"THE GOLDEN COMPASS dropped 65% from first to third with $9M for a disappointing two-week cume of $40.9M (despite impressive vfx from Rhythm & Hues, Cinesite, Framestore CFC, Digital Domain, Rainmaker, Peerless Camera, Tippett Studio, Digital Backlot and Matte World Digital)."
I got this quote off of Animation World Network and it was a perfect example of backwards thinking in the film industry. 'Despite impressive vfx' suggests that audiences go to the movies just to see special effects. Coming from AWN it is a slanted quote as those visual effects wizards think they are the show. Yes, the overwhelming news on the film was that it looked great but in the end it's the story that sells the film. And on top of that, it's how well the story is told.
It's fairly old news but stars don't make blockbusters and neither does spectacle. 'The Golden Compass' had boxoffice star Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig. So what? It got forty percent on the tomato meter and that is the best indicator of box office - whether or not the film works (not that this is an exact science either).
In the end it's all a bit of a crap shoot. I remember when Brad Bird's 'The Iron Giant' came out and it was a critical success and did nothing at the box office. Although hampered by poor marketing the film has since found life on home video and I can only assume it's made it's money back. I suppose it comes down to how much money you want to invest in a film. Judd Apatow's 'Knocked Up' cost 33 million (according to IMDB) and pulled in 150 million. 'Superbad' cost 20 million and pulled in over 120 million at the box office. Low cost, high entertainment. What is special in Apatow's case is that the personality of the filmmakers are coming through. They don't feel like committee driven projects with mountains of notes given. I just read a great quote from William Wellman who I just discovered through TCM and an odd little John Wayne picture called 'Islands in the Sky'.
"Get a director and a writer and leave them alone. That's how the best pictures get made."
It's not about stars or visual effects. It's about story. A one hundred and eighty million dollar budget will not guarantee you a success (estimated Golden Compass budget). It's all about getting the story right first. This is the least expensive part of the movie making process - a lone writer with a sharp pencil, a notebook and a laptop computer. Even this won't guarantee you a popular film but you'll feel a whole lot better in the end.
For three days last week I was in a mixing suite finishing up the final mix for a new documentary, 'Policy Baby'. My good friend Michael Glassbourg had asked me to work on a writing project with him last summer but altered his plans and asked me to work with him on finishing up this four year project. I agreed and it was a great experience.
Having worked in animation for four years it was refreshing to get back to a story about real people. The documentary is about a native woman who was taken from her reserve at birth and her journey back to self realization. It's a funny, sad and poignant documentary and I am very grateful to Michael for asking me to work on it. I am also very grateful that he gave me such freedom to help him realize his vision.
Michael has been putting it in documentary film festivals and I'll give an update when and where you'll be able to see it.
Jim Caswell sent me this link to '1000 Frames' where entire Hitchock films are represented in a thousand images. It's quite interesting to see Hitchcock's visual tapestry revealed without the context of the dialogue.
Notice the board of images in the background.
It reminds me of Walter Murch's editing style where he creates boards made up of images from the shoot. This way he can refer to the images to help him visually edit the film and to create a visual flow to the story. It also allows him to pick shots out of context when he needs to create a moment that wasn't shot or concieved before the edit suite.
There has been a lot of discussion about the Cohen brother's new film, 'No Country for Old Men'. It has been a critical success with praise for the terrific performances and the remarkable photography. It is a film that exudes confidence in every way. The film's criticism has been mostly targeted at the character development and the subversive ending which I will not disclose here.
What struck me about 'No Country for Old Men' was the minimalist soundtrack. It is one of the quietest films I've seen in years. I screened some of Kieslowski's 'Blue', 'White' and 'Red' for my students a few weeks ago and asked them to pay attention to his minimal use of sound. Sound became punctuation and it's silence was just as important as it's amplitude. 'No Country for Old Men' uses this method with the same great effect. After the film was over I was convinced that there was no musical score at all. My theory has always been that if you don't notice the music then it was doing it's job. Great film music doesn't draw attention to itself, it enters your psyche through the back door and draws on your emotions. Curious, I looked it up today and came across the blog of the music composer, Carter Burwell. I'll link to it so you can read what he said about his work on the film. On the right side of his site he has a little jukebox so you can hear some of his work on the film.
