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Film Still Archive 18
American Psycho

American Psycho, directed by Mary Harron in 2000 (based on a 1991 novel of the same title written by Bret Easton Ellis), starring Christian Bale, Willem Dafoe, Chloë Sevigny, Resse Witherspoon, Jared Leto, Justin Theroux, and Josh Lucas.

Christian Bale’s performance as the absurdly monsterous Patrick Bateman is, for me, one of his most defining roles. Bale’s portrayal of Bret Easton Ellis’ eldest Bateman brother character is completely captivating, and since first seeing American Psycho, I have trouble accepting Bale as himself or as any of the characters he plays in other films. I can’t help but see Patrick Bateman.

Bruce Wayne is Batman? No, that’s Patrick Bateman as Batman. A little older and wiser (and with a deeper voice), Bateman has moved on: from mergers and acquisitions and killing for sport; to “Bateman Enterprises” and fighting crime in Gotham City. John Connor? Who’s that? No, that’s Patrick Bateman leading the human resistance against Skynet. Even while watching Bale’s performance as John Rolfe in Terrence Malick’s The New World, I couldn’t get Patrick Bateman out of my mind.

Bateman’s lasting persona and the wide-reaching impression of his egregious acts upon current film and television culture are a result of the combination of Easton Ellis’ influential writing and imagination, of Herron’s visualization, and of Bale’s impeccable manifestation of the character.

That which has left a wide-reaching impression on Bateman himself are the melodic and message laden musical masterpieces of Huey Lewis & The News, Phil Collins, and Whitney Houston. Below, Bateman’s deeply considered monologue about Phil Collins which he nonchalantly delivers while simultaneously giving orders to the prostitutes he has hired:

Do ya like Phil Collins? I’ve been a big Genesis fan, ever since the release of their 1980 album, Duke. Before that, I really didn’t understand any of their work. It was too artsy. Too intellectual. It was on Duke where, uh... Phil Collins’ presence became more apparent.

I think Invisible Touch is the group’s undisputed masterpiece. It’s an epic meditation on intangibility. At the same time it deepens and enriches the meaning of the preceding three albums. Christie, take off the robe.

Listen to the brillant ensemble playing of Banks, Collins, and Rutherford. You can practically hear every nuance of every instrument. Sabrina, remove your dress.

In terms of lyrical craftsmanship and shear song writing, this album hits a new peak of professionalism. Sabrina, why don’t you, um, dance a little.

Take the lyrics to “Land of Confusion.” In this song, Phil Collins addresses the problems of abusive political authority. “In Too Deep” is the most moving pop song of the 1980’s, about monogamy and commitment. The song is extremely uplifting. Their lyrics are as positive, affirmative, as, uh... anything I’ve heard in rock. Christie, get down on your knees so Sabrina can see your asshole.

Phil Collins’ solo career seems to be more commercial and therefore more satisfying in a narrower way. Especially songs like “In the Air Tonight” and, uh, “Against All Odds.” Sabrina, don’t just stare at it, eat it. But I also think Phil Collins works best within the confines of the group, than as a solo artist. And I stress the word, artist!

(Patrick starts a song on the stereo system)

This is “Sussudio,” a great, great song. A personal favorite.

Film Still Archive 17
Los abrazos rotos

Los abrazos rotos (Broken Embraces), written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar in 2009, starring Penélope Cruz, Lluís Homar, Blanca Portillo, José Luis Gómez, Rubén Ochandiano, Tamar Novas, and Ángela Molina.

The most critical reviewers of Los abrazos rotos (Broken Embraces) will lead you to believe that Almodóvar’s 2009 film was uncharacteristically underdeveloped in terms of its story lines and nothing more than a rehashing of his past ideas and visual creations. Their critiques may be worth considering, though if you’re like me, and are enamored by Almodóvar’s seductive stories and images, by his love for his medium, and by his rich and idiosyncratic body of references,* why allow a critic’s inherently contentious review to impede your ability to become immersed in this epitome of the cinematic form?

Marsha Kinder’s essay, from the Spring 2010 issue of Film Quarterly (see pp. 28–34), titled “Restoring Broken Embraces” should prove enlightening for those seeking post-viewing introspection of the film’s story or for those who simply seek deconstructive insight into Los abrazos rotos (Broken Embraces) and of the themes present in Almodóvar’s oeuvre.

