CHINATOWN

CHINATOWN
Written by Robert Towne
Directed by Roman Polanski
Starring Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway and John Huston

Man with knife: You know what happens to nosy fellows? Huh? No? You wanna guess? Huh? No? OK. They lose their noses.
(Man with knife cuts Gittes' nose.)
Man with knife: Next time you lose the whole thing. Cut it off and feed it to my goldfish.

The last line in Roman Polanski’s CHINATOWN is perhaps one of its greatest ironies. “Forget about it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.” These words are said to Jack Nicholson’s private investigator, J.J. Gittes, just moment after his entire world comes crashing down upon him and just moments before the camera pulls up to reveal one of the most infamous closing shots in film history. The irony, of course, is CHINATOWN is completely unforgettable.

The 1974 classic, which takes place in 1937, holds up incredibly well. Polanski places the viewer at the center of the investigation, which results in an addictive need to know where every bewildering turn is going to lead. And with Nicholson’s Gittes in every single scene in the film, we as an audience are given the opportunity to watch the case he is working on unfold in real time and piece together the evidence ourselves as well. And what a case it is! Robert Towne’s Oscar winning original screenplay (the only Oscar the film won out of it’s 11 nominations) is dense, engaging and constantly shocking. While Gittes is trying desperately to stay on top of a murder case that may or may not directly involve the woman who hired him in the first place (Faye Dunaway in her prime), the city of Los Angeles is in the process of figuratively raping its farmers in pursuit of redefining its borders. It is all somehow connected and its your job to figure it all out. It might take two viewings.

The brand new blu-ray release contains some recycled extras that shed more light on the controversial Los Angeles backdrop, as well as provide some pretty candid insight into the production itself, with archived interviews from Polanski, Nicholson and Towne. New to the set is a commentary between Towne and huge fan, David Fincher. CHINATOWN is simply a must for every film fan’s collection.

CARNAGE

CARNAGE 
Written by Yasmina Reza and Roman Polanski
Directed by Roman Polanski
Starring Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz and John C. Reilly

Penelope Longstreet: Why can’t things be easier? Why does everything have to be so exhausting?

There are some plays that seem as though they could never be adapted for the screen and Yasmina Reza’s “God of Carnage” is certainly one of them. Although I have not myself seen it on stage, I can imagine its physical scope is quite limited as all the action takes place in one apartment over the course of a few hours. On stage, this can be riveting, as long as the conversation itself is sharp and insightful and as long as those partaking in said conversation give brilliant performances. On film, one location with the same four characters can be a static stand still. Fortunately for Reza, all involved in the film adaptation of her play, now called CARNAGE, are precisely the right people to keep things moving.

At the CARNAGE helm is infamous director, Roman Polanski, a man who has seen his own fair share of carnage in his life. Reza herself collaborated with Polanski on the screenplay so the fundamentals are firmly intact. Essentially, two couples meet to discuss an altercation that took place between their boys in a playground that resulted in one of the boys losing teeth. Things naturally don’t go as well as anyone had hoped. And who does Polanski amass to captivate us with their wit and humour? Four brilliant actors of course as the entire acting community seem to clamor to work with him. Jodie Foster and John C. Reilly play parents to the boy who lost his teeth while Kate Winslet and Christoph Waltz play parents to the boy who was armed with the stick - sorry, who was carrying the stick - that knocked out the teeth. I don’t know about you but I can think of way worse people to be stuck in a room with for ninety minutes.

These two couples, as portrayed by this amazingly talented and dynamic cast, start out as sensible, civilized adults who are doing what they all think is right according to societal standards given the situation at hand. After all, what matters most is the well being of their children and ensuring that they come out of this as positively as possible. It’s the fact that the children are involved though that makes their exercise so futile to begin with. Their children were in a fight and hurt each other. The natural impulse for these parents would be to protect their children no matter what. And so it is not at all surprising to watch as their facades slowly but surely fade away to reveal not only their anger over the current situation but also the deep seeded disgust that has been festering in all of them for as long as they’ve had to hold it in. And given how polite our Western society can be at times, I’d say they’ve been holding back for a very long time.

