Higher Gossip’s Top Ten (+1) of 2013

It’s taken a while but we’re back; here are Higher Gossip’s Top Ten (+1) Films of 2013.

Without further ado:

10+1. The Conjuring

This is a special ‘Hamish Loves Horror’ Honourable Mention in the top ten; James Wan’s  opus was the year’s most purely enjoyable exercise in shivers. Distinguished by its mouldering ’70s production design and terrific scream queen performances from Vera Farmiga and Lili Taylor, Conjuring is a compendium of haunted house tropes that offers a virtuoso demonstration of horror craft, at once winkingly mischievous and completely sincere as it plays the audience for scares and laughs like Hitchcock’s proverbial piano.

You’ll Like It If You Like:

• Insidious
• House of the Devil
• The Amityville Horror
• The Exorcist

10. To The Wonder

Although ultimately destined to be viewed as a minor work in Terence Malick’s catalogue, To The Wonder is unique in that it represents perhaps the fullest realisation yet of Mr. Malick’s rapturous sense of beauty, the strong influences of paintings and dance on his work, and the depths of emotion plumbed by replacing character and psychology with vision and mood. Mr. Malick’s film – his first set in the present day and the first to deal directly with romantic love – finds overwhelming tenderness and beauty in an admittedly thin story of passion, marriage and betrayal that all but erases the line between the secular and the sacred. In bringing its deeply considered and coherent worldview to the screen, To The Wonder demonstrates that Mr. Malick’s filmmaking, contrary to popular belief, is both earthbound and rich in human feeling.

You’ll Like It If You Like:

• Terrence Malick
• Beautiful things

9. The Counsellor 

One of the year’s most divisive films, Ridley Scott’s The Counsellor suffered critically and commercially not as a product of its own quality, but as a product of the quality of the film it was expected it to mirror – No Country for Old Men. Although both films are penned by Cormac McCarthy and set in the South-West, the similarities end there; where No Country was a relatively straight-ahead thriller backed by a career-defining performance from Javier Bardem, The Counsellor is nothing short of a potboiler, a gonzo neo-noir shot in searing yellows and browns that looks and feels like the fever dream of its eponymous protagonist (Michael Fassbender).

This is just one of several possible interpretations that The Counsellor leaves open – to the irritation of audiences and critics, McCarthy’s dialogue often obfuscates motivations, and the film’s plot is intentionally abstracted, offering the viewer an incomplete picture of what’s happening at any given moment. But irrespective of whether we are awake or dreaming, The Counsellor is a  a triumph of mood and style — gorgeously filmed and wonderfully acted by the year’s second-best ensemble cast (Brad Pitt, Javier Bardem, and especially Cameron Diaz all deliver outstanding performances here), and overflowing with lyrical, poetic dialogue that finds pitch-black comedy in the horrific events that Mr. Fassbender unwittingly sets in motion. As with Mr. Scott’s Bladerunner, The Counsellor appears set for posthumous rather than contemporary critical recognition; but those willing to embrace its daring vision were rewarded with one of 2013’s most enjoyable cinematic experiences. 

You’ll Like It If You Like:

• Cormac McCarthy
• Quentin Tarantino
• The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
• Women having sex with cars

8. American Hustle

American Hustle – David O. Russell’s ridiculous, deliriously enjoyable collection of 70’s caricatures run amok in a harebrained FBI scheme – is everything good and bad about Mr. Russell’s films in one sprawling, polyster-and-hairspray covered package.  There’s an anarchic energy to the film – a sense that the characters onscreen could behave in spontaneous, irrational ways at any given moment – and it plays perfectly to the strengths of the magnificent ensemble cast (apologies to The Counsellor, but Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Jeremy Renner, and Amy Adams is a difficult matchup for anyone). Unfortunately, as was the case in Mr. Russell’s vastly overrated Silver Linings Playbook,  the director’s style is more flair than finesse; several plot threads are left hanging, and the motivations behind some of the film’s more surprising shifts in the storyline are left murky at best. With that in mind, even where American Hustle feels a little messy, it’s still a fantastic 70’s pastiche and caper dramedy, and the craft contributions alone (the snub of Hustle for hair/makeup at this year’s Oscars is one of the more inexplicable in recent memory) are more than enough to paper over some of the cracks in the narrative.

You’ll Like It If You Like:

• The 1970’s
• David O. Russell
• The sight of Bradley Cooper in hair-rollers
• Caper films

7. The Wolf of Wall Street

From the freeze frame grotesques to Leonardo diCaprio’s incessant narration and unapologetic celebration of money, drugs and power, Wolf of Wall Street – Martin Scorsese’s unruly, bacchanalian biopic of stockmarket hustler Jordan Belfort – is, at first glance, a paean to its creator’s earlier work. This is old-school Scorsese – flexible narrative form, a restless, sweeping camera, rapidfire dialogue, and at the centre, Mr. diCaprio in his biggest performance yet as one of Marty’s charismatic sociopaths, straining to free himself from the ghosts of Ray Liotta and Robert De Niro. In fact, Wolf  is almost self-consciously Scorsesean – Rodrigo Prieto’s elaborate cinematography and Robbie Robertson’s classical rock and blues focussed OST are at the center of every scene. But where in the past Mr. Scorsese has found reserves of empathy in even his most despicable characters (even Travis Bickle and Max Cady), here Marty and screenwriter Terrence Winter take Belfort and his life story on its own terms, refusing at any point to judge his actions or consider their consequences. Like Belfort’s own memoir, on which the film is based, Wolf is at first and last a film about the allure of the behaviour we want to desperately to condemn – spectacular and energetic beyond belief, and, if a little sloppily edited and over-long, a fascinating excursion to the serrated edges of morality

You’ll Like It If You Like:

• Martin Scorsese
• Getting rich quick
• Quaaludes

6. Blue Jasmine

Woody Allen’s elegant update of Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire  is the director’s finest work in two decades; a beautifully balanced mix of the comedic and the tragic, punctuated by marvellous cinematography and outstanding work from a talented cast, including the two female performances of the year from Cate Blanchett as Jasmine, a down-at-heel New York socialite, and Sally Hawkins as her hardworking adoptive sister. Their relationship is the nexus of film, and sees Mr. Allen working at the harder edges of his oeuvre, as the two sisters – naturally, a blonde and a brunette – face off against each other across the  great American boundaries of class and taste. The script artfully plays with our sympathies – the more time spent in the company of the two women, the less clear it is that Jasmine deserves her fantasy world of extravagant wealth, but the more inclined the viewer is to root for her success, in spite of her appallingly selfish and neurotic behaviour. The supporting characters of Jasmine’s new life are given a similarly complex treatment; despite their coarse and, at times, boorish behaviour, Blue Jasmine acknowledges that the working-class of Hawkins’ Ginger, her fiance Chilli (Bobby Cannavale in an wonderful performance) and her ex-husband Augie (Andrew Dice Clay) have far more ‘class’ than their upscale counterparts. This dichotomy is the true bite of Mr. Allen’s film, and what makes it an instant classic with much contemporary relevance – despite their obvious differences in sophistication and socio-economic background, by revealing more than one side to every character in the film, Blue Jasmine shows us that they all may have a valid point.

You’ll Like It If You Like:

• Woody Allen
• Tennessee Williams
• Snappy dialogue
• San Francisco

5. All is Lost

As close to a purely existential picture as American cinema has seen in years, J.C. Chandor’s All Is Lost finds the sophmore director branching out wiht a picture that could scarcely be more different from his excellent 2011 début, Margin Call. Where Margin Call was defined by its sparkling dialogue and intelligent handling of complex relationships within an investment back on the eve of the financial crisis, All Is Lost places a solitary figure at the centre of a film that, aside from a quietly mournful opening monologue, contains three or four lines of dialogue at most. With no background or exposition, viewer identification is reduced to the simplest, most primal level of wondering whether the character stranded alone at sea – referred to in the credits as ‘Our Man’ and played by Robert Redford in an career-best performance – will survive. It’s a measure of how carefully the film avoids the usual dramatic expedients and manipulations that the answer to that question is never entirely obvious; Mr. Chandor has stripped his drama of any extraneous meaning or message, be it allegorical, metaphorical or spiritual. All Is Lost is what it is – a man exercising his skill and limited options to attempt to survive in the face of disaster. Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea is clearly a strong influence on proceedings – as we spend more time in Our Man’s company, it becomes clear that it is not his destination, or even his survival, that matters, but rather the dignity and honour of his struggle. Coupled with Mr. Redford’s outstanding performance as the experienced yachtsman and Mr. Chandor’s assured direction is Frank DeMarco’s tight, fluid cinematography, shot exclusively in wide-angle lenses to lend a sense of space to proceedings even as the camera works within the confined spaces of the vessel. All Is Lost is a marvellous, devastating picture, and one that was unfairly overlooked during the awards season as a result of its early release date.

