Philmology

Crossed fates, class conflict, broken families, vengeance, death and unrequited love. One hundred and fifty years on from its initial publication Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations has lost little of its drama and none of its bleakness. Presented in three parts, the recent BBC production of this canonical text is a visually striking and suitably sombre adaptation.

Following his encounter with an escaped convict and a series of meetings with a spinster and her adopted daughter, the fortunes of a young orphan, Pip, are irrevocably altered. Given a chance for a life as a gentleman by an anonymous benefactor, Pip leaves behind his humble origins for a wealthy existence in London and the pursuit of his childhood love.

While screenwriter Sarah Phelps and director Brian Kirk (Game of Thrones) have condensed and omitted certain events and characters from Dickens’ work, the core elements of the story remain. The emphasis on fate, on severed family bonds, the critique of class relations and the inescapable past that haunts its characters are all enduring themes that have contributed to Great Expectations’ lasting appeal.

And although Great Expectations is not short on previous adaptations, there is much to recommend this production. In particular, the nuanced performances of the key cast are worthy of high praise. Ray Winstone’s outwardly menacing turn as the convict Magwitch belies a compassionate selflessness while David Suchet’s role as the lawyer Jaggers allows glimpses of tenderness beneath his stone-faced exterior.

Likewise, relative newcomers Douglas Booth (whose porcelain-like complexion and striking features would not seem out of place in an adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray) and Vanessa Kirby, imbue their respective roles as Pip and Estella with appropriate degrees of cold-heartedness and sincere vulnerability.

However, it is Gillian Anderson’s casting as Miss Havisham that stands out. Performing the role with a wide-eyed and softly spoken manner Anderson fixes the jilted bride in a state of regressive adolescence; a consequence of her unfulfilled nuptials and a symptom of her desire for revenge. Yet despite her character’s cruelty, it’s a testament to Anderson’s performance that the scene in which Havisham’s fate is finally sealed is also the most heartbreaking.

The production’s other crowning achievement lies in its intricate visual design. From the blue-grey hues of the opening scene marshlands to the festering interiors of Havisham’s Satis House, to the fog-filled London streets or the death mask that stares down from Jagger’s office wall, the mise en scène of Great Expectations repeatedly constructs a vivid portrait of the decay, duplicity, confusion and mortality which burden its characters. That it makes such a vision (of this well-tread tale) so utterly captivating is perhaps its defining triumph.

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It’s been called the city that never sleeps, the Metropolis of America, the Capital of the World or simply, the Big Apple. Whatever names it goes by though, few places on Earth have exerted such a profound influence upon the Western cultural and political imagination as New York City. Beneath the bright lights of its stunning skyline, distinct boroughs, diverse inhabitants and rich cultural heritage, New York’s past is littered with the conflicts, tragedies and success stories that characterise the development of the modern world.

Originally produced as a five-part documentary series in 1999 with three subsequent episodes produced between 2001 and 2003 (the final in response to the events of 9/11), Ric Burns’ New York: A Documentary Film is as comprehensive in scope and detail as the city is large.

Proceeding chronologically from the area’s establishment as a Dutch trading post in 1609, Burns’ work traces the history of New York (originally ‘New Amsterdam’) through a series of key historical events and figures that shaped the city. While the place would eventually fall under British rule before American independence, the film suggests that the colony’s financial role in these early years would come to define the character and soul of contemporary New York as the ‘birthplace of modern capitalism’.

As the documentary progresses, the overriding portrait of New York is that of a city whose destiny would prove inseparable from the fate of the nation that rose up around it. In dealing with clashes over slavery, immigration, working conditions, economic depression, together with the industrial innovations and public works programs that led to its status as a metropolis, New York provided a political and architectural blueprint for the American city.

Drawing on a wealth of archival material together with numerous interviews (with the likes of filmmaker Martin Scorsese, poet Allen Ginsberg, and former mayor Rudolph Giuliani) Burns weaves the near 13-hour documentary into a rich and compelling tapestry of urban history. In particular, the reading of works by Walt Whitman, F. Scott Fitzgerald and others evoke the poetry of the New York streets in its varying dimensions, where abject poverty and suffering is often contrasted with grandiose excess and awe-inspiring beauty.

