Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life (2010) Directed by Joann Sfar

Nick:
The musical icon biography rears its head once again. In this case, Serge Gainsbourg, one would hope a movie about his life could open his wonderful music up to a wider audience. That's not to say that Serge's music is obscure, it's just that most people know he's responsible for J'taime Moi Non Plus and  recognize little else of his work. Amongst the keener music enthusiast Gainsbourg's reputation as an artist of serious note has increased over the years. By the time of his death Gainsbourg had reached national hero status amongst the adoring French. Gainsbourg's passionate rebellion and casual sexism endeared him to a public who initially viewed him as a grotesque. This in itself is quite astonishing when discussing a popular writer of song, whom over a period of time, radically experimented with his sound and his idea of the conventional song. There was also the incessant smoking and then of course, there's the women.

Sfar, basing his biopic on his own graphic novel, uses some touches of surrealism throughout the movie. This mostly comes in the form of a huge puppet version of Gainsbourg (resembling The Count from Sesame Street) whom the real Gainsbourg (brilliantly portrayed by Eric Elmosnino) often converses with throughout the picture. One of the problems with Gainsbourg is the willful artiness associated with this technique, which Sfar persists on using. The first half of Gainsbourg pretty much whizzes by in a very entertaining fashion that shows Serge the artist finding his confidence as a boy in Nazi occupied France, before he gives up on painting. Choosing to peruse a career in the less credible pop world, Gainsbourg shows us how Serge, through reputation as an extraordinary writer of song, in essence becomes a 'babe magnet'. Juliette Greco, France Gall and Bridget Bardot all come into the Gainsbourg orbit. Then, he meets Jane Birkin, played by the late Lucy Gordon in her final role.

                                    Nothing in Sfar's film looks or sounds as good as this

It's at this point that I wanted more from Gainsbourg. From the late 1960's onwards Gainsbourg's music became more interesting, a fact which Sfar loses perspective of and pretty much ignores by focussing on the personal life, albiet in a fleeting manner. This isn't helped by Gainsbourg's music being reinterpreted in the movie by actors - often flatly compared to the originals. One has to ask why? Could this be the last time this happens? I cant imagine say, Kirk Douglas re-painting Van Gogh's masterpieces in Lust For Life. Why does Sfar give the privilege with Gainsbourg's songs to Elmosnino here? It could be argued that Sfar glosses over the most interesting parts of Gainsbourg's life, whilst never quite portraying the obnoxious shit that Gainsbourg could be. Yet, despite all this, Gainsbourg has much to like about it. Mainly the performances are good, the look of the movie exquisite and the film has a certain swing which makes it entertaining. Still, Gainsbourg feels like an opportunity missed.

Astrid:
Serge Gainsbourg has been one of this household's demi-gods for years now. His holy position entails high expectations towards anything Serge related, even this movie. We could not go and see it in the cinema in Finland, because of the subtitle problem for the English speaking, so we had to wait until now.
I loved the first half of the movie. The description of Serge growing up and finding his talent was eloquently and freely made. The film employed puppetry to visualize an internal development. The movie dared to stretch the heavy demands often made on biopics to be faithful to a Reported Reality.

Unfortunately, the second half of the film dealt with the most iconic things known about Gainsbourg and as if chained by the well known names and events, the movie became stiffer and less imaginative as a result. The amazing women (Bardot and Birkin) and the descent into alcoholism and illness were presented more out of duty rather than out of inspiration. The actors playing these people were very beautiful and even managed to look a little like BB, Birkin and Serge in their day, but still, what was the point of even trying to recreate these iconic looks? Or what was the use of cramming a whole person's life story into one film, rather than making an artistically valid and whole piece of cinema?

Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life ended up suffering from many of the usual biopic problems. The thought of a real living person's life and death can become (and often do) a way too restricting approach to cinema. The question of what is Real being an impossible and boring one to answer anyhow. That is why I celebrate the first half's inventiveness and hope to see more of this in films about celebrated people in the future. Also, if I want to look at the iconic images of Serge and Jane, I can refer to the documentaries and image sources, a film should never try to compete with those because it cannot.

