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Memphis in a Box: An Excursus on the Trailer for "Walk the Line"

11 August 2005

I dream one day of programming a film festival of rock and roll movies. Not made-for-tv variety picks or the cliche. I’m talking "Don’t Look Back" and "Performance." I’m hearing "Tommy." I'm watching "The Buddy Holly Story." I’m waiting. I’m wanting: to see how well they translate rock’s basic elements – rawness, soul, gut instinct – to the screen...

I dream. In the meantime, I rely on what others do.

Imagine, for instance, the Sun Records box set that soon could be made. Fox has "Walk the Line" set to be released in November, James Mangold directing Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash. The recently available trailer for the film (http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox/walk_the_line/) promises a performance worth seeing, even if, at the moment, it looks visually like a sequel to last year's "Ray." Add 1989's "Great Balls of Fire!" with Dennis Quaid as Jerry Lee Lewis and all that is needed to round out the set is a film about Carl Perkins and a reach into the hat for one of the handful of Elvis Presley biopics – or even a movie Elvis starred in, but who would want to see the real thing?

If nothing else, the set would offer a nice comparison of established actors and relative newcomers in the same roles. Quaid and "Walk the Line" rookie Waylon Payne both handle the enigmatic Lewis. Phoenix has Cash, of course, but the set could include the 1999 short about the singer’s life, "I Still Miss Someone," with stuntman Mark Collie as the Man in Black. Tyler Hilton’s first film role will be Elvis in "Walk the Line." Michael St. Gerard – Link Larkin in the film version of "Hairspray" – took on the role in "Great Balls of Fire!" while Kurt Russell, Don Johnson, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, and – you guessed it – Frank Stallone have all played or will shortly appear as "The King." As for Carl Perkins: only "Walk the Line"s Johnny Holiday has had the pleasure to play him.

A silly thought perhaps, to bring these films together on the basis of a historical connection: the four singers recorded seperately and together at Sun Records in Memphis and established Rock and Roll as a popular sound. Sun Records patriarch Sam Phillips might have approved of the film collection, but it is doubtful anyone would buy I today. Except me: research for the great film festival in the sky.

Of course, while I linger, material looms. "Walk the Line" is only the most-visible of a number of films hoping to Cash in, it seems, on "Ray"s success last year. Gus Van Sant released "Last Days," his film about a Seattle rock star strikingly reminiscent of Kurt Cobain, to film festivals in June. Singer Pink is tentatively cast as Janis Jopin in Penelope Spheeris' "The Gospel According to Janis," supposedly a 2005 release, though the film is still listed in pre-production. More active is "Stoned," producer Stephen Woolley's directorial debut. The film will be a look a the life and suspicious death of Rolling Stone co-founder Brian Jones. Last, Todd Hayne's announced project, "I'm Not There: Suppositions on a Film Concerning Dylan," is already creating a buzz. The acclaimed filmmaker said his next film will be a more experimental look at the life of a fabled rock star: seven actors will play Bob Dylan through the course of the movie.

Fodder to feed my fires, though I doubt the trend will last. It is only a splash. Other genres have developed a tidal wave.

As the man said, you can't always get what you want...

Arthur Ryel-Lindsey » Comments:

The Open Road: "Me and You and Everyone We Know" in the Formula of Recent Sundance Releases

07 August 2005

Miranda July’s debut film "Me and You and Everyone We Know" (2005) is a bonafide hit. The Film Four and IFC release garnered a the Camera d’Or at Cannes – given to the best first film – and a Special Jury Prize at Sundance. Nominated for the Grand Jury Prize, Sundance’s top honor within a given category, "Me and You" is the first 2005 Sundance film to see notable release outside the festival circuit, an honor that went in 2004 to "Napoleon Dynamite" (Jared Hess), with "Garden State" (Zach Braff) a respectable second.

