NYFF11 Movie Review: Shame

by Tony Dayoub

Shame is not simply the sex addiction drama it is being marketed as. More precisely it is a character study focusing on Brandon (Michael Fassbender), a lonely disconnected New Yorker moderately succeeding at imposing a controlled routine over his life despite an unusual neurosis. If Freud and Fassbender's other NYFF character, Jung, were to psychoanalyze Brandon and his equally detached sister, Sissy (Carey Mulligan), they'd find that, though each acts out in different ways, both are obviously reacting to a childhood in which they were exposed to sexual dysfunction. But director Steve McQueen (Hunger) wisely avoids diving into the murky waters of cinematic pathology, preferring instead for his audience to connect the various clues to Brandon and Sissy's background themselves. McQueen is more concerned with how that pathology plays out in the lives of his characters, relying heavily on Fassbender's talent for conveying the defeated torment of the introverted Brandon through what is largely a performance based on subtle gestures and inflection that the director catches by simply allowing his camera to get uncomfortably close and stay there as long as needed.

Richard T. Jameson on Bigger Than Life

This entry is a bit unusual. Richard T. Jameson is a personal hero of mine. He was editor of what, in my opinion, is still the best run of Film Comment (1990-2000). He now writes for outlets like MSN Movies, Parallax View, and the Queen Anne and Magnolia News, which hosts his online movie magaine, Straight Shooting. We correspond occasionally, and he submitted a write-up on Bigger Than Life which I can't post any part of here because it was done as work-for-hire. But I can link to it, and it is worth a read.

Thank you, Richard.

READ AT AMAZON.COM

Cronenberg Blogathon: Dead Ringers (1988)

by Adam Zanzie

[Adam Zanzie started blogging about film at Icebox Movies shortly before last year's De Palma Blogathon, where we got into it over his piece on Redacted. What a difference a year makes. Now, he sneakily lifts the film of choice for my upcoming contribution. What am I going to do with you, Adam? (Great essay!)]

When they were kids growing up in Toronto in 1954, Elliot and Beverly Mantle were already curious enough to want to know more about human sexuality and the female anatomy. “I’ve discovered why sex is,” Elliot tells his younger brother, walking down the streets in their neighborhood one afternoon. “It’s because humans don’t live underwater… fish don’t need sex because they just lay the eggs and fertilize them in the water. Humans can’t do that—because they don’t live in the water. They have to… internalize the water; therefore, we have sex.” Beverly is confused, “So, you mean, humans wouldn’t have sex if they lived in the water?” Elliot clarifies that “they’d have a kind of sex, but the kind where you wouldn’t have to touch each other.” To Beverly, the shyer of the two brothers, this sounds perfectly agreeable. “I like that idea,” he says.

Cronenberg Blogathon: The Business of Junk - Naked Lunch

by Ryan Kelly

[The eloquent Ryan Kelly fashions some great, thought-provoking pieces at Medfly Quarantine. I seldom agree with his opinions on specific films these days, a sure sign that the reason I return to his blog again and again is his potent, concise writing.]

Junk is the mold of monopoly and possession. The addict stands by while his junk legs carry him straight in on the junk beam to relapse. Junk is quantitative and accurately measurable. The more junk you use the less you have and the more you have the more you use. All the hallucinogen drugs are considered sacred by those who use them—there are Peyote Cults and Bannisteria Cults, Hashish Cults and Mushroom Cults—"the Scared Mushrooms of Mexico enable a man to see God''—but no one ever suggested that junk is sacred. There are no opium cults. Opium is profane and quantitative like money. I have heard that there was once a beneficent non-habit-forming junk in India. It was called *soma* and is pictured as a beautiful blue tide. If *soma* ever existed the Pusher was there to bottle it and monopolize it and sell it and it turned into plain old time JUNK.

- William S. Burroughs,
"Deposition: Testimony Concerning a Sickness"

David Cronenberg's adaptation of William S. Burroughs' junkie manifesto Naked Lunch surely ranks as one of the great film adaptations of all time—as much a biography of the novel's troubled author as an adaptation of his most well known work, which Cronenberg has cited as his favorite book of all time. Since the novel only barely has a plot, Cronenberg was forced to improvise much of the content of the picture, and the result is an often hilarious, occasionally tragic, perpetually surreal film—one that dramatizes Burroughs' psychological state at the time he wrote the famed novel. In spite of the numerous alterations to the text, this is a surprisingly faithful adaptation, as Cronenberg's film is a scathing satire that attacks Capitalism, drug culture, Corporate America, even the creative process—ultimately, it's as true to Burroughs' novel as any adaptation could possibly be, while also a new dimension to the text: an extremely moving portrait of its author.

Blu-ray Review: Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009)

by Tony Dayoub

Originally reviewed here at the time of its theatrical release, Werner Herzog's Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans is now out on Blu-ray and DVD. The film is a testament to the skewed sensibilities of its director and star who here seem to strike a level of attunement which had been missing in Herzog's narrative films since his last collaboration with Klaus Kinski. Some of the credit should go to Nicolas Cage, who manically apes Kinski to some extent, twisted in pain and hunchbacked like the German actor's character in For a Few Dollars More (1967).

Bigger Than Life (1956) and Its Influence on Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992)

by Tony Dayoub

In his films, Nicholas Ray (Rebel Without a Cause) often contemplates the psychodynamic turbulence hidden behind facades of normalcy. Bigger Than Life, with its focus on the degradation of a patriarch, Ed Avery (James Mason), speaks to the repression which plagues the seemingly typical fifties nuclear family. In this way the movie looks forward to those of another director, David Lynch. Though he has explored similar themes throughout his work, most notably in Blue Velvet (1986), it is in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me where Bigger Than Life's influence is most strongly felt.

Movie Review: Rachel Getting Married - Demme's Film Not Quite a Return to Form

I'm of two minds when it comes to Jonathan Demme's Rachel Getting Married. On the one hand, seeing 'Sister Carol' East (Something Wild, Married to the Mob) as part of the wedding guests/performers seems to signal that this film is a return to form for Demme, who hasn't fashioned one of his signature quirky movies since 1988. On the other hand, mashing up his quirky music-lover sensibilities with the dour family drama at the heart of Rachel doesn't make for the best fit. Maybe he's still drunk on all the Oscar accolades from the terrific Silence of the Lambs (1991) because every movie since then has had a a little of the bloat of self-importance about it. You can't fault the performances, which are right on the money. Not only is Anne Hathaway (The Devil Wears Prada) repellent as the twelve-stepper Kym, she is obnoxious in her self examination, par for the course as the younger sister in the family. The titular Rachel is given wonderful life by Rosemarie DeWitt (Mad Men), who is able to hold her own quite well with the scene-stealing Hathaway never far from screen. Particular praise goes to Bill Irwin (Sesame Street) and Debra Winger (Terms of Endearment) as the two women's divorced parents. In fact, the whole cast is probably one of the best ensembles in a film in 2008. So why does the movie feel so phony? Perhaps it is all the unnecessary accoutrements that Demme uses to dress the film up. Since the prospective groom is a musician, Demme thinks he has free rein to bring in every oddball bohemian cliche in to enliven the wedding, and it just doesn't ring true. I don't believe Rachel and her fiance would get married wearing saris in a Hindu (?) ceremony. Or their cake would be in the form of Ganesha. All of the set dressing, in fact, serves to dissipate the power of the story of Kym's recovering addict. So this film may be a bit of a transitional one for Demme - still a little self-important with a touch of the quirk we're familiar with - before he comes full circle. I hope so, because it is nice to see Sister Carol sing again in a Demme flick.