The Fountain (2006) Sci-fi religious fun

A film which is 484 on Empire’s list of 500 Greatest Films you’d think, even for it’s low rank, might have achieved more widespread acknowledgement, but having bought Darren Aronofsky’s 2006 sci-fi adventure for £3 this weekend, no-one I’ve spoken to seems to have heard of it. To be fair neither had I, but for £3 I thought it was worth a watch.

Originally, The Fountain started filming in 2002 with Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett on a huge studio funded budget, which was slashed and the project abandoned when Aronofsky wouldn’t incorporate Pitt’s script amends. Production started again in 2005 with Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz as the leads and a severely reduced budget – all of which promoted a creative flair for effects without (refreshingly) the need for CGI.

The Fountain follows three interwoven narratives that take place in the age of conquistadors, the modern-day period, and the far future. Jackman’s character is a futuristic astronaut, a modern day research scientist and Spanish conquistador, who journey’s through time attempting to stop the fate of his beloved “Izzi”. The film discusses themes of life, rebirth, mortality and our eternal relationships.

Aronofsky uses a quote from Genesis to start The Fountain making clear reference to the two trees in the garden of Eden; the tree of knowledge and the tree of life. The latter was hidden and protected after the fall of man. The fall of man separated man from maker with “death” ultimately being what makes us unique as only we can experience it and it is the force which re-unites us with our maker.

Jackman’s character as the conquistador literally seeks the Tree of Life out of the Guatemalan Mayan pyramids and jungles. As a scientist, he desperately seeks the scientific knowledge to “cure” death, treating it like “any other disease”. It’s only as the yoga-practising, futuristic astronaut, haunted by visions of Izzi, that he accepts that death is the only way to be re-united with both maker and his eternal love. Ironically as an astronaut he travels with a tree, similar to the Tree of Life in the Mayan temple, which dies moments before he chooses his fatal ending.

There is a precise and calculated use of repeated imagery throughout The Fountain: the stars hanging in the distance space behind the orb-space craft, the hanging candles of the Spanish palace and the astrological research Izzi delights in at the lab all show a hidden agenda between showing the relationship between light and dark: life and death. The use of light is also part of the physical presence of the actors with Jackman existing in the shadows and Izzi highlighted and pinpointed by shards of light (in the snow filled doorway, in the museum sunbeam, in the palace throne) to further separate the two lovers.

The film ends as Xibalba (the dying star of the Mayan underworld) collapses and supernovas destroying and scattering the astronaut’s body into the dead tree rejuvenating it. In the present day the scientist is seen planting a tree seed over Izzi's grave, symbolising his acceptance of his wife's death. At the same moment, in the sky above, we see Xibalba's supernova event.

The Fountain is difficult to get into, this is coming from someone who loves films which don’t offer easy or obvious narratives, so you can understand my point. The narrative feels too jarred to seamlessly interweave the three stories. The use of imagery and effects is impressive, especially for the creative alternatives to CGI, but the cinematography of the film is a bit overbearing at times.

I get that we are steadily taken from darkness into light, it’s just that that dichotomy is too broken by having to switch from the dark and light parts of the story. The visual style obviously has to be sacrificed in order to interweave the narrative, otherwise it would be very boring, predictable and linear. It’s just the conquistador’s Mayan adventure is sooo dark and the supernova moment with the astronaut is sooo light that’s it’s unpleasantly obvious.

I love the idea that Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchet were almost the lead roles, it seems impossible they would have been appropriate after watching Jackman and Weisz. Blanchet I think would have been too ethereal and mysterious (too tempting to slip into ‘Galadrial’ I suspect) for the role of Izzi - this would have made it so much harder to relate to her as real, dying person. Pitt, even though I think he’s a credible actor, wouldn’t have managed the broody, dark persona that Jackman seems to so easily create. Not that Jackman turns into a pseudo Wolverine, far from it, there are glimmers of genuine vulnerability and innocence in his performance, I think it’s more his onscreen, physically presence is far more suited than Pitt’s.

Best scene: Hugh Jackman entering Xibalba and his body pouring away like sand, it reminded me of ‘Sunshine’ and is a mind-etchingly vibrant moment in the film.

