Wednesday, May 09, 2007
Dance! Dance!
What I like about dance is that, like music, it is a tremendously unnatural, affected activity that nonetheless makes the performer's personality incredibly open and accessible, rather than distant or hidden. A scene of 4th wall-breaking, obviously choreographed dancing can let you know the characters on screen more than any amount of neo-realist scenes of naturalistic acting. It's entirely fake, but completely real. Art! Woo! Anyway: here's some more of our favourites.
The Fisher King (1991)
d. Terry Gilliam
After the grand (and glorious) folly of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Mr Gilliam played nice with the studios as a director for hire for this, his most mainstream film. It's still excellent, mind, and not only survives Robin Williams in 'tragic character' mode with only a slight veneer of cringing sentimentalism, it also includes a lot of the wonderfully idiosyncratic moments that made Gilliam so beloved in the first place. Like the scene when everyone in Grand Central Station starts ballroom dancing.
Robin Williams plays a lunatic bum in this movie, so hopelessly romantically obsessed with some poor girl he spends his time stalking her. He catches sight of her while walking through the train station and, to externalise both the character's bliss and delusion, everyone picks a partner and waltzes away. The music rises, a giant glitter ball lights the giant hall, and the character is genuinely happy for a few moments. He is, of course, a psycho, but the joy of the scene sells the audience on his basic sweetness and innocence. Manipulative and morally suspect? The cinema would never do that to us!
Anyway, the scene is lovely, though I fear 15 further years of Williams' saccharine emotioneering may have spoiled this film for us all. Try seeing Robin's face tear-up and not want to punch it. Still, the mix of Gilliam and mainstream film-making softened the director's more cynical, anarchic edge to give us this scene of wide-eyed wonder. -- Andrew Clarke
Pulp Fiction (1994)
d. Quentin Tarantino
This scene marks Tarantino's first fully realized use of the ideas the audience brings to the theater to enhance a scene. As Vincent Vega tries to get out of the inevitable twist contest, the audience is being teased with the idea of seeing John Travolta Dancing, an idea that is tantalizing only because of what the audience has felt about John Travolta in the past. When I saw this in a packed theater on opening weekend back in '94, the audience erupted in applause when Vincent eventually accepted. -- Chris Oliver
Bande à part (1964)
d. Jean-Luc Godard
It's funny how Chris' pick above wouldn't actually exist had it not been for Godard and the New Wave (and, of course, Travolta's smooth-moving hips - confluence is such a wonderful thing). I mean, the (now defunct) "A Band Apart" production company is named after this very film. And it's no surprise that a loving cineaste like Tarantino would take reference from such a film, seeing as Pulp Fiction is in so many ways a love letter to the bygone French film movement... but I digress. What makes Bande à part's "Madison Dance" scene among my very favorite moments in film period is its spontaneity and honesty (and that music!). What the New Wave did was break convention and help reshape cinema form to more accurately reflect human emotion and experience in an artful manner. And you see it not only in the impromptu dance sequence above, with its musical breaks and subsequent narration. Stuff like this is old hat now, with so many films vying for similar flourishes of style. But it's always fascinating to see the roots of it all. -- George Merchan
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
d. Tobe Hooper
This movie isn't short on heavy handed symbolism but it's all rendered fairly irrelevant by the sheer viscerality of the experience. Very few films have such a physical presence in the room it is being shown in, and none, I'd argue, are quite so willing to punch you in the gut for 90 minutes. As such it can be difficult to work out the meaning of the film's closing moments as Leatherface does a little dance with his chainsaw on the side of the road.
