BODIES INVESTED IN SUPERIOR MOTION.

(Being an article originally published in The Scene Newspaper)

There is not a whole lot I can say in favor of the art of dance, it just never seemed to suit me on any real level. I don't tend to indulge in the graceful, often lauded cinematic legacy of the Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly types, have never attended any sort of ballet (that I'll admit to) and I sure as shit won't burn my eyes out on the flotsam they shell out nowadays. With the rare exception of the 'Breakin' films (especially 'Electric Boogaloo') and that one Fatboy Slim video with Christopher Walken in it, I simply fail to gel to the sight of folks twisting and/or undulating to the accompanying music as it were. Still, there is always room for a change of opinion, if only for a certain, specific facet of something previously unappreciated. Such a change occurred with the viewing of 'Pina', the latest offering from the fine German filmmaker Wim Wenders. This is a documentary that centers on the unique choreographic mindset of Pina Bausch a visionary designer of movement as a means to express feeling and thought through using the human form as a better, more potent form of language at large in inventive pieces that completely transcend the conventions of standard dance theatrics.

Wenders, like me, was never one to hold a vested interest in dance or any artistic statement build around it. He was converted, at least in part, after an initial, very emotional encounter with a mid 1980s performance of Bausch's seminal work, 'Café Muller' and soon after set to forging a comradery  with the woman that would slowly lead to the suggestion of a collaboration with the end goal of birthing a film meant to share Bausch's skills with a broader audience. The enduring dilemma hanging over this concept, however, was the director's conviction that the flat projection of an image could never fully replicate the depth and gravity inherent in the way the human body occupies and, most importantly, moves about space. The project remained a mulled over puzzle for years until Wenders became more attracted to the budding 3-D digital technology that started really gaining momentum and polish as it became a tool for more than cheeky computerized cartoons and big event spectacles like 'Avatar'. With this chief aspect solved and in place (Wenders consulted an expert on stereoscopic photography and implementation, Alain Derobe ) all was a go on the production front, the director and his muse agreed on using fractions of four Bausch pieces ('Vollmond', 'Kontakthof', 'Le sacre du printemps' and the aforementioned  'Café Muller') to help flesh out the film proper. Then Pina Bausch herself passed on abruptly into the great unknown in June 2009.

The project had to be suspended as this unforeseen circumstance threw all prep work and emotional stamina into turmoil. It was only given a second wind by way of the insistence of the dedicated members of Pina's esteemed Tanztheater Wuppertal company who helped by reconfiguring the concept of the proposed film into something resembling an homage to their beloved maestro. Wenders conceded and production began in earnest shortly thereafter incorporating the previously agreed upon Bausch works with more personal performance pieces by the company members (who hail from such varied locales as Italy, France, Korea, Russia, the good ol' U.S. of A and, of course, Germany) as they attempt to share their love and appreciation for Pina through inventive solo numbers and odd confessional scenes where the thoughts of the dancers are heard as voices hovering above their respective, contemplative bodies.

Wenders and his crew follow the graceful action with seeming ease, the camera addresses the potent energy at large when these folks bear their souls and move their bodies according to some of the more startling and unexpected presentations of 'dance' I have ever stumbled across, thank goodness a true filmmaker was present to document it all in all-pro fashion. The picture was shot on stages at Bausch's theater and at several interesting points around the mid size German city of Wuppertal (on street corners, inside a rail train, by a shopworn factory and a quarry) and often positions the framing to fully exploit the use of space between and surrounding the dancers to suitably (by way of the 3-D enhancement the film was predominantly exhibited in) bridge the gap between a live performance and a recorded replication. Two prime examples of this can be found at the start of the film with a lady laying a bit disheveled on a pile of dirt in the foreground as other bodies creep into the far background of the frame in a portion of 'Le sacre du printemps' ('The Rite of Spring') and in the frantic smashing about the flooded stage on hand to help bring 'Vollmond' ('Full Moon') to hectic life later on.


