Johnny Simmons

Despite its massive running time (the film covers about two and a half hours) The English Patient is the type of film where every line and moment seems like a potential pivotal revelation. In a near confrontation with Willem Dafoe’s Caravaggio Juliette Binoche’s nurse tearfully explains that her patient is in love with ghosts. It doesn’t stand out as expressly revelatory because the film, a well-timed dance between the past and present, depends on memory. Yet, even though it is the memories of Almasy which acts as the foundation on which the film lays the entire film is about the characters and their ghosts. Some are moving forward, some are stuck in transit – but they’ve all got their mind on the ghosts in their past.

            

For the longest while, whenever someone asked me to name my favourite film – the first thing that flashed through my head were those images of the sandy desert and the mysterious caves. For, despite the many stories, and the overlapping themes – that is what The English Patient begins and ends with….endless sand…The English Patient is, after all, a story about the war even though it never goes directly to the front like Saving Private Ryan. It is one story divided in two. The prologue is in the desert – Count Almasy’s International Sand Club, and the epilogue is in Italy, that of the eponymous patient, his nurse – Hana and her Sikh lover and the film cleverly opens with the plane crash in the air which unites the two – prologue and epilogue – to make a glorious whole.
        
The English Patient depends on Ralph Fiennes to be the centre of the story. It is his story afterwards. The Count seems to be the role that fits him perfectly – a coldness that is not apathy but just stillness. He spends half of the film in extensive makeup existing as his extensive burns, and yet he never plays the Patient as a victim. Fiennes has always been an extensively subtle actor (sometimes misconstrued as blandness) and thus, the role of Almasy fits him like a glove. We see him raise his voice only twice – the first time at a drunken dinner, the second after a fateful run-in with some soldiers. It’s this very sereneness that draws Katherine to him. Her first words to him are, “I wanted to meet the man who could write such a long paper with so few adjectives.” He’s so obviously disconcerted by being under scrutiny, and he winces almost imperceptibly. Then he replies, “A thing is still a thing, no matter what you put in front of it. Fast car, slow car, chauffer driven car…still a car.” Katherine’s combative argument? “Love. Romantic love, filial love, platonic love. Quite different things, surely?” We’re being given clues this early on; it’s Almasay’s inability to distinguish between things which becomes the cause of his undoing, and for Katherine it’s her over attention to detail which becomes hers.
       
It’s an expansive cast, and I’m especially partial to Juliette Binoche (one of my two favourite supporting actress winners) but a significant portion of the film depends on the rapport between Kristin Scott Thomas and Ralph Fiennes. They both exude that, somewhat trite, stiff upper lip that comes to be considered akin with Britons. I’m susceptible to the british, most of you know that, but that’s not why I think that Katherine Clifton and Laszlo de Almasy are encapsulation of Scott Thomas and Fiennes at their best. They evoke a quiet tenderness that immediately zeroes in on the profundity of this relationship, even before it begins. There’s a beautiful scene where the two are trapped in a vehicle during a sandstorm. Almasy doesn’t whisper sweet nothings in her ears, instead he’s telling her about African meteorology. But the moment is marked by a softness that you feel like you can reach out and touch; and in one of the film’s most understatedly beautiful and devastating moments Katharine reaches out to the paint on the window as we segue into the patient’s face and it’s almost as if she’s reaching across time. That’s how powerful their relationship seems, that’s how real the images evoked seem.
         
There’s something incredibly tactile about the production of The English Patient. I’m wary of using a word like masterpiece, because I know that I’m hardly the least nepotistic critic – I have an agenda here, after all. But, it’s important for that illusion of the film’s setting seeming corporeal because the grief that bounds the characters together must seem as palpable. It’s anyone’s guess why the concept of love stories have become so reviled, but The English Patient is a love story although the kind of love is debatable. Just as Katherine ruminates on the aspects of love so the film depends on moments of affection – sometimes lost in pain. There’s so much delicacy with the way in which Juliette Binoche plays Hana as almost a revelatory open person but she’s carrying those battle scars with her. Her act of caring for the wounded is only a way to eschew her own troubles. There’s almost franticness evident in the way she plays hopscotch alone or chops off her hair without even paying attention. The sweetness of that first meeting with Kip (Naveen Andrews is perfect here), which is easily one of the film’s most natural moments, conceals the desperation in this woman who literally laughs at the promise of death.

