This Cinematic Life

Magonia: Mediations on Liminality in the Films of Paul Thomas Anderson

2025-07-24T12:10:00.000-07:00

FIRST THING

In the December 12th edition of the Los Angeles Daily News, in the year 1999, director Paul Thomas Anderson attempted to explain the myriad reasons he’d titled his third theatrical feature, Magnolia.

There’s the fact that this film is set in the San Fernando Valley where Magnolia Blvd. is a major artery, connecting disparate communities. There’s also the idea that some believe magnolia bark holds the ability to cure cancer. In a film as cancer-haunted as Magnolia, that aspect is actually quite relevant. But it’s his third reason that is the most attention grabbing.

"On top of that, there was this this thing that I discovered called the Magonia," he continues. "Of course, there's a recognizable similarity to the word magnolia, and the Magonia is this mythical place above the firmament where stuff just goes and hangs out before it falls from the sky. In other words, when you hear those stories about an anchor suddenly dropping on a farmer's barn, they explain that it came from the Magonia.”

While the geographical location most synonymous with Anderson’s Cinema is The Southland (on account of most of his films being set in and around the greater Los Angeles area) there is one location that truly unites his whole filmography, and that is the liminal space Paul identified in that Daily News interview as, The Magonia.

* * *

In myth, The Magonia is a realm of sky pirates (who UFOlogists think could’ve been stand-ins for ancient aliens) who make storms in order to steal crops. But as Paul uses it in that interview, it’s simply a sort of liminal/in-between state, “…where stuff just goes and hangs out.”

While the concept of liminality has taken on a sinister undercurrent in recent years (thanks in large part to the viral internet images of, “The Backrooms” which depict an expanse of nondescript, fluorescent lit office space where you could potentially end up after “no clipping” out of reality) it’s actually quite common to both Cinema and narrative in general.

Anthropologically, the term, “liminal” is used to describe the transitional period in a rite of passage. A period Britney Spears succinctly described as, “not a girl, not yet a woman.” A period in-between what was and what is to come. Act Two. That big middle chunk of Joseph Campbell’s Hero's Journey after the, “call to adventure” has been accepted and before the hero returns home, forever changed.

But if this state of liminality is common to most narrative storytelling since the beginning of time, what is it that makes Paul Thomas Anderson’s work different from that of your average children’s story?

What sets Anderson’s Cinema apart is that since the very beginning, that liminal/in-between state of The Magonia has been front and center. His films are about that middle state. His films are about change.

Initially, they are films about people who avoid change, people who desire change, and people who cannot change. Eventually, they are films about people who begrudgingly accept change and people who have learned to accept the things they cannot change.

Over the course of three decades of making movies, The Cinema of Paul Thomas Anderson has changed a lot, but his fascination with how people and things do or do not change, has remained amazingly consistent.

“I guess what I like in my movies is where you see a character change by maybe two degrees as opposed to the traditional movie change of maybe ninety degrees. I guess that always feels false to me in movies because that doesn't truly happen. Around me, at least in the life I live, I guess I don’t see people change ninety or a hundred degrees. I see them change in very small increments.”

Creative Screenwriting (2000)

ONE: Maintaining Your Magonia

SYDNEY

Though not as visually flashy as his other features of the 90’s, and set hundreds of miles away from The Valley, Paul Thomas Anderson’s debut, Sydney (his preferred title for the film many refer to as Hard Eight) lays bare many of his core concerns from the very start.

This tale of a veteran gambler (Philip Baker Hall, in the titular role) who takes on an apprentice (John C. Reilly) for mysterious reasons, features all the requisite daddy issues and surrogate families one would later come to expect from a P.T. Anderson picture. And of course all of this is handled with the expected, Jonathan Demme-esque, compassion Anderson is wont to grant his characters. But even before we have seen a single frame of film, The Magonia is already present.

As the opening title cards go by over black, an odd, funerary musical motif of tolling bells and what sounds like a slow-moving train(?) plays on an endless loop.

Composed by Michael Penn, the cue known as “Clementine’s Loop” went on to feature heavily in Paul’s next two films as well. In Boogie Nights and Magnolia it is deployed at particularly low points for various characters. In this film, it opens the picture. We are already trapped in an unending cycle. And then there is the matter of the film’s setting.

In most casinos, you will traditionally not find any windows or clocks. The casino owners do not want you to be aware of how long you’ve been gambling. Time does not exist on a casino floor. It’s always the same time as when you entered. This film has the added kick of ending with a Christmas song. How long was I in there? Has it been Christmas this whole time?

It’s a milieu that is quite semiotically suited to our protagonist, Sydney who is in many senses a man out of time, floating along the casino floor, being taunted by the riffraff.

On one of the two audio commentary tracks of the DVD, Anderson describes the conception of the character with the hypothetical, “What if Cagney lived?” referring to the legacy of old gangster films. As such, this is a sequel without a first film.

And since Philip Baker Hall is no longer with us, there will also never be a completion to the trilogy. All we will ever have is this middle chapter. For eternity Sydney will be living with the weight of his past and the weight of the things he has done to prevent reckoning with that past. He may cover up that little fleck of blood with his coat cuff, but it’s still there and really hard to wash away.

BOOGIE NIGHTS

There’s an old aphorism that you have your whole life to make your first album/film and only a few months to make your second. The implication is that you blew everything you had to say in that first work and the follow-up suffers as a consequence. That is not true for Boogie Nights.

Conceived when Paul was a horny teenager, filming stuff on the home video camera, this tale of a well-endowed kid (Mark Wahlberg) from the South Bay who rises and falls in the San Fernando Valley porn scene of the 70’s and 80’s, is bursting with so many ideas and images that it stretches to nearly three hours. But it still opens with what Anderson describes on the commentary track as, “Broken circus funeral music.” An omen of things to come.

The windowless casinos of Reno have been traded for the nightclubs and ranch houses of Reseda, but it’s a lateral move. We may be seeing way more sun on this outing, but the world is no less cloistered. The outside world is not welcome in the home of Porno Auteur, Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds)…at least until it beats down the door on New Years Eve, 1980 via a murder-suicide and the arrival of home video. The Magonia bubble has burst.

The remaining runtime is split between increasingly desperate attempts by the film’s expansive cast to either get back to the good times or to simply play as if nothing has changed. Both approaches are equally delusional and harrowing. The vibe has shifted and there is no going back home.

Yet somehow that is where this film ends, back at Jack’s. But from the Norma Desmond-esque soliloquy that ends the picture, it is clear that this is not a triumphant ending. Our POV character has given himself over completely to the realm of Magonian delusion. We aren’t even looking at him directly. Like Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, we are seeing a reflection. Nothing has been learned, or perhaps the wrong things have been learned. But hey, at least he’s convinced himself that he’s a big, bright shining star.

THERE WILL BE BLOOD

After a brief, two film foray into the world of escaping The Magonia (which will be addressed later) There Will Be Blood finds Paul back in maintaining mode and at easily his most cynical. He was a happily married man by now, but this project was conceived and produced in George W. Bush’s post-9/11 America after all. No Jonathan Demme compassion to be found in this tale of an oil man (Daniel Day-Lewis) with a single-minded thirst for wealth.

Perhaps some viewers hold out hope for Daniel Plainview because the film’s ten-minute, dialogue-free opening (wherein we learn what this man is willing to endure for a few flakes of silver) ends with him taking in a coworker’s orphaned son (Dillon Freasier). But, the title drop and accompanying horror film score that preceded that stretch of film, has already promised us that there WILL be blood. As with Sydney and Boogie Nights before it, the die has been cast before we have even begun.

Whereas Philip Baker Hall’s Sydney commits heinous acts to preserve stasis in the the one human relationship he’s managed to eke out in the twilight of his life, Daniel Plainview ruthlessly cuts out those with whom he’s managed to form a bond.

When his adopted son’s hearing impairment becomes a hindrance to the business, he is sent away. When the man Daniel thought to be a half-brother (Kevin J. O’Conner) is revealed to be a liar, he is murdered. Both excisions are aided by alcohol as a means of numbing the pesky humanity that would typically keep someone from doing such things. Nothing will get in his way. Not even God (through the personage of huckster preacher, Eli Sunday (Paul Dano)) will get in his way.

As Daniel declares, “I’m finished!” over Eli’s corpse, and the title treatment returns, it is no longer accompanied by discordant, horror film music. This time it is accompanied by a triumphant symphony, recalling the end of A Clockwork Orange and indicating a promise fulfilled. Stasis maintained. And since Daniel’s quest has been such a resounding success, there will certainly be more blood to follow!

PHANTOM THREAD

Despite sharing a leading man, Phantom Thread and There Will Be Blood have almost nothing in common.

This tale of a persnickety fashion designer (Daniel Day-Lewis) whose life is upended by a relationship with a waitress named Alma (Vicky Krieps) who has the audacity to stand up to him, is easily the least cynical and most compassionate of Anderson’s maintenance focused films. A compassion that arises from the fact that it is a film about the maintenance necessary to be in a long-term relationship.

When we first meet Day-Lewis as Reynolds Woodcock, he’s literally in the act of maintenance. Maintaining himself. Shaving, polishing his shoes, trimming his nose and ear hair, applying cream, brushing his hair, etc. He is a particular man, set in his ways and enabled by his sister, Cyril (Lesley Manville) who manages his day to day. Right down to dismissing his paramours.

Reynolds is so set in his ways that something as simple as Alma’s desire to make him an unexpected dinner is perceived as an, “ambush!” Only once she has brought him low with mushroom poisoned tea do the scales begin to even out. That is the reset. In the twilight of this poisoning is when he asks her to marry him. And so begins their delicate dance. A pas de deux.

It’s fitting that Reynolds and Alma’s climactic reunion occurs on New Year’s Eve, a night suspended between the old and the new. The consensual, Munchausen by proxy system they work out with each other is a joint effort to forever remain in that limbo status for the sake of their relationship. They are doing the work. It’s perhaps a bit extreme, but it seems to work for them.

TWO: Escaping the Magonia

MAGNOLIA & PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE

Between Boogie Nights and There Will Be Blood, Paul Thomas Anderson’s Cinema reached an inflection point.

While aesthetically similar to the audacious style of Boogie Nights, Magnolia and Punch-Drunk Love stand apart from what came before in their radically different approach The Magonia.

Rather than being additional tales of characters desperate to cling to the stasis they’ve grown accustomed to, Magnolia and Punch-Drunk Love identify that stasis as a prison that needs to be broken out of.

The key phrase in Magnolia is that quote from the never outright named book that states, “We may be through with the past, but the past ain’t through with us.” This perfectly encapsulates all this film’s myriad characters and their collective inability (or refusal) to heal old wounds.

