LONDON CITY NIGHTS: Helena Bonham-Carter

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet (2013) directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet

Tuesday, June 10, 2014 - by londoncitynights · - 0 Comments

Can you feel nostalgic for an myth? Jean-Pierre Jeunet seems to think so. The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet is an amusement park ride through a dreamland Americana – a fantasy of gleaming silver trucks speeding down desert roads, friendly bums dispensing advice from railroad cars and steaming hotdogs so utterly delicious you’d risk it all for just one bite.

T.S. Spivet (Kyle Catlett) is a boy genius living on an idyllic Montana ranch on with his entomologist, beetle obsessed mother (Helena Bonham-Carter), cowboy throwback dad (Callum Keith Rennie) and Miss America hopeful older sister (Niamh Wilson). T.S. is a young Einstein, able to turn his hand to any branch of science, from cartography, to geology, to acoustics instinctively. Encouraged by a lecture he crept into he’s inspired to invent a perpetual motion machine. This wins him the Baird prize in science, which will be presented at the Smithsonian in a couple of days. Running away from home he engages in a wistfully bold cross-country journey to collect his prize, hitch-hiking, riding the rails to Washington – and learning about America on the way.

Jeunet’s idealised America is viewed from an outsider’s perspective; a collage of old movies, imported TV shows and advertising imagery that coagulates into a hyper-real, super-saturated USA+. Everything is filtered through a European, continental prism, less a recreation of some lost Golden Age and more a dramatisation of the American subconscious.

The film abounds with visuals, objects and ideas depicted so lovingly they take on a totemic significance. For example, a juggernaut speeding down a desert highway is rendered in almost psychedelically colourful detail, a creature of glistening chrome, bristling with lights and colour. A hotdog stand becomes a pool of light within the darkness, staffed by a friendly maternal lady – the hotdog itself the platonic ideal of what a hotdog should be.

There’s a dark side to all this though. Most obvious are some rather pointed observations on masculinity all wrapped up in gun control. The dangers of gun culture come briefly under the microscope in the guise of what it means to be an American man. Similarly, media culture is lightly satirised – the film presenting various shallow modes of love springing from fame which compare unfavourably against familial love.

All this takes place in a highly artificial hyper-reality. 3D is largely an anti-piracy measure more than an aesthetic choice in modern cinema, desultory, effort-free post conversions that add nothing the norm in multiplexes. Not so in T.S. Spivet: it’s a crucial component of the film. There’s the odd showboating ‘jab things at the screen’ effect, but most of the time 3D is used for floating split screens into other worlds, or CG trips through the imagination of the characters. In pure technical terms it’s a joy to watch, and at minimum it’s refreshing to see a director treating 3D as a medium rather than as an effect.

Sadly, being technically excellent is probably the best thing about the film. This isn’t a film with any stinker performances, massive directorial missteps or scripting woes – it’s all largely competent professional stuff with the occasional glimmer of excellence. The real problem lies in Jeunet’s sympathies and their political implications.

Hankering for some long-lost Disneyland past where children had rosy cheeks, the sunsets were always beautiful and everything was picturesque, sedate and white (there are no non-white cast members) is conservatism (and when it comes to T.S. Spivet’s Americana fetish, a particularly Republican conservatism). Also of note is the complete lack of any non-white characters in the movie. Similarly, the narrative of a young boy genius striking out on his own against public schools and publically owned scientific institutes has more than a whiff of Rand to it.

This rather unpleasant strand reaches its zenith when the film tackles gun control. By this point a child has died from being allowed to play, unsupervised, with a small calibre rifle. It’s a moment where you expect the film to finally take a stand on an issue, showing us some of the unpleasant consequences of wallowing in frontier masculinity. Instead the film essentially says “who are we to say what is right or wrong?” A lily-livered conclusion to say the least. The final nail in the coffin is when the remaining few problems in the film are solved by a gruff cowboy punching a helpless man repeatedly in the face.

The irony of a Frenchman making a film that deifies American mythology to this extent is not lost on me. This is precisely the kind of film that those who’d bark “cheese eating surrender monkeys” or coin the phrase “freedom fries” will absolutely adore. It’s this kind of America that’s probably wistfully dreamt about by slumbering Fox News viewers, aching for a lost cowboy utopia that never really existed in the first place.

