I know that Jean-Claude Van Damme’s films are crap, but I still like them. I don’t feel I have to excuse myself for watching bad films anymore, I’m such a movie optimist that I’ll watch almost anything that I think might have a single redeeming feature. I can always find something to like. This is the attitude that allowed me to watch AWOL and Fighting within a couple of days of each other. Obviously Fighting is about fighting, and any film starring JCVD is going to have a lot of fighting in it, but I was surprised at just how similar these films are.
The following summarises the basic plot of both movies: The leading tough guy gets involved in a fight whilst trying to make some money. A small time hustler sees him in action and tells him that he could make a lot of dough if he had the right manager. The badass main character is reluctant at first, but his increasingly desperate situation and the lure of a large payday are enough to make him fight ‘Just this one time’. The fight is arranged in a seedy location full of seedy types, yet lots of rich classy folk are there too, betting large sums of money on the outcome of the fights. Looks like there’s some kind of underground bare knuckle boxing taking place. Our hero wins against a seemingly unbeatable foe and pockets the cash, stating ‘No more fighting’. We are lead to the predictable showdown with the ultimate bad guy. Along the way some bird and her young daughter get involved and become the beneficiarys of the main characters underground fighting. The last big fight is surely un-winnable, but with the odds against him, our hero comes out on top, and makes loads of money after betting on himself.
Watching these films it’s clear that Fighting is the least awful (like a low-key Rocky without the training montages), though both have the same basic elements. Fighting benefits from over 30 years of crappy action films; it’s far better informed. Today’s Cheesy Bullshit is far better made than that of the 80s/90s action heyday. But taking AWOL into context as a film that’s now twenty years old, it’s actually no worse then Fighting. The newer film has better developed characters and a (slightly) more believable story (though there’s nothing fantastical taking place in either) but the real difference is aesthetic.
In Fighting almost everyone is stylish and handsome, even when they’re rolling around on the floor fighting in the style of MMA / UFC fighters that has become fashionable in modern films. I know Kung Fu fighting is unrealistic, but it looks better that the real thing. Fighting is dripping with ‘urban chic’ or whatever you call it. The glamorous lifestyle the target audience aspire to is on screen; ‘hoes’ and ‘clubs’ and ‘hip pop’ (far more attention is paid to the soundtrack of such films nowadays). And the hero gets the girl of course, by which I mean he nails her. This is the least noticeable evolution in the action type film; the good guy doesn’t just save the girl, he has sex with her and we get to watch. When did Stallone or Schwarzenegger or JCVD actually get laid in any of their films?
Films like this aren’t supposed to be anything other than entertaining, like all of JCVD’s films (with the exception of JCVD) AWOL isn’t looking for anyone’s respect. Fighting on the other hand is so careful to avoid the slightest hint of ‘goofiness’ that has the air of a film that takes itself too seriously (I’d hate to think the people behind Fighting thought they had another Raging Bull on their hands). Everything about Jean-Claude is goofy, from the lump on his forehead to his incredibly high waistline into which he forever tucks his shirt (necessary for all those crotch defying high kicks). JCVD watch anyone?
Perhaps I just begrudge the fact that the action films I grew up with and so adore have aged badly, and while modern audiences only appreciated them in that ironic post 80’s way, I still hold some of them in the same regard as ‘good’ films, perhaps for all the wrong reasons.
Hmm...I’m suddenly reminded of how long it’s been since I went to the cinema.
Until I watched and then read up on Witness, I couldn’t name an Australian director other than Baz Luhrmann (wait... Phillip Noyce, he’s one too) . This is an injustice to other Australian directors. Luhrmann has only made about four films, his most recent being the poorly received love letter to Hugh Jackman ‘Australia’
Peter Weir has made thirteen films at a consistent rate of one every three years or so since his debut in 1974. If you check out his filmography you’ll recognise a few of them and have probably seen at least one.