And in case there was any ambiguity as to this reading, just before the film’s climax, all of these characters join together and literally sing Aimee Mann’s 1996 song, “Wise Up” with its refrain of, “It’s not going to stop, ‘til you wise up.” Of course the song does also conclude with, “So just, give up.” Which is when an external force has to step in.

To Paul Thomas Anderson, the siren call of The Magonia is something so strong that it requires a literal act of God to break the cycle. As Dixon (Emmanuel Johnson) declares in his rap, “When the sunshine don’t work, the Good Lord bring the rain in”. And so, a literal rain of frogs occurs to snap everyone out of it. To give some a moment of introspection, to bring others together, and in the case of Jimmy Gator (Philip Baker Hall) to make sure they burn to death.

Tabula rasa. All debts are settled. And after three hours of screaming and tears, we end on a smile and the possibility of good things to come.

* * *

Though they are not sequels in any way, Punch-Drunk Love picks up from right where Magnolia left off. Rather than ending with an act of God sent to shake someone out of their complacency, this film begins with the act of God.

When we meet Barry Eagan (Adam Sandler) as he sits at his little desk in the unadorned warehouse of his novelty plunger company, his first line is literally, “Yes, I’m still on hold.”

What gets Barry off of hold is an odd metallic twanging sound of unknown origin. The quest for that sound is what guides Barry out into the dawn of a new day where he experiences this film’s incarnation of a rain of frogs — a horrific car accident and the delivery of a broken harmonium.

Over the course of the film, the harmonium is repaired (with tape) and Barry begins to teach himself how to make beautiful music with it. Has he always known how? This occurs in tandem with him meeting and falling for Lena (Emily Watson), a coworker of Barry’s sister (Mary Lynn Rajskub) who, rather inexplicably, fancies him too.

After a trip out of his comfort zone to Hawaii (a literal island apart from his sparse warehouse and apartment, purely for the purpose of spending more time with Lena) and a trip to Utah (to confront the mattress salesman (Philip Seymour Hoffman) who has been extorting him) Barry is able to put aside his childish rages and commit himself to loving Lena.

In an interview on the Criterion edition of the film, composer Jon Brion describes the film as, “A musical where nobody ever breaks into song.”

In the final moments of the film, as Lena and Barry begin to play the harmonium together, Lena intones, “Here we go.” Maybe now it is time to sing.

THREE: Mournful Magonia

THE MASTER & INHERENT VICE

Though he’s certainly made returns to the realm of Magonia Maintenance (as evidenced by the second two films covered in that section) the “Escape” films seem to have truly marked an inflection point in Paul’s career, both thematically and aesthetically.

Magnolia and Punch-Drunk Love burned all the whip-pans, speed-ramps, and abrupt cutaways out of his system. Aside from two notable exceptions (There Will Be Blood and Licorice Pizza), he now tends to favor the boxier, 1.85:1 ratio to the wide, scope framing of those first few films.

While each new release is still an event to cinephiles, you get the sense that he is no longer needing to prove himself on every outing. Perhaps parenthood has mellowed him. Or perhaps it was the time he spent shadowing his idol, Robert Altman on his swan song, A Prairie Home Companion. Perhaps a combination of the two? That beautiful film about joyful art making while gracefully accepting the end of an era does also co-star Paul’s wife, Maya Rudolph, pregnant with their first child.

Whatever the cause, from The Master onward, Anderson’s films have been much more acceptingly zen about the way things do or do not change.

The Master and Inherent Vice each take place during famous Refractory Periods of the 20th Century (post-World War II and after the 1960’s, respectively) where, for a few years, the world was suspended in a liminal holding pattern whilst resetting itself after great tumult. Against such backdrops, both films grapple with the personal aspects of change. Can a person change? And how do they handle change?

The Master wrestles (literally) with the desire for personal change via its tale of a troubled man, Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix) who seeks answers and transformation through devotion to a religious cult, led by a charismatic charlatan (Philip Seymour Hoffman) who sees in Freddie the ultimate challenge. Much sound and fury is put towards taming Freddie, but in the end, Freddie himself comes to accept that there is no taming him.

The mournful closing image of Freddie spooning a woman made of sand (destined to get washed away by the tides) as Helen Forest’s rendition of, “Changing Partners” plays in the background, is a perfect encapsulation of both the loss and genetic predisposition at the heart of Quell’s neurosis. No bloviating father figure could ever hope to fix this.

So I’ll keep changing partners/Till you’re in my arms and then/Oh, my darlin’ I will never change partners again.

* * *

Thomas Pynchon’s novel Inherent Vice begins with an epigraph:

Under the paving-stones, the beach!

Graffito, Paris, May 1968

The epigraph doesn’t quite do justice to this particular revolutionary slogan. “Sous les pavés, la plage!” was more than mere graffiti. It was a poetic reference to the sand discovered by protesters underneath the paving stones they were lifting up to hurl at police. They felt their uprising had the potential to expose the natural state underneath things, back before paradise was paved to put up a parking lot.

Paul Thomas Anderson seems to have given a lot of thought to this slogan as well. Not only is it used to name a cue on the film’s score, but the film’s opening shot is of the fictional Gordita Beach of Southern California, faintly visible between two beach shacks.

As a film, Inherent Vice is a record of the period where the paving stones are beginning to be put back into place by the true masters of the universe. What is one person to do against forces so mighty? In the detective film Chinatown (with which this film shares much Film Noir DNA) the answer is: Nothing. Why bother? Inherent Vice takes a much more optimistic and micro approach to the question.

Facing down a powerful syndicate with its fingers in the pies of all things not good, stoner detective, Doc Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix) opts to do a small, good thing. Doc uses the tiny bit of leverage he has (in the form of bushels of heroin) to exfiltrate saxophonist, Coy Harlingen (Owen Wilson) from his indentured servitude to a counter revolutionary organization, purely so that Coy can go home to his wife and daughter.

Notably Doc doesn’t try to use that leverage to bring back his beloved, Shasta Fay Hepworth (Katherine Waterston) because deep down he knows that ship has sailed.

He recognizes that she (like the historical anomaly of the 60’s which she represents) has passed into the rearview of history. The Summer of Love is not coming back and neither is Shasta Fay. But she will, nonetheless, be with him forever, riding shotgun in his memories.

LICORICE PIZZA

Licorice Pizza is Anderson’s most anthropologically liminal film, in that it is actually about the transition from adolescence to adulthood, but it is told through negative space, through the hole in the center of a vinyl record, around which everything spins.

Set during the hangover of the 1960’s, centered on two leads caught between childhood and adulthood, living next door to Hollywood in the San Fernando Valley, Licorice Pizza is very much a film about the middle.

Gary (Cooper Hoffman) is an ambitious teenager who seems to have the world figured out, and Alana (Alana Haim) is a twentysomething who has nothing figured out. While the years between them are relatively few, seeing them interact, you become acutely aware of how fast the world conquering confidence of adolescence dissipates once you are an adult and have to actually put in the work of making your life happen.

Seeing Gary dive headfirst into various ventures ranging from a waterbed company to pinball parlor proprietor, one begins to think of the bravado of Paul’s early films where the camera was constantly in motion and not a care was given to run time. Seeing Gary through the eyes of Alana, you get a sense of Paul’s wistful admiration for the cocky young man he once was.

The film is realistic about the stupid decisions one makes while young and the danger that could result (particularly in the tense sequence with Bradley Cooper as an unhinged John Peters) but like Alana, it comes down on the side of embracing at least a little bit of that youthful joie de vivre over the monotony of grownup work.

Did it make Paul feel young again shooting wide for the first time in over a decade?

LAST THING: ONE BATTLE & BEYOND

So now we come to the film that finally won Paul Thomas Anderson an Oscar. Three Oscars to be precise.

Despite their shared Pynchonian DNA, One Battle After Another is much more than an Inherent Vice retread.

Set in an endless now, where truly nothing has changed over the course of almost two decades, Anderson’s tale of revolutionaries (Leonardo DiCaprio, Teyana Taylor et al) striving to bring down all the systems keeping us from advancing forward, recognizes the enormity of the task at hand.

This film is clear-eyed about the fact that while a mini-boss like Col. Steven J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn) can be easily brought down by their own hubris, a Big Bad like the White Nationalists of The Christmas Adventurers (Tony Goldwyn, Jim Downey, et al) are a much more insidious evil that cannot be as easily brought down, since they are inextricably tied to Capital. It’s Inherent Vice’s Golden Fang all over again.

Similarly, One Battle also acknowledges how, when faced with such a massive evil, there is still value in doing small good things. Through the, “little Latino Harriet Tubman situation” run by Sensei Sergio St. Carlos (Benicio Del Toro) and his compatriots, we witness the value of acting locally. Not everyone can afford to smoke themselves into oblivion like DiCaprio’s Bob. Some of us have lives to live and neighbors to look out for.

Where Battle diverges from Vice and marks an evolution in Anderson’s filmography, is in the character of Willa (Chase Infiniti). She is the synthesis in the dialectic between the cock-sure French 75 and the, “ocean waves” approach of Sergio St. Carlos’ Ninja Academy. Thus she does not need to be rescued. She is able to save herself.

She is also the synthesis of the dialectic between the good hearted stoner protagonist of Vice and the ambitious co-leads of Licorice Pizza. She is ready to take on the un-ending stasis of The Magonia. And this American Girl might actually be the one to do it.

Where The Cinema of Paul Thomas Anderson goes from here is anyone’s guess, and that is quite an exciting prospect.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Paul Thomas Anderson by George Toles

Paul Thomas Anderson: Masterworks by Adam Nayman

Hard Eight commentaries

Hard Eight letterboxd review by Devon Torrey Bryant dated 3/12/25

Boogie Nights commentaries

Creative Screenwriting interview with Paul by David Konow

Redditor “mikedash” comment on Magonia question from r/AskHistorians

That Moment: Magnolia Diary documentary

Interview with Paul accompanying the published shooting script of Magnolia

LA Daily News interview cited directly in the intro

Jon Brion interview on Criterion disc of Punch-Drunk Love cited in that section

WTF with Marc Maron, episode 565

There Will Be Blood interview with Kenneth Turan for The Los Angeles Times

There Will Be Blood interview with Daniel Day Lewis & Paul for The Museum of the Moving Image

“Does It Ever End?: The Sweet Heartbreak of Paul Thomas Anderson’s Inherent Vice” by Travis Woods for Bright Wall/Dark Room

The Magician

2025-01-17T10:04:00.000-08:00

My mind is filled with memories of movie screenings. It's how my brain is organized. Small and large life events are all tied together with movies.

I can remember when I took the PSAT because I know that I took it the day after seeing Fight Club and the same day that I saw American Beauty. I can remember what year it was when all my Oregon family moved to Arizona because I saw Traffic at the Clackamas Town Center as we were cleaning out my great grandmother’s house.