And while the discussion of New York is not without the occasional hyperbolic ascription (“The greatest city on Earth”, “The cultural and economic capital of the world”) Burns’ documentary also approaches the city at a critical distance. At the end of the series and in spite of the trauma of the events that transpired on September 11th 2001, the documentary avoids any simplistic or jingoistic assessment of the attacks on New York. As a voice-over in the final episode describes:

“By the dawn of the 21st century, New York had also become one of the most strangely paradoxical cities on Earth. At once bewilderingly diverse and cosmopolitan and yet in many ways surprisingly insular and inward looking, as if the process of globalisation had mainly meant gathering in the world’s peoples and riches without involvement in the world’s deep conflicts and divisions.”

The impression of New York that Burns leaves us to contemplate is that of a city irrevocably altered by the events of 9/11. Gone is the sense of insularity and ambivalence that once existed. In its place, an undeniable realisation of the city’s symbolic importance to global affairs had begun to emerge. In the context of history, then, Burns’ wonderful cinematic magnum opus ultimately manages to look both ways at once; detailing the city’s rich past while glimpsing into its future, one in which New York and its people will undoubtedly continue to shape the rest of the world.

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Between 1980 and 1995 the West Indies dominated test cricket like no other team in the history of the game. Their streak of 29 consecutive test series without defeat during that time stands as one of the most remarkable sporting achievements within any code. Yet as Steven Riley’s documentary explores, the driving force behind the West Indian team’s rise to power was as much a response to the players’ oppressive cultural past than their desire for success on the field.

Charting the years prior to the era of West Indian dominance, Fire in Babylon initially situates cricket in the context of the struggle for civil rights that took place throughout the Caribbean during the 1960s. Under the leadership of figures such as Frank Worrell, Garfield Sobers and Clive Lloyd, the documentary details how the game that once served as an instrument of colonial oppression was transformed into a vehicle in which the various island nations were unified in reasserting their independence from British rule.

It’s this examination of sport as a form of cultural and political resistance that drives the film and Riley cleverly avoids the temptation to reduce the exploits of the West Indian team to the level of a stock-standard underdog narrative. Instead, the documentary utilises interviews with various players (Lloyd, Michael Holding, Andy Roberts, Colin Croft and Viv Richards) to provide a vivid portrait of the racism and discrimination experienced by the team – particularly on their tours to Australia and England – that contributed to their aggressive style of play on the field. Casting off the derogatory ‘Calypso Cricketers’ tag, the West Indies rose to become a force to be reckoned with.

In many ways Fire in Babylon is reminiscent of Leon Gast’s 1996 documentary When We Were Kings that detailed the epic boxing bout between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman (‘The Rumble in the Jungle’). Like Gast, Riley approaches sport not in isolation but in respect of its various cultural and historical intersections. Perhaps nowhere is this more apparent than when one interviewee likens Viv Richards’ refusal to play in Apartheid South Africa (despite the offer of a million dollars) to Ali’s refusal to fight in Vietnam.

By contrast, Colin Croft, like many other ‘rebel’ players who ventured to South Africa only to never represent the West Indies again, cuts a somewhat tragic figure, caught out by the rare lure of financial gain and his somewhat naïve belief that he was simply ‘doing his job’. The moniker ‘more than a game’ is often applied to sport but rarely has it seemed more applicable than it does here. Hopefully, Riley’s documentary will find an audience outside those spectators for whom cricket is already something of a religion.

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Like Brendan Fletcher’s Mad Bastards (2011), writer/director Beck Cole’s debut feature Here I Am centres on inter-generational conflict within an indigenous community. However, where Fletcher’s film explored issues of male displacement and violence in the outback, Cole’s narrative is located in a distinctly urban setting and focuses on the experience of female characters.