You’ll Like It If You Like:

• Gravity
• Ernest Hemingway
• Survival pictures
• Brilliant acting

4. Gravity

Alfonso Cuarón’s frightening, astonishing ‘Gravity‘ is an overwhelming cinematic experience, both white-knuckle thriller and stark spiritual odyssey. Over a lean, immersive 91 minutes, Mr. Cuarón’s first feature film in seven years is a work of great narrative simplicity and visual complexity – at once an experiment in blockbuster minimalism and challenge to the limits of modern cinematography that marries the thrills of classic Hollywood popcorn fare with the sense of wonder, abject terror, and profound isolation invoked by the infinite expanse of space. Aside from the revelatory cinematography, post-production 3D conversion is uniformly outstanding, as is the magnificent score provided by Steven Price, which quiets and booms in time with the action on-screen so intuitively that it seems an extension of the audience’s own reactions. The coherent combination of these elements across the extraordinarily difficult tracking sequences and single-shot takes is a feat worthy of discussion as a revolution in the way films are made; the entire crew is richly deserving of the Oscars they received during the film’s sweep of the technical categories. Sandra Bullock and George Clooney’s performances, whilst worthy of (faint, in Ms. Bullock’s case) praise , are not the point; Gravity stands out as a both magnificent cinematic achievement and fantastic viewing experience, not as an actor’s showcase. The film is at turns terrifying and awe-inspiring, always absolutely engrossing, and a worthy contender for film of the year.

You’ll Like It If You Like:

• All Is Lost
• Moon
• Apollo 13
• White-knuckle thrillers

3. The Great Beauty

Paolo Sorrentino’s The Great Beauty is, fittingly, 2013’s most beautiful film; a hypnotic paean to the intellect framed as a cutting dissection of the societal diversions of modern day Romans. The film unfolds as a series of vignettes tracking the slow awakening from mental paralysis of Toni Servillo’s Jep, a critic whose one novel haunts him with his own unrealised artistic promise. Jep’s interaction with the Neros of his life – a group of empty bourgeoisie who fiddle over martinis whilst Rome falls in thrall to empty pleasures – tackle major topics using an expertly balanced combination of minute detail and sweeping story arcs, and, in so doing, show the film as Mr. Sorrentino’s love letter to both Rome and to the great Italian cinema of the past – especially Fellini’s La Dolce Vita and 8 1/2. Beauty’s cinematography is a joy, as Luca Bigazzi’s camera meticulously frames each character against the impossibly beautiful backdrop of the Eternal City; indeed, Rome has rarely looked better, as Beauty shows off the city’s palaces, aqueducts and fountains. Despite the almost overwhelming magnificence of his setting, though, Mr. Sorrentino never loses sight of his aim with Jep’s Dantesque figure always on hand to guide the viewer through the empty decadence of modern Rome. The Great Beauty  is a both a creative and artistic masterpiece, and deservedly stands not only as the best foreign film of 2013, but as as the high-water mark of 21st century Italian cinema.

You’ll Like It If You Like:

• Rome
• Italian cinema
• Incredibly, hypnotically beautiful things.

2. Mud

Mud shares an intimacy of texture and mood with director Terry Nichols’ previous films, 2007′s Shotgun Stories and 2011′s Take Shelter; all demonstrate a comprehensive familiarity with the the spiders, snakes, waterside houses and decaying rural terrain of the Arkansas delta. Mud, though has none of these films preoccupation with the adult world of violence and fear. Rather,  it is a sweet hearted (but never sappy) coming-of-age tale, following the fourteen year old Ellis (Tye Sheridan), who lives on a houseboat with his separating parents, and his best friend Neckbone (Jacob Lofland), raised in a trailer by a ne’er-do-well uncle (Michael Shannon), as they pilot their boat to an island in the Mississippi. There, they find a boat lodged in a tree by the last flood and inside meet Mud (Matthew McConaughey), a fugitive hiding out, waiting for his white-trash goddess Juniper (Reese Witherspoon) to join him.

There is no doubt Mr. Nichols could have told the same story in half the running time (the film clocks in at a leisurely paced 130 minutes), but specific plot is secondary here to the gradual transformation afoot. Taking Mud’s warning that “You gotta watch yourself” as mantra, the film tracks Ellis’ growing self-reliance and disillusionment with the adult world, even as he fast approaches entering it himself, and represents a confident expansion of Mr. Nichol’s ongoing enquiry into the nature of American masculinity. The loose, organic visual style and dialogue employed here (clearly influenced by the films of Terrence Malick) complements the measured pacing well; open air footage shot on the river and at the island contrasts against the brief interludes into civilisation, and the defiantly literary script combines with David Wingo’s subtle score to skilfully ease audiences into the regional vernacular and verbal rhythms of the delta. Mud is a rarity; a bildungsroman that plays out with a psychological and emotional depth usually lost in the transition from page to screen, and one that not only stamps Mr. Nichols as one of Hollywood’s most talented young auteurs, but stands out as the warmest and most fundamentally enjoyable film of the year.

You’ll Like It If You Like:

• George Washington
  
• Stand By Me
• No Shelter
• Mark Twain

1. Inside Llewyn Davis

2013′ s best film goes (hands down) to the Coen Brothers’ contemporary adaptation of Joyce’s Ulysses, Inside Llewyn Davis. Springing from the same highly personal end of the Coens’ creative spectrum responsible for ‘Barton Fink’ and ‘A Serious Man’, Davis is a bleak, quietly comic odyssey elliptically framed against the Greenwich Village folk revival in 1961. The film traces the titular character, a guitar-strumming folk musician played in a star-making turn by Oscar Isaac, over a week of his life as he struggles to assert his artistic integrity against what he sees as the oppressively commercial nature of the music industry. Llewyn is introduced lost in song onstage at MacDougal Street’s Gaslight Cafe circa 1961 — not coincidentally, the year that a certain freewheeling tumbleweed from Minnesota would turn up on the folk scene and change it forever. Leaving the Gaslight for the night, he is confronted in the back alley by a shadowy figure, who lays him out with one punch.

From there, Davis adopts the odyssey narrative the Coens have employed on several previous occasions, most notably and successfully in “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”; waking up on what seems like the next morning in the apartment of a friendly academic, Llewyn pulls himself together and sets off on the long subway ride back to the Village — but not before accidentally letting out the pet cat. For the remainder of Davis, the cat seem to lead Llewyn from one adventure to the next as he tries to pull his life together, like Leopold Bloom on the trail of a feline Dedalus.  Llewyn drifts along, sitting in as a session musician and, in the movie’s surrealist centerpiece, traveling to Chicago in the company of a a stony-faced actor and a drug-addled, partly paralyzed jazzman (played with magnificent brio by John Goodman) to audition for a storied manager and clubowner (F. Murray Abraham in a scene-stealing performance). In another film, this would be the moment when Llewyn is finally discovered and can start paying the rent – but instead, the Coens banish him back to New York to continue pushing his boulder up life’s steeply angled hill.

Yet for all the pain in Davis, there is also abundant joy — primarily expressed in the film’s magnificent soundtrack,  arranged by T-Bone Burnett and sung live on set by the actors. Both dramatically and musically, the film excels at depicting the many varied styles that wound up grouped under the folk umbrella, and technical contributions are outstanding on all counts; especially the wintry, desaturated cinematography and the inspired period detailing of both sets and costumes, creating a bygone Greenwich Village abounding with cramped cold-water flats and Kafkaesque hallways narrowing toward eternity. In keeping with the Coens’ interest in matters of Judaism and identity, Davis also touches on the folk scene’s abiding spirit of cultural reinvention, which allowed a Jewish doctor’s son from Queens to become the singing cowboy Ramblin’ Jack Elliott (a model for the movie’s Al Cody, played by Adam Driver).