* Below are a select number of excerpts, from Kinder’s essay, to illustrate the range of Almodóvar’s referentiality.

On Magritte (p. 30):
“The white sheets, in which [Ernesto] and Lena’s tangled bodies are swathed ... evoke the anonymous mummified figures in Magritte’s surrealistic series, The Lovers, similarly entombed in a dead relationship.”

On the digital image (p. 30):
“Although Broken Embraces pays homage to ‘the moviola ... and to all the magnetic and photographic material that new technology has swept from the editing rooms,’ Almodóvar acknowledges the power of digital imagery. ... ‘I’m willing to embrace the new techniques, the same way that Mateo embraces on the television the kiss that is so digitally enlarged that it looks totally broken on the screen. It is precisely the flickering of the pixelation that makes the image so forceful.’”

On the film’s most expressive image (p. 33):
“At one point we see thousands of fragments from torn photographs of Mateo and Lena embracing, forming a giant collage that fills the entire screen. Almodóvar calls it the film’s ‘most expressive image,’ one that evokes not only the title Broken Embraces but also the film’s underlying database structure. Diego selects a few fragments and begins reassembling them like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. This is the same process he and Mateo later follow in restoring the original version of Girls and Suitcases.”

On the Oedipal myth (p. 33):
“... Broken Embraces emphasizes fathers and sons. Although it contains several story fragments from the Oedipal myth—blindness, flashbacks, a son’s desire to kill his father, a father’s failure to recognize his son, a fatal meeting at the crossroads, the name Ray X (which sounds like Rex)—they are reshuffled to create a different story.”

On Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (p. 34):
“In Broken Embraces, the most explicit Almodóvar intertext is Women on the Verge, his first crossover success in the global market and the film being remixed in Mateo’s Girls and Suitcases. Pina’s laments about Ivan, her gazpacho spiked with sleeping pills, burned bed, discarded phone, and suitcase full of cocaine—these elements make the connections to Women on the Verge impossible to miss, but (like those from the Oedipal myth) they are reshuffled.”

In the New York Herald, November 26, year 1911, there is an account of the hanging of three men. They died for the murder of Sir Edmund William Godfrey; Husband, Father, Pharmacist and all around gentle-man resident of: Greenberry Hill, London. He was murdered by three vagrants whose motive was simple robbery. They were identified as: Joseph Green, Stanley Berry, and Daniel Hill. Green, Berry, Hill. And I Would Like To Think This was Only A Matter Of Chance.

As reported in the Reno Gazette, June of 1983 there is the story of a fire, the water that it took to contain the fire, and a scuba diver named Delmer Darion. Employee of the Peppermill Hotel and Casino, Reno, Nevada. Engaged as a blackjack dealer. Well liked and well regarded as a physical, recreational and sporting sort, Delmer’s true passion was for the lake. As reported by the coroner, Delmer died of a heart attack somewhere between the lake and the tree. A most curious side note is the suicide the next day of Craig Hansen. Volunteer firefighter, estranged father of four and a poor tendency to drink. Mr. Hansen was the pilot of the plane that quite accidentally lifted Delmer Darion out of the water. Added to this, Mr. Hansen’s tortured life met before with Delmer Darion just two nights previous. The weight of the guilt and the measure of coincidence so large, Craig Hansen took his life.

And I Am Trying To Think This Was All Only A Matter Of Chance.

The tale told at a 1961 awards dinner for the American Association Of Forensic Science by Dr. Donald Harper, president of the association, began with a simple suicide attempt. Seventeen-year-old Sydney Barringer. In the city of Los Angeles on March 23, 1958. The coroner ruled that the unsuccessful suicide had suddenly become a successful homicide. To explain: The suicide was confirmed by a note, left in the breast pocket of Sydney Barringer. At the same time young Sydney stood on the ledge of this nine-story building, an argument swelled three stories below. The neighbors heard, as they usually did, the arguing of the tenants and it was not uncommon for them to threaten each other with a shotgun, or one of the many handguns kept in the house. And when the shotgun accidentaly went off, Sydney just happened to pass.

