Director's Spotlight: Tim Burton

 
I haven't seen all of Tim Burton's films, and honestly I have no desire to. He's a pretty terrible filmmaker, overall, I think. Especially when you consider how distinctive his movies always look. I guess really when it comes down to it, I feel like he's a production/costume designer who got to be called a director. His skills are for single frame or single use ideas, not for story telling or narrative or even characters. He started as an animator, and it shows in his ability to create a nice single frame but not much more. His movies have a great distinct look, but he's an awful storyteller. That said, there are a couple of moments of beauty in some of his movies, particularly the Vincent Price stuff in Edward Scissorhands, and there are moments in Big Fish that work well too, but he can't put it all together in the end.

Now, that said, Ed Wood is a tremendous movie. I've always joked that I think Burton could really emotionally connect to the story of a terrible filmmaker, but whatever the reason, Ed Wood is a beautiful, wonderful movie.

Contrast him to his friend Henry Selick, who is the actual director of The Nightmare Before Christmas (it's called Tim Burton's A Nightmare Before Christmas, but he didn't direct it), and Coraline, which is better than everything Burton ever did put together. Selick has a very similar sensibility, similar character and production design ideas, but is a pretty good storyteller. Makes for much different movies in the end, even if I couldn't finish Nightmare Before Christmas the last couple times I tried to watch it. That could've been just my mood at the time. Anyway, my ratings for Burton's movies overall are:

1. Ed Wood - 9.5/10
2. Sleepy Hollow - 6/10
3. Sweeney Todd - 6/10
4. Beetlejuice - 5/10
5. Pee-Wee's Big Adventure - 5/10
6. Edward Scissorhands - 4/10
7. Mars Attacks! - 4/10
8. Big Fish - 4/10
9. Batman - 3/10
10. Batman Returns - 2/10
11. Alice in Wonderland - 2/10
12. Planet of the Apes - 2/10

Most Surprising Performances

What makes a performance surprising? This was a difficult list for me to put together simply because I'm not sure what surprises me from a performance. I try to always go into a movie with an open mind, I don't get the same reaction some people have like "Oh, who knew a comedian could act that well?" or whatever. So I don't often find myself surprised by new or "unexpected" performances. I think a great performance can come from anyone. My list mostly consists of performances of which I was surprised by the depth or power from actors that hadn't shown it before (or sometimes since). So anyway, onto the list!

10. Tom Cruise - Born on the 4th of July

Nothing Tom Cruise had done up to the point of Oliver Stone's Born on the Fourth of July in 1989 had prepared us for what he does in this movie. Although his charisma carried movies like Risky Business and Top Gun, he'd seemed a bit out of his depth in Color of Money, miscast in Legend, and was overshadowed by Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man (though undeservedly, I think, as his performance is trickier and more impressive to me). But with the power he shows in Born, it was revelatory. Cruise is an actor that has never gotten his due for being as good as he is, but this is still his acting masterpiece and it came seemingly out of nowhere. The way he shows Ron Kovic's bright-eyed optimism and naiveté grow quickly into fear and overwhelm into anger and resentment. It's brilliant work, and it showed that Cruise was more than just a movie star, he was an actor too. He's given other great performances in his career, but never bested this.


9. Jim Carrey - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Jim Carrey had shown in performances like The Truman Show and Man on the Moon that he had more depth to his talent than Ace Ventura literally talking out of his ass may've hinted at previously. And while I love those movies and performances, I can still see the performances. Carrey's work in Eternal Sunshine is his most nakedly vulnerable. It's almost uncomfortable to watch sometimes as Carrey doesn't hold back letting us see Joel Barrish's internal pain when we need to see it, or see that he's hiding when he doesn't want to be seen. And for a comedian who wants to be seen more than just about anyone in memory, for Carrey to so effortlessly play a guy who is mostly afraid to be seen, it's extraordinary. And we see his progression as his girlfriend Clementine (the predictably great Kate Winslet) counteracts him with her wild attitude and brashness. These two balance each other in really touching ways. But that's getting into the movie, and not just shining the spotlight on Jim Carrey's career best work.

8. Heath Ledger - Brokeback Mountain

I remember when 2003's The Order was coming out, with Heath Ledger playing a supernatural fighting priest or some shit (I obviously never saw more than the previews) and thinking "Really? They're still trying to make him a star? Why?" and it kinda made me sad. I'd liked Ledger in 10 Things I Hate About You (still one of the best teen movies, I think), and he was powerful in a supporting role in Monster's Ball. But mostly I'd found him forgettable in stuff like The Patriot, A Knight's Tale, and The Four Feathers. It seemed like he was going to be another in a very long line of guys that had a chance to be A-list stars, but didn't have the talent as much as he had the good looks. Then he and Jake Gyllenhaal got cast in a movie about gay cowboys and it seemed like his career was really going down the toilet.