Here I Am opens with a young woman, Karen (Shai Pittman), being released from prison. After a lonely first night spent drifting through the city – that culminates with her offering her body to a stranger in return for accommodation – Karen eventually finds refuge at a women’s shelter. Determined to regain control of her life, Karen attempts to reconcile with her estranged mother and daughter, and come to terms with her traumatic past.

Despite the potentially dour subject matter, Cole balances the sadness of Karen’s situation with moments of warmth and humour, primarily through the presence of the other residents at the shelter. At first stand-offish, Karen is slowly incorporated into the group and finds in them a sense of community and camaraderie born from their shared painful experiences.

And it’s those performances that largely shape Here I Am as an honest film about grief, regrets and second chances. Shai Pittman carries a distinctive sorrowfulness in the lead role while Pauline Whyman (Skinny) and Bruce Carter (Jeff) grant their respective characters a remarkable vivacity and sincerity. Even if the dialogue is occasionally overstated, Cole effectively utilises moments of silence and music to draw out the human drama at the core of the film.

Likewise, Warwick Thornton’s (Samson & Delilah) cinematography, which alternates between imagery of movement and stillness, helps evoke the frustration of Karen’s character: as much as she desires to move forward with her life, the past continues to haunt her and hold her back. It’s perhaps no coincidence then that a sequence towards the end of the film – expressed through a kind of waking dream – utilises this motif of momentum to suggest that perhaps, at last, Karen has achieved a form of freedom and can look to the future with optimism.

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Like the character of Monsieur Hulot for which he was renowned, the work of Jacques Tati is often seen as being somewhat out of place in the world. Despite the high esteem with which the French performer and director is now commonly held, Tati’s brief filmography testifies to his status as an artistic outsider. It’s this aspect of his filmmaking that Michael House reveals in his concise but timely exploration of the long-legged legend of European cinema.

The Magnificent Tati begins by recounting the Tati’s path into comedy through the series of sporting-inspired mime routines that he developed while performing within the music hall scene in occupied France during WWII. Work in cinema followed soon after, and while Tati was considered for a role in Les Enfants Du Paradis (1945), the near miss eventually led to his first feature film, Jour De Fête (1949), which he remarkably wrote, starred in and directed.

As the documentary points out, while success followed in the form of Tati’s Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday (1953) and Mon Uncle (1958), for which he was awarded the Oscar for Best Foreign Language film, the director resisted numerous requests to work within Hollywood. Unlike the American industry, Tati was fascinated with a form of cinema that was less protagonist-driven and more observational in its comic approach.

The distinction between Tati’s approach to physical comedy and that of the American silent stars he’d grown up admiring (Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Stan Laurel) is nicely articulated by the documentary through a comparison with the work of Charlie Chaplin. As one interviewee remarks, if Chaplin’s approach was about finding comic ways ‘to get out of a scrape’, then Tati’s comedy (in his guise as Hulot) was organised around ‘putting the world into scrapes’.

Beyond the biographical, The Magnificent Tati explores the technical artistry that characterised Tati’s distinctive brand of filmmaking, in particular his use of sound (as opposed than dialogue) to complement his physical humour. It’s somewhat of an irony then that technical innovation in the cinema is seen as partly responsible for his eventual exile from the film industry. Rejoicing in the grand potential of 70mm filmmaking, Tati’s Play Time (1967) – for which he constructed an entire mini-city – failed to connect with audiences of the time and left him financially destitute.

While Play Time (a film with a strong contemporary resonance) has been reappraised as an unappreciated masterpiece, the director’s work has also found new life recently in the form of Sylvain Chomet’s excellent animated feature, L’Illusionniste (2010), based on an unproduced Tati screenplay. As Chomet and other artists who appear in the documentary, such as director Mike Mills (Beginners) and singer Frank Black suggest, Jacques Tati was a unique artist deserving of far greater recognition. The Magnificent Tati certainly aids that cause.

