I think this is one of my least favorite subjects to tackle as I am a purveyor of movies and all things involved with them. And anything that smacks of politicization of an industry that I think can do a world of good, makes for a lessening of the overall product. I do not want to politicize the award shows that exist. I want them to remain models of something we aspire to, or root for, and not something we look up at and say, "Oh no! Here we go again. Another Richard Gere, Michael Moore, Meryl Streep, (you fill in the blank) diatribe."
If I wanted to sit here and say what I thought of a Reality Television Star whose biggest claim to fame was two words,"you're fired," I could certainly take up a space to say what I think of America now that it's orange. Or is that just the spray tan that seems to be everywhere these days? But we have chosen who we have chosen. And I am not going argue what the definition of the word hacked is, or about the definition of the word "is" for that matter. We have way more important matters. And when we are caught up in the minutia, I am sure that we are missing the bigger picture somehow. We no longer notice that there is a big booming voice behind the curtain that is misdirecting our attention. Oz has gotten away with it, and we have let him.
But let's analyze what is going on with the award shows. First, everyone has the freedom to be able to speak their mind. Of course we do put some limitations on speech. But an award show is not one of those places, unless you consider the time constraints that they put on to limit people going on endlessly while accepting their self congratulatory award. (For those of you who thought that some other body was voting for their work and not the filmmakers themselves I am sorry to disabuse you of that thought. It's the equivalent of Trump industries giving Donald Trump the executive of the year award. Don't you feel how "huge" all these Hollywood stars and starlets are now?) So these people definitely have a right to be heard. And, from their perspective, they are doing a public service because they have a loud megaphone wherein to give these proclamations. And I do not begrudge them that right.
The question isn't whether they do, or they can. Because obviously they can, and they did. The question becomes whether they should do such a thing. I guess it depends on where you are coming from. From a marketing perspective there has to be a tipping point at which lamenting half the population of a country will make box office receipts dwindle and movie producers stand on the edge of buildings contemplating whether the fall will kill them instantly or not. But they have been able to survive til now, so why shouldn't they continue doing what they are doing? Unfortunately, box office receipts in real dollars, except for feel good movies, kids movies and blockbusters, seems to have taken a decided dip. And the more films that they make that are slanted to a perspective that denigrates half the people, the more they will see this trend continue. They still have a right to an opinion. Just like I would want them to respect me that I sincerely believed that something or someone was taking us down a dark and dangerous path, I will respect them for these beliefs. I respect their ability to espouse them whenever and wherever they wish, and the fact that they seem to sincerely believe in that opinion is laudable.
I think where they go off the rails is that some of them have taken to threatening to remove themselves from the business until Trump resigns in some misguided belief that they have enough community power to force the president to resign. First, it's as if these people have never heard of the term out of site, out of mind. Show business people, perhaps more than in any other industry imaginable, are people who crave attention in some way or another. One could argue that reality TV stars crave it even more. (Yes that is a veiled reference to Senior Orange.) But these people would not last 10 minutes out of the spotlight. It's possible that this was all a ruse by mostly out of work actors who craved the spotlight now. (Yes I'm thinking of you Rosie O'Donnell.) How do they think they could survive without public recognition for any length of time. Second, there is money involved. Hollywood people are investment people just like anyone else. There will always be someone to take the place of these actors, just as there were always people ready to replace in the NFL, the NBA and the MLB. Maybe these people would be exactly like them, and they would be not quite as good replacements. But then again, Hollywood of yesteryear used to thrive on paying and training B actors who would eventually develop their craft enough to become A list actors. You don't think that a least a few of these new people wouldn't supplant or surpass some of these current "stars?" Finally, what makes them think that their community of people who greatly impact the rest of the nation. If by some strange magic they were able to convince investors not to make any money these four years, who would be hurt? Oh that's right . . . all the jobs would be coming from the residents of California encouraging possibly more people to leave the state for lack of ability to make money. They would be hurting the very constituencies who supported their beliefs and politicians in the first place.
But then again maybe this does some good. I suppose this does help with drought relief if it forces many people to move out of state. And as for these award shows . . . I suppose there wouldn't be any if there were no one to act in these movies. This would mean there would be no award shows for them to have a platform to say this stuff. Maybe they should go ahead and just do it.
These Award Shows are completely toast.
The Toasty Critic
The Toasty Critic
Thursday, January 12, 2017
Thursday, January 5, 2017
The Toasty Critic Takes a Vacation
Good morning to all of you
film lovers. I will probably just go through a run down of films that I
have seen lately, with maybe some snippets of brief reviews of them. I
have taken a long break. And I understand that this is something I did
not intend on doing. Sometimes life throws curves at us that we do not
realize are happening to us until they are already upon us. Suffice it to
say, I have had some family issues that have come to my attention and needed to
get back to those first. They aren't completely over, but I am going to
resolve to be more active this year and hopefully get this blog off the ground.
So here I am. And I am back.
Films that I have watched recently. I realize that some of these are already on DVD.
Kubo and the Two Strings - From the Makers of Boxtrolls, Coraline and Paranorman, it is a beautiful film of a child who can magically manipulate his world. The stop motion animation is beautiful as are the characters. And the lead character tells his tales through Origami, which may be self-congratulatory, but it works like Preston Sturges Sullivan's Travels. There is a beauty in their art and they don't mind the world seeing it. With the voices of Matthew McConaughey, Charlize Theron and Ralph Fiennes. This film is perfectly toasty.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story - Sometimes you face a movie that seems so daunting that youa re nor sure whether or not you can discuss it without receiving a ton of hate mail, or a ton of praise. Or sometimes you receive both. What I am going to say is that the film is well worth watching and as most critics who have liked it agree, the last act is incredibly rewarding. Just be prepared for your child, especially if your child is younger, to be shocked at the outcome of the movie, even though Episode IV should have given you a big clue as to what was going to happen here. There are two different CGI characters who are surprising. I will not spoil the last one. But the first one I will saw that I was disappointed by the CGI representation of Peter Cushing. They couldn't convey the presence he held in A New Hope. And graphics made it look like he was literally the Walking Dead. Maybe the Walking Dead should take notes here. This film is mostly toasty.
Finding Dory - Pixar knows how to tell a story for certain. And they are very good at connecting to an audiences emotions. Spoiler alert : The part that I found the most touching is when Dory was going from being lost as a young fish, to an adolescent fish and then to an adult fish. And the mantra just keep swimming takes on a whole level of pain when you hear it. There are just so many different ways that this portion of the film resonated with me. It is definitely worth a watch. And I will always love Pixar after the way that even the movie Up connected with my daughter when she was only 3 years old. What I will say is that while there are moments of true beauty in this film, I fell like some of the heart of it all was missing. I don't know why. I don't have a good answer. Ellen Degeneres and Albert Brooks reprise their roles. Ed O'Neil as a cranky septopus (have to watch to find out), Eugene Levy and Diane Keaton also have roles. This film is lukewarm toast.
