Forrest Gump

Someone recently said to me that it’s OK to like anything as long as you can justify why you like it – let’s hope this fits the bill.

Someone also once said to me that they could think of one hundred films that were better than Forrest Gump, in fact he actually went to the trouble of compiling a list, and whilst that maybe so I will always feel compelled to defend it.

I defy you not to enjoy it on some level. You are sure to laugh at the, often not-so subtle, ironies that punctuate the movie as it sprints through 30 years of American history; you simply have to appreciate the stunning performances of Hanks and Wright-Penn, not-to-mention Sally Field as the stoic ‘mamma’, but above all you have got to love our eponymous hero - he who possesses an innate freedom that I think we would all secretly love to be privy to – who wouldn’t want, just for one day, to be free of the intricacies of the mind? To be free from some of the everyday woes that trouble us, influence our decisions, define our moods and affect our relationships? Wouldn’t it be fantastic to not have to worry about editing what we say or apologising for our opinions and justifying our decisions, all for the benefit of people we often don’t respect or even care about? Oh to be Forrest Gump! To concentrate simply on the good things in life, to say the exact thing we feel at the exact moment we feel it, toconcentrate purely on those we love and to live in every moment would surely be a joy for any soul, wouldn’t it?

Settings such as war-torn Vietnam, the peace protests in Washington DC and the seedy world of experience, starkly presented through the characters of Jenny and Lieutenant Dan, provide a contrast to the beauty of Gump’s hometown of Greenbough, Alabama and are representative of the difference between the central character and the world that surrounds him. Like Greenbough, Forrest seems oblivious to any political issues or controversies and the social etiquettes and concerns that surround him, presenting an unchanging simplicity that is truly fascinating; the scene where Forrest and his son are sitting at the edge of the lake sums up the peace and harmony of the landscape and encapsulates the appeal of our central character.

As I watch, I am reminded of ‘The Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind’ in that here, we are given an insight into what life could be like if we left behind some of those suffocating, all-consuming ‘issues’ that really don’t mean anything and yet take up so much of our time. Who doesn’t dream of living without guilt and social obligation? Forrest’s experiences are comical, tragic, occasionally cringe inducing and often far-fetched, but the point is that through him we are presented with an air of tranquillity that is completely alluring, even beautiful. Once the layers of responsibility, guilt, conscience and consequence are stripped away, we are left with the one thing that truly matters to every single person on the planet – love. Now I know some people will read this and think that my response is emotional, sickly, stereotypical, even slightly sycophantic but a) so what if it is?! and b) no, no and no! All of us have a ‘mamma who always said’, all of us have a ‘best good friend’ with whom we’ve been like peas and carrots, all of us will have met or will meet at some point (I hope) the someone who is ‘just about the most beautiful thang we ever saw’ and all of us have endured the pain of loss; it is this that makes Forrest Gump so wonderful. It’s human, we’re human and there you have it - love it or hate it, this film shows us that life really is “like a box of chocolates…you never know what you’re gonna get”, so we need to make sure we make the most of it and live for our loves not for our loathes.
…And that is why I like it!!!

A Nightmare On Elm Street - Effective Population Management

A very favourite guilty pleasure here. Wes Craven's slasher pic proves conclusively that some communities get the serial killer that they deserve. A tale of the consequences of vigilante justice gone wrong, the film (to me!), makes a number of shrewd observations on the cracks in society into which our sins can pour in, and thus from which our worst nightmares can emerge. I particularly love the cavalcade of crappy parent - child relationships on show, and the potent and thought - provoking views of the banality of small - town American life. Anyway...

On to what we all came for - blood! I have decided to begin with a bang by ranking the three central kills from the film in order of their effectiveness. Here we go!

3) In at three is the predictable (and deserved) demise of one Glen Lantz, boyfriend to heroine Nancy. The kill is most accurately described as the (presumed) result of putting a human body into your common-or-garden food processor, and then forgetting to put the lid on. When Glen falls asleep, an incarcerated Nancy tries helplessly to call on damaged phone lines. Particularly enjoyable is the reaction of Glen's mother, who opens the bedroom door just in time to see her pride-and-joy's entrails decorating his bedroom ceiling a vivid shade of crimson. An inauspicious film debut from a young Johnny Depp.

2) Tina Grey is first to die, and has the dubious pleasure of being the victim of Freddy Kreuger's first screen murder. Craven revels in the agony of waiting, with a particularly untidy chase through Tina's dreams following Freddy's iconic introduction allowing the viewer to see his determined bloodlust in full. The kill itself sees Tina's body flung around the room by an apparently invisible assailant before, gloriously, being scraped around the outside of the room like a mop. This is a very cliched slasher kill, with the victim's virginity having been recently dispensed with, exposing the genre to (somewhat reasonable) accusations of the brutal repression of female sexuality. Fun, though.

