Devastatingly eloquent … James Baldwin. Photograph: Allstar/Brittany House Pictures
Raoul Peck dramatises the author’s memoir of Malcolm X, Martin Luther
King Jr and Medgar Evers, in this vivid and vital documentary.
Raoul Peck’s outstanding, Oscar-nominated documentary is about the African American activist and author James Baldwin, author of Go Tell It on the Mountain and The Fire Next Time.
Peck dramatises Baldwin’s unfinished manuscript Remember This House,
his personal memoir of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr and civil rights
activist Medgar Evers, murdered by a segregationist in 1963.
Baldwin re-emerges as a devastatingly eloquent speaker and public
intellectual; a figure who deserves his place alongside Edward Said,
Frantz Fanon or Gore Vidal.
Peck puts Samuel L Jackson’s steely narration of Baldwin’s words up
against a punchy montage of footage from the Jim Crow to the Ferguson
eras, and a fierce soundtrack. (It’s incidentally a great use of Buddy
Guy’s Damn Right I’ve Got the Blues,
which never sounded so angry or political.) There is a marvellous clip
of Baldwin speaking at the Cambridge Union Society, and another on the
Dick Cavett Show – the host looking sick with nerves, perhaps because he
was about to bring on a conservative intellectual for balance, whom
Baldwin would politely trounce.
Baldwin has a compelling analysis of a traumatised “mirror stage” of
culture that black people went through in 20th-century America. As kids,
they would cheer and identify with the white heroes and heroines of
Hollywood culture; then they would see themselves in the mirror and
realise they were different from the white stars, and in fact more
resembled the baddies and “Indians” they’d been booing.
The film shows Baldwin refusing to be drawn into the
violence/non-violence difference of opinion between King and Malcolm X
that mainstream commentators leaped on, and steadily maintaining his own
critique – although I feel that Peck’s juxtaposition of Doris Day’s
mooning and crooning with a lynch victim is a flourish that approximates
Baldwin’s anger but not his elegance. There is a compelling section on
Baldwin’s discussion of dramatist Lorraine Hansberry, author of A Raisin
in the Sun. It is vivid, nutritious film-making.
This course provides an introduction to the
development of film forms, styles, and theories providing a basic aesthetic and
social understanding of film as both a mode of communication and a means of
artistic expression. It explores the interrelationship of the diegesis, visual
design, motion, editing, and thematic significance, helping students develop
the foundational skills with which to interpret and articulate the myriad ways
in which films create meaning, and elicit responses within viewers.
The
ultimate objective of the course is for students to become acquainted with a
variety of film forms/styles, while developing the basic skills necessary to
analyze and evaluate the cinematic presentations.
Fulfills a course
requirement in the FILMSTUDIES minor and CORE CONCENTRATION.
It’s so clichéd at this point in the critical conversation during the
hot take season of festivals to say, “You’ve never seen a movie quite
like X.” Such a statement has become overused to such a degree that it’s
impossible to be taken seriously, like how too many major new movies
are gifted the m-word: masterpiece. So how do critics convey when a film
truly is unexpectedly, brilliantly unpredictable in ways that feel
revelatory? And what do we do when we see an actual “masterpiece” in
this era of critics crying wolf? Especially one with so many twists and
turns that the best writing about it will be long after spoiler warnings
aren’t needed? I’ll do my best because Bong Joon-ho’s “Parasite” is unquestionably one of the best films of the year. Just trust me on this one.
Bong has made several films about class (including "Snowpiercer" and "Okja"),
but “Parasite” may be his most daring examination of the structural
inequity that has come to define the world. It is a tonal juggling act
that first feels like a satire—a comedy of manners that bounces a group
of lovable con artists off a very wealthy family of awkward eccentrics.
And then Bong takes a hard right turn that asks us what we’re watching
and sends us hurtling to bloodshed. Can the poor really just step into
the world of the rich? The second half of “Parasite” is one of the most
daring things I’ve seen in years narratively. The film constantly
threatens to come apart—to take one convoluted turn too many in ways
that sink the project—but Bong holds it all together, and the result is
breathtaking.
Kim Ki-woo (Choi Woo-sik) and his family live on the edge of poverty.
They fold pizza boxes for a delivery company to make some cash, steal
wi-fi from the coffee shop nearby, and leave the windows open when the
neighborhood is being fumigated to deal with their own infestation. Kim
Ki-woo’s life changes when a friend offers to recommend him as an
English tutor for a girl he’s been working with as the friend has to go
out of the country for a while. The friend is in love with the young
girl and doesn’t want another tutor “slavering” over her. Why he trusts
Kim Ki-woo given what we know and learn about him is a valid question.