Years ago I borrowed a book about screenwriting from my mate Geoff. It was full of interesting stuff about structure and pace and character and whatnot and the author frequently cited Peter Wier’s Witness as an example of how things should be done. Witness, Witness, Witness all the way through, so I finally got round to watching it. Afterwards I though I’d dig on Weir for a while, particularly because his upcoming film looks interesting in an Oscar baiting kind of way:
Weir was part of the ‘New Wave’ of Australian cinema (how many New Waves have there been, has every country had one?). According to Wikipedia, this particular wave started in 1971, lasted for almost twenty years and included the first two Crocodile Dundee films. Excellent as Paul Hogan’s Dundee films are (the first is still the highest grossing Australian film, take that Baz), I would say that the Aussie New Wave begins in 1974 with Weir’s ‘The Cars That Ate Paris’ and ends in 1981 with his WWI film ‘Galipolli’.
‘The Cars That Ate Paris’ is about a small town full of creepy hicks who cause car accidents then profit from the scrap industry and perform some questionable medical research on the survivors. It’s a very independently minded film but not completely avant-garde
There’s a conventional narrative taking place concerning one of the would-be victims, although a lot of things are left mysterious and open for the audience to speculate about what’s going on. Very much a film made by a director finding his feet it’s a tad disjointed, like two different films with competing ideas; a cross between Mad Max (lots of raggedy young men driving around in knackered cars) and a David Lynch film (strange, sinister characters getting up to unexplained and immoral activities). Creepy in the way only rural Australia can be.
And so many cars! The film is clearly a low budget indie affair but they managed to coble together loads of old motors, working and wrecked. You’d think the outback was full of them. This film predates Mad Max by five years but it may have had some kind of influence.
Filmed in New South Wales, most of the TCTAP takes place in a familiar, dusty outback type of town, but it starts off in a very green almost English Country Landscape. The opening sequence is deliberately idealised, shot like some kind of satire of TV advertising which contrasts the rest of the film quite well.
If someone had said to me before I had watched this film “Imagine an Australian Cult Classic from 1974” I might have pictured something pretty close to this. While it’s certainly original and interesting, it’s not particularly remarkable. There are lots of nice touches and the cast are very believable (they certainly look the part), but it’s a bit unsatisfying that so much goes unexplained. Wier clearly wasn’t interested in making a conventional film; he took the freedom that independent production brings and ran with it, which is always commendable.
Next, Weir made the critically acclaimed adaptation of the Australian novel ‘Picnic at Hanging Rock’. A dream within a dream long before Inception, but not literally about dreams, in fact it’s as far removed from Inception as a film can be. Again it feels like two films in one; the opening act is dreamy and free flowing, almost as though Weir shot it to be viewed while listening to Lou Reed’s ‘Perfect Day’, then the film takes a dramatic turn and becomes a slightly sinister mystery which is compelling enough even without the backdrop of Victorian schoolgirl erotic awakening(!). Again a lot is open to interpretation though this probably comes from the source material as much as Weir’s own input.
PAHR is one of Australia’s most culturally important films, they screen it every Valentine’s day at Hanging Rock apparently. The Blu-Ray I watched features a two hour documentary on the film, longer than the film itself (I admit I didn’t watch much of it). I was reminded a little of The White Ribbon, Weir’s film is no where near as dark or disturbing, but it has the same theme of children being treated very strictly by repressed adults.
Like TCTAP, ‘Picnic’ demonstrates that no matter how much soul a film has, almost every movie benefits from having a well rounded story. From here on the films that Weir made were far more conventional, probably due to the pressure that came with larger budgets, but then again doesn’t every film maker want to tell a story? I don’t think Weir abandoned his youthful artistry when he went on to make his recent ‘popcorn’ movies; he just wanted to make a bigger emotional impact. He certainly succeeded with Gallipoli.
Based upon the Australian involvement in the Gallipoli Campaign (where the British Empire and the French landed on the Turkish coast with the intention of capturing the Ottoman capital) most of the film follows a couple of Western Australians who volunteer to go to war. A young Mel Gibson plays one of them in his first role after Mad Max (there’s something about the young Mel that I’m not too keen on. I much prefer the older, craggier, mullet sporting Mel). The ‘War Film’ bit only happens at the end, it’s more of a ‘Going to War’ film.
