Quick Hit Cinema
Thoughts, Reviews, passing notes and informal ravings on cinema, filmmaking, and all that is related by me, a notorious headcase, spacecat renegade, and graduate of NYU Film.
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![REACTIONSOnline reaction to this film mostly veers between two poles, from what I’ve been reading. One camp is thrilled with the film and can’t get enough. This stream of talk mostly centers on an emotional response without any in-depth critical thought (which is fine for a person, but we can’t leave it there for our purposes). The movie is fun, it’s poignant, it reminds you of that one time seven years ago….. The other camp offers a racial analysis of the “twee” or “pixie” persona of Summer Finn (played by Zoeey Deschanel), noting that this innocent, fun, forever-young type of character could only be played by a white woman in today’s American culture; a woman of color is saddled with various societal and cultural typing and misperception and will be read (and cast) as either corrupt, sleazy, lascivious, or at the very least, world-wise/street-wise. Never innocent or fey. And their film critique stops there. As you might expect, Quick Hit Cinema straddles both these conversations, and then, seeks to wade further in. The conversation about how the white-perceived person is allowed to be a blank slate, a Universal face, is an important one in critical thinking, in media communication, in writing, and in living in the land that I do. This is a talk that should apply and occur across the spectrum, and when talking about film and visual art in general. But it does our understanding no great boon to pretend that such an insight is enough for any particular piece; that we can turn away from the film once having noted such a truth; that once we find a flaw such as this, we have also unearthed a reason to ignore the entire work. This is one of the reasons I write this blog, as noted in the About page. Cinema reads on so many levels; film offers us so many areas from which to glean information and insight. Let us continue to mine each story for all it might offer us.Further, while I think the aforementioned reality is genuinely off-putting, I can’t help but wonder if something else is at work with the antipathy toward Deschanel’s character.
Let me get to that in a moment.
BREAKDOWNIf you fed Blue Valentine a Xanax and a few hits of Nitrous Oxide, you might get 500 Days of Summer. Okay, that’s not how I was taught to pitch a film, but writing that tickles me at the moment. And, I hope, does offer a Quick Hit understanding of 500 Days of Summer’s shape, tone, and plot.Again, we have a non-linear presentation of a love that didn’t work out. But here, there are no kids, no sneaky ejaculations or almost-abortions, and not a dead pet in sight. Yes, there are a few punches thrown and some alcohol imbibed, but the comparison has to end there. In 500 Days of Summer, everything unfolds with a tint of rose around it. Even the heartache. This is a story of a starry-eyed and unrequited love, not a disintegrated and degraded love. And reminding us of the casual and quirky vibe we are to read it in, Richard McGonagle’s voiceover, nearly self-mocking in its bloated tones of grandeur and drama, accompanies us the whole while.GENRERomantic Comedy. Indie film offers a twist to the typical formula.PLOTBoy Meets Girl. He is a romantic, she is not. He falls in love, she moves on.
TYPING/CASTINGThis is a movie about a world of mostly white folks. There are people of color scattered about here and there, and perhaps we ought to be grateful. They aren’t cast as criminals, but other expected roles for brown folk: as bodega cashiers, or entertainers (some dancers in the flashmob scene; the singer at the wedding). McKenzie (played by Geoffrey Arend), a friend of the lead male role (Tom), is half Pakistani (in real life, not in the film), but that in no way plays into any of the writing, or into his character. His ethnicity is never mentioned, and though he provides the only non-white face, he is of course a supporting character and approaches nothing near a fully developed one.There is no blatant racism, nor noticeable typecasting issues…it’s just that films like this are a bubble. An unrealistic portrayal of which people live in the world. Unless it is filmed in a gated community or wealthy suburb, life just doesn’t look like this. You might think of it as unconsciously racist (or if that feels too harsh, say it is informed by a “stunted social awareness”) in the sense that the writers honestly perceive the world this way: where white people are all that exists or matter.It makes sense when we consider that the primary writer of the screenplay, Scott Neustadter, was born and raised in Margate, New Jersey. Margate itself could be thought of as a bubble, as its demographics (according to the 2000 census) reveal a 95% white population. GENDER Before I go any further, let me get to what I think is distressing to our expectations, at least in some part.Firstly, there is no doubt that the story is sympathetic to Tom, the male lead. It is his story of loss; his story of unrequited love. We begin on him, in his unfulfilling dead-end job. He is surrounded, in an early shot, by people with white hair (this clues us in fast to the idea that as a young man, he is in a tired, end-of-the-line situation). It is a pretty cushy job, no doubt, to those of us who have worked as laborers or in a factory or in some other low-paying, grimy occupation. But cushy as it is, it is not his dream, only a detour that he seems stuck in; penning verse for greeting cards when at heart, he is an architect.Summer enters the scene, and with her, a breath of hope. Tom (and the audience) sees a chance for his escape. An escape from a monotonous, dreary life; a launching pad to magic.We have been shown and told already that Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a romantic, and the way he falls for Summer makes perfect sense in this light. Gordon-Levitt has a warm, humble, and vulnerable quality that works very well in this role, and this provides great opportunity to bond with the protagonist and empathize with his infatuation. Summer herself? What is the great appeal about her? The voiceover informs us of her devastating effect on all men in her path, but…do we see that? Does it really exist? Or is this rare quality sold to us by the script more than anything else?I’d say the latter. And it works, more or less. Summer Finn is a type, however, not a fully-drawn character. Which makes sense contextually, as Tom does not see her as a person, but as a cure to his doldrums; as the perfect girl. I’d submit that she represents to him everything he is not. Brave, self-possessed, spontaneous, unhindered by deep wells of sentiment. Not seeing someone for who they are, but for how they can make you more than what you feel you are is a great recipe for heartbreak. There is one of the lessons of this story.So we watch our dear, naive Tom Hansen get his wide open bursting heart smashed to pieces. We watch his attention and affections eventually prove ineffective; where once the music he loved was delightful to Summer’s ears, comes the day she can’t even hear it anymore. The shift in her feelings is made very clear in a scene where his protectiveness is read as unwanted possessiveness, and he ends up getting in a fistfight in reaction to an overbearing advance on Summer made in a bar. (Of course, Tom—being who he is—hardly emerges the victor.)Here, the film very much does what Blue Valentine does: illustrates that mystical dynamic caused by the presence (or absence) of love. How that changes everything. And how elusive it is…one day making everything golden in the meadow of your life, and the next day, leaving a barren, wintry field. Nothing has changed…but the sun. Where did it go? How do you get it back? You cannot. So, I think the first and obvious frustration we have as viewers is simply watching this love story slip away. That, in and of itself goes against type. Against the type of genre we are watching, and against general expectations in such a storyline. Tom is a genuine guy; a nice guy. A good fellow. And he falls head over heels with a girl who is a bit cavalier, a bit self-absorbed, perhaps. Ultimately, she feels uncaring and dismissive of him. And dammit, Tom doesn’t deserve this!BUT what I think aggravates this is that gender essentialism has been turned on its head. Summer is playing the typically male role, and Tom is playing the typically female role. And when the formulas we have been sold for so many years by so many angles of our surrounding culture is upended? Everything feels strange to us.For example, men are allowed to be loud, self-assertive, a bit cocky, and sexually promiscuous. All these traits are culturally flagged as masculine. When we see a (white) male acting this way, it fits with society’s lessons, and feels “right.” Comes across as positive. But if we see a Black, Chinese, or Mexicano acting this way, it comes across differently. Suddenly then, you hear words like “uppity,” or “acting superior,” or “Aggressive” or a host of other terms intended to frame the man as dangerous or ugly; intended to shove the person of color back into their expected role of deferent, quiet, inferior, and subservient. In terms of sexual behavior, mainstream society will not read such behavior as positive with men of color, but as proof of a degenerate nature.If a woman (of any color, tho white women are given a bit more leeway, of course) acts loud, self-assertive, or bold, she is a “bitch.” Plain and simple. She will be called “abrasive,” or “cold,” if she is self-possessed. If she doesn’t act like she is there to be schooled by men, she may be called a “know it all” or “full of herself” or (finally), a “dyke.” And so on. Regarding the sexual promiscuity, whereas a white male can bed a different woman every month and be thought of as some kind of conqueror or Cassanova, a woman will soon gain a reputation for being suspect, foul, amoral, and tainted. I think Summer Finn confronts gender essentialism and sexist typing by inhabiting a typically male space in 500 Days of Summer. Summer Finn (as 50 Cent says in Candy Shop) “ain’t into making love,” she’s “into having sex.” Summer isn’t in it for the long haul. She doesn’t want to hear whining about What It All Means; she doesn’t want to have a long, intimate conversation. (As opposed to Tom, who, at about 1:12 in the film, asserts to best friend MacKenzie that “I don’t wanna talk about it” MacKenzie replies “You always wanna Talk About It!”) Summer doesn’t see herself as Nancy, but as Sid. She is questioned as to whether or not she is a lesbian. She is not starry-eyed over love. She makes the first move. She is self-possessed. She lets a potential lover know not to get too attached or serious. She doesn’t listen with rapt attention or fawning affection and deference to Tom when he first tells his story to her, but confronts him on his inaction in life, adopting that typically-masculine presumptuousness and arrogance to speedily tell someone they have just met how to live their own life. The story was based on a real life heartbreak, as indicated in the opening text, dedicated to a “Jenny Beckman.” Interestingly, when the writer (Neustadter) showed her the script, she said she related more to Tom than to Summer.It’s too bad that Neustadter’s script is only half-aware of the gender essentialism it is toying with. In the end, the film dances on the edge of this awareness, but never fully realizes it or wields the contradiction in a way that might instruct us or elevate consciousness. Instead, we simply travel the well-worn paths of essentialism and typical reactions to this essentialism. We see hints of this awareness/obliviousness in dialogue about her typically-male sexual behavior (“she’s a dude!”); even in the voiceover’s flat assertion that “there are two types of people in this world: Men, and Women.” There is no question mark, and no irony. There should be. CINEMATIC VOCABULARY [see Legend page for explanation of phrase]I could list moments and techniques throughout the entire film, but I’ll just go through a handful, to keep this already lengthy post from becoming epically long.