It's a well-known fact among my social circle that I am what we in the film industry call "a total, straight-up, melodramatic-as-all-get-out, undeniable Drama Queen." I don't just love something, I worship and adore it like it's my firstborn child. I don't just hate something, I despise it with every fiber of my being. Like I said in my Pixels review, I'm a fangirl. And I have never, ever made any bones about that or attempted to temper it in any way.
So when a movie with four of my favorite actors, directed by the same guy who made one of the best independent films I'd ever seen (have I mentioned that you should watch The Station Agent? because you should really watch The Station Agent) popped up in my newsfeed...well...you can imagine the ensuing freak-out.
The fact that Ian has heard me incessantly going on and on about Spotlight for the last three or so months and hasn't yet locked me in the attic is a testament to the fact that I literally have the best boyfriend ever. For real though. Every other day: "Ian, we have to see Spotlight!" "I will die if I don't get to see Spotlight." "I already missed Freeheld, I will literally kill someone if I miss Spotlight too!" "IT'S NOT FAIR. I want to see Spotlight but it's not in Michigan yet!" "I will boycott the Oscars if Spotlight doesn't get any nominations." (Yes, I said that before I even saw it.) So, obviously, I have been dying to see this movie since I found out about it in July. And let me tell you, it was so worth the wait.
On the way back from the theater, I told Ian "You're going to have to review this movie, because if I do it, I promise you I won't be able to be objective. My review's basically going to look like 'ASDFKSADFKJHAFSIDU I F-ING LOVE IT I WANT TO MARRY THIS MOVIE AND HAVE TOM MCCARTHY'S BABIES AND CUDDLE MARK RUFFALO UNTIL JUDGEMENT DAY AND IT'S SO BEAUTIFUL AND SO SAD AND SO REAL THAT I AM GOING TO CRY THESE ARE HEROES AND THE AVENGERS CAN GO TO HELL.'" And, well, here we are. I promise I'll try to be more coherent than that, but that's the gist.
I loved Spotlight. Hands-down it is the best film that I have seen all year, and trust me, that's saying something. All summer I've felt starved for independent film, and all of a sudden this past few weeks I've seen Trumbo, Suffragette and Spotlight one after the other. That's like good-movie overload. And yet still, Spotlight stands out. But why?
For starters, the casting is beyond-the-pale fantastic. We all know Michael Keaton is basically an acting god, but he shines in this film simply by...well, actually, by not being Michael Keaton. My favorite kind of performance is when an actor makes me forget that I know who they are. And for the first ten minutes of Spotlight all I could think was, "Shit, he reminds me of my dad." And he did. For two hours I forgot that I was watching my favorites, because they embodied their characters in a way that sucked me into the story and wouldn't let me go. The scene where Mike Rezendes (Ruffalo's character) breaks down and rants about how close he and his friends came to being abused by priests had me in tears--because it was real. It wasn't a Hollywood-glamorized "epiphany" starring MARK RUFFALO, it was a painful realization by a man who cared too much and didn't know how else to respond. And damn it, I could identify with that more than I initially cared to admit.
Which brings me to the treatment of the painful subject matter of the film. And this is the truly brilliant thing about Spotlight: for a movie that's ostensibly about priests abusing children, we see very few children, even fewer priests, and absolutely no abuse. Think about that for a minute. How much buzz and controversy could they have stirred up by making a film that depicted small children being molested by trusted clergy? "SHOCKING! PROVOCATIVE! GROUNDBREAKING! HEARTBREAKING! OSCAR MATERIAL!" the headlines would have screamed. But McCarthy resisted that temptation and instead made a movie that was not about the abuse itself, but what the reporters had to go through to bring that abuse to light.
By making the film more about the team than about the scandal, McCarthy ensured that Spotlight would not become a sensationalistic piece of "Oscar-bait" that existed purely to make people feel bad about their non-tragic lives. On paper it sounds so oddly flat: "it's a movie about people writing a news article." But the emotions burst off the screen and bring the story to life. There's nothing dry or boring about the frustration, shock, pain, anger, desperation and, finally, exhilaration that the team experiences as they force to the surface a story that so many wanted to remain buried. Now, as I said, this is in part due to the brilliant performances, but the rest of it is in the writing and direction.
The scenes in which the team speaks to abuse survivors are particularly strong. Again, these could have been over-the-top, exploitative sequences that were specifically engineered to make the audience squirm. Instead, we are forced to confront the painful reality that unlike, say, Von Trier's Antichrist--a film so gratuitously violent and sexually explicit that even my film school teachers shied away from playing it for us--this stuff actually happened to people. Do you know someone who's mutilated their own genitals after being confronted by a self-disemboweling fox? I sure don't. But I know people who have been betrayed and sexually abused by people they trusted, and that, to me, is far more terrifying than anything Von Trier could have dreamed up.
There's a scene towards the end of the film wherein Robby (Keaton) walks into his little office and hears phones ringing off the hook as survivors from all over Boston call in to talk about their experiences with the priests. It takes him a minute to comprehend what is happening, the effect his team's work has had, the backlash they might face, the exact size of the can of worms he's just opened--and all the good that might just come of it. There's no dialogue. The look on his face says it all. No, a news story can't undo the damage that the degenerate clergy has done. But the work he's done with his team can lead to a better future, and that, to him, is what really matters.
And that, to me, is the meaning behind Spotlight. That was why I told Ian, as we left the theater, "They are heroes." They are--I wasn't kidding when I compared them to the Avengers--but it's not because they won the Pulitzer Prize or blew the lid off of a disgusting conspiracy that never should have existed. It's because they knew something was wrong and they put every effort into making it right in the best way they knew how. Those are the kind of characters I can root for. That's the kind of story that I like to see.
That's the kind of movie that someday, I really, really want to make.
Wednesday, November 25, 2015
Monday, November 16, 2015
Dear Movie Theaters
I am angry at you.
Not all of you. But most of you. Collectively, I am angry at movie theaters. And honestly, I really think I have good reason to be.
In this age of instant streaming, video-on-demand, Dish Network, Redbox and YouTube, I do not have to go to a theater to see a movie. I do not have to pay you upwards of $20 to see one movie in one night. I do not have to drive for half an hour or more for the privilege of forcing a pair of 3D glasses over my regular glasses and missing half the movie due to closing my eyes to combat headaches brought on by eye-popping graphics. I have an HD flatscreen TV with access to Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and YouTube, and I also own a Blu-Ray player. So, in short, screw you. I do not have to pay for the honor of seeing a film that you deem worthy to grace your silver screens. I can wait six months and see it on Netflix, where I get to watch all the movies I want for less than $20 a month. That's right, for $20 per one month, I can see unlimited movies, instead of paying $20 in one night to see one film that I probably had to go way out of my way to see.
What I pay for, in case you care even a single iota, is the experience. And in the last five years or so, holy mother of God has that experience been lacking.
So yes, movie theaters, I am angry, and I am sad. Because in the years since I graduated high school, you have been slowly, gradually stripping away everything I loved about seeing films in a theater.
You have taken away midnight premiere showings, instead beginning showings of a hot new movie at 7:00 the day before. Little hint, guys: just say it comes out on the 19th instead of the 20th. Stop kidding yourselves. Stop lying to us.
You have taken away my choice to wear a costume to a franchise premiere.
You have taken away my ability to feel safe in a movie theater by implementing your ridiculous "security measures" that make me feel more like I'm going through an airport than going to a movie.
You have even taken away my ability to see the movies I really want to see. You see, when you relegate films like Freeheld and Room to tiny arthouse theaters instead of granting them even short runs in your precious mainstream multiplexes, you force those of us who want to see them to drive ungodly distances just to see one film, thus adding gas to the ever-growing cost of seeing a film. Do we really need two dozen showings per day of the latest Paranormal Activity film? I guess so, because you refuse to even give one of those screenings to a real movie.