Score: 3.5 out of 5, very interesting to try and work it out and lots of great acting, just not sure I got the point of it without the help of the Internet.

Digital Lynch: The end?

After Mulholland Drive (2001) Lynch is “done” with film. Celluloid is slow, big, cumbersome, disjointed, scratched, and “ancient technology” so Lynch decides to tackle his latest shiny, new toy and is like a puppy at Christmas with the idea of digital film making. Digital, in contrast, is lightweight, smooth, fast there is an immediacy which is almost addictive, instant editing, autofocus all allows for the full artist's freedom from the clunky technical requirements of celluloid.

For Lynch you can see why this is so important, the ability to zoom in close to a scene (without the constraints of a boom operator, grips, camera men) the financial freedom of knowing a scene can keep going without the audio whirl of money being spent (celluloid films are expensive which is why we can “thank” digital for making programmes like Big Brother financially viable.). The organic nature of digital seems to fit Lynch’s creative vision so well, if a director can keep focused on a scene, keep seeing what is unveiled from the actors, the subtle changes in pace, emotion or tension then the end result will surely be better. There’s no one likes to dwell on a scene more than Lynch, his love of “quiet” space to jar so aggressively against “loud” space in his films is unique and as a auteur it’s almost what defines him.

Digital production

So as we’ve established digital production allows for self indulgence. With whizzy cameras and the right editing software digital film-making has been blown open to the masses, allowing everyone to edit, prepare and distribute at a click of a button their film to a potential audience of millions with little cost. For Lynch, this means two fingers to the studios who for so many years tried to control his vision, making it available to the masses, but on their commercial terms. As an auteur Lynch in a digital world is completely free and don’t we know it.

Inland Empire is a film you can appreciate but not love, easy to respect as an experiment, hard to sit through. Without the outside perspective of a studio boss, Lynch’s freedom runs wild, his love of fractured identities, disjointed stories (Twin Peaks style) takes on an existentialist quality of its own, leaving even hardcore Lynch fans somewhat hungering for closure on at least one storyline.

Much like Mulholland Drive, Inland Empire started out as an experiment, a series of monologues with leading lady and Lynch favourite Laura Dern. Fragments which become feature.

Digital quality

What is lost with digital? The compressed nature of digital files means that the “warmth” of film has been coldly wiped away, one megapixel at a time. The richness that comes from analogue distortions has been replaced with cold technical silence (there’s no background click, buzz or whir or the camera in those “silent” moments). As an audience we de-value digital – it misses the “luxury” quality we associate with celluloid – we like our TV to look like film afterall (Sopranos, ER etc)

Digital distribution

With little cost involved with production, surely digital ensures a healthy profit when it comes to distribution? Inland Empire was distributed by Lynch but as with all new technologies not all cinema’s had caught up with the digital trend and as such as limited ways to show the film. Using the Internet to launch the marketing, Lynch has used viral, communities and blogs to his advantage to gather the force of hardcore fans to leave their home comforts and head for the cinema. But why? A digitally produced movie, using digital components to edit, produce and add a digital soundtrack, using digital mediums to drive traffic and interest and then ask people to leave their digital arena and watch it in a cinema? A holistic effort gone too far. These digital fans were already with Lynch, they were sat there waiting for the film, in an instant he could have uploaded the movie and in another instant millions could have seen it.

Digital reception

Nope. This is not how Lynch wants you to see the film. He’s old school at heart. The tiny nuances of his soundtracks, his imagery, his cinematography, the painstakingly hand-carved film sets are not there to be viewed on your MP3 or PC. Hell no. This is a “putrified, false” experience according to Lynch.

The freedom of digital comes with a price. Death of the auteur, in a digital world a director has even less freedom to control how people view his work. What makes movies great is the tension between artistic freedom and business between culture/ industry. Let’s face it, a I pod with great headphones will probably let you hear those tiny nuances better than an old cinema with fading Dolby surround sound.

The question is now, is Lynch done with film? Will he next turn full circle and with the artistic and financial freedom of digital return to “moving pictures” will the artistic ambitions of youth finally be realised?