—• The split-screen parallel cutting in the opening of the film where we see, side by side, the young Tom and Summer growing up indicates that they are fated to meet, and fated to be together. This sets up an expectation in us that is further reinforced by the opening shots of the movie proper, wherein they are on a bench holding hands, and we cut to an ECU (Extreme Close Up) of Summer’s engagement ring. Tension is provided by the voiceover, which warns us in the opposite direction. I find it interesting that at least in the early home movie shots, while most of it is simply activities children and adolescents typically engage in (balancing, going on rides, swings, soccer, guitar, gymnastics), an early juxtaposition is the young Tom running with a woman (mother?) who is holding his hand, while Summer is going down a slide on her own. Intended or not, this mirrors nicely the overall characters they will play. Tom, the dependent one; Summer, the carefree independent one. (Tom’s dependence upon women is a part of his character, reinforced in many ways. For example, when he is in trouble, it is his younger sister who comes to his rescue.)These montages end nicely by intertwining. Summer blows dandelion spores screen left, and bubbles enter Tom’s side of the screen, from screen right. This neat graphic match cements the idea that they are partners in destiny.—• Over a shot of a young Summer Finn cutting a huge swath of her own hair off, the narrator tells us that she loves two things in life: her long, dark hair, and cutting it off without feeling much about it. We know, by this, that she is apt to change her mind quickly and drastically, and is unsentimental about it. The construction paper art stuck into the lower right corner of her mirror shows us a depiction of herself with long hair on the left, and short hair on the right. This is how she is cutting it as we watch. This informs us that this hair cutting has happened before, and thus, her mercurial nature is a long-time pattern for her, and part of her personality. —• Choice of the Cinematographer (or director) to go with handheld camera in the karaoke bar. It’s not a bold, new, or surprising move. It’s a standard decision, as the locked-down tripod movement would mute some of the energy. You could get away with either, but it’s a good choice. The DP doesn’t go all Blair-Witch crazy with it, just a bit of “breathing” of the lens so we feel we are in the space, and resonating with that night time, good fun, bar scene energy.—• When Summer is first introduced to Tom’s workplace (and to Tom), behind her on the wall is a large poster print of a man in bed, and a woman standing over him. Could this read as her savior status in Tom’s lovestruck mind? Does it place her, the woman, superior to/stronger than the supine man? As already mentioned, Tom is posed as dependent in this sense. His younger sister knows more about PMS than he does; he can’t even beat her at video games; he is posed as Nancy to Summer’s Sid…. Throughout the film, this style of relationship to women is reiterated. Even during one of his most angry moments, storming out of Summer’s apartment as their relationship truly begins to unravel, he is forced to step aside and let two women pass as they make their way up the stairs. Does Tom see himself this way, though? You’d guess not. He was shocked to learn that he was the Nancy of the couple, after all. In addition, during a tearful and painful phase of epiphany, as he flees the rooftop party (Expectations/Reality scene), what song plays? Regina Spektor’s Hero, in which she plaintively cries “I’m the hero of the story, I don’t need to be saved.” But Tom does, and did. —• The film’s color palette is pretty true to a dark, muted, but warm one. Lots of cocoa, tan, gray, charcoal, black, light blue, olive, deep mustard, browns. Absent are deeply-saturated or vibrant tones. An exception is Tom’s younger sister, who is seen more than once in bright, warm colors. Another exception? During the post-coital, bouncy, crowd-dance/flashmob scene set to Hall and Oates’ You Make My Dreams Come True, some vibrant turquoise and blues (and the marching band brings lots of gold) enter the picture. —• Summer, being that vibrant spark that the stuck and subdued Toms of the world seek to help them launch themselves into a wilder or more energized realm, does her job, ultimately. It is from the ashes of his broken heart that he finally returns to his dream of architecture—just as she advised in one of their very first conversations. A peppy song kicks in, and he finally gets up off of his bed and attacks the chalkboard. This is intercut with Summer’s wedding vows to her True Love. The lyrics of the song confide in us that “I”ll tell you everything about being free….”Note that this metaphor of Summer being the liaison that connects Tom back to his dream is manifested in his drawing on her arm to communicate his plans for the city. She is the canvas upon which he sketches the outline of his calling, once again.FINAL and PERSONAL THOUGHTS:People who find Zoeey Deschanel’s character distasteful don’t need to worry, I think. She won’t be playing this “pixie” character much longer. Honestly, even in some of the scenes she was supposed to be in her late teens or early 20s, I wasn’t quite buying it. I think she’ll have to make a transition soon to a more mature role, and I wonder if she won’t become more interesting as an actor when she does. Sort of how I’ve grown more fond of Leo DiCaprio as he roughened up with age.—The movie really is a lot of fun. What with the voiceover, the flashbacks in a 1940s style 16mm newsreel feel, the nonlinear segments, the circularity in a few cases, the bluebird-accompanied flashmob in the park, the excellently apt soundtrack. It’s just a lot of fun. I also have a thing for sing-a-long scenes, and I enjoyed the karaoke.—We all have had our heart broken. It’s an essential part of being alive and being human. That’s why movies like this will always resonate. Perhaps most of us also understand what it’s like to project too much onto another person, only to be let down. I’ve been Summer more than once to a Tom. And then (was it 1991) I was, unmistakeably, Tom. It was pretty painful in just about the way this film depicts. I think they get it right, there. That desperate feeling as you realize you are no longer loved back. The way the little things that used to send her reeling, now just send her packing. That frustration of watching her take it all so casually; bouncing away as you feel siphoned of everything inspiring that once lived inside your heart. That flailing, that falling, that bittersweet ache just to see her once again—even if for her it is a lunch date and for you it is a last grasp at sanity. Expectations murdered by reality. Trying too hard, going out on new dates but only talking or thinking about your last lover when on them. And under it all, feeling that the pain will never pass and that there is nobody else for you on this whole, big, blue, ball of mud.
But it will, and there is. And then one day, maybe you’ll make a movie about it.Did you have a Summer in your life, Nancy?](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lnh4zdnUO01qltpxuo1_500.jpg)
REACTIONS
Online reaction to this film mostly veers between two poles, from what I’ve been reading. One camp is thrilled with the film and can’t get enough. This stream of talk mostly centers on an emotional response without any in-depth critical thought (which is fine for a person, but we can’t leave it there for our purposes). The movie is fun, it’s poignant, it reminds you of that one time seven years ago…..
The other camp offers a racial analysis of the “twee” or “pixie” persona of Summer Finn (played by Zoeey Deschanel), noting that this innocent, fun, forever-young type of character could only be played by a white woman in today’s American culture; a woman of color is saddled with various societal and cultural typing and misperception and will be read (and cast) as either corrupt, sleazy, lascivious, or at the very least, world-wise/street-wise. Never innocent or fey. And their film critique stops there.
As you might expect, Quick Hit Cinema straddles both these conversations, and then, seeks to wade further in. The conversation about how the white-perceived person is allowed to be a blank slate, a Universal face, is an important one in critical thinking, in media communication, in writing, and in living in the land that I do. This is a talk that should apply and occur across the spectrum, and when talking about film and visual art in general. But it does our understanding no great boon to pretend that such an insight is enough for any particular piece; that we can turn away from the film once having noted such a truth; that once we find a flaw such as this, we have also unearthed a reason to ignore the entire work. This is one of the reasons I write this blog, as noted in the About page. Cinema reads on so many levels; film offers us so many areas from which to glean information and insight. Let us continue to mine each story for all it might offer us.
Further, while I think the aforementioned reality is genuinely off-putting, I can’t help but wonder if something else is at work with the antipathy toward Deschanel’s character.Let me get to that in a moment.
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Photo reblogged from The Smithian
If A Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front, is the latest documentary from…Marshall Curry, who received an Oscar nomination for his 2005 documentary Street Fight, chronicling Cory Booker’s 2002 unsuccessful mayoral campaign in the state of New Jersey. It chronicles the rise and fall of a decentralized network of covert cells known collectively as the ELF, who used “economic sabotage and guerrilla warfare to stop the exploitation and destruction of the environment,” and features interviews with former ELF members, their arson victims, lawmakers, policemen involved in the cases, and archival footage of several ELF attacks. In 2005, the FBI called ELF America’s greatest domestic terrorist threat, responsible for over 1,200 acts of crime and nearly $100 million in property damage.
more, here.
environmental activism is huge in my area. the FBI has been involved many times. i featured one of their targets in a past video i made when working for MTV News’ Street Team. i’d love to see this film.
(Source: thesmithian)
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Link reblogged from reaching the shore
The latest writing on film over at my movie-review/talk Tumblr, Quick Hit Cinema.
