Tag Movies

The horror and futility of war: Reading ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’

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Before watching the award-winning Netflix movie ‘All Quiet on the Western Front‘ I decided to first read the famous book by the German writer Erich Maria Remarque, which was published in 1929.

There’d been some criticism of the film – German critics had panned it for turning a beloved literary classic into an Oscars spectacle, while historians had slammed its apparent historical inaccuracy – but beside that, I wanted to take in the story in its original form (and use my own imagination), before watching the latest on screen adaptation.

Interestingly, the book’s famous and oft-used title (usually quoted without the irony) was coined by an Australian soldier and Oxford scholar Arthur ‘AW’ Wheen who fought in the Great War and who was awarded three military medals for bravery.

The original German title ‘Im Westen nichts Neues’ translates as ‘Nothing New on the Western Front’. But Wheen, who went on to translate a number of Remarque’s novels, was so profoundly moved by the story that he coined the more poetic English title. This along with his well-received translation of the book played a key role in its enduring success and hallowed status nearly 100 years after being published as one of the great First World War novels.

An often times mentally grueling read, Remarque condenses all the horror, tragedy and futility of the Great War into just over 200 pages of terse, diary-style entries narrated by the brave and philosophical young German soldier Paul Baumer.

Paul, just 19-years-old but already a veteran of the conflict, is part of a close-knit group of five school friends – Tjaden, Muller, Kropp and Leer – and their 40-year-old leader, “shrewd, cunning, and hard-bitten” Stanislaus ‘Kat’ Katczinsky who are stationed a few miles from the front, where the sounds of gunfire and bombs never stops rumbling.

It is 1918, and the soldiers pray that the war will end soon, that the rumours of Germany’s surrender will come true, and that they shall survive.

One of the great strengths of the novel is the way Remarque combines both the horrors of the trenches with the more mundane, but also poignant experiences of a soldier’s life to give a fully rendered impression of those times.

Away from the battlefield, we join Paul and his friends as they enjoy the simple pleasure of receiving mail, sharing extra rations or stretching out in a grassy meadow where they find joy in “wonderfully care-free hours” as bumble bees drown out the ominous rumbles from the front.

These are the quiet moments when their youthfulness resurfaces and these battle-hardened soldiers can be, hopeful men again. Not knowing when they shall meet their end, they immerse themselves in the brief respite and try to forget about the return to front where they will once again become part of the terrifying war machine.

Remarque, who was a war veteran himself, was able to draw on the horrific scenes he witnessed whilst fighting in the trenches to put the reader right there among the mud, rats, mustard gas and wounded, dead and dying.

Remarque’s novel takes you right into the horror of the trenches.

“We see men living with their skulls blown open; we see soldiers run with their two feet cut off, they stagger on their splintered stumps into the next shell-hole… we see men without mouths, without jaws, without faces; we find one man who has held the artery of his arm in his teeth for two hours in order not to bleed to death. The sun goes down, night comes, the shells whine, life is at an end.“

In another horrific scene, Baumer writes of the terrible screams of horses injured by bombs and gunfire, the belly of one “ripped open the guts trail out” as it rises to its feet but then falls over, tripping on its own intestines.

“Torches light up the confusion. Everyone yells and curses and slaughters. The madness and despair of many hours unloads itself in this outburst. Faces are distorted, arms strike out, the beasts scream; we just stop in time to avoid attacking one another.”

If the horror of the book was not enough, midway through reading descriptions like this, I felt compelled to look on YouTube for archived footage of the viscous battles Remarque was writing about.

One video segment depicted the total chaos on the battlefield, as mortar bombs exploded, bodies crumbled and soldiers fired at one another, then charged with bayonets that sliced into bellies. Because of the jerky motions, the scene felt almost cartoonish.

I also came across a scene of soldiers making their way through the nightmare landscape of barren hills and deep craters. Shot from behind them, it showed one soldier advancing on foot, with another behind him who appeared to be crawling. Only he wasn’t crawling I soon realised, most of his lower body had been blown away and he was dragging himself along the ground by what remained of his torso. (The video is titled “Verdun is a human slaughterhouse“).

