The best trailer I have ever seen

[Evan Kubota]

"This said, films like "Maria Full of Grace" are adored by American Art-house crowds. My response to it was favorable too. The film does an excellent job posing questions around a very serious contemporary social problem and the film is built on a text-book "hero's journey" script...."

Most of the power of the film (I liked it) was due to it being inhabitable, though. What you're proposing is too rigid a dichotomy, IMO: why shouldn't the filmmaker be able to use an inhabitable story while still maintaining an element of aestheticized surrealism?

"I guess what I am saying is that I like films that are neither protestations or celebrations."

I like some films that are protestations, if they're done well - I'd probably argue that it's impossible to produce something free of an ideological statement, even if there's a literal attempt to avoid it.

Look at X-Men 3: The Last Stand. Obviously the script veers down the path of the summer blockbuster rather than "following up" on the ideological and ethical questions posed by the series as a whole. However, the way the questions are posed, and the setup of the story itself, implicitly provides some stance.

I admit that many films that I like in terms of initial response reappropriate the Hollywood "heroic" model to another context. You see this primarily in the "arthouse" European films that become somewhat popular in the US - "Europa, Europa," "Gegen die Wand," etc. This isn't necessarily a bad thing.

I had a jolting epiphany of what cinema is the other day, while I was watching "Female Prisoner Scorpion: Beast Stable," a relatively nondescript '70s Japanese exploitation actioner with some proto-feminist elements. Even though the script was very workmanlike, I was still able to discern an element of intentionality combined with the disguise of that creation - covering the tracks, so to speak, in terms of character interactions and plot development. This subterfuge, when it works well, is the core of mainstream cinematic representation. Ideally it's so seamless that the audience is out of the theatre by the time they realize it, if at all.

As the various characters moved in and out of the story, there was always a sense that their actions could affect some point in the future - they were still present in the world even when off screen. All the various setups and camera angles were reconstituted into a cohesive temporal flow that was divided among various perspectives but felt continuous and had undeniable forward momentum.

I'm not saying that should be every movie, but it's something to note.

[steve hyde]

"This said, films like "Maria Full of Grace" are adored by American Art-house crowds. My response to it was favorable too. The film does an excellent job posing questions around a very serious contemporary social problem and the film is built on a text-book "hero's journey" script...."

Most of the power of the film (I liked it) was due to it being inhabitable, though. What you're proposing is too rigid a dichotomy, IMO: why shouldn't the filmmaker be able to use an inhabitable story while still maintaining an element of aestheticized surrealism?

"I guess what I am saying is that I like films that are neither protestations or celebrations."

I like some films that are protestations, if they're done well - I'd probably argue that it's impossible to produce something free of an ideological statement, even if there's a literal attempt to avoid it.

Look at X-Men 3: The Last Stand. Obviously the script veers down the path of the summer blockbuster rather than "following up" on the ideological and ethical questions posed by the series as a whole. However, the way the questions are posed, and the setup of the story itself, implicitly provides some stance.

I admit that many films that I like in terms of initial response reappropriate the Hollywood "heroic" model to another context. You see this primarily in the "arthouse" European films that become somewhat popular in the US - "Europa, Europa," "Gegen die Wand," etc. This isn't necessarily a bad thing.

I had a jolting epiphany of what cinema is the other day, while I was watching "Female Prisoner Scorpion: Beast Stable," a relatively nondescript '70s Japanese exploitation actioner with some proto-feminist elements. Even though the script was very workmanlike, I was still able to discern an element of intentionality combined with the disguise of that creation - covering the tracks, so to speak, in terms of character interactions and plot development. This subterfuge, when it works well, is the core of mainstream cinematic representation. Ideally it's so seamless that the audience is out of the theatre by the time they realize it, if at all.

As the various characters moved in and out of the story, there was always a sense that their actions could affect some point in the future - they were still present in the world even when off screen. All the various setups and camera angles were reconstituted into a cohesive temporal flow that was divided among various perspectives but felt continuous and had undeniable forward momentum.

I'm not saying that should be every movie, but it's something to note.

