Sunday, June 21, 2020

HAPPY-GO-LUCKY - CRITERION CHANNEL

This review as originally written for DVDTalk.com in 2008.


Happy-Go-Lucky is one of th more lauded filmes from British director Mike Leigh, who is known for telling stories of the working class that chronicle their fancies and their doldrums in a modern style that resembles the Kitchen Sink cinema from the 1960s. In this latest offering, Leigh could have easily adopted Charlie Chaplin's "Smile" as the movie's theme song, as it seems to be what he's encouraging his audience to do: smile, even when it's not that easy to do.

Sally Hawkins, last seen as Colin Farrell's girlfriend in Woody Allen's Cassandra's Dream [review], stars as Poppy, a kindergarten teacher with a relentlessly upbeat outlook on life. Practically a child herself, she's equally at home in the classroom or on the dancefloor. Like any single young woman at age 30, she still likes to go out drinking with her girlfriends, but she's also slightly adventurous, booking weekly trampoline sessions and joining a co-worker for flamenco lessons because it sounds like fun. At the beginning of the movie, Poppy's bike is stolen, and instead of lamenting over it, she decides to learn to drive instead.


Poppy's driving instructor is one of the first of several challenges to Poppy's worldview. Scott (Eddie Marsan, Hancock [review]) is an angry little man with a lot of pent-up issues. He takes his job way too seriously, and he is easily provoked. Thus, he and Poppy get on like paper and a match, since she seemingly can't take anything seriously. In fact, she's often exhausting to watch, so I can't imagine what it must be like to be around her. Poppy can't let any comment pass without tossing out a silly joke, and she rarely answers a serious question with a serious answer. Honestly, I found her to be extremely annoying at first, and I was dreading spending two hours in her company.

Then came the first flamenco lesson. My whole attitude changed watching her interact with the class. Regardless of how stern the lead dancer's demeanor, Poppy always maintains her smile and her gung-ho attitude. She doesn't necessarily follow instruction, instead looking around the room at the other students and trying to elicit a reaction from them. Watching her pantomime amongst the group, a silly grin on her face and a knowing look in her eyes, it occurred to me that Poppy was like other clowns in motion picture history, characters like Chaplin's Tramp or Tati's Hulot. Though she is clearly more vocal than these mostly silent characters, she is like them in that she realizes that the rest of the world is too uptight and is doing her level best to keep from letting it grind her down.


Happy-Go-Lucky is Mike Leigh's study of this kind of figure. The movie is the writer/director's way of deconstructing the clown in order to see what makes her function. Throughout the film, he continually disarms Poppy, tossing her challenges she can't get out of by cracking wise. Her driving instructor, an abused student in her class, the recriminations of her middle sister (Caroline Martin), the prodding of her long-suffering roommate (Alexis Zegerman)--all of these people pick at the clown's mask and question if her brave face is real. It's to Poppy's credit that she is able to dial it down and prove that she can handle the bad as well as the good. Like all people who make us laugh, she is a caregiver, intent on alleviating the sadness of others even if it means harboring her own. She can be fierce, such as when she witnesses a boyfriend yelling at her youngest sister (Kate O'Flynn), but she can also be extremely empathetic. When she randomly encounters a homeless man (Stanley Townsend) in the middle of a psychotic episode, she sits with him rather than running away, answering all of his half-finished utterances with affirmative responses. It's a beautiful acting moment, centering on a look that Hawkins and Townsend exchange at the end of the scene, the masks clearing away for both of them for one truly honest moment.

Sally Hawkins is actually superb throughout. I don't think I would have wanted to strangle her as much as I sometimes did were she not. She makes Poppy a complete character, not just a collection of catchphrases and nervous ticks. She never once breaks character or appears to be an actress performing a role, every moment is authentic. During much of the joking, there is obviously more going on behind it. The outward expression may be physical, but the true weight of the performance is all mental. Thus, when it's revealed how much strength is really backing up the buffoonery, we can believe it.


Mike Leigh's shooting style is often stark, letting the setting and the actors dictate where he takes his camera. Once or twice, he indulges in a larger shot, pulling back to show us the landscape, but it's not just decoration, it's purposeful. The world these characters live in is just as important to their state of being as anything else. Over the course of the various conflicts, he slowly moves in closer, until in the final confrontation between Poppy and Scott, their heads take up the entire frame, and he rapidly cuts back and forth between them. (Though, such is the gravitational pull of the Poppy character, in all of the conversations, Leigh has no choice but to quickly cut back to Hawkins to catch her rejoinders.) There's a psychology to how Leigh sets up Happy-Go-Lucky, but it's not forceful or overbearing. The characters, their environment, and the greater narrative are all perfectly entwined. The final scene of the film is a little on-the-nose in comparison to the rest, but better to drift out of a story like this than superimpose a false dramatic arc over the top.

