I Am Thankful for: Ross McElwee

THIS IS LIFE, NOT ART!



On this weekend of a uniquely American holiday, it seems appropriate to give thanks for a uniquely American filmmaker. I'm assuming Cassavetes, Malick, Scorsese, all the big hitters can fend for themselves. After a lot of thought, it became apparent to me that the American filmmaker I am currently most thankful for is Ross McElwee.

McElwee is a documentary filmmaker who has made several poignant and vaguely autobiographical films who's subject matter encompasses a high school teacher, a small town news station, General Sherman's march to the sea, the Berlin Wall, and the tobacco industry.



McElwee got a Masters in filmmaking from MIT, and moved to Paris to be a writer and photographer. While there, his experience of the opening tracking shot of A Touch of Evil proved so powerful for him, that he decided to become a filmmaker. While at MIT, he had studied under Richard Leacock, one of the pioneers of the cinema verite. There's a odd contradiction between Welles and the Maysles, but both were filmmakers who had a unique and masterful understanding of very different aspects of cinema's possibilities and power. This tension is really what makes Mcelwee's films so remarkable to watch, and so vibrant for their length.

In an age of "documentary proliferation," where digital cameras and Final Cut Pro have made documentary-making an almost costless process, the amount of documentaries which understand and utilize the power of cinema are growing fewer and fewer. Many current documentaries actually work better when you don't try to view them as films, but as something else. While documentaries have gained press and interest for their subject matter and/or political implications, McElwee's documentaries are still part of a love affair with moving images on celluloid.

My favorite (and maybe his best-loved film), Sherman's March: A Meditation on the Possibility of Romantic Love in the South During an Era of Nuclear Weapons Proliferation, was the result of both a grant to make a film on Sherman's march, and an untimely and devastating breakup with a long-time girlfriend. Utilizing his camera both as a image-maker and (following his sister's suggestion) as a tool to meet women, he documents his travels along Sherman's route, and his experiences with several women along the way. Not only is he able to create poignancy, humor, and interest in his subjects, not only is he able to explore deeper cultural issues of Southern womanhood, the attempt to escape one's past, and race relations, but he also manages to create hundreds of dazzling, uniquely cinematic moments, breathtaking simply for their formal beauty and emotive impact. Old Southern Baptist men raising a cross on Easter Morning, silent cellulite exercises, A moth-eaten Easter Bunny wandering in to a hellfire and brimstone lecture, the cryptic trading of large plastic animals, all are magically transported into a 16mm frame, and flash at 24 frames per second.



Besides his determination never to stop filming (even when giving someone a hug), the most striking of the cinema verite aspects in his films is his deep interest in and reverence for people. A brief moment in Sherman's March, an almost throwaway conversation with a car mechanic about the death of his wife, becomes a devastating and moving scene, simply through McElwee's care with the camera.

McElwee (in his youth) succesfully escaped the South for Brown University, MIT, and Europe. As someone who can most definitely identify with that youthful desire, his artistic interest in the South is of prime interest. While he has commented frequently he feels no necessary need to document only the South, I really cannot think of a filmmaker who does it better, with more care or complexity. In film, the South is often abused or misunderstood. Southern filmmakers that capture the culture with understanding and intelligence are rare, and it almost seems like it's McElwee's tension with it that brings this out.



His latest film Bright Leaves put to rest any thoughts that his youthful Allen-esque self-effacement or unique project was what made his films so interesting. His exploration of the tobacco industry, its relation to the South, and his relationship with his son is as graceful and effortlessly cinematic as anything previous.

Hooray for you, Ross McElwee. Creator of beauty.

Samurai Spy (1965)

This was my first exposure to Masuhiro Shinoda, after many recommendations. Samurai Spy is a Cold War samurai film. Instead of documenting the epic battle of Sekigahara, the film starts 14 years after it, as the tensions that boiled over there are elevating through frequent espionage. It's basically a film-noir, following classic spy conventions, as each double-cross is double crossed.

The visuals are the biggest treat in the film, with frequent use of gliding, silent action-shots, and (as William mentioned) interesting distant shots of important action. My favorite involved a climactic battle being shot from across a valley as fog rolls by, the camera tracking up and down hills.

Despite the theatrics and beauty of the fight sequences, they remain brutal and bloody. Shinoda consistently shows the killer spattered with the blood of his victim, leaving the viewer wonder who is more to pity. In the DVD interview, he also comments that he wanted to show that killing of this sort is always "following orders" rather than being a crime of passion. He sees the film as being very political, but my experience of it was that the bigger questions (Sasuke's musings on death) were the dominant themes. Shinoda establishes an interesting formula in which, after major action, the characters begin to discuss the philosophical implications quite openly. This sounds horrible, but somehow it works very well, and never seems preachy or over-intellectual. There's an absurdity in the world he creates, but the characters (who participate earnestly in it) are always treated with the utmost respect. It's a very interesting tone.

Death in Venice (1971)

Released in 1971, this adaptation by Visconti of the Thomas Mann novel was a meticulous, almost obsessive creation. The tone of the film is really unlike much I've seen, though I found odd similarities (visually and emotionally) to Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975). The film is like a sustained chord, building a little and morphing a little, but its almost constant pulling of ecstatic emotions from the viewer is quite exhausting and impressive. The film is scored entirely with the music of Gustav Mahler, and Visconti exchanges the semi-autobiographical writer figure of Mann's novel with a composer modeled on Mahler.

The main narrative is only given to the viewer in short, garbled, and dream-like flashbacks. Dirk Bogarde masterfully plays a composer, beset with mediocrity, taking a vacation in Venice for his health. The film, through flashbacks, sets up several interesting polarities, fueling Gustav's artistic crisis: cerebral, mediocre, "lofty" art vs. sensual and insipid art. Secretly, a plague is descending on Venice, but to protect the tourist industry, no one is saying anything. Guests casually disappear without a word, and a man quietly scatters lime across the city. As he begins to suspect the sickness in Venice, we begin to suspect the sickness growing inside him. In his stay, he becomes entirely obsessed with a beautiful young boy. As he observes the boy with growing fixation, we can slowly see his rationalist intellectualism breaking down before the purely sensual. The pain of the realization of his having lied to himself about his own nature is almost unbearable, climaxing as he becomes the sickly figure he reviled early in the film: painting his face white and coloring his lips to appear younger.

It's worth noting that the film is almost entirely silent, and places more text in Bogarde's face than almost any movie I've seen. There's a slow-burning melancholy that grows throughout the film, swallowing it up in a flash at the last moment. The final moments of the film are devastating, mostly for their lack of anything sensational. This is an exceedingly important film, especially for artists. Many great films have captured the pain and confusion of the high-minded artist (or any "high-minded" person I suppose) coming to terms with the reality of the world, which is quite disjointed from their beliefs about it. However, this film distills the theme into an emotional experience in a way that is almost pure in its lack of text or dialogue.

Le Samourai (1967)

Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samourai is a gift to the world. It is a perfect film. Melville's meticulous visuals (especially colors) are what push him above the other filmmakers of his generation and genre. The icy photography places the viewer directly into the detachment of Delon, whether or not they wish to be there. Alain Delon is masterful in the role, and his immobile stare is frequently the foundation of the film's best sequences.

In a montage of wonderful interview footage with Melville (provided on the new DVD release), he comments that he thinks gangsters are "pathetic losers." His repeated use of the genre, he states, is an interest in that particular brand of modern tragedy, only expressable through the film noir. In the title of this film, he has certainly made the connection to another genre that has expressed it equally well in cinema history.



Le Samourai, like Le Cercle Rouge (1970), is characterized almost entirely by its overwhelming silence. Melville understands the language of the cinema, particularly genre and commercial cinema, so well, that he is able to communicate everything he means to almost entirely without dialogue. His visuals are painterly, rather than the more montage-based, energetic camera in Hitchcock: he speaks through colors and a more objective mis-en-scene. The dialogue that is in the film is vital, not usually for narrative purpose, but to give insight into the characters.

The ending of the film is quite a shock, and I won't ruin it here. However, in one of the best artistic decisions in the film, a drastic shift in character is played by Delon without the slightest variation in form. The effect is overwhelmingly satisfying. The text from the Bushido that the film opens with both romanticizes and impugns him.



Bob le Flambuer (1955), which I understand is more of a 50's crime film comparable to Jacques Becker, etc., is playing at the New Beverly Dec. 14-17th. From what I've read it should make more sense of the oft-given "father of the New Wave" title which the careful and unique visual style of the later films obscures.

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972)

Luis Bunuel's absurdist comedy follows six bourgeois who's dinner party is repeatedly interrupted by a catalog of real and imagined obstacles: a funeral, military manuevers, an assassination, a terrorist group, a theater audience, etc. It's interesting to note that it is rather light-hearted, as opposed to outraged (like perhaps some of his earlier films). Still political films are political films and it doesn't ever really transcend its politics (though I know some will call me ignorant for that). It's as amusing as descriptions promise, and there are some excellent moments.

He does get in his church-hating scene, and that's probably the scene that best brings out his themes. He hates social mores and religious institutions because he sees them as repressive to human desire. Sometimes he's right, and sometimes I think he's wrong, but its a somewhat interesting theme anyway. The six friends continue to stand on ridiculous ceremony, and it's that ceremony that provides most of the absurd humor and prevents them from ever being able to eat.

He frequently uses blatant stereotypes, taking them to their extremes, both reinforcing them and undermining them at the same time. Personally, though, I find that I like most political films (Medium Cool is in my top ten) despite their politics, rather than because of them. It does keep me from really loving this later Bunuel, as the filmic elements seem to take a back seat.

Shoot the Piano Player (1960)

Truffaut's classic New Wave-noir film quickly vaults itself to the top of my Truffaut list. Much less serious than the films that bookend its spot in Truffaut's filmography (400 Blows and Jules and Jim), Shoot the Piano Player is one of those films that is bursting with joy and passion for filmmaking. With a loose and improvisational feel, this film, thematically, is the foil to Breathless, released the same year. Using all the signatures of the New Wave, Truffaut doesn't take on the scope of Godard's film (visual truth and whatnot), but merely uses them to pay homage to the gangster B-film, a meditation on genre.

The film is really carried by Charles Aznavour's wonderful, subtle performance as a former concert pianist, now playing at a nightclub to escape his former highbrow life. Also noteworthy is the layered and careful use of voice-over, which can be abused so easily. The film is extremely funny, the gangsters frequently stopping in the middle of their crimes to discuss the most trivial things (sound familiar?). Despite its passionate editing and humor, the film also manages to be incredibly moving, something many directors might not reach for in a film like this. The closing shot is really wonderful.

Bad Timing (1980)

Nicolas Roeg's film promises much from the outset. Eroticism. Art Garfunkel. Eroticism starring Art Garfunkel. You may remember Nicolas Roeg from the Donald-Sutherland-adorned horror film, Don't Look Now, a film notable for its gapingly awkward non-linear sex scene, and greatly augmented by it's inclusion of midgets and stabbing. Bad Timing has neither midgets nor stabbing, and their lack is felt. What it does have, is a structure based off the aforementioned nudie scene. The film is edited together from the beginning and the end, cutting back and forth throughout, blah blah blah. Somehow it has the Fingers syndrome, and nothing falls into place. There are plenty (PLENTY) of stylistic flourishes that only become more grating as their thematic vacuousness becomes more apparent. To boot, Harvey Keitel plays an Austrian detective who miraculously manifests and accent halfway through the film, and begins to lose his grip on the English language, and indeed, perhaps sanity, towards the end.

The premise of the film requires that both it's leads illicit some sympathy, but unfortunately Garfunkel's co-star just can't (though he is surprisingly good). She gives one of the most irritating performances I've seen in some time. As far as the "erotic" elements, let me remind you of the presence of Art Garfunkel. My fast forward button got used more than it has in a while. If you venture into this film, I suggest you use yours as well. There is much given in intentionally bad taste, that really only makes the whole effort sadder, as if it felt it needed to make up with shock value what it lacked in artistic value. There is a truly unforgivable rape scene (fortunately I was able to skip), that is as mysogonystic as it is (unfortunately for the filmmaker) laughable. It's "connection" to the "themes" is apparently "noteworthy."

Lest you think it was all for nought, I must admit that the visuals throughout much of the film are truly stunning. There is also a very well done scene on a bridge near the beginning of the film, which unfortunately has little to do with the rest of the film. It sits like a piece of a real movie left in a "worst of film school" reel.

I may seem to be overly harsh, and that's because this had every potential of being a good film. The themes Keitel's character introduces near the end of the film are very interesting, and what I presume the film was supposed to be about. However, nowhere in its unforgivable 2 HOURS AND 20 MINUTES, does it explore these themes, visually, cinematically, narratively. This should probably be the end.

Knife in the Water (1962)

Roman Polanski's first feature film is a tense chamber drama, clearly working out of 50's and 60's Antonioni. The film revolves around the (at first) understated competition between a younger and older man. The young man, a student the married couple pick up on their way to the lake, joins them on their sailing trip. The film gets less interesting when it seems to start to lay some kind of allegorical structure on their conflict. The dilemna seems more interesting when its just youth vs. age, John Updike style.

The performances are pretty good, especially Jolanta Umecka as Krystyna, who is the picture of indifference, and yet possesses all the maturity the men seem to imagine they have. The film is scored with some great, distant jazz that gives the whole thing a beat-vibe.

Overall I can't rate it as highly as many people do, and I don't thnk it ranks very highly with Polanski's other films, but its a solid piece of filmmaking. Like the best of this stuff, its one of those films that makes you want to pick up a camera and go make a movie.