I Don't Get It?

How is it that some poeple, seemingly a lot of people, just don't get some movies. It's like, these days, unless something is flagged by the reviews as being quirky (Clerks, Raising Arizona, Truly Madly Deeply, Ill Fated), thoughtful* (The Myth of Fingerprints, Garden State), surreal (Donnie Darko, pretty much anything by Terry Gilliam), a "black comedy" (Very Bad Things, American Psycho, Barton Fink), or that most damning of all descriptions, "independent" (which could mean anything from Lost in Translation to Open Water to Shaun of the Dead to pretty much anything by the brilliant John Sayles), there is a real danger that the movie-going public will just straight-out not like a film because they don't know what to make of it.

When did this happen? When did distributors stop just advertising a film in a way they thought would sell it and start labelling movies like products in a supermarket. And when did audiences get so damn lazy that they won't even take the opportunity to make up their mind whether they like something they see, or take a chance on something they've heard nothing about simply because the poster in the lobby appeals to them?

One of my all-time favourite movies (not necessarily one of the best I've ever seen, but one of those I can go back to again and again and I still enjoy) is Milk and Money. This is a quirky, surreal, thoughtful independent comedy that came out in 1996. It never got a cinema release in Australia. I only chanced across a VHS copy in a bargain bin at a video store for $5.00. I thought it could be interesting, so I bought it and took it home, here it sat on a shelf for maybe three months. One night I was at a loose end, so I watched it. This would have been maybe '98. I laughed 'til my stomach hurt. It is ridiculous, silly, totally divorced from reality, and one the best low-budget comedies I have ever seen.

Since then I must have either watched it with or loaned it to half a dozen friends, and each one of them has claimed not to "get" it. This from people would each extol the virtues of some or all of the following: 2001: a Space Odyssey, Ghosts... of the Civil Dead, Drowning by Numbers, Eraserhead, Naked Lunch, Lost Highway. The list could go on. I mean, compared to some of these, Milk and Money is like an episode of My Three Sons in the wierd stakes.

I refuse to accept "I don't get it" as a legitimate criticism of a film. This is lazy, turgid, and about as far from considered as a comment can get. The first time I saw 2001, I didn't get it. I didn't consider this a failing of the film. I went away and I thought about it on and off for about two years, then it started to make sense, or rather, I started to make sense of it to my own satisfaction. And low and behold, when I watched it again with my wife about a year ago (maybe ten years after first seeing it) I really enjoyed it. If you only take one thing away fro this blog, don't be a lazy movie-watcher. Challenge yourself with a Von Trier or a Truffaut film. Rent Blow-up or Calendar. Go to the cinema and take a chance on something you know nothing about. A movie does it's best work when it makes you think about something differently.

* "Thoughtful" is often synonymous in promoters' and reviewers' minds with "gentle". Both of these words should be taken out of the lexicon for these "professions" - words like this in a review scream, "I didn't bother sitting through the whole movie - or even showing up to the premiere - as I knew with my special reviewer's prescience just what it would be like - and yes I get paid far, far more than I deserve".

Gratuitous, baseless plug No 1

I just wanted to express my glee to see that Steve Martin's novel, Shopgirl has been made into a movie. While I know he's far from perfect (HouseSitter?), I'm still a big Steve Martin fan, so I entreat you all to go along and see it.

Knowing nothing about the film beyond what I gleaned from the website, I can tell you that Martin wrote the script and plays a lead role in it, along side Claire Danes (one of the most underrated actors of her generation) and Jason Schwartzman (a man who has done it (relatively) hard in spite of his pedigree - I say, kudos to you, fellow Sloan fan).

Face Off (Part 1)

When Don Siegel began pre-production for The Shootist (1976), his casting guy hoped to be able to get Jimmy Stewart for the role of the Doctor. Siegal thought it would be a great idea, but didn't think they could get such a well-known actor for such a small role. Stewart said yes to the role, partly for the opportunity to work with his old friend and fellow screen legend, John Wayne.