Wim  Wenders has, by all evident accounts, done his late creative peer a grand service. 'Pina' as a film works to both ensure that this woman's legacy will thrive and also that her life long talent of greatly redefining a long standing artistic practice with an immense bravado and flair for the fully unique will be picked up and furthered by those she molded in her theater to become practitioners of dance of the highest, most incomparable order. This film works in favor of Wenders as the latest addition in a long career made up of a healthy balance of fiction and non-fiction cinema (much like the path taken by, perhaps, his most notable contemporary, Werner Herzog). Wenders finished his first feature at the dawn of the 70s ('Summer in the City') and continued to delve into the quirks of characters both real life and imagined who wander on the outer parameters of the conventional. This continued as Wenders honed his skills and branched his free spirit tendencies out to craft such noteworthy pictures as 'Paris, Texas' (the darling of the 1984 Cannes Film Fest), 'Wings of Desire' (later bastardized by Hollywood into some kind of long form Goo-Goo Dolls video starring Nicolas Cage) and 'The End of Violence'.

As much as he clearly fixates on the less obvious textures of the human condition, Wenders also possesses a bit of affection for the wonders of travel. Early on in his filmmaking endeavors he created a swift succession of films eventually dubbed 'The Road Movie Trilogy' ('Alice in the Cities', 'The Wrong Move' and 'Kings of the Road') which would either introduce or expand upon themes and characters that would make their way through this trilogy and out to find a place in later Wenders pictures. The director's distinct style played influence on budding independent film movements across the globe, particularly on American shores in the man with the sharp, white hair, Jim Jarmusch (who appropriated the director's frequent camera wiz Robby Muller for several films including 'Down by Law' and 'Dead Man') who had assisted Wenders on his 1982 film 'The State of Things'.

Were 'Pina' fits into all this is simple, much as he gave adventurous audiences a peak at the less than mainstream world of aging Cuban musicians in 'The Buena Vista Social Club' or shed light into the waning days of once prominent, old school director Nicolas ('Rebel Without a Cause') Ray with 'Lightning Over Water', this most current offering seeks to spread the name of its subject out to devoted creative minds everywhere. Sadly, I was only able to snag a standard two dimensional copy of the film (from the Appleton Library, of course. It comes from the godly Criterion Collection (which does offer a 3-D Blu-Ray edition) and features a fair set of behind the scenes info, commentary by Wenders and additional footage of the dancers in action. I recommend this thing on the grounds that it works to sway opinion in favor of the vibrant sights contained within. If some coordination impaired clown like myself can find ample value in a film entirely focused on the art of choreographed dance (albeit, rather surreal choreography in this case) then there must be at least some passing merit in the mix. www.criterion.com

Also,


UPSTREAM COLOR.

Nine years ago a fella named Shane Carruth brought his debut effort, 'Primer', quietly into the independent film community. Carruth wrote, directed, produced, co-starred and had a hand in pretty much every other aspect of the intricate $7,000 wonder. A spare, unapologetically complex tale of two engineering pros who stumble across a low key variation of time travel which they gradually learn to erroneously employ to their financial gain, resulting in increasing friction and paranoia between the two. This little slice of sci-fi themed brain food was but a minor sampling of the deliberate and confounding potential this Carruth, a former software designer with a heavy mathematical background, would prove full of.

Now comes this delayed follow up, 'Upstream Color, reverted to after the frustrating collapse of a far longer gestating project, 'A Topiary', completely dissolved. Once more, Carruth assumes a multitude of duties to pull together the meticulously vague and often just out of narrative reach saga of two people (Amy Seimetz and the Carruth man himself) who have both been the victims of a very elaborate form of hypnotism caused by an organic force culled from a certain flower that goes out into the world deeply (often negatively) effecting a variety of other living things. The style of the film is pure, poetic, dreamlike and cooley unnerving. We basically become observers in a winding parade of easily ruined or greatly misguided lives (the film ultimately reveals a wealth of people and creatures effected by the parasite) struggling to shake themselves back into the straight line familiarity of their pre-tampered lives. Yet 'Upstream Color' plainly refuses to make things so simple for anyone, especially the audience.