Pierrot le Fou (1965) Directed by Jean-Luc Godard

Astrid:
As I have stated before in this blog, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Anna Karina and Jean-Luc Godard have an almost holy place in my cinematic heart. To see and experience life as Pierrot Le Fou is to really live – or so I have thought. That's been the innocent child-like view of mine. Cynically speaking, Godard's films from this period offer a vast visual resource pool for any young blogger wanting to tap into effortless cool. His films also offer an air of intellectualism, name dropping and they mix fairytale with essaying about art. This complexity is second nature to Godard. Who cares if anyone can follow a plot from beginning to end in some coherent linear way, at least you can congratulate yourself for recognizing at least ten names of film makers, philosophers and poets mentioned in any given Godard movie...

The reason why none of the snobbism gets to me in Pierrot Le Fou is Anna Karina with Jean-Paul Belmondo. Their acting looks like the most fun kind of playing, spontaneous and unexpected. Not only do they look amazing in their clothes and without their clothes, they have a sense of humor about themselves. Nothing is too serious. Not even this movie. This time around I didn't really care much for the plot of this film. I was bothering to try and understand what motivated the two characters, but did not come up with anything rewarding in the end. In my mind I had also mixed up a couple of other Godard films with this one and created my own story thus looking for scenes in Pierrot Le Fou that never take place.

A suspicion smoulders in my mind that maybe Godard is somewhat resentful towards his always stunning leading ladies. He seems to portray these women as cunning, deceitful, confusing, mysterious and deathly. It is always the women who drive the men to trouble bigger than they can cope with. And it is the women who stop loving the men first. Godard's attitude to women as dubious femme fatales is something I've never thought of before and now that I have started, this idea disturbs me a little.
Ultimately, I would like to remain a woman who can watch Pierrot Le Fou without too much analyzing, just for its visual impact and occasional emotional reward too.

Nick:
In the annals of looking cool with a cigarette dangling from between your lips, there have been many wannabe champions of the art. In popular song, David Bowie, Bryan Ferry and Serge Gainsbourg have all tried to master this pose. Humphrey Bogart & Elliott Gould as a certain dick called Marlowe have improved the pose compared to their rockstar counterparts. Many others have tried this look, but the undisputed king is Jean-Paul Belmondo. Just watching the fat Gauloises hang from those luscious lips is enough to make you wanna strike one up. Yummy. Sexual. It's a shame I dont do that anymore.

Godard understands the power of "Chercher La Femme" and in Pierrot le Fou he realizes that Belmondo's love for Marianne Renoir (Anna Karina) like his own love for Karina is doomed. It's all over Pierrot le Fou and in the subsequent movies he directed Karina in. He's telling us you can dream about someone like that but you'll never have someone like that. Belmondo as Ferdinand, Pierrot or himself is as cool as screen males ever have been or ever will be. But he's no match for Karina. Pierrot le Fou has more ideas in it than most of popular culture combined and then some. It's still radical, sexy and pretentious. But as it gets older, Pierrot le Fou starts to resemble something even more classic in cinema. The look is spectacular in an oddly conventional way. The use of color and the cut-up soundtrack somehow recall a vintage quality.

If I were to compare this to an album I'd say it's a White Light/ White Heat or a Before Hollywood. Does that enlighten you much? A Scott 4 or New York Tendaberry perhaps? Can I make this easier for you? In these postmodern times I can suggest A River Ain't Too Much To Love or Wu-Tang Forever? Pierrot le Fou is not like these albums at all in any way. The film just leaves me with the same feeling, that's all. I'm just trying to say you should see this if you have not. Life's too short and Pierrot le Fou is one of its pleasures.

Greenberg (2010) Directed by Noah Baumbach

Nick:
I was in a band once that was signed to a major record label (actually, it's something that has happened to me a couple of times in my life). On this occasion it ended in tears when the promise of something better from the label led to compromise on my part against the wishes of my band members. I lost my band (I left) directly as a consequence of said compromise (the recording of two songs). I learnt many things from this experience. Trust your band members. I'm still not sure they were right, or that I agreed with their view on the songs. Compromise and the possibility of something immaterial are no substitute for the binds that tie. Friendships were damaged (I'd like to think not permanently) and a few years' work was wasted. This was the only way possible for me to relate the character Ben Stiller plays in Greenberg.

