Film Is a Battleground #18 (A History of Violence, Corpse Bride, Friday Night Lights, When Will I Be Loved)

A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE (in theaters)
CORPSE BRIDE (in theaters)
WHEN WILL I BE LOVED (on DVD)
FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS (on DVD)

A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE (David Cronenberg, 2005)
* (Has redeeming facet)

October 2nd, 2005: For the first time in the near twenty-nine years of my life, I saw a bad David Cronenberg film. One might argue I should have seen it coming, that the widespread, mainstream support for A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE (especially when compared to the muted and/or hostile reaction that greeted his three previous masterpieces: SPIDER, eXistenZ, and CRASH) might signal a lesser film rather than a greater enlightenment.

I think the relevant precedent is De Palma and SCARFACE. Following the hostility which greeted the excellent DRESSED TO KILL and the relative disinterest which greeted his second masterpiece BLOW OUT, De Palma made SCARFACE. He received better-than-usual notices. Critics didn’t seem to mind the violence as long as it stayed segregated from sex and occurred within a terrifically dull film, or as Pauline Kael described it, “a De Palma film for people who don’t like De Palma films.”

So it is with A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE. One sits and watches the film, waiting for the sense of unease Cronenberg creates to transform into an epiphany. Unfortunately, scene after scene hints at the artificiality of the reality witnessed (as in eXistenZ and VIDEODROME) or the depth of experience that exists within (as in THE DEAD ZONE and SPIDER) without ever developing the particular, peculiar, and meaningful dissociations which make Cronenberg’s body of work so substantial.

The film ends with no hidden layers revealed and one is left with the odd desire to see more of a film you didn’t like. After watching A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE, I was ready for the Cronenberg film to start.

Postscript: It made me sad to talk walk out of a Cronenberg film so shallow and uninvolving. Waking up the next morning and learning that August Wilson had passed put that disappointment in perspective. There remains the hope that Cronenberg will go on to make another, better film. There will be no more August Wilson plays. The moral and intellectual rigor of his sublime and powerful art will remain both an example and an unattainable benchmark for many of us. Wilson was great and he was good. We are blessed to know his work.

CORPSE BRIDE (Tim Burton and Mike Johnson, 2005)
0 stars (No redeeming facet)

Watching CORPSE BRIDE, I failed to discern a reason for its existence. The film is not funny (those with a weakness for obvious, telegraphed puns might disagree). It lacks the manic anarchy that carried MARS ATTACKS! The film is not scary (the villain’s identity is revealed in the first act). That there even is a stock villain makes this an atypically simple tale for a Tim Burton film. Even his less successful films create both tension and emotional empathy through external conflictions between and internal conflictions of misfits. Furthermore, Danny Elfman’s songs are every bit as middling as those he wrote for CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY but the production numbers in this film don’t take up the slack.

WHEN WILL I BE LOVED (James Toback, 2004)
** (Worth seeing)

Half-fascinating and almost entirely absurd, Toback does well both by himself (though one wishes the sublime character he plays here, Professor of African-American Culture Hassan Al-Ibrahim Ben Rabinowitz, had appeared in the more successfull cultural satire BLACK AND WHITE) and his latest young surrogate played by the fundamentally weird and compelling Fred Weller.

The film’s other half strands Neve Campbell and Dominic Chianese in a convoluted exploration of money, gender, age, sex, power, morality, and mortality that fails to engage with any of the issues it strenuously introduces.

FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS (Peter Berg, 2004)
* (Has redeeming facet)

I’d rate the film above the book, though I apparently liked the book less than everyone else. To me, it was the Moneyball of the late-‘80s, a well-written book driven by the author’s passion about a new-to-him idea. In both cases it appears that the relevant ideas (some communities take high school football too seriously, statistical analysis has a role in major league baseball) were new to a lot of people. Unfortunately for those of us who were not shocked by either premise, both Buzz Bissinger and Michael Lewis did a better job of inciting and expressing their passion than advancing any original ideas. I prefer Lewis’s book, but that’s just because I’m more interested in general managers than high school football teams.

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Film Is a Battleground #7: Time Heals Some Wounds (Videodrome, demonlover, Masked & Anonymous)

What’s special about this week’s effort? Issue Number 7 is the first to debut at filmisabattleground.blogspot.com, sport a title, and feature a tenuous thematic relationship between the films. Three films of varying quality set not quite in the present and not quite in the future for your perusal.

VIDEODROME (on DVD)
demonlover (on DVD)
MASKED & ANONYMOUS (on DVD and cable)

VIDEODROME (David Cronenberg, 1983)
*** (A must-see)

The consensus on the occasion of the release of Criterion’s DVD of VIDEODROME, seems to be that the film marks the beginning of Cronenberg’s serious work. Though clearly central to Cronenberg’s oeuvre, one would be hard pressed to identify how VIDEODROME significantly surpasses, in terms of serious social commentary, from SHIVERS or THE BROOD.

The social satire of SHIVERS works on two levels. Textually, Cronenberg uses images and ideas derived from INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS and NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD to express his ambivalence about the benefits, both culturally and individually, of the sexual revolution. Meta-textually, this somewhat conservative, certainly cautious, idea transmits itself in the guise of a disreputable, exploitative film financed on the basis of its explicit nudity and gore.

