Kubrick the Later Years: Part III

Let me start of by saying that I am sorry. This is not the piece that I wanted to write tonight. However, I underestimated Kubrick's visual genius, and was overwhelmed with the task that I had set out to accomplish. 

I wanted to try to get across in this post the power that Kubrick has over the audience emotion simply by shooting a scene a certain way and having certain music playing over it. But then I started going through these movies to try to pick out scenes and shots that explain this phenomenon, and realized very quickly that there are way to many of them, and it is impossible to explain it with words. You just need to see it. 

How can I describe the Clockwork Orange scene where Alex has a threesome? The mixture of the stationary shot, with the frenzied movements and the Beethoven piece played at double time create a emotion that is equal parts worried about your faithful narrator and Looney Tunes style humor. 

What about the shot of Jack following poor Danny through the hedge maze at the end of the Shining. A simple backwards tracking shot, of which Kubrick has many. But the terror and anger in Jack's eyes and his staggered limp keep a strange sort of time throughout the shot that gives the impression that Danny is running from a train of sorts. 

What about Barry walking through the forest? What about R. Lee. Ermey pacing around the barracks insulting people? Or holding his crotch? Or yelling at Pvt. Pile? What about the shot of the David running around the spaceship to work out? 

There are too many to name here, but the point should be clear. Everyone reading this needs to rewatch these movies. Tomorrow I will post a series of pictures that I have taken from Kubrick's movies that take my breath away. Hopefully, they will get everyone to find copies of these movies and watch them over and over again. 

Kubrick the Later Years: Part II

During the time period, Kubrick was exploring the terrain of mankind and used his films as a way to come to terms with the brutal, scary species humans had become. You can see how Kubrick uses humor as a way of juxtaposing the stupidity of man with the catastrophic effects that come with our decisions.

For starters, Kubrick set his only pure comedy of this era during the moments before the end of all mankind. The silliness of Kubrick's characters, from Peter Seller's Col. Mandrake to Seller's President Muckerson to Seller's Dr. Strangelove to George C. Scott's magically Buck Turgenson, complements to importance of their decisions in a way to both scare the hell out of the viewer while also forcing them to hold their sides because of laughter. It all comes together perfectly in the final speech delivered by Strangelove. After the Bomb has been dropped, Strangelove explains how to stay alive in bunkers deep underground, while also fighting the right side of his body, which is still partial to Hitler. The last moment where Strangelove finally stands, after working himself into a lather, "Mein Fuhrer, I can walk!" sends the movie off with a perfect ending.

While the rest of his movies, outside of 2001, which I will get to in a minute, deal with men who are struggling through their lives. Clockwork Orange's Alex seems to keep his cheerful disposition throughout the torture that he receives for his crimes, while The Shining's Jack puts a sinister smile on his face while trying to murder his family. Kubrick even sends Full Metal Jacket off with a childlike smile by having the soldiers singing the theme from The Mickey Mouse Show.

Barry Lyndon is an movie unlike any other, but also contains many key elements that Kubrick worked with during his career. Much like Full Metal Jacket, Barry Lyndon is two very different movies. Act I, which sees Barry avoid dying in some amazing ways while living the life of a proper nobleman, plays like a series of misadventures of a man with alot of confidence who is very good at killing people. Once a story is over, there is no mention of it again. Barry travels until he decides it is time to settledown with a rich wife. Act II begins then follows this marriage and the downfall of Barry. His downfall is one story where Barry is overtaken by his upstart stepson. This movie seems bored, and is slightly overt at its messages against wealth.

2001 is nuts. I have seem it a few times, and still dont know what it is about. There are three acts, that have little to nothing to do with each other, other than The Monolith. The first and second acts are generally straightforward: the transformation from ape to man and the attempted destruction of man by the machine. However, the third act is the most interesting to me. Our astronaut, is floating through space, and appears to go through some sort of wormhole, which does not look very fun. He arrives at a french hotel room and grows very old. Then sees The Monolith(!!). Then we see the moon baby. Trying to follow some sort of narrative is nearly impossible. Instead, Kubrick seems interested in playing with audience expectations by keeping the same character from Act II, but having no reference to Hal or the ship. Instead he just flies through that colorful wormhole (or something). It is a beautiful shot that mixes perfectly the awe of the color with the brief shots of a terrified face. It is all very breathtaking. Moon baby!

