Like Tales from the Crypt, only not.
By Jeff Webb
For Christmas this year, I received the complete series of “Tales from the Crypt” on DVD. As such, I’ve been spending the past few days plowing my way through the episodes. For anybody familiar with the program, you know the basic formula: a man or a woman (usually played by a famous actor) meets his/her demise in a terrible situation often brought about by his/her ambition and greed, the tale of their demise told with both violence and a large dose of gallows humor. Accepting this formula, then, one might just as easily assume “Black Swan” is a “Tales from the Crypt” episode, albeit just ninety minutes longer than the typical half-hour.
The story is simple. Nina, played by Natalie Portman, is selected to play both the white and black swan in her ballet company’s production of “Swan Lake.” She has the innocence part down pat, but in trying to reach the dark part of her soul for the black swan, she struggles, ultimately finding herself consumed by the “evil forces pulling at her,” as one character in the movie says. And though this all sounds dark and foreboding—as well it is—the movie also offers moments of almost absurd comedy, from a random old man masturbating on the subway to Nina waking up one morning and touching herself, unaware until the last second that her mother is sitting in the corner of the bedroom, asleep. In “Tales from the Crypt,” comedy runs wild, suggesting an absurd universe, and, though the comedy is more spread out in “Black Swan,” its effect might be the same: that with all the crying and suffering Nina goes through, there is still something darkly funny about the proceedings, about her pain, suggesting, perhaps, that we all live in a world where God doesn’t help or hurt us, but, worse yet, just simply laughs at us and our struggle to be good. After all, it is Nina’s obsession—and ultimate futility—with being perfect that leads to her downfall. We cannot ever be perfect. To think so is, well, absurd.
Director Darren Aronofsky’s last feature, 2008’s “The Wrestler,” also shared this sort of absurdist comedy, as well as similar themes. However, with “the Wrestler,” the Ram’s tragedy is a result of his own stubbornness, his unwillingness to give up the spotlight. With “Black Swan,” Nina—who does refuse to accept imperfection—is trapped in this lifestyle by many forces: her overbearing mother, her overbearing director, and, most noteworthy, her own troubled mind. From the beginning of the film to the end of the film, the story takes place in Nina’s mind, Aronofsky always keeping the camera close to her face, letting us know it is all revolving around her and because of her. Yes, Nina does dig her own grave, but, at the same time, she really has no escape to begin with. She’s trapped from the beginning, a pessimistic thought that wasn’t present in “The Wrestler” or Aronofsky’s “Requiem for a Dream,” movies where characters are also doomed but doomed, nonetheless, because they refuse to change. Nina is never given the option to refuse. Again, she lives in a cruel universe. Try as she might to improve, she’ll never find any sort of comfort.
Fitting, then, that “Black Swan” is not truly a “Tales from the Crypt” episode, for with the show each episode begins and ends with a humorous segment featuring the wise-cracking Cryptkeeper. It is always a way to remind the viewer that, despite how dark an episode’s ending might be, the show is, in the end, just a form of fun entertainment. “Black Swan,” in the end, offers no such relief. It does not want to remind the audience that it is just a movie, a form of entertainment. It only wants to remind us that the world we live in is probably a world we don’t want to live in. Aronofsky holds a mirror to our pain, but he offers no prescription because, like Nina’s own psychosis, there is ultimately no cure.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Friday, December 24, 2010
True Grit
Faux-Nihilism and Rooster Cogburn
By Jeff Webb
The Coens want to be nihilists. Their trilogy of movies from 2006 to 2009—No Country for Old Men, Burn After Reading, and A Serious Man—are evidence of this, as each movie practically suggests a universe full of unwarranted and unknowable suffering. Their latest effort in True Grit exists in the same universe, the story beginning with the senseless murder of young Mattie Ross’ father, but whereas the previous three movies ended on ambiguity, True Grit ends with affirmation, the affirmation that man is tough, resilient, and, deep down beneath the filthy surface, full of goodness.
Look no further than the film’s Rooster Cogburn, portrayed brilliantly by Jeff Bridges. Cogburn has the reputation of being the meanest U.S. Marshal around. When asked how many men he’s shot, he asks whether the questioner means shot or killed. The questioner replies in kind that it should be restricted to killed to keep the number at a manageable level. Indeed, Cogburn doesn’t back down from a fight—he once took on four men while riding on horseback, holding revolvers in both hands and the reins of his horse in his teeth—and he will do whatever is necessary to meet his ends.