This tissue that connects these three films is not insignificant. "Napoleon Dynamite" and "Garden State" saw remarkable popularity at Sundance, resulting in quick acquisitions, quick releases, and quick positive responses from the general public. "Napoleon Dynamite" became the year’s rage, among younger audience members especially. "Garden State," the year’s creamy filling. The same, so far, has been true of "Me and You," to the point that its achieved positive responses. It is still to be seen what kind of filling it is.

In the meantime, July’s film about two single people oddly attracted to one another is a true directorial debut, as was Braff’s, who only had a short to his credit before "Garden State" wowed audiences with its story of a man’s reluctant return to his home and past and the unexpected relationship he find there. Hess’ "Napoleon Dynamite" was more of a culmination of a few shorts and films about the same general super-nerd characters set in the same place: Preston, Idaho.

These are all films that work for similar reasons. The stories of "Me and You," "Garden State," and "Napoleon Dynamite" spin around moments of deliberate sadness and pain: Napoleon (Jon Heder) is the high school joke, "Garden State"s initiating action is the death of the protagonist’s mother, and the separation of a couple allows for "Me and You" to move forward. These are only rocks, however, dotted along landscapes of wonderful humor. Each film is extremely funny, including, beyond the simple gags, the unique momentary touch of a reflective situation, both comedic and insightful, that helps lifts the story above the usual laugh: the collected oddities of Preston, including llama, in "Napoleon," the infinite abyss in "Garden State," the goldfish in "Me and You."

Significantly, the three films all have two characters to direct their movies’ action. The way these characters do that is different:

-- "Me and You"s awkward couple – shoe salesman Richard (John Hawkes in a truly wonderful performance) and performance artist Christine (July) – pull the camera into their separate lives at the beginning of the film until their stories converge.

-- "Garden State"s Andrew Largeman gives the film his perspective until he meets Sam, the girl who, more than any of the other characters in the film’s menagerie, begins to control traffic. Largeman’s actions, after all, take a sudden turn from the generally nihilistic to caring deeply about the newly-met girl.

-- "Napoleon Dynamite"s title character also has a slew of associates to contend with, but when Pedro begins to run for class president – about three-fifths of the way through the film – the story, finally, settles into drive.

It is notable here that the action in the three films moves in the same way: begin in the life of odd and misunderstood male, male goes to work/school/home to contend with cast of characters who he may talk to or hang out with or be brothers of but who, generally, do not understand him – this may include a female butting her head in from time to time to voice her perspective – male meets the female who seems unique and worth talking to, male is reluctant to believe female understands him, male realizes he has a buddy – be it female or Pedro – life goes on with little more than a relationship accomplished. The films end suddenly with merely a hint of longing and many loose ends.

This is a stretch, granted. More, it is a skeleton. The plot line is not so clear as to be concise – that can be seen by all the asides that butt in, like Pedro – and these films are, indeed, disparate enough to be discussed individually, but for the closeness of their introduction to the world. Moreover, "Napoleon Dynamite" is an anomaly of a film in itself, designed around a character more pastiche than person: a collection of all the weirdness of all the high school students anyone has ever known. The film is least like the other two.

Nevertheless, a formula has begun to emerge. If a filmmaker wants his/her film to come out of Sundance alive and screaming, make it a slice of a misunderstood young male’s life with only a few steps to the film’s narrative climax. Avoid at all costs the Aztec temple of emotional conflict and destruction of lives, physical and psychological, that leads to the remarkable climaxes of, say, "Citizen Kane," "The Graduate," "The Godfather," "Apocalypse Now," "2001," "8 ½" – to get away from the United States a short distance – or even something as subtly brilliant as De Sica’s "The Bicycle Thief."

Two things about this formula.

