Wednesday, October 30, 2013

"The end of you."


Shutter Island / The (old!) Wicker Man: Final Cut



     Happy Halloween, everyone!  Let's start by talking about the great Dante Ferretti, Italian production designer extraordinaire who currently has a beautiful exhibition of his work on display at The Museum of Modern Art here in NYC (through February 9).  This sweet little old Italian man (at least that's how he came off when he introduced the first film screening at the opening ceremony) began his career working on Pier Paolo Pasolini's later work, including the notorious Salò, or 120 Days of Sodom (hell, all Pasolini's later movies were pretty notorious), and has since made several movies for Martin Scorcese, starting with The Age of Innocence.  If you live in the area and are a fan of movies, take a look.  Along with great big portions of set pieces arranged through the museum showcasing his work, MoMA is screening many of his best realized movies (still on deck:  Interview with the Vampire, Casino, Hamlet).  It is so worth your time.
     Also worth your time is the little movie Scorcese released in 2010 between his Oscar winning The Departed (yawn) and the well received (and among the more engaging 3D features made thus far) HugoShutter Island is just shy of being anomalous among the works of Scorcese:  It has nothing to do with NY, does not involve a single made-man, and does not star Leonardo DiCaprio (hahaha, just kidding -- of COURSE it stars Leonardo DiCaprio).  I initially dismissed it as a thriller with a [Well...now I have to stop right here for the spoiler announcement.  OK?  I'm gonna go ahead now.  You've been warned.] twist you can see from miles away (you will, too) and didn't bother going to see it in the theater.  When I saw it later that year on video, I felt foolish, because the so-called "twist" was somewhat superfluous -- the story told was still rich, heartbreaking and maybe one of the few Scorcese movies I've found genuinely moving.  As such, I took the opportunity to see it again at MoMA on the big screen.
     In terms of visual style and building a sense of dread, its closest relative might be Cape Fear, arguably Scorcese's weirdest and most disturbing movie to date.  I don't think Shutter Island is as operatically bizarre (although there is a drowning scene that rivals the one at Cape Fear's close), but the tone and atmosphere call back to that strangeness.  Shutter Island, written for the screen by Dennis Lehane ("The Wire", Mystic River) from his novel, evokes an interesting mix of prior Scorcese pictures you may not expect -- Cape Fear for sure, but also the visual texture of Kundun (full disclosure:  I am that asshole that sincerely likes Kundun) and, maybe strangest of all, the warmth (a rarity in his movies) and sympathy for characters not seen since The Age of Innocence (though one does later feel the "hug" in Hugo, too).
     Shutter Island opens in mist and fog, a shot held eerily long with no immediate music cues present until one sees something of a ghost ship emerge from its cloudy depths.  This opening is only one of the first metaphors for fractured memory that haunts the rest of the story.  No sooner are we introduced to our primary characters, U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his new partner Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo), then are we thrust into a series of jarring shots, cut with such speed (and alarming, freaky freeze frames thrown in for good measure) that we're immediately as disoriented as the seasick marshal.  [Nerd alert:  It took me a little while to figure out that what was throwing me off in this scene was shot after shot of total 180º rule breakage; nice one, Marty & DP Robert Richardson!]  Following some brisk exposition we move to the action proper:  An investigation into the disappearance of a violent patient (Emily Mortimer) on the eponymous prison island.  Ostensibly a floating asylum for the criminally insane, the island leads our hero, already dealing with Dachau liberation-level PTSD on top of a tragically dead wife (Michelle Williams in fever dream sequences), to spars with head shrinking medical professionals (including a pitch-perfect as always Ben Kingsley) and psychotic patients alike for the duration of the story as he pursues his missing quandary (along with "Prisoner" style clues -- "The Law of 4", "Who is 67?", et al.).  As the spectre of his wife warns "this would be the end of you" while he walks through the facility's wards and rocky terrain (which include portentous, persistent images of smoke and water), so too do we move along Daniels' broken psyche, until it finally intertwines inextricably with the island and the inhabitants therein.
     It's a credit to Lehane's writing and Scorcese's direction that, whether you figure things out immediately or not until the end, the story still manages to satisfy, never completely misdirecting from what it completely hints at from the get go.  It benefits from relying on our main character's subconscious obsessions -- memories of his wife's death by arson (and as he specifies, "not the fire, but the smoke"), an SS officer he would not grant a final mercy to, the deaths of countless Nazi guards punished for their acts -- and consequently establishing that the viewpoint we're most privy to is unreliable at best.  Some of the most truly terrifying horror comes from realizing you can't even trust the person telling the story.