Angels and Demons - No 'Thrills' Value

Well, there certainly was no mystery with Ron Howard’s latest film, the sequel to the Davinci Code, Angels and Demons. Tom Hanks returns as the professor Robert Langdon and we’re introduced to him gracefully powering the lengths of the Harvard sports swimming pool. Quite rightly Audrey Tatou thought it wise to give this sequel a miss.

The story kicks off with a gruesome murder of a research scientist in Grenoble, who, oh yeah that’s right, happens to be a catholic priest (of course). The Vatican Police are sent to investigate and are send a warning by the Catholic Church’s old enemies, The Illuminate. With scary warning letter in hand, the Vatican Police track down professor Robert Langdon to help them stop find four missing cardinals, the “prefferati” to replace the recently deceased Pope.

Ron Howard has a strange relationship with the audience in Angels and Demons - in one hand he assumes you’ve read the book, or at least seen the DaVinci code. In one hand Howard offers little background about Langdon, and why he seems so motivated to help the Vatican Police and in the other hand he uses the other characters around him as tedious plot devices, asking obvious and boring questions to sum up or move on the plot. Yawn. It’s a good job every other character in Angels and Demons is an idiot, incapable of working out the most obvious of clues, otherwise Hanks would have had nothing to say. What an appalling script. Even the moronic, lowest common denominator of Blockbuster filmgoer would have been screaming the obvious at the screen.

The pace of the narrative is the same; it takes the same amount of time to kill each cardinal and in cinema terms that makes for a dull 40 minutes as you drearily watch Langdon prance about the Vatican City. For a thriller this was poor. You don’t care what happens to the Cardinals, you just want the film to end.

The Church really had no reason to boycott Angels and Demons, or ban Howard and his chums from filming in any Italian churches, as no one should waste two hours of their life sitting through this drivel. Christianity is (unusually) not given a beating, and in fact Howard (through Brown’s book) seems to advocate there is an easy way to reach an understanding between religion and science. How nice and easy. Nuclear science is now proving the existence of God? Not sure everyone would agree.

The worst part is that this film has two brilliant actors in the lead roles, Ewan McGregor and Tom Hanks, so you know that the reason they come across as blank, dull, monosyllabic morons is because the script is so poor. Agh, very frustrating. The best part is how amazing, romantic, impressive, over bearing and awe inspiring Vatican City looks. I think I will be definitely booking a holiday as soon as the credit crunch clears!

Best scene: McGregor as the skydiving hero priest, less ridiculous than the book made it seem, but still absolute comedy.

Score: 1 out of 5 for the cinematography

Blue Velvet - Modern Folklore 2

This week we had a deep dive into the world of David Lynch’s Blue Velvet. As a mere film geek and not ‘buff’ my understanding is somewhat limited, so I was keen to see what the other geeks on my course thought – and especially what our course leader, Jake, thought.

Jake explained that after the success/failure of Dune Lynch was willing to take a substantial pay cut to have full creative control over Blue Velvet (1986) and this film ultimately became the first full narrative. Lynch’s “final cut” demands were not written into the contract, just to secure the studio control over future directors, but the studio boss was happy to shake on it and a gentleman’s agreement was made.

Here’s what the others thought about Blue Velvet:

Blue Velvet is Jeffrey’s dream – the narrative starts by entering the severed, grotesque ear where the audience descends into the dreamlike, psychological world of Jeffrey, where the other characters “act out” Jeffrey’s deepest, darkest desires, the narrative then ends with the camera panning out of his ear.

This theory does explain some of the stinted melodrama, the unreal reactions from people and the calm way in which Jeffrey paces through the events of the film, it also explains the nightmarish, surreal moments with Ben (Dean Stockwell). It also helps define the over male desire, the whore/angel representation of women and the Freudian scenes with Frank and Dorothy. However, the film’s overly kitsch, Americana ending is outside of the dream, the narrative has left the ear. Does this suggest that the outside world is more artificial than the truth we find in our dreams? Maybe.

Product placements – Heinekken or Budweiser? Joke or paid product placement? With Lynch, unlikely to be the latter. This discussion of the everyday, the normal products Joe Public enjoys paved a new “Lynchian tone” which others like Tarrantino developed – Pulp Fiction, gangsters discussing the merits of cheeseburgers while on a killing spree.