Brilliant. In a thriller where you want to create tension, most filmmakers lean heavily on the film's score to provide the emotional cues. Here, the Cohen brothers create the tension through story, editing and performance. It is intense to say the least.
I truly admire filmmakers that take chances and push themselves, and the form, to new levels. The Cohen brothers are a great example of the modern maverick, marching to the beat of their own drum. Their films are unique and quirky and they have a wonderfully subversive sense of humour. They've also shown such confidence in making this film that it almost challenges the critic to defy it. The minimalist soundtrack is a perfect example of filmmakers who feel at home with their material. It is, after all, a companion to some of the Cohen brothers best films - 'Fargo' and 'Blood Simple'. They seem to have a comfort with this kind of story but have taken it a step forward. I'd be very surprised if they don't take home some hardware this winter...
This past Halloween I was reminded of the strange story of 'The Excorcist' prequel. I remembered when it came out there was some controversy but the film was released and then disappeared into oblivion. The controversy surrounded the films first director Paul Schrader. Schrader, the famous writer of 'Taxi Driver' and 'Raging Bull' was directing a script by 'Caleb Carr' and 'William Wisher'. Carr is a renowned novelist and Wisher had co-written 'Terminator 2' and 'The 13th Warrior' (among other less successful ventures). Schrader cast Stellen Skarsgard as Father Merrin and hired the incomparable cinematographer Vittorio Storaro.
I'm not sure what transpired from script to screen but when Schrader handed in his edit they hated the film. Then, in an unprecedented move, they fired Schrader, hired Renny Harlin and they reshot the film. Reshot the film. They didn't reshoot parts of the film, they reshot it. They started with a new script based on Wishers and Carrs and started fresh. They recast some of the parts but kept Skarsgard and used Storaro to shoot the new material. Imdb reports that Harlin reshot over ninety percent of the film.
As you might expect they are two very different films. One look at the directors filmographies you can guess why. Harlin made his success on second-rate action films like 'Deep Blue Sea', 'Cliffhanger' and 'Cutthroat Island' (don't get me started about that one). Schrader made his success with the aforementioned films in addition to writing and directing some hardcore dramas like 'Affliction'. The studio wanted a marketable film with jolts and gore while Schrader was actually interested in the character and dilemma of Father Merrin.
I caught Harlins version on the television one night and decided to hunt down Schraders version which had been in a limited release following the box office disappointment of 'The Exorcist: The Beginning'. Schraders version was titled 'The Exorcist: Dominion'. What is fascinating for the viewer of these films is that although similar, are two totally different films. Schraders version had put the emphasis on Merrin who had lost his faith during the war. He was forced by the Nazis to choose ten men for execution in retribution for a murdered soldier. He was to give them ten names or they would execute them all. Merrin chooses and is rattled with guilt and remorse and loses his faith. After the war Merrin, an archeologist, is sent to a site in Africa where they have unearthed a church, buried in the sand. Upon excavation they slowly realize the church was built over a place of evil, presumably to keep it at bay. The town is occupied by British troops and contains a thematic element of another kind of evil - colonialism. The character who becomes possessed is a young man named Cheche, an innocent deformed simpleton whom the locals deride. Merrin and his quasi-love interest/friend, a nurse, tries to help heal the young man. After a surgery, Cheche starts to heal at a rapid rate as his body starts to become possessed. As all hell breaks loose, two soldiers are murdered at the church (while stealing some precious items) and the local tribesmen are blamed. Cheche becomes possessed, the colonial oppressors are driven to madness and Merrin must confront his beliefs and exorcise the demons (his own and the actual).
Dominion is an interesting film but not a great film. Harlins version changes the possession of Cheche to a young local boy and turns up the volume on the horror and symbolism. He erradicates the colonial subplot, shrinks the Nazi flashbacks and recasts the Nurse into a much hotter gal. I found it to be pretty much unwatchable full of manipulative scares and hokey iconography. The church is turned into a goofy production set with upside down crosses and other silly imagery (and some terrible cgi effects).