Some of the best of these memories are of watching David Lynch films. Like being in middle school watching Lost Highway with friends because we heard there was nudity in it, and we got much more than we bargained for. Or in high school watching Mulholland Dr. in the limo on the way to senior prom. But the most memorable David Lynch screening was the first time I saw The Elephant Man.

Each fall in the late 90's and early 2000's, Cal State Long Beach would convert The Carpenter Performing Arts Center into a big movie theater and screen films shot in Scope. Over the years I got to see Halloween, A Shot in the Dark, Chinatown, Blazing Saddles, etc. Some I had seen before. Some I had not. The Elephant Man was a first time viewing.

It was during this inaugural viewing, that the print caught and burned. Typically an event like this would be greeted by angry jeers from the audience. But as I recall, we all just waited in the dark silence. This film had us so thoroughly in its grasp that not even this unexpected delay could break its spell.

In a manner of what felt like only a few minutes, the movie was back on and we all dove seamlessly back into the sooty blacks of Victorian England. The impromptu intermission in no way lessened our emotional catharsis at the end of that film.

It takes a special magician to cast a spell that strong. David Lynch was such a magician.

In 2017 he was able to keep countless viewers, the whole world over, under his spell for the length of an entire summer. Just like that audience I saw The Elephant Man with all those years before, as Twin Peaks The Return gradually unfurled over the course of eighteen chapters, audiences just dove right back in. Week after week.

Now the magician himself is gone. But his spell will go on forever.

Film Style

2023-07-30T14:41:00.001-07:00

As I’ve stated elsewhere, Film Style is easiest to identify when it can be measured in gallons. While Howard Hawks absolutely possessed a distinct and well-defined style, it's a style that isn’t really apparent until you’ve watched a handful of his films in quick succession. Similarly, there will never be a TikTok trend about aping the style of Budd Boetticher. But they are Stylists none the less.

The styles that really grab the attention of budding filmmakers and cinephiles are often the ones that clearly depict a world different from our own. Worlds where the colors are un-real and the camera calls attention to itself. This is how one comes to realize what a director’s job entails. Suddenly you are aware of the fact that every single film consists of countless choices. And not just the ostentatious ones. Realism and Naturalism are choices too.

A fun and concise way to familiarize your child with Film Style is through music videos and ads. Many of today’s stylists, like David Fincher, got their start in music videos. And often a stylish director, like Sofia Coppola, will be sought out by a brand to do a campaign promoting their new line or product. Such clips are pure style. There is no need for narrative, just vibes. Maybe program a mini-festival of some of your favorites from when you were younger!

These clips can also serve as your kiddo’s introduction to the style of someone who hasn’t yet made a kid-friendly film. Your child probably isn’t ready for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (and I don't think anyone counts The Green Hornet) but I bet they’ll have a blast watching many of Michel Gondry’s music videos. Or do the reverse and show them some of the early music videos of Where the Wild Things Are director, Spike Jonze. Maybe they’ll even discover a new favorite band or song this way!

A Wes For All Seasons

2022-11-21T21:50:00.002-08:00

Style is hard to grasp when you’re a kid. When you consume media, you’re primarily focused on what is being said rather than how it is being said. Something has to really break with formula to make you sit back and take notice of the style.

As distinct as the style of someone like Jonathan Demme is, it’s not gonna grab some middle schooler by the eyeballs and rock their world. The first directors to catch someone’s eye are most often the really ostentatious ones like Baz Luhrmann and Terry Gilliam where style can be measured in gallons. For me it was Oliver Stone. But if you’re looking for a filmmaker that will make your child consider “style” look no further than Wes Anderson.

I get that mileage may vary for many with the work of Wes Anderson, but for a kid his aesthetic is kinda perfect: The colors are saturated, there’s lots of pop music, and even the adults act in a childish manner. Things are "off" just enough to make them aware that this isn't like an Illumination film. And for parents, Fantastic Mr. Fox can be a welcome respite from the dross we must periodically endure for our little ones.

Even if your kid is older, Wes still has you covered. For the PG-13 crowd there’s the adolescent love of Moonrise Kingdom, for the rebellious teenagers there’s the youthful (R-rated) ambition of Rushmore, and even for the older teens tentatively venturing out into a bigger world there’s Bottle Rocket. Maybe Royal Tenenbaums and the rest of the filmography can maybe wait for a Quarter Life Crisis?

I guess Tim Burton could also scratch this aesthetic itch, but if your kid becomes a super-fan you might end up having to watch Alice in Wonderland. Nobody should have to endure The Futterwacken .

Guided Viewing

2022-07-31T21:18:00.003-07:00

The other day, Lola and I were watching some old episodes of Animaniacs. Like you do. Though she'd heard the word several times in several episodes, she decided that now was the time to ask me to define the word, "sibling." Within a few hours she'd already integrated it into her vocabulary and was using it properly in sentences. More and more she is learning to choose words to express herself unambiguously and to better define her world. But what about when definitions are less black and white and more gray?

For years I've been wanting to watch 2001: A Space Odyssey with Lola. Stanley Kubrick's meditation on human evolution is a masterpiece of visual storytelling and ideal for young minds that haven't fully transitioned from the world of pictures to words. Hopefully that was still an accurate description of Lola.

I threw it on one day after a few rounds of miniature golf and some delicious Mexican food just as a test to see if she would respond to it at all. I had a feeling that all the Dawn of Man stuff would click with what she and Becca had been learning about fossils, Mary Anning, chimps and Jane Goodall. It was extra beneficial that we'd also recently visited the La Brea Tar Pits. Watching the apes, tapirs, and leopards go about their days was akin to the numerous nature docs we've watched together as a family. She was totally on board from the get-go. And then that monolith showed up...

I knew my inquisitive daughter would have questions, but I foolishly hadn't put much thought into how to answer whatever she would throw at me. When the inevitable question of, "What is that?" came, I paused for a beat. Whatever I said was likely to become her definition going forward. And I'm just some movie loving dork. Why deprive her of piecing things together and coming to her own conclusions? It was then that I remembered my old DVD of Mulholland Dr. and the insert of "clues" to understanding the film that came with it.

If you're at all familiar with the work of David Lynch, you're likely also aware of the fact that he eschews rigid definitions as to what his work is about. A David Lynch Film is a means to illicit thoughts and feelings and they are all valid. He wants there to be, "room to dream." So his list of "clues" is really just a list of things to ponder while you watch the film. Stuff like, "Notice the robe, the ashtray, and the coffee cup" and "What is felt, realized, and gathered at the club Silencio?" They don't magically unlock the film, but musing on them does generate a more enriching experience.

So after a little bit of playing coy and saying, "I don't know. What do you think that thing is?" We'd made it to the moment when that ape starts playing around with them bones. Now I was ready to ask her, "When Jane Goodall started observing chimps, what did she discover they knew how to do?" In no time flat she replied, "They can use tools!" I followed it up with, "I wonder if that's the ape who touched the black thing?" Her mind was off to the races with theories. By the time they found the second monolith on The Moon, she was chanting, "Touch it! Touch it! Touch it!"

As your child begins to dive into the world of literature and reading, it is important to not let their visual literacy muscles atrophy as a result. Whether it's nature walks, visits to a museum, or taking in a trippy sci-fi movie every now and again, be sure to give those visual muscles a little workout every now and again. The rewards will be invaluable.

Oh, and don’t forget to leave some room to dream.

Martial Artistry

2022-03-21T20:32:00.001-07:00

While I’m more inclined than many to side with Scorsese in the never-ending battle over whether or not Comic Book Movies are CINEMA, it’s pretty undeniable that they do serve a function which benefits CINEMA. Better than any Film Appreciation course at the local community center, Comic Book Movies can introduce future generations to performers and filmmakers who are undeniably associated with Scorsese Approved CINEMA. And in a very direct way too.

Say what you will of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, but it is undeniable that it is a piece of visual entertainment, starring Hong Kong Legends Tony Leung and Michelle Yeoh, with fight scenes choreographed by the late, great Brad Allan who cut his teeth as a member of the Jackie Chan Stunt Team. This isn’t Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles giving kids a vague interest in martial arts that might eventually lead to Hong Kong Cinema. Shang-Chi establishes a direct pipeline to Wong Kar-wai, Police Story, etc.

Disclaimer: Of course violence is inherent in this particular National Cinema. The kineticism and visual ingenuity of filmmakers like John Woo, Ringo Lam, Johnnie To, et al is precisely what made the Hong Kong films of the late 80’s/early 90’s standout against the staid bombast of the Stallone and Schwarzenegger vehicles that ruled American Multiplexes at the time. It’s up to the parent what is appropriate for the child. That being said…

The perfect starting point is the action comedies of Stephen Chow, like Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle. With that as a foundation, the most logical next step is Jackie Chan as his fights are quite playful and clearly in conversation with silent comedians like Buster Keaton who your child might already be familiar with. Of course there’s also Bruce Lee, but his fights can some times be a bit intense for younger viewers as they often end in death. Maybe check out some of his fights as Kato on the Green Hornet TV series from the 60’s? On the distaff end of the gender spectrum, Michele Yeoh and Zhang Ziyi can kick ass with the best of them, but also don’t sleep on American expat superstar Cynthia Rothrock.

The world of Action Cinema is expansive! Every country has their own action star(s) and they’re all doing amazing things that help push the language of Cinema further and further. As with comedy, you can get away with stuff in an action film that would never fly in a drama. Whether it is via YouTube clips or full feature films, your child’s cinematic development can only benefit from a (light) kick in the pants!

Restoring the Magic

2021-10-23T00:56:00.006-07:00

The fact that running a bunch of still pictures through light can create the illusion of motion is a miracle. Movies are truly magic. But in a world full of screens, the magic can be easily lost. Movies are no longer something reserved for special occasions where you have to wear your best clothes and get to go to a gorgeous theater. Moving images are everywhere. They’re on the wall at Panda Express. So how do you foster wonder and amazement in the era of “screen time”?

The first thing I tried was flip-books. Sure any flip-book will get the point across (heck even drawings in the margins of a notebook will do the trick) but if you’re like me and want to keep things Cinema-centric, I recommend Fliptomania which produces a lovely set of three Charlie Chaplin flip-books. Of course if you want to get real fancy about things, many of The Cinema’s primitive ancestors (optical toys like the zoetrope and the magic lantern) were marketed as childish diversions, so I guess those would probably work as well. But where to go next after the novelty of a three-second loop wears off?

This is the same problem that many of Film’s early pioneers bumped up against and the solution here is the same - incorporate narrative! A perfect starting point for this is Mara Rockliff and Simona Ciraolo’s wonderful children’s book Lights! Camera! Alice! The Thrilling True Adventures of the First Woman Filmmaker. It’s a great story about perseverance, that touches on the innovations made during those early days of moviemaking, while also letting kids know that women such as Alice Guy Blanché were there from the very beginning of the medium. A great supplement to this book is watching some of Alice’s films which you can either find on YouTube or purchase in gorgeous Blu-ray’s from Kino. There’s also a great Kino set that covers early female filmmakers more broadly as well.