Maybe I love The English Patient so much because it’s saturated with subtext upon subtext. It is a story of love, but it is also a story of war. “It’s a war, when it’s a war where you are becomes important” – it’s another of those lines that’s easily ignored but if anything it’s one of the biggest clues as to the Patient’s countenance when he replies, “I hate that.” Minghella is often accused of pushing his agendas through film, and perhaps it’s not absent here since the film closes with Katherine’s lovely We are the real countries not the boundaries drawn on maps monologue. The idiosyncrasies of the characters are what makes them perfect for each other, and unable to exist in unison. Minghella (he writes the screenplay as well as directs it) is careful to not paint any party as villainous. Even as Katharine and Almasy luxuriate in their romance, her husband waits in the car for a forgotten anniversary dinner. Everything shifts when you put it into different perspective so that the ostensible importance of “world affairs” seems skewed. It’s why I have faith in Minghella’s sincerity. “Betrayals in war are childlike compared with betrayals during peace. New lovers are nervous and tender but smash everything, for the heart is an organ of fire.”
So true, and so beautiful.

 

CS had asked me which of Scorsese’s “periods” I prefer and I was reticent about pouncing unremitting faithfulness to the Scorsese/DiCaprio era. In theory I don’t think it’s his premier period but still I seem to have commitment to it. Regardless of whether or not it reveals poorness in my allegiance as a Scorsese supporter The Departed is my favourite of his films and The Aviator is probably the film of the last decade that I’ve dedicated most ink to. It’s as I’ve said before, 2004 was a watershed for me in terms of the movies and 2004 was all about The Aviator. But, more than that it was the beginning of the Scorsese love.

             

Periods is probably the best way to start the discussion on Scorsese. Both because Scorsese’s style – as continuous as it is – often seems to be divided systemically according to years. Then, the The Aviator (which is a great film for repeat viewings) does so many things with classical movie periods and camera use. I’m not overly pedantic about the expressly technical side of filmmaking, but Scorsese is the type of director who makes you appreciate the more meticulous aspect of the trade. It’s probably why the loudest of his naysayers always accuse him of brilliant segments, but a truncated whole. I’m almost always certain that they’re talking about Gangs of New York when they say that, but the truth is – they’re sometimes talking about The Aviator. I won’t re-re-review The Aviator, but I will say that the way in which Scorsese makes films insists on that fastidiousness which I suppose could come off to some as too much head and too little heart.

      

This is why I’m always surprised that The Age of Innocence, one of his best in my eyes, is so heavily glossed over or even excised from his 90s period. True, it’s meticulous in that sense of luminosity that the best of period pieces seem to retain but it’s also particularly organic and sincere. I don’t care to disprove or affirm the theory that Newland Archer, for all his ostensible quietness, is just as violent as the more notorious of Scorsese heroes – it’s debatable. What is significant, for me, is the dynamism of his talent which it reveals.

                         

I’ll admit, that as a staunch supporter I often wish that Scorsese would do (more) comedy. I’m abysmal, perhaps, but I’ve still not touched on After Hours. Even his most gritty dramas Scorsese has such a handle on humorous situations which he manages to deliver without compromising the tension. The one that springs out to be first is the entire first day of Francine and Jimmy in New York/New York. I’ve never seen either Minnelli or DeNiro as comfortable doing banter as they are there, in another oft forgotten Scorsese venture. On the note of first meetings, the one between Howard and Katharine in The Aviator drips (deliberately, I’d presume) with that Cukor-esque form of humour which is *vastly underrated*. Or how about the cranberry juice in The Departed?

                   

It’s not that The Aviator was the first Scorsese film I saw, but with all of the cinematic allusions of which it comprises it makes sense that it’d get me interested both in film and Scorsese. I’m still working my way through his filmography, and it’s a premature statement to make without having completed it. But, I’ve not seen a bad Scorsese film. Yet.

         

Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore B/B+

The Aviator A

 Casino B+

The Departed A

Gangs of New York B+

GoodFellas A

The Last Temptation of Christ B+ 

New York / New York B+

Raging Bull A

Shutter Island B

Taxi Driver A-

            

Pick a favourite, or three. What’s your least favourite?