I doubt Happy-Go-Lucky is going to make Mike Leigh a household name. If anything, he's like Woody Allen in that he puts out a consistent stream of product that tends to cover a lot of the same ground, and when either of them hits the mark, they hit it quite well. Happy-Go-Lucky is a good movie propped up by excellent actors, and as seems to be its intention, is sure to leave you smiling.



Monday, June 15, 2020

THE CAMERAMAN - #1033


Buster Keaton was an independent producer and director making his own starring vehicles in the silent era when, in 1928, he decided to sign on with MGM and let them foot the bill. This was despite warnings from his friends and peers, who didn’t see why a successful artist would give up his freedom and control. Keaton probably should have listened, as MGM immediately paired him with a director, Edward Sedgwick, and though their collaborations yielded some excellent funny business, it does feel like something is different in the two features offered on Criterion’s release of The Cameraman

Before criticizing things, though, it should be noted that there is much to rejoice about in this new 4K restoration. Though still missing three minutes of footage, this is the most complete version of The Camerman that anyone has seen in quite some time. The picture is clear and beautiful, and it allows for a fresh perspective of this pivotal moment in Keaton’s career. The score is also very good, enhancing the picture as necessary without overplaying the comedic actions or trying to hard to mimic what is onscreen (the same cannot be said for the music on the second film). 


The scenario as devised by Clyde Bruckman and Lew Lipton sees Buster playing a street portrait photographer who falls for a beautiful girl (Marceline Day), whose picture he takes before she is whisked away by her boyfriend (Harold Goodwin). The fella, Stagg, is a cameraman for MGM newsreels, and Buster decides to get his own movie camera and join the freelance crew as a way to get close to Sally. What follows are plenty of mishaps as Buster tries to figure out the business, finds a monkey to be his pal, and gets tangled in a Chinatown gang war. The latter sequence is incredible for the chaos and mayhem that erupts on the screen. There is a real sense of peril, and we fear for our stone-faced hero. 

This is probably the closest we get to a vintage Buster Keaton situation. His previous comedies all have a sense of danger, as his elaborate set-ups and stunts would consistently put him in harm’s way, only for him to stumble through unharmed. Most of the gags in The Cameraman are dialed way back from what audiences would have expected from Buster. Weirdly, we get more wordplay in the title cards than ever before, which is not really what we signed up for. We also get more romance. If anything replaces the danger, it’s an increased sweetness. Sure, we’ve seen Keaton work the love angle before in pictures like Battling Butler, but there is a dogged earnestness to The Cameraman that is almost less effective because it replaces his trademark cluelessness with confidence. 


In truth, The Cameraman and the second feature on the disc, 1929’s Spite Marriage, also directed by Sedgwick, remind me more of classic Charlie Chaplin than classic Buster Keaton. The relationship of City Lights comes to mind, where we root for the Little Tramp to win the blind girl’s heart. It’s not that we don’t also root for Buster in his other films, but I think we are more inclined to see him take a licking, his famously rigid face keeping us from being nearly as invested in his well-being. Perhaps this was what MGM was hoping to undo, thinking that maybe making him more like Charlie he could start to outpace the other man’s success. 


It’s hard to say. And it’s also still hard not to like both The Cameraman and Spite Marriage. Both are very funny. Spite Marriage even features one of Keaton’s most lauded bits, when he has to put his drunk wife to bed. It a routine he would perform live for many years to come. It’s just some of the inventiveness is gone. The precarious situations, the elaborate sets, the prop work, the daredevil stunts--these are all dialed back. 

You know what it is, actually? It’s that Buster Keaton was always the little guy standing up to an indifferent world that consistently outsized him. Just as MGM took away his full control, so too did they shrink the threats. It levels the playing field, it’s not nearly the contest it once was. Buster is still the champ, but fighting in his own weight class, and so the victory is not as sweet. While the performer has the charm to be a rom-com lead, it’s not what he really made his name on, and it’s a classic example of the business side of show business not really understanding the show.


 This disc provided by the Criterion Collection for purposes of review.



