Marty All the Time

I love the way Martin Scorsese looks these days. He’s barely recognizable as the same intense, Mephistophelean guy in those photos taken on the set of Taxi Driver or Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore or The Last Waltz, with that black, incongruously aristocratic beard and those hard, dark little eyes—there’s a cruel, brooding expression on his face, as if someone already told him he’d have to wait 30 years before he would finally win an Oscar.

Nowadays, he’s likable ol’ Marty: everyone’s favourite movie-crazy Italian uncle, with the Swifty Lazar eyeglasses, the Groucho Marx eyebrows, the Giorgio Armani suits and the world-beating grin. The old Scorsese’s most characteristic onscreen appearance was as the sociopath Travis Bickle picks up on night in Taxi Driver, and who delivers that long, creepy monologue about his twisted plan to kill his cheating wife. When the new Scorsese appears onscreen, he’s usually a genial, self-mocking version of himself—as an excitable pufferfish in Shark Tale or, best of all, his cameo in The Muse, telling Albert Brooks about his plan to remake Raging Bull... only this time “with a really skinny guy!”

It wasn’t a remake of Raging Bull that finally earned Scorsese his long-overdue Oscar last Sunday, of course, but a remake of the Hong Kong police thriller Infernal Affairs (although Scorsese never mentioned it by name, Oscar-winning screenwriter William Monahan never mentioned it at all and the voiceover announcer mistakenly identified it as a Japanese movie).

Was The Departed Scorsese’s best work? Hardly—in fact, I’d argue that Scorsese’s onetime leading man, Robert De Niro, directed a much more ambitious and thematically complex film this year, the underrated The Good Shepherd—but The Departed was nevertheless a crackerjack entertainment, directed with enough unmistakable Scorsese panache to prevent the award from becoming an Al Pacino/Scent of a Woman embarrassment. And it was definitely cool to see Scorsese accepting the award from George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola and Steven Spielberg—and to see the usually humourless Lucas making a good-natured joke at his own expense about his own lack of Oscars. (What with William Friedkin watching his wife, Sherry Lansing, win the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, half the cast of Easy Riders, Raging Bulls seemed to be sitting in the audience.)

It’s too bad that the producers failed to do right by the night’s other legendarily Oscarless Italian honoree: composer Ennio Morricone, who won a well-deserved lifetime achievement award. The entire segment was a disaster in the middle of an otherwise quite well-produced show: from Clint Eastwood’s faltering introduction to Celine Dion’s forgettable “world premiere” performance of a new Morricone song (actually his love theme from Once Upon a Time in America with atrocious new lyrics by Alan and Marilyn Bergman) to a poorly conceived montage that not only emphasized Morricone’s more conventional late-period scores for films like Malèna over the insanely experimental, groundbreaking music he churned out for dozens of cheap ’60s and ’70s Italian thrillers and horror flicks—but also, annoyingly, kept playing Morricone’s themes over scenes they were never written for.

It pleased me, however, to hear Morricone deliver his acceptance speech in Italian—especially after the montage of scenes from previous Best Foreign Language Film winners, which (like most trailers for foreign films) barely contained a single word of dialogue—a glaring demonstration of timidity on the part of the show’s producers, who proudly touted this year’s awards as “the most international Oscars ever.”

Come to think of it, though, the foreign winners—The Lives of Others director Florian Henckel von Donnesmarck, Babel composer Gustavo Santaolalla, all the winners from Pan’s Labyrinth—all seemed notably more poised during their acceptance speeches than the American winners. Alan Arkin, Forest Whitaker, William Monahan... what’s with all these trained performers and writers holding their heads down and reading their speeches off dog-eared sheets of paper with the stilted cadences of middle-school students running for class president? At least Helen Mirren handled her Best Actress acceptance speech for The Queen with some poise and panache—although do you think her decision to carry her handbag up onstage with her is a sign that she still hasn’t shaken off the Queen Elizabeth character yet?

My favorite Oscar-night moment, however, wasn’t provided by any of the presenters: it was the beautifully idiotic introduction of Best Foreign Language film co-presenters Penélope Cruz and Hugh Jackman as “the star of Volver... and “Volverine” himself!” (Shades of the Simpsons episode where Brooke Shields and Krusty the Clown were introduced at an awards show as “the star of The Blue Lagoon... and the blue-haired goon!”) That’s the Oscars I know and love: dazzlingly glamourous yet terminally clueless, like a starlet striding down the red carpet in a Valentino gown... and then walking smack-dab into a telephone pole.

And the Oscar Goes to... Mia Kirshner?