It’s quite a big film, shot almost entirely outdoors, mainly in deserts, with Port Lincoln doubling for the Turkish coast. Yet after having seen ‘Saving Private Ryan’ et all, Gallipoli is refreshingly un-epic. This is mainly because of the small budget (it was still only an Australian film remember, made before Crocodile Dundee) but less is definitely more. As I think I’ve mentioned in a previous post, the sign of a good director is that they can do a lot with limited money and resources. The music also takes away from the grandness of the film, there are a couple of dramatic moments that play out to the sound of orchestral strings, but some of the score is slightly lame, particularly the bits by Jean Michel Jarre, which are very out of place.
Like PAHR, parts of Gallipoli take place in upper-class turn of the century Australia. This is a side of Australia that has rarely been shown on screen ever since Mick Dundee appeared on the scene to cement the Australian Stereotype in the minds of a cinema-going generation world wide.
Peter Weir co-wrote this one and was involved with the project from the beginning, whilst it is a far more conventional film that his earlier efforts, it still has a uniqueness to it. It’s not at all a Hollywood film (unlike the films Weir made afterwards) although the drama is strained a little at the end, and there is some historical inaccuracy, all for the sake of a big climax. But the rest of the film is good enough for these failings to be forgivable.
After Gallipoli, Weir and Mel teamed up again for ‘The Year Of Living Dangerously’ which I’ve not seen but it appears to have been the stepping stone to Hollywood for both of them. Weir made ‘Witness’ next, his first film made entirely outside Australia, and with an already established lead; Harrison Ford.
It’s not a bad film. The performances are all good, particularly from the guy who played Karl in Die Hard. It’s exactly the type of film someone might point out as well crafted, particularly from a screenwriter’s perspective.
It’s about a tough city cop who has to hide out in an Amish community (fish out of water). While there he falls for an Amish woman, who falls for him too, but because of the circumstances they can’t act on their impulses (forbidden love). The cop comes to appreciate the peaceful, non-violent way of life on the farm (light-hearted comedy set pieces) and becomes a father figure to the Amish woman’s young son (feel good bonding moments). When the bad guys track the cop down and show up at the farm, the cop has to prove that sometimes, violence is necessary (dramatic climax and possible subliminal message about how firearms are necessary for home protection and every true American should own one).
It seems that Weir had little input beyond directing. An original screenplay, but unoriginal in the sense that it is almost a film by numbers. A typical Hollywood screenplay; written by a screen writer whose first concern is to write screenplays that sell, then re-written by other professional screen writers who work for the studio. Once they’ve got a script they’re all happy with, the studio goes looking for a star whose name they can stick on the poster, and a critically acclaimed yet inexpensive director who want’s to make a film in Hollywood.
I’m sure Weir applies the same enthusiasm and artistic intention to each of his films, but he is proof that not even great directors can always defy The Studio. Studio scripts or studio friendly adaptations produced by the studios rely on the passion and skill of the director to maintain the integrity of the initial concept. Hopefully Weir's ability and vision will be evident in ‘The Way Back’.
1982 was a vintage year for films, these are a few of my favourites;
Tron – Stephen Lisberger All Pixar slapstick humour comes from here. That’s quite a statement but it’s clearly evident from a particular sequence about half way through Tron in which Jeff Bridge is trying to fly the broken down space invader thing. He is accompanied by a ‘byte’, a floating spark/ball thing that can only say ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Jeff comically flies the ship through the Tron landscape crashing into things, having a funny back and forth with his little sidekick, until he ultimately breaks his ship into pieces. It’s a well timed comedy sequence with the perfect rhythm that seems to be facilitated by the medium of 3D animation. Timing, like scaling, is easier in 3D than 2D. The speed at which something is animated can be timed perfectly in 3D animation; physical comedy can be easily animated to the millisecond before the final rendering of the image is created. A gag can be viewed from multiple angles and the funniest one chosen whereas traditional 2D animation relies on the director making the right choice to begin with. Looking forward to the sequel.
