The Damned United

Image courtesy of Sony Pictures Classic

Screenwriter Peter Morgan has made a career out of dramatizing important events in British history. His first screenplay, The Queen, fictionalized the impact of Princess Diana’s death on the royal family. In The Last King of Scotland, Morgan dramatized key facets of Idi Amin’s rule. Morgan’s also the screenwriter behind Frost/Nixon, which reenacted the 1977 interviews between Richard Nixon and British journalist David Frost. Now, he and director Tom Hooper are giving their dramatized version of events in The Damned United, a story about one of Britain’s most outspoken football managers, Brian Clough.

Adapted by Peter Morgan from the book, The Damned Utd., by David Peace, The Damned United (film) is a football movie that’s not really about football. It’s about the characters of football. For those of you not familiar with Clough, he started his coaching career at Hartlepools United, where he first met asst. manager Peter Taylor back in 1965 after a knee injury ended Clough’s playing days. From there, Clough went on to manage Derby County (with Taylor), then Leeds United (without Taylor) before reuniting with Taylor at Nottingham Forest. At Nottingham, Clough became the only football coach in British history to lead his team to two consecutive European Cups.

The book and the film both focus on Clough’s infamous 44 day stint as the ill-fated manager of Leeds United. Yet, even though the focal point of the story is Clough’s tenure at Leeds, the narrative jumps back and forth between Leeds (1974) and the time he spent managing Derby County (1967-72). During the reign of Brian Clough, played by Michael Sheen (Frost/Nixon, The Queen), key events and games are highlighted, management is crossed, relationships are formed, and rivalries rank supreme. The rest of the cast includes Timothy Spall as Peter Taylor, Clough’s assistant manager, Colm Meaney as Don Revie, Clough’s rival manager, and Jim Broadbent as Sam Longston, the chairman of Leeds United.

Before the movie even got under way, Peace’s critically acclaimed book was already creating quite a stir among Clough’s friends and family. Why? They believe that the novel, fictitiously written from Clough’s point of view, paints an unflattering, inaccurate image of Clough as a haunted, paranoid, chain-smoking, obsessive man who is so consumed with anger that his long-winded monologues are consistently littered with cuss words.

To be fair, Peace will be the first to admit that his novel is a work of fiction that happens to be based on fact. The reason why the family has such a problem with Peace’s fictitious portrayal of Clough is because they’re concerned that glaringly inaccurate novels like The Damned Utd. present a certain danger in mixing fact and fiction because many readers won’t be able to discern the difference between the two. Unfortunately, the uproar didn’t stop with Clough’s family. Former Leeds player, Johnny Giles, won the libel suit that he filed against Peace and the book’s publisher (Faber & Faber) for claiming Giles was a “key player” in the firing of Clough from Leeds United (http://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/news/Leeds-United-legend-wins-apology.3747294.jp).

After watching the courts force Faber & Faber to remove select passages from the book and award Giles a “substantial payment” for damages incurred, the film’s producers knew that changes needed to be made. Rather than adhering to the book’s narrative format of Clough telling the story through his dark, moody, neurotic 1st person point of view, the film presents Clough’s tale from a lighter and more humorous 3rd person perspective. Is it effective? Yes and no. Yes, because it appeases Clough’s family and the studio’s attorneys. No, because the cleaned-up version of Clough is now a tragic hero without an Achilles heel. Where’s the tragedy? Where’s the hamartia that led to Clough’s downfall? Personally, I’m starting to think that Hooper hid it in all those oddly placed subtle high and low angle shots that made the story seem a little off kilter.

Another other big change is the film’s creation of a “love triangle” between Clough, Taylor, and Revie. Is that Hollywood’s new rule? If there’s no traditional romance in the story, add a “bromance?” The problem is that the bromance established between Clough and Taylor in The Damned United is more of a two-way codependent relationship than a love triangle. Clough may love Taylor and hate Revie, but there’s nothing connecting Taylor to Revie at all. Ironically, what Hooper and Morgan did faithfully transfer from the book to the film was all of the sports errors. BBC sports journalist Pat Murphy stated that he noticed “17 factual inaccuracies in the film after watching it twice” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Damned_United).

