Reviews

For many years, I did not see Godard's recent films because they weren't distributed in the United States. As an older film maker, after transcending his sexual and historical politics, Godard brilliantly enters into the area of eternity, excellently examining the meaning of life.

In Notre Musique, Godard concerns himself with the overall picture of life,illuminating for us, in the age old triptych of life (war) - purgatory - and paradise, his conclusions after living an honest life as an artist. It is a tribute to the open nature of French cinema that he was able to make so many uncompromising films in his lifetime.

It has been years since I've seen a film by a young (relatively) director like Noah Baumbach that didn't smack of self centeredness or severe plagiarism (though it must be noted that the score was pleasantly guilty of plagiarizing French New Wave soundtracks, most likely ones by Georges Delerue). Frances Ha is in unpretentious black and white - in other words, Baumbach uses the style as God meant it to be used and that is to get intimate with a character in a way that is more innocent than you find in most colored films.

At first, I was slow to warm up to the film but the lead performance and the dialog throughout the film is so strikingly fresh that it made me feel (at my advanced age of 60) that young people still do have brains. I particularly enjoyed the observation made by Frances, at a dinner party, that when someone has a kid and believes they are less egocentric, the belief is a fraud because their fawning, though not directly over themselves, is still clearly self directed since they made the children. This one observation by the character is enough to make her transcend the stigma of being generational. Frances is just as fresh and likable a character if she was created in France in the sixties or Germany in the 1920'a. The character is genuine, no small feat to accomplish at any period in film history. And while there is a sense of longed for nostalgia (the writers seem to wish that they had been born in the fifties), there are few films that are more immediate and genuine in conveying that horrifying period which is your twenties.

When this film was made, despite the fact that Freud's theories were under attack, the film maker, Claude Chabrol, made a firm statement about what happens when a child's love for his mother is repressed by a father's hostility. In the opening sequence, a wedding, it is established, briefly, that Paul (the butcher)had a dark and unresolved relationship with his father, one that caused him to join the army and resulted in his having seen very little of his cherished mother. When the film begins, Paul and Helene meet and start a friendship that has promise of a relationship. But Helene's unwillingness to become Paul or anyone's lover, because of the pain she endured from a previous relationship, stifles a budding romance. Contrary to turning off Paul, this rejection seems to entice him. He can trust this woman because she is "logical," a word that turns up frequently when the two main characters describe how they run their lives. This "logic" though is not the one we commonly embrace, it is a logic of dark inevitability. Paul, whose father seemed to brutally punish him for his son's aggressiveness (and unconsciously for the boy's possessiveness of his mother), has adjusted to reality by living within the confines of a control in his life that prevents accidents or passions from taking place. He is, in effect, grateful that Helene is not giving him what he wants. Like his desire for his mother still lurks in his unconscious, his desire for Helene is always present - and because Helene has rejected him, like his mother had done, Helene has created a relationship as close to his mother as possible. It is very logical.

The thriller aspect of this film which is about a serial killer finds it's manifestations not in the easy, lurid horror techniques of too many thrillers but in the horror of what's going on within each of the characters - the horror of closeness, a closeness that each fear might kill them. The killings are merely an outward symbol for the internal murder that is going on within each character. The characters who, for years, had been killing themselves emotionally by their repressed desires reach, in this film, a dark emotional catharsis that makes them aware of how their repressed desires have ruined their lives.

Why there should be no adaptation (to regain the funniest parts of the original movie upon which the musical had been adapted)mystifies me. There are funny moments in it. Nathan Lane does have talent. A few of the musical numbers that are new to the Broadway play do have their charms. All in all, though, it doesn't have the power that the original had. This for a couple of reasons. 1st, Zero Mostel. There is no replacing him in this role...by anyone (the same goes for Gene Wilder as the other half of the team). 2nd, the structure, which had been changed from the movie to work on the stage, doesn't do service to the original idea. The 1968 movie exploited the relationships much better; it had a cohesiveness in structure that the Broadway play doesn't have at all - even if you forgive it having made certain changes for the stage. The biggest problem is having Franz Liebkind as the star instead of L.S.D. This wipes out the whole 3rd act charm of having Franz fuel the lunatic, destructive climax. The second biggest problem is to not have the scene in the bar across the street where the producers discover that their play was a hit. The third is having Uma Thurman's role extended into one of some meaning. This destroys the buddy element of the original screenplay - and this is a big problem since it meant that there is no real relationship at all in the story. There isn't one between Max or Leo and there isn't one worth anything between Leo and Uma's character.

It's not a total loss. It's amusing but it could be easily ignored and nothing would be missed. The 1968 picture can't be bettered - and if it's changed too much, it can't be swallowed.

This biographical work, though well acted, draws on material from Capote's life that puts an ultimately unsatisfying and simplistic cap on the life of a writer who was complex and compelling. For starters, having been produced by the star of the film reveals quite a bit about the nature of the work. It is filled with moments for Mr. Hoffman to portray his work. And while his portrayal of Mr. Capote is stunning, there's something about the screen moments that are all about the acting and not so much about the character of Truman Capote.

There is, also, an annoying reverent tone about the unmasking of Capote's inner ambitions and how they manage to destroy him. This is where the movie completely collapses as a biopic. To imply that Capote's life was destroyed by his writing of IN COLD BLOOD is to ignore a million other possible reasons for him not to be able to complete another book. The ending is unacceptable, tacked on, formulaic and endemic the art film biopic.