As the Greenberg of the title, Stiller gives a note perfect performance as a former musician turned carpenter, suffering from depression in a shallow-peopled LA. Self-absorbed, narcissistic, vain, humorless and selfish Greenberg has gone through life thinking his own way is the only way. Away from his native NewYork and house sitting for his brother in LA, Greenberg tries to re-connect with his former friends (an excellent Rhys Ifans and Jennifer Jason Leigh). In doing so he reluctantly falls for his brother's personal assistant, the equally lost, low on self-esteem Florence (Greta Gerwig).

After a whole stream of very uncomfortable scenes, Greenberg finally offers us some redemption in the promise of love fulfilled. Baumbach handles Greenberg with an uneasy mix of comedy, seriousness and then ultimately embarrassment. A sharp, dryly witty script helps, as does James Murphy's unobtrusive soundtrack. But Stiller dominates. An awkward yet enjoyable romp.

Astrid:
I think I need to watch this film again in about six months, because I know I missed some things this time around that I would usually really appreciate. As I was watching Greenberg I was sitting on a birthing ball (a normal gym ball actually) trying quite desperately to get comfortable and failing all the time. This personal difficulty made me not focus perfectly and it added a touch too much un-comfortability to an already uncomfortable film.

The film's sense of discomfort was of course intentional and well-established. Ben Stiller's character Roger Greenberg was returning to LA from a period of hospitalization due to serious depression. He landed somewhere between what he knew of his old life and what he was about do discover. He seemed to be suffering from a catharsis of sorts – a change was taking place. A kind of mirror image of himself was reflected on the young assistant Florence (played by Greta Gerwig), who was equally lost in life, but much younger and a woman. This film played with a very genuine feeling of awkwardness all the way through, its events and shifts in characters and plot were subtle and therefore believable. Something kept me at a distance though, which might be my own fault, I know.

There was a great scene between Roger and his good friend Ivan (Rhys Ifans) where they finally told each other how they felt and had been effected by the end of their band together about a decade earlier. I have never seen a scene in a movie getting so deep into how meaningful it can be for a person to have a band (even an unsuccessful and unknown one). Those relationships are immense and what happens between the people and to the dreams the members have is crucial in life. Bands are life. There, that was a nice acknowledgement from a film.

Quien Sabe? (1966) Directed by Damiano Damiani

Astrid:
It's nice to get presents that reflect the receiver and their state of being. It says plenty of good things about the giver, like that she is in tune with the person getting the gift. I gave Nick a box of rare Spaghetti Westerns for Christmas, because he always cries watching them... and because he asked for the box. OK, sometimes it's annoying how exactly he knows what he would like for a present. He doesn't go for the element of surprise, yet, he always thinks he knows what I want without asking me!

Anyway, I extended my niceness to include sitting through one of the films. Nick chose Quien Sabe? because it was supposedly less violent than the others in the box. The movie, like most of this genre I've seen, looked very good. It was a pleasure to watch just for the detail in costumes and the camera work. The story itself was pretty simple and offered no surprises or really deep thoughts or even great lines. Gian Maria Volonte played the leading Mexican outlaw whom Lou Castel's character came down to exploit in order to kill the leader of the revolution. A kind of loving relationship forms quickly between these two characters – the savage and the noble man – sort of a classic from Italian gay porn.

When Nick watches these films, he is right at home. He even looks a little like the characters onscreen when I gaze at his direction during an extra violent scene. He morphs into the action and his emotions are illustrated by the Morricone (was it really?) soundtrack. That's how much he is a Spaghetti-Western-kind-of-guy. Despite some effort, I'll never be a true fan of this genre. I have developed a respect for some aspects and enough knowledge to contextualize the genre in cinema history, but I have not found the pleasure of submission here.

Nick:
It's always galling when having to tell someone what you would like for a gift. I always come across as some adolescent with Tourette's.  I was hoping for Judge Dredd Complete Case Files no.12, the first volume of the Mega City law enforcer's complete 2000AD adventures in full color. I was also interested in revisiting the Mad Max series in one handy box set. Atlas Sound's latest album on vinyl was a wish. I also had the Cult Spaghetti Westerns DVD box set on my list. Three gems from the genre (Quien Sabe?, Keoma, Django) I remember viewing many years ago when they first aired on BBC 2's  Moviedrome series, introduced by British film Director (and Spaghetti Western nut) Alex Cox. Well, I'm guessing you already realized what I unwrapped.