I absolutely love this review. The only thing I’d add/change is I would recommend it to recent divorcees (and whatever you call people who were engaged or in a long-term relationship).
My friend and I dubbed ourselves the break-up buddies when we decided to watch this movie together about 6 months after her divorce and 3 months after breaking up with my fiance. It was hard for us to sit through at moments, but it also felt great to see it all play out on the big screen. It made us feel like we weren’t totally nuts or complete failures or whatever we were feeling at the time. We had a couple of beers after and then kept talking about it days and weeks later. It stuck with us and we weren’t totally sure why. It was painful, but the pain was welcome and gave us another chance to mourn what we had lost (probably not the right word, but the best I can think of).
Anyway, yes, I really liked this movie and the review is great.
okay. good point. thank you.
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![[in time i will assume all readers of this blog have already read the About and Legend pages and thus understand my writing here will always have spoilers, but for now, i’ll remind you up front]
Genre: Sci-Fi/Action. Pitch Description: Bullet Train meets Groundhog Day meets Avatar.
I am not terribly fond of the Hollywood shorthand of X meets X (we were actually trained to size up our films this way at NYU cuz if you’re gonna be in the biz, you have to be able to communicate what your movie is about and without wasting words or time), as it’s always imperfect, terribly reductive by nature, and potentially a bit insulting to any film not in the Fockers series, because of that. But it works to give a “quick hit” overview of what to expect from a movie. As long as we understand its limitations.
THEME
Source Code is a film, in theme, about identity; about sacrifice; about consciousness; about Doing Good and what that means to the self as well as to the larger community. The story itself is a bit more complicated to describe, but definitely fun to watch unfold.
RUNDOWN
In Source Code, we are dropped into the opening scene much as the protagonist (Captain Colter Stevens as played by Jake Gyllenhaal) is dropped into it. Without any knowledge of what is going on, without knowing who the woman is who is speaking to him, without any idea of who he is. This makes sense in our case, as we are a movie audience. But in Captain Colter’s case this makes less sense because he is a character written into the film!
But is he really Captain Colter? The woman laughs this off, when he tries to assert his identity. And it turns out the reason she laughs this off is because in reality, he is not on that train, but curled up in some kind of coma, his legs blown off from a mission gone bad in Afghanistan. In an Inception (or Existenz?) sort of way, he is projecting his consciousness into another place. This place is a supposed 8-minute afterglow of brain activity that occurs after death. Colter explores the memory of a particular passenger on that train in an attempt to discover who bombs the train, killing everyone on it. He relives the 8 minutes prior to the explosion over and over in an attempt to (in turns) find the bomber, defuse the bomb, save the woman he is speaking to, and find out what happened to him.
NARRATIVE PROBLEMS
This is a great idea, but I had some issues with the plausibility of it. First was the quick explanation given for why he was chosen. He was the ‘closest match’ to the host passenger in terms of physique and “synapse mapping” (or “neural mapping” or something). Okay. I guess we can go with that to get on with enjoying the plot…but it’s a bit weak. We are handed that line and no more. Why does it matter if he looks like the host? Okay, so the peoples’ reception of him is less jarring to his mind. Perhaps so he doesn’t waste lots of time adjusting to a different “operating system.” But I think we could have been given another sentence or two of that nature so a pivotal plot point didn’t feel like rushed. I don’t really think that will bother most, nor should it stop you from enjoying the plot, but it felt a bit shoddy to me and then I was at least momentarily preoccupied with the questions I just listed…which is not what a director wants.
But my second issue (and this is further reinforcement for the argument that certain areas were hastily addressed so we could explore the plot point) is a bit more important a contention: if Colter is not actually creating new events, but only living in the memory of a person since dead (the explanation given by Dude With A Cane), how can he see things that were never seen by that person? How can he find the bomb? How can he go into a parking lot and find a van and see inside that, interacting with the bomber? I assume all he can use is imagination (either his, or okay, maybe the dead persons’), or memory. But the train itself is blown up, the bathroom where he finds the bomb, blown into powder. So how can he explore that geography and find things that no longer exist? How can he find the bomber’s cell phone and dial a number on it?
But don’t stop there, because the end of the film has a Deus Ex Machina feel to it when Colter asserts that he is not, in fact, just able to use the memories and past observation of the dead person who serves as his host in this experiment, but actually able to create new reality. In the past. Somehow. And because of this, we get our happy ending. Hmm.
The problem is, we cannot honestly reconcile this, given the context of the narrative, and the information we are first offered within which to understand the events. When you are writing a story, you must indicate the parameters of possibility early on. This is what makes the difference between plausibility and what will feel like a cheap trick.
In other words, if a person in a violent confrontation suddenly discovers they have super powers that enable them to be as acrobatic as a spider, you must procede this event with a seed of potential; you must give the audience an indication of how this could occur. The story may be fantastic, and that’s cool. But the internal logic of the story must be sound. In this example, you could achieve that by, say, having a radioactive spider bite the protagonist earlier on in the day.
If a person is going to be trapped on a rooftop, but use their jacket to escape by fashioning a parachute at the last minute, nobody will buy it if there is no previous indication that this is possible. For example, if the movie begins with them working in a parachute factory, we will believe it later when they put that knowledge to use in a quick bind. [Exception: A non-linear film that begins with the rooftop escape scene, and later attends to the backstory of parachute factory is possible. But then, even tho this film is all about bending time, it nonetheless is a linear narrative in terms of the resolution coming at the end, and the lead up to that resolution occurring linearly and previously.]
So when Colter saves the day and proves all the military’s people wrong about their own project, it rings false. Sure, we want a happy ending, but all parameters proposed early on do not allow for this possibility. We at least need some indication that the makers of the program do not understand their own program. All this would take is a few lines, or one scene early on wherein Dude With A Cane indicates the program is being rushed ahead of schedule. Perhaps a line like “There is an anomalous area in the code that leads me to believe we should wait before implementing this program.” That’s all! Or something like him on a phone with someone else, arguing against putting the experiment into effect. “I’m worried, Bill. All the results aren’t in, and our last subject’s interaction with the source code seemed to create changes in the base algorithm that I can’t account for.” And with this, in our minds is planted the idea that something unexpected could happen. And thus, when the happy ending comes along and completely subverts Dude With A Cane’s understanding and explanation of the program and its behaviors, we don’t feel ripped off by a fast one.
TYPING
Okay, another movie with the White Male Lead. Then again, a white male made this film, so why not. We tend to make characters who reflect our own identity, for the most part. We can call out and work against the tendency for Hollywood to preference certain casting and typing and storylines, but we can’t really blame a person for having their protagonist reflect their own self image. Or we can, but that remains an unrealistic and unfair complaint.
The other two major players are (white) women. Also, the villain is a white male. So at least we don’t fall into the worst of traps, vilifying people of color. Or do we?
Dude With A Cane is black. At first, I am thinking, okay, cool. Person of color depicted as an authority; in power; and a Good Guy. But not much longer I am realizing that Dude With A Cane is not so much a good guy. Furthermore, he is disabled. So we have a black, disabled dude who ends up being selfish, and immoral. Not so great.
The heroes of the film are Goodwin (a white woman), and Colter.
OTHER THOUGHTS
The director of this film is Duncan Jones, who also made Moon, a film that debuted to critical acclaim and won awards, though snubbed by the Oscars. I loved Moon. (A bit tangentially related: Duncan Jones is David Bowie’s son. Which makes for an interesting correlation between one of Bowie’s most famous songs, and Jones’ first film. Ground Control to Major Tom…Ground Control to Major Tom…)
I’m not surprised that both films were made by Jones. Both films deal with very similar themes. In both films, a male protagonist is deceived, is isolated, is not who he thinks he is, and is being used by greater powers to enact an agenda. In both cases, the protagonist escapes his predicament with inside help. And both deal very much with identity, consciousness, perception, and how these three things come together and come apart.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lneyshDo2I1qltpxuo1_r1_500.jpg)
[in time i will assume all readers of this blog have already read the About and Legend pages and thus understand my writing here will always have spoilers, but for now, i’ll remind you up front]
Genre: Sci-Fi/Action. Pitch Description: Bullet Train meets Groundhog Day meets Avatar.
I am not terribly fond of the Hollywood shorthand of X meets X (we were actually trained to size up our films this way at NYU cuz if you’re gonna be in the biz, you have to be able to communicate what your movie is about and without wasting words or time), as it’s always imperfect, terribly reductive by nature, and potentially a bit insulting to any film not in the Fockers series, because of that. But it works to give a “quick hit” overview of what to expect from a movie. As long as we understand its limitations.
THEME
Source Code is a film, in theme, about identity; about sacrifice; about consciousness; about Doing Good and what that means to the self as well as to the larger community. The story itself is a bit more complicated to describe, but definitely fun to watch unfold.
RUNDOWN
In Source Code, we are dropped into the opening scene much as the protagonist (Captain Colter Stevens as played by Jake Gyllenhaal) is dropped into it. Without any knowledge of what is going on, without knowing who the woman is who is speaking to him, without any idea of who he is. This makes sense in our case, as we are a movie audience. But in Captain Colter’s case this makes less sense because he is a character written into the film!