(1) It is not bad: plenty of comedies, nee plenty of films – great films, genius films – succeed on the premise of the unique character’s short step to the top: "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner," "Amelie," "Harold and Maude," "Annie Hall." In short, not all stories are world-breakers. Every story should be told at the point of a character’s life where he/she is most revolutionarily effected. That may only be the moment he and she shout into the quarry... The moment he dances on stage... The moment the performance artist helps him the photo in the tree... Not everyone solves world hunger; let us drink to that.

(2) This formula is easier to do – the subtle story about love, rather than "The Godfather" – especially on a first film. So, to see it as a common thread in recent independent releases coming out of Sundance is not surprising. Moreover, Sundance is not to blame for creating a half-sure formula for success. They merely choose a wide spread. The audience decides, through festival attendance and distributors, which films go beyond the festival’s borders. Then a more general audience decides which films are worth going out to see. The "Garden State"s and "Me and You"s of the cinematic world did not win top prizes at Sundance. Shane Carruth’s "Primer" (2004) and Ira Sachs’ "Forty Shades of Blue" (2005, to be released in Sept.) did that. "Napoleon Dynamite," "Garden State," and "Me and You and Everyone We Know" merely fit the bill.

For now.

Remember, cinema is a fickle fiend. The misunderstood young man is the story today. Tomorrow, at least by next weekend, the story will be something else entirely. This has been the pattern all along, on greater levels and to greater extents: German expressionism, Italian neo-realism, French new wave, film noir, anime, New Hollywood. This is, in fact, the artistic norm: gothic, Romanesque, renaissance, realism, impressionism, modernism, post-modernism.

A formula is not news, then. It has just been the way.

It is a little grand, perhaps, to suggest "Me and You" is on a path like that of Monet, Chagall, Seurat, whomever. Some formulas have better staying power, better receptions, better revolutions. The recent Sundance trend is not one of those, clearly. It is not even a new trend, rather a copy of a copy of a story that worked once upon a time.

"Me and You" is therefore part of a pattern, not a movement. That pattern proves, though, that formulas are not to be shied away from: art exists on many levels, and form – formula – is, as it has been, an open road.

Arthur Ryel-Lindsey » Comments:

Reflections in Art: The Film Remake as Artistic Device beside Visconti and Britten's "Death in Venice"

Thomas Mann’s 1912 novella "Death in Venice" tells the story of Gustave Ashenbach, a great German writer who has lost his inspiration. He reluctantly travels from Munich to Venice – into the demon South – to recuperate. Instead, in what has been considered Mann’s treatise on critical method, Ashenbach contemplates the very essence of his intellectual existence as he succumbs, awkwardly, to the carefree will of the spirit. In his fall, he lusts after a 12-year-old Polish adonis named Tadzio, before succumbing less awkwardly to the city’s cholera epidemic.

Any real summation or analysis of "Death in Venice" could be as long as the novella itself. Ashenbach’s story is a dense narrative built upon layers of philosophical thought: the Apollonian compact against Dionysian instinct, the question of intellect against beauty, Northern industrious restraint against Southern villainous ease.

Even with this hourglass of complexity, Luchino Visconti put the work to film in 1971 with Dirk Bogarde as the begrudged Ashenbach, whom Visconti turned into Mahler-like composer. Mahler’s Fifth Symphony also plays a major role in the film.

Benjamin Britten set "Death in Venice" as an opera in 1973, Britten’s last work. While the score is not dissimilar to Mahler – though undeniably Britten – Ashenbach is back to being an author in one of the most dramatic tenor parts in all of opera, written for Britten’s partner Peter Pears.

Discussion of Mann’s original intent and the impulses of the artists who followed aside – since it would be an aside in the discussion upon which we are about to embark – comparison between Visconti and Britten’s works is difficult, for two reasons.

First, cinema uses cameras, distance, lens, angle, color, photography, lighting – i.e. visual means – to convey dramatic emotion. A musical score is generally secondary. Opera is the reverse: visual techniques like lighting, staging, and set design are subservient means to evoke the emotion of the music, which has always been the measuring stick by which to gauge an opera’s quality.

