Hit Me With Your Best Shot: The Talented Mr Ripley

I kept debating whether I’d even have time to write a timely Best-Shot entry for this, and I suspect I’ll be returning to this post later to annotate it with additional thoughts. (Aside to readers of the blog: I have not abandoned this space.) Most of you know of my deep love for that other 90s Minghella juggernaut and The Talented Mr. Ripley, though not as highly esteemed, is a favourite of mine. It captures Minghella’s ability to capture the ethereal beauty of the objections of our protagonist’s affections – specifically in his three period heavy films - this, The English Patient and Cold Mountain. There’s the image of Katherine Clifton coming of the plane in The English Patient and then the more striking shot of her by the light of the burning flames as she tells her story. Then there’s Inman gazing on Ada Munroe the first time he sees her. For both those films, the romantic story was the key – for The Talented Mr. Ripley romance seems the wrong word. Desire may be a better stand-in. Like with the previous two films it's a moment where protagonist gazes upon something which he finds desirable. For Ripley it is as much a desire for Dickie the person (I'm not convinced that Ripley is romantically yearning for Dickie, but regardless) as it is a desire for what Dickie represents - affluence, being on the inside, prestige. And in that way it is not unlike a romantic gaze of something beautiful and out-of-reach. So, in keeping with that nature of getting that perfect image of the pursued party our first full image of Dickie is as evocative.

I love how of the three films with the gaze of affection this one is literally an image of a gaze. Tom is scoping his prey out through his binoculars which already adds a synthetic level to the gaze which neither The English Patient or Cold Mountain have. The way the shot is not a rectangle but seems octagonal adds a layer of unusualness to it. It is not really an octagon, but the way the full oval is not shown makes it seem that way. This gaze is atypical. Marge is so caught up in the swimming – completely free and natural but even as the true object of our gaze (Dickie) isn’t placed in the centre our eyes are drawn to him. He emerges from the water like a deity, we’re further drawn in because he’s looking offscreen already evoking that wandering eye nature of Dickie. He’s too magnificent to simply luxuriate in the water but must emerge from it as if performing. He doesn’t know Tom is watching him now, but every fibre of his being suggests a man who knows he has our attention. Whoever is watching. No wonder he envelopes the film even when he leaves it half way through.

Jude knows how to make an entrance, Minghella knows to direct one (with John Seale’s help, of course.)

Hit Me With Your Best Shot: Summertime

Who else but Katharine Hepburn to get me back to the blog? But what to say?

Ever since my appreciation for Hepburn turned into full fledged obsession circa 2003 I’ve steadily investigated her filmography seeking out in particular the times her work intersected with Oscar. And Summertime. Lean has done larger films with wider scope and more intricate technicalities, but I've always returned to this one and I can see why he considers it his favourite, too. The film has only two stars - Kate and Lean's direction, everyone else is supplementary. Excellently so, but still supplementary.

It’s the quintessential spinster performance from Hepburn. I use the word spinster with hesitation because of its connotation, but I mean it with no malice. Immediately off her work in Adam’s Rib, Katharine launched into the fifties with the first of three key roles of archetypal unmarried women – Rose Sayer in The African Queen, Lizzie Curry in The Rainmaker and Jane Hudson in Summertime. Jane is the only one who ends the film still a spinster.

Some of the most inventive opening credits...

At face value the film’s thrust seems questionable – secretary Jane Hudson makes her way to Venice for a vacation. She’s enchanted with the city, but her own inhibitions prevent her from enjoying the people until she meets Renato Di Rossi a shopkeeper she, I hesitate to say something as trite but, falls in love with. It does not end as a fairytale but it does not end in tragedy either. For an actress of such temerity Hepburn was frustratingly (to me) to starring in ensemble films as opposed to character studies. In fact, before Summertime the last film to wholly focus on Katharine was Alice Adams TWENTY YEARS earlier. Many great Hepburn performances (Jo, Linda, Tracy, Susan, Eleanor, Mary and so on) came while fighting against cast members with equally prime roles – Summertime is that rare film to focus on the gradations of her character with such relish. And what a character.