Cogburn is a rich character, full of backstory and mannerisms giving him life and allowing Bridges to become the character. But Cogburn, utilitarian and gruff as he may be, is not a one-note character, and that is evidenced nowhere more than in his relationship with Mattie Ross and the course it takes during the film. She becomes a daughter to him, and it is in here that the film reaches tenderness typically avoided in a Coen movie. Bridges takes the character full-circle, from a man who is unwilling to admit that his drunkenness and one-eye might make him a bad shot to one who, at the end of the battle, can only fall on his knees exhausted and declare, “I’ve grown old.”
The film, not without fault, is not pure sentimentality, though. Comparing it with the 1969 adaptation of True Grit, one striking difference is the ending. In the John Wayne version, Mattie and Rooster converse on a hillside cemetery, Ms. Ross telling the marshal that she would like for him to be buried there with her family. It is a moment that cements the meaning of the film, that tough-girl Mattie is finally admitting she is capable of showing affection, and tough-guy Cogburn, in turn, accepting affection. The Coens do not end their version on such a feel-good moment, which is frustrating as it leaves the movie without an emotional payoff, but, in some small way, it is almost fitting for the characters. Yes, perhaps they have grown and changed over the course of the film, but they are both too stubborn to really outright acknowledge their admiration and devotion to one another.
This is why the Coens can only pretend to be nihilists. They want to end their movie on a slightly pessimistic note, with uncertainty, but, with True Grit, they pull their punch at the last second. For the better part of the movie, they’ve covered their sentiment, kept it subdued like the church hymns that compose Carter Burwell’s wonderful score, but, in the end, it does rise up, ever so slightly. Cogburn and Ross may never outright exhibit what they’ve learned and grown into, but it’s a testament to the actors who portray them that the audience can feel, nonetheless, what they’ve become. By the time the credits begin to roll as an aged Mattie Ross walks off toward the sun and Iris Dement starts singing the words of “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms,” it hits you. It’s at that moment that you know that Cogburn and Ross needed each other, that, like the savior in the song, so, too, in a cold and unforgiving universe, were they the saviors of each other.
By Jeff Webb
The Coens want to be nihilists. Their trilogy of movies from 2006 to 2009—No Country for Old Men, Burn After Reading, and A Serious Man—are evidence of this, as each movie practically suggests a universe full of unwarranted and unknowable suffering. Their latest effort in True Grit exists in the same universe, the story beginning with the senseless murder of young Mattie Ross’ father, but whereas the previous three movies ended on ambiguity, True Grit ends with affirmation, the affirmation that man is tough, resilient, and, deep down beneath the filthy surface, full of goodness.
Look no further than the film’s Rooster Cogburn, portrayed brilliantly by Jeff Bridges. Cogburn has the reputation of being the meanest U.S. Marshal around. When asked how many men he’s shot, he asks whether the questioner means shot or killed. The questioner replies in kind that it should be restricted to killed to keep the number at a manageable level. Indeed, Cogburn doesn’t back down from a fight—he once took on four men while riding on horseback, holding revolvers in both hands and the reins of his horse in his teeth—and he will do whatever is necessary to meet his ends.
Cogburn is a rich character, full of backstory and mannerisms giving him life and allowing Bridges to become the character. But Cogburn, utilitarian and gruff as he may be, is not a one-note character, and that is evidenced nowhere more than in his relationship with Mattie Ross and the course it takes during the film. She becomes a daughter to him, and it is in here that the film reaches tenderness typically avoided in a Coen movie. Bridges takes the character full-circle, from a man who is unwilling to admit that his drunkenness and one-eye might make him a bad shot to one who, at the end of the battle, can only fall on his knees exhausted and declare, “I’ve grown old.”
The film, not without fault, is not pure sentimentality, though. Comparing it with the 1969 adaptation of True Grit, one striking difference is the ending. In the John Wayne version, Mattie and Rooster converse on a hillside cemetery, Ms. Ross telling the marshal that she would like for him to be buried there with her family. It is a moment that cements the meaning of the film, that tough-girl Mattie is finally admitting she is capable of showing affection, and tough-guy Cogburn, in turn, accepting affection. The Coens do not end their version on such a feel-good moment, which is frustrating as it leaves the movie without an emotional payoff, but, in some small way, it is almost fitting for the characters. Yes, perhaps they have grown and changed over the course of the film, but they are both too stubborn to really outright acknowledge their admiration and devotion to one another.