Back in 2011 I saw the midnight premiere of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows II at my local theater. Local, as in, less than ten minutes from my house. I wore my Hermione Granger costume, complete with homemade wand and time-turner, and stood in line for almost an hour and a half to guarantee that I'd get in to see the film--and good thing, too, because by the time midnight rolled around, the entire theater was sold out. Inside the building it was beautiful chaos. The entire place was decorated with Harry Potter paraphernalia, including Warner Bros licensed, life-sized cardboard cut-outs of the characters. Theater staff wore cloaks and wizard hats over their uniforms. Some of them directed us to the screening rooms with wands. Over half the attendees were in costume. There was a palpable energy inside the theater when we took our seats. Some of us were in tears before the film even started. Others couldn't stop shaking with excitement. And when the movie started, forget it. We were all wizards in that moment. We were all Harry, all Hermione, all Ron, all Luna Lovegood and Neville Longbottom and Ginny Weasley. We cheered when Neville pulled the sword out of the hat. We roared our approval at "NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH." We cried together over Fred, Tonks, Lupin and Snape's fates. We whistled and "aww"-ed at Harry and Ginny's last kiss. And when it was over, we gave a standing ovation. Some of us who'd brought wands pointed them in the air and said, "Mischief Managed." Perfect strangers hugged and cried on one another's shoulders. It was...there's no other word for it...magical.
That was the last time I saw a movie like that.
Six months ago I saw The Avengers: Age of Ultron at 11:00PM on April 30. Now, let me begin by saying I could have easily seen it at, oh, 6:30 or so had I chosen to do so. I didn't, however, because I wanted to see it with my boyfriend, who didn't get off work until 10:00 that night. We put together a little group: me, him, and I think four of his friends. And that was...it.
No, really. There were exactly eight people in that theater. At the freaking AMC. For Age of Ultron. In that whole room, there were eight of us, I was one of them, and I knew five of the others.
It gets worse. Since I knew costumes would likely get us booted out of the theater, I didn't even bring up the idea of dressing like the Avengers (since there would be six of us, obviously) for the premiere. I dressed in my favorite Avenger's trademark colors, but that was as far as I dared to go. I think one of the guys wore a Captain America t-shirt. That was it. That was as much as we could do. I have no doubt that if I'd showed up dressed like Black Widow I would have been turned away.
It still gets worse. The theater was practically dead. The reactions were mild, to say the least. I heard a smattering of snarky comments from Ian's peanut-gallery friends. I heard some laughs from the couple in the back. I did my share of laughing and rolling my eyes and clutching Ian's hand, but even I couldn't get into the "spirit" of things. How could I? There was no crowd, no mob mentality to roll with. Even the moment when Scarlet Witch finally gave in and joined the Avengers, even when Quicksilver bit the dust, even when Banner and Black Widow kissed for the first time, there were no screams of approval or cries of pain. It was just...there. Like any other movie we could've chosen to see that night.
I told Ian I needed the bathroom after the movie was over. It wasn't really a lie, because I did need the privacy of a bathroom. Safely hidden from his wisecracking friends, I locked myself in a stall and cried. I had so badly wanted the experience that I'd had when I saw Harry Potter that anything less was a crushing disappointment. But I didn't want the others, who seemed more than content just to see the movie in 3D, to know how hurt I was. So I pulled myself together after a few minutes and went back out, pretending that I was as impressed by the graphics and annoyed by the plot holes as they were.
Movie theaters, you have, in plain English, screwed up. You have taken what was once a thrilling experience and made it about as common as grocery shopping. "What are we gonna do tonight?" "I don't know man, let's go see a movie." "Ok bro, whatever."
For one of my senior projects in my last year of college I made a short documentary about the ever-changing movie distribution industry. I asked a theater owner what he thought would "save" movie theaters from the same fate as video stores and he talked about the incomparable experience of seeing a feature film in a theater. So far, so good. But instead of talking about experiences like the one I had seeing Harry Potter, he briefly mentioned something about escapism before going off on a long explanation of how movie theaters have to be more than a theater now. They have to include bars, restaurants, bowling alleys, arcades, party rooms. They can't just, y'know, show movies, don't 'cha know. They have to be more.
But...hold on...what if they don't?
I don't want to go bowling when I see a movie. I don't want to eat overpriced food before or after the movie as well as during the film. (If I'm paying $10 for a bucket of popcorn, you'd better put some freaking fairy dust on that shit.) I don't want to kill 20 minutes after the film playing a first-person shooter game. I don't want to get drunk on cocktails. And I certainly don't want to pay $50 when all is said and done, just to see one movie and have one meal. I don't want to have to drive 35 miles to see Room or Spotlight. I don't want to have to watch a 3-D trailer for Paranormal Activity. I don't want to walk through a metal detector or have my bag searched. I don't need any of that, and I certainly don't enjoy it.
I just want the energy back.
I just want to wear a real Hawkeye costume, instead of resorting to a black t-shirt and maroon jeggings.
I just want to see a midnight premiere at midnight instead of having to see it at 8:00 or 9:00 on a Thursday night with a brain-dead audience.
I just want to see a movie in a packed house with a crowd that's as thrilled to be there as I am.
I just want to go into a theater and, for one or two short hours, forget that people like the Aurora theater shooter exist.
I just want to feel like I used to feel when I walked into a theater: safe, and wanted, and happy. Like I belonged there. Like I was meant to be there.
I just want to go home.
Not all of you. But most of you. Collectively, I am angry at movie theaters. And honestly, I really think I have good reason to be.
In this age of instant streaming, video-on-demand, Dish Network, Redbox and YouTube, I do not have to go to a theater to see a movie. I do not have to pay you upwards of $20 to see one movie in one night. I do not have to drive for half an hour or more for the privilege of forcing a pair of 3D glasses over my regular glasses and missing half the movie due to closing my eyes to combat headaches brought on by eye-popping graphics. I have an HD flatscreen TV with access to Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and YouTube, and I also own a Blu-Ray player. So, in short, screw you. I do not have to pay for the honor of seeing a film that you deem worthy to grace your silver screens. I can wait six months and see it on Netflix, where I get to watch all the movies I want for less than $20 a month. That's right, for $20 per one month, I can see unlimited movies, instead of paying $20 in one night to see one film that I probably had to go way out of my way to see.
What I pay for, in case you care even a single iota, is the experience. And in the last five years or so, holy mother of God has that experience been lacking.
So yes, movie theaters, I am angry, and I am sad. Because in the years since I graduated high school, you have been slowly, gradually stripping away everything I loved about seeing films in a theater.
You have taken away midnight premiere showings, instead beginning showings of a hot new movie at 7:00 the day before. Little hint, guys: just say it comes out on the 19th instead of the 20th. Stop kidding yourselves. Stop lying to us.
You have taken away my choice to wear a costume to a franchise premiere.
You have taken away my ability to feel safe in a movie theater by implementing your ridiculous "security measures" that make me feel more like I'm going through an airport than going to a movie.
You have even taken away my ability to see the movies I really want to see. You see, when you relegate films like Freeheld and Room to tiny arthouse theaters instead of granting them even short runs in your precious mainstream multiplexes, you force those of us who want to see them to drive ungodly distances just to see one film, thus adding gas to the ever-growing cost of seeing a film. Do we really need two dozen showings per day of the latest Paranormal Activity film? I guess so, because you refuse to even give one of those screenings to a real movie.