Overall, The Damned United is an entertaining and enjoyable story about Brian Clough’s tumultuous 44 day tenure at Leeds. Yet, as engaging as these dramatized, iconic characters are, will audiences outside the world of football be able to tell fact from fiction? Does it really matter? Apparently, not to the studios. They’re just happy this version isn’t as likely to create as many lawsuits.

© Left From Hollywood 10/23/2009

Cold Souls

Image courtesy of Samuel Goldwyn Films

Sophie Barthes had a dream. A dream about a doctor’s office. Pretty ordinary as far as dreams go, right? Sophie thought hers was too … until she looked around the waiting room in her dream and saw that she and all the other patients (including Woody Allen) were each holding individual boxes containing their extracted souls. Oops. Guess that’s what happens when you read Carl Jung right before going to bed. Of course, Sophie woke up before she saw her own soul, but not without remembering enough of her odd dream to turn it into her first feature length film, Cold Souls.

Now, Barthes may not have been able to get the real Woody Allen for her film, but she ended up with the next best thing – Paul Giamatti. In Cold Souls, Paul Giamatti plays Paul Giamatti (i.e. a fictionalized version of himself) who is struggling with his latest role in a theater production of “Uncle Vanya.” Ironically, it’s not that Paul isn’t feeling his character. He’s feeling it too much. It's literally weighing him down. So much so in fact, that Paul decides to visit "Soul Storage," a high-tech company that extracts, freezes, and stores people’s souls. After a brief meeting with Dr. Flintstein (David Strathaim), Paul decides to have his soul removed, and is surprised to learn it’s the size of a chickpea.

Much to Paul’s dismay, his newfound “soullessness” doesn’t exactly enhance his acting career like he thought it would. His director (Michael Tucker) wasn’t too happy about Paul’s sudden change in portrayal of Uncle Vanya that turned the character into what can only be described as the crass love child of Rodney Dangerfield and Ron Jeremy. Paul also notices some other unpleasant side effects from being “soulless.” When his embarrassing lack of social etiquette and inability to have sex finally piss off his wife (Emily Watson), Paul returns to Dr. Flintstein and asks for his soul back.

Obviously, the underlying premise of the film is that a person’s soul is just like any other organ in the human body. It can be removed or inserted by a machine. No muss. No fuss. Or, as Dr. Flintstein so elegantly puts it, he can either “de-soul the body or disembody the soul.” Souls can also be anonymously donated, swapped for other souls, or even shipped overseas. In the film, souls are a big business. How big? Big enough for a soul black market to exist in Paul’s crazy little mixed up world. Later, when Paul finds himself an unfortunate victim of “soul-trafficking,” he journeys to Russia in order to find his lost soul.

Cold Souls is starting to sound like an existential Charlie Kauffman film, isn’t it? True, there are certain parallels between Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Barthes’ fledgling film, especially in the understated, low-tech removal process. It also brings to mind Being John Malkovich wherein the lead actor plays himself. Yet, where Kauffman tends to wallow in dramatic, intellectual insight, Barthes keeps a lighter tone by purposely focusing on the absurd nature of her existential subject matter. Paul can’t understand the inner workings of his soul until he is able to step back and look at himself from the outside (in a very humorous way).

Once in St. Petersburg, Russia, you finally begin to realize that the real meaning of Cold Souls lies in Paul’s journey rather than the arrival of his epiphany. Why? Up until that point in the movie, we’re only given deceptive glimpses of the Russians involved in this soul-trafficking. Nina, (Dina Korzun) the soul mule, (i.e. transporter) starts off as a femme fatale but finishes as something entirely different. Even the characters of Astrov (Armand Schultz, II) and his wife Sveta (Katheryn Winnick) initially come across as formidable forces, yet fizzle out without so much as a wimper.