1) At the top of this hit parade is the rather more sedate denouement to the life of barely-drawn jock Rod Lane. Locked up on suspicion of Tina's murder, Rod is strangled to death with a bed - sheet, and hung from the bars of his prison cell. The murder is unique within the film for the relative absence of overbearing synth music, and the generally quiet way that Rod succumbs to his end. Here, Craven effectively captures the chills that some of the more spectcular set-pieces eschew, with the significant technical achievement of the kill being intercut with the robotic bureaucracy of the city's police chief's proclamations. The intimacy of the cell, coupled with the reserve of a single sinister laugh from Kreuger is a powerful antidote to some of the film's excesses.

My only request: Please don't dismiss A Nightmare on Elm Street as similar fodder to the rest of a simplistic genre. As well as a wealth of entertainment, Craven's slasher film provides a wonderful central coda of parental responsibility, of atoning for the failings of a previous generation and, deliciously in Nancy's ultimate victory, of an individual's ability to choose to halt a chain of spiralling violence. Don't have nightmares!

floormaster

The Dude Abides!

When I was invited to join this blog I must admit I was at a loss what to write about, I do love film and myself and Crash have spent many an hour discussing film amongst many things. If I'm honest though literature is my true love and I favour American writers writing about nothing in particular (No exciting plots, no submarines, no wizards-just ordinary people doing ordinary things-the stories of Raymond Carver a case in point.) Now I read recently that the Coen Brothers "Big Lewbowski" is a film about nothing, now I'm going to disabuse that immediately. Whilst it is picaresque and meandering (to put it mildly) it is a film ultimately about friendship. Particularly the relationship between male friends of a certain age. We all know a Walter (John Goodman), a Donnie (Steve Buscemi) and even a Dude (Jeff Bridges). You can't explain why you are friends with people like this, and there are times when this friendship is a bind rather than a boon (particularly the scene when Goodman draws a pistol in the bowling alley) but these bonds are strong, inexplicable and eternal. The Coen's superbly demonstrate these qualities, why else would the Dude allow Walter to ride shotgun when delivering the ransom? Why else would The Dude allow Walter to join him in locating the missing money (resulting in Walter smashing the wrong car whilst shouting "This is what happens when you fuck a guy in the ass....") because they are friends and the relationship is so believable that you don't doubt it for one second(and if it isn't about friendship then why do I find myself welling up every time the guys bungle spreading Donny's ashes...that's real and touching in Hollywood his ashes would drift upwards in a shower of doves) but I get ahead of myself- The plot as it is, involves a case of mistaken identity- The Dude (aka Jeffrey Lebowski) is mistaken for a millionaire of the same name, from there it all becomes a bit confusing...rugs used as a toilet, fake(?) kidnappings, nihilists ("we believe in nothing Lebowski"), porn barons, Dope addled Busby Berkley sequences, White Russians and Jesus. No not the religious fella, but one of the great pointless movie characters. Jesus Quintana (John Tuturro) has no bearing on the film, he is a bowling rival of our heroes, and only appears twice but those two scenes are utter highlights. We meet him extravagantly drying his hands, and prowling the bowling alley as "Hotel California" (Not the hoary old Eagles version but an exotic Gypsy Kings version) plays. Quintana is a preening Lilac clad Latino bowling champ in a hairnet, who Walter insists is a "fucking pederast man" (This leads to an excellent cut to scene of Tuturro anxiously knocking a door as ordered by the court to declare his proclivities to the neighbourhood- we're not told if this is actually true but it makes for a great scene). The second scene is even funnier, Quintana's team are due to play The Dude et al on a Saturday but the suddenly devout Jew Walter refuses to play on a Saturday, "I don't roll on a fucking Saturday man) initially Tuturro seems annoyed at this change but eventually declares it doesn't matter because "it's easy for Jesus" as he humps the air. Now don't get me wrong it has nothing to do with anything, but it's genius in it's simplicity. The fact you don't even find out the result of the match (in a Hollywood film it would be the obvious climax, with a rollicking rock soundtrack) gives the whole film the feel of a shaggy dog story, or a rambling anecdote. So treatise on male friendship, shaggy dog story and life philosophy....yes that's right Life Philosophy (and the capital L, capital P are entirely justified). The Narrator (Sam Elliot, who randomly is a cowboy and has no part in the film) bookends the film, in his final speech the Dude says "the Dude Abides" and Elliot says "It makes you feel better doesn't it, knowing someone is out there abiding" and you know it does....