It’s a “joy ride” of a film – the phrase Frank delights in screaming at Jeffrey whilst at Ben’s place is one way to describe the emotional registers within the film. Starts out as a kind of Nancy Drew teen mystery drama, but as soon as Jeffrey witnesses Frank and Dorothy in the apartment Lynch pulls the carpet from under the audience. Jeffrey’s disbelieve and un-real “calm” is delayed shock, things have escalated so far out of control Jeffrey is now the voice of the audience. The scenes swing rapidly from the horrific to the comic to the sexual.

Post modern director – the 70s TV cop show references with the car chases, the hub caps spinning away, the melodrama point to Lynch being a post modern director, drawing more inspiration from television rather than cinema history.

Love story – for Jeffrey the “love interest” is one woman split into two personalities, played by two women (another Lynchian tone, see Mulholland Drive for doubles) The two women merge into one love when Dorothy shows up naked, beaten and vulnerable at Sandy’s house. The sexual dominator is cast to damsel in distress and his innocent; girl next door is now the object of his adult feelings of true love. Frank is a sentimentalist (arguably) he coverts the small piece of velvet from Dorothy’s coat, he cries as she sings her songs. Frank is a man so in love he has no other way to handle these over powering emotions than through violence. As he turns to Jeffrey he shouts, “you’re just like me” where in turn Jeffrey punches him, fulfilling the circle and becoming like Frank – he has already changed from innocent bystander to aggressive lover (already consenting to hit Dorothy during intercourse).

Fantasy – Frank acts out his fantasies, it’s mechanistic, the bourbon, the dark, “it has to be dark”, the robe, the lipstick and the music. Frank puts these things in place to start the fantasy. This view leads the audience to suspect he may have raped Jeffrey during the “joy ride scene” as these fantasy elements are slowly put into place. Whose fantasy is this? Jeffrey’s voyeur fantasy? Dorothy’s domination fantasy? Frank’s fantasy of masochism and who does the audience identify with? Or this Lynch’s fantasy to pull the audience into this world, to provoke a reaction from them, to start a debate, to make you watch the darker side of society?

Violence – Jeffrey’s moral code is rejected with shockingly quick speed – he goes from out right, offended objection to hitting Dorothy to violently striking her in a matter of narrative minutes, the moment he loses his innocence the screen fills with flames and the audience is thrust into this troubling life of Jeffrey. Lynch’s idea is to make the audience focus on this horrifying violence, if you were to have no reaction to these disturbing scenes then you’re the disturbing aspect of society. Lynch is not like Scorsese who casually passes over violence towards women, he in contrast makes the audience dwell, focus, become involved with the violence (through us identifying with Jeffrey).

Exploiting the audience – could have been a fair reaction from 1980s audiences used to slasher horror movies, entirely there to exploit, scare and shock the audience. An 80s audience could have assumed Blue Velvet was a post modern way for Lynch to exploit, scare and shock his audience – but this doesn’t ring true, the violence is not graphic, Lynch is asking the audience to think, to be engaged by the unsettling aspects of this film, not merely exploit the emotions temporarily. The disturbing part of the film is not the violence, it’s the un-natural fragmentation, and it’s inglorious portrayal of nudity, the tender innocence behind monstrous characters.

The Unloved (2009) – No charitable heroes in Nottingham

Last night I watched the much anticipated, feature length directorial debut from Samantha Morton, “The Unloved”. Set in Nottingham the film is a semi-autobiographical depiction of life in a care home. The protagonist is the quiet and “and risk” Lucy, who, rejected by her Mother and beaten by her Father is forced to become a ward of the state. Her gentle manner is at stark odds to the frantic, loud and volatile world of the care home and it’s troubled inhabitants.

Being a current resident of Nottingham it was distracting to see so many landmarks slipped into the film, but brilliant to see this city as it really is, not some Robin Hood tourist attraction. What makes The Unloved original is the uncompromised approach Morton has taken, there are long drawn out scenes with little action, movement or dialogue with just an ethereal soundtrack gently surrounding the images on screen – a technique which would have surely been cut if The Unloved was for a mass cinema audience. It seems to suggest that Lucy has her own private dream world, a place of tranquillity to escape to, an ability to shut out the world around her, even though the situation is bleak. Also, The Unloved only shows Lucy’s perspective, there’s no attempt to show the scenes from another’s point of view.

