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Reviews, previews and chuckling and snorting...

Do audiences want auteurs?

June 4th 2008 23:46
Shyamalan directing in Signs

This week, Geoff Egan posted a comment on the 'need' for a director on a given movie. He wonders what classic movies might look like if directed by someone else.

"But how much better or worse would say the Godfathers have been if Scorsese directed them? Or if Jackson had directed Star Wars? What if James Cameron did Jaws or Speilberg [sic] did Aliens? "

I believe that there'd be a massive difference... almost to the point where these classics would do very poorly with critics and audiences.

The French Cahier du cinema critics, Andre Bazin and Francois Truffaut, put forward the 'auteur theory', an idea that the director was the artist, much like a writer or a painter. Where the writer had his pen, and the painter has his brush and oils, the director uses the cast, crew and equipment as his tools.

For us today, this doesn't sound like anything special... after all, we've all been weaned on directors, almost to the point of failure.

Back in those days, though, Truffaut and the boys noticed that studios were using the director as a simple gear in a vast clockwork, churning out films like Spacely put out Sprockets. Truffaut's debut feature, "The 400 Blows", is a deeply personal, passionate example of filmmaking, a testament to the idea of an auteur.

M. Night Shyamalan desperately wants to be an auteur. In fact, his actions seem to imply that he wants to rise above mere auteurship and elevate himself to the pantheon of demigods. People that meet him call him arrogant and self-centered, quick to anger, and, worst of all, deluded with the idea that people should treat him as a superstar.

This would be tolerable if Shyamalan's body of work was well-received, but the truth is indicative of a director whose skills are waning. His latest movie, "Lady in the Water", cast himself as a writer that creates prophetic works of fiction. There's a water nymph in there, somewhere, but the audiences can't help but glare at the director's love of himself.

Here's an interview with him, watch at 3:55 to hear him talk about his desire to act, and how he cut himself out of a movie:



Hollywood desperately wants directors like Shyamalan, directors who step up to front their work, putting their sticky stamp on the work. They want this because it adds another factor of stability to the box office returns.

Big stars bring in big money. Can't big directors attract the same?

The New York Times published an interesting article about M. Night and the Hollywood faith, noting that his films have made successively less money, casting soot all over his brightly burning air of self-satisfaction.

"After “Signs” grossed more than $400 million worldwide, “The Village” took in only $255 million. “Lady in the Water,” which opened in 2006, had a budget of about $75 million and made less than $70 million."

This gives studio execs sweaty palms - Shyamalan has traded successfully on his name, and now audiences were deserting him?

Directors are, indeed, a powerful entity in the creation of a film, but Hollywood is much too fickle to take advantage of their auteurship. Big-budgets make the studios rightfully nervous, so pressure is put on the director from the producers to make the film more accessible, more family-friendly, more conforming to market research.

The end result is that the director, who may very well be an auteur, has his vision clouded by the factory workings of the Hollywood machine. Even the mighty giants, like Steven Spielberg, are able to be toppled with misfires.

Auteurs still exist, but they need to exist in an isolated bubble, free from the probing hands of studios. Directors like Jia Zhangke carry their own personal vision and he has a dedicated following - but the truth is, most people wouldn't sit through a Jia Zhangke film. I had to convince myself to sit through "Unknown Pleasures", only seeing the devastating beauty of it when the end credits rolled.


*this image is from The Hindu
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Warning: Posts on Und So Weite discuss the movie in detail and contain spoilers! Read only if you've seen the movie!

Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Harrison Ford


This week, I was lucky enough to attend the premiere of "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull". I took my flatmate along for the ride, as he's a massive Indy fan, as well as another friend from Uni.

After the movie finished, we stood outside the theatre, silent and contemplative. Well, perhaps my two friends were contemplative. I was repressing the undeniable urge to shriek and tear down the posters for the movie.

I found "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" to be one of the least enjoyable cinema experiences that I've seen in a long time. It must be said, though, that I'm also the person that stopped watching "300" part way through.

I'm not easily appeased by raw action, especially if the narrative around the action is poorly formed.

"Indy IV" abandons all pretense at narrative structure, preferring to leap from one scene to another, feeling less like a mysterious journey and more like a collection of action music videos.