Polanski does everything he must in order to keep a picture that almost never leaves the living room feel like it is in constant motion. Much of that comes from the rapid unravelling of the characters themselves. Their descent is delicious making CARNAGE a truly stimulating experience. Still, I imagine that if these four people exhibited just as much passion on stage, the immediacy of it would make their madness that much more meaningful.

430. Carnage

430. (10 Oct) Carnage (2011, Roman Polanski)* 62



Having seen the deliciously fun Broadway production, it's immediately clear that Carnage would have worked better as a television movie than as a motion picture directed by somebody like Polanski. He's so stage-bound by the script he helped adapt. While he tries ever so slightly to open it up, it's very challenging to make something so confined work on this scale.

Polanski gets a particular lot of help from Christoph Waltz, who is positively delightful here. Kate Winslet also gives a fairly impressive turn once she starts getting sloshed late in the picture. Jodie Foster is predictably annoying and John C. Reilly is miscast.

The joy of the script remains. It's hard not to be amused by the scenario that plays out, but this is hardly great filmmaking. They could have done just as well to film the stage production and play it on PBS.

Top Ranked Films of Roman Polanski

Roman Polanski was born in France in 1933 of Polish parents. Even though he only had 5 films make the top 1000, he still is ranked 17th in overall points, as he had four films in the top 200. He's probably better known for his personal life, which is a shame, he's still a top director in the pantheon of cinema.

These are all the films of Polanski’s films that made the top 1000 in our 2011 update

Roman Polanski's a god of "Carnage"

Below, we have the trailer for the highly-anticipated and Venice Film Festival opener Carnage.  Based of a ridiculously successful stage play, Roman Polanski's adaptation stars a trio of Oscar-winners and one lone nominee.  Waltz and Winslet in particular look marvelous, with Waltz perfectly capturing the attitude I always imaged when reading the play.  It's still a mystery how this will play in this year's forthcoming Oscar race, but it sure is looking strong.  (Please mind it's enormity, overrunning the posting space).



And the poster, for good measure.

[trailer and poster via Twitch] 

Yearly Perspective – 2002 – Best Director Edition

I've been doing an intensive Yearly Perspective of 2002 lately.  And by “intensive,” I mean intensive.  Usually when I try and do these, it takes a few months, since getting together unseen movies is more challenging than not.  But when you run across an easy year like 2002, you don’t have to do much work. 

Scorsese on set of Gangs of New York

In a rare occurrence, only 12 films are represented in the 20 acting categories (Chicago, About Schmidt, The Hours, Adaptation., Road to Perdition, Catch Me If You Can, Unfaithful, Frida, Far From Heaven, The Quiet American, Gangs of New York, and The Pianist).  Two other films with no acting nominations were up for Best Picture (Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers) and Best Director (Talk to Her).  Add to that three other films nominated for their scripts alone in the Original and Adapted Screenplay categories (About a Boy, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and Y Tu Mama Tambien).  As far as the major categories go, that’s a mere 17 films filling up a total of 40 nomination slots.  Without throwing more statistics in your face, that amount of overlap is very rare.  This even carries over into the tech categories, which repeat the aforementioned titles often, with peppering of Spider-Man, 8 Mile, and Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones thrown in there for good measure.  With such a small pool of films to get a hold of, doing a Yearly Perspective is not out of the question.