South Park had famously parodied all independent movies as being "about gay cowboys eating pudding" so hopes were not high for Brokeback Mountain even with master filmmaker Ang Lee in the director's chair. When Ledger came on screen and gave a completely unexpectedly masterful performance it blew me away. His work in showing us the emotions of a man who doesn't show emotions is one of the most complex, subtle, heartbreaking pieces of acting I've ever seen. He followed it up with great work in movies like Candy, I'm Not There, The Dark Knight, and The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, leaving us realizing that he'd always had the talent and just needed to really hit his prime to show it off consistently. Sadly, with his overdose death we can only imagine what he would've done next, but his work in Brokeback Mountain stands as a testament to his talent and one of the times I was truly blown away by an actor. For that matter, The Dark Knight is the polar opposite in performance, just as surprising as a totally different type of character and equally as brilliant. I feel like he would've continued to surprise us over the years if he'd had the chance.

7. Colin Farrell - In Bruges

Like Ledger, Farrell had shown signs of his talent before his best work came along. He was really good in The New World, Intermission, and Daredevil (of which his wildly over-the-top villain is about the only redeeming thing) but he'd also been bland and forgettable in a number of movies both big and small (Cassandra's Dream, SWAT, Alexander, Miami Vice, The Recruit). Again like Ledger, he seemed to me to be a relatively harmless actor with a pretty face that just didn't have the talent to be a star or a great actor. And then In Bruges came along and Farrell's performance really caught me off guard. His Ray is funny, almost childlike sometimes, but with a depth of experience, anger, and sadness that is sometimes hidden and sometimes allowed to come out. Farrell plays each of these aspects, in his native accent (where he works best), with almost effortless ease. This performance never reaches for a moment or a laugh. It never tries to make you cry or identify with him. It just works. And it really was like a springboard for Farrell to become one of our best actors. He's since shown such range and talent in everything from The Lobster to Crazy Heart, Seven Psychopaths, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, and filling in after Ledger's passing in The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus. But for me, In Bruges was where he most surprised me. Seeing this performance now wouldn't be so shocking, but at the time, he'd not shown this level of talent yet. Now I expect it of him.

6. Max Pomeranc - Searching for Bobby Fischer

This is a different case. Max Pomeranc was a top 100 child chess player when picked to play Josh Waitzkin in Searching for Bobby Fischer. The true story of a child chess prodigy, it's one of my favorite movies. But the surprise comes not from the seasoned actors like Joe Mantegna, Joan Allen, and Ben Kingsley, although they're all wonderful, but from 8 year old Pomeranc. This is the best child performance I've ever seen. Pomeranc is not the precocious child star, nor the almost savant-like character that other children have been on screen. Instead, he's a real child, innocent, emotional without being able to articulate, driven by the things he likes, and just wants his dad to love him. It's a great movie, but the movie doesn't work without this central performance, because unlike in other movies of this kind, the child is also the main character (or co-lead at least). Pomeranc has to carry the movie as much as Mantegna does, and he does it brilliantly. The sensitivity, intelligence, curiosity, and real emotions he brings to the role is staggering when compared to even other great child performances. He went on to act in a couple of other movies, but mostly leaves Searching for Bobby Fischer as his calling card, and what a card it is.

5. Hayden Christensen - Shattered Glass

Oh, poor Hayden Christensen. He was a promising young actor when cast as Anakin Skywalker in the second and third Star Wars prequels (he'd won or been nominated for a slew of awards for 2001's Life as a House). But his performances in the Star Wars prequels are laughable and have been thoroughly ridiculed in the last 15 years. Unfortunately for Christensen, he's taken the brunt of the criticism, despite those movies being littered with bad performances and other things to criticize. Shattered Glass may have looked initially like an actor trying to gain respect when he doesn't have the talent to deserve it, but instead it's a fascinating look at a pathological liar and Christensen is astonishing in the role. Nowhere else has he shown what he does here, where we can see his mind moving to come up with a lie to cover a previous lie he is now caught in. Christensen also shows us the wounded child underneath, the main aspect of his personality that allowed him to get away with his lies for so long. It's a great movie, wonderfully written and directed, but like all movies it would need a real performance to bring it up a level. He hasn't really shown this depth of talent in his other work, but it's on full display here for us to know that it's inside of him.