Like many a Hepburn film I am very protective of it, especially because I’ve always found the film one to be underestimated. The power of Summertime has never been in Di Rossi’s ability to change Jane through love – it’s significant, but not specifically for the romantic.

This, one of the first images of Jane we get – tells us so much.

This woman is a watcher, an excited watcher, but a watcher nonetheless and not a doer. In the film’s famous canal fall scene, Jane falls because she’s busy watching and not doing. So, in the summertime, she must grow into her own as a participant in life. As we watch the nuances Hepburn’s Jane moves through – the “story” of the woman looking for something she tells to the owner of the inn she’s at, the surprise and jumpiness at being propositioned – all reveal that this is a woman who has been hurt not just in romantic love, but in any type of love. We feel as badly for Jane when her feelings are hurt by Renato as we do when the Italian couple turn down her chance to tag along with them on their evening trip.

She sits and ponders – what now? The red of her dress is only an artificial bit of colour – her life is colourless. All around her the red roses bloom, but the dress she’s wearing isn’t bona fide. It’s what I love most about Hudson’s work as Jane. No other performance has forced her so much to depend on un-Hepburn-like tics. The role itself does not recall her sensibilities, it’s not her lilting voice which gives emotion but the way her face moves. Like this dejected pose.

But I have no qualms about returning to Renato. It might seem trite to boil down the bulk of this woman’s life and pain to her relationship with a man, and an adulterous one at that. But, the power of Renato’s relationship with Jane is that he presents her with the idea of someone willing to be as interested in watching her as she is in watching things. The fact that there cannot be a symmetrical meeting of the two, or the carving of a true relationship is sad but it is more a whimsical sadness than a jagged tragedy. And there are a series of shots which show this best for me.

Renato’s hand reaching for that rose is the single most evocative moment of the film regarding Jane’s tragedy – whether she started too late, or didn’t succeed soon enough she’s not thoroughly happy with her life. Not because she is without a man, but because she’s never experienced it as she ought to. The preceding scene where she explains why she asks him to buy this particular flower (curiously recalling a similar flower scene in Alice Adams, her previous one woman show) is heartbreaking in a pathetic way and the fact that even that small thing – a simple flower – escapes her grasps is the true sadness.

Kate’s reaction more so. But in the end, even if that shot is the finest I had to go elsewhere for the best. The shot of Renato with the flower is beautiful.

Brazzi nails Renato’s dilemma, so sad wishing that this woman could just have her flower. Katharine’s laugh is so welcome. Yes, Jane is saying, someone to notice me and remember something as simple as a single flower.

The reach forward is sad, indeed. Then the burying of emotions, it doesn’t matter if I don’t get it – at least he remembered.

 

So my best shot.

I knew it’d be my best shot even before I rewatched, but made you read through all that just for effect. It’s one of my favourite film endings – the feeling of profound sadness not at losing Renato, but always being one step behind permeates through the final scene but that single wave says, yes, thank you for the memories

She’s saying goodbye to Renato, to the lost flower, to the city (look how beautiful it is in the background) and to the vitality it gave her. But she leaves on the train not looking through the camera, but looking through her own eyes. She’s lived. So many great films are based on the idea of a single place and the people there teaching you something new. This is Dorothy saying goodbye to Oz, this is Brian saying goodbye to Berlin. This is everyone saying goodbye to a place they could not stay in forever, but which changed their life - no matter how seemingly trite. Certainly this means a fuller and happier Jane at home…? Isn't this what we all hope for?

I can only hope. But then after summertime must come the fall. Who knows?

More best-shots over at The Film Experience.

Scene on a Sunday Monday: Erin Brockovich

Apparently blogger conspired against me in auto-posting this last evening, so a few hours later makes this a scene on a Monday. Alas. On with the scene.

I think I’ve said it ad nauseum in a few different articles, but I’ll repeat it again. In an oeuvre made up of eclectic films of varying genres I feel confident in confessing that Erin Brockovich is my favourite Steven Soderbergh. My love for the film, and its central performance, is not even compromised by the sometimes poor reputation which precedes it. For one, there’s the issue of 2000 being the year of two Soderbergh films and the more ostensibly “important” Traffic seems to be more indicative of a great film. Then, there’s the issue of its star – Julia Roberts; a good actress who has bizarrely endured as a little appreciated a little over a decade after her heyday.