Instead of playing up the thriller elements of these shady Russians, Barthes focuses on the ethical dilemma of what will happen to the donor soul of the Russian poet Paul had implanted when his own soul went missing. Believe me, there’s a lot of soul searching going on for everyone concerned. But, since this is a comedy instead of a philosophy lesson, Cold Souls explores our own inabilities and refusal to look within ourselves and understand the core of our own existence. Just because we happen to know what Paul’s soul looks like doesn’t mean we know what lies within it. Who would have thought such a tiny little chickpea could feel so heavy?

© Left From Hollywood 8/21/2009

Revanche

Image courtesy of Janus Films

Crime and punishment. Fate and circumstance. Revenge and atonement. These oppositions are certainly not new concepts to the art of storytelling. Hollywood loves to hand out Oscars for them. But, where Tinseltown has their standard formulaic pattern of predictable themes wrapped up in a nice little 90 minute flick, Austrian filmmaker Götz Spielmann has found a rather unique way to explore the fallout of these very same Hollywood themes. In his latest film Revanche (nominated for Best Foreign Language pic at the 2009 Oscars), Spielmann takes elements from the typical Hollywood format, expands it, and gives his collateral victims room to breathe.

The first storyline of Revanche starts out as a heist / drama film when Viennese ex-con Alex (Johannes Krisch), who works security at the same brothel as his Ukrainian girlfriend Tamara (Irina Potapenko), one of the prostitutes, decide that robbing a bank is the best way to better their lives. The second plot is a straight-up drama that revolves around supermarket worker Susanna (Ursula Strauss), her infertile police officer husband Robert (Andreas Lust), and their resulting marital problems. The two storylines intersect at the end of the first act when Robert happens upon Alex and Tamara at the scene of the crime and opens fire on their fleeing getaway car.

Once the film progresses into the second act, Revanche becomes a psychological character analysis disguised as a revenge drama. Yet, instead of filling the intertwined lives of these characters with suspenseful, fast-paced plot twists, Spielmann draws out the remainder of the tale to create an overall mood of unfulfilled hope and bad karma through their gradual psychological decline. Alex takes refuge at the farmhouse of his grandfather Hausner (Johannes Thanheiser) who coincidentally happens to be friends with Robert’s wife Susanna. While Alex sublimates his obsessive thoughts of revenge through manual labor, Robert projects his own questions of guilt onto his wife, and Susanna goes about filling the void in her life without thought for the consequences.

In following with the cinematic style of Berlin School films, Revanche focuses on middle class people drifting through their lives, unable to make decisions that could free them from their constant state of melancholy. The long camera takes of the world belonging to this straightforward protagonist continuously emphasize the visual image over the verbal dialogue. Yet, by taking the familiar elements of revenge drama, heist, and psychological suspense, and slowing down the pace, Spielmann allows his characters to develop on their own terms, in their own tragedies, in their own time. In turn, the characters in Revanche become more driven by the complexities of human relationships than the sum of their morals.

Cinematographer Martin Gschlacht’s unpretentious scenes that are shot from a respectful distance perfectly compliment Spielmann’s contemplative script. The sparse dialogue and lack of subjective shots don’t purposely make you identify with any of the characters, yet your fascination for them continues to grow as the story progresses. Every single shot has a purpose, even when Gschlacht’s camera goes static and lingers on a scene after the action has moved out of the frame. You may not make the connection at first, but when it finally is made, the deeper meaning behind those images allows you to see the love within the sex, the limits of human aspiration, and the loneliness of isolation.

What at first seems simple often turns out to be ambiguous in Revanche. The fixed spacious compositions, forced audience reflection, and conflicted characters are what make Spielmann’s film resonate with you long after it’s over. If you’re looking for a typical fast-paced Hollywood revenge flick, Revanche isn’t it. No bloodbath exists in this film’s tragedy. Instead, you’ll find a moral beauty in its consideration of violence and vengeance. Only in Revanche can a man experience a moment of true clarity from someone who doesn't know you're just about to kill him.

