The Sopranos Finale: A Second Coming

No More Fuckin' Ziti
by M.A. Fedeli

So, after waiting for my girlfriend to finally finish The Sopranos episode 86, "Made In America" (otherwise known as The Last Sopranos Episode EVER!), I can now write about the show's farewell. It was, how do you say, almost perfect? Without being a snob, I never could understand people's reactions to the show in general, especially in response to the series finale. People I know who loved the show for all its familial angst and anti-climactic wonders, not just the mob violence, were somehow still shocked and/or "miffled" after the final finale. It hurts to say, but if you didn't get why the show ended like it did, worse yet, if you didn't see it coming in the least, then you probably didn't really understand the show and where it has been going since the end of season 1.

I'm not going to re-cap the last episode or the famous ending, if you haven't yet seen it or heard about it you live in a hole where I do not wish to also reside. Needless to say, it was a fitting touchdown to the overall trajectory the show had been heading in: the focus on themes of hopelessness and existentialism that began at the beginning with Livia's poison moaning and Tony's first woe-is-me therapy session. No one kept this lingering to the finish line as well as AJ, who, after his suicide attempt, reminds us that Livia once told him there's no point in life and you die in your own arms. In The Sopranos, characters commit sins, apologize, and then commit them again with alarmingly consistent repetition. With these types of notions being floated week after week (like AJ explaining that you'd have to be crazy to think the world is not), how could anyone wonder why it ended like it did? It was absolutely appropriate, intelligent, and honest, three traits that have always been harder to achieve than just entertaining. A monkey with cymbals is entertaining.

David Chase, the creator of The Sopranos, must surely believe that there is no real closure or satisfaction in life. The show has always been most effective as a work of art for those who closely shared his darker world views. AJ's thoughts, his shock at the horrors of the world, while naive and said with little eloquence, are the truth, and he submits to them fully. Tony, while sharing many of the same dark thoughts, is the lie. Frequently two-faced, he uses these dark forces to his advantage, manipulating those around him, many times even unknowingly, and dragging everyone down to pull his way up. How ironic is it then that in one of his most touching, real, and sensitive moments as a father, he lifts AJ up out of the swimming pool, begging AJ not to fight him. It's moments like this that make us love him, his sympathy for the innocent and helpless. Sympathies that are fleeting and extend mostly to animals because they don't really annoy him or get in his way, as evidenced by the quick return to contempt for his son in the therapy sessions shortly after the suicide attempt.

Everyday, tons of awful things in this world happen with what seems to be no reason, no moral, no sense, no validation. Tony Soprano gave us a glimpse of one person who is responsible for many of those things, and we loved him (because of it or in spite of it?). I would guess that Chase was delighted with our collective hypocrisy, which the ending played on as much as it played on our expectations. The circle turns and turns, "the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity." To his friends and his family, Tony was oftentimes that rough beast that slouches toward Bethlehem to be born. Yet we rooted, in record numbers, for this man to succeed, to accomplish, to win. What does this say about us as a society, as a species?

Despite the cliche, life is definitely a journey, not a destination. It's the Myth of Sisyphus. Same goes for The Sopranos. This show has been a great journey for the better part of a decade, shame on those who put extra stock into the unrealistic notion of "how it all ends". It kept your heart pounding up until the last second and far beyond it, is that not enough? For the violence and action fans it killed off 3 major characters and handfuls of regulars in the last 4 episodes, seriously and violently injuring a few more. It also gave us the tragic end of Christopher, a vicious curb stomping, Phil Leotardo's squashed head, W.B. Yeats, and AJ's brilliantly orchestrated and heartbreaking suicide scene. Not to mention the continued brilliance of the writers, Edie Falco, and James Gandolfini with all things related to the revolving dynamics of Tony vs. Carmella.

In the very, very end we were treated to one of the most well-crafted scenes in the show's, if not television's, history, managing to present both subtly and effectively at least three separate themes:

1) It used the audience's knowledge that there were only a few minutes left of the show, and played hard on it, allowing us to feel Tony's paranoia of being murdered at any moment. Time was running out on us, that clock trickling past 10pm EST was a dire reminder. When the screen goes black, it was us who was murdered. Seeing as everyone expects something substantial in a final scene, can you do any better than that? Just because there wasn't a titanic melodramatic on-screen resolution in the last 5 minutes, does that ruin the fact that you were absolutely riveted just the same, or invalidate scenes that came before? That a TV show made you feel that engaged and alive is a gift. Any number of possible endings floated prior to the finale (Tony getting whacked, Carm or the kids getting hurt, Tony arrested/flipping, etc.) now seem silly in hindsight.

2) It was the artful whacking ending, repeating again the idea that you don't even hear it when it happens. This was referenced this season first by Bobby in the boat, then echoed by Silvio with the Gerry Torciano whacking, and finally in Tony's safe-house, last-night-on-earth flashback. Add to this the already present tension, the ringing bell, Meadow's erratic parking, and the diner characters who clearly are all meant to represent possible or past threats, and you have a wonderfully thick dramatic and psychological stew (not to mention the nod to The Godfather and the final black thought that maybe, just maybe, Tony's brains were bada-bing, blown all over Carm's nice, zip-up sweater). This interpretation was obviously intended and heavily alluded to, but in the end, it's delightfully uncertain because nothing ever exists outside of what's in the frame.