But is he really Captain Colter? The woman laughs this off, when he tries to assert his identity. And it turns out the reason she laughs this off is because in reality, he is not on that train, but curled up in some kind of coma, his legs blown off from a mission gone bad in Afghanistan. In an Inception (or Existenz?) sort of way, he is projecting his consciousness into another place. This place is a supposed 8-minute afterglow of brain activity that occurs after death. Colter explores the memory of a particular passenger on that train in an attempt to discover who bombs the train, killing everyone on it. He relives the 8 minutes prior to the explosion over and over in an attempt to (in turns) find the bomber, defuse the bomb, save the woman he is speaking to, and find out what happened to him.
NARRATIVE PROBLEMS
This is a great idea, but I had some issues with the plausibility of it. First was the quick explanation given for why he was chosen. He was the ‘closest match’ to the host passenger in terms of physique and “synapse mapping” (or “neural mapping” or something). Okay. I guess we can go with that to get on with enjoying the plot…but it’s a bit weak. We are handed that line and no more. Why does it matter if he looks like the host? Okay, so the peoples’ reception of him is less jarring to his mind. Perhaps so he doesn’t waste lots of time adjusting to a different “operating system.” But I think we could have been given another sentence or two of that nature so a pivotal plot point didn’t feel like rushed. I don’t really think that will bother most, nor should it stop you from enjoying the plot, but it felt a bit shoddy to me and then I was at least momentarily preoccupied with the questions I just listed…which is not what a director wants.
But my second issue (and this is further reinforcement for the argument that certain areas were hastily addressed so we could explore the plot point) is a bit more important a contention: if Colter is not actually creating new events, but only living in the memory of a person since dead (the explanation given by Dude With A Cane), how can he see things that were never seen by that person? How can he find the bomb? How can he go into a parking lot and find a van and see inside that, interacting with the bomber? I assume all he can use is imagination (either his, or okay, maybe the dead persons’), or memory. But the train itself is blown up, the bathroom where he finds the bomb, blown into powder. So how can he explore that geography and find things that no longer exist? How can he find the bomber’s cell phone and dial a number on it?
But don’t stop there, because the end of the film has a Deus Ex Machina feel to it when Colter asserts that he is not, in fact, just able to use the memories and past observation of the dead person who serves as his host in this experiment, but actually able to create new reality. In the past. Somehow. And because of this, we get our happy ending. Hmm.
The problem is, we cannot honestly reconcile this, given the context of the narrative, and the information we are first offered within which to understand the events. When you are writing a story, you must indicate the parameters of possibility early on. This is what makes the difference between plausibility and what will feel like a cheap trick.
In other words, if a person in a violent confrontation suddenly discovers they have super powers that enable them to be as acrobatic as a spider, you must procede this event with a seed of potential; you must give the audience an indication of how this could occur. The story may be fantastic, and that’s cool. But the internal logic of the story must be sound. In this example, you could achieve that by, say, having a radioactive spider bite the protagonist earlier on in the day.
If a person is going to be trapped on a rooftop, but use their jacket to escape by fashioning a parachute at the last minute, nobody will buy it if there is no previous indication that this is possible. For example, if the movie begins with them working in a parachute factory, we will believe it later when they put that knowledge to use in a quick bind. [Exception: A non-linear film that begins with the rooftop escape scene, and later attends to the backstory of parachute factory is possible. But then, even tho this film is all about bending time, it nonetheless is a linear narrative in terms of the resolution coming at the end, and the lead up to that resolution occurring linearly and previously.]
So when Colter saves the day and proves all the military’s people wrong about their own project, it rings false. Sure, we want a happy ending, but all parameters proposed early on do not allow for this possibility. We at least need some indication that the makers of the program do not understand their own program. All this would take is a few lines, or one scene early on wherein Dude With A Cane indicates the program is being rushed ahead of schedule. Perhaps a line like “There is an anomalous area in the code that leads me to believe we should wait before implementing this program.” That’s all! Or something like him on a phone with someone else, arguing against putting the experiment into effect. “I’m worried, Bill. All the results aren’t in, and our last subject’s interaction with the source code seemed to create changes in the base algorithm that I can’t account for.” And with this, in our minds is planted the idea that something unexpected could happen. And thus, when the happy ending comes along and completely subverts Dude With A Cane’s understanding and explanation of the program and its behaviors, we don’t feel ripped off by a fast one.
TYPING
Okay, another movie with the White Male Lead. Then again, a white male made this film, so why not. We tend to make characters who reflect our own identity, for the most part. We can call out and work against the tendency for Hollywood to preference certain casting and typing and storylines, but we can’t really blame a person for having their protagonist reflect their own self image. Or we can, but that remains an unrealistic and unfair complaint.
The other two major players are (white) women. Also, the villain is a white male. So at least we don’t fall into the worst of traps, vilifying people of color. Or do we?
Dude With A Cane is black. At first, I am thinking, okay, cool. Person of color depicted as an authority; in power; and a Good Guy. But not much longer I am realizing that Dude With A Cane is not so much a good guy. Furthermore, he is disabled. So we have a black, disabled dude who ends up being selfish, and immoral. Not so great.
The heroes of the film are Goodwin (a white woman), and Colter.
OTHER THOUGHTS
The director of this film is Duncan Jones, who also made Moon, a film that debuted to critical acclaim and won awards, though snubbed by the Oscars. I loved Moon. (A bit tangentially related: Duncan Jones is David Bowie’s son. Which makes for an interesting correlation between one of Bowie’s most famous songs, and Jones’ first film. Ground Control to Major Tom…Ground Control to Major Tom…)
I’m not surprised that both films were made by Jones. Both films deal with very similar themes. In both films, a male protagonist is deceived, is isolated, is not who he thinks he is, and is being used by greater powers to enact an agenda. In both cases, the protagonist escapes his predicament with inside help. And both deal very much with identity, consciousness, perception, and how these three things come together and come apart.
-
![[in time i will assume all readers of this blog have already read the About and Legend pages and thus understand my writing here will always have spoilers, but for now, i’ll remind you up front]
“some movies are meant to be felt and thought about.” —FashionistaZapatista
i thought i’d cough this movie up like a hairball and move on to something sumptuous. it bothered me. it upset me. it punched my belly and turned away, walked away. it gave me no after-dinner mint. it gave not even a transparent lie to ease my pain. it just showed me something that could have been beautiful but instead blossomed into an unsolvable pain, and then left me to deal with it. and i wanted to hate it forever and always for that. because i don’t need any more real life apart from what real life gives me already.
but the film would not be dismissed so curtly. it worked on me for days, as i pored over its vignettes, its ugly realities, its sweet grasping at something just beyond reach. there was truth in there. and that’s what cinema is about. not happy endings. not pat resolutions. not predictable third act chases that end in capture, and not sensible narratives. when it’s good, that’s what film is about. truth. and good doesn’t always mean pleasing. not in the world of art.the film opens with a child screaming herself raw in the throat searching for a pet. a pet that is dead, though the girl doesn’t know it yet. and there you go. i know when a director/writer uses good metaphor in the first five to ten minutes of film to tell my heart what, at heart, her/his film is about that i’m usually in good hands.
so let me give you the basics: it’s a non-linear tale, told in segments, out of order segments, about a love between a (white) man and a (white) woman that degrades until it is nothing at all. there is no “yeah, but.” there is no Saving Grace. it was pretty nervy of the movie poster to bill this as “A Love Story,” and perhaps that suggests we examine our definition of what a “Love Story” is. blue valentine is included in online lists like “Most Depressing Movies” for a reason. and yet, it is not polar. there is bright light. there is sweetness. it just doesn’t pan out in the end. and it doesn’t really give you a good reason. or maybe it gives you many, many good reasons.yet are any of them sufficient to land us where we do? the story—their story—offers problems, sure. he’s a drinker. she’s become unfeeling. she had an affair. he is not loaded with ambition. and yet. yet, the beauty of the film is what is not shown, i think. (which generally means a lot of backstory and off-screen direction/acting exercises have gone on.) beyond these revealed flaws in their relationship, there is something more undermining, or tying all those things together at work…that anti-grace that sometimes worms its way into couplings that in time erodes the most golden bonds, and all over what ends up feeling like a roll of the dice. if only a left turn were made instead of a right turn. if only that afternoon had ended just a bit differently….if only.