The scene where Dr Hostetler (Stewart) tells J.B. Books (Wayne) that he has cancer the two actors play it straight (under Siegel's orders*), delivering their lines with an economy of emotion that would make Stanisavski proud. The potency of Scott Hale's dialogue comes through all the more powerfully without the jostling of egos vying for the audience's attention (more to come on this particular pet-hate).

Time and fate have added a level of poignancy to the scene; Rumours were rife around Hollywood before preproduction began on The Shootist regarding Wanye's health. He had a few years earlier had half a lung removed. He had bad turns on set during filming (at one stage nearly closing down the production). About two-and-a-half years after the theatrical release of the movie, Wayne succumbed to cancer of the stomach and lung. While - rightly or wrongly - some critics prefer to protray Wayne as a one-trick pony who either played himself in very movie he did or began early on to believe his own press releases, but I challenge anyone to watch The Shootist and tell me the guy couldn't act.

* Don Seigel. A Seigel Film: an autobiography. Faber & Faber 1996. I just started reading this last week. It's really a film biography - the kind of stuff moviebuffs wet their pants over. Think Hemmingway's A Movable Feast, if he'd grown up in Hollywood. Anyway, it's an entertaining read, and not as prissy as some filmmakers tend to get talking about their work (yes, I'm looking at you, Scott Hicks).

Star Wars, redux (Part 2)

When I was a kid seeing Star Wars for the first time, I didn't know about the whole 'hero archetype' thing. I'd never heard of Joseph Campbell or Akira Kurosawa, and while I'd seen The Bridges at Toko-Ri, I didn't make the connection between that and George Lucas's eponymous movie until I was much older.

Much of the additional material in Lucas's retrofitted Episode IV is window dressing. As I've said before, I don't have a problem with this - Lucas was given the opportunity to do what a lot of directors would like to do, and some actually get to eventually, to go back to a personally important project and to realise more fully the vision they had of how the movie should look, how it should be experienced. A lot of people say it's hubris, the actions of a multi-millionaire micro-manager (I really didn't mean that to come out so alliterative - sorry). I say, "Kudos to you, oh bearded one". Maybe we could have done without the cool "zapping into Mos Eisley on a floating Honda" thing. Maybe we got along alright for the better part of two decades without seeing Jabba until the third/sixth movie. Really, the only people who are going to get wound up about this sort of thing are the ones who are so anally retentive about the original version, they should by all rights have been Trekkers. Go back into your living room and watch your VHS tape of the 1977 release, little man, and take your Boba Fett doll with you.

What makes the film a more rewarding experience for me is the Death Star battle at the end. Or more accurately, the preparation for battle. There's maybe an extra forty seconds of footage there (no, I haven't timed it), but it helps to build a sense of despiration, urgency and resolve leading into the battle scene. You get to see these young guys preparing to fight and to probably die in what should statistically be a futile gesture, like the ronin sharpening their blades and preparing rudimetary fortifications in The Seven Samurai, or William Holden's gunfighters in preparing to go get Angel in The Wild Bunch. You see Porkins and Wedge and the others checking their avionics like real pilots do before a flight. And you get to see Luke and Biggs briefly catching up before the squadron flies out to meet their fate.

Much of the footage in the Special Edition was shot during filming, and for one reason or another it wasn't included in the original theatrical release (like the docking bay scene wiah Han Solo and a decidedly humanoid Jabba). What would have made the experience even more complete for me would have been to include a scene that has never made it into any of the cuts (though I think it appears in the novel - and I know it made the shooting script because I've seen the stills). Originally Luke was supposed to have been visited by Biggs Darklighter, freshly back from the Academy, with news that he was off to join the Rebellion. He invites Luke to come with him, but Luke demures, citing the closeness of the harvest, and how it's not really his fight anyway. Biggs leaves. All up, maybe another eighty seconds of film, two minutes tops. Why was it left out? I guess there were reasons. The pity of it is that it would have given more context to both Luke's emotional paralysis when Biggs fighter is destroyed, and his hysterical "You know about the rebellion against the Empire" yelp at a startled C3PO, which really seems to come out of nowhere. But you can't have everything you own way, can you, VHS boy?