Sing - I am of a mixed mind about this film. There is a part of me that just loves this film. There are some great touching moments with the characters. When Johnny connects with his dad about his love for music and singing, and you can see his father's pride. The hilarious inventiveness of Rosita the pi, and mom of countless piglets, is wonderful. The desire to be true to your art with Ash the Porcupine. And Meena the Elephant has to overcome her shyness by just singing. I have to admit that I just enjoyed it from beginning to end. But now I hate myself because it makes me feel like I should be watching the Voice, or any of those other singing talent programs. I hate reality TV. And for that I feel like Sing makes me want to take a long bath. This film is mostly toasty.
I was thinking there would be more. And hopefully after I get a look at some of the other films that are out there, especially as this is awards season, I will have something more substantial to review. Hope all of you are having a wonderful 2017 so far And keep it toasty out there . . . even in the rain.
Wednesday, August 24, 2016
The Toasty Critic's Top 5 - Fifth Film
Reviewing my top 5 Movies of all Time
Day 5 – Vertigo
Thanks for reading the top 5 list of
favorite films. Obviously every critic
and every person has their own top 5 list.
There is no magical thing that makes your list better than any others, as
each person has their own set of standards.
But for those who consider Keanu Reeves to be a top 5 actor, all I can
say to them is: “I hate you! I hate you!
I hate you!” We all have reasons for why we choose one picture to be better
than another. There are the sci/fi geeks
who insist that 2001 : A Space Odyssey
be on the best films of all time. While
I think it is an amazing film, it lacks the ability to maintain its brilliance
across platforms, and the acting in a good deal of it, in my humble or not so
humble opinion, is really dull. And to
be honest, with some rare exceptions, many of Kubrick’s films seem to have
characters that walk around lifeless.
2001 exists as an extreme example of lifeless characterizations for
me. There are those who will argue with
my last pick, insisting that Hitchcock has directed better films, or even that
if I am going to pick brilliant directors of the last half century, I should be
picking a film of Howard Hawks because he seemed to be able to adapt to
whatever genre he was directing, putting together a compendium of work that was
amazing in every single genre and not merely in one. And if we were discussing my top 5 favorite
directors of all time I might see the point of that argument.
But I am looking at my top 5 films. Some of you may say that the films on my list
are skewed towards the classic genre.
Well I grew up a huge classic movie fan, so: “duh!” Classic films existed in a time where less
was more (something today's Hollywood directors should take into
consideration). They knew how to tell a
story and infer things for much greater impact.
Now films shoot for being all about experience and little about
story. It’s sad that the best stories in
film now are often cartoons because they exist with the same limitations that
the Hayes code placed on cinema in working with that medium. They have to develop their stories. But that doesn’t mean that you have to
believe that. I am totally ok with all
of the disagreement. In fact, I
encourage it.
Given these reasons I culminate my list of
top 5 films with a Hitchcock classic: Vertigo. Hitchcock ranks up there as one of the best
directors of all time. He is as an
auteur. His films had a uniqueness about
them that made them distinctly Hitchcock.
When anyone watches a Hitchcock film, they know that they are watching
such a film. Given my affinity for
Hitchcock and feeling like one of his films had to be up here on the list, I
started thinking about what was the quintessential Hitchcock film. He had his suspense movies like Rear Window, Rebecca and North by
Northwest. He had his horror films
like Frenzy and Psycho. And then he had his
forays into comedy like The Trouble with
Harry. So I had to make a rational
choice. I eliminated the comedies;
because while fun, they were generally not what one would think of when they
thought of Hitchcock. Certainly we see
him as a master of suspense and I could go with that but I landed on Vertigo because I think it perfectly
blended elements of horror which would be a hallmark of his later films, with
that which was merely suspenseful.
Vertigo begins with a detective named Jimmy (James Stewart), up on the
rooftops of San Francisco, chasing after a criminal. While up there he doesn’t quite make a ledge
and ends up holding on to the edge of a building for dear life. When a fellow police officer tries to help
him out he ends up falling to his death.
This shock sends Jimmy into a panic and making him realize that he has
acrophobia. This phobia produces in him
vertigo, or a dizziness that is produced by the heights to which he has a hard
time handling. He is forced to retire
because of his condition, and tries to figure out what to do with his
life. His ex-fiancée tries to help him
out, but fears that only another shock would produce the kind of circumstances
to conquer his fear.
At that point an old friend steps in, Gavin
Elster (Tom Helmore), asks him to tail his wife because he is concerned that
she is going to do something drastic to herself, because she is being haunted
by some distant family member called Carlotta Valdes. While skeptical, Jimmy tails Madeleine Elster
(Kim Novak) to make sure that she does not do anything drastic to herself. But he cannot help but get involved the more
he tails her, and they end up making a connection and falling for one
another. But Madeleine appears driven to
do something outrageous to herself, and she climbs to the highest tower of
mission San Juan Batista and jumps to her death. Jimmy tried to tail her to the top of the
tower but his acrophobia and vertigo prevented him from reaching there and
stopping her. He walks away from the
incident in a daze, not even calling the police. The investigation rules it as a suicide,
although with some culpability making its way to Jimmy.
Jimmy goes into a tailspin and enters a
psych ward because he is unable to cope with the loss of Madeleine. We enter his world of vertigo, wherein he
constantly feels like he spirals to his death.
His ex-fiancée tries to help him through this once again but she is
rebuffed. When he does exit the mental
hospital he roams about the city listlessly.
He was unable to do his job as a policeman; and he couldn’t even do work
as a detective. His life seems to be a
spiral downwards when he runs into Judy Barton, also played terrifically by Kim
Novak. In her he sees the image of the
woman he had loved and lost. It begins
like this is some form of redemption for Jimmy, but slowly the realization
creeps in about the true depths to which his mind has sunk. All one can do is sit back in horror as Jimmy
transforms this beautiful woman into the image of Madeleine. First there is the clothes, and then the eyes
and makeup, followed by the hair. A long
360 degree pan and kiss transforms the beautiful Judy Barton, into the image of
Madeleine Elster. And Jimmy sits and
stares with a wild look in his eye as his masterpiece in transformation is
complete. Nothing good can come from
this, and there is the inevitable tragic result, which I will not divulge here for those uninitiated in Vertigo.
In Vertigo, like other Hitchcock films, there are elements that make them unmistakably his.
The first is the MacGuffin.
Hitchcock meant that this was some form of plot device that would drive
the story forward. In this instance we
have Jimmy’s Vertigo that makes him seek other work, which makes him incapable
of helping Madeleine, and which he was driven to fixing by the end of the
film. The second is the use of the
innocent man. In his early work there
was always some innocent man who was sucked into some plot that he couldn’t
escape until he worked it all out by the end.
The thing that makes Vertigo
so unique in the Hitchcock cannon is that we do have the innocent man, although
as the film goes on, we are less and less convinced of his innocence. He seems to be more warped than any other
person that is around him. His maniacal
glances in mirrors, his drive to change Judy into something she was not, and
the ultimate conclusion to the madness does not indicate that Jimmy is innocent
at all. One cannot be sure what to think
of him by the final frame in the film.
And while things do resolve themselves for Jimmy, we are not necessarily
able to wrap up everything in a nice package by the end. It’s classic Hitchcock, with a twist.
