The Great Gatsby and CGI

After my article on The Lone Ranger, I thought I would add this post that also relates to movie-making.  A few months ago, I went to see The Great Gatsby movie after re-reading the book (which I have always loved) with my book club.  I thought it was a visually-entrancing and interesting interpretation that did justice to the book.  I loved Toby Maguire, found Leonardo DiCaprio's Gatsby to be a credible version, and found my doubts upon hearing that Carey Mulligan was playing Daisy to be confirmed (however, that may be the hardest role in the book--certainly, the previous attempts I've seen to capture Daisy have been similarly unsuccessful).

Of course, viewing all the Baz Luhrmann excesses of the roaring Twenties would not have been possible without CGI.   But I didn't realize how much that was true until I saw this video by Chris Godfrey, who was the Visual Effects Supervisor for the film.  This video displays some of the scenes as  before and after shots--before CGI, that is.  It is really amazing!  I knew some, even lots, of this stuff was computer generated, but there were other elements that I never imagined weren't there in real life.

Watch it for yourself below:


The Great Gatsby VFX from Chris Godfrey on Vimeo.

A Postmodern Lone Ranger and Johnny Depp's Empowered Tonto

We kicked off our 4th of July weekend by seeing the latest Johnny Depp movie, The Lone Ranger.  While the reviews haven't been stellar, I found the move to be both enjoyable and thought-provoking.  But I guess the problem is that I've ended up thinking more about why the movie makers included some of the things that they did, so that I'm focused on the process or message of the move rather than the movie itself.

In some ways, while the movie reunited some of the main players who produced The Pirates of the Caribbean (which I really loved, despite my initial skepticism about what sounded like the most ridiculous premise for a movie ever--an amusement park ride?), this is almost kind of an anti-Pirates movie.  Why I mean is that Bruckheimer and company just went whole hog with that movie, making it an outrageous and  rollicking tale that reinterprets pirates as not thieves and murderers, but as incarnations of the American spirit of freedom and non-conformity against the British formal restrictions  against individuality and independence.  What's not to love?

I think that the issue with The Lone Ranger is that the point, at least the one expressed by Johnny Depp in the interviews I've read, was to reinterpret Tonto not just as a faithful sidekick, but an equal partner who incorporates Native American perspectives with our typical Caucasian hero fare.  But to do justice to the Native American experience, the movie can't simply be a fantasy Wild West story that whitewashes the mass slaughter of people who inconveniently were already occupying land that we wanted to claim for our own purpose.

Hence, the dilemma.  Buddy tale, or political statement?  Summer action blockbuster with a conscience?  Not an easy thing to pull off, and we'll have to see how it all fares.  But I think it was a more interesting attempt to use a star vehicle for something more than just making boatloads of money.  And so I would recommend it.

I found an interesting review of the movie by Richard Brody in The New Yorkers, and I've reproduced it below.  It contains spoilers, so go see the movie first, then read his views about how this movie is more of a reflection of our times than of our Western history.

July 3, 2013

“The Lone Ranger” Rides Again

Posted by Richard Brody

Gore Verbinski’s “The Lone Ranger” is the Western for this age of meta-cinema, a time when viewers see beyond movies to their making and their marketing. In effect, “The Lone Ranger,” like other recent tentpole movies, is a work of conceptual art. The high concept, delivered at the imagined pitch meeting, becomes part of the story, and, as a result, the script dominates the experience as surely as if it were pasted onto the screen, page by page. (The budget is also displayed, in the form of the images and the so-called production values that they convey.) “The Lone Ranger” says little about the American West but a great deal about the virtues and failings of our time and of contemporary big-scale Hollywood filmmaking.

The first shot of the movie, depicting the Golden Gate Bridge in a state of ruin, is a shocker. It seems to be taken from a postapocalyptic political disaster movie, but a superimposed title setting the action in San Francisco in 1933 reveals that, instead, the bridge is under construction. The association is clear enough, though—it puts the modern West under the sign of the Wild West. The shot continues, in a sinuous crane, to a boy (Mason Elston Cook) who gazes into a life-size diorama featuring a statue-like rendering of “The Noble Savage,” a Native American who turns out to be not a mannequin but, rather, a living man standing stock-still on display—none other than Tonto. Well past eighty, he tells the boy a story, set in a Texas outpost in 1869, that turns out to be the bulk of the film, in flashback.

