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.

I must admit that when I heard that Hailee Steinfeld was rumoured to be the lead in an upcoming adaptation of Romeo & Juliet I was less than enthused. I’m not against remakes by principals, but I don’t think anyone will ever be able to top Zeffreli’s 1968 production – unless they do some revolutionary adaptation. I’m not even too keen on the idea that Steinfeld would be closer to the actual age of Juliet – what will the MPAA say about simulated sex between two fourteen year olds? I don’t even want to go down that road, I’ve already begun to digress. Instead of another version of Romeo & Juliet I’d love for some of Shakespeare’s other works to get (credible) cinematic treatment.

I’m not a big fan of Thandie Newton, but even when I don’t like her performances I’m conscious that she has talent waiting to burst forth. I loved her last year in For Colored Girls where she had some excellent moments through soliloquies. And, we all know, Shakespeare loves his soliloquies. Adriana is a basic female archetype of Shakespeare. She’s halfway between loving wife and annoying shrew and I’d like to see Thandie do a film retaining her British accent. The character has one of the best female soliloquies – it has loud dramatic moments, and lighter comedic ones and it’d be interesting seeing Thandie tackle it.

I consider Macbeth to be even more iconic of a character than Macbeth – that being said I loathe the Orson Welles version which amps up his evils turning it into something almost farcical. Fiennes is a brilliant actor, and he’s also thoroughly British which is often a good thing when Shakespeare is in the mix. I’m waiting anxiously to see what he does with Coriolanus, and depending on how good it is I think it’d be great for him to follow it up with Macbeth – one of Shakespeare’s most tortured souls. And, I’ve even got an idea for his wife below...

It seems like such a strange thing to say, but Keira Knightley seems built for a cross-dressing Shakespeare role. In the same way that Gwyneth Paltrow’s Viola could have passed off the boyishness, I could see Keira doing the same and what better role than Rosalind in As You Like It? I always feel moved to defend Keira when she’s accused of lack of range for holding on to period films, but I can’t keep beating a dead horse. Rosalind is, above all else, witty and fun and considering how excellent Keira was as the witty and fun Elizabeth Bennett this seems like a no-brainer. Get Joe Wright to direct and Rosamund Pike or Romola Garai to star as her cousin and we could have a hit on our hands.

This one is such a no-brainer, for me. I suppose it’s only because Shakespeare is so rarely adapted to the screen as of late, but I can’t believe that Blanchett has never done a Shakespearean piece on film. Most probably remember Lady Macbeth as one of Shakespeare most morally reprehensible women, but the way the character is written there are so many interpretations to run with. She’s nowhere near villainous for me, and is just the right amounts of tenacious and ambiguous that I’d love to see Cate tackle.

As long as I live I’ll always think of Colin Firth as the polar opposite of Ralph Fiennes. I’m perfectly aware that it dates back to me putting way too much credence in the duo they played over a decade ago in The English Patient– but when I weigh Fiennes’ austere cinematic countenance as against Firth’s easy joviality I can’t help it, which makes me just a little bit annoyed that Firth seems headed to that Oscar podium when such a future seems dubious for Fiennes. For, if there’s any British actor under 50 who should have been laurelled by now it’s Fiennes. Today’s his birthday, and watching over his credits I realise that he’s not done that many films – it just feels as if he has, but there’s ubiquity for you – and here are my top 5 performances of his.

“ I hate you, God. I hate you as though you existed”

                              

“I can't go home. Tessa was my home.”

                         

“The truth, Helen, is always the right answer.”

                      

                      

I’d have give him an Oscar for the top two, easily and at least nominated him for the others – but you know when I’m nepotistic towards someone how it gets. I’m still waiting for his adaptation of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus to be – the fact that he’s in a leading role and helming a film that just happens to star the absolutely luminous Vanessa Redgrave just makes me thrilled.

         

(I haven’t seen his acclaimed performances in either Spider or Land of the Blind, unfortunately.)