After The
Wrong Man, when considering his next film, he saw the movie Les Diaboliques. As a result, Hitchcock
was keen on filming something that was written by the French writing team of Pierre
Boileau and Thomas Narcejac. He made
sure that he got an option on the work D'entre les morts (From Among the Dead). From there he took it to four different
writers, although the final credits were given to Alec Coppel and Samuel
Taylor. In each of the instances he had to be familiar with whoever the writer
was, because despite whatever they put down in a screenplay, Hitchcock was
going to make something that was quintessentially him. He storyboarded every shot that he was going
to take and would be intimately involved with every detail of the
shooting. Hitchcock had to approve
whatever was being written, and the first draft of the screenplay Hitchcock felt
was so bad that he requested that it be burned.
Whoever got final credit for the film or not, every frame of Vertigo screams Hitchcock.
As far as the acting in the piece, we have
the incomparable James Stewart. Some
actors hated Hitchcock because they felt like he would treat them like
cattle. James Stewart did not seem to be
among them. This is one of four pieces
he would make with Hitchcock, including Rope, Rear Window and a remake of The
Man Who Knew Too Much. While he was not necessarily the first actor that would
be considered for the role (some believe that Cary Grant was Hitchcock’s first
choice), one cannot envisage another person playing the role.
James Stewart, when he began his career in
the Hollywood system would be found in mostly comedies and romances, with the
occasional forays into drama. Although
for those of you who remember his brief but humorous take as a murderer in After the Thin Man with William Powell
and Myrna Loy, I applaud your dedication to film history. Even in a movie like Destry Rides Again, an early western, we see Stewart as a kind of
every-man who we can relate to. By the
time he had come back from being involved in World War II his films would take
a decidedly darker turn. After the war,
with maybe the exception of It’s a
Wonderful Life, Stewart wanted to broaden the roles he would take. He had his first Hitchcock film, Rope (1948), loosely based on a famous
murder case. And beginning in 1950 with Winchester 73, Stewart did a series of
westerns where he was hard-nosed and world weary. So by the time Vertigo came along in the late 50s,
Stewart had broadened the roles and his appeal as an actor.
With Vertigo,
Stewart was going to have to take all of that one step further. In this instance he had to straddle the line
between light and dark. We had to relate
to him in some way, because he needed to be Hitchcock’s every-man who was sucked
into the darkness. But this was
different. He not only needed to be
sucked into the darkness, but it needed to change him. He could love and lose, but then he needed to
be brought right over the edge, and the audience needed to walk there with
him. The audience needed to sense his
profound loss and the transforming effect that it would have on his character,
such that when Jimmy meets Judy and begins to transform her, there needs to be
the sense of understanding, and yet revulsion all at the same time. It is this descent into madness that
Hitchcock would fully explore two years later in his classic horror
masterpiece, Psycho. Stewart’s sensitive portrayal of Jimmy brings
us just that, from connection to disconnect right until the very last frame.
The other essential role in the film is
played by Kim Novak. Novak had begun her
career earlier in the 50s, successfully playing opposite some older men while
only being 21 when she started. Her
breakout role would come in 1955’s Picnic,
opposite William Holden. As Madge Owens,
Novak would play an innocent woman who would be taken in by the charms of a
drifter. She exuded both and innocence
and a sexuality that would be prominently featured in Vertigo. As a result of the
success of Picnic, Hitchcock and Stewart felt like she would be a big draw for
the film. There are rumors that first
Hitchcock wanted Grace Kelly, who we had worked with to great success earlier
in To Catch a Thief and Rear Window. Ultimately they cast Vera Miles in the role
but film delays, and possibly not feeling like she was right for the role, made
it so they needed to recast. They chose
Novak and the rest is history.
Novak brilliantly navigates the dual roles
that she plays. In Madeleine Elster she
plays the young wife of the older ship owner, who we could believe that Jimmy’s
character could fall for. While friends
with the husband, it is obviously a friendship from an earlier time. And the wife seems to exist to Mr. Elster
more as property and less as intimate partners.
She excellent plays the wife caught up in the whirlwind of the ghost who
would drive her to the edge, yet a woman of sophistication and charm. She would then have to take on the role as
Judy, the carefree shop girl who would be dragged into the darker machinations
of Jimmy’s mental illness. She is
obviously in love, and obviously conflicted and in pain by it all. She is innocence and charm, with a touch of
manipulation buried within.
While there are several character actors of
note, there is nothing that drives a Hitchcock film more than Hitchcock
himself. And while this may be on
display in the script, I think that it is better seen in the visuals, and in
the choice in shot selection. Robert
Berks was the cinematographer of the movie and definitely followed the dictates
of a classic Hitchcock piece. The one
addition to this movie I believe is in the softening of the tones in all of the
movie. Everything seems to exist in an
otherworldly dream state. Once the
character of Jimmy has been reduced to an acrophobic, things descend into a
dreamlike quality. The sumptuous beautiful
settings in San Francisco, the dreamy Sequoia forest with all of the huge trees,
and the haunting nightmare of the mission are shot in all in soft focus such
that one can question whether or not the whole escape was into a nightmare of
his own personal making. It is done to
beautiful effect.
But the piece itself, as previously
described, exemplifies everything Hitchcock.
From the MacGuffin to the everyman, the audience is drawn into the
story, just as Hitchcock would place himself in the middle of every one of his
stories in some shot. But the camera
angles and individual shot selection is where one cannot escape his
mastery. From his use of wide angle lens
to create visual asymmetry to his over the shoulder shots that give a distorted
viewpoint to his amazing 360 degree kiss where we are sucked into both the
transformation of Judy in Madeleine and nightmarishly drawn into Jimmy’s
distorted psyche. Vertigo displays Hitchcock’s masterful ability to tell a
story. And every moment is a sumptuous
delight.
Why do I love Vertigo? I love it because
it is a masterpiece of filmmaking. I
love the visuals; and despite being disturbed by the story, I am equally moved
by the portrayal of the characters drawn into this dark situation. And whether we are treated to an angel or
death at the end of the story, we are in for a treat all along the way. Is the ending happy? Is it sad?
Is it triumphant? Who is to say? But it’s worth the watch, again and
again. You can pick out something new
every time you watch it. This is what
makes Vertigo such a great movie and
why it rounds out my top 5.
What should be the order of my top 5? Who is to say? It changes from day to day. But I keep landing on these films and wanting
to revisit them like they are old friends.
If you haven’t seen any of them, or the conversation makes you feel like
you need to take another look, please do.
Hope you enjoyed the top 5 list and please comment. After every film, or comment on the series of
five films as a whole. List your top 5
and join the discussion.
Vertigo – This film is perfectly Toasty
Five Stars
Up next . . . unless I get some new votes
for the movie I will be reviewing, Kubo.
Tuesday, August 23, 2016
The Toasty Critic's Top Five - Fourth Film
Reviewing my top 5 Movies of all Time
Day 4 – Gone With the Wind
I am going to be straightforwardly honest
here. As much as this is a quintessential
film of the early 20th century in the sound era, it’s the one I
question the most often why it’s on my list.
Because this is where the ‘did I enjoy the movie” element of my top 5 definitely
comes into play. And it’s one of those
films where I am certain that I could name many other films that I would have enjoyed
at one time or another more than I enjoyed this film. I have heard shouts from friends of different
movies that could have made it onto the list.