The action of the story that Tonto tells gets under way with a prisoner’s escape from the train that’s bringing John Reid (Armie Hammer), ultimately the Lone Ranger, home to a Texas town to serve as prosecutor after his stint out East in law school. Tonto’s tale has the authority of the first-person account as well as the exaggerations of an avuncular performer and the distortions of time. This accounts for its overtly political elements and its occasional forays into goofball comedy, as well as for its wildly impossible set pieces, which are designed to amuse rather than inform his young audience of one.

The plot (spoiler alert) involves a railroad executive (Tom Wilkinson) who hires a bloodthirsty criminal (William Fichtner) to stir up trouble with the peaceful Comanches in order to get the U.S. Army to dispose of them and free up land for the rail line’s westward passage. This story replaces the triumphalist legend of the westward expansion with a troubled and guilt-ridden tale that reflects its guilt forward, into the present day. But the politics of that plot are subordinated to its main purpose: to set up the two backstories of how Reid became the Masked Man and how Tonto became his partner (not his sidekick).

Backstory is an essentially democratic mode of storytelling; it defines people by their personal particulars rather than by their social station or other outward identifiers, and it explains action not in terms of situations but in terms of individuals’ needs, conflicts, desires, dreams, and troubles. Popular Hollywood movies are the avant-garde of this liberal idea (“Man of Steel,” for example, is nothing but backstory), which converts the present into destiny and the future into a vision of redemption, whether making good on a past error or sin (that’s Tonto’s story) or seeking some sort of vengeance.

With Westerns, backstory makes sense: history is to society as backstory is to character, and the country is as tethered to its past as are its citizens to their personal stories. The simple didacticism of “The Lone Ranger” is to grant Native Americans their rightful place in the national narrative, and to find a way to make good on the injustices on which the nation developed. The Western is an inherently political genre because it renders as physical action the functions of government that, in modernity, are often bureaucratic and abstract. But that’s exactly where the highly constructed conceptualism of “The Lone Ranger” disappoints: it renders the physical abstract. Despite the elaborate and often clever gag-like action stunts (or C.G.I. contrivances) and the occasionally grotesque violence, the movie seems not to be there at all, replaced throughout by the idea of the movie.

In fact, “The Lone Ranger”—which features many of the elements of classic Westerns, including an all too brief view of the majestic landscape—is not a Western but a collection of signifiers of Westerns that are assembled in such a way as to attract audiences that would never be attracted to a Western. It’s almost beside the point whether its elements are “good.” Johnny Depp brings a sonorous voice and a dry humor to the role of Tonto, and Armie Hammer, who specializes in the soul of the Wasp (and should have played Tom Buchanan in “The Great Gatsby”), offers just the right genteel naïveté to suffer the disillusionment that counteracts the popular Western myths of 1933 and their vestiges today. Verbinski takes pains to meticulously recreate crusty details and directs the action sequences with a graphic academicism, a bland eye-catching cleverness that communicates action without embodying it—which is exactly the point. For those who love Westerns (and I do), “The Lone Ranger” winks at them consistently enough to elicit warm reminiscence of the moods, the gestures, the styles, and the themes, even as it averts the sense of time and place to convey a sturdy and generic substructure of modern storytelling akin to that of other superhero blockbusters.

Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/movies/2013/07/gore-verbinski-the-lone-ranger-reviewed.html?printable=true&currentPage=all#ixzz2YAdiRT9X

Move Review: The Hunger Games

I got to see the movie that most middle schoolers are probably buzzing about right now--the film adaptation of Suzanne Collin's popular book, The Hunger Games.  As I've stated in my earlier reviews of that book and the series as a whole, I was surprised at how much I liked the books--for adults.   As I've stated before, at best I don't think most middle schoolers will appreciate the best parts of the books, and at worst, it will add to the extremely violent and depressing literature that make up too much of our young adolescents' reading (in my opinion).

However, with that disclaimer out of the the way, here is what I liked and didn't like about the movie.  Overall, I think they did an excellent job adapting the book--about as good a job as I could have imagined.  It does leave me with some concerns, however....  (And for those who haven't read the book, I'm not going to discuss specific plot devices that would be "spoilers.")

