Sarebbe facile essere nostalgici e parlare degli estra il mio gruppo preferito in assoluto tra gli italiani, se la sono giocata solo con i csi, ma sarebbe anche fare un torto all'attività recente di giulio. Con coraggio e pazienza, invece di fare come tanti altri alternativi negli anni 90-giullari di corte nei duemila, ha proseguito sulla strada non facile e rigorosa del tetro civile e della poesia. Un tentativo insomma di essere artista in una società in cui si è impossibilitati ad essere artisti. Per motivi mai ben chiariti Giulio, estra e post, ha sempre frequentato poco Roma. Quindi il mio personale augurio è che l'Ambra sia strapieno il 6 novembre.

"Having your book turned into a movie is like seeing your oxen turned into bouillon cubes" -- John LeCarre

Movies rarely compare favorably to the books from which they are adapted and almost never surpass them. Still, film adaptations of books can be fantastic if handled by the right director--take Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón for example, whose brilliant films Children of Men and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (adaptations of books by P.D James and J.K. Rowling, respectively) convey richly imagined, engrossing worlds. Cuarón's films join a small stable of adaptations that live up to--if not surpass--the books on which they are based. Most great film adaptations turn good genre fiction into great art. However, great literature doesn't usually fare so well. Geniuses like Kubrick and Coppla have reconfigured airport reading like Stephen King's The Shining and Mario Puzo's The Godfather into cinematic masterpieces, but has anyone ever done justice to Melville or Hemingway or Hawthorne or Fitzgerald (of the four attempts at translating Gatsby to the screen, the 1974 Coppola-produced effort is arguably the best, but consider how short it falls of capturing Fitzgerald's vision)? Which brings up the question: just how good, bad, or indifferent will the upcoming movie adaptation of Cormac McCarhy's Pulitzer Prize winner The Road be? We thought we'd navigate the pros and cons here.

What The Road film adaptation has going for it:

The director: Australian director John Hillcoat's 2005 feature film debut The Proposition captured the bloody violence and moral ambiguity of a world alienated from civilization. We loved the movie, and not enough people have seen it. The tone Hillcoat achieved in The Proposition seems well matched to McCarthy's grim vision.

The producer: Nick Wechsler's list of films includes Sex, Lies, and Videotape, The Player, Requiem for a Dream, 25th Hour, and Drugstore Cowboy--so it seems like he knows how to sit back and let a filmmaker create art without trying to, you know, have a massive Hollywood hit.

The leading man: Viggo Mortensen as the father seems like a great choice. Mortensen brought depth to the role he's most famous for--Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings trilogy--something of a feat when you consider most of his screen time was devoted to scowling, brooding, or chopping up orcs. He was fantastic in the films he did with David Cronenberg, A History of Violence and Eastern Promises (his bathhouse fight scene is unbelievable). Mortensen's a published author who started his own publishing house, Perceval Press, so he probably understands the literary gravity of The Road.

The story: Anyone who's read The Road knows that it's a sad and moving and strangely beautiful take on one of the most hackneyed devices of science fiction: the post-apocalyptic wasteland.

No Country for Old Men: The Coen brothers did a great job with No Country for Old Men.

Potential problem spots for The Road film adaptation:

The cast: We don't know much about twelve year old Kodi Smit-McPhee who plays the son, but we do know that that is a major role. Let's hope Kodi is more Jodie, less Jake Lloyd or (shiver) Dakota Fanning. However, Viggo's had pretty positive things to say about him. Ringers Robert Duvall and Guy Pearce are also in there, but there aren't too many other speaking parts in the book besides the father and the son, so it's hard to predict what they'll be doing--hopefully Hillcoat hasn't fiddled with the story too much. Charlize Theron is also in the movie. The wife character showed up in a few dreamy flashbacks, but was more of a shadow than a fleshed out character; again, hopefully Hillcoat hasn't chosen to expand the role to appease a wider demographic.

The story: Some of the best moments of The Road consist of the father's inner monologues on memory and loss and very few directors can pull off a voice-over successfully (Terrence Malick is the only one who comes to mind right now). Of course, this problem of language is always the problem of movie adaptation.

All the Pretty Horses: Billy Bob Thornton's leaden 2000 adaptation of the first of McCarthy's "border trilogy" is pretty boring. I'll admit that I've never finished the book, despite three attempts.

No Country for Old Men: Even though the Coens did a great job with No Country for Old Men, the book was still better than the movie--and No Country is, in some ways, McCarthy's take on a genre novel, the crime procedural. In this sense, the Coens made a smart move, but they still couldn't convey the depth and meaning of the book--again, much of it delivered via Sheriff Ed Tom Bell's inner monologues. Although The Road may appear to have genre fiction elements--namely, the tropes of post-apocalyptic sci-fi--to describe it as such would be a severe limitation, as would be to film it in such a manner.

The advance stills: Sure, they're grim and bleak, but are they grim and bleak enough?

Also, why the stylized cart? If you've read the novel, you know what I mean--the cart needs to be a grocery store cart, homeless style! Hang on--

--that's better! (NB: images link to a gallery of advance images)

Does it seem worth seeing in the theater?

Yes. We'll be carrying the fire on or around November 26th (and just in time for Thanksgiving!)

Appaloosa (2008)
114 minutes
Directed by Ed Harris
Starring:  Ed Harris, Viggo Mortensen, Renee Zellweger, Jeremy Irons

Grade:  A-

With the Westerns of last year (3:10 to Yuma, Jesse James, and No Country for Old Men), Appaloosa continues the strong comeback for the genre.  Based on the Robert B. Parker book, Ed Harris co-writes, directs, and stars as the marshal, Virgil Cole, in this easy going, trigger happy film.  Virgil goes on his business alongside life-long partner, deputy Everett Hitch (Mortensen).  They are the law makers and the law enforcers of Appaloosa, a small town in 1882 troubled by a band of outlaws led by Randall Bragg (Irons).  

Virgil and Everett are rarely seen without each other side by side, and also rarely seen without a drink, their guns, and the preparation to put their life on the line to hold up the law.  This is until the likes of a girl come into play.  Her name is Allison French (Zellweger) and she immediately tickles Virgil's fancy.  Her presence creates some friction between the marshal and deputy, but when asked Virgil makes it clear that he trusts Everett more than Allie.

The movie concentrates on the bond between Virgil and Everett that is put to the test when Allie arrives and when Bragg escapes his hanging sentence.  It's a well-paced Western that will not disappoint anyone familiar with the genre.  Its blend of hard-hitting action with love between long-time friends and women is a bit foreign, but there's no doubt that Virgil and Everett are as bad-ass as any cowboys come.

Harris is able to tell the story almost straightforward without any complexity that the more hardcore Western fans would like.  But the way this movie flows should be embraced by a larger audience and will be a major play in the comeback of the Western genre.  Although this isn't a great Western, it's a great and enjoyable film and proves Ed Harris can certainly make films as well as he can act.

Wem das Duo Pitt/Clooney mittlerweile gehörig auf den Keks geht, der muss sich nicht alleine fühlen. Als ob die festgefahrene Image-Maschinerie eines jeden einzelnen nicht schon ausreichen würde, macht das gemeinsame Auftreten alles nur noch schlimmer. Wie sehr ihnen selber das bestens funktionierende Gutmenschentum mit Junggesellenkoketterie, perfekt sitzenden Anzügen und immerwährender Schlagfertigkeit auf der einen (Clooney), bzw. solidem Familienleben und lustigen Hüten auf der anderen Seite (Pitt) den letzten Nerv rauben mag, kann man nur vermuten – anzusehen ist es ihnen jedenfalls nicht. Dass die leicht kalkulierbaren Abziehbilder, die sie beim Flanieren über den roten Teppich, bei gemeinsamen Pressekonferenzen in entspannter Atmosphäre oder klassisch inszenierten Photoshootings für Hochglanzmagazine abgeben, längst die Grenze zur Selbstparodie überschritten haben, lässt sich jedenfalls kaum übersehen. Warum also nicht die Not zur Tugend machen, und die Schraube noch ein Stück weiter anziehen? - So mögen die Coen-Brüder gedacht und sich dabei vorgestellt haben, wie eine Folge der „Ocean`s“-Reihe wohl aussähe, wenn Steven Soderbergh das Ruder an sie weiterreichen würde. Da so etwas aber nur eine hypothetische Überlegung bleiben kann, und niemand so irre wäre, eine derartig sichere (und unsprengbare) Bank einfach aus der Hand zu geben (schon gar nicht, wenn ihm ein schwerlich verwertbarer Revolutionsführer im Nacken sitzt), musste also eine eigene Variante her. Und die wäre doch eigentlich noch viel lustiger (werden sich die Brüder mit dem Faible für ambitionierte Kleingeister gedacht haben), wenn die beiden Headliner gar nichts miteinander zu tun hätten und der zugrundeliegende Plan, mit illegalen Tricks ans große Geld zu kommen, nicht von raffinierten Spezialisten sondern von ziemlich einfältigen Seiteneinsteigern quasi per Zufall ausgeheckt würde. An die Stelle des gehörnten Casinobesitzers würde vielleicht ein unbedeutender und gerade geschasster CIA-Analyst mit Alkoholproblemen treten (zum Beispiel in Gestalt des kahlgeschorenen John Malkovich), und die großen Bosse, tja, die kriegen zwar als einzige alle Fakten zusammen, blicken aber am wenigsten von allen durch. Was würden die Entscheider eines Hollywood-Studios wohl mit einem solchen Skript anfangen? Vermutlich nach dem Lesen verbrennen. Gut also, dass es von den Coens stammt, denn die haben derzeit ja bekanntlich Narrenfreiheit.