Even though all of his movies has interesting story lines with characters that are well acted, the true joy of his films comes with the visuals and the soundtrack. Kubrick was the master of perfectly set up shots. But, for that discussion, you will have to wait for tomorrow.

Kubrick the Later Years: Part I

Welcome ladies and gentleman to the first of my four part series on the later work of master filmmaker Stanley Kubrick. Over the past week, I have watched six (6) of Kubricks films: Dr. Strangelove, 2001, A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon, The Shining, and Full Metal Jacket. Before I get into the plots and visuals of these films, I want to spend this first post talking about how I got started on this mission.

Earlier this year, the documentary Room 237 was released. The film is an academic study of Kubrick's masterpiece, The Shining. Throughout the film, six (6) different people talk about their different interpretations of what that movie means. Although they all use certain shots, or other pieces of information about Kubrick or the novel, most of these theories seem slightly overreaching. For example, one of the commenters claims that The Shining is a movie about Kubrick's involvement in the faking of the Apollo 11 footage.

The thesis of the movie, which it does prove, is that Kubrick was an extremely cerebral filmmaker, who spent alot of time putting minor clues into his movie. The interpretation of these clues is up to the viewer. While some viewers may see room #237 as Jack's mind, others see it as the home of the sexually obsessed demons that are haunting this hotel, and some others see it as the "moon room", which is like Vegas in the sense that what happens in the "moon room", stays in the "moon room". The only thing that is clear is that Kubrick is a genius and was trying to make movies that were unlike anything that had come before. Movies as puzzles for the viewer. Movies that tell the story of mankind. Movies where the rich finally get theirs.

So, with this in mind, I watched every movie Kubrick made between 1964-1987. These movies are all very different. They range from comedy to experimental to horror to social commentary to war. However, all of these movies are above average and not only explore interesting topics, but successfully toy with audience emotion and expectations.

Come back tomorrow, where I will go over the plot of each of these movies and try to make some thematic connect between these beautiful films.

Three Kings

David O. Russell. What are we going to do with you? Russell has had a very bipolar career. He has made numerous quirky films that range from good to great, while also being, allegedly, extremely hard to work with. Fights with Lily Tomlin! Shutting down a movie where Jessica Biel plays a good girl turned nympho!

But to get back to the point, most of Russell's films involve alot of quirky people telling some man with problems (mental illness, family, transcendentalism) what to do, then the man falling apart, then he finds love. They all have a mixture of comedy in dialogue with dramatic action sequences with little dialogue. However, Three Kings is a little different.

For starters, the story revolves around 4 male soldiers trying to steal the Kuwaiti gold that Saddam stole from them. Another difference is that Russell made Three Kings as unapologetically political as he could. Our anti-heroes's plan gets off course when they see the horrible conditions they are forced to live in under Saddam's rule. One particularly brutal sequence involves a rocket launcher blowing up a tanker of milk to feed a small town.

Thats the different, now here is the good. Russell is a master of the action sequence. Most of his are not the big action scenes of the Batman movies, but the amount of work that Russell puts into the character building, mixes with the cinematography to draw in the viewer. Three Kings is an endless run of action sequence that involve a few people, ending into a very tense situation and outsmarting their opponents. Complications always arise and Russell is particularly good at drawing contemplation out of his actors.

Three Kings still has the Russell style, due to an unlikely star performance from Spike Jonze as a hillybilly racist who didnt go to high school, but dont go telling everybody that. Jonze is funny, stupid, sincere, and shit on by most people in the film (even the Iraqi hairdresser, who totally shits on his badass haircut that Troy gave him). The other three also gives great performances, highlighted by Mark Wahlberg's torture scene. I found myself cringing without a sound other than Walhberg's cries.

Three Kings might not have the emotional core that Silver Linings Playbook had. It might not have the suspense and beauty of the fight scenes in The Fighter. But Three Kings has an exciting plot, and face/slow/fast/slow pace, and even ends with a win that involves losing all the gold. Strongly recommend for Russell fans, war fans, and Clooney fans.

Mulholland Drive

No hay Banda!