It was utterly horrific, and just so incredibly sad. I wished I’d never seen it. But it did highlight that there was no hyperbole in the descriptions of Remarque’s young narrator, Paul. While All Quiet on the Western Front is a fictional story, the experiences endured by Paul and his comrades are accurate and true.

The power of Remarque’s storytelling is that he not only manages to capture these unimaginably awful things that happen in the trenches and among the craters and barbed wire entwined battlefields, but the mental anguish of those caught up in the fighting and the futility of it all.

This is brought most horribly to life in a devastating episode where Paul is forced to kill a French soldier who falls into a pit he is hiding in after taking cover from the incessant shelling and relentless machine gun fire.

Paul watches as the soldier’s young life slowly seeps away in front of his eyes.

Paul starts to question why this young man, whom he discovers had a wife and child, had to die. They are a similar age and in another time might have been friends.

He ends up making a futile vow to write to the dead soldier’s wife after finding a picture of her and their daughter in his wallet.

“Comrade,” I say to the dead man, but I say it calmly, “to-day you, to-morrow me. But if I come out of it, comrade, I will fight
against this, that has struck us both down; from you, taken life–and from me–? Life also. I promise you, comrade. It shall never happen again.”

Paul is the philosophical voice and conscience of the millions of young men, who if not killed, were traumatised beyond hope from the things they did in the fight for survival.

For me the most moving and tragic episode, and which illuminates the mental devastation of the war on young soldiers are the scenes when Paul is given a 17 day leave pass and journeys back to his home village, to see his family.

Remarque captures so perfectly the feeling of both being at home among your loved ones, but also that terrible realisation of having left everything you once knew far behind, of being utterly and irrevocably changed and of never ever being able to make that journey back to what life once was.

I imagined leave would be different from this. Indeed, it was different a year ago. It is I of course that have changed in the interval. There lies a gulf between that time and to-day. At that time I still knew nothing about the war, we had only been in quiet sectors. But now I see that I have been crushed without knowing it. I find I do not belong here any more, it is a foreign world.

Finishing the book, I realised I knew so little about the First World War, especially when compared with Second one that broke out just 20 years later.

The reasons for the Great War, as I have since read are so much more complicated.The famous assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo merely the spark that lit the fuse.

Industrialisation, power struggles, inequality between nations and inbred racial hatred all played apart in the greatest ever mobilisation of millions of young men to fight and die in the trenches.

This was a war where armies were so large and so easily replenished that no one could ever really win, resulting in loss of life so huge and horrors so terrible they are hard to fathom, even as new atrocities emerge in the Ukraine war, fueled by similar forces: power, greed and hatred.

All Quiet on the Western Front is Erich Maria Remarque’s poetic and visceral reminder that there are no real victors in war, only victims.

Will the new movie do justice to that message? (I’ll report back).

Why ‘Life Itself’ (about Roger Ebert) is one of my favourite documentary films

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One of the most entertaining, moving, inspiring and powerful documentary films I have watched in a long time is ‘Life Itself’, about the life of the famous Chicago film critic Roger Ebert. It’s also the title of Ebert’s own memoir published in 2011.

The film by Steve James (who made the Oscar-nominated Hoop Dreams) unintentionally documented the final months in the life of Ebert, who had long battled thyroid cancer, losing his lower jaw in the process, his ability to speak and eat but never his wit or brilliance.

It’s quite shock seeing Ebert for the first time in his hospital bed, missing a large part of his face. But he has these incredibly sparkling eyes, still full of mischief as he types away on his computer, making jokes through a voice synthesizer, writing film reviews and responding to emails.

Just a few months into filming, Ebert passed away in his hospital bed after another medical setback, surrounded by his devoted wife Chaz (who has continued to run rogerebert.com since his passing), friends and family.

The documentary moves between past and present telling the story of how Ebert started out as a young journalist at the Chicago Sun-Times – one of the city’s two main newspapers – and how by chance he became its film critic after a sudden vacancy emerged, a role he maintained and cherished for over four decades.

In 1975, Ebert whose non-snobbish and direct style of writing made film criticism accessible to all who loved the movies, became the first film critic to win the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for criticism and later a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

But it was his on screen rivalry with fellow Chicago film critic Gene Siskel (of rival paper the Chicago Tribune) on their show ‘At the Movies’ that would make Ebert almost as famous as the actors and directors whose movies he reviewed.

