Narratives on Film

Hooray for the 2008 Oscars!

2008-02-25T17:58:00.011-06:00

This year's Oscars had good taste!

The winners and nominees very much reflected my personal choices, for the most part. No Country for Old Men won in all the right places. Daniel Day-Lewis and Javier Bardem were shoe-ins for top actor honors, and deservedly so. Diablo Cody won for original screenplay, which pleased me about equally as much if Tony Gilroy would've won for Michael Clayton (see below). I was even glad the $100K film, Once, won Best Song.

Happiest Surprise

Marion Cotillard winning Best Actress. I'm happily wiping egg from my face after her win completely contradicted my prediction a couple blog entries ago. She was incredibly good, demonstrating a range that, perhaps, even Cate Blanchette couldn't match. Not to mention Cotillard is drop-dead gorgeous and willingly went through the prosthetics necessary to look the role, particularly in old age (a BIG assist and well-deserved Oscar went to her costuming people).

Almost Happiest Surprise

Tilda Swinton's win for Best Supporting Actress. I thought Michael Clayton would probably be shut out, and, sorry to say, deservedly so. It consistently offerred the third- or fourth-best effort of the nominees, which is still to say it's the third- or fourth-best film of the year (not bad considering each year sees about 300 feature films released in America). But I figured Blanchette would win (this time for cross-dressing as Bob Dylan). Amy Ryan (Gone, Baby Gone) most deserved to win, though. I've lived in Boston, and her washed-out look and accent reminded me of many similar types the city has to offer. In fact, she was so convincing I was under the impression a non-actor had played role, until I was disabused of this notion several weeks after seeing the film (no, I've never seen an episode of TV's, "The Wire"). But Swinton's performance was the next-best thing.

MIA Comments

Only two oversights, among others, caused me distress. The lovely and amazing Marisa Tomei didn't receive a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her lovely and amazing, and not to mention visceral (Philip Seymour Hoffman, you sly dog, you), performance in Before the Devil Knows You're Dead. And a missing nomination for the There Will Be Blood score, written and led by Radiohead's Johnny Greenwood. If ever a score were reflective of a film...but then it was rather dissonant, wasn't it (those few of you who've seen the film)? But, you know, if I'm moping about something as meager as a Best Score slight, the Oscars did a fine job.

Okay, So Who Cares About the Difference Between Sound Editing and Sound Mixing?!?!

2008-02-24T13:49:00.001-06:00

I mean, why shouldn't these awards be combined into one?

The Oscars telecast is over three hours long and we're splitting hairs between the people who edit the sound and those who mix it? Let's combine the two awards into one. I mean, looking at the issue philosophically, Best Director really could be split into Best 1st-Assistant Director, Best 2nd-Assistant Director, and with some films, Best 3rd-Assistant Director. But there's only one Best Director award, and rightly so. It's like the Highlander theme: "There can be only one."

Can you imagine how long the telecast would be otherwise? Best Cinematography would have to be broken down, too. The people who cut negatives from the original film would want their say and so would the other people who cut the finished prints from the negatives. Soon, we'd be watching for another five hours as they hand out Oscars to the Fed Ex people with the quickest print delivery times.

Don't get me wrong. The sound editors and mixers all do excellent work. But, let's face it, there's a limited amount of time. The sound people do have guild ceremonies that distribute honors to distinguished work.

The Oscars can and should be no longer than two hours in length. I've plenty of other suggestions for cuts, but they can wait for another blog entry.

Why Marion Cotillard Should Win Best Actress, and Won't

2008-02-21T18:35:00.009-06:00

The most deserving of the five Best Actress Oscar nominees is Marion Cotillard, the brilliant actress whose performance puts the rose in the French film La Vie en Rose. She inhabits the life of legendary French singer, Edith Piaf, with such dexterity and verve that unwitting viewers might not notice that the 20-year-old Piaf and the frail 50-year-old version are played by the same actress.

This is doubly impressive when the film’s structure jumps backwards and forwards, haphazardly at times, to juxtapose scenes of Piaf as a young waif erupting into song on street corners for bread money with the internationally acclaimed star crushed by deprived love and relentless ambition being spoon fed by a staffperson at a nursing home. Cotillard sings, and doesn't lip synch, Piaf’s songs. She masters her throaty accent and conveys subtle changes of mood beneath layers of prosthetic glaze (with, of course, a good assist from skilled make-up artists). Her performance is powerful yet emotionally pliable.

One scene near film’s end evidences her vast range by sending her from near ecstasy to anger and then a soul-draining sadness in the course of a minute or two. Her lover, Marcel, awakens her from slumber with breakfast in bed and the surprise prompts her to spring with girlish strides out of the bedroom to find a present she’d meant to give him.

Her movements become erratic and jerky as she hurries from room to room and can’t locate the present. She accuses the hired help of losing, and even hiding, it until an awareness they’re actually hiding a dark fact about Marcel gradually slows her to a standstill. The scene’s dialogue is largely irrelevant. Cotillard’s energy and fluidity communicate what’s really happening at this pivotal moment of the film and Piaf’s life.