The Lives of Others

I watched 'The Lives of Others' over Christmas, in the afternoon of a non-descript January day. There was something tangibly atmospheric about the experience, as the grey of our post pseudo-festival intermingled imperceptibly with a the Bakelite miasma of the last days of communist Eastern-Europe. The film makes you uncomfortably aware of the crude machinations of the state against the individual. But in also brings in to stark relief the constant struggle that those whose views are marginalised against a political orthodoxy are involved in. That message is as pertinent in the so-called post-ideological era we currently reside in as it was in the polarised milieu Von Donnersmarc presents.

Captain Gerd Weisler is an eminent Stasi surveillance expert. Such is his prominence that he is responsible for honing the interrogation 'strategies' of the next generation of state-sponsored peeping-Toms. The film documents his fall from this state. As such it is well-worn fictional territory. Weisler's tragic flaw is his humanity, though this is supremely well disguised throughout the film, until it is revealed in the sublime ending (which appropriately takes place in a book shop in post-Glasnost Berlin underneath the glowering facade of 'Stalinallee' the Russian leaders' architectural gift to the Workers). Weisler is set to spy on Georg Dreyman, a playwright who is feted by the regime, but determined to expose the DDR for what it is. Amid the oppressions, suicides and deaths of many of his artist friends, Dreyer manages to smuggle out the truth of the DDR, that it has the highest suicide rate in Europe, into a western magazine. Weisler's ominous, silent, monitoring of the plotting writers forces him to confront and question the principles he is supposed to be defending. In an ending taken directly from Shakespaerian tragedy, Dreyer's vulnerable lover Christa beautifully illustrates the impact states have on the lives of others.

Hagen Bogdansky's cinematography is a joy. The film is a litany of Formica and Bakelite and as such impressively tactile. The light is the perpetual dusk of an unknown season and there's a claustrophobic feeling to all of the shots that's only lifted at the end. The camera rarely moves, so the sense of stasis is tangible too. The characters are physically well-cast; beautiful artists prostituting themselves (literally and figuratively) to gluttonous walrus faced party bosses and apparatchiks. And the depiction of Weisler, rising every morning to posit himself above the plotters where he sits in silent judgement is deeply symbolic.

And the film, ultimately, is about judgement. It's not a crude sideswipe at the failed communist experiment. There's actually an undeniably nostalgic feel to it. This, I think, is laudable because it depicts an era where there was a political dialogue going on. One of "The Lives of Others" many successes is to remind us that debate, agitation and subversion are vital concepts. But it's Weisler's judgements that matter and he becomes the film's motif. Everything that he does is held up to the intense moral scrutiny that only one's own mind can provide. His silent life, his heartbreaking solitude, is pursued faithfully by Von Donnersmarc to the film's uplifting conclusion.

'The Lives of Others' is not a true story. It is not a fable about a state's repentance. It is certainly not an apology for the workings of the Stasi. But it is a thing of beauty; and it is a testament to the power of metaphor that an organ of terror can be presented with such beauty.

The Age of Innocence - an underrated gem

Many people rate 'Raging Bull' or 'Goodfellas' as their all time favourite Scorcese film, and although I do love both of those films, I have to say that it is 'The Age of Innocence' that I find the most complex, daring and controlled. The acting is understated and script intelligent. It is the film most beloved by my good self for many reasons which I have neither the time or the inclination to go into on a blogspot. But do read on.


I believe it to be his most violent film.


But how so when there is not one drop of blood spilt or 'motherfucker' uttered? Well, let me tell you my dear readers, the violence is in the politeness, the violence is in the manipulation and the violence is in May's (Winona Ryder) determined stare as she exits the screen angry with Newland (Daniel Day-Lewis), but in cold control of every move...Oh, and it's violent because 'she never asked.' Yes, New York's polite society manages to rip the guts out of a life, yet still allow it to breath and 'endure' till old age. The Horror! The Horror!

It is also an incredibly beautiful piece of film art with many delectable vignettes, many of which centre around Ellen Olenska (Michelle Pfieffer): confidently and decisively walking over to Newland when women-weren't-meant-to-do-that-kind-of-thing (a fine moment, I have to say!); her New York apartment, she sitting by the fire, smoking, talking to Newland; the moment that could have been; at the harbour (the games people play); reading on a bench having her portrait painted, I could go on...


...but instead I will very briefly add, that Ellen's decision to return Newland's key declining to visit him 'just once' was the correct one for she was far too good for him. She dared to live what only Newland could read about in a book, in his armchair, by the fire. What a woman! What a film!