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The figure of the Southerner/Hillbilly has a distinguished place within the genre of American horror cinema. Invariably depicted as inbred rapists (Deliverance), cannibals (Wrong Turn), serial killers (House of 1000 Corpses) or a combination of evils (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), it’s fair to say their reputation has, over the years, been suitably maligned. In that context alone, Tucker & Dale vs. Evil could well be seen as a form of long overdue positive PR.

The plot of the film revolves around two good-natured hillbilly friends, Tucker (Alan Tudyk) and Dale (Tyler Labine), on vacation in the Appalachian Mountains. Despite the reclusive setting, their ‘man-time’ wilderness retreat is interrupted when preppy college kids on a getaway of their own set up camp nearby. Tensions escalate however, when the pair intervenes to save one of the students, Katrina Bowden (30 Rock), from drowning and return her to their dilapidated cabin nearby. Interpreting the deed as a sinister act, the remaining college kids set about ‘rescuing’ their friend by any means necessary.

Inverting the traditions of the rural horror film, writer/director Eli Craig’s debut feature offers a clever rewriting of genre and stereotypes. Avoiding the sadism typical of its predecessors, Tucker & Dale vs. Evil depicts its comic violence as a consequence of urban middle-class ignorance. The irony is that despite their altruistic intentions, Tucker and Dale’s actions are repeatedly misconstrued as threatening, a confusion that only leads to more deaths.

One such moment in which Tucker, chainsaw in hand, is seen running wildly away from a swarm of bees after accidentally cutting into a nest, (in a gesture recalling Leatherface from Tobe Hooper’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre) has dire consequences. Perceiving his behaviour as an imminent attack, one of the college kids takes flight only to end up impaled on a tree branch. And so it continues for the other teenagers, leading Tucker and Dale to conclude that the students must be attempting a bizarre form of mass suicide. Misperception, it seems, literally cuts both ways.

Besides the inventive premise, a key reason for the success of the film is the pairing of Tudyk (Serenity) and Labine (Rise of the Planet of the Apes) in the title roles. Recalling the chemistry of Simon Pegg/Nick Frost from Shaun of the Dead, the performances by the two lead actors make Tucker and Dale’s on-screen partnership suitably endearing.

The only questionable aspect of Tucker & Dale vs. Evil is the film’s conclusion. Despite having successfully deconstructed the traditional hick stereotype, at the very end the filmmaker introduces another character that reconsolidates the image of the rural inhabitant as a violent Neanderthal. While this brief moment isn’t enough to spoil what is an otherwise enjoyable romp, it does suggest that the conventional perception of the hillbilly isn’t likely to change anytime soon.

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Ken Wardrop’s debut feature documentary opens with an old Irish proverb: “A man loves his girlfriend the most, his wife the best, but his mother the longest”. An exploration of family, relationships, age and gender, His & Hers might be seen as an attempt to address the question, what do women really think of the opposite sex?

Consisting almost entirely of interviews, Wardrop’s film approaches these issues of gender through a vast tapestry of women ranging in age, experience and socio-economic background, all from within the Irish Midlands. Rather than draw assumptions based on a few select subjects, His & Hers is more interested in reaching a broader, universal understanding of the role men and women play in each other’s lives.

The simple and yet carefully organised structure of the documentary is the key to this approach. Arranged by age, the film begins with a series of young girls, proceeds through teenagers, and gradually concludes with the elderly. It’s one of the film’s obvious strengths and Wardrop deserves credit for the way in which supposedly distinct generations of women appear to slide almost imperceptibly from one to the next.

The women’s responses regarding the men in their lives also tend to vary over the course of the film. While the early interviewees refer predominantly to paternal figures (“Daddy says, clean up your room!”), as the subjects get older the topics shift to dating, engagement, marriage, pregnancy, motherhood and towards the end, widowhood and loneliness. While many of the comments are woven together to reflect fairly conventional views of gender (e.g. men as the breadwinner and women as emotional support) there are instances that stand out.

For example, the moment in which one woman describes the death of her father, or another of the effect of a breast cancer scare upon her partner are simple in their retelling but emotionally resonant. Generally however, such sombre confessions are counterbalanced by the wry humour and resilience evident in many of Wardrop’s subjects.