Good Points:

1.  It is a very faithful adaptation
Book fans will be glad to know that the moviemakers have stuck very closely to the text of the novel.  I'm not as familiar with this book as I was with the Harry Potter series, but I noticed only a few deviations from the story as I remember it, and they were pretty minor.

2.  The casting is excellent
All I can say about the cast and the acting is WOW!  There were some roles I knew would be great, such as Stanley Tucci (whom I LOVE as an actor) as Caesar Flickerman, and Elizabeth Banks lived up to my expectations for her role as Effie Trinket based on the photos they had released beforehand.  Before I saw the movie, I wasn't so sure about Woody Harrelson as Haymitch Abernathy, but it turned out that this was the best think I had seen him do in years.  I never thought that much about the appearance or personalities of people like President Snow or Seneca Crane, but I really like how Donald Sutherland and Wes Bentley  portrayed them.

But even more important, of course, were all the young people who played the leading roles of Katniss, Peeta, Gale, and Prim, along with all the other combatants in the games.  I thought all of them did a wonderful job.  Everyone is raving about Jennifer Lawrence's job as Katniss, and I think she made a great Katniss.  But I was also struck by how well I thought Josh Hutcherson brought the role of Peeta to life.  I think Peeta is harder to play than most people realize.  In my mind (and to borrow a term from the Harry Potter world), Peeta is the ultimate Hufflepuff.   He is not the bold and intense Katniss, nor the mysterious and charismatic Gale, or even the intelligent and winsome Rue.  He is just a really good guy, faithful and true, brave and uncomplaining.  He is open and honest and loyal, and the kind of person who would never go back on his word.  It is the kind of role that is easy to make him seem more simple than he really is.  But in many ways, he is the moral compass of the entire series, so it is important that he not appear too common or obvious, because what Peeta represents may be the rarest quality in the world of The Hunger Games.  Anyway, I was very impressed with how Hutcherson presented this character.

3.  The violence was handled very sensitively
I applaud how the movie handled the MANY acts of violence in the film.  They didn't downplay it in the plot, or sugarcoat the killing of children by other children.  However, they tended to stylize the killings themselves, and avoided making them very gory bloodbaths.  I appreciated that for my own desire not to be bombarded with violent images, let alone for spairing the PG-13 crowd for which the movie is intended.

4.  The visual presentation of the disparate worlds of Panem was striking
I'm not a very visual reader; in my mind as I read, I focus much more on characters than on settings.  So I hadn't really pictured what life would look like, either in Katniss' home of District 12 or in the lush, high-tech Capitol.   Thus, I loved the way the film painted those two worlds for me.   To me, the Capitol scenes seemed to be inspired by the Judy Garland move of The Wizard of Oz meets Star Wars.  The bright and garish colors and over-the-top fashions made the denizens of the Capitol look like futuristic Munchins (except of normal heights and proportions, of course).  District 12, on the other hand, being the coal mining region, looked like those black and white photos of Appalachian miners taken during the Depression.  Then, of course, you had the wilderness where most of the actual Games themselves took place (and filmed largely here in North Carolina).  It made an excellent triangle of the options available to inhabitants of Panem, all without saying a word about the politics of life there.

Bad Points:

1.  The character of Katniss is softened
I don't think this was intentional, and I don't know how the film could have avoided it.  The problem is, particularly during the Games themselves, Katniss is often alone, and so her plans and reactions to events is told through her inner dialogue.  But her inner dialogue is so much more complex that her actions alone, which is what the movie portrays.  In the book, she is single-minded, ruthless, and constantly scheming and assessing what will help her towards her goal.   She is willing to lie, cheat, steal, and kill to get what she wants (in contrast to Peeta, who might do some, but not all of those things).  However, I don't think you necessarily get that if you watch the film without reading the book.  It could be quite easy to misinterpret some of her actions as coming from other motivations than her simple determination to win the Games.

2.  The political messages are lessened
The reason I really liked The Hunger Games series was the things it had in common with 1984 (critique of totalitarianism), not what it shares with Twilight (love triangle set in a dangerous and fantastical world) or with...I don't know, Clash of the Titans or Transformers or whatever books or movie deal with young people battling enemies (that is, just out-and-out youth violence), since I never watch those kinds of movies.