When your child is old enough for longer stories with chapters, Brian Selznick’s The Invention of Hugo Cabret is clearly the next step to take. The book is thick as a brick but it goes by in a breeze as several key moments are fittingly related visually, via page upon page of beautiful pencil drawings by Selznick himself. Once the mystery of this boy, this girl, and this mechanical man takes hold of your child, you’ll be done in a matter of evenings. Or even one evening if you’re child is ambitious enough! As for supplements to this book…

Of course Martin Scorsese’s film Hugo is the logical endpoint for all of this. It’s truly a marvel of a movie. Not only is it a whimsical mystery filled with magic and chases, but it is also an expertly crafted film, with assured and non-condescending visual storytelling, that brings those early days of the movies vividly to life! The Blu-ray contains some wonderfully kid-friendly bonus features about the making of the film as well as about the real Georges Méliès. Flicker Alley and Kino both have great collections of his work available and yes, many of the films can also be found on YouTube.

Where to go next is really up to you!

Vegas Buffet

2021-09-29T20:08:00.002-07:00

In the early stages of showing media to your child a common refrain is some variation on, “Why's that funny?” This is because they’re still new to the world. They don’t know that in reality coyotes will immediately fall to an untimely death when they chase a roadrunner off of a cliff. The same goes for all art. Kids don’t know what art is “supposed to be” and therefore might miss what makes a particularly unique work so special.

Eventually they do learn how things are “supposed to be”. Now they can better appreciate The Marx Brothers demolishing a piano until it becomes a functional harp. But what of a child who now comes to outright reject the unconventional?

The desire to fit in and be like “normal” people is real and understandable. It’s even the emotional crux of ‘Becca’lise’s favorite movie! The final act of Auntie Mame (1958) centers on Patrick Dennis (who has been raised since childhood by his eccentric aunt) attempting to assimilate into polite society by marrying into the WASPiest family you’ve ever seen. But SPOILER ALERT: It doesn’t work! Mame's joie de vivre and general acceptance of the unconventional wins out in the end!

Of course prices and participation may vary. Sure it might bum you out that your little one no longer grooves to a song like Fish Heads, but this has never been about forcing things on your kid or turning them into a clone of yourself. It’s about presenting them with possibilities. They’re their own unique little person. They will take what they like and toss the rest. When they’re teenagers they might toss it all because that’s what teenagers do. But if you’ve cultivated curiosity and compassion in them by exposing them to a wide spectrum of culture, eventually that will shine through in some way. Eventually they’ll realize that life truly is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving.

Familia Filmmaking

2021-09-04T08:03:00.000-07:00

Since the start of his career, Robert Rodriguez has been almost singularly focused on democratizing and demystifying the filmmaking process.

As a middle schooler I recall devouring his book Rebel without a Crew which chronicled his journey making El Mariachi for the insanely low budget of $7,000. Similarly I devoured the 10-Minute Film School segments that were included on the home video releases of his films. These behind-the-scenes looks at how to make a shoot-em-up are great for cinematically curious high schoolers and undergrad film students, but what about younger kids?

Fortunately for parents of little ones, Robert also makes exciting family films like the Spy Kids series! Equally fortunate is the fact that the home video releases of those films get equally meticulous bonus features. Even those of you who eschew physical media are covered in this regard. His recent Netflix family film, We Can Be Heroes, has a multi-part YouTube series entitled We Can Be Filmmakers!

The candy colored films (peppered with booger and fart jokes) might not be exactly your speed, but they’ll certainly catch your child’s attention, and perhaps inspire a future auteur!

BONUS: As a Mexican-American filmmaker, Rodriguez’s cinema has never been short on diversity and his PG-13 anime adaptation, Alita: Battle Angel has very much been embraced by many in the trans community as an action-packed allegory.

Seriously Silly

2021-04-13T00:33:00.004-07:00

On a list of clichés about the French, near the top you will find the words, “love Jerry Lewis.” As a kid who learned this trope via Animaniacs, I took this to mean that French people collectively had a juvenile sense of humor.

As I got older, I came to realize that this love is moreso an outgrowth of their cultural cinephilia. Just as they were able to look at a bunch of crime and detective stories and extract Film Noir, French Critics were also able to look at a bunch of candy-colored, man-child movies and find high art. And while major, award-granting bodies might have you think otherwise, they are not alone in their elevation of cinematic silliness.

In his 1968 book The American Cinema, critic Andrew Sarris placed Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton in the “Pantheon” of great directors alongside names like Josef von Sternberg and Orson Welles. And lest you think he’s biased because he’s the man who brought The Auteur Theory to America from France, there are numerous other scholars and critics form all over who will tell you the same. So what is it about comedy?

I could go on (as many have) about how comedy represents an anarchic worldview that helps breed a healthy mistrust of the status quo, but on a purely cinematic level, comedy is great because comedy is a laboratory for invention!

Unlike “serious” pictures, comedies can literally do anything for a laugh. They are not bound by the laws of drama or the laws of physics. A technique that would jolt you out of a romantic drama will have you doubled over with laughter in a comedy. Breaking the fourth wall, rubber limbs, and avant-garde editing techniques are all fair game. This is the frontier where esoteric ideas are allowed to enter the mainstream.

It’s no accident that when Waiting for Godot playwright Samuel Beckett decided to dip his toe into film, he did so with Buster Keaton as his star. And did you know that Salvador Dali desperately wanted to make a movie with The Marx Brothers?

A child acquainted with the likes of Frank Tashlin and Jerry Lewis will already have a leg up when they get to the comic book colored worlds of Jean-Luc Godard’s Made in U.S.A. and Pierrot le Fou. But of course you don’t tell them that. Just let them be surprised that the broccoli tastes better because they ate candy first!

Catchy Hooks

2021-03-26T17:04:00.003-07:00

Like many kids, Lola loves animals. Much to her dismay our apartment does not allow them. We compensate for this with trips to local zoos and aquariums. ‘Becca’lise has also supplemented this with a healthy number of animal docs like the Netflix series Night on Earth which features stunning low-light photography of animals all over the world.

When we ran out of episodes, ‘Becca’lise rolled the dice and tried out the hour-long special on how they filmed the series. Lola was totally into it. There was just enough animal content to hold her attention and at the same time she was learning about cameras and all the work that goes into making such a series. Animals served as the hook.

Whatever your child’s interests, there is at least one, non-obnoxious film out there about your child's interest. Or maybe it just features/touches upon that interest. The mere presence of animals was enough to get Lola to watch Life of Pi for Pi Day this year. Richard Parker could do no wrong and the flying fish sequence had her laughing harder than most comedies.

Does your child like auto racing? Instead of an endless loop of the Cars Trilogy, might I suggest Speed Racer? Lola and her Porsche-nut Poppy (my dad) loved it. If your child likes space and you feel like rolling the dice, maybe try 2001: A Space Odyssey! If they’re not feeling it, turn it off. At least you gave it a shot. Robby the Robot was enough to get Lola to watch Forbidden Planet and make her request The Invisible Boy. Now she has a Robby toy that walks and talks. You never know what will click until you try.

Tough Talk

2021-01-01T23:43:00.002-08:00

It's a question I have low-key dreaded since becoming a parent:

"Dad, what's this quote on you and mom's wedding party favor from?"

The simple answer is, "Annie Hall." The difficult part is the conversation that should inevitably follow.

* * *

Like many film lovers, 'Becca'lise and I have seen a fair share of our favorite films and filmmakers slide into the category of, "problematic fave." After all, our personal lists of favorite films respectively feature Rosemary's Baby and Annie Hall.

We are aware of the damage wrought by the men who helmed those productions and we do not venerated them, but we also cannot deny what certain films have meant to us over the years. We also cannot deny the artistry of all the other collaborators who made those films possible. We are able to hold such opposing thoughts in our heads at the same time. But what of a child who deals in absolutes of good and bad?

I get that this can be a great starting point for discussing the concept of divisive individuals with your young one, but in the case of Woody Allen, even the issue of why he's worthy of scorn is a whole conversation of its own. But the discussion of problematic artists is an important one to have because it is certain to be a perennial one.

It is only a matter of time before someone involved with something your child loves reveals themselves to be an awful person. We didn't even get a chance to take Lola to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter before J.K. Rowling went full-on TERF. But maybe her awfulness can be used as a teachable moment!

It is much easier to explain to a child that an intolerant person is capable of creating an imaginative world that has brought joy to many, than to explain that an (alleged) sexual assaulter has created works of moral ambiguity that have brought chin-scratching amusement to some.

No matter how you go about it, this is a conversation that will need to happen eventually, so you might as well start peeling that bandaid now. And then you can start working on justifying your exploitation film collection by explaining that depiction does not equal endorsement. Good luck!

Dark Oscars

2020-10-25T01:01:00.010-07:00

Sunday, February 25th, 2007

The Kodak Theatre was alive with energy as Martin Scorsese left the stage clutching his long overdue Oscar for Directing. The glamourous audience had been through a lot and after nearly four hours, the end was in sight, only one award remained. But as Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton made their way to the stage, there was great uncertainty as to which film would be taking home that last little Golden Boy.

Normally the film with the most nominations is the shoe-in for Best Picture, yet for the first time in Academy history, the most nominated film wasn’t even in the running. Despite its impressive eight nominations, the long gestating adaptation of the hit Broadway musical Dreamgirls had failed to secure the most important one. Though Babel had the second most nominations with seven, victory seemed unlikely as it had failed to win a single award all night. It was truly anyone’s race. Who would come out on top?

Would it be Clint Eastwood’s year again with his Japanese language, WWII film Letters from Iwo Jima? What about The Queen? The Academy famously loves Brits. Or maybe the feel-good Little Miss Sunshine would follow in the tradition of Marty and Rocky to become the little film that could?

Though it had already racked up three awards over the course of the evening (editing, adapted screenplay and director) few saw The Departed as a real contender. It was a genre picture, it was violent, and it was cynical. This was the same Academy that had only one year prior singled out the maudlinly hopeful Crash for Oscar glory. Surely they wouldn’t give their highest honor to a film that the director himself later described thusly:

"It has to do with the nature of betrayal. The nature of a morality which, after 2001, has become suspect to me. I'm concerned about the nature of how we live, how we're living in this country and what our values are. This new kind of war is going to continue. Our children are going to inherit it. It's not going to be over with by the time we're dead. It's like a whole worldwide civil war. How does one behave in that context? What's right and what's wrong in that war? On the street level of The Departed, no one can trust one another. Everyone's lying to each other. It fueled me in a way. It got me angry, it got me going."

