Recent Articles
Showing posts with label bfi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bfi. Show all posts
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Thursday, January 23, 2014
- 0 Comments
It's tough getting people to watch a silent comedy. There's a mountain of preconceptions that come with these things, namely that silent comedy is dull, long and, by today's standards, technically obsolete. But it's not! It's really, really not! For better or worse this was a time before safety standards and so you get to see stunts that are dangerously bonkers. If you're a fan of people risking life and limb for their art then you can't really do better than the films of Buster Keaton.
Born the same year as cinema itself, 1895, Keaton quickly established himself as the scrappy upstart in cinematic comedy: the Rolling Stones to Chaplin's Beatles. Never quite scaling the same heights in popularity as Chaplin he worked with smaller budgets, but wringing every single drop of humour and excitement out of them. Though brave and physically impressive, scampering and climbing away from certain death (or at minimum serious maiming) in most of his famous films, Keaton's real secret weapon is his deadpan stare.
It's that famous stone face that makes him so damn relatable, even to a modern audience. Keaton's task is to play straight man to a capricious God with a sadistic sense of humour. As the world contorts in every more unlikely ways around Keaton, he refuses to buckle under, dealing with whatever's thrown at him with a combination of bravery, intelligence and straightforward luck. In every Keaton film he usually has one singular goal; winning a woman's heart, a task he'll stop at nothing - nothing - to achieve.
The General slightly subverts this formula, sure there's a girl to rescue, but there's another love here - the titular 'General' - a steam train. Keaton plays Johnnie Gray, an engineer in Georgia as the Civil War breaks out. Eager to impress the lovely Annabelle Lee (Marion Mack) he rushes to enlist, though is turned down as he's too useful to the South as a railroad engineer (though he never realises this, puzzled as to his rejection). With her brother and father off to war, Annabelle refuses to speak to Johnnie again until she sees him in uniform.
Meanwhile there's a-doin's transpiring up North. A group of Union spies plan to infiltrate the South, steal a train and travel up the railroad destroying bridges, cutting the South's supply lines. Soon Johnnie's beloved train has been hijacked by this motley gang, along with Annabelle, who had the misfortune to be in the luggage carriage. Similarly commandeering another train he heads up the rails to win back his two loves, setting the stage for a feature length train-based chase scene and all kinds of Civil War based derring-do.
As Keaton gains ground the villains throw all sorts of hazards in his path; sabotaging the rails, throwing blocks of wood in an attempt to derail him, setting him on fire with burning carriages or just simply shooting at him. But Keaton powers through, unstoppable in his self-righteous determination, his stony expression unflickering as things get more and more dangerous. Central to Keaton's films are a focus on action and reaction; consequences and coincidence spiralling out of control into absurdity. The trains fit into this perfectly, the pumping pistons, smokestacks and the physics of the different carriages banging into each other underlining an idea of a person navigating a mechanical, clockwork world.
What impresses most about The General is the sense of weight and motion. Even through the silence you sense the momentum and weight of the trains as they rumble down the tracks, Keaton dwarfed and insectlike next to the gigantic machine. Danger is never far away, and as he perches on the cow-catcher at the front knocking obstacles out of the way you realise that if he messes this up he stands a very real chance being of being actually squashed. You can draw a direct throughline from Buster Keaton to Jackie Chan and even through to the cast of Jackass, people who recognise that there's a special, subconscious thrill gained when an audience senses genuine danger on camera.
 |
| A real train crashing into a real river. No fakery here. |
Having said all that a confession: though Buster Keaton's films are some of my favourite silent films (I prefer him to both Chaplin and Harold Lloyd) I've never quite understood the mountains of praise heaped upon The General in particular. Widely considered the pinnacle of Keaton's career it's ranked as the 18th best American film of all time by the AFI, made Roger Ebert's 'Top Ten of all Time' and was rated the best silent film of all time by silentera.com. Don't get me wrong, this is obviously a great film, but to my eye both Sherlock Jr and Steamboat Bill Jr are more impressive demonstrations of Keaton's cinematic imagination and mastery of physical comedy.