Sunday, June 14, 2020

TARNATION - CRITERION CHANNEL

Originally written for my personal blog in 2005. While, were I to write the piece again, much of my initial reaction would stay the same and is perhaps more relevant (sadly) fifteen years later, I would like to note that the comments about the veracity of Renee Caouette's accusations toward her father (marked with a *) were something I should have taken more seriously. While the filmmaker's techniques can be in question as it regards to the older man's portrayal, Renee's claims of abuse deserve to be given their full due.


Jonathan Caouette's Tarnation is a puzzling, disturbing film. On one hand, it's arguable that it's like one of Godard or Orson Welles' essay films, updated for a time after music videos have affected how visuals and music are combined, with the whiz-bang editing style familiar to any MTV viewer. On the other, it possibly sidesteps what it wants to say by distracting us with that same style. The film is about one boy's journey into his family's mental history and how he fits into it, but does Caouette obscure his discoveries by over-abstracting? Or is the abstraction just a way for him to continue to avoid the hard answers? 


Caouette is his own worst artistic enemy, it seems. Something about how he presents himself offset me as a viewer, made me inclined to distrust him. All artists are self-obsessed, but most step away from who they are when they deconstruct their lives for their art. Ironically, Caouette is always away from himself: he suffers from a mental disorder that causes him to disassociate from his own reality and view life as a dream. He uses film to try to get back into his own shoes. But I couldn't shake the feeling throughout Tarnation that the exercise was all bullshit. I wasn't witnessing soul searching but a masturbation tool for a man who is in love with his own visage. Caouette started filming himself at age 11, creating disturbingly graphic monologues where he'd play characters like battered wives and drug addicts. While they suggest a natural talent for film, these scenes also begin a pattern of Caouette staging his own life for the sake of the movie of it. In his final confession, when he is alone in his bathroom with the camera, I wanted to believe he was sincere in his epiphany; instead, I was more appalled by how badly he was mugging for the lens.

Caouette begins his history before his birth and carries us all the way through 2002. The way he puts images together, a decade can pass by over the space of a montage set to a single song. Midway through the picture, I was beginning to question what it was I was being shown. I didn't feel like I was getting to know Caouette or his family. The photos seemed random. I could have been looking at any stranger's photo album, purchased in a thrift store or found in the road. When the rush of images would stop, it was rarely to contextualize what had just been presented. Rather, the viewer is given increasingly exploitative, drawn-out sequences of the filmmaker's mother, Renee, losing her grasp on reality. One sequence, when she dances and sings with a pumpkin, feels like it will never go on forever as Caouette milks his audience for every last squirm. Renee believes she is Elizabeth Taylor's daughter and Dolly Partner's sister, and she's going to perform for us just like they do. This is where her son got it from. A former model and actress, mom's mental illness has become an elaborate stage for her to play her part on. Caouette witnessed her being raped and abused when he was four, and Tarnation oftentimes seems like his attempt to recreate that kind of trauma over and over so we can share it with him. 


I couldn't help but feel sorry for Adolph, Renee's father and Caouette's grandfather, for being caught up in all this. He may have done the things his daughter claims (we'll never know)*, and he certainly was misguided when consenting to give her shock treatment, but the character Caouette gives us is of a genial old man who has tried to smile his way through it all, not the monster he'd have us believe. When his grandson moves to New York, he sincerely wishes him well and speaks supportively of the boy's abilities; except Caouette has him say his farewell into a machine that turns the old man's voice robotic. A prescient contrivance so he can suggest the sentiment is false? When Caouette accusingly turns the camera on Adolph near the end of Tarnation, it just feels vicious, and when grandpa declares he has had enough, I frankly felt I had, as well.



It's hard not to think of the famous scene from Madonna's Truth or Dare documentary where Warren Beatty says to the singer, "Why would you do anything off camera? What's the point of living if it's not on camera?" Often in this day and age, it feels like the majority of the population missed that Beatty wasn't saying that like it was a good thing. Technology has put the means of expression into just about everyone's hands. This blog is a perfect example of that. If I wanted to, I could follow the example of many others and record my every waking moment on here as if it were absolutely vital and important. The problem is, self-expression (and its evil twin, self-obsession) in itself is not all there is. We can't simply present what happened to us on our lunch break and expect the fact that it happened to grant it meaning. I like to joke that everyone has a right to an opinion, just not the right to express it...but I'm starting to think it's not so funny. Unless we start to demand that people extract something out of these experiences before they frame them for public consumption, we're going to lose sight of the big picture that is capital-A art. All the little snapshots are going to cover it up. 


It's not an either/or question. One should dare to tell the truth.