Going purely off the applause as Diane Keaton read the nominees, it seemed as though Babel might end up walking away the victor. But then again, this is the Academy Awards, not Opportunity Knocks. Jack Nicholson didn’t even wait for The Queen's applause to die down before tearing into the envelope. Once it was open, everyone fell silent. Keaton seemed giddy with anticipation. Who would it be? After a moment to examine the contents (and with an oh-so-subtle grin) Nicholson proudly announced the winner.

Just like that, the delusional optimism of Crash was obliterated and the rage of The Departed reigned. And this was only the beginning.

The Oscars are no stranger to darkness (The Reign of Reagan/Bush ended with the double-whammy of Silence of the Lambs and Unforgiven) but even during times as dark as The Great Depression, World War II, and Vietnam, the movie that took home the Best Picture trophy at the end of the night, was almost invariably something either feel-good, IMPORTANT, or harmless. Bellwether genres like Noir and Paranoid Thillers were largely ignored or omitted altogether. One of the most glaring examples of missing the mark came at the1990 ceremony when Driving Miss Daisy won Best Picture while Do the Right Thing received only a Best Original Screenplay nomination.

Darkness hovered around the edges of the ceremony honoring the films 2005. The Best Picture slate included Brokeback Mountain, Capote, Munich, and Goodnight, and Good Luck. But as we alluded to earlier, The Academy opted to take the easy way out via the mirage of depth that is Crash, with its myriad tales of intersections and O. Henry revelations. A whole lot of sound and fury, which in the end signified nothing. Not so the following year.

Many like to claim that Scorsese’s Best Director win for The Departed was “a gimme” for all the times he was passed over in previous years, but that doesn’t address the win for Best Picture. They didn’t have to give William Monahan’s screenplay an Oscar. They didn’t have to give Thelma Schoonmaker her third award for Best Editing. But they did. It was the most awarded film of the night. And even if these were all a means to show love to a respected Auteur, they sure picked a hell of a movie to do it with. And no such claims of favoritism can be made with regards to 2007’s slate.

2007

By the time the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced their nominees in late January of 2008, seven Democrats and seven Republicans had already withdrawn from the Presidential Race which would eventually come down to John McCain v. Barack Obama. And the two issues that would come to define that election (the Troop Surge in Iraq and the Global Housing Market) were already topics of hot debate. Seven years of George W. Bush (and all that entails) can really start to weigh on the National Psyche. Is it any wonder that we ended up with Michael Clayton, Atonement, No Country for Old Men, and There Will be Blood as Best Picture Nominees? Oh, and Juno was also nominated

Movies take a long time to make. Of course there are stories of Spielberg or someone cranking out a film in a matter of months, but for the other 99.9% out there (those who cannot simply will a Green Light into being) development can be a long and arduous process. The screenwriting alone can take months, if not years. Then you have to find someone to finance it, find a cast, and find a crew. Once you’re in production there are still myriad tragedies (man-made and otherwise) that can befall your film. And then there’s editing, test screenings, re-shoots, etc. By the time of release, a film that was once very, “of the moment” can suddenly be passé. So when a film is able to really resonate with the zeitgeist, it’s sort of a miracle. When four out of five Best Picture nominees are able to achieve this, it’s time to really step back and take a long hard look at both the films and the world that spawned them.

Michael Clayton

Regardless of what André Bazin, François Truffaut, and Andrew Sarris would like us to believe, it is possible for a film to have more than one author while still functioning as a coherent work of art. Of course Michael Clayton is writer/director Tony Gillroy’s film. One need look no further than the fact that it centers around the dogged pursuit of an ominous organization doing very bad things, to find parallels with the Bourne Trilogy that Gillroy had just finished writing that same year. His interests and obsessions permeate both works. But this is also George Clooney’s film.

After transitioning from TV to film in the late 90’s (and after a few misfires), George Clooney was able to enter the New Millennium as a bonafide Movie Star. As a Movie Star, he was no longer required to accept any job that came his way simply to put food on the table. He could suddenly afford to be picky and choose jobs that jived with his interests and politics. And that is precisely what he did with Section Eight, a production company he co-founded with filmmaker Steven Soderbergh in 2001.

Through Section Eight, Clooney and Soderbergh were able to champion filmmakers they respected, help new voices get established, and package their own passion projects. For Clooney, this meant political films that both directly and indirectly addressed the wars, torture, and Crony Capitalism of the Bush Era. Some of these films he directed (Good Night, and Good Luck.) others he just produced and acted in (Syriana). The eight films he acted in at Section Eight really form the basis of what we think of as a George Clooney movie.

Michael Clayton was his final film for the company, and it was one heck of a note to go out on. The way Michael’s car ride at the end of the film is undercut by paranoia and unease is a perfect encapsulation both of an artist about to step out on his own with a new company, and of a Nation on the eve of an election.

Atonement

As the novel of Atonement was published nearly simultaneously with the events of 9/11, it’s impossible to argue that this was meant as any sort of allegory for the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, but there are still some interesting parallels. Both narratives are littered with instances where history could have gone differently. If only Robbie had given Briony the correct note. If only the Bush Administration had taken the PDB about Bin Ladden more seriously. If only Briony hadn’t incorrectly identified Robbie as Lola’s rapist. If only Colin Powell hadn’t insisted Iraq had stockpiles of WMDs.

Now of course it’s silly to equate the lives of two, physically attractive, fictional Brits with the thousands of Military and civilian lives that have been lost during America’s unending War on Terror, but it is undeniable that both stories are about traumatized/scandalized characters who think they have all the answers, making decisions that result in people getting killed. These are both stories about regret and accepting the consequences of one’s actions. Briony attempts to atone through her writing. George W Bush now paints portraits of wounded Servicemen and women. Neither effort brings back the dead, or even a limb, but it’s something.

There Will Be Blood/No Country For Old Men

It’s fitting that the two films that took the biggest swings at W were both shot in Texas. Marfa, Texas to be precise. The same place where George Stevens, Sr. did the location work for Giant a half-century before. Not only were both films shooting in the same town, they were shooting at the same time! One day of filming on No Country for Old Men was even interrupted by the There Will Be Blood crew testing out the oil derrick explosion in the far distance.

These two films form a yin and yang of The Bush Years. While they both contain elements of the other, one film is overwhelmingly preoccupied with greed, and the other with violence. They also both center around symbolic characters who represent those preoccupations. Anton Chigurh and Daniel Plainview are forces of nature who exemplify humanity’s worst impulses, but most crucially, they are still humans.

Often with parables and allegories, it is easy to dismiss the moral because the characters are clearly constructs, invented to behave in certain ways, in order to impart a lesson. There is no free will. Anderson and The Coens were wise to make sure that their symbolic characters still retained some element of humanity.

In Plainview, it is the need for human connection (both with HW and Henry) which he constantly suppresses with drink in order to continue his quest for wealth. With Anton Chigurh, it is the fact that he can be wounded. The scene of him performing field surgery on himself in the hotel room lets us know that he can in fact feel pain, and that he is willing to put himself through a great deal of it in order to accomplish his task. Such scenes sympathize otherwise unsympathetic characters. We cannot dismiss them as something “other” because we too have felt pain and yearned for connection.

It’s like discovering that you and a serial killer love the same band. You now share something in common with an “animal”. That’s because they are not an animal. They are human and you are human. What they did was something that humans do. Humans can do all sorts of ghastly things.

Sure you can blame Government and Business for committing us to two wars that killed thousands, but Government and Business are not sentient entities. They are run by people. And even if we are not part of Government or Business, we aided and abetted them. We were so wounded and afraid after 9/11, we allowed them to “shock and awe” women and children half a world away on the flimsiest of evidence. And if anyone raised the possibility that this was over oil? Oh well, gas prices are too high anyway.

Anton Chigurh and Daniel Plainview are not nightmarish because they are inhuman, they are nightmarish because they are all too human. To put it into psychological terms, they are our collective id, unregulated, run amok. Laissez-faire, right?

2008 and Beyond

While it would not officially win its Best Picture Oscar until February 2009, the die was already cast for Slumdog Millionaire on November 4th, 2008 with the electoral victory of Barack Hussein Obama.

Produced with George W. Bush still in Office and set a world away, this film was the perfect balm for America in 2008. With two wars raging and an economy collapsing, we were in desperate need of some "hope" and "change". Jamal was our collective avatar and his candy colored fantasy (set to a pulsing soundtrack) allowed us to dive into some serious "shit" (murder, torture, prostitution, etc.) and come out on the other end both victorious and unscathed. Who cares if it’s 100% fantasy!? More than any campaign ad, this film screamed out, "Yes we can!"

Unfortunately this victory would be short-lived. Merely one year later, we found ourselves back in Iraq (no metaphorical stand-ins this time) for The Hurt Locker. Had we lived with war for so long that we no longer knew any other way of life? At least we got our first ever female, Best Director win out of it! But in our rush to leave The Bush Years behind (and thanks to our nostalgia for The Clinton Years) we inadvertently allowed a fox back into the hen house.

After five years in the wilderness, following his ousting from Miramax, the back to back wins of The King’s Speech and The Artist solidified the return of Harvey Weinstein as a force to be reckoned with. Thankfully this period would not last for long. But now we are in this sort of amorphous time where narratives have yet to form. Or will one ever form?

For the remainder of The Obama Years, The Academy feels like an organization being pulled in a million different directions. There’s the self-congratulatory Academy awarding Argo. There’s the respectable and socially responsible Academy recognizing 12 Years a Slave and Spotlight. And then there’s Birdman and The Shape of Water off in left field.

This is also the period in history that gave us #OscarsSoWhite. Is Hollywood really as progressive as it thinks it is? Moonlight would seem to indicate that they are. Green Book would seem to indicate that they are not. At least it’s motivating them to diversify their membership. And maybe that’s how we got the last great thing to happen in 2020 - Parasite winning Best Picture! But is consensus even possible these days?

With the abundance of streaming platforms and social media networks out there, nobody is on the same page anymore about anything. There’s too much to watch, hear, read, etc. And we will never catch up. And there will always be something new to get angry about. And there will always be another hill to die on. We will all be separate-together in our own little worlds that occasionally overlap like a Venn Diagram.

The era of consensus is over. The defining word of this era is coalition. Can enough people find enough things in common to do the right thing for right now? And if you couldn’t already tell, we’re no longer talking about awards. With climate change, a pandemic, and an election all bearing down on us simultaneously, we’re talking about the future of this country and the future of this planet. So let’s hope we can build those coalitions, and fast!

David and Lola

2020-10-19T23:32:00.003-07:00

When ‘Becca’lise and I started the adoption process, one of the first things I did was make a playlist. I was dead-set against committing myself to years of "Baby Shark" and whatever this generation’s incarnation of The Wiggles is called. I ended up with a list of about 300 songs with catchy hooks and zero profanity. A cornerstone of this playlist is songs by both David Byrne and Talking Heads.