Nun macht sich das Filmemacherduett schon immer gerne einen Spaß daraus, genau dasjenige nicht abzuliefern, was im Allgemeinen gerade von ihm erwartet wird. Wer also nach dem schwer verdaulichen Vorgänger auf ähnlich illusionsloses Weltuntergangskino aus war, hat das Prinzip der Coens noch nicht begriffen. Als Brüder bedienen sie eben zwei Seiten derselben Medaille und schrauben ihr filmisches Schaffen von Output zu Output mit unbeirrbarer Lust am dialektischen Treiben voran. Glaubt man ihren Aussagen, so haben sie ihre letzten beiden Filme mehr oder weniger zeitgleich geschrieben. Umso größer, könnte man meinen, sind die inhaltlichen Parallelen – wäre da nicht ohnehin der ganze Kanon der Coen-Motive versammelt: Die Gier dürftiger Charaktere nach schnellem Geld. Der absurd-banale Zufall, der die Dinge zueinander führt. Die fatale, tödlich endende Verwechslung und die gründliche Fehlinterpretation von Bedeutungsträgern. Die grenzenlose Selbstüberschätzung einzelner Figuren (hier herrlich polternd überhöht in Carter Burwells schlagwerklastiger Partitur). Der obsessive Einsatz von Fetisch-Werkzeugen, mit denen sich die unzureichenden eigenen Möglichkeiten erweitern lassen (unglaublich, was für einen Gegenentwurf zum berüchtigten Bolzenschussgerät aus „No Country for Old Men“ sich Clooneys Figur hier im Keller heimlich selber zusammenschraubt). Und natürlich die historisch und lokal bedingte Prädisposition der handelnden Personen, von denen jede immer nur einen Teil der Zusammenhänge überschaut. In diesem Fall ist es die allgemeine Paranoia nach 9/11, die in den einzelnen Figuren ihre vielgestaltigen Spuren hinterlassen hat. Dass Clooneys Charakter etwa, ehemals Personenschützer, jetzt sexbesessener Verwaltungsbeamter im Finanzministerium mit dem bezeichnenden Namen Harry Pfarrer (gleich drei Pointen auf einmal), unter ganz handfestem Verfolgungswahn leidet, ist nur die offensichtlichste Variante.

Alles fängt damit an, dass der cholerische Staatsdiener Osbourne Cox (den alle nur „Ozzie“ oder eben „Cocks“ nennen), von heute auf morgen Frührentner geworden (gekündigt? Gekündigt worden?), in völliger Unterschätzung seiner eigenen Bedeutungslosigkeit, aber auch aus purer Langeweile damit beginnt, seine Memoiren aufzuschreiben – ein Vorhaben, das seine Frau, die kälteste Kinderärztin des Planeten, mit einem undefinierten Laut kommentiert, der in komprimierter Form mehr tiefempfundene Verachtung für den verhassten (und mit dem windigen Harry Pfarrer betrogenen) Ehemann beinhaltet als alle Dialoge von „Who´s afraid of Virginia Woolf“ zusammen (und deshalb auch von Tilda Swinton ausgestoßen wird). Am anderen Ende der sozialen Nahrungskette schlägt sich zur gleichen Zeit Fitnesstrainerin Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand - auch alle anderen Figuren haben seltsame Namen) mit ihrer Betriebskrankenkasse herum, die – und das ist nun wirklich eine Sauerei - einfach nicht bereit ist, Lindas geplante vier Schönheitsoperationen (die winzigen Babykrähenfüße nicht mitgerechnet) zu übernehmen. Was für ein glücklicher Zufall also, dass das Schicksal eine CD-Kopie von Ozzies Memoiren in die Hände von Lindas Kollegen Chad fallen lässt (für Brad Pitt die größte Idiotenrolle seit „Kalifornia“ und zugleich eine ideale Gelegenheit, daran zu erinnern, dass er ja auch lustig sein kann). Sofort vermuten die beiden das große Geld, das sich mit den vermeintlich brisanten Daten erpressen lässt – entweder von Ozzie oder den Russen (denn die sind ja nun schließlich die wichtigsten Gegenspieler des CIA). Dass beide kein Interesse haben und sich Chad schnell eine blutige Nase holt (auch wörtlich), macht die Sache nicht gerade einfacher. Und ganz nebenbei lässt der Zufall Linda und Harry, beides versierte Internetdater, auch noch zusammen im Bett landen, während der CIA sie bereits ins Visier genommen hat. Kompliziert genug? Gut.

Das Bemerkenswerteste an diesem absurden Panoptikum typischer Coen-Charaktere ist die Tatsache, dass sich trotz des geringen Identifikationsgrades der einzelnen Figuren schnell echte Vorfreude auf ihre nächste Szene einstellt – so dankbar ist man für die skurrilen Pointen, die sie mit garantierter Sicherheit bei sich tragen. Dass die meisten dabei gefährlich nah am Rande des Wahnsinns operieren, macht die Sache nur noch vielversprechender. Im Fall von Malkovich etwa dauert es nicht lange, bis einem klar wird, dass seine Figur irgendwann gänzlich die Kontrolle verlieren wird. Dabei ist Ozzie Cox innerlich bereits völlig tot, und wenn er in sich hineinlauscht, um die ersten Sätze seiner Memoiren zu formulieren, ist man sich für einen Moment nicht wirklich sicher, ob er überhaupt noch lebt. Dass von diesem Mann keine brisanten Enthüllungen zu erwarten sind, steht außer Frage, und was er dann schließlich mit langen Pausen in sein Diktaphon hineinspricht, ist so unfassbar banal und leer, dass man fast schon wieder mehr hören will. Wie er dann allerdings langsam aufdreht, als ihn Chad und Linda mit ihrem Erpressungsversuch nachts aus dem Bett klingeln, ist in seiner Gründlichkeit so sensationell komisch, dass der Film danach selber nicht mehr unter Kontrolle zu bringen ist.

Während Cox seine Unzulänglichkeiten noch mit ungezügelter Aggression kompensieren kann, fällt es den anderen männlichen Figuren weniger leicht, nach außen ein angemessenes Rollenverhalten aufrecht zu erhalten. Clooneys ehemaliger Personenschützer zum Beispiel kann noch nicht einmal mit einer Waffe umgehen. Nach außen unwiderstehlicher Womanizer mit ständig wechselnden Bettbekanntschaften, versagt er genau dann, wenn es darum geht, Nägel mit Köpfen zu machen. Als Ozzies Frau von ihm in aller Selbstverständlichkeit abverlangt, sich scheiden zu lassen, setzt er alles daran, sich mit ärmlich-erbärmlichen Ausreden zu drücken. Und als er später gänzlich den Überblick verliert, wimmert er seiner Frau, der erfolgreichen Kinderbuchautorin, hinterher wie ein kleiner Junge, der von seiner Mutter im Zeltlager abgeholt werden will. Nicht ganz so jämmerlich, aber doch nicht weniger männlich: Fitnesstrainer Chad. Als er entschlossen zum Telefonhörer greift, um Ozzie zu zeigen, wer das Sagen hat, ist noch nicht zu ahnen, wie klein mit Hut (Brad Pitt eben) er schon wenig später sein wird und ganz schnell zurückrudert. In beiden Fällen sind es Frauen, die das Heft in die Hand nehmen und die Männer kontrollieren. Dazu müssen sie entweder eiskalt sein (Katie Cox, Ozzies Frau), misstrauisch (Sandy Pfarrer, Harrys Frau) oder einfach nur entschlossen (Linda) – besondere Klugheit brauchen sie jedenfalls nicht.

