And there's plenty to learn in this big wide world.
Thursday
The Constantines
Gritty and refined, the Constantines released their fourth album "Kensington Heights". If you haven't heard them, the band is one of the finest in Canada.
You should also visit the great indy music store zunior.com. Zunior sells albums as digital downloads for only $8.88 and are drm free. I get most of my music from them.
(I am not affiliated with either of these but wanted to share the news)
You should also visit the great indy music store zunior.com. Zunior sells albums as digital downloads for only $8.88 and are drm free. I get most of my music from them.
(I am not affiliated with either of these but wanted to share the news)
Monday
The Digital Void
"I wanted the audience to be able to trust their eyes again."
Werner Herzog
After waiting a few weeks, I finally made the trek to my local AMC to check out the latest Indiana Jones sequel. I, like most of you, have a personal history with Indiana Jones films. Having turned seven years old with the release of Star Wars, I was the perfect age to grow up on the imaginative adventures that George Lucas and Steven Spielberg were cooking up. Arriving at the falling of the boulder, my brother Andrew and I were late for Raiders of the Lost Ark and missed most of the opening sequence. It became the perfect reason to return for another viewing although we had to lie to our Mother to cough up additional movie funds as she wouldn't give us the money to see the same film twice. My entire childhood, as sad as it might seem, was devoted to buying George Lucas his beloved Skywalker Ranch and whatever wonderful mansion he must live in today.
Despite this nostalgic and sentimental opening, I am going to digress from 'reviewing' the Crystal Skull. I can say that I did enjoy the film but did not love it. What the film did do was get me thinking about synthesizers. What about them, you ask? I have already confessed my age here so it is easy to deduce that my formative years took place during the 1980's. I might be biased but I don't hold much love or nostalgia for this period in time and it is synthesizers that seem to be the icon for how I feel about it. The synthesizer, particularly in the 80's, was used excessively despite the fact that the technology felt artificial and empty. The voice of the synthesizer is without depth or feeling. Not only did this abomination ruin popular music, it ruined film music as it replaced the power of the full orchestra and the emotive playing of it's talented members. Look at how the synthesizer scores damaged films like Wall Street and Witness. With proper film scores, these films would feel less dated and have a greater impact today (yes this just my opinion but I believe it to be true). Both are fine films but they suffer under the robotic scores.
Now, in 2008, I'm starting to feel like our excessive use of 3d animation in film is having a damaging impact. I might also back track to the synthesizer and it's place in the 1990's. Musicians had played enough with the machine, explored it's potential, then picked up some traditional instruments and began making music again. Music that came from real life instruments - the non perfect kind. The kind that bent the notes, played it slightly flat or sharp and had an organic feel where no two notes were played the same. The synthesizer was not thrown out and I don't suggest it needed to be. It became a texture and highlight in the music, finding it's place in colouring the songs.
While I sat in the new Indiana Jones and watched Shia LaBeouf straddle two cars while driving through the jungle or as Indy et al go over the massive water fall, I felt like I was listening to the synthesizer again. This moment of total physics defying action pulled me out of the film and reminded me that I was watching a movie. It got me thinking about that original Raiders film and what really made it work. Partly it's the plausibility of the action. Don't misunderstand my words here, I said plausibility, not possibility. There is a difference. The fact that Spielberg used stunt men on actual sets to accomplish his action, the audience is drawn further into the action and, more importantly, the plight of the hero. Since what we are seeing feels real, the audience is much more likely to sit on the edge of their seat and empathize with the hero. Spielberg learned this famous lesson in Jaws, to create fear and tension is to make the audience believe in the shark and to let their imaginations take them the rest of the way. Show the shark and people see that it isn't real and the gig is up.
We are at that point in films right now. We can all see the shark and it doesn't look real. We see the hero fall off the water falls and we are bored. Mind you, if Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid jump off the cliff, we feel it. We feel it because two stunt men jumped off a cliff.