The documentary features interviews with Gene Siskel’s widow Marlene – Siskel died from cancer aged just 53 in 1999 – who wonderfully channels the love/hate relationship between the pair as well as with director Martin Scorcese, who emotionally praises Ebert for helping resurrect his career when it had sunk to a low point in the 1980s due to cocaine addiction and depression.

The documentary also includes interviews with current film critics like the New York Times’s AO Scott, who wrote of Ebert’s passing that he along with Siskel helped to make Chicago “the first city of movie criticism”

“Every medium [Roger Ebert] made use of was, above all, a tool of communication, a way of talking to people — Sun-Times readers, the critic in the other chair, Facebook friends, insomniacs and enthusiasts — about the movies he cared about and, perhaps more important, the human emotions and aspirations those movies represented,” wrote Scott.

Someone who reviewed hundreds of films a year, wrote books and blogs even when battling cancer, he still had time to answer letters, and emails from schoolchildren and college students, said Scott,

In James’ film, Ebert is a larger than life figure with boundless energy. In his earlier years he was always the last person to leave the local bar in the early hours of the morning (his drinking almost killed him) and then later entertained readers with his offbeat and colourful stories from the Cannes Film Festival.

Someone whose well-chosen words could ruin a movie at the Box office (as could the ‘Thumbs up, thumbs down reviews given on television by he and Siskel), Ebert was also one to champion lesser known film makers and smaller independent pictures – among his most ardent admirers is German filmmaker Werner Herzog who dedicated one of his films to him and said, when Ebert passed away that not only was he “the good soldier of cinema” writing about cinema for four decades but that he was also the “wounded soldier who for years in his affliction held out and plowed on”.

A statue of Roger Ebet outside a movie theatre in Champaign, Illinois where he had is first newspaper job.

Never someone who wrote anything  out of malice or spite, Ebert was controversial at times, most notably in his review of David Lynch’s cult classic Blue Velvet, a film Ebert despised, but one praised by many critics as a masterpiece.

Ebert gave it one star noting that the “movie is pulled so violently in opposite directions that it pulls itself apart”.

But even if Ebert criticised movies, he would often find things in them to praise (including in Blue Velvet). Scorcese called Ebert’s review of his movie The Colour of Money starring Paul Newman “condemning and helping”.

Still I wondered why the documentary film moved me so much. I hardly knew much about Roger Ebert, apart from having read some of his film reviews, and had not followed his career closely, or his battle with cancer.

Reflecting on that question, I think it has a great deal to do with the storytelling – James is a master storyteller – which manages to capture the totality of Roger Ebert’s “grand adventure” from his small town roots to becoming arguably the famous film writer in the world, with a love of movies that never died.

It’s also this idea of a man who loved sitting in a darkened cinema for 40 years, watching and writing wonderfully about movies, and the emotions and feelings they conveyed (and it’s a nice break from almost every other documentary film I watch and like, which seems to be about true crime, especially serial killers and maniacs).

James also manages to capture Ebert’s magnetic and warm personality and his mischievous nature seen – when most of his body had failed him – in his sparkling eyes.

I give it two thumbs up!

‘Happiness’ – is Todd Solondz’s masterpiece the most subversive film of all time?

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If you want to have your mind blown cinematically, do yourself a favour and track down a copy of Todd Solondz’s 1998 independent classic “Happiness” starring – among others – the late, great Philip Seymour Hoffman, Dylan Baker, Ben Gazzara (also now deceased), Lara Flynn Boyle, Jon Lovitz, Cynthia Stevenson, Louise Lasser and Jane Adams.

Don’t be fooled by the title (which is ironic), this is one of the most disturbing, brilliant and darkly funny films you will ever  see.

In the style of other great ensemble cast films like Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia and Robert Altman’s Short Cuts, Happiness follows the intertwining stories of an eclectic band of misfits, losers, perverts, loners and dreamers set against the backdrop of modern American life with its condos, office cubicles and supposedly “happy” family homes.

