From Slough to Bag End

Though we don't post a lot on film news, the Tolkien-nerd in me cries out that I give notice to the fact that several roles in The Hobbit have officially been cast. In addition to several Dwarves to be played by actors whose names I don't recognize (yet), Martin Freeman—Tim Canterbury (a.k.a. the "Jim" role) on the original Office, Arthur Dent in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and Dr. Watson on the BBC series Sherlock—has been cast as the title Halfling, the reluctant burglar, he that walks unseen, the ring-winner and luckwearer, Bilbo Baggins, Esquire. It's a choice that's been kicked around for years now, mostly because it's a very good one; Freeman is great at playing the everyman (especially the English kind), with a sense of being ordinary, compliant, and a bit put-upon, but with a potential for unexpected (seemingly uncharacteristic) courage when the need arises. The only other actor I can think of who might be equally good for the role is Tom Hollander, who starred in last year's excellent In the Loop. So Freeman's casting is some welcome, if not exactly shocking, news.

This is a production that's needed some good news for a while. Peter Jackson had been devoping it with Guillermo del Toro for some time, with the latter planning to direct it for MGM as two films—one covering the events of the novel itself (or at least most of it), and the other covering the six decades or so between that and Bilbo's eleventy-first birthday party with which The Lord of the Rings begins. But MGM's mounting financial problems (leading to the studio's upcoming bankruptcy) delayed work so long that del Toro left in May to pursue other projects. (While two del Toro Hobbit films was a tantalizing prospect, the fact that his next project will be his long-awaited adaptation of Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness certainly makes his loss to Tolkiendom much easier to bear.) Though Jackson has now assumed the director's chair for both films, he has faced legal disputes over the rights with the Tolkien estate and New Line, the studio behind his Lord of the Rings trilogy, as well as labor disputes with actors' unions that may force Jackson not to film in New Zealand.

Given that most of the news about the Hobbit adaptation has been negative for some time, the fact that it's apparently soldiering on regardless is encouraging and gives me hope that we may soon enjoy once again the wonder and spectacle that Jackson first brought us nine years ago.

P.S. — If Jackson has any sense, he'll find a way to incorporate this into the films. Forget Howard Shore; the main theme for the score is already written!

Requiescat in pace: Kon Satoshi, 1963-2010

I just found out that anime director Kon Satoshi (or Satoshi Kon, as he's known in the West) died on Tuesday, at the age of forty-six. The cause of death was a pancreatic cancer that was already late-stage when discovered in May.

I'm not really a fan of anime. Most of the examples I've seen seem more concerned with attaching flashy visuals to cardboard characters and absurdly convoluted plots than with actually engaging the audience on an emotional and/or intellectual level. Kon was one of the few counterexamples I found. His filmography is brief—the dark Hitchcockian thriller Perfect Blue, the touching drama Millennium Actress, the powerful and funny Tokyo Godfathers, the surreal fantasy Paprika, and the television series Paranoia Agent—but easily establishes him as a significant and masterful filmmaker. Generally eschewing the fantastic and the bizarre for their own sakes (the exception to this being Paprika, his only misstep among his films; I haven't seen Paranoia Agent), his films focused on real-world situations—a celebrity stalked by an obsessed fan, an elderly actress reminiscing on her life, a homeless trio finding an abandoned baby in the trash—and how they impacted relatively ordinary, realistic characters. Fantastic elements—for instance, the documentarians comically finding themselves included in Chiyoko's memories in Millennium Actress—were usually only included to support the story, not the other way around.

Kon's focus on story, character, and genuine emotion and drama set him apart from the vast majority of anime filmmakers. His animes weren't the only ones more interested in telling affecting stories than with showing off the most bizarre robot or mutant designs, but in my (admittedly rather limited) experience they're few and far between (Grave of the Fireflies, the films of Miyazaki Hayao). I own only one anime DVD that isn't a Miyazaki film or The Animatrix, and it's Tokyo Godfathers. Not Ninja Scroll, not Ghost in the Shell, not even Akira. As pieces of storytelling, Kon's films stand head and shoulders over the vast majority of the competition in the world of anime. It's a true shame that such a creatively fruitful career should end so soon. Kon's death is a loss to anime and to cinema as a whole.

— — — — —

Before his death, Kon wrote a farewell message, which can be found in translation here.

Richard Kelly = Orson Welles

In that they each only need to have made one film to solidify their respective places in filmmaking history. Maybe that seems a bit hyperbolic, but I just rewatched Donnie Darko for the first time in several years and was just astounded by the confidence, complexity, and vision on display; it's a joy to behold. I was one of the few to have seen Donnie Darko in its theatrical run back in the fall of 2001, and even then I got the sense that I had seen something unique and special. Not even Southland Tales can dim that burning flame. Excelsior, Mr. Kelly!