This little rant does not suggest that we take the clock back. I am not nostalgic for old fashioned methods. I do think that us writers and filmmakers have to cut back on our synthesizers and make sure that we don't break the illusions we are creating. It damages our stories. Take a look at Peter Weir's Master and Commander as a superior example of using the technology as texture and a tool to achieve the unachievable. It's a wonderful picture, full of all sorts of visual effects but integrated with real ships, real waves and real people. Look at Ridley Scott's re release of Blade Runner to see how you can create a world of illusion with models and light. It looks better than most hundred million dollar films today. I do have to admit, however, that I've never been much of a fan of Vangelis' score in that picture. Synthesizers. I've learned to live with it over the years and rationalize it away as being futuristic... I'm only fooling myself.
------
For an excessive review of the Indy film, go to read the Mysteryman's Fifty Flaws of Indy IV!
Werner Herzog
After waiting a few weeks, I finally made the trek to my local AMC to check out the latest Indiana Jones sequel. I, like most of you, have a personal history with Indiana Jones films. Having turned seven years old with the release of Star Wars, I was the perfect age to grow up on the imaginative adventures that George Lucas and Steven Spielberg were cooking up. Arriving at the falling of the boulder, my brother Andrew and I were late for Raiders of the Lost Ark and missed most of the opening sequence. It became the perfect reason to return for another viewing although we had to lie to our Mother to cough up additional movie funds as she wouldn't give us the money to see the same film twice. My entire childhood, as sad as it might seem, was devoted to buying George Lucas his beloved Skywalker Ranch and whatever wonderful mansion he must live in today.
Despite this nostalgic and sentimental opening, I am going to digress from 'reviewing' the Crystal Skull. I can say that I did enjoy the film but did not love it. What the film did do was get me thinking about synthesizers. What about them, you ask? I have already confessed my age here so it is easy to deduce that my formative years took place during the 1980's. I might be biased but I don't hold much love or nostalgia for this period in time and it is synthesizers that seem to be the icon for how I feel about it. The synthesizer, particularly in the 80's, was used excessively despite the fact that the technology felt artificial and empty. The voice of the synthesizer is without depth or feeling. Not only did this abomination ruin popular music, it ruined film music as it replaced the power of the full orchestra and the emotive playing of it's talented members. Look at how the synthesizer scores damaged films like Wall Street and Witness. With proper film scores, these films would feel less dated and have a greater impact today (yes this just my opinion but I believe it to be true). Both are fine films but they suffer under the robotic scores.
Now, in 2008, I'm starting to feel like our excessive use of 3d animation in film is having a damaging impact. I might also back track to the synthesizer and it's place in the 1990's. Musicians had played enough with the machine, explored it's potential, then picked up some traditional instruments and began making music again. Music that came from real life instruments - the non perfect kind. The kind that bent the notes, played it slightly flat or sharp and had an organic feel where no two notes were played the same. The synthesizer was not thrown out and I don't suggest it needed to be. It became a texture and highlight in the music, finding it's place in colouring the songs.
While I sat in the new Indiana Jones and watched Shia LaBeouf straddle two cars while driving through the jungle or as Indy et al go over the massive water fall, I felt like I was listening to the synthesizer again. This moment of total physics defying action pulled me out of the film and reminded me that I was watching a movie. It got me thinking about that original Raiders film and what really made it work. Partly it's the plausibility of the action. Don't misunderstand my words here, I said plausibility, not possibility. There is a difference. The fact that Spielberg used stunt men on actual sets to accomplish his action, the audience is drawn further into the action and, more importantly, the plight of the hero. Since what we are seeing feels real, the audience is much more likely to sit on the edge of their seat and empathize with the hero. Spielberg learned this famous lesson in Jaws, to create fear and tension is to make the audience believe in the shark and to let their imaginations take them the rest of the way. Show the shark and people see that it isn't real and the gig is up.
We are at that point in films right now. We can all see the shark and it doesn't look real. We see the hero fall off the water falls and we are bored. Mind you, if Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid jump off the cliff, we feel it. We feel it because two stunt men jumped off a cliff.
