The best medicine? Wash your fucking hands.
by Ryland Walker Knight
[I got the idea from the recent comments on today's, the 5th's, Links for the Day over at The House Next Door concerning the writing credit on movies, specifically CHILDREN OF MEN, which I hope to write about after a second viewing. Naturally, things got out of hand.]
Which brings me to THE BLACK DAHLIA, which I gave a second look this past week. And it made me think a very similar thesis. DAHLIA's shortcomings are hardly De Palma's over all formal brilliance -- his staircases are Bresson's doorways, it seems -- but the script's meanderings. Yesterday Matt said he often enjoys a meandering story more than a strict narrative (this may not be all-the-way true, a wild paraphrase, but he seemed to say he loves embellishment if it furthers the art, and I'm in agreement, to a point) and there's no lack of that in DAHLIA. I doubt Josh Freidman is solely responsible for the end result but maybe he is -- it's that perverse a movie. I realize part of the point of Ellroy is to get so bogged down in plot you don't know which way is up or whom to trust but it basically doesn't create a very good movie-going experience when it's this congested and byzantine; it just feels muddled. (MIAMI VICE, on the other hand, I am completely in tuned with, so it's partly a matter of taste.) It's beyond noir: some kind of deeper well where all the ugliness hides -- and is rarely seen in Ho'wood. That said, this time I was able to accept it on its own terms and at least enjoyed it more, if only for how gorgeous it is. But there's still somethging missing for me, and a lot of it is in those prettier-than-reality leads who, to me, look like they're playing dress up. The whole movie is kind of playing dress up to get down into that well (hell?). However, there are highlights: Vilmos Zsigmond is a straight up G(nius), the crane shots' subjectivity is simply amazing, Mia Kirshner is breathtaking and, actually, I kind of think Hilary Swank is brilliant in the most awful way possible. When jerked out of the movie, or grabbing another beer, I kept imagining Madeline Cathcart Linscott devouring a host of high school Freedom Writers like she'd been having trouble every day... it was, ahem, a minor epiphany.
Posts
Ry: "But there's still something missing for me, and a lot of it is in those prettier-than-reality leads who, to me, look like they're playing dress up."
ReplyDelete^Agreed.
As much as I view/write/daydream about Ho'wood product, I don't hold out much hope that its so-called major filmmakers will be as searching and introspective as you were in this post.
Scorsese seems to be living out his boyhood dream of being a for-real bigtime studio director. Nothing but the "best." But I remember when he could provoke an audience with no more than a razor, a shaving mirror and some fake blood http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83i8G6o0quc
As time goes on, my preference leans further toward films made with two hands and one pair of eyes. The Chameleon Streets, Tarnations, Gummos, Gaza Strips, Habits and Mutual Appreciations of the cinema world are just truer, even when they lie.
I struggle to make films this way and push others to do the same because I think its a superior system. Bazin had it right. As much as David Lynch's Inland Empire irks me, I applaud him for taking the camera into his own hands and going deeper into his imagination while venturing further into photographic reality. That's the future, not HD or CGI or 4k DI's or any other acronyms and This is Cinerama-style gimmicks which seduce great filmmakers away from attempting art in order to celebrate corporate gigantism.
oh, and DePalma just seems uninspired on The Black Dahlia, except in the one or two brief suspense scenes. The rest of the movie just feels like the work of development executives and focus groups trying to iron out something designed to be wrinkled as fuck.
ReplyDeleteSteve on DAHLIA: "the work of development executives and focus groups trying to iron out something designed to be wrinkled as fuck."
ReplyDelete^Agreed. But I do think De Palma brought himself to the picture. The studio meddling (script-doctoring, test screenings, the wrong promo ad campaign that really threw off nearly anybody who saw it so much that it was easier to dismiss than at the least try to understand) seems why things were compromised in terms of story. However, through all those hoops Mr De Palma jumped, and crafted this sparkling mess of a movie that's all hurt, which speaks to Ellroy's source, too, I imagine.
I wrote this in the comments as a response to Matt's review:
What I see is a shitload of pain wrapped up in an ugly, stained butcher's sheet tied crudely together with a satin bow instead of the customary twine.
And I think that's still true. But re-reading the comments, Matt's such a convincing writer he had me leaning... but then I remember how jarring some scenes are (for the wrong, non-Bresson, awkward reasons) and I remember what doesn't work.
De Palma's a tricky artist and I have to admit that I haven't ever given him his due so who knows... maybe 2007 is the year that changes. But it'll likely start with THE FURY, again, and not THE BLACK DAHLIA.
oh, and THE BIG SHAVE is one of the most unsettling movies ever, Vietnam allegory or no.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with Black Dahlia isn't that anything was forced on DePalma, or even anything in the script itself (though it is really bad) it's DePalma himself. He's a hack, in the purest sense of the term.
ReplyDeleteIt is better than The DaVinci Code though.
Oh, and Gangs Of New York would have been great if everything involving the Cameron Diaz character had been cut out.
ReplyDelete"The whole movie is kind of playing dress up"
ReplyDeleteI didn't mean for this to be a negative, actually. I think everything is a conscious choice and that "hack" term is a throwaway insult nobody should really use, even when discussing Good Burger 4. Name-calling isn't criticism. Isn't that a edict of a_film_by? Besides, you don't want to belittle others opinions. You'd just end up like Armond White or (late) Rosenbaum.
What I want to know is why, specifically, De Palma throws you off. I've said before that he's not one of my favorites but he's always fascinating -- even THE UNTOUCHABLES has its moments (and its downfalls are worthy, too, but that all depends on your opinion of Mamet, I think). For me, it's the performances. Rarely does an entire cast seem to be in the same movie (especially BLACK DAHLIA, but not so in UNTOUCHABLES) let alone on equal footing (the leads in FEMME FATALE, or SCARFACE). But then you get something like the cast of THE FURY and it's a revelation. That may be my favorite of his movies, still, and worth another look if you get the time. It might even make a good double feature with MIAMI VICE...
It's not an insult, it's a descriptive term. A hack is someone with nothing of his own to contribute, who scavenges off the work of others. DePalma's built his entire career out of ripping off the work of actual directors, and decontextualizing it in such a way as to make it either incoherent, offensive or both.
ReplyDeleteThe baby cart sequence in The Untouchables is the most obvious expression of this. DePalma appropriates Eisenstein's ultimate symbol of government repression and uses it to create in the audience a sappy identification with one of the most celebrated agents of American repression, Eliot Ness and his crusade to uphold the law no matter how idiotic it is.
Not only is DePalma not creative enough to come up with his own shots, but his appropriations pervert the original works to his own incoherent and more or less vaguely fascist ideals.
Brian DePalma is the dark side of intertextuality. Why people continue to give him every benefit of the doubt is entirely beyond me.
Watch GREETINGS and HI, MOM and you might understand why he's an artist, not a hack.
ReplyDeleteI've given him plenty of chances. Black Dahlia was the last straw.
ReplyDeleteOne movie I'd like to see Ho'wood remake is FATHER GOOSE with Owen Wilson in Cary Grant's lead role. But it has to come about ten years down the line, when he's gotten a little paunchier and yet more grumpy, like Cary Grant before him. And it could star some hot young thing like Emma Watson, Hermione in the POTTER movies, cuz she'll be the right age at that point, too. And she'll no doubt only get more attractive... Hell, Wes Anderson could direct the shit out of that idea. That is, if he ever wanted to do somebody else's material. They better give me some royalties when this happens.
ReplyDelete