Back in 2011 I saw the midnight premiere of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows II at my local theater. Local, as in, less than ten minutes from my house. I wore my Hermione Granger costume, complete with homemade wand and time-turner, and stood in line for almost an hour and a half to guarantee that I'd get in to see the film--and good thing, too, because by the time midnight rolled around, the entire theater was sold out. Inside the building it was beautiful chaos. The entire place was decorated with Harry Potter paraphernalia, including Warner Bros licensed, life-sized cardboard cut-outs of the characters. Theater staff wore cloaks and wizard hats over their uniforms. Some of them directed us to the screening rooms with wands. Over half the attendees were in costume. There was a palpable energy inside the theater when we took our seats. Some of us were in tears before the film even started. Others couldn't stop shaking with excitement. And when the movie started, forget it. We were all wizards in that moment. We were all Harry, all Hermione, all Ron, all Luna Lovegood and Neville Longbottom and Ginny Weasley. We cheered when Neville pulled the sword out of the hat. We roared our approval at "NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH." We cried together over Fred, Tonks, Lupin and Snape's fates. We whistled and "aww"-ed at Harry and Ginny's last kiss. And when it was over, we gave a standing ovation. Some of us who'd brought wands pointed them in the air and said, "Mischief Managed." Perfect strangers hugged and cried on one another's shoulders. It was...there's no other word for it...magical.
That was the last time I saw a movie like that.
Six months ago I saw The Avengers: Age of Ultron at 11:00PM on April 30. Now, let me begin by saying I could have easily seen it at, oh, 6:30 or so had I chosen to do so. I didn't, however, because I wanted to see it with my boyfriend, who didn't get off work until 10:00 that night. We put together a little group: me, him, and I think four of his friends. And that was...it.
No, really. There were exactly eight people in that theater. At the freaking AMC. For Age of Ultron. In that whole room, there were eight of us, I was one of them, and I knew five of the others.
It gets worse. Since I knew costumes would likely get us booted out of the theater, I didn't even bring up the idea of dressing like the Avengers (since there would be six of us, obviously) for the premiere. I dressed in my favorite Avenger's trademark colors, but that was as far as I dared to go. I think one of the guys wore a Captain America t-shirt. That was it. That was as much as we could do. I have no doubt that if I'd showed up dressed like Black Widow I would have been turned away.
It still gets worse. The theater was practically dead. The reactions were mild, to say the least. I heard a smattering of snarky comments from Ian's peanut-gallery friends. I heard some laughs from the couple in the back. I did my share of laughing and rolling my eyes and clutching Ian's hand, but even I couldn't get into the "spirit" of things. How could I? There was no crowd, no mob mentality to roll with. Even the moment when Scarlet Witch finally gave in and joined the Avengers, even when Quicksilver bit the dust, even when Banner and Black Widow kissed for the first time, there were no screams of approval or cries of pain. It was just...there. Like any other movie we could've chosen to see that night.
I told Ian I needed the bathroom after the movie was over. It wasn't really a lie, because I did need the privacy of a bathroom. Safely hidden from his wisecracking friends, I locked myself in a stall and cried. I had so badly wanted the experience that I'd had when I saw Harry Potter that anything less was a crushing disappointment. But I didn't want the others, who seemed more than content just to see the movie in 3D, to know how hurt I was. So I pulled myself together after a few minutes and went back out, pretending that I was as impressed by the graphics and annoyed by the plot holes as they were.
Movie theaters, you have, in plain English, screwed up. You have taken what was once a thrilling experience and made it about as common as grocery shopping. "What are we gonna do tonight?" "I don't know man, let's go see a movie." "Ok bro, whatever."
For one of my senior projects in my last year of college I made a short documentary about the ever-changing movie distribution industry. I asked a theater owner what he thought would "save" movie theaters from the same fate as video stores and he talked about the incomparable experience of seeing a feature film in a theater. So far, so good. But instead of talking about experiences like the one I had seeing Harry Potter, he briefly mentioned something about escapism before going off on a long explanation of how movie theaters have to be more than a theater now. They have to include bars, restaurants, bowling alleys, arcades, party rooms. They can't just, y'know, show movies, don't 'cha know. They have to be more.
But...hold on...what if they don't?
I don't want to go bowling when I see a movie. I don't want to eat overpriced food before or after the movie as well as during the film. (If I'm paying $10 for a bucket of popcorn, you'd better put some freaking fairy dust on that shit.) I don't want to kill 20 minutes after the film playing a first-person shooter game. I don't want to get drunk on cocktails. And I certainly don't want to pay $50 when all is said and done, just to see one movie and have one meal. I don't want to have to drive 35 miles to see Room or Spotlight. I don't want to have to watch a 3-D trailer for Paranormal Activity. I don't want to walk through a metal detector or have my bag searched. I don't need any of that, and I certainly don't enjoy it.
I just want the energy back.
I just want to wear a real Hawkeye costume, instead of resorting to a black t-shirt and maroon jeggings.
I just want to see a midnight premiere at midnight instead of having to see it at 8:00 or 9:00 on a Thursday night with a brain-dead audience.
I just want to see a movie in a packed house with a crowd that's as thrilled to be there as I am.
I just want to go into a theater and, for one or two short hours, forget that people like the Aurora theater shooter exist.
I just want to feel like I used to feel when I walked into a theater: safe, and wanted, and happy. Like I belonged there. Like I was meant to be there.
I just want to go home.
Friday, November 13, 2015
Tales from the Set: The Auteur at Work
So one of the best things about being an independent/student filmmaker is getting to work with people you absolutely love to bits. There's something really, really satisfying about getting together with a group of friends and in the timeframe of one or two days, or sometimes even one or two hours, just making something because you freaking can.
What's really great about the Oakland University cinema studies program, not to shamelessly advertise my own school or anything, is that even though most of the classes offered are theory or analysis-based (Film Theory, Methods of Cinema Studies, Masterpieces of World Cinema, Film History, etc.), the majority of the professors will allow you to make a film or other creative project for a grade. I ended up making a short documentary on film exhibition as my senior capstone. In my junior year, I wrote a script about globalization for my World Cinema class and then did a short documentary on the effects of globalization in Detroit for my Documentary theory class.
And in my second-to-last semester at OU, I teamed up with my close friend Morgan and my boyfriend Ian to make a short film for the film theory class that all three of us were taking. The movie we made was called The Auteur at Work, which you can see here, and let me just say, here and now...it would have been way easier to just write a paper.
Trying to work in a team when all three of you have wildly varying opinions and filmmaking styles is no picnic, but the thing is, that can always be worked around. Morgan and Ian and I just sat down one evening between classes and said, okay, what do we want to do? The assignment was to make a short film--not a video essay--about a film theory that we had studied that semester. We tossed out a few ideas, but the one that really stuck was making fun of several prominent filmmakers that we'd studied that semester by making a film about auteur theory.
And for those who have not suffered through endless film-school debates about auteur theory, allow me to briefly explain what the hell that is. Basically, auteur theory claims that directors deserve "authorship" for their films. So, by that logic, Big Eyes is not a Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski film, it is officially a TIM BURTON film. Because the director has the most creative input, they deserve to "claim" the film as their own, the way a writer claims authorship of their book or an artist claims authorship of their painting. A lot of people agree with this point of view, but there are definitely scholars, critics and teenagers out there who do not. Hence, the debate.
So Morgan and Ian and I decided that we would shamelessly make fun of auteur theory and several prominent 20th-century auteurs--Sergei Eisenstein, Jean-Luc Godard, and Orson Welles--with our final project. The story was simple: a director would write and re-write a script in the hopes of pleasing a producer and, in the end, would end up pleasing no one. The message was that in order to really be an auteur, you couldn't copy other directors' work, you had to create your own style or you wouldn't get the attention your work deserved.
It took me all of two days to write and edit the four-page script. We quickly decided that Morgan would be director and camerawoman, since those were her favorite aspects of production, and Ian, the tallest of the three of us, could do audio. Since Morgan had her hands full juggling final exams, Ian and I would be the editors and finish the post-production work. Morgan found our cast, too: her friend Cody would be the director, and her brother Collin would play the producer. We had a shotlist, we had a cast, we had props, we had a plan. Everything was in place.