3) It was the life goes on and on and on and on ending, wholly validating the originally curious choice of (coincidentally named) Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" as the series' last song. This show, among other things, was about Tony and how his selfishness and insecurities could seriously affect everyone he ever got close to, and how he dealt with the fallout. But the show judged everyone equally. It called to task both of his "families", who were all far less than perfect, and who were hypocrites and liars themselves, right up until the end. AJ, Meadow, Carm, Janice, Paulie, Christopher, Melfi; no one was ever excused from being human. And so, the larger ending, the families, both of them, despite the years of threats and abuse, are still there, still repeating mistakes and living the same tortured lives they started at birth. And Tony, despite all the attempts (real or not) to better himself, is still there, still breathing heavy, still under constant threat. And the circle turns and turns and turns.

And that's the point. The build-up and the suspense are "the happening", they are the big finale. The journey is the event. When "Don't Stop Believin'" begins at around the show's hour mark, you think that the episode (and series) is going to end with a happy, upbeat song and a happy, upbeat family-gathering montage moment, as they have sometime done in the past. But this was the end of the show for all-time, and it just felt different. Action was rising, not falling. Drama was still being conducted. Most past episodes' final songs always played for a few seconds, but no more than a minute or so really, before the action noticeably winded down and the episode faded out to the credits. But as "Don't Stop Believin'" didn't stop and kept on going for 3 minutes, 4 minutes, 5 minutes, the tension was incredible. Absolutely white-knuckled. This had never been done on the show before; for anyone paying attention all these years, it was excruciating. Something HAD to happen; the longer the song played the bigger this "happening" was to be. And then, in a brilliant instant, in a big, big, way, it HAPPENED. It ended, with both a bang and whimper.

For years I've heard people complain viciously about the show yet never miss a minute of it. Makes you wonder what they thought about shows they didn't watch. Hyper-judgment seems to be the curse of the 86+ hour feature film for television that The Sopranos was. Keeping things interesting and revelatory, and keeping the standards up that high for that long borders on impossible. Especially in the face of our cynical, destroy-your-heroes world. The genius of the show, however, was the fact that it kept you glued, and no more so than in those final minutes. What more can you ask? If it were so easy to do and so common we'd love every TV show and movie and character out there; we'd be this collectively unnerved by their endings.

God bless David Chase and his balls for staying true to themselves and not being afraid to give us these entertaining doses of tough love. The overall final voyage of the show was philosophical and reflective, with characters constantly relishing and remembering the past (like they've always done). The more things changed, the more they stayed the same. The last chapters of The Sopranos were cold, sometimes anti-climactic, and may have even seemed alienating and confounding. But so what? That's life. Just ask Livia. With every other show not doing this, we should be happy such a great show did. We were not cheated in the least, we were given something more artistic, thoughtful, and lasting than all the blood spatter and screams in the world. Chase has said that he was not trying to be cute with the ending, that everything he was trying to say is in the scene. Problem is, it was exactly what the audience didn't want to hear: "the show is OVER." Let's be honest, the lack of a bloodbath is not what angered people, having to think more than just observe with interest is what did it. Having to reconcile with the disappointment of the show ceasing to exist is what was frustrating even to people who loved the sudden and unsympathetic black-out, like myself.

But don't take it from me, just read these David Chase quotes:

"This is what Hollywood has done to America. Do you have to have closure on every little thing? Isn't there any mystery in the world? It's a murky world out there. It's a murky life these guys lead. And by the way, I do know where the Russian is. But I'll never say because so many people got so pissy about it."

And, "We don't have contempt for the audience. In fact, I think The Sopranos is the only show that actually gave the audience credit for having some intelligence and attention span. We always operated as though people don't need to be spoon-fed every single thing--that their instincts and feelings and humanity will tell them what's going on."

In a Season Two episode, AJ mentions an existentialist quote which says that life is a choice between boredom and suffering. These characters have chosen suffering. And so it continues, in their lives and in ours...

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Killing You Where You Sleep

I Am Legend and the Spectacle of Familiarity
by M.A. Fedeli



My mother and I went to the IMAX theater in the Tropicana Hotel & Casino in Atlantic City to see I Am Legend. She really wanted to see a feature film on IMAX and I really wanted to see Big Willie be as big as possible. After about 5 minutes of establishing shots showing the vacant island of Manhattan and all of its landmarks, my mother whispered (quite loudly) "where does this film take place?" I saw a few heads around me roll and giggle. Nevertheless, the generation (and location) gap was apparent. I am inundated daily by promotion for this film and even walked through Washington Square while they were preparing a scene; all she knew was Will Smith and IMAX. This contrast went along with recent thoughts I've had on how blowing up well-known landmarks has single-handedly saved the action-adventure, more specifically, disaster epic. In my parent's day, The Towering Inferno could be any old building in any old city. In my day, it had better be the Sears Tower or the Empire State for it to mean anything to the audience.