but nowhere is a solid and inarguable reason why their love could not have worked. and we need to thank the writer for not foisting a hard lump on a spoon upon us. that would have been too easy. why couldnt it have worked? why didn’t it work, we want to yell, by the end. watching the child cling to “daddy” as he walks away, all hope discarded as he tells her to go back to her mother. his voice is different, now. drained of color, and made all the more evident by the fireworks going off on the horizon as he departs. there will be no more special nights in the Future Room. there will be no more snoozing on the couch waiting for mama to return. the family pet is dead. by now, i think the lack of a reason why is intentional. just as we are left with a nonsensical gap and no explanation when love fades or flees, so does the movie echo this senseless dissolution.—both characters are sympathetic to us. i think that’s a big part of what makes this movie masterful. we cannot watch it and say “Oh what a terrible drunkard who beats his woman and cheats! Good, it’s over!” for he is the thoughtful and kind one. he is the faithful one. he only wants her love to live. then again, it’s not that simply weighted either. he drinks, and yes, we see it turn into violence. on the other hand, this violence erupts toward a doctor who has been working on bedding his wife. there’s a certain blunt, blue-collar/working class satisfaction in seeing him put a halt to this snotty and assuming doctor’s intrusion, i’ll admit. furthermore, this violent potential is countered when we see how, even when she request it be directed at her (in the form of rough sex), he refuses to bring it to that level. he truly loves her and that is clear. he has taken on the job of raising another man’s child—a man who jumped him and beat him down—and he is devoted to that child, and that child is devoted to him.though the writers and director (Derek Cianfrance) clearly favor Dean, the male lead in terms of drawing a full three-dimensional character, nor can we look at Cindy (the woman lead) and say “Oh, what a horrible woman! How cruel she is to this sweet man! Good, it ended!” because we see her as so very human. we see that it escapes even her why she cannot love him the way he seems to deserve. and we understand why her love has faded in the face of let-down. we cannot help but admire her for her dreams. her dreams of escaping an abusive father, a terrible home life, becoming a doctor…we cannot help but feel then, for the sagging of those dreams, precipitated, perhaps, when her previous jerk boyfriend gets her pregnant out of unconcern or selfishness. we watch her dance to Dean’s ukelele, we saw her in her younger and carefree days and we know that she is as lost as we are in how this all came about. i appreciate the ambiguity strewn about; the hints at a Why, and how they are never harshly underlined or belabored. one such example is how Cindy berates Dean for his lack of ambition or in having a dream. we can read that as her own regret for abandoning her dream of being a doctor. but the crumbs are only laying about for us to sniff out if we are so inclined. nobody force-feeds us heavy-handed exposition.it is that complexity i end up loving this movie for portraying. the tangled weave of love, and the paths down which it disappears are hard ones to discern, let alone portray. this complexity of the human spirit, i think, is captured brilliantly (and uncomfortably) in one scene where Cindy ends up being friendly (or is it flabbergasted and stunned? afraid? either way, it comes off as inappropriately amiable) toward a man from her past who was abusive sexually and who assaulted her husband but who pops up at the supermarket to proposition her, of all things. in real life during such moments we often react in those befuddled ways that cause us to lose sleep later, wishing later we had reeled off a movie-line that put the loser in his place and that helped us retain our dignity. but this film does not allow us even movie-line fantasy. it drags you through such moments—ones that might echo moments in your own life you had hoped to forget or gloss over—and it makes you sit and watch them unfold, painfully slow. as with all movies, this one might not affect you the same way as it did me. we bring to a film our own backstory. what is unbearable to watch for one person may simply be confusing or dull to another. yet, the featured foibles and flaws of the human condition have a universal feel to them. in the end, it’s hard to recommend the film to anyone but avid film buffs, or people who love to nurse an aching heart. i certainly don’t recommend it to recent divorcees or those struggling with a marriage in jeopardy (EDIT: though on second thought…). but i do admire the writers, director, and editor (and actors) for bring brave and illustrating how hard it can be, sometimes, to be human and grappling with life and love.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lnewrv34bL1qltpxuo1_500.png)
[in time i will assume all readers of this blog have already read the About and Legend pages and thus understand my writing here will always have spoilers, but for now, i’ll remind you up front]
“some movies are meant to be felt and thought about.”
—FashionistaZapatistai thought i’d cough this movie up like a hairball and move on to something sumptuous. it bothered me. it upset me. it punched my belly and turned away, walked away. it gave me no after-dinner mint. it gave not even a transparent lie to ease my pain. it just showed me something that could have been beautiful but instead blossomed into an unsolvable pain, and then left me to deal with it. and i wanted to hate it forever and always for that. because i don’t need any more real life apart from what real life gives me already.
but the film would not be dismissed so curtly. it worked on me for days, as i pored over its vignettes, its ugly realities, its sweet grasping at something just beyond reach. there was truth in there. and that’s what cinema is about. not happy endings. not pat resolutions. not predictable third act chases that end in capture, and not sensible narratives. when it’s good, that’s what film is about. truth. and good doesn’t always mean pleasing. not in the world of art.
the film opens with a child screaming herself raw in the throat searching for a pet. a pet that is dead, though the girl doesn’t know it yet. and there you go. i know when a director/writer uses good metaphor in the first five to ten minutes of film to tell my heart what, at heart, her/his film is about that i’m usually in good hands.so let me give you the basics: it’s a non-linear tale, told in segments, out of order segments, about a love between a (white) man and a (white) woman that degrades until it is nothing at all. there is no “yeah, but.” there is no Saving Grace. it was pretty nervy of the movie poster to bill this as “A Love Story,” and perhaps that suggests we examine our definition of what a “Love Story” is.
blue valentine is included in online lists like “Most Depressing Movies” for a reason. and yet, it is not polar. there is bright light. there is sweetness. it just doesn’t pan out in the end. and it doesn’t really give you a good reason. or maybe it gives you many, many good reasons.
yet are any of them sufficient to land us where we do? the story—their story—offers problems, sure. he’s a drinker. she’s become unfeeling. she had an affair. he is not loaded with ambition. and yet. yet, the beauty of the film is what is not shown, i think. (which generally means a lot of backstory and off-screen direction/acting exercises have gone on.) beyond these revealed flaws in their relationship, there is something more undermining, or tying all those things together at work…that anti-grace that sometimes worms its way into couplings that in time erodes the most golden bonds, and all over what ends up feeling like a roll of the dice. if only a left turn were made instead of a right turn. if only that afternoon had ended just a bit differently….if only.but nowhere is a solid and inarguable reason why their love could not have worked. and we need to thank the writer for not foisting a hard lump on a spoon upon us. that would have been too easy.
why couldnt it have worked? why didn’t it work, we want to yell, by the end. watching the child cling to “daddy” as he walks away, all hope discarded as he tells her to go back to her mother. his voice is different, now. drained of color, and made all the more evident by the fireworks going off on the horizon as he departs. there will be no more special nights in the Future Room. there will be no more snoozing on the couch waiting for mama to return. the family pet is dead.
by now, i think the lack of a reason why is intentional. just as we are left with a nonsensical gap and no explanation when love fades or flees, so does the movie echo this senseless dissolution.
—
both characters are sympathetic to us. i think that’s a big part of what makes this movie masterful. we cannot watch it and say “Oh what a terrible drunkard who beats his woman and cheats! Good, it’s over!” for he is the thoughtful and kind one. he is the faithful one. he only wants her love to live. then again, it’s not that simply weighted either. he drinks, and yes, we see it turn into violence. on the other hand, this violence erupts toward a doctor who has been working on bedding his wife. there’s a certain blunt, blue-collar/working class satisfaction in seeing him put a halt to this snotty and assuming doctor’s intrusion, i’ll admit. furthermore, this violent potential is countered when we see how, even when she request it be directed at her (in the form of rough sex), he refuses to bring it to that level. he truly loves her and that is clear. he has taken on the job of raising another man’s child—a man who jumped him and beat him down—and he is devoted to that child, and that child is devoted to him.
though the writers and director (Derek Cianfrance) clearly favor Dean, the male lead in terms of drawing a full three-dimensional character, nor can we look at Cindy (the woman lead) and say “Oh, what a horrible woman! How cruel she is to this sweet man! Good, it ended!” because we see her as so very human. we see that it escapes even her why she cannot love him the way he seems to deserve. and we understand why her love has faded in the face of let-down. we cannot help but admire her for her dreams. her dreams of escaping an abusive father, a terrible home life, becoming a doctor…we cannot help but feel then, for the sagging of those dreams, precipitated, perhaps, when her previous jerk boyfriend gets her pregnant out of unconcern or selfishness. we watch her dance to Dean’s ukelele, we saw her in her younger and carefree days and we know that she is as lost as we are in how this all came about. i appreciate the ambiguity strewn about; the hints at a Why, and how they are never harshly underlined or belabored. one such example is how Cindy berates Dean for his lack of ambition or in having a dream. we can read that as her own regret for abandoning her dream of being a doctor. but the crumbs are only laying about for us to sniff out if we are so inclined. nobody force-feeds us heavy-handed exposition.
it is that complexity i end up loving this movie for portraying. the tangled weave of love, and the paths down which it disappears are hard ones to discern, let alone portray. this complexity of the human spirit, i think, is captured brilliantly (and uncomfortably) in one scene where Cindy ends up being friendly (or is it flabbergasted and stunned? afraid? either way, it comes off as inappropriately amiable) toward a man from her past who was abusive sexually and who assaulted her husband but who pops up at the supermarket to proposition her, of all things.
in real life during such moments we often react in those befuddled ways that cause us to lose sleep later, wishing later we had reeled off a movie-line that put the loser in his place and that helped us retain our dignity. but this film does not allow us even movie-line fantasy. it drags you through such moments—ones that might echo moments in your own life you had hoped to forget or gloss over—and it makes you sit and watch them unfold, painfully slow.
as with all movies, this one might not affect you the same way as it did me. we bring to a film our own backstory. what is unbearable to watch for one person may simply be confusing or dull to another. yet, the featured foibles and flaws of the human condition have a universal feel to them.
in the end, it’s hard to recommend the film to anyone but avid film buffs, or people who love to nurse an aching heart. i certainly don’t recommend it to recent divorcees or those struggling with a marriage in jeopardy (EDIT: though on second thought…). but i do admire the writers, director, and editor (and actors) for bring brave and illustrating how hard it can be, sometimes, to be human and grappling with life and love. -
I’m trying to figure out, after two viewings, what it is that ultimately didn’t work for me in TRON: LEGACY.