The young man changes his name to Kevin and begins tutoring Park Da-hye
(Jung Ziso), who immediately falls for him, of course. Kevin has a much
deeper plan. He’s going to get his whole family into this house. He
quickly convinces the mother Yeon-kyo, the excellent Jo Yeo-jeong, that
the son of the house needs an art tutor, which allows Kevin’s sister
“Jessica” (Park So-dam)
to enter the picture. Before long, mom and dad are in the Park house
too, and it seems like everything is going perfectly for the Kim family.
The Parks seem to be happy too. And then everything changes.
The script for “Parasite” will get a ton of attention as it’s one of
those clever twisting and turning tales for which the screenwriter gets
the most credit (Bong and Han Jin-won,
in this case), but this is very much an exercise in visual language
that reaffirms Bong as a master. Working with the incredible
cinematographer Kyung-pyo Hong (“Burning,”
“Snowpiercer”) and an A-list design team, Bong's film is captivating
with every single composition. The clean, empty spaces of the Park home
contrasted against the tight quarters of the Kim living arrangement
isn’t just symbolic, it’s visually stimulating without ever calling
attention to itself. And there’s a reason the Kim apartment is halfway
underground—they’re caught between worlds, stuck in the growing chasm
between the haves and the have nots.
"Parasite" is a marvelously entertaining film in terms of narrative,
but there’s also so much going on underneath about how the rich use the
poor to survive in ways that I can’t completely spoil here (the best
writing about this movie will likely come after it’s released). Suffice
to say, the wealthy in any country survive on the labor of the poor,
whether it’s the housekeepers, tutors, and drivers they employ, or
something much darker. Kim's family will be reminded of that chasm and
the cruelty of inequity in ways you couldn’t possibly predict.
The
social commentary of "Parasite" leads to chaos, but it never feels like
a didactic message movie. It is somehow, and I’m still not even really
sure how, both joyous and depressing at the same time. Stick with me
here. "Parasite" is so perfectly calibrated that there’s joy to be had
in just experiencing every confident frame of it, but then that’s
tempered by thinking about what Bong is unpacking here and saying about
society, especially with the perfect, absolutely haunting final scenes.
It’s a conversation starter in ways we only get a few times a year, and
further reminder that Bong Joon-ho is one of the best filmmakers working
today. You’ve never seen a movie quite like “Parasite.” Dammit. I tried
to avoid it. This time it's true.
This review was filed from the Toronto International Film Festival on September 7th.
"I love George Roy Hill and Universal Pictures, who made a
flawless translation of my novel Slaughterhouse-Five to the silver
screen ... I drool and cackle every time I watch that film, because it
is so harmonious with what I felt when I wrote the book."
Plot The film follows the novel in presenting a first-person narrative
from the point of view of Billy Pilgrim (Sacks), who becomes "unstuck
in time" and experiences the events of his life in a seemingly random
order, including a period spent on the alien planet of Tralfamadore. Emphasis is placed on his experiences during World War II, including the firebombing of Dresden, as well as time spent with fellow prisoners of war Edgar Derby (Roche) and the psychopathic
Paul Lazzaro (Leibman). His life as a husband to Valencia (Gans) and
father to Barbara (Near) and Robert (King) are also depicted, as they
live and sometimes even enjoy their life of affluence in Ilium, New York.
A "sink-or-swim" scene with Pilgrim's father is also featured. The
scenes of extraterrestrial life on Tralfamadore feature Hollywood
starlet Montana Wildhack (Perrine).
John Wood as English Officer, credited as Tom Wood
Music
Slaughterhouse-Five is the first of two feature films for which Glenn Gould
supplied the music; Bach Concerto #5 in F Minor, BWV 1056, and Concerto
#3 in D Major, BWV 1054 were recorded at Columbia Studios with the
Columbia Symphony orchestra; some selections came from existing
recordings, and two featured other artists, including Rudolph Serkin,
piano, with Casals conducting Brandenburg Concerto #4 in G Major, BWV
1049, III Presto. The film used such a small amount of music that the
soundtrack album added atmospheric excerpts from Douglas Leedy's synthesized triple album Entropical Paradise.
The prolonged rendition of the final movement of Bach's fourth Brandenburg concerto accompanies a cinematic montage as the main character first encounters the city of Dresden.