This little rant does not suggest that we take the clock back. I am not nostalgic for old fashioned methods. I do think that us writers and filmmakers have to cut back on our synthesizers and make sure that we don't break the illusions we are creating. It damages our stories. Take a look at Peter Weir's Master and Commander as a superior example of using the technology as texture and a tool to achieve the unachievable. It's a wonderful picture, full of all sorts of visual effects but integrated with real ships, real waves and real people. Look at Ridley Scott's re release of Blade Runner to see how you can create a world of illusion with models and light. It looks better than most hundred million dollar films today. I do have to admit, however, that I've never been much of a fan of Vangelis' score in that picture. Synthesizers. I've learned to live with it over the years and rationalize it away as being futuristic... I'm only fooling myself.
------
For an excessive review of the Indy film, go to read the Mysteryman's Fifty Flaws of Indy IV!
Saturday
Sidney Pollack
This is an excerpt from Laurent Tirard's excellent book, "Moviemakers' Master Class":
Master Class with Sydney Pollack
I never chose to make films, really, and, in a way, it is only after I became a director that I started to learn filmmaking. So I did it backwards, in a way. I had been teaching acting for four years or so when somebody suggested that I become a director, and before I knew it, I was making films for TV, and then for the big screen. Given my background, I wasn't drawn to sweeping, visual films. To me, everything was in the performance, in the acting. The rest was just . . . photography. But then, over the years, I began to understand filmmaking as a syntax, as a vocabulary, as a language. And I discovered the satisfaction that could be drawn from giving the audience the right sequence of information through the way the shots were framed, or the way the camera movements were set up.
What I realized, in fact, is that filmmaking is essentially storytelling. I wouldn't say that I make films to tell stories, though. Not really. My principal interest is in relationships. To me, relationships are a metaphor for everything else in life: politics, morality . . . everything. So basically, I make films to learn more about relationships. But I don't make films to say anything, because I wouldn't know what to say. I think there are basically two kinds of filmmakers: those who know and understand a truth which they want to communicate to the world, and those who are not quite sure what the answer to something is and who make the film as a way to try and find out. That's what I do.
FINDING THE SPINE
It's important not to intellectualize the filmmaking process too much. And particularly not during the actual shooting. I might think a lot about the film before I make it, and certainly after, but I try not to think too much when I'm actually on the set. The way I work is that I try to determine as early as possible what the theme of the movie is, what central idea is being expressed through the story. Once I know that, once I have figured out a unifying principle, then any decision I make on the set will be influenced by that and will therefore fall into a certain logic. And to me, the success of a film depends on whether or not the choices you make on the set, as a director, remain true to the original idea.
For instance, Three Days of the Condor is a film about trust. Robert Redford plays a character who trusts people too easily and who will learn to be more suspicious. Faye Dunaway, on the other hand, plays a woman who trusts no one, and who, through this dramatic situation, will learn to open up. In Out of Africa, the central idea is about possession. It's about England trying to own Africa, and it's about Meryl Streep trying to own Redford. If you take both of these films and analyze them, sequence by sequence, then I should be able to justify every choice I've made, as a filmmaker, in regard to their respective themes.
It's a process I often compare to sculpture: you start with a sort of spine, like a skeleton, and then, little by little, you cover it with clay and give it a shape. Now, it's the spine that holds everything together. Without it, the sculpture would just collapse. But the spine must not be visible or it would ruin everything. And it's the same with a movie. If someone walks out of Three Days of the Condor and says, "Oh, it's a film about trust," then I have failed as a filmmaker. The audience must not be conscious of it. Ideally, they will understand it in an abstract way. But what's important is that every aspect of the film be coherent because it is motivated by that theme.