Davis is a creative highpoint for the Coens and a magnificent picture in its own right – a fitting tribute to Joyce, the 1960’s, and the enduring appeal of the American musical tradition.

You’ll Like It If You Like:

• Folk music
• The Coen Brothers, especially their earlier work
• James Joyce
• John Goodman

The Thinking Man’s Blockbuster : ‘Gravity’, Reviewed.

Space ails us moderns; we are sick with space.

 

– Robert Frost.

Alfonso Cuarón’s frightening, astonishing ‘Gravity‘ is an overwhelming cinematic experience, both white-knuckle thriller and stark spiritual odyssey. Over a lean, immersive 91 minutes, Mr. Cuarón’s first feature film in seven years is a work of great narrative simplicity and visual complexity – at once an experiment in blockbuster minimalism and challenge to the limits of modern cinematography that marries the thrills of classic Hollywood popcorn fare with the sense of wonder, abject terror, and profound isolation invoked by the infinite expanse of space. 

As is clear from the stunningly choreographed opening sequence — an unbroken, roughly 13-minute long take that plunges the viewer immediately into the deafening silence of space — Mr. Cuarón and long-time cinematographic collaborator Emmanuel Lubezki have mastered, perhaps for the first time in the history of cinema, the technical brilliance and visionary direction required to bring a sense of verisimilitude to such an alien environment. The Earth’s massive form looms large in the widescreen frame as an orbiting shuttle gradually cruises into focus; is the camera moving toward the craft? Vice versa? Both? Or is it the Earth’s rotation controlling the shot? Are all three variables working in tandem? As perspective seamlessly shifts within the unbroken shot from the unimaginably macro perspective of the entire planet to tight focus on a single dislodged bolt floating towards the screen, it seems that the laws of physics applying to the camera – still extant, bent as they are, in space – have fallen away completely, giving the viewer a sense of the weightlessness of the astronauts alone in the void. 

Unlike Stanley Kubrick‘s ‘2001: A Space Odyssey‘ – to which it has lazily been compared – ‘Gravity’ is more physical than philosophical, rooting a decidedly secular exploration of the divine in a simple survival narrative: two astronauts, the experienced Lt. Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) and nervy first-timer Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) are working on the Hubble Telescope when word comes from Houston (Ed Harris – a respectful nod to ‘Apollo 13‘) that speeding debris from an exploded Russian satellite will soon hit their location. The space shrapnel arrives with vicious force, taking out Kowalski and Stone’s shuttle and presumptive ride home, forcing them to find an alternate way back to Earth.

In this first hail of mayhem – conducted in the complete silence of an environment without the ability to carry sound – Stone is set adrift, ‘off-structure’, tumbling weightlessly over and over whilst cut off from communication with Houston and Kowalski, all the while breathing too fast and using up her oxygen. In modern film, a sense of terror is nearly always driven by the fear of the unknown thing behind the door, which, sooner or later, materialises; here, the fear is of quite literally nothing at all – endlessly spinning into infinite nothingness. The exhilarating weightlessness conjured during the film’s opening minutes is suddenly terrifying, as the camera seamlessly zooms higher and tighter until it seems to enter the rotating Stone’s helmet, granting us a view of the black expanse before her only interrupted by her increasingly panicked breath fogging the glass before her eyes.  In doing so, Mr. ­Cuarón places the viewer inside the frame and subject to the primal fight-or-flight instincts engendered by disorientation – a sensation that doesn’t let up for the remainder of the film.

It would be unfair to reveal either the challenges (to strike fear in the hearts of claustrophobic and agoraphobics alike) or the lifelines thrown to Stone over the course of the rest of the film, suffice to say that Kowalski, played with a gregarious and almost glib heartiness by Mr. Clooney, serves to provide first glimpse at the possibility of survival. Though Mr. Clooney’s charms may seem out of place in this context, his rapport with Ms. Bullock is genuine; never more apparent than during one audacious appearance late in the film where Ms. Bullock – and the viewer – are rapidly pulled through various stages of shock, disbelief, and finally, understanding seemingly on the basis of his star power alone.  Despite Mr. Clooney’s magnetic presence, however, this is Ms. Bullock’s film – at its heart, ‘Gravity’ is a story of one woman’s lost faith rediscovered in the fire of the base survival instinct. Whilst some of the script’s emphasis on the depths to which Stone is alone in space is a little on the nose – this writer is of the belief the audience would have been sufficiently invested in the journey back to Earth without the need for an emotional hook – Ms. Bullock provides a dignified and convincing performance in an extraordinarily physically demanding role that rivets attention through to the film’s conclusion.

Aside from the revelatory cinematography, post-production 3D conversion is uniformly outstanding, as is the magnificent score provided by Steven Price, which quiets and booms in time with the action on-screen so intuitively that it seems an extension of the audience’s own reactions. The coherent combination of these elements across the extraordinarily difficult tracking sequences and single-shot takes is a feat worthy of discussion as a revolution in the way films are made; the entire crew is richly deserving of the Oscars surely already being inscribed by the Academy. It is also noteworthy that in such a bold, forward-thinking production, considerable thought has been put to paying respects to other cinematic exploration into space – ‘Apollo 13’, ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ and others all see their dues across the course of the film. 

Overall, ‘Gravity’ is both magnificent cinematic achievement and fantastic viewing experience. The film is at turns terrifying and awe-inspiring, always absolutely engrossing, and a worthy contender for film of the year. 

5 stars

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A Terrible Love: The National’s ‘Trouble will Find Me’, Reviewed.

In a break from the usual movie reviews, I was lucky enough to sit down with Montresor lead guitarist and all around rock star Cam Piko to discuss our shared love of The National, and review their new album Trouble Will Find Me.

5 Second Review (using actual band lyrics).

Cam: Raise our heavenly glasses to the heavens! Squalor Victoria! Squalor Victoria!

Ham: This isn’t working, my middlebrow fuck-up.

Consensus Best Track: Fireproof

5 Minute Review (using actual original thought).

Cam:

I always feel like it’s always too early to review an album by The National. Kings of the slow burn (incidentally, I highly recommend that be the title of their next album), The National are not one for instant hooks or riffs. Instead they fall into the atmospheric soundtrack and post-rock arena of gradual builds and quiet epiphanies, the latter almost entirely due to Matt Berninger’s cryptic lyricism and his baritone contemplating-in-a-dark-bar-over-a-glass-of-whiskey vocal delivery. What this leads to is something that takes a long, long time to unpack. Their 2007 release Boxer was something upon release I kinda liked, and then stopped listening to. A few months later, I couldn’t understand why I ever stopped; it’s now one of my favourite albums of all time.

Having said that, I’m thoroughly enjoying their latest release, Trouble Will Find Me. It’s an already incredibly mature band further maturing, with intelligent songwriting choices by brothers Aaron and Bryce Dessner. Over their last two big releases, the aforementioned Boxer and 2010’s High Violet, The National had appeared to have exhausted all possibilities of their rather niche sound – Berninger’s relatively limited range and drummer Bryan Devendorf’s athletic, counter-intuitive drumming style, while grounding the group seemed fully explored over these two albums. I’m happy to say I was wrong. The Dessner’s throw changing time signatures into the mix – alternating between 8 and 9 beats in the hypnotic ‘I Should Live In Salt’, following that with the brooding 7/4 of ‘Demons’ – and further explore odd structures in 4/4 (‘Sea of Love’) and build and build and build to anthemic climaxes (‘Graceless’). This isn’t to say there aren’t nods to the past, there’s a return to the guitar-heavy beauty of Boxer in the heart-rending ‘Fireproof’, but there are some big changes here I’ve not yet touched. Over half the album is a prominence of synths and female backing vocals, things present on past albums but never to this extent. Which, some people have a problem with. Like this one guy I know. He writes this blog.

Ham:

Ack! My untrained ears are burning! I should start by saying for anyone who doesn’t know that I have no background or training in music whatsoever, beyond a passing familiarity with the banjo, guitar and harmonica, whilst obviously you’re the real life guitarist of a real life rock and roll band. So, when I listen to an album, I don’t listen as a musician, I listen as, well… a listener, I suppose. In that sense, my views on this album are a bit different than yours – although I agree with everything you’ve said (except not loving Boxer on release. Really, dude? Come on).