As soon as Jose suggested the idea for this semi-blogathon my mind went to Juliette Binoche. It’s probably because I’m in all types of love with The English Patient, but it’s always the first film that comes to mind when I think of rain and movies. It’s a tad ironic considering that at least half of the film takes place in the sweltering desert. I’ll be reviewing The English Patient sometime soon, it’s a rather dismal tale at times but somewhere, three-quarter way through the epic, the eponymous patient who’s severely burnt yearns for rain on his face. As fate would have it, the rain comes and as we listen to Ella Fitzgerald croon and as Naveen Andrews, Kevin Whatley and Willem Defoe cart the immobile Ralph Fiennes around the fountain and the jovial Juliette Binoche tags along just to be silly it makes you forget that we’re watching an Anthony Minghella tragedy…

The scene in question occurs midway through the film, even though – if pushed – I’ll single out the desert portion as my favourite of the film this portion that I adore takes place in the Monastery. It’s just after one of the film’s symbolic climaxes; Naveen Andrews’ Kip is called to defuse a bomb that – literally – has his name written in the serial number. Hana (Juliette Binoche) has a bad feeling about the day and bicycles down to the well. The bomb is defused just as the news reaches Italy – the war is over. It’s over the embrace of Kip and Hana (before the rain) that “Cheek to Cheek” begins to play. 

I’ve never heard the song without thinking of the rain since…and Ella's version is the best.

        

We get a beautiful shot of the dark sky.

Then we cut to Juliette, in her same nondescript house drench – drenched in rain – but still beautiful.

It’s the only dialogue in this scene, the chapter in the DVD is titled just that – “It’s Raining”. Immediately after the line she laughs like a silly schoolgirl – which, trained Nurse or not, Hana is like many times. To offer some perspective, she’s taking care of eponymous Patient – Ralph Fiennes. His body is thoroughly burned and he’s bedridden and after being found in the desert by some Arabs he’s been moved to the Monastery with Hana watching over. Earlier in the film he tells us that he longs to feel the rain on his face…he gets his wish.

The rain is so obviously a thing of cleansing – so many of the posts have touched on that. It’s the single moment of complete abandon in the film, Kip’s eventual departure, the Patient’s potential death, Carravgio’s thievery and missing thumbs – none are of consequence at the moment. The war is over and the rain is falling. There’s really nothing to do but take the patient out and run around the fountain.

Theoretically, nothing is added in this scene. No new ground is travelled, no new depth is found – but that’s the point, I think. The English Patient is drowned in it’s pathos. In fact another scene of rain – well, raining sand – is almost indicative of the film itself as Almasy (the Patient before) and Katherine is almost drowned in a sand storm. But, in italy, when the storm comes – of water – it’s not dangerous. Like the sandstorm, though, it does bring our characters a little closer. It’s not a seismic event but something as transient as rain and the fun to be had in it can be important. It’s immediately after this scene that we’re pitched back into the bleakness of reality. One of the very characters dies a few hours later, but none of that matters in the rain. There is no logic as the three men lift the patient around the fountain, there’s no sense in Hana carrying an umbrella that serves no purpose…but it’s beautiful to watch, John Seale's cinematography is just lush and as the song says – “and the cares that hung around me through the week, seem to vanish like a gambler’s lucky streak” but only for a moment though.

         

Still, whenever I think of rain I think of the 4 minutes in The English Patient when reason was eroded for the pure abandon of a few drops of rain.

(I’ll post the full list of Wet Entries tomorrow morning.)

I've still got Harry Potter on my mind (I'm in the process of rereading the last book for the umpteenth time). I'm going to miss these films when they're gone, even though they often get me riled up with their faults, but I digress. One of the things I love most about the Harry Potter films is their tendency to have excellent Brit actors popping up to make my day. I love the British, what can I say? Herein lay my favourite adult performances; and by adults I mean anyone who never donned a Hogwarts Students' Robe.

        

"Good" looking but still ugly, charming but repulsive and with that horrid hairdo he was good in the role. It's easy to forget him with all the great adults popping in and out, but he deserves some notices.

    

This probably comes easy to him, but that doesn't make it any less good or enjoyable. His face alone annoys me (that's actually a compliment).

