Robert Harris: Precipe. A novel set shortly before the outbreak of WWI and during its first year, focused on the unlikely yet historical love affair between British Prime Minister H.H. Asquith and the decades younger Venitia Stanley, whom he wrote up to three letters a day. Reading this novel was weird for me because I had encountered this story before, in very clever and witty AU form; the fourth novel in Susan Howatch's Starbridge series, Scandalous Risks, tells the very same story, from Venitia's (she's called Venetia in this one, too, only Venetia Flaxton instead of Stanley) pov, and set in the early 1960s, instead of 1914, with the Asquith character a high ranking Anglican clergyman, not the PM. Now Scandalous Risks isn't even my favourite of the Starbridge novels and I have some nitpicks about it, but reading Precipe made me realise how good it is.

It's not that Precipe is bad. ( Some vaguely spoilery remarks about the novel. ) But nonetheless, I don't think the novel made me truly understand or believe what drew its central couple together to begin with. Or what really made them tick. And this is exactly what Susan Howatch as a writer excells at - with all her characters, up and including these two. Now, it's a bit unfair to compare her Neville Aygsgarth with Harris' H.H. Asquith, because Aygsgarth is one of the main characters in the Starbridgte series and at the point Scandalous Risks starts has already had a novel of his own, Ultimate Prizes, so the readers already know how the various paradoxical traits in him - the brain and iron ambition enabling the Yorkshire draper's son rising to the very top of the English class system versus the liberal and often sentimental idealism - intertwine. But Venetia Flaxton in Scandalous Risks versus Venetia Stanley in Precipe is a fair comparison - one novel each (up to the point where either ends, Venetia continues to be a recurring minor character in the rest of the Starbridge novels). Howatch within the novel makes me believe why this 26 years old has gone from just regarding the father of a friend (and a friend of her father's) as a mild crush to someone she has fallen obsessively in love with (and no, it's not the aphrodisiac of power), why she later is the one to end the relationship, and why nonetheless the entire affair damages her in the long term psychologically and emotionally. Harris' Venetia, by contract, just feels way too together from the outset to have let things go this far. I feel Harris' character would have been too sensible once she realised the PM wasn't just mildly flirting not to kindly turn him down, especially since Harris did not make me believe she's similarly in love. (I should clarify that Harris' Asquith isn't the type to to use any blackmail, nor does he have any leverage on her.)

Then, because i'm still sick, I browsed through the four hours diretor's cut version of Ridley Scott's Napoleon to check whether it significantly improves the film. Short answer: Not really. It does make more sense of Josephine, since much of the cut and now restored material are early scenes of hers, and more Vanessa Kirby is always a good thing. But the basic problems of the film are too deeply engrained to be improved by that. (Short version of said problems: Joaquin Phoenix way too old and too dour, showing Napoleon with no human relationships other than Josephine - not with members of his family, not with any of the Marshals - and not showing what Napoleonic France and occupied Europe actually was like leaves you with an endless series of battles and wannabe Edward Albee scenes as a movie, and one which simply doesn't work. For a longer critque, see here. I will say the director's cut version has one scene not starring Josephine which I liked and thought was a neat twist (though it was about her in a big way), and that's when Napoleon after he's become Emperor orders the guy who was Josephine's lover during his Italian Campaign, Hippolyte Charles, to him. Charles goes with weak knees, convinced this is it, now it will be revenge time, though at this point the affair was years ago, but stlll, Napoleon isn't famous for being nice in these matters. They are alone. But instead of going on a roaring rampage of revenge.... Napoleon asks Hippolyte Charles for sex tips. His intimate life with Josephine improves as a result. So that was unexpected and against clichés, but not enough to save the film. Short of getting different scriptwriters and/or doing a miniseries and definitely cast someone other than Phoenix as Napoleon, I'm not sure anything could have.