Todd Phillips’ standalone supervillain origin story Joker is
arriving in theaters amid so much controversy and concern about the
potential for copycat violence that the debate has largely overwhelmed
the film itself. It’s been fascinating to watch the discussion around
the movie shift from “Do we really need another Joker story so soon
after Suicide Squad?” to “Is Joker full of dangerous ideas that will spur its worst fans to murder?” The initial worries around Joker assumed
the movie would be unnecessary, its impact negligible. The current
questions ascribe it with too much importance, as if it might incite
full-blown anarchy just by existing.
As usual in a case where people leap to extremes, the truth is somewhere in the middle. Joker may
make some people who feel marginalized feel more seen and more
powerful, and they may act out in response. There are some ugly,
self-serving messages in the movie, which is incongruously bent on
creating sympathy for Batman’s worst enemy and one of DC Comics’ most
notoriously callous mass murderers and atrocity architects. But love it
or hate it, the film does spin up a tempting fantasy of persecution and
relief, of embracing nihilism as a means of complete escape from a
terrible world.
It’s a self-pitying fantasy, certainly. Phillips and
co-writer Scott Silver follow in the footsteps of Joel Schumacher’s 1993
drama Falling Down in portraying the world as a cartoonishly
dark and uncaring place, an almost comically vile carnival where the
protagonist can’t find a hint of comfort or relief. In a thoroughly
immersed performance that’s being seen as a guaranteed awards-season
attention magnet, Joaquin Phoenix plays Arthur Fleck, a part-time
rent-a-clown working for a seedy talent agency full of exaggerated
grotesques. Arthur is mentally ill and coping via meds and court-ordered
therapy, which don’t offer comfort or represent caring. He’s devoted to
his sick mother Penny (Frances Conroy), who’s encouraged him to see
himself as a joyous light in the world, bringing laughter to the people.
The problem is that he isn’t particularly funny. He’s
painfully awkward, the kind of twitchy, social incompetence people shy
away from in public because his erratic behavior feels like it could
turn dangerous — or at least uncomfortable for them. It’s easy for
viewers to empathize with his desire to be loved, without necessarily
loving him. When he says he feels invisible, it’s clear why: he’s the
kind of person people look away from on the street, out of apathy or
active discomfort.
That tension between sympathy and revulsion is one of the most honest things about Joker,
which mostly goes out of its way to make the world awful. While working
as a sign-twirler, Arthur is randomly beaten by a handful of kids, who
steal his sign and then break it over his head. His boss not only
doesn’t believe his story, he demands Arthur pay for the missing sign.
The dramatic ironies and injustices compound throughout the film, until
it’s clear that Arthur isn’t paranoid, the world really is out to get
him. And then he takes violent, irrevocable action.
For much of its runtime, Joker is a consciously ugly film,
visually and emotionally. Arthur starts with close to nothing, and loses
it all incrementally, in ways designed to hurt empathetic viewers.
Phillips and cinematographer Lawrence Sher (who also DP’d for all three
of Phillips’ Hangover movies) give the film a sickeningly
grungy, underlit, David Fincher-esque look, especially in Arthur’s
squalid home. Everything about the storytelling — the ominous, booming
score; the gritty darkness; the invasive sound design — is designed to
be oppressive, and to push the audience toward Arthur’s point of view as
the primary victim of all the oppression. It’s hypnotic just how
horrifying Arthur’s existence is, just as Phoenix’s performance is
hypnotic as he spirals from fragile hope into increasingly outsized and
confident acts of destruction.
And then he escapes it all, by learning not to care — not
about how or whether other people see him, not about whether he hurts
or frightens or kills them, not about whether his final-act manifesto
makes any sort of coherent sense. The important part of Arthur’s story —
and the cause for so much of the concern around Joker — is
that when he embraces his most nihilistic and destructive impulses, he
suddenly earns the praise and attention he’s been lacking. That may not
fully motivate him, but it’s meant as a message for the segment of the
audience that feels closest to Arthur, those who feel most unseen and
unloved: plenty of people agree with you that the world is unfair and ugly, and if you did something about it, they’d back your play.
Like Falling Down — and Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, which Phillips openly emulates and references — Joker suggests
that when the leading man loses his mind, it’s an understandable, even
natural reaction to an equally mad world. Viewers who aren’t already
inclined to see humanity as a seething cesspit may not resonate with
that level of cynicism. But to viewers who feel as abused and overlooked
as Arthur Fleck, or even who harbor smaller, more rational resentments
about society, Joker is a deliberate and fine-tuned provocation and promise: you aren’t alone, the people you hate really are awful, and it would be okay to act against them in any way you want.