Talking Heads are an ideal band for small children. The beats are infectious and the lyrics are simple. When they sing about “buildings and food” they are singing about things your child sees every day. They’re also a great way to introduce your little one to avant-garde music, theatre, and film.

* * *

Ever since we got Lola as a little, giggling four-month-old, she has had the urge to move to music. Before she could even crawl she would bop around to whatever ‘Becca’lise and I would play around her. Even moreso once she learned to walk.

Once she was up and moving we started showing her clips from musicals and ballets. We were amazed at how well she could mimic the choreography of stuff as diverse as the "Rich Man’s Frug" sequence of Sweet Charity and clips of Maya Deren.

Eventually I stated showing her some music videos. One that really really caught her attention was the Talking Heads video for "Wild Wild Life". Next came the animated video for "And She Was". Before you knew it, we’d made our way to the Jonathan Demme concert film Stop Making Sense.

Watching that show get built, musician by musician is mesmerizing. First there is just David with his guitar and boom box. Then there’s Tina. And before you know it there’s a full band, and additional instrumentalists, and additional vocalists, and dancers. And those screen projections! And the big suit! You're sort of surprised when you notice that you’re also jogging along to "Life During Wartime"! Lola gets a kick out of how sweaty everyone gets.

A few months after that lone viewing, Lola asked me if we could watch, “David dance with the lamp”. Her memory astounds me. Of course I obliged. And within a few weeks we were deciding to give True Stories a spin.

This was less of a sure bet. I knew she’d like the "Wild Wild Life" sequence because it’s literally the music video, but there’s no getting around the fact that True Stories is a weird, little movie. The fact that Byrne essentially hosts the whole endeavor is a definite plus for a little girl who has grown up on Mr. Rogers’ direct address style. David’s childlike enthusiasm and fascination are also a plus. As is the fact that the movie is a series of fashion shows, parades, and performances, leading up to one big performance. I think it's whole aesthetic might've teed her up for Pee-Wee's Big Adventure a few months later.

American Utopia was the first David Byrne/Talking Heads thing that I really built up for her. The others were just something that I would pop in on a whim, but for this one I built anticipation. I told her that David had a new movie coming out in the fall. We watched trailers and SNL/Colbert performances of a few of the songs. I tried to use this as an entryway to Spike Lee but the idea of collective authorship is still a bit advanced for her.

Of course she loved the film. The whole thing is so minimal that little things were able to have big impacts. The chain(?) curtains that form the walls of the stage were "jellyfish" and the tiniest lighting effects were "magic”. By about the time of "I Zimbra" she had taken it upon herself to clean up several toys on the carpet to make way for dancing, "like a giraffe".

A particular favorite moment was when they sang "Everybody's Coming To My House". In the era of Covid, this song has really hit a nerve with her. It's catchy and easy to sing, but she's also started to realize songs are about things. On car rides she will constantly be asking me what a song is about. She really seems to have zeroed in on this song's sentiment of not wanting to be alone, wanting everyone to come to your house, and not wanting them to leave. Me too, kid.

Oh, and David Byrne dressed as Elsa from Frozen, singing "Pay Attention!" with Lexi Perkel in John Mulaney & the Sack Lunch Bunch sorta blew her mind.

Mindful Movies

2020-09-19T19:52:00.002-07:00

What does a pandemic mean to a four-year-old? Our daughter has been really great about mask wearing and stepping aside so strangers can pass to avoid “germies” while on a walk, but she still questions whether or not she needs to wash her hands after coming back from a journey outside. It’s a whole new world that’s difficult to navigate and can sometimes be quite frustrating. Of course tantrums aren’t great, but given the circumstances, can you really blame kids? Emotions can be messy. Doubly so during a pandemic. But they are all valid.

* * *

Many children’s films begin with disruption. Usually this takes the form of a parent’s death which leaves the protagonist to face the world alone until a plucky band of new friends come along and help vanquish the bad guy/restore some form of normalcy. It’s a comforting arc, but not exactly relevant to our present times because it centers on a goal. There’s an end. What about when there doesn’t seem to be an eminent end and there’s certainly little you can do to bring that end about? What about when the only thing you (sort of) have control over is yourself?

The two family-friendly films I see as most relevant to the era of Covid are Inside Out and Where the Wild Things Are. Both films center on kids at the edge of adolescence, who have had their lives uprooted, decide to run away, and who gradually come to accept the fact that it is OK to embrace the full spectrum of human emotion. Oh, and they both do this via fantastical manifestations of their inner turmoil. Sure the Pixar film is much more literal in its allegory (with characters named after emotions) but the only major difference between the two is that Inside Out uses the character of Joy as a proxy for its protagonist’s journey of acceptance.

While common sense says that the literal cartoon would be more ideal for a younger child (rather than the movie with monsters) I actually found the inverse to be true. The indirectness of Wild Things’ narrative can work better for young kids as they are still very in tune with their intuition. They can feel their way through the film. They become Max observing these Wild Things and their emotional tantrums. They can sense the parallels between Max's behavior and that of the Wild Things. By contrast, the literalism of Inside Out is perfect for an older child who is getting better at putting their feelings into words.

Of course you shouldn’t expect your child to have some sort of grand revelation at the end or either film. They’ll probably be too caught up in the fantastical stuff any way. But these films will certainly start laying some groundwork and maybe spark some interesting car or dinner table conversations. No matter what, you and your child will have watched two very enjoyable films and will certainly have felt some feelings.

The world is filled with ways to distract ourselves and escape from this never-ending marathon of days, but when it comes to working through some things or when you flat-out need to purge some emotion in a safe manner, regardless of age, the movies simply cannot be beat!

Girls to the Front!

2020-09-10T15:48:00.000-07:00

Once you've introduced your child to the idea that films are something made by people, it's important to start introducing them to films from a diversity of creators.

Though small inroads have been made over the past few years, film directing is still overwhelmingly a career path enjoyed by men. According to the most recent data from USC's Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, only 10.6% of working directors are woman. By introducing your children to the concept of female filmmakers at an early age we can help to ensure that this inequality of access will not be a hurdle for future generations. Little girls and boys will have grown up on films directed by women and men alike, and little girls will not become discouraged by the perception that all of the great directors are men.

Here's a small sampling of child-appropriate (ie: G or PG rated) live-action films directed by women that you could potentially use as starting points.

The Trouble with Angels (dir: Ida Lupino)
Big/A League of Their Own/The Preacher's Wife (dir. Penny Marshall)
The Beverly Hillbillies/The Little Rascals (dir. Penelope Spheeris)
The Babysitter's Club (dir. Melanie Mayron)
The Secret Garden (dir. Agnieszka Holland)
Little Women (dir. Gillian Armstrong)
Speed Racer (dir. Lana and Lilly Wachowski)*
A Wrinkle in Time (dir. Ava DuVernay)
Little Women (dir. Greta Gerwig)

*The credits to Speed Racer still refer to Lana and Lilly by their deadnames. This could be a great opportunity to broach the concept of the trans community with your little one.

Who the Devil Made It?

2020-09-05T23:12:00.001-07:00

So you’ve successfully introduced your child to a wide variety of film styles from around the world, but how and when do you introduce them to the idea that people actually make these things? Your child might be able to say that so and so “made” a particular movie, but what does that really mean to a kid who still asks you regularly if various super heroes are “real”? It will likely be a while before they can really grasp all the work that goes into making a film and all the people involved in that process, but it’s really never too early to start laying some groundwork!

For older kids there are numerous great documentaries like A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies and Mark Cousins’ laconic epic The Story of Film: An Odyssey, as well as specialized docs on topics like editing (Cutting Edge) and cinematography (Visions of Light) but what do you do for little kids?

So far 'Becca'lise and I have really good luck with behind the scenes stuff about animation. If you have access to Disney+ there are lots of great resources on this front. The show Prop Culture (especially the episode about A Nightmare Before Christmas) as well as the Walt-narrated docs The Plausible Impossible and The Story of Animated Drawing are all excellent starting points.

As for next steps, ‘Becca’lise had great success with showing Lola the serialized documentary on the making of Frozen II. Thanks to its length, this docuseries is really able to impress upon a viewer all of the work that goes into making a film. You watch an entire wold get created from scratch and witness the army of people working tirelessly to bring it to life one decision at a time. The fact that it’s told in episodes makes it digestible and easy to spread out over days or weeks.

If you own physical media or have a library card, DVD bonus features remain a great resource as well. Does your child have a favorite movie? Try checking out some of the behind the scenes docs on that disc! Even something as simple as seeing actors out of character can be a major revelation to a small child. Was there a behind the scenes feature in your past that piqued your interest in film? Of course there's always the 10-minute Film School segments on the Spy Kids discs.

Getting To Know You...

2020-08-30T10:32:00.001-07:00

Thanks to a rigorously enforced production code, much of Hollywood’s “Classical Era” can easily be enjoyed by the whole family. The modern era (roughly from 1966 to the present) is a much wider spectrum filled with tricky subjects and themes that each family must evaluate on a case by case basis. But even the thorniest of directors usually has at least one film in their filmography that is suitable for all ages.

On the audio commentary track for his notorious cult film, Pink Flamingos, John Waters tells the story of a suburban family scandalized by renting it because it was from the director of the PG-rated Hairspray. Clearly they were not familiar with the rest of John’s oeuvre. As a cinephile parent, I cherish films like Hairspray because they present a chance to introduce your kids to filmmakers whose larger bodies of work skew towards teens and grownups.

Films like Popeye (Robert Altman), The Straight Story (David Lynch), The Witches (Nicolas Roeg), Stop Making Sense (Jonathan Demme), A Little Princess (Alfonso Cuarón), Fantastic Mr. Fox (Wes Anderson), Speed Racer (The Wachowskis), and A Hard Day’s Night (Richard Lester) are great ways to familiarize your child with themes, styles, and worldviews that will pay off further down the line of their cinematic development. While your son or daughter is certainly not ready for Goodfellas, they’ll probably get a kick out of Hugo!

Another great way to supplement this approach is with film clips either from your own collection or off of YouTube. I don’t know when our daughter will be ready for Sweet Charity as a whole, but since about the age of three she has known all the choreography to the the “Rich Man’s Frug” sequence. Clips also allowed me to introduce her to The Blues Brothers via the various musical numbers and the car chase through the mall.

It’s all about making introductions and casting as wide a cinematic net as possible. Your child will let you know what they respond to and things can evolve from there.

Silly Man Movies

2020-08-23T09:34:00.001-07:00

Early in quarantine we rolled the dice and showed Lola the 1953 French film, Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday. Within two months she’d watched all six of Jacques Tati’s features as well as the animated film The Illusionist. I had a feeling she would respond well to all the silliness, but I had no clue how overwhelming that response would be.