The film was decent for the first two acts, and there is nothing in the plot you couldn't guess from watching a trailer or two. It was a treat to see the city as barren wasteland. Bucking the latest trends, its running time wasn't long at all, probably too short, in fact. Mr. Smith's character's name is Robert Neville, a scientist and the last man standing on Manhattan Island. I could have easily done with another 15 minutes worth of scenes showing his descent into a lonely, paranoid madness (something that is portrayed inconsistently and not alltogether very believably). To take an even darker tone with the character's mental state would have ensured the Fresh Prince some major Oscar consideration, if he does not have it already. Overall, I had a great time, aside from some early hand-held shaky cam work that brought me to the threshold of nausea (see, when you're watching an IMAX film and can't focus your eye on something because everything in the frame is constantly moving, well, vomit is induced). One small detail I loved was in Robert Neville's Washington Square apartment, where he had great works of art from NYC musuems hanging about, including the MoMA's Starry Night, which was prominently placed above his fire place; a nice touch.

About two-thirds of the way through the film, though, just as our hero is seemingly about to meet his tragic end, all rationale and reason to care about the plot is lost. I know this film is based on a novel, but that's the writer's problem, not mine. A completely unbelievable and ridiculously contrived measure is taken to save his life and move forward the third and final act. Alas, I still enjoyed myself despite the absurdity and commented to moms, "it really is amazing what crap you'll let slide for the pleasure of spectacle and incredible special effects."

So, as someone who quite detests CGI and most special effects, how can I say that? Because seeing my city in such a dramatic and unreal condition is the ultimate roller coaster ride. It is experiencing the thrill without the risk or danger. All it took to make me happy was seeing on that big screen the Union Square subway stop I frequently use, or the sign for Fanelli's Cafe in SoHo where I recently ate. Seeing your home in a movie has the same feeling as seeing a famous person on the street (except for my father, who apparently bumped hard into Jerry Seinfeld crossing a street and then told my mom he thought "that guy looked familiar.")

The only thing we love more than seeing our home is seeing it blown to fucking smithereens (which is actually a real word). We can thank Will Smith again for that, with Independence Day. ID4 started the landmark-smashing craze that has been featured prominently in almost every respectable disaster epic since. New York City has bared the brunt of this destruction (but hey, that's because a destroyed NYC is devastating and regrettable, as opposed to a destroyed LA, which we all secretly hope for everyday anyway). The fascination with exploding White Houses and pummeled Empire States is the same exact emotion and attraction that had us watching the twin towers collapse over and over again. To this day, when the World Trade Center towers are shown falling on our TVs, who can ever turn away or change the channel? No disrespect intended, but viscerally, it is like a scene in the ultimate disaster film.

Will Smith is Hollywood's new leading man, taking over for middle-aged white men named Tom. That is a very good thing. He also has a gift for inducing tearful empathy in the audience, as he did to me in certain flashback scenes in I Am Legend (he also had me bawling at the end of The Pursuit of Happyness). The bar for disaster films has been raised, and that's a very good thing too. Now, if only the producers would pay the writers as much as they pay the special effects guys, maybe we could get some plots that can hold up beyond the spectacle.

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The Doors: Pretty Good, Pretty Neat

Rethinking the Rock Biopic
by M.A. Fedeli



The debate over what makes a good rock biopic is a raging one. This can mostly be attributed to the frequent ineptitude of the genre. It is a difficult subject to capture, as I discussed in detail in my review of Todd Hayne's I'm Not There. Despite being a fascinating rethinking of the genre, one well known yet oft overlooked biopic is Oliver Stone's The Doors. This film is essentially the story of Jim Morrison, and to be fair, it is far from perfect, exhibiting some of the usual biopic faults. This can largely be attributed to the inherent bouncing around of rock biopics and the well-known ground they must almost contractually agree to cover in between standard character development. Many times they must forgo traditional narratives in order to include enough reenactments of the musician's most famous events and mythological rock n' roll stories that the audience yearns to see.

The Doors probably requires the attention span of an above average Doors fan to sustain and the script labors a bit too much on the negatives of Morrison (his excesses, indulgences, and unsympathetic treatment of others). It tends to lean heavily on the legends and the infamous lore of the man, not having a balancing amount of the sympathetic dissection Stone would display in his operatic treatment of Richard Nixon. An excuse could be made that Stone wanted to challenge the audience to like this hero of theirs, asking them, "Would you really want to hang out with this son of a bitch?" Showing Morrison as the animal he could sometimes be was indeed a way to to show the dark underside of 60's rock super-stardom and hedonism.

I see it though, as a flaw in the performance of Val Kilmer, who has been lauded by fans for his uncanny portrayal of Morrison and his vocal stylings. However, he does not do what Anthony Hopkins did so wonderfully in Nixon, focusing more on the inner turmoil of the man and capturing his essence, rather than delivering an inspired impersonation. Nixon makes you stop searching in the film for the real man and immerses you in the film's own reality. Kilmer does an excellent and believable job, to be sure, but the performance lacks the heft to be transcendent. The negatives of The Doors pretty much end there.