This is why the Coens can only pretend to be nihilists. They want to end their movie on a slightly pessimistic note, with uncertainty, but, with True Grit, they pull their punch at the last second. For the better part of the movie, they’ve covered their sentiment, kept it subdued like the church hymns that compose Carter Burwell’s wonderful score, but, in the end, it does rise up, ever so slightly. Cogburn and Ross may never outright exhibit what they’ve learned and grown into, but it’s a testament to the actors who portray them that the audience can feel, nonetheless, what they’ve become. By the time the credits begin to roll as an aged Mattie Ross walks off toward the sun and Iris Dement starts singing the words of “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms,” it hits you. It’s at that moment that you know that Cogburn and Ross needed each other, that, like the savior in the song, so, too, in a cold and unforgiving universe, were they the saviors of each other.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
The Fighter
Always a Puncher's Chance
By Jeff Webb
A lot of talk has gone on lately about how Christian Bale will surely win a supporting actor Oscar for his portrayal of a cracked-out boxer in _The Fighter_. Indeed, Bale is at the top of his game, delivering his best performance yet in a career full of good performances. But the truth is that Bale shouldn’t be getting a supporting actor Oscar. Not to say he wasn’t good. Quite the opposite. If and when Bale gets the Academy Award, it should be for lead, not supporting, because, rest assured, the fighter the title refers to is not boxing champ Micky Ward. _The Fighter_ is Ward’s resilient brother, Dicky Eklund.
Bale is Eklund, in so much as an actor can become the part he plays. Coming from a Boston suburb’s large, working-class family, Eklund’s greatest claim to fame is that he once knocked down Sugar Ray Leonard. Though, whatever promise his boxing career might have had is derailed by recklessness and drug addiction. As he says in the film, he had his chance and he blew it.
But if _The Fighter_ is about anything, it is about this: that a man can fuck-up many times in life and somehow, someway, come out on top so long as he never gives up. This fighting spirit describes Eklund’s brother and protégé, his half-brother Micky Ward, played by Mark Wahlberg. Ward begins the movie with a streak of three boxing losses, leading him to consider walking away from the sport altogether, but ultimately his pride and his family will not let him walk away.
The film’s main problem is that it fails to make Ward a truly compelling character, though. This is through no fault of Wahlberg’s, who is a gifted actor and makes the best of what he can, but, for the most part, Ward is written as a static character. His emotions and world outlook remain pretty much the same for the film’s duration. It is Eklund who undergoes a transformation, the catalyst for the film’s emotional climax.
There’s a frenetic quality to _The Fighter_. The camera is always moving, swelling orchestra scores are replaced with rock music, and the characters talk fast, often changing moods from jovial to angry in a matter of seconds, leaving little room for introspection. It can all feel very frenzied and, at times, confusing for audience members as characters step on other characters’ lines of dialogue, but, in truth, this frenzied atmosphere matches the film’s subject. In both the ring and life, knock-outs come fast, and so, too, can victories. No matter how deep in shit a person’s life may be, there is always a puncher’s chance.
By Jeff Webb
A lot of talk has gone on lately about how Christian Bale will surely win a supporting actor Oscar for his portrayal of a cracked-out boxer in _The Fighter_. Indeed, Bale is at the top of his game, delivering his best performance yet in a career full of good performances. But the truth is that Bale shouldn’t be getting a supporting actor Oscar. Not to say he wasn’t good. Quite the opposite. If and when Bale gets the Academy Award, it should be for lead, not supporting, because, rest assured, the fighter the title refers to is not boxing champ Micky Ward. _The Fighter_ is Ward’s resilient brother, Dicky Eklund.
Bale is Eklund, in so much as an actor can become the part he plays. Coming from a Boston suburb’s large, working-class family, Eklund’s greatest claim to fame is that he once knocked down Sugar Ray Leonard. Though, whatever promise his boxing career might have had is derailed by recklessness and drug addiction. As he says in the film, he had his chance and he blew it.
But if _The Fighter_ is about anything, it is about this: that a man can fuck-up many times in life and somehow, someway, come out on top so long as he never gives up. This fighting spirit describes Eklund’s brother and protégé, his half-brother Micky Ward, played by Mark Wahlberg. Ward begins the movie with a streak of three boxing losses, leading him to consider walking away from the sport altogether, but ultimately his pride and his family will not let him walk away.
The film’s main problem is that it fails to make Ward a truly compelling character, though. This is through no fault of Wahlberg’s, who is a gifted actor and makes the best of what he can, but, for the most part, Ward is written as a static character. His emotions and world outlook remain pretty much the same for the film’s duration. It is Eklund who undergoes a transformation, the catalyst for the film’s emotional climax.
There’s a frenetic quality to _The Fighter_. The camera is always moving, swelling orchestra scores are replaced with rock music, and the characters talk fast, often changing moods from jovial to angry in a matter of seconds, leaving little room for introspection. It can all feel very frenzied and, at times, confusing for audience members as characters step on other characters’ lines of dialogue, but, in truth, this frenzied atmosphere matches the film’s subject. In both the ring and life, knock-outs come fast, and so, too, can victories. No matter how deep in shit a person’s life may be, there is always a puncher’s chance.
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