Lucy’s social worker is cold and distant, shuffling paper work, having temporarily been unavailable for Lucy due to “the office not paying mileage” she offers only adult ‘management speak’ answers to a confused and saddened Lucy. The care home workers are an equally troubled bunch, a set of poor role models for the vulnerable children housed there. Lucy often leaves the home to wander the streets of Nottingham for hours and there seems to be little in place to stop her.

‘Lauren’ Lucy’s older room mate is there to open the audience’s eye to why those mouthy kids you see in shopping centres are like they are. At 16, time is running out for Lauren and the care she will receive from the state, well known to the local police is seems as though her fate is sealed, especially when Lucy catches her abusing substances. Lauren’s lover is the care home manager, though their ‘romance’ seems one sided. Night time sexual encounters are not always enthusiastically met and Lucy has to hide from Lauren’s objections under the covers.

The Unloved culminates in the care home’s Christmas party, a drunken bonfire rave, with kids of all ages necking back the WKDs and revelling like a 90s Prodigy concert. The care home staff start a fight, revealing their own inadequacies and intolerances, one shouting “I don’t give a shit about this job” and accusing the care home manager of underage sex with Lauren. Lucy is left to witness this violent scene from the sidelines - suddenly her bleak home life with her parents seems a far more appealing option.

Best scene: Lucy seeking solace and comfort by wandering the streets of Nottingham - seeing a deer in the cemetery and the leaves dance in The Park Tunnel.

Star Trek (2009) a humorous homage

Last night I experienced the first of what I expect will be a summer filled with Hollywood blockbusters and it wasn’t a disappointment. For someone who’s not the biggest Sci-Fi fan (I didn’t watch Star Wars until I was 18, and that was voluntary) it was an enjoyable, easy and entertaining film. My understanding of the original television series is vague to say the least and, admittedly, has been formed though cultural references rather than watching the show itself (I owe The Simpsons for that) but I still managed to pick up on the odd joke, or wink to the original fan base, the film makes. The best being Spok the younger, meeting Spok the elder and being informed that his previously said, and usual farewell would seem “oddly self serving” – which in turn let the film continue to live long and prosper. There was no “beam me up Scotty” but I have a suspicion that a Trekkie could tell me this is a classic misquote and was never mentioned in the original show, so perhaps why it was omitted, or maybe it would have been one sound bite too far.

There are some interesting twists to the usual formulaic approach blockbusters take, the most notable being that it’s Spok who gets the girl and not the dashing action hero, Kirk. Hot girls like logic, clearly. There were no overbearing or endless action scenes, the pace of the narrative was engaging moving the plot along at the right speed to keep interest but not complicate things.

It’s a pretty basic story line man destroys planet by accident, war lord seeks revenge, the bad guys die, the good guy gets the girl, but with a sufficiently odd twist to keep interest. Time, space, continuum for a mass-market - Stephen Hawkins must be spewing. But the cinematography is spectacular if not limited. There is the slick, clinical hustle of the Starship Enterprise set against the jarred, industrial bleakness of the warlord, Nero’s ship. The space scenes are restricted to beautiful stand offs between the two ships, to sinister, creeping black holes to supernova and warp speed whizzery. I liked the fact that this was the first Sci-Fi I’ve seen which seemed to keep space localised.

I also liked the way the “future” was portrayed – Star Trek’s original 60s costume department was given a modern re-vamp but essential stayed the same, as did the hair and 60s flick’s make up for the women. The opening sequence sees Kirk driving an “antique” mustang being chased by a cross between Robocop and the Terminator. There’s shamelessly no explanation of how this car could have survived 2000 years of rust or where the petrol came from to run it, but I think that’s why it works, the “future” seems oddly real, which is essential if you’re going to engage with the narrative.

To boldly go? Definitely, worth a watch and without the big screen the effect could be lost.

Best scene: Skydiving to the top of the drill, Kirk and companions battle atop a blazing piece of planet destroying kit.