I’ve got something of an aversion to physical comedy. Even as a child I couldn’t stand cartoons like Tom and Jerry which made their “humorous” point without the use of dialogue. In Iris Kate Winslet has this quote, “Without words, how can one think?” and although I get the sense that cinema is a visual medium I need words in my life. So, it makes sense that when I think of the comedy I’m most drawn to, it centres on wordplay. Enter Woody Allen...

                  

As much as I love Woody, I can watch each of his films and understand why his humour won’t work on everyone. I love it, nonetheless. It’s probably a bit marginalising of me to call him a comedic writer/director but even in his most serious of films he retains that imprudent humour that makes for a wholly irreverent cinematic experience. It’s alleged that Katharine Hepburn was not a fan of him, but I always like to think of what the two would have been like to have one her zany characters in a Woody piece. Imagine Alice Adams lost in Manhattan or Susan Vance squaring off with Annie Hall. Hilarity would ensue, I tell you.

            

I’m a staunch Woody supporter, even if he doesn’t appear as the best comedy on my list of favourites. I’m still wary as to whether or not Gosford Park qualifies as a comedy. It encompasses such a wide gamut of cinematic genres that i can’t call it an exclusive drama, mystery, comedy of manners, ensemble piece or anything really. It just is (brilliant). The Graduate and The Apartment are the next two comedies, and I love Nichols but I rarely think of him in comedy terms and as good as Billy Wilder is I’m not an especially big fan of his. There just seems to be something vaguely kitschy about his work, which isn’t necessarily bad it just doesn’t always work for me (even though I think The Apartment is priceless.)

       

Humour is a funny thing, though (funny, weird). I wouldn’t say that it’s more difficult than drama, but it’s much more subjective. Me, I laugh harder when there’s a darker undertone looming. It’s like that episode of Pushing Daisies when the candy store opens opposite and the guy says that candy tastes that much sweeter with a taste of the bitter. That’s comedy for me.

        

Part of my ongoing Birthday Marathon (four days to go until D-Day. And my birthday is on D-Day.)
   
After I finished my poetry course this semester I gave my lecturer a copy of Bright Star. Keats was one of the 19th century poets we were studying so I considered it apt. Bright Star, after multiple viewings, still leaves me entrance and I’d wager that it’s not just because of the excellent cinematography. Cinema might be my biggest love, but literature was my first. So, even if it doesn’t retain primary residence in my heart anymore it does have irrevocable tenancy. This is why I’m so fond of films where the two coalesce.

ours, Even though Bright Star is hardly Keats’ story – not exclusively, at least, Campion still manages to retain that saturation of bliss that I’ve come to think of when I remember the Romantic era. It reminds me of that other gem on a literary figure – Shakespeare in Love.It’s odd, like Bright Star there are moments when Shakespeare in Love seems more fascinated by its heroine that the great man behind her (or in front of her?). Fanny and Viola both get the juiciest bits of the film and both films end with them taking a walk of solitude. Abbie might not have gotten an Oscar nomination (she and the film were egregiously absent from the awards that year) but her performance like tends to endure much more than Whishaw’s in the same way that almost everyone seems top have forgotten how brilliant Fiennes was. Unfortunately.

         

I love The Hours and I think that the triage of women dole out some of their finest performances but like any film which has the narratives divvied up, I can’t help but pick a favourite and it’s Virginia’s portion which I find most appealing. You’d think that something like writing a novel would make for a tedious viewing experience but Stephen Daldry (shamefully underrated, despite those three Oscar nods) some keen visionary concepts on making it work.

        

I’m willing to bet that any assiduous director could make a fine piece on some literary stalwarts. (Just as there are some which are less than exemplary.) I’m not certain as to the precise shortcoming of Becoming Jane but it’s an incredibly turgid experience. I’m almost certain that any target audience of such a film would be a literary fanatic and Becoming Jane seems to have forgotten that (which is a shame, because Austen seems like a capital woman). Even though it’s hardly an impeccable cinematic entity the honesty with which Richard Eyre approaches the life of Iris Murdoch makes for an earnest (if occasionally docile) tale. And he manages to churn out three excellent performances. So, kudos there.

        

Whatever became of that F. Scott Fitzgerald movie? I could probably put forth a host of literary folk I’d like to get their cinematic treatment, beginning with Tennessee Williams. What say you?