And certainly I could take those into consideration. The problem is, Gone With the Wind hits so high on the moving
and timeless meter. Even if I didn’t enjoy the movie in that classic “I had fun”
way that I might have with others, it’s a movie that just sticks with me. And it’s a movie that sucks me in time, after
time, after time.
As a side note, before I move onto a fairly
conventional analysis of the film, I had one of the more bizarre experiences of
film watching when I went to see this film with friends. (The friends who came with me that night
certainly can attest) There was a theater in my area that played classic films
one Tuesday a month. This one particular
month they were going to play Gone with the Wind. I had convinced several of my guy friends to
go see that film. We all arrived at the
theater, but we showed up later than we wanted to. As a result we were not able to get tickets
to see the movie but then while we considered what we were going to do next,
someone came out and told us that they were considering running it on a second
screen given the enormous amount of people they had turn out for the screening.
So we got in line on the off chance we
would get to see the movie. Quickly a
large line of people came up behind us trying to do the same thing. We must have had several groups of women come
up to us while we were in line telling us how it was a women’s movie. We did not belong or have a right to be at
such a movie so we should be forced to go to the back of the line because we
were men. Ah the crazies that come out
when people get attached to a film in a particular way.
So I am going to do a fairly straight
forward analysis to examine why it is that I end up liking this film, almost
despite myself. Let’s start from the
ground up and take a look at the performances.
First of all there is Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara. Now pretty much I can tell you from the
beginning that this woman annoyed the crap out of me. She was temperamental, manipulative,
egotistical, vengeful, spiteful, and too cute for her own good. But there is something about her that you
cannot help but relate too. Maybe it’s
her drive that she displays from beginning to end. She seems to have no limits to her ambition,
but that makes her amazing in a crisis.
She is overly enamored with Ashley Wilkes, played by a simpering Leslie
Howard, but you can tell that she is led on by that person. And Scarlet seems to abuse the saintly
Melanie Hamilton (Olivia de Havilland), who eventually turns out to be more
saintly on the outside than she is within. And finally she keeps sticking it to the one
good guy in the picture Rhett Butler (Clark Gable). We hate her because she is us. And we like her because she is us. She is just herself at all times on screen. Scarlett O’Hara is a character striped of
artifice and left to just be herself in a society that was all about the show
of gentility. Vivien Leigh would later
play a role in a Streetcar Named Desire that was a lot like the role of
Scarlett, but much older, and to more tragic and horrifying results.
Then there is Rhett Butler. He is the perfect example of American ideals
of manliness and virtue, without being too virtuous. He is the American male who is drug into
society by a woman that seems to fascinate him.
And he comes in to change the little piece of the world that he sees
that is good. Unable to change it, at
least from his perspective, he eventually leaves the screen to one of the
biggest pronouncements in film history. “Frankly
My Scarlett, I don’t give a damn.” You
could say that there was no real depth to the role that Clark Gable was
playing. In fact you could say that he
was just playing himself up on the screen, as many screen actors of the day
did. (If you want to think modern screen actors who can’t play anything but
themselves, think Tom Cruise). Sometimes
a role is just meant for an individual.
And Rhett Butler was Gable at his finest. While mostly smirking and smiling on the
screen being his usual jovial self, by the time you got to the end and you
could see the pain on his face as his daughter was dying Gable reached inside
himself to act in a way that he rarely ever did. This role was Gable plus.
Even the lesser roles of Ashley Wilkes,
Melanie Hamilton, Mammy (Hattie McDaniel), Gerald O’Hara (Thomas Mitchell), and
a bevy of other roles, including the future TV Superman (George Reeves) in a
small role at the beginning of the film, contribute to the movement of the
film. These players drive the story
forward in beautiful and sometimes unexpected ways. From the Mammy who seems to
hold the house together, to the weak father who cannot seem to control his
daughter, to the weak Ashley Wilkes who cannot stand up and be a man, owning
his decisions, Gone With the Wind is
littered with fun roles that you can get into and love or hate.
But the truth of the matter is, Margaret Mitchell, the author of the novel and movie’s namesake, was not
necessarily trying to get us to love the characters. She was bemoaning the loss of another world
that had fallen into repute in the meantime.
Many southern authors, including William Faulkner, would portray a south
bruised and battered by what had happened in the Civil War and unable to get
beyond that. Mitchell through her work
exemplifying the beauty of this bygone era and displaying all of the
destruction that lay in its wake. From
the new ways that we treated other races to the carpetbaggers who would come
in and take advantage of the broken and battered south, Mitchell showed a
society that lay in tatters, hoping for the spirit to come out again.
As far as the story, it took at least four
different people to sit down and work out the screen play. The Herculean length of the novel that had to
be shrunk down into movie size took several treatments in order to get it into
a palatable size for audiences of the day.
The original draft was set to be a six hour movie and that was not going
to be workable. But many efforts of the
day were collaborative, including another work in my top 5, Casablanca. This did not seem to detract from the final
work as it had a coherent theme throughout the novel. It was about the south and its death and hope
for reclamation. Maybe the south needed
to die, being a society built on slave labor.
But Mitchell and the authors felt like it could be redeemed as
well. In Scarlett the audience could see
hope for tomorrow. They could see that
not only could the great Tara plantation be rebuilt, but the south could be
rebuilt too, through the strength and the will of the people who were in it.
The Cinematography was fantastic in its own
right. Although the cinematic effort in
this one was chalked up to three different people. The initial cinematographer, Lee Garmes, was
replaced because his footage was too dark.
Ernest Haller and Ray Rennahan, who was a Technicolor specialist, would
come in to replace him. And while a collaborative effort, they had some shots
that were masterful and iconic in their day.
The burning of the south with Rhett and Scarlett in the foreground, the
slow walk down the staircase of Scarlett O’Hara to the admiring gaze of Rhett
Butler, and the ending shot of O’Hara staring off into the distance are all
scenes and sequences that live on in film lore and are hard to remove from your
head. Even the colors of the film are carefully constructed to emphasize the story points. The color scheme is like that of a redemption piece. The beginning the colors are Green and Yellow, both bright and vivid and representing life and growth. With Death and Destruction the Color hues move to Red and then Black. The palate of the film eventually turns grey and bleak, but as we go through the death of the society and then the literal death of Melanie Hamilton the colors move to brighter greens and yellows again, picturing life and hope for the future. Scarlett has moved on. The South has moved on.
Gone with the Wind was such a monumental
effort in its day and would go on to win 7 Academy Awards of the 12 it was
nominated for and would win Best Picture and Best Director of the year. While knowing a lot about how the Hollywood
system works and having so many different people work on this effort, it was
probably impossible for any other effort to win that year. But the sheer sweep and scope of the film,
you would have to consider it to be the first Technicolor Epic of its day. There was at least one film in the black and
white silent era that you would have to consider epic, Eric Von Stroheim
directed an 8 hour version of his silent film Greed. (Which may be why when Gone
With the Wind looked like it was coming in at six hours long the producers
balked as Greed was poorly received) But
Gone With the Wind was the precursor
to all of the modern epics that we know in both scope and scale.
