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selenakDecided that the German movie industry isn't doing too badly at the moment. Aside from the universally liked Lola Rennt, we had Goodbye Lenin and Das Wunder von Bern last year, and this year Der Untergang and the film I saw yesterday, "Die fetten Jahre sind vorüber". Which has three engaging leads, a fourth excellent supporting actor, and manages to tackle social issues and anger about injustice without coming off self-righteous, always a danger in cinematic terms. Early on, you might think director Hans Weingartner is simplifying things by presenting the rich middle-aged folk as caricatures whereas his three rebels with a cause are three-dimensional, but this danger is banished once they screw up a protest break-in, get surprised by the owner (one classic rich middle-aged man), and in a panic decide to take him hostage.
The ensuing relationship which developes between said middle-aged rich man, Hardenberg (who turns out to have been a rebel back in the 60s himself, before starting the profitable money-earning and ideals-compromising life), and Jan, Jule and Peter is one of the movie's highlights. As a reviewer said, Weingarten isn't just going for a portrait of the present youngsters but of the '68 generation as well, and he succeeds.
Another of the film's attractions is the way the obvious love triangle is solved. Instead of Jule choosing one of the boys, or Peter betraying the group out of jealousy, which would have been the conventional means, we get an emotionally believable threesome. Yes!
All in all a film with charme and verve. If it's shown outside of German speaking countries, have a look, you won't regret it.
***
So, the biopic of the year seems to be not Alexander but Kinsey. (Neither of which is shown in Germany yet.) Considering that Kinsey was written and directed by the excellent Bill Condon, he who gave us Gods and Monsters, and stars Liam Neeson, whom I've always liked, it doesn't surprise me to hear it's a good movie, though I'm not sure whether or not I would have gone to see it - not having any particular interest in the life of Kinsey, and the Kinsey report not having any particular relevance over here - if not for the rather ridiculous uproar capturing my attention. Some nutters comparing someone who compiled data of sexual habits with Mengele just beats some Greek lawyers complaining about Alexander being shown as bisexual in terms of sheer bizarreness.
Anyway, biopics: They have the reputation of being dull, which is unfair - there are enough exceptions not to make this a rule. The trap of the genre is, imo, attempting to go for a "from birth to death" approach, which just tries to shove in too many events and too many people within the two hours or even three hours a film has. (As opposed to a novel.) Not surprisingly, the biopics which succeeded in cinematic history concentrated on one or two periods of their subjects lives, and offered a different narrative. Condon's Gods and Monsters being a case in point. Despite the film being set near the end of James Whale's life, he manages to work in Whale's working class childhood and crucial WWI experiences as a young man via some short but perfectly placed scenes. Similarly with Ed Wood; it concentrates on the relationship between Ed and Bela Lugosi, and picks just the period during which Ed made the three movies he's most famous for, which heightens the emotional intensity to no end.
Now one might object that Whale and Wood for film directors, one praised, one ridiculed, but still neither living an "epic" life, and that a historical subject famous for waging battles or painting or sculpting or making important inventions is just harder to treat without dullness, because intimacy is difficult if you've got a cast of thousands. I don't think so. Gandhi is a biopic with a lot of famous mass shots that never manages to lose sight of its main character.
(Sidenote: Salman Rushdie couldn't stand Gandhi when it was first released, complaining that it simplified the Mahatma from a wily old fox to the archetypical saint from the East, that short-changed Jinnah by presenting him only negatively, and so forth. Later, he qualified his objections by noting that Gandhi the movie had some good effects in countries such as South Africa and so wasn't all bad, but still not accurate enough in important points. The thing is, no biopic ever made will get complete approval from historians. And what is quaintly called "artistic freedom" has a fine long tradition - just think of the competely propagandistic and inaccurate but highly memorable depiction of Richard III in Shakespeare's Richard III, or of Shakespeare's Pucelle, a Joan who is a sexual sorceress who achieved her victories via witchcraft and begs for her life in the most undignified manner possible once the manly English have captured her. So, whatever you're going to see in a play or biopic isn't THE TRUTH in capital letters. It's a truth. An interpretation that fits best with the creator's intentions.)