But, as with the character development of Katniss, this aspect of the series, particularly in the first book, is told mainly through exposition.  And most of that exposition is missing in the movie.  The histories of the Games, the political mechinations of Capitol residents, leaders, and sponsors, the allotted roles of the different Districts, and much more along this vein are all left out of the movie.   Therefore, the political implications of the whole thing are merely suggested, rather than reinforced.

These are more central themes of the later books, and so I expect they will be more important in the movies to come.  But the lack of the political message is a real issue for me, and probably my biggest concern about the movie.

After all, we are all supposed to be disgusted with the pleasure that the decadent residents of the Capitol get from watching children kill each other.  But if the movie of The Hunger Games is simply all about the action-driven plot, how much better are we for getting pleasure out of watching children pretend to kill each other?

And that is my predominant concern about middle schoolers watching this movie if they haven't read the book.

Movie Review: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2

My husband and I just got back from watching what is probably the movie of the year, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2.  Like watching Toy Story 3 last summer, it was definitely a bittersweet experience.  Who wants the wonderful world of Harry Potter books and movies to come to an end?  But I have to say, if it has to end, I think they did an excellent job putting the series to rest with this movie.
(Note:  If, by some chance, you haven't read the book and don't want to know any spoilers, then stop reading here.  And I wouldn't advise trying to see the movie without reading the books, or at least seeing all the previous movies; I think you would be completely lost if you came in blind for this one.)

As always, the movies leave out so much about the nuances and the details and the relationships, and like all the movie before it, there were scenes from the book that I was really disappointed not to see in the film.  But the two medias are different, and we have to embrace them for their strengths, rather than complain about their weaknesses.  There were scenes that presented themselves much more dramatically on the screen than I had ever imagined when reading the book, such as the scenes that showed Hogwarts students being marched in en mass that was chillingly reminiscent of Nazism.

But I think this movie does a great job ending the series because it has that good old archetypal feel of inspiring heroes rising to the call and a pretty black and white good triumphing over evil.  By separating the last book into two movies, this last film shows everyone at their best.  Gone are the jealousies and petty behaviors that our three main protagonists exhibited at times in Deathly Hallow, Part 1(and in the previous books); they are brave and true and clever throughout this movie.  And even the bad guys are kind of at their best this time, gathering for a straight-out test of their strengths rather than the political maneuvering or the simpering, sneaky nastiness shown in the earlier films by characters such as Delores Umbridge or Wormtail.

But for me, I think this movie really works because after it all--after all the years of magic and fantastical creatures and flying sports and all the other imaginative flourishes J.K. Rowling has packed into her work--this movie really centers on the two things that make the Harry Potter books so outstanding:  story and characters.  The biggest scenes are not the one with CG effects or new imaginative animals (in fact, the ones that appear, such as giants and dragons and giant spiders and Cornish pixies have all been seen before), but the ones that complete the stories of all these people we've come to love over the years.  FINALLY, we get to hear Snape's story.  FINALLY, we discover Dumbledore's grand plan for Harry.  FINALLY, the obvious couple gets together.  FINALLY, the disrespected underdog has his big hero moment.  FINALLY... lots and lots of plot lines get tied together in a way that brings us to a very satisfied place about these characters that have been developing in our heads and in our hearts for over a decade.

And I have to say, I really like this movie because I can also see it as the Triumph of the Mothers.  When Hogwarts is preparing for attack, it isn't the Aurors or active leaders of the Order of the Phoenix (who have pretty much been men the whole way along, let's face it) who take charge, it is the "in loco parentis" grandmotherly-looking Minerva McGonagall.  It isn't the handsome and talented Sirius Black who defeats the horrible Bellatrix Lestrange, it is the frumpy, domestic, and usually sidelined Molly Weasley who battles Bellatrix to the death when she threatens Molly's only daughter.  And it is Narcissa Malfoy who helps set up Harry's surprising resurrection to his supporters at Hogwarts when she betrays Voldemort to ensure the protection of her son.

So this movie, like the book on which it is based, offers a lot of life lessons about love and friendship and loyalty and the things that are worth fighting for.  But I think it also offers one other key bit of advice:  Don't Mess with the Mamas!