This is the one of the lines that gets repeated during the crucial scene at Club Silencio in David Lynch's 2001 film Mulholland Drive. In the scene, the MC keeps repeating that there is no band and everything is recorded. Then he brings out a singer who sings until she falls down dead, but the music never stops, because it is all a recording. I believe that this scene unlocks the movie for the viewer. The plot of the film doesnt matter. Lynch is going to try to trick you into thinking that it is important, but it is all an illusion, because there is no band.

Lynch's film is about movies and hollywood in general. It is a rejection of narrative filmmaking. The piece of art does not need to tell a story, it only needs to illicit a strong emotion reaction from the viewer. And in spite of Lynch's rejection of a coherent storyline, he is able to illicit fear, laughter, suspense, and other emotions out of the viewer with characters that do not have backstories or any relationship with any of the other characters in the movie. The best example in a scene early on in the movie. Two men are eating breakfast at the diner Winky's. One man is describing his dream to the other, which involves both men eating at the very same diner. After eating (in both the dream and reality), the men go outside behind the diner and are scared by a figure that pops up from behind the building. The first man (the dreamer) is overtaken by fear. This is the last we see of the man, although we do learn later that the person behind Winky's was homeless.

This scene is a microcosm of the film as a whole. The fear that the first man is feeling is real, but is being caused by a dream. He should not be scared, but he cannot help himself. Much like the viewer of any film, who has strong emotions to imagined characters and situations. I should not be scared when I watch a scary movie, because it is a movie that is fake. But I do feel scared, almost uncontrollable.

I view this film as a love letter from Lynch to film. If films are good, they force the viewer to lose themselves in the film and allow their emotions to be controlled by a imagined story. By rejecting a coherent story, Lynch praises the medium by showing that these emotional reactions can be just as strong without a story. Unlike novels or plays, filmmakers can use music, pacing, cinematography and other tools to create emotional tension where there is no reasonable reason for that tension to exist.

However, even while praising filmmaking, Lynch is highly critical of Hollywood. The closest thing to a story in this film revolves around Betty, a bright-eyed girl coming to Hollywood to get 'discovered'. Betty, and her new friend Rita (who has been in a car accident and is left without her memory) go on a classic Hollywood mystery. However, after Betty kills at an audition, has sex with Rita, and eye-fucks a young auteur director, she is sucked back into another world. In this new world, she is a struggling actress, who hires a hitman to kill her more successful friend (who is the lead in a movie directed by Mr. Young Auteur Director, whom she also is romantically involved), and then kills herself after a pair of elderly ghosts chase her down a hallway.

Lynch bookends the first part of the story with shots that suggest it is a dream. It opens with a POV shot that ends face down in a pillow and ends with a shot of a cowboy telling Betty to wake up. It is not hard to see that Lynch is playing with this dream of moving to Hollywood and getting discovered. Betty (now called Diane) has awoken from a dream to her shitty life as a Hollywood extra, forced to stand on the sidelines as her friend (and former lover) makes out with someone else. If she ever did have the dream that Lynch suggests she did in the first part of the movie, then she clearly failed. Her failures in life, represented by the elderly people chasing her (the same elderly people wish her luck when she first gets off the plane at the start of the film), chase her down and cause her to kill herself.

David Foster Wallace defined 'Lynchian' as the macabre in the mundane. This film is the opposite of that thesis. Lynch showed how beauty can come out of such a horrible place. Films are beautiful, but they are created in the scary dark place of nightmares, Hollywood.

P.S. Alot of people think that the first 3/4 of the film is a dream and that is why the same actors play different roles after the switch. However, this cannot be true. The best example is that of Coco. Before the switch, she is Betty's aunt's friend who manages the apartment complex Betty and Rita are staying in. After the switch, she is Mr. Young Auteur Director's mother. However, Lynch shows that the first part could not be a dream, because Mr. YAD introduces Diane (aka Betty) to Coco for the first time. How could she be part of Diane's (aka Betty's) dream if they had not yet met. Also, the supernatural stuff that happens before the switch, get explained as not being all that supernatural. However, after the switch, the major supernatural moment happens when those elderly ghosts come from under the door, which is never explained. Lynch goes out of his way to show that the first part seemed more real, while the viewer wants to think it is a dream.

But, in conclusion, it doesnt matter. Lynch is not interested in what you think the story means. All he is concerned with is the reaction you have to the film. He tried to trick you into thinking it all made sense, but it does.

No hay bando.