At least a part of this is the sour taste left by the loveable Buster Keaton fighting on behalf of the Confederate Army against the sinister North who - can you believe it - want to abolish slavery. The bastards! Keaton's own explanation was that his character had to be an underdog to get an audience to root for him, and if he was on the eventual winning side the film would seem overly triumphalist. It has the opposite effect on me, painting the Confederate Army as noble heroes feels queasily wrong. I get that this film is 88 years and from an alien political context, but I can only honestly watch it as a 2014 viewer and this stuff leaps out at me.
Your best bet is to do your best to politely overlook this and enjoy the film as a remarkable piece of cinema history, though one that's ultimately a product of its time. Fortunately The General still has the goods, the stunts still thrilling, the weight of the trains still palpable and even after eight decades you sense Buster Keaton's indomitable charisma - still as vital and attractive as it ever was. With a new 4K master and soundtrack by veteran of silent scores Carl Davis the film has never looked or sounded better. Seeing this on a big screen with an audience gives the film a vibrancy: silent cinema truly coming alive on the big screen.
★★★★
The General is screening at the BFI Southbank from 24th January - 8th February. Tickets here.
Monday, February 18, 2013
Monday, February 18, 2013
- 0 Comments
Once Upon a Time... When We Were Colored shows us pleasant, dreamy rural life. The film paints us a picture of a friendly, open community where everybody is a trusted neighbour, working and praying together. It’s idyllic, which is a little surprising as this film is about a segregated black community in the 40s and 50s, the ‘colored town’ of Glen Allan, Mississippi. Through the eyes of the town’s residents, we follow the progress of the civil rights movement, which seems a distant concern to this community deep in the heart of apartheid America.
The film, an adaptation of Clifton Taulbert’s book of the same name, tells the story of the author's life. We begin with his birth, which appropriately enough takes place in the cotton fields his mother works in. She’s young, and the father wants nothing to do with the baby so he ends up being raised by his grandparents, Ma Pearl (Paula Kelly) and Poppa (Al Freeman Jr). The film is episodic, examining key events in Cliff’s life as he grows up in the community, with a voiceover provided by an older Cliff that explains how his experiences informed the man he became.
 |
| Charles Earl Taylor Jr as Cliff (5 years old). |
I attended a screening at the BFI, as part of their ‘African Odysseys’ season, and we were fortunate enough to have the director, Tim Reid, in attendance to both introduce the film and answer questions about it. He was a fascinating speaker, explaining why he doesn’t think a film like Once Upon a Time... could be made anymore. The film was shot on a relatively low budget, with many of the actors in the film appearing for below their normal wage. Things were run so austerely that apparently the last shot cuts away because the camera ran out of film!
What I found most interesting was that Reid repeatedly defines his artistic output as propaganda. He doesn’t shy away from the negative connotations of the word, but considers it the most honest way to define what he wants to do: put worthwhile ideas out into the world. He that with the advent of globalisation it’s important for artists and entertainers to understand just how far the reach of US popular culture spreads. To illustrate his point, Reid explains how he visited a tribal society living in mud huts in Africa and saw a young boy wearing a “thug life” t-shirt. So, a worthwhile question to ask is: what exactly is Once Upon a Time... propaganda for?
 |
| The film isn't black and white by the way, these are just the publicity shots. |
Unfortunately the answer isn’t particularly straightforward, which arguably means that the film has failed at being propaganda at the first hurdle. If you have to puzzle out what message the film is trying to tell you, then it’s not communicating an idea or philosophy very well. This, ultimately, is the problem with Once Upon a Time.... Reid, who was attracted to the project because it reflected his own childhood growing up in a ‘colored town’ is at pains to emphasise that the “good old days” weren’t good at all. For the most part though, the film shows life in Glen Allan as rural bliss. An austere and dusty kind of bliss perhaps, but the tables are always overflowing with delicious looking food; the neighbours are always caring and attentive; the elderly are always wise and ready with some homespun advice. These do very much look like the ‘good old days’.