              

It's weird how you could play the "Six Degrees" game with the actors in this movie, two of Branagh's love interest appear down below - but I digress. He plays with all the comedic glory it deserves and yet doesn't annoy us as much as this egotistical prick should. Good stuff.

                  

Often, unfairly, ignored because she's never front and centre. Oh, but her personability is priceless. She gets the characterisation down pat (everything Rowling intends) and is just too sincere for words. I really hope we get to see her kill Bellatrix (though of my loyalties are divided, this is HBC).

                              

Well I have a longstanding appreciation for this man's talent, and then he comes along and plays Lord Voldermort...how exactly does one resist that? Cold, frightening, charismatic and just downright nasty. I love it.

               

This was such a weird experience, seeing the always composed Thompson (Branagh's ex) as a bumbling teacher? Who knew she had such excellent comedic timing? There's a moment where she's being thrown out of the castle in the fifth installment that I always remember fondly. 

                  

I hate that he gets typecast but I love when he gets typecast. He just knows to find that sinister root that makes him formidable and yet strangely charismatic. The hair doesn't do much for him, but I suppose he doesn't care.

       

Oh how I wish she had more to do, every moment she appears on screen I can't look at anyone BUT her. She's just too enthralling for her own good and though we know she's wicked throughout we too are almost charmed into wanting her to intereview us.

             

She does it in her sleep, but she does it well. This is another performer I hope gets her chance to shine in the final installments, it's another example of casting genius. Shrewd, kind, but with an iron grip on her house.

             

Despite what it seems he's the perfect representative of Dumbledore as far as the books go. Old and wise with a talent for non sequiters, but with power behind those seemingly benign looks of his.

       

Nepotism? You bet your ass. This is Branagh's second ex on the list (that we know of). Perfection is an ideal but this is just divine. Manic but arresting, disarming (in more ways than one) and with a penchant for fickle childishness that just thrills me. Sometimes I think the Deather Eaters are calling...

             

You're never prepared for the emotion he brings to the role, thus his final appears always surprises you and then it saddens. He has excellent comedic timing, but it's the emotion that turns him into one of Harry's best teachers.

                     

...and it only gets better. This could have been one giant cliche (an evil person in pink, wow) but she is so good at showing the layers that she turns into the must offensively evil person on the series, thus far. Her unnverving smile, and that peppy walk. Only goes to show why you shouldn't trust "happy" folks.

                         

Ironically, I think he's wrong the part. Too harsh when Dumbledore should be less overt, too loud when he should temper, and yet he finds himself in The Half Blood Prince and turns this character into something else - not Rowling's creation, but his own. That image of his pseudo-Moses moves in the caves and the drinking of the potion stay with me. Just excellent.

                                          

Great Adults That Could Have Been: Kristin Scott Thomas as Narcissa Malfoy. Imagine that.

          

Richard Harris is deceased so he goes first. Incidentally, he starred in Mack the Knife (1989) with Julie Walters who went on to star in Becoming Jane (2007) with Maggie Smith who had starred in Gosford Park (2001) with Michael Gambon who was in Sleepy Hollow (1999) with Miranda Richardson who was in Enchanted April (1992) with Jim Broadbent who was in Vera Drake (2004) with Imelda Staunton who was in Nanny McPhee (2005) with Emma Thompson who was in Sense & Sensibility (1995) with Alan Rickman who starred in Sweeney Todd (2007) with Timothy Spall who was in Hamlet with (1996) Kenneth Branagh who had starred with HBC in Twelfth Night ( 1995) who had starred with Ralph Fiennes Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were Rabbit (2005) and who was in The End of the Affair with Jason Isaacs (1999)

                

...and of course the pairings continue like HBC and Emma in Howards End or Emma and Maggie and Ralph in Nanny McPhee & the Big Bang or Maggie and HBC in A Room With A View or HBC and Michael Gambon in The Wings of the Dove or Rickman and Thompson and Imelda Staunton in Sense & Sensibility.