Granted, the Usual American Cinematic Failings were there, beginning with a biggie: no people of color in any major roles that escape or defy tokenism or the typical criminally slanted character. Of course if I let that close the curtain on every movie I watched, I’d be miserable all the time, and would end up seeing only the first 10 or 20 minutes of most films. So I note it, or surprisingly note the absence of that trait with joy, and then I move on to the rest.
But even with that out of the way, (and I don’t mean to give filmmakers a pass on this, so don’t get me wrong, it still matters in my overall enjoyment) the story felt a bit flat to me. I’m trying to put my finger on why that is.
Sure, there were moments where things just didn’t click. I’m thinking a lot of the ride in the ship with Kevin, Sam, and Quorra. Some of the dialogue between them was just odd. Or maybe it was the scoring? On a big YEAH! moment, like where Sam says “It’s all over!” (after all their pursuers and obstacles to escape have been vanquished) there is no sound. No music. Nothing. Maybe a little “Wooo!” from Quorra.
Now, there was music in other places, but here in this peak moment, nothing; not even a quick cue (film talk for sound/scoring accent) to accentuate the victory. I guess I’m sort of spoiled for good scoring on space battles (it felt like a space battle, though the space was inside circuitry) ever since Star Wars. Go rewatch the destruction of the Death Star if you want to see some amazing scoring. Wow. But hey, that’s John Williams after all.
I don’t know. Do you know what I mean? That conversation they were having just felt odd. Like it lacked life. Stilted. Cold. Or was that the overall feel of the movie? I chalked up those moments, while watching to (perhaps) rushed or inadequate direction, maybe odd editing, maybe the person doing the scoring was a robot who needed an upgrade.
Was my flat feeling because the inside world—the Grid world—was so dark and stormy? So bereft of humanity? But doesn’t that make sense? Of course programs (all the characters who live inside the Grid) don’t need sunny skies and green dales. And yet, Quorra yearned to know the sun…. Anyway, the darkness didn’t need to be pushed out with green meadows or bustling streets. Why not some more light, some circuitry? Wouldn’t you imagine The Grid would have more electrical activity? Hmm.
Maybe my inability to plug in (har har) was because the programs felt so…unreal? That’s silly. Again, why would programs need any degree of backstory or life breathed into them?
Well…because we as an audience need to care about the “people” we watch on screen. Think about I, Robot, with Will Smith. We really ended up caring about that robot. That was part of the plot point, sure. But the face, the existential dilemma, the conflict…we cared as much about that robot as Will Smith, who is by most accounts, very human. If most of the characters in a film are one dimensional, we will spend a lot of time not feeling anything for who is on screen. And in TRON: LEGACY, the multitudinous programs are as bereft of life and backstory (and thus, our interest) as the grandparents of Sam. Cold, shallow, without arc or purpose. Clu, we ended up feeling a little bit for. Mostly because of how he was humanized by Kevin; how Kevin let us know that Clu was his mirror. Plus, Clu had anger and ambition. And human beings understand anger and ambition.
Maybe the lack I was left with had to do with inconsistent or nonsensical plot developments. Like the games that were reminiscent of the Coliseum in Ancient Rome. Why did the programs need these? If they were so cold and non-human (and we were never given indication they had depth; even Quorra was an anomaly in that regard, being an “Iso” and thus of a rare breed) why did they need to stage such spectacle?
But that wasn’t all of it, either. I tend to think part of my dissatisfaction from TRON (aside from my low level of interest in another story where we are to cheer on the rich, layabout son of a mega-CEO so that he can grab his throne) is that the timing is odd. The original TRON was designed and released many years ago (1982). I was a child! (13) I can remember that whole feel and buzz, a bit vaguely. Now if this weren’t Quick Hit Cinema, I’d rewatch it and compare, etc. (And I’m betting the original is far more engaging, even so.)
But after films like The Matrix and Inception and so on, TRON: LEGACY feels weird. Like featuring robots in a modern film that are costumed with tin foil and closet hangers for antennae. Dated, even though brand new. Sure, there are some cool fx here and there…but overall it feels like it belongs back in the 80s. And it’s not the film’s tip of the hat to the 80s (like Kevin’s appropriately dated lingo such as “radical, man!”; or the arcade) that does this. It’s that if we are going to go inside the Grid cinematically, in a post-Matrix era, we need to do a little better than this.
Oh, also? I love, love, love Jeff Bridges. I see everything he is in. But the “I got inside, man!” stuff…the “man” thing all the time? Felt weird. It was like Horse Badorties meets Virtual Reality. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say The Coen Brothers’ “Dude-a-rino” (who I immediately felt was based somewhat on Horse Badorties when I first saw The Big Lebowski) meets The Matrix. Not to be picky, and I guess parents of Kevin Flynn’s age in 1982 would have grown out of the proper era to be using “man” a lot, so it is excusable as dialogue. But when you have Jeff Bridges saying it, it feels leftover; it feels like shoddy character development, like a cheat to TRON: LEGACY.
Finally—and I’ll probably add this to my “Legend” page as it may come up again—when it comes to films like this, fans of certain works often like to refer to past texts to justify gaps in storytelling. Fans of Batman: The Dark Knight did this by referencing the original comic book; critics of Ebert’s Thor review did this by castigating him for not being familiar with the origins of Thor as done in comics; defenders of all-things TRON might do this by citing the original. I won’t say it’s wrong to do this, but generally in Cinema Studies it is understood that all you have before you is the text. That is, the creation/film that you behold has to be read as its own entity. And while I would and am not relying on the academic world to defend my doings here, I tend to agree with that idea. You can’t expect a person walking into a theater to carry with them all the past iterations and history of a story or character. The world within the frame that you offer must be a complete world unto itself and work as a world unto itself. Unless it is a sequel, in which case it can suck from top to bottom.
Okay! That’s my quick hit on TRON: LEGACY. Somewhat fun, but lackluster, cold, and feeling a bit flat in the end. Disagree? Agree? Feel free to chime in.
![REACTIONSOnline reaction to this film mostly veers between two poles, from what I’ve been reading. One camp is thrilled with the film and can’t get enough. This stream of talk mostly centers on an emotional response without any in-depth critical thought (which is fine for a person, but we can’t leave it there for our purposes). The movie is fun, it’s poignant, it reminds you of that one time seven years ago….. The other camp offers a racial analysis of the “twee” or “pixie” persona of Summer Finn (played by Zoeey Deschanel), noting that this innocent, fun, forever-young type of character could only be played by a white woman in today’s American culture; a woman of color is saddled with various societal and cultural typing and misperception and will be read (and cast) as either corrupt, sleazy, lascivious, or at the very least, world-wise/street-wise. Never innocent or fey. And their film critique stops there. As you might expect, Quick Hit Cinema straddles both these conversations, and then, seeks to wade further in. The conversation about how the white-perceived person is allowed to be a blank slate, a Universal face, is an important one in critical thinking, in media communication, in writing, and in living in the land that I do. This is a talk that should apply and occur across the spectrum, and when talking about film and visual art in general. But it does our understanding no great boon to pretend that such an insight is enough for any particular piece; that we can turn away from the film once having noted such a truth; that once we find a flaw such as this, we have also unearthed a reason to ignore the entire work. This is one of the reasons I write this blog, as noted in the About page. Cinema reads on so many levels; film offers us so many areas from which to glean information and insight. Let us continue to mine each story for all it might offer us.Further, while I think the aforementioned reality is genuinely off-putting, I can’t help but wonder if something else is at work with the antipathy toward Deschanel’s character.
Let me get to that in a moment.
BREAKDOWNIf you fed Blue Valentine a Xanax and a few hits of Nitrous Oxide, you might get 500 Days of Summer. Okay, that’s not how I was taught to pitch a film, but writing that tickles me at the moment. And, I hope, does offer a Quick Hit understanding of 500 Days of Summer’s shape, tone, and plot.Again, we have a non-linear presentation of a love that didn’t work out. But here, there are no kids, no sneaky ejaculations or almost-abortions, and not a dead pet in sight. Yes, there are a few punches thrown and some alcohol imbibed, but the comparison has to end there. In 500 Days of Summer, everything unfolds with a tint of rose around it. Even the heartache. This is a story of a starry-eyed and unrequited love, not a disintegrated and degraded love. And reminding us of the casual and quirky vibe we are to read it in, Richard McGonagle’s voiceover, nearly self-mocking in its bloated tones of grandeur and drama, accompanies us the whole while.GENRERomantic Comedy. Indie film offers a twist to the typical formula.PLOTBoy Meets Girl. He is a romantic, she is not. He falls in love, she moves on.