Second, unlike cinema, opera is a changing, evolving, adaptable, and interpretive thing. Like theatre, opera is imbedded in the real world performance – the now – with the added complication of singers breaking constantly into deep emotional song. No two nights of opera are the same. No two performances by different conductors or singers can be said to be the same interpretation. While a similar argument can be made about film – a film cannot be viewed the same way twice because of differences in the viewing atmosphere – the film document itself is always the same; the place does not remain. In opera and theater, the document changes. A different motive entirely.

These thoughts were brought on by the Aug. 4 performance of "Death in Venice" by the Glimmerglass Opera, Cooperstown, N.Y., conducted by Stewart Robertson, which I had the extreme pleasure to see. By way of comparison to Visconti’s film, Robertson and director Tazewell Thompson’s interpretation of Ashenbach was as a distant, inactive, and far more cerebral figure compared to his more lustful and pathetic filmed counterpart, who was willing to speak to the mother of Tadzio – known as The Lady of the Pearls – in a remarkable moment of self-deprecation. In Britten’s opera, the Lady of the Pearls never speaks, let alone Ashenbach trying to speak to her.

Granted, saying "Robertson and Thompson’s interpretation" is a little weighted toward my purposes, since Britten did the most of the work. He wrote Ashenbach this certain way. This leads me – finally, I know – to my point.

Thursday’s opera led to tremendous discussion among the more well-informed attendees on whom I eavesdropped about this specific performance’s worth compared to previous productions. How did the staging affect Ashenbach’s authority? How did the lighting affect it? Why did Robertson take a section at a certain tempo? How did that affect the moment? Was the meaning of that moment different than when Richard Hickox conducted it faster/slower in his recording? How is it different from when Britten oversaw Steuart Bedford conduct it for his recording? Is the piece new, now? Does the piece work still? How am I affected? Why am I amazed? Why do I hate it?

After I had gotten home, lain in bed, and begun to suffer through a sleepless night of thought, I developed a question more in tune with personal expertise: are these discussions that could be had of film?

After all, that shadowy, suspect figure lurking behind the bushes in Hollywood’s backyard – that is, the remake – has been a notable force on the movie schedule for a few years now. "Bad News Bears," "The Longest Yard,""The Manchurian Candidate," and, inexplicably, "Psycho" have all been recently modernized from their American originals. Britain has given the States a Michael Caine trifecta to recreate – "Get Carter," "The Italian Job," and "Alfie" – as well as "The Ladykillers" and "Bedazzled."

Most recent remakes tend to come from more recent international fare. "The Ring," "Dark Water," and, conversely, "Shall We Dance?" are all remakes of Japanese films. 2004's forgettable "Catch that Kid" came from Denmark. "Insomnia," from Norway. "City of Angels" was based on the German film, "Wings of Desire."

This is a partial list, clearly, but what is less clear is the guideline upon which to judge their worth.

Normally, I dismiss the remake as a money-making scheme. Is there something more here? Can we reasonably assess Pierce Brosnan’s Thomas Crowne against Steve McQueen’s? Or is Pierce Brosnan’s merely an effort to expose a new generation to an old story, in which case, should not the new generation take it upon itself to watch Steve McQueen?

When the new "Alfie" came out, I was very vocal in my opposition for a very specific reason. 1966's "Alfie" is one of Michael Caine’s breakthrough performances. It is a remarkable film in terms of its direct address to the camera, and it set Caine up as a leading man, garnering him, not insignificantly, his first Oscar nomination. Why remake it? When the original had so many things going for it that were fresh and new, and the remake could only be fluff, Hollywood certainly should spend its money on something better. Moreover, why am I going to pay $8 to see Jude Law pretend to be Michael Caine, when Michael Caine has always performed a better Caine than anyone? "Go to the library," I told people, "Get the original. It’s better, and it’ll save you eight bucks."