Added to this, the two tenants turned out to be: Faye and Arthur Barringer. Sydney’s mother and Sydney’s father. When confronted with the charge, which took some figuring out for the officers on the scene of the crime, Faye Barringer swore that she did not know that the gun was loaded. A young boy who lived in the building, sometimes a visitor and friend to Sydney Barringer, said that he had seen, six days prior, the loading of the shotgun. It seems that the arguing and the fighting and all of the violence was far too much for Sydney Barringer, and knowing his mother and father’s tendency to fight, he decided to do something. Sydney Barringer jumps from the ninth floor rooftop. His parents argue three stories below. Her accidental shotgun blast hits Sydney in the stomach as he passes the arguing sixth-floor window. He is killed instantly but continues to fall, only to find, three stories below, a safety net installed three days prior for a set of window washers that would have broken his fall and saved his life if not for the hole in his stomach. So Faye Barringer was charged with the murder of her son, and Sydney Barringer noted as an accomplice in his own death.

And it is in the humble opinion of this narrator that this is not just “Something That Happened.” This cannot be “One of Those Things...” This, please, cannot be that. And for what I would like to say, I can’t. This Was Not Just A Matter Of Chance. Ohhhh. These strange things happen all the time.

Film Still Archive 15
Reprise

Reprise, written and directed by Joachim Trier in 2006, starring Anders Danielsen Lie and Espen Klouman-Høiner.

Reprise, Norwegian director Joachim Trier’s first feature length film (and subsequently his first film to be seen and reviewed widely), is by the directors own admission heavily influenced by such factors as his own personal experiences growing up in Norway as well as the works of many classic auteurs and their films.

In addition to the influences that Trier has cited within interviews, many reviewers and film critics have also reported their own best guesses as to Trier’s directorial and narrative inspirations. One interview and article after the next, Trier’s influences are noted and amplified by the next writer and reviewer who then attempts to dissect Trier and his creation even further (asking of themselves and other filmgoers: Who is this director? What does he read? Who does he study?).

After reading through many of these interviews and articles about Reprise and Trier I noticed that writers and reviewers—being dealt with the task of analyzing the work of a relatively unheard of director and a film from a country that rarely produces films at this scale—may have been putting a fair amount of emphasis on Trier’s personal influences and cinematic inspirations because they had no context or reference points in which to base Trier and his well received film.

Below, from a source of four different interviews and articles, I have extracted certain keywords, ideas, themes, and descriptors that the aforementioned writers and reviewers have attributed to Trier and Reprise. Note that, despite the fact that some of these attributions find themselves out of context, it will help to think of each of these excerpts as unabbreviated post tags that begin to summarize and quickly define who director Joachim Trier is and what Reprise revolves around and defines as a cinematic work.

Interview with Norwegian Film Institute:
⋅ Unpleasant clash between youthful presumptions and reality
⋅ Very un-Norwegian
⋅ French New Wave
⋅ François Truffaut’s Jules and Jim
⋅ Self referentiality
⋅ Weak sense of [Norwegian] cultural identity
⋅ Themes of depression, suicide, and insanity
⋅ Cold winters
⋅ Bergman-esque contemplation

Article from Dennis Lim, New York Times:
⋅ Intellectuals in training
⋅ Bataille and Barthes
⋅ Punk-rock posters and LPs
⋅ Boy culture
⋅ Sofia Coppola
⋅ The Virgin Suicides
⋅ Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now
⋅ Steven Soderbergh’s The Limey
⋅ Alain Resnais
⋅ Artists escaping the Norwegian Arctic
⋅ A hybrid soundtrack: the mope rock of Joy Division, the feminist art punk
of Le Tigre and the death metal of the Norwegian headbangers Turbonegro
⋅ Postmodern form of pastiche
⋅ A rebellion against the Norwegian dramatic tradition

Interview with Aaron Hillis of Independent Film Channel:
⋅ Mother is a documentarian
⋅ Father is a sound department tech
⋅ Grandfather is a Cannes-selected filmmaker
⋅ Distant cousin of Lars von Trier
⋅ Soundtrack featuring the theme from Godard’s Contempt
⋅ Two writers writing about two writers
⋅ Mixture of high and low culture
⋅ Themes of alienation and self-doubt
⋅ Jens Lekman
⋅ Swedish pop band Doktor Kosmos
⋅ Falkenberg Farewell

Article from Manohla Dargis, New York Times:
⋅ Punk-rock bildungsroman
⋅ Buzzing with energy and steeped in the classics (Heidegger, Joy Division)
⋅ Prosopopoeia
⋅ Paul de Man

Film Still Archive 14
25th Hour

25th Hour, directed by Spike Lee in 2002, starring Edward Norton, Rosario Dawson, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Barry Pepper, and Brian Cox.