....I'm not sure I fully follow your epiphany here., but what I was saying above is surely overly dichotimizing. I think that is a fair criticism. I'm not suggesting that middle ways, half ways and other kinds of spaces-of-betweeness aren't valid and important approaches to filmmaking. They certainly are. There is certainly no such thing as pure objectivity - all ways of knowing are situated and thus subjective, but carefull filmmaking still requires casting our own convictions into doubt and showing why our own ways of knowing are partial and incomplete.

Unfortunately, I haven't seen any of the other films you made reference to..

Steve

[npcoombs]

This said, films like "Maria Full of Grace" are adored by American Art-house crowds. My response to it was favorable too. The film does an excellent job posing questions around a very serious contemporary social problem and the film is built on a text-book "hero's journey" script....

Steve

I sort of liked 'Maria...". My wife is Colombian and we saw it together. What I liked about Maria was what I liked about Amorres Perros, the authentic rendering of Latin America is it really looks and sounds.

This is why for me when Maria entered America the film fell apart. It stopped being a film and became a movie. The direction felt less confident and the script more contingent as if directors feel the cinematic language does not exist to authentically render the USA in a film. Or perhaps it is just so much more familiar that it feels banal, and what feels like daring direction set in Latin America is just mediocre on the streets of New york.

[steve hyde]

...interesting points. The stuff shot in Colombia really did carry over well and the stuff shot in New York did take on more of a made-for-TV feel, but Joshua Marston's script was strong enough that it really didn't matter to me. I am just glad to see a new AMerican director working in themes that matter..

Steve

[Evan Kubota]

It's been a while since I've seen the movie, but I can see what you're saying - but maybe the translation into artifice is something that necessarily happens whenever an immigrant in an ostensibly 'ethnographic' film enters America. Surely even if Maria herself directed 'her' narrative/film a lot of generic cliches would probably enter upon arrival in the US. It's not like the rest of the world isn't familiar with our movies, including their banality and artifice.

I actually liked that it shifted into melodramatic codes towards the end (from what I remember). This countered the plot movement with a thrilling generic 'deceit' that I also find (and like) in Zulawski; the director is not willing to sustain one mode all the way through. If you resist the change the movie falls apart. If you don't, you can keep some of it, but it goes in a direction counter to your expectations.

[npcoombs]

...interesting points. The stuff shot in Colombia really did carry over well and the stuff shot in New York did take on more of a made-for-TV feel, but Joshua Marston's script was strong enough that it really didn't matter to me. I am just glad to see a new AMerican director working in themes that matter..

Steve

True, but why do they have to go to Colombia to find issues that matter? I would love to see an American director work in the same vein as the Dardenne Brothers and do some social realist filmmaking about poverty and the working class in the USA.

I think the fascinating thing about US poverty is the not so much material poverty (I think its rare that US citizens starve?) but the sense of psychological failure, of being a loser, the mundanity of life, working poverty, selling goods you can never afford, recognising inequality but having no philisophical basis (such as socialism) through which to externalise and rationalize your suffering, bieng excluded from the sensual and sexual delights advertised as the norm by a media run by a tiny elite.

Now there would be a staggering film. Find me a director and I will murder to produce that film!

[npcoombs]

I actually liked that it shifted into melodramatic codes towards the end (from what I remember). This countered the plot movement with a thrilling generic 'deceit' that I also find (and like) in Zulawski; the director is not willing to sustain one mode all the way through. If you resist the change the movie falls apart. If you don't, you can keep some of it, but it goes in a direction counter to your expectations.

The 'thrilling deceit' was to me just cowardly scriptwriting, as if the director thought that unless he included a bit of 'juice' he wouldn't get distribution.

[steve hyde]

...interesting points. The stuff shot in Colombia really did carry over well and the stuff shot in New York did take on more of a made-for-TV feel, but Joshua Marston's script was strong enough that it really didn't matter to me. I am just glad to see a new AMerican director working in themes that matter..

Steve

True, but why do they have to go to Colombia to find issues that matter? I would love to see an American director work in the same vein as the Dardenne Brothers and do some social realist filmmaking about poverty and the working class in the USA.

I think the fascinating thing about US poverty is the not so much material poverty (I think its rare that US citizens starve?) but the sense of psychological failure, of being a loser, the mundanity of life, working poverty, selling goods you can never afford, recognising inequality but having no philisophical basis (such as socialism) through which to externalise and rationalize your suffering, bieng excluded from the sensual and sexual delights advertised as the norm by a media run by a tiny elite.