Doch dieser hysterisch-komische Kosmos wäre nicht aus der Feder der Coens, gäbe es nicht auch eine tragische Komponente, die im Nachhinein so manches relativiert. Hier ist es Ted, der heimlich in Linda verliebte Chef des Fitnessclubs (traurig und hilflos in Gestalt des wunderbaren Richard Jenkins), ein Mann mit gutem Herz und ebenso guten Absichten - und gerade deshalb das einzige echte Opfer dieser wirren Geschichte um Geld, Gier und Neurosen. Umso mehr ist er eine naive Variante des desillusionierten Sheriffs Bell, der von besseren Zeiten träumt und sich selber als Relikt begreifen muss. Nun aber heißt es erst mal wieder abwarten, welchen Gegenentwurf die Coens als nächstes bieten, um damit ganz sicher wieder einen gehörigen Haken zu schlagen.

Artikel © 2008 Thomas Lenz. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.
Filmplakat: TOBIS Film GmbH & Co. KG

The Road by Cormac McCarthy was published in 2006, and won the much coveted Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2007. This is a difficult review to write because this is one serious and profound book, and yet I am compelled to find something shallow and humorous to say in what is a completely humorless book.

I was recently browsing the list of Pulitzer prize books to find something that would stimulate my inner literary genius, when I cam across The Road. 'Man and son traveling cross country in a Post-apocalyptic world'. Sounded fascinating and exciting and so we set out to 1/2 Price Books to immediately get started on what was sure to be an adventurous story. Afterall, Cormac also authored No Country For Old Men, All The Pretty Horses, and Blood Meridian which all became or are becoming motion pictures, as well as a slew of other popular books that I have never read.

Before I even cracked the book open, images of Kevin Costner in Waterworld and The Postman were already swirling in my head. These were awful movies, of course,but entertaining just the same and I was certain that The Road would be the God Father of all Apocalyptic stories. I was salivating to start reading and as soon as I read the very first page ...'Oh My God' I thought to myself. I quickly thumbed through the rest of the book...'NO, OH NO NO NO NO!' There were no chapters, there were no quote marks...just page after page of what appeared to be small lyrical paragraphs that were going to be just like the first page. I panicked, and asked my wife to listen as I read the first page aloud to her. "Did any of that make sense to you?" I asked her. Of course it didn't, and my worst fear was becoming evident. I was about to embark on a journey of some 270 plus pages of nonsensical poetry. UGH!

I resisted the strong urge to put the book down, and pressed on determined to finish the book whether it made sense to me or not. I'm truly glad that I did, because I really enjoyed the book and managed to finish it in just a couple of days. For me, the book was very profound, yet very simple, and deeply moving. How is that, you ask? Well, it just was and it is hard to describe.

The two main characters are known simply as the Man and the Boy. There are no names, and the region itself is relatively anonymous other than it is in the US. Some kind of undescribed catastrophic event has taken place in the past ten years, and the world is now a desolate gray place, unable to sustain life of any kind. There are very few survivors left, and in the midst of all the nothingness, it is quite evident that Good and Evil have both managed to survive and Evil seems to be running up the score.

There is no sun, no moon, and no stars due to the ever present ash obscuring the sky. The days are gray, and the nights are black...pitch black. There are no animals, no birds, no bees, no bugs, not even any roaches. The trees are all dead, the rivers are black, and the rain, snow and ocean are all gray. The world itself seems to be completely cold, silent, and dead. The man and his son are traveling the road south to find warmer climates, while trying to avoid the occasional marauding gangs of cannibal survivors. The boy was born into this world and has no preconceived notion of any other kind of world that existed. The mother...well, she is no longer around simply because she did not have the will to go on.

I'm cold

I know

I'm hungry

I know, I am too

I'm scared

It'll be alright

OK

The verbal exchanges are brief and to the point. This novel is graphic and disturbing in some of its literary images, and silent and completely depressing in others. It paints a grand picture of complete hopelessness and how some manage to eke out survival despite it all. So here is where I break down what it meant to me, and is not to be interpreted as the true meaning of this book at all.

For me, this book is about life and even more about death. It is about good and even more about Evil. It is about hope, but more about hopelessness. It is basic primordial human nature and how we struggle against the fear of death and evil within ourselves. The Road for me signifies Time, and how it continues on with or without us; How we are trapped by it, with no real choice but to follow it with only the slim hope that around the next curve or over the next hill something better is going to be waiting for us. Sometimes there is and mostly there is not, and either way, it is always fleeting and temporary. The only thing that the Road guarantees is that you will die here and it will continue on. The man seemed to represent that basic humanity as he struggles to remain human in the face of hopelessness and the imminent end. The boy, well, for me he seemed to represent the future; A future with no knowledge of the past, and the tiny glimmer of hope that good could prevail while Evil would eventually devour itself. The world that McCarthy paints in this book is our world and there is nothing in it that does not already exist today. However, he has done a magnificent job of simply stripping out everything, and I mean everything, so that the reader has to focus on the cold hard reality. Imagine humanity as we know it stripped of all distractions...no color, no noise, no movement...no love. Pure nothingness. The only emotion is basically fear and the will to survive. Where each day is basically the same as the one before, and everything hinges on evading the inevitable embrace of death one day at a time.

If that all sounds real deep and depressing, that is because it freakin' is. When I finished this book, I checked on my kids in their beds, kissed them, went to my kitchen and opened the pantry door and stared at all of the food and canned goods and thanked God for all of it. I don't even like black-eyed peas, and yet I am still so glad I have a can in my cupboard. I resisted the urge to start opening cans and begin eating like it might be my last supper.

Granted, The Road is not at all what I expected it to be when I read that first page. In fact, it turned out to be something entirely different, but better. It is one of those rare books that you read, and when you are done, you truly take something away from it; something that affects you, makes you think...and it is something different for everybody I would imagine. It is no doubt a lit teacher's wet-dream, chock full of all kinds of symbolism, irony, and other literary stuff, but I am not for one second going to try and tell anyone what old man McCarthy was trying to convey when he wrote this book.

I am very happy to see that Viggo Mortensen will play the man in the movie to release in November. Charlize Theron as the wife?? Don't get that since there is barely half a page dedicated to the wife in the whole book, but I won't argue about seeing Charlize in anything. Add Robert Duvall and Guy Pearce and you have a pretty star studded feature film based on a book that really has very little interaction or characters other than the man and the boy.

On a side note, one thing unique or irritating about the book is Mccarthy's writing style. He has no use of quotation marks or other important grammatical points, and therefore it is sometimes difficult to tell who is speaking or if they are speaking at all. The book is indeed written in a lyrical prose kind of style and I have the distinct impression that he makes up words from time to time, or just uses really obscure words to make the prose sound more intelligent, poetic, or whatever. At any rate, many will undoubtedly consider his style genius, but to me, it sucks when obscure words are used that I don't know or have never heard of. It makes me want to reach for a dictionary which then just distracts from the flow of the story. I personally find it pretentious and unnecessary, but what do I know? I am just your every day dummy who likes to read, and old Cormac is quite possibly the Hemingway of his generation.

Loved the book, and would recommend it to just about anyone, But you really have to be an open-minded reader with a taste for a bit of necessary gore and a hard dose of death and hopelessness.

This is really just my incredibly intelligent opinion, and I am sticking with it...until the end of the world and someone tries to eat me.

for it has been 18 days and 18 days of many lifetimes. 

and what have you found sir?

I have found a reason to love, or much more, a lack of reason to not love.

perhaps the scabs have fallen off; time has taken it's course and brought me full circle. the scars stay as a reminder. just like how when i close my eyes, the dark is a reminder of the dark.

but of course when reason and rationality comes into play, we cannot deny that they will eventually previal over zed's heart, because we cannot allow the heart to rule the head. once we did, and fall did we fall.

she is so perfect, and when i look into those eyes, i see understanding and wisdom beyond what i find amongst most of the others. i close my eyes and i can see her drawing on my skin, and i on her skin, a marriage of ideas printed on flesh and bone. granted these bic tattoos will wash off, but we can do it again, and we will be the bic tattoo artists of the school, coming up with a new tattoo every day. and we will dream so much. but of course, she has a boyfriend. and she goes to church. which i will never do again. there will be a titanic clash of ideals, priorities, because i know that she is strong and depends so much on god, while i am strong but am adamant on being independent of the church. and she will not let go of her rose tinted life to join a self-destructive young man in his quest for a greater good for everyone but himself. neither would anyone else, for that matter.

this shall forthwith be known as the curse of the one-manner.

live fast die young, because only when you are young then can you live fast. everything a lot less grey when watched in fast forward; allow the rush of light and colours to come.

and of course, as a consequence, we are so much older than we should be, because we've seen much more than we would have liked to. 

and a boy thinks, maybe this is what he wants. To fight the fights, up till he has run out, and the last hook takes him out. To suck himself dry, because there is so much more purpose, so much more satisfaction in self destruction than in wallowing in self pity. or even mediocrity

because mediocrity is painful. why on earth do you want to be mediocre.