Perhaps this isn’t what Jeunet set out to accomplish, but accomplish it he has. It’s a shame the film is so ideologically rotten because there are moments of genuine beauty nestled within it – even if it is a somewhat chintzy beauty. If you do see it, it’s worth checking out in a cinema if only to enjoy the 3D aspects, but on the whole I’d stay away unless you have an unusually passionate aesthetic interest in American nostalgia.

★★

The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet is out June 13th

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

'Les Misérables' (2012) directed by Tom Hooper, 8th January 2013

Wednesday, January 9, 2013 - by londoncitynights · - 0 Comments

'Les Misérables' certainly doesn't skimp on the miserable. The movie is adapted from the enormously popular musical of the same name by Alan Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg, which is itself adapted from the 1862 novel by Victor Hugo. It's a story of the dispossessed and the destitute desperately and tragically fighting against an uncaring, cruel society. Our protagonists find themselves kicked into the dirt over and over again by cruel and unbending justice, exploitation of women, child slavery and eventually the sheer might of the military. Some of them survive their battles, some don't. All of them end up physically and mentally crushed. 'Miserable' is the exact right word for it.

For the most part this is an achingly serious film about universal injustices. But, obviously, 'Les Misérables' is a musical, and not just a musical where the characters occasionally break into song, everything is sung. The plot is a sequence of (for the most part) solo numbers, sung directly into the camera. The film isn't embarrassed in the slightest about this, and this gung-ho attitude makes it easy to admire. The audience's familiarity with the musical makes this weirdness easy to overlook, but seeing characters bare their souls in such an intimately shot way is like few other things I've seen in the cinema. A point of comparison that springs to mind is Dreyer's 'The Passion of Joan of Arc' (1928), a silent film that is entirely carried on the facial performance of Maria Falconetti.

Musicals are generally filmed by recording the soundtrack and playing it back on set for the actors to lip-sync along to. 'Les Misérables' dispenses with that, having the actors singing live on set while they perform, allowing them to more easily incorporate facets of the song into their performance and vice versa. It works fantastically well. Musicals require multiple layers of artifice to function, relying on an audience to willingly suspend their disbelief. But, by stripping away some of the barriers between actors and the audience, the characters of 'Les Misérables' become more personal and much more emotionally accessible than in an average musical.

Much has been made of the decision to cast actors rather than professional singers in these parts, and much snobbery has been aimed in the direction of the actor's singing. I really couldn't give a toss about the technical perfection of a character's vocals. If the underlying acting performance is solid and moving, that's what's important. If I was reviewing a performance of the musical in concert my priorities might be different, but this is a very different beast. On stage an actor must play to the entire theatre, working in the knowledge that their voice is the leading factor; people sitting in the back rows simply won't be able to see any physical subtlety. But a large part of the power of this adaptation is entirely conveyed through physical (especially facial) subtlety.

Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean.

A major highlight is Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean. Jackman is clearly enthused about getting to work out his pipes on camera, and throws himself both physically and vocally into the role. His physical transformation over the course of the film, from bearded, filthy prisoner, through to dapper man about town, back to filthy again and so on is impeccably conveyed through Jackman's body language and eyes, which grow sadder and wearier the as the film goes on. This is a character that makes several huge sacrifices for others, yet Jackman's humble performance prevents him from becoming unrelatably pious.

The opponent of this intrinsically good and likeable man is Inspector Javert, played by Russell Crowe. I say opponent rather than villain because Javert is not a evil man, rather someone whose inflexible moral code naturally sets him in opposition to our hero. Crowe has been given some stick for not being able to sing as well as the rest of the cast, but I thought he was great. Javert is introverted, sexually and emotionally repressed, a man who is literally tightly buttoned up for most of the film. For a character whose beliefs are under this much stress to be marching around singing beautifully doesnt' add up. Crowe sings his songs in a growl, injecting a testosteroney fierceness that feels more appropriate than soaring operatic extroversion. What Crowe excels at is to showing us Javert's inner turmoil when reality repeatedly fails to conform to his beliefs, and if you've nailed that, then you've nailed the performance.