4. Kate Hudson - Almost Famous
Like Christensen, this is a masterful performance, and also like Christensen, I don't think Hudson has shown anywhere near this depth anywhere else. That's what surprises, both on first viewing when I didn't know her at all, and subsequent viewings when I do. But the sensitivity and emotion Hudson brings to her role as Penny Lane is truly heartwarming, heartbreaking and wonderful. It's a great role, from Cameron Crowe's Oscar-winning script, but it's not just that. Hudson really handles little moments, looks, certain body language, tones of voice in a way to let us know who Penny is and what she's feeling. That's what makes this work so surprising, because Hudson hasn't hinted at it anywhere else. She has a fine talent for rom-coms. She has the charisma to carry lightweight fluff like that, she does it well. She inherited her mother's thousand watt smile, and she has the great breezy personality of many rom-com queens. But Penny Lane is something else, something deeper, and Hudson knocks it out of the park effortlessly. While others on this list had performances that might've hinted at their talent elsewhere in their career, I don't think Hudson has. That's why this one hits so hard.

3. Jimmy Stewart - Vertigo & John Wayne - The Searchers

I couldn't decide which to choose between these performances, so I didn't. These could've topped the list, honestly, because of how surprising they are in and of themselves, but we knew Wayne and Stewart's talents before this. Although Wayne was more personality than actor, he'd been very good previously in movies like The Sands of Iwo Jima, Stagecoach, and Red River. Stewart, of course, was very similar in that he often played "Jimmy Stewart", more personality than actor. But he too had done plenty of good work in movies like It's a Wonderful Life, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and The Philadelphia Story among others. The reason I picked these two performances (and felt okay lumping them together) is because they both play unsavory characters at odds with the rest of their careers.
Wayne's Ethan Edwards in The Searchers is a racist scumbag who only wants to save his kidnapped niece so that he can kill her, because she's been soiled by living with the Native Americans who took her. He's not the knight in shining armor trying to save the damsel in distress. He's driven by his racist hatred for the people who took her, not his beating heart. Wayne loved playing the strong, take control, almost superheroic character. He was good at it. But he surprises with not only the role choice, which is bold, but the depth and power of his performance. It's great actor work, not just star presence. Stewart's Scotty in Vertigo is a slow burn piece of work who is subtly falling into madness over his obsessive love of Kim Novak's character. He becomes controlling, disturbed, and ultimately unhinged. It's a frightening performance from a guy who was essentially the Tom Hanks of his day. He was a likable, comforting presence on screen. Not in Vertigo. Well, he is at first, he's initially sympathetic, it's over the course of the movie that we're surprised by the nightmarish spiral downward that he takes. It's what makes the movie work. And it wouldn't have worked with just any ole actor.

2. Jack Black - High Fidelity/Bernie
Jack Black really knocked my socks off twice in his career. First was the first time I ever saw him, in 2000's High Fidelity where he comes into the movie like a whirling dervish, a Tasmanian devil spinning out of control through the life of John Cusack's lead character. It's a big, brash, showy, scene stealing role that was really surprising and delightful, but it's a role that Black then played variations of for most of his career. It became the "Jack Black" persona. So when it came to 2011's Bernie, based on a true story, where Black plays an impossibly nice, effeminate man accused of murdering his hateful elderly friend (Shirley MacLaine), I was again surprised, this time by the lack of "JACK BLACK" in the performance. Black’s extraordinary work as Bernie is pitched just this side of caricature. None of Bernie’s mannerisms are camp or insincere at all, Black goes for realism, making the performance all the more astounding in its creation of this odd character. He showed real actor chops, and I still contend should have an Oscar on his shelf for it.

1. Jamie Foxx - Ray/Collateral
Like former cast mate Jim Carrey before him, but even more so, I was blown away by Jamie Foxx in Ray. I'd always known he was funny, I'd been a huge In Living Color fan and he was one of the funniest cast members. They'd also done something one time on the show that let Foxx sing, showing he had great talent there as well. But like others on the list, even though you could see there was talent there it wasn't until the right role came along that that talent got to shine. 2004 was the year Foxx showed it all. In August I went to see him in Michael Mann's Collateral, which had mostly been given attention for Tom Cruise's villainous turn. But it was Foxx who most impressed me, with his low key, realistic work in the lead role (which he was somehow nominated as Best Supporting Actor for at the Oscars, which has to be the most screen time by a "supporting" role in Oscar history, he's unquestionably the lead). But then two months later Foxx really broke out with his show stopping role in the Ray Charles biopic Ray. His capturing of Charles's mannerisms, singing voice, and infectious character really blew me away. Foxx has since gone on to do all kinds of work across singing, acting, even hosting a game show. But I've never been more surprised in a performance than I was with Ray.

