A Rediscovered Exercise in Homage

Now that the main body of work for Chodzenie – Siberia is over, I’m turning my attention to little loose ends that require tying up before I start writing the next script.

While flicking through the stuff on my hard drive, I came across this exercise we did at film school about 2 years ago. The brief was to go out and make a 2 minute music video and, being in the midst of an intensive Woody Allen binge, I thought that tribute should be paid the only way I know how.

Those of you who know the film MANHATTAN will get it immediately, those who don’t should see it immediately. The feedback I was given at the time was the idea was smart but I could have done with shooting for another day. Fact of the matter was, my partner in this exercise, who was supposed to be shooting second unit, got drunk the night before and never shot a minute so the film became a solo project and I went with what I had. The only reason I’m putting it up now is I only just desaturated it tonight and some shots are worth looking at now it’s in black and white.

My girlfriend Cindy thinks I have a rather grim opinion of Edinburgh judging by the footage I chose for the sequence……. I’d tend to agree. It’s positively grim though.

Meet The Sister

Warning!!! Gratuitous new blog plug imminent……

www.mundanedays.wordpress.com

It’s a much needed place I can throw my oar in about all non-movie related stuff. Self indulgent therapy if you will.

Feel free to drop by and put my factual inaccuracies right.

Headin’ South

I’m in the middle of my 3rd collaboration with 30bird productions and leave today for a week of filming and wandering in London town.

Don’t be having any mad parties and remember to feed the cat.

For The Love of Gwynyth

A strange thing happened to me last night that very rarely occurs but did last night in the most unexpected of ways.

Gwyneth Paltrow came on screen and I YELPED.

Yes faithful readers, like a dog….. A small dog.

This is a picture I remember watching not long after its release and thinking little of it. Matt Damon is generally decent, Jude Law and Ms Chris Martin Paltrow are generally banal, hence the lack of tangible enthusiasm for revisiting the flick. Fate led me by the eyes however following a decision to do my dissertation on the ethics of adaptation, a viewing of PLEIN SOLIEL and the reading of the excellent Patricia Highsmith book on which both films are based….. It was time to head back to Mongibello.

In respect of being honourable to the source material, Anthony Minghella’s screenplay sticks to the structure of Highsmith’s original work far closer than it’s older French cousin. We are very quickly introduced to Ripley’s fantastic world where the desire to rise above his lowly social status is all consuming. This Ripley as not the pathological character Highsmith dreamt up, but still carries with him a creepiness that never allows you to get comfortable with him.

I was pleased that Minghella retained Papa Greenleaf’s plea to Ripley to travel to Europe to return his wayward son Dickie. This element of the book provides a constant narrative thread as well as a further motive for Ripley’s actions, Dickie lives off his father’s wealth which requires his regular correspondence, Tom just happens to be a master impersonator. This is the life Ripley feels he deserves though he has no reason for believing so. These two facets of his personality were always going to be a catalyst for trouble.

Disappointment came with Ripley’s initial social standing. In the book he lives in the crummiest of abodes, filthy and rundown. In the film, despite hearing a couple arguing in the flat above, he seems to live in the kind of place a Greenwich Village bohemian might frequent, tuning into Charlie Parker and Chet Baker in preparation for his future encounter with the Jazz loving Dickie.

In the interests of cinematic pace (although this is still considered the slowest part of the film) the friendship that blossoms between Dickie and Ripley is intense and rapid. Contrary to the book, Dickie’s girlfriend Marge, adequately dealt with by Paltrow, is instantly taken by the newcomer and the two also develop a bond. This is neat screenwriting. Minghella has cut out much of the time from the novel that Dickie and Tom spend together; this gives no motivation for Marge to dislike him so much which also makes her change of opinion later in the film all the more powerful.

The friendship between the two men has a distinct homoerotic hue to it. One only has to look at the chess in the bath scene. This is also a factor of the Freddie Miles relationship, camped up by an ever reliable Philip Seymour Hoffman. What transpires is a love triangle between the 3 men with Marge reduced to the role of mildly attractive screen furniture.

“But Paltrow made you yelp” I hear you think silently…

She did.

And I’ll tell you why.

Following the disposal of Dickie in a brilliantly staged boat scene (EXACTLY as I pictured it when reading the novel but with a more pronounced emotional angle) Tom takes up the role of Master Greenleaf whilst the police try to find the killer of Freddie Miles. (Also disposed of by Ripley when he rumbled his scam) It’s this section of the film that lacks the tension of the book but it does score in one respect….. Gwyneth Paltrow.

In the book Marge does not leave Mongibello to look for Dickie, she’s in constant contact through Ripley’s forged letters, and believes he’s alive, but she doesn’t think to travel for a confrontation. This after being inexplicably dumped like a hot stone…… in the film she does, and it’s that first time she bumps into Ripley in Rome that has me squealing like a baby. “She’s not supposed to go to Rome!!!!”

And here’s where literature and cinema come together in perfect harmony. You only have 2 hours to tell this story and you’ve got to make the film audience taste the suspense of the book….. Minghella does a fine job, a real fine job.

Should we sympathise with a man who has killed twice by such brutal means? In the case of Tom Ripley, it’s hard not to. He doesn’t do anything throughout the film to alienate the audience besides be a little clingy, he’s like the guy at school who no-one hung out with but was really rather cool when you took the time to speak with him. Do we want him to get away with it? That’s a completely different question and one which the movie answers completely differently to the novel…..

I take it all back….. This is a fine movie.

Don’t…… No, really.

2 attempts and I couldn’t get through this film. It’s best avoided.

Gone Fishing

I’m now on the beautifull and remote Isle of Barra to shoot a film. See you back here on the 16th of December.