TYPING/CASTINGThis is a movie about a world of mostly white folks. There are people of color scattered about here and there, and perhaps we ought to be grateful. They aren’t cast as criminals, but other expected roles for brown folk: as bodega cashiers, or entertainers (some dancers in the flashmob scene; the singer at the wedding). McKenzie (played by Geoffrey Arend), a friend of the lead male role (Tom), is half Pakistani (in real life, not in the film), but that in no way plays into any of the writing, or into his character. His ethnicity is never mentioned, and though he provides the only non-white face, he is of course a supporting character and approaches nothing near a fully developed one.There is no blatant racism, nor noticeable typecasting issues…it’s just that films like this are a bubble. An unrealistic portrayal of which people live in the world. Unless it is filmed in a gated community or wealthy suburb, life just doesn’t look like this. You might think of it as unconsciously racist (or if that feels too harsh, say it is informed by a “stunted social awareness”) in the sense that the writers honestly perceive the world this way: where white people are all that exists or matter.It makes sense when we consider that the primary writer of the screenplay, Scott Neustadter, was born and raised in Margate, New Jersey. Margate itself could be thought of as a bubble, as its demographics (according to the 2000 census) reveal a 95% white population. GENDER Before I go any further, let me get to what I think is distressing to our expectations, at least in some part.Firstly, there is no doubt that the story is sympathetic to Tom, the male lead. It is his story of loss; his story of unrequited love. We begin on him, in his unfulfilling dead-end job. He is surrounded, in an early shot, by people with white hair (this clues us in fast to the idea that as a young man, he is in a tired, end-of-the-line situation). It is a pretty cushy job, no doubt, to those of us who have worked as laborers or in a factory or in some other low-paying, grimy occupation. But cushy as it is, it is not his dream, only a detour that he seems stuck in; penning verse for greeting cards when at heart, he is an architect.Summer enters the scene, and with her, a breath of hope. Tom (and the audience) sees a chance for his escape. An escape from a monotonous, dreary life; a launching pad to magic.We have been shown and told already that Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a romantic, and the way he falls for Summer makes perfect sense in this light. Gordon-Levitt has a warm, humble, and vulnerable quality that works very well in this role, and this provides great opportunity to bond with the protagonist and empathize with his infatuation. Summer herself? What is the great appeal about her? The voiceover informs us of her devastating effect on all men in her path, but…do we see that? Does it really exist? Or is this rare quality sold to us by the script more than anything else?I’d say the latter. And it works, more or less. Summer Finn is a type, however, not a fully-drawn character. Which makes sense contextually, as Tom does not see her as a person, but as a cure to his doldrums; as the perfect girl. I’d submit that she represents to him everything he is not. Brave, self-possessed, spontaneous, unhindered by deep wells of sentiment. Not seeing someone for who they are, but for how they can make you more than what you feel you are is a great recipe for heartbreak. There is one of the lessons of this story.So we watch our dear, naive Tom Hansen get his wide open bursting heart smashed to pieces. We watch his attention and affections eventually prove ineffective; where once the music he loved was delightful to Summer’s ears, comes the day she can’t even hear it anymore. The shift in her feelings is made very clear in a scene where his protectiveness is read as unwanted possessiveness, and he ends up getting in a fistfight in reaction to an overbearing advance on Summer made in a bar. (Of course, Tom—being who he is—hardly emerges the victor.)Here, the film very much does what Blue Valentine does: illustrates that mystical dynamic caused by the presence (or absence) of love. How that changes everything. And how elusive it is…one day making everything golden in the meadow of your life, and the next day, leaving a barren, wintry field. Nothing has changed…but the sun. Where did it go? How do you get it back? You cannot. So, I think the first and obvious frustration we have as viewers is simply watching this love story slip away. That, in and of itself goes against type. Against the type of genre we are watching, and against general expectations in such a storyline. Tom is a genuine guy; a nice guy. A good fellow. And he falls head over heels with a girl who is a bit cavalier, a bit self-absorbed, perhaps. Ultimately, she feels uncaring and dismissive of him. And dammit, Tom doesn’t deserve this!BUT what I think aggravates this is that gender essentialism has been turned on its head. Summer is playing the typically male role, and Tom is playing the typically female role. And when the formulas we have been sold for so many years by so many angles of our surrounding culture is upended? Everything feels strange to us.For example, men are allowed to be loud, self-assertive, a bit cocky, and sexually promiscuous. All these traits are culturally flagged as masculine. When we see a (white) male acting this way, it fits with society’s lessons, and feels “right.” Comes across as positive. But if we see a Black, Chinese, or Mexicano acting this way, it comes across differently. Suddenly then, you hear words like “uppity,” or “acting superior,” or “Aggressive” or a host of other terms intended to frame the man as dangerous or ugly; intended to shove the person of color back into their expected role of deferent, quiet, inferior, and subservient. In terms of sexual behavior, mainstream society will not read such behavior as positive with men of color, but as proof of a degenerate nature.If a woman (of any color, tho white women are given a bit more leeway, of course) acts loud, self-assertive, or bold, she is a “bitch.” Plain and simple. She will be called “abrasive,” or “cold,” if she is self-possessed. If she doesn’t act like she is there to be schooled by men, she may be called a “know it all” or “full of herself” or (finally), a “dyke.” And so on. Regarding the sexual promiscuity, whereas a white male can bed a different woman every month and be thought of as some kind of conqueror or Cassanova, a woman will soon gain a reputation for being suspect, foul, amoral, and tainted. I think Summer Finn confronts gender essentialism and sexist typing by inhabiting a typically male space in 500 Days of Summer. Summer Finn (as 50 Cent says in Candy Shop) “ain’t into making love,” she’s “into having sex.” Summer isn’t in it for the long haul. She doesn’t want to hear whining about What It All Means; she doesn’t want to have a long, intimate conversation. (As opposed to Tom, who, at about 1:12 in the film, asserts to best friend MacKenzie that “I don’t wanna talk about it” MacKenzie replies “You always wanna Talk About It!”) Summer doesn’t see herself as Nancy, but as Sid. She is questioned as to whether or not she is a lesbian. She is not starry-eyed over love. She makes the first move. She is self-possessed. She lets a potential lover know not to get too attached or serious. She doesn’t listen with rapt attention or fawning affection and deference to Tom when he first tells his story to her, but confronts him on his inaction in life, adopting that typically-masculine presumptuousness and arrogance to speedily tell someone they have just met how to live their own life. The story was based on a real life heartbreak, as indicated in the opening text, dedicated to a “Jenny Beckman.” Interestingly, when the writer (Neustadter) showed her the script, she said she related more to Tom than to Summer.It’s too bad that Neustadter’s script is only half-aware of the gender essentialism it is toying with. In the end, the film dances on the edge of this awareness, but never fully realizes it or wields the contradiction in a way that might instruct us or elevate consciousness. Instead, we simply travel the well-worn paths of essentialism and typical reactions to this essentialism. We see hints of this awareness/obliviousness in dialogue about her typically-male sexual behavior (“she’s a dude!”); even in the voiceover’s flat assertion that “there are two types of people in this world: Men, and Women.” There is no question mark, and no irony. There should be. CINEMATIC VOCABULARY [see Legend page for explanation of phrase]I could list moments and techniques throughout the entire film, but I’ll just go through a handful, to keep this already lengthy post from becoming epically long.—• The split-screen parallel cutting in the opening of the film where we see, side by side, the young Tom and Summer growing up indicates that they are fated to meet, and fated to be together. This sets up an expectation in us that is further reinforced by the opening shots of the movie proper, wherein they are on a bench holding hands, and we cut to an ECU (Extreme Close Up) of Summer’s engagement ring. Tension is provided by the voiceover, which warns us in the opposite direction. I find it interesting that at least in the early home movie shots, while most of it is simply activities children and adolescents typically engage in (balancing, going on rides, swings, soccer, guitar, gymnastics), an early juxtaposition is the young Tom running with a woman (mother?) who is holding his hand, while Summer is going down a slide on her own. Intended or not, this mirrors nicely the overall characters they will play. Tom, the dependent one; Summer, the carefree independent one. (Tom’s dependence upon women is a part of his character, reinforced in many ways. For example, when he is in trouble, it is his younger sister who comes to his rescue.)These montages end nicely by intertwining. Summer blows dandelion spores screen left, and bubbles enter Tom’s side of the screen, from screen right. This neat graphic match cements the idea that they are partners in destiny.—• Over a shot of a young Summer Finn cutting a huge swath of her own hair off, the narrator tells us that she loves two things in life: her long, dark hair, and cutting it off without feeling much about it. We know, by this, that she is apt to change her mind quickly and drastically, and is unsentimental about it. The construction paper art stuck into the lower right corner of her mirror shows us a depiction of herself with long hair on the left, and short hair on the right. This is how she is cutting it as we watch. This informs us that this hair cutting has happened before, and thus, her mercurial nature is a long-time pattern for her, and part of her personality. —• Choice of the Cinematographer (or director) to go with handheld camera in the karaoke bar. It’s not a bold, new, or surprising move. It’s a standard decision, as the locked-down tripod movement would mute some of the energy. You could get away with either, but it’s a good choice. The DP doesn’t go all Blair-Witch crazy with it, just a bit of “breathing” of the lens so we feel we are in the space, and resonating with that night time, good fun, bar scene energy.—• When Summer is first introduced to Tom’s workplace (and to Tom), behind her on the wall is a large poster print of a man in bed, and a woman standing over him. Could this read as her savior status in Tom’s lovestruck mind? Does it place her, the woman, superior to/stronger than the supine man? As already mentioned, Tom is posed as dependent in this sense. His younger sister knows more about PMS than he does; he can’t even beat her at video games; he is posed as Nancy to Summer’s Sid…. Throughout the film, this style of relationship to women is reiterated. Even during one of his most angry moments, storming out of Summer’s apartment as their relationship truly begins to unravel, he is forced to step aside and let two women pass as they make their way up the stairs. Does Tom see himself this way, though? You’d guess not. He was shocked to learn that he was the Nancy of the couple, after all. In addition, during a tearful and painful phase of epiphany, as he flees the rooftop party (Expectations/Reality scene), what song plays? Regina Spektor’s Hero, in which she plaintively cries “I’m the hero of the story, I don’t need to be saved.” But Tom does, and did. —• The film’s color palette is pretty true to a dark, muted, but warm one. Lots of cocoa, tan, gray, charcoal, black, light blue, olive, deep mustard, browns. Absent are deeply-saturated or vibrant tones. An exception is Tom’s younger sister, who is seen more than once in bright, warm colors. Another exception? During the post-coital, bouncy, crowd-dance/flashmob scene set to Hall and Oates’ You Make My Dreams Come True, some vibrant turquoise and blues (and the marching band brings lots of gold) enter the picture. —• Summer, being that vibrant spark that the stuck and subdued Toms of the world seek to help them launch themselves into a wilder or more energized realm, does her job, ultimately. It is from the ashes of his broken heart that he finally returns to his dream of architecture—just as she advised in one of their very first conversations. A peppy song kicks in, and he finally gets up off of his bed and attacks the chalkboard. This is intercut with Summer’s wedding vows to her True Love. The lyrics of the song confide in us that “I”ll tell you everything about being free….”Note that this metaphor of Summer being the liaison that connects Tom back to his dream is manifested in his drawing on her arm to communicate his plans for the city. She is the canvas upon which he sketches the outline of his calling, once again.FINAL and PERSONAL THOUGHTS:People who find Zoeey Deschanel’s character distasteful don’t need to worry, I think. She won’t be playing this “pixie” character much longer. Honestly, even in some of the scenes she was supposed to be in her late teens or early 20s, I wasn’t quite buying it. I think she’ll have to make a transition soon to a more mature role, and I wonder if she won’t become more interesting as an actor when she does. Sort of how I’ve grown more fond of Leo DiCaprio as he roughened up with age.—The movie really is a lot of fun. What with the voiceover, the flashbacks in a 1940s style 16mm newsreel feel, the nonlinear segments, the circularity in a few cases, the bluebird-accompanied flashmob in the park, the excellently apt soundtrack. It’s just a lot of fun. I also have a thing for sing-a-long scenes, and I enjoyed the karaoke.—We all have had our heart broken. It’s an essential part of being alive and being human. That’s why movies like this will always resonate. Perhaps most of us also understand what it’s like to project too much onto another person, only to be let down. I’ve been Summer more than once to a Tom. And then (was it 1991) I was, unmistakeably, Tom. It was pretty painful in just about the way this film depicts. I think they get it right, there. That desperate feeling as you realize you are no longer loved back. The way the little things that used to send her reeling, now just send her packing. That frustration of watching her take it all so casually; bouncing away as you feel siphoned of everything inspiring that once lived inside your heart. That flailing, that falling, that bittersweet ache just to see her once again—even if for her it is a lunch date and for you it is a last grasp at sanity. Expectations murdered by reality. Trying too hard, going out on new dates but only talking or thinking about your last lover when on them. And under it all, feeling that the pain will never pass and that there is nobody else for you on this whole, big, blue, ball of mud.