Even the set must reflect the central idea of the film. Which is why I used to love wide screen. Most of my early pictures were shot in wide screen because I feel that it allows you to use the background as a reflection—as a metaphor, I would even say—of what is going on in the foreground. When I made They Shoot Horses, Don't They? I insisted that it be shot in wide screen, and nobody understood why, because it takes place almost entirely indoors. But it's a mistake to think that the purpose of wide screen is to shoot big scenery. The real purpose of it is to compose frames that have enormous tension and movement in them, to shoot pictures that need a sense of place. Because even if you frame two people in close-up, you still have space to see the background behind them. If I had shot Horses with a flat frame, you would have seen two people dancing and nothing else. You would have lost sense of all the madness around.
Ironically, the first film I did not shoot in wide screen was Out of Africa. It may seem odd, because this is certainly a film that demanded as big a frame as possible, but by then, it was the mid-eighties, and I realized that most people were going to see the film on video. I didn't want it to be butchered on the small screen.
__
I couldn't agree more with Mr. Pollack and every screenwriter should take his advice on finding the spine. It unifies the work and gives the writer direction. It adds the layers and texture to your story. It's very easy to see why he and Minghella got along so well.
The book that this excerpt is taken from is quite informative and has these great little tidbits from filmmakers like Pollack as well as the likes of Martin Scorcese, Oliver Stone, Wim Wenders, David Cronenberg, Woody Allen, Pedro Almodovar, Jean-Pierre Jeunet (and many many more).
Master Class with Sydney Pollack
I never chose to make films, really, and, in a way, it is only after I became a director that I started to learn filmmaking. So I did it backwards, in a way. I had been teaching acting for four years or so when somebody suggested that I become a director, and before I knew it, I was making films for TV, and then for the big screen. Given my background, I wasn't drawn to sweeping, visual films. To me, everything was in the performance, in the acting. The rest was just . . . photography. But then, over the years, I began to understand filmmaking as a syntax, as a vocabulary, as a language. And I discovered the satisfaction that could be drawn from giving the audience the right sequence of information through the way the shots were framed, or the way the camera movements were set up.
What I realized, in fact, is that filmmaking is essentially storytelling. I wouldn't say that I make films to tell stories, though. Not really. My principal interest is in relationships. To me, relationships are a metaphor for everything else in life: politics, morality . . . everything. So basically, I make films to learn more about relationships. But I don't make films to say anything, because I wouldn't know what to say. I think there are basically two kinds of filmmakers: those who know and understand a truth which they want to communicate to the world, and those who are not quite sure what the answer to something is and who make the film as a way to try and find out. That's what I do.
FINDING THE SPINE
It's important not to intellectualize the filmmaking process too much. And particularly not during the actual shooting. I might think a lot about the film before I make it, and certainly after, but I try not to think too much when I'm actually on the set. The way I work is that I try to determine as early as possible what the theme of the movie is, what central idea is being expressed through the story. Once I know that, once I have figured out a unifying principle, then any decision I make on the set will be influenced by that and will therefore fall into a certain logic. And to me, the success of a film depends on whether or not the choices you make on the set, as a director, remain true to the original idea.
For instance, Three Days of the Condor is a film about trust. Robert Redford plays a character who trusts people too easily and who will learn to be more suspicious. Faye Dunaway, on the other hand, plays a woman who trusts no one, and who, through this dramatic situation, will learn to open up. In Out of Africa, the central idea is about possession. It's about England trying to own Africa, and it's about Meryl Streep trying to own Redford. If you take both of these films and analyze them, sequence by sequence, then I should be able to justify every choice I've made, as a filmmaker, in regard to their respective themes.
It's a process I often compare to sculpture: you start with a sort of spine, like a skeleton, and then, little by little, you cover it with clay and give it a shape. Now, it's the spine that holds everything together. Without it, the sculpture would just collapse. But the spine must not be visible or it would ruin everything. And it's the same with a movie. If someone walks out of Three Days of the Condor and says, "Oh, it's a film about trust," then I have failed as a filmmaker. The audience must not be conscious of it. Ideally, they will understand it in an abstract way. But what's important is that every aspect of the film be coherent because it is motivated by that theme.