As a pretty decent fan of Ethan and Joel Coen I was excited about their latest movie Burn After Reading–particularly given the success of No Country for Old Men. As usual, I read a few reviews to get ready for the show; to know what to look for. All were good. Clooney good. Pitt good. You know Swinton and McDormand are going to be great.

So we get our popcorn (buffet style at the Gallatin NCG!) and settle in. Wow. Burn After Reading lacks the tightness that has charaterized most of the Coens' movies. It was lacking in initial intrigue and there was the sense for me that the story never really lifted off. All that being said, there were two defining moments. First, Harry (Clooney) at one point concludes, "Life is not invented." Just about every character in Burn After Reading seeks change; seeks veneer. They each operate out of his or her own distortion of what is obviously true to us. The point being that we see this around us every day—and must take note of it even in our life. Clooney's character only realizes this briefly before falling back into character which is, again, not uncommon in the world we have inherited. The second moment is seen in the closing moments when JK Simmons as CIA Superior (Think Spiderman's Jonah Jamison) asks, "What have we learned here?" A great question, really, and one of particular depth even in a movie running low on merit.

The Goonies
Directed By: Richard Donner
Starring: Sean Astin / Jeff Cohen / Corey Feldman / Jonathan Ke Quan / Josh Brolin
Rating:

So I watched The Goonies last night (For the first time) Yes, I had never seen it before. I know, I know, how could I have missed such an instant classic, yada yada yada.

As I was telling a friend earlier, The Goonies grabbed my soul. From the start of the film and throughout their fantastic adventure, I was a Goonie.

I love how many actors in this film will become popular actors in the near future. They go on to such classics as Rudy, Stand By Me, The Fugitive, No Country for Old Men, The Lord of the Rings, The Matrix, and the upcoming W., to name a few.

For a film that I initially thought was going to be a cheesy 80’s cult favorite, it was put together really well. For example, the editing of the opening scene with the Fratelli’s was really good. Not to mention the amazingly moody atmosphere. The Goonies walks a fine line between realism and children’s fantasy and succeeds admirably. It was a very evocative and nostalgic experience for me.

One of the coolest parts of the film for me was when a clip from the beginning of The Sea Hawk was shown, but the music played during the scene was actually from The Adventures of Don Juan, another Errol Flynn film. It was almost as cool as seeing a scene from The Three Musketeers in Singin’ the Rain. So with that rabbit-trail out of the way…

If you haven’t seen The Goonies, rent it, watch it, love it. Regardless of your age you may come away with an awesome experience.

Retracing the footsteps of the American Adam, I will briefly chronicle his attributes and adaptability.  Looking more closely at modern interpretations I will consider the mutability of the American Adam in three films of the last thirty years.  These three films showcase the power, descent, and fall of the icon in contexts relevant to current events.  Beginning with Hal Ashby’s 1979 film Being There and including two films by Joel and Ethan Cohen – The Big Lebowski (1998) and No Country for Old Men (2007) – I will explore the devolution of the iconoclastic hero of the American frontier.

The American Adam has underwritten the narrative of the American experience, surviving as a heroic and idolized symbol of the American spirit.  He has supplied our nation with a figure whose unconventional nobility serves as a model that inspired the conquering of the West, the selfless pursuit of justice in the face of war, and the contemplative nature of man’s role in society.  His decline signifies a new era in the American narrative – one that leads us to question the relationship of our national heritage to the refiguration of our national beliefs.

The American Adam
In 1782, St. John de Crèvecoeur introduced Europeans to the idea of the American Dream through Letters From an American Farmer, creating a unique American identity for, arguably, the first time.  He depicted an idealized land were hard work and ingenuity overcame differences in class or religious preference (25-28).  America was, as the Puritans would likely agree, a New World Eden.  Embedded in this philosophy was the understanding that this new Eden was a source of spiritual rebirth that would transcend European social tensions and liberate the immigrant from a history of oppression.  Reimagining the world through this discovery, a new kind of hero was needed for this second chance from the Creator.  Embodying ideal human attributes and innocent from the sin of past mistakes, the American Adam was born.

The American Adam is “a figure of heroic innocence and vast potential poised at the start of a new history.”  The New World Adam is timeless, without history, appearing in the Garden in the time before the Fall of Man (Lewis 3-5).  He is an isolated loner, existing on the border of civilization and wilderness.  Living on this frontier, he is able to go between the known and unknown because he understands a little about each world.  He appears without a history, without a family, and without a heritage.  He lives his life from moment to moment, unaffected by the latest trends or changes in society.  Men dominate his world.  Often his adversary is a rich and powerful Old World lord or the traditional values of Old World customs, and his future is often influenced heavily by the arrival of Eve.  More than anything, the American Adam is represented by his personal ethics.  He is an innocent who believes in ideals like Truth and Justice, and he finds he must live outside of the laws of men so that Truth and Justice can be preserved.

Historian David Noble considers Adam the central myth in American literature.  In his book The Eternal Adam and the New World Garden, Noble traces the Adamic lineage from Natty Bumppo to Hester Prynne; from Huckleberry Finn to Nick Carraway to Henderson, The Rain King.  Film versions include Rooster Cogburn in True Grit, Star Trek’s James T. Kirk, and Dr. Henry Walton Jones – better known as Indiana.  Through the decades he has fought savages, Nazis, Communists, and alien invaders while also attacking tyranny and injustice in all forms within American shores.  He is the noble, misunderstood, enigmatic, American hero and the personification of a national ideology.

“All Will Be Well in the Garden”
Placing Being There’s Chance in the succession of the American Adam is an almost ideal fit.  Chance is a gardener.  He has no past.  He has always been the caretaker of the walled courtyard of the Old Man, never leaving the grounds of the house in his forty or fifty years.  We are left to assume his heritage based on what little we learn from Hal Ashby’s adaptation of Jerzy Kozinsky’s novel and screenplay.  A simpleton, he is cared for by the Old Man and Louise, the maid.  He is allowed any of the Old Man’s clothes, and the Old Man has gifted Chance with numerous television sets dispersed around the stately manor.  Television becomes, then, Chance’s chief interaction with the outside world.

The Old Man in Chance’s story is a distant but loving personification of the Creator.  He has taken care of Chance since infancy.  Perhaps Chance is his son or the illegitimate child of one of his servants, or possibly both.  Chance has been kept a secret for years, and we soon discover why.  When informed about the Old Man’s death by Louise, we can only interpret Chance’s aloofness and innocence as some type of cognitive deficiency, and it appears he possesses only the understanding of a third-grade child.

Dispelled from his garden manor by lawyers from the Old Man’s estate, Chance steps outside of the immaculately preserved home accompanied by a modern interpretation of Richard Strauss’s “Also Spake Zarathustra.”  Here, Ashby gives us some direction for the tone of the move.  The score, inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche and made popular as the theme of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, tells us first that God, like the Old Man, is dead.  Secondly, it puts Chance’s story into the context of two major philosophical elements of Nietzsche’s work – the concept of the self-empowered Overman, and the Will to Power.  Cast out of the Garden, the unsophisticated Chance sets out unwittingly to confront the self-mastered Benjamin Rand, a rich and powerful man whose reason for living is entangled in his struggle to conquer the physical world.

The civilized world outside the walls of the Old Man’s home is the wilderness in this tale.  Chance naively ventures out into a polluted neighborhood in Washington, D.C. that is inhabited by homeless men and drug dealers.  Chance survives his encounters with the wild and untamed culture of the street unscathed.  Ironically, he incurs injury, not from the rough characters of his urban neighborhood, but from the chauffeured car of the wife of a billionaire industrialist.  Her name is Eve.

Through Eve’s arrival, the simpleton is transformed accidentally into the distinguished Chauncey Gardiner.  Mrs. Rand decides rather than to endure the unpleasantness of a hospital emergency room, it is more proper to take a man of Mr. Gardiner’s fiber to her mansion where her ailing husband is receiving continuous medical care from his personal physician.

Eve, Benjamin and the newly christened Chauncey quickly develop a friendship.  Chauncey’s innocence is misunderstood as ironic humor by the Rand servants and as powerful metaphor by more cultured audiences.  Through Rand’s introduction to the president of the United States, Chauncey instantly becomes the most talked about person in the country.  His honesty and candor provide hope for the disenfranchised facing an economic downturn.  Additionally, he unwittingly possesses the ability to melt Cold War politics, to provide a sexual awakening for Eve, and to render the most powerful man in the free world impotent.  Chauncey’s greatest contribution, however, is to Rand.  Through Chauncey, Rand is able to rekindle his belief in mankind’s goodness and ultimately to come to terms with his own mortality.