The Dark Crystal – Jim Henson and Frank Oz The Dark Crystal is an amazing achievement. I’m tempted to say it’s on the same level as Peter Jackson’s Lord of The Rings trilogy and Avatar as far as the creation of a wholly realised ‘other world’ goes. Of course the most impressive thing is that it was made in the pre-digital age that I’m always harping on about; the cast is made up entirely of puppets, who occupy a detailed and ‘believable’ planet that was painstakingly created. I’m sure there were budgetary restrictions but it’s hard to tell, which is testament to the skill and ingenuity of the people who made it. Watching a childhood favourite again as an adult can often be disappointing, but when I saw it recently I was able to appreciate all the details that I missed as a child. In particular the villains of the film are incredibly compelling; they are more interesting and ‘fleshed out’ than the protagonist or any of the other good guys. I hope they get round to making a sequel, or even a remake.
Conan The Barbarian – John Millius It took me a while to realise it but this is one of my favourite films. I must have watched it least once a year for the last ten years, not because I decided to it, but because whenever it’s on TV, I can’t help but watch. By far one of the most quotable of Arnie’s films, but some of the best lines belong to James Earl Jones. James camps it up to the max in his ridiculous wig, but he adds incredible dramatic weight to the film. He’s one of the few actors to portray a worthy nemesis to the big Austrian.
This was Schwarzenegger’s seventh film but his career basically started here. It’s as though the Conan creation story (as presented in this cinematic adaptation) is a metaphor for the life of Arnold himself; born into a poor family who lived in great hardship, perhaps in the wake of a great war, Conan’s youth is stolen from him as he is forced by a seemingly uncaring authority to become greater than his peers in every way. Conan embraces this life and eventually achieves physical greatness unparalleled by any man. Conan’s body becomes his life and livelihood, until he is freed, possibly against his will, and forced to flee to a far off land to take what he can from life. He is reduced to a petty thief, but eventually becomes the biggest thief there is (in every respect) before he finally settled into a position of power, ruler of a great land, feared and respected in equal measure.
Rocky III – Sylvester Stallone I live my life by the mantra of Clubber Lang: ‘I train alone, and I fight alone, and I win alone’ Hard words from a hard man. In my eyes there is no debate as to which is the best Rocky film (Rocky IV), but the ground was laid with number III; Fight, Training Montage, Fight. Rocky III has a greater legacy than most give it credit for. The Karate Kid and all it’s imitators follow in III’s footsteps. Far from taking the great Rocky and dragging him through the mud, Stallone achieved a kind of cinematic purity with III and IV. Like Stallone’s physique, these films were trimmed of all fat and honed to perfection.
First Blood – Ted Kotcheff Ditto. Stallone made his big comeback with The Expendables, which I enjoyed, but it was far too experienced, it lacked the joyful rage of the Rambo films. I suppose after taking us to a darker place with John Rambo (Rambo IV) Sly wanted to make a more complete and contemporary picture. The Expendables would have benefited from having a simpler story with less emphasis on character development. In fact, if I could create my dream cinematic pairing it would be Stallone directed by Terrence Mallick. Screw conventional narrative and dialogued, all we need is to be able to tell basically what’s going on and watch incredible scenes of Stallone destroying the landscape. Such a film would truly be thunderous and stately.
Wong Kar-wai is a Chinese film maker whose films encapsulate the whole ‘overrated Asian art house film’ thing that I for one have a bit of trouble with. He makes critically acclaimed films that make you doubt yourself for not recognising that they are works of cinematic genius and majesty.
At first viewing I’ve not been too impressed with the films of Wong Kar-wai, but the more I find out about them the more I appreciate them. Like a true auteur he doesn’t make films using anything as conventional as a script. He has an idea and a cast and a camera and away he goes.
His career hasn’t been able to completely escape the Hong Kong movie staples; films about gangsters hit men, as well as a kung fu film, but almost all HK directors earn their stripes with genre pieces. Wong has built his career making films about love and loss, time and regret. Some viewers may regret the time they spent watching his films due to their slow pace and lack of structure, but like all ‘alternative’ film, the story isn’t important.