Is he celebrating a night of carnage? Or stamping out his frustrations at letting the heroine escape? Is it some half-remembered shamanistic rite to symbolise Leatherface as an elemental force haunting the backroads of all America? Or is it just some retard psycho playing with his toy? Who cares? It's this lack of explanation or reason that marks out the film from other horror movies. It's not some cute kiss-off or cynical set up for a sequel, it's just someone dancing un-selfconsciously, to no-one but himself. Is it scary, beautiful or funny? Why not all three? -- Andrew Clarke
Part 1 - Boogie Nights, Last Tango in Paris, The Return of the Living Dead, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
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Labels: Bande à part, Pulp Fiction, The Fisher King, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Continue reading Dance! Dance!Summer Reading: Oxford American
If you're looking for some good reading, and you finished that EW Summer Movie Preview in about 15 minutes, there's a magazine out there that would be well worth your time to track down.
Oxford American bills itself as "The Southern Magazine of Good Writing," which seems a pretty accurate statement. It's a big magazine with nice, long, literate essays and interviews that all in some way connect to The South. In the past, they've had issues dedicated to southern food, southern art and architecture, and southern music. The issue currently on newsstands is the Southern Movie Issue, and not only is it full of insightful essays on John Ford, Bette Davis, Song of the South, Dick Powell (didn't know he was southern, did you?), Baby Doll and the intersection of racial politics and sexploitation, but it also packs a free DVD, "a visual mixtape of clips, scenes, and shorts that range from musical performances to dramas to archival footage."
The DVD has everything from experimental animation to footage of disabled bluesman "Peg Leg" Sam Jackson (no relation to Samuel L., although he shows up in some footage from Black Snake Moan), to a clip of William Shatner's powerful, over-the-top performance as a racist agitator in The Intruder, and a scene from Joey Lauren Adams' directorial debut (I didn't even realize she'd had one), Come Early Morning. You can watch a trailer for the DVD at the Oxford American website.
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Labels: Magazines, Oxford Amercian
Continue reading Summer Reading: Oxford AmericanDVD Review: Mission: Impossible - Season 1
By Nathan Wishart
This series has always had a really cool concept: a group of people getting paid by the government to perform con-jobs on enemies of the state. I never realized how potentially that concept could be. The series is pretty black and white when it comes to this, there are no gray areas where they might begin to question if what they’re doing is morally ethical. The IMF (Impossible Missions Force) are the good guys and the people they set-up are the bad guys, that’s about it.
I’m not saying it’s not a great series because it doesn’t address that, but it’s an interesting idea that came to mind while watching it. I’m sure most are familiar with the Mission: Impossible template: at the beginning of each episode, the leader, in this case Dan Briggs (Jim Phelps appears in Season 2), arrives at a pre-determined location and finds a recorder with the details of the mission which is then disposed of. He then assembles his crew which primarily consists of Cinnamon Carter (Barbara Bain), model, actress and femme fatale - I know that sounds limiting but as the series goes on she proves herself to be quite capable; Rollin Hand (Martin Landau), magician, actor, make-up artist; Barney Collier (Greg Morris), electronics expert; and Willy Armitage (Peter Lupus), the muscle of the group. The leader is played by Steven Hill (who later went on to play D.A. Adam Schiff in Law and Order - I absolutely had no idea), aside from a few guest stars, some famous, some not so famous, that remains the core group until Landau and Bain leave the series after season 3.
Another interesting facet about the show is the complete lack of background info on the group, except for mentions of their day jobs and one episode which involves Dan Briggs being blackmailed by someone from his past. Next to nothing is known about these people which I find refreshing. All that matters to them is the mission.
At times, there’s a real cinematic feel to this show which is really quite groundbreaking, there’s a shot in one of the episodes (Action!) where the camera pulls back from an auditorium and seamlessly through a viewing window where we see Rollin Hand standing close by. It’s a stunning shot and something you really didn’t see being done when this show was on in 1966. In another episode (Operation Rogosh) slow motion was used to interesting effect to create the sensation of going mad.
The theme tune is absolutely iconic and provides a sonic blast to open the show while offering glimpses of what’s to come. It’s a very cool way to set-up the episode and the composer. Lalo Schifrin also adds little cues here and there throughout the episodes to heighten the tension and set the mood. His music is an absolutely vital component to the series success.