Here we see the American Adam at the height of his power.  His innocent and idealistic approach to life offers hope and inspiration for the impoverished and the empowered.  Although, the audience recognizes him as a fool, he is the one who unwittingly fools the unlearned and the intellectual.  In fact, the supernatural overtones of the final two scenes even cause the viewer to question if Chance is indeed the simpleton or is he, like Adam and Jesus, the Son of God.  In either case, the purity of his convictions reveals an archetype capable of providing the American public and the power elite with optimism.

Released in 1979, amidst economic recession, an oil shortage, the hostage crisis in Iran, and a Cold War battle with Russia, Being There serves as a lesson in faith for all Americans.  An honest and simple approach to life based solely in the experience of the moment and unadulterated by preexisting perceptions is a freedom that can never be restricted.

“The Bums Will Always Lose"

The nation in the late-70’s may have needed an Adam to revive the ideals of the American Dream, but by 1998 the qualities admired in Chauncey Gardiner made Jeff Lebowski a social pariah.  We are introduced to Lebowski through the disembodied voice of The Stranger.  A remnant of the cinematic heritage of the Old West and a previous incarnation of the American Adam, The Stranger links Lebowski, The Dude, to the lineage of Adamic characters.  In keeping with tradition, The Dude has no history other than the name his loving parents gave him.  From The Stranger we learn that The Dude is “the man for his time and place.”  The Stranger stops himself from calling Lebowski a hero, however, because he reasons, “what’s a hero?”  The rest of the film attempts to answer that question.

As in Being There, the opening score sets the stage, this time extolling the qualities of the American Adam.  Bob Dylan croons “The Man in Me” and offers an idealized man who will do virtually any task without compensation and who hides sometimes to protect himself from “being turned into a machine.”  We assume, then, these are the defining qualities of The Dude.

Like Chance, the gardener, The Dude is the victim of mistaken identity, and like Chance he is perceived erroneously to be a man of wealth and power.  When this is discovered his accusers avenge their mistake by micturating on The Dude’s rug.  When he seeks retribution from the millionaire industrialist with whom he shares his name, a scenario unfolds that forces The Dude out of the comfort of Hollywood Star Lanes – his metaphorical garden.  Coerced by the other Lebowski, the Big Lebowski, to save the life of his kidnapped, trophy wife, Bunny, The Dude agrees to deliver her ransom money to the abductors.  Through a series of unlikely events The Dude, like the other American Adam’s, is uniquely able to manage encounters with nihilistic kidnappers, felonious pederasts, known pornographers, and wealthy philanthropists alike.

Finding heroic characters in the film, as already mentioned, takes thorough investigation.  Who is heroic?  The Big Lebowski, a veteran of World War II who supports needy children by paying for their college education, embezzles millions from his own foundation and attempts to frame The Dude for the stolen money.  The Dude’s friend Walter Sobchak is a victimized veteran of the Vietnam Conflict, but his heroic potential is limited by his obsession for his ex-wife and his insistence that his point-of-view is the only correct interpretation.  Maude Lebowski, the Big Lebowski’s daughter, is the true possessor of the family fortune; it is she who is truly the philanthropist.  However, her narcissism makes her devoid of all sentiment beyond her own needs.  Even members of law enforcement are depicted as unsympathetic, negligent, or corrupt.

A scene capturing the obfuscation of heroism occurs late in the film when The Dude and Walter confront a teenager who they believe stole The Dude’s car and the Big Lebowski’s money.  The child is the son of Arthur Digby Sellers, the writer of 156 episodes of the television Western Branded.  The show featured an Army Calvary captain who was unjustly accused of cowardice and court-martialed.  The hero of Branded was forced each episode to “prove that he was a man,” as The Dude would later reveal when singing the show’s theme.  Perhaps, then, this is also The Dude’s quest.  Whether his journey is to prove it to himself or the “square community,” we do not know, but he is compelled to follow this farce until its ugly resolution.

The film concludes with a final showdown between The Dude and The Stranger during practice for an upcoming match in a bowling tournament.  Assessing his gains and losses, The Dude recalls a bit of advice he received from The Stranger in an earlier episode – “sometimes you eat the bear; sometimes the bear eats you” – when he notices The Stranger sitting next to him at the bar.  The Stranger informs him he “wouldn’t miss the semi’s” and bidding farewell reminds The Dude to “take’r easy.”  Lebowski replies, “Well, The Dude abides,” a statement which gives The Stranger great comfort.

After this comedy of the absurd, what does it mean to abide?  The Dude survived?  The Dude tolerated “unchecked aggression?”  Or did The Dude and the American Adam endure another era?  If it is the latter, then The Stranger’s relief comes from knowing that his generation of the American ideal has been succeeded by the next.

The prospects for the American Adam look dim, however.  He is not honorable or noble like Chauncey Gardiner.  He is by his own admission “a loser, a deadbeat” and someone the civilized community does not care about.  If he is the personification of the American ideal, then what are the implications for the dominant ideology in America?  Was or is the American Dream dead?  Without an enemy or an economic crisis, without a frontier to tame and the prospect that the civilized world is more untamed than the wilderness, what is the fate of this former icon?

“Some Are Half-wild, and Some Are Just Outlaws.”
A decade later, these questions may have been answered by another Coen Brothers’ film, No Country For Old Men – an adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s bestseller.  Like Lebowski, No Country juxtaposes two generations of the American Adam and details their simultaneous demise.  Like Lebowski, at its heart it tells the story of two veterans who are isolated loners.  And like Lebowski, it begins with a somber, disembodied voice washing over a silent desert landscape.
Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, like The Stranger, directs us to the context of the story.  These are desperate and uncertain times.  Inheriting the legacy of the lawman from his father and grandfather, Bell has always understood that his job meant offering his life in the line of duty.  A change was occurring, however, and although he admits comparing himself to “the oldtimers,” he wonders how “theyd’ve operated these times.”  He cannot understand the criminal mind of the present generation, and this lack of understanding is causing him to question his ability to effectively continually put his life at risk.

Continuing a theme, No Country includes a case of mistaken identity.  It is not, however, a man being mistaken by another for someone or something he is not.  It begins with a man, Llewelyn Moss, naively mistaking himself for someone capable of defeating drug dealers and hitmen.  Similarly, Bell believes he is capable of saving Llewelyn, but his trust in himself is shortsighted.  He is unable to prevent the worst from happening, a testament to his vanity, and he is humbled into retirement where he dreams of meeting his deceased father in the afterlife.

Common to these two heroes is the addition of a wife.  Perhaps, these Adam’s having found their Eve’s depict the hero after the Fall.  In that context, their death or acceptance of death is part of the maturation of the timeless hero.  If that is the case, the search for the American Adam as typically depicted leads us to Anton Chigurh.

At first, the temptation to accept the American hero as a ruthless sociopath seems ridiculous, but closer inspection shows that the Adam of this story has to be Chigurh.  He appears without a name, a history, or a past.  He is a loner who is able to move freely in civilized society, but also possesses the ability to walk deep into the darkest, untamed corners of the human psyche and face lawlessness with a brutality that is unmatched.  His adversaries are a common man who stole $2 million dollars, a bounty hunter named Wells, a rich and powerful businessman, known only as Man Who Hires Wells, and a small town sheriff who he never really encounters.  His enemies then can be characterized as killers, thieves, and a representative of man’s law.

Chigurh is driven by one thing – his personal ethics.  He lives fully in the moment-to-moment encounters that guide him, and he is led by an invisible, higher authority on random waves from experience to experience.  The toss of coin holds the power to give or take life.  He is willing to expect whichever outcome fate decides.  To Chigurh, Fate or Destiny – the flip of the coin – balances the scales of Truth and Justice.
Encountering a gas station attendant, Chigurh presents him with the chance to win or lose everything.  Offering Llewelyn the opportunity to save the life of his wife, Carla Jean, Chigurh concludes that Moss “decided to try to save himself instead.”  After killing the Man Who Hires Wells, a witness asks if he will kill him in turn.  Chigurh reasons, “That depends.  Do you see me?”  We are left to imagine the outcome, foreshadowing Chigurh’s unseen decision to save or spare Carla Jean at the end of the film.  Clearly, he is a man of principles; the mystery lies in what exactly those principles are.  At long last, the American Adam has transformed from hero to villain.

