Book: Cronenberg on Cronenberg

Comprised of numerous interviews and spanning a couple decades worth of films, Cronenberg on Cronenberg is an insightful read for anyone interested in the Canadian filmmaker. While other books aim at deconstructing the films, this collection provides the meaningful accompaniment of the director’s voice. Cronenberg discusses the context in which his films were made, the difficulty in getting many of them produced, and the ensuing critical and public reactions.

For anyone already versed in the Cronenbergian world, these interviews do provide some new material while echoing much of what has been heard. Granted, this book came out before many recent publications on the director. A book like this only seems natural for an auteur who is so involved with his films after their release. Through the years Cronenberg has actively and passionately defended his films from those he felt misinterpreted them.

All in all, this book provides a more personal look at the filmmaker as a person compared to texts that focus on the films. The source is always a good place to look when trying to understand something. And this book is a good source.

Shutter Island

Originally a David Fincher/ Brad Pitt project, both moved on to other things before Scorsese acquired the project, based on Dennis Lehane’s 2003 novel of the same name. The success of both Gone Baby Gone and Mystic River may have something to do with the adaptation of Lehane’s novel to the big screen. Thus far the critical reception has been a bit mixed.

Having read the novel in preparation for the film, originally scheduled as an October 2009 release, it seemed to me a rather average book for such an esteemed director to work with. Of course, if there is one director who has, through a long and commanding career, earned the right to do whatever he wants, then Scorsese would certainly be it. So as an adaptation to a page turning and layered novel, Scorsese’s adaptation is a perfect match; both book and film arriving in similar fashion.

The film is dark and moody, contained entirely to the Alcatraz-like mental hospital with occasional flashbacks to inviting external environments. A strong sense of deceit and uncertainty is developed immediately and the wonder of a massively foreboding asylum instructs an ominous reaction. Scorsese’s usual intensified style fits right at home with the psychological material found on Lehane’s pages. The stylish cinematography and cinematically dramatic sequences don’t aid in any sense of realism; a fitting mode of discourse for a story set largely in the architecture of the mind. And if you couldn’t gather from the trailers, there is much more going on here than what we see on the surface.

The film is not a word for word adaptation yet the overall plot is intact. As such, the book was moderately predictable with major twists and turn being expected. The precise details, on the other hand, were not glaringly easy to fill in. Here lies my main disappointment with the film; the absence of any obvious Scorseseian influence. Aside from the intensified continuity of constantly moving cameras and endless close-ups and abrupt moments of violence, this film could have been made by any number of Hollywood regulars. And perhaps it should have. This is not to say that Scorsese did not do an adequate job crafting an enjoyable albeit too long psychological horror film.

From the opening shot of a ship materializing from behind heavy fog, we know everything will be hard to see. Yet this is not only from the haze and destructive weather battering the island but, more prominently, from the secrecy surrounding the menacing stature of the compound. The environment may be one of the strongest developed aspects of the film. The island could be a haven of perfectly manicured lawns, an oasis of healing separated from the frantic mainland society. At the same time, it could be, and is, an escapeless and savage test of both mental facilities and physical abilities. The lavish decadence of the warden’s quarters contrast the cold, dungeon-like appearance of bare iron and moist walls found in Ward C. The brutal destructiveness of nature is an apt metaphor for the storm raging in the mind.

Shutter Island may be my least favorite Scorsese film if only for the reason that it doesn’t feel like a Scorsese film. I will not claim to have seen, or particularly liked, all of his films. Yet his newest feels the most contrived, as if he made for a bunch of horror film fans expecting the man to jump out of the shadows. Although, even the simple strike of a match manages to scare numerous audience members whose heightened tension was evident. But I feel like the arrival of a new film by one of the biggest directors is a moment to look forward to, and I want something more than another horror film.

101 Sci-Fi Movies You Must See Before You Die

A kind of companion piece to 1,001 Movies You Must See before You Die, this smaller book focuses on a century of important Sci-Fi films from across the globe. Starting with the legendary Voyage to the Moon and concluding with 2006’s Children of Men, the book pays heaviest attention to the Anglophone films of the last 50 years. While much of the entries are validated, a handful could be happily excluded without detriment.

Four pages are devoted to each and every film. Two of these are plot and production details with occasional discussion on reception and importance. A screenshot and poster occupy the other two pages. The film posters are perhaps the most rewarding feature of the book. Many of the film’s posters are more obscure and not the standard and over-used designs. All of the entries are competent and quick to read.

Most noticeably absent is any type of checklist from which one could easily register the completion of watching the films. Likewise, an index of each film by country would be helpful. All in all, though, this list book is a nice little addition to gauge one’s thoroughness of participation in the cinematic world.

Smokin' Aces 2

Further proof that successful box office ventures are only validated by making a horrific, straight-to-video sequel. The victim this time is Joe Carnahan’s Smokin’ Aces, which ranks right near the top of my list of guilty pleasures. The surprise, in contrast to the ultimate insult of S. Darko, is that Carnahan was involved as executive producer, thus slightly legitimizing something that should not exist.

