We're nearing the end of the year 2000, as we reach November. Only two rewatches for this, neither of which I actually saw in 2000:
Quills
release: November 22
nominations: Best Actor (Geoffrey Rush), Best Art Direction-Set Decoration (Martin Childs / Jill Quertier), Best Costume Design (Jacqueline West)
dir: Philip Kaufman
pr: Julia Chasman / Peter Kaufman / Nick Wechsler
scr: Doug Wright, from his play
cin: Rogier Stoffers
A fictionalized account of the infamous Marquis de Sade's stay at an asylum and the effect his presence has on the staff and residents.
First saw this as a rented VHS from my film school's library.
It's not much of a defense of the Marquis de Sade - his writing and his character are indefensible - but it is first and foremost an expression of the passions and compulsions of an artist. Watch interviews with Gore Vidal or Christopher Hitchens or Tom Stoppard, they're inevitably asked if writing always came easy or if they always wanted to write, and most of the time, they say "want" has nothing to do with it, it was nature, out of their hands, what they were born to do, they couldn't stop if they wanted to. This is expressed perfectly as De Sade's writing instruments are taken away: without paper and pen, he writes on his bedsheets in chicken bone dipped in wine; when that is taken away, he pricks his fingers and writes on his silk clothes; when he is stripped bare and confined to a cell, his shit prose - his literal shit - decorates the walls. Around him, the priest who tries to care, the laundress who's a fan of the writing, the controlling and hypocritical new director, his too-young new wife, are all inspired and influenced by his work, for good and ill, submitting to temptations or even just the thoughts, all uniquely transformed by this art. It does nothing to make you think this is a good man worth defending, it merely demonstrates the artistic passion, a passion that can only be described as madness - and, whether we like it or not, whether it's tasteful or not, they should have the right to express themselves, buck the system, find their audience. They'll write anyway, they'll get their words out there no matter what, censorship only entices. It may lose steam in its last act, but otherwise, it's a groovy little picture.
Unbreakable
release: November 22
dir/scr: M. Night Shyamalan
pr: Barry Mendel / Sam Mercer / M. Night Shyamalan
cin: Eduardo Serra
When he's the only survivor of a train crash, a man comes to realize - with the help of an eccentric enthusiast - that he may be a real-life superhero.
First watched in a M. Night Shyamalan marathon leading up to The Village, at my friend's house. We started with The Sixth Sense and ended with the absolutely unhinged Sci-Fi Channel mockumentary The Buried Secret of M. Night Shyamalan, a Curse of the Blair Witch-style exposé that suggests dark forces at work within the director.
Objectively, I can see how this might seem a comedown after The Sixth Sense. It's so serious that it almost steps into self-parody; the scenes with Bruce Willis and [] as his son in particular are just so overwrought, almost like Shyamalan wants to prove how grunded and tearful he can get every kid he works with to be. Ha, you know what, it works! Works on me, anyway. This is a man who always felt, in the back of his head, something different about him, finally realizes what it could be, keeps trying to find evidence to the contrary before surrendering to it. And to his son, it's the most frightening and exciting possibility in the world, something he can be proud of, a glimmer of hope that things are going to be OK (there's talk of separation and divorce...). And there's Samuel L. Jackson as a complicated man who's not haunted by his past so much as he's...transformed by it; in his trauma, he finds his destiny. And so it also becomes a film not just about the great burden of being Not As Others, but about the psychosis of fanaticism. Jackson and Bruce Willis do some of their best work opposite each other (a strong year for Jackson in general). Also, let me just say this: a reveal is not a twist.
Tomorrow, the first-timers for my November 2000, including, yes, my first time seeing How the Grinch Stole Christmas and The Legend of Bagger Vance!
No comments:
Post a Comment