During the process of developing the novel (written by David Benioff) into the screenplay for 25th Hour, Monty Brogan’s (played by Norton) hate-filled-rant monologue was originally excluded. The rant, as the book’s author had intended, was simply an inner monologue (or just a passing thought) of Monty Brogan’s and therefore was not immediately considered as a scene for the film.

Below are a few short excerpts from an interview—with Norton and Lee on the Charlie Rose show on January 10, 2003—that further elaborate on this dramatic rant monologue.

Edward Norton: We should say that it [the rant monologue] is directly derived from the book. We all—Spike, me, and David [Benioff]—sort of contributed little enhancements based on where we are now in the world and what has happened. But that, as a concept or as a moment—that moment of this character mentally lashing out and trying to blame everyone else—is directly from his book.

Charlie Rose: But he’s blaming society and not an individual, right?

Spike Lee: And what’s interesting though, Charlie, is that when I read the script, as I said before, I didn’t know that it was a novel. So I went back to the novel, [to] that scene we were just talking about [in reference to the absence of the rant monologue in the film’s script]. ... So I called David Benioff and I said ‘David, where is this scene!’ And he said, ‘well it got developed out’ and I said ‘put it back in.’

Edward Norton: Well, without insulting anybody, I do think at times that’s the difference between, sometimes, a writer or producers and a filmmaker—this is a moment in a book, it’s a defining moment for this character, it’s the moment at which, I think, he begins to accept personal responsibility. But in the book it’s a very interior moment and I can easily see a lot of people saying ‘well that’s not cinematic,’ so it disappears. And what I’ve always liked about Spike’s films is that I don’t think that he has ever been constrained by the parameters of the literal. And I think that here’s that defining moment that’s an interior monologue in a book but he found this way to make it very explosively cinematic, very visually dynamic and those are the moments, for me, that push a film into the realm of Film. When you can push the medium to be able to transpose a moment like that, then that’s great.

Film Still Archive 13
Lust, Caution

Lust, Caution (Se, jie), directed by Ang Lee in 2007, starring Tony Leung Chiu Wai and introducing Wei Tang.

Manhola Dargis (New York Times) and Peter Bradshaw (The Guardian) compare Lust, Caution to Brokeback Mountain (both directed by Lee). Interestingly, by comparing the two films, both reviewers suggest certain deficiencies they saw in Lust, Caution:

Manhola Dargis, New York Times:
“... Ang Lee, the Taiwanese-born, Hollywood-cultivated filmmaker who brought Brokeback Mountain to the screen. In that earlier romance, the love between two male sheepherders can scarcely speak its name, much less easily drop its jeans; by contrast, there’s little left to the imagination in Lust, Caution, other than the inspiration for Mr. Lee’s newfound flirtation with kink.” — Read Dargis’ the full review here.

Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian:
“... The streetscapes in Shanghai are spectacular and it’s a wonderfully satisfying experience, though it has to be said that the film does not offer the same unmediated insight into the minds and hearts of its lovers that Brokeback Mountain did. Fundamentally, we all felt that we knew, really knew, what it felt like for the two cowboys to be in love; here the question is a little more difficult.” — Read Bradshaw’s full review here.

Film Still Archive 10
Persona

Persona, directed by Ingmar Bergman in 1966, starring Liv Ullmann and Bibi Andersson.

The conversation below is from Bergman on Bergman: Interviews with Ingmar Bergman (Simon & Schuster, Inc., New York, 1973). Excerpts from pages 202 and 203.

IB (Ingmar Bergman)
TM (Torsten Manns)
SB (Stig Björkman)

TM: [...] Originally Persona means the mask used by actors in classical drama. It can also mean the various personages in a play. But Jung has a definition which I think suits your film admirably [...]. The consciously artificial or masked personality complex which is adopted by an individual in contrast to his inner character, with intent to serve as a protection, a defense, a deception or an attempt to adapt to the world around him.

[...]

