Cinematic Reality!

Look – the ‘New Moon’ set’s just like the ‘Insatiable One!”

I’ve just spent a couple of hours with vampires and werewolves – no, it’s not the annual convention of serious-but-unpaid critics (it takes one to know one), but rather I took the opportunity wearing my other hat as a film writer to watch the new ‘Twilight’ movie and near-namesake of our own little New Zealand film ‘New Moon’, in which various well-dressed neckbiters and lupine creatures with anger management problems compete for the attention of a whiny girl named Bella, and, presumably, for the future of the world.

Bella, the kind of teenager who seems to have no discernible personality beyond complaining about how her 109 year old boyfriend Edward won’t plunge his canines into her skin in order that she might become immortal and pale-skinned too (she doesn’t need any help with the moodiness – if I was a vampire, the last thing I’d want to do would be to give a life boost to the natural span of teenage angst by making her live forever. She needs Oprah, not bitemarks. Now, I’m probably being unfair, and so I should acknowledge that ‘New Moon’ is nowhere near as bad as I had expected; it looks fabulous, Alexandre Desplat’s score is gorgeous, Kristen Stewart does a really rather good job of conveying Bella’s angst; and it will provide some emotional catharsis for anyone who has recently broken up with an immortal being from Transylvania. This is a moot point, however, for I am not here to discuss – and I imagine you are not much interested in – the plot nuances of Stephanie Meyer’s runaway bestsellers and the films that have been made from them. What’s the connection with ‘The Insatiable Moon’, I hear you cry (perhaps)?

Transcendence and Compassion in Cinema

Mick Innes as ‘John’ in ‘The Insatiable Moon’, filming now in New Zealand

I’m in Ponsonby’s red light district on the set of ‘The Insatiable Moon’ – the portable gazebos we’re using for shade and comfortable eating are the colour of healthy scarlet; appropriate enough, given that today we turn to one of the most troubling scenes in the movie – a scene in which the hidden shame felt by a character leads to disaster. Everyone’s focused on the task in hand: to portray an awful event as truthfully as possible, without exploiting the audience’s emotions, nor denying the fact that human sorrow is real, and touches to us all. If we’re lucky, we might have an Arthur in our lives, someone who sees through the superficial mores of our culture, resists its car rally speed, and offers a human connection in the midst of the awful things that come to us, hopefully only a few times in a full life.

Frugal Film-making on Jervois Road

Director Rose Riddell and D.O.P. Tom Burstyn on set

I’m in New Zealand writing the production blog for ‘The Insatiable Moon’, a movie based on the 1997 novel by Mike Riddell – a magic realist story of mental health and miracles among marginalised people in Auckland.  I’ll re-post some of the journey here too – you can follow the whole story here.

There was a time when the term ‘independent film’ was a near-guarantee of quality or at least interest – making a film like ‘sex lies and videotape’ or ‘Reservoir Dogs’ required so much superhuman effort that it was a miracle if they were even finished. Distributors, alas, needed an economic reason to invest, rather than merely their aesthetic sense, and if your small film with no stars didn’t happen to be lucky enough to attract the attention of a wealthy gatekeeper, it wasn’t likely to be released.

It was easier for big-budget special effects-laden extravaganzas to get seen simply because audiences can be trusted to flock to them simply because we all want to see ever more spectacular ways of destroying New York, or to the latest film starring whoever happens to be really famous at the moment merely on account of the fact that they’re in it. Without the stars, or a decapitated Statue of Liberty for much of the audience, there is no show. Or so the superficial received wisdom goes…

81 Films of the Decade

In the year 2000 I was 25 and single, finishing up a Ph.D., stressed out of my tree, working with a small NGO on peace and non-violence issues, trying figure out what it was that I wanted to be when I grew up.

Now as 2010 approaches, I’m a month away from being 35 and married, I haven’t published the Ph.D., but am less stressed, working as a writer and doing some other things, and trying to figure out what it is that I want to be when I grow up.  The consolations of life this past decade have been the same all along – the richness of friendships old and new, the life-force that is sparked when I look at natural beauty – of mountains or oceanscapes or my lover’s face, the enlightenment or delight that is present when I read a well-calibrated sentence or hear astonishing music, turning over to go to sleep, and the feeling of potential that I still hope for every time the lights go down when I’m at the movies.

This has been a tough decade for many of the people that I presume read this blog – we’ve been confronted by the unintended side-effects of globalization, and taught to see life as a way to be daily afraid; we’ve experienced an economic tightening that came as a shock; we’ve all been angered by this politician or that; some of us have even lost a great deal in the wars that are still being fought.  At the same time, of course, some of us have seen peace come to places no one ever believed were ripe for such change.