Despite the documentary’s many charms, the style and construction of His & Hers does tend to provoke more questions than it ultimately addresses. For instance, would the women have responded differently to a female director? Has Wardrop considered the implications of filming all of the women within the domestic space of the home while few if any talk about their role outside that as wife, mum or homemaker? What are the views of women who never experienced (either by choice or circumstance) male companionship or motherhood?

These queries would no doubt complicate the neat vision of gender relations that His & Hers presents but given the broadness of the film’s approach, they’re valid nonetheless. If only for the sake of comparison then, I wonder what insights a similar film about women from the male perspective might yield. Would Wardrop consider making Hers & His? Lets hope so.

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Thirty-five years after it claimed the Palme d’Or for best feature film at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival, Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver remains a landmark work of cinema. An iconic depiction of loneliness, violence and urban alienation, Scorsese’s film stands out within that period of American cinema during the late 1960s and 1970s often referred to as its last Golden Age. With its provocative subject matter, European cinema-inspired style and distinct directorial vision, Taxi Driveris characteristic of the daring and artistic brand of filmmaking that defined the era.

But Taxi Driver also reflects the social context of the 1970s in other ways. Through its representation of Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro), a twenty-something year old Vietnam veteran who takes a job driving taxis in New York City to break the monotony of his aimless existence, the film evokes the uncertainty and trauma of America’s post-war years. In many regards, the character of Travis symbolises the loss of national confidence following the failure in Vietnam, the collapse of the counter-cultural revolution, and the rapid decline of America’s post-WWII economic prosperity.

Like the nation for which he’d gone to war, Travis Bickle seems caught at a crossroads in history. When we first meet him he appears as a kind of moralising observer, railing against the perceived filth of the city streets. However, as his personal frustrations intensify, Travis begins to envisage himself in a series of different roles – as lover to Cybill Shepherd’s Betsy, then as liberator to Iris, a twelve year old prostitute played by Jodie Foster – culminating in his emergence as a self-appointed avenging angel. Insisting upon the need for decisive action, Travis resolves to commit an act of bloodshed in order to bring about his salvation. Yet as Taxi Driver’s oft-discussed ending implies, the traditional resort to violence may no longer serve as an effective means of achieving personal or social redemption.

Beyond Taxi Driver’s cultural significance, the film is also important in the context of Scorsese’s career through the creative relationships that it helped forge, and which would shape the director’s work in the years that followed. Taxi Driver’s screenwriter Paul Schrader would go on to collaborate with the director on three subsequent films (Raging Bull 1980, The Last Temptation of Christ 1988, and Bringing Out The Dead 1999) while actor Robert De Niro (who had previously appeared in Scorsese’s Mean Streets 1973) has worked with the director on eight occasions.

Through these associations Scorsese had found the perfect collaborators for the exploration of male violence, existential ennui, and religious burdens that define the male subjects of his films. And in these regards Travis Bickle is the archetypal Scorsesean protagonist, particularly when it comes to the issue of sex. Fixed in a dichotomous understanding of women as virgin/whore (a perception he imposes upon both Betsy and Iris), Travis’ sexuality is characterised by a stark ambivalence. Even as he habitually frequents porno theatres, Travis displays disgust at the presence of sex workers on the streets of New York. He is, as Betsy refers to him in one scene when she likens him to the lyrics of a Kris Kristofferson song, ‘a walking contradiction’.

Travis’ inability to reconcile these contradictory aspects of his personality may be one explanation for the violence that erupts in the film’s latter stages. And increasingly, the violence in Taxi Driver is coded with sexual connotations. Through Travis’ pistol-like gestures to pornographic imagery, to the scene of the disturbed passenger (performed by Scorsese) and his description of what he plans to do to his adulterous wife, the fetishistic close-up imagery of the .44 Magnum and the climactic shoot-out that takes place in a brothel, Taxi Driver repeatedly collapses the boundaries between sex and violence. In doing so, the film appears to locate and explore the impetus to violent action as emanating from a male paranoia and anxiety regarding sexuality.

