5/11/14: A Real Mama’s Boy

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actor-director, Addie, Addie Bundren, Ahna O'Reilly, As I Lay Dying, based on a book, Beth Grant, Blood Meridian, burial, Christina Voros, cinema, Cormac McCarthy, Danny McBride, Dewey Dell, difficult narratives, dysfunctional family, film adaptations, film reviews, films, incest, independent films, indie dramas, isolated communities, isolation, James Franco, Jewel, Jim Parrack, John Kennedy Toole, last wishes, Logan Marshall-Green, Movies, multiple narrators, quest films, river crossing, Southern Gothic, split-screen, stream of consciousness, Tim Blake Nelson, unfilmable books, William Faulkner

Say what you will about James Franco (and I’ve said plenty of bad things, trust me) but you can’t accuse the actor-director of sticking to strictly safe, middle-of-the-road projects. For every Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) or Oz the Great and Powerful (2013), we get something like Interior. Leather Bar (2013) or his recent adaptations of William Faulkner’s infamous As I Lay Dying and Cormac McCarthy’s Child of God (both 2013). I’ve often felt that Franco can be scattershot and unfocused, while also feeling that his best acting work was still all the way back in Freaks and Geeks: he’s done the sub-James Dean thing for almost two decades, at this point, but he never felt more authentic than in Apatow’s short-lived TV series. That being said, I did enjoy his recent meta-Apocalypse comedy This is the End (2013), which revealed a fairly deft hand when dealing with his large ensemble cast. Would he bring this same quality to his adaptation of Faulkner’s notoriously “unfilmable” book? Read on, gentle readers…read on.

As I Lay Dying, Faulkner’s 1930 classic about the Bundren family and their quest to honor dead matriarch Addie’s final wish, is one of those novels, like John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces or McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, that most folks have considered nigh impossible to bring to the screen. While Confederacy’s tricky narrative seems somehow cursed, at least judging by the number of failed attempts to bring it to the big screen, and Blood Meridian is held-back by its awe-inspiringly ugly content (I think this probably has as much chance of being filmed as the Crossed graphic novels do), the problem with filming As I Lay Dying has more to do with the structure of its narrative. Since the book tends to be very stream of consciousness and uses multiple narrators to tell its tale (each member of the large family, including the dead Addie, gets a chance to narrative), there isn’t a whole lot of “physical” business to hang your hat on: it’s mostly inner conflict. This is one reason why Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man has been largely considered “unfilmable.”

While the narrative structure in As I Lay Dying is decidedly non-conventional, it’s not like we’re dealing with a Kenneth Anger short: this is still a story about a family coming to grips with the loss of their mother while trying to find their own (very awkward) way in the world. These are relateable characters, even if we might not be standing square in the shoes: with the right touch, filming As I Lay Dying certainly doesn’t seem as improbable a task as taking on Joyce’s post-modern epic. For the most part, with a few reservations, I think that Franco acquits himself quite well. This adaptation isn’t perfect, of course, and many of my issues with Franco (unfocused, scattershot) tend to be issues in this film, as well. If it ultimately ends up being a bit more of a triumph of style over substance, that’s not necessarily a terrible thing: the film is never boring and frequently quite beautiful.

As Addie Bundren (Beth Grant) lays dying, she asks her husband, Anse (Tim Blake Nelson), to fulfill one final wish: she wants to be buried in the nearby town of Jefferson, several days ride from their homestead. She also wants to see her kids one final time, especially her favorite son, Jewel (Logan Marshall-Green). Jewel and his brother, Darl (Franco), however, are out making a delivery and don’t make it back til she’s already passed on. Jewel, of course, feels terrible but Darl seems a bit more ambivalent. Rounding out this merry bunch o’ folks is another brother, Cash (Jim Parrack), the youngest kid, Vardaman (Brady Permenter) and the family’s only daughter, Dewey Dell (Ahna O’Reilly). Anse’s friend, Vernon Tull (Danny McBride) hangs around for a bit but, ultimately, it’s just the Bundrens against the rest of “polite society.” As one set-back after another befalls them (the bridge is washed out and a river crossing becomes disastrous, Cash’s leg gets badly broken and “set” with wet cement, Dewey Dell is “in a family way” and needs to take care of it), the Bundren keep trudging on, hauling Addie’s coffin along to its final resting place. As Addie begins to rot, the Bundrens are treated more and more like pariahs: outsiders be damned, however…they will get to Jefferson one way or the other.