Phillips has made it clear that he doesn’t believe Joker
is anything as small and dismissible as a mere comic-book movie. But
while his film is grimmer and more harrowing than anything in the Marvel
Cinematic Universe, it’s offering up a fantasy just as clearly as any
superhero wish-fulfillment power trip: the fantasy of being a hero to
some, of going from powerlessness to power, of being feared and beloved
at the same time. Phillips delivers that message in a
self-congratulatory way, largely by setting the film in a world where
Arthur has no choice but violence, and no escape but madness. He’s
portrayed as a kind of dark truth-teller because he’s learned that the
world is a joke and nothing matters.
That’s a fairly adolescent outlook, which Phillips
embraces in the same persecution-complex spirit that recently led him to
complain that he had to make Joker because the world is now too sensitive and woke for his previous brand of destructive-bro comedy. But Joker
would probably be raising much less social concern if it wasn’t such a
technically compelling movie, if its final moments weren’t so outsized
and joyous and purposefully insane.
Because Joker does play — not just to its most
put-upon, angry, repressed viewers — but to the entire audience’s
darkest hearts. It shows someone suffering when he lets society have its
way with him, and freed when he has his way with society. It shows him
weeping alone when he plays by the rules, and dancing wildly in public
when he decides to break those rules. The story hurts and harms him, but
Phillips suggests in the end that everything he went through was
necessary to bring him the power and recognition he deserves. It’s a
tempting fantasy, crafted with utter conviction.
Many critics and early viewers have responded to Joker
with loathing, because that fantasy is so selfish and solipsistic. By
dismissing the world as imbalanced at best, outright malicious at worst,
Phillips is enabling his viewers’ worst and most destructive impulses.
“I just don’t want to feel so bad anymore,” Arthur says plaintively at
one point. He’s a relatable kind of villain, harmless and sad — not an
Everyman, but an audience avatar for the downtrodden. And then he models
a way to not be harmless anymore. That doesn’t necessarily make Joker
a call to action, or an invitation to real-life violence. But it does
represent a horrifying form of invitation — not just a call to
sympathize with the devil, but a full-blown justification for the hell
he creates.
John Cho
Sees the Future of Film in ‘Searching’ and Its Colorblind Casting
The Indie
Spirit nominee is still taken with Aneesh Chaganty's clever screen-centric
thriller, but its forward-thinking goes beyond just cool technology.
The technological demands of Aneesh Chaganty’s
feature directorial debut “Searching”
were profound. A computer-screen thriller that unfolds on various displays,
zinging from laptop to laptop and back again, Chaganty’s film required a canny
handle on technology and the way it looks and moves, but it also needed an
actor able to root the family-centric film in emotion and humanity.
That came from the inspired casting of the always-reliable John Cho as David Kim, a
recent widower who must use all his smarts (and a ton of literal screen time)
to find his missing teenage daughter Margot. The “Star Trek” and “Columbus”
actor delivered, turning in a nuanced performance in a film that could have been dominated by on-screen
wizardry.
While a film like “Searching” could impress by virtue of craftsmanship and
technology that makes it feel so contemporary and true-to-life — this is
the rare internet-centric film that utilizes existing apps and websites, no
weird “Facebook” knockoffs here — the casting of Cho allowed Chaganty’s
feature to tap into modern sensibilities in another way. Cho, a Korean-American
actor, has always mixed up his roles, from those that hinge on his cultural
background (from the “Harold and Kumar” films to Justin Lin’s “Better Luck
Tomorrow”) and those that don’t (like Kogonada’s “Columbus” and his early
supporting work in the “American Pie” series).
“Searching” fell under the latter categorization, a film in which Cho’s race
wasn’t baked into the narrative and a colorblind casting that he’s hoping to
see more of in Hollywood.
“When you’re shooting, it’s all about, ‘Does this moment work? Will people
understand this? Are we telling that story correctly?,'” said Cho. “But,
particularly after Sundance, I began to think about what this movie meant. For
me, it’s like the movie behaves as if we’re past all the firsts, you know what I mean? We’ve sort of had the discussion and
we agreed that it’s okay for an Asian to be in any kind of movie and this is
the movie that’s been made. To me, it’s like a movie from the future in
that regard.”