     It was during the moment where the ship approaches the dock of the island that I shuddered and realized how much it reminded me of another creep fest (tis the season) I'd just rewatched on the big screen for its "final cut": The Wicker Man.  Please, not the one with Nicolas Cage!  The ORIGINAL one with Christopher Lee, Edward ("The Equalizer") Woodward and, uh, the songs.  Sergeant Neal Howie (Woodward) is also called to a remote island in pursuit of a girl mysteriously vanished, only to be faced with his own personal demons and a potentially malevolent patriarch with ulterior minded islanders.  Both our heroes also bear witness to their original purpose evaporate into smoke right at the moment it's too late for them to turn back, bricking themselves into their own emotional prisons along the way; both movies have emotionally devastating ends.  I'd originally watched The Wicker Man as a double feature preceding Don't Look Now, which in turn had it's own grief-soaked protagonist whose perception of the world had been warped beyond self-preservation.  This new cut of The Wicker Man disposes of a tongue-in-cheek intro text thanking "the people of [the] island", restores the original order of scenes, adds a sequence mid-way to provide another cohesive clue, a shot or two added to a montage of Howie making further investigations into his missing person, and a chilling coda to the finale.  While these changes create greater narrative cohesion, something is dissatisfyingly lost  -- while they help in making better sense of character development throughout, it stifles the rhythm of the picture and takes away from the overall feeling of disorientation, weirdness and dread the viewer experiences; for example, meeting Lee's Lord Summerisle sooner in this version gives greater credence to his having pulled strings all along, yet defangs the impact of not seeing him until almost half-way through the shorter version.  Much of how one follows the previous version relies on picking up bits of business as you go; having this version be more explicit takes much of the fun out of keeping up with the narrative.  This intended version is still worth seeing whether you're familiar with the material or not, but like both Marshal Daniels and Sergeant Howie, it leaves you pondering so much for the best intentions.

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

There will be blood.

Notes on the new CARRIE, TROUBLE EVERY DAY.




     [Spoilers.]  I wasn't especially excited for a remake of CARRIE, a movie which is easily one of my top five favorite Brian De Palma movies of all time, but I was intrigued when I found out it was to be directed by Kimberly Peirce.  I ultimately had not loved BOYS DON'T CRY (for much the same reasons I didn't enjoy PHILADELPHIA the first time I saw it -- too "importantly" preachy and compromised), but I'd found it a very strong debut for a first-timer.  Only the third feature Ms. Peirce has made in 14 years, I thought of another director just as prolific and got even more interested.  [I'm gonna stop right here and mention this other director -- Jonathan Glazer -- because have you seen the teaser for his new movie?  You should see it now.  I'm not even sure when this comes out, but it must be amazing, right?  How can it not be?  If it's not as good as I'm hoping, I may have to stop watching movies.  Maybe.  Sorry for the digression.]  The new remake of CARRIE hews closer to De Palma's vision than the source material of Stephen King's, apart from one scene towards the end where a formal hearing is conducted regarding the events of the prom-night conflagration, alluding to the narrative structure of the original novel.  While Peirce is to be commended for trying out new things in this version, particularly in conceiving a story in which we have much more sympathy for Carrie White than with the townspeople in prior tellings, remaining so close to De Palma's take may leave you missing the bits he did so well the first time.
     What Peirce does get right and in some cases improves on deserve noting:  A better sense of Margaret White's (Julianne Moore, just a tad heavy-handed) mental illness (nice, albeit excessive touch having her be a cutter) instead of simply being a Bible-wielding nutbar; the mercy shown to Ms. Desjardin (Judy Greer), despite her fruitless efforts at being a surrogate mother for Carrie White (Chloë Grace Moretz, playing the role with more self-protective suspicion than Sissy Spacek's gawky, guileless weirdo); and a greater emphasis on the tragic weight of Carrie's circumstances -- urgently, clandestinely learning all she can about TK and magic, she comes off as a stray mutant sadly undiscovered by the school-as-sanctuary of the X-MEN stories, or a Harry Potter that took a wrong turn for the worse adult guardian.  Speaking of which, there are definite "origin story" elements that dovetail appropriately with this century's glut of superhero narratives (possibly owing to co-writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, a notable major comic book writer), but those remain subtle as the horror beats accumulate throughout the rest of the picture.  There are wisps of commentary on the proliferating arsenal of instant bullying methods via social media, along with echoes of class and self-worth a la THE BLING RING, but seem quickly abandoned for overstating Sue Snell's (Gabriella Wilde) guilt over the opening group assault on Carrie's unfortunate public discovery of her womanhood (there's even a late-story reveal of a blessed event, almost completely and awkwardly unnecessary to the story).  You also see this in the dimension given to Chris' (Portia Doubleday) bad-little-rich-girl character (with an uncredited Hart Bochner as her dad), further evidence of the director and writers' attempts at giving every character just a little more depth and motive.  
     It may help not being overfamiliar with the screen's original version; one can't help keeping a running tab of all the scenic snapshots this version stops to take note of and reminisce over how they've been done better (many of the sardonic notes of the original are thrown over for standard, hamhanded horror ones; the moments of pure ecstasy many of the characters experience just before death, sadly excised for overburdened demises; the wonderful shock of the ending of the original (though probably best left untouched); John Travolta).  You may say this is endemic of remakes in general until you stop to consider at least two this century which managed to transcend their predecessors -- both VANILLA SKY (derived from Spain's ABRE LOS OJOS) and LET ME IN (from Sweden's LÅT DEN RÄTTE KOMMA IN) took approaches that, despite other flaws they may have, made me forget (almost) all about their prior and at least equally brilliant incarnations (the latter was also based on a sprawling, multi-perspective novel).  Both also managed to tell thoughtful, personal versions of same and additionally placed them in a unique, American context, a telling contrast to a CARRIE remake that plays merely as horror movie of the month.  Perhaps doing an American remake of an American classic is ill-advised (yes, I'm definitely thinking of THE BAD NEWS BEARS).