In order to handle the multiple narrators/points of view necessary to pull off the story, Franco uses two techniques: he utilizes a split-screen format in order to present opposing POVs simultaneously (obviously necessary to prevent the kind of bloat that could have sunk this quickly) and he has various characters deliver monologues directly to the camera. Of these techniques, the split-screen is the more intrusive but ends up being the more effective, in the long run: the monologues always come across as stagey and awkward, overly theatrical and way too presentational. When the split-screen works well, it’s used to excellent effect: at one point, Darl has a conversation with Dewey Dell and each actor is represented on one side of the screen. When either actor speaks, their voices are heard in the opposite frame but they don’t speak in their frames. It’s a showy effect, to be sure, but it actually serves a very valid purpose, allowing for a more concrete way to express the disconnect that these people feel. At another point, the split-screen is utilized underwater, leading to a really cool effect where each frame is a different color: it’s actually pretty neat, to be honest, aided immeasurably by the consistently excellent cinematography.

In fact, if I have any major complaint about the split-screen format (once it gets past the rather laborious first 15 minutes, that is) it’s that it often seems to devalue cinematographer Christina Voros’ amazing work. As I Lay Dying always looks great and, often, the film looks quite beautiful: Voros has a particularly “painterly” way of framing characters, similar to director Peter Greenaway, and this leads to some mighty impressive vignettes. I don’t know that the split-screen was, ultimately, necessary to the film’s structure (the monologues certainly weren’t) but they do end up adding some artistic, as well as subtextual, depth to the production.

As an adaptation, As I Lay Dying works pretty well, although it doesn’t do much to clear up some of the book’s denser elements. In particular, I found the revelation of Dewey Dell’s pregnancy to be handled in a rather confusing manner: while I haven’t read Faulkner’s novel since college, I’m pretty sure that the film arrives at a different conclusion. It could be that I missed something, of course, but I have the nagging suspicion that it was changed. The only other major change that I could see was the omission of the book’s non-familial narrators, which makes perfect sense: in a low-budget production, including a raft of extra characters doesn’t make much sense, logistically. It never hurt the narrative, at least as far as I could tell, so this seemed like a pretty negligible change.

Acting-wise, Franco’s cast does a pretty good job and coheres fairly well. Tim Blake Nelson is pretty extraordinary as the (literally) toothless Anse: even though I had the devil’s own time understanding him at any given point, Nelson brought an intensity to the performance that was electrifying. The scene where he finally puts Jewel in his place, explaining how he went 15 years without food and Jewel can damn well go a few days without a horse, is powerful stuff. Marshall-Green and Franco acquit themselves just fine as Jewel and Darl, respectively, but Jim Parrack is the real fraternal standout as Cash, the no-nonsense carpenter. As strange as it sounds, I found the scene where he described the logistics of coffin building to be utterly fascinating: I found myself captivated, despite having no interest in woodworking or coffins whatsoever…that’s a good performance! O’Reilly had several good moments as Dewey Dell but she also had an unfortunate tendency to be a bit wooden, a problem that seemed to infect other members of the cast. On the whole, the acting tended to vacillate between “excellent” and “serviceable,” with no one being particularly cringe-worthy.

Ultimately, As I Lay Dying stands as a very respectable, respectful adaptation of a notoriously difficult novel. When the film works, it has a real sense of dark power and urgency that is rather enthralling: the final resolution of Dewey Dell’s “problem” is just as horrifying and depressing as the resolution of Jennifer Connelly’s “problem” in Requiem for a Dream (2000). When the film doesn’t work, it can come off as stiff, pretentious and a little tone-deaf. That the film is, in the end, more successful than not certainly speaks volumes to Franco’s dedication to this project. After seeing this, I’m genuinely excited to see what he’s done with Child of God, especially since he once again utilizes Voros as his cinematographer.

I may not be a member of the Franco Fan Club just yet, but rest assured: a few more films like this under his belt and he runs the risk of actually becoming someone I’ll have to pay attention to. Now, let’s get him working on adaptations of Blood Meridian and Confederacy of Dunces: it’s a hard job but somebody’s gotta do it.