Almodóvar winning Original
Screenplay for Talk to Her

Much has been written of 2002’s Best Actor race, which featured an un-nominated nobody besting four previous winners in a shocker which resulted in one of the most memorable Oscar moments this decade.  One would assume that such a category would be the strongest or most stacked race of the year, but in this humble film watcher’s opinion, the Best Director race reigned supreme.  It had a legend, a fugitive, and three openly gay men.  Look at the nominees: winner Roman Polanski for The Pianist, Rob Marshall for Chicago, Martin Scorsese for Gangs of New York, Pedro Almodóvar for Talk to Her, and Stephen Daldry for The Hours.  Add to that highly impressive slate of nominees the un-nominated-yet-still-brilliant work of Peter Jackson on Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Spike Jonze for Adaptation, Adrian Lyne for Unfaithful, Julie Taymor for Frida, and Sam Raimi for Spider-Man and you’ll be hard-pressed to compile a list of just five yourself.  At least I know I am.  Add into the mix directorial achievements I myself am not so fond of, but others enjoy: Todd Haynes on Far From Heaven, Alexander Payne for About Schmidt, Christopher Nolan for Insomnia, Paul Thomas Anderson for Punch-Drunk-Love, Sam Mendes for Road to Perdition, and Steven Spielberg for Catch Me If You Can.  Coming up with five yet that you love most?  I didn’t think so.

Lord of the Rings doesn't "count as one!"

For what it’s worth, it is very, very hard to argue with the Academy’s choices.  What Polanski did with a dried and overwrought genre was miraculous, and with his personal, emotional injection of verisimilitude you felt like a refugee alongside Brody; it was epic in scope, yet small in its careful and calculated vision.  Marshall, quite simply, reinvented the movie musical, setting a standard in the enlivened genre that he himself couldn’t even live up to; his strong, creative point-of-view took the movie musical out of the land of suspended disbelief and made it realistic.  Scorsese, with his legendary attention to detail, aptly adapts his typical gangster style to the brute thuggary of Civil War era New York City.  Daldry masters a trio of women and one standout Ed Harris to tell a story that’s spans decades and beautifully mixes poetry and self-discovery.  Finally, the Lone Director Almodóvar (lone director: a nominated helmer whose film isn’t up for Best Picture, a term now likely dead due to the Best Picture 10).  In no small part thanks to his brilliant screenplay, Almodóvar guides the viewers through a tale of love, obsession, and friendship, with stylized excellence; continuously boarders on creepy, beautiful, haunting, and charming.  Hard to argue with them, huh?

Polanksi even make Chipotle looks exciting

However, I’d only nominate two of them.  It’s that dandy of a year.  Okay, let’s keep Polanski and Marshall, sorry Marty, Steve, and Pedro.  For starters, how Peter Jackson wasn’t recognized for his masterful work on The Two Towers is beyond me.  His direction in the trilogy is never stronger than it is here, where he manages to make trees throwing rocks seems as exciting as Orc decapitation; it’s his balance of backstory, battle, and psychological discovery that makes a three hour epic seem like a breeze.  Spike Jonze made a Charlie Kaufman story work, which by and large is nomination-worthy in general, but with his assemblage of three performances giving some of their career-best work and balancing the irony with the action in Kaufman’s script, it’s hard not to applaud Jonze.  Finally—and in an unconventional choice, truth be told—I have Adrian Lyne for his subtle, yet oftentimes heavy-handed, work on Unfaithful.  Whatever happened in Lyne’s life that made him so apt at tales of infidelity (director of Fatal Attraction) must hold a strong place in his consciousness.  What he does with Unfaithful is nothing short of marvelous; going from steamy stairwell sex to murder to tight family drama with precision and focus is what makes the film work.  Hard to cut it off there.

Stephen Daldry on set

So who’s the best?  Well Roman Polanski won the Oscar.  Deservingly so.  However, not my personal choice.  For a while, it was Jackson if only because The Two Tower is my favorite of the trilogy.  But really, I think Marshall handedly has the finest direction of 2002.  Yes, some of the perspective of the film (it’s all in her mind!) should be credited to screenwriter Bill Condon, Marshall is the man who made it come alive and function as a film.  Each frame is so carefully orchestrated; each performance is just over-the-top enough to fit into a musical and without being campy.  His touch is ever-present all over the film: the sexiness, the style of musicality, and most importantly the overall architecture and look of Chicago.  Not to mention, he choreographed the whole kitten caboodle too, a feat which deserves an Oscar if only for the 10 minutes of “Cell Block Tango.”

So there you have it.  My Yearly Perspective on the 2002 Best Director race with comments on the real nominees and my personal selections.  If all goes according to plan, one of the acting categories should be next.