Director's Spotlight: Quentin Tarantino

He was on the trail of being one of the great filmmakers after his first three movies. Unfortunately, he began to believe his own hype, and love the smell of his own farts too much (that happens when you live with your head up your own ass) to really make anything great since. He still has the talent, and that talent can shine through, but he was Quentin Tarantino up until Jackie Brown, and then after that he became QUENTIN TARANTINO, BEST FILMMAKER ALIVE!!! And he lost that special something that makes a great artist. He lost his sense of place and sense of self. Or probably more accurately, he didn’t lose his sense of self, but his sense of self changed.

There was this great series on the Sundance channel a few years ago called Iconoclasts. Essentially, two famous people from different fields would hang out and ask each other questions and talk. There was an episode with QT and Fiona Apple. In it, he talked about how he knew nothing bad would happen to him because God had put him here to make movies. He felt untouchable after Reservoir Dogs, because he knew that wasn’t the movie he was put here to make. But then after he made Pulp Fiction he thought, “uh oh, I’m not invincible anymore. That’s the movie I was put here to make.” I think he then took shelter in adapting an Elmore Leonard book, since Leonard was the writer/artist he stole more from than anyone else. He adapted Rum Punch into Jackie Brown and then I think he felt kinda lost.

Since then he has become a parody of himself, but he’s believed his own press too much to create something new because he’s enjoyed increased commercial success while continuing to have critical success. But he’s got nothing to say anymore. Even when watching a new movie of his, there’s nothing that feels new in it. He’s just repeating himself in different ways. Despite increased technical abilities and increased budgets, he’s not done anything exciting since Jackie Brown. Everything he does now is an exercise in style.

And he's very good at those exercises in style. Something like Django Unchained is a really good western movie. But even though it's different than a traditional western, it's not surprising, it's not exciting. It's just a good exercise in style. It's shallow, cheap. As Roger Ebert would sometimes say, there's no there there. There's nothing underneath the surface. QT isn't trying to get at anything deep. He's just exercising his style. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's not something that will get someone on my list of favorite filmmakers.


My rankings of his work:

1. Pulp Fiction – 10/10
2. Jackie Brown – 9/10
3. Django Unchained – 8/10
4. Kill Bill (both) – 7/10
5. Inglorious Basterds – 7/10
6. Hateful Eight – 6/10
7. Reservoir Dogs – 6/10
8. Death Proof – 4/10

A few quick thoughts on The Hateful Eight

Caught up to Tarantino' latest a few months ago but didn't write out my thoughts, here are a few, mostly unorganized, ones:

It's an hour too long

The actors are all game, and really bring it, even Channing Tatum. But Walton Goggins and Sam Jackson rise above the rest and are really special. Jackson's not as amazing as he was in Django, which might be his best work as an actor, but he's still wonderful. Even when Tarantino has him delivering one of the stupidest monologues I've ever heard to Bruce Dern, Jackson still sells it so much that it almost works. Walton Goggins perfectly balances, throughout the whole piece, a wild intensity and an endearing goofiness. He's always been a reliable character actor, but this is terrific work.

Tarantino's voice is really off putting. Having himself as the narrator, even for just like two sections of the movie really was jarring to the point of taking me out of the experience. I think it's also jarring and ruinous because he does not start out with narration nor finish with it. There's only a narration to add connecting pieces to certain parts of the movie. That's bad writing. That makes it feel out of place just in its existence. This is what people are talking about when they say that narration is lazy. I don't agree that narration is lazy in and of itself, but here it's just a way for QT to insert his presence into things even more, not because it works or because it's needed.

The opening couple of chapters feel like Tarantino has gone heavily back to the well of stealing from Elmore Leonard, this time from Leonard's amazing western stories he started out writing. These chapters are quieter, but talky, more engaging than what follows, riveting even. Shortening the second half of the movie might've allowed this early intrigue and impact to matter more in the end. It doesn't, and that's unfortunate. That opening passage of getting them to the cabin is absolutely expert writing, acting, and filmmaking. But it's all downhill from there.

The allegations of misogyny are really stupid. QT isn't the most "woke" of people in the world, but it's obvious that these characters are misogynists, not the movie itself.

It's obviously Tarantino's best looking and sounding movie. The photography is tremendous and although Ennio Morricone's score is under used, what's there is great. Impressive feeling movie up until the stage play of everything in the cabin.

Although it starts out feeling like maybe QT has finally grown up, once that first chapter inside the cabin is over, the movie goes sharply downhill into the usual violence and messiness as a storyteller that always gets QT in trouble in my book. Though I do like the contrast of starting out in the open nature (though nature is bearing down on them) but feeling very intimate and contained, to then actually opening up as they enter a confined space. It's an interesting story dynamic, but not one that really goes anywhere. It's one of those things that's more interesting to talk about than it is to view. Because when it becomes a stage play, it really loses a sense of itself as a filmic being. There are ways of making cinematic choices for stage play adaptations or making things flow better, but QT is pretty content to try and have his writing carry things. That's the wrong move. As he has become more QUENTIN TARANTINO and less Quentin Tarantino, his writing has suffered. He is now a much more talented visual filmmaker than he is a writer. I think his writing has become lazy and much less effective than it used to be. He's a better director than writer now, and that wasn't always the case.

