“She was the Picasso of passive-agressive karate”
Tag Archives: David O Russell
13.5 inches and 8.5 pounds
A respectful amount of time has passed to take a look back on the Oscars and whether they actually make any difference at all. Regardless of your feelings regarding their importance, they remain a defining guide to a film, or its perception therein. No matter how hard the (newly rebranded) EE British Academy Film Awards (should Kevin Bacon have won something this year?) aka the Baftas try, they will never be considered in the same light as their American cousins (not least because they have to resort to having an Outstanding British Film award, though this may remain the only way that a Bond Film will win a major picture prize until I direct it any time soon). Even shifting their date in the calendar to arrive before the Oscars hasn’t really changed their standing and (in previous years) caused a notable nomination of a film yet to be released in the cinema in the shape of Spike Jones’ absolutely – sorry, no other way to describe it – batshit-crazy Adaptation, penned by that slightly bonkers genius Charlie Kaufmann (Being John Malkovich, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). They did, however, have the common sense (and good grace) to nominate Ben Affleck as Best Director for Argo having nominated the film for Best Picture (I suggested such acclaim back in November last year), which the Oscars inexplicably did not so they can’t be all bad. At the end of day, however, can anyone really remember which film won the Bafta for Best Picture 3 years ago? Exactly. Hang on, can anyone actually remember which film won the Oscar for Best Picture 3 years ago? Err…no (no cheating at the back!). Look back over the history of the awards and I can guarantee you’ll be mighty surprised by some of the winners (you might not even have heard of some of them)
So, what did we learn? Other than the fact that Anne Hathaway’s nipples deserved a ‘Best Supporting” award even if she was wearing the wrong dress (any excuse for me to post a photo of the gorgeous Ms Hathaway. Hey – it’s my blog…) and Jennifer Lawrence has a balance and/or walking problem and that Denzel Washington can put in a great performance in an otherwise disappointing movie, not a lot. There was no clear “winner” – a film that swept the boards. The nearest we got was Life of Pi (more on this later). The easiest way to an Oscar remains taking the lead in a biopic (see: Jamie Foxx, Ben Kingsley, Forest Whitaker, Philip Seymour Hoffman etc). This is not to disrespect the achievements of these actors, or indeed the enigmatic Daniel Day-Lewis (celebrating a historic third best acting Oscar for the excellent Lincoln, his first also being for a biopic, My Left Foot) – all performed admirably in their roles and I enjoyed Day-Lewis hugely in Lincoln (he does inhabit a role with gusto), it’s just there seems to be a leaning towards the portrayal of real-life characters in Academy-voting. The wonderful Amy Adams (4 nominations and still no win) missed out again on an Oscar I felt she whole-heartedly deserved for the second year running (missing out to another actress in the same film as she did with last year’s The Fighter remains one of the most inexplicable decisions in Academy voting history). To be fair, I can’t bring myself to watch Les Miserables (I have no problems with musicals per se, but I’m more of a Gene Kelly kind of guy, I’m not sure if I want to see Russell Crowe dressed as a Thunderbird/Britney Spears and an ex of mine loves Les Mis which is another reason not to give it the time of day) so whether Anne Hathaway’s performance did deserve the nod, I can’t say for definite.
If four wins and no nominations seems unlucky, pity poor Roger Deakins, nominated for best cinematography for Skyfall (who I previously praised for his superior camerawork on that movie). 10 nominations and no wins. It was the big chance for the Academy, the year they put right an injustice whereby Bond Films do not win major awards (beyond soundtrack and technical). I can forgive the lack of inclusion of Daniel Craig in the Best Actor category (surely he must have been in the reckoning, especially considering his on-screen chemistry with The Queen. Oh, wait…) – he was up against some tough competition, but for Deakins who has put together a resume of outstanding cinematography over the last 30 years to miss out again is doubly disappointing. Certainly his burning house/backlit Scottish glen was up there with his opening helicopter shot of Shawshank prison and the gradual appearance/disappearance of a blood-soaked Steve Buscemi in the snow in Fargo.
He’s even been drafted in as a ‘visual consultant’ on a number of animated films to deliver unprecedented levels of mood and light and increasingly startling imagery. His work, particularly on How to Train Your Dragon speaks for itself – particularly the nighttime attack on the village in that movie – you really should watch it if you haven’t already. (I’m a firm believer that much of the most original and exciting work in cinema today is happening in animated films where the opportunity presents itself for visual flair and inventiveness like no other medium. Indeed some of the best lighting I’ve ever seen in movies has appeared in animated movies – the classic vision of neon-soaked Neo-Tokyo in Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira and the incredible (no pun intended) shadows and pools of light in the secret evil lair in Brad Bird’s The Incredibles. He surely must be in line to win the big one soon, though I hope it doesn’t happen the way it often does – winning an award for any old pile of shit (not that I would ever suggest he was capable of such a thing) because the Academy feels guilty for not giving him a prize sooner (see Martin Scorcese’s The Departed – a very enjoyable film, no doubt, but that’s mostly due to wit of the script which raises it far above being a simple Hollywood remake of Infernal Affairs. His direction in virtually any of his other films could, however, be considered far superior – notably Goodfellas or even (being slightly controversial here, but watch it again and judge for yourself) Casino, where he uses every camera trick in the book. This year’s cinematography award went instead to Claudio Miranda for Life of Pi who appeared to be doing his best Gandalf the Grey impression at the ceremony. He’s a very good cinematographer and did some great early lighting work for both David Fincher and Tony Scott, but when a film is as extensively green-screened as Life of Pi, I do sometimes question the photographer’s contribution (though having said that, his work on the pretty much exclusively green-screened Tron: Legacy is extraordinary) and I was generally left somewhat cold by it.