© Left From Hollywood 7/3/09

Familiar Strangers

Image courtesy of Cavalier Films

Thomas Wolfe was right – you can’t go home again. Better yet, you can’t return to your childhood home and expect the people who still live there to be the same ones you left behind. Everyone has experienced that uncomfortable awkwardness of coming home for the first time as an adult and realizing it’s no longer home. In Familiar Strangers, writer Brian Worthington finds himself facing this universal transition from child to adult when he visits his family for the first time after leaving home and learns he’s been replaced by the family dog.

Brian (Shawn Hatosy) left his parent’s home three years ago. Unfortunately, he did so without his father Frank‘s (Tom Bower) blessing. Frank is one of those fathers who always expected his oldest son would one day take over the family business (the local hardware store); and, Brian is one of those sons whose plans involve becoming a writer instead of peddling hardware. Now, here it is three years after Brian flew the family coop, and Brian the published author is returning home to spend Thanksgiving weekend with the estranged family he left behind.

Familiar Strangers isn’t your typical coming home film. Instead of following the standard Hollywood narrative format in which only a few elements of the coming home theme are buried in the bowels of one of its many subplots, John Bell’s script focuses on the character dynamics that develop as a result of the transition. The narrative progression is slow, yet steady, meandering along at its own pace, only pausing to explore the different character facets affecting Brian’s trip home.

Obviously, there’s some unresolved tension between Brian and his father, astutely pointed out by Allison (Nikki Reed), the supermarket checkout girl, when she notices Brian’s unusual purchase of sleeping pills and razor blades. But, then again, who wouldn’t resort to that lethal combo after learning their father has replaced them with the family dog?

Yet, Frank’s unhealthy obsession with his geriatric golden retriever Argus isn’t the only thing that makes Brian continually beat his head against the wall in frustration. His pacificist mom Dottie (Ann Dowd) is in complete denial about any unpleasantry she encounters in life. Younger brother Kenny (DJ Qualls) is the family smartass who refuses to grow up. Sister Erin (Cameron Richardson) gives new meaning to the phrase “bitter divorcee,” resulting in her being overly protective of her 8 year-old daughter Maddy (Georgia Mae Lively), a mini-adult who is smarter than the rest of the Worthingtons put together.

Overall, Familiar Strangers is a well-written character study that does more than just dwell on the return of an estranged family member. Family dynamics are always more complicated than they first appear, and director Zackary Adler does an excellent job of flushing out the idiosyncrasies of Bell’s characters to remind us there’s more than one side to every story. Adler’s cinematography is as simple as the characters themselves: no flashy effects, no tricked-up angles. He just presents a straight forward view of a very relatable tale.

As for whether or not Familiar Strangers comes to an art house cinema near you, that’s entirely up to the producers. Even though the film hit the festival circuit in 2008, it still hasn’t been picked up by a distribution company, forcing Cavalier Films to distribute their fledgling film themselves. Familiar Strangers opened in seven cities last fall before it was pulled for the holiday season, and is now in the process of being re-released in more cities across the country this spring. Your best bet is to check the film’s official website (http://www.familiarstrangersmovie.com/) for upcoming release dates.

The first journey home marking the transition from child to adult is never an easy one. If you get the chance to see Brian’s journey, you definitely need to check it out. Your own family may not be as skilled at donkey basketball as the Worthingtons are, but you should relate to this group of characters just the same. Like Brian's family, ours are always there for us whether we like it or not.

© Left From Hollywood 3/6/2009

Waltz with Bashir

Image courtesy of Sony Pictures Classic

Written and directed by Israeli filmmaker, Ari Folman, Waltz with Bashir is an animated documentary, based on Folman’s personal experiences as a young soldier fighting in the first Israeli-Lebanon War of the early 1980s. The story begins with present-day Ari sitting in a bar, talking to his old Army friend Boaz about Boaz’s recurring nightmare in which he constantly chased by a menacing pack of dogs. The men then connect Boaz’s dream to a massacre that happened during the war.