And then, as always happens, once we got on-set everything went to merry hell in a handbasket.
Problem #1 came when we realized that the sunlight was encroaching on our chosen location for the producer's office. Morgan was about ready to go upstairs and outright yell at the sun, but that wasn't an option for obvious reasons, so we had to improvise. By moving office furniture to the right, we managed to keep both of our actors out of the blinding sunlight and maintain semi-even light through the scene. Crisis averted, but then we had to figure out how to make our audio work. We ended up calling our professor, the one who'd taught us to do audio and camerawork in the first place, and he told us how to solve the problem. Crisis averted again. And with the exception of Collin knocking over the table, we got through the scene with minimal outtakes.
The next major problem popped up when we realized we had nowhere to actually shoot the scenes from the Director's script. Ian and I ran out to find the next location, while Morgan, Cody, and Collin stayed with our equipment stash. Everywhere in the Oakland Center (where we shot the entire project) was occupied. We needed a long table to shoot the "Citizen Kane" parody scene, and we needed a place with a lot of light because two of our scenes were "deep depth of field" shots, meaning that everything and everyone in frame needed to be in focus, not just the people/objects in the foreground. After ruling out the food court and the basement, we settled on fireside lounge. Perfect, because lots of windows meant lots of light, and--miracle of miracles--there were several long tables that were not in use, right there, ours for the taking! Couldn't have been better.
Then we realized that lots of windows didn't just mean lots of light, it meant lots of backlight. Figuring out how to shoot without breaking the 180-rule while keeping our shots in the right light was a pain. Finally Morgan came up with the brilliant idea of shooting only one angle for each scene. Why not? Godard was famous for long takes, and Welles loved using a stationary camera and long takes to create a live theater-esque aesthetic. As for the Eisenstein parody shots, well, we could do that in post-production; he was more famous for editing than camerawork anyway. Problem solved.
The idea of the director's script was that it was a normal scene (we decided to have me passing a note to Ian, nice and simple) that got progressively more elaborate and jacked-up as the producer demanded more and more rewrites. First, he'd demand an Eisenstein-esque rewrite. Unsatisfied with that, he'd instruct the director to give him a Godard-themed rewrite. And when that wasn't good enough, he'd ask for an Orson Welles homage. And, crazy as we are, we decided that we'd shoot all these "rewrites" in order.
The first take, the "normal" shot, was easy enough. One take. Boom. We needed a close-up of Ian's wide-eyed "shocked" face for the Eisenstein parody, which we got no problem. One take, boom. Hey, maybe this was going to be easier than we thought...
Nope. Not even.
The Godard parody was one long shot. This basically meant that if we screwed up one thing, we had to do the whole scene over again. And because it was a parody of Godard, who loved to cram lots of details into his movies, we had a lot of little things to worry about. We had one guy (Collin, doing double-duty as an extra) pelvic-thrusting with flowers stuck in his pants. We had Ian fixing a Barbie polaroid camera with a candy cane. And I was supposed to come into the middle of this craziness and hand Ian a note, which Cody, wearing my Star-Lord mask and a feather boa, would snatch from my grasp with a pair of tongs. If none of that makes any sense at all, don't worry. It's not supposed to; it's a damn Godard parody for Pete's sake. But it made for some damn difficult filming. I think we did maybe three or four takes, not including all the rehearsal takes that we didn't film, before we got it right.
Finally we shot the Citizen Kane parody. The danger here was laughing. Collin played a butler, who passed Ian my note on a silver tray...while wearing my blazer, an old black velvet thing that, when put on him, was so painfully obviously a women's blazer that it bordered on hilarious. Then Ian would read the note and react...well...Kane-style. He was supposed to flip the table, throw furniture, and yell at me...and guess how much of that he was actually comfortable doing in a public place? If you guessed "zero out of three," you'd be right. "I'm worried about causing a scene," he told us. Ian, honey. We've already pelvic-thrusted with flowers in our trousers, run amok dressed like Star-Lord at the Pride Parade, and set off my broken alarm clock. We're way past causing a scene at this point.
I won't bore you with the details of post-production. Just know that if one of your editors is working through a cold and the other has the actual maturity level of an eight-year-old on Froot Loops, you will get nothing done. Seriously. We had to bust our asses, mainly because we wasted so much time laughing off said asses while we watched and re-watched the clip of Star-Lord-Cody snatching the note away while Collin pelvic-thrusted with the flowers in the background. (In our defense, it was finals week and we needed something to laugh about.)
But for all of that we made a damn cute film. I'm proud of it, and I truly hope that the others are, too. The moral of the story here is, work with your friends. You will love the results. Seriously.
What's really great about the Oakland University cinema studies program, not to shamelessly advertise my own school or anything, is that even though most of the classes offered are theory or analysis-based (Film Theory, Methods of Cinema Studies, Masterpieces of World Cinema, Film History, etc.), the majority of the professors will allow you to make a film or other creative project for a grade. I ended up making a short documentary on film exhibition as my senior capstone. In my junior year, I wrote a script about globalization for my World Cinema class and then did a short documentary on the effects of globalization in Detroit for my Documentary theory class.
And in my second-to-last semester at OU, I teamed up with my close friend Morgan and my boyfriend Ian to make a short film for the film theory class that all three of us were taking. The movie we made was called The Auteur at Work, which you can see here, and let me just say, here and now...it would have been way easier to just write a paper.
Trying to work in a team when all three of you have wildly varying opinions and filmmaking styles is no picnic, but the thing is, that can always be worked around. Morgan and Ian and I just sat down one evening between classes and said, okay, what do we want to do? The assignment was to make a short film--not a video essay--about a film theory that we had studied that semester. We tossed out a few ideas, but the one that really stuck was making fun of several prominent filmmakers that we'd studied that semester by making a film about auteur theory.
And for those who have not suffered through endless film-school debates about auteur theory, allow me to briefly explain what the hell that is. Basically, auteur theory claims that directors deserve "authorship" for their films. So, by that logic, Big Eyes is not a Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski film, it is officially a TIM BURTON film. Because the director has the most creative input, they deserve to "claim" the film as their own, the way a writer claims authorship of their book or an artist claims authorship of their painting. A lot of people agree with this point of view, but there are definitely scholars, critics and teenagers out there who do not. Hence, the debate.
So Morgan and Ian and I decided that we would shamelessly make fun of auteur theory and several prominent 20th-century auteurs--Sergei Eisenstein, Jean-Luc Godard, and Orson Welles--with our final project. The story was simple: a director would write and re-write a script in the hopes of pleasing a producer and, in the end, would end up pleasing no one. The message was that in order to really be an auteur, you couldn't copy other directors' work, you had to create your own style or you wouldn't get the attention your work deserved.
It took me all of two days to write and edit the four-page script. We quickly decided that Morgan would be director and camerawoman, since those were her favorite aspects of production, and Ian, the tallest of the three of us, could do audio. Since Morgan had her hands full juggling final exams, Ian and I would be the editors and finish the post-production work. Morgan found our cast, too: her friend Cody would be the director, and her brother Collin would play the producer. We had a shotlist, we had a cast, we had props, we had a plan. Everything was in place.
And then, as always happens, once we got on-set everything went to merry hell in a handbasket.
Problem #1 came when we realized that the sunlight was encroaching on our chosen location for the producer's office. Morgan was about ready to go upstairs and outright yell at the sun, but that wasn't an option for obvious reasons, so we had to improvise. By moving office furniture to the right, we managed to keep both of our actors out of the blinding sunlight and maintain semi-even light through the scene. Crisis averted, but then we had to figure out how to make our audio work. We ended up calling our professor, the one who'd taught us to do audio and camerawork in the first place, and he told us how to solve the problem. Crisis averted again. And with the exception of Collin knocking over the table, we got through the scene with minimal outtakes.
