A visual tribute to the "Pink Elephants" sequence in Dumbo (1941)
Waltz with Bashir (Best of the 21st Century?)
#87 in Best of the 21st Century?, a series in which I view, for the first time, some of the most critically acclaimed films of the previous decade.
The movie opens with black dogs, growling and barking as they race down a busy city street - hounds from hell whose presence puts the lie to the calm bustle around them. They arrive at a certain apartment building, yelping loudly - and the man in the apartment knows they're yelping for him. Then he wakes up. This sequence was a dream, one inspired by his recollections of shooting dogs during an Israeli commando raid back in Lebanon of the early 80s. Now those dogs haunt his dreams, and in a sense the dreams are more real than the memories.
There have been many films about memory, and plenty of films about war, but Waltz with Bashir takes a unique approach to both. Firstly, there's the fact that it's animated - not exactly rotoscoped apparently, but drawn in accordance with taped interviews (fantasies, dreams, and flashbacks, of course, are simply animated). Secondly, while the movie is a documentary, it often plays like fiction, partly because of the animation (which allows past sequences to play less like History Channel "recreations" and more like narrative sequences) and partly because of the tightly unwinding dramatic structure. Finally, there's the conjunction of the two subjects - war and memory. The memory in question is individual, but it's also collective, and it's not just a matter of remembering the past but experiencing the present. When Ari Folman, the director and main character, returns to Israel on leave from the Lebanon War of the early 80s, he's shocked to find his peers dancing away in discos and ignoring the fact that a brutal war is unfolding just next door - and that men like him, their neighbors, friends, and relatives are fighting it. This doesn't have much application to Israel today, where the homefront has become the war zone, but it certainly applies elsewhere.
The Wind in the Willows - The Wild Wood
Part 3 of a microseries devoted to Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows and its film and television adaptations.
"And as he lay there panting and trembling, and listening to the whistlings and the patterings outside, he knew it at last, in all its fullness, that dread thing which other little dwellers in field and hedgerow had encountered here, and known as their darkest moment - that thing, which the Rat had vainly tried to shield him from - the Terror of the Wild Wood!"As the last entry proved, the River Bank contains multitudes...but it does not contain everything. Outside of its bounds lay the Wild Wood and the Wide World, both introduced briefly in the first chapter of Grahame's book. Mole asks his friend about the Wild Wood a few pages into the story, "waving a paw towards a background of woodland that darkly framed the water meadows on one side of the river." We detect a bit of unease in Rat's curt response: "We don't go there very much, we river-bankers." The conversation quickly turns to the denizens of the wood, and indeed the looming forest has a social significance as well as a geographical and psychological presence, but for now we will be focusing on the latter two. At any rate, Rat's subtle warning suffices for the time being, but as the seasons pass, Mole grows restless, and in the dead of winter, as his friend snoozes by the fireside, Mole gets up, throws on his scarf, and ventures forth to explore the Wild Wood. What he encounters is a dark night of the soul - a journey into the depths of both a physically hostile environment and a deeply rooted terror of the unknown, which will seize his imagination and bring him face to face with "that dread thing."
-from The Wild Wood
The Wild Wood is not just a place - it's a state of mind.
Michael Collins: Taking Liberties with History
From time to time, I will be sharing unpublished movie reviews or analyses written before this blog existed. As this past week was quite busy and I did not have time to prepare a new piece for Monday, it seemed like a good time to start! This essay, which examines historical accuracy in Neil Jordan's Michael Collins (1996) is a bit of a departure in style and subject for the site, but I think it might still be of interest - the topic of how, ethically, filmmakers should represent real-life incidents in their films is an evergreen issue. Share your own thoughts, on this film or on the broader subject, below.
When Neil Jordan defended his treatment of Michael Collins’ life in the film of the same name, he claimed, “It’s not a work of history, it’s not a historical document.” But then he went on to say, “The film is as accurate a dramatic reconstruction as I could make it.” The first statement is meant to defuse any potential critics, eagerly nitpicking at the film’s version of history. And it also clears the way for the second statement, hinting that Michael Collins may not be history, but it’s pretty damn close. Maybe it’s just me, but Jordan’s comments seem to suggest that details may be inaccurate, but the big picture’s all right. For this to be true, the details would have to be small enough not to impinge on the picture’s credibility. So any criticism of Jordan’s film as historical record (which he claims it’s not supposed to be, while hinting that it’s not far off) will have to be two-pronged. One is to examine the proverbial devil in the details, most essentially deciding which changes are important and which are relatively inconsequential. The second approach should focus on the “big picture,” the spirit of the film and the message it’s trying to convey. It’s certainly true that Michael Collins is not a work of history or a historical document, but is it true that it’s as accurate as Jordan can make it? That’s the claim that will have to be judged.