Where most rock biopics fail is in there attempt to find a singular reason for the talent, the failures, and the behaviors of the subject. Even rock documentaries struggle when they try too hard to conveniently explain the artist's life and oeuvre. It is admirable to make an effort to draw a connection between the many aspects of the artist, but it is damning to give summation. This trap is what The Doors avoids. In typical Stone fashion, it invents scenarios that while never really occurred, do more to give insight into a character than the stupid trick of exploiting his troubled childhood. Take, for example, the trip the band takes to do acid in the desert. Whether or not this actually happened is besides the point. It shows us first about Morrison's drug use, second, his influence over, camaraderie with, and overall separation from his bandmates, and finally, the American Indian thread that runs throughout the film. Topping all of this is when the band, tripping and highly emotional, jams out on the spot the perfect strung-out-in-the-desert-with-bongos-sing-a-long "My Wild Love". One invented scene manages to capture 4 or 5 huge aspects of Morrison and The Doors, without any opinion or judgment.

Weaving the music (in various stages of its existence) into many scenes in the film is one of its great charms, and does much to lift Kilmer's decent performance. It is a tribute to Oliver Stone's ability that he is able to find deeper meaning in the songs by having them central to other actions in the plot. This method is much better than annoying visual interpretations of song's meanings. It also pays tribute to the music, rewarding the band's fans who love the music most of all. The film is littered with well and lesser known Doors and Morrison events framed around Stone's amazing song choices, which serve to better explain the scene and the song. Some of them include the discovery and writing of "Light My Fire", which feels completely real and gives a look at the vast stylistic differences between these musicians and how they melded them. There is the rookie performance of "Crystal Ship", where a shy Morrison is afraid to face the crowd. There is the Whiskey show with "The End", bringing the band infamy and fame at the same time. The hectic and disastrous recording of "Touch Me" which leads to a much-needed confrontation between strung-out singer and exasperated band. Near the finish, there is the band's last time together as a whole, mixing the rain effect on "Riders on the Storm" and discussing the future after the success of their latest album. Stone is also adept at lifting small portions of poems and songs from even obscure live recordings and bringing them into the film in totally complimentary ways, as seen in the New Haven and Miami concerts and the poetry recording sessions, among others.

My favorite, and what I consider to be the best use of a song inside the action is when Jim serenades Pam with a haunting version of "The Spy". We first get the conflict between the lovers, which sets up the song, which defuses the conflict in it's own special way. These are words that Morrison wrote, thoughts straight from his mind, a much more effective storytelling technique when it works than just an assumed and fabricated conversation. Stone is clever and intelligent enough to figure out how the songs can be used and where in the action they would be most useful. It is not without risk either, too much of it or in the wrong place and it's obnoxious and obvious overkill, a sore thumb. Allowing the songs to be such a central part of the film's narrative action threatens to detract slightly from the film's effectiveness in the sense that they could be considered distracting. But in reality, for a rock biopic, they are crucial tie-ins to the real-life artist, and Stone excels. These seamlessly injected realities are a strength of many of Oliver Stone's fact-based films, and something others struggle to pull off without parody or nausea.

As I said before, The Doors is not perfect. Few rock biopics that cover more than a couple days-in-the-life ever are. Too much is usually already known of the artist and expected of the film. When a director takes his own creative risks with the biopic, like the bald-headed spirit of death which haunts Morrison throughout the film, the idea almost dies on the vine, whether it makes sense or works in the film or not. People crave for biopics of their favorite artists, but what they really want is more invasive documentary footage and multiple angles of their favorite Zapruder Films. Given the relative low quality of rock biopics compared to rock documentaries, this may not be a bad thing. For a master's lesson on how to infuse music into a rock biopic, give The Doors the second look that it warrants, with an eye out mainly for Stone's ability as a screen writer, historian, and fan. For if it's anything, it's a great film for the fans of the band.

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Fitzcarraldo vs. the Devil

Losing the Battle
by M.A. Fedeli



In mainstream cinema, the opportunities for a modern audience to believe their eyes are dwindling. As more and more films depend on CGI, and as those films remain predictably successful for the studios, we should not expect in the future to see very many Fitzcarraldo's or Lawrence of Arabia's. In a recent viewing of the former, one of Werner Herzog's many masterpieces, it's so easy to marvel at the pains that were gone through to ensure authenticity and realism. These efforts did not go to waste, not on me at least. I spent days thinking about the action in the film and what went into making it happen. How often do you spend more than a minute thinking about anything CGI I'd seen in an effect laden movie, despite the millions spent all in aid of the so-called "wow factor"? You know, the factor that barely registers and lasts for 6 seconds. The studios are not all to blame for this, if the audience didn't exist and was not consistently dependable, they wouldn't make the films. The most famous visual of Fitzcarraldo is of a huge 19th century steamer being hauled up and over a steep jungle mountain. You read that right, and yes, it looks as amazing as it sounds. Watching it take place on film is like watching someone else's dream. There is a magic about it, a mysticism, yet it's as bona fide as can be. I'd seen nothing like it ever before on celluloid. But why haven't I seen more of it? More on that later.