With that in mind, I’m coming into this review with a good base of band-specific knowledge, as I’ve been listening to The National since way back in the Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers days. I think it’s interesting you make the post-rock comparison, as that’s something I hadn’t really thought about before in terms of their music, though I suppose it’s obvious now that I think about it – The National really are, as a band, all about building atmosphere through music. From time to time their lyrics can be a bit abstract (some might say sophomoric… “I’m secretly in love with everyone I grew up with”; “When I walk into a room, I do not light it up… F@#$”), and, as you rightly point out, they’ve been drilling deep into the same musical vein for a while now – really ever since they first introduced a wider variety of orchestration into the mix on Boxer – but what they do well is create music that evokes a specific mental and emotional landscape, one that’s isolated (but not alone), confused, and a little uneasy at the prospect of life beyond the next track. Here’s where I think it splits a little from post-rock, and for that matter, from its Americana roots – it’s not just the instrumentation that’s creating this existential milieu (like say, Explosions in the Sky), nor is it just the lyrics (like your bog standard folkster who tells, but doesn’t show); it’s the combination of the band’s disparate elements coming together. Each piece is essential to the specific atmosphere that makes The National unique; nothing’s replaceable, and nothing really needs to be added to achieve what the band is already good at, what it does (what it’s trying to do), and that’s what I think they’ve messed with a little on Trouble Will Find Me.

Don’t get me wrong, I think that every artist has the right to go on out there and do something completely different and new and wonderful (or otherwise) with their creation, and we as fans aren’t entitled to complain when they deliver something we don’t like just because it isn’t like what they’ve produced before. That said, I think splicing new and disparate elements into what’s already there when you choose not to develop the underlying foundations at all is a little strange – it’s like building the perfect sandwich, closing the bread, admiring your creation, then layering more ingredients on the top. Delicious, but ultimately superfluous to what you’re attempting to achieve. Want a different meal? Don’t sandwich stack – make soup! What Matt Berninger is doing when he starts introducing a female backing vocalist on every song and underscoring most of the notes with synth instead of their traditional horn and string arrangements without fundamentally changing the texture of his music is creating a sandwich stack, and one where the ingredients on the outside don’t really match those within.

Given how aggressively masculine both the musical arrangements (from the propulsive drumming and heavy bass to Berringer’s unrelenting baritone) and the lyrical content have been on their past records and continue to be on this album, it grates to hear what almost sounds like a different band playing underneath most tracks. The sound mixing is pretty low on these elements, so you need to either be listening on decent headphones or with the treble cranked to get to them without their being drowned out by the driving bass and drum lines. The fact they’re featuring this new material without bringing it front and centre or isolating it on its own track smacks to me of a band that’s perfected its sound, but is second-guessing itself about whether or not that’s a good thing; rather than substantially changing, they’re just tinkering. It’s having a foot in both camps, and not one that I particularly enjoyed hearing. I think it’s pretty instructive that by far the best track on this album, ‘Fireproof’, harks back to the stripped down sound of Alligator. What do you think, Cam?

Cam:

It’s interesting you mention ‘Fireproof’ again, because to me the most crucial element of that song (apart from Berninger’s fantastic vulnerable vocal performance) is actually one of the newer inclusions: the synth. It helps avoid the track escape its own Nationalness; the chorus follows the melody of the “you’re dumbstruck baby” section from ‘Racing Like A Pro’ a little too closely. But it’s not like the synth is even particularly present – a single note after Matt sings the titular line – however it underlines and perfectly encapsulates the darker aspects of that track. And every time it comes through on the chorus, it seems more and more powerful.

After all, this is a band that has moved through sounds before. Look at the drumming on ‘Cardinal Song’ off Sad Songs   for Dirty Lovers and compare it to any track of their last few albums – is this even the same guy? Which brings me to this one question: haven’t they adjusting and tweaking their sonic foundation for a while now? In the early albums like Sad Songs, it’s clearly just a case of a band finding their sound. But in the world of post-Boxer, they have a firm understanding of what works for them. And all that is left then is to – quite bluntly – change shit up.

In fact, what I find most interesting about your take on this latest album is how fundamentally different you find it to previous releases. I felt High Violet featured more extreme and obvious attempts to inject new life into their material. From the sheer WTF factor in the looped noise that bookends ‘Little Faith’, to the piano accordion on my unquestionably favourite National tune, ‘Afraid of Everyone’, to the over the top (and totally epic) choir in the climax of ‘Conversation 16’.

The whole point I’ve been making – or at least, been trying to make – is that Trouble Will Find Me overall uses a more subtle approach, with The National taking more intelligent choices with how they structure their tunes. I would say, in comparison to High Violet, The National have actually removed some of those excess sandwich toppings. Instead of relying on the overall grandiosity of High Violet (an album where every alternate track ends in a gloriously noisy anthemic mess), they revert to a more stripped down sound. This gives the band room to focus on the compositions themselves and change their foundations that way. To me it’s nothing to do with the backing vocals or synths – they’ve dabbled in that before. The difference is more basic and fundamental: their approach to songwriting.

However, I can certainly see validity in arguing that by stripping down, The National are trying to return to their Boxer sound and failing. Personally, I find there are enough new ideas being explored in this album that I quickly dismiss this thought. But perhaps it is actually this that is grating you so much? After all, you agreed that the backing vocals and synths are pretty low in the mix.

Ham:

Well met, Sir. Although I think you’ve slightly missed the point of my criticism, that’s my fault – I should have been clearer about exactly what it is that bugs me so much about the female backing vocals and synth on Trouble Will Find Me. There’s certainly a fair old bit of sandwich stacking in terms of musical experimentation on High Violet, just as there was on Boxer, for that matter. The difference is that it doesn’t feel out of place in the band’s already existing musical and lyrical structures because what they’re using there (a choir here, a piano accordion there) still meshes with the overall ‘sound and feel’ of the band. It grows the sound without altering it.  Take ‘Bloodbuzz Ohio’, for instance. Heavier synth and backing vocals (male) that don’t clash with the baritone and hard rhythms of the main track make it memorable in a way in that it’s different from, say, ‘Apartment Story’ on Boxer whilst still retaining a distinctly The National Sound. The issue I take with what Berninger and Co. have done here is that the ingredients they’re throwing into the mix clash with what’s being put down by the rest of the band.

It’s not that they’re adding new strains to their music, it’s that they’re adding elements that sound like they belong with an entirely different band, and really that’s what I just can’t get past when I listen to this record. In fact, and I’m just going to come right out and say this: that’s why I’m unlikely to even consider Trouble Will Find Me next time I feel like I want to listen to The National. I just can’t get beyond the feeling that I’m listening to two different and contradictory sounds at once, and that’s something that’s really out of place in the catalogue of a band which usually produces such an unusually focused and internally consistent sound, whether that’s on the stripped down tracks of Alligator or the lusher textures of Boxer and High Violet.

That said, there’s still a lot of what makes The National great on this album. Propulsive drumming, well integrated keys and strings, and introspective (and occasionally insightful) lyrics make this no less than you’d expect from a band that, for all my problems with their current direction, really do know how to create a brilliant sense of mood. I wouldn’t recommend this album as an entry point for someone looking to start listening to The National, and nor do I think this comes close to stacking up against any of their releases after Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad album. In fact, it’s a testament to how strong The National’s catalogue is that I’m giving this album such a hard time – for most other bands, Trouble Will Find Me would be a creative and musical highlight. Unfortunately, for The National, it’s not, and it’s unlikely I’ll be playing it again anytime soon.

Cam:

Well, haven’t we reached quite the impasse? Where you see dissonance, I see cohesion. Originally (before this brologue began), I barely registered the elements you seem so focused on, so well did I think they fit in with the band’s atmosphere. I wish we could have found some more common ground than the dreaded cliché of agreeing to disagree, but from what I can tell our positions are only further entrenched after this discussion. Or, to employ some Wittgensteinian philosophy (and thus validate some of my time at university), we’re tackling this from two irreducible representations. I see these new elements as almost synonymous with those present on High Violet, for you that’s impossible. Which is interesting, but I don’t think either of us is going to convert the other.

Once the initial shock of odd time signatures fades, Trouble Will Find Me gives me no surprises. And not in a bad way. It’s just that where the band is sonically and in their career, this album makes complete logical sense to me. Mr Broody and his League of Extraordinary Broody-men are getting older now, and the music is reflecting that. It’s more mature, it’s more considered and I get the distinct feeling I’ll be unpacking Trouble Will Find Me for a while now. There are also really pretty guitars, powerful drumming and an epic baritone that can lull me to sleep while singing a’bout the world ending. And that’s all I ever wanted.