I watched it twice in 1998, when it first came out. The second time I dragged some friends along and I recall some of them swore they’d never forgive me – it’s that kind of movie.

Then, after reading about the making of Happiness in Peter Biskind’s Down and Dirty Pictures, which chronicled the independent film era (movies like Sex, Lies and Videotape, The Crying Game and Pulp Fiction), I felt compelled to watch it again.

It was pretty hard to find it online – the film has slipped somewhat into obscurity. But with a bit of perseverance I finally tracked a bootleg version* and watched it again, astounded once again by its originality as I was 22 years ago.

Among the highlights of the film, is the brilliant performance of Philip Seymour Hoffman in a role you will never forget.

He plays the pivotal character of Allen, an overweight and deeply unhappy office worker whose sexual frustrations and inability to talk to women (“I have nothing to talk about. I’m boring,” he tells his therapist) has transformed into a penchant for making obscene phone calls to single woman he finds in the telephone directory.

This is a central and recurring theme of Happiness – the extraordinary/unspeakable things supposedly ordinary people do behind close doors, when nobody is watching.

(Another key character, Allen’s dowdy and desperately lonely neighbour Kristina (Camryn Manheim) confesses to murder and dismemberment over a chocolate fudge sundae with strawberry ice-cream.)

While Allen may be revolting in many aspects, Solondz treats him and other unsavoury and sad characters in the film with great empathy, recognising that people are not just one shade of colour. Allen can also be kind, comforting and understanding – he just needs to find the right woman!

Allen shares his apartment block and often the lift with the glamourous, but vacuous author Helen (Lara Flynn Boyle) one of three sisters whose stories are also told in Happiness.

Allen (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) gets some phone relief

Helen bemoans the inherent phoniness in her writing  -“If only I’d been raped as a child” she moans ridiculously as she longs for some authentically awful experience.

These awful experiences rain down on her younger sister, the naive and sweet guitar-playing Joy (Jane Adams) despite Joy’s best efforts to be a good and useful human being.

The first of these humiliations play out in the brilliant opening scene of the film, where Joy is left devastated by her date Andy (played by the comic Jon Lovitz in a great cameo) after she rejects him as a romantic partner.

Andy gives Joy an expensive gift, but then angrily snatches it back telling her it’s for the girl who loves him for who he is – he just wanted to show her what she is missing out on.

Andy: “…you think I’m shit? Well, you’re wrong, ’cause I’m champagne, and you’re shit. Until the day you die, you, not me, will always be shit.“

The third sister is mother hen Trish (Cynthia Stevenson)  who believes she is living the life her unhappily single sister Joy can only dream of.

All dimples and smiles, Trish’s near perfect life is centered around her solid marriage to softly-spoken therapist Dr Bill Maplewood ( Dylan Baker in a devastating brilliant performance) and the home they have made in a big double story house filled with three busy young children.

The illusion of happiness: Bill (Dylan Baker) with his son Billy (Rufus Read)

However, Bill, whose patients include the masturbatory Allen, is not quite the wholesome family man and tender father figure his wife and the world thinks he is. He’s a craven pedophile with an uncontrollable lust for young boys around the age of his eldest son Billy, who just happens to be enduring the trials of puberty and his inability to ejaculate (“Dad, when will I cum?”).

In one of the early scenes in the film, we see Bill drive to a convenience store on the way home, purchase  a teen magazine from the shelf and then vigorously pleasure himself in the backseat of his sedan as he flips through the images.

We also meet Helen, Joy and Trish’s feuding parents, unhappy Lenny (played by the gravely-voiced veteran character actor Ben Gazzara) and his neurotic wife Mona (another movie veteran Louise Lasser) who share a luxurious condo.

Lenny wants out of the marriage, but insists there is no one else. He just wants to be left alone.

Mona’s frustrations boil over into one of the funniest (and tragic) lines of the film:

“It’s OK. I’m not dumb. Things happen. I’ll get over it. I just wish you had done this 20 years ago.  NOW I’LL HAVE TO GET ANOTHER FUCKING FACE LIFT.”

Black humour is a constant throughout the film, often accompanying the most excruciating and humiliating moments.

“If there hadn’t been humour of sorts in the movie, it would be unbearable,” Solondz said in an interview in 1998.