Movie Review: Company with the New York Philharmonic

I just got back from a wonderful treat--seeing the digital movie version of one of Stephen Sondheim's earliest musical, Company, performed at the New York Philharmonic.  It was done concert style, with minimal staging and costumes, etc., but with a truly all-star cast, including Neil Patrick Harris in the lead as Bobby, Patti Lapone in the iconic role of Joanne, and other award-winning performers of screen and stage. For a list of other performers, see the trailer:




To see a sample of one of the bigger performance numbers, view this clip of "Side by Side":




Now, truth be told, this not really a show for middle schoolers.  It is basically a fairly profound musical discussion of the pros and cons of relationships, particularly marriage.  The protagonist alternates between wondering why he hasn't gotten married yet, like the five couples that make up his best friends, and examining those marriages with a jaundiced eye and wondering why he would ever want to do that to himself.  It touches on adult themes, including alcoholism, drug usage, and sex, as well as a pretty sophisticated look at marriages.

However, I just love Sondheim, and really enjoyed this performance, even in its minimal state.  And it made it really nice to see on the large screen.  Unfortunately, this was the last night of a limited four-night showing of the film in the theaters.  But I imagine it will come to Netflix soon, and I recommend it if you are a Sondheim fan.

This show was particularly interesting for me because I haven't seen Company for at least 20 years.  And when I saw it before, I was listening to it all with single ears.  It has a whole new level of richness and meaning watching it now that I am married.  It gives you some great musical food for thought about relationships between spouses, as well as reminding you about the good and the bad of your single days.

The one thing that might relate to middle schoolers is the fact that this may be a new trend in the movies:  showing big screen presentations of performances.  The New York Philharmonic only had four nights of Company, so not many people got to see the live performance.  But releasing it digitally on a big screen gives a performance-like experience (my friend and I had to keep stopping ourselves from clapping after a musical number), but makes it accessible to a lot more people.  On the way out of the theater, I also saw ads for a series of operas that were going to be shown, as well as a ballet series.  The movie industry has to keep reinventing itself, just like many others effected by the digital revolution, and this looks like one new way they are trying to survive.  But it's one that I applaud.

Movie Review: The King's Speech

Last night, my husband and I went to the The King's Speech, the movie about how Australian speech therapist Lionel Logue helped King George VI overcome his stammer when he was forced to give public speeches upon gaining the throne after the abdication of his brother, King Edward VIII.  Like almost all the critics, we loved this movie.  It features terrific actors, it captures the look and feel of the time perfectly, it is based on true events, and it has an uplifting ending.  My husband and I don't get out to the movies much, but if we do, this is exactly the kind of movie I want to see.

The subject matter is appropriate for middle school and high school students.  It provides some background on the lead up to World War II, and certainly gives Americans a better picture of the family of the current Queen, Queen Elizabeth II, and of the institution of monarchy altogether.  Even more importantly, I think it gives some great lessons about heroism.  It is a wonderful example of how we might admire someone famous or from a famous family or with a lot of power, and never realize that they, just like all of us, have their own challenges to overcome, their own demons to face.  Colin Firth's "Bertie" is a man who is surrendered to his duty, who is noble and persistent and struggles to live up to what his nation and his people need him to be, even if it is not the path he would have chosen for himself.  Helen Bonham Carter makes a wonderful wife to the would-not-be King, sweet and strong and stoic and compassionate all at once.  (Her performance is especially delightful since the last time we saw her, she was playing Bellatrix Lestrang in the latest Harry Potter movie, where she is pretty much the polar opposite of the role she plays here.)  And Geoffrey Rush's Lionel Logue is an eccentric commoner who never loses his dignity and refuses to be pushed around in the face of the royal juggernaut of honors and procedures, facing down the issues of power and class differences that were quite a big deal at the time.  It is really a film about everyone striving to be their best selves under trying circumstances, which is a message that none of us, but especially our middle and high school students, can hear often enough.

The issue in sharing this movie with students, however, are several instances of extreme profanity.  The swearing scenes, which are a great contrast to the language in the rest of the movie, serve a dramatic purpose.  Nonetheless, many of us may not feel comfortable taking our children to a movie with language that is profane enough to have earned the film an R rating.

So you may have to wait until it comes out on DVD, and then fast forward over a couple of bits.  Other than that, however, it is a great movie for teaching students a variety of lessons, historical and otherwise.