For All Mankind 4.03: ( Which I can't comment on spoiler free, so have an immediate cut. )

Napoleon: On a scale of Ridley Scott historical movies which go from being an unholy and not entertaining mess with good visuals (Kingdom of Heaven) via massively entertaining and good visuals but also full of historical nonsense (Gladiator) to actually good, both emotionally and intellectually captivating and giving the impression of having done their research, good visuals a given (The Last Duel), this one, alas, is on the lower end of the scale. And no, not because Ridley Scott glorifies Napoleon (he doesn't). Yes, he doesn't mention the reintroduction of slavery, but given everything else, both good and bad, he leaves out, that's really not a factor in why this film doesn't work for me. I mean, the battles he picked are predictably well done, and I suspect they were a big reason why he wanted to do the movie in the first place, but that's just not enough for a story, and the human element he chose to be the emotional red thread, the relationship between Napoleon and Josephine, just doesn't work the way he wants it to and only illustrates that it's anything but simple to do compelling "can't live with, can't live without'" type of co dependent relationships in a way that click (for me, it's imo as always). The classics are of course George and Martha in Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?, but to name a less famous and still excellent example of the trope: Ellen and Saul Tigh on Battlestar Galactica. Granted, that one had several seasons to flesh them out, and this is a movie, not a series, but still, I think the Tighs are a good example of what the movie wanted to show with its versions of Napoleon and Josephine. The Tighs on BSG' are bad for each other and they bring out genuine heroics and selflessness in each other. We see them argue and revile each other, we see them comfort and be tender with each other, and (very important this) we see them have fun as well as making each other miserable. Ellen cheats on Saul on a regular basis, but she also is ready to be tortured and die for him if needs be. (This is presented to the audience in a show, not tell way.) Saul goes to pieces without her. Meanwhile, Napoleon the movie wants us to believe Napoleon and Josephine are this kind of couple, but unfortunately the movie completely avoids showing us the two of them having good times (beyond having sex). At all. So "They're obsessed with each other" is a claim made without any emotional fodder as substance. This is not Vanessa Kirby's fault, who is charismatic and compelling as Josephine, but Joaquin Phoenix is so incredibly one note dour as Napoleon (I think we see him smile or laugh only twice in the entire near three hours movie, once during his wedding with Josephine), and the script avoids any mention of pragmatic reasons for Josephine to marry him in the first place (like the fact she was in debts and he was at this point clearly an up and coming star in the military, plus for all his faults, he was a very good stepfather to her children both in the human interaction and in the providing for sense), that the relationship just does not make sense on her part. At all. And this is literally the only relationship Napoleon has in the entire movie, with anyone, which means the movie falls apart on that front.

Seriously: never mind the fact mistresses once he's Emperor are mentioned briefly but not shown - letting Napoleon interact a bit with Josephine's children would have done wonders in terms of making him human, which isn't the same as excusing him, btw. Not only would it have been actually with a foundation in history, you could have done it without needing much additional screen time - think of the scene with Boromir teaching Merry and Pippin how to sword fight in Fellowship of the Ring, which is also used for Aragorn and Gandalf to have expositionary dialogue. As it is, he talks a bit with Eugene at the start, but Hortense isn't named in the entire film, you just see her in the background occasionally, and then they have a conversation after Josephine is dead and he's back from Elba. Also, the only brother of Napoleon's who is mentioned by name and shown is Lucien, and when that happened I first thought, good, it's the most interesting brother after all, but then Lucien disappears after the Brumaire coup just when the relationship gets interesting and is not seen again. He's still luckier than the other brothers and all of the sisters. No Pauline, no Elisa, no Caroline. (Never mind Napoleon handing over territory for them to rule.) (Also, Pauline was his favourite and the only sibling to visit him on Elba, proving she wasn't just seeing him as the source of family riches.) Mother Letitia, Madame Mère, has two brief cameos, and that's it. And the Marshals? Junot gets given an order by name at Toulon, and I tihink Marmont is mentioned somewhere, but that's it. If you don't know who Michel Ney was, he's That Guy With the Moustache Talking To Napoleon early in the battle of Waterloo. Also entirely about military matters, no sense of what type of relationship they have. (Jo Graham won't like that movie.) And then, connectedly, there are Napoleon and the soldiers. We get a scene, very briefly, en route to Russia of him handing out some bread to some of them, and that's the first and only time he does something that could be used to explain why they would believe he cares about them.