Russell Crowe as Inspector Javert

Every actor in this film must push themselves into a heightened emotional state, and there's no-one that comes out of it looking silly. A few of the performances are less affecting than others, but this is primarily a problem with the material than the film. Amanda Seyfried as Cosette is perfectly fine, but it's a thankless role with little of the depth of the other characters. Eddie Redmayne's Marius falls into the same trap, being slightly less boring than Cosette, but in no way someone we're eager to find out more about.

Despite all these fine performances, it's Anne Hathaway's Fantine that effortlessly stands head and shoulder above everything else in this film. Fantine is a relatively minor part, but it's this astonishing performance that neatly encapsulates everything the film is trying to say. She's desperately trying to provide for her daughter, but is victimised by society and slips into a Hogarthian nightmare. She loses her job, her hair, her teeth and finally her hope in an heartwrenching sequence that's like a musical version of 'Requiem for a Dream'.

Anne Hathway as Fantine

As the last gasps of her hope slip away, she sings 'I Dreamed a Dream' in one unbroken shot closeup. I've always seen 'I Dreamed a Dream' as an impossibly sappy, self-indulgent song, soporific talent show shite. But, in one unbroken take with the camera inches away from Hathaway's face she gasps torturously as she sings, weeping with a crushed vulnerability. The effect is the illusion that she's making up the song as she goes along, realising bitterly that everything she's singing is the truth. This window straight into a character's soul is what Hooper must have had in mind when planning this, and it's an instantly unforgettable moment in cinema. It's so amazingly good that it makes the rest of the film suffer in comparison.

While the tactic of placing a camera right in Hathaway's face pays off in spades, the film keeps using the same trick over and over again. Each time the effect is diminished, until by about the two hour mark you're desperate for something more dynamically visual. This is one of the most successful musicals of all time, and you sense that Hooper wants to give us something we can't get on stage, namely the facial performances of the actors. But practically every song is a character baring their miserable, tortured soul to the camera in closeup and there's so much emotion to deal with that you find yourself becoming a bit numb. There are some more cinematically adventurous moments, notably during 'One More Day' when we neatly cross-cut between each character singing a segment of the song. But with the film having proved that it can stay visually interesting if it wants to, it slips back into a neverending series of closeups.

Helena Bonham-Carter and Sacha Baron-Cohen as the Thernardiers and Isabelle Alan as young Cosette

This all adds up to an obstinately uncinematic experience. Surely there's enough going on in 'Les Misérables' to fill the screen with fascinating visuals? One consequence of sticking closely to the stage version is that when a sequence begins, we're going to stay with that set for as long as is humanly possible. These sets are curiously stagey and claustrophobic rather than cinematic. The worst offender is the street set for the barricade sequence; we spend much of the second half of the film in one street corner which quickly becomes very dull to look at. Another factor that adds to this sense of claustrophobia is that the film is shot in 1.85:1. It's an understandable enough decision, it'd be difficult to compose as many tight closeups in a wider aspect ratio. But the epic nature of the film, in particular the opening and revolution sequences are crying out for more room to breathe cinematically.

Aaron Tviet as Enjolras

But even leaving this aside this is a film with big narrative problems, most of which stem from the musical its based on. The first half of the film is impeccably constructed, with a tight focus on Jean Valjean and Javert, whose relationship is a near perfect example of how unsympathetic authority can conspire to crush a good man. It's a personal story, and this, tied with Fantine's downfall is compelling and utterly moving.

By the time we get to the Paris and the revolution I was ready to see a new society being built, but it's at this moment that the film introduces to us to a load of new characters that simply aren't as interesting or complex as Valjean and Javert. The importance of social change is lost at the very moment we need to care about it most, and even worse, is sidelined for a romantic relationship between two cyphers. Cosette and Marius' intense love is what fuels this half of the play rather than revolution, a love that exists purely because the story says it does. Maybe I'm being a bit cynical, but I want characters that fall in love for reasons a little more complex than that they've glanced at each other across a crowded street.