I sort of hate how slavish I am towards (the ghost of) Katharine Hepburn in that I tend to gravitate – at least momentarily – to things she likes. The thing is that her opinions are usually one point. Case in point: Spencer Tracy. I swear, I didn’t care two cents for Spencer Tracy until the memory of Kate invoked his ghost and now he’s one of my favourite screen couple. I immediately think of Tracy/Hepburn when I ruminate on iconic screen couples. It’s not just because of the prolific nature of their onscreen career, though and truthfully it doesn’t matter much that they actually had an enduring offscreen romance. In theory, they seem ill matched. Kate’s much too fantastical and brash and Spencer comes off as placid – almost stolid. But, they’re sort of magical together (proof, proof, proof.)

        

I can’t think of any cinematic couple to match their electricity except for Dick and Liz. True, they come off much more explosive than the general good-natured sanguine nature of Tracy/Hepburn, but it’s difficult to deny them their histrionics. They’re much more sensual, and it works even if it’s a bit disturbing if you consider what their actually “home” life might have been. The reason I bring this up is because I think of how contemporary Hollywood has eschewed all those great occurrences of real-life couples pairing up (successfully) on screen. I don’t care if I’m one of the few who had legitimate interest in Mr and Mrs Smith I like it for the chance of seeing a real couple on screen. As impersonal as everything is now, Hollywood has sort of lost that irreverence. Which is one of the reasons that I love Vicky Cristina Barcelona even more...

     

Don’t you wish more real life couples would do movies together? I want another Warren/Annette film. A Will Arnett and Amy Poehler comedy. More Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman. What about you?

I posted a snippet earlier “celebrating” Clint Eastwood’s birthday. 2004 wasn’t the first year that I watched the Oscars, but it was the first year where I was actively participating. I had my prediction list, my wish list and I was painfully invested in the outcome of the “race”. So, it’s only natural that Clint’s visage is what appears when I think of all that went wrong with me and Oscar on that first fateful night. But, I think I’m already overreaching...

               

Around the time that the precursors were being handed out in that 04/05 Oscar season I remember making my sister print out the entire roster of the Oscars in the top 6 categories from 1932 onward. I’m still not sure what I hoped to achieve by this (as you can imagine it was a gargantuan amount of paper) but I ended up memorising a great deal of it so that I turned into a prodigious Oscar-trivia go-to person. I’ve grown past the embarrassment in that I can actually admit to it without cringing, much, but it’s only proof that when I commit to something I really do commit. General jadedness had made me lose that zeal towards the Oscars but I still retain that uncontrollable intensity (proof) and now I have this strange relationship with the Oscars – and all general awards’ ceremony, really. Jose said that if you try really hard you can blame every terrible thing about movies on the Oscars. He was deliberately being sarcastic, but is interesting how the Oscars have managed to take on that larger than life existence, which only adds to that conflicting relationship I have with them. It's too early in the year to spend talking about the Oscars. Right...?

           

         

Once upon a meme ago (#4), I made mention of the fact that I was (un?) lucky enough to have parents who were apathetic to my movie watching experiences so I saw my first R movie Dangerous Liaisons when i was about 10. It’s probably an egg and chicken argument because I’m not sure if I was already so adult oriented that the adult themes never managed to bother me or if over time my exposure to those “adult” films eviscerated any sort of reticence. What’s weird, though, is that I’d end up censoring my own self so that I’d seek out adult themed ones like Dangerous Liaisons and Fatal Attraction and avoid ones like The Blair Witch Project or even Robert Wise’s The Haunting (and I love Robert Wise). Notice a trend there, though? I have an appalling blind spot to the horror genre. When I took part in Andy and Heather’s communal blogging event on horror films I ended up choosing What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? which is more distorted camp than pure horror, horror doesn’t work for me. By nature, everything that I like in film is absent in the horror genre. It’s like that quote from Bright Star where Fanny says that she likes witty sayings and John counteracts by saying that she likes things that make her start without making her feel (I do love working Campion into regular conversation). That’s horror, in a nutshell, for me. It’s all about the visceral thrills, but more often than not I tend to feel to feel no lasting impact from the machinations that make up the whole.

That’s why I tend to think of horror less as a genre on its own that a subgenre that buttresses others. Like, there are tinges of horror in Sleepy Hollow making for a sort of vaguely satirical horror story, or The Silence of the Lambs which is a drama with horrific undertones. Of course, that’s just evidence of my own blind spot turning into the overriding existence of horror – generally – in my mind. I keep meaning to delve a bit more into the horrific landscape, but I’m awfully disinterested in the whole manifestation of things horrific.