The next major problem popped up when we realized we had nowhere to actually shoot the scenes from the Director's script. Ian and I ran out to find the next location, while Morgan, Cody, and Collin stayed with our equipment stash. Everywhere in the Oakland Center (where we shot the entire project) was occupied. We needed a long table to shoot the "Citizen Kane" parody scene, and we needed a place with a lot of light because two of our scenes were "deep depth of field" shots, meaning that everything and everyone in frame needed to be in focus, not just the people/objects in the foreground. After ruling out the food court and the basement, we settled on fireside lounge. Perfect, because lots of windows meant lots of light, and--miracle of miracles--there were several long tables that were not in use, right there, ours for the taking! Couldn't have been better.
Then we realized that lots of windows didn't just mean lots of light, it meant lots of backlight. Figuring out how to shoot without breaking the 180-rule while keeping our shots in the right light was a pain. Finally Morgan came up with the brilliant idea of shooting only one angle for each scene. Why not? Godard was famous for long takes, and Welles loved using a stationary camera and long takes to create a live theater-esque aesthetic. As for the Eisenstein parody shots, well, we could do that in post-production; he was more famous for editing than camerawork anyway. Problem solved.
The idea of the director's script was that it was a normal scene (we decided to have me passing a note to Ian, nice and simple) that got progressively more elaborate and jacked-up as the producer demanded more and more rewrites. First, he'd demand an Eisenstein-esque rewrite. Unsatisfied with that, he'd instruct the director to give him a Godard-themed rewrite. And when that wasn't good enough, he'd ask for an Orson Welles homage. And, crazy as we are, we decided that we'd shoot all these "rewrites" in order.
The first take, the "normal" shot, was easy enough. One take. Boom. We needed a close-up of Ian's wide-eyed "shocked" face for the Eisenstein parody, which we got no problem. One take, boom. Hey, maybe this was going to be easier than we thought...
Nope. Not even.
The Godard parody was one long shot. This basically meant that if we screwed up one thing, we had to do the whole scene over again. And because it was a parody of Godard, who loved to cram lots of details into his movies, we had a lot of little things to worry about. We had one guy (Collin, doing double-duty as an extra) pelvic-thrusting with flowers stuck in his pants. We had Ian fixing a Barbie polaroid camera with a candy cane. And I was supposed to come into the middle of this craziness and hand Ian a note, which Cody, wearing my Star-Lord mask and a feather boa, would snatch from my grasp with a pair of tongs. If none of that makes any sense at all, don't worry. It's not supposed to; it's a damn Godard parody for Pete's sake. But it made for some damn difficult filming. I think we did maybe three or four takes, not including all the rehearsal takes that we didn't film, before we got it right.
Finally we shot the Citizen Kane parody. The danger here was laughing. Collin played a butler, who passed Ian my note on a silver tray...while wearing my blazer, an old black velvet thing that, when put on him, was so painfully obviously a women's blazer that it bordered on hilarious. Then Ian would read the note and react...well...Kane-style. He was supposed to flip the table, throw furniture, and yell at me...and guess how much of that he was actually comfortable doing in a public place? If you guessed "zero out of three," you'd be right. "I'm worried about causing a scene," he told us. Ian, honey. We've already pelvic-thrusted with flowers in our trousers, run amok dressed like Star-Lord at the Pride Parade, and set off my broken alarm clock. We're way past causing a scene at this point.
I won't bore you with the details of post-production. Just know that if one of your editors is working through a cold and the other has the actual maturity level of an eight-year-old on Froot Loops, you will get nothing done. Seriously. We had to bust our asses, mainly because we wasted so much time laughing off said asses while we watched and re-watched the clip of Star-Lord-Cody snatching the note away while Collin pelvic-thrusted with the flowers in the background. (In our defense, it was finals week and we needed something to laugh about.)
But for all of that we made a damn cute film. I'm proud of it, and I truly hope that the others are, too. The moral of the story here is, work with your friends. You will love the results. Seriously.
Monday, November 9, 2015
Attention filmmakers!
HEY. You there. Yes you, the person reading this blog. First of all, thank you. (Seriously, if you're actually reading this weird-ass blog, thank you.) Second, if you're at all interested in making movies, ENTER THIS CONTEST. For realsies. Make a 30-second winter holiday movie and send it to Jenny Slate. Because why the hell not, that's why. Seriously, what have you got to lose?
A special note to my fellow awesome lady filmmakers: here is an opportunity to have your work looked at and judged by another awesome lady filmmaker. Do you really want to pass that up? I didn't think so.
So get cracking, everyone! Contest deadline is December 7. You've got one month to make as many 30-second holiday flicks as your little heart desires, so in the immortal words of Nike, JUST DO IT! And be on the lookout here too, because you bet I'll post mine as soon as they're done! :)
A special note to my fellow awesome lady filmmakers: here is an opportunity to have your work looked at and judged by another awesome lady filmmaker. Do you really want to pass that up? I didn't think so.
So get cracking, everyone! Contest deadline is December 7. You've got one month to make as many 30-second holiday flicks as your little heart desires, so in the immortal words of Nike, JUST DO IT! And be on the lookout here too, because you bet I'll post mine as soon as they're done! :)
Thursday, November 5, 2015
Let's talk about on-screen sex
Okay. I'm pretty sure any of my college friends who read this right now are laughing their asses off ("WHAT?!? the goofy, naive, hopeless romantic who wore a purity ring is writing about MOVIE SEX?!") but honestly, I really don't care. I mean, I've already covered death, feminism, awards-show politics and Dogme 95 - so really, how can I top that without talking about sex?
So, let's get to the heart of it: for a girl who's spent a long time swearing blind that she wants to wait until her wedding night, I have seen a lot of sexually provocative (and, in some cases, flat-out sexually explicit) movies. I've seen it all, from the fade-to-black cutesy scenes of movies like The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants to the blatant hedonism of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. And yet all of these movies have something in common: the sex is all glamorized and romanticized and totally...well...staged.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting directors start pulling a Lars Von Trier every time they want to shoot a love scene. But there are a few things I'd like to address, Love-Scene Directors, and I think if we all work together we might be able to change the Hollywood standards of perfect sex:
1) What's up with the whole woman-looks-perfect-post-sex thing? I look like a hot mess after I carry two full laundry bins up the stairs, and I mean, not to get graphic or anything, but isn't sex a bit more strenuous than that? I get that it's Hollywood and you can't just let the woman look like she's recently been hit by the Sharknado, but could we get beyond the need to have everybody's makeup perfect 24/7 already? Isn't it a little sexier if her lipstick is smudged and she's a little sweaty and her hair's been messed up? I'm just saying, if you look like a model off the runway right after you've just finished getting busy, I imagine you must've had some pretty boring sex. And Hollywood, a little hint, boring doesn't sell.
2) Speaking of which, can we have more sex scenes that focus on the woman having a good time? Kimberly Peirce once got a hard time from the MPAA for having a girl's climax last too long in Boys Don't Cry. To which she helpfully replied, "Okay, but why? No one's ever been hurt by an orgasm that lasts too long." Good point, Ms. Peirce. Again, I'm not asking for a complete 180 - I'm pretty sure every straight girl in the movie-watching world would revolt if all the slow-mo shots of the men getting naked were removed from the cinematic experience - I just think it'd be nice to see more sex scenes like those in Boys Don't Cry and Gone Girl. (Seriously, is there a reason why good sex scenes have to be layered into movies that are choked with violence? I really don't think John Lennon would've approved.)