Quien Sabe? (known in English as A Bullet For the General) is a certain strain of Spaghetti Western from the mid 1960's which has a definite political bent. A few other pictures have delved into this area in the Western genre, Sam Peckinpah with The Wild Bunch and Sergio Leone with Duck, You Sucker! I think both are far superior to Quien Sabe? in that they have more depth, are better acted and have sharper, less cliched scripts. Still, Quien Sabe? came first and has a visceral energy that the other two pictures never match. Although Leone's influence looms large over Quien Sabe? especially as regards the look, and the sound (the music was supervised by Ennio Morricone). The influence is no more apparent than the casting of the amazing Gian Maria Volonté. Volonté cut his spurs on the first two parts of the Leone Dollars trilogy.

Volonté plays Chucho, a mercenary whose main purpose is to steal arms and sell them to the leader of the Mexican Revolution. On the way his gang (including Klaus Kinski as his overtly religious brother El Santo) recruit American Bill Tate (whom the gang refer to as Nino). Unbeknown to Chucho and his gang is Tate's intention, as paid for by the Mexican government, to assassinate the leader of the  revolutionaries. In some ways, Quien Sabe? is a rite of passage tale of how Chucho becomes a revolutionary and rejects the lure of the capitalist dollar. Along the way, director Damiani displays a serious style in framing, costume and set pieces. Quien Sabe? is one cool looking movie. That it raises political and personal ideals along the way and has such style while doing so, I can only recommend Quien Sabe? Then again, I'm a soft touch when it comes to this kind of movie.

Blue Valentine (2010) Directed by Derek Cianfrance

Nick:
It's been an especially strange start to the New Year. We didn't celebrate as normal. We mainly hung around the house waiting for our baby to be born. We're still waiting, so in some ways the baby's arrival has overshadowed getting on with normal life. I made no New Year's resolutions, paid little heed to what was happening elsewhere, rarely went out. We've just been living in our little cocoon. I'm still stuck in the cocoon and in 2011. Reading the previous year's best or worst of whatever can keep you grounded in the year you're leaving. Retrospection can effect one's own sense of time and space. I got lost in it this year.

That withdrawn world can become overbearing for some people, it can obscure rational thought. To some degree Dean and Cindy, the main characters of Blue Valentine have created an isolationist environment that leaves little space for growth, in their respective relationship or outside lives. Possessive attention and the old ways just aren't doing it for Cindy anymore. Dean, whose days are increasingly spent with a bottle, can't see the distance his drinking creates. In some ways Blue Valentine's characters could be a modern update of the Richard Yates way of loving. However, in cinematic terms, Blue Valentine is a far better picture than the Yates-based Revolutionary Road, although both pictures share similar themes if not period.

Told in flashback, the story of how Dean and Cindy fell in love with each other touched familiar nerves.
Director Cianfrance imbues Blue Valentine with a fine sense of atmosphere, which leaves one with an almost eerie feeling that something awful is going to happen. Yes, Blue Valentine is intense, but there is humor here too. Essentially, the film works as a romance due to the extra yard the actors go, the performances are great. Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling convince as the lovers here, there is a naturalness to their being which heightens the impact of the smallest details. This felt like a valediction, and in doing so Blue Valentine reveals some basic truths. This picture was close to perfect.


Astrid:
Very rarely nowadays do I come across a movie that speaks to me personally, a movie that comes into the living room from the screen and stays there even after the credits. Blue Valentine had such staying power and effect. I was a little afraid to watch it because for some reason I took it so personally from the first minutes onwards. For the first half an hour I was afraid someone will die and I didn't want to deal with that loss. No one died, but a relationship did. The descent from romance to gradual loss of connection was pictured very realistically – and this time I'm talking about an emotional reality, not a historical one.