“I Got Here The Same Way The Coin Did"

If this is the final descent of the American Adam, the question then is what does it imply?  Has the world grown weary of his lawlessness?  Has the innocence of Huck Finn been hardened and replaced by the ruthlessness of Anton Chigurh?  Has the threat of global terrorism changed our reverence for this archetype?  Or has he refigured himself to reflect the ugliness of American imperialism?  Perhaps, the Adam depicted in No Country for Old Men is an anathema, and his previous incarnations will be reborn in stories for a new generation.

The likelihood that the national narrative is being revisioned, however, is a strong possibility.  David Boren’s forthcoming book A Letter to America suggests that this is a pivotal moment for American civilization.  The former senator and current university professor proposes that the United States cannot continue to “be both lawless bully and beloved beacon.”  He insists the American Dream is not dead, but in need of a reimaging.
The new American Dream is not embedded in materialistic gain, Boren says.  The new American Dream envisions a place where “people respect each other without regard to their differences.”  It pictures a safe community with an abundance of educational opportunities for all, where the people are good stewards of the land and each other.  Most importantly, he sees in his students a belief in the future that is vital to the success of any nation (Schimke 42-3).

There is little, if anything, in the hopes expressed by Boren that would conflict with the desires of the American Adam.  Certainly, a simple gardener in the nation’s capital or an easy-going bowling enthusiast in Los Angeles would desire no less.  It is a dream Moss was pursuing even before he discovered a case full of money.  It was a community Bell sought to protect with his service and his life.  Perhaps, then, Anton Chigurh is a mirror to the face of a nation who has lost track of its duty to the common man or feels entitled to torture without conscience.  If so, then Chigurh functions as all the Adam’s before him.  He acts as the inspiration to practice a life guided by the pursuit of Truth and Justice for all citizens.

Hopefully, the roots for such a dream are not severed, and once again “all will be well in the Garden.”

Works Cited
Being There. Dir. Hal Ashby.  Perf. Peter Sellers, Shirley MacLaine, Jack Warden, Melvyn Douglas, Richard Dysart, Richard Basehart, and Jerzy Kosinski. 1979. DVD. Warner Home Video, 2001.

The Big Lebowski. Dir. Ethan Coen and Joel Coen.  Perf. Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Julianne Moore, Steve Buscemi, Peter Stormare, David Huddleston, and Sam Elliott. 1998. DVD. Focus Features, 2005.

Lewis, R. W. B. The American Adam; Innocence, Tragedy, and Tradition in the Nineteenth Century. [Chicago]: University of Chicago Press, 1955.

No Country For Old Men. Dir. Ethan Coen and Joel Coen.  Perf. Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Woody Harrelson, Kelly MacDonald, and Cormac McCarthy. 2007. DVD. Miramax Home Entertainment, 2008.

Noble, David W. The Eternal Adam and the New World Garden; The Central Myth in the American Novel Since 1830. New York: Braziller, 1968.

Schimke, David. “A New National Narrative.” The Utne Reader.  May-June 2008: 42-43.

St. John de Crèvecoeur, J. Hector. Letters from an American Farmer. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1957.

Te acabas de encontrar dos millones de dólares en el escenario de un horroroso crimen, ¿qué haces?

Correr.

Cormac McCarthy se ha consolidado como uno de los autores imprescindibles de la narrativa actual mundial, gracias a relatos como La carretera, premio Pulitzer 2007 o este No country for old men. Su enorme talento unido a una personalidad pública cuanto menos misteriosa le ha colocado en el star system literario por mérito propio. No es país para viejos además ha sido adaptada con gran éxito por los hermanos Coen, revelándose una de los mejores films de 2007.

Lewelyn Moss es un soldador tejano que, estando de caza, se topa con un puñado de cadáveres, heroína y mucho dinero. A partir de ese momento, su vida se convierte en una huida desesperada de las autoridades, los dueños de la droga y las perras, pero sobretodo de un inquietante psicópata para quien no existe el bien ni el mal, la moral ni la ética, sólo la fortuna. Y Moss ha tenido mala suerte.

A través de un ritmo frenético, en el que también caben las digresiones morales y los discursos metafísicos, un estilo espontáneo y un argumento cautivador, McCarthy construye una narración fascinante.

Recomiendo vivamente su lectura porque aunque nunca se haya leído una novela (como era mi caso) de este estilo, a caballo entre el policiaco y el thriller, el libro atrapa desde el principio y se lee muy fácilmente, con altas dosis de adrenalina.

No es país para viejos es, en definitiva, un magnífico relato que he disfrutado con un placer casi cinematográfico y que me ha descubierto a un autor del que leeré cuanto pueda.

Pd: Gracias, Ion, por recomendarme el libro.

Sono mesi, in effetti, che non scrivo. Ma sono ancora vivo. Anzi, più vivo che mai.

Cos'ho fatto nel frattempo? Ho deciso di andare in Guinea Bissau il prossimo dicembre. Ho realizzato due web project abbastanza diversi tra loro per tematiche trattate e che per questo mi hanno arricchito parecchio e mi hanno regalato anche molte soddisfazioni. I link? Giammai, segreto professionale. Ho visto qualche film. Gomorra, a Verona la mini cooper è la macchina delle fighette, a Napoli quella dei camorristi. Hancok, spettacolare la prima parte. Teeth-Denti, teen movie a sorpresa, ahia. Sweeney Todd, Tim Burton mai così dark e senza lieto fine. Mongol, visi bellissimi e fotografia mozzafiato. Non è un paese per vecchi, ma come finisce? Ho assistito indirettamente a quella convention autocelebrativa che chiamano Blog Fest di Riva del Garda e mi sono stupito nello scoprirmi sorpreso di quanto, la maggiorarza dei partecipanti, abbia dato risalto più al contenitore che ai contenuti. Escludendo l'insulsa polemica nata dalle parole del boyfriend di Selvaggia Lucarelli.
Blog? Ma a che serve un blog? Vien proprio da chiederselo a questo punto.

Tjugo minuter innan eftertexterna svänger No Country for Old Men åt ett annat håll än man förväntar sig. Vi sitter och väntar på den slutliga konfrontationen mellan Llewelyn och Chigurh och på att Javier Bardems fullblodspsykopat ska få vad han rätteligen förtjänar - eller åtminstone att någon, kanske Tommy Lee Jones, ska sätta stopp för honom.

Men så blir det ju inte. Vi får inte ens se hur Llewelyn dör. Filmen gör ett hopp i tiden, och efter det hoppet avrundas filmen med en handfull scener av det mer filosofiska slaget. Som det fantastiska mötet mellan Chigurh och Carla Jean. Eller sheriff Bells avslutande monolog.

Jag tror att nyckeln till filmen (nej, jag har inte läst boken men jag tror att jag ska göra det) står att finna i Ed Tom Bells funderingar. Det är han som inleder med en monolog om det obegripliga och motivlösa i somliga brott, och det är han som avslutar med att berätta om en dröm där hans far gör upp eld i mörkret och finns där för honom. En trösterik bild. "And then I woke up."

Och den verklighet Ed Tom Bell vaknar upp till är en där ondska kan gå ostraffad och där oskyldiga råkar illa ut. Där det inte verkar finnas någon rim eller reson i varför eller hur saker sker. Anton Chigurh låter ibland slumpen i form av en slantsingling avgöra om han ska döda någon eller ej. Han skulle i princip kunna vara döden given fysisk form, i en berättelse om hur vi handskas med det obegripliga och det oundvikliga.

Ed Tom Bell är gammal och trött, och det här är inte längre ett land för gamla män. I slutänden är det kanske han som är filmens egentliga huvudperson, mer än Llewelyn och Chigurh.

Jag tyckte mycket om No Country for Old Men, inte minst för den vackra ödsligheten i miljöerna. Det är också en film som jag kommer att gå tillbaka till - den håller för fler tittningar, tror jag. Däremot är den inte någon av mina favoriter i bröderna Coens produktion. Inte än, i alla fall.

Andra bloggar om film, filmrecensioner, no country for old men

You mean I can only be nominated for one Oscar at a time? But whyyyyyy???

As September crosses into the present, film critics and aficionados everywhere begin grinning and twitching in excitement. Oscar movies are officially on their way to the nearest silver screen. With the ribbon of quality content being cut, the first expected contender came from the brotherly duo not unfamiliar with the Oscar machine, the Coen Brothers, Joel and Ethan. Fresh off the heels of their Best Directing, Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay Oscars last year for No Country for Old Men, the cinematic brothers brought us a new chapter in their visual memoirs, Burn After Reading, a throwback to the darkly humorous days of Fargo, which also won them a Best Original Screenplay statue. Into the mix of directorial style and writing finesse we gained the acting skills of Brad Pitt, George Clooney, John Malkovich and Tilda Swinton. Frances McDormand is also along for the ride, but she's a Coen staple (and also married to half the duo, Joel Coen). This movie had Oscar potential written all over it, so the only question going in was would it live up to the expectations?