In this sense, I am not sure I am willing to give remakes the benefit of the doubt. William Burden, Ashenbach in the Glimmerglass Opera, cannot go back to see how Pears did it, or, at best, can only do it to the limited extent that he can listen to a recording to hear how someone else sang it. He cannot see the genuine article. Film actors and director can, so what becomes of the film remake is not a new, meaningful revision, but rather pastiche, an ode – a half-hearted, sweaty kind of ode that drips from the lips of unfaithful lovers – to a creativity the filmmakers nowadays seem to lack.

This does not keep today’s filmmakers from trying. Beware the fertile breeding ground of British films of the sixties and seventies that will be remade into American blockbusters. "The Wicker Man" and "The Lavender Hill Mob" are both set to be redone. Also, rumors are flocking that Hitchcock’s "The Birds" is on the slate for renewal – because Van Sant’s "Psycho" did so well -- and there is little doubt that a Japanese or Indian film will need to be remade for American audiences three years after the original release, because Hollywood, it seems, sees Americans as too lazy or too unwilling to see the thing itself, in its original language, contexts, colors, and value. This, I fear, is genuinely true.

Another thought crosses my mind: perhaps I am too quick to judge the remake, and too quick to cast it aside. Perhaps, rather than the shadowy figure in the backyard, the remake is the neighbor who looks in for safety and will one day save your life. What I mean is, the remake offers a more intellectual comparison of film performance, a comparison we certainly cannot have without it.

An example: the standard comments I heard about the new "The Longest Yard" were – besides shock at Courtney Cox’s sudden coming out – that it makes viewers recognize how much the original version is better. That might not be the universal view, but it certainly was a logical one: Adam Sandler was adequate, Burt Reynolds did it better.

Now let us assess, we who have said this. Adam Sandler was unconvincing, a bit snotty, too quick to punch lines, and unremarkable as a leading man. Reynolds has all those things working for him. We have established a comparison not far from that of the opera goers at Cooperstown.

A second example: the original "Ocean’s 11" was a vehicle for the Rat Pack to sing, so the narrative is unrefined, the heist goofy. I particularly like the touch that the insides of the casino safes in "Ocean’s 11" have the name of the casino for the film viewer’s benefit. Would those names really be there, as if he who opened the safe needed to be reminded, on the inside, which casino he worked for?

Soderbergh’s "Ocean’s 11" was much more punchy, believable, well acted, and less gimmicky – though some gimmick remained, with a cast as marquee as his was. The point is, Soderbergh did it better. Make a note of that.

Thus, room is there for maneuver. Is it really adequate though? Film does not have the breadth of history, tradition, or artistic weight as opera. It does not have the stats, so to speak. So does it matter if one or the other works, recent or past? It is just money, after all, a way of getting more product out there to sell.

Instead, if the film community wants its remakes to be revisions rather than redress – it might not, but if – it needs to do more to establish a remake of a film as a separate artistic device from the original. A hard task, given film’s ability to last, but it should conceive the remake as a chance to take a text beyond the point it first achieved. Ashenbach the lustful against Ashenbach the intelligent.

It might not be possible. Film texts may not be able to be stacked, like blocks, until they reach newer meanings. They might not be able to be redone in original and evocative ways. But imagine the discussions that could be had: Caine against Law against the next great Alfie Elkins. Like James Bond, we can ask who did it best. Like James Bond, everyone would have an opinion.

It might be worthwhile to have that kind of discussion, to have that deep an understanding of what the film role could be. A Hamlet could develop, a role every actor must play to claim his/her greatness. An interesting thought: is there a Hamlet now? Is Hamlet Hamlet – Olivier, Gibson, Branagh, and Hawke? Is Hamlet James Bond – Connery, Moore, Lazenby, Dalton, and Brosnan?

That thought leaves something to be desired, but be thankful: the desire should drive.

Arthur Ryel-Lindsey » Comments: