December
1Too Cool to be Hot
Much of the critical assessment of the films these days seems to relate not to their themes or performances but to their temperature. Movies like “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” or “The Reader” are being faulted by critics because they are “chilly.” Baz Luhrmann’s “Australia” may have its faults – exhaustive faults – but it’s earning praise because it’s “hot.”
I understand what the critics are getting at, but I wonder nonetheless if it’s a bit of a substitute for more probing analysis. Critics don’t like to admit that some films move them emotionally and others don’t. Part of the response may relate to one’s own experience – a messy divorce, a death in the family – or part of it is simply how a critic was feeling the day of the screening.
The problem, too, may relate to the mindset of the filmmaker. David Fincher, the man behind “Benjamin Button,” is a cerebral director. I found his latest movie, like “Zodiac,” to be at once riveting and off-putting. Read the original F. Scott Fitzgerald short story on “Button” and you find remarkable and touching interactions between the character and his various friends along his life’s peculiar journey. He was too old, and wise, for the kids around him when he was an “old” baby. Later in life he was too naive and callow for his actually older companions. He was a rather touching character – touching and out-of-touch.
Those nuances are missing from the “Button” character as depicted in the Fincher movie. His is a fascinating journey, but some filmgoers may find themselves observing it with a detached outlook.
In “Australia,” as in “Slumdog Millionaire,” the filmmakers deliberately and daringly turn up the heat. Danny Boyle resorts to shameless sentimentality in “Slumdog” – and gets away with it. He even ends his Dickensian story with an absurd dance video over end credits.
But another question emerges about “Slumdog.” Will audiences find his setting – Mumbai – easier to relate to because of last week’s tragic events? Did reality bring this city to life in people’s minds so that the events overtaking his characters take on other layers of meaning?
In short, did Danny Boyle inadvertently luck into a very hot movie?
I understand what the critics are getting at, but I wonder nonetheless if it’s a bit of a substitute for more probing analysis. Critics don’t like to admit that some films move them emotionally and others don’t. Part of the response may relate to one’s own experience – a messy divorce, a death in the family – or part of it is simply how a critic was feeling the day of the screening.
The problem, too, may relate to the mindset of the filmmaker. David Fincher, the man behind “Benjamin Button,” is a cerebral director. I found his latest movie, like “Zodiac,” to be at once riveting and off-putting. Read the original F. Scott Fitzgerald short story on “Button” and you find remarkable and touching interactions between the character and his various friends along his life’s peculiar journey. He was too old, and wise, for the kids around him when he was an “old” baby. Later in life he was too naive and callow for his actually older companions. He was a rather touching character – touching and out-of-touch.Those nuances are missing from the “Button” character as depicted in the Fincher movie. His is a fascinating journey, but some filmgoers may find themselves observing it with a detached outlook.
In “Australia,” as in “Slumdog Millionaire,” the filmmakers deliberately and daringly turn up the heat. Danny Boyle resorts to shameless sentimentality in “Slumdog” – and gets away with it. He even ends his Dickensian story with an absurd dance video over end credits.
But another question emerges about “Slumdog.” Will audiences find his setting – Mumbai – easier to relate to because of last week’s tragic events? Did reality bring this city to life in people’s minds so that the events overtaking his characters take on other layers of meaning?
In short, did Danny Boyle inadvertently luck into a very hot movie?
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I will see any movie that at least tries to be something. NOT IRONMAN. Milk. We need movies that make us think. That are about something. That inspire. NOT FOUR CHRISTMASES. But it will never end. The bad movies make money. So it will not end until we stop going to see them.
Best regards,
An Honest Answer
Posted by: OGL | 12/4/2008 7:22:23 PM
The dance sequence in Slumdog was a reference or homage to Bollywood cinema. It's comical, but "absurd" ?
Posted by: Slum | 12/3/2008 9:32:39 AM
There hasn''t been a movie I''ve wanted to see for several months. Movies today aren''t about anything, they''re about as challenging as a romance novel or grisham thriller, and they give me nothing. Fincher may be more cerebral and less melodramatic, but I welcome the rare antidote to the overwhelming dumbing down of film. The movies made now leave those who want substance over (at least with) their spectacle out in the cold.
Posted by: Jane P. | 12/2/2008 2:46:11 PM
Sorry to tell you, GYD, but back in the 70s -- which I experienced just out of my teens -- many of those films you cite (definitely Chinatown and Clockwork Orange) were dismissed as emotionally chilly in the same way Bart and others are tossing off Fincher's work. Audiences and the academy have always gone more for movies with "heart" (or sentiment, as I might more pejoratively put it); posterity, not so much. So, yeah, a crowd-pleaser like Slumdog might win best picture, but don't bet against a 30-years-on observer preferring Benjamin Button.
Posted by: Tom | 12/2/2008 1:37:08 PM
It's a generational conflict of interests in the sense that the films of this decade are, like most comercial conventions of this decade, trying to be too cool for school, and yet human beings still want to feel something. Your genteration, Mr. Bart, was far more skilled in conveying cinamatic emotions(Godfather,Harold and Maude, Chinatown,Exorcist, Clockwork Orange) real films, not just reel films like now.
Posted by: GYD | 12/2/2008 8:08:40 AM
Well, no worries there, I doubt 95% of american audiences know where Mumbai is. As to cold or hot films, a movie that doesn't move an audience, emotionally or otherwise, doesn't work, period.
Posted by: bobby d. | 12/2/2008 7:27:00 AM
Boyle, indeed, might have lucked into a very hot movie (if you can call it that, considering the tragic events). It kind of reminds me of Michael Douglas with CHINA SYNDROME. Released just 12 days before the accident at Three Mile Island, it helped propel the film into a hit. As Johnny Carson said to Douglas on The Tonight Show not long after: Boy, you sure have one hell of a publicity agent.
Posted by: MarkMandel.com | 12/1/2008 9:48:38 PM