Emotional honesty and rawness on this level is rare in movies. It's rare in books too. It's not easy to achieve a sense of the real experience between two people. Intimacy is difficult to picture. Somehow Blue Valentine managed to draw the viewer in by giving lots of detail and at the same time not trying to explain everything. Michelle Williams plays her part with the same fragility as she had in Brokeback Mountain. She might be my favorite actress of the moment. I have no passion for Ryan Gosling, but he is very believable as the romantic young lover and husband who battles with alcoholism among other things.

It continues to baffle me what romance means – what it means to me and what it means in general terms. Why are we still so obsessed with romance over a hundred years after Romanticism ended and Modernism and Post-modernism supposedly opened our eyes into seeing a reality?
I guess love itself is not possible without the acceptance of loss. Romance is somewhat married to this loss that looms in the shadows. Romance is made of all things romantic; falling madly in love, accepting the other one with their imperfections, rabbit sex, more sex, dramatic gestures, marriage vows, rings (that can be thrown in the bushes for emphasis in arguments), having kids, taking daring uncalculated leaps of faith... Romantic gestures may seem irrational and unnecessary when the result of surrendering oneself to love leads to inevitable loss, but I think it is precisely that awareness of loss that necessitates and justifies romance (and the silly gestures).

J. Edgar (2011) Directed by Clint Eastwood

Astrid:Surprisingly, the problem with going to cinema when you are nine months pregnant is not that you need to pee or that your back is aching too much, but that the 50-something couple next to you stinks of booze, sweat (the onion variation) and old-perfume-gone-bad. They also ate something smelly during the film that came from a noise making package and caused additional burping. I breathed through my mouth for nearly three hours and somehow managed to enjoy J. Edgar most of the time.

In many ways J. Edgar was a boring film with too much crammed in the nearly three hours. It was an attempt to really picture the life of a completely unsympathetic real historical person. The question remains, why do we have to keep thinking about this man? Why especially, do we need to try to understand him? There were other more interesting perspectives in the film though and they elevated the film to a high artistic level. First of all the movie looked refined and classic, Clint Eastwood's directing was reliable and his actors excellent. There was an easiness while at the same time the film oozed class rarely visible in cinema these days. So what if it was old-fashioned – cinema usually looks better that way.

Without making J. Edgar's sexual orientation the focus of the movie, the film's emotional core was the love relationship which Hoover (played by Leonardo Dicaprio) had for decades with his loyal assistant Clyde Tolson (played by Armie Hammer). Eastwood has become a master of making sentimental and touching films without over-playing the emotions. It's an admirable skill. Here the best scenes are the ones depicting how deep and real Edgar's love for Clyde was and what a personal tragedy it was for him that his relationship needed to remain secret and somewhat unrealized. For some reason the Finnish cinema audience often laughed when the gay references became explicit. I have no idea what was funny there. To the credit of the smelly lady next to me, at the end of the film she was in tears. Love is love and I'm glad that our loyal republican Clint E. is not afraid to make that statement one more time. Still, the poor closeted J. Edgar came up with a load of scary and hateful practices and there is very little reason to feel much for him in the end.  


Nick:
It was trying sitting through J. Edgar at the cinema. Not only is the film wordy and slow paced, being flanked either side by noisy middle-aged alcoholics was an endurance test that did undermine my enjoyment of the picture somewhat. I think the premise of Eastwood's latest picture and its inherent interest to anybody hangs on how fascinating you find the life of J. Edgar Hoover. The bad-boy of recent American history has a poor reputation and no real legacy. Could the liberal-republican Eastwood be the perfect director to tell his story? As with Howard Hughes (recently tackled by Martin Scorsese and also portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio), so much mythology surrounds Hoover, distinguishing fact from fiction will always be hard.

For the first two hours of J. Edgar,  Eastwood concentrates on Hoover's recollections of his rise to the head of the FBI. The movie is narrated in flashback, Hoover addresses various secret service agents in the 1960's. We hear of Hoover's fight against communism (his obsession), his involvement in the Lindbergh kidnapping in the 1930's, his fight against organized crime, his various meetings with the 8 US presidents he served under. We get the prescription drug addiction Hoover got in later life, the secret gay life and the mother (Judy Dench) who molded his insecurities and his obsessions. DiCaprio is again, amazing in an unflattering role. Naomi Watts on the other hand feels wasted as Hoover's loyal secretary Helen Gandy. Armie Hammer is exceptional as Hoover's right hand man in the FBI and life- long lover Clyde Tolson. Gradually, J. Edgar moves from being a picture about a man who collects secrets on others to a picture of a man who guards his own secrets and reputation.