Erin Brockovich’s goodness comprises (but is not confined) to its incessant rewatchability. Who’d have thought a film about the mounting of a case against the Pacific Gas and Electric Company would be so intriguing without being a fussy legal drama? Grant’s screenplay and Soderbergh’s direction ensure that the legal half and the personal half of Erin’s life are both permeating with significance and importance so that we don’t feel resentful when either takes the spotlight. And there a number of fine scenes to use as an example of how well this works. This scene works best when given context and not my ideal choice for a Scene on a Sunday, piece. And yet, I’m very partial to it.

Set-Up: Worried that with two new litigators on the PG&E case that she will be edged out of the case Erin shows up to work, while sick with the flu, realising her assumptions may have been accurate when she interrupts a meeting she did not know of.

I’ll admit, I’m sensitive about Julia Roberts criticism to some extent because she’s one of the actors I strongly liked even before I became an obsessive cinephile. The way she, and this performance, manages to be so systematically disregarded as fluff is particularly frustrating considering how well she understands – not just the heroic, glamorous Erin but the downtrodden and abrasive Erin, too.

I love how she enters there, so normal so plain and it’s unlike usual – sometimes outrageously – dressed up Erin.

          ROSALIND: “Hey, Erin, I thought you were taking a sick day.”

(An aside, what is with Soderbergh films and their gloriously sunny photography? Masry’s office with the wood décor is charming and professional and the sun through the window is so nice to watch. Also, it makes Julia seems to emerge from a burst of light. A probably incidental touch, but an effective one nonetheless – Erin is something of a perverse take on a helpful angel.)

          ERIN: “So did I.”

And I love the way she slowly realises that something is amiss. Even though there is a traditional romance within the film (Aaron Eckhart is the half dozen forgotten roles he’s done where he’s been great opposite fine women but gone without laurels) the relationship between Ed and Erin holds as much emotional significance. So this, the moment is set up like a scene where a spouse finds the other cheating.

 

           ERIN (cont’d): “What’s going on in there?”

          ROSALIND: “Meeting about the PG&E thing.”

          ERIN: “PG& -- Are you sure?”

           ROSALIND: “Yup.”
And, that look her face – woman on a mission; which is, incidentally, the entire thrust of the film

 

And, then the moment where they see each other across the room – he’s caught. Finney’s look of shock is palpable and so well played. And again suggests the parallel of this functioning as a romantic scene of being caught cheating would.

 

 

The way those four shots tell us so much about how Erin is feeling here is testament to much of the film’s effectiveness. Most easily, it’s about Julia’s ability to telegraph so much of Erin’s story in those few seconds. She’s aghast, she’s defiant and then she is resigned. The chip on Erin’s shoulder is that with her achingly working class background and without the educational history of those around her abrasiveness becomes more conspicuous as she feels the need to act out. But here, seemingly betrayed by her boss – her friend – there’s already the sense that Erin feels defeated. The way Soderbergh stays on her face and shoulders and cuts so to her slumped self to Ed’s guilty glance. It’s a significant moment.

          POTTER (OS): “We can find it or we don’t have a big win.”

 

         ED: “Could I -- just take a brief break here for a moment? I'll be right back.”

Potter is confused. What can be more important than his debriefing?

 

 

 

 

 

          ERIN (indistinct): “If you tell me to relax, I'm gonna choke you with that fucking tie...”
I’m appreciative of how Soderbergh decides to not immediately thrust us into the argument. Erin’s words are instead indistinct.

 

 

 

 

And, hey, Veanne Cox looking all professional and moody.You will always be Cinderella's stepsister to me.

Go below the jump for great Julia Roberts and Albert Finney moments....  

Encore Awards (2012 in Review): Director

Even amidst all the conversation about Argo unusual rise to Best Picture fame with a corresponding director nomination from the Academy, I felt the more interesting suggestion of Affleck’s lack of a nomination was ignored in the face of various theories for the film’s award popularity. Specifically, what is the correlation between a theoretically “best” film and best “direction”. The two go together, so a great deal – yes – and still the overlapping is not essential.