Ham:

I’ve always liked to think that in art and in life ultimately we pursue not conclusions, but beginnings, and although we’ve reached a point in our dialogue where we’re both entrenched in our opinion, I think that we’ve begun at least trying to listen to something we both enjoyed (even if I didn’t love it) in different ways. There’s been some sound, and maybe some fury, and it’s all been very worthwhile – thanks for lending me your ears!

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Hillbillydungsroman: ‘Mud’, Reviewed.

All kings is mostly rapscallions, as fur as I can make out.

– Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Decades after the work of William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, and Mark Twain, the American South remains a repository of great stories — people living off the grid, the decaying grandeur of ramshackle houses, ways of life on the verge of disappearing.  In the past five years on the screen alone, audiences have seen Debra Granik’s drama about the methamphetamine racket in the Ozarks, Winter’s Bone, starring Jennifer Lawrence; Benh Zeitlin’s watery parable, Beasts of the Southern Wild, with Quvenzhané Wallis; and now Jeff Nichol‘s fantastic Mud —all independently films made in which a powerful fable has emerged from the poetic detail of a hardscrabble daily existence.

Mud shares an intimacy of texture and mood with Mr. Nichols’ previous films, 2007’s Shotgun Stories and 2011’s ominous Take Shelter; all demonstrate a comprehensive familiarity with the the spiders, snakes, waterside houses and decaying rural terrain of the Arkansas delta. Mud, though has none of these films preoccupation with the adult world of violence and fear. Rather,  it is a sweet hearted (but never sappy) coming-of-age tale, following the fourteen year old Ellis (Tye Sheridan), who lives on a houseboat with his separating parents, and his best friend Neckbone (Jacob Lofland), raised in a trailer by a ne’er-do-well uncle (Michael Shannon), as they pilot their boat to an island in the Mississippi. There, they find a boat lodged in a tree by the last flood and inside  meet Mud (Matthew McConaughey), a fugitive hiding out, waiting for his white-trash goddess Juniper (Reese Witherspoon) to join him. He’s loved her since childhood in a life spent following her, parting from her, and beating up – and, in the most recent case, killing – the men that treat her badly. Now, the dead man’s family has formed a murderous posse that’s just arrived in town looking for him. The boys, stirred by an adolescent sense of idealism and romance, set out to help him; though it’s clear Mud is something of a con artist, a “born liar” in the words of his own sweetheart, he’s the centre of their secret life – a romantic outlaw who lives by portents and magic, and, especially for Ellis, something of a mentor.

Mr. McConaughey continues his mid-career transformation into a character actor of formidable skill here as Mud – lean and tattooed, with scraggly blond hair and a chipped tooth, he still retains in his rhythmic drawl an inveterate charm as king of the hill on his deserted island. Messrs. Sheridan and Lofland, though, are the stars of this film – they are brilliant as a pair, never for a moment unconvincing as lifelong friends passing into adulthood together. They communicate with few words and gestures, but intuitively understand the other’s actions, and their characters complement each other well; Ellis is perceptive and sensitive, whilst Neckbone is tough, stubborn, and powerfully loyal. The comparisons to Twain’s Huck and Tom Sawyer are obvious, but invited – Mr. Nicholls had his two young thespians study Twain’s work on set, and has here brought to life all of the great man’s deep understanding of adolescent masculinity’s best qualities – loyalty, a thirst for adventure, and a generous, involuntary chivalry. Mr. Nichols, though, is no plagiarist – Ellis’ quest, spurred by his parents impending divorce and his own clumsy first steps towards adult relationships, is to understand what kind of love will last, if there even is such a thing; this theme is incontrovertibly Mr. Nichols’ own.

There is no doubt Mr. Nichols could have told the same story in half the running time (the film clocks in at a leisurely paced 130 minutes), but specific plot is secondary here to the gradual transformation afoot. Taking Mud’s warning that “You gotta watch yourself” as mantra, the film tracks Ellis’ growing self-reliance and disillusionment with the adult world, even as he fast approaches entering it himself. The loose, organic visual style and dialogue employed by Mr. Nichols here complements this measured pacing well; open air footage shot on the river and at the island contrasts against the brief interludes into civilisation, and the novelistic script combines with David Wingo’s subtle score to skilfully ease audiences into the regional vernacular and verbal rhythms of the delta. Mud, in this sense, is a lesson to aspiring film-makers in how to build a world fully steeped in a sense of place without having to resort to picturesque cutaways.

Though the movie is beautifully filmed and formally plotted, turning on a number of symmetries and variations of repeated themes, it holds a rough, country sensibility that is well-complemented by both lead actors and supporting cast – Sam Shephard as a mysterious old man, Sarah Paulson as Ellis’ long-suffering mother, and Ray McKinnon as his hardy, insecure father are all worthy of mention.

Mr. Nichols here confidently expands his ongoing enquiry into the nature of American masculinity, and stamps himself as one of the most talented auteurs currently working in Hollywood. Mud elegantly unfolds from Ellis’ perspective, allowing adult audiences the privilege of calling on their own life experience to foresee certain developments he is too naïve to see coming. This film is a rarity; a bildungsroman that plays out with a psychological and emotional depth usually lost in the transition from page to screen, and one that will surely take its place as one of the warmest and most fundamentally enjoyable films of the year.

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A Fanatic Heart: ‘Shadow Dancer’, Reviewed.

Out of Ireland have we come,

Great hatred, little room,

Maimed us at the start,

I carry from my mothers’ womb,

A fanatic heart.

– W.B. Yeats, ‘Remorse for Intemperate Speech’ in Collected Poems.

Though director James Marsh chooses not to take sides in his gripping, intelligent thriller Shadow Dancer, one can’t help but feel Yeats’ measured acceptance of the necessarily violent nature of the Irish struggle for independence in this tale of a young mother’s betrayal against the backdrop of The Troubles in the early 1990s.

Shadow Dancer opens in 1970s Belfast on young Collette McVeigh (Maira Laird) making the  formative decision to send her brother Seán (Ben Smythe) in her stead to purchase cigarettes for their father. Soon after, Seán is fatally shot offscreen during an exchange between sectarian forces – the faroff shouts and pops of gunfire contrasted against the abrupt chaos of a bleeding Seán being rushed back inside the house are skilfully used to to establish a constant sense that underneath the film’s muted surface lurks a barely concealed violence waiting to erupt.

Leaping forward to 1993, Mr. Marsh capitalises on this early momentum with a gripping, wordless sequence following the fully adult and radicalised Collette (Andrea Riseborough) as she attempts to plant a bomb in a London tube station. Ultimately  arrested by the authorities and dragged to a shrouded motel room to face MI5 agent Mac (Clive Owen),  it is revealed Collette is the product of a famous Republican family, and she is warned that unless she becomes an informant she will be arrested and her young son taken into care. At first defiant, she eventually agrees to supply information on her two brothers, IRA soldiers Gerry (Aiden Gillen) and Connor (Domhnall Gleeson).

This crisp, economical opening  masterfully sets the tone of a Belfast – and United Kingdom – divided. Indeed, schism is a recurring theme of the film – from the ruthless internal security of the IRA (a terrifying David Wilmot) constantly searching for traitors in his own ranks to the British intelligence agencies working against them, each of whom appears to have their own clandestine (and contradictory) agenda. “Relax,” Mac is instructed by the icy senior officer (Gillian Anderson) when he questions what’s going on behind closed doors – “We’re all in this together”.  What exactly ‘this’ is – the pursuit of the ‘national interest’ or simply following the violence through to the bitter end – becomes less and less clear as the film spins a labyrinthine web of deception and confused allegiances.

Tom Bradby‘s script (adapted from his own 2001 novel) closely links the paramilitary operations of the IRA and the blood bonds of family, showing admirable patience as the extent of Collette’s divided loyalty is gradually revealed. With minimal dialogue, the film’s suspense is largely drawn from the powerhouse performance of Ms. Riseborough; cloaked in bright red against the muted palette of Belfast, her Collette is an enigma, revealing her innermost thoughts only at the last. Mr. Owen provides able support (and necessary star power), giving a complex (if at times overly morose) performance as Mac’s paternal feelings towards Collette compete with his duty to country. Ultimately, though, this is Ms. Riseborough’s film – save a few brief moments of action, including a brilliantly staged IRA funeral, the majority of the picture is a detailed, focused study of the competing demands of terrorism, family, country, and faith on one woman.