Sidenote here: Just so we don't misunderstand each other, I don't mean that Napoleon should have been shown as someone mourning for every soldier dying in his battles. I mean, by all means, film, make the point his ambition excells any consideration for human life. But there's a reason why he was incredibly popular with the army, and why he could return from Elba with no soldiers and pick up an army en route to Paris, with the Bourbons, who start out with an army, fleeing before he arrives. The film even uses one of the rl events that showcase this, but because there has been zero preparation for it until this point, it falls emotionally flat. The sequence of events as shown: Napoleon encounters one of the army units sent to intercept him. (This happened a few times, most famously with those commanded by Ney, but since Ney doesn't get either name or characterisation in this film...) He pulls off a "take up your sword again or take up me"', to use the Shakespeare quote from Richard III by facing them unarmed, coming closer and talking to them, saying he's not going to fight them, he misses them and wants them back, if they want to shoot him, go ahead, and the soldiers who start out aiming their guns at him end up calling "Vive l' Empereur" and defecting to him in totem. This does happen in the movie, but, like I said, because there's no preparation, and because Joaquin Phoenix plays Napoleon as someone whom you can't believe would be at any point be actually loved by his men, it just doesn't work. Meanwhile, the decades old film Waterloo, which didn't have Napoleon's entire career to cover or to prepare this, does it perfectly. Check out Rod Steiger as Napoleon showing Scott and Phoenix how it's done:




And Waterloo doesn't present Napoleon as the hero of the tale. He's an impressive antagonist, but he is the antagonist in that movie. Which also doesn't exclude his vanity and unwillingness to accept blame.

Another thing: Joaquin Phoenix is now the right age for Napoleon at Waterloo, but not for most of the movie, and especially not for young Bonaparte, who was in his 20s during final years of the French Revolution. This means not only Josephine but Barras (!!!!) look younger than Napoleon instead of older when he initially meets them. So, for that matter, does Marie Antoinette, because the movie in its introduction scene employs the very Anglophone shorthand for "French Revolution bad" by opening with Marie Antoinette's execution and Robespierre ranting in the convent before getting toppled in the next scene he shows up in. (About that execution: we actually have a sketch by David showing us MA on the way to the Guillontine, so we know exactly how she looked. In this film, she's wearing a blue dress and has long curly flowing hair, worn open, which, wtf? You don't need to be a historical expert to know why women (and long haired men, which was most of them in that time) had their hair tied back before a beheading. For God's sake.) Robespierre, btw, is aged up and looks like he's in his fifties instead of in his early 30s when he dies, but I guess that means he at least does not look younger than "young" Captain Bonaparte. The actor who plays Tallyrand (and has the distinction of getting three actual scenes being clever and negotiating) looks about the same age as Phoenix, the actor playing Fouché, who is in one single scene where he doesn't do anything but is named so we know he's around, looks like he's in his late 60s. In the time of the Directorate. In conclusion: given Phoenix was good as Commodus back in the Gladiator day, I understand why Ridley Scott wanted to work with him again, butr really: he shouldn't have. I'm not sure any actor on his lonesome could have made Napoleon interesting and human, given the script doesn't bother with any relationship but Josephine and fails to make that one believable, but maybe a younger actor and/or one with more facial flexibility could have saved something.

(I suppose Rupert Everett as Wellington near the end is having fun and it shows, but he's the only one in the movie. Which, to give credit where due, does emphasize there would not have been a victory for the Brits without the Prussians arriving in the nick of time, something not often emphasized in something created by an Englishman.)

In conclusion: for a truly interesting historical Ridley Scott movie dealing with French history, watch the Last Duel. Not this one. For a film with an interesting Napoleon which gets across both the charme and the inhumanity, without battles needed for the later, you could do worse than Napoleon and Me. For sheer battle spectacle, Waterloo, by all means, shot without GCI in ye olde days.

Aka the film famous for, in no particular order: Ridley Scott deleting Kevin Spacey as J. Paul Getty one month before the scheduled release, reshooting all the relevant scenes with Christopher Plummer as Getty, Plummer being so good in said part that he got his last Oscar nomination for it, the film actually getting released on schedule, and the belated reveal that Michelle Williams got stiffed in terms of reshoot salaries, getting far less than Mark Wahlberg despite doing the same a mount of work. Having seen the movie now: it's even more unfair since her character really carries the film, and she's superb in every scene.

This said: the film, built around the kidnapping of J.P. Getty III. in the mid 1970s, is a solid thriller. Some of Ridley Scotts latter day movies can be self indulgent, but this one never felt that way to me. It works as a tense thriller and a morality play, with some superb acting (Michelle Williams and Christopher Plummer being the standouts, which is good since their characters are the protagonist and antagonist of the film). Also, the editor, Claire Simpson, is awesome: you really can't tell about the reshoots. Googling reviews and reading wiki entries as well as using some assumptions, it's guessable which parts of the film depart from reality the most, to wit, most physical action sequences like young J.P. Getty III's escape attempt, Gail (Michelle Williams' character) and Fletcher Chace (Wahlberg) being anywhere near events like the police trying to bust the original kidnappers, and making J.P. Getty's II's drug addled state even worse so that he's basically out of commission during the majority of the film, leaving Gail as the sole parent who has to deal with the kidnapping.