As with 'Primer', Shane Carruth cares more about introducing brave ideas than gratuitously over-explaining them. The film is an elegant, bold mystery that does not necessarily need to be fully solved. Better to just soak in the experience as if you were living it in the same fog of confusion as the protagonists. A tricky way to unfold a story, true, but the workmanship and unavoidable intelligence of the handling of the material makes this strange, aloof beauty worth reaching out for. Do seek it,  erbpfilm.com

MAKING A DAY OF IT.

COSMOPOLIS AND THE COLD TRUTH OF THE MODERN CITYSCAPE.

 

What is left for the man who has everything?  The majority of the chief appeal of ace director David Cronenberg's latest concoction, Cosmopolis, is the way it attempts to explicate a functional answer. Said answer, unfortunately, appears to manifest itself through a series of calculated steps leading in the direction of total self destructive collapse. The main body of focus is on the every waking movement of one Eric Packer (realized here by a sparkle free Robert Pattinson) a still youthful master of the universe type who prefers to wheel his deals quite literally within the top end confines of his slick ass limousine. We enter his cool and precise mode of existence on one typically bustling, big city Monday. At the start of the film, while posturing in that certain special way the 1% do, Eric decides that he needs himself a haircut and although there are plenty of functional barber shops in the fairly immediate vicinity (as his ever trusty chief bodyguard Torval carefully points out) Eric has his mind set to traverse the cluttered urban sprawl to a rickety old joint in some far less polished segment of the crude inner city.

The ensuing trek fuels the remainder of the film's body, peopling Eric's slow crawl to his rather illogically chosen destination with varied fragments of his business and social lives as well as the random, sweltering chaos of the increasingly unstable cityscape that surrounds him. He trades barbs with his tech boy, endures an alarmingly protracted prostate exam, bangs a foxy French cougar (Juliette Binoche) who happens to be his art dealer, morns as best he can the abrupt passing of his favorite hip-hop star, suffers the wrath of a hyper-kinetic pie wielding activist and breaks off from the action proper to attempt to sway his aloof young beauty of a wife (Sarah Gadon) back into his embrace, which seems odd given his own seriously detached reaction to just about everything. The limo ride proves so protracted and drawn out due a perfect storm of calamitous factors including a presidential event that has era security on edge and traffic smashed together like cattle. Riots and protests abound and the risk of an assassination attempt is at the forefront of every foot soldier's mind.

So what pragmatic purpose could this obstacle laden sojourn actually have? It would seem that our suave non-hero has a slow burning agenda pertaining to the particulars of his own financial ruin. Eric Packer has set his Wall Street skills against himself by hedging his investment luck against the power of the Chinese yuan (much to the chagrin of his key financial analysts). This poor, practically soulless fool even seems to be more preoccupied with a cheap, sensational fling with a sexy security agent than addressing the notion that someone out there in all the mounting disorder may be plotting his mortal demise.

We eventually get a reveal on this looming threat of a potential assassin in the form of a disgruntled former employee of Packer's named Benno Levin (Paul Giamatti, as twitchy and curious an actor as ever) who opens fire on his one time boss yet ends up engaging in a long and greatly involved conversation with him about the nature and purpose they both serve in this twisted information age saga and Levin basically offers forth a summation of all that went wrong for this young man who so long had effortlessly excelled at getting everything right. The verbal trade off between Pattinson and Giametti in itself works as a strong and fitting recap of the world this film Cosmopolis presents to us. Language and the measure in which it is delivered as a method of communication is the protein that drives this picture.

The film is essentially a rapid succession of conversations pertaining to the bits and specifics that fill out Eric Packer's vast, upper crust lifestyle. Robert Pattinson is supported throughout this parade of unending chatter by a healthy (and mostly Canadian) cast featuring (in addition to the aforementioned Giametti and co.) Jay Baruchel as Packer's personal tech geek, Samantha Morton and Emily Hampshire as two key advisers, Kevin Durand (memorable as the menacing Martin Keamy in the T.V. show Lost) as Packer's close yet ill fated security escort Torvil and Mathieu Amalric as the pie crazy 'Pastry Assassin'. Cronenberg milks each performer's respective strengths to max effect and has assembled a tight and efficient machine in which to detail Eric Packer's weighty day on the move.