Busy, Not Lazy…..

When it gets like this it feels like being trapped in a washing machine that just happens to be on the LONGEST spin cycle…… There’s a post coming in the next couple of days, thanks for continuing to stop by.

The highlight of the week was undoubtedly the masterclass world reknowned French documentary maker Nicolas Philibert held at eca. I urge you all to check out his work.

Here’s a little clip from his 2002 documentary ETRE ET AVOIR which is his best known film, but not necesarrily his best. I still find it an enchanting piece of work. He presented it in person at The Filmhouse cinema in Edinburgh last night and I was delighted to be able to show my daughter Lauren the film on the big screen, she has a lot of love for director’s Q&A’s….

Great Movie Openings: A Clockwork Orange

As movie openings go there’s none better than A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, a wonderful picture that caused Stanley Kubrick so much trouble and personal grief that he requested the studio pull it from cinemas and block it’s video release. I read the book when I was 14 and managed to get a look at a really grainy pirate video copy with shocking sound shortly afterwards. Watching it for the first time, I was thrilled when the FBI warning flashed up on the screen “shit, it’s the FBI!! If they find out about this we’re in for some REAL jail time” …….

Then the film started…….

The screen turns red and that music cuts through the air which, in some indescribable way, lets you know what kind of journey you’re about to embark on.

We’re introduced to the iconic figure of Alex, flanked by his droogs then there’s the seamless combination of a zoom out into a backwards track.

I realise that 99.9% of you will have seen this 2:16 of cinema many, many times. Kubrick, and Kubricks films however, never atain the status of boring. Any yes, I do include BARRY LYNDON and EYES WIDE SHUT in that statement.

Enjoy.

Ok, I was wrong…

I’ve never had a resistance to super hero movies. I can remember the first time I saw Superman as a kid sitting transfixed, wide eyed and amazed as Christopher Reeve, god rest his soul, went about his daily business in a rather gawky manner whilst saving the world in his spare time. Not only saving the world of course but reversing time. I’ve never once heard Steven Hawkings disprove that the Superman method wouldn’t actually work.

On growing a little older the genre lost its charm for me. Example after example of comic book adaptation was pumped into cinemaplexes with huge promises of never seen before action. It all came crashing to hard nosed conclusion for me on release of HULK…. I was a great lover of David Banner as a kid, this was the “you won’t like me when I’m angry” TV David Banner of course, played wonderfully by Bill Bixby with Lou Ferringo as the frightening yet lovable monster. The movie was, and I’m an admirer of Ang Lee, HORRIFIC.

My good friend and workplace adversary Matt Etheridge (He loves his Blu-Ray) convinced me, through his relentless enthusiasm for the release of THE DARK KNIGHT to revisit the superhero movie and, as much as I hate to admit it, he’s right.

Christopher Nolan’s reinvention of this particular character is bursting with depth, conflict and, most importantly, bloody good storytelling and filmmaking. It’s not often you get such a cast fitting so well together to make what should be a formula Hollywood film, but is anything but. Christian Bale is fantastic, if you haven’t seen RESCUE DAWN, then do. Herzog and Bale seem like perfect collaborators considering their collective fondness of the physical extreme.

Liam Neeson, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman and Gary Oldman also feature prominently and to great effect, Kate Holmes manages to keep her face looking not too weird by resisting that Cherie Blair thing that she sometimes does but the one appearance that REALLY floated my boat was Tim Booth of Indie legends JAMES fame as a villain who turns up a few times in the picture but says NOTHING… He looks the part, granted, but I don’t know if Gotham City was frequented by mancunian indie frontmen which was maybe a reason for having him mute. By the way, as I was googling Tim, I for some reason put an “e” at the end of his christian name and ended up at, what is probably the most boring website in the world….. see it here.

The scene below is one of my favourites in the film and really gives a sense of what I’m talking about in terms of craft. Bruce Wayne meets Ducard for the first time which proves to be a turning point that will change Wayne’s life forever.

Roll on Dark Knight……..

Monty Got a Raw Deal

Lauren and her class are curently doing a project on “The 50’s” to celebrate the decade her school was built. As the teacher dished out the areas of study, Lauren stuck her hand enthusiastically into the air. “Can I do movies” she asked, “Of course” said her teacher, taken aback by her insistance. And so starts a crash course of the movies she hasn’t seen…… or at least a few of them. We went through her favourite pictures of the decade….. SOME LIKE IT HOT (1959) REAR WINDOW (1954) and THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY (1955) were discussed at length. Being Hitchcock fans, we watched another of his 50’s productions this morning, I CONFESS (1953)

The film stars Montgomery Clift as father Michael Logan, a priest who is burdened with a confession that threatens to bring him down but one which he can’t reveal due to his commitment the confessional seal. The way the film opens is classic Hitchcock. We are given a place, a murder and a confession, all within the first 6 minutes. What follows in an intensive police investigation to find the killer, Father Logan himself becomes a suspect.

Montgomery Clift led a tragic life. The product of an abusive father, he was a man very quickly thrust into the Hollywood limelight. He struggled immensely with his sexuality before suffering horrific injuries in a car crash (which required his face to be rebuilt) then slowly burnt out through drink and drugs. his death in 1966, aged only 45, is commonly referred to as “the longest suicide in history”. Despite appearing in only 18 features he worked with the best in the business, Hitchcock, Hawks, Huston, Kazan, Wyler and Vittoria De Sica amongst others.

Check out the opening of the picture below. As I said earlier the whole thing is set up in the first 6 minutes. Look out for Hitch getting in on the act also. A nice Senses Of Cinema piece on I CONFESS can be seen here.