5/4/14: Let Crispin Sing You to Slumber

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Au Revoir Les Enfants, awkward slap fight, based on a book, Charlaine Woodard, Cherry 2000, cinema, Cleveland family, Crispin Glover, Dylan McDermott, estranged family, farmhouse, Faulkner, film reviews, films, Flannery O'Connor, Hans ZImmer, Harry Dean Stanton, Howdy, isolated communities, Jenny Wright, Kansas, Lindsay Christman, Lois Chiles, Mary Robison, Michael Almereyda, Movies, Renato Berta, Southern Gothic, strange families, Suzy Amis, Tim Robbins, tornadoes, Twister, Until the End of the World, William S. Burroughs, Wim Wenders, writer-director

Sometimes, a film isn’t about quite what it appears to be about. Jarmusch’s Dead Man (1995), for instance, is not about a guy trying to get a job. Solaris (1972) isn’t about a bunch of cosmonauts and Over the Top (1989) isn’t about arm-wrestling. Well, actually, Over the Top is about arm-wrestling but I’m sure there’s much more to the complex narrative than that. Part of the joy of watching a really good, complex film (such as Over the Top) is in peeling away the many layers of meaning, cutting through the symbolism and subtext to get at what the filmmakers are really talking about. In many cases, taking an “art” film at face value is a particularly useless exercise: these are meanings that need to be discovered, not tripped over.

Sometimes, however, a film can just stand as a complete mystery, a towering monument to a singular point-of-view that anyone who isn’t the filmmaker would be hard-pressed to decipher. In and of itself, this isn’t always a bad thing: I absolutely adore the films of Jean-Pierre Jeunet but I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I completely understand them. I love experiencing them, however, which can often make all the difference. In the case of director Michael Almereyda’s head-scratcher Twister (the furthest thing from the ’90s-era Bill Paxton epic, mind you), however, I’ll have to be honest: not only did I leave the film without really understanding it, I also left the film without really enjoying it. I don’t mind needing to watch something a few times to pick up the full meaning: all of my viewings of Taxidermia (2006) have got me closer to understanding but I’m definitely not there yet. When a film is confusing, open-ended and dull, however, repeated viewings become analogous to torture and I’m just not willing to suffer for the meaning. Not even for Crispin Glover in an absolutely amazing red smoking jacket.

It may help to think of Twister as a sort of “Southern Gothic,” a kind of cock-eyed take on Faulkner or a bloodless Flannery O’Connor. The film, based on Mary Robison’s novel Oh!, concerns itself with the Cleveland family, a not-so-merry clan of Midwestern weirdos who live life on their own, strange terms. Father Cleveland (Harry Dean Stanton) is a soda-pop and roller-coaster baron who has just brought his fiancée, Virginia (Lois Chiles) home to meet the family. The family consists of daughter Maureen (Suzy Amis), son Howdy (Crispin Glover) and Maureen’s daughter, Violet (Lindsay Christman). Maureen’s estranged boyfriend (and Violet’s father), Chris (Dylan McDermott) is also lurking in the shadows, as is Howdy’s girlfriend, Stephanie (Jenny Wright) and her boyfriend, Jeff (Tim Robbins). Toss their opinionated maid, Lola (Charlaine Woodard), into the mix and you have quite the cast of irregulars.

In and of themselves, the characters in Twister sound pretty intriguing on paper. Howdy, by himself, is such a bundle of neuroses that they could’ve based an entire five-picture series on him. After all, this is a guy who serenades his girlfriend with the creepiest sub-Velvet Underground dirge in the history of recorded music and makes it seem as natural as belting out O Sole Mio. He’s Crispin fuckin’ Glover and this is just what he does, man. McDermott rages around, doing his usual “tempest in a teacup” thing but that’s what McDermott does, too. Hell, Tim Robbins even gets in an awkward slap fight with Glover: how could that not be fascinating?