Remembering the Movies, Sep. 24 - 30
Every Friday, we look back at movies released 10-100 years ago this week.
Gangsters, witches, and quite a few romantic roundelays are the featured attractions this week. As always, share your own thoughts below: have you seen any of these films? What did you think? What are your memories if you caught them in their original run? Any anecdotes about them you'd like to share? The floor is yours.
The Son (Best of the 21st Century?)
#85 in Best of the 21st Century?, a series in which I view, for the first time, some of the most critically acclaimed films of the previous decade.
Olivier is one of those men you can’t picture outside of the workplace. They’re very good at their job, often stern without being cruel, dignified yet something of a personal cipher. In Olivier’s case, when we see him off the job (he’s a carpenter whose task is to train apprentices) we discover that he lives alone, never takes off his uniform (blue overalls), and apparently does not watch television or read – leisure time is spent doing sit-ups. As played by Olivier Gourmet, and photographed by the Dardenne brothers (whose penchant for handheld close-ups here borders on self-parody, so claustrophobic is their cinematography), Olivier is initially hard to read, and one wonders if there is indeed anything to read, or if he’s simply content to be uncomplicated. There is, and he isn’t – or maybe he would be, but he hasn’t the chance to be simple. Having experienced a tragedy, and now forced to rub his nose in reminders of his loss, Olivier begins behaving erratically – although only we, in the audience know this; he’s still firmly enough in control to hide from public view his odd behavior (running through the shop, peeking around corners, leafing through files). Until a conversation with his ex-wife (Isabella Soupart) some ways into the movie we are not sure what lies behind all the eccentricities. Given the title, we suspect secret filial relations between Olivier and Francis (Morgan Marinne), a heavily medicated carpenter-in-training, whom Olivier initially refuses before accepting as an apprentice and then proceeding to stalk. But Francis is not Olivier’s son. Read no further if you want the film to take you by surprise. There are certainly benefits to both approaches (knowing who Francis is enables you invest more in Olivier’s strange behavior) but you can always go back and re-watch the movie with this knowledge in mind, so I suggest taking a break if you haven’t seen The Son.
The Wind in the Willows - The River Bank
Part 2 of a microseries devoted to Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows and its film and television adaptations.
"'And you really live by the river? What a jolly life!'
"'By it and with it and on it and in it,' said the Rat. 'It's brother and sister to me, and aunts, and company, and food and drink, and (naturally) washing. It's my world, and I don't want any other. What it hasn't got is not worth having, and what it doesn't know is not worth knowing. Lord! the times we've had together! Whether in winter or summer, spring or autumn, it's always got its fun and its excitements.'"
-from The River Bank
The river is the central symbol of The Wind in the Willows, the story's anchor and motor (at least until Toad's automania commandeers the narrative). As that dual metaphor suggests, the river is deeply ambiguous. Early in the book, in that same speech just sampled, Rat introduces Mole to the world through his own eyes. Ratty's globe is divided into three spheres: the River Bank, the Wild Wood, and the Wide World. If the Wild Wood represents certain danger and threatening instability, while the Wide World connotes an unknowable, intimidatingly vast outside universe (which Rat dismisses with a wave of his hand and a curt "that's something that doesn't matter, either to you or to me"), then the River Bank must stand for stability, familiarity, and comfort, right? But this is not how we are introduced to it.
The book begins not at the shores of the bubbling river, not even in the fresh meadows of springtime, but underground in a den perhaps once cozy, but now merely oppressive. Mole is fussing about his subterranean home, attempting a spring-cleaning but increasingly distracted by a vernal tremor from above which penetrates "even his dark and lowly little house with its spirit of discontent and longing." Accordingly, Mole throws down his paint bucket, gathers his coat, and burrows up through the dirt. "So he scraped and scratched and scrabbled and scrooged, and then he scrooged again and scrabbled and scratched and scraped, working busily with his little paws and muttering to himself, 'Up we go! Up we go!' till at last, pop! his snout came out into the sunlight and he found himself rolling in the warm grass of a great meadow."