Swing...the ball connects...it's going deep...almost there...awww. Ground rule double.

This is not an Academy award winning film and certainly not one of their best, but still a nice way to slide into the season of quality content over box office boffo. Burn After Reading is a quirky, silly tale following a disc of information thought to contain CIA secrets from a disgraced and angry analyst (Malkovich), which is found in a local gym and tightly grasped by the hands of a woman (McDormand) desperate for money to cover her plastic surgeries. Mostly what the Coen brothers are known for is the depth and creativity of their characters and this film does well to cover the bases on that point. Frances McDormand plays Linda, a terribly pathetic woman so deathly afraid of aging and the current state of her body that she has blinders on to the rest of the world and the happiness it can offer. She brings the solid level of commitment and shine we've come to know her for. Brad Pitt joins in with what has to be his silliest and least intelligent character to date, Chad, a constantly hyper-active, exercise fanatic who works with Linda at a gym called Hardbodies. I have to imagine this was a fun role for him to play since he hardly gets to let loose like this anymore, not since 12 Monkeys. He provided a lot of the early humor in the film, but also drops one of the biggest plot twists halfway through. Clooney brings to life Harry, a ex-personal bodygaurd with a penchant for compulsive lying and an addiction to sex. George only gets to be this wacky under the tutelage of the Coen brothers, so even while it's not his best work by any means, it's a fun reminder that he can indeed get goofy with the rest of the gang. Tilda plays the ice queen wife of Malkovich, while also having an affair with Clooney. Watching her in this role, along with some others, I wonder when her picture will be included in the dictionary next to "emasculating". Not to be left out of any discussion about over-the-top characters, Malkovich plays his part to the hilt, but I honestly feel his best moments are in the opening scene. There's not much of an arc for him, so only seeing him come to life early on really provides any surprise and unseen moments.

Burn plays inside the footprints of Fargo, but never quite catches up to it. The Coens obviously know their craft and continue to put material out there with their own voice and character stamp, but this film felt a little like a step back for them. Maybe it was just a way to resettle into the dark comedy they are known for after their detour into heavy drama with No Country. Also running parallel to this is the question of the marketing campaign. Again the trailer was cut in a fashion to show one type of movie, but once you were in the theater it became something different, not wildly so, but still there is a distinct shift in tone from wacky comedy to dark comedy, and sometimes those audiences don't mix well. It's like seeing a trailer for Police Academy and getting Rushmore. Two great tastes that taste awful together.

Recommendation: If you're a devout fan, you've already seen it anyway. If you're on the fence, wait until video. If you're completely on the other side of the fence, you still read this far anyway? I'll take that as a compliment. Thanks. :)

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Ultimamente l'aspetto poetico ed estetico di Fabrizio, specialmente ai piani alti della comunicazione di regime, è l'unico ad avere risalto... come se la sua opera fosse solo La canzone di marinella, La guerra di Piero, o Bocca di rosa, brani che raccolgono l'atteggiamento di De Andrè, ma sono masticabili e presentabilii al pubblico ammaestrato. Vorrei vedere di più in tv e sui giornali il De Andrè che diceva cose indicibili senza nessun pudore, l'uomo che raccontava un cristo umano e non divino, che raccontava le laceranti e puerili riflessioni di un terrorista, che raccontava gli ultimi, non con paterna simpatia ma per la loro superiore dignità rispetto ai primi. E quello che invocava il Nobel per la Pace al popolo Rom, quello che distingueva con attenzione chi ruba per fame da chi ruba per avidità, quello che si faceva beffa di ogni potere.

This cannot be, as the movie was meh at best.

A smart person would just stay away from reading reviews and watching trailers (I love trailers). I'm really not willing to give it up, because then what would I do with the internet? All my blog bookmarks would be worthless. Anyway, I figure I'll make this a standard little segment thinger on this blog. I'll write what I expected to see, and then what I actually did see. Transparency.

Going in: I saw the trailer first, while I was still high on my love for No Country For Old Men. The Coen's and I have a rocky relationship. In the beginning, there was Raising Arizona, Fargo and The Big Lebowski. Weird, disturbing and highly entertaining. But things had fallen off with the Ladykillers and Intolerable Cruelty. People make mistakes, but really? Tom Hanks?

So, No Country For Old Men. Phenomenal. The Coens are back, they're as violent as ever, but in this restrained, grown-up way. Super. So I'm surfing the interwebs and I see that they have a new comedy coming out. The trailer looks really good: excellent bluesy song playing over a ridiculous Brad Pitt dance + punch in the nose. Cast a little star-studded, but they're Oscar-winners now, so what can you expect. I go in thinking I'll see something weird, chaotic, violent and funny. Possibly with a little compassion, if they're really going back to their roots.

I got the first three adjectives spot on. There are a bunch of characters, they're all zanily off in some way, and the plot goes through these truly epic convulusions. And what you're left with is 'meh.' Nothing terrible, but absolutely nothing impressive. I laughed out loud maybe half a dozen times. There are like these two instances of violence that were truly shocking, but how psyched am I supposed to get about being shocked? Yeah, I'm in that crazy generation with its youtubery and cynicism and it's just so hard to be shocked by anything these days. But still, it was shocking just to be shocking and the rest of the movie didn't support it in any way.

For the record, I argued against this point of view on the car ride home. My friend didn't like it, but I was determined to, so I took the "eh, pretty good" stance. But the more I think about it, the less worthwhile it seems.

Verdict: Dissapointment. No poster for me. However, the Coens are filming/have just finished filming a movie in my hometown. So it's like they're trying to apologize to me. Coen brothers, I accept. But you are on thin ice. Unlike Fargo ice, which is thick, because it's really cold up there. They use their ridiculous Minnesotan accents to keep warm.

The Coen brothers like to make movies about greed. Whether it's the sizable sums of Fargo and The Big Lebowski or the more modest returns of Blood Simple, cheating, stealing, and generally playing fast and loose with the promise of wealth are hallmarks of Coen characters. Hell, they even made a movie about people stealing a baby. Come to think of it, I can't come up with one Coen movie where money isn't a central point of the plot-- even Barton Fink and The Hudsucker Proxy, which don't feature theft or cons outright, are still about the ethics of business, and how wealth and class interact.

So even though No Country for Old Men was a very serious film for the Coens, it wasn't necessarily a departure from their major themes. In fact, it was almost a distillation of them: once Josh Brolin steals that money, you know he's doomed sooner or later, and the outright admission of that point doesn't detract at all from the pleasure of watching it.

Burn After Reading is a very strange thing: it's No Country, recast in an upper-crust setting and, somewhat strangely, as a comedy. The Brolin stand-ins are the even more incompetent Frances McDormand and Brad Pitt, as numbskull gym employees; filling in for Anton Chigurh is the equally foolish John Malkovich, a retired CIA agent whose memoirs the pair hold for ransom. As in the previous film, mix two unacquainted enemies, throw in a swath of supporting characters, add greed, and let the sparks fly.

The strange thing is that despite the film's comedic tone, the stakes are no less lofty. People do die in Burn After Reading, a surprising fact that simultaneously elevates the comedy and makes the already shaggy-dog story even harder to read. Usually, the Coens can't be matched for tonal consistency, but this movie definitely has some evenness problems: it's equal parts spy-movie parody, Bourne-style shoot 'em up, and Lebowski-flavored bizarro comedy. The Coens also typically love regionalisms (Fargo, O Brother, Where Art Thou), but this film has few. Maybe it's because it takes place in D.C., a place where many people live but where few people are from; maybe it's because the cast itself is so varied, from ultra-slick Tilda Swinton (with original accent!) to surfer-aping Brad Pitt to the always-unplaceable Malkovich (who further confuses the proceedings with some odd accent shifts and a smattering of too-perfect French pronunciation). It's a weird thing to see a Coen film with little to no sense of place, and the background feels perfunctory rather than illuminating. Other than its involvement of a lot of government agencies, the plot of the film could take place in any city, and the variance from No Country's new-West setting is probably the biggest difference between the two films.

Burn After Reading also has a surprisingly large amount of throwaway gags that add up to nothing: Clooney's character repeatedly eats foods he may or may not be allergic to, and there's a bizarre number of appearances by the actor Dermot Mulroney and his fake film, Coming Up Daisy. (Mulroney is a somewhat failed rom-com actor, best known for My Best Friend's Wedding, and I am utterly clueless as to why the Coens feature him so heavily, other than the fact that his name is really funny-sounding.) The title (probably a parody of the CIA memoir Burn Before Reading) also has nothing to do with the film's content.