I think that's all I've got for now. I would need to re-watch it to give a true proper write up, and honestly I don't think I will ever feel the need to watch this movie again. I will still go back and watch Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown, but those have become QT's only movies I have any passion for. They're his only movies that hold in my mind. Even Django, which I liked a good deal, doesn't pull me back to it. I don't think The Hateful Eight will either.

What is Fight Club about?

I have never read the book Fight Club. I have only seen the movie. I want to preface this post with that information. Every time I talk about what Fight Club is or isn't saying, I am talking about the movie.


I was listening recently to author Chuck Palahniuk on Joe Rogan's podcast and they were talking about Fight Club as being a way for guys to come together and talk about their lives and their feelings the way that women do over books all the time. Palahniuk said that men basically only have Fight Club and Dead Poets Society. But he also talked about how some philosophers have said that men need a secondary father figure to be the mentor in their lives to healthily grow (what Tyler essentially represents in the story). Rogan is joining in making the parallel to martial arts and self mastery and discipline and how important that is for self growth and self worth. It's an interesting conversation and has really stirred that pot within my brain.

The problem I have with this is that even if I agreed that men need to express their internal energies in an external violent way (I don't agree with that), I would still say that Fight Club isn't about any of these things that they're talking about. If anything it shows the opposite, that expressing these violent tendencies makes the men into fighting addicts and brainless submissives rather than more fully functioning adults. To me it is saying that this expressing of violence is the opposite extreme to what the Narrator (Ed Norton) had been living, a life of consumerism and relative passivity. There needs to be a balance in life, of course, but the movie doesn't really show or say that. Even ultimately its ending tries to feel emotionally like a resolution, though it resolves nothing and is illogical and idiotic.

Now, maybe the book and movie have different agendas, I don't know, again I haven't read the book. Maybe this is getting into misleading territory with the author of the book commenting on something that I only have knowledge of the movie version, but I think Palahniuk is way off here about what his intention was versus what was created. The men in Fight Club don't talk about their lives, their feelings, or become more whole human beings. They don't express anything but anger and frustration through acts of violence, ultimately turning to terrorism. There has always seemed to me to be an internal dissonance within Fight Club because of this. It's not as smart as it thinks it is, and I don't think it's saying what it thinks it's saying.

The movie turns in on itself in the third act, as the members of Fight Club become submissive terrorist followers to their leader Tyler (Brad Pitt), but then what does that mean for what the movie is saying? Is it then reversing its agenda and showing Tyler to be in the wrong the whole time? Is it then positing that violence is not the answer? Ultimately no, it actually abandons thematic meanings to try and end on a note of hope for the relationship between the broken Marla (Helena Bonham Carter) and the Narrator. Why? Why should we hope for anything for these two people individually or together? They've seemingly learned nothing, and don't have any kind of model relationship that will save either of them from the demons that will come back to haunt them again.

I think my issue is that I feel like the movie doesn’t ultimately say anything at all. It brings up points about consumerism, masculinity, and other things, but with the way that the story ends, it doesn’t then present anything else as a conclusion. So we’re left with these points, which cause questions, and that’s certainly not a bad thing. But the movie also doesn’t have anything to say about the questions it brings up, I don’t think. Questions are good. I like a movie asking questions. But I guess I think a movie should be more than a question. Even movies that present an issue but then don’t take sides on the issue ultimately are explicitly asking for a discussion of the issue. When a movie presents itself like it has an answer in the Id embodiment that is Tyler, only to subvert that by showing Tyler to be wrong (maybe? I'm still not sure that's what the movie thinks it's doing, even if I think that is what it's doing), I think it needs to present some viewpoint, not cop out by presenting no viewpoint. Fight Club seems to present Tyler as the answer to consumerism and impotent masculinity, and then shows Tyler to be the “bad guy” but doesn’t present him as being wrong necessarily. It just “kills” him and Marla and the Narrator watch as they are powerless to stop the destruction that Tyler has caused. End of movie. What?

I think that people need an outlet for their emotions. Could be an artistic outlet, it could be a therapist or even just a close friend that you are able to be truthful and vulnerable with. I'm not sure if my issue with the movie has always been that it seems to present violence as the only outlet, or that it then seems to undercut it in the end, leaving no real statement being made. It's almost like it tries to have it both ways, and people don't seem to realize that it is not actually saying much in the end, is it? Am I being too hard on it? It's trying to say something about consumerism, about needing a balance of Id and Superego, about violent tendencies, but what is the movie itself ultimately saying about those things? There are a lot of think pieces we could write inspired by what the movie brings up in us, and maybe that's the point, but what is the movie itself actually saying about any of it?