Mole strolls through the countryside, enjoying the fresh air and the verdant scenery, but it is not until he reaches the unseen - and unforeseen - river that his spirit truly stirs for the first time: "Never in his life had he seen a river before - this sleek, sinuous, full-bodied animal, chasing and chuckling, gripping things with a gurgle and leaving them with a laugh, to fling itself on fresh playmates that shook themselves free, and were caught and held again. All was a-shake and a-shiver - glints and gleams and sparkles, rustle and swirl, chatter and bubble." It is this river, whose qualities as a subtle storyteller are shortly celebrated, which stands for the drama of this tale, helps Mole grow into a mature and skilled animal, and leads our furry friends to their auroral encounter with the Piper at the Gates of Dawn.
The River Bank - consisting of rushing river and the sturdy bank surrounding it - is both home and the call of adventure, new experience and old comfort, lazy pleasure and soul-shattering mysticism. Ultimately, the very life-force that draws Mole to the river in the first place may provide its own undoing, forcing a choice and then shrivelling itself into a little brook, babbling with pleasing familiarity but speaking of fleeting sensations that disappeared as quickly as a breeze in the willow leaves.
White Dog
The story of an attack dog re-trained by a black man, White Dog combines the sincerity of the animal picture, the heart of the "message" movie, and the rudimentary dynamism of the exploitation film into one powerful little package. Perhaps it was that last element, here understood as a genre niche rather than a marketing device, which unnerved the NAACP. In 1981 the organization cast doubt upon the film's potential influence (they seemed to believe it would result in an upsurge of the very phenomenon it seeks to discourage) and got Paramount Pictures to shelve the film, breaking writer/director Sam Fuller's heart. Indeed, a scene in which a truck crashes into a storefront does lean a bit too heavily on action-movie tropes, and a grisly killing (offscreen, but no less upsetting for it) makes the viewer temporarily question its necessity. But by the end of the film it's clear that Fuller is dead serious; however entertaining and inventive the finished product, White Dog is fundamentally earnest in its desire to investigate racism (in a mode more visceral than didactic). Perhaps the film's undoing was actually due to that very earnestness, an inability to treat race is a mere excuse for action sequences and iconic posturing.
Remembering the Movies: Sep. 17 - 23
Due to the enthusiastic response last week, "Remembering the Movies" will become a permanent fixture at The Dancing Image. Each Friday, I will briefly revisit ten films released 10 - 100 years ago this week. I'll offer pictures, describe the movie, quote a critic, and link up to a video clip (either a trailer, a scene, or sometimes the whole movie). Then it's all yours - what did you think of the films in question? Do you remember seeing any of them when they first came out? Any anecdotes you have about them or their making, which I didn't mention and you'd like to share? Respond below with any of the above.
Today, we've got gangsters, gorillas, and revolutionary rabbits whizzing past the window on our ride back through time...
The Corruption of Michael Corleone
The story of Michael Corleone, from childhood to his ascension as "Godfather"
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Moolaadé (Best of the 21st Century?)
#83 in Best of the 21st Century?, a series counting down the most acclaimed films of the previous decade.
With its sun-dappled village huts, its jaggedly Gaudi-like mosque (topped with a 150-year-old ostrich egg), its gorgeously bright primary colors, its grins and laughter, Ousmane Sembene’s Mooladé is a film of immense good cheer. It is also a movie about female genital mutilation, in which the tortured deaths of several young girls are acknowledged, in which a husband whips his wife mercilessly in the public square, in which a man is murdered outright, in which a brutal system of female subjugation, social oppression, fearful superstition, and child abuse is maintained, exalted, and bloodily enforced. But Sembene’s film is neither superficially naive, nor self-importantly morose. It is manifestly the movie of an 81-year-old master, simple in presentation but echoing with depths, observing tragedy with a sad smile, and buffoonery with the indulgence of a satirist – affectionate but hardly gentle. Despite his knowledge of human weakness, despite his awareness of the power of the elders and the men and the female priestesses, Sembene offers up optimism, not the avoiding, weak kind but the earned kind, the kind that rests in reservoirs of strength, for which good humor is not a front but rather a manifestation of indomitable resilience and wisdom.
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