For those who haven't been lucky enough to see it yet, the infamous premise of Fitzcarraldo is complicated and daunting even to the imagination. In turn of the century South America, Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald (played memorably here by the hyper-passionate Klaus Kinski) dreams of building an opera house in South America for his hero, the tenor Enrico Caruso. To fund this, Fitzcarraldo, as the natives call him, must get rubber from a remote plantation considered unreachable due to due its being on a river of devastating rapids, sure to destroy any ship. To avoid the rapids and still get the rubber, he decides he will take his 340 ton steam ship down a parallel river to a point where the two waterways come closest to each other, separated by only the mountain. He then drags his ship over the sizable hill to the river on the other side that the rubber plantation is on, bypassing the rapids. Set in the harsh Amazon, director Herzog enlisted the help of dozens of the local indigenous population and actually dragged the enormous ship over the mountain. The wonderful result of this is that film feels like the best of both a feature and documentary. The crew and the Indians actually did clear a path over the densely forested mountain and the ship was actually manually dragged up and over. This was 1982, keep in mind, and without a huge budget or massive Hollywood crew, and it shows in a good way. In the film, the natives do all of the clearing work and a ingenious pulley system, made out of the surrounding nature, is devised to haul the ship, one inch at a time (a bulldozer was also used behind the scenes but that barely made it any easier or less incredible).

The effect of this realism is unquestionable. It can be seen in the faces and performances of the actors, who get to react as much as act. It can also be felt fully in the spirit of the film, which has the humanity and feeling present in so many Werner Herzog films, regardless of the subject matter. If you haven't seen any of the films of Mr. Herzog, do yourself a favor and start now. Add to this his notoriously difficult film locations, trudging deep into unforgiving jungles and sadistic conditions, and you have uncomparable films that feel like nothing else you've ever seen. And your eyes do not deceive you! You can believe in them completely. Compare this with almost any use of computer graphics and it's no competition. There is a reason films like Fitzcarraldo and Lawrence of Arabia remain relevant and undated forever, and films like 300 are just stairs on the way down to the "next big thing". Knowing that what you are watching is real, even if it is an unconscious understanding, multiplies the emotional impact exponentially. There is a hollowness, a weightlessness to films that use CGI. Your eyes are seeing something fake, and your brain knows that the stakes of what you are seeing are not really high, intuitively lowering your own expectations and standards. In this cinefile's opinion, that's a fate worse than death. Unless you're into that kind of stuff. For example, compare the mountainous visuals in a film like Scorsese's Kundun with the mountainous visuals of 300. It's like comparing van Gogh's Starry Night with a very well-done ad campaign. I don't care if it's for iPod, it ain't the same, and your brain knows it whether you want to admit it or not. There is no replacement for the natural. None.

I mention Lawrence of Arabia because if that film were made today, it would quite possibly have one of the largest budgets of all time. With the CGI and blue screen tools now available, it is doubtful any studio would have made it the way it originally was or that the film would be a tenth as memorable. The same goes for Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. To this day, that film still has the best and most impressive science fiction special effects ever put to film and it was all done without computers. Every sci-fi film since has failed to live up to the magic and experience of 2001. Of course CGI can be used for good, in the right hands. My goal here is not to bash the mere existence of CGI films, but to voice my frustration that they receive so much attention. Of course, in the wider critical world they are in their rightful and dignified place, receiving the accolades or disapproval they deserve. But when the machinery of the entertainment industry steps in (the magazine covers, the profiles, the interviews, the embedded fans, the money, etc.) and puts these films up on a pedestal while ignoring less industry-whored productions, well, it's annoying. That's what angers me the most. Capitalism always wins, always gets the headline. And honestly, I'm fine with that, it could be worse. It's a film like 300 being forced down my throat that makes me gag, a film being the center of the entertainment world's attention for 3 weeks, like it's The Godfather redux, when there are more worthy, but less profitable titles.

Listen, I understand the politics of economy and of running a business and I am aware why a magnificent and deserving film such as The Lives of Others gets a fraction of the attention a film like 300 gets. I understand that you may think this is nitpicking, especially if you find the drama of 300 to be satiating. Don't get me wrong, I want to be entertained as much as the next guy, but some of us find film to be far beyond the simple notion of "entertainment" and are far more entertained when challenged. We are looking for a longer-lasting experience. But Hollywood has figured out that they don't need to risk as much or take as many chances. They know that there is an audience out there that doesn't care if they know exactly what they are in for when they go see a film. They don't care that before they go in they know exactly how they are going to feel after leaving the theater. In fact, it's a bonus, that's why they're going, comfort in conformity! They know what they like and they know that they are going to have fun, what else do they need? They probably even gave it a ten out of ten on IMDd a month before it came out. It's a win-win for the moguls. Why mess with a good thing?