Carnahan’s original film features a huge cast of criminals, hit men, and government officials all converging at a Lake Tahoe hotel for an exciting round of carnage. The film is flashy, stylish, inventive, entertaining, and doesn’t spend too much time developing needless exposition. This is not to say it is plotless, but action and effects overshadow the developments. Its sequel, in sharp contrast, rips off nearly every aspect of the original and succeeds in none of them. Be it the bold, frame stealing titles, the use of elevators, the brutal Tremors, or the inclusion of many, many guns, 2 makes everything look like a giant, cheaply conceived joke. Unfortunately, a few characters are reincarnated from the original, the rest simply being ripped off. Director P.J. Pesce is uncertain how to handle the action scenes that comprise much of the film. Any sense of environmental orientation is absent with guns firing every which way yet still managing to hit their targets. The explosions feel only half-rendered. The blood is noticeably excessive in comparison to its predecessor. And all the characters that were cool are now laughable. The timeless bad-assery of Tom Berenger should have added a solid foundation of awesome but he too was degraded to straight to DVD pathos.

Smokin’ Aces is a high-rolling exercise in excess, from the penthouse shoot-out to Mafia affiliated target. It is clear, even beyond the promise of a million dollar reward, that lot’s of people are rolling in money and nearly everyone is inspired by greed. Yet for Smokin’ Aces 2, the high rise hotel is replaced by a badly lit club on a fake looking street and the wheelchair bound hit is practically buried alive from the start in a cavernous bunker. The film immediately loses any high-gloss connection to the film it tries so pathetically to emulate. Unsurprisingly, and rather fortunately, Clint Mansell’s score is noticeably absent.

In conclusion, the first film is not a great movie, but is endlessly fun and entertaining. The second film is a bad excuse for a movie that is endless in its exploits and fun only as a point of reference to the first. I’d ask people to stop making bad movies but they wouldn’t listen.

Rabid.

Being the earliest entry into the Cronenberg oeuvre I have seen, it also feels the most deliciously classic. The visceral money shots that pre-date his most well known films are right at home and in appropriately raw form. In the wake of a motorcycle crash, a young girl undergoes lifesaving experimental surgery that leaves her hungry for blood, which she sucks from other humans through a blunt proboscis located under her left armpit. Those that she bites turn rabid, foaming from the mouth with bloodshot eyes and a hunger for flesh. The film has the air of a zombie outbreak, although in this case started by innocent porn star Marilyn Chambers in the quaint Quebec countryside.

Rabid is a telling film in the avid work of Cronenberg. The dangers of medical experimentation are explored to extensive degrees and the wider impact clearly warned of. Yet in comparison to heavier films like Videodrome, it is relatively easy to sit back and enjoy. Evidence of the young state of his career, this film certainly paves the way, both thematically and visually, for what Cronenberg will be most remembered for. We see it here in the rampant flesh explosions as the rabid citizens are gunned down. We also are treated to the fleshy orifice from which the hematophagic plunger emerges. And while the film may not be the most technically developed of its kind, its inclusion in this particular oeuvre awards it more credibility than the slew of b-grade horror films that surround it.

Yet the place that most solidifies this film into Cronenberg’s body of work is in its warning. Similar to a host of his other films, Rabid bluntly exercises fear of the scientific experimentation from which the blood-thirsty girl is created and in turn infects a population. It is in the guise of help, to create a morphogenetically neutral piece of flesh that can replicate any other, that the doctor grafts her skin in an attempt to save her life. And while the potential for such a procedure is more than relevant and current, this case is marked by a severe and dramatic failure.

What Rabid is, then, is a tentatively shlocky yet important stepping-stone for Cronenberg. One cannot expect to arrive at the top, especially with the content and themes of films that are to follow. And just as relevant, and hinted above, the film would likely be a formulaic and perhaps forgettable horror entry if the commanding career of the director had not prospered (in a manner of speaking) as it has.

Another Book

Film Snob- reference term for the sort of movie obsessive for whom the actual enjoyment of motion pictures is but a side dish to the accumulation of arcane knowledge about them

While I would never consider my accumulation of film knowledge paramount in importance to the act of viewing, the so-titled Film Snob’s Dictionary boasts quite an assortment of definitions that are right up my alley. As if amalgamation of senior movie buff and web-trained fanboy, the Snob exists in a state of perpetual acquisition of anything and everything movie related. Written wittily by David Kamp and Lawrence Levi, this dictionary provided a valid introduction to the fringes of filmdom. At times cynical and always accusatory, the writers manage to inject enough film history, trivia, and information to make it an interesting read for cinephile and common citizen alike.

Injected throughout are the occasional cheat sheets to help boost one’s lexicon when talking to a Snob. The most entertaining of these clarifies the distinction between ‘Films’ and ‘Movies’ by stating that Tom Waits will never, ever star in a movie and Tom Hanks will never, ever star in a film. Additionally, the occasional caricature identifies certain personages of relevance. In whole, this book is a quick and appropriately entertaining read as well as an off-hand reference for clarification.

A Book: The Way Hollywood Tells It.

David Bordwell has amassed an impressive amount of film writings and his knowledge of the subject is never more evident than it is here. In two parts, composed modestly of four chapters each, Bordwell traces the changes in how films are made by evaluated their stories and styles. He theorizes that the way films are made now are not in fact that much different than older films. With ample references to hundreds of film examples he traces similarities and differences between the films of yesterday and today.

Bordwell’s thoughtful and impressive ideas are worth more than one view and are articulately supported by the reels of film history. It’s puzzling how he has so much time to watch as many films as he does but still write about them. The book was published in 2006 and includes an excellent and informative appendix giving a Hollywood timeline from the year 1960 until 2004. I have encountered a few other Bordwell books thus far in my education and always find them thorough, somewhat daunting, and incontrovertibly helpful.