Kategori: Film og tv

The End of Lars von Trier?

Acclaimed Danish director Lars von Trier is perhaps at the end of his career. According to this article he was hospitalized in december for a depression, and although he is back on the street again, he has no appetite for work. “I’m completely blank” he says and given the enourmous amount of ideas always pouring out of him, this is totally new. He also says that Dogville is in his own opinion his most succesful movie, and I would agree with him.

Let’s see what happens. Trier has before been out with bombastic claims about his career, and given time I’m sure he’ll find his enthusiams again. I know that he is in good hands.

Anatomy of the Hollywood film

David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson on five quick principles crucial to Hollywood-storytelling. As part of an analysis of the action picture Mission Impossible III:

1. Goal orientation.

2. Double plotline

3. Discrete part-structure

4. Planting causes for future effects.

5. Deadlines.

Gotta see the movie and check the boxes!

Bordwell’s Narration In The Fiction Film really made an impact when I read it twelve years ago. Film Art was boring, though.

Das Leben Der Anderen

Last week I saw one of the most talked about German movies this year, Das Leben Der Anderen by debuting director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. The movie is set in the last waning years of East Germany, the DDR, and is highly recommended: It works on almost all levels and the emotional impact is simply stunning. This is one of cinema’s great morality tales – and a very succesful story of profound character change.

The central character is the Stasi captain Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Mühn in an amazing performance, at once sad and up-tight) a stoic, hard-working intelligence officer, who has spent much of his time passing on the subtler methods of the fight against “the enemies of socialism” to class after class of wide-eyed and well-meaning college students about to become enrolled in the East German secret service.

The relentless portrayal of most of the Stasi-employed as quite normal human beings just wanting to do their bit for society, is one of the movie’s most succesful narrative devices, and it tells us a lot more about life in a dictatorship than a portrayal of Stasi as ruthless thugs would do. In fact we never even see a gun or a really physically threathing move by a Stasi agent, and yet the menace and fear corrupting every corner of the socialist republic is overpowering and omnipresent. The movie does has its share of villians, though, with the Minister of Culture Hempf (Thomas Thieme) coming close to the diabolical – and therefore a touch cliched.

Minister Hempf at one point remarks that “people never change” which is why he feels superior to naive artists like stageplay-author Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch), who believes in the good of humanity, and who’s beautiful girlfriend Hempf covets and uses his power to take sexual control of. Hempf feels secure in his power and position and his apparent cynical knowledge of human nature, but the joke is really upon him, because what “Das Leben Der Anderen” shows through it’s dramatic narrative is exactly the ability to change through the involvement in the lives of others.

The introvert and apparently uncorruptable Hauptmann Wiesler becomes involved in the life of Dreyman when he takes upon himself to find dirt on the almost irritatingly innocent Dreyman. Dirt in the East German sense meaning some kind of independent, free-thinking thought, which Dreyman seems to be lacking. Although he apparently is the best play-wright in the DDR, he is clueless to the evils of the regime – or perhaps more to the point: He is clueless to his own responsiblity to use his powers as a talented author to fight against the evils of the regime. But only for a while, and soon Hempf does really have reasons to worry.

Through his involvement with Dreyman, Wiesler does change and takes an about-face that is at the same time both astonishing and satisfyingly logical: After all, as Dreyman comments, no one who has listened to Beethovens “Appasionata” could commit a truly evil act. Wiesler is exposed to the beauty that is denied him in his drab East German life, and this changes him forever, or at least gives him the will – perhaps “will” is not even the right word, and moral obligation is better – to do the right thing. This all sounds very heavy-handed, but the amazing thing about “Das Leben Der Anderen” is that it succeeds in making very high-flying moral issues totally believeable by binding them to character’s really quite mundane actions. It’s an amazing feat and has to be seen to be believed. A must see.

Citronen og Flammen på film

Nu skulle det være ganske vist. Ole Christian Madsen (manden bag “Edderkoppen”) skal instruere en storfilm om de to største helte i den danske modstandsbevægelse, Citronen og Flammen, der begge kom skidt af dage i efteråret 1944 (håber ikke jeg afslører for meget). Filminstituttet har bevilliget 10,8 millioner kroner, og filmen skal i alt koste 45 millioner, hvilket skal gøre den til den dyreste danske film til dato.

Lyder som et spændende – men også meget ambitiøst – projekt. Personligt er jeg lidt bange for det store budget. Bare der ikke går pop i den.