Why? Because cinema is blessed, it is a splendid art-form that allows multiple other art forms to participate without friction. Films encompass and combine visual art, musical art, and literary art, all in one accessible and entertaining package. As a testament to its accessibility it has become big business. The downside of this, however, is that it has become perfectly acceptable for films to appeal to our most shallow and superficial senses. Since the end of the 70's, the best decade in American film, the industry has lowered its standards and the standards of the audience. It only gets worse as generations pass and become used to this watering down. Film critics are called out of touch with "mainstream America" when they champion the penetrating and profound over the trivial and accommodating. Lets not forget, certain aspects of mainstream America find it a positive trait to have a President who talks like a dim one of them instead of a President that raises the oratorical bar, lest we may learn a few things. To expect less from art than even a small intellectual challenge is selling yourself short. Few will disagree that impact and insight lay best within subtlety, not within a vicious blow to the head from the "obvious" hammer.

So, what can be done? Nothing, really. Just go home, sit down on your couch, pop in Fitzcarraldo, and dream of the way things could be. When you're done that, go rent the rest of the Herzog canon as well. It'll be start.

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Start A Discussion

Is there any film you'd like to see a criticism of, or any film you'd like to discuss? Would you like to offer a guest review? I am all ears and open to anything. It doesn't even have to be film related. Got something to say about sports, music, politics, or subway etiquette? Bring it on. Use the comments in this blog to start it up.

Ga'head, do it. Don't make Klaus angry...

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I'm Not There Revisited

Whereupon Todd Hayne's masturbates on the screen and shoots his load far over the heads of even Dylan fanatics
by M.A. Fedeli




How does it feel?

Todd Haynes' I'm Not There has me feeling conflicted all over. I'll say right up front that I found almost no enjoyment in watching it and was physically uncomfortable for most of the film. It rubbed me the wrong way right from the start and it was all downhill from there. In hindsight, this is not all Haynes' (or the film's) fault. I am a Dylan fanatic. I own almost every album and box set and have seen almost every visual documentation of the man. While watching the film, I was yearning for the sweet relief and revelation of archival concert and interview footage (see: Don't Look Back, No Direction Home).

I now ask:
A) In this obsessed atmosphere, did Haynes' film even have a chance?
B) Was this Dylan film not made for die-hard Dylan fans?
C) Did Haynes miss the point or did I?

My answers are:
A) The film definitely had a chance.
B) I really don't think so.
C) I got the point, digested it, didn't like it.

Allow me to expand:

I read numerous reviews of this film both before and after seeing it. Most were very positive and written by middle-aged scribes who knew as much about Dylan as I did. Given this, I was as upbeat and excited for the film as I could have possibly been and had fairly high expectations. I wrongly assumed that despite the 6 different actors and their different un-Dylan names I would find it Dylan-centric enough to forgive whatever experimental side-streets Haynes would try to take us down.

Biopics about famous musicians are a notoriously difficult endeavor. It is challenging not only to present the story in a fresh and interesting manner but also to satisfy the die-hard fans of the subject. Additionally, there is the even larger issue of the writer/director's talent and ideas going head to head against the artist subject's genius and legend, it's a wholly risky challenge. The writer/director will never win, and if he does, it will be in a separate battle altogether, where it admittedly belongs. If you choose the large-scale, melodramatic Ray/Walk the Line structure, you skirt around the problem as most conversation ends up being about the acting performances and the integration of the music rather than about the film itself. In other words, the story and film may be trite and overproduced but at least you got out of the way of the musical and personal gifts that make your subject so appealing. Not a small victory if it is done even somewhat convincingly.

If you try what Todd Haynes has done in I'm Not There, you take the opposite approach. Haynes has gone for multiple, non-linear and narrow storylines from highlighted points in Dylan's life. Unfortunately, his cerebral and intellectual vision of the artist Dylan as multiple legendary personalities eschews Dylan's musical gifts and artistry almost altogether. In turn, the film at times can seem like a flickering tabloid that gets its camera, gets on its scooter, and chases its subject through the streets. But are we not all gathered here today because of the music of Bob Dylan? The personalities of Bob are interesting only because of the musician who stands in front of them. We care about their evolutions because of how they affected his music and how his music affected us, for better or worse. Haynes' chooses not to focus too much on the music, though, and when it is made a focal point (Bale/Blanchett, for example) the film veers into parody, making the songs seem secondary to the cult of personality. The excellent 'Dylan as black soul child' segment, with it's direct references to Dylan's own imaginary and actual pre-fame past, comes closest to exploring Dylan's relationship to his music, and on that level is the most rewarding.

There is a section in I'm Not There where visuals are put to Dylan's song lyrics in an attempt to connect the celebrity and his art. This method can only ever be full of silly assumptions that in the end rob the words of the true power they harvest in their original, intended medium. I mean, do we need a Prufrock movie? This is the artist director doing battle against the artist subject. Is Haynes' visual interpretation of "Ballad of a Thin Man" any more valid than his satirical and amusing Black Panthers', who in the film decode the song's meaning as related to them? No, so why should we take Haynes' version any more seriously? That juxtaposition alone sits the entire film in a steamy vat of satire, which was something that this Dylan fan found abhorrent.