Despite all the furore regarding the violence in Tarantino’s hugely enjoyable Django Unchained, it still unsurprisingly won Best Original Screenplay (I secretly hoped that my film of last year, Wes Anderson’s quirky and wonderful Moonrise Kingdom would cause an upset). Equally unsurprising was Christophe Waltz winning Best Supporting Actor for the same film (having previously won the same award for Inglourious Basterds). Regardless of your views of Quentin Tarantino’s body of work, we should be eternally grateful for introducing the world to one of the most charismatic actors to emerge in recent times. David O. Russell continues his foray as an ‘actor’s director – three acting wins for his last two films (The Fighter and Silver Linings Playbook) and a full house of Acting nominations this year. Suddenly the quirky indie director whose previously films have ranged from the provocatively titled Spanking the Monkey (no, really!) with its suggestion of vague incestuous themes; the Gulf War take on Kelly’s Heroes that descends into dark satire in the form of Three Kings; and I ♥ Huckabees a bizarre (and truly brilliant) star-studded ‘existential comedy’, has become the Academy’s darling through more gritty, realistic and personal movies. Whether Silver Linings Playbook‘s anti-date movie/leftfield chick flick with shouting and mental health issues shtick stands the test of time only, er, time will tell. It probably needs to be applauded for dealing with mental health issues (though probably not as sensitively as it could) and (in the same way that Darren Aranofsky’s pitch-black but utterly gripping Requiem for a Dream showed that addiction takes many forms and affects many people) showing their impact and the way they affect a large number of people in a number of ways).
All of that brings me back round to the film that did best at the Oscars, Life of Pi. Winning awards for Best Director (the inexplicable Ben Affleck snub), cinematography, score and visual effects (interesting footnote – Rythym and Hues, responsible for those effects, have gone bankrupt despite their excellent work). It’s an adaptation of a much-loved book (by Yann Martell), described as unfilmable, which tells a story of a remarkable journey and deals with big themes. The same, however, could also be said of Cloud Atlas, adapted from the novel by David Mitchell (no, not the guy from Peep Show!) by the Wachowski siblings (The Matrix Trilogy) and Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run). Yet one film did well and achieved acclaim and the other disappeared without trace. I’m in a good position to judge each film on its own merits, having not read either book (though I’ve read other work by Mitchell notably his superb Number 9 Dream) and one film intrigued and captivated me with its sense of scale and ambition, its risk taking, its visual language and beauty of dialogue and human interaction and its sense of wonder. The other left me cold. That would seem to tie in with the outcome for each film, right? Well, no, in fact. The film that filled me with a sense of wonder was in fact Cloud Atlas. Six (at least) intertwined stories of lives echoing through time and influencing the future (and the past), ranging from historical drama to far future science fiction via the 20th Century, and modern-day leaping back and forth to show how everything is connected; a tale of love, death, uncertainty, music, horror and beauty (the Wachowski’s Neo-Seoul set future element combines all in a superb example of hard sci-fi) and knockabout comedy (no, really). Life of Pi‘s got a bloke in a lifeboat with a tiger and annoying interludes on a sofa with a wide-eyed Jake Spall. Cloud Atlas challenges people to follow a non-linear narrative as interconnections through time are revealed in an existential and spiritual way. Life of Pi tells a story of a bloke in a lifeboat with a tiger which may, or may not exist. Cloud Atlas has an unrecognizable Hugh Grant slitting someone’s throat (is that not enough of a selling point, people?). Life of Pi has a bloke in a lifeboat with a tiger. You get my point. I am genuinely not overselling Cloud Atlas. It is a phenomenal piece of work which represents all that is good about cinema. It is different and is challenging because of that. Not merely for the narrative but by (perhaps controversial) decisions made with regard to its visual dialogue (notably the use of the same actors in different roles across the time periods, sometimes crossing racial and gender lines to show the interconnection. Sometimes the make-up could be more effective, but I guarantee you will not spot all the roles played by each actor). Yet there was not an award in sight for Cloud Atlas. Does that make it a lesser film? Have I got it so wrong?
24 frames a second 