I know that many critics do not like Gone With the Wind. They claim that the movie has not held up
well. Mostly I think that’s because any
movie that contains any people of a race or ethnicity other than white has to
deal with the “neo-critics.” These are
people who have decided to make proclamations about the people from bygone eras
based upon today’s standards. These are
people who deconstruct Huckleberry Finn and make it out to be a racist novel because
of the abundance of one word in the commentary.
As we all pretend to be interested in maintaining the authenticity of
any era, let us consider one question. If
you are writing about people living in the 1840s and you did not use the “n”
word, couldn’t you be accused of whitewashing the era? You can find a litany or writings throughout
the era that would use such language.
Likewise with a film like this one, set in the pre-Civil War and post-Civil
War south, if we try to criticize we would whitewash what was happening.
I think Gone
With the Wind wears well as a piece of cinematic history, with good
performances, a story that can reveal the brokenness of us all, and the human
spirit that we have to overcome any obstacle.
Definitely worth a watch as a piece of film history and, I believe, more
than that.
This film is perfectly Toasty
Five Stars
*next up, the pies de resistance of my Top
5, Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece, Vertigo*
Monday, August 22, 2016
The Toasty Critic's Top 5 - Third Film
Reviewing my top 5 Movies of all Time
Day 3 – Casablanca
“You must remember this. A Kiss is just a
kiss. A sigh is just a sigh. The fundamental things apply as time goes
by. And when true lovers woo, they still
say I love you. On that you can
rely. The fundamental things apply as
time goes by.” With just a few bars in a
chorus, everyone can be taken back to Rick’s Cafe Americain in the middle of
Casablanca. Casablanca, the movie, an indelible part of
the American movie landscape. There are
so many different ways I could go about reviewing Casablanca, and why it fits
on my top 5 movies of all time. But
let’s take a little side trip to understand why I put Casablanca as one of the
top 5 of all time.
What does it mean to have a top 5 of
anything? And what does a top 5 mean to
you, or to me for that matter. I
remember being on a date recently and the person informed me that while
she had a top 5 favorite movies, there was a movie that was not on the top 5 list
that she would watch more often than any other.
She loved The Big Lebowski. Now don’t get me wrong, as a Joel and Ethan
Coen fan I was a great lover of the movie, even going so far as to becoming a
dudeist priest; because, you know, it tied the room together, or something like
that. But I would never have considered
it among my top 5 movies of all time.
And she didn’t put it up their either, but she watched it all the
time. She loved it. So given that I have been relating what my
top 5 is I will get a bit into my criteria weeds for what my own top 5 is before
continuing on.
Top 5 means to me several things. Obviously, it would have to be one of my
favorite movies to watch. In this
instance, I would have to say that Big Lebowski might rank higher than say
Citizen Kane, which I am sure many critics would say is a travesty. But
seriously, other than for film study about technique and storytelling, would
you really sit down and say it is one of those pleasurable films that you could
watch time and again? Maybe some critics
could. I am not among them. I believe that you have to actually enjoy the
piece that you are watching to place it in your top 5. Maybe that makes me antiquated and from a
bygone era of critics. And certainly
with the notion of postmodern art as a kind of manufactured chaos, trying to
state the enjoyability of a film must be a daunting task for some. This doesn’t mean that I place entertainment
value above message or impact. It just
means that I consider it along with those when determining greatness.
A top 5 movie must be timeless in some way. This, unfortunately, tends to eliminate most
films in the comedy genre, unless the comedies are timeless. This is a reason why Buster Keaton’s films,
while not as popular as Charlie Chaplain’s films at the time, tend to wear better than
many of the comics and even than some of Chaplains best works, because the
comedy in them is timeless. Physical
comedy almost always wears better over time than particular sketches. Most sketches that are still funny deal with
issues that focus on the human condition in general, and not on anything
specifically. This is why it becomes
really hard for a comedy movie to make a best of anything list, other than a
list of comedy movies. Although
postmodern comedies are another thing altogether because they make fun of the
human condition. That does make me
laugh; but they haven’t been around long enough, and there aren’t enough of
them that are successful at this type of comedy to be included.
For a film to be in my top 5 it has to impress me when I first watched; it must be good 10 years later; and it must be good 30 years later (even though
some films on the list are not that old).
Aside from being enjoyable and timeless,
the film must move me in some way. This
doesn’t mean that I have to be crying by the end of the film, although
certainly some of the top films have moved me to tears. This doesn’t mean I have to be laughing
hysterically throughout the film, although that might help. What this does mean is that it has to provoke
some sort of emotion in me. This emotion
can be anything. It can be disgust,
anger, fear, happiness, tears, loss, abandonment, etc. But it has to provoke something within
me. I need to be walking out of the film
and the film has to stick with me. I
cannot leave the film and two hours later barely imagine a scene or a line of
dialogue (not that I am the "quote king" of film). It has to resonate far past the initial
watching. This doesn’t mean that I think a movie like Independence Day, Jurassic Park, or The Avengers is
bad. I enjoy those films and will give
them a good rating on a review. But the experience
tends to be limited to the film itself.
For me, a top 5 film must go above and beyond the initial
experience. This is just the place where
a film like Citizen Kane or a Lawrence of Arabia does shine. The movies are beyond fluff and make a person
think long after the film is over. It
may even make one argue about the significance of a plot point, or the symbol
of a particular set piece.
While these three things are but a small
list in the vast array of ways one can judge a film such as: is it technically
sound; is the film accurate; is there some new way of looking at film or new
technical aspects to film making that are enhanced making it a genuinely great film; are
the actors portrayals deep and involving; does the cinematography add or
detract from a piece; are there any obvious set gaffes or miscues in the film;
and is there a person who is genuinely miscast in the film (i.e. Keanu Reeves
in Much Ado About Nothing). I could get
into the weeds in all of these different things. And while I do take every one of these into
consideration, they tend to take a back seat to those three main criteria for my top 5, although not
entirely. So I tend to focus on each and
every one of those things as incidentals to the larger view of did I enjoy it,
is it timeless, and was I moved.
So how do I place Casablanca in the top 5
of all time? We can begin with the
acting and writing. Rick (Humphrey
Bogart), the classic everyman who has been wronged by a lost love. Ilsa, acted elegantly by Ingrid Bergman,
plays the foreign woman who came along to soften the everyman’s heart until
crushing it, leaving him lost in the cold cruel world of Nazis and Fascists
during World War II. In a precursor to
being dumped by text, or as Carrie Bradshaw in Sex in the City would learn by
Post-It Note, Rick is dumped by a letter, without explanation, and without the
ability to respond. Of course this is
all back story to Rick that we do not find out about until later. The story begins with Rick, the night club
owner who stands up for nothing and for no one.
In one exchange with a German General the conversation goes:
“Maj.
Heinrich Strasser: What is your nationality?
Rick Blaine: I'm a
drunkard.
Capt. Louis
Renault: That makes Rick a citizen of the world.”
Rick is a broken man who has decided to get
out of the world the most he can get out of it.
And he is going to make the best of a bad situation for himself, running
a seedy although profitable night club in the city. He even takes advantage of a situation, where
a gentleman who considers him a friend leaves him with letters of transit that
he has murdered and stolen to get them, keeping the letters and possibly
profiting from them in the future when the German’s cannot find them.