But it will, and there is. And then one day, maybe you’ll make a movie about it.Did you have a Summer in your life, Nancy?](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lnh4zdnUO01qltpxuo1_1280.jpg)
![[in time i will assume all readers of this blog have already read the About and Legend pages and thus understand my writing here will always have spoilers, but for now, i’ll remind you up front]
“some movies are meant to be felt and thought about.” —FashionistaZapatista
i thought i’d cough this movie up like a hairball and move on to something sumptuous. it bothered me. it upset me. it punched my belly and turned away, walked away. it gave me no after-dinner mint. it gave not even a transparent lie to ease my pain. it just showed me something that could have been beautiful but instead blossomed into an unsolvable pain, and then left me to deal with it. and i wanted to hate it forever and always for that. because i don’t need any more real life apart from what real life gives me already.
but the film would not be dismissed so curtly. it worked on me for days, as i pored over its vignettes, its ugly realities, its sweet grasping at something just beyond reach. there was truth in there. and that’s what cinema is about. not happy endings. not pat resolutions. not predictable third act chases that end in capture, and not sensible narratives. when it’s good, that’s what film is about. truth. and good doesn’t always mean pleasing. not in the world of art.the film opens with a child screaming herself raw in the throat searching for a pet. a pet that is dead, though the girl doesn’t know it yet. and there you go. i know when a director/writer uses good metaphor in the first five to ten minutes of film to tell my heart what, at heart, her/his film is about that i’m usually in good hands.
so let me give you the basics: it’s a non-linear tale, told in segments, out of order segments, about a love between a (white) man and a (white) woman that degrades until it is nothing at all. there is no “yeah, but.” there is no Saving Grace. it was pretty nervy of the movie poster to bill this as “A Love Story,” and perhaps that suggests we examine our definition of what a “Love Story” is. blue valentine is included in online lists like “Most Depressing Movies” for a reason. and yet, it is not polar. there is bright light. there is sweetness. it just doesn’t pan out in the end. and it doesn’t really give you a good reason. or maybe it gives you many, many good reasons.yet are any of them sufficient to land us where we do? the story—their story—offers problems, sure. he’s a drinker. she’s become unfeeling. she had an affair. he is not loaded with ambition. and yet. yet, the beauty of the film is what is not shown, i think. (which generally means a lot of backstory and off-screen direction/acting exercises have gone on.) beyond these revealed flaws in their relationship, there is something more undermining, or tying all those things together at work…that anti-grace that sometimes worms its way into couplings that in time erodes the most golden bonds, and all over what ends up feeling like a roll of the dice. if only a left turn were made instead of a right turn. if only that afternoon had ended just a bit differently….if only.
but nowhere is a solid and inarguable reason why their love could not have worked. and we need to thank the writer for not foisting a hard lump on a spoon upon us. that would have been too easy. why couldnt it have worked? why didn’t it work, we want to yell, by the end. watching the child cling to “daddy” as he walks away, all hope discarded as he tells her to go back to her mother. his voice is different, now. drained of color, and made all the more evident by the fireworks going off on the horizon as he departs. there will be no more special nights in the Future Room. there will be no more snoozing on the couch waiting for mama to return. the family pet is dead. by now, i think the lack of a reason why is intentional. just as we are left with a nonsensical gap and no explanation when love fades or flees, so does the movie echo this senseless dissolution.—both characters are sympathetic to us. i think that’s a big part of what makes this movie masterful. we cannot watch it and say “Oh what a terrible drunkard who beats his woman and cheats! Good, it’s over!” for he is the thoughtful and kind one. he is the faithful one. he only wants her love to live. then again, it’s not that simply weighted either. he drinks, and yes, we see it turn into violence. on the other hand, this violence erupts toward a doctor who has been working on bedding his wife. there’s a certain blunt, blue-collar/working class satisfaction in seeing him put a halt to this snotty and assuming doctor’s intrusion, i’ll admit. furthermore, this violent potential is countered when we see how, even when she request it be directed at her (in the form of rough sex), he refuses to bring it to that level. he truly loves her and that is clear. he has taken on the job of raising another man’s child—a man who jumped him and beat him down—and he is devoted to that child, and that child is devoted to him.though the writers and director (Derek Cianfrance) clearly favor Dean, the male lead in terms of drawing a full three-dimensional character, nor can we look at Cindy (the woman lead) and say “Oh, what a horrible woman! How cruel she is to this sweet man! Good, it ended!” because we see her as so very human. we see that it escapes even her why she cannot love him the way he seems to deserve. and we understand why her love has faded in the face of let-down. we cannot help but admire her for her dreams. her dreams of escaping an abusive father, a terrible home life, becoming a doctor…we cannot help but feel then, for the sagging of those dreams, precipitated, perhaps, when her previous jerk boyfriend gets her pregnant out of unconcern or selfishness. we watch her dance to Dean’s ukelele, we saw her in her younger and carefree days and we know that she is as lost as we are in how this all came about. i appreciate the ambiguity strewn about; the hints at a Why, and how they are never harshly underlined or belabored. one such example is how Cindy berates Dean for his lack of ambition or in having a dream. we can read that as her own regret for abandoning her dream of being a doctor. but the crumbs are only laying about for us to sniff out if we are so inclined. nobody force-feeds us heavy-handed exposition.it is that complexity i end up loving this movie for portraying. the tangled weave of love, and the paths down which it disappears are hard ones to discern, let alone portray. this complexity of the human spirit, i think, is captured brilliantly (and uncomfortably) in one scene where Cindy ends up being friendly (or is it flabbergasted and stunned? afraid? either way, it comes off as inappropriately amiable) toward a man from her past who was abusive sexually and who assaulted her husband but who pops up at the supermarket to proposition her, of all things. in real life during such moments we often react in those befuddled ways that cause us to lose sleep later, wishing later we had reeled off a movie-line that put the loser in his place and that helped us retain our dignity. but this film does not allow us even movie-line fantasy. it drags you through such moments—ones that might echo moments in your own life you had hoped to forget or gloss over—and it makes you sit and watch them unfold, painfully slow. as with all movies, this one might not affect you the same way as it did me. we bring to a film our own backstory. what is unbearable to watch for one person may simply be confusing or dull to another. yet, the featured foibles and flaws of the human condition have a universal feel to them. in the end, it’s hard to recommend the film to anyone but avid film buffs, or people who love to nurse an aching heart. i certainly don’t recommend it to recent divorcees or those struggling with a marriage in jeopardy (EDIT: though on second thought…). but i do admire the writers, director, and editor (and actors) for bring brave and illustrating how hard it can be, sometimes, to be human and grappling with life and love.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lnewrv34bL1qltpxuo1_1280.png)