Lincoln

First of all, I want to apologies for being super late with this post. I could give you a few reasons, but Im not going to.

ANYWAYS

Lincoln has alot of things going for it. For starters, it was directed by American treasure Stevie Spielberg. Second of all, the main character is Honest Abe Lincoln, whom many consider to be one of the best three American Presidents (along with FDR and Washington). Third, the main actor is Daniel Day-Lewis, one of the best working actors. And finally, it is about the end of slavery, which most normal people agree was a pretty amazing thing (ending slavery that is, not slavery itself). It was going to be really tough to fuck this movie up, but that does not mean we shouldnt celebrate it for not sucking.

Lincoln tells the story of how President Lincoln gave a bunch of speeches to various people that would eventually pass the 13th Amendment. And one of the great joys of this movie is watching DDL chew scenery. His stories are soo long and common that at one point he jokes that he would write shorter ones, but he is too lazy to stop once he has started. There is also a very funny moment when Lincoln starts to tell a story (a particularly funny one about a well placed portrait of General George Washington), and some Union General who is fed up with Lincoln's stories gets up and leave, muttering under his breath that he doesnt have time to listen to this shit right now. If you do not like watching people in period outfits give long monologues that meander around the point, you will not like this movie. That is the movie. Sometimes its DDL, sometimes its Sally Field (tremendously playing the crazy Mrs. Lincoln), sometimes its Tommy Lee Jones (playing Thaddeus Stevens in a terrible wig). The rest of the movie is connective tissue, most of which is very enjoyable to watch. James Spader, Tim Blake Nelson, and John Hawkes play a good trio of lobbyists working for Sec. of State Seward, who is working for Mr. Lincoln, of course. The three of them do whatever they can, in a great montage of bribery and corruption, to get the necessary votes to pass the amendment before the Civil War ends.

The conflict of the movie is against time. Lincoln correctly understands that once the Union is unified (WORDPLAY), a majority of the people of the country will still hate black people and refuse to support the amendment. Lincoln, playing the role of master politician, puts Southern leaders in Virginia for a stay while waiting for the amendment to pass, in order to be able to say that no Southern leaders are in Washington working out peace terms. The Amendment was ratified (the yeays have it!) and the movie ends. Except it doesnt, which brings me to my first beef.

This is a movie that has an introduction and an epilogue. The introduction is a very nice scene that revolves around that one kid from Chronicle and Lukas Haas reciting the Gettysburg Address to the President. The epilogue is less pointed and most revolves around everyone being super sad that Lincoln is dead. I have no problem giving the movie bookends, because this is only a small part of the larger story that is Lincoln's life. But the pacing of the end, as well as a perfectly shot false ending, makes the 2.5 hour movie feel like it is dragging for the first time. In my humble opinion, after Lincoln verbally abuses Jackie Earle Haley, the movie should cut to the speech that Lincoln delivers at the end of the film (im guessing it was his inauguration speech for his second term), followed by the scene that ends with Lincoln leaving The White House, heading to Ford Theater. END. It is unnecessary to show his death or him dying because 99.9% of the audience is going to know that Lincoln was shot by Confederate douchebag John Wilkes Booth at Ford Theater. The shot that closes that scene is one of those perfect movie ending shots. The conflict has been defeated, Lincoln is still cracking jokes, and his reputation is set. Nothing after this scene is useful. I dont need to see his son crying, I can reasonable guess that anybody who knew Lincoln during his life, and alot of people who didnt, were pretty devastated by his death. Just end the film when the story is over, and because this wasnt a story of Lincoln's life, his death is unnecessary.

My other problem with this film is the storyline with Joseph Gordon-Levitt. None of the scenes added anything to the character of Lincoln. I could have gotten over it if they story had done something important with the character, but his only contribution is joining the army, which doesnt go anywhere, other than to start a truly amazing fight between the Lincolns. The story already had a father-son relationship between Abe and his youngest, it did not need another one put on top. All of those scenes felt like they were added after the fact. I could also see them ending up on the cutting room floor, only to be reinstated because of the rise of Mr. Gordon-Levitt's stock.