Along comes Ilsa to gum up the works. She not only breaks back into Rick’s life
without an explanation, she insists on bringing back to Rick all of the bad
memories that he had before. It forces
Rick to relive all of the pain that he has already suffered at the hands of
her. She goes to the night club and
forces his friend, Sam (Dooley Wilson), to play “As Time Goes By” on the
piano. As soon as Rick hears this he
forces Sam to stop playing until he realizes who has made him play it. The emotions are clearly etched on Rick’s
hardened face as it both destroys and softens his character at the same
time. Later that evening Rick forces Sam
to play the music once again, believing that Elsa is going to show up, and
convincing himself that he can take it just as she can. We end up reliving the painful memories that
he has etched into his brain through a series of flashbacks at the high and low
points of their brief relationship. And then
she shows up first to beg for the letters of transit, then to threaten him at
gunpoint, before breaking down to reveal that she still loved him and why she
had left him in the first place.
What is Rick going to do? Is he going to become a good guy and help
them out? Is he going to help out Ilsa’s
husband and keep Ilsa all for himself?
Or is he going to abandon both of them as he has been broken by
them? I could go into detail about all
of these different things, but I think that would spoil the plot of the
movie. And if you haven’t seen it yet, I
think it’s well worth a watch. The
actors aside from the main three are a who’s who of Hollywood character actors. There is Sidney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, Claude
Rains, Conrad Veidt and Paul Henried.
All of them litter this piece with interactions with the main
characters, building up the story in various ways, and all foils for Rick in
certain ways as well. There is Signor Ferrari
(Sidney Greenstreet), the businessman, who is in competition with Rick who sees
Rick go against his own financial self-interest, confusing who Rick seems to be
at the beginning of the film. There is
General Strasser (Conrad Veidt) who is the German general who Rick should want
to get along with in business but who he challenges by allowing French at the
bar to engage in the singing of the French national anthem, making him out to
be more of a patriot and less sleazy businessman. There is Captain Louis Renault (Claude
Rains), the corrupt French officer who Rick regularly buys off, exposing Rick
to be less corrupt and doing things for the benefit of others and not of just
himself. This caricature of Rick we have
at the beginning is slowly blown away by all of the actions these characters
brilliantly bring out in him.
Aside from the brilliant acting and
writing, there is the cinematography itself.
While color was used in a wide array of films by that time, for whatever
reason the Director and Cinematographer, Michael Curtiz, and Arthur Edeson, decided to go with a dimly lit back and white backdrop. For anyone who thinks films should have been
made in color and attempts to colorize such black and white classics, this film
exemplifies the travesty of such a belief.
Yes, shame on you Mr. Turner!!!
First of all, we are introduced to Rick in a dingy seedy nightclub where
some high end clientele but mostly seedy clientele are permitted to drink,
sometimes gamble, but often get into trouble.
Turning that into a colorized place brightens what should be a dark
place. And many of the outside
activities are in back streets and alleys because these are the people that
Rick is dealing with. Also colorizing it
would hurt the nature. But there is just
one shot where Rick is sitting with a bottle and a shot glass and you see the
smoke from the cigarette wafting into the air while the extreme pain and
emotion are written on the contours of Rick’s face, that if anyone tried to
change would just rip out the heart of the film. Here is a man who was broken by the world and
living in the seediest of places. This
cinematography perfectly highlights every wrinkle and every mark of pain that
this man has had to endure in his life and at the hands of Ilsa. It is the moment where the man must confront
the demons of the past. You cannot
imagine that iconic scene being told in any other way. That is the mark of something that is
timeless.
Aside from all of these things, who can
forget all of the lines that we now consider to be cliché, originating in this
one piece. “A penny for your thoughts.” “We’ll always have Paris.” “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in
all the world, she walks into mine.” “Here’s looking at you kind.” “Louis, this looks like the beginning of a
beautiful friendship.” “Round up the usual suspects.” There are so many different lines that you
cannot possibly forget that have ended up in other movies and other settings at
different times. Casablanca has so many
lines there is a movie based upon a line that most people only think are in the
movie, and yet it’s not there. “Play it
again Sam,” is not a line in Casablanca and yet it has gained worldwide
fame. That’s how timeless this piece is.
But the heart of the movie is the Romance
between Rick and himself. I know that it
is a weird thing to say. But truthfully,
Rick has lost the love of himself when his heart is broken by Ilsa; and he
buries himself in the corner of the world to almost have his soul rot. But Ilsa reawakens in him a love for all
sorts of things, not just a love for her.
It’s a love of country; it’s a love of things that are right in the
world; it’s a love of human kind. Ultimately
Rick discovers a love of himself that moves him into action. It’s a story of what real love should inspire
in all of us. I will not say more as if
you haven’t seen the movie you should go and see it for yourself.
Why do I love Casablanca and is it in my
top 5? I love it for the lines. I love it for the Romance. I love it for the silly patriotism. I love it for the sensual
cinematography. I love it because the
acting is amazing, the roles are rich, and for the music that Sam plays on the
piano. I love it because every time I
want to be the one saying, “Play it Sam. Play it for old time’s sake.” I love Casablanca because, ”the world will
always welcome lovers, as time goes by.” I am one such lover.
This Film is Perfectly Toasty
Five Stars
*up next on the top 5 (and probably the one
that will receive the most argument) – Gone with the Wind*
Sunday, August 21, 2016
The Toasty Critic's Top 5 - Second Film
Reviewing my top 5 Movies of all Time
Day 2 – Glory
I have to admit at the beginning of the article today that I
am a Civil War fan. This isn’t to say
that I am a fan of war. And this isn’t
to say that I think even what we consider to be just wars are good. War is a terrible thing, even when they are done
for the best of reasons. War should
never be a first response. It should
only be the response when all other options seem to have failed us. I am also not the kind of person who has gone
to Civil War Reenactments, or any reenactment for that matter. While I do think dressing up in period
costume is cool, I am not always sure of the purpose of the people putting them
on, unless for historical study.
But I have been a kind of Civil War history nut since I was
10 years old. When I was 10 I went to
the school library and picked up a large history book of the Civil War. It contained information on each and every
battle, troupe movements, and the generals who were in command. It put each battle in context of the larger
civil war itself. I was enthralled. I wanted to learn each and every thing I
could about the era as possible. From
the History of Slavery, to the onset of the Civil War, to the Emancipation
Proclamation and beyond. I wanted to
learn it all. And when I was 10 I knew
just about as much as any 10 year old possibly could about the War Between the
States.
Obviously it’s been over 30 years since then, and as anyone
who has watched the game show Are You
Smarter than a Fifth Grader can attest, we forget a lot in the intervening
time period. I could tell you a little
bit about some of the major Generals and their history. And Ken Burn’s documentary on the Civil War
helped me recall some of the names and faces of the major players involved in
the conflict, but nothing can match the knowledge I had at 10 years old. Suffice it to say, I have known a lot, and
forgot a lot in the interim.
So when I was a sophomore in high school and a friend
mentioned to me about a Civil War movie coming out, I was excited. But I had one major hurdle to cross. I know for some of you out there, you won’t
understand this, but for those who do, I was not able to watch rated R films at
that time. I couldn’t just walk into a
movie and watch one. I know some of my
friends who could pass for 17, but I could not.