3) Do all the sex scenes have to be set-dressed to the nth degree? I get that you can't show nudity and still maintain a PG-13 rating (unless you're Tim Burton showing off Danny DeVito's naked ass, but believe me, that is an entirely different thing) but to go back to point #1, if your bed looks like it was just made by Cinderella's mice when you've just finished a roll in the hay, your sex life must be about as fun as reading IKEA instructions. I remember talking about this with one of my screenwriting professors once. We were talking about how to write a realistic love story and I made some snarky comment about how in movies, the woman is always wrapped perfectly in a sheet post-sex. To which he replied, "If those movies were realistic, the sheets would be on the floor." Couldn't have said it better myself.
4) Why do all movie climaxes sound the same? I swear to God if I cut out the sex noises from one standard movie love scene and pasted them into another, no one would be able to tell the difference. Now, given that I am not a creeper who goes around listening to other people get it on, I'm clearly not an expert on the subject, but I am 99.999999% sure that in the real world, every big O does not sound exactly the same. Let's just try for some diversity here, okay? If you need inspiration check out Sweet Sweetback's Badassss Song, those actors made noises I didn't even think humans could make. Or, y'know, continue to show your actors Easy A, for How to Fake Sex 101. I know you know which scene I'm talking about.
5) Is it illegal to try the "less is more" approach? I'm not talking about the "fade to black" standard of most PG-rated rom-coms. Though I do tip my hat to them for throwing back to the Hollywood Production Code days without resorting to actual censorship...but that's another story. I mean the reason the scenes from Gone Girl and Boys Don't Cry (I'm going to go back to these two a lot because seriously, they are the best movie sex scenes I have ever seen) are so great because they're so intimate. No one is yelling "oh God! OH MY GOD!" at the top of their lungs. Clothes aren't torn off and hurled over inanimate objects. The pictures on the walls aren't rattling. But even though the furniture may not be rocking, it's clear that someone's world is. Sure, there are times when the story calls for a sex scene reminiscent of the one in Dark Shadows, but sometimes, subtle can be sexier than the alternative.
6) Is nudity actually required for every scene? Look y'all, I'm as happy to look at a shirtless Bradley Cooper as the rest of you, but let's return to that "less-is-more" principle. Especially for movies with multiple boot-knocking sequences, like Gone Girl, sometimes it's more about what we don't see. Again, I'm sure everyone knows exactly which scenes I'm talking about here. Did Rosamund Pike need to be naked in either of her big moments? Nope. We were still as interested or horrified, depending on which part we were watching, without the presence of boobies. And in some cases, it can be used as a character-layering moment. Another note about Gone Girl: Andie gets naked in her sex scenes, Amy does not. Amy is associated with class, sophistication and intensity; Andie is played as totally naive. See what Fincher did there?
Which brings me to the final point: let sex be part of the story. We live in a world where sex is used as a tool. It's an advertising ploy. It's a power-play. It's used to sell, to obtain, to negotiate, to get revenge. But it doesn't have to be that way in the movies, does it? That's what movies are about, after all: creating a picture of a world that's different from the one we live in. It's fleeting, but it's there. It can just be another part of the story. It doesn't have to be the defining part. Just another cog in a crazy, beautiful machine.
And here's my plea to you, the MPAA: stop criminalizing sex and normalizing violence. You're not fooling anyone with your "it's realism!" spiel. No, you're not. We filmmakers can't change standards unless you let us. We can try, but who'll see the movie if you stamp it with NC-17 because it depicts a woman getting off? Like Pierce said, it's not like someone's getting hurt. But you know what? I'd bet money that the reason sex scenes in movies are so shiny-pretty-glossy is because when they get realistic, you tag it as pornography and tell the filmmakers they should be ashamed. So let's chill out a bit, MPAA. Because I guarantee that when you do, we will too.
Finally: to all the filmmakers who are making cool movies with cool sex scenes...you rock. Don't ever change. (Seriously, don't.)
(...I promise that's not my desire to see shirtless Bradly Cooper talking.)
So, let's get to the heart of it: for a girl who's spent a long time swearing blind that she wants to wait until her wedding night, I have seen a lot of sexually provocative (and, in some cases, flat-out sexually explicit) movies. I've seen it all, from the fade-to-black cutesy scenes of movies like The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants to the blatant hedonism of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. And yet all of these movies have something in common: the sex is all glamorized and romanticized and totally...well...staged.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting directors start pulling a Lars Von Trier every time they want to shoot a love scene. But there are a few things I'd like to address, Love-Scene Directors, and I think if we all work together we might be able to change the Hollywood standards of perfect sex:
1) What's up with the whole woman-looks-perfect-post-sex thing? I look like a hot mess after I carry two full laundry bins up the stairs, and I mean, not to get graphic or anything, but isn't sex a bit more strenuous than that? I get that it's Hollywood and you can't just let the woman look like she's recently been hit by the Sharknado, but could we get beyond the need to have everybody's makeup perfect 24/7 already? Isn't it a little sexier if her lipstick is smudged and she's a little sweaty and her hair's been messed up? I'm just saying, if you look like a model off the runway right after you've just finished getting busy, I imagine you must've had some pretty boring sex. And Hollywood, a little hint, boring doesn't sell.
2) Speaking of which, can we have more sex scenes that focus on the woman having a good time? Kimberly Peirce once got a hard time from the MPAA for having a girl's climax last too long in Boys Don't Cry. To which she helpfully replied, "Okay, but why? No one's ever been hurt by an orgasm that lasts too long." Good point, Ms. Peirce. Again, I'm not asking for a complete 180 - I'm pretty sure every straight girl in the movie-watching world would revolt if all the slow-mo shots of the men getting naked were removed from the cinematic experience - I just think it'd be nice to see more sex scenes like those in Boys Don't Cry and Gone Girl. (Seriously, is there a reason why good sex scenes have to be layered into movies that are choked with violence? I really don't think John Lennon would've approved.)
3) Do all the sex scenes have to be set-dressed to the nth degree? I get that you can't show nudity and still maintain a PG-13 rating (unless you're Tim Burton showing off Danny DeVito's naked ass, but believe me, that is an entirely different thing) but to go back to point #1, if your bed looks like it was just made by Cinderella's mice when you've just finished a roll in the hay, your sex life must be about as fun as reading IKEA instructions. I remember talking about this with one of my screenwriting professors once. We were talking about how to write a realistic love story and I made some snarky comment about how in movies, the woman is always wrapped perfectly in a sheet post-sex. To which he replied, "If those movies were realistic, the sheets would be on the floor." Couldn't have said it better myself.
4) Why do all movie climaxes sound the same? I swear to God if I cut out the sex noises from one standard movie love scene and pasted them into another, no one would be able to tell the difference. Now, given that I am not a creeper who goes around listening to other people get it on, I'm clearly not an expert on the subject, but I am 99.999999% sure that in the real world, every big O does not sound exactly the same. Let's just try for some diversity here, okay? If you need inspiration check out Sweet Sweetback's Badassss Song, those actors made noises I didn't even think humans could make. Or, y'know, continue to show your actors Easy A, for How to Fake Sex 101. I know you know which scene I'm talking about.
5) Is it illegal to try the "less is more" approach? I'm not talking about the "fade to black" standard of most PG-rated rom-coms. Though I do tip my hat to them for throwing back to the Hollywood Production Code days without resorting to actual censorship...but that's another story. I mean the reason the scenes from Gone Girl and Boys Don't Cry (I'm going to go back to these two a lot because seriously, they are the best movie sex scenes I have ever seen) are so great because they're so intimate. No one is yelling "oh God! OH MY GOD!" at the top of their lungs. Clothes aren't torn off and hurled over inanimate objects. The pictures on the walls aren't rattling. But even though the furniture may not be rocking, it's clear that someone's world is. Sure, there are times when the story calls for a sex scene reminiscent of the one in Dark Shadows, but sometimes, subtle can be sexier than the alternative.