As well as Chunking Express, I recently watched Days of Being Wild (1990), a love story (in the loosest sense) set in 60’s Hong Kong, starring some of China’s best know actors (to Western audiences at least).
True to the dream like nature of his films Wong Kar-wai has claimed (or admitted) that 60s Hong Kong wasn’t really like the way it is depicted in his film. The details of the setting, like the story, come a distant second to the mood. The plot is simply explained; Yuddy, played by Leslie Chung is a bit of a player. He seduces Maggie Chung’s character, dumps her, and seduces Carina Lau’s character, eventually dumping her too. The reason he’s such a cad is because he was adopted and his foster mother (who was once a call girl, now a sugar mommy) has never told him who his real mother is. This may well be the deepest back-story any character in a Wong Kar-wai film has ever had.
The story hangs on the fact that the two female lead fall madly in love with Leslie, who is supposed to be some kind of James Dean type (Days Of Being Wild’s Chinese title translates literally as ‘The Story of Rebellious Youth’ which was the title given to Rebel Without a Cause when it was released in Hong Kong). The problem with this is that while Leslie may be some kind of heart throb in HK, he’s not as good as other Chinese actors of his generation, notably Andy Lau who plays the supporting male role, and The Worlds Finest Actor Tony Leung. Tony appears in the final scene of the movie in what was supposed to be the prelude to a planned sequel that never transpired.
Maggie and Carina fall madly for Leslie, setting up the trademark meditation on loss that is the essence of most of Wong’s films. The girls do well, Maggie Chung is, I think, a slightly overrated actress given she almost always plays the down-trodden or otherwise withdrawn victim/girlfriend, but the reason she does it over and over is because she’s so good at it. She certainly looks the part.
But Leslie just doesn’t have the charisma or presence to play the lead in a film that is so free flowing and sparse. Films without much by way of plot or dialogue live or die by the quality of the actors.
Wong Kar-wai is one of those filmmakers who works with the same cast over and over. Do the actors work with him because of the freedom he gives them, or the kudos from working with an acclaimed director? Most Hong Kong actors are so hard working that they are probably keen to make the occasional international-festival-circuit-shoe-in to offset all the films they appear in that will never be released outside China or even Hong Kong. Ever since this film, Wong’s status is such that he can assume that each of his films will receive a high profile Cannes debut if he wants it to.
Wong would be the first to admit (I hope) that the critical and artistic success of his films is equally due to his long time collaborator; Australian cinematographer Christopher Doyle. Making a film with the great director can be very difficult, as Doyle himself chronicles in his diary of filming Happy Together. Scripts, screenplays, shooting schedules and storyboards don’t exist in the world of Wong Kar-wai. The vaguer the plot, the more demanding the cinematographer’s job becomes, and Doyle has more than earned his status by effectively creating the trademark Wong Kar-wai ‘look’ for him.
Of course, a film is made in the editing suite, and this is where a director will really earn his reputation, but the style of shooting that Wong uses means that sometimes he just doesn’t have the footage to create the sequence he wants. This seems to be the case at the end of DOBW. Some may perceive his quick, disjointed cutting during pivotal moments as edgy in a French New Wave kind of way, but I can’t believe something so choppy was completely intentional.
Wong is quoted in the DVD liner notes as saying “What is essential is that I want my audience to leave the cinema having enjoyed the film, and that means the whole world to me.”
I’m sure almost all directors would express the same sentiment, but coming from Wong Kar-wai it sounds a bit deluded. He is clearly more concerned with achieving his vision and creating thoughtful beauty. Hong Kong directors who want to please the audience make violent gangster flicks and comedies full of local humour; that other famous Wong, the prolific Wong Jing is a typical example. Incidentally, Wong Jing is quoted as saying “Only rubbish people would call my movies rubbish”. You tell ‘em Jing.