Mr. Marsh’s highly disciplined and effective direction is beautifully offset by an atmospheric score by Dickon Hinchchliffe, and with its fierce female performances, Shadow Dancer represents a hypnotic alternative to the bombast of the summer blockbuster season. It is rare to be reminded that not all terror comes from the Middle East or North Korea – rarer still to see such thoughtful, apolitical examination of its consequence.

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Humourless Comedy: ‘The Hangover III’, Reviewed.

With comedy, you have no place to go but more comedy, so you’re never off the hook.

– Steve Martin

Todd Phillips has dedicated his career to what could (uncharitably) be called ‘lowbrow comedy’, responsible for such gems as Old School, the enormously underrated Starsky and Hutch, and, of course, the Hangover trilogy. It is a surprise, then, to see Mr. Phillips’ new film, The Hangover III, emerge as a convoluted, bizarrely plotted ‘thriller’ out of the shell of what was once the most successful R-rated comedy of all time. Sadly, although Mr. Phillips and co-writer Craig Mazin should be applauded for abandoning scrambled chronology and drug-fuelled anarchy after the diminishing returns of 2010’s disappointing The Hangover II, what they have crafted here enjoys the worst of both worlds – there are neither laughs or thrills to be found, and one can’t help sympathise with star Bradley Cooper (looking supremely disinterested here after a string of recent dramatic successes) when he pointedly asks “What the fuck are we watching?”.

In the event you’ve missed the two previous instalments, the film’s main cast is comprised of the ‘Wolfpack’: man-child Alan (Zach Galifianakis), de-facto leader Phil (Cooper), and straight men Doug (Justin Bartha) and Stu (Ed Helms). Where the first two films used the bachelor parties of Doug and Stu as framework for their comedic chaos, however, III opens with Phil, Doug, and Stu being roped into helping stage an intervention for Alan, who has been displaying increasingly out of control behaviour (the trailer should tell you all you need to know about that – let’s just say there may soon be an alternative to ‘jumping the shark’) and is being committed to a treatment facility. Whilst there’s certainly an interesting film to be made detailing the real life consequences of psychotic ‘comic relief’ behaviour, this isn’t it. All Mr. Phillips is setting up here is a derivative chase narrative, leading the Wolfpack by the nose from California to Mexico to Las Vegas for reasons tied to the reappearance of Mr. Chow (Ken Jeong),who has somehow stolen the gold of Las Vegas gangster Marshall (John Goodman).

What follows is a series of prisonbreaks, heists and getaways. Unfortunately, though Mr. Phillips displays a deft hand during these action sequences – the best of which features a climb down the façade of Caeser’s Palalce – the film never comes close to convincing that there’s anything at stake. The comic dialogue and set pieces, too, fall completely flat – strange, seeing as this has previously marked Mr. Phillips’ great strength as a filmmaker.

Part of the problem rests on the film’s decision to elevate the previously bit-part roles of Chow and Alan to full blown starring parts. Though Messrs. Galifianakis and Jeong work valiantly to milk laughs from the largely unfunny script, their characters work better as chorus members than on centre stage. In The Hangover and II, Chow and Alan brought an anarchic energy to proceedings when featured- here, they start to grate soon into the second act. Although the script gives Mr. Jeong more of Chow’s character to work with, his over-the-top effeminacy soon wears thin,  and Alan’s odd, off-putting behaviour stretched over a full 90 minutes erases the relatability his neediness evokes.

With that in mind, there are some welcome callbacks to the lightning in a bottle that made the first (and, to a lesser extent, the second) Hangover such a crossover hit. These largely come from the gang’s return to Las Vegas – Melissa McCarthy has a scene stealing cameo as a lonely pawnbroker, and Heather Graham briefly reprises her role as former stripper Jade.

Overall, though, III is a huge disappointment, although not an entirely unexpected one. Third instalments rarely live up to the standard set by earlier entries (with the notable exception of The Return of the King), and III is no exception. Although fans keen to see the Wolfpack ride again may wish to try this out, and the tech credits are of the high quality to be expected of a major studio picture,  there is little of the chemistry present between the leads so visibly present in The Hangover and II. Most viewers will be better off reliving the glory days of the franchise on DVD than sullying those memories with the tired, arbitrary material on offer here.

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Achtung, Raimi: ‘Evil Dead’, Reviewed.

We find delight in the most loathsome things.

– Charles Baudelaire

Uruguayan director Fede Alvarez‘s bloody, gruesomely entertaining remake of  Sam Raimi‘s original (which was discussed at some length here last week) is a cinematic rarity on two counts: a horror film that does its strongest work in the third act, and a reboot  that won’t leave hardcore fans shaking their heads in anger.

No time is wasted in establishing the film’s premise – five friends travel to a secluded backwoods cabin for the weekend. The catch – it’s not a boozy trip away, but rather an intervention for Mia (Jane Levy) – a drug addict who’s trying to quit cold turkey. Inserting this subtle change from Mr. Raimi’s original is an intelligent move by Mr. Alvarez, as it immediately provides something that The Evil Dead lacked – a plausible reason for the unfortunate victims-to-be to remain at the cabin once the supernatural occurrences start getting out of hand. After all, can’t Mia’s fear of what’s in the woods be explained as a mere byproduct of her withdrawal?

That said, plausibility isn’t why anyone is purchasing a ticket to Evil Dead. A mysterious smell in the basement leads to the discovery of a book, bound in human flesh and inked in blood. Filled with horrific images and mysterious symbols, inevitably the book is opened and  read out loud by the group’s more academically inclined member, Eric (a game Lou Taylor Pucci), releasing a monstrous and foul-mouthed demon who takes possesion of Mia. Mayhem ensues as the demon takes further control, inspiring the possessed co-eds tp begin damaging themselves and each other in increasingly creative fashion.

Specific plot elements and shots instantly recognisable to fans of the franchise are repeatedly referenced, with Mr. Raimi’s groundbreaking camerawork given new life in high definition. However, the wit and self-concious parody that distinguished the original from a raft of similar 80’s horror fare is missing here, with Mr. Alvarez preferring a straight-faced approach to the violence being served up on the hapless victims. That said, there is certainly humour in the sheer scale of the  gore present here, and in the climactic third act the strict approach slackens a little to allow the appropriate respect to be paid to the franchise’s infamous chainsaw.

There are genuine scares to be found here – Mia’s attempted escape through the woods is particularly unsettling – and tension is capably ratcheted up under Mr. Alvarez’s assured direction, with the film refusing to slacken its pace until the climactic final scene (surely a candidate for the bloodiest in cinematic history).

Fans of the original will be pleased to see Mr. Raimi’s work dealt with so reverently, even if it is in a fashion more suited to the gritty realism favoured in contemporary horror than the franchise’s horror-comedy roots (those missing Bruce Campbell‘s presence are advised to stay until the end of the credits). For newcomers to the franchise, fair warning – although Evil Dead is refreshingly free of staid jump scares and the CGI, makeup and camerawork are uniformly outstanding, dismemberment and disfigurement do occur graphically and frequently. That said, you’ll be hard pressed to find a better looking – or more consistently entertaining – horror film in theatres this year.

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A Rotten Crowd: Baz Luhrmann’s ‘The Great Gatsby’, Reviewed.

Poetry is what gets lost in translation.

– Robert Frost.

The goal of the translator is a difficult one – to “transform everything so that nothing changes“. Unfortunately, within the first minute of Baz Luhrmann‘s dreadful adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald‘s The Great Gatsby, it’s clear that Mr. Luhrmann’s attempt to translate Fitzgerald’s work to the big screen has changed, well, everything – and not for the better.

Subtlety of manner and form was a hallmark of Fitzgerald’s work, particularly in Gatsby – filtered entirely through the literary conciousness of Fitzgerald-as-Nick Carraway, much of the book’s majesty is contained within poetic reverie almost entirely extraneous to the plot. Carraway’s solipsistic asides are meant to illuminate the book’s major themes – providing the philosophical backdrop against which Fitzgerald’s characters are framed. The language Carraway employs in doing so is necessarily separate from the language he uses in conversational encounters – he’s in dialogue only with himself, about subjects he understands intimately, and as such, has no use for explicitly stating what he means for someone else’s benefit. Mr. Luhrmann has taken a different approach – why use such a feather to make a point, he seems to ask, when a sledgehammer will do? Rather than allowing Tobey Maguire‘s Carraway to tell us:

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind
ever since.