Now, I don’t think a movie has to say anything. Movies don't necessarily have to have deep themes that they explore in some way. There doesn't necessarily have to be some philosophy behind a movie. But I guess if a movie like this comes along with a protagonist looking for answers, has a character who appears to have all the answers that the protagonist is looking for, only to be shown to be fraudulent as far as answers go, ultimately leaving the protagonist in seemingly not too different a place as he started the movie, outside of the experiences of the movie, I feel like it should make a statement on what it actually believes. Fight Club doesn't do that, because it doesn’t seem to outwardly believe anything. I agree with others about the satirical aspect of the movie. I don’t think the movie is actually advocating violence even though that has been the overwhelming takeaway for most people from the movie. But if not that then what? It doesn’t then advocate anything else. A different way of thinking, different ideas. It just has that cop out ending and asks us to be satisfied by that.

Director's Spotlight: The Coen Brothers

They are one (two) of my favorite filmmakers, and their work just gets better and better every time I watch it. Even their lesser movie are worth re-watches. They are masterful visual filmmakers, but never to a distracting level, I don’t think. The visuals are always perfectly suited to the story they’re telling. Their odd, dark yet ridiculous and sometimes even juvenile sense of humor is certainly an acquired taste, but I generally love it. Each one of their movies has big laughs in it, and I think one of the few things they don’t typically have is an emotionality to their work. But even with that, there are scenes in No Country for Old Men and Miller’s Crossing that can bring tears to my eyes. When I made my list of top directors a couple years ago I put them as #9, and I think that's a little low now.

They skip across genres like the western, broad slapstick comedy, noir, musical, and often just blend them all up into one. But even working across all of those genres, each and every one of their movies feels and looks like a Coen Brothers movie. There's never any doubt about that. They are singular filmmakers, despite there being two of them.

1. No Country For Old Men – 10/10
2. The Big Lebowski – 10/10
3. Miller's Crossing – 10/10
4. Raising Arizona – 9/10
5. Blood Simple – 9/10
6. A Serious Man – 9/10
7. True Grit – 9/10
8. Fargo – 8/10
9. O Brother, Where Art Thou? – 8/10
10. The Man Who Wasn't There – 7/10
11. Inside Llewyn Davis – 7/10
12. Barton Fink – 6/10

Does authorial intent matter?

I got into a discussion about this subject recently with my brother. I was saying that if you just listen to the music, there's not a ton of difference between something like Miles Davis's Bitches Brew and H. Jon Benjamin's Well I Should Have Learned How to Play Piano album. Miles made his record as a serious exploration of jazz modes and whatnot, while Benjamin made his as a joke, surrounding himself with real musicians while he himself took lead playing piano despite not knowing how to play piano. I contended that there's not much difference, as a listener, if you didn't know the artists intent. My brother said that the intent is what colors everything and is super important to know what the artist was trying to say.

So I bring this discussion to movies because it's very similar. If David Lynch always keeps his intent a secret to himself about what his surreal, dreamlike movies mean, then that can mean that whatever meanings we read into it is our own, we create the meaning. Then I would ask: what is the point of the artists vision and intent if I'm the one creating the meaning?

I remember doing a project in high school where we presented song lyrics like poetry and broke them down the way we would break down a poem. One of the other students picked the Goo Goo Dolls song "Iris". They eventually explained the title as meaning that the iris is the center of the eye and the girl in the song is the center of this guys world, bringing the lyric "I don't want the world to see me" as well as the lyrical themes of perception and reality back to the image of the eye. Not a bad interpretation, fits perfectly to be honest, but I'd heard John Rzeznik say that the title Iris had no meaning whatsoever and he just liked the way it sounded. Obviously that doesn't mean that that student's interpretation was "wrong", because it was their own interpretation, but if it wasn't what the artist intended, then what does that mean as far as the connection that the students' interpretation had made in their mind and heart?

I think it's an interesting question and wanted to see what any of youse guys had to say on the subject. We've talked about it before, but it's an important discussion so I think it's okay for it to be brought up again every once in a while. Does the intent of the author of a piece of art matter?

Separating Art from Artist

So, yesterday Bill Cosby was sentenced to 3-10 years in prison for sexual assault. As always when Cosby comes up (or Woody Allen or Roman Polanski or Mel Gibson), the concept of separating art and artist arises in me. Some people do separate and others don't.