Or take The Last Emperor, which works on two timelines, intercutting older Pu Yi getting reeducated by the Communist Party with Pu Yi's life from early childhood till WWII. Of course, The Last Emperor goes for the anti-Great-Man narrative while choosing the epic exteriors, as Pu Yi is presented as the child kidnapped into royalty whose power is always illusionary. The attempts to gain actual power via an alliance with the Japanese backfire badly and are presented at the worst thing he could have done, taking which emotional ties he has managed to form away from him. What would be the normal tragic conclusion - becoming a prisoner - actually turns out, in this film's narrative, as salvation. Now you can argue whether or not presenting reeducation in a prisoner's camp as moral self-discovery is a good thing (Bertolucci tries to point out the shadow side by, in his epiloge, letting old Pu Yi discover his old camp director being horribly humiliated and forced to "confess" his unworthiness by the Red Guards), but it works within the context of the film, finishing the emotional journey around which it is structured.
Lawrence of Arabia, still my personal favourite movie, has, among its many virtues, Robert Bolt writing the script. Picking out the Arab Revolt as the time frame, it goes for a combination of public success and personal breakdown as its storyline, as well as some elements of Greek tragedy. Hubris and all. It's fascinating to compare and contrast A Dangerous Man, which tackles the enigmatic T.E. Lawrence as well, and wisely in a different manner - no epic landscapes, drawing rooms instead, as it deals with the negotiations in Versailles, and political intrigues instead of battles, long marches or life-or death questions. The mixture of fascination and self-loathing Lawrence felt with his own fame comes across strongly in both, and both have very good lead performers (Peter O'Toole and Ralph Fiennes respectively), who convey both the intelligence and the self-destructiveness. What both films manage to work in without a single flashback scene or a "childhood" section was Lawrence' illegitimacy, and the psychological ramifications. (A Dangerous Man works in a quote from an actual letter, his "T.E.L fecit - faked it - even my name is a fake" line.) Both hint at Lawrence's death as something he at least deliberately courted, again without covering the last fifteen years of his life. In filmic terms, that was absolutely the right decision. A childhood section and a "and then he went to the air force, got booted out, went back, met the Shaws, met E.M. Forster, etc., etc." aftermath would have deadened the movies.
What I suppose I'm getting at: biopics work if the filmmakers treat the lives they are drawing from like they treat fictional material, not a check list of events they have to cover. Mind you, I'm not saying that this won't leave a part of the audience enraged. I absolutely can't stand Artemisia Gentileschi because it presents one of the crucial and most traumatizing events of this painter's life, a rape, as a love story, choosing to make her father into the villain coming between the lovers instead. But a friend of mine who didn't know anything about Artemisia's life loved it because he felt the characters and story came over as very vivid. Conversely, what is problematical about the biopic about Sylvia Plath starring Gwynneth Paltrow isn't that it concentrates on her relationship with Ted Hughes as opposed to showing her entire life, youth, first suicide attempt etc. pre-Hughes, but that it tried to interpret this as a "can't live with, can't live without" story but managed to avoid really showing what Plath and Hughes found so compelling and attractive about each other to begin with. With the result that both the pro-Plath and pro-Hughes factions ('shipper wars have nothing on this literary quarrel) felt somewhat dissatisfied.
One thing biopics have in common with fanfiction is that they present characters at least part of the readers/viewers feel they know already. I remember meeting novelist Gisbert Haefs earlier this year. He wrote about Alexander himself and absolutely despises the Mary Renault novels. Not having read his own Alexander novels, I presume that means they interpret the Macedon differently. Now when Alexander the Oliver Stone movie finally arrives here, a part of the audience will vaguely remember some dates of battles from their history lessons, some will not know anything at all, and some will have their image of Alexander formed by Renault, Haefs, or any of the other novelists tackling Alexander already and will judge the film depending on their expectations.
Kinsey, otoh, will have the advantage that probably hardly anybody knows more about the guy than that he existed. Or is that a disadvantage? After all, fanfic about Willy the Snitch or David Wabbit is bound to get less readers than the nth exploration of Spike or Angel.
***
Speaking of fanfic, I found this delightful story about Buffy and Faith on Christmas. Post-Chosen. Enjoy, I certainly did.
Lastly,
The ensuing relationship which developes between said middle-aged rich man, Hardenberg (who turns out to have been a rebel back in the 60s himself, before starting the profitable money-earning and ideals-compromising life), and Jan, Jule and Peter is one of the movie's highlights. As a reviewer said, Weingarten isn't just going for a portrait of the present youngsters but of the '68 generation as well, and he succeeds.