Amanda Seyfried as Cosette and Eddie Redmayne as Marius

This means the story winds up in an extremely unsatisfying place. We're masterfully shown through Fantine's fall that life is utterly terrible for the poor. Then we're told why it's so terrible, that this fantastically unequal, starving society is the creation of the aristocracy, thus justifying the revolution that we implicitly want to see succeed. The revolution heroically fails and the young, charismatic revolutionaries become martyrs. After this, the 'happy ending' is a son of the aristocracy rejoining the bourgeoisie and dragging Cosette into his social class.

I'm sorry, but that's just not good enough. It's the anti-'Casablanca'! When that film tells us that 'the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world' it's a fantastic line because it's absolutely right! Just saving Cosette from poverty isn't good enough. What about the starving masses? What about the thousands of victimised Fantines out there? We end with nothing changed in the slightest other than Cosette living a slightly more comfortable existence.

Anne Hathaway has that Oscar in the bag.

It's not that 'Les Misérables' isn't worth seeing, it's ambitious in all the best ways and works as a film in its own right rather than simply as an appendage of the musical. The numerous problems with the cinematography and more cruciallythe narrative don't cancel out the amazing performances. It's butt numbingly long, but it's just about able to justify its length. And, above all that, it is literally worth sitting through the entire thing just to see Anne Hathaway sing 'I Dreamed a Dream', a moment that reminds you how effective the spell that cinema weaves can be.

***/*****

Monday, September 10, 2012

'Great Expectations' (2012) directed by Mike Newell

Monday, September 10, 2012 - by londoncitynights · - 0 Comments

This is the second adaptation of 'Great Expectations' produced by the BBC within the space of a year. The first, Sarah Phelp's lavish and well-received three part television adaptation was shown over Christmas 2011. This version is to be released in the run up to Christmas 2012, and features a similarly star-studded cast of British acting stalwarts.

Newell plays it safe with the material, sticking with the early C19th setting, and aside from cutting a number of subplots for time, sticks pretty closely to Dickens' text. His casting also throws ups few surprises. Helena Bonham-Carter as Miss Havisham almost feels too obvious, and without wishing to detract from the excellent performances of much of this experienced cast, frankly, these feel like roles they could play in their sleep. So why produce this now? Why are people attracted to 'Great Expectations'?

Jeremy Irving as the adult Pip

'Great Expectations' is a story of class. A tale of a young man thrust upwards to the top rung of polite society, and the effects this change has on him. Examining class in the modern day feels very timely. For the last 30-odd years, politicians have been drumming into us the notion that 'class is dead' or that "we are all middle class now". Following the introduction of austerity following the financial crash of 2008, this notion has been exposed as a lie and increasingly the concept of class has gained currency in contemporary discourse. When confronted by an aristocratic, public school educated and fantastically personally wealthy government telling us "we're all in this together" it's hard not to feel the line in the sand between "us" and "them" become ever more tangible. This is exacerbated by those at the desperate end of the economic spectrum, who are dependant on government welfare to eke out an acceptable standard of living being demonised by press and politicians alike as 'scroungers'.

Is it any wonder that the work of Dickens has re-entered the spotlight in his centenary year? We live in a culture where those that seek work can be compelled to sleep under a bridge in central London to provide unpaid security services to the elderly, stone-faced monarch as she floats down the drizzly river Thames in her fabulous golden barge? Hogarth couldn't have sketched a neater satire.

Newell takes care to highlight the immense financial and social divide between the haves and have nots in Dickens' world. The change in scenery between Pip's simple country home in the marshes and his new life in the city couldn't be greater. Almost as soon as he is newly minted as a gentleman, Pip is enrolled in the 'Finches of the Grove', a men's club for young, fashionable men whose only desire seems to be to spend money extravagantly. Newell does a great job of very quickly defining them as repellent, particularly in the utterly venal character of Bentley Drummle (Ben Lloyd-Hughes). We watch them down their drinks and as one hurl their crystal glasses into the fireplace. It's imagery and behaviour that seems directly reminiscent of David Cameron and Boris Johnson's violent and humiliating destruction of restaurants as part of the 'jaunts' of the Bullingdon Club at Oxford , and the Finches later arrogant behaviour at a dance cements the connection.