P.S. — I'm not afraid to admit that this is a drunk-post, so I reserve to right to retract it at the time and place of my choosing.

Digging into the ol' O&MTM mail bag...

In response to a recent comment by "M" (taking a break from sending 007 on his latest mission, I assume) asking which directors' films would I see, no questions asked, knowing only that they were the director. An interesting question. The Coen Brothers and Nolan were the first to come to mind. Tarantino, Aronofsky, P.T. and Wes Anderson, Fincher, Spike Jonze, Guillermo del Toro, Judd Apatow, Edgar Wright, and Jody Hill would fit the bill as well. (As you've probably noticed, these are all relatively recent filmmakers, with only the Coen Brothers' directing career beginning earlier than 1990. This list may make me look like some philistine who never watches anything older than Star Wars, but a glimpse at our "Movies We've Seen in 2010" sidebar list easily puts the lie to that. Rather, I've limited the list to living directors; otherwise, Kubrick would certainly lead the pack.) 

There are several other directors for whom this would generally apply, were it not for one or two counterexamples from their respective filmographies. Spielberg would have qualified, were it not for The Terminal, which I've never had the slightest interest in seeing. I've been a Terry Gilliam fan since childhood, but I've heard too much negative to feel too enthusiastic about seeing Tideland. I'm also a Lynch fan, but I confess that I haven't yet mustered the courage to see Inland Empire, from what I've heard the Lynchiest of his body of work. Scorsese is certainly one of the greatest filmmakers of the past fifty years, but his last few films, though mostly quite good, haven't been up to his earlier career's high standard, and from what I've heard Shutter Island is merely OK but not Scorsesian. There was a time when I probably also would have said Ridley Scott and Tim Burton too, but lately both of their careers have tended more toward predictability, mediocrity, commercialism, even self-parody. (Is there any more fitting word for Burton's Alice in Wonderland?)

Of course, the nice thing about the great filmmakers, even ones who, at times over the course of their careers, become hit-or-miss, is that even the misses are usually at least interesting misses, failures that still contain some vision or spirit and are still worth visiting, if only once.

Actors, on the other hand, are a completely different matter; they're by no means merely incidental to a film's final quality, but generally they have a far smaller role to play in making a film what it is. In cinema, the creative buck stops at the director, so in the end the success or failure of an actor's performance is the success or failure of the person directing him. So I honestly can't see myself watching a film solely on the basis of a particular actor's being in it.

Cameron, the Wrath of God

AVATAR

FITZCARRALDO

In its October 26 issue, The New Yorker has a terrific article on James Cameron, whose Avatar (trailer), his first fictional film since Titanic twelve years ago, comes out in two months. After a hiatus second only to Terrence Malick or Guns N' Roses, will Cameron return to his '80s and '90s greatness or finally fall victim to his hubris? That in itself would make a pretty compelling story, which is one reason why the New Yorker article is a great read.

Though some of his films—The Terminator, Aliens, Terminator 2—are among my favorites, Cameron's work is far from perfect. It would be unfair to compare him to filmmakers like Scorsese, Copolla, or Aronofsky, but even compared to filmmakers in his own field his films don't evoke the wonder or old-fashioned charm of Spielberg or Lucas (though Titanic certainly harkens back to the Golden Age of Hollywood). (The only example that I can think of that does evoke that wonder and charm is the very Spielbergian end of The Abyss.) His attempts at subtext are usually simplistic dichotomies—man and machine, rich and poor, life-giving mother and life-taking killer, etc. However, when he's good, what he lacks in characterization, subtlety, and originality he makes up for in tense, masterfully coordinated action and technical wizardry.

I recently watched Herzog's Fitzcarraldo (trailer) for the first time, and I couldn't help but be reminded of it as I read the New Yorker article. The title character, played with captivating gusto by Klaus Kinski, is an unsuccessful developer in a town in the Peruvian Amazon in the early twentieth century; his true passion is opera, and he dreams of building an opera house in the small, isolated, jungle-circled town to host the Great Caruso and the other great voices of the day. The only way he can get the money for this is by buying a plot of land in the jungle known to be rich in rubber trees, but inaccessible thanks to river rapids and violent native tribes. In a Herzogian take on the classic underdog-challenges-the-odds story (darkly paralleled in his Aguirre, the Wrath of God (trailer), also starring Kinski), Fitzcarraldo is so driven by his dream that he ignores contrary advice, common sense, and sound boating practices in his attempt to reach his rubber trees, to the point of enlisting the natives to haul his river boat over a steep, muddy hill in the middle of the jungle.