6) Is nudity actually required for every scene? Look y'all, I'm as happy to look at a shirtless Bradley Cooper as the rest of you, but let's return to that "less-is-more" principle. Especially for movies with multiple boot-knocking sequences, like Gone Girl, sometimes it's more about what we don't see. Again, I'm sure everyone knows exactly which scenes I'm talking about here. Did Rosamund Pike need to be naked in either of her big moments? Nope. We were still as interested or horrified, depending on which part we were watching, without the presence of boobies. And in some cases, it can be used as a character-layering moment. Another note about Gone Girl: Andie gets naked in her sex scenes, Amy does not. Amy is associated with class, sophistication and intensity; Andie is played as totally naive. See what Fincher did there?
Which brings me to the final point: let sex be part of the story. We live in a world where sex is used as a tool. It's an advertising ploy. It's a power-play. It's used to sell, to obtain, to negotiate, to get revenge. But it doesn't have to be that way in the movies, does it? That's what movies are about, after all: creating a picture of a world that's different from the one we live in. It's fleeting, but it's there. It can just be another part of the story. It doesn't have to be the defining part. Just another cog in a crazy, beautiful machine.
And here's my plea to you, the MPAA: stop criminalizing sex and normalizing violence. You're not fooling anyone with your "it's realism!" spiel. No, you're not. We filmmakers can't change standards unless you let us. We can try, but who'll see the movie if you stamp it with NC-17 because it depicts a woman getting off? Like Pierce said, it's not like someone's getting hurt. But you know what? I'd bet money that the reason sex scenes in movies are so shiny-pretty-glossy is because when they get realistic, you tag it as pornography and tell the filmmakers they should be ashamed. So let's chill out a bit, MPAA. Because I guarantee that when you do, we will too.
Finally: to all the filmmakers who are making cool movies with cool sex scenes...you rock. Don't ever change. (Seriously, don't.)
(...I promise that's not my desire to see shirtless Bradly Cooper talking.)
Friday, October 23, 2015
If you like music and movies...
Composer Jim Steinman loves to refer to his best-known work, Meat Loaf's Bat out of Hell, as a "cinematic" album. And he's right. There's a reason that the 1960s, 70s, and 80s are often credited with some of the best music of the century: because that's freaking true. The Beatles' The White Album, the Who's Quadrophenia, Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run, the Clash's Sandinista!, and of course Bat out of Hell - these are not only some of the greatest albums of all time, but they're also known as concept albums, meaning that unlike 90% of the popular albums released today, they're built around a unifying theme or, in the case of Quadrophenia, the whole album is meant to tell a single story. And I mean, call me a nerd, but holy cow wouldn't that be great for a movie.
3. Bat out of Hell (Meat Loaf)
There's been a movie (or TV special) or two about the making of this album, but I don't want to do a biopic or documentary. I want to do the story of Bat out of Hell. I want to take the stories that Jim Steinman told in his lyrics, and bring them to life. I mean LOOK AT THE COVER ART for heaven's sake and tell me that's not one of the most cinematic things you've ever seen. Imagine that on a movie theater screen. Of course it would be violent--with a title track about a motorcycle crash, how could it not be?--but the more "fun" songs, like "All Revved Up" and "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" would usher in the chance to show off Steinman's infamous sense of humor, and that would be the major hook for an audience.
In the end, I know the odds of actually making any of these films are so impossibly low that it's almost laughable. But that's part of the fun of filmmaking: having an idea that's so out there it'll never happen...and knowing that someday, somehow, if you try, you just might have a chance.
No, really, hear me out. We've made movies out of books, comics, TV shows and amusement park rides (Pirates of the Caribbean, anyone?), and as of lately, a new trend has popped up: making films out of video games. Which is great, don't get me wrong, but you know what's happened a couple of times but never really became a thing, the way making movies out of video games became a thing? Making movies out of concept albums. Oh, sure, it's been done. But it usually was borne out of a desire to create a franchise (think the Monkees TV show or, like, pretty much every single Beatles film ever made). I can only think of a few albums that were ever genuinely turned into a film for the sake of turning an album into a film. And some of them, like Quadrophenia, weren't even direct adaptations, more like dramas loosely based on the original music.
So these are the albums I'd most like to turn into a film if I could. Some of them are Greats. Some of them are...well, not. But they're all close to my heart and if I ever got the chance to make any of them into a movie, you bet I'd take it.
Avery's Top 5 Rock Music Films:
I saw this show performed last year at the Palace of Auburn Hills and...holy shit. I love artists like TSO because it's almost like they set themselves up for this kind of thing. Their albums are mostly rock operas, and The Christmas Attic is no exception. The album tells the story of a little girl who goes up into the attic and finds a box of letters that tell a love story with a sad ending. Now, this might sound entirely cliche, but if you've seen their live show, you know it's anything but. And if I were to make this album into a movie, I'd try to channel that same intensity (though given that it's a movie, maybe I'd dispense with the laser show) and I'd try to include as many members of TSO in cameo roles (or, heck, if they're up for it, major parts) as possible.
Rock Spectacle is the first live performance album from the Barenaked Ladies and it contains some of their finest songs: "When I Fall," "Straw Hat and Old Dirty Hank," "Brian Wilson," and of course the famous "If I Had $1,000,000." This was one of the defining albums of my childhood. When I was a kid my dad would put this on and we'd dance to it - sometimes there'd even be stretches where I made him play it every night. I always felt like there was a story to the music, even when I was little and could understand literally none of the lyrics. Well, now I'm older and (theoretically) wiser, and I feel it now more than ever. This is also probably the album with the most room for fun, because I swear if I made this into a movie, it would have the biggest ensemble cast ever - and, as an added bonus, this band loves to sneak little bits of humor into their music, even some of their less-upbeat songs, which leaves plenty of room for comedic interpretation.
3. Bat out of Hell (Meat Loaf)
There's been a movie (or TV special) or two about the making of this album, but I don't want to do a biopic or documentary. I want to do the story of Bat out of Hell. I want to take the stories that Jim Steinman told in his lyrics, and bring them to life. I mean LOOK AT THE COVER ART for heaven's sake and tell me that's not one of the most cinematic things you've ever seen. Imagine that on a movie theater screen. Of course it would be violent--with a title track about a motorcycle crash, how could it not be?--but the more "fun" songs, like "All Revved Up" and "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" would usher in the chance to show off Steinman's infamous sense of humor, and that would be the major hook for an audience.
It's not exactly a concept album in the vein of Bat out of Hell or Quadrophenia, but you can't deny there's a cohesive sound in Don't You Fake It. It's one of the most underrated albums of all time, and undoubtedly RJA's best. And if you listen to the lyrics, the songs really are mini-stories of their own. Watch Ronnie Winter's Half of Us interview and the inspiration for those stories becomes painfully clear. And that would be the storyline for the movie: the story of the formation of Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, with the real-life events behind each individual song getting a spotlight. And it probably wouldn't be as fun as some of the others (let's be honest though, none of the ones I've thrown out there so far would be straight comedy, except maybe the Rock Spectacle movie), given that it's based in real life as opposed to, say the theatricality of Bat out of Hell, but it's because it's so heavily based in reality that I feel like it's a story that really, really needs to be told.
WHY HAS NO ONE DONE THIS YET!?!? Springsteen once said that he could see every song on Born to Run taking place at the same time, over the course of the same summer night in different places. There's your film plot, right there. And of course "Jungleland," the operatic epic about the Magic Rat and his involvement in an unfortunate street war on Flamingo Lane (my God, Springsteen should've been a novelist), would be the entire third act. The whole thing would, of course, take place in 1970s New Jersey, a shout-out to Springsteen's hometown. The film practically writes itself. If only Clarence Clemons could be here to see it...
