Critical Defense

In “Friend Indeed Who Doesn’t Judge or Flinch” Manholia Dargis is not pulling any punches in her discussion of Romanian filmmaker (Cristian Munguin) “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days”. In fact, she throws so many punches, I wonder if she doesn’t have a manuscript for her forthcoming book tucked away somewhere in her flat. This article is principally concerned with the status of art within contemporary culture. The intersections, however, are aplenty, as Ms. Dargis takes on the Academy, Pro-Lifers, representations of pregnancy in American popular culture and even arts criticism itself! With all of these topics colliding in one article, one may certainly wonder if Ms. Dargis’ has left enough space for the film.

The lede, while captivating, establishes the precedent for the remainder of the piece both in its size and scope: “[T]he camera doesn’t follow the action, it expresses consciousness itself”. Admittedly, Ms. Dargis brings the topic back to earth when she locates this ‘consciousness’ in the plight of a young woman in State controlled Romania in the 1980s.
Nevertheless, as is evident in Dargis’ swift transition to the film’s European acclaim and American neglect, Dargis has another ‘consciousness’ in mind.

Dargis is angry with the Academy for ignoring the film because the recognition would certainly prompt wide-release of the film. To this, Dargis adds the additional claim that this film is a welcomed alternative to the “coy, trivializing attitude toward abortion in vogue in American fiction films”. Indeed, Ms. Dargis is quite right in identifying the recent endemic in American films where a young and beautiful woman is accidentally impregnated and she keeps the kid! I can think of a few Juno, Knocked Up and Waitress. But Dargis, nevertheless, maintains that this film is should be viewed principally for the ‘new talent’ in Romania -- writer/director Cristian Munguin.

Now, what to make of this strange opening to Ms. Dargis’ piece? Should we see the film for its ‘alternative’ political view or for the burgeoning artistic genius of Munguin. It is evident throughout the rest of the piece that Ms. Dargis tries to vigorously defend (dig herself out of the hole?) the claim about the film’s artistic merit. Put another way, she is totally aware that taking a shot at both the Academy and representation of abortion could very well overshadow the film review itself. And what a heroic effort Ms. Dargis gives!

As an enthusiast for foreign films, especially those coming from Central and Eastern Europe, I think Ms. Dargis does a remarkable job at capturing the grim aesthetic. Her attentiveness to the way that a seemingly accidental realism is transformed into aesthetic is a remarkable insight as indicated by the following description: “Hours later, during an unbearably tense scene when she’s surrounded by barking dogs on a desolate street, you realize there are no accidents here, just art”. For me this indicated that Ms. Dargis has a special eye for the difficult and vexing images that set art from schlop.

In the end, despite the huge opening, I think Ms. Dargis adequately defends her claim that Munguis’ film should be watched for its artistic genius. She achieves this with her careful consideration of the tendency to interpret Mungiu films within a wider socio-political context. This is a seemingly contradictory statement given that Ms. Dargis seems to do just this at the beginning of the piece. Quite the contrary, however, given that Ms. Dargis draws attention to the fact that Mr. Mungiu creates a work of art that no mere interpretation could contain. In doing so, Ms. Dargis refocuses the piece on the artistic merit of the film, which in turn, justifies her claim that the Academy is full of ‘philistines.’

Heart, Soul and Good Acting Too!

Writer/director John Carney’s Once achieves the rare feat of successfully combining a diverse spread of artistic mediums without sacrificing the integrity of any one. More impressively, Carney puts forth a bold interpretation of the musical genre moving the camera away from the studio to the gritty streets of Dublin. In doing so, Carney eliminates the familiar garnishes of the musical and replaces them with real-time footage framed by a grainy digital camera. It is precisely this move that allows Carney to remain true to each artistic element of the film resulting in a harmonious triad of acting, music and cinematography. This equilibrium, however, would not be possible without the performances of the non-actor musicians Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, whose subtle and understated performances make this film possible.

Glen Hansard (Guy) and Marketa Irglova (as herself) fill the otherwise blight and depressive urban setting of Once with a robust spirit that finds its full expression in their musical numbers. Guy is a heart-broken and struggling musician who takes to the streets to perform when he isn’t working at his father’s vacuum repair shop. Marketa is a Czech immigrant who sells roses on those same busy streets as Guy. She is also a virtuoso pianist with an infant daughter and estranged husband. Admittedly, on description alone, the film certainly comes across as having the potential to be predictable and conventional. The acting, however, infuses this otherwise typical love story with an atypical element of authenticity.

Hansard and Irglova prove their ability as competent actors when they first perform the song that will later become the title track for the film. The two are so good in this moment that it is difficult to discern whether they are even acting. They display a range of emotions from reserve, nervousness, curiosity and concentration. Carney’s camerawork compliments the actors by maintaining a delicate balance between distance and intimacy. In doing so, he never forces a romance or chemistry that is absent from the performance. Paradoxically, some of the most intimate moments of the film are those filmed from a distance.

At times, Once can come off as overwhelmed by musical performance and underwhelmed by the actors’ performance. Such a criticism, however, ignores the fragile dialectic between Guy and Marketa’s personal struggles and the music they find in common. Accordingly, the prominent role that the music attains throughout the course of the film is never uncoupled from the integrity of the script or the actors. In sum, there is never a doubt as to whether or not Guy and Marketa have the ability to transcend their isolated and alienated condition, a necessity for the believability of the end.

It is rare to find a director willing to use non-actors in today’s world of cinema. There is something refreshing about not recognizing a lead role. Too often filmmakers adopt their style to better frame the star. Once is an exemplar of all the reasons to avoid this practice proving that no whole is greater than a part.