Helena Bonham-Carter as Miss Havisham

Conversely, every time we cut back to Pip's simple country home in the marshes Newell takes care to frame a gently swinging gibbet next to the roadside. A symbol of the constraints of this Victorian working class? Class mobility for these rural characters is a fantasy. Yet the working class characters are easily the most human and likeable people in the film. In particular, Pip's brother-in-law, Joe Gargary (Joe Flemyng) is consistently painted as content with his lot and with a strong moral centre. He seems to take a rugged pride in his blacksmithing, and Newell repeatedly frames his hammer striking glowing metal in closeup whenever we see him at work.

Pip never completely fits into upper-class society, and the camera usually finds him brooding in the corner, only interacting with the wider mob when it concerns the love of his life, Estella Havisham. He's a man caught between opposing worlds, of neither one nor the other. One of the most effective scenes in this adaptation is when Joe has unexpectedly arrived to visit Pip, who is by now firmly wrapped up the concept of himself as a gentleman. Pip, clearly mortified at his unexpected presence nonetheless takes him out to a chop house for dinner. While there he manages to comprehensively insult and belittle him with a snob's arrogance and lack of empathy. He unsubtly and repeatedly instructs him in 'London etiquette' explaining that his nose should never touch the rim of a wine glass, and how to hold his knife and fork. This transformation of Pip stands in sharp contrast to the relaxed young boy we saw at the start of the film, and also seems decidedly two-faced as just a few scenes before we were shown Pip's friend Herbert instructing Pip in table manners in much the same way.

What Newell wants us to see are the ways Pip is corrupted and debased by his fortune. The more he fits into high-class society, the less we like him. Those who are wealthy in 'Great Expectations' are consistently those with psychological or social maladjustments. Miss Havisham lives in an opulent yet rotting manor, a dramatic externalisation of her internal misery. Estella, tragically, cannot escape from what she has been brought up to be, a heartless destroyer of men. Bentley Drummle, 'the richest young man in England' is cruel and abusive toward those he sees as below him (so basically everyone). The more Pip becomes absorbed into this world, the more he becomes egotistical and corrupt.

Ralph Fiennes as Magwitch

To modern audiences this is catnip. Much like Dickens' Victorian audience, notions of class mobility are steadily shrinking. A generation of school-leavers look at the mountain of debt that faces them if they want further education and coupled with the employment prospects of recent graduates, they think "nuts to that". There's an affluent class in society that has pulled the ladder up after themselves, and the divide between us and them is growing by the day. Seeing them allegorically portrayed as a shower of miserable, unhappy bastards is quite soothing, as is the notion that those that do join them inevitably become similarly corrupted.

Pip's own class consciousness only genuinely matures when he realises the nature of his benefactor: the violent criminal Magwitch (Ralph Fiennes). The fact that he, of all people is the source of all of his airs and graces seems to shock some sense into him, and sets in motion some growth of conscience in Pip. There is a great scene here when Pip offers Magwitch some money to try and get him to leave. The money is unceremoniously burnt by Magwitch, a great bit of visual imagery which sums up much of his philosophy in a simple gesture. Pip does eventually learn to care about Magwitch's fate, putting his own life at considerable risk in an effort to save him, and remaining close to him until his death, even knowing that he will no longer receive any of his money.

Newell has made a film that clearly shows us the problems and effects of class stratification and the corrupting influence of money and power upon people. Pip never quite reaches the logical end of his moral lesson. Admittedly he gains a strong moral centre, but there is no real 'eureka' moment where he puts it all together and realises he can apply his experiences with class in a wider social context.

An examination of class politics like this cannot help but feel relevant to modern audiences. This portrayal of a strongly stratified class-based society, where the doors are closed to those without either breeding or fantastic luck should strike us as something to be condemned, and this film underlines faults in our disturbingly similar modern society.

In terms of the adaptations merits as a film, it succeeds more than it fails, although there are some notable missteps along the way. Pip is played as a boy and adult by brothers Toby and Jeremy Irvine respectively, but it is Toby Irvine's performance of the young Pip that anchors the role. When we skip forward in time it's a shock to see the chiseled, male model looks of his older brother Jeremy. In a Dickensian world populated by grotesques he stands out as being too pretty, as if he has stepped off the front of a Mills & Boon romance. Other characters seem to emerge organically from the muddy world that Newell creates, but Irvine seems set apart from his surroundings and is overly detached.