Now there would be a staggering film. Find me a director and I will murder to produce that film!

I think you are spot-on Nathan. I call it cultural poverty and this is certainly a theme I am pursuing.

by the way I found the Maria shooting script on line for anyone interested in reading it:

http://www.joblo.com/scripts/maria_full_of_grace.pdf

[npcoombs]

I think you are spot-on Nathan. I call it cultural poverty and this is certainly a theme I am pursuing.

Have you seen Rosetta? The Dardenne Brothers claim that 80% of the cost of the film was film stock, there is no obvious use of lighting, a few actors and barely any dialogue. Imagine a von Trier film with no formal trickery - it is truly a staggering achievement. I heard it was shot on a Bolex.

Apparently their latest film 'the Child' was the lowest grossing winner of the Palm'd'or ever.

[steve hyde]

I think you are spot-on Nathan. I call it cultural poverty and this is certainly a theme I am pursuing.

Have you seen Rosetta? The Dardenne Brothers claim that 80% of the cost of the film was film stock, there is no obvious use of lighting, a few actors and barely any dialogue. Imagine a von Trier film with no formal trickery - it is truly a staggering achievement. I heard it was shot on a Bolex.

Apparently their latest film 'the Child' was the lowest grossing winner of the Palm'd'or ever.

no. I haven't seen these Dardenne Brothers flicks. I'll bump them to the top of my list and get back to you with reactions....

by the way (and on a slightly different topic: screenwriting) here is another reference that I have found very useful:

It is the step outline for Roman Polanski's Chinatown:
http://www.steve-hyde.com/chinatown.pdf

and script:
http://www.iscriptdb.com/PDF/chinatown.PDF

(I know it has the same file name, but the top one is the step outline.)

I post this because the step sheet is a really fun fast and amazing read (for an amazing film)

[Evan Kubota]

Interesting stuff. The Towne draft was changed a lot by Polanski before the shooting, IIRC. Fantastic film.

How can the US not be culturally impoverished? Look at the length of time the country has existed, and the circumstances of its founding ;)

I hate to bring up The Brown Bunny again (OK, not really), but the mention of 'psychological failure' set it off. Check out Buffalo '66 and you'll see a sharply delineated depiction of people who aren't physically starving but are psychologically penniless. Actually, the same type of people appear in The Brown Bunny as well (his senile parents in their hopelessly dingy, outdated home).

Off to read those scripts..

[Evan Kubota]

"The 'thrilling deceit' was to me just cowardly scriptwriting, as if the director thought that unless he included a bit of 'juice' he wouldn't get distribution."

Maybe so. I try to stick to what the film *is* rather than what I thought it could or should be, though.

Another thought that came to me regarding inhabitability and ideology is that something like "Dirty Pretty Things" could be interesting transposed to the US. I wonder how that film's depiction of immigrant life was received in the UK.

[npcoombs]

Another thought that came to me regarding inhabitability and ideology is that something like "Dirty Pretty Things" could be interesting transposed to the US. I wonder how that film's depiction of immigrant life was received in the UK.

It did ok, but it was never going to provoke much reaction. It was constructed in a rather tepid way and the subject of immigrants is unremittingly trashed out on television in innumerable documentaries every week.

I would like to see Brown Bunny but don't think it is available on DVD.

[Evan Kubota]

Yeah, it is, at least on R1. Maybe download it ;)

I saw a BBC documentary the other day called "The Real Sex Traffic" about forced sexual slavery in Eastern Europe. That might be a headline ripe for mining into some socially conscious filmmaking

[Scotness]

I think the fascinating thing about US poverty is the not so much material poverty (I think its rare that US citizens starve?) but the sense of psychological failure, of being a loser, the mundanity of life, working poverty, selling goods you can never afford, recognising inequality but having no philisophical basis (such as socialism) through which to externalise and rationalize your suffering, bieng excluded from the sensual and sexual delights advertised as the norm by a media run by a tiny elite.

Now there would be a staggering film. Find me a director and I will murder to produce that film!

Have you read Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman" - it' s a stage play but it pretty well covers most of that - there has been at least one film version of it.

Scot