Writing About the Arts

William Zinsser proivdes a useful window onto the undefined and shapeless body of Arts criticism. He provides shape with his musing on the distinctions between reviewing and criticism: there are those who promote and those who mediate. The most compelling point (related to the former) of Zinsser's article is that critics need to find anyway to engage with the artist. That is, if critical mediation between the arts and public is possible, the critic must craft, like a gunsmith, his or her own language. To demonstrate this necessity, Zissner emphasizes the absolute importance of writing with clear language. If mediation is to be effective, the public must be able to understand. There is a careful balanace between dumbing criticism down, either through sensationalism or polemics, and using language as carefully and precisely as possible. For me this is what sets the critic apart from the artist. The critic has the task of mediating art in a universal public language. The artist has the task of mediating reality into negativity (not critical negativity). Thus, the critic is not so much as connected to the work of art as much as s/he is committed to the public.

Why the Writers’ Strike Isn’t Important

In a moment where talk of recession is pervasive, I find it interesting that our focus has been sharply honed on the fate of the Oscars and the writers’ strike. When labor all around the country is steadily declining (if it hasn’t already disappeared) and Americans are confronting the brute reality of poverty and joblessness, we continue to do what we do best: escapism!

Over the past 11 weeks we have been bombarded with images of the frumpy, overweight and mousy writers of the WGA. They have been made out to be the proletariat class leading a kind of Cultural Revolution. They are seen by some to be engaging in the first of many battles concerning the proliferation of media in a technological era.

The problem with this picture is that the writer’s are not protesting the consumer price on the new methods of proliferating media – they just want piece of the treasure. Furthermore, they are not the proletariats of the industry; rather, they are the middleclass. To be frank, the concept of ‘Hollywood Labor’ is certainly laughable, if not a paradox. There is nothing venerable about the plight of the writers.

writers.http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSN1615156820080123

As Racism Once Was

Despite Steinem’s dutiful reminder that historically progressive movements in the United States are better off unified as opposed to divided, the very context of her piece drives a wedge into the heart of contemporary progressive movements. In doing so Steinem commits the same error the American feminists of the 70s committed when they privileged the universal status of women over that of race and class. Three decades latter, Steinem seems content on diluting the complexity of political and social identity. While her points are well taken as to the pervasiveness of sexism, her claims are unsubstantiated and gratuitous.

For example, it would have been one thing to point out the double standard Hillary Clinton is required to tarry with and to demonstrate how this, in effect, is mutually implied for all women voters. It is quite another thing, however, to justify this assertion with the despicable act of historical amnesia. That is to say, Steinem seems to believe that while one chapter in the history of racism has concluded that same history persists in the history of sexism. Have we not learned the lesson that identity is anything but a neat, orderly and hermetically sealed unit? While I am sympathetic to Steinem’s overall claims, I find her argumentative strategy irresponsible.

The Clairvoyance of Passion

Joe Wright’s Atonement is a lush and impressionistic portrait of Ian McEwan’s celebrated novel. The story takes place over a fifty year period, beginning at the Edenesque Tallis Estate, moving to the apocalyptic images of war, culminating, as a kind of metaphysical anterior, in a television studio. At every moment, Wright exercises an absolute control over the film’s expansive landscapes. His execution is unflinching as he paints with large strokes, presenting sweeping panoramas. The frames often threaten to overpower the screen, exhibiting a rare quality in filmmaking, when technical antithesis is able to express and sculpt the psychological interior of a character. In doing so, the film stays true to the Ian McEwan novel with its cinematic translation of psychological realism.

The first half of the film is inscribed with an uneasy tension between the comical encounters between Cecelia Tallis (Keira Knightley) and Robbie Turner (James McAvoy) and the blossoming, yet confused, passions of a young Briony Tallis (Saoirse Ronan). Ronan is convincing as the detached, imaginative spectator – voyeur onto the genesis of Robbie and Cecelia’s love. She magnificently negotiates the awkward, blurry division between sexually precocious and ascetic prepubescent with her asexual demeanor. McAvoy and Knightley, however, perform as if they are their own spectators, too self-conscious to capture the required contrast between Briony’s fictional displacement and the truth of their character’s reality. The tension culminates in Briony’s coitus interruptus of the lover’s lusty exchange in the library, which she misinterprets as violence. This sets the stage for the tragic assault of Briony’s cousin Lola by the wealthy friend of older brother Leon Tallis. Briony fasley accuses Robbie.

Wright is at his best in these early moments of the film, most notably when he leads the viewer through the psychological interior of the young Briony Tallis. The baroque gardens take on an expressionistic feel as they become a place where identity, sexuality, reality and fiction form a nebulous, unintelligible system, capable of distortion. The scene brilliantly climaxes when the young Briony’s flashlight illumines the inherent abjection of human sexuality. This scene prefigures the cultural crisis of World War II: innocence is lost, morality shown for its malevolence and the passions of man ambivalent to life and beauty.

The film falters; Wright forgets that it is Briony’s coming of age that serves as the foil for World War II. The tension is lost when Knightley and McAvoy take center stage with unremarkable performances – the former too nymph-like to capture the matronly undertones of Cecelia Tallis. Even at the film’s end, when the aged Briony (Vanessa Redgrave) delivers a closing monologue on her atonement, the moment at which the narrative folds over and consumes itself for a final time, Wright cannot help but shift our attention to a sentimental scene on the beach to marvel once more at the fragile beauty of our heroes Cecilia Tallis and Robbie Turner. This repeats a fundamental error that leaves the viewer with two irreconcilable halves: Atonement is not a love story; it is a bildungsroman.