Another of the film's attractions is the way the obvious love triangle is solved. Instead of Jule choosing one of the boys, or Peter betraying the group out of jealousy, which would have been the conventional means, we get an emotionally believable threesome. Yes!
All in all a film with charme and verve. If it's shown outside of German speaking countries, have a look, you won't regret it.
***
So, the biopic of the year seems to be not Alexander but Kinsey. (Neither of which is shown in Germany yet.) Considering that Kinsey was written and directed by the excellent Bill Condon, he who gave us Gods and Monsters, and stars Liam Neeson, whom I've always liked, it doesn't surprise me to hear it's a good movie, though I'm not sure whether or not I would have gone to see it - not having any particular interest in the life of Kinsey, and the Kinsey report not having any particular relevance over here - if not for the rather ridiculous uproar capturing my attention. Some nutters comparing someone who compiled data of sexual habits with Mengele just beats some Greek lawyers complaining about Alexander being shown as bisexual in terms of sheer bizarreness.
Anyway, biopics: They have the reputation of being dull, which is unfair - there are enough exceptions not to make this a rule. The trap of the genre is, imo, attempting to go for a "from birth to death" approach, which just tries to shove in too many events and too many people within the two hours or even three hours a film has. (As opposed to a novel.) Not surprisingly, the biopics which succeeded in cinematic history concentrated on one or two periods of their subjects lives, and offered a different narrative. Condon's Gods and Monsters being a case in point. Despite the film being set near the end of James Whale's life, he manages to work in Whale's working class childhood and crucial WWI experiences as a young man via some short but perfectly placed scenes. Similarly with Ed Wood; it concentrates on the relationship between Ed and Bela Lugosi, and picks just the period during which Ed made the three movies he's most famous for, which heightens the emotional intensity to no end.
Now one might object that Whale and Wood for film directors, one praised, one ridiculed, but still neither living an "epic" life, and that a historical subject famous for waging battles or painting or sculpting or making important inventions is just harder to treat without dullness, because intimacy is difficult if you've got a cast of thousands. I don't think so. Gandhi is a biopic with a lot of famous mass shots that never manages to lose sight of its main character.
(Sidenote: Salman Rushdie couldn't stand Gandhi when it was first released, complaining that it simplified the Mahatma from a wily old fox to the archetypical saint from the East, that short-changed Jinnah by presenting him only negatively, and so forth. Later, he qualified his objections by noting that Gandhi the movie had some good effects in countries such as South Africa and so wasn't all bad, but still not accurate enough in important points. The thing is, no biopic ever made will get complete approval from historians. And what is quaintly called "artistic freedom" has a fine long tradition - just think of the competely propagandistic and inaccurate but highly memorable depiction of Richard III in Shakespeare's Richard III, or of Shakespeare's Pucelle, a Joan who is a sexual sorceress who achieved her victories via witchcraft and begs for her life in the most undignified manner possible once the manly English have captured her. So, whatever you're going to see in a play or biopic isn't THE TRUTH in capital letters. It's a truth. An interpretation that fits best with the creator's intentions.)
Or take The Last Emperor, which works on two timelines, intercutting older Pu Yi getting reeducated by the Communist Party with Pu Yi's life from early childhood till WWII. Of course, The Last Emperor goes for the anti-Great-Man narrative while choosing the epic exteriors, as Pu Yi is presented as the child kidnapped into royalty whose power is always illusionary. The attempts to gain actual power via an alliance with the Japanese backfire badly and are presented at the worst thing he could have done, taking which emotional ties he has managed to form away from him. What would be the normal tragic conclusion - becoming a prisoner - actually turns out, in this film's narrative, as salvation. Now you can argue whether or not presenting reeducation in a prisoner's camp as moral self-discovery is a good thing (Bertolucci tries to point out the shadow side by, in his epiloge, letting old Pu Yi discover his old camp director being horribly humiliated and forced to "confess" his unworthiness by the Red Guards), but it works within the context of the film, finishing the emotional journey around which it is structured.