     After the disappointing returns of CARRIE, it was just a hop, skip, and a jump from Kaufman-Astoria to the Museum of the Moving Image (ain't Queens magic?) for the brand new 35mm print of TROUBLE EVERY DAY.  I remember originally looking for this at Mondo Kim's in the East Village years ago and finding their copy with one of their classic, written-on messages in the margins of the box:  "Not that it matters, but this copy has no English subtitles!"  Indeed, much of the movie's dialogue is kept at a minimum, and much of what's said in Claire Denis' cult classic is spoken in English by the film's protagonist, Shane Brown (Vincent Gallo, with his usual eerie, "I haven't slept in days" presence), or heard briefly in the lyrics of the soundtrack, provided by Tindersticks (a regular collaborator of Ms. Denis).  Many of Claire Denis' movies have focused on human desire, and TROUBLE EVERY DAY is no exception.  What sets it apart from the rest of her work is the full dive into a sci-fi/horror genre presentation (my apologies to the director, for I know she's taken pains to avoid this too-obvious association), where bloodletting very literally becomes the organizing priniciple of the main characters -- Coré Samuels, as played by a dialogue-free Beatrice Dalle, and the aforementioned Mr. Gallo, on honeymoon in Paris with his new bride June (Tricia Vessey) and in search of the former for reasons kept satisfyingly mysterious (insert DRACULA allusion here).  With the lack of dialogue, the human sounds you hear most are sighs -- arguably the most universal sound of ache and longing, heard here when characters are at rest, exhausted from sexual intercourse, or tired simply from some existential malaise (how very French).  All consuming need, lust, desire, and what in modern parlance has come to be referred to as sex addiction all come to the fore in TROUBLE EVERY DAY, as it forays into a not-quite vampire/cannibals story.  Shane and Coré's inevitable reunion (they are familiar with each other in 16mm flashbacks) is also offset by a subplot concerning Coré's doctor husband (Alex Descas), searching desperately for a cure to his wife's "affliction".  Shot in the usual, beautiful low-lit style of Denis' regular DP Agnes Godard, there are images of the Seine at dawn/dusk, wonderfully imagined shots in and out of an airplane as it flys over Denver (!), surreptitious views of a recurring chambermaid (Florence Loiret-Caille) washing her legs at a sink after a day's work, and blood, so much blood everywhere.  After this and CARRIE, one may become queasy over the slightest sight of anything red and wet for some time.