I have always felt it to be a little disingenuous for the people who don't separate and condemn others who still consume the art of these kinds of people. I can understand their perspective, that consuming their art is a way of implicitly supporting these people, but I don't agree with it. What about when they're dead and you're not giving money to that person anymore? Does that still count or is it then okay? What about artists that you were ignorant of their unsavory or criminal personal lives? I know that doesn't really apply here because we do know about people like Cosby or Polanski, but I’m saying at what point do you care?

At what point do you start separating art and artist? What constitutes an act worthy of dismissing an artist’s work? When does that start to matter? Can you still listen to The Beatles even though John Lennon beat his first wife? Can you still watch the movies of Charlie Chaplin or look at Pablo Picasso's paintings even though they both had relationships with teenaged girls? What about listening to the music of some of the bands of the 1960's and 70's who had relationships with groupies that were sometimes as young as 14 or 15 (Ted Nugent even became the legal guardian of a 17-year-old so that he could marry her)? Can you read Lord of the Flies, whose author William Golding admitted, in an unpublished memoir, to attempted rape? What about anything by William S. Burroughs, who drunkenly (though accidentally) murdered his wife? Catcher in the Rye or other JD Salinger works, when Salinger is another guy who loved teenaged girls (once dating a 14 year old when he was 30)? Norman Mailer, who stabbed his wife twice in the chest? What about HP Lovecraft’s racism? What about Charles Dickens cheating on his wife with a teenager? Virginia Woolf, Ezra Pound, Patricia Highsmith and many other writers anti-Semitism? Where does it stop? Where does an artist’s personal life start to matter?

I think these are the questions that matter in this discussion because if you are inextricably linking art and artist, you goddamn better make sure that you know everything possible about every artist you enjoy and that they pass your moral judgment test. Good luck with that, by the way.

My ultimate point is that although an artist certainly puts themselves into their art, their art is not themselves. The art stands on its own. Unless Woody Allen makes a movie about how it's okay to start a relationship with your wife's teenaged adopted daughter, I will continue watching his movies when I feel like it. I will still read Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley novels despite her reported anti-Semitism because the book itself isn’t supporting anti-Semitism. That doesn’t mean that I support anti-Semitism. It means I like a good book. I can separate the book from where or who it came from. I don’t see any reason to not separate the two. What about you?

Director's Spotlight: Steven Spielberg

I think Scorsese, and maybe Hitchcock, is the only filmmaker I've seen more films from than Spielberg. I'm a huge fan, and even listed him as my #6 filmmaker of all time. That's when I wrote this, which I'll just repost as my thoughts here:

Spielberg is one of the few directors pretty much everyone knows by name. That's not always a good thing, since appealing to the masses generally takes a certain blandness to play to everyone. But Spielberg is as much an auteur as any other director. You see the recurring themes of broken families and the resulting stress that occurs, regular people in extraordinary circumstances, or even his ability to induce awe in us. Whether it's the Mother Ship in Close Encounters, multiple moments in Jurassic Park, or E.T. and Elliot flying across the full moon.

Spielberg has probably given us more iconic moments in the pop culture collective consciousness than anyone. And on top of all of that, he's also a great storyteller. Sometimes his movies are too long, but he still generally makes them pop narratively in a wonderful way. He might be the most popular director ever, but that's no reason to be snobby and not include him on a list like this, he's popular with me too.

As for rating and ranking his movies, that'd look something like this:

1. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) - 10/10
2. Munich (2005) - 10/10
3. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) - 10/10
4. Schindler's List (1993) - 10/10
5. Jaws (1975) - 10/10
6. Jurassic Park (1993) - 9/10
7. Saving Private Ryan (1998) - 9/10
8. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) - 9/10
9. The Color Purple (1985) - 8/10
10. A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001) - 8/10
11. Minority Report (2002) - 8/10
12. Duel (1971) - 8/10
13. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) - 8/10
14. Catch Me If You Can (2002) - 8/10
15. The Adventures of Tintin (2011) - 8/10
16. War of the Worlds (2005) - 7/10
17. Empire of the Sun (1987) - 7/10
18. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) - 6/10
19. The Sugarland Express (1974) - 6/10
20. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) - 6/10
21. The Terminal (2004) - 6/10
22. Always (1989) - 5/10
23. The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997) - 4/10
24. 1941 (1979) - 4/10
25. Hook (1991) - 3/10

Once

As a musician, I've never really been able to articulate to people the sort of psychic connection that musicians have with one another when we really click. It's almost like you've found your soul mate, like they understand everything about you, even if you've just met and they don't really know anything about your life. Well, writer/director John Carney's film Once taps into that energy, shows that connection, and at least documents the high that you get from creating music. I wasn't sure if non-musicians would understand the subtext of much of the movie, but most of the people I've talked to over the years do seem to understand, and they love it. Music is universal, but musicals are notoriously un-loved by many people (myself included, with few exceptions). Once, however, is at least 2/3rd's music, and although not universally loved (because no movie is), it has certainly made a connection with many people.