And although it takes awhile, it's worth hanging around for the last half an hour when the picture moves up a gear. Eastwood's gift to Hoover is to humanize him enough so that we feel sympathy for him when his mother dies. Eastwood from then on brings an emotional heft to the picture when it becomes a gay romance, focusing increasingly on the secret relationship between Hoover and Tolson. In essence J. Edgar becomes a Federal Bureau version of Brokeback Mountain. And here lies the problem with J.Edgar. It's a credit to the picture that I felt that emotional thrust at the climax (ahem!), but J.Edgar would have benefited greatly from being a fully fledged love story and leaving Hoover's public (secret) history on the back burner. A good, engrossing movie, but not a great one.

Trust (1990) Directed by Hal Hartley

Astrid:
There are so many things that I have learned to love after being introduced to them by Nick, but if I had to name something specific Hal Hartley's films are one of these treasures. Every one I have seen so far has touched me and inspired me in the way that only best artistic efforts can – a good experience alters you a little every time. I also do not feel silly crediting Nick with the introduction of Hal Hartley in my life, because I doubt I would have ever discovered his films otherwise. At the moment Hartley's movies are not easy to find on DVD and his name when mentioned, does not often ring a bell with anyone. This is a wrong that should be righted soon.

Trust is a fantastic love story in which the concept of love is questioned. While the film is in many ways unromantic (the world is often cruel, people have no taste, people are tacky and violent) it manages to ponder on romance in a way rarely matched in contemporary art. Lost souls can find peace, wisdom and love, the mean lost souls can have their due punishment and then some sympathy, ugly and mundane things can exist in the nearness of fleeting beauty, stupidity and again – wisdom. A suburb can be inhabited by free people. Trust and admiration equal love.

Hal Hartley movies are a little like the music of Felt. For me Hartley was actually more immediate than Felt. It took me 10 years of force-feeding to become sophisticated enough to appreciate Felt, but the Hartley films I got the first time around. Now that I'm immersed in reading Freedom by Jonathan Franzen, I cannot help but hear a Hartley-esque synth heavy soundtrack playing during each chapter. Maybe one good day Trust will be as widely appreciated as Freedom has rapidly become.

Nick :
It's enough to tell you that I miss so much the cinema of Hal Hartley that my review of Trust will be informed by this. The last 'new' Hartley film I saw was Book Of Life from 1998, with Trust's Martin Donovan playing Jesus in modern day New York accompanied by Polly Harvey as his Magdalena. Since then, none of his movies have made it to Finland and even fewer to DVD. So I haven't been able to see any new Hartley movies for nearly 15 years (there have been three full length movies since 1998, with a fourth coming this year). Older pictures Simple Men and Amateur have seemingly been in some DVD living hell and unavailable. Can someone liberate these masterpieces? Why is Hartley's cinema so neglected?

Simple Men (1992)

So, Trust was my first experience of Hartley back in the day. The dialogue finds Hartley in some ways at his most aggressive and adolescent. The early starlet of Hartley movies, the late, great Adrienne Shelly plays Maria, a high school dropout who announces her pregnancy to her family and in so doing unintentionally kills her father. Her mum throws her out, her boyfriend drops her and she's finally found homeless by the notoriously dangerous yet educated loner Matthew (Donovan). Trust discusses the change both undergo in forming their unorthodox relationship. Maria grows up and Matthew compromises his hard worn principles so that they can accommodate each other.

Hartley's ultra-smart dialogue provides scene after scene of intensity and offbeat humor, enlightening us on the many intricacies that inform the characters in Trust. The film's visuals warm up as each year passes. In many ways, this is the perfect Hartley film to start with, his later cinema just develops and goes deeper into many of the themes discussed here. So, no real objectivity from me. I still love Trust, it bristles with brilliance even after all these years.