Cosmopolis was adapted to a loyal degree by the director from auther Don DeLillo's 2003 novel of the same name (Big Dave claims to have pounded out the script in a scant 6 days!) and lensed on a very controlled set in Toronto featuring the limo interior surrounded by greenscreens with the New York like cityscape imagery inserted on top of them for the finished product. Cronenberg's ample skill makes a potentially stuffy and redundant project come off with a deft pace and well above average level of dramatic value. No, this is not to say this baby has earned a place alongside the filmmakers finest works, like Naked Lunch, The Fly, The Dead Zone and A History of Violence, but it never bored me. Worth it fully for fans of the director and/or the novel. Twilight groupies, you might wanna make an alternate choice.

The home video release comes by way of a company called E One Entertainment (us.eonefilms.com) and comes outfitted with audio commentary from Cronenberg and a feature length behind the scenes documentary that goes in depth with the steps it took to put this project together. It can be found at most outlets.













Extra, Extra.


I DIDN'T COME HERE TO DIE!


Another Wisconsin boy gets it done. Bradley Scott Sullivan writes and directs a senario that entails a fateful trip into the woods for a small collective of earnest young volunteers looking to find a suitable location in which to develop a youth center. The six of them arrive, pitch their tents, feel each other out, bust open the booze and then it all goes to hell. One by one, each of the cast members falls pray to an increasingly absurd series of cruel, brutal examples of dire human error. The overachiever pokes an eye out with a tree branch, the bitchy girl gets slapped in the face with a chainsaw (the picture's finest gore gag), another poor sap becomes overwhelmed by visions of one of the newly dead gals and hangs himself and eventually the bad boy with a sordid past becomes paranoid and perpetuates further mayhem.

This ultimately leads to the silent, brooding semi-hero type of the picture (some actor named Kurt Cole, as with most low budget genre offerings, there are no names that will be easily recognized) to rise to the challenge of overcoming the unexpected chaos and making it back to the civilized world in one piece. The film plays out its rather simple yet slightly startling, odd ball premise of random misfortune as opposed to a concrete, standard issue stalker/monster menace as a cross breeding of grindhouse tackiness (the picture quality occasionally becomes suspect as a result of this) and a somewhat slapstick addressing of some really hardcore ultraviolence. The cast is serviceable (plus the lead chick, Emmy Robben, looks just swell with less and less clothes on) and the picture is kept to a nice, compact 80 minutes. No fat on this puppy. Good job Brad, you've scored another one for the Wisco (even if your film was shot down by Austin, Texas). Plus it all leads to a solid wrap up that really does make this little trek deserving of a two dollar rental.

Further details-ididntcomeheretodie.com

Weaving Through Debris.

(originally published in the September 2011 issue of The Scene)


Winding it all down to the wire, I find myself left with a lucky 13 states awaiting proper marriage with a suitable cinematic partner. It’s getting harder to find good lovin’ these days and in the movie/geographic matchmaking scene, it’s hardly any better.

But, I digress, let’s set to business and open it all up with a pair of impossibly dated time capsules wedding the multifaceted quirks of human behavior and mannerisms to their immediate surroundings. Both the ambitious and reverently revealing Middletown (for Indiana) and the playfully stupid Heavy Metal Parking Lot (for Maryland) address their chosen subjects with a strict anthropological objectivity, the goal is simply to share a slice of the American pie with as wide an onlooking crowd as possible.

Shepherded over by its creator, Peter Davis (the mind also behind the essential to watch, Oscar-adorned Vietnam war dissection Hearts and Minds) Middletown takes precious time to meticulously investigate the various, wide-ranging particulars of the populace of Muncie, Indiana. Leapfrogging across six separate episodes (five of which actually made airdates on PBS before unwarranted yet inevitable controversy set in) the project comes as close as any in recent memory to capturing the exact pulse of both a city and, in turn, a specific region.