                  

The title may be a bit misleading, so I’ll explain. A few weeks ago Heather of Movie Mobsters wrapped up her excellent feature counting down the fifty screen villains she considered most dastardly. She did them in bouts of them until the final leg. The blogosphere is the only place where unoriginality isn’t reviled so I’m making my own list of 50, but not of villains and not exactly the best voices actors. I always wonder if voice-work alone will ever be able to constitute an Academy Award nomination…probably not. Herein I’ll be counting down the fifty voice performances that have impressed me the most over the years. Essentially it’s all animated (save for three live-action films, which we’ll get to). Now obviously this list is as subjective as can be, so I’ll depending on you to weigh in and tell me how off the beam some of my choices are.

                  

#50: Sacha Baron Cohen in Madagascar

“I like to move it, move it.”

I can’t confess any significant appreciation for Madagascar which is one of those implausibly successful children’s films that does little for me. In the midst of the most uninspired voice work and a turgid story Cohen’s insane King Julian was a delight. Cohen is known for his physical humour but he knows something about using his voice to full effect (see Pirelli) and his voice-work is easily the standout of the film.

              

“It invariably happened, as everything happened in those days, in the same way.”

Unlike many narrators, Joanne Woodward’s “character” is not a part of the film. She uses her voice only to give us little musings on New York society at the turn of the century. She is wry, she is affable and she is charming...really, she's almost a character herself.

              

 

“Actually, I generally just make belittling comments and snicker behind death's back.”

Woody Allen isn't noted for his voice and Antz is one of those animated films that has become easily forgotten. Still, Allen's dubious protagonist who (surprise, surprise) is just the slightest bit of a neurotic is an interesting change of pace for the icon.

                        

“And you will always be in my heart."

I'm not overly fond of Tarzan, it's really all been-there-done-that (and better), but Glenn Close's performance as the maternal Kala is a brilliant piece of voicework. Yes, she's given a number of overly sentimental lines (see above), but she makes them work and finds the sincerity in this slightly convoluted (albeit, diverting) film.

                           

“You can hop, but you can't hide!”

When it comes to Ralph Fiennes talents, I remember him for his ability to act without using his voice. In that way he seems like an unlikely candidate for voicework, and I don't even like Wallace & Gromit. Yet, Fiennes carves a delightful stodgy villain (or should that be moulds) and provides the film with a good deal of laughs.

                 

 

“Hey! Dragon. *Dragon*, not lizard. I don't do that tongue thing.”

Eddie Murphy’s brand of, usually, broad humour is hit-and-miss for me, but like so many great comedians his knack for using his voice proved invaluable to success of Mulan. Mulan is another Disney flick of the late nineties that’s become somewhat forgotten, but it was an entertaining (if inaccurate) romp through history. As Mishu Murphy was the perfect sidekick.

           

“Just a moment. I hear people wanting something... ME!”

Really...what is there to be said? Williams has a talent for adept voicework and Ramón in Happy Feet is over the top, he is theatrical and he is everything that Williams can do, excellently. It's ridiculous, but it is still enticing. And those line readings!

“Donkey, two things okay? Shut... up.”
Shrek has reached a dismal end, and many forget the slice of delight it was back in 2001. I’ll admit, after the sequel, things headed down but Myers’ ogre was an amusing hero and Myers was able to bring the funny without going overboard. With an accent like that, it could not have been difficult but he kept Shrek realistic, but unbelievable at the same time.

 

“Above all, self-control.”

Incidentally Cinderella is often forgotten - part of that must be attributed to its mostly forgettable score. Still, within everything Audley gives a thoroughly chilling performance as the Step Mother. She's so scary because she's always so calm and her voice is just scary.

“Mother... Mother always did like Richard best.”

Sure, this version is not Errol Flynn/Olivia de Havilland classic (or Men In Tights) but it's a diverting Disney romp and Ustinov's double role is a big part of that. Of course, it's the villianous John who gets those delicious one-liners and is responsible for showcasing Ustinov's talent. What is with villains?

              

There! The first round on the count to the top of memorable voice performances. What do you think of the first ten?