I can't help but think that those who seek to cash in on 'The Exorcist' haven't actully watched it. Despite all the memorable creepy bits and the actual exorcism, the film is actually quite dramatic and quiet. Schrader, like Friedkin, is interested in the concept of faith and the devil. Father Karras, the protagonist in the original, was having a crisis of faith. There is plenty of drama in the original revolving around Karras' dying mother and the sickness of young Regan. It wasn't wall to wall head spinning and pea soup spewing. Some of the creepiest moments are Regan peeing herself in front of the dinner guests and the spinal tap sequence. It was much more of a psychological thriller than an all out horror film. Certainly the climax was memorable for it's effects and gore but that wasn't what the film was about. Schrader understood this and sought to do something similar with his prequel. It's fascinating that the producers and distibutors couldn't make that connection and have convinced themselves that 'The Exorcist' was somehow on the same footing as 'Nightmare on Elm Street'.
As a post script, another film that shared this sort of treatment was Terry Gilliams 'Brazil'. The Criterion Collection released a box set of 'Brazil' that included an entirely seperate version call the 'Love Conquers All' version. Unlike the Exorcist sequels, this version of 'Brazil' was not reshot but was edited into a much more linear and commercial version by the studio. Gilliam had final cut so he was able to release his version but the revised film still exists and can be seen in the Crierion DVD's. For anyone interested in the power of the editor, you should really take a look at these two films as they use the exact same footage but with much different results. Gilliams version clocks in at 142 minutes while the 'Love' version was trimmed to a standard 94 minutes. Recommended for any fan of Gilliam or any student of film.
Poor Roger Ebert - totally taken out of context. Yes, he did like the film but he wasn't praising it as some kind of 'Milestone' of creation as they suggest. Damn marketers - half truths or half lies?
The reason to choose Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch as a maverick film is obvious. To beat the wild horse metaphor, it moved away from the herd to revolutionize the Western into the seventies. It is telling that The Wild Bunch was out the same year as Wayne’s True Grit. One formulaic, predictable, and because of Wayne, iconic; the other a radical rethink of heroes and honourable behaviour in the West. (I think even Unforgiven owes a debt to The Wild Bunch.) Westerns were always morality plays. Good vs. evil. Black hats vs. white. But the Wild Bunch introduces the ambiguity of moral authority into the genre.
The movie begins with a group of children-a mixture of races and classes but the majority are town folks or representative of modern times- laughing at two trapped scorpions being overwhelmed by ants. This metaphor travels through the movie. The Bunch are being overwhelmed; caught up in forces of change they can’t escape. They looking for a way out. A last big score will set them up in Mexico but always eludes them.
In the opening gunfight, the Bunch is trapped in the town with no clean exit. They dive to and fro to escape like the scorpions. The slow motion violence got most of the attention at the time but it is the editing that really demonstrates the futility of their struggle. The whole sequence is a jumble of where they are, who’s shooting who, and the way Modernity-the bounty hunters, the citizens and especially the physical town- have hemmed them in.
The bounty hunters -Strother Martin and L.Q. Jones- are representations of how the West has changed. They are scavengers picking over the bodies of the people in the street and fighting over credit for kills. Their leader, Deke Slaiton (Robert Ryan) used to be a member of the Bunch, but was caught and turned. He shows his disgust with his new comrades in arms. “I gotta work with this!’ Again the theme of the passing of an honourable way to do things.
Like the theme of Peckinpah’s first film, the excellent Ride the High Country, the old moral codes of the West are being replaced by modern ways. There is no place for men to do what they were good at (fighting Indians, rustlers, etc.) The jobs of being moral authority by virtue of their character-their righteousness- rather than their station in society has gone. This is well demonstrated by Pike Bishop (William Holden.) Holden brings his legacy as a leading man to the role. He’s on the down side of his career as a matinee idol and visibly shows the weariness that his character feel. He’s tired of doing another robbery (movie) and is looking for a respite (real role) to go out on. He plays the moral outrage of what the world has become. (He does this again in Network later in the seventies.) Bishop and the Bunch are not heroes as in previous Westerns. They are bad guys doing bad things. They are honourable to each other and are betrayed by those who no longer can adhere to their moral code.
After the disaster of Major Dundee, the studios wouldn’t hire him and he spent four years without making a movie. With the Wild Bunch, Peckinpah stands up for what he sees in happening to the Western and filmmaking. He paints a picture of righteousness denied, frustration at the failure from the way things are going, and a decline in how things should be done . While he did do a number of good but flawed films after, The Wild Bunch is Peckinpah’s last big score.
