The cost of beginning the film with so many curious perplexing events is that some sense has to be given to them at the end. This emphasis on explanation may derive from Coben’s source novel, but perhaps it is simply a characteristic, or failing, of mystery as a genre. Anyway, there is no tolerance for implausibility here, as one might find, say, in the films of David Lynch or the fictions of Harry Mathews and Ben Marcus.
Tag: film
Forest Whitaker in The Last King of Scotland
The Idi Amin that Forest Whitaker presents in The Last King of Scotland is charming, earnest, friendly, instinctive, intense, mercurial, paranoid, punishing, relentless, shrewd, and very powerful: a dazzling personality, a frightening man. Although I had remembered, possibly too vaguely, Idi Amin’s brutality, I had been looking forward to Whitaker’s performance and the film months before seeing The Last King of Scotland, thinking that it sounded like a great opportunity for a unique actor.
Tradition and Conscience: Painter Kerry James Marshall’s Colorful Narratives
It had been a rather simple program: a documentary, some slides, a conversation, all part of the library’s February 2007 African-American history program, but the program has introduced, or reintroduced, us to an artist of our time, a young master (there was some questioning and quibbling about the 52-year old artist’s age near the end of the program).
A review of the Shakespeare Retold series
All in all, Shakepeare Retold is an excellent set of DVDs providing rich entertainment complex enough for multiple viewings and entertaining enough to engage viewers away from all other distractions. Drama like this is rare enough without the added enjoyment of Shakepearean…
Edward Norton in The Illusionist
In The Illusionist he has a glamour I do not recall him having before, and he seems supported in the film The Illusionist in novel ways (that may be because of the kind of initiative and independence his character has, and that most of the other characters are compelled to respond to him). Edward Norton does not present the same personality from film to film; he is an actor who creates characters and yet he has become a leading man—and, in The Illusionist, he manages something that seems a little bit subversive.
A Musician Who Lays Claim to the World: Caetano Veloso’s “Foreign Sound” and his “Best”
One hears the plucking of guitar strings and orchestral swirls, and Caetano Veloso’s voice is both light and grave. It’s fun to hear him sing Cobain’s “Come As You Are,” which was first recorded by the band Nirvana, and contains sharp contradictions, suggesting not confusion but an aware and complex mind. Veloso uses both a falsetto voice and a low, declamatory voice to interpret “Feelings,” making a song that had become a cabaret cliché sound like a genuine human expression.
World War II’s mass murder still casts shadow: Alain Resnais’s Night and Fog and other films
With luck, criticism becomes celebration. I cannot celebrate the history described by Alain Resnais’s film Night and Fog, a film of dignified honesty, forceful discipline, and a passion so resolute and true it does not have to remark on itself, a great film, but I can celebrate the gift of art and intelligence that it is.
The documentary Trudell looks at noted Indian poet-activist John
Spirituality has been for Native Americans, as for African-Americans, a path to personal dignity, social morality, and public meaning; and in the film John Trudell talks about the importance of valuing the earth, of reconciling ourselves to the requirements of the land, and of being cognizant of what we leave to future generations. Robert Redford describes conversations with Trudell as exciting, and Wilma Mankiller talks about how essential Trudell has been to articulating Native American concerns.
A review of On the Waterfront directed by Elia Kazan
Brando’s ability to seem alive to feelings and ideas give the choices he is faced with in On the Waterfront vivid reality and moral dimension: one sees him, and remembers young men one has seen, known, in daily life, attractive men who might have gone in any direction, and many different kinds of actors seem Brando’s descendants. Brando seems unafraid to be onscreen, unafraid of observation or judgment: he is friendly, regretful, sad, charming, doltish, evasive, impulsive, and more.
A review of The Wedding Date
There is humor in how easily others accept the lead characters pretense of being a couple, in how easily people are fooled. However, as the film’s wedding festivities occur, various painful and sordid secrets are revealed regarding Messing’s character’s family and friends, and the fraudulently attached couple become genuinely involved with each other.