For the last six years, my colleage José Teodoro (a.k.a. Josef Braun) and I get together to hash out each new crop of Oscar nominees for an alternative newspaper in Edmonton, Alberta called Vue Weekly—we talk about who should win, who should have been nominated instead... you know the drill. We call it the Alternative Oscars, and here’s this year’s edition.

Before you click that link, though, I feel like I have to apologize in advance for arguing without a trace of irony that I think Little Miss Sunshine deserves to win Best Picture. I know, I know: it’s really not an acceptable opinion to have if you want to be taking seriously in the online film-critic community—and I nearly gave my Best Actor vote to The Death of Mr. Lazarescu’s Ion Fiscuteanu just to compensate and demonstrate to everyone out there that I’m not a total idiot. (I decided to go instead with Clive Owen from Children of Men—a movie that at least takes place in world where kiddie beauty pageants, have ceased to exist. So, apparently, has sunshine.)

Sadly, José’s and my comments had to be shaved down pretty severely to fit in the newspaper's limited space, but I hope you enjoy our conversation all the same. (By the way, José has a fun interview with Guy Maddin in the new issue of Stop Smiling. Here's an excerpt.)

(Can you tell I just figured out how to link to other webpages?)

Sarong Medicine

If ever a movie demanded to be viewed outdoors, it’s Tabu, a glorious 1931 silent melodrama shot on location in Bora Bora with a cast consisting entirely of authentic South Sea islanders. What a thrill: that’s exactly how I saw it last week—sitting underneath a canopy of palm leaves in the courtyard behind a Key West deli just a block and a half from my house.

The screening was arranged by a Key West movie maven named Michael Shields as part of a new “microcinema” venture he calls Java Studios. “Microcinema” is no exaggeration: there were about 10 people in the audience for Tabu on Wednesday night. It was Valentine’s Day—maybe everyone was taking sunset cruises with their wives and girlfriends instead.

Shields used to run Tropic Cinema, a busy local arthouse venue, but he clashed constantly with the Tropic’s board of directors, who removed him from his position last summer. Crowds actually picketed the Tropic when the news broke—maybe not as many as stormed the Cinémathèque Français in 1968 after the firing of Henri Langlois, but they were equally ardent. (Even now, months later, there’s still a significant number of hardcore Shields supporters who refuse to set foot inside the Tropic.)

Shields looks to be in his early fifties, with a thin frame, a bald head and a neatly trimmed beard and mustache. He’s white, but there’s something vaguely Asian about his features—he resembles one of those surprisingly nimble, mischievously smiling Tibetan holy men you might find living alone in a mountain cave. Shields is philosophical these days about the Tropic’s decision—but he does take an impish delight in occasionally outmaneuvering his old employer and nabbing a coveted title like Children of Men from under their noses.

Still, one imagines that Tabu’s tale of passionate heroes being expelled from Paradise might have some special resonance for Shields. The stars of Tabu’s remarkably compressed narrative are Matahi and Reri, two achingly beautiful Tahitian youths who meet, fall in love and get torn apart in the span of about half an hour. They barely get a chance to share their first embrace, in fact, before an elderly envoy named Hitu arrives on the scene and announces that Reri must leave the island to become a sacred virgin in service to the old Polynesian gods. From that point on, any man who so much as casts a lustful look her way will be sentenced to death.

The story strikes a perfect balance between the loose, anthropological style of co-writer Robert Flaherty (the pioneer of such shot-on-location quasi-documentaries as Nanook of the North and Man of Aran) and the German fatalism of director/co-writer F.W. Murnau (who also made Nosferatu and Sunrise). The playful first half of the film, “Paradise,” is full of bare-chested men spearing fish and bare-chested woman in grass skirts shaking their hips—this seems like Flaherty’s terrain.

But in the second half, “Paradise Lost,” Murnau takes over: inky shadows gather around Matahi and Reri despite the Polynesian sun as they flee the island, relentlessly pursued by the cadaverous figure of Hitu. (Hitu seems to acquire almost Nosferatu-like supernatural powers in this section of the film—he’s like a wraith from some Japanese horror movie, appearing silently in doorways just long enough to freak out the heroine before vanishing again into the blackness.)

Like Sunrise, the film’s love story is simple but powerful, full of magical, unique images (especially the weirdly luminous skin of the shark as it glides through the pearl beds where Matahi finds work as a diver), plus a shockingly tragic ending. The fact that none of the actors ever starred in another film only makes Tabu seem more fragile and precious—a record of all these people whose expressive faces and exotic way of life would otherwise have disappeared as silently and mysteriously as Hitu from Reri’s doorway.

I felt bad that Shields wasn’t able to attract more people to this remarkable, albeit obscure movie. But I felt better when I returned to the same courtyard the following evening. It was one of the most popular stops on a “gallery walk” taking place that night—they didn’t have much art on display, but they had a chocolate fountain and live music, mostly Dr. John and Professor Longhair covers, by a local piano-player named Barry Cuda.