It just so happens that I lucked out when my parents had been told by
people that they trusted at their church that there was an amazing Civil War
movie out that had really nothing wrong with it except some accurate depictions
of violence in war. That convinced my
parents to allow us to go, albeit with them in the audience. So I remember sitting back for my first R
rated movie, and a Civil War movie at that, excited to there for the show.
If I was worried or not, I did not have any reasons to
be. The Cast was high powered, although
I would say that at the time they weren’t necessarily all that well known. And those who were did not necessarily have
the type of resume that you would think warrant a big screen historical epic of
that magnitude. First there was Matthew
Broderick, probably the primary male lead of the piece. He was best known for Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
And he had done some musical theater as well. While I enjoyed Ferris immensely, being one
of the quintessential 80's movies dealing with uniquely first world problems of
teen angst, I would never have said that he would have had the capacity for
such a dramatic effort. Then there was
Cary Elwes, he of an amazing romantic comedy, The Princess Bride, that was a kind of sweeping epic, but more on
the comedy end of the spectrum. He had
done some other minor work previously but nothing with the depth of Glory in mind, and nothing that I had
seen. Of course there was Morgan
Freeman, which if you have read my previous piece on Shawshank Redemption will note that he did have some movie
background, specifically Lean on Me up to that point. And he had made Driving Miss Daisy, which had come out that same year. But aside from that, he just had a ton of TV
work that he had been involved with. I
remembered him from the Electric Company, which I occasionally watched as a
child. I had seen Lean on Me, and that made me hopeful, but that was about it. Denzel Washington, who would earn an academy
award for his performance, had been in mostly TV work with the exception of Cry
Freedom (also nominated), which I wouldn’t watch until after I had seen
Glory. He was definitely a promising
actor but nothing would prepare me for his role of Private Trip. And there were tons of smaller roles as
well. From the Irish Drill Sergeant to
Andre Braugher, as Thomas Searles, one of Robert Shaw’s close African-American friends
who would join the first African American regiment, to Bob Gunton’s portrayal
of General Garrsion Harker, as a conniving war profiteer, the roles were
plentiful and amazingly well written. I
could go on and on.
Freddy Francis, the cinematographer of Glory, had done some
amazing work in black and white on The
Elephant Man, and had done some rich work in otherworldly lands, working
with David Lynch once again, in Dune. These experiences would serve him well in
Glory, dealing with both intimate moments, which would capture the men dealing
with private reflections or the singing of the men before a battle, to more
wide sweeping moments, such as Robert Shaw setting his horse free and walking
through his men out to the front of the lines before the battle. He was able to capture beautifully the chaos
of war, and at the same time preserve the humanity of each individual soldier
involved.
Ed Zwick up to this point in time had done mostly TV work,
with the exception of the film About Last Night, which in no ways would lead
one to believe what he would be able to do here. With Glory, Zwick was able to tell a sweeping
tale of the first African American Regiment to see battle during the Civil
War. With his deft directing and Kevin
Jarre’s brilliant screenplay, Zwick was beautifully able to display the chaos
and riggers of war with an initial battle where Shaw seems to be utterly lost
in the midst of everything going on. And
from there he was able to develop the characters of the men who would
ultimately lead this regiment into battle, as well as the men themselves. From small moments of watching the doctors
treat Private Trip’s (Denzel Washington’s) back as a result of being whipped for
deserting his post, to larger grandiose moments where the soldiers, and later
Shaw himself, refuse to take their pay because they were being underpaid just
because they were black, Zwick develops these characters so that when they go
into battle that we actually care about them.
He then ably moves the unit through early battles and through dealing
with being misused to see the growth of the unit and them seeing each other as
brothers as they are about to go off into the final battle. Finally Zwick leads us through a final battle,
with James Horner’s operatic score playing in the background, showing both the
beauty of a unit moving as one cause to one purpose and the tragedy of losing
these men for a battle that day they would eventually lose.
But the beauty of Glory and telling the story of all of
these individual men and their heroic efforts during the Civil War is not in
the fact that most of them would die in battle and never live to see what
happened. The beauty of these men was in
rallying others to join their cause and come after them to fight a war that
would earn them their recognition as human beings worthy of the same rights as
others, and not as pieces of property.
The ran the risk of certain death by a bullet or even being captured,
because the south announced they would execute any black man in a Union
military uniform, or any white men who was leading said unit. They were heroes. Lincoln believed that the black soldiers were
responsible for turning the tide of the war in their favor.
So why is Glory in my top 5 movies of all time? I think you could run down the list. From the amazing writing and direction, to
the incredible portrayal of these men, none of which you feel like you don’t
know or are rooting for by the time they get to the final battle, to the
beautiful cinematography, I find myself enraptured in the piece every time I
sit down to watch it. There are some
movies that I can watch multiple times.
But there are very few that every time I see it on I will stop and sit
and watch all the way to the end. Glory
is just one of those films. It’s a
beautifully told historical epic.
This film is perfectly toasty
Five Stars
*Up Next in the Top 5 Casablanca*
Saturday, August 20, 2016
The Toasty Critic's Top 5 - First film
Reviewing my top 5 Movies of all Time
Day 1 – The Shawshank Redemption –
It’s hard to look back on this film and not have it have so
many different associations with different times in my life. I remember the first time watching it when I
was 22 years old and a projectionist at a movie theater at the time. It had come out and gotten good reviews and a
bunch of academy award nominations. I
was excited to go see it with my friends as it had one of my favorite actors in
it: Morgan Freeman. I really could have
cared less about Tim Robbins at the time although he had come out with The
Hudsucker Proxy, directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, earlier that year. So while he wasn’t necessarily a must watch I
did want to see what his follow up film to that would be. And of course the source material was written
by Stephen King. I knew this was a hit
or miss proposition when it came to books converted into movies, especially
King’s books; but as this was one of his short stories I had more hopes for it.
There were me and a couple other friends watching the movie,
and as I worked for the movie theater, we did not pay for it. I think there might have been two or three
other people in the entire movie theater when the opening sequence of the court
trial of Andy Dufresne began. Movies
back then still held their allure of magic to me. I remember the time I was hired in the movie
theater and going up in to the projection booth to see all of the projectors
clicking through their rolls of film, and the lights flickering across every
movie theater. So when the theater
darkened and here was a story of a man going through hell and being redeemed at
the other end, I was transfixed. And by
the last lines of the movie, “I find I'm so excited that I can barely sit still
or hold a thought in my head. I think it's the excitement only a free man can
feel. A free man at a start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain. I
hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend and shake his
hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope.”
Goosebumps. Every. Single.
Time.
It was the epitome of movie magic. One of my best friends sitting next to me
looked at me and said, “I wanna make movies.
I wanna make movies like that.” I
couldn’t even argue with him. It was a
perfect example of why movies are magic.
It shows why movies transform our thinking about the world we live in
and our role within it. It displayed
both the danger and the promise of movie making in its two hours and 22 minute
length. Movies can move us in ways few
things can. And right there and then I
wanted to make movies. Sure, I had always
wanted to be a part of the film making process before. But in that moment I saw film as transformative. Pulling at the basest of emotions, working on
our capacity to hope and how it moves things, I cannot express in words what it
did to me at that moment. I just wanted
to sit there and stare at the screen long after the movie was over and take it
all in.