Where Are My Cigarettes?

Ponsonby Road

For the next couple of weeks I’ll be in New Zealand, using part of a vacation to hang out with my friends Mike and Rosemary Riddell.  I’ll be writing a blog dedicated to the revelation of how ‘The Insatiable Moon’ went from being an idea in Mike Riddell’s head, to a novel, to a screenplay, and especially a film.  Hope you don’t mind, but I’ll cross-post some stuff here from that site.  We’d love the blog and facebook page to be places for conversation and anticipation about the rising Moon, so please do feel free to comment here or there. I’m delighted to be able to use some of my vacation in New Zealand to drop in on set and will do my best to keep you posted about what’s happening in and around the making of the film.

This morning, my second observing the set of ‘The Insatiable Moon’, I was walking up Ponsonby Road on the way to the church where one of the pivotal scenes was being shot. Walking through mild rain and high humidity, to the emotional soundtrack of mild annoyance at being highly lost, having taken a wrong turn from the Production Office.Had a bag of strawberries in one hand – one of the pleasures of being here from the US/UK is the fact that I’m experiencing my first December summer, and therefore get to eat fruit that went out of season where I live a couple of months ago, and my MacBook bag in the other, looking forward to what would unfold in the church as one of our beloved characters makes a speech that we hope will be something audiences remember for a long time after seeing the movie.

But it wasn’t meant to be – I was stopped in my tracks by a bloke wearing a long black leather coat, also carrying two bags, eyes hidden behind massive dark glasses. As he passed me, he let out an agitated scream: ‘WHERE ARE MY CIGARETTES’.The surprise made me jump, feel a little uncomfortable, and it was a few seconds before I could focus my thoughts. Who was this man? Why was he screaming? Screaming for the location of his smokes, on a wet Ponsonby afternoon? People sat at the sidewalk cafes looked up at him, and then at me; some tried to conceal a smile – let’s face it, a bloke shouting on the street is funny in the way that someone tripping on a pavement is funny.It’s a natural reaction to the misfortune of others. But it’s also unfair. What was strange to me was the fact that the pity of the crowd seemed reserved for me, rather than the poor guy who’d lost his Pall Malls.

I remember first reading the novel ‘The Insatiable Moon’ twelve years ago – it was the Clinton era, the year the Paul Thomas Anderson’s first feature ‘Hard Eight’ was released and had to compete with ‘Men in Black’ for an audience; the year Princess Diana and Mother Teresa died; and a time when the New Zealand film industry was yet to receive global attention in the form of a shot in the arm from J RR Tolkien. One of the motifs to which the book returns again and again is the place of marginalized people in our society, in the story, on Ponsonby Road. Blokes who walk up and down the high street screaming for their cigarettes, part of them trapped inside the complex labyrinth of mental health difficulties and God knows what else.The film being made here in Ponsonby is part love story, part drama, part postmodern religious epic, and part whatever you want it to be; but one of the most beautiful things about it is the fact that it focuses on people that usually get sidelined by the stories that often get told at the movies. It’s about the occurrence of magic in everyday life; it’s about the sacred and profane meeting each other, and being mixed into something new that becomes far more than the sum of its parts.

The ostensibly innocuous moment when I was confronted by a guy shouting for his cigarettes collided with my need to get to the set to see what was happening next. And on the way, I remembered something that one of my favourite actors used to say. The sadly late, and undeniably very great Jack Lemmon used to close his eyes just before the cameras rolled, and repeat a mantra that got him in the right zone to perform, to create on screen the heightened vision of reality that always occurs when movies work. His two words could serve as the motto for what’s happening here, as a motley crew of people dedicated to very-hard-working the vision to fruition, in the hope that together they may make a film that entertains, compels, challenges, inspires, makes the audience feel grateful to be alive and maybe just a little more ready to see each other for what we are; in short, to turn a story of ordinary people on Ponsonby Road into something that transcends our sense of just what is ordinary. I think Jack Lemmon might be right at home here. His two words?  Magic Time.