Even the set must reflect the central idea of the film. Which is why I used to love wide screen. Most of my early pictures were shot in wide screen because I feel that it allows you to use the background as a reflection—as a metaphor, I would even say—of what is going on in the foreground. When I made They Shoot Horses, Don't They? I insisted that it be shot in wide screen, and nobody understood why, because it takes place almost entirely indoors. But it's a mistake to think that the purpose of wide screen is to shoot big scenery. The real purpose of it is to compose frames that have enormous tension and movement in them, to shoot pictures that need a sense of place. Because even if you frame two people in close-up, you still have space to see the background behind them. If I had shot Horses with a flat frame, you would have seen two people dancing and nothing else. You would have lost sense of all the madness around.
Ironically, the first film I did not shoot in wide screen was Out of Africa. It may seem odd, because this is certainly a film that demanded as big a frame as possible, but by then, it was the mid-eighties, and I realized that most people were going to see the film on video. I didn't want it to be butchered on the small screen.
__
I couldn't agree more with Mr. Pollack and every screenwriter should take his advice on finding the spine. It unifies the work and gives the writer direction. It adds the layers and texture to your story. It's very easy to see why he and Minghella got along so well.
The book that this excerpt is taken from is quite informative and has these great little tidbits from filmmakers like Pollack as well as the likes of Martin Scorcese, Oliver Stone, Wim Wenders, David Cronenberg, Woody Allen, Pedro Almodovar, Jean-Pierre Jeunet (and many many more).
Wednesday
Sidney Pollack
There isn't much I can say here that hasn't been said around the internet. Sidney Pollack was a great journeyman and multi talented filmmaker and he will be missed. He'll be missed in ways we won't ever know about as his company 'Mirage Enterprises' was the creative force behind more than just Pollack's films. He was in a partnership with Anthony Minghella who also died unexpectedly earlier this year. The Hollywood Reporter has an article on what was and is in the works at Mirage:
Mirage, which has offices in Los Angeles and London, has a first-look deal at the Weinstein Co., and the company has said that it is intent on moving forward on those projects, including "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency," which is going ahead at HBO.
Mirage's docket at the Weinstein Co. also includes the high-profile remake of German Oscar-winner "The Lives of Others" as well as the adaptation of Allison Pearson's novel "I Don't Know How She Does It." The latter has David Frankel ("Marley & Me") attached to direct; it recently bought Aline Brosh McKenna on board to do a rewrite.
Other projects, most of which are book adaptations or international-flavored thrillers, include:
-- "The Ninth Life of Louis Drax," which Minghella adapted based on a novel by Liz Jensen.
-- "The Silver Lining Playbook" an adaptation of a Matthew M. Quick book that Pollack was producing with Michelle Raimo.
-- "Bartimaeus Trilogy: The Amulet of Samarkand," an adaptation of a children's fantasy novel that sees the Weinstein Co. sharing the project with Miramax. Sources said "Bartimaeus" had been dormant for a while.
-- At Miramax, Mirage was working on "The Resurrectionists," based on the novel by Michael Collins. Minghella had been attached to direct; the project was put on hold when he died.
-- "Colombian Gold" is set up at Focus, with Mirage producing with Miguel Arteta's Flan de Coco Films shingle. Arteta also was attached to direct the murder mystery.
-- "Liberty," a thriller set in Haiti, is set up at Intermedia Films with Jez Butterworth directing.
-- Mirage also was producing "Turbulence" at Universal, home of Pollack's last big studio picture, "The Interpreter." Tom Pabst is writing the internationally set thriller.
__
Pollack and his company were passionate about creating great stories on film. It's rare that you have a champion with his clout and that is a great loss to an industry that needs more champions of human stories rather than bland spectacles.
As a side note: Cameron Crowe asked Billy Wilder about Pollack's remake of 'Sabrina' and one of the interesting comments that Wilder made was about the possible casting of Thandie Newton in the role of Sabrina... What a wonderful thought (and a shame it didn't happen).