Blue Velvet - Modern Folklore

As part of the David Lynch course at the Broadway, last night I had the pleasure of watching Blue Velvet on the big screen. The pre-screening talk was excellent and highlighted the ways in which this film could be viewed. Jake Smith who is hosting this course introduced the idea of Blue Velvet being a modern folklore – a fairy tale for adults. He revealed the horrifying truth that the original Little Red Riding Hood saw the innocent young girl not only being tricked into drinking the blood of her dead grandmother, but also being forced to strip naked to “feel the touch of the wolf’s” skin before being devoured herself. I could see why the brother’s Grimm felt the need to smarten it up for a middle class audience - bedtime stories might not have had such a comforting effect otherwise.

Blue Velvet certainly shows an uncomfortable portrayal of modern life (well, 80s American suburbia) and the dark underside of society that bubbles beneath the surface of white picket fences and immaculate lawns. The infamous line from Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle McLaughlin) “why are there people like Frank in the world” has split critics to ask if this is ironic or not? Is this a desperate plea from a young man who has lost his innocence or just postmodern irony? It’s hard to tell to be honest.

It’s a pretty straightforward film for Lynch, the narrative is pretty linear, there’s a beginning, middle and end, which is perhaps why it received so much critical and cult acclaim, despite the content, it’s a very accessible film.

I felt this was a film about the loss of innocence, a young boy, Jeffrey, is forced to “man up” in several obvious and some unobvious ways. The first is his loss of child like freedom: Jeffrey’s father is left incapacitated after a presumed heart attack, so he takes the reins of the family business and begins to experience respect and power for the first time. Finding an ear in his neighbourhood he feels emboldened by his new experiences to solve the mystery behind this horrifying treasure.

The second his is loss of sexual innocence: Dorothy Vallens (isobella Rossellini) catches Jeffrey spying at her apartment; mistaking his detective intentions as voyeurism she becomes sexually aggressive and fellates Jeffery at knifepoint. This experience is immediately followed by Jeffrey being forced, out of circumstance, to watch Frank (Dennis Hopper) sexually abuse Dorothy Vallens (Isobella Rosellini). Like a child hearing the unsettling creaks and groans of parents in a distant room, Lynch magnifies this child-like experience of sexual revelation to the same disturbing experience for adults. How very Freudian.

The third is his exposure to a world outside his own: Frank kidnaps Jeffrey for a “joyride” through the dark streets of Lumberton. Frank’s home becomes a macabre, fabricated commercial in contrast to the “real world” – a bit like Tim Burton’s ‘perfect’ town in Edward Scissorhands which politely ignores the gothic horror which is built at the end of the road. His known world falls about him as he realises what

The film has been criticised for portraying violence against women, but I found this film difficult to take offence at. The violence is administered by Frank, a man with some serious Freudian hang ups about his mother and a drug addled maniac, it’s not surprising he’s violent towards women. Also, I don’t genuinely believe Dorothy enjoys the violence in any sexual manner, it seemed rather she had been programmed to expect this from men – though that could be wishful thinking as there’s no indication what her husband is like.

Dorothy and Sandy (Laura Dern) are such one sided characters that it’s hard to empathise or criticize them. It’s an all too obvious, dark-seductive-older- woman versus light-innocent-girl-next-door scenario. I guess they represent the two sides of male sexual desire – a fantasy of the bedroom and a saint – and it’s written and filmed from such a male gaze that it’s hard to see they’re real people at all – for example, Sandy cries melodramatically into the phone that she forgives Jeffrey for sleeping with Dorothy because she loves him. Please, what a male fantasy.

Visually it’s stunning, a modern twist on film noir. The soundtrack shows signs of classic Lynchian techniques – mechanical noises, the unsettling use of silence – and the theme song by Roy Orbison doesn’t seem to leave a scene. As a modern fairytale for adults I’m not sure what the moral of the story is, but I can guarantee that you won’t be able to easily get this film or “Blue Velvet” out of your mind for days afterwards.

Best scene: Ben, (Dean Stockwell – Al from Quantum Leap!), Frank’s partner in crime, lip-syncs a performance of Roy Orbison's "In Dreams" into a lamp in a full face of make up.