The Mother of All Page to Screen Blogs

Werth: Twenty-three Skidoo, Wise.  Have some bathtub gin and let's toast the opening of Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby by gabbing about literary adaptations from page to screen.  

Wise: Um, don't you mean, let's put on old bathrobes and have lumpy pancakes in bed?  

Werth: Are you hungover?

Wise: It's Mother's Day on Sunday, and shouldn't we be celebrating the ladies who make it all possible?  

Werth: Let's compromise and do literary mothers on the big screen. 

Wise: I'm all for that, as long as it doesn't turn into a glam rock disco anthem.

Werth: This means I will have to discuss the biggest mommie book turned into a movie of all time. Yes, that day has come. I will gab about Mommie Dearest (1981).

Wise: I've already fastened my seatbelt. 

Werth: I'll be blunt. I think Christina Crawford's hit tell-all 1978 book Mommie Dearest is opportunistic exaggeration. It and the subsequent movie have supplanted an image of Joan Crawford in the public's mind that has eclipsed the talents of this hard-working, dedicated actress. 

But let me be clear, Joan Crawford was no saint. She was a control freak, a mean drunk, obsessively strict with her children and so invested in her image that it's likely there was no difference between Joan Crawford movie star and Joan