October 21: Bridge of Spies (2015 – Steven Spielberg)

★★★

The one pleasure that carries all the way through Bridge of Spies is its lush appropriation of espionage noir cinematography. Full foregrounds catch the eye to lead it deep into the back of the frame, and low camera angles pair with low key lighting to suggest to us what noir might have looked like in muted color.  Even sets like that of the bridge, with its oddly unnatural light and its simulated snow, have the artificial quality that noir sets embraced.  And weaving through this beauty is Spielberg’s elegant, modern camera.  And jump cuts keep us attentive to what’s on the screen by popping us between storylines and characters.  Bridge of Spies is a beautiful, engaging film to watch.

And it starts out with an equally strong narrative.  In the movie’s 1957 America, the US distinguishes itself from the Soviet Union by emphasizing the rights of individuals as guaranteed in the constitution.  However, the first half of Bridge of Spies shows patriots who want to fight the Soviets by, ironically, compromising the very constitutional rights they maintain as essential to America.  Through the court procedural that is the first half of the film, the all-American Tom Hanks, as James Donovan, pursues justice for an accused Soviet spy, Rudolf Abel, through the court system.  But Donovan’s pursuit comes in opposition to sympathetic characters, like the Judge and even Donovan’s own family, who are ironically ready to throw away Abel’s legal rights in order to oppose the Soviets.   The first half of Bridge of Spies dramatizes this complex irony – trampling on an individual’s legal rights in order to protect those very same rights -- in a deft, affective way that certainly glances at some of the personal privacy issues America is facing today.  Bridge of Spies is not the first time a Spielberg film has used to past to comment on the present – Munich looks at how an obsession with fighting terrorism can undermine the very values that the fight means to protect.  The first half of Bridge of Spies works especially well because of the way it looks as well as the way it handles this complex issue.

If the film had developed its interest in this question, it could have been a unique, important movie.  Unfortunately, it drops this subject in the middle and moves into a reboot of a Cold War thriller with a deprived Soviet bloc, oppressive Communist leaders, an oppressed Eastern population, and spies on both sides that don’t inspire trust.  There’s even a painfully obvious parallel between a grey scene of East Germans being machine-gunned as they try to scale the Berlin wall and a color scene of kids playing in New York City scaling a tall fence.  Such an obvious pairing of scenes might well be a nod to the style of the period; there are similar paired scenes when people on the NYC subway frown at Donovan when he defends Abel but later smile when he negotiates a hostage release.  But echoes of a Cold War style or not, these elements move Bridge of Spies away from the interesting ideas of the first half into one where the West is good, the East is bad, and the humanity individuals can span this gap.  The cliché at the heart of the second half of this film deflates the tension and, concurrently, our interest flags.

Bridge of Spies is half a great movie, but its visual beauty can help us overlook some of the comfortable triteness of its second half.

October 16: Black Mass (2015 – Scott Cooper)

★★★

There’s nothing really wrong with this movie – except maybe a little unmotivated IRA action – but Black Mass doesn’t bring much innovation to its genre either.  Everything is capable, from the mood through the plot to its characters, but Scott Cooper doesn’t break any new ground in intensity, suspense or surprise here.

What really works in this film is the performances.  Whitey Bulger is the best character Johnny Depp has created in years.  With his prosthetic head piece, light blue contact lenses, and thin, draped build, Depp holds the screen whenever is on it, particularly when we look into his eyes.  And we're jarred when Bulger sociopathologically oscillates between nice and murderous even though we’ve seen similar characters do the same thing in other films.  

The rest of the cast is equally effective if less riveting.  Joel Edgerton’s John Connolly is perhaps the most complex character in the film.  The script calls for him to develop as a character, and Edgerton gives us a Connolly whose posture and body language evolve in step with an increasingly sharp wardrobe. Perhaps the best-written character in the film, Connolly has complexity as he uses Bulger to promote his own law enforcement career all the while remaining loyal to his friend, to the point that his narcissism undermines his own marriage.  It's a broad but taunt performance.  Playing Connolly's spouse, Julianne Nicholson, makes surprisingly effective use of her limited time on screen as Marianne Connolly, managing to show an entire character arc in a handful of appearances and to anchor one of the creepiest scenes of the movie.  And Benedict Cumberbatch gives us a loyal and conflicted "Billy" Bulger, Whitey’s brother.  In his restricted screen time, we see the love between the brothers while recognizing the need for them to stay apart.

Black Mass delivers a very competent gangster film with interesting characters and outstanding performances.  We’ve seen this before, but the acting here makes this film worth a look.

October 15: Sicario (2015 – Denis Villeneuve)

★★★

October 14: The Martian (2015 – Ridley Scott)

★★★

One key to understanding The Martian is Mark Whatney’s potatoes.  After he’s stranded, the film imbues them with centrality and importance.  The movie can’t move on without the potatoes, and we’re as concerned about them as we are about Mark himself for one depends on the other.  despite the film's dwelling on them on imbuing them with importance, they suddenly exit after an accident, but rather than The Martian ending at this point, the loss of this vital element is hardly a speed bump; in fact, it becomes the springboard for more action.  In this film, Mark Watney’s potatoes are just a device to keep the story running, and their fate highlights that the focus of the film is action and narrative suspense; The Martian isn’t a movie of complex characters or deep insight but rather a pleasurable way to spend a few hours in the cinema.