Penge og magt i Hollywood

Lyder som en spændende bog: Edward Jay Epstein: The Big Picture: Money and Power in Hollywood.

Fra omtalen hos Chicago Boyz, der analyserer hvorfor en typisk læser af den blog aldrig nogensinde føler sig som målgruppen, når de går i biografen:

The handful of films that will gross more than a billion dollars follow a similar formula:

All of them:

1. are based on children’s stories, comic books, serials, cartoons, or, a theme park ride.
2. feature a child or adolescent protagonist.
3. have a fairy-tale-like plot in which a weak or ineffectual youth is transformed into a powerful and purposeful hero.
4. contain only chaste, if not strictly platonic, relationships between the sexes, with no suggestive nudity, sexual foreplay, provocative language, or even hints of consummated passion.
5. feature bizarre-looking and eccentric supporting characters that are appropriate for toy and game licensing.
6. depict conflict – through it may be dazzling, large-scale, and noisy – in ways that are sufficiently non-realistic, and bloodless, for a rating no more restrictive than PG-13.
7. end happily, with the hero prevailing over powerful villains and supernatural forces (most of which remain available for potential sequels).
8. use conventional or digital animation to artificially create action sequences, supernatural forces, and elaborate settings.
9. cast actors who are not ranking stars – at least in the sense they do not command gross-revenue shares.

In one word, “Spiderman” — in two words, “Harry Potter” — in four, “Lord of the Rings.”

(…)

Hold on a minute, though. The formulaic kid-bait and toy franchising represented above is only occasionally represented at awards time. Wasn’t last year’s Golden Globes a festival of gay and transsexual awakening? Yes, indeed it was. For part of the emotional cost of making bilge for children from 8-80 is a deep ennui amongst the creative and management talent that feeds the “sexopoly” – the six-company beast. In order to boost morale and acquire prestige, studios, stars, and directors also participate in making movies of interest to them and those they admire. The result is a number of films that will certainly lose money in the cinemas, have only a small chance of recouping costs in DVD or during free TV broadcast, but which will appeal to the creative talent which otherwise is engaged in making merchandisable blockbusters. Make a blockbuster, get an “art-house” film, and maybe an Oscar, as a reward.

Søvnens videnskab

Der var godt nok absolut ikke et øje inde i Dagmar i går og se Michel Gondrys nye film The Science of Sleep, så den tegner til at blive en solid fiasko. Det er synd, for det er en rigtig skæg og sød og sjov og på alle måder kreativ film, der er lige præcis så mærkelig, at den hele tiden er overraskende, og lige præcis så sammenhængende, at den alligevel giver mening. Det er jo opskriften på en interessant film, og det skal altså forstås meget mere positivt end det lyder, nemlig som en anbefaling.

Gondry har en lang karriere som finurlig instruktør af musikvideoer bag sig, fx perler som Björks Human Behavior eller den eminent zoomende Je danse le Mia med den franske rapgruppe IAM, som jeg stadig husker tydligt, selvom det er mere end ti år siden jeg så den sidst (og nu har jeg så fundet den igen, takket være youtube). Gondrys visuelle fantasi får – ligesom i mesterværket Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind – fuld gas i “The Science of Sleep”, fordi hovedpersonen Stéphane på en meget håndgribelig måde blander drøm og virkelighed – ja, sådan set lever han mere i en drømmeverden end i virkeligheden. Drømmene er konsekvent underligt bamsede og rispapir-agtige og ligner kulisser bygget af papkasser og træ, som da man var barn og skabte sin helt egen verden, og Stéphanes barnlighed kommer på en hård prøve, da han møder pigen Stéphanie, som er lige så udknaldet som han selv. De skaber anarkstiske cellofandrømme sammen, men kan de også finde ud af at elske?

Tja, historien er måske ikke så interessant eller hæsblæsende i Science of Sleep, og filmen er som helhed meget ‘mindre’ end forgængeren (der var skrevet af manusikonet Charlie Kaufmann), men stort set alt andet i filmen er helt og fuldstændigt på toppen og gennemført, fra de meget levende drømmesekvenser til den brune og KREA-agtige 70’er stemning og det præcist skårne galleri af bikarakterer, der både er hjælpere og modstandere og alt ind i mellem for vores forvirrede hovedperson. Og her skal så Gael García Bernal virkelig have nogle solide klapsalver for en fantastisk præstation og sin smittende, barnagtige glæde. Han er virkelig ikke bare en pretty boy, men en helstøbt skuespiller med en utrolig tilstedeværelse på lærredet, hvilket givetvis er grunden til at han har fået en kometkarriere i de sidste par år. Man tilgiver ham næsten rollen som Che i den kommunist-forherligende Motorcykel Dagbog. Meget værd at se, hvis man altså kan holde sit indre legebarn ud.