But, he doesn’t use humour just to break the tension, nor does he use it to mock or belittle the character’s painful experiences. For Solondz, humour is the flipside of what is so sad about the characters he depicts.

“It’s often hard for me to separate what I find so sad from what I find so funny. There’s a kind of poignancy for me…things that I am very moved by I find funny.”

I think this is a fundamental truism (as seen in many great Woody Allen movies, especially Crimes & Misdemeanours). If you don’t agree with this premise, you’ll probably hate Happiness.

Solondz goes on to say: “ I didn’t know if people would laugh or if they wouldn’t laugh, but it didn’t matter. I always believe that however  [the audience] felt they would listening to what is going on…that you were seeing something you hadn’t seen before…things that are the most deeply personal are discussed in the most open and devastating way ultimately.

This is especially true of the film’s darkest character, Dr Bill Maplewood, who when confronted by his eldest son Billy  about his terrible crimes, confesses in complete honesty

The scene which occurs on the couch in the family’s living room is one of the most devastating father and son moments ever depicted in a movie. Bill, for all his horrendous faults cannot lie to his son, nor will he harm him, despite his uncontrollable proclivities.

Asked by Billy if he would do to him, what he did to his friends (rape them), Bill replies: “No. I’d jerk off instead”.

As the esteemed film critic Roger Ebert wrote in his review of Happiness: In a film that looks into the abyss of human despair, there is the horrifying suggestion that these characters may not be grotesque exceptions, but may in fact be part of the mainstream of humanity.”

Happiness is ultimately a film about the human condition in all its complexities, perversities, hidden layers and deep dark secrets.

It is in my humble opinion, a masterpiece (but not for everyone).

*To track down a version of Happiness, download the Russian social media app OK (trust me on this one). Login via your Facebook account and then simply search for Happiness on the app.

From Sex, Lies and Videotape to Memento: all the independent films you need to watch

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52570Earlier this year I read “Down and Dirty Pictures” a hefty tome by film industry chronicler Peter Biskind that told the story of the rise of independent American cinema from the late 1980s until 2000.

Independent – or indie – films refers to low-budget films made outside the major Hollywood film studio system.

Biskind calls  Down and Dirty Pictures “something of a sequel” to his excellent “Easy Riders, Raging Bulls” the book he wrote about the new wave of European-inspired film making that emerged in America in the 1960s and 1970s that I read a while back, in which film makers like Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola feature prominently.

“Down and Dirty Pictures” is a highly entertaining and educational account of how struggling film distribution companies like Miramax, founded by brothers Harvey (the now convicted sex felon) and Bob Weinstein, turned low-budget films made by unknown writer-directors into Academy Award winning gold and how Robert Redford’s Sundance Film Festival provided the  platform for these film makers to showcase their work for the first time and connect with the money men who would finance their more mainstream careers.

Biskind calls Sundance and Miramax the “twin towers of the indie movie world”.

The career journeys of directors like Steven Soderbergh, Quentin Tarantino,David O Russell, and Todd Haynes feature prominently in the book as do actor/writer/directors like Billy Bob Thornton,  and emerging stars like Matt Damon and Ben Affleck.

While much of “Down and Dirty Pictures” focuses on the deal-making business side of film production and distribution (which may not appeal to everyone) it’s also a fantastic guide to some of the best films that were made during that time.

Rather than write a lengthy review of Biskind’s book – I highly recommend it if it’s your cup of tea – I thought I’d rather provide a run down of some of the films he talks about and which you might like to add to your ‘must watch’ lists:

(I have marked with a *HNS” films which I have not seen myself)

1989

MV5BNDllYWVkOTQtZjRlMC00NWFjLWI0OGEtOWY4YzU4ZjMxYzg3XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTQxNzMzNDI@._V1_UY1200_CR82,0,630,1200_AL_Sex, Lies and Videotape – a tale of sexual repression and perversion, written and directed by Steven Soderbergh who would go on to make films like Erin Brokovich, Traffic and Oceans 11 to name just a few. Made for just $1.2 million, it was bought by Miramax at Sundance and ended up winning the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. With the big spending marketing push of the Weinsteins it went on to gross almost $25 million. The movie starred Andie McDowell, James Spader and Peter Gallagher. (HNS)

 

 

My Left Foot – directed by Jim Sheridan, it stars Daniel Day-Lewis as Irishman Christy Brown who overcame cerebral palsy to become a celebrated writer and artist.

