The following is a rambling introduction to what I intend to be a series of commentaries on movies, not critiques or reviews in the usual sense, just my impression of movies in general as I simply recall various movies and what they meant to me. Movies are, of course, first and foremost, entertainment, but sometimes there's a lot more to them…if you look for it. I just like to talk about movies. Mostly I sometimes read a lot into the "message"(a concept, which, in the business, is apt to get denied existence) or just how it all relates to reality, something most people blow off without much thought. If your first impression is "Who cares?" that's fine with me. Forget about it. Read something else.
I'd probably never make a very good movie critic because, first of all, I evaluate a movie on the grounds on which it is billed. For instance, if you go to see a Ken Russell film or a John Carpenter film, you should expect to see a Ken Russell or John Carpenter film and not compare either's work to any other director or how Carpenter handled the whole vampire thing as it relates to the original Bram Stoker novel of Dracula or any other vampire treatment. If you go see a low-budget teenage slasher film, don't hold it up to Silence of the Lambs, asking why that teenage girl wasn't as cool as Jodi Foster, or why, unlike Jodi Foster, she had to flash her boobs, then complain that is was just another low-budget teenage slasher film. What the hell did you expect? If it's rated "R for nudity and erotic sexuality throughout, and for some graphic language and violence," guess what you'll get. If it's rated NC-17, which replaced an X rating in 1990, it means it may be a serious movie but with explicit sex, but not to be confused with a triple X. The "XXX" is not a Movie Board Association of America rating--or "certificate"--but is, in fact, adult entertainment industry advertising, meaning it promises to be wall-to-wall hardcore porn, hopefully without a plot or any attempt at acting, which is why the MBAA dropped the official X rating.
Likewise, if you go to a movie from the "factory" of Roger Corman named Sex Starved Virgins from Outer Space (or whatever…I made that up…I think), with a "nudity/adult content" warning, don't complain about gratuitous nudity and sex with scenes from another planet taking place in Bronson Park , just up the hill from Hollywood Bronson Park Bronson Park
In addition to Russell and Carpenter, there's Woody Allen. That is to say there are some filmmakers who are simply in a class of their own. Even some critics (the more intelligent) realize that. They won't compare Woody Allen, for instance, to anyone but Woody Allen. But even that too, I think is going too far. Woody Allen and a few rare others not only aren’t competing with someone else--they aren't even competing with themselves. I doubt Allen says, "Damn, now I have to do a movie that's better than my last one." More likely, if not obviously, he's doing whatever moves him at the time. I have my own preferences, even when it comes to Woody Allen, but I cannot say I was disappointed, for whatever reason, because anyone who sees his movies should know whatever he did was just a product of his mood at the time, not an attempt to win another Oscar, which he graciously accepts…even if they have to FedEx them to him. It's his own line in his own movie, delivered by himself, where he expresses annoyance with those fans who say, "I liked his earlier, funnier films," or words to that effect. That's from Stardust Memories, a story about a movie maker much like himself. It's on my personal list of favorites, probably because it says a lot about the business of film making, such as his ending being replaced with someone's rewrite of life after death, or what they called "Jazz Heaven" (used hereafter as synonymous with makeshift Hollywood happy endings) at the end being so incredibly true of what happens to a director's cut (and writers, except in committee, don't count at all) after "test audiences" in the Midwest…or even in LA's own Valley where you can't tell one street corner or one apartment building from another, and all white people look alike.
The director's cut of Blade Runner, (starring Harrison Ford and Sean Young, also supplying love interest) even though it is longer, also drops the "Jazz Heaven" type ending you'll see in the theatrical release. It totally drops the happily-ever-after implication of their flight out over a glorious wilderness, which makes you wonder why they weren't there in the first place. Of course the happily-ever-after is limited to the given lifespan of the replicant, a lady android, programmed to live about four years (but she's young for an android, although manufactured as a consenting adult as a human), which is cool because that's probably the optimum before they'd get divorced anyway if they were both real people. The director's cut, however, leaves it hanging, the only reassurance of a possible happily-ever-after based on a clue some audiences might miss (there are no details without significances in a good script), in the form of a little paper figure, an origami, made by a cop and watcher, played by Edward James Olmos. He keeps an eye on the blade runner, making sure he does his job as ordered, and is presumably the only one who knows he didn't kill the one remaining replicant because he fell in love with her (not to be confused with Dennis Hopper in River's Edge where he says to his blow-up doll, "Look, I'm not psycho. I know she's a doll. Right, Elly?"). But, probably being a romantic at heart, he remains silent, which is pretty much his nature anyway, thus allowing them about four years of bliss if the relationship actually lasts that long and if the blade runner can learn to hunt cottontails and quail instead of replicants. But, the point is, unlike the theatrical release, you have to figure that out, then hope they make it out of town to that glorious wilderness, which is otherwise only mentioned in passing, and doesn't even say "glorious." At any rate, the theatrical release of Blade Runner is a great example of what I mean by the "Jazz Heaven" ending as opposed to what the director had in mind.