Daddy-O på Copenhagen Film Festival

“Daddy-O”, en Super16 film, som jeg har skrevet manuskript til i samarbejde med instruktøren Esben Larsen, bliver vist sammen med de andre Super16 film på Copenhagen Film Festival den 30. september kl. 16.45 i Cinemateket. Mere info her.

Jeg har ikke selv set den færdige film, og der kom vist en række ændringer i sidste øjeblik, så jeg er nok lige så spændt som alle andre – måske mere.

Kontor-Madrigalerne

Tidligere omtalte jeg nye afsnit fra Ricky Gervais og Stephen Merchant i The Microsoft Office. Nu kommer der til gengæld en bøn fra min side: Kan vi ikke få en plade med David Brent? “David Brent Sings” eller noget i den stil?

For noget tid siden fandt jeg på det vidtudstrakte internet mp3-filer med en række af David Brents sange fra “The Office”, fx “Spaceman”, “Rose” og det store hit “Freelove Freeway”. I “The Office” er det tydeligt, at David Brent hellere ville have været rockmusiker frem for mellemleder i et papirfirma (who can blame him?), og han lader sjældent en chance ligge for at gribe guitaren (se et medley her). Jeg blev mindet om, hvor fremragende en parodi Ricky Gervais i grunden giver på middle of the road rock med et budskab, da jeg så Microsoft-filmene, hvor David Brent forsøger sig med en sang om en rig direktør, der møder en bums, som er fri som himlens fugle. Det sædvanlige peace-love anti-materialistiske gøgler-budskab, som man kan finde så mange steder i rockmusikkens klicheer, og som stilles i relief til den grumme virkelighed, når det er en kynisk og fedladen chef i 40’erne, der forsøger at vinde popularitet ved at gentræde de gamle klicheer (hans idol er også “Nelson Mandela”). David Brent fortæller også et sted, at da han havde et band, plejede de at lukke koncerterne med en reggae-sang der hed “Equality Street”. Mon ikke den var imod racisme?

Groteske er David Brents sange jo, især i deres sammenhæng. Og alligevel så realistiske, så Bob Geldorf/Simple Mindske i deres budskaber, eller så Eagles-agtige i deres fup-frihed på den store landevej, som en mytologi der er blevet til parodi. Som Bruce Springsteen uden modhager. Men kunne et hvilket som helst talentløst/ambitiøst rockband ikke fyre de samme klicheer af, og virkelig forsøge at mene dem? Her fra “Spaceman”:

Spaceman came down to answer some things. The world gathered round from paupers to kings.
I’ll answer your questions I’ll answer them true. I’ll show you the way. You’ll know what to do.
Who is wrong and who is right? Yellow, brown, black or white.
The spaceman he answered you no longer mind. I’ve opened your eyes you’re now color blind.

Jeg husker et dansk band, der i starten af 90´erne forsøgte sig med en sang om fremmehad med det tungebrækkende omkvæd “cause the name of the game is multicultural communication”, så Ricky Gervais er præcist lige så tæt på den pinlige virkelighed, som alle andre steder i The Office – og det er derfor sangene fungerer så godt. De er faktisk catchy (og de stjæler hæmningsløst, rent musikalsk), og det er derfor, at David Brent burde udgive en hel plade. Please… Jeg lover at høre den igen og igen.

P.S. Ricky Gervais var faktisk i 80´erne i et band som hed Seona Dancing. Prøv at finde “More to loose” er sted, gerne i 12´´ version. Den er fantastisk dansabel.

The Microsoft Office

Et hurtigt tip. Ricky Gervais og Stephen Merchant, der lavede den fantastiske komedieserie The Office, har nu lavet to træningsudsendelser for Microsoft, kaldet “The Office Values”. Begge kan ses på Google Video, så det er bare om at komme ind og se verdens bedste chef David Brent give gode råd til hvordan man kører en forretning. Udsendelse 1, udsendelse 2.