MV5BM2FhYjEyYmYtMDI1Yy00YTdlLWI2NWQtYmEzNzAxOGY1NjY2XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNTA3NTIyNDg@._V1_UY1200_CR90,0,630,1200_AL_Cinema Paradiso – Miramax helped turned this obscure Italian film by writer/director Giuseppe Tornatore into an award winner and surprise indie hit. IMDB’s synopsis: A filmmaker recalls his childhood when falling in love with the pictures at the cinema of his home village and forms a deep friendship with the cinema’s projectionist. (It actually came out in 1988, but I am going with the chronology of the book). I watched it a long time ago, but do recall its magical qualities.

 

1991

Poison – a film by Todd Haynes, one the leading lights of independent cinema and the New Queer Cinema movement, whose later films included the Bob Dylan film I’m Not There and the American period drama Far From Heaven (HNS).  He also made the brilliant HBO mini-series Mildred Pierce starring Kate Winslet. Touching on many taboo themes, IMDB’s synopsis of Poison reads: “A boy shoots his father and flies out the window. A man falls in love with a fellow inmate in prison. A doctor accidentally ingests his experimental sex serum, wrecking havoc on the community.” (HNS)

1992

GasfoodmovieposterGas Food Lodging written and directed by Allison Anders. I remember seeing this coming-of-age film at the Rosebank Mall arthouse cinemas in Joburg and loving it. Set in New Mexico, it tells the story of a single mother trying to raise her two daughters, one of whom is played by the gorgeous Ione Skye. Sweet and moving.

Reservoir Dogs  the stylish gangster movie that heralded the arrival of one of the great movie talents, writer and director Quentin Tarantino. Have seen it countless times, would watch it countless times more. Great soundtrack, cracking dialogue and great performances by Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, the late Chris Penn and Michael Madsen.

The Crying Game – written and directed by Neil Jordan, a love story with a sensational twist set against the backdrop of IRA terrorism in London. I saw it years ago. My chief memory is of the American actor Forest Whittaker in cricket whites bowling in awkward fashion. Of course I also remember the famous and shocking ending, which most who saw it kept a secret for others (I won’t tell either). I would love to watch it again. Biskind’s book notes that The Crying Game grossed $62.5m and became the first indie film to earn more than $25m in America and thus become the first indie ‘blockbuster’

1994

Clerks –  written and directed by Kevin Smith, this ultra-low budget classic (made for $27,000) tells the story – in grainy black and white- of Dante Hicks’ both mundane and crazy day behind the counter at a convenience store. Truly hilarious (I watched it again recently) and witty and infused with pop culture references, its a must-watch on my list.

Pulp_Fiction_(1994)_posterPulp Fiction – written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. A masterpiece about gangsters and crooks in Los Angeles that revived the career of John Travolta and turned Samuel L. Jackson into an A-list Hollywood superstar. Filled with so many unforgettable scenes, an amazing soundtrack and long list of incredible cameos. Became the first indie to gross over $100 million and ended up making $222 million around the world on an $8 million budget. The film that made Miramax.

1995

Kids – written by Harmony Korine and directed by Larry Clarke. A disturbing and confronting film (as I recall it) about a group of New York teens drinking and having sex, and in some cases becoming HIV positive.

Welcome to the Dollhouse – written and directed by Todd Solondz. According to IMDB.com’s summary: “An awkward seventh-grader struggles to cope with inattentive parents, snobbish class-mates, a smart older brother, an attractive younger sister and her own insecurities in suburban New Jersey.” Biskind notes in his book it was originally titled “Faggots and Retards” which he said “perfectly captures the flavour of the movie”. (HNS)

1996

Flirting with Disaster – a comedy written and directed by David O Russell and starring Ben Stiller, Patricia Arquette and Tea Leoni. About a guy (Stiller) who drags his wife and young baby on a road trip in search of his birth mother. I don’t recall a great deal about the film, apart from laughing a lot. David O Russell went on to make a string of brilliant films including Three Kings, Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle.