             

I don’t think I’m the first person to make mention of this, but I do find it ironic and not just a little humorous that the era of Hollywood most notorious for its debauchery and other hijinks was the time when they were most likely to spew out all their religious cant. I used to live, for about three years, with this overly religious aunt of mine and she was a big fan of religious fare and whatnot. I swear I’ve seen every incarnation of the Jesus’ life – from Jesus Christ Superstar to some awful animated shtick which I wouldn’t mind getting lobotomised to forget.

So, naturally, it’s no surprise that my favourite religious stars one of the least holy of Hollywood’s stars and also happens to eschew the strictest of religious principles. I’ve spoken about The Robe before, and it was on last month when they were counting down to Easter. I don’t know if it’s my perspective, because there really is little that’s palpably irreverent about The Robe (well except for Burton’s deliciously over-the-top performance, I have no excuse for loving it yet I do) but I still think of the film as an impertinent religious pseudo-masterpiece. It’s probably because the last scene takes place in the palace of the very histrionic Caligula and the only who tops Burton in the histrionic department in The Robe is Jay Robinsonb who’s so ridiculous he seems to have walked off the set of some comedy show and thrust into 1 AD.

Next to The Robe I’d probably cite The Ten Commandments as a worthy religious adventure. Once again, though, it’s the more visceral side of the film that makes me a fan: enter Anne Baxter. In my defense, it’s evidence of good screenwriting that the generally known story of Moses can be turned into a pseudo-love triangle (quadrilateral?) I’m not a big fan of Charlton Heston as it is, but add him to Anne Baxter and then toss in Yul Brynner and Yvonne De Carlo (who is not often remembered but is lovely here) for kicks and it’s a party. I’m a bigger fan of The Robe but I’d never the technical brilliance of The Ten Commandments. I always wish DeMille’s film had made a bigger showing at the Oscars that year. (They lost to Around the World in 80 Days for god’s sakes.) But, that's awards for you.

          

For a number of audiences John Hughes has the monopoly on bathetic teenage angst. He has a way of making the decidedly trite machinations of his teenage characters seem profound. (The Mad Hatter did a nice post on The Breakfast Club, my favourite Hughes' film.) I didn’t grow up in the eighties so Hughes films don’t resonate as much with me as teen flicks of my era. The curious thing, though, is that I can’t think of a great number of teen flicks of “era” that do manage to deliver on the pseudo-profundity of Hughes. Even if you eschew the Hughes’ flick of the era, it’s difficult the quick-wittedness of an eighties teen flick like Heathers. It’s a bit like when I was talking about the trajectory of children’s film yesterday. The more recent ones seem below par and if the nineties were the time for children, then the eighties was the time for the youths.

              

The thing about perspective, though, is that you never know that the period you’re in is flawed until you come out of it. I did enjoy living through the nineties and surviving those terrible teen movies, but I can think of one teen film from the nineties which I liked – and that was in spite of itself, She’s All That. If you squint, you could probably call Cruel Intentions a teen movie, it is swathing with teens, but I still think of it as Dangerous Liaisons in street clothes so of course I like it. (I know Nick’s big on Alicia Silverstone, but I can’t admit to any big love for Clueless).

                  

It gets better in the early part of the aughts. I’m not alone (although, I’m part of a small group) when I say that Bring It On is a great film. It doesn’t reveal any sage knowledge about teen-human relations, but it’s a more than enjoyable romp as is Save the Last Dance (although that one’s much more angsty and serious). Of course my favourite teen movie revealed in my life time is Mean Girls. I’ve spoken to excess about that one. What’s interesting, though, is that as good a film it is – it still lacks that sense of community which Hughes tends to facilitate in his films – The Breakfast Club more than any other.

It’s no indication of my personal inclinations – I’m a bit of a loner myself – but I do love that sense of camaraderie in teen flicks. It’s like that scene in Footloose – I have to admit that there are times when that movie’s downright terrible but that scene at the end where everyone comes together dancing is just brilliant, for me (and I don’t even like dancing). I’d say that even more than films made specifically for children teen flicks depend on that decisive bit of zeitgeist nature in us all. It’s probably why modern teen films are so lazy about what they do. They’ve got an assured audience of sorts, so they don’t have the motivation to do better, which is a shame. (More on the Marathon.)