For example, Indy and Mutt find themselves in an insane asylum, where they're looking for the lost archaeologist, Ox. They enter his cell, sweep the floor, and find a vague etching which Indy immediately proclaims "It's a map!".

How did they find the asylum? Luckily, they got off the plane and spoke to a guy in the middle of the street who told them where to go. Then, luckily, at the asylum, Indy speaks perfect Mayan to get the nun to let him into the cell. Then, luckily, there's a map etched into the floor which Indy is able to read immediately.

What happens next? Nothing, other than a cut to the exact location where the 'crystal skull' is. No matter that this appears to be in the middle of the jungle, or that they've taken a motorcycle here. No trouble finding the place. Just a cut, jarring and clumsy, that reminds us that Lucas and Spielberg have lost their sense of patience.

The entire movie is constructed like this, a sequence of set pieces, hastily assembled with hard editing.



Later, the group of heroes is having a car chase in the Amazon jungle with the pesky Russians. Ignoring the fact that there are mysteriously flat roads in the jungle for them to drive on. Ignoring the fact that Karen Allen, playing the return of Marion Ravenwood, in order to pander to nostalgia, appears to be able to drive this army vehicle as well as the Russian soldiers. Ignoring the fact that not one stray bullet from machine gun fire ever hits one of the heroes.

Yes, ignoring all this, there's a scene where the Russians are about kill Indy and Mutt, and Marion is out of the scene for over a minute - then magically appears to save them. What is this? An example of some of the worst scripting possible: having a character forgotten by the camera, only to appear when needed. It's a deus ex machina, and we should be outraged... but there are plenty more of these contrivances to feed our fury.

Fans of the series advise me to ignore the lunacy of the story. "That's what Indiana Jones movies are about... it's a suspension of reality. After all, the first one had melting faces in it!"

Er, yes, that's true. My argument would be that the original film was extraordinarily paced, combining fierce action sequences with moments of contemplation and character-building, scenes that build the story around the movie.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Shia LaBoeuf driving in the Amazon
In "Indy IV", though, we're left with cartoonish violence; cartoons have been replaced with CGI, and, though the technology has improved, it's used so blindly that the audience recoils in bemused disgust.

The scene of Mutt swinging along the vines, for example, to catch up with the vehicles and land exactly in the Russian car, kicking a soldier in the face. We're then given a metaphorical donkey punch as a troupe of CGI monkeys attack Cate Blanchett with their simian rage.

Why? Think nothing of it, my good man.

An army of CGI ants, attacking the Russians, but not Ox and Indy because they've got the crystal skull.

Why? A mere suspension of belief, little brother.

In the last quarter of the movie, the true face of George Lucas appears, using his wizardly might to finally fuse the action-adventure of Indiana Jones and the science fiction of Star Wars. We're treated to a showdown between Indy and his friends, and 13 aliens, who proceed to open a portal to another dimension.

We know this because Indy tells us. Apparently, this is common knowledge if you're an archeology professor.

The heroes run outside, and the entire 'lost city' crumbles, leaving a UFO to start spinning, slowly ascending into the sky. It disappears, having killed the Russians and the traitorous Englishman. An enormous amount of rock falls from the sky, none of it touching Indy, who stands bravely on a clifftop to watch the alien ship disappear in the sky.

How is any of this good filmmaking? Are we supposed to enjoy this? I'm left speechless at the sloppiness of this movie, which used millions of dollars to create, in essence, a collection of forgettable action video clips.

I could go on - at great length - about the flaws of the film, and how much I detested it, but I'll stop here. Apparently, 80% of Rotten Tomatoes critics thought it was acceptable, which further proves how out of touch I am with the moviegoing public.


Further Reading: Roger Ebert loves every second of the silliness. And the fans on Ebert's blog can't wait to see it.

The Australian Empire review notices something rather apt:

"...the Paramount logo becomes, rather than some far-off exotic peak, a prairie dog hill in the American mid-west. Beyond the faintly amusing gag of seeing a cutesy varmint pop his head up, that they make a molehill out of a mountain is their way of telling us to downsize expectation, sit back, relax, go with it."