Shine – directed by Scott Hicks, the biopic about the life of Australian pianist David Helfgott played by Geoffrey Rush (for which he won an Oscar) and his battles with mental illness. An uplifting film that I have watched a number of times, plus great classical music.

Fargo_(1996_movie_poster)Fargo – written and directed by the Coen Brothers. Arguably one of the best films of all time, spawned its own TV series that was equally as good. A black comedy set in the ice and snow of North Dakota and its strange Scandinavian-esque accented characters. A movie about a dim witted and crooked car salesman’s (superbly played by William H. Macy) bungled attempt to have his wife kidnapped so that his wealthy father-in-law will pay the ransom. Heavily pregnant local cop (played equally brilliantly by Frances McDormand) solves the puzzling case.

Sling Blade – written, directed and starring Billy Bob Thornton. According to IMDB: “The film tells the story of Karl Childers, a simple man hospitalized since his childhood murder of his mother and her lover, who is released to start a new life in a small town.” Biskind’s depiction of Thornton’s deepen southern accent and utter contempt for Harvey Weinstein’s threats are one of the highlights of the book. (HNS)

Citizen Ruth – written and directed by Alexander Payne and starring Laura Dern. According to IMDB: “An irresponsible, drug-addicted, recently impregnated woman finds herself in the middle of an abortion debate when both parties attempt to sway her to their respective sides.” (HNS). Alexander Payne has made a lot of great movies since Citizen Ruth including Election, About Schmidt, Sideways and The Descendents.

MV5BMzA5Zjc3ZTMtMmU5YS00YTMwLWI4MWUtYTU0YTVmNjVmODZhXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjU0OTQ0OTY@._V1_UX182_CR0,0,182,268_AL_Trainspotting – a cult classic for many, based on the cult novel about Edinburgh junkies by Irvine Welsh. Screenplay by John Hodges and directed by Danny Boyle (the duo behind the equally brilliant Shallow Grave). Starring Ewen McGregor, Robert Carlyle, Ewen Bremner and Johnny Lee Miller. Amazing performances, brilliant trippy dance soundtrack and astonishing storytelling and imagery.  Cost only £1.5m to make, hard to believe it grossed only $17m worldwide.

1997

Copland – written and directed by James Mangold. It’s hard to think of this as an independent film, given it stars Sylvester Stallone, Ray Liotta, Harvey Keitel and Robert De Niro, but it was distributed by Miramax and made for just $15m. It was also meant to resurrect the career of Stallone as a serious actor in an unusual part, that of a tired, half-deaf, portly, do-good sheriff in a New Jersey town where corrupt New York cops have settled. I watched it recently and thought it excellent. Stallone is very good in it.

Good Will Hunting  – written by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, starring them and the late Robin Williams and directed by Gus Van Sant. One of the most successful independent films of all time. Made for just $10m and grossed $225m around the world.  Distributed by Miramax. The story of a janitor from the wrong side of the tracks who turns out to be a mathematical genius, but with a deeply troubled soul. Turned Damon and Affleck into Hollywood megastars.

1998

220px-Happiness1998PosterHappiness  – written and directed by Todd Solondz with an ensemble cast that includes the late, great Philip Seymour Hoffman in one of his best and most disturbing roles. A film that intertwines different stories and plenty of disturbing material (sexual perversion, pederasty to name just two). This film may appall some people, but I thought it brilliant in its depiction of a diverse mix of good, weird and evil characters in a suburban setting. Saw it a long time ago (twice). Would definitely watch it again.

Pi – written and directed by Darren Aronofsky. IMDB’s summary of the black and white psychological thriller: “A paranoid mathematician searches for a key number that will unlock the universal patterns found in nature. A true low budget film costing just $120,00 to make and distribute, Pi grossed $3.2 million. Aronofsky went on to make a number of brilliant bigger budget films including Requiem for a Dream, The Wrestler and Black Swan. (HNS)

Velvet Goldmine – co-written and directed by Todd Haynes and starring Ewan McGregor, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Christian Bale and Tony Colette. According to IMDB: “In 1984, British journalist Arthur Stuart investigates the career of 1970s glam superstar Brian Slade, who was heavily influenced in his early years by hard-living and rebellious American singer Curt Wild.”  (HNS)

2000

71DJIt8Q3OL._SL1094_Memento  – the movie that launched the career of Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight, Batman films, Inception) and which many people still consider his best work. it tells the story of Leonard, a man with short-term memory loss, who attempts to track down his wife’s murderer. Starring Guy Pearce, a film I would like to watch again.