BEST DIRECTOR

***Rob Marshell, Chicago***

Peter Jackson, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

Roman Polanski, The Painist

Spike Jonze, Adaptation.

Adrian Lyne, Unfaithful

.

Knife in the Water (1962)

****
Country: Poland
Director: Roman Polanski

In 1961 Roman Polanski made the last of his nine short films, a 10-minute long silent called Mammals. In the film two men in a snowy wilderness compete to see who will ride on, and who will pull, the sled carrying their belongings. Mammals—a slyly ambiguous black comedy that can be interpreted alternatively as a Marxist satire on capitalist exploitation of workers or as an observation that the exploitative impulse is an innate human characteristic which can never be completely subdued—is reduced to its essential elements: two men, one sled, and vast expanses of snow. Knife in the Water, Polanksi's first full-length feature made the next year, is again reduced to essentials: two men and a woman, one sailboat, and vast expanses of water. Again the movie is about competitive conflict between its characters.

The film begins with a thirtyish man and woman driving down a country road bickering. So involved in their argument are the couple that they nearly run over a young hitchhiker who in desperation has resorted to standing in the middle of the road to get someone to stop. The driver's rage at the hitchhiker's brazenness soon turns to apparent friendliness when he invites the hitchhiker to accompany him and his wife on an overnight excursion on a nearby lake in their sailboat. No sooner are they on the boat than Andrzej, the older man, begins ordering the boy around, telling him, "If two men are on board, one's the skipper." "Or the drill sergeant," retorts the boy, who quickly catches on that Andrzej is playing mind games with him but decides to go along for the ride anyway. What follows is an hour and a half of sometimes civil, sometimes hostile antagonism between the two as each tries to outwit and dominate the other—an extended male pissing contest on a sailboat.

There are many areas of conflict between the two. Andrzej is a writer who has enjoyed some material success, as his ownership of a car and boat in 1962 communist Poland attests. The younger man is an impoverished student who criticizes the older man's preoccupation with success and acquisition. The writer's life is one of middle-aged regimentation; he has planned exactly one day and night on the lake before returning to town. The student's life is one of youthful spontaneity; he has simply taken off for the weekend on an unplanned adventure. Most contentious of all is the presence of the wife, Krystyna. Has her husband invited the student to come sailing with them in an exhibitionistic desire for an audience to their rather theatrical bickering, à la Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Has Krystyna gone along with his impulsive gesture because she sees the young man's obvious sexual interest in her as a possible weapon to use against her husband?

Polanski keeps the psychodrama pumping steadily throughout the entire movie, the compact plot constantly taking unexpected turns and frequently veering into dark humor. But equally fascinating is the film's visual virtuosity. From the moment it opens—with the couple photographed through the windshield of the car, the passing trees reflected in the windshield and superimposed on them as they argue—we are aware that this is going to be a film whose images alone will hold our attention. I can't say with certainty that this is the first time this kind of shot was ever used, although it is the earliest example I can think of, but I do know that I've seen it duplicated in countless later movies and even television programs. With much of the first half of the film taking place on the deck of the sailboat, and much of the second half in the even more confined setting below deck, Polanski continually devises imaginative ways to show the spatially limited action, often posing his actors in tableau-like compositions but keeping the film moving with rapid cutting between shots. The film is also filled with less functional compositions of breathtaking abstract beauty. In Knife in the Water Polanski achieves the kind of artful integration of narrative and image that only the most masterful filmmakers are capable of.

One of the film's most striking compositions—a secular icon?

Few film directors have begun their careers as auspiciously as the 29-year old Polanski with Knife in the Water, creating a masterpiece their first time out—Orson Welles, John Huston, Satyajit Ray, and François Truffaut immediately come to mind. Even given Polanski's impressive later career, Knife in the Water is still one of his best movies and one of the key European art films of the 1960s. (The movie received an Oscar nomination as best foreign language film of 1963 but lost to Fellini's 8½.) Visually fascinating and emotionally lacerating, it is the product of a brilliant young filmmaker on the verge of an illustrious career.