At first she would call him “silly man” and request to watch “more silly man movies.” Last week Lola and I were driving and she asked me to play “Hulot music” on the radio. ‘Becca’lise plays lots of film scores for her during car rides and free play but this was new. It’d been at least three months since we finished his filmography. I guess she just needed to hear some Hulot music.

For parents looking to expand their child’s visual diet beyond Frozen and Baby Shark, Tati is a pretty ideal option. There’s minimal dialogue, lots of silly sounds, little to no violence, and the overall vibe is good-natured and accepting. The pacing is also gradual which helps develop attention span and observation skills.

There are also some excellent Mr. Hulot children’s books by illustrator David Merveille that are entirely wordless and make for a great way to encourage your little ones to “read pictures” and pick up visual nuance.

If you or your kids aren’t quite feeling Tati, there’s always the holy trinity of Chaplin, Keaton, and Lloyd. For older kids there’s Pierre Etaix, Jerry Lewis, and the Inspector Clouseau films. I’ve sadly yet to see a Cantinflas film but people I respect indicate his movies would also fit the bill nicely.

What better way to expand your child’s cinematic world than through laughter? I think we could all use a good laugh right about now.

Biodiversity

2020-06-20T09:00:00.007-07:00

Movie lovers love to make lists. There’s a whole section for them on the popular film logging site Letterboxd. Users make lists of all kinds of films: favorite films, favorite Japanese films, films set in Los Angeles, etc. While such lists of course make for pleasant diversions, some lists can also help to shape the course of film culture.

When I first started getting into film in middle school, lists were a real guiding light. The American Film Institute’s 100 Years, 100 Movies and a list of Quentin Tarantino’s favorite films that I found in the back of a Tarantino biography were particular touchstones for me. As far-flung as my tastes are now, I feel like most of my present day favorites can be traced (Kevin Bacon style) to those two lists.

The two lists with arguably the biggest sway over film culture as a whole are Sight & Sound’s critics poll that is conducted every ten years, and the Internet Movie Database’s extremely populist top-250. While both lists are packed with numerous excellent films, the assumption that they are the Alpha and Omega in terms of Cinema is quite damaging for the evolution of the artform.

* * *

In the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder by police, lots of lists began circulating with suggestions of films to watch for a better understanding of the African-American experience. Only a scant few of these can be found on either the Sight & Sound or IMDb list. Equally abysmal is the representation of queer and female filmmakers on both lists. Is it any wonder that minority voices continue to struggle to get their stories told when they are widely excluded from the Canon of great films? How do we begin to address that problem?

When Social Distancing started to become more than just a good suggestion, I decided to start using social media to recommend films people could stream at home. But rather than regurgitating my 130 favorite films list from Letterboxd, I decided to deliberately assemble a diverse list that would hopefully expand people’s viewing horizons...and maybe even my own! And so, on March 12th I launched #CriterionQuarantine.

I chose The Criterion Channel because I figured that their selection would offer me a wider variety of marginalized voices than Netflix or Amazon Prime. Also, as a big Criterion fan, I hoped that maybe this would send some new subscribers their way. Once I settled on a venue, my other “rules” quickly fell into place.

In order to achieve gender parity, I decided to alternate daily between male and female identifying filmmakers. To further diversify the field, I chose to not repeat any directors because it would be cheating to just have a list of nothing but Agnès Varda and Alfred Hitchcock films. Lastly, I decided to recommend films that I had seen myself. As the days and months rolled by, some adaptation became necessary regarding that last rule.

While I’ve certainly seen more female directed films than many, they aren’t necessarily all available on The Criterion Channel. Around half-way through this journey I had to pivot to recommending female directed films that I had not seen. These selections were made by picking early films from directors I like and/or picking films that have been sitting for years on my to-see list.

When Criterion responded to our current moment by making many of their films from Black filmmakers free to stream on The Channel, I pivoted again by bumping a few well-established white, male directors in favor of films I had not seen from Charles Burnett, Horace B. Jenkins, Billy Woodberry, and William Greaves. Of the 31 films on the list that I had not seen when I started, I've now seen 6. My hope is to perhaps finish the other 25 by the end of the year.

* * *

In the end I was able to generate a list that featured an even number of male and female voices. I was also successful in making a list that was nearly 60% non-American. As for shortcomings, only 25% of the list are from non-white filmmakers and the number of queer voices barely moves the needle. So just like every list out there this one is extremely flawed. But if it got someone to watch something from a new-to-them voice, then it was at least a small success.

More than anything this whole experience makes me want to even further diversify my viewing habits. I know better what my blindspots are. Bollywood, Nollywood, and the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema are particular areas I want to focus on. It would be helpful if more of these films were available and with English subtitles, but that is a matter of access which I have little control over.

Perhaps if more people were to take a similarly inquisitive approach towards film viewing, the Sight & Sound and IMDb lists would look drastically different in their next incarnations. As a parent I think: Wouldn’t it be nice for the next generation to come of age with a radically diverse Canon? Regardless, something has to break the current, inbred stasis because a limited definition of “Cinema” leads only to extinction.

It’s Tricky To Say

2020-06-04T20:31:00.004-07:00

Lola really likes David Lynch’s latest animated short Fire (Pozar). Part of her morning routine is watching his weather reports on YouTube. When the short premiered I asked if she would be interested in checking it out. Her initial review was:

"That is great. I think that a great movie. When the ghost come out and spook us, I don't know if he a good guy or a bad guy. It's a little spooky."

She’s since seen it two more times. Today she finally got around to asking me what it’s about. The best I’ve been able to come up with was making a comparison to one of her catchphrases.

When Lola is struggling to express something, she usually says “it’s tricky to say”. Today I was able to explain that art is what people use when something is “tricky to say”. They dance it, make a song about it, make a movie about it, paint it. This made sense to her.

I’m hoping that this idea sticks. It took me way too long to understand this concept myself. It’ll really put her ahead of the curve both as a spectator and potentially as an artist.

Extra-Terrestrial Empathy

2020-05-30T20:37:00.003-07:00

As much as I love Steven Spielberg, I think he sort of peaked with E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial in 1982. He’s made many great films since (Catch Me If You Can, The Adventures of Tintin, and Munich are particular favorites) but as expertly crafted as those films are, they still follow very traditional narrative models. Compared to the rest of his career (except maybe Close Encounters of the Third Kind) E.T. is more akin to an experimental film.

Jurassic Park, for example, can be followed while you are checking e-mails on your phone. There are so many characters explaining everything. Explaining cloning, explaining dinosaur behavior, explaining chaos theory. There is no such explanation in E.T. To watch it while distracted is to miss a substantial portion of the narrative because this is a story being told through Cinema.

The connection between Elliott and E.T. is all about intuition. There is no Vulcan Mind Meld to explain their link. Though E.T. eventually learns to speak English, the foundation of their relationship is pre-verbal. So too is our relationship with the film and characters. That opening scene of E.T. being left behind is the movie teaching us how to watch it.

It conditions us to empathize with this little puppet just like Elliott will several minutes later. We observe and we intuit. Before long we have formed a bond with both E.T. and Elliott. This is that "empathy machine" Roger Ebert famously spoke of, working at full speed. And the meta element is not lost on the filmmakers.

During the famous dissection scene where Elliott forms a bond with the frogs, E.T. is pointedly forming a bond with a television screen. E.T. becomes a medium, channeling the images and emotions of John Ford’s The Quiet Man to Elliott while Steven Spielberg and writer Melissa Mathison are channeling their emotions to the audience. It's masterful. And then there’s that final act!

Here everything is working in perfect concert with everything else. The photography, the editing, the performances, and of course John Williams’ gorgeous score are all amplifying each other. By this point in the narrative, even the distracted adults and crass teenagers have been returned to the emotionally naked state of childhood where you are incapable of hiding anything from anyone. The same goes for the audience. Not only is this film an empathy machine, it is also a time machine.

Watch it with your little one(s) and enjoy spending some time as peers.

The Thrill Of It!

2020-05-22T14:36:00.001-07:00

image by TheDrifterWithin

I can’t exactly remember the first R-rated film I ever saw. It was either Tombstone or Cliffhanger. Both were released in 1993 but were watched on home video with family. This means that both viewings likely occurred around the time I turned eleven in 1994. I remember the red blood on white snow in Cliffhanger, and Tombstone started a Doc Holiday obsession that resulted in a report on him for school.

I very clearly know that my first R-rated film in a theater was when my aunt took me to see Bad Boys on Easter Sunday when I was twelve. While she could clearly see the R on the newspaper ad, I was somehow (through sheer rhetoric) able to convince her that it was actually PG-13. Now a mother to an almost twelve-year-old herself, my aunt will still occasionally apologize to my parents for this fact.

Of course there were also occasional sleepover movies in the homes of more lax parents. This is how I first saw Natural Born Killers. My friend Tim was a war movie nut and the fact that it was from the director of Platoon meant it had to be great! Sleepovers also introduced me to stuff like From Dusk Till Dawn and the first three Kevin Smith films. My first David Lynch film was Lost Highway because it had a Marilyn Manson cameo and we heard it also had nudity. But my intake of forbidden films really kicked into high gear at the end of eighth grade when we moved to Seal Beach.

Back in Garden Grove we had lived walking distance from a Blockbuster, but the inventory was pretty vanilla and the clerks would never even think of putting their jobs on the line by renting to an underage kid. Adam at The Wherehouse in Seal Beach had no problem with this.

Suddenly, all the movies I’d seen covering the walls of skate shops were mine for the taking. Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, A Clockwork Orange, Goodfellas, and Taxi Driver were naturally some of the first to be crossed off the list. Also that first summer, my friend Graham (who now works in makeup effects) took it upon himself to get me over my fear of horror films via a week by week intake of the Evil Dead series.

By the fall of my freshman year I was walking 2.5 miles each way to watch stuff at the local AMC which had recently gone from 6 to 12 screens, and the new ones were stadium style! I’d seen movies like Cool Runnings there over the years, but the start of my serious relationship with the Marina Pacifica 12 was seeing Woody Allen’s Celebrity just after my fifteenth birthday in late 1998. This meant I was primed and ready for the fabled year of 1999.

Aside from The Matrix which I saw at the Irvine Spectrum for my friend Danny’s birthday, pretty much all the major 1999 milestone movies were at The Marina Pacifica. It’s where I saw a midnight showing of The Phantom Menace with my whole family. It’s also where I saw Eyes Wide Shut on opening day. It’s where I saw Fight Club the night before taking the PSAT and where I saw American Beauty immediately after taking the PSAT. Interestingly enough, the only film I ever got kicked out of there was Dogma on my sixteenth birthday. Thankfully a friend’s dad agreed to speed down to the theater and chaperone our viewing.