Independent films continue to be made past the millennium, but as Steven Soderbergh tells it in Down and Dirty Pictures “The independent film movement as we knew it, just doesn’t exist anymore, and maybe it can’t exist anymore. It’s over.”

Biskind chimes in: “Miramax killed it. With success. Success that was purchased at an enormous cost” by which he means the independent studios were overrun by the major studios who formed their own “indie” divisions and through commercialization.

Got any other suggestions to add to this list? Please post them a comments or send them to” freshlyworded@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

Cinema ticket prices: the profits in the popcorn

freshlyworded 1 Comment

Ticket2This month, for the first time, some cinemas in Australia started charging $20 for movie tickets.

Explaining the need to push up prices, one cinema owner, Benjamin Zeccola of Palace Cinemas – the independent upmarket/arthouse chain – defended this by saying it was primarily because of the rise in the illegal downloading of movies, (plus high wages).

According to research by the Intellectual Property Awareness Foundation (an organisation representing film and television companies campaigning against online content theft), more than a quarter of young Australians illegally download movies or TV shows, among the highest rate in the world.

There is little doubt that illegal downloads are having a massive impact on cinema house revenues. At the same time, the cost of having a night out at the cinema has skyrocketed in recent years (as a kid in South Africa in the 1980s I paid 1 Rand for movies as part of the Ster Kinekor club – about 50 Australian cents), which partly explains why illegal downloads are so high.

The other factor behind the rampant illegal downloading of movies is that the notion that you are “stealing” has never really sunk into the collective consciousness of downloaders, and may never do so. You can say it’s the same thing as riding off on someone elses bike or filling up your car with petrol and driving off without paying for it, but people that download movies illegally, probably don’t visualise it in that way because its free, easy to do and the chances of getting caught are virtually zero.

A $20 movie ticket seems high (and it is), but it’s somewhere in the mid-range of what other comparable countries are charging:

  • In Manhattan, an adult ticket at the AMC Empire cinema is US$13 (A$14) – 35 per cent cheaper than the $20 Australians are now expected to fork out.
  • But in London, a movie at the Odeon on Leceister Square in the heart of the West End, will set you back £15.50 – a whopping $28 in Australian dollars, or 40 per cent more expensive.

But the ticket is only part of the cost. When you factor in the popcorn, drinks and snacks, you’re unlikely to see much change from a $50 note, and nothing from a $100 note if you take a family of four to the movies.

Running a cinema though is an expensive business.

Most cinemas are in shopping centres, which charge among the highest rents in the country. Then there’s the cost of renting the film from the distributors, staff wages, maintenance costs, utility bills and equipment and goods to pay for.

According to a 2013 article in the UK’s Independent newspaper, the cover price of a cinema ticket is consumed by film rights (40-60%), staff salaries (20%), rent (15%), utilities (5%) and other costs (10%). Add that all up and there’s no margin to speak of.

Which is why you pay ludicrous prices for popcorn, drinks and snacks.

According to the same article, “in order to remain competitive, a multiplex’s main source of profit actually comes from the concessions stand, rather than the box office”.

Or to quote from Arrested Development – “the money is in the banana stand”.

Just consider that you can buy a 375 packet of unpopped popcorn kernels – enough to make three or four jumbo sized popcorn boxes – for $1.34 at Coles, but the cheapest box of a popcorn at the cinema will set you back at least $5. Add the choc-top ice-cream and drink to your purchase and even if you use a “combo” offer you’re likely to fork out $10 to $15 more on top of the $20 movie ticket.

No wonder then, that so many people are buying enormous televisions – which get cheaper and cheaper, bumping up their broadband download allowances and illegally downloading movies for the cost of a monthly internet connection.