THE BROOD contains elements possibly derived from Polanski’s REPULSION, ROSEMARY’S BABY, and THE TENANT to examine the systemic way abuse is hidden and misunderstood within a community. It’s a subtle, sensitive, and terrifying film in much the manner of Lynch’s TWIN PEAKS and MULLHOLLAND DR.

True, VIDEODROME is the first of Cronenberg’s films to explicitly explore the confluence of art, technology, and the body, but the earlier horror films examined and satirized society in ways atypical for the genre. VIDEODROME remains as odd and chilling as it was on its debut. No other director manages to create quite the same sort of discomfort in audiences as does Cronenberg. There is something about watching intellectual turmoil manifest itself physically that makes viewing VIDEODROME, THE DEAD ZONE, CRASH, or SPIDER uniquely unsettling.

So, granted, the best of Cronenberg’s films prior to VIDEODROME have recognizable antecedents whereas VIDEODROME still seems to owe its birth to an unknown, unspoken source. I would propose that those influences evident in the earlier films were fairly superficial, endemic to genre filmmaking, and that Cronenberg’s personal thematic concerns manifest themselves clearly.

Furthermore, satire, especially when present within the structure of a genre film, rarely receives its due upon initial release. Witness the scheduled re-release of David O. Russell’s THREE KINGS. Largely ignored or patronized upon its release in 1999, the film has drawn more interest now that it is topical. That the film has always been morally, aesthetically, and politically relevant does not seem to factor into Warner Brothers’ decision to re-market the film. This is evidenced by the studio’s reaction to the documentary Russell made for use as a bonus feature for the DVD release. Explaining the studio’s reasoning for rejecting inclusion of the documentary, spokeswoman Barbara Brogliatti revealed the manner in which corporations ignore or deny the content of their product: “This came out to be a documentary that condemns, basically, war. This is supposed to be a special edition of THREE KINGS not a polemic about war."

Ms. Brogliatti is correct that THREE KINGS is not a polemic about war. It’s more accomplished than that. It does however plainly criticize the decisions of the George H.W. Bush Administration during both the first Gulf War and its aftermath. The AP article from whence the above quotation is taken also reports, but does not quote the following statement: “The heads of Warner Bros. rejected the documentary this week, saying it was inappropriate to distribute a documentary about the director's personal political views in conjunction with his 5-year-old drama.” Warner’s understands that the current war in Iraq exists not be questioned, but as a marketing tie-in to be exploited.

Or, to take an example from Cronenberg’s career, there’s eXistenZ, his 1999 film, an updated re-examination of VIDEODROME’s themes: art, morality, technology, reality, and the body. eXistenZ ranks among Cronenberg’s best work yet roused few of those who reflexively tout VIDEODROME’s greatness to its defense. Receiving little backing from Miramax (if it had received half the attention, or ad budget, of the KILL BILL films the world would be a better place) it appeared and disappeared from screens largely unnoticed.

Almost all writing about film that appears in the media is essentially writing about film business as opposed to film art. Most critics revel in the proximity to fame and wealth gained by forgoing responsibility in favor of insider status. To be deemed important is far easier than to be important. The few critics who insist on dealing with film as art are threatened with irrelevance as only commercial films are widely distributed theatrically. How much influence can one have by championing a film being shown for one week in New York, Chicago, or Seattle then appearing on DVD months later, if at all?

So, in lieu of a discussion of relevant works of film art, reams are wasted contemplating THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST and FAHRENHEIT 9/11. Not that those films should not be contemplated and discussed, but the scope and volume of the discussion should be in the proportion to the quality of the film rather than the quality of the hucksterism. To discuss the theology of Mel Gibson’s film while ignoring the theology of Neil LaBute’s films is negligent behavior and if the time and energy devoted to Michael Moore had accompanied the original release of THREE KINGS perhaps a more informed, aware nation would not have allowed the raw material of Moore’s film to exist.

demonlover (Olivier Assayas, 2003)
* (Has redeeming facet)

Assayas has wandered far from the allusive seduction of LATE AUGUST, EARLY SEPTEMBER and IRMA VEP. Much like Robert Altman’s PRET-A-PORTER or Woody Allen’s CELEBRITY, demonlover embodies the result of making a film for which one has an idea, but no solution for dramatizing that idea. The common element of these three films is that the grand ambition of the idea which stems from the writer-director’s desire to demonstrate profound truths about society magnifies the shallowness of the finished film. These films are watchable yet bereft of insight. demonlover offers more shock value with its suggestive (rather than explicit) use of sex and violence, but its lack of coherence lends the film an air of chic nihilism rather than profundity.

MASKED & ANONYMOUS (Larry Charles, 2003)
** (Worth seeing)

A non-narrative experiment heavily indebted to Sam Shepard (you’d think Jessica Lange would be capable of a better performance, familiarity with the vibe and all) just now showing up on pay cable. I can’t in good conscience recommend it for everyone, but it should intrigue and delight sympathetic viewers.

Larry Charles and Bob Dylan’s funny and self-referential script, wherein each character speaks in phrases that sound lifted from unwritten Dylan songs, clearly separates the real actors (John Goodman, Jeff Bridges, Giovanni Ribisi) from the movie stars (Lange, Penelope Cruz, Val Kilmer). Both Dylan and Mickey Rourke are consistently compelling, though I don’t think you could classify what either does as acting, per se. The action culminates with Dylan and his band giving a live performance of “Dixie,” one of the most compelling musical scenes in recent film history.

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