Glen Hansard is the leader of a hugely influential rock band in Ireland called The Frames. They are one of the great bands of the past couple of decades, but for some reason never made it big in the US. John Carney began as the bass player for The Frames in the early 90's but slowly gravitated away into filmmaking. But when he got an idea to do a movie told mostly through music, he wanted his old bandmate Glen to write the music for it. The story was a kind of mashup of Carney and Hansard’s lives. It would be about a busker who falls in love with an Eastern European immigrant in Dublin. It was to be a simple tale, carried by Glen’s music.

Irish star Cillian Murphy was supposed to play the lead. He’d worked with Carney on multiple projects before, and was a musician prior to becoming an actor. He was also coming off of playing main villain The Scarecrow in Batman Begins, but walked away after hearing Glen’s music, which he wouldn’t be able to sing or do justice to. Losing a star meant that Carney wouldn't be able to get the kind of funding he would've previously been able to get. Instead of dwelling on this, Carney turned it into a positive. This meant that he could make his movie for basically no money, which meant no interference from a studio. He also re-evaluated his leading man, thinking it might be better to get a great singer who could half act, rather than a great actor who could half sing. He turned to Glen, who initially refused. Glen said he was a musician not an actor. After doing a screen test, thankfully Glen reconsidered and agreed to do the movie. Playing the female lead opposite Glen would be his good friend, and recent musical collaborator, Marketa Irglova, a young Czech pianist/singer whom Glen had met a few years previously. Marketa added her haunting voice and piano to Glen's songs and they became the backbone of Once.

The movie was ultimately made for very little money (just over $150,000) and looks like it. The visual quality of the film makes it clear that it was shot on cheap cameras, with natural lighting, and shot very quickly. This would be a hindrance to some movies, but actually works here in a sort of underdog way, giving a handmade quality to things as well. These characters are low budget, it makes sense that the movie is as well.

Glen's character (unnamed, but credited as The Guy) lives in a working class section of Dublin, splitting his time between working in his dad's vacuum repair shop and being a street musician. Marketa's character (The Girl, or "herself" as Glen tends to refer to her) splits her time between being a maid, and being a street vendor (roses, magazines, whatever). They meet one night as Glen is playing his heartbreaking songs to no audience, he tells her he plays his own songs at night because people only want to hear things that they already know during the day, and that's how he makes money. She likes his songs, and he soon finds out that she plays piano. She takes him to a music shop where the owner lets her practice for an hour every day at lunch (she doesn't have a piano at home because they're too expensive). This scene has become famous as the two work through a song he’s just started writing called “Falling Slowly”. She adds harmony and piano and the song ended up winning an Oscar.

As a musician every one of the musical sequences rings true, probably because the movie is about musicians, so it's not like the characters are just randomly breaking out into song. You don’t need that suspension of disbelief that comes with a standard Hollywood musical. They're simply playing their songs the way that musicians do.

Before long these two are trying to put a band together, collaborating on music, and eventually recording in a small studio. They also may be falling in love. It’s an odd connection that musicians have sometimes. It’s intimate. You’re sharing something from your soul with someone else who is sharing from their soul. It’s not hard to see why there are so many in-band relationships in the history of pop music. In fact, for a time after this movie came out, Glen and Marketa became a couple. They toured with their band that they called The Swell Season. They even appeared in an episode of The Simpsons as their characters from Once, in an episode where the Simpsons go to Ireland.

There's the possibility here in the movie that their relationship could lead to a romance as well but, despite some of the embarrassingly photoshopped promotional posters showing them holding hands, it doesn't. She’s married and he’s still hung up on his previous girlfriend. And the movie is better off for it, because that would've been the first demand from a studio,” the guy and the girl must fall in love”. Well, actually they still do, but not in a traditional movie sense. There's no doubt in my mind that these two characters love each other possibly more than they'll ever love anyone else, but they don't act on it. Not that they don't want to (her million-watt smile and his puppy dog eyes tell a great untold story), but it just isn't in the cards for them.

Once has more heart and soul poured into it than most movies you'll ever see. It's a heartbreaking romance, a beautiful musical, and a deeply felt portrait of two lonely people finding each other in the world and making some terrific art out of it. It was adapted into a Tony award winning Broadway musical in 2011. And John Carney has gone on to make other music movies, including the terrific Begin Again in 2013 with Keira Knightley and Mark Ruffalo, and 2016’s Sing Street, which I wrote about here in my September column last year. If you haven’t seen this Hidden Gem, please do yourself a favor and seek it out.