Blade Runner also stars Rutger Hauer and Daryl Hannah (who seems to have a knack for playing enhanced human types--mermaids, giantesses, etc.), which is another love interest of sorts, although they are both androids so they don't make a big thing out of it. They also give the movie a real touch of class. Rutger Hauer, I have to admit, is extraordinary (as usual), supplying what is the poetry in dialogue. I say "in dialogue" because there is poetry in virtually ever aspect of all production values, including Olmos' acting, which is always poetic, even when he doesn't have a lot to say. That's the sort of thing that tends to get cut--the poetry--or at least abridged, from otherwise terrific directors' cuts…before they get tested in the Midwest or the Valley, or, for what are strictly commercial reasons, meaning it is going to play to the lowest possible common denominator, thus selling the most tickets. But mostly it is basic censorship, as in the pre-rated, director's cut of In the Cut.
Regarding that movie--In the Cut--you'd be surprised what can happen in twenty seconds before it gets to the MBAA ratings board…not to mention Meg Ryan totally naked and totally uninhibited, and having a good time in slut-type fashion, which is a lot of film, not a matter of seconds. So, I presume, Meg Ryan totally naked for extended periods of time, minus a twenty second very explicit blowjob (which Meg Ryan only witnesses), is the only difference between an R rating and an NC-17, meaning the difference between the theatrical release, as opposed to the director's cut, or before it is rated (actually "certified," so not to be confused with critic "ratings"). I guess the lost twenty-second blowjob was probably worth the sacrifice for an R rating…even though all the people who would have objected to an explicit blowjob are apt to object just as much to Meg Ryan being a totally naked slut anyway. Actually, more explicit than anything, is the dialogue itself…which I think is great and ought to get used more as erotica in movie making.
Personally, I still see no reason to not accept an NC-17 rating when those who would be offended by a total of fifty extra seconds cut for an R rating are going to be offended anyway. It might be surprising to some people, though, just where censorship might come from. As the late George Carlin once pointed out (in reference to TV and radio, at least, expressing his contempt for the FCC, which was his patriotic duty), we're talking about selling a product. It isn't the audience they are afraid of offending; it's the sponsors. Along that way of viewing it, when I edited "underground" newspapers in the early seventies, it was not unusual for distributors (these are guys who stuff news racks) to try to control content. I have no doubt that movie distributors do have concerns about how a movie will play in the Midwest …or the Valley, for that matter. Sometimes it's the country itself, frequently based on prevailing religions or politics--like Canadian censorship seems to think it is liberal because it gives great consideration to the "feminist critique," a postmodern term, which in practice, as regards naked ladies, is actually rather Victorian, if not Medieval.
For the record, the running time of In the Cut in the USA France Canada US
The movie is based on a novel, written by a woman, Susanna Moore. It's actually a pretty good plot, but, having read other commentaries, disputably good. Not having read the book, I can only assume it was strong on characterization. Plots, in and of themselves, as one well-established scholar of drama insists, number thirty-six in all. Therefore plots are a dime a dozen with altogether about thirty cents worth. Characters, in and of themselves, are really what it's all about. The whole study of drama, even movie making, is based on Poetics by Aristotle, placing plot first, then characterization, then spectacle and the chorus. (Aristotle also insisted, being an expert on all things, that men had more teeth than women, even though he never counted them.) The chorus, incidentally, is still there; take Woody Allen, for instance: it can be a touch of Schubert in Crimes and Misdemeanors, or the whole Greek thing, as in Mighty Aphrodite; but we have never abandoned the chorus, even handing out Oscars for best song and best theme music, not to mention that long list of songs in the closing credits. (I once heard someone say, “Whatever happened to Randy Newman?” I had to ask, “Don’t you ever go to the movies?”) I would personally put characterization first, even before plot. Movies, at least nowadays, tend to put spectacle first…as in car chases and things blowing up. Of course, one might argue, Meg Ryan running around naked is also spectacle. But I still say it is all about the characters…which it took a lot of balls (in this case, gender not specific) to create and portray.