I’ve only seen two of his films, and I have my reservations about both, but Wong Kar-wai’s movies are clearly like no one else’s, so if I’m happy to dedicate so much time to the work of that other auteur Steven Seagal, I should really focus as much of my attention at the other end of the cinematic spectrum.
I count myself lucky to have grown up in a time when there was no internet and satellite TV was a rarity. In those days there were only a few people in charge of what was broadcast on the four TV channels available in the UK, and looking back, they made some good choices. According to my rose tinted recollection, every weekend afternoon of the 1980s and early 90s at least one of the following would have been on telly: a handful of Loony Tunes or Tom & Jerry cartoons, a Laurel and Hardy film, a Three Stooges film or least often but still occasionally, a Chaplin film.
All of those things form a ubiquitous part of my childhood which I’m sure is missing from the collective consciousness of anyone born in the UK after 1990. It may sound like a self satisfied justification of the prejudices every generation has toward the one that comes after it, but... maybe the reason kids nowadays are such poor idiotic saps is because they weren’t exposed to the excellent short films produced in the first half of the twentieth century, like wot I was when I were a young un. It taught me an appreciation of the simple things. There is a purity to slapstick that is all but lost nowadays. The only place it seems to appear any more with any quality are Pixar films.
It’s easy to either forget or be unaware of how important Sir Charles Chaplin is to the history of cinema. It’s only since I got round to Attenborough’s biopic that I first looked back at Chaplin’s life and work with any real interest. The story of Charlie Chaplin is similar to many a biopic; born into poverty, tragic upbringing, emigration to America, massive success that ultimately doesn’t bring happiness, years in the wilderness, eventual happy ending. There’s a lot of ground to cover in the life of Chaplin, and it certainly warrants a Ghandi style biographical epic directed by the great Dicky Attenborough.
Like all such films, things pick up when the subject’s career takes off and Chaplin makes his way to Hollywood. Rather annoyingly the film skips over how Chaplin was discovered; he literally goes from watching a silent film projected onto a sheet in a saloon somewhere in the Mid West, to wandering into the middle of a shoot in California after being summoned by the great Mack Sennet (well played by pre-career-meltdown Dan Ackroyd).
It’s Chaplin’s rise to become one of the most successful and powerful filmmakers of pre-golden era Hollywood that is of most interest to Richard, leading up to his eventual exile from the USA during the height of McCarthyism. Attenborough’s directorial style changes noticeably as the film progresses through each era of Chaplin’s life. Early on during the scenes in London he makes heavy use of George Lucas style wipes between scenes, which is very off-putting, but it doesn’t last long.
Robert Downey Jr does a great job of mimicking Chaplin’s physical performance and his portrayal of Chaplin as a young man is fine, but Rob was only about 27 when the film was made, so when he portrays the elderly Chaplin, he falls short. They should have used an older actor to play the older Chaplin, rather than trying to make Downey look like someone else.
Anthony Hopkins plays the role of a fictional editor who visits an elderly Chaplin in Switzerland to discuss his autobiography. This plot device allows the use of a reflective voice over that is in context with the life of Chaplin as it plays out on screen. It works quite well but I think it was a bit unnecessary. Milla Jovovich has a small role as Chaplin’s first teen bride. Chaplin liked them young you see, much like those other renowned creative talents Polanski and R Kelly. Richard Attenborough’s Chaplin is very kind to the subject when covering his four very young brides; Chaplin didn’t see what all the fuss was about and Dicky would rather dwell on Chaplin’s tortured genius than his controversial love life.
I liked this film, but I hesitate to recommend any film over two hours long unless I really enjoyed it, so instead, if you’ve got an hour to kill, you could do worse than watching one of Chaplin’s most celebrated silent works The Kid, which like a lot of Chaplin’s films is easily found online. Maybe the youth of today will do themselves the favour of stumbling upon it.
The silent era is born again online. I’m quite interested in watching some of the great silent films that paved the way for all the great movies that I enjoy, but not so interested that I would seek them out beyond a brief search on the web. Maybe I’ll work my way round to Max Linder one day.