Lawrence of Arabia, still my personal favourite movie, has, among its many virtues, Robert Bolt writing the script. Picking out the Arab Revolt as the time frame, it goes for a combination of public success and personal breakdown as its storyline, as well as some elements of Greek tragedy. Hubris and all. It's fascinating to compare and contrast A Dangerous Man, which tackles the enigmatic T.E. Lawrence as well, and wisely in a different manner - no epic landscapes, drawing rooms instead, as it deals with the negotiations in Versailles, and political intrigues instead of battles, long marches or life-or death questions. The mixture of fascination and self-loathing Lawrence felt with his own fame comes across strongly in both, and both have very good lead performers (Peter O'Toole and Ralph Fiennes respectively), who convey both the intelligence and the self-destructiveness. What both films manage to work in without a single flashback scene or a "childhood" section was Lawrence' illegitimacy, and the psychological ramifications. (A Dangerous Man works in a quote from an actual letter, his "T.E.L fecit - faked it - even my name is a fake" line.) Both hint at Lawrence's death as something he at least deliberately courted, again without covering the last fifteen years of his life. In filmic terms, that was absolutely the right decision. A childhood section and a "and then he went to the air force, got booted out, went back, met the Shaws, met E.M. Forster, etc., etc." aftermath would have deadened the movies.
What I suppose I'm getting at: biopics work if the filmmakers treat the lives they are drawing from like they treat fictional material, not a check list of events they have to cover. Mind you, I'm not saying that this won't leave a part of the audience enraged. I absolutely can't stand Artemisia Gentileschi because it presents one of the crucial and most traumatizing events of this painter's life, a rape, as a love story, choosing to make her father into the villain coming between the lovers instead. But a friend of mine who didn't know anything about Artemisia's life loved it because he felt the characters and story came over as very vivid. Conversely, what is problematical about the biopic about Sylvia Plath starring Gwynneth Paltrow isn't that it concentrates on her relationship with Ted Hughes as opposed to showing her entire life, youth, first suicide attempt etc. pre-Hughes, but that it tried to interpret this as a "can't live with, can't live without" story but managed to avoid really showing what Plath and Hughes found so compelling and attractive about each other to begin with. With the result that both the pro-Plath and pro-Hughes factions ('shipper wars have nothing on this literary quarrel) felt somewhat dissatisfied.
One thing biopics have in common with fanfiction is that they present characters at least part of the readers/viewers feel they know already. I remember meeting novelist Gisbert Haefs earlier this year. He wrote about Alexander himself and absolutely despises the Mary Renault novels. Not having read his own Alexander novels, I presume that means they interpret the Macedon differently. Now when Alexander the Oliver Stone movie finally arrives here, a part of the audience will vaguely remember some dates of battles from their history lessons, some will not know anything at all, and some will have their image of Alexander formed by Renault, Haefs, or any of the other novelists tackling Alexander already and will judge the film depending on their expectations.
Kinsey, otoh, will have the advantage that probably hardly anybody knows more about the guy than that he existed. Or is that a disadvantage? After all, fanfic about Willy the Snitch or David Wabbit is bound to get less readers than the nth exploration of Spike or Angel.
***
Speaking of fanfic, I found this delightful story about Buffy and Faith on Christmas. Post-Chosen. Enjoy, I certainly did.
Lastly,
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
movies
Date: 2004-12-09 08:00 am (UTC)Re: movies
Date: 2004-12-09 09:25 am (UTC)Also, it conveys a great sense of all the various political games going on at Versailles, with everybody having their own agenda, and there are great cameos of Winston Churchill (pre-fame; btw, I always loved the passage in which Lawrence describes Churchill to Charlotte Shaw, because Lawrence died before Churchill became a WWII legend, and thus rendered a portrait of a living man), Gertrud Bell (the only female orientalist at the time, and very important in getting Ibn Saud promoted over Faisal in terms of territory), et al.
Siddig el Fadil (aka Bashir) did have his movie debut here, yes. He plays Faisal. Different from Alec Guinness, because this film works in that Feisal was around 32 when the Versailles Conference took place (i.e. not the middle-aged wise prince Guinnes portrayed), but very good.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-09 08:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-09 09:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-09 08:20 am (UTC)I'll be at work until later this evening, so I have to ask: Is that Buffy 'n' Faith fic worksafe?
no subject
Date: 2004-12-09 09:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-09 01:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-09 02:13 pm (UTC)