Granted, without Meg Ryan running around naked and being more than the woman she usually portrays, she herself has said, not really the dumb ingénue, it would be pretty much just another murder mystery with a pretty good storyline, but not with the dramatic intensity the director, Jane Campion, has given it. (Campion, by the way, got two nominations for The Piano, one for directing and one for best original screen play, that latter winning an Oscar. Of the eight nominations awarded that movie, seven of them went to women…another movie it took a lot of balls to do--again, gender not specific.) What most of these non-professional critics (like myself) don't take into consideration is that it is more about character than plot (unlike myself). I tend to do that with my writing too, so, even though I'm not a professional critic, I am a produced playwright, and do feel entitled to support that aspect of it as strictly drama, playing to the darker side of human nature, which, necessarily, is more about character than plot. Even the good guys would be scum by most people's standards--most people being those same people who make up test audiences for the theatrical releases, viewed first in the Midwest and the Valley. What's more, they'd be the same scum in any story line. Of course, the protagonists of Greek playwrights, Shakespeare, not to mention opera, are frequently not exactly really nice people. Oedipus, for instance, killed his father and slept with his mother, which by contemporary family values is generally frowned upon…although he did feel guilty about it afterwards, which, along with finding Jesus, is apt to get the worst of them a parole at least.
The Piano, incidentally, would have made a powerful tragedy…but American audiences do not accept tragedy, which has, what I consider, a terribly tragic irony to it. Specifically, she could have drowned with the piano, and it could have ended there; but, we all know for certain, it would not have made it past those test audiences in the Midwest or the Valley. I get my understanding of tragedy, at least in part, from George Orwell, an essay written in 1947 and published posthumously in 1951. It is Orwell's critique of Tolstoy's critique of Shakespeare's King Lear, entitled Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool. Made brief, it reads as such: "It is doubtful whether the sense of tragedy is compatible with belief in God: at any rate, it is not compatible with disbelief in human dignity and with the kind of 'moral demand' which feels cheated when virtue fails to triumph. A tragic situation exists precisely when virtue does not triumph but when it is still felt that man is nobler than the forces which destroy him." I printed it out and stuck the quote up on the wall beside my computer, just below a jpeg printout of a shot in glorious color of a ten-point-four megaton surface blast in the Pacific.
Therein lies the irony of our all-American distaste for tragedy. We pay for tragedy daily with our tax dollars and have for decades, maybe a couple of centuries; we vote for it; we're proud of it; we could, and we know it, maybe abstractly but not too literally, triumph over the whole of human virtue (quoting Orwell) in about twenty minutes with the push of a button using forces far less noble than the whole of humankind it would destroy…but God forbid Hollywood give us a tragic ending. It simply wouldn't play in the Midwest or the Valley, and that means a failed box office, perhaps the greater tragedy, all things considered, where the dramatically and cinematically melancholy wrapped-up-finale of life as human on planet earth must give way to Jazz Heaven, not to preserve the demands of art, but to preserve the bottom line, still billing itself as art. But, having said that (forgetting, along with everyone else the greater picture, the lost reality of a very real manmade multitrillion dollar doomsday machine, created and in place, the trigger (probably a keyboard code and handprint scan) in an attaché case, affectionately termed "The Football,” never out of reach of whomever we happen to elect President, regardless of their wits and/or predisposition, I have to admit I like a happy ending too, and wouldn't change The Piano.
The preceding paragraph was all about aesthetics, not politics…really. The most basic definition of aesthetics (a word that frequently gets a blank stare) is a sense of beauty. In art, as I see it, it is the part of a creation, created by the artist, which comes before the creation itself. It connects, or not, depending upon a sense of beauty that exits already, or not, in the audience, which should be, but seldom is, each individual viewer's consideration. I also believe an individual's sense of beauty (which just might be incredibly ugly to someone else), whether he knows the word "aesthetics" or not, is what motivates his purpose and intention in life. In other words, the aesthetic being presented either connects or not; and if so, it will add motivation to said purpose and intentions. Thus art can have a great influence on individuals and especially groups. But we tend to see only groups, not individuals, thus we have polls, test audiences, and majority rules, which is about the same as calling a mob "democracy." And, ironically, that mob that rejects dramatic tragedy if retailed to them as fiction, also buys it wholesale in reality. What that means is that death, destruction, torture, war, and generally beating down our fellow humans and blowing up their creations are a glorious aesthetic and righteous spectacle, easily sold, not only by politicians, but by movie producers as well. It only has to be made glorious and righteous. Then it is an aesthetic, put into a creation, by the creator, before the creation itself is accomplished. Of course, that creation may be a destruction, which is not the paradox it seems to be.
I not only got cable TV originally (now devoted primarily to movie channels) so I could personally watch the first Gulf War (and I'm far from alone in that respect), but, just the other night, I watched, back to back, from my treasured DVD collection, parts One, Two, and Three of First Blood (otherwise known as Rambo) and loved every minute of it…especially the blowing-up part. Why is that, I have to ask myself? I don't know. Maybe it's because it all seems so glorious and righteous. Or maybe I, like the rest of bored Americans, have grown weary with the same old pursuit of happiness stuff…like treasured DVD collections and movie channels.
I did warn you up front that it would be a "rambling" introduction.
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