An excellent introspection about the movie on Slate.

Heavy criticism in Minnesota.

Thankfully, a negative review in the NY Times.

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Manhattan Bridge scene Woody Allen
An exhaustive look at Woody Allen's career on The Cinematic Art, a thoughtful film blog that excels in criticism and analysis.

Seeing the iconic image of the Brooklyn Bridge, filmed by Allen for "Manhattan", it's hard not to be overwhelmed by the director's love for New York City, and his raw zeal for the moving image


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Die Welle The Wave German film

Warning: Posts on Und So Weite offer criticism on the film in question and contain major spoilers!

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Robert Downey Jr Iron Man Tony Stark


Warning! Posts on Und So Weite discussions about movies previously reviewed and generally contain hefty spoilers!
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Thanks to all the new subscribers!

April 1st 2008 01:57
Chinese model throwing up yellow paint handbag

I checked my stats this morning and 20/20 Filmsight is getting over 5,000 readers every day! Sure, a great number of those are robots looking to spam content and porn-hungry internet vagabonds, but there are plenty of real people hidden in those stats, too.

[ Click here to read more ]
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Before I started writing about movies, I was a member of the audience. Sure, I liked some great movies, but I had also paid to see terrible movies at huge cineplexes.

The consensus in the general public is 'the reviewers don't know shit about shit', with the critics often picking apart certain films that exhibit mass appeal, then praising other movies that most people would sleep through


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Regular readers of 20/20 Filmsight will be familiar with the venom I save for movies targeted towards a particular gender. The idea of a movie for 'guys' or 'chicks' is abhorrent to me - after all, if we're really trying to bring equality to the sexes, this seems like the wrong way to pursue it.

In the end, men and women probably sort themselves out... a list of my favourite movies of all time is definitely skewed towards stylized violence and exploitation, but I'd happily add a few romantic comedies to that list as well. "Annie Hall", for one, or "Roman Holiday". I met a girl that worked at the VideoEzy in Paddington that absolutely loved "Oldboy" and recommended it to me


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Let me rephrase that in a different context. There's quite a bit of fury of the willingness of Hollywood to make an endless stream of remakes and adaptations... Bryn on Horrorphile has already howled about all the horror classics being remade.

Yesterday, I posted a long article on the differences between Richard Matheson's original novel, I Am Legend, and the 2007 film adaptation. The Will Smith-starring film was, in my opinion, complete trash, with few redeeming qualities


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Will Smith in I Am Legend


Warning: this post describes the movie and the novel in detail, revealing massive spoilers for both. I suggest that you read this only if you're familiar with both...
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Thoughts On American Gangster

January 30th 2008 23:04
Frank Lucas the Return of Superfly chinchilla coat

Warning! This article contains spoilers!

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The first post on Und So Weite

January 29th 2008 22:49
Und So Weite is a new category that I'll be adding to 20/20 Filmsight, a pool of essays on reviewed movies that go beyond the review.

Often, I'm torn when writing a review; I'm trying to entice the reader who hasn't yet seen the film to make the effort, but, at the same time, I'm usually excited to discuss aspects of the movie. It's a fine line, and I usually just hint at spoilers


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Why I Hate Atonement

January 8th 2008 22:39
Atonement is awful
Earlier this week, I revealed that I had a miserable time watching "Atonement", the film adaptation of the heralded novel, and that I actually wanted to leave the movie halfway through.

Well, here's the part where I explain the reasons behind my anger. First, I should mention that it seems that most people love this movie. Most of my friends, audience members I overheard after the screening, the general consensus on the internet - it's all overwhelmingly positive


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David Denby on modern romantic comedies

December 31st 2007 10:16
In the July 23rd, 2007 issue of The New Yorker (pg. 59), David Denby's article called 'A Fine Romance' examines the evolution of a popular cinema genre, the romantic comedy.

The rom-com is a genre that's usually scoffed at by men, who'd prefer their sci-fi action movies or stupid slapstick comedies... myself, my skin crawls at the idea of sitting through a vacuous romantic comedy, such as Maid in Manhattan, which I forced myself to sit through on an airline flight


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