‘Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,’ he once said, ‘just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.’

Mr. Luhrmann informs us that the same advice was “to always see the best in people”. This writer holds no quarter with forcing a director to include every line of dialogue from a novel he’s adapting – that’s what the theatre is for – but this alteration is a perfect example of why Mr. Luhrmann’s filmmaking is stylistically incongruous with Fitzgerald’s writing. Where Fitzgerald delicately reveals his characters’ complex relationships with each other and themselves through a veil of language, Mr. Luhrmann has always preferred his dialogue as a background to visual spectacle – his characters tend to display their feelings as static bullet points to the audience. The two approaches are oil and water – they simply cannot coexist. In a desperate attempt to resolve the problem, the novel’s most famous lines are not only creakily intoned by Mr. Maguire as narration, but also appear, superimposed, on the screen in script as he types them – just in case, one supposes, the viewer needed any further convincing of the inability of Mr. Luhrmann to adequately transfer Fitzgerald’s work from the page to the screen.

What Mr. Luhrmann does seem to have grasped about Fitzgerald’s writing is that most of its setting is intended to be more parable than fact, filled with images more mythic than real. Occasionally, he works this beautifully into his direction – when Nick walks into the Buchanan parlour to meet his cousin Daisy (Carey Mulligan) and future love interest Jordan (Elizabeth Debicki), impossibly long and delicate white drapes fly about the room in the summer breeze,  just as Fitzgerald’s moved “as pale flags twisting… up toward the frosted wedding cake of the ceiling”. The first meeting between Leonardo DiCaprio‘s Gatsby and Daisy, too, is wonderfully shot; Nick’s tiny cottage explodes with flowers, with Daisy and Gatsby framed beautifully in each shot.

Unfortunately, for the vast majority of the picture this is taken a step (or ten) too far. Parties are a Saturnalian writhing of pearls, flesh, and glitter, driving to the city is a roaring Grand Prix – even the front lawn of Gatsby’s house is rendered in glittering fakeness, with too-green grass and flowers saturated with colour offending the eyes (one can only imagine how confronting they would be in the film’s ‘native’ 3D). There is not a trace of irony in Mr. Luhrmann’s direction as he nakedly celebrates the spectacle of the ‘Roaring Twenties’ – unfortunate, seeing as most of Fitzgerald’s novel is dedicated to mocking it.

The characters populating this storybook setting are similarly stripped of their depth. Ms. Mulligan’s Daisy is no shaky projection of male fantasy, but an extravagantly dressed faucet, her face crumpling in every scene as her eyes well unnecessarily with tears. Her character’s limited understanding of the self without male companionship is reduced to a simple ‘What shall I do? Where shall I go?’ routine, and the voice famously “filled with money” is flat and rarely engages attention. To be fair, it’s not entirely Mulligan’s fault: she is horribly miscast, neither beautiful enough to convince as the object of fantasy, nor amorous enough to convince as the object of lust. She is put to shame by Isla Fisher as the brassy Myrtle – Ms. Fisher enlivens every frame she’s in and displays admirable dramatic resolve in the face of an underscripted character, saying much of Myrtle’s frustrated sexuality through her performance.  Ms. Debicki nails the androgyny of Jordan’s icy golfer, but there is no spark of romance between her and Carraway – although, that said, there’s little chemistry between Mr. Maguire and Mr. DiCaprio’s Gatsby either.

Carraway is played as a witless naif, awestruck by the wonder of those around him to such an extent that, as the plot reaches its dramatic climax, it’s impossible to believe that he sees any of them as part of the “rotten crowd”. Mr. DiCaprio’s Gatsby is, on the other hand, alternately mooning teenager and overly earnest adult, oscillating between the two with little regard for scene. His outbursts of anger – so shocking in the midst of Fitzgerald’s mannered prose – are telegraphed, draining them of all dramatic impact. Joel Edgerton‘s Tom Buchanan is all looming menace, but far too broodingly aggressive for the old money snob he’s meant to be playing. To compound this casting failure, for no reason other, than it seems, Mr. Luhrmann’s professed love of Bollywood, legendary Indian actor Amitabh Bachchan makes his Hollywood debut as Meyer Wolfsheim – confusingly still played as a Jew and referred to as “that Kike”.

There’s little purpose in belaboring the film’s failure to convey the novel’s themes. Although Gatsby‘s hero creates himself whole from the cloth of romantic yearning, we see almost nothing of that genesis, only the conflicted and unfortunately overacted result. Similarly, though Carraway of the novel arrives at a new and tragic understanding of the ‘American Dream’ reflecting Fitzgerald’s own troubled relationship with capitalism, Mr. Maguire is but gauche observer to contrived drama more redolent of daytime television than great literature.

What’s fundamentally wrong with the film is that, for all of Mr. Luhrmann’s garish settings and fanciful camerawork, his Gatsby is nothing more than a spectacle in search of a meaning – a random array of stylishly dressed extras. Without the sting of moral and social criticism, the plot is no more than a trashy opera; a sense heightened by the horror movie framing device of Carraway recounting the entire tale to his psychiatrist whilst interned in a snowbound mental institution (this, unfortunately, is not a joke). In short, Mr. Luhrmann’s Gatsby is an atrocious misfire and an insult to Fitzgerald’s work, but, somehow, still a film worth seeing – if only as confirmation of Mr. Luhrmann’s status as the pseudo-intellectual’s answer to Michael Bay.

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A Study in Contradiction: ‘True History of the Kelly Gang’, Reviewed.

The clouds was light but queerly yellow on their edges as they moved across the ageless constellations.

– Peter Carey, True History of the Kelly Gang.

One of the great mysteries of Sidney Nolan‘s ‘Ned Kelly‘ series is that the subject of the work, Australia’s last and greatest folk-hero bushranger, is never seen hanged. Although death is hinted at in many of the series’ finer pieces (most blatantly in The Trial, where the sublime, ridiculous portrayed judge is adorned by fateful black cap) Nolan chose never to grant us the final view of Kelly’s figure noosed in Old Melbourne Gaol. One can imagine, perhaps, Nolan’s reasoning; Kelly is Australia’s only truly mythic cultural figure, and as such, is something that cannot truly be killed (despite Heath Ledger and Orlando Bloom’s best attempts). As seen above in Landscape, Nolan’s Kelly rides endlessly into the broad Australian skies – even without the physical manifestation of Kelly’s body to fill the armour he crafted, his legend lives on.

This life after death is Kelly’s final contradiction; he dies and yet lives,  just as he was at once outlaw and hero, murderer and saint, a paragon of family virtue and ‘nothing more than a vengeful horse thief’. In this sense, there is no better man to attempt to chronicle Kelly’s life in letters than Peter Carey, a man whose own best work – Illywhacker and Oscar and Lucinda – is a study in contradiction, marked by a fine balance between Victorian grandiosity and Australian pragmatism.

In True History of the Kelly Gang, Carey puts aside his more surrealist pretensions and engages in act of fully fledged historical impersonation, purporting to transcribe “thirteen parcels of stained and dog-eared papers” written by Kelly for his daughter and chronicling his life effectively from birth to death. In doing so, Carey permits himself to inhabit Kelly’s own idiosyncratic vocabulary; which, whilst preserving correct spelling (thank goodness) retains other grammatical and orthographic peculiarities (such as substituting “were” for “was”, “v.’ for “very” and “1/2” for “half” irrespective of context). As can be imagined, given Kelly’s authorial voice, coarse language is abundant; however, Carey makes the decision to spare his daughter and the reader his own foul tongue by punctiliously omitting letters where relevant (b—-r), speaking phonetically (“effing”, “eff”, “ess”) and the hilariously employed epithet “adjectival”. With this in mind, one might think that Carey would deny us the artistry of his usual prose; but, in a feat of justly recognised literary brilliance, Carey makes poetry from the ruffian style that most struggle to achieve using even the most baroque and flowery styles. Witness his description of cutting down a massive eucalypt:

“I could of dropped 2 normal trees before dinner but this one were a grandfather we both worked throughout the day the flies were in our mouths our hands black and sappy we ate no tea neither but continued on until the light were sucked from the sky it were then I heard a creaking sound. If you have felled a tree you know that sound it is the hinge of life before the door is slammed.”