Easily the best scenes are those when characters leave the protective bubble of Glen Allan. It’s here that the film has more of an edge, where we sense the social vise that our characters are in. The finest scene in the film shows the young Clifton and Poppa heading out into town and enjoying an ice-cream. There’s a Ku Klux Klan march processing through the town, and the two stand silently watching it. One of the klan members notices them, and marches over, angrily spitting invective, calling Poppa ‘uppity’. Al Freeman Jr has never looked more dignified than he does here, his composed and noble expression a perfect counterpoint to the blankness of the klan hood, two eyes screwed up with rage visible through the holes. The klan member threatens to ‘get’ Poppa, and warns him to watch himself. As the klan member stalks away the camera cuts to an ice cream cone in Poppa’s hand, he’s unconsciously made a fist, crushing the cone, white ice cream oozing down over his hand. As a concise visual representation of his suppressed fury it’s hard to beat.
This scene seems to be leading up some kind of conflict, events appear to be looming that’ll disturb the pleasant tranquillity of Glen Allan. But nothing particularly bad happens in the film, and Glen Allan rumbles along at its own pace, relatively undisturbed by the outside world for the entirety of the film’s running time. If I was being uncharitable I’d suggest that at least to some degree, Once Upon a Time... romanticises segregation. I don’t want to think it’s that simple though, after all, both the author of the book and director of film lived this story so this is their first-hand experience, and presenting an authentic account of history like this is important.
 |
| Al Freeman Jr as Poppa |
In a purely educational sense the film is a success. I’d never heard of Deep South ‘colored town’ communities like Glen Allan before seeing this film. The attention to detail in the set design and costuming gives the place an authentic feel, which goes a long way towards showing you how people lived their lives under segregation. Somewhat depressingly it’s also a rare depiction in media of a black community that’s not beset by crime and corruption, one that generally avoids easy stereotypes and stock characters. One of the biggest feathers in the film’s hat is that it never shows the characters as victims; these are people that intelligently recognise the injustice of their oppression and seek to change things whilst creating a close and supportive community.
As a piece of cinema it’s slightly less successful. It’s difficult to criticise a film on technical grounds, especially when it’s preaching such a worthwhile message with a limited budget, but certain aspects of it seem slightly off. The score in particular is extremely heavy handed, with musical stings that feel right out of silent cinema. There’s a scene in a raucous bar that raises faint giggles in the audience at how blatantly the score telegraphs the action. Additionally, the episodic nature of the plot hurts any sense of narrative progression. In one extended sequence we stop following Cliff’s story for about 15 or 20 minutes to concentrate on his cousin Melvin who’s returned to visit home after leaving for Detroit. These digressions mean the plot meanders along with no real urgency, which does wonders in creating a dreamy atmosphere, but is a dreamy, relaxed atmosphere appropriate for a film dramatising part of the civil rights movement?
In one sense it's refreshing to see a narrative that examines the less dramatic elements of the civil rights movement; no scenes of dogs being set on peaceful marchers or water cannons here, this is a look at how the process affects a quiet backwoods rural community. But despite this, there is a degree of complexity: we see members of the community speaking out against sending a delegate to an NAACP convention, claiming that they don’t want to stir up trouble. But while Poppa makes a great speech decrying them, within the context and environment of the film you can see why these characters might think like this. Things seem relatively pleasant - why rock the boat?