Too many great losses this year.
Mirage, which has offices in Los Angeles and London, has a first-look deal at the Weinstein Co., and the company has said that it is intent on moving forward on those projects, including "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency," which is going ahead at HBO.
Mirage's docket at the Weinstein Co. also includes the high-profile remake of German Oscar-winner "The Lives of Others" as well as the adaptation of Allison Pearson's novel "I Don't Know How She Does It." The latter has David Frankel ("Marley & Me") attached to direct; it recently bought Aline Brosh McKenna on board to do a rewrite.
Other projects, most of which are book adaptations or international-flavored thrillers, include:
-- "The Ninth Life of Louis Drax," which Minghella adapted based on a novel by Liz Jensen.
-- "The Silver Lining Playbook" an adaptation of a Matthew M. Quick book that Pollack was producing with Michelle Raimo.
-- "Bartimaeus Trilogy: The Amulet of Samarkand," an adaptation of a children's fantasy novel that sees the Weinstein Co. sharing the project with Miramax. Sources said "Bartimaeus" had been dormant for a while.
-- At Miramax, Mirage was working on "The Resurrectionists," based on the novel by Michael Collins. Minghella had been attached to direct; the project was put on hold when he died.
-- "Colombian Gold" is set up at Focus, with Mirage producing with Miguel Arteta's Flan de Coco Films shingle. Arteta also was attached to direct the murder mystery.
-- "Liberty," a thriller set in Haiti, is set up at Intermedia Films with Jez Butterworth directing.
-- Mirage also was producing "Turbulence" at Universal, home of Pollack's last big studio picture, "The Interpreter." Tom Pabst is writing the internationally set thriller.
__
Pollack and his company were passionate about creating great stories on film. It's rare that you have a champion with his clout and that is a great loss to an industry that needs more champions of human stories rather than bland spectacles.
As a side note: Cameron Crowe asked Billy Wilder about Pollack's remake of 'Sabrina' and one of the interesting comments that Wilder made was about the possible casting of Thandie Newton in the role of Sabrina... What a wonderful thought (and a shame it didn't happen).
Too many great losses this year.
Monday
Rule Breaking Films
Mr. Robert Mills sent me this link to a bloggers list of 'rule breaking' films. It's a fun read and sparks the imagination to add to the list (which the author declares is by no means definitive).
Here is an excerpt:
Review: 13 Rule-Breaking Films
For all the creativity and innovation that goes into making (some) Hollywood films, there are also a lot of ideas that get recycled time and time again. I’m not referring to stock characters or the sequalitis that hits multiplexes every summer. I’m talking about the basic building blocks of storytelling that are ingrained in the movie-going experience.
Every once in a while, though, a film comes along that takes an assumption about how American movies are supposed to be made and changes it, sometimes resulting in something truly memorable. Producers who want to make a film that breaks one of the unwritten rules of motion pictures risk a lot – studios might not want to fund the film, theaters might not show it, audiences might not respond to it. The reward for taking the chance, though, is recognition for being a really interesting experiment, or, in some cases, taking your place among the greatest films ever made.
___
Here is the link
Here is an excerpt:
Review: 13 Rule-Breaking Films
For all the creativity and innovation that goes into making (some) Hollywood films, there are also a lot of ideas that get recycled time and time again. I’m not referring to stock characters or the sequalitis that hits multiplexes every summer. I’m talking about the basic building blocks of storytelling that are ingrained in the movie-going experience.
Every once in a while, though, a film comes along that takes an assumption about how American movies are supposed to be made and changes it, sometimes resulting in something truly memorable. Producers who want to make a film that breaks one of the unwritten rules of motion pictures risk a lot – studios might not want to fund the film, theaters might not show it, audiences might not respond to it. The reward for taking the chance, though, is recognition for being a really interesting experiment, or, in some cases, taking your place among the greatest films ever made.
___
Here is the link
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