While Cameron may not have the artistic creativity or knack for storytelling that many of his colleagues have, what the article conveys is an indominable drive, a stubborn refusal to do something on any terms but his own, a geeky enthusiasm for technical problems, and an aggressive single-mindedness sometimes bordering on obsession. On the one hand, his filmmaking style often comes across as a serious case of failing to see the forest for the trees (on page 60, first column, he takes very detailed notice of how light interacts with various tissues and structures of an alien creature's mouth), and on a personal level I'm not surprised that he's been divorced four times; but on the other, it's impressive—and in this day and age, honestly a bit inspiring—to see a filmmaker so passionately dedicated to making his film, regardless of technological contraints, problems with actors and crew, and doubtful studio executives. (In another unexpected similarity between the two, Herzog's consistent depiction in his films of nature as a hostile force parallels Cameron's view of a hostile Hollywood, his "environment.") While the end results may not be particularly groundbreaking or moving, they're not the result of compromise or indifference, but of sheer will.

P.S. — Speaking of Herzog, check this out. No wonder he sees the world as hostile.

My art film can beat up your summer blockbuster

No, I haven't fallen of the edge of the world. More like I've just been hiding my head in shame for not getting the allusion in your last post's title.

I'm glad to see you responding to my earlier post about Aronofsky and the RoboCop remake. Although we don't totally agree on the question of more "artistic" or "non-mainstream" filmmakers making big-budget summer spectacles for the masses, I honestly don't think our positions are as far apart as you make them out to be. (Oops, there goes the "red meat" you were hoping to sink your teeth into!) I thought you knew me and my cinematic tastes better than to think that I don't like "well-made action" as much as the next guy. It's not as though I look down my nose at anything that isn't My Dinner with Andre or a moody Bergmanesque family drama. Don't you remember how stoked I was to see Snakes on a Plane? (It may not have lived up to those expectations, but that's beside the point.) We've seen enough movies together over the years, and enjoyed them together, that I don't see how you can think that we have a "fundamental difference in our movie preferences"—or if we do, it's certainly not to the extent you make it out to be. Maybe that just means I'm a philistine too.

That said, I still can't help but think that Aronofsky and filmmakers like him could be doing more with their limited time and energy than making superhero movies. I enjoy those movies when they're well made—and I'd certainly rather see guys like Nolan and Raimi making them than Bay—but I just don't think those filmmakers' summer blockbusters are as good as most of their other films. The Dark Knight is probably the best of the kind of movies we're talking about, but I still don't think it has the level of passion and complexity of Memento or The Prestige. I'm not saying it's impossible for superhero movies, or big-budget action/adventure movies of other genres, to have potential for depth, complexity, and genuine emotion. Every genre has that potential; films like Shane, The Searchers, Once upon a Time in the West, and The Assassination of Jesse James show that Westerns aren't all just about cowboys vs. Indians or lawmen vs. bandits, and films like The Day the Earth Stood Still, 2001, Solaris, and Moon show that science fiction isn't just about saucer-men and Buck Rogers. However, I simply don't think that there's been a superhero movie of that caliber yet to raise the genre above the level of the average comic book, as the Westerns and sci-fi films I mentioned raised their respective genres above the level of pulp Western and sci-fi novels. I'd say The Dark Knight and Watchmen have come closest, but the superhero genre still has a long way to go, especially when we remember that those movies are the exception rather than the rule by a sadly wide margin.

So my position is basically that I really like a lot of the big-budget, mainstream movies filmmakers like Nolan and Raimi have made—and I'd probably even enjoy a RoboCop movie made by Aronofsky too. But they seem to have a harder time making truly complex, groundbreaking, passionate products when making those kinds of movies than I've seen them make with other projects. (Of course, meddling on studios' part to protect their $100-million-plus investments is a very possible contributing factor to this as well.) As much as I enjoy these kinds of movies, I can't help but think that these filmmakers could be put to better use elsewhere.

Barton-Fink-ism

So I saw this article today on CHUD, about Darren Aronofsky's plans to direct a remake of RoboCop. First off, I have to wonder whether there are actually people out there who think a new RoboCop movie should be made. The first one was actually kind of surprising for the amount of social and political satire Paul Verhoeven was able to get into a particularly violent (maybe even sadistic) '80s sci-fi/action movie; I haven't seen the sequels, but I've heard that the franchise's decline was precipitous. Are there actually people out there who are clamoring for this? Of course, I said the same thing when I heard that they were making movies about Transformers and Iron Man (in the latter's case, not because I thought it was a dumb idea, but because Iron Man was never at that top Spider-Man/X-Men/Fantastic Four/Hulk level in the Marvel pantheon). As those films' respective box-office numbers showed, there apparently were audiences out there for movies about toy robots and second-tier super heroes.