But the violence in Taxi Driver (for which it is renowned) has another aspect to it that distinguishes it from the standard vigilante or psychotic Vietnam vet narrative. Rather than simply enact violent imagery, Taxi Driver repeatedly links Travis’ actions to the violence of earlier cinematic representations. From its overt references to numerous films and genres (particularly John Ford’s The Searchers 1956), to Travis’ transformation from insomniac flâneur to urban cowboy and Mohawk warrior, together with the guns that he purchases, each one associated with characters such as Dirty Harry and James Bond, or in his self-seeking performances before the mirror (“Are you talking to me?”), Taxi Driver draws attention to the role representations play in constructing individual and cultural identity. In this context, Taxi Driver’s coda can be seen to offer a critique on the way cinema (and the wider media) shape cultural perceptions of violence and heroism.

It is in this final regard that Taxi Driver, far from being merely a product of its time, remains entirely relevant to the contemporary era, and continues to exert a profound influence on filmgoers more than three decades after its initial release.

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To commemorate the film’s 35th anniversary restoration release, the Plato’s Cave team take an in-depth look at Martin Scorsese’s 1976 classic Taxi Driver. They also cast their eye over Scorsese’s early career, discussing the films on the the recent DVD collection Martin Scorsese’s Short Films (including What’s a Nice Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This, It’s Not Just You, Murray, The Big Shave, Italianamerican). With Josh Nelson, Thomas Caldwell and Tara Judah.

PLATO’S CAVE TAXI DRIVER SPECIAL (.MP3)

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Filmic productions of theatrical performances have an unfortunate tendency to be, as the Bard might put it, ‘a little more than kin, and less than kind’. Often shot with static or spatially distant cinematography, weakened by conflicting performance styles, or overly lengthy, the transition from stage to screen is not always harmonious.

Gregory Doran’s adaptation of The Royal Shakespeare Company’s 2008 production of Hamlet however is largely a successful one, due in part to its carefully considered simplicity. Unlike the grandiose stylings of Kenneth Branagh’s 1996 version, Doran has opted for a refined minimalist presentation – sparse sets characterised by few props and polished interiors.

And yet while the production design is theatrical in nature, Doran directs the camera in a manner more typical of television (cutting between mid-shots and occasionally moving in close) to capture the nuances of the performances and the play’s theme of madness. In particular, the emphasis on reflective surfaces throughout the work, such as fractured mirrors, provides Doran with a suitable motif to signify the splintering psyches of Hamlet’s various characters (Hamlet, Ophelia, Gertrude, Claudius etc).

The only flaw within the otherwise discreet production design is the occasional employment of cheap looking visual affectations – CCTV and home movie camera footage – perhaps in an attempt to impose a heightened filmic sensibility upon proceedings. And yet, while such imagery may reinforce the element of surveillance, their clumsy and intrusive execution is more disruptive than innovative.

With few exceptions, the performances too are generally strong. Despite the whisperings of criticism for his manic characterisation of Hamlet (a tendency some have likened to his role as Doctor Who) David Tennant is well cast in the lead. Whatever baggage his Timelord persona hath burdened him with, Tennant’s youthful appearance and erratic mannerisms are entirely appropriate to the impetuous Danish Prince.

More tellingly though, Tennant’s perfectly restrained rendition of the iconic ‘To be or not to be’ soliloquy ranks amongst the most convincing captured on screen. Shot predominantly in close-up as Hamlet ruminates on life and death, Tennant brings to the words a wonderfully understated melancholic quality.

It’s arguably Tennant’s skill (and that of his fellow cast members Patrick Stewart, Penny Downie and Mariah Gale) in traversing the darkly comic and tragic aspects of Shakespeare’s text that ultimately elevates Doran’s from the mass of earlier adaptations. Minor gripes notwithstanding (the concluding acts feel somewhat rushed and the finale veers toward the anti-climactic), this version of Hamlet seems principally immune to the common stage-to-screen curse.

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