As for the truly arty stuff there was the much closer to home, single-screen Bay Theater which showed a combination of rep and indie/foreign. Here is where I got to see stuff like Run Lola Run. It’s also where my sister and I watched The Godfather with a priest friend and where I saw All About My Mother with my Mexican grandparents because it was in Spanish. By the time I got a DVD player for my seventeenth birthday I had a pretty good baseline for what my taste would be going forward. And also it was now all above board and acceptable. I was of age. There was no longer any danger.

As I think about my daughter and her future with film, I think of all the films that I cannot wait to experience with her. None of those films are ones that I have mentioned in this piece. What made those films special was the danger. The thrill of watching something parents and ratings boards said I shouldn’t be watching. Even the few that were seen with adults still had a nervous charge of “this shouldn’t be happening”. I don’t want to deprive Lola of any of that. Some things should still be allowed to be illicit.

And if she happens to find a copy of The People Under The Stairs on our shelf some night while mommy and daddy are out, so be it...

Kidding Around With Coppola

2020-05-14T16:53:00.005-07:00

I want to be Francis Ford Coppola when I grow up. And I’m not talking about 70’s Francis when the world was his for the taking. While I’m sure it’s nice to be able to have meals flown from San Francisco to the Philippines where you are shooting Apocalypse Now with all the resources of Ferdinand Marcos’ military at your disposal, but that’s not for me. I want to be the Francis Ford Coppola I worked for when I was sixteen.

Bet you didn’t know that Coppola directed a musical adaptation of Gidget, did you? Well he did! And it starred real high schoolers. The crew was entirely high schoolers as well. The only adults were the department heads and actor Dermot Mulroney who played The Big Kahuna.

Every now and again I have to Google it myself to be sure it really happened. I really met Catherine Keener, Sofia Coppola, and Spike Jonze when they visited rehearsals. Francis really gave the crew his credit card to go buy Rubio’s for ourselves. We really did have a wrap party on a boat where Reel Big Fish played.

And I got to have all of these experiences because the guy who directed some of the greatest films of all time decided he’d like to spend his summer chasing whimsy and making pretend with a bunch of kids. And it’s not like this was the only time he did something like this. Just a few years ago he got together with a bunch of UCLA students to attempt “Live Cinema”. He even wrote a book about that experience!

Will “Live Cinema” ever become a thing? Will Gidget ever end up on Broadway? The answer to both questions is “Not likely”, but the odds of someone involved with either of those projects going on to make something amazing is actually quite high. It was Francis after all who predicted that the next great revolution in Cinema will come from some hypothetical little girl playing around with their dad’s camera. Bless him for leaving that camera out where kids can grab it.

A Taste For Cinema

2020-05-06T18:58:00.001-07:00

Since becoming a parent, I’ve been very interested in the idea of visual literacy. Simultaneous with your child’s verbal development, they have also been learning how to interpret visual information. They can tell when you are happy or sad based on facial expressions, tone of voice, posture, etc. They are very good at picking up on nuance. And just as you take great care in developing their verbal skills by helping them learn the alphabet and reading to them, it is also important to continue developing that visual literacy.

Another way to think of it is developing your child’s visual palate. Think of how much care you put into making sure they are getting all the right nutrients in their meals. Think of the ways you have maybe tried to sneak vegetables into macaroni and cheese so that they develop a taste for broccoli. These early years are also ideal for introducing them to a wide array of interesting and nutritive cinematic flavors.

What follows are a few ideas that I’ve found to be successful for our daughter, Lola, as well as some that I hope to try with her as she continues to develop her visual vocabulary and palate. Of course, just because something works for one child doesn’t mean it will work for another child. Take what you find useful and toss aside the rest!

Visual Storytelling

“I’m not always good with words. Some people are poets and have a beautiful way of saying things with words. But cinema is its own language. And with it you can say so many things, because you’ve got time and sequences. You’ve got dialogue. You’ve got music. You’ve got sound effects. You have so many tools. And you can express a feeling and a thought that can’t be conveyed any other way. It’s a magical medium.”

- David Lynch

Many undergraduate film programs require incoming freshmen to take a class in Visual Storytelling. In these classes students learn the rudiments of film grammar (wide shot, close-up, reaction shots, etc.) and how to use them to convey a story without dialogue. The hope is that it will breed filmmakers who are not reliant on having everything explained away with a monologue or voiceover. The visuals will tell the story as well, or in some cases, on their own entirely. This is what is commonly known as “Pure Cinema”. Certain genres lend themselves more towards “Pure Cinema” than others. I’m going to list a few of them below and suggest how you can best incorporate them into your child’s visual diet.

Silent Films

If you’re looking for films that tell stories without dialogue, what better place to start than before films were able to audibly speak? The easiest entry point to these types of films is through silent comedians like Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Harold Lloyd. Laughter is the spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down. Intertitles can also become a resource for promoting reading.

If you find your child somewhat resistant, you can always shift gears to semi-silent filmmakers like Jacques Tati, Pierre Etaix, and early Jerry Lewis. There is some dialogue in these films, but they are primarily built around long, protracted comic set-pieces where one gag leads into another and dialogue is incidental. The fact that Tati and Etaix are French is also a perfect segue into our next topic...

Foreign Films

Even seasoned cinephiles can bristle at the thought of having to read subtitles when they’re not in the mood, so it’s understandable that kiddos might also be resistant to “reading a movie.” But if you pick the right ones they’ll be begging for more. After introducing Lola to Tati through his film Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday, Lola was clamoring for more movies starring the “silly man” and has now plowed her way through his whole filmography. Beyond comedies, action films and musicals are also excellent gateways into world cinema.

Musicals

What kid doesn’t love singing and dancing? Add to this the fact that many of these films are also bathed in glorious Technicolor and the deal is sealed. Sure, many of these films are also epically long and feature intermissions, but that’s what DVD chapter stops are for! We introduced Lola to musicals via YouTube clips from films like Singin’ in the Rain and Sweet Charity.

A benefit to this method of using clips is that you can also show them bits of films that are outside of their age range. Lola won’t be watching Cabaret for quite a while, but she LOVES the “Money” number and knows it well. I also used YouTube clips to introduce her to Bollywood films. As a result, the song “O Mere Sona Re Sona” from Teesri Manzil is one of her all-time favorites.

Eventually they will build up the endurance to watch the entirety of West Side Story while standing, transfixed.

Action Films

Like musicals, action films are also composed of long, kinetic set-pieces that can either be shown on their own or within the context of a larger narrative. Unlike (most) musicals, action films are filled with violence so it is up to you to determine what you want your child watching. Clearly you don’t throw them into Mad Max: Fury Road, but perhaps you can start with the masterful dogfight sequences in any of the Star Wars films? Or if even that is too much for your little one, who doesn’t love a great chase? Look no further than Buster Keaton’s The General!

As you may or may not be aware, Lola is a HUGE Godzilla fan. I started out showing her dubbed films, but when we ran out I was able to switch to subtitled ones and she didn’t really care. If she was unclear about anything all she had to do was ask daddy. And about that question asking...

Intuition

“People sometimes say they have trouble understanding a film, but I think they understand much more than they realize. Because we’ve all been blessed with intuition — we really have the gift of intuiting things."

"Someone might say, I don’t understand music, but most people experience music emotionally and would agree that music is an abstraction. You don’t need to put music into words right away — you just listen.”

- David Lynch

Another thing you learn about early on in film school is the Kuleshov Effect. Named after Soviet filmmaker Lev Kuleshov, this “effect” was the result of an experiment where the same neutral shot of an actor’s face was juxtaposed with different POV shots and followed by the same neutral face afterwards. When the neutral face was followed by a bowl of soup, audiences inferred that in the final shot he was hungry. When the face was followed by a shot of a child in a coffin, audiences inferred that he was sad. When followed by a comely woman...you get the idea. The same shot yielded drastically different reactions based on context.

By showing your child films with little to no dialogue you are allowing them to construct the story themselves. You are allowing them to take the pieces that they are given and assemble them into something on their own. There isn’t some narration telling them what they are supposed to take away from what they have seen. They may ask you questions about what is happening, but the best response is to ask them back, “What do you think happened?” Nine times out of ten they picked up on what the filmmaker intended. And that one time out of ten response is a fine answer as well.

When it’s over, be sure to talk about the film with them. What parts did they like? What parts didn’t they like? How much of the plot do they remember? Let them tell it.

Pacing

“Ozu’s camera is always at the level of a person seated in traditional fashion on the tatami, about three feet above the ground...The camera, except in the rarest of instances, never moves; in the later films there are no pans, no dollies, no zooms. Ozu’s only filmic punctuation mark is the cut, and it is not the fast cut for impact or the juxtaposing cut for metaphorical meaning, but the pacing cut which denotes a steady, rhythmic succession of events.”

- Paul Schrader

As everyone is so fond of saying: The world is getting faster. This is especially true in film and television. So many cuts. Cut, cut, cut, cut, cut. On one level it’s cool to find out how fast our brains are. That we can pick up information that quickly. But if that’s all you’re taking in, you might find it difficult to just sit down and think for a moment. Exponentially so for a child.

Early on, we found that a great way to re-center Lola was to turn on an episode of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. Fred Rogers' insistence on a consistent visual style was a masterstroke. The lenses, the camera movement, and the cutting are all so deliberate. It’s all meant to slow you down and bring you to his desired pace. Even the opening theme song which opens with a loud flurry of notes leads into these lyrics that gradually wind down and end with a normal speaking voice. It’s quite hypnotic. Almost meditative.

I included the quote about Ozu at the start of this section because I find great affinity between these two artists. They are both masters of “slow cinema” who are content to do things at their own pace. I’ve yet to show Lola any Ozu films because they are a bit more dialogue heavy than a Godzilla picture, but when I do, I think she will like them. I also plan on stacking the deck by starting with the film Good Morning because it is in color, centers on children, and features fart jokes.

Experimentation

The last area I’d like to touch on is that of the experimental or avant-garde film. I don’t have anything too profound to say about this subject beyond this: show your children experimental films! It’s important that they learn that cinema can also be abstract. Some that I’ve recommended in the past are Stan Brakhage’s Stellar, Manoel de Oliveira’s 1 Seculo de Energia, and the promotional film Kenneth Anger made for the fashion house Missoni. All of these can be found on YouTube. As was mentioned in the “Intuition” section, discussion is crucial. Get them talking and keep them talking.

But most of all — keep things fun. You never want this to feel like homework. If they aren’t relating to or responding to something, move on. If, months or years later on you think they might be more receptive to a certain film or idea, circle back to it. We all go at our own pace. Hopefully this piece has given you plenty to consider as you and your child(ren) dive deeper into the world of cinema.