So this is a bit of a mixed bag. It's worth watching because it presents an untold story in cinema, with the implication that there must be a wealth of untold stories out there as fascinating as this that’ll go unmade purely because studios don’t see films like this as profitable. It’s got a number of fantastic performances in it, the highlights being the magnetic Al Freeman Jr, Richard Roundtree playing against type and a resolutely unglamorous yet rock solid turn from Paula Kelly. But though in many ways Once Upon a Time... has an embarrassment of riches, I found myself itching for it to fully sink its teeth into the social issues that remain tantalisingly and frustratingly just outside its dramatic sphere.
Thanks to The Africa Channel for the tickets.
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
- 1 Comment
One of the most exciting events in Jeanne Dielman is when she drops a spoon on the floor. It's the kind of film where the prospect of some potatoes being overcooked is an epoch changing catastrophe. Not much happens in Jeanne Dielman. It’s a three and a half hour long film depicting two and a half days in the life of a slowly unravelling housewife (and occasional sex worker) and by the end of it by god you’re going to know exactly how soul-crushingly miserable domesticity is.
Settling down to watch this is like being on some kind of time-warping drug. It makes a mockery of every other film's pretension towards realism. You're shown endless, mind-warping long shots of our lead doing the dishes, peeling some potatoes or laying the table. By about an hour in I was softly rocking backwards and forwards, eyes transfixed on the screen. Two hours in my teeth were grindingly gritted in tension. By the time the film was over my conception of time was completely out of whack. Everything seemed to be moving in fast forward.
 |
| Jeanne Dielman (Delphine Seyrig) |
Jeanne Dielman raises some interesting structural questions about cinema. Film allows us intense experiences beyond everyday life, an opportunity to experience, without consequence, the infinite range of human emotions. Boredom and the sheer horror of the mundane are what Jeanne Dielman has to offer. Sure you could put yourself into the scuffed boots of a futuristic cyborg warrior or the bonnet of a blushingly lovelorn Edwardian maiden but isn’t that just vain escapism? It’s the little stories that are as important as the big ones: watching an unbroken shot of a crushed woman stone-facedly kneading a lump of mince for 5 minutes arguably gives you more insight into the human condition than 90 minutes of rah-rah car chases and flying kicks to the face.
Everything about Jeanne Dielman is so utterly dialled down that even the tiniest events become earth-shattering. The events exist in a monotonous purgatory; the vast majority of the film takes place inside a tiny flat, the solitude of Jeanne only punctuated by her weirdly withdrawn son silently eating dinner with her and sleeping on a sofa bed, someone dropping off a baby for her to look after and her clients turning up for perfunctory, dispassionate sex.
|
| Delphine Seyrig as Jeanne Dielman |
The lengths the film goes to sap the sensationalism and titillation out are perversely impressive. With the camera staring unblinkingly at Jeanne we observe her doing every minute part of every mundane task you can think of. Yet when her clients show up (she has one a day), we do not follow her inside her bedroom. We’re left, standing outside staring at the door, our curiosity growing as we idly wonder just what the hell is going in there.
You get a lot of time to think about stuff over the course of this film, there’s no real plot to speak of, so the mind wandering off on its own isn’t such a bad thing. Questions start to bob about in your brain. How did her husband die? How on earth did Jeanne begin prostituting herself? Why do her clients come back to this semi-robotic emotionless cypher? Why does her son sleep on a sofa bed? What on earth is that rhythmic light flickering outside her window? You hunger for some dark secret lurking at the heart of the film, filling in the blanks. Eventually it becomes apparent that there is nothing except the nightmare of normality.
|
| Jeanne Dielman as played by Delphine Seyrig |
In an early scene we see Jeanne having a bath after a visit from one of her clients, my initial reaction to the still, motionless shot was that it positions the audience as a voyeur, staring in on Jeanne's life like she's a rat in a maze. The mundanity of the tasks we see her perform bring to mind surveillance footage, poring over someone’s actions to try and deduce some greater meaning. As we get further through the film, I began to realise that rather than a Gods-eye view of the world, we’re being placed in the same domestic sphere as Jeanne. The camera is always placed in such a way that if we were viewing the events through someone’s eyes, they’d be in plain sight. This heightens your sense of involvement, placing you sitting opposite Jeanne as she fruitlessly tries to drink a cup of coffee, somehow not realising that no matter how much sugar she adds, it will still be bad.