Nestled snug to the east of the state (and sporting a head count roughly comparable to our so beloved Appleton), Muncie fits right and tight under the basic, presumed guidelines of small scale, Bible-belt all Americana. I imagine it stands today much the same as it did in the later 1970s when this program was assembled.
Taking its overlaying cue (and title) from a 1929 publication Middletown: A Study In Contemporary American Culture by esteemed scholars Robert and Helen Lynd, this Middletown digests its subject matter and reorganizes it into its six handy sub-sections. Said films (each helmed by a different party, including Peter Davis himself) focus with separate yet equal objectivity on things political (The Campaign), spiritual (Community of Praise), marital (Second Time Around) and athletic (The Big Game, and it’s basketball, as is to be expected in the Hoosier state) and the pains of youth and the lack there of.





The epic scale and the intimate detail hold hands productively throughout as the disparate citizens of this chosen hamlet extend their lives out in full for the camera eye. Standouts in this rather massive, archival undertaking include a gregarious Irish politico, an ex-marine turned Shakey’s Pizza proprietor and even a collective of lippy high school seniors in full rebellion mode (to be seen in the series closer Seventeen, which piles on enough curse words and touchy themes and ideas as to instigate an uproar and subsequent banning from being aired back in its day).

The success of this work as a whole is care the way it both provides its potential audience with an unsparing insight into a specific community’s pros and cons and how it manages to liken them to much of our own. In a way, Middletown serves as a mirror held up to anyone who chooses to pay it any mind. If one were to attempt a similar project in a different locale in our present here and now, sure the trivia of fashion and hip technology would prove markedly altered and the inevitable given regional inflections would seep through (plus, there would be far less smoking, everybody seems to be cigarette dependent in this damn thing!) but the essentials of the social, financial and emotional aspects of American living have remained largely a constant. Catch it all at icarusfilms.com.

Likewise, albeit on a far more compact, bootleg and some might say downright moronic scale is the mid-80s, Maryland/D.C. area relic Heavy Metal Parking Lot.

Now this baby began as a one-off public access short stunt by two local dudes (John Heyn and Jeff Krulik) seeking to share, in passing, the delirious/drunken celebratory silliness that is the tailgating sub-culture collecting outside a Judas Priest gig somewhere called Largo, Maryland. What came soon after was a steady building cult phenomena born of copious tape trading and rock star endorsement (it was reportedly a tour bus staple of a pre-martyrdom era Kurt Cobain and that one little folk band he played in) and, ultimately, the well-dressed out DVD release I’m now using as reference (get yours off the website heavymetalparkinglot.com) which goes a long way to demystify the legacy of the whole thing and give it a proper historic context.

What essentially consists of about 16 minutes or so of loud, inebriated (and often shirtless) working class dopers, basement rockers, big hair bitches and all around chuggerheads attains a bit of quasi-nostalgic legitimacy by way of numerous sequels, homages and exhaustive “Where are they now?” updates (they even managed to track down the elusive Zebra-Boy! If you have no idea who I am speaking of, watch the film, you can’t miss him).

I do realize the state-based significance of both John Waters and Barry Levinson, but nothing has ever sold me so deeply on Maryland as this retarded little work of art. I’m telling the lot of you now, if it is deep and insightful reportage you seek, if it is lasting mental nutrition you are lacking then this is certainly the place to look for...the exact opposite.

On to more modern meditations and the pristine Virginia-based farmland of What Remains. This location (near Lexington) serves as the living, loving and working space of the pro shutterbug Sally Mann. Mann, best known for her hot button collection of portraits and other captures involving her three children titled Immediate Family (which contained images that fell under the strict designation of child pornography care the religious right), subscribes to a philosophy of finding the appropriate muse within her familiar surroundings. First, she milks her family members for photographic effect (the mostly black and white prints are often glorious) and then moves with gradual progression toward the landscapes that encircle her home. She shoots in large format (film, remember that shit?) and imprints her work with a soul and an openness to the randomness of life or, “the angel of uncertainty” as she dubs it.