But it’s not fascinating. Unfortunately, it’s anything but. In fits and starts, Twister works just fine but the film never develops any sense of forward momentum or narrative cohesion: it just lurches from one strange situation to another. Chris keeps sneaking into the house, getting caught and thrown out but no one really seems to mind. Stephanie is dating Howdy but also seems to be Jeff’s girlfriend…or maybe she isn’t. Maureen and Howdy go on a hunt for their missing mother and track her to a farmhouse where William S. Burroughs is target shooting. Burroughs has never been mentioned or introduced in the film and is only credited as Man in the Barn: when he explains to the “kids” that their mother is now in Ireland, it carries no weight whatsoever: Who the hell is he? How does he know their mom? Is he actually real or a figment of their imaginations? Is Burroughs just playing himself or is he actually a character? It’s a frustrating bit of inanity that handily removed any joy I briefly felt over seeing Burroughs: what the fuck was he doing here?

This confusion even manages to extend to the title, Twister. Spoiler alert: if you’re looking for a tornado, it occupies all of two minutes within the context of the film. Fair enough: I came to see Stanton and Glover as odd family members, not a disaster porn film about high winds. That being said, I simply can’t, for the life of me, figure out what relevance the tornado has. Cutting out any mention or activity around the twister wouldn’t change the film in any discernible way, so what’s the point? I have no problem with symbolism or subtext whatsoever but this just seemed like such an esoteric choice, as random as pulling a name out of a hat. I will admit to not being familiar with the source material, so perhaps the impact of the tornado was just reduced in the film. Nonetheless, this just becomes one more symbol of my issues with the film: its seeming randomness.

Craftwise, the film tends to have a rather muddy, indistinct look that could either be chalked up to a bad transfer or just a crappy production, in general. Writer-director Almereyda got his start as screenwriter on the Melanie Griffith-as-sexbot howler Cherry 2000 (1987), so there’s probably not much reason to assume this would look great but the dull look doesn’t make sticking with the film any easier. This is even harder to understand given that the cinematographer, Renato Berta, was a well-respected craftsman who shot Louis Malle’s Au Revoir Les Enfants (1987) just two years before: what gives? In a further disappointment, veteran composer/soundtrack pro Hans Zimmer turns in a chaotic mess of a score, a mishmash of tones and movements that seem cobbled together from other pieces. It’s never cohesive which, ironically, may make it the perfect soundtrack for the film. A prime example is the scene where Chris and Maureen drive through the town after the twister has passed through: the soundtrack plays the scene like a slasher film, all staccato jabs and nervous energy: it makes no sense within the context of the scene and doesn’t even seem to work as counter-intuitive: it just seems like a stylistic choice that didn’t work out.

So, is there anything worthwhile here? Sadly, there’s actually quite a bit to like in Twister, even if the parts are much greater than their sum. Glover, as always, is genuinely weird and seems to possess as much gravity as a black hole: it’s virtually impossible for any other actor to share screen time with him and not be completely forgotten. Stanton, old pro that he is, tries to compete with Glover but he’s just not given enough to do. That’s a real shame, since Stanton has been one of my favorite actors since the first time I ever laid eyes on Repo Man (1984). He’s definitely not bad here but he’s not awesome, either, which kinda sucks.

There are a few scenes (the aforementioned scene where Howdy sings, a hilarious bit involving Chris and a flaming shot that gets out of control) that are as good as anything in these types of films but they’re too few and far between. The shot scene, is particular, is a real gem: McDermott brings an almost Chaplin-esque quality to the bit, as he tries to blow out the fire but only succeeds in spreading the flames. In a film filled with quizzical moments and scenes that seem designed to make one say “Hmm…,” it’s a genuinely laugh-out-loud moment and I definitely wish there were a few more like that. It also manages to feel out of place but it still works better than much of what came before and after.

At the end of the day, Twister is one of those films that could easily fit my mother’s oft-repeated phrase: “Neither fish, nor foal, nor good red herring.” I’m not really sure what Twister is, truth be told, and I’m not ever sure that I will. I can only sit and ponder what a Southern Gothic film featuring Harry Dean Stanton, Crispin Glover and Dylan McDermott riding out a tornado in a cramped farmhouse might have been like. When I close my eyes, I can almost see the film and it’s a pretty good one: it’s quirky, it has interesting characters and something to say about how disasters can bring all of us, including the truly strange, together. It’s even got a little something to say about family and how you’re stuck with ’em, for better or worse. That’s not this movie, however, and that’s a shame.