At that point, Ari realizes that he himself has no conscious memories about that period in his life. Both perplexed and intrigued by this sudden realization, Ari decides to start tracking down other former Israeli solders, hoping they will be able to help Ari remember what he has forgotten. Over the course of the film, the memory of each interviewed soldier become a catalyst, triggering the next man’s recollections, until Ari eventually discovers that he has collected enough pieces of the puzzle to unlock the part of the war that he himself had repressed.

So, how can Waltz with Bashir be both animated and a documentary at the same time? Unlike A Scanner Darkly, which used rotoscope animation to paint over real video, all the interviews in Waltz were originally shot in a sound studio and cut into a 90 minute film. From there, the film was drawn as a series of story boards, which were then used to create an animated story using a combination of Flash, classic, and 3D animation.

Without question, Waltz with Bashir is an anti-war film. The combination of muted tones, monochromatic colors, and stark chiaroscuro of the animated visual design paint a moody backdrop for the film’s disturbing subject matter. At first, it may seem a little odd to choose animation for a documentary, especially when the director doesn’t use it to glamorize the grizzly images of war like the latest video game; but, there is definitely a method to Folman’s uncharacteristic choice of visual design.

At first the surreal nature of the animation only seems to downplay the atrocity of the film’s subject matter by creating a comfort zone for the audience. But that is exactly what Folman wants it to do, right up to the point where he inserts an unexpected clip of real stock footage (not animated) from the actual massacre. This sudden juxtaposition of fantasy vs. reality that ends as abruptly as it starts makes more of an anti-war statement than any soldier testimony ever could.

Since the film was made by an Israeli filmmaker and everyone interviewed in the film is also a former Israeli soldier, it’s only natural for the film’s spoken language to be Hebrew (with English subtitles). However, there are two instances in the film where English is spoken: 1) in a porno being watched by an Israeli soldier wherein an Arab man is having sex with an American woman (a commentary on American pop culture), and 2) when U.S. soldiers tell the Lebanese militia to “stop the massacre” at the end (a commentary on the current situation in the Middle East).

Could the subtext of these two scenes be read as anti-American messages? Maybe. Maybe not. Like any film, it all depends on who’s doing the interpreting. Every audience member is going to view it with a different perspective than the person sitting next to them. If so, is the message warranted? Again, that’s a matter of individual perception. Personally, I’m not going to judge it on that level, because I can argue it either way. I’m just saying it’s there if you want to see it.

For me personally, the biggest problem I had with Folman’s film wasn’t a question of subtext. Nor, was it the historical accuracy of the event itself. I also wasn’t that bothered by the narcissistic angle of the film’s protagonist, or the fact that two of the soldiers interviewed were played by actors. What drove me nuts more than anything else in Waltz with Bashir was the flawed logic pattern of Folman’s psychology.

At the beginning of the film, one interviewee tells Ari about a psychology experiment that was conducted wherein false memories were created in subjects when others helped them fill in the “missing” memories. Yet, the entire narrative structure of the film is composed of nothing but former soldiers filling in the “missing gaps” of one another’s memories, ironically invalidating every testimony given in the film by the soldiers.

Granted, Folman was probably trying to invalidate these fragmented individual accounts in order to justify the “truth” of his stock footage. But, what he fails to remember is that he also invalidated the perspective of the war journalist’s camera by using it to demonstrate the mental state of disassociation wherein the photographer only captures partial memories on film because the cameraman's lens physically separates him from the “reality” of what he is viewing.

No matter how groundbreaking or aesthetically pleasing I found the film to be, the contradictory messages of its psychology invalidated any effect they might have otherwise had. Ultimately, it’s these very contradictions that keep Folman from finding any real answers to the questions he seeks, making Waltz with Bashir seem more like an impressionistic vision of fragmented memories than a serious journalistic inquiry into the Sabra and Shatila Massacre of the 1982 Israeli-Lebanon war.

© Left From Hollywood 1/23/2009