TM: Perhaps we should talk about the effect which occurs when Bibi Andersson’s face suddenly flutters; and we see Liv Ullmann, and suddenly the image becomes static for a while.

IB: The girls didn’t know I meant to do that. It was an idea that came to me while we were shooting. We were out on Fårö and had sent that bit in—the bit where the dark side of one face is complemented by the light side of the other—to be printed. When the scene came back from the lab, we put it into the movieola and I asked the girls to come and see something amusing—a surprise.

We set the machine running, and Liv said: ‘Oh look, what a horrible picture of Bibi!’ And Bibi said: ‘No, it’s not me, it’s you!’ Then the picture stopped. Everyone’s face has a better and a worse side, and the picture is a combination of Bibi’s and Liv’s less attractive sides. At first they were so scared they didn’t even recognize their own faces. What they should have said was: ‘What the hell have you done with my face?’ But they didn’t! They didn’t recognize their own faces. I find that rather an odd reaction.

SB: So the scene is made in the lab?

IB: Yes, it was very easy to put the corresponding light sides together because one half of the scene is in virtual darkness.

TM: That’s when Alma begins to become schizophrenic; her speech disintegrates. She notices that the other woman is projecting herself into her. With her.

IB: Yes, words cease to exist for her.

TM: But that’s part of the schizophrenic syndrome.

IB: As I see it, Alma’s aggressions in this dream situation take on such enormous proportions she finds she can no longer use words. She becomes violently disturbed; loses her ability to express herself. She’s like a machine that has gone to pieces but just goes on turning madly, and her words, without any ordered context, just come tumbling out. Bibi found it frightfully hard to memorize those word-series. To learn a totally meaningless series of words by heart is said to be about the hardest thing you can do.

Film Still Archive 8
Fargo

Fargo, directed and written by Joel and Ethan Coen in 1996, starring William H. Macy, Steve Buscemi, Frances McDormand, and Peter Stormare.

Mr. Mohra: So, I’m tendin’ bar there at Ecklund and Swedlin’s last Tuesday and this little guy’s drinkin’ and he says, “So where can a guy find some action? I’m goin’ crazy out there at the lake.” And I says, “What kinda action?” and he says, “Woman action, what do I look like?” And I says, “Well, what do I look like, I don’t arrange that kinda thing,” and he says, “I’m goin’ crazy out there at the lake,” and I says, “Well, this ain’t that kinda place.”

Officer Olson: Uh-huh.

Mr. Mohra: So he says, “So I get it, so you think I’m some kinda jerk for askin’,” only he doesn’t use the word jerk.

Officer Olson: I understand.

Mr. Mohra: And then he calls me a jerk and says the last guy who thought he was a jerk was dead now. So I don’t say nothin’ and he says, “What do ya think about that?” So I says, “Well, that don’t sound like too good a deal for him then.”

Officer Olson: Ya got that right.

Mr. Mohra: And he says, “Yah, that guy’s dead and I don’t mean of old age.” And then he says, “Geez, I’m goin’ crazy out there at the lake.”

Officer Olson: White Bear Lake?

Mr. Mohra: Well, Ecklund & Swedlin’s, that’s closer ta Moose Lake, so I made that assumption.

Officer Olson: Oh sure.

Mr. Mohra: So, ya know, he’s drinkin’, so I don’t think a whole great deal of it, but Mrs. Mohra heard about the homicides down here and she thought I should call it in, so I called it in. End o’ story.

Officer Olson: What’d this guy look like anyway?

Mr. Mohra: Oh, he was a little guy. Kinda funny lookin’.

Officer Olson: Uh-huh. In what way?

Mr. Mohra: Oh, just in a general kinda way.

Film Still Archive 7
Hable con ella

Hable con ella, directed and written by Pedro Almodóvar in 2002, starring Javier Cámara, Darío Grandinetti, Leonor Watling, and Rosario Flores.

There is little dispute that Almodóvar lacks any ability to create films that are psychologically complex, clever in their narrative interweavings, and aesthetically honed. Almodóvar’s Hable con ella is no exception and, in my opinion, is one of the director’s most alluring films in terms of the visual and musical landscapes he assembles.

One such scene, that despite adding nothing to the development of the plotline except for a continuity in the overall mood, is Caetano Veloso’s cameo appearance where he beautifully performs his song, Cucurrucucu Paloma.