Films of the Decade: The ‘B’ List

Records used to have ‘b’ sides, Armond White produces a ‘better than/worse than’ list every year, and the decade’s still winding down, which can only mean one thing: I’ve found a flimsy but good enough reason for today’s post: The Films I Liked in the 2000s but not enough to go to the mountaintop.  Or Something Like That.  (See here for Part 1: The Most Over-Rated and Under-Rated Films of the Decade?) So, mere days from the unleashing of the FINAL LIST (cue thunder clap/drum beat/’Psycho’ strings), which I haven’t decided what to call (Favourite Movies of the Decade?;  Greatest Movies?; Movies I Remember the Most?; Movies That If I Put Them On  A Greatest List Will Make Me Look Smart/Pretentious/Knowledgeable/Contrarian/Honest/Ignorant?  I’m open to suggestions in the comments section…) here’s movies that I enjoyed a lot at the time, but haven’t stayed with me; or, frankly just weren’t quite good enough to make the cut.

In alphabetical order:

Ae Fond Kiss: The predictably unpredictable Ken Loach serves up a thoughtful little drama about racism and mixed marriage in Scotland.

After the Wedding: Danish drama featuring an act of kindness so selfless that it might make you want to live generously for the rest of your life; and beautiful character nuances in facing with peace what Bertrand Russell called ‘our common doom’.

Ali: First time most of us had the chance to see Will Smith actually act.

Almost Famous: Billy Crudup is a ‘golden god’; Cameron Crowe loves a certain kind of mode, and I love watching people living it, because then I don’t have to.

Anvil! The Story of Anvil: An exhilirating, hilarious and touching documentary whose central conflict out-Taps the great divorce of David St Hubbins and Nigel Tufnell.

Atonement: Powerful drama which does not offer a simplistic exploration of the title; and, among other things, extraordinary photography.

Australia: Jett’s right: ‘It’s better than Gone with the Wind’; and gives the iconic Aboriginal actor David Gulpilil the last word on the portrayal of his people’s suffering and gifts.

The Aviator: I’m not sure about the blue peas, but a classy ride nonetheless.

The Most Over-Rated and Under-Rated Films of the Decade?

The Most Under-Rated Movie of the Last Ten Years?

The decade draws to a close, and most of us will be feeling a sense of surreality as we reflect on what we were doing on New Year’s Eve 1999 – I was with four of my dearest friends; we had a gorgeous dinner by the fire, watched the London Millennium Dome’s opening ceremony define New Labour’s hubris (until a certain war in the Gulf); at midnight we literally did stand on the street and shout hello to everyone else who opened their door.  At that moment, I hadn’t seen ‘Magnolia’, soon to supplant ‘Wings of Desire’ as the film-most-likely-to-be-named-my-favourite-when-you-ask (I’d say they’re both pretty even now; the passage of time tends to iron out all your favourite movies into one long film marathon.  Film I’ve seen the most often?  Field of Dreams.  Film I’d most like to see again right now?  Hirokazu Koreeda’s After Life.  Film that every time I see it becomes increasingly difficult to deny a place as ‘Greatest Ever Made’ TM?  2001.  Or Touch of Evil.  Or Vertigo.  Or La Regle du Jeu.  Or La Belle et la Bete.  Or Close Encounters.  Or Once Upon a Time in America.  Or Fantasia.  Or Solaris.  Or.  Or.  Or)

And now we approach the end of another decade.  The friends I was with on Millennium Eve don’t see each other so often anymore; only two of the five even live in the same city, but we’re still in touch, from time to time at least.  Sometimes we talk about movies.  There have been at least 2500 films released in the US, UK and Ireland since January 1st, 2000.  I’ve probably seen a third of them. The decade’s end provides the opportunity to, as they say, discuss.  So please do join me.

My method?  Well, Top 100 lists are obvious, Top 50 too restrictive, our friend Glenn Kenny has gone for a happy medium, having just posted a Top 70 (and his comments section suggests it will be soon be a Top 71, as there’s always at least one film that gets left out).  And so, emboldened by Glenn, I’ll be posting some thoughts about the decade 2000-2009 over the next few weeks (My thoughts on Roger Corman’s ‘The Intruder’, previously planned for today will have to wait).

So, if you’re interested in my thoughts on ten years at the movies, let’s make a start.

Antichrist, John Cusack, the End of the World and the Re-birth of Art

Over at The Film Talk we’ve just posted our next podcast episode in which we discuss three films that I think are hugely important – ‘Antichrist’, ‘Gaia’, and ‘2012′.  If you’re interested in the end of the world and how to stop it; the politics of nation-building; the difference between provocation and mental illness; and in hearing about a film so good it’s close to miraculous, check it out here.

The Insatiable Moon: One of the Best Films of Next Year?