This leads me to my final point. The cast of this movie is amazing. It is soo deep, that I could drown in a pool made up of the discarded coffee thrown away by all the actors i recognize. I will now just name everyone in this film (by actual name, or character i know them as): Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, David Strathairn, D-Day, Tommy Lee Jones, Gale Boetticher, Boyd Crowder, Arnold Rothstein, James Spader, Tim Blake Nelson, The Hardware Jew, Ann from soon to be cancelled show Go On, Jackie Earle Haley, Lane Pryce, The Pin, Andrew from Chronicle, and sociopath/heartthrob Adam from Girls. Most of these people have anywhere from 1-5 lines. It is insane to think of how many people this movie attracted. And they all give great performances with what little they are given, while wearing some amazing facial hair wigs.

But this whole movie gets back to Daniel Day-Lewis. He is one of the finest actors of all time and gives a worthy performance. He brings Lincoln to live like no book could. His love for his wife, his intelligence, and most shockingly, his sense of humor. Working in history, I have come across alot of people who said that Lincoln had a great scene of humor. But it is hard to imagine a man of that stature saying something funny. But that all goes away in the first scene where Lincoln tells a joke about his barbers being unable to cut his hair. "My last barber hanged himself. And the one before that. Left me his scissors in his will." Lincoln is a man who got a great thing done in this movie, but he also knows when it is time to crack a few jokes about problematic white people's hair.

Cloverfield

Cloverfield is the best monster movie I have ever seen. However, it has some flaws. Im willing to overlook alot of things for this movie. For instance, how does Rob get cellphone reception in the subway tunnel? How does Beth (and Rob and Hud, for that matter) survive a helicopter crash after being empailed and left bleeding for hours? How does the glass on the camera not crack during any of the crazy shit Hud puts it through? I willing to overlook all of these things, but I am not willing to overlook the fact that when they turn off the camera occasionally, the tape continues and does not tape over Beth and Rob's Coney Island trip. That shit is too much. I said my beef, now lets move on.

Cloverfield had the odds stacked against it. It has the problem of introducing the viewer to a bunch of charactors right off the bat. Once the shit hits the fan, there is no more time for exposition. By the time the monster attacks, in order for this movie to succeed, the viewer needs to understand the various relationships between the people. It needs to know that Hud has a major crush on Marlena while she couldnt give two shits about him. You need to know how much Rob loves Beth. But most of all, you need to see that look in Rob's eyes when his brother Jason tells him that Rob is not good enough for Beth. That moment is what makes this movie amazing. That moment when you realize that Rob will go through hell and back, which he eventually does, to save Beth. And it all happens during a pretty boring goodbye party filled with people who I do not care about.

People love to shit on found footage movies, and, for the most part, they are right. It is a cheap way to get scares by tunnel-focusing the viewer and only showing them bits and pieces of information. Before Cloverfield, the most note-worthy found footage movie was Blair Witch Project, which everyone thought was super scary when it came out, but in retrospect is really stupid. The camera shakes a bunch, that one chick tells us that she is really scared. And then it ends. Nothing happens! In Cloverfield, a ton of things happen. And JJ Abrams and Drew Gooden (producer/mastermind and screenwriter, respectively) know how to use the benefits of found footage to their advantage.

The key to a good monster movie is not showing the monster. Or, more accurately, showing the monster a piece at a time, and never too soon. Cloverfield uses the tunnel-vision of Hub (our trusty cameraman) to only show the viewer what they see, which is alot, but not alot at the same time. Mostly, Hud shows you the damage that the monster has done the weapons that the government is using to try and stop it.  Mostly, you see everyone freaking out and running. The viewer doesnt really get a good shot of the monster until the end, when it sniffs and then eats poor Hud.

The secret (and not so secret) heroes of this movie is the love story between Rob and Beth. Not only does it drive the story and keep out protagonists in the city, but it is the only romance that makes it to the end. It also leads to the greatest shot the movie has, which is the two of them hugging and kissing while waiting for the helicopter to come save them. The bright lights are shinning in the background, they made it to the helicopters before 6:00am, and it looks like they are going to get out alive. The wind is blowing, and they are alone in the shot, after going through hell to get there.

Unfortunately, the do not survive. Stuck in the blast zone, they each say their goodbyes to the camera as the sirens sound, letting them know that the bombs are coming. Right before it hits, you get a real quick "i love you" from each and thats all she wrote. The final shot of the movie takes us back a month to their Coney Island trip, whose origins started the movie. They embrace, tell the camera that they had a good day and say goodbye.