This film’s reliance on melodrama and suspense is almost out of the silent era.  As early as the storm that strands the hero, The Martian moves from high-risk situation to high-risk situation with occasional melodramatic gestures bridging the highs.  The Chinese provide a helpful (and secret) rocket; a young, braided, African-American analyst finds a path to Mars before Mark runs out of food; the NASA crew supervisor disobeys orders and sends information about a dangerous rescue opportunity to Hermes.  Melodramatic event follows melodramatic event in keeping us plugged into the action here, and this melodrama works as well here as it does in stories like Frank Borzage silents.

A lot of good cinematic technique also keeps us in the movie.  The Martian could easily have bogged down under all the detail and plot twists, for example, but economical editing compresses the action and story so well that, despite the film’s 140-minute length, the narrative engine doesn’t falter.  And many of the visuals suggest cherry-picking of effective sci-fi gestures that have engaged us in the past.  Seen from the outside, the Hermes spaceship recalls the vessels of 2001 with its slender body and rotating rings, and inside Hermes, we watch characters pop down into compartments like they do on Kubrick’s Discovery.  Astronautic bumping around during EV activity recalls the visceral suspense that distinguishes Gravity, and Scott even applies some of his own characteristic film-making with the landscapes here.  The magnificent views of Mars with the tiny lights of Mark’s vehicle barely visible recall scenes from Prometheus and even Noah.  The editing and the visuals link up with melodrama to make this film fun.

The Martian is primarily competent.  Its story touches and moves us.  We worry at every one of Mark’s failures and feel happy with every success.  We rejoice with the world as he is finally rescued.  The film’s contrivance sometimes feels overly market driven -- for example, the multi-ethnic cast feels like it wants to include every potential audience, and there’s an especially clear gesture to the Asian market – but the suspense and melodrama of this story carry us past these.  This market orientation might explain the altogether unsatisfactory ending of the film, though the closing credits are among the wittiest and best integrated into a recent Hollywood movie.  When we part company with Mark, he's delivering truisms about his experience is a profoundly cliched setting.  Thankfully, the end credit segment gives us a more satisifying, occasionally bittersweet final experience with the rest of characters.  Simultaneously identifying the actors and showing us the characters' condition in life after thier return, this segment is one of the most original and effective in the film.  But The Martian is a fun, solid, Hollywood vehicle as it hums along and generates lots of pleasure for the audience.

August 8: Gates of Heaven (1978 – Errol Morris)

★★★★★

August 8: The Blues Accordin’ to Lightnin’ Hopkins (1968 – Les Blank)

★★★★★

The Blues Accordin’ to Lightnin’ Hopkins opens in a rural countryside with green fields, a dirt road and a broken-down wood fence.  Incongruously, a group of what looks like ramshackle farmers is playing music in the road, and just as unexpectedly, the camera that is watching them swings from one player to another, once even wandering off the harmonica soloist in obvious anticipation of a guitar solo that doesn’t come.  The camera swings back to the harmonica.  This opening sets up the rest of the short film: We see the environment that gave birth to Lightin’s blues, but we see it though a camera that is not only observant but also engaged.  We’re participating in Blank’s personal involvement with what’s before him.

Fortunately for us, Blank has a knack for putting people at ease, for picking out nuggets from conversations and for not interfering in important moments.  Early in the film, the camera is in a simple room with Lightnin’ playing guitar and another man who is singing.  At one point, the singer goes down on his knees, vocalizing a deep, raw emotion while Lightnin’ continues to play.  The singer is overcome, but it’s not clear if it’s with happiness or pain, if he’s laughing or crying.  But as he sways, it’s still music, Lightnin’ is still playing, and there on the floor of the dingy room, we see the rawness that the blues is in a way no text could describe it.  Lightin’ later tells us that the blues is a preacher preaching, which sounds like the not-uncommon formulation that the blues is a secular version of gospel music.  But Blank goes beyond such bromides and enables us to authentically hear what the blues is saying.  In one performance, Lightnin’s words are “she said…,” and then the lyrics drop out for an intense several bars on his guitar.  Lightnin’s words come back with “…that’s what she said,” an emotion that was palpably beyond words.  As we learn with Blank, that’s what the blues is.

The Blues Accordin’ to Lightnin’ Hopkins also immerses in the blues by showing us the physical environment that nourishes the music.  It’s one of rural poverty and small clapboard houses, of tiny interiors with shabby furnishings.  It’s also one of deep humanity and of the ability to experience joy.  African American cowgirls dance with their midriffs exposed and a pistol on their hip, African American cowboys stick on bucking broncos during rodeo competitions.  And when Lightnin’s plays, everyone dances, while Blank’s camera lingers on the faces of those in attendance, letting us how they experience the music.

Another strength of this small film is the way it acknowledges its own subjectivity.  People look directly at the camera throughout, and we follow Blank’s obviously subjective gaze as he sees things he’s interested in, like we did in the opening sequence.  Other moments highlight the elements of film-making.  At one point, we’re watching two men kill a snake by a railroad, and as we see this, our sound is an interview that was clearly done afterwards.  The sound has been edited in from an entirely different moment of Lightnin’s life.  Throughout, The Blues Accordin’ to Lightnin’ Hopkins isn’t an objective rendering of an objective reality; it’s a subjective construction of a subjective experience.  And the film is more honest for that.

The strength of this film lies in the way it gives Lightnin’ Hopkins’ music such authenticity.  Blank watches Hopkins and talks with Hopkins, and he observes the environment Hopkins lives in.  The film unites all Blank’s discussion and observation into a powerful understanding of what the blues is and then communicates that understanding to us.  Through this short, we get a deep appreciation for the fact that the blues in't a style but a deep, authentic cultural expression.

August 7: Grey Gardens (1975 -- Albert and David Maysles, Ellen Hovde & Muffie Meyer)

★★★★