Otoh, all the examples of the sheer amount of Getty the First's miserliness seem to be solid canon, so to speak, and they are indeed beyond anything Charles Dickens lets Scrooge display. Where the cast-upon-incredible-short-notice Plummer really earns his plaudits is that he gets across the monstrosity of all this greed as well as the intelligence and cunning that enabled Getty to make his cash in the first place, and the longing for beauty (and, which is a different issue, to own beauty) that produced the collections currently on display in Los Angeles. Oh, and the megalomania. When he tells his grandson Paul in a flashback (when Paul is still a child), walking with him through the Villa Adriana, Hadrian's old stomping grounds, that he's really a reincarnation of Hadrian and discovering this place was the first time he felt at home anywhere, Plummer plays this utterly straight. There are other scenes where Getty is bullshitting people and Plummer gets his famous twinkle on, but not this one. The movie's Getty really believes this is true, never mind that if he thinks Hadrian had "concubines" (as opposed to, famously, the lover he later deified, Antinous), he clearly hasn't a clue about the original.

Michelle Williams as his former daughter-in-law Gail has the less showy but way more central part. The script takes care not to make her a saint; in the first flashback, we see her push her then husband, J.P. Getty II., to reconcile with his estranged father (whom she doesn't know at this point), clearly with an eye of getting out of the small flat they're currently living in. But she quickly becomes wise to the sheer amount of fucked upness that comes with the living-ike-a-Getty territory. The script is careful to let most of the film's developments result from the decisions Gail makes. Because in her divorce negotiations, she offered to forego any money (other than alimony for the kids) in exchange for being granted full custody, she really does not have the money to pay the kidnappers once her son is kidnapped and is depended on somehow making her ex father-in-law, who a) is still irritated about that, b) doesn't want to pay out of sheer miserly principle, something compounded once his sidekick finds out his grandson used to joke about staging his own kidnapping, produce the money.

Incidentally: the kidnappers, with one exception, remain peripheral figures - little bads, since the Big Bad is definitely Getty himself. They provide the physical menace, but the emotional dynamic that carries the movie comes from Getty's unwillingness to part with a non tax deductible dime vs Gail's determination to save her son. Their shared scenes are few - since Getty prefers to let flunkies deal with Gail - but precious and a masterclass in acting, since Gail really does have Getty's number and Michelle Williams manages to convey the way Gail somehow manages to channel desperation into even greater resolve and brings her own considerable intelligence on the table.

As for the kidnapped Paul aka Getty 3, he's played by Charlie Plummer (no relation), going from cocky rich teen to increasingly emotionally stripped down kidnapping victim. The standout scene being That Spoilery Thing Which Really Happened During The Kidnapping, which is also a directorial tour de force by Scott since it manages to convey the horror without coming across as exploitative.

But the two scenes that remain with me most right now both involve Gail. One is when Gail finds out what a present her father-in-law gave young Paul during the later's childhood really is worth. There isn't a word said. Michelle Williams does it all through body language and expression. But this is a "big" scene, so to speak. The other, otoh, is a quiet one. At the very end of the film, ( real life spoiler cut just in case ).

In conclusion: the woman should have won an Oscar. Also I'm glad I finally got around to watching this movie. (On Netflix.)

This was another film which deeply divided my flist into nays and yays..  As it finally was released in Germany yesterday, I watched it myself, and am firmly among the yays. It's an individual reaction. You may not share it.  But let me explain why I loved a great deal of what I saw.

( Read more... )

andrastewhite and myself are clearly destined to geeky supervillaindom. She wrote another scene for our threatened Trio subplot to Once More, With Feeling. Go and and admire hers here. Then read mine again. I'm narcistic like that.

Thelma & Louise I loved from the moment I watched it first in the cinema all those years ago, but had not seen for a while until aquiring the new DVD. So worth it, people. Not just because the movie is gorgeous, but because we get two sets of commentaries - Ridley Scott doing the director's pov, and on a separate track, Susan Sarandon, Geena Davis and Callie Khouri giving us the actresses and writer's pov. Both commentaries are fascinating, but because I know ide_cyan is more curious about the girls, I'll describe theirs first, then Scott's.

( They said…and then he said… )