Unfortunately the dialogue does matter. It’s in French. And for this reason, above all others, Cotillard will not take home an Oscar on Sunday evening. Only one actress has won Best Actress while speaking dialogue not written in English, Sophia Loren for the 1960 Italian film, Two Women.

As brilliant as Cotillard is in La Vie en Rose, neither she nor Edith Piaf command the goddess-like persona of a Sophia Loren, goddess-ness being possibly the only way to persuade Academy voters to overcome their biases against foreign languages.

Cotillard has the additional disadvantage of vying against far more experienced or youthful contenders. Julie Christy, the Welsh beauty of Dr. Zhivago, is certainly the sentimental, if not odds on, favorite for her role in Away from Her. In her favor are decades of stardom experience, familiarity from Baby Boomers and younger generations alike, and her representation of a cause, in her portrayal of an Alzheimer’s-afflicted wife. Her performance was remarkable, and Oscar loves actors who take on the challenge of roles marked by disease or other ailments, such as depressed Nicole Kidman as Virginia Woolf in The Hours or gender-challenged Hillary Swank in Boys Don’t Cry. Yet Christie doesn’t have much screen time and, as challenging as the role was, it didn’t have the breadth or the difficulty of Cotillard’s.

The other favorite is Ellen Page for Juno. Page just turned 21 today and plays a 16-year-old pregnant high school student. Juno is a lighter, albeit irreverent, film. Its comedy plays weighs more easily than the heaviness of La Vie en Rose or most of the other contenders in this and other Oscar categories. Page balances her character’s sassy tongue with enough warmth to endear her even to mainstream audiences. Juno earned a bigger box office at $117 million than the films in any other of the major categories with the exception of American Gangster ($130 million), which features Best Supporting Actress nominee, Ruby Dee. If the Oscar doesn’t go to Christie, it will almost certainly go to Page.

Not that Christie and Page aren’t very deserving nominees. They are. But Cotillard’s role was of a much higher difficulty and her performance surmounted every challenge. Had the dialogue of La Vie en Rose been in English, Cotillard would’ve been as much of a favorite as Helen Mirren was last year for portraying Queen Elizabeth in The Queen. Instead, Cotillard will depart the Kodak Theater on Sunday as just another also ran whose deserving performance will likely drift into obscurity over the next decade, much like that of Brazilian actress, Fernanda Montenegro, in Central Station 10 years ago or, more recently, Penelope Cruz in Volver just last year.

Welcome! Let's Start with the Oscars and 2007's Top Films

2008-02-01T05:56:00.000-06:00

Kicking off a blog can be a lonely experience. There aren't any readers, yet, because the blog's new. You feel like you're writing to yourself (the adage about unheard trees falling in forests making no sound might as well apply to unread blogs in cyberspace being invisible).

So, I decided to recruit a photo of me having a good time in one of loudest places in the world (both aurally and visually), Times Square, with a few of my national fellowship buddies to keep me company. I'm the one on the far right with his arms folded and pretending it's not cold--it was about 55 when we took this picture a year ago last October and the wind was howling. But, damn, if we don't look like we're having fun!

From the title you probably surmised this blog will be an ongoing narrative about film, and you're right. But it's also about any, of what I term, "narratives," whether they be films, novels, short stories, essays, TV programs, stage productions, or any other media forms communicated through the telling of stories. "Narratives on Narratives" sounds a bit redundant to be catchy. I chose "film" instead because my favorite narrative form is films.

And, in fact, I do a lot of film writing, reviewing, features, and reporting for KFAI Radio (90.3 FM, Minneapolis and 106.7 FM, St. Paul) and elsewhere, some of which you can access on my film and creative writing website, http://www.paulrevered.com/ (yes, I'm encouraging you to visit) and the now dormant weekly tabloid pub, Pulse of the Twin Cities.

The 80th Annual Academy Awards

My topic for the day, other than kicking off the blog, is the Oscars and how surprised I am by the nominations for 2007 (broadcast later this month). In most years, I disagree mightily with a number of choices (and never more so than with the multiple Oscar noms and Best Picture win by the overwrought, "Crash," in 2005) and not so mightily with about a third of the others.

But this year, I have no mighty grievances and much fewer minor ones (okay, I love Hal Holbrook, but how did he land a nomination for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for only a few scenes of screen time in "Into the Wild"? Ditto Rubie Dee in "American Gangster"?). In fact, all five Best Picture nominees were quality films. Four of the five appear in my 2007 top-ten list and the other, "Atonement," was a good-enough, if not great, film.

I'm excited to see the Oscar broadcast and the winners, so long as the WGA and Hollywood can work out a temporary or permanent agreement to allow the broadcast to air in full form. I might actually be able to cheer this year.

Later blogs will have more on the Oscars and last year's top films and performances. But feel free to read a list of my top 10 films of 2007 (below) and/or the KFAI feature that accompanies it.

Top 10 List
1. No Country for Old Men
2. There Will Be Blood
3. Michael Clayton
4. Into the Wild
5. Before the Devil Knows Your Dead
6. Juno
7. Ratatouille
8. Lust, Caution
9. American Gangster
10. Zodiac