Pip and Estella (Holliday Grainger)

This is also a problem with Holliday Grainger's Estella. Estella is a character who repeatedly explains that she has no heart, and therefore does not feel emotion. I've always been of the opinion that the more a person professes something about themselves, the more suspicious you should be of them. But Grainger's Estella genuinely seems to be a quasi-robotic creature. When she explains that she has no heart to Pip, I was bizarrely reminded of Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator II trying to learn how to emote. The essential tragedy of the character has always been not that she can't feel emotion, but that she is trapped in the pretence that she can't. But Grainger plays her like Miss Havisham has literally succeeded in constructing a wind-up doll to pour her loathing of men into. Of all the adaptations I've seen of Great Expectations, this is the least loveable Estella, and it makes Pip's continued pursual of her a bit strange. At no point do we see a real glimpse of the woman that could be freed from this icy carapace, and it is seeing this crack in the facade that should drive Pip in his passion.

Conversely, Olly Alexander's Herbert Pocket is a joy to watch. He hovers and dances around the more reserved Pip character, and Alexander conveys his essential good-heartedness and enthusiasm extremely well. He brightens up any scene he's in, and is almost impossible to dislike. The film's stable of British character actors: Ralph Fiennes, Robbie Coltrane, Ewen Bremner, Jason Flemyng and Helena Bonham-Carter all acquit themselves extremely well, but then you'd expect such a storied and experienced group of British actors to take to a Dickens adaptation like a duck to water. I did particularly enjoy Robbie Coltrane though, who physically seems more appropriate than most to be an inhabitant of Dickensian London.

One aspect I enjoyed was Newell's portrayal of early C19th London. As Pip arrives, men are shovelling crates of guts around the muddy city, jamming pig's heads onto spikes and emptying buckets of shit into the mud. It's a great introduction to a filthy and oppressive city. We're shocked in much the same way as Pip is having gotten used to the open, calm spaces of the Kentish marsh in the first act. This initial thrill of excitment disappates a bit as the camera moves about, and this small slice of London is revealed to be a fairly confined set. The later London scenes are shot on the much cleaner and more sanitary looking streets around the Temple, which detracts a bit from Newell's initial chaotic portrayal of London life.

The interior set design is of excellent quality. I particularly enjoyed the fossilised nature of Miss Havisham's wedding banquet, which is captured in disgusting detail. Later in the film, when Pip moves into his fancy new gentleman's apartment we can drink in the opulence of his surroundings. I'm guessing some of this was shot on location in period buildings, but we never think of these surroundings as looking 'old'. They seem casually lived in, especially the headquarters of the Finches.

I also enjoyed the costuming, which more than most of the other production design, serves to heighten the reality of the film. This is a film where outward appearance is important, and every character, low or high status is neatly stylised. All of Estelle's dresses are stunningly conceived, especially the one with a collar of purple feathers that emphasise her untrustworthy and flighty qualities. There is also a particularly amazing and extravagant dressing-gown that Pip wears, which in brilliant aquamarine jumps out of the film's dowdy and desaturated colour scheme and makes him appear both dashing and, appropriately for his state of mind, faintly peacock-like.

Despite Newell's experience there are a few confusingly edited sequences, particularly in the climactic boat sequence where in the darkness it becomes a little difficult to work out the geography of the scene. There's two boats and a steamship in semi-darkness on the water, and it's a little difficult to work out which boat is going under, or what's happened to key characters here. Another slightly bizarre decision is that the flashback expository sequences stretched out and distorted. It serves its purpose of distinguishing them from the rest of the film, but they look like the film is being played in the wrong aspect ratio. Faces are stretched horizontally, with the result that character's heads look like rugby balls. If the sequences were short this wouldn't be too much of a problem, but in the closing sequences there is maybe 15 minutes of flashback exposition, and this effect becomes quite tiring.

'Great Expectations' has much to say about contemporary society. However, I'm not sure if this mostly enjoyable adaptation, which comes hot on the heels of the 2011 BBC version, was entirely necessary. It's a film with some outstanding elements and a few great performances, but fumbles the ball in a few too many crucial areas, namely the casting of Pip and Estella. A qualified success, but not worth going out of your way for.

'Great Expectations' is on general release from November 30, 2012

LONDON CITY NIGHTS