Dylan die-hards will be the few who understand all the references in the film, but they will also be the ones who will not feel much Dylan in them. This is the unfortunate side-effect of combining the different actors/names/tones with many relatively obscure facts and rumors. The film admirably bypasses traditional forms and makes an honest attempt to exist as it believes Dylan existed, making you feel it. That is noble, and I normally love that type of approach. But is it successful in capturing this? Well, if the "I" in I'm Not There is Bob Dylan, then yes, he is nowhere to be found. Was that one of Haynes' points? Probably, but there are the die-hards like myself who do not find the man to be as unaccessible as he is conveniently made out to be by legend and lore. How can someone who has consistently churned out barrels of quality music for almost a half a century be considered unaccessible? The only way he is unaccessible is if you are trying to become his best friend or his analyst.



I'm Not There focuses more on Dylan's personal life, his romantic relationships, without really attempting to connecting them to his subsequent art. The film is beautiful and certainly built on an interesting concept, and Haynes should be saluted for giving Dylan a go, regardless. Perhaps though, like Lennon, JFK, and Sinatra, Dylan is too well-known, too peerless, too above and beyond interpretation to be satisfactorily explained on film in a way that can rise to the levels of his own artistic output. A conundrum for sure, and maybe why it is not too often done. For this reason, Haynes' should get all the credit in the world for taking a stab.

But I will digress for a moment. In his evolution Dylan did seemingly change persona's in order to stay fresh and relevant. This is a common instinct of great artists. However, would a film of 7 different actors with 7 corny names painting 7 different canvases that seem like 7 different Picasso period's be any better of an idea? Maybe you think so, I don't. I see it as novel; the easier way out for the writer, director, and actors of an extremely difficult cinematic subject. I would have rather seen some cohesive view of the man; one actor trying to capture and convey the many changes and contradictions that arise. That's hard to do, as evidenced by the traditional linear structured biopics that take a run at it and almost always fail.

Throughout, I'm Not There says more about the genius of the director than the genius of the subject. So the challenge remains: how to present a multi-faceted and ridiculously well-known celebrity/artist honestly and without cliche, exploring their life and art and effect, all while maintaining entertainment value and satisfying the fanatics who will surely be ready to nit-pick?

Robert Sullivan, in his New York Times Magazine review (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/07/magazine/07Haynes.html?_r=1&ref=magazine&oref=slogin), quotes Cate Blanchett as follows:

“I don’t know that it does make sense,” Cate Blanchett says of the film, “and I don’t know whether Dylan’s music makes sense. It hits you in kind of some other place. It might make sense when you’re half-awake, half-asleep, in the everyday lives in which we live. I don’t think the film even strives to make sense, in a way.”

I disagree completely. Or, I feel like I disagree completely because I felt like the film does make sense, just doesn't scratch the surface of Dylan. The film feels like something, but I don't know what it is. It's not complicated or obtuse, it's just not very effective. It tries to tackle the imposing subject of Bob Dylan, but it only gets a few fingers on him, falling flat in the process. If it's about Dylan at all it's about the atmosphere that surrounded him. The Cate Blanchett section goes full steam ahead in exploring this aspect, and she is wonderful in her portrayal, though nowhere near as good as the real thing, which is the film's ultimate failing.

For the genuine feeling, it's better to stick with No Direction Home, or D.A. Pennebaker's Don't Look Back and 65 Revisited, which in five minutes show more of the madness, the wit, and the skill of Dylan in the face of a swirling media circus than I'm Not There does as a whole. After all, Dylan, regardless of his wandering imagery or cryptic metaphors, was a genius at making you deeply feel and understand the overall point. His ability to effect his audience is seemingly effortless, even as they stumble over some of the language and ideas. In attempting to mirror and explore this admirable facet of Dylan, Haynes get mired in his own intellect and analyzation, proving he can not do the same.





For similar views, I highly recommend Alan Bacchus' review for Daily Film Dose:
http://dailyfilmdose.blogspot.com/2007/12/im-not-there.html

and

Lauren Wissot's review for The House Next Door blog:
http://mattzollerseitz.blogspot.com/2007/11/not-quite-there-im-not-there.html


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No Country for the Best-Laid Plans of Men

The Bell Tolls For Thee
by M.A. Fedeli




Joel and Ethan Coen's western poem No Country for Old Men begins with the widest of landscapes; rolling, unobstructed fields that meet in the far distance with an expanding sky. It concludes in a somewhat similar place; the endless expanse of a dream, with all its infinite emptiness. These places, with their similarities, are also completely different. The first is open, public reality as far as the eye can see, while the second is the most personal and hidden of spaces: the unconscious of a man's mind. In between is the film's story, its drama. However, just like a dream, what is considered drama, as well as what is considered story, narrative, character, climax, and conclusion is open to interpretation. Dreams are notoriously lacking in consistent structure and satisfaction (in the Barry Lyndon sense of the word). No Country for Old Men is not a dream, but it functions like a dreamlike representation of birth, death, and the struggle between. What is important to the story, what is crucial to comprehension, what is entertainment in the film, is open to interpretation as well.