As the film crawls onwards, we begin to notice imperceptible changes in Jeanne. She doesn’t replace the lid of a china pot, her hair becomes slightly skewiff, she leaves the window open and most egregiously, she spoils the potatoes. These tiny errors are momentous, in a film where not much happens, anything happening becomes cataclysmic. I wasn’t being sarcastic or sniffy when I said that her dropping a spoon is exciting – it really, really is. This thrill at tiny events is only possible if you’re prepared to sit through an hour or more of pretty much nothing happening. You find yourself practically breathing in time with the character after about 90 minutes, so when her routine begins to unravel even the slightest slips become quite a big deal.
(spoilers below)
|
| This is basically Jeanne Dielman (actress: Delphine Seyrig) |
The culmination of this slow onset of madness is when she has some kind of disturbing sexual experience and stabs her client in the neck with a pair of scissors, killing him. It's almost funny how mundane this act is; as much dramatic weight is given to it as a shoe brush being dropped earlier in the film. Many people read Jeanne's behaviour in bed as her having an orgasm. I don't see it this way, the vested and moustached man weakly grinding away on top of her, pressing her down against the mattress isn't exactly a paragon of sexual dynamism. I see it as her reaction to the full torment of her life dawning upon her, each one of his feeble thrusts underlining just how horrible things have become.
It's like a wakeup call to a woman trapped in purgatory, her eyes opening to the low-level misery that she wallows in. Faced with her utter lack of agency in life she seeks to reassert herself, and it just so happens that this particular guy is going to get it in the neck.
Jeanne Dielman is a film with a strict adherence to reality, and yet the point of comparison I kept coming back to was David Lynch's Eraserhead. Like Eraserhead's Henry Spencer, Jeanne leads a largely solitary life in a cold, unfriendly industrial landscape. Ambient background noise fills her flat, providing a constant low level soundtrack of distant activity. Somehow this reminder of the world ticking along outside makes the apartments in both films that much more isolated. Adding to this is the flickering blue light that flashes across the walls of Jeanne's apartment whenever she turns the light off. The source of this light is never revealed, yet adds a nice effect that's both expressionistic and naturalistic at the same time, the flickering on the walls coming to signify Jeanne's fracturing psyche. This creates a threatening and unnerving atmosphere; both character's surroundings reflect their respective mental landscape, although arguably Jeanne's becomes more disturbing purely because of its unassuming nature.
|
| Lotta' sitting around as Delphine Seyrig plays Jeanne Dielman. |
Perhaps the clearest point of comparison comes when Jeanne is asked to babysit a neighbour's baby. After a prolonged period of nothing (seriously, she just sits immobile in a chair in silence for five minutes, pictured) the baby is a sudden, unwanted injection of bawling life into the sterile flat. In Jeanne Dielman, the baby screams like a banshee whenever Jeanne picks him up. It's a horrible sound, like nails being dragged down a blackboard. There are obvious parallels here to the deformed, doomed child monster of Eraserhead.
So, Jeanne Dielman: "Eraserhead for housewives". As disturbing as Eraserhead is, I think Jeanne Dielman probably has it beaten on sheer brutality towards both its subject and audience. If you watch this film you're going to have to understand that if you're bored, pissed off and vaguely horrified then it's firing on all cylinders. Enjoying this made me feel like a masochist - watching this is an experience maybe no other film provides. I'm glad I sat through all 201 minutes of it. I'm equally glad I never ever have to watch it again.
‘Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles’ is playing at the BFI Southbank on the 27th of February. Go and see it. I dare you! I double dare you! Bet you haven't got what it takes!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
