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Before Sunset (2004)
A Memory is Never Finished
We saw a sneak preview of Before Sunset last night and then rushed home to revisit its precursor--Before Sunrise--on video. I can sum up the appeal that Linklater's diptych holds for me in a few words, spoken by Julie Delpy's character in the first film, which both works live by:
You know, I believe if there's any kind of God, it wouldn't be in any of us. Not you, or me... but just this little space in between. If there's any kind of magic in this world, it must be in the attempt of understanding someone, sharing something... I know, it's almost impossible to succeed, but... who cares, really? The answer must be in the attempt.
(you can read the whole script here, if you're in the mood--although I wouldn't recommend that; in general, it's not the matter of these conversations which is so compelling, but the manner in which they are conducted--and you've gotta watch the film to experience that!)
In keeping with my preference for revisiting the old, rather than scratching vainly at the scab of "absolute originality", I liked the second film even more than the first. Or perhaps I should say that the second has added lustre to the first. And a third, if made in the same spirit as these two, would undoubtedly have a similarly intensifying effect. This is, of course, why I love corporate comics so much--I truly do believe that, the more you think earnestly about anything you ever loved, the better it gets. These films stake out a philosophic/aesthetic position which is in direct opposition to the one that Charlie Kaufman puts into the mouth of "wise fool" Donald, in Adaptation:
I loved Sarah. It was mine, that love. I owned it. Even Sarah didn't have the right to take it away. I can love whoever I want. You are what you love, not what loves you.
No way! A memory is never "yours". It must always be rebuilt through narrative. And a story is always told to someone else--even if that someone else is an idealized projection of your own mind. You aren't "what you love", you're a part of whatever you help bring to light through interaction with others. Implicit in Donald's statement is the idea that the artist's task is to nail down the way he/she feels about the world--capturing objects in the treacle of love like flies trapped in amber. I can't agree with this at all. I prefer to see art as the attempt to create "a soundtrack, magnetized, out of sync, to the filmstrip of the (intersubjective) Sublime".
Near the beginning of Before Sunset, Delpy asks Hawke why he wrote an entire novel about one night that happened nine years before the events in the sequel. After hemming and hawing his way through a bunch of stock responses, Hawke finally admits that he wrote the book in the hope that she would see it, read it, and show up to discuss it with him. In other words, it was an attempt, as Hawthorne would put it, "to open up an intercourse with the world." He gets his wish--and the discoveries that these two make about what "really" happened to them in the first film expose the proprietary theory of memory for the sham that it is. Our lives don't belong to us. We rent them to each other at sympathetic rates.
Gun Crazy (1950)
"We fit together like a gun and ammunition"
I've been hearing about Gun Crazy for a good long time and it didn't disappoint. It reminded me of Borzage's Moonrise (one of my absolute favourites): very few films capture the sheer terror of presiding over a less powerful being's fate this well... In Moonrise, it's a raccoon in a tree, shaken loose for the dogs; in GC it's a fuzzy baby chicken killed with a bb gun... and there are echoes of this nightmarish power all through the film. These aren't your typical "frightened killers" on the run. They're frightened alright, but mostly they're frightened of their own superior firepower...
But this isn't Natural Born Killers either... Nor is it some bland argument in favour of gun control! More than anything, this is a brilliant dramatization of how badly things can deteriorate for two people, once they decide that they can "live for love alone" and opt out of the social contract. These monsters are not "products of their environment": they choose their fate...
"Didn't you realize that once we started this, we'd never be able to turn to anyone for help again?" Dall asks Cummins. She knows.
Cummins is amazing in this role. I don't even think she qualifies as a femme fatale really... That term usually applies to a money-grubbing jerk who tantalizes the male protagonist into compromising his integrity. In some ways, she does have this effect on Dall, but it's a lot more complicated than that... This isn't Phyllis Dietrichson & Walter Neff. Barbara Stanwyck is my favourite actress, bar none, but Double Indemnity? That's gotta be one of the worst things she ever did. It's not her fault. It's Billy Wilder's. He liked his women venal or pixiesh... Either way--they're just there to affect the men. I hate Billy Wilder. I really do. If you're looking for a Stanwyck character to compare Cummins to, try her eponymous turn in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers on for size. There are a lot of similarities. Both women are extraordinarily competent, and that's what makes them appealing. They aren't moral black holes sucking the men to their doom--they're Nietzschean supernovae of desire. Cummins isn't trying to fool Dall into getting stuff for her. She wants a partner in crime. Someone to keep her company while she does what she does (& loves) best. Shoot people. Dall is a lot more squeamish than that, but he can't keep away from her. "I let you do my killing for me," he says.
It's true.
They aren't two people anymore. They're one. And it turns out that romantic fusion isn't all it's cracked up to be. In fact it's crazy.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
Rationalization is self-inflicted brain-damage
I thought Being John Malkovich was amusing, but I never want to see it again; and I hated Adaptation with an Elaine-vs-The English Patient fervor! But this Kaufman outing is completely different--no stale swipes at Hollywood genres, no kvetching about the problems writers face when they have to "compromise", just a fascinating plunge into the related problems of memory and character-as-destiny...
It's very much in the "Punch-Drunk-In-Translation" vein, with the added benefit that here the social environment doesn't even have to be "surrealized", because we know from the start that most of these events are taking place inside a person's brain... The film does a wonderful job of conveying a real sense of the "heteroglossia" that maturing writers strive for--memories of loved ones become reified chunks of otherness within the mind, paving the way for an infinite array of possible recombinations, the best of which have the substantiality of actual relationships! That's creativity folks!
Despite the tagline, this really isn't another kick at the innocence vs. experience can... My favourite scene features Carrey & Winslet (who are both excellent) wandering through an empty, darkened building on the beach, testing each other... You get a brilliant dramatization here of the only real power that we possess: the ability to look at ourselves... Who's doing the looking? Who's under the microscope? Who knows? But you know you can do it, and that's all that matters, right? The ability to accept. It's the only possible basis for human equality, and it's good enough for me... Rationalization is self-inflicted brain-damage... I'm telling you, this movie is (quietly) thrilling... Especially if you know and love Dieterle's Portrait of Jennie!
Dave
200 Cigarettes (1999)
what's the problem?
i don't know how anyone could say that this film was "poorly scripted". It's outrageously quotable, and while that doesn't make it "Casablanca", it's enough to earn some praise for the screenwriter from me. I scanned the comments and I was amazed by the dearth of appreciation for Martha Plimpton's performance as the shaky hostess--her brief "Feliz Navidad" dance & her confrontation with "Love Story are the two most hilarious things in the movie, as far as I'm concerned-- and no one took the time to mention Kevin McCardie as Eric, the disgruntled scottish artist who paints "big, abstract vaginas". His scene with Plimpton, where he comes to terms with his sexual inadequacy, is a gem. I also really liked the perfomances of Rudd and Love, as a pair of nihilists on the road to recovery (this friendship turns into love thing has been done since movies began, but it's been happening for at least that long in real life, so what's the problem) and Dave Chappelle is hilarious as the cab driver. Kate Hudson is vulnerable and pretty without being pathetic, and we all know she's on her way to stardom and i always think Jay Mohr is funny... I'm not crazy about the Brooklyn gals, but they don't destroy the movie for me. The music is great. Enjoy!