People were everywhere, and Shields had seized the opportunity to do an encore screening of Tabu. He was only using it as background imagery for the party, but as the story unfolded, more and more people stopped talking and began curiously watching the film. Cuda started improvising lyrics to go along with the story. When a shot of the Pacific moon filled the screen, he began playing “Blue Moon.” People sang along and ate chocolate-covered marshmallows.

I don’t know if the same magic will take place tonight when Shields screens The Conformist, but I can’t wait to find out.

Hungry Hungry Hipster

It’s hard to imagine how the French actor Gaspard Ulliel could have given a less seductive performance as the young Hannibal Lecter in Hannibal Rising, but damned if he doesn’t keep smiling naughtily into the camera with the confidence of a performer who’s sure he’s worming his way into every moviegoer’s heart. In fact, I spent much of the movie trying to figure out who that coy, self-adoring smirk reminded me of. It sure wasn’t Anthony Hopkins—I knew that much.

And then it hit me: it’s an Amélie smile. Ulliel even co-starred opposite Audrey Tautou in A Very Long Engagement as the childlike soldier Manech, and seeing Ulliel hold the corners of his mouth in the same way was creepier than any twist in novelist/screenwriter Thomas Harris’ overcooked plot. It’s almost as if Hannibal were wearing the skin from Amélie’s face like a mask—now there’s an image I wish this movie had kicked off with!

Instead Harris sets out to explain Hannibal’s pathology with a murky WWII childhood trauma that manages to be both disgusting and sentimental. (I don’t want to waste much time explaining it: suffice it to say that it involves the child Hannibal, a snowed-in Lithuanian castle, a squad of very hungry Nazi collaborators, a stewpot and Hannibal’s temptingly plump little sister Mischa.)

Director Peter Webber obviously believes he’s bringing a veneer of “class” to this project, but that veneer is very patchily applied: he’ll “tastefully” keep Mischa’s death offscreen, but still throw in a garish shot of Rhys Ifans’ evil ringleader devouring a raw grouse and smearing blood all over his chin while amplified “munch-munch-slobber-slobber” noises play on the soundtrack. Webber might show us someone getting a knife shoved through his head, but at least he’ll light the frames like a 17th-century Dutch painting. (Webber also directed Girl With a Pearl Earring, a similarly humourless gouache of pretension and pulp that was my pick for the worst movie of 2003.)

If nothing else, Ulliel’s unimaginative characterization makes you remember how fresh and vivid Anthony Hopkins was playing Lecter in Silence of the Lambs. Perhaps Ulliel is hampered by having to perform in English—he doesn’t have the ear for the playful, theatrical cadences Hopkins brought to the part, the music he brings to even a simple line like “Hello, Clarice,” his voice dipping low on her name and almost swallowing it whole. Or his flat, nasal pronunciation of the word “Chianti” in his famous line about the fava beans and the census-taker’s liver—a sophisticate sneering at every boob he’s ever heard stumble over the foreign words on a restaurant wine list.

It’s this side of Hannibal that Thomas Harris seems increasingly fascinated by—Hannibal the aesthete, the connoisseur of fine dining and classic art and architecture. (In Hannibal Rising, Gong Li plays Hannibal’s aunt, “Lady Murasaki,” a pointless reference to the author of The Tale of Genji that only emphasizes the gap between Harris’ highbrow ambitions and his actual achievements. A similar thing happens when Webber stages a scene at “Castle Vigo.”) Who is Harris trying to impress? Doesn’t he realize that audiences are lured to Hannibal movies by the same thing that lures them to the Saw and Final Destination sequels: these films contain the most memorably, grotesquely imaginative deaths around, and we keep hoping that they’ll figure out a way to top themselves. Harris may not like to hear it, but all that talk about Renaissance art and the best way to roast animal cheeks? All that mystical hugger-mugger about the symbolism of cannibalism? That’s what we sit through in order to get to the good stuff.

Believe me, there’s nothing transcendent about eating human flesh. A few nights before I went to see Hannibal Rising, I went bar-hopping while wearing a too-tight pair of shoes and developed a blister on my heel. A day later, it burst, leaving a flap of skin hanging there, about the size and thickness of a thumbnail. I began playing idly with that flap as I watched Hannibal Rising and somewhere during one of the many scenes of Gong Li looking expressionlessly at her sinister nephew, I accidentally tore it off.