There is a wonderful and weird thing about Burn After Reading, though, in that it features its own Tommy Lee Jones-style Greek chorus. It consists of a CIA agent and his boss, played brilliantly by David Rasche and J.K. Simmons, and their observations are as trenchantly hilarious as Jones' were poignant. They only have two scenes together, but those five minutes pretty much make the movie.

The funny part is that their conclusions are still the same as No Country's: greed is deadly, violence is senseless, and there seems to be no way to prevent either of them from sprouting up again and again. It's the same lesson the Coens have been trying to teach us for over two decades, and it probably won't be long before they find yet another innovative way to present it.

apprendo ora una notizia senza precedenti che potrebbe aprire la nostra società e la sua (scarsa) evoluzione ad una nuova esperienza percettiva ed emozionale. è in cantiere una terza puntata di Ghostbusters. Con gli attori originali, se anche il geniale ma, a quanto sembra, abbastanza misantropo, Bill Murray potrebbe non accettare. Ghostbusters è uno di quei pochi film che ogni volta che rivedo confermo la mia idea primaria (facciamo la secondaria perché la prima volta l'ho visto a circa 6 anni al cinema). è un film geniale, di una comicità unica e surreale, che insieme ai film di belushi, riesce in pieno a catturare un modo di fare ridere che nacque e toccò l'apice nel primo periodo del Saturday Night Live. In ogni caso è un evento che aspetterò preparandomi per il giorno di uscita, e mi emozionerò fino alla fine.

Poi, come tutti gli eventi del genere degli ultimi anni, alla fine del film cercherò di giustificare la carenza della sceneggiatura, o delle battute, per dimenticarmene prima di andare a dormire e non pensarci più. Ma questo post è solo un esorcismo. Forse ghostbusters, che sarà scritto come i primi due da Harold Ramis e Dan Aykroyd, avrà una degna conclusione e incredibilmente lo ricorderemo come una trilogia...sono in confusione evidente...

Intanto l'anno prossimo uscirà il videogioco, doppiato dagli attori originali, e soltanto il trailer è emozionantisismo perchè finalmente il gioco riprende i personaggi e le atmosfere del film... tempo di aggiornare il computer...

The Coen brothers didn't fail audiences with reversion to a comfortable genre, one in which, with their trademark fashioning of humorously idiosyncratic settings and characters has already proven successful. Were critics going to suggest that, because of the strength of No Country For Old Men, the Coen brothers should basically make the same movie again. That is... until of course, getting backlash from critics that they're being redundant? (The brothers alternated between penning the scripts for this and No Country. This is their first original screenplay since their 1990 film, Miller's Crossing).

More specifically, the Coen brothers return to write and direct a black comedy. And it's always been a suitable genre, considering their choice of subjects - the persistent theme of Karma's watchful eye. Although, comedies or not, it is common in most all of their films. In fact, Burn After Reading is like a funny take on Stanley Kubrick's classic noir, The Killing (and maybe the draw on classic noir was a conscious one, given the retro style of the promotional materials). There is a dramatic shortage of redeeming characters on screen, and since this is a mainstream American production, their fate is pretty clear.

Set in Washington, DC (some of the movie was filmed in New York, and most in Brooklyn Heights, although there are several apparent scenes shot around the Georgetown University neighborhood), the film opens with the demotion of a high-strung, aging CIA Agent (John Malkovich, for whom the part was initially written for) who struggles to resist the fact that basically, in both professional and personal life, he is now irrelevant. His wife (played emotionally elusively by Tilda Swinton), impatient with her husband's transition to shiftless layabout, weighs divorce. Her lawyer suggests that, while the two should try to reconcile, a picture of his future financial prospects should be a relevant factor in the ultimate decision. Crass as it may sound, marriage seems like a mere necessity for security, considering she's having an affair with their friend's husband (George Clooney) who himself is a hobbiest of womanizing.

The bone to pick about the movie is really execution. The initial unraveling of the tale begins with what feels like a disconnected vignette, that for a little too long, remains unexplained in its relevance to the rest of this narrative playing out among the vile, upper class narcissists (although we find no class exception to anyone's self-involvement).

So begins a scene in which a dim-witted, self-conscious fitness gym employee (Frances McDormand, Joel Coen's wife) is being consulted by a doctor about various nip-and-tuck procedures to hide some of her aging body. It is, she claims, necessary to her job and her ticket out of the single life. Denied by her insurance company coverage for cosmetic surgery, her silver lining comes along when her dufus Hardbodies coworker (Brad Pitt, perhaps in his loosest form for a change) thinks a CD discovered at the gym has some valuable top secret information. And after a little digging, they figure out who it belongs to and so begins a blackmail scheme that was trouble from the start. Despite the initial disconnect between the stories, eventually linked by the discovery of that CD, it is clear that the first part was just much too serious. This pair of idiotic, scheming Hardbodies coworkers are just the kind of odd-ball comic relief the audience needs. It's this kind of idiocy and assumptions, fueled by unrelenting personal desire, that feeds comedies like these (see Guy Ritchies gangster follies, Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch).

But of course, the Coen Brothers, even in comedy, never offer pure cartoonish humor. There is violence and there are body counts. And this is no different, and to a more graphic extent this time around. These handful of characters are eventually confined to a narrower playground, and once they are, their interaction becomes a concentration of self-destruction that barely poses much lasting impact on the rest of the world when all is said and done, which makes things in the end seem even more alienated because, the self-involvement lasts beyond just these characters that seek our attention. The more disturbing feeling, however, springs from a sense that the nihilism is far from fiction.

Burn After Reading is a sharp look at stupidity. Despite some initial poor reviews, Coen brother fans shouldn't be too disappointed with the results. It is probably not likely to gain the cult following of their earlier comedies like Raising Arizona, O! Brother Where Art Thou? or The Big Lebowski, but it's probably also not likely to fall into complete obscurity like Intolerable Cruelty).

Closing this review with a nugget of trivia: the contraption that Clooney's character builds in his basement was inspired by both an invention of a key grip and something out of the Museum of Sex in New York City.

A third of the way into Burn After Reading, Linda Litzke (played by Frances McDormand) informs her boss that she needs an advance on her salary because that's the only way she can fund the cosmetic surgery which in turn is her only hope of finding love in this life. He protests that people love her the way she is, primarily because he is very obviously smitten with her. However, she is an idiot and thus misses both his point and his admiration.

This is, I think, the crucial moment in the Coen Brothers' latest film—that special moment when the audience is finally able to latch on to something concrete and say, "Aha! So that's why we care about this story." But here's a spoiler: all your caring will go to naught.

To be honest, I think that Burn After Reading is a useless film. I don't care if the Coens were intentionally writing a story about a group of idiots: their tale is simply not compelling and not believable. (Twenty minutes in, I was actually wondering when the movie would be over, and I rarely do that in the theater.) Worse, it's heavy-handed. One doesn't need to look up interviews to discover that this is a film about idiots: Osbourne Cox (played by John Malkovich) tells you straight-up—right before he first shoots and then savagely hacks a man to death with a hatchet. And what about Linda? Does she learn the truth about love? Actually, no. She's just damned into materialism and given all her surgeries for free. Ain't love grand?

I think what really gets me is the end, when an FBI superior (played by J.K. Simmons) has this exchange with an officer:

CIA Superior: So what did we learn from this?

CIA Officer: Um... I don't know.

[pause]

CIA Superior: I don't f***in' know either.

And you know what? That's what everyone in the audience is thinking, too! (Have I already used the word heavy-handed in this post?)

This brings up a question that I've pondered: how far can you get away with simply portraying "reality"? Because I know that many people will come out of Burn After Reading with the thought, "Man, I know people like that." And they can defend the movie on the same basis: how can we justifiably criticize the Coens for writing a story where bad people stay bad and morons never grow wise? Isn't that real life?

Instead of posing an answer, let me point back to the Coens' other most recent film, No Country for Old Men. On the surface it's another example of bad people doing bad things, and the baddest one of all getting away with it. (Yes, I know that Anton Chigurh is a very symbolical character, but bear with me here—I like keeping things on a people-oriented level.) Until the end. The last murder victim, Carla Jean Moss (Llewelyn's widow), defeats Anton by refusing to play his coin toss game. Her defiance annoys and unsettles him; one might even argue that it's the cause of his final accident.

And that difference is vital. The author of that world clearly knows that "league of morons" does not confine us. Perhaps that's the fundamental difference. No Country for Old Men takes a hard look at the world, sees it for the dunghill that it can sometimes be, and yet acknowledges that there's something we don't quite understand, something that providentially will always elude us. But Burn After Reading only accomplishes cheap and easy mockery, alleging that God (if He exists) doesn't care enough to lift people out of their idiocy.