Her work addresses the fragility of existence (a trait possibly influenced by her father’s preoccupation with death). The peak exemplification of this comes when she pays visit to a University of Tennessee-based forensic study area and is allowed to shoot various decaying corpses. The set up might seem unsettling but the resulting photos hold an irrefutable power.

We follow Mann through a multitude of highs and lows, from the everyday living variety to the convoluted process of snagging gallery support. A man by the name of Steven Cantor had previously covered the crafting of Mann’s notorious Immediate Family project back in 1990 (a resulting short film, Blood Ties is part of this picture’s bonus materials) and again provides the guiding eye that allows the audience to step inside Sally Mann’s space and observe for a cool 80 minutes. What Cantor does here set up an open mic for Mann’s ample voice, both as an incredibly gifted, born photographer and as a strong-willed woman who makes her way through her life as she sees fit.

Being as I am a wanna be camera nerd my own damn self, I managed to cull many informative tidbits in relation to this wonderful art form and certain methods that I may wish to emulate and apply to my own approach to imagemaking. Thus, What Remains stands as both a compelling biographic portrait and as an information well for those seeking to learn and/or polish their “eye,” so to speak. (zeitgeistfilms.com)

Lastly, we slap this whole uneven thing upward to our nation’s very first state.

I Can See You marks yet another challenging entry from the New York-based, East Coast-minded mini-studio Glass Eye Pix. Founded in 1985 in good faith by actor/writer/director Larry Fessenden, this outfit has steadily produced some rather striking pictures. Key works of note include Ti West’s efforts The House of the Devil and The Innkeepers and Jim Mickle’s more ambitious than it can afford to be vampire opus Stakeland. They also found the time to fund this severely under the radar ditty from Graham Reznick and it’s a fitting fable for Delaware.





It all comes together so simple, a trio of upstart Big Apple ad campaigners abscond themselves to the deep woods to camp, frolic, snag photos and brainstorm ideas in prep for an impending big dog client. All progresses smooth and tidy I suppose as the lads wander and drink some with various fellow campers and even find the time for a little free-spirited skinny dipping. Soon, however, a fattening level of menace creeps into play and the tone of each passing situation shifts into a sort of collision of David Lynch savvy shadow mystery and Stan Brakhage abstract experimentation.

The whole thing is pieced together with an admirable level of skill and the story feeds its three leads (including one eerily Conan O’ Brian-looking sad sack who basically fills the obnoxious blowhard role all too well) with a heady succession of surprises and ultimately sets them on a course with things better left seen than explained. The fear of the unknown and all that, you dig? Our founding fathers would be so proud. There’s probably still a smattering of their tortured souls wandering them diabolical Delaware forests, creepy. (icanseeyoumovie.com)

And one more thing.....JOHN CARPENTER’S THE WARD.

After flirting with a near decade of non-activity, save a pair of underwhelming Masters of Horror episodes, the frail old gentleman who blessed us with Escape From New York, The Thing and several other major genre pieces (say, what’s the one with that masked dude knifing people?) is back to making movie babies and the first result is, well, meh.

This time out Carpenter follows the fateful trials of a troubled lass (the admittedly fetching Amber Heard), who is placed in a nuthouse for gals after she is found oblivious in front of a burning farm house. The script then finds various ways for our lovely young anti-heroine to clash with staff and inmates and wander dark hallways so that she may cross paths with a number of ghostly cliches.

It all plods along with unremarkable abandon toward yet another one of those twist endings you’ll never see coming unless you’ve already seen a lot of movies with twist endings before. In all good truth, I have seen much worse from an upper shelf genre brand name (i.e. Wes Craven’s woeful My Soul To Take), but that hardly excuses the middling vibe that embodies this thing. Oh well, welcome back John and better luck next time.

Outta words, outta time.

killpeoplenamedrichard@yahoo.com