My main concern, though, isn't with the project itself, it's with the fact that Aronofsky is slated to direct it. As you know, I absolutely love The Fountain. Watching it for the first time may have been the most moving experience I've ever had in a theater. His prior films, Pi and Requiem for a Dream, are similarly visionary, and he's just coming off of his most critically acclaimed film yet, The Wrestler. So what in God's name is he doing making a remake of RoboCop? Is this how he's going to spend the filmmaking capital The Wrestler gained him, making a movie nobody needs and nobody with a shred of intelligence wants? Baffling.

This goes beyond this particular project and this particular filmmaker to a trend evident for the past few years of talented, visionary filmmakers making big-budget, mainstream popcorn flicks: Ang Lee with Hulk, Chris Nolan with the new Batman franchise, Sam Raimi with the Spider-Man franchise. I'm not saying that those films are bad—The Dark Knight and the first two Spider-Man films were quite good—but it seems that they could be doing more with their time and energy. Raimi's case might be a little different, since he hadn't really established himself as a well known director outside of the Evil Dead trilogy. But Ang Lee had made The Ice Storm and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon by the time he made Hulk, and Nolan had made Memento and Insomnia when he signed on for Batman Begins; coming off critically acclaimed, relatively successful (in Crouching Tiger's case, extremely successful) films, I have a hard time believing that they felt they needed to make some super hero movies to finance their "passion projects" or to keep the cinematic world's attention.

When I saw the CHUD article, the first think I thought of was Barton Fink, whose social-realist playwright leaves New York to write scripts for wrestling movies in Hollywood. That in turn reminded me of the real-life example of Faulkner, whose Hollywood screenwriting in the 1940s inspired Barton Fink in general and, obviously, John Mahoney's character in particular. During that time Faulkner wrote for some good films, including Howard Hawks's Bogart-Bacall classics To Have and Have Not and The Big Sleep, but it's nevertheless considered a low point in his career brought on by financial need rather than creative vision. In the same way, as good as some of their mainstream films have been, I can't imagine that these are really the kinds of stories that filmmakers like Aronofsky, Nolan, or Raimi are longing to tell. What I don't get, though, is their motivation; are these guys really so hard up for cash, as Faulkner was, that they need to make huge-budget, $200- to $300-million-grossing summer spectacles to finance, say, another Wrestler or Memento?

Another recent topic here, Stanley Kubrick, in some respects seems to have faced similar moments in his forty-plus-year career. In 1960 he directed Spartacus, one of the better examples of the late-'50s, early-'60s historical epics but nonetheless merely that; but his films prior to Spartacus had been relatively small (none had a budget of more than $1 million), and he hadn't yet made his name in the cinematic world (he only got the Spartacus job at Kirk Douglas's insistance). Twenty years later he directed The Shining; though a film about a haunted hotel based on a Stephen King novel sounds like pure paycheck work for someone like Kubrick, he ended up making one of the greatest, most definitive horror films of all time, with the end product being much more a Kubrick film than a King adaptation (hence King's dislike of it). Moreover, despite King's reputation even then as an author of pulpy airplane and beach fare, film adaptations of his work may not have gotten their own dubious reputation yet; the only prior adaptation had been Brian De Palma's critically praised Carrie. So I don't think Kubrick fits into what we're seeing nowadays, despite superficial similarities: When he made Spartacus he hadn't yet had his Crouching Tiger, Memento, or Wrestler to put him on the map, and when he made The Shining he was so established and confident that he wasn't at all limited by the fact that he was adapting a mainstream horror novel.

So what do you think of this phenomenon? Does it trouble or disappoint you the way it does me? Do you think it will continue, and that other respected filmmakers will get in on the act? Can we expect to see the Coen Brothers doing Aquaman soon? Paul Thomas Anderson doing Dino-Riders? Fincher doing Captain Planet? Tarantino doing Luke Cage and Iron Fist? (Actually, I think he'd jump at that; what better way to combine his two great loves, blaxploitation and martial arts?) Or do you not mind their taking a break from more visionary or serious fare to make mainstream, big-budget spectacles?

P.S. — I gotta say, I love the new blurb. At this point, I think that the Republicans support the Second Amendment solely so that they can shoot themselves in the foot.