The Book of the Movie of the Book...

Sergio Leone apparently said once that it was impossible to make a good film from a good book. “You can make a great film out of a bad book”, he added, or something to that effect*. So, according to Leone, the equation goes something as follows:

( a ) Good book = bad movie (every time)

( b ) Bad book = good movie (or, at least potential for a good one)

( c ) Bad book = bad movie (at least as much of a chance as b)

Was he right? There are many who would say – emphatically and repeatedly – YES. In the face of it, there is some compelling evidence of exceptionally good books forming the basis of exceedingly bad films (we all remember Less Than Zero - a film that used up two other movies quotas of bad as well as its own). But often one person's "bad" is someone else's "quite good" - off the top of my head To Kill a Mockingbird, A Room With a View, The Remains of the Day, Goodfellas, The Godfather, Once Upon a Time in America, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Voyager, Double Indemnity, The Maltese Falcon, The Shining, LA Confidential, Wonderboys, not to mention this blog's namesake. All of these movies were based on books that are considered exemplary, at least within their genre, and each one of them is a damn fine film (or at least, I think they're damn fine films).

I think I understand what Sergio was getting at. When a filmmaker decides to make a film based on a popular book, there is a lot of baggage that comes with the project. People have expectations. The reading experience has become to a degree "cinematic" for many people. Probably since the Second World War (I'm guessing about the time-frame here, but stay with me) Western culture reached a tipping point where the number of people that read and go to the movies began to out-number those who just read or just went to the movies. And people started seeing what they read in terms of a filmic experience, as if it's being projected on a screen in the mind. I don't know if this is a good or a bad thing, but the result is that when we see someone else's visual interpretation of something we have already interpreted visually for ourselves, it seems at best jarring - at worst a travesty against the intentions of the author.

People get protective about the books they read because it's their experience. They complain that their favourite scene was dropped, or an ending changed, the leading lady miscast. The solution, apparently, is to read the book after you've seen the movie (tough with something like The Lord of the Rings or a Harry Potter story). Ironically, the biggest criticism levelled against Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was that is too closely followed the book. Just no pleasing some people, I guess.

So, the short answer is, if you're thinking about making a book into a movie, don't. But if you really want to, here's some survival tips:

1. Pick your material carefully. When I finally got around to reading Graham Greene's The Quiet American I got about half-way through and thought, This has to be made into a movie. It was cinematic in style and pace of narrative, and it was timely and topical. (Unfortunately for my film-career chances, Phillip Noyce thought so too.)

2. Stick to the story where you can. These days nobody is going to pay good money to see the plight of an outed adulteress in a Seventeenth-Century Puritan settlement, whether it has a happy ending or not. Keep it real.

3. Don't be afraid to leave stuff out. Tom Bombidil didn't make it into The Fellowship of the Ring. SFW. While his appearence in the book makes for an interesting interlude, Tom contributes nothing to the narrative thrust. The movie was already 178 minutes long. To add him would have jacked it up another seven or eight minutes and risked losing those members of the audience who hadn't read the books every year since they were ten like some holy pilgrimage.

4. Pick a screenwriter who can write adaptations. It takes a particular kind of talent and sensitivity to the material, as well as an understanding of film, to distill a two-hundred-and-forty page novel into a ninety-eight minute script. Lawrence Kasdan can do it. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala can do it too. Andrew Davies and Christopher Hampton can do it really well.

5. If possible, don't let the producers sell the novelization rights to the script, a la Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. It's just embarassing.

* I think I remember reading this in Sight and Sound, around the time Leone died (1989).