So, then, my favourite directors of 2012 do not necessarily correspond completely with my favourite films. As I’m about to close the books, more or less on 2012, I still don’t feel completely excited about the films of the year but I’m enamoured with aspects of many – so that I’m very fond of this list of directors and which I could make space for a dozen more below, even as all of them would not be films I’d consider for my own top 10.

(Click on photos for links to reviews where available.)

Anna Karenina (Joe Wright)

It may not exist as his finest film or his most orderly, but on his fifth feature Wright’s technique as a director continues to grow impressively. Even taking into account Stoppard’s wisely adapted screenplay, the fine performances, or the great technical aspects Anna Karenina’s effectiveness lives and dies by Wright’s vision. Wright’s direction is feverish, yes, and sometimes particularly uninhibited but it is also always in favour of the story he’s telling that sort of skill is impressive. – and that’s not even talking about his use of the film’s stage conceit.
                   


       
The Deep Blue Sea (Terence Davies)

Ostensibly this is the film least likely to be considered as a director’s showcase – Davies is, after all, very intent on using the film as a platform for the star at its centre. Yet, even as Weisz’s Hester envelopes the thrust of the film it’s very dependent on its directors. The way Davies operates the division between Davies the writer and Davies the director might become blurred but key ways that he uses time and time jumps in the narrative to great effect and his ability to eke out top tier work from his tree stars is proof of a director at the top of his game.



Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)

Because a significant part of Once Upon a Time in Anatolia is a mystery, Ceylan’s skill at evoking tension and eeriness is essential. Because the film, though, is not just mystery major kudos to him and his ability to balance the morality play portions, with the vague buddy comedy and the subtle tragedy beneath. It’s a lesson in control and maintaining of tension which the film depends and Ceylan’s largest boon in it all is that through all this the film never once loses its aching human centre. A true asset.


        

Oslo, August 31st (Joachim Trier)

For one thing, Oslo – which is arguably my most devastating film of the year, manages to emanate such indomitable warmth in key areas it only proves that Trier’s vision for this tale of loneliness, death and – yet, against all odds – hope is not a problematic one. More character than any 2012 film Trier’s appreciation and respect for his main character is striking and it’s that rapport between filmmaker and character (and actor) which makes this narrative so seamless and organic in development. And also terribly heartbreaking.
           

                 
Tabu (Miguel Gomes)

The key to making this black and white, sometimes silent film, seem not like a pastiche or even homage lies in Gomes ability to direct his creation with an unusual freshness. There are parts of Tabu that are especially daring but there are also parts which are not wholly new, but under Gomes the entire creation feels unsullied and inspired and more importantly worthy of our time. It is, doubtlessly, the work of an artist taking pride and enjoyment in his work and it shows in a film that is as provocative as it is enchanting.
              
        

FINALISTS: Cloud Atlas (Lana Wachowski, Tom Tykwer, Andy Wachowski) for handling varying themes, stories and tones with ace results; Holy Motors (Leos Carax) for an especially imaginative centre that never descends into the arcane; Killer Joe (William Friedkin) for fierce understanding of the trashy depths of its character and milking it to good effect; Killing Them Softly (Andrew Dominik) for the sheen of coolness and bravado but not without realness and grit; Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson) for a storybook like approach to young love without becoming fanciful; The Turin Horse (Béla Tarr) for a hellish and chilling glimpse of end of world banalities

HONOURABLE MENTIONS: Cosmopolis (David Cronenberg); Frankenweenie (Tim Burton); The Impossible (J.A. Bayona); Looper (Rian Johnson); Magic Mike (Steven Soderbergh); Rust and Bone (Jacques Audiard)

Previous Citations: Actor /  Actress / Audacious Cinema / Cast and Casting / Cinematography / Forgotten Characters / Memorable Scenes / Openings / Sound and Music / Supporting Actor / Supporting Actress / Writing 

Which directors made 2012 better with their vision?