And of his love, Mary:

“… you never knew so many hooks and buttons and sweet smelling things we took them off her one by one until she lay across her bed there were no sin for so did God make her skin so white her hair as black as night her eyes green and her lips smiling”.

Avoiding the tired clichés of the outlaws of the American West, Carey embraces what Robert Hughes called in The Fatal Shore: The Epic of Australia’s Founding the “bolter”; “that primal figure of popular Australian culture, the bushranger – enemy of flogger, trap policeman and magistrate, the poor man’s violent friend, the emblem of freedom in a chained society”. The Western outlaw is one personally aggrieved, the final extreme of the American dream of individualism and freedom; Michael Ondaatje concludes his epic prose poem The Collected Works of Billy the Kid by telling us that the American outlaw is nothing more than “juvenile madman”. In contrast, Hughes’ bushranger is an “agent of national identity… by taking to the bush, the convict left England and entered Australia.”Carey’s Kelly is such an agent; through his actions, he sees himself as breaking the yoke of the hated English and embracing a nobler, new nationality: speaking of his exploits, “We had showed the world what convict blood could do. We proved there was no taint we was of true bone blood and beauty born.” He is a citizen of a country yet to exist, denied by the colonial powers: “I wished only to be a citizen I had tried to speak but the mongrels stole my tongue”.

With this in mind, Carey himself is no ideologue; the injustices of 19th century Australia are the book’s background, rather than subject. At all times, Carey’s focus is Kelly; as such, despite the book’s sweep which covers Kelly’s life from child of the penniless Ellen Kelly to armoured outlaw, Carey’s most convincing passages are those that deal with Kelly the man, rather than the legend. Indeed, such is the attention given to Kelly himself that it dampens one of Carey’s own greatest strengths; the ability to develop colourful and interesting supporting characters. Whilst Ned’s family come through clearly enough in the book’s early going, the later figures of gang members Joe Byrne, Steve Hart, and even the adult Dan Kelly remain unilluminated, for all the time spent chronicling their exploits. We know Joe is an opium addict, that there is a hint of homosexual relationship and transvestitism in Dan and Steve’s relationship, but these are minor notes in what is really Ned’s saga. Perhaps a better title would have been ‘A True History of Ned Kelly’; there is little to distract us from the main narrative in the detours Carey makes into the lives of the gang.

Fortunately, it is a mighty main narrative, one marked by uncommonly beautiful writing and fantastic depth to Kelly’s character. True History stands out as a beacon in a decade (perhaps longer) of overpraised middling-to-truly-terrible Australian writing (here’s looking at you, Christos Tsolkias); a truly impressive artistic and historical achievement, and one which deserves broader contemporary recognition, especially as it’s now a Modern Classic priced at $12.95. Carey in this kind of form is, along with J.M. Coetzee,  as close as the Australian canon comes to ‘required reading’, and that’s no small feat.

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Roots in Literature, Branches in Film : ‘The Place Beyond The Pines’, Reviewed.

To you your father should be as a god,

One that composed your beauties, yea, and one

To whom you are but as a form in wax,

By him imprinted and within his power

To leave the figure or disfigure it.

William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Ambitious to a fault, The Place Beyond The Pines is a brooding and intelligent (if flawed) meditation on the nature of masculinity, fatherhood and fate. Pines, directed by Derek Cianfrance, is structured as triptych – three sequential monographs united by the catalytic meeting of part-time outlaw Ryan Gosling and young cop Bradley Cooper in the film’s first segment. It’s a style originating in art and more commonly seen in novel than in film – taken with Cianfrance’s pared back, defiantly literary script and preoccupation with the lush greenery of America’s semi-rural North, at times it can seem as if Pines is an adaptation of the short stories of Carver or Updike rather than an original work.

Cianfrance’s magnificent opening shot tracks Luke (Gosling) – a motorcycle stunt rider – without cut through the crowded grounds of a travelling carnival in Schenectady sometime around 1995. As his camera follows Luke’s tattooed form past rides and games towards a dimly lit tent, Cianfrance demonstrates the fierce connection to the working class North-East that so distinguished his first film, Blue Valentine (in which Gosling also starred); with the fair’s ambient noise in the background, the crowd inside gathers close for a glimpse of ”Handsome Luke’ and cheers in anticipation as he climbs aboard his bike and rides with his ‘Heartthrobs’ into a rounded steel cage.

Their act is existentialism played out on the smallest imaginable stage; life and, for Luke, possibly death, on a journey without possible direction or destination. This changes, however, with Luke’s encounter of former flame Ro – capably played by Eva Mendes –  who hitches a ride home but gently rebuffs him at the door. Drawn to her, Luke returns the following day to find Ro out but a surprise waiting for him – a son, Jason, unknowingly conceived on his last tour through town. Perhaps for the first time granted purpose in his life, Luke commits to fatherhood by quitting the carnival, sticking in town and trying to win Ro back and start a family. Without an income, however, he finds his attempts thwarted by the responsible alternative of Kofi (Mahershala Ali), with whom Ro is now living. With limited prospects, Luke is easy pickings for shady local mechanic Robin –  Australian Ben Mendelsohn continuing his recent hot streak in a wonderful performance – who convinces him to use his ‘unique skillset’ to help him rob a bank.

The similarities to Gosling’s star-making Drive are obvious even without his icy, dangling-cigarette cool; but Cianfrance makes the narrative his own with beautiful camerawork and propulsive, nigh-on minimalist writing evocative of the better works of Raymond Carver. Nowhere is this more evident than in the scene following Mendehlson and Gosling’s first successful robbery; the two men, hardly believing what they have accomplished, celebrate to the strains of Springsteen’s ‘Dancing in the Dark’ in the depths of Robin’s workshop. Gosling’s performance is excellent; a masterclass of self-possessed charisma complicated by notes of childlike naïveté and vulnerability missing from his previous work.

But we are not left long to linger on Luke’s gathering storm; Cianfrance abruptly broadens the narrative’s scope as Luke meets his demise at the hands of Cooper’s Avery during a heist gone wrong. The camera swiftly follows Avery (himself wounded during the exchange) into the film’s second segment – we find out he too has a young son, and, after learning that his morally ambiguous action intersection with Luke has left Jason fatherless, can no longer bear to look at him. Indeed, we don’t ever see Avery and his son together until the final act – set 16 years later.  Avery’s story concerns an incident of police corruption which he manipulates into a rapid rise to the top; although compelling in its form as a low-key political thriller or police procedural, without Gosling’s charisma, it feels slightly weaker than the film’s first chapter. That said, Cooper’s quiet, solid performance as the calculating (if not devious) Avery allows for an intelligent contrast to be drawn between the two men’s intertwined lives – although Avery lives on the right side of the law, he thinks only of himself, whilst Luke’s outlaw act is entirely geared towards providing for his family.

It’s the film’s final third that sets forth most clearly Cianfrance’s attempt to explain his views on the determinism of fate; the turbulent relationship of the now seventeen year old Jason (Dane DeHaan) and Avery Junior (Emory Cohen) is used to map the director’s statement on the nature of power, privilege, and the son’s payment for of the sins of the father. Unfortunately, it’s here that the film starts to come apart at the seams – largely due to Cohen’s disastrous performance as the rap-spouting lout with an inexplicable Long Island accent. He’s not for a moment convincing as the son of Avery and the elegant, if briefly sighted, Rose Byrne., and his clichéd caricature of the privileged white boy run riot does a disservice to the intense performance of DeHaan, who carries the final chapter as a study in barely contained rage. Cianfrance is also guilty of capitalising his emotional messages at the death- abandoning the more complex style of the first and second segments for a broad-brushed approach.

That said, the flaws of the final third are more than compensated for Cianfrance’s assured direction and the performances of Gosling and Cooper, both of whom demonstrate continuing growth from their ‘hunk’ personas after career years in 2012. Camerawork and sound, too, are excellent throughout, with Cianfrance’s striking widescreen lensing paired with Mike Patton‘s discordant ambient score to create a thrumming sense of unease throughout. This is cinema of a type not often seen in the mainstream; and one hopes that strong box-office showings will inspire continuing faith in Cianfrance’s vision, with which, in time, he may be able to furnish us with the Great American Film he comes close to making here.

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