsworthy pics for loadsamoney. I’m always wary of giving celebrities too much sympathy, but in this case it’s deserved. I expect there’ll be many more Britney docs in the making over the next few years, eventually reaching the truth of the matter.
I started, binged, and finished Barry on Sky Comedy. I didn’t know what to expect from this, but I heard many good things. I love it entirely. At first, I thought it was Tarantinoesque because of the mixture of violence and humour. But it’s actually more in common with The Coen Brothers and their subtlety and patience. Bill Hader is yet another comedy actor who proves he has the chops for dramatic performances, which turns meta as he plays a paid assassin who wants to become an actor. There are many absurd and nihilistic moments to enjoy, put together so beautifully, but my favourite episode is season two episode five (thank me later).
Bill Hader in Barry, Sky Comedy
76 Days is a gruelling documentary film that just came to Sky Documentaries. It actually came out on 21 January, but only on the distributor’s website. It enters a hospital in Wuhan between January and April 2020. The camera’s quiet, fly-on-the-wall, simply observing what’s happening while clutching onto whatever stories it can. It struck me that a lot of doctors and family members emphasise the need to not cry, to keep the emotions reigned in. One son even derided his aged father, who dedicated his life to the Communist Party but cries every night in hospital. It’s a tough watch, but a valuable one.
I was curious about pre-CMBYN Luca Guadagnino, so I watched his 2009 film I Am Love. Guadagnino makes his movies into holidays: you can feel the Italian sun on your face, hear the crickets in the countryside, relax into the opulence of his near-palatial settings. I Am Love follows a wealthy Milanese family who’ve inherited their grandfather’s business. Emma (Tilda Swinton) is a Russian émigré, wife to the heir of the fortune, who has an affair with a Russian chef. The final act turns a bit soapy, the ending difficult to understand, but it’s a lovely movie to simply look at it – the locations so delicious in a time of being stuck.
I Am Love
What I’ve written this week:
My review of Behind Her Eyes. I spent last Friday watching all six episodes, which I couldn’t talk about because of embargoes. It is utterly ridiculous, but I have to commend the series for keeping me guessing and dissolving my narrative expectations entirely.
My review of I Care A Lot, for which I didn’t care that much. But it’s worth watching just for Rosamund Pike, who gives a fabulously psychopathic performance as a duplicitous legal guardian for the elderly.
Rosamund Pike in I Care A Lot, Amazon Prime
My review of To Olivia. A tedious biopic of Roald Dahl after he and Patricia Neal lose their daughter Olivia. The director never leans properly into his subject matter, skimming over everything and boring everyone in the process.
My review of Bloodlands. Quite engaging detective drama based in Belfast, with The Troubles still hanging over everyone. It becomes a little confused with the number of people’s loyalties and deceptions, but James Nesbitt is perfect in the role.