One of the flaws in this show is that you know they’re going to win in the end, although the show keeps you on the edge of your seat throughout and creates some memorable villains for the IMF team to match wits with. The formula is such that at the end of every episode the IMF time overcomes their opponent. I think it would’ve been interesting if they had done an episode where the IMF had an opponent they couldn’t outsmart. It would’ve shaken things up a bit.
Unfortunately, there are no extras for this set. It would’ve been interesting to hear what the cast and crew had to say about the show, Bruce Geller not withstanding as he died in 1978.
All in all, this show was a total blast to watch and holds up really nicely as a tension packed series with cold war overtones.
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Labels: DVD Reviews, Mission: Impossible
Continue reading DVD Review: Mission: Impossible - Season 1Monday, May 07, 2007
Dance!
In Spider-Man 3, Peter Parker turns up at the jazz club MJ is singing at and, to humiliate and upstage her, hijacks her song with a dance routine. And all around the Internets it was as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I feared something terrible had happened. It turned out it was just that a lot of geeks just think dance sequences aren't cool. They are wrong, of course. I love it when a dance breaks out in a movie, and doubly so if it is unexpected. So, here we've compiled a list of our favourite dance sequences in non-musical films. And a 1 and a 2 and a 3 and a 4...
Boogie Nights (1997)
d. Paul Thomas Anderson
The shot starts with porno-stud Dirk Diggler in the middle of a crowded dance floor, disco-ing away. Then, over the course of a minute or so, all the other dancers start copying his movies until the shot evolves into a choreographed dance scene with Dirk at the centre of it all - the coolest man in the room. It expresses both Dirk's rise to the height of fame and popularity, and the romantic and deluded fantasy of the 70's just before the 80's turn up, William H Macy considers a future starring in Wild Hogs, and everything goes to shit. Funky.
As a further point, I always think of this scene when I watch the bit in Starship Troopers when our hero is walking towards wash-out lane when war is declared and all the soldiers in the background start to run off to the left to find out what happened. It's another bit of sly choreography designed so that you almost don't notice it the first time. Most excellent, but the infantry don't wear polyester flares, so fuck them. -- Andrew Clarke
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
d. John Huston
The jig Walter Huston cuts is a perfect expression of his old coot character. For those at home, The Prospector is done by dancing about on your heels and toes while hollering "You got gold fever! I've seen it a hundred times, con sarn it!" -- Chris Oliver
The Return of the Living Dead (1985)
d. Dan O'Bannon
WARNING: NSFW!
"Trash is taking her clothes off again!"
Once again, it's the buildup that makes the scene, as Quigley reveals her fantasy of being eaten alive by a gang of old men, working herself up into a frenzied lust that can only be relieved by writhing her nekkid ass to cheesy 80's synth pop. But don't get all holier-than-thou, man! She's just holding a mirror up to your sick society! -- Chris Oliver
Last Tango in Paris (1972)
d. Bernardo Bertolucci
Ah. Again, the figurative title becomes literal towards the tail end of Bernardo Bertolucci's masterful sex-o-drama. A drunken - and deliciously brilliant - Marlon Brando drips with a sophomoric charm as he playfully flirts and woos his way into the arms of his object of lust (Maria Schneider). The tango itself, a beautifully expressive dance of form and refinement, is completely undone with, of all things, the emotional honesty of Brando and Schneider's fucked up but deeply passionate tryst. The broken but joyous dance becomes a microcosm of the lovers' relationship witnessed throughout the film.
And like any good post-drunken dance reprieve, the couple caps it all off with a nice little tug job. Unfortunately, the YouTube clip above cuts out right before it. Guga85, you fucking prude! -- George Merchan
We'll have the next part up very soon! Maybe!
NB: We were discussing doing this article before Spider-Man 3 turned up this weekend, honest, but who's to argue when a major motion picture plays right into our hands. Thanks, Sam!
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Labels: Boogie Nights, Last Tango in Paris, The Return of the Living Dead, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Continue reading Dance!