The film's main action begins with Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) as he hunts in the wilds of West Texas. He happens upon a drug deal gone bad, where all the players are dead or dying. The money and drugs are still there and Llewelyn, in the grand American tradition, takes them (well, takes the money at least). Javier Bardem plays Anton Chigurh, a man whose mission is to get the money back at all costs, and who sets out immediately to do so. All of this, however; the drugs, the dealers, the money, it is all secondary to the film's larger message: the inevitability of fate. The inevitable fate in this film being death, personified by the pale and ghoulish Chigurh. Chigurh, like the similarly named pest that is also difficult to shake, will not be deterred in his attempts to retrieve the money. Like death, he marches on with no sympathy for his target's appeals or circumstance. The closest he comes is offering, at times, a coin toss to decide if a person's final end will happen right then or sometime in the future. Everything to lose, everything to gain. But the coin toss itself is irrelevant. The fate has already been decided, the coin merely displays it. If a character decides not to "call it", it changes nothing about the outcome. Death cannot be cheated.

Like death and dreams, No Country for Old Men does not conform to standards or norms. Non-conformity in film can obviously be seen as both a positive and negative trait. For the same film, it can be treasured by one viewer and dismissed by the other, depending on their levels of enjoyment and personal leanings. I found the loose and experimental structure of Todd Hayne's Dylan-fest I'm Not There to be overly self-indulgent and ultimately lazy as a document of anything other than Todd Haynes' brain. I feel the opposite about the Coen's latest. They are scholars of film and masters of suspense. They understand both the subtle and not-so-subtle rules of genre and genre's place in the collective American consciousness. The West itself is long and slow. Within this crawling atmosphere, the Western highlights the loner and his quest. It isolates man as he is surrounded by massive nothingness. He is alone with his thoughts, his obsessions, and desires. In the context of a film, his choices can render him either larger than all that arid desert nothing, or smaller than the boundless and imposing terrain. Aware of all this, the Coen's use supposition to their advantage and craft a film that turns off of the genre's main artery, using the audience's expectations as a character in the film, in the person of Llewelyn Moss.

Llewelyn believes, as most of us do, that his actions, wise and cunning as humanly possible, can turn, enhance, or delay his fate. As an audience observing him, we want to believe the same. But Chigurh operates beyond human constraints, he and his weapons are superhuman, they are mythological. In the sense that Llewelyn is the audience, Chigurh is the film. The film deals in anti-climax. Life and death are anti-climactic, despite what the movies have shown us. Like anti-climax as used in The Sopranos, it is not uninteresting filmmaking. You can shock without showing. You can bring entirely new cinematic experiences to the audience if you take the time (and the risk) to set them up in your own unique way. At certain moments, the Coen's slow and quiet everything down so the sound of even a common gunshot is a shattering experience, and careful footsteps boom and echo. Slow and quiet, as well as large doses of anti-climax, will naturally lead naysayers to claim the film is "boring" or "meandering". Against modern suspense or action film standards, maybe that is true, and those films exist for people who need the safety of familiar structure. Look to the classics, however, and you will see where No Country has its roots. Even the most violent and predictable of mid-century films were anti-climactic by today's filmmaking standards. That does not make them worse, just as if No Country somehow making $300-400 million domestic would not make it any better.

The Coen's do a wonderful job here of comparing the mundane with the manic, proving that even the most insignificant seeming moments can be made as fascinating as explosions. What happens immediately after the gun fight, the calm after the flash, is just as exciting as the gunfight and carnage itself. This film banks on the audience's appreciation of both aspects. Violence comes with heavy circumstances, and not just the immediate visual and sonic destruction. Blood pours out of bodies in this film, it does not trickle. It has to go somewhere and it has to be stopped somehow. Gunshots, bruises, and broken bones hurt and hurt bad for a long time. Most of us do not constantly experience such tragedies, so watching what a character has to go through just to get the minimal medical equipment necessary to fully self-operate on a gunshot wound is fascinating (even educational?) theater. This method of storytelling takes attention to detail to the next level, proving that there can never be too much.

No Country for Old Men is a visually stunning opera of souls; some good, some bad, some just floating. It mirrors the progression from the limitless possibilities of birth to the lonely, closing light of death. It starts wide, working with the audience and all their years of film knowledge, expectation and understanding. As the film lurches along towards the ending, it strips away action and convention one by one and narrows until it whittles down to the bare and finite point of one man's fleeting, existential thought. It is an acceptance of both the end on its own terms, and the futility of planning. All the efforts to decide or enforce your inevitable fate are worthless. Like Chigurh, it is coming, regardless. You can hold out hope that things will be set right in the end, hope that the bad guys will go to jail, hope that the good guys will win, hope that we'll all find paradise in heaven. Hope though, is not reality, it too is a futile dream. And then we wake up.

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"Grab onto your socks and hoes and pull"

thus begins a blog of all things rant and relevant. Read more!