I’m going to turn 35 in January, which feels old enough to consider myself a man, inexperienced enough to still feel irresponsible; halfway to still being younger than Warren Beatty, alive enough to reflect on what really matters.  And what really matters?  Friendship.  If, as my amazing friend John O’Donohue often said, our identities are dependent on our memories, and how we interpret them, then who I am is inextricably linked to my memories of things I have done with friends.  Strange to think that I’ve been doing The Film Talk for nearly one tenth of my life.  Of course, if Operation Save The Film Talk is the resounding success we all hope it will be, perhaps it will outlast even me (and hey – if you haven’t signed up to support the show and site yet, please do click the link here and consider us – we have some gorgeous gifts on offer this week).  But for now, one tenth of my life still seems like a lot.

Which – in one of my patented not-all-that-subtle segues – brings me to Mike and Rosemary Riddell, writer & film-maker, former Baptist pastor and current family court judge, wearer of the most amazing hats and stylised gin afficianado (in appropriate does), a man who considers his dog a spiritual director, a woman who combines sass and spirit in measures I had never seen anywhere else before I met her, friends beyond my previous imagining of what friends could be; and people about whom you’ll be hearing a fair amount in the next year, because they are making a film whose script mingles the sensitivity of ‘Paris, Texas‘ with the humour of ‘Whale Rider‘, and hangs on the most unusual narrative hook this side of ‘Cold Souls‘: Arthur, a middle-aged homeless Maori fella with schizophrenia in Ponsonby, near Auckland, and believes that he is called to impregnate an unhappily married woman named Margaret with a view to her giving birth to the second incarnation of Jesus.  Simple enough.  He looks at the moon a lot – he made it, you see.  He thinks about life.  He gives good gifts to broken people.  Meanwhile, a cynical television reporter, doubting preacher, and friendly boarding-house owner dance their own way into a deeper appreciation of meaning.

Rosemary Riddell and Tom Burstyn on set

‘The Insatiable Moon‘ is the second best novel I’ve ever read; the script needs no such qualifier: I’ve been excited about this movie since I read the book 12 years ago.  Which means I’ve known Mike and Rose for over a third of my life.  They’re making the film at the moment, with the mighty actor Rawiri Paratene (Koro the grandfather in ‘Whale Rider’) starring as Arthur, and cinematography by Tom Burstyn, while Rosemary directs and Mike watches his words come alive.  The journey to production has been long and tortuous, with funders in and out, some well-known cast members withdrawing after the budget was cut, and only a few weeks ago a step-back-from-the-brink decision not to cancel the film altogether.

Mike Riddell, Tom Burstyn, Rawiri Paratene on set

Mike’s blogging the production here – there’s a delightful sense of a film being born; entirely appropriate, given the novel’s themes of birth and re-birth.  (You can become a fan on Facebook here too.)  The book’s been out of print for a while, but that will surely correct itself when the film is released.  So I’m sending good wishes from God is Not Elsewhere – we know how hard it is to make a film; we’re always thrilled when people put their heart and souls into cinema; if ‘The Insatiable Moon’ ends up being half the film it could be, the literary invention of Arthur in the mid-1990s will have been a gift to the world.

[The video above was made a couple of years ago to promote the fundraising for the film - but it gives a taste of things to come.]

Violence and Sentimentality in the Movies: Which is More Dangerous?

Richard Brody at The Front Row has this interesting reflection on violence and the movies/media in general:

“There does seem to be a great deal of research on the question of violence and of quantity of viewing; but very little, if any, on the subject of treacle. I do worry about the effect of violent films on children, but I worry just as much about the emotional debility, the sentimentalization of kids who watch only child-friendly works. In general, children watch much too much television and see far too many movies in which everyone smiles too much and talks as if they’re on sugar highs—or, simply, where there isn’t enough ambiguity or mystery. The oversimplification of life into tangy bite-sized morsels is as much of a danger, for individuals and generations, as stoked aggression.”

I’m fascinated by the critique of sentimentality – and while some may legitimately suggest that I am guilt of such over-egging the emotional pudding myself, I think it’s entirely appropriate.  At the same time, the way we tell stories in which violence plays a significant role requires sustained attention.  My starting point: Is there a qualitative difference between the violence of ‘Inglourious Basterds‘, ‘The Dirty Dozen’, ‘Lethal Weapon’, ‘Saving Private Ryan’, ‘Home Alone’ and ‘Cache‘?  Of course there is.  What’s the purpose of movie violence?  What are its effects?  Can it be cathartic?  Can it nurture more real-world violence? And I’ve come to the view that the human race can no longer afford representations of the myth of redemptive violence for entertainment’s sake alone.  If you’ll join me in the comments section, let’s talk about why.