The film premiered under the title “Search” at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival,
where it was quickly picked up by Sony’s Screen Gems arm. The studio released
the indie in late August, where it went on to make more than $70 million
worldwide. Not bad for a film that reportedly cost about $1 million to make.
Cho’s recent Indie Spirit nomination for Best Male Lead, pitting him against
contenders like Ethan Hawke and Joaquin Phoenix, took him by surprise, but it
also reminded Cho of just how exceptional the film has proven to be.
“I didn’t know that I was in the mix, I didn’t know that was possible,” he
said. “So that was a total surprise. I feel like it legitimized our film, which
could be seen as sort of adjacent to horror, which I think is a completely
legitimate genre but also sort of ignored by critics. Our movie is so unusual
that it might not even look like a traditional independent film. It certainly
doesn’t look like a traditional studio film, but it’s so unusual in its look
that I didn’t think people would see it as what we’re supposed to expect of
independent cinema.”
For Cho, who has long moved between indie films and studio pictures, the expectations
that scared him about the role were rooted in the demands of making a film that
takes place on computer screens. For the majority of the feature, his David is
stuck staring into his and Margot’s laptop screens, only occasionally
interacting with others through chats, emails, and “live” videos. It’s insular
work.
“The problem was I didn’t have any people to look at for the most part, and
that was extremely difficult for me, to feel like I was connected,” Cho said. “I
think you rely on looking into another soul to verify that you’re connected
with that person and make the scene authentic. … I felt like I had to develop a
much more intimate relationship with the director. I had to rely on him for the
geography of the screen, because they were all plot points and everything was
all these micro movements that were so important. Whereas on a traditional set,
I think my strongest relationships are with the actors, on this one my
strongest relationship was with the director. We just had to become very close.”
Cho is eager to deflect praise to not only Chaganty, but also to the rest
of the creative team that made his performance look so good inside a universe
that was created and constructed long after he had filmed his scenes.
“There’s a world in which all of the graphics don’t look that good,” he said. “I
was very happy when I saw the film, it was so thought out. I was really so
deeply impressed the time put into those web pages and the depth of
characterization. A really glancing scroll through Facebook represented so much
thought, because you’ll see five profiles and each profile was a different
photograph they had to take and they had to decide on a pose and different
likes and dislikes and all that stuff. It just has a real respect for
characters.”
While computer-screen films haven’t yet exploded as a singular genre, there
have been other success stories, like the horror franchise “Unfriended” and Timur
Bekmambetov’s thriller “Profile.”
(Bekmambetov also produced “Searching” and has been vocal about his dedication
to making a ton more screen films in the coming years.) For Cho, the recent
uptick in such films has been a matter of not only technology catching up, but
also the public understanding how it can all work as entertainment.
“I don’t think we could’ve made this movie even five years ago, because there
was like the collective vocabulary of the public wasn’t there when it came to
our computer literacy,” Cho said. “Now it’s there, but because we’re all caught
up, you have to be sharp and you have to be real and you can’t do anything
false. You can’t make false movements in that zone. … I feel like moving
forward, there will be so many more screens presented in films. I think it’ll
be a separate department.”
Cho also thinks the tide is turning when it comes to the other kind of
on-screen representation that “Searching” so easily utilized. Recent
blockbuster successes like “Black Panther,” “Get Out,” “Hidden Figures,” and “Wonder
Woman” prove that diverse films can make a lot of money, while
a 2017 study crunched the numbers and came to the same conclusion.
“I think it’s just the age, this is a guess, but it’s the age of the people who
control the pursestrings,” he said. “I think with the fracturing of the film
business’ economy, there’s not really an incentive to be false about
representation. I think the incentive is to be more authentic, more real, and
represent more accurately what’s happening in society. I’m kind of bullish on
the future now in a way that I wasn’t even five to 10 years ago.”
With over 20 years of acting experience, Cho resists the idea that he’s gotten
more picky as his star has risen. Instead, he offers that his success comes
from something more personal, the kind of emotional intelligence that made his
work in “Searching” so compelling.
“I feel like it’s more being older and being comfortable with leaning into my
instincts and looking for things that speak to me on a personal level,” he
said. “That’s what it is now. It’s not so much being choosy as it is following
my heart on these things. Sounds false, but it really isn’t. I’m trying to be
less strategic about things and not ask the question, ‘What should I be doing
next?,’ but I find myself asking the question, ‘What connection do I have to
this material? How can I contribute?’ “He added with a laugh, “I’m gratified to
say that I feel like that not
thinking about the career has paid off in the sense that it’s been good for my
career.”