In the end, I know the odds of actually making any of these films are so impossibly low that it's almost laughable. But that's part of the fun of filmmaking: having an idea that's so out there it'll never happen...and knowing that someday, somehow, if you try, you just might have a chance.
Sunday, October 11, 2015
Avery Tries to be a (Retro!) Critic: A Nightmare on Elm Street
I recently wrote about my slow evolution from professional chicken to cautious horror-lover. At the end of the post, I mentioned that I planned to see A Nightmare on Elm Street this Halloween. Well, Ian came over to keep me company last night while my parents were on a weekend getaway, and guess what he brought with him? I'd planned to watch it, I was excited to watch it, but at the sight of the DVD cover (which, trust me, isn't pretty) I nearly backed out. I'm not that brave yet, I wanted to tell Ian. I can't do it. Halloween shops scare me; what effect do you think this will have? Can't we watch Beetle Juice instead?
"I'm not sure about this one," I told him.
"Give it a chance," he insisted. "You'll love it. If you don't, we'll turn it off."
And still I resisted. "If I say turn it down, turn it down," I warned him. "If I say shut it off, shut it off. If I say I need a break, pause it immediately. If I tell you to fast-forward, do it. And if I watch the whole thing and can't sleep tonight, you're staying up with me. But I like Wes Craven. So I'll give it a try." So Ian gave me the remote so I could lower volume/pause/stop/fast-forward as needed, turned on all the lights in the TV room, and settled my puppies on my lap for an extra layer of protection. And then we started the movie.
I'd like to say I forgot why I was afraid to watch it in the first place. I can't. But that, in this case, is a good thing, because it means that Craven did his job, and did it very, very well. My precautions did turn out to be unnecessary; aside from a bathroom break or two (turns out drinking half a gallon of tea before settling down to watch a movie is a bad idea...who knew, right?) we didn't need to pause or stop the film. And no way in hell was I going to fast-forward once I saw how beautiful the movie's aesthetics were. I didn't want to turn away, or turn it off, because not only was it beautiful, it was exciting. It was like a Hitchcock film: I never knew what was going to happen next, but I definitely wanted to find out.
I like Wes Craven a lot. I loved Red Eye and was pleasantly surprised by Scream, and Nightmare on Elm Street is in the same vein as both: a little humor, a lot of great aesthetic effects, a hell of a lot of suspense, and all the trope-subversion in the world. Craven loved to play around with audience expectations, and my God was he ever good at it. That's what makes Nightmare so wonderful and so terrifying. Craven uses his jump scares where they count. And he makes sure to place them where you least expect them to be. Oh, and as if that's not enough, he uses just enough body horror, and just enough psychological freak-outs, to make sure you never forget what you've just seen.
For the millionth time I'll say, I'm picky about horror. I like my horror like I like my period pieces: classy, and with as little gore as possible. (Which is why I will never understand what my dad sees in shows like Hell On Wheels because what even is that thing.) But Wes Craven knew what a lot of modern horror directors do not: how to make even the goriest slasher film a work of art. Because whoa, there is a lot of gore in Nightmare on Elm Street. There are literally fountains of blood in that film. Fountains. I'm not kidding. There are maggots, there's writhing intestines, at one point Freddy Kruger's face is torn off revealing a bloody, fleshy skull underneath. ("I told you to warn me if something like that was going to happen!" I protested to Ian when that scene came around. It was...oh, I don't know...about fifteen minutes into the film.) But even throughout all of that, the aesthetic is so beautiful you don't really know what to make of it.
And then there's the music. It's eerie. It starts off soft and builds to a crescendo, which is cool enough, but the brilliant part is that throughout most of the "normal" scenes. i.e. when Nancy and her friends are awake, the music is almost classical--piano, chimes, and simple repeating note patterns. Then when we enter dream-world and Freddy makes his appearance, BOOM--in come the drums and the synthesizers we associate with the 1980s. Again, very well-played, because even though the music varies, the score feels cohesive.
And then there's the characters, and there's Nancy, oh my God can we just talk about Nancy for a minute? People may hail Joss Whedon as the champion of Strong Female Characters, but the man has nothing on Wes Craven. I've yet to see a Craven film where women are firmly placed in the role of "victims" and the men are in the role of "saviors." It's always a toss-up. And this is what I mean about Craven majorly screwing with the tropes. For instance, we expect that Tina is definitely going to die first because she has sex. Well, spoiler alert, she does...but guess what? Her boyfriend is punished too. This is huge because #1, this movie came out in the 1980s, and I don't think I need to remind anyone how conservative America was in the 1980s...and #2, even today in a lot of our media, we fall into the trap of shaming girls and glorifying boys who have sex. Not so in Nightmare on Elm Street. Everybody's fair game: girls, boys, virgins, non-virgins, dorks, jocks...Freddy Kruger doesn't care about your sex life. He just wants to slit your throat.
But the reason Nancy survives is not because she's a virgin--in fact, it's implied that she isn't--but because she figures out how to empower herself against Kruger. The bathtub scene, where his clawed hand comes up between her legs, implies rape, as does a later scene when he attacks her in her bedroom. But she defeats him not just with physical force, but emotional: she gets to look him in the eyes and say "You can't hurt me. F**k off. I own my own mind and my own body, and if you don't like it, tough." And even without the rape/assault survivor analogies, can we just acknowledge that this girl has the biggest, brassiest set of metaphorical balls ever? She Home Alone-ifies her house, makes sure her mom is out of the way (or tries to, anyway), tells the authorities what's up and won't take no for an answer, and then walks right into the path of a serial killer. She knows she has to be the one to take him down and instead of hiding away, she rises to meet the challenge. And when he attacks her friends and her mother, she doesn't run away in fear. She gets mad. It just got personal, Kruger. You messed with her mom, and now she's going to mess with your already-none-too-handsome face.
The scene where Nancy tells Kruger, once and for all, that he has no power over her reminds me of a scene in Divergent. Inside a fear-driven simulation, heroine Tris's boyfriend, Four, tries to force himself on her sexually, even though in real life he promised he'd go slow. Tris stops him, kicks him off with a decisive "NO!" and wakes from the simulation to find everyone applauding her and telling her she's an example. Not only does she fight off a rapist, but she is congratulated for it. Her empowerment is treated as something to be rewarded, rather than a given. Instead of hearing "Well, you go alone with a guy in his room, what do you expect?" the message is "Whoa! You fought that guy off! Way to go!"
Same for Nancy. While no one is there to give her a high-five after she strips Kruger of his power by refusing to believe in him, Craven makes it clear that Nancy's success against him is real. She couldn't do it just by booby-trapping him, she had to confront him, and then she had to stop giving him the power to hurt her. Again, it's huge, considering the era in which this film was made. Craven's message might've been clouded by the unhappy ending (which, for the record, he didn't want there in the first place), but his original intent is clear. You have the power. You might be afraid, but that doesn't mean you can't be brave.
And last night after watching this thing, I slept well with my pups curled up at my feet and the window wide open. Ian told me he was proud of me for getting through the whole movie, but he can't possibly be as proud of me as I was of myself. Because here's the thing that I've slowly started to discover about horror films: done right, they can be as empowering as they are terrifying. And let me tell you, Craven knew how to do it right.
But purely from a filmmaker's perspective, the best thing about horror films, especially ones like Nightmare on Elm Street, isn't their empowerment factor. It's that when they're over, when you come back to reality and remember that it's just a movie and it wasn't real, it hits you that hey, this film, this really cool piece of visual storytelling, came out of someone's imagination. And then comes the very best part of all: going and writing your own film, and seeing what kind of things can come out of your imagination.
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