Now few of you remember, but I can attest, especially as it
is in Roger Ebert’s 100 greatest movies of all time, that Forest Gump was the
Academy Award winning picture that year.
This is not to be critical of Forest Gump mind you. But it was the perfectly commercialized piece
with the oddball character and the over the top acting that so frequents the
Academy Awards. And it was marketed well
to the general public. No one had even
heard of Shawshank Redemption, or very few people had. So in the next 10 years after its release people
slowly were exposed to the brilliance of the film on TNT and other such cable
TV stations, in somewhat edited fashion. So when I was to look at it again 10
years later, while still emotionally pulling on my heart strings, it was
gratifying that the rest of the world had been let in on the secret that I had
known years before. That a prison movie
with two hardened criminals, speaking of hope in the bleakest of human
circumstances, exhibited movie brilliance.
It was the reason people keep going back to the movie theater, year
after year.
And then came the third major period of experience. This one occurred almost 9 years later, 19
years after the original movie had been released. I was sitting on a couch in an emotional
state, going through a divorce, and sitting there feeling completely hopeless. I felt like the weight of the world was
pressing down on me and I didn’t know what direction to turn. And then I sit down watching that movie and
get to the note that Andy Dufresne writes to his friend Red. “Dear Red, If
you're reading this, you've gotten out. And if you've come this far, maybe
you're willing to come a little further. You remember the name of the town,
don't you? I could use a good man to help me get my project on wheels. I'll
keep an eye out for you and the chessboard ready. Remember, Red. Hope is a good
thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies. I will be hoping
that this letter finds you, and finds you well. Your friend, Andy.”
It was like a release of an avalanche of tears coming
streaming down my face as the words were read as voice over narration. Even at the moment when Red says “Zihuatanejo,”
I am speaking it along with him. I am
thinking of that promised land of better tomorrows. I am hoping that each day is going to be
better than the day before. I am hoping
for the relationship with my daughter to get better, and for the life that
seemed in shambles at that moment to have a turn around. I am being carried away by the hopeful
musical score and the blue in the Pacific Ocean. I am hoping that the future I see before me
is the future of my dreams. I hope.
So why is the film itself so amazing? Why do I love Shawshank Redemption? Let’s first examine the message. First it taps into one of the three primary
human emotive forces that exist: faith, hope and love. This is not to say that there aren’t other
emotive forces in the world; but I would say they are either lesser secondary
forces, or they are various perversions of one of those three. We believe in
things; we love things; we hope for things.
Hope is a future looking force, thinking about what could be, and not
merely fixated on what is. Hope is
always brighter and not dimmer than what we are experiencing. We never hope for less. We always hope for more.
Shawshank Redemption shows hope in what would have been the
world’s worst possible situation. First,
you are person whose spouse ran out on you for another man. And she didn’t run out for just any other
man. She ran out for a golf pro, which
attacks the very nature of your manhood.
Then not only are you ceremoniously dumped, but then the wife tragically
dies in a double homicide. This means
that not only are you broken, but you can’t possibly get any closure from this
person. And to add insult to injury, you
are now charged and convicted of the crime that you didn’t even commit. This is bad enough but then Andy Dufresne
ends up having the “sisters” in the prison take a liking to him, meaning that
he is suffering through rape and abuse in the prison for the first two full
years of his stay there. One would think
that this is the perfect time to give up hope.
Many of us would definitely want to chuck in and call it a day. But there is something so strong about the
pull of hope that we still sit transfixed.
And then in the darkest of places Andy begins to reclaim his
humanity and his dignity. Why? Because he should expect that something
different should happen to him than it did before? Because somehow the people he was around now
he should expect to behave differently?
Because society was going to consider him to be different now? Of course
not. He was hoping for something better. Even in the hole, in a prison, where no light
would get in and he was subjected to slop for food, Andy could hope for a
beautiful place, on the ocean, with a boat to sail on and wind-blown hair. Should he expect that? No.
But the human capacity to hope, even in the darkest of situations, is
burrowed into our DNA.
The photography for the film was simple but elegant. A lot of quick opening shots as if Andy
Dufresne is descending into a nightmare, which he truly is. And then a long extensive shot of the whole
prison, and we now know the confines of the new hell that Andy is entering
into. He goes into a place that tries to
dehumanize everyone; and he shows what it means truly to be human. He may have been in that world, but he
certainly was not of that world. The
beautiful mixture of dark and light used in the film at different places adds
to the ambiance of the world Frank Darabont, in his first feature film
debut. He weaves a tale of light and
darkness where even in the direst of circumstances, the capacity to believe in
and hope for something allows humans to transcend their existence.
As for the acting, what more can be said? Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman shine as Andy
and Red. The two of them have some
amazing on screen chemistry, Morgan Freeman’s Red (Ellis Redding) being the
pivotal role. While Tim Robbins characterization of Andy Dufresne does
display the hope that one can have, it is in Morgan Freeman’s character of Red
that we can see man’s capacity to transform, which is the truly beautiful
part. At the beginning of the movie the
character of Red has served the first 20 years of a life sentence for murder. He had been “institutionalized” as he put it. Society had taken the life from him, and we
was going to fade out of existence. But
through his friendship with Andy, he saw a capacity to home for something more. And we don’t know what all of that is going
to mean for him until the end. “Get busy living, or get busy dying,” Red
summarizes his situation even after being let out of prison. But he summarizes his conclusion in one perfect exclamation point. “That’s God Damn right!” So when we seem him next, he is off on a bus,
a transformed character. And the
voice-over that had been used extensively throughout the film begins again. Morgan Freeman is getting ready to get on a
bus. He is full of wonder about what’s
before him. He is full of amazement
about every little thing. And ultimately
he is full of hope, for his friend and ultimately for himself.
Along with our main stars there are some great individual
performances in some smaller roles. From
James Whitmore, as the likeable but ultimately doomed character of Brooks
Hatlen, the former prison librarian before Andy takes over, to Mark Rolston as
Boggs Diamond the man responsible for Andy’s initial hell within the prison, to
Gil Bellows as an affable Tommy, whose life is coming off the rails and Andy
takes a personal interest in, the characters are fun and add to the prison comradery
that is developed throughout the picture.
There are so many other roles that I could get into and say what they
meant, but this is a blog and not a treatise on Shawshank.
Why do I love Shawshank? No matter how much I can get into
the intricacies of a particular film, sometimes the description only pales to
the actual work of art. You can look at
Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” and try to describe the brush strokes, and the
brilliance of his work. You can get into
the picture as something that is living and breathing and how his work displays
that. But no matter how much you sit and
talk about it, until you are staring at the painting and seeing it face to
face, you cannot possibly fathom the greatness.
It is that moment that you get up close and all you can do is say, “wow,”
where it all comes together for you. I
am guessing that many of you have already seen the film. But if you have not, please take a look at it
and just enjoy it, not only for what it preaches, but for what it is, a
beautiful story of humanities capacity for hope and how that we can find it in
the direst of circumstances.
Definitely perfect Toast
Five Stars
*Next on the Top 5 “Glory”*
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