The movie was so obsessed with cannibalism that I decided to see what all the fuss was about and impulsively popped it into my mouth. Yeah. Disgusting. The skin felt vaguely waxy, with small ridges, the texture of fingerprints, that I could make out with my tongue. I chewed it up into flavourless shreds between my incisors and swallowed, washing it down with the last of my Mr. Pibb. I swear, I just don’t see what the big deal about cannibalism is—and Hannibal Rising didn’t give me any clues.

Maybe if I’d drunk a nice Chianti instead?

The Haley Show

It takes about half an hour before Jackie Earle Haley appears onscreen in Little Children, but we already know what he looks like. He plays Ronnie McGorvey, who’s just been released from jail after serving two years for indecent exposure, and a local group (or at least one insanely obsessive ex-cop) has plastered the neighbourhood with flyers showing Ronnie’s mug shot and asking “ARE YOUR CHILDREN SAFE?”

The slightly downward angle of the camera emphasizes his balding dome and gives him a vaguely insectoid appearance—he looks like the humanoid cousin of the grasshoppers we hear chirping faintly on the soundtrack whenever the characters step outside. There’s a desperate, ravenous look in Ronnie’s eyes, but he doesn’t look anything like the predator the rest of the community imagines him to be; he’s thin, his skin stretched tight over his skull and his cheekbones. He’s hungry but he has no idea how to feed himself.

Part of the power, or even the shock, of Haley’s performance in this film is that he shows up after we’ve spent half an hour in the company of Kate Winslet, Patrick Wilson and Jennifer Connelly, all of whom are playing lost, lonely suburbanites but who look every inch like movie stars. Even Winslet, whose supposedly “ordinary” physical appearance is frequently remarked upon, looks absolutely gorgeous in her practical-housewife wardrobe: in several scenes she wears a sporty one-piece red bathing suit with white, neatly stitched radii on the cups that perfectly flatters the curves of her body.

Haley, on the other hand, looks jarringly like a normal person. His balding hair has left a weird pattern, like three fuzzy wedges of pie—like a half-filled-in Trivial Pursuit playing piece. (In one nighttime scene we see him in the distance, hanging his head while sitting on a playground swing, and he’s just enough out of focus for the triangles of hair on the top of his head to resemble two sunken eyes and a silently screaming mouth.) He’s wearing a bathing suit—Ronnie is hoping to take a dip in the community pool—and he’s short and scrawny, maybe 5’5”, pale, hairy and skinny as a rat. There’s a closeup of his feet as he puts on his flippers, and his pointy anklebones stick out like corn-on-the-cob holders. His face is pockmarked, and you can’t help but recall the agonizingly public battle with acne that sabotaged Haley’s attempts in the early ’80s to make the transition from child star to adult actor.

Ronnie is an instant pariah in the pool—one by one, the parents recognize him from the posters and frantically order their kids out of the water. “I was only trying to cool off!” he shouts indignantly as the police drag him away, but the avid look in Haley’s eyes behind his diver’s mask as he gazes underwater at the children’s legs suggests a more unwholesome desire at work.

I’m of two minds about Haley’s Oscar-nominated performance in Little Children. On the one hand, if Haley won the award, it would be a thrilling comeback story: after drifting into straight-to-video dreck like Dollman and Maniac Cop 3, Haley (the former child star of Breaking Away and The Bad News Bears) finally dropped out of the movie business altogether in the early ’90s and took a series of embarrassingly small-time jobs: limo driver, security guard, pizza deliveryman. In a profile in Entertainment Weekly, Haley speaks very movingly about going before the cameras again for the first time in 13 years and realizing that acting was still part of who he was. Indeed, in all his interviews, Haley unfailingly comes across as an intelligent, dedicated professional who talks about his “whatever happened to...?” years with a remarkable lack of self-pity.

But oh my God, what levels of abasement his character had to descend in order to earn Haley that Oscar nod! (The sequence where potential girlfriend Jane Adams drives him home from a restaurant is particularly agonizing. Poor Jane Adams: between this and Happiness, she’s been on two of the worst dates in American cinema history.) Haley gives a brave, unshowy performance in Little Children, but I ultimately felt director Todd Field took advantage of that bravery—he simply doesn’t seem to share Haley’s compassion for his character. Winslet and Wilson’s suffering is portrayed with a tenderness, an aching understanding for the crazy, self-destructive yearnings that arise when you’re trapped in an unhappy marriage; Haley’s suffering is grotesque, inchoate, alien. I don’t think Field means to say that anyone who looks like Haley can’t possibly feel normal, human emotions, but Haley’s physicality is so striking that that’s the impression the film leaves you with.

I thought Dreamgirls was a pretty lousy movie, but if Jennifer Hudson wins the Oscar, it would affirm the notion that talent, not looks, are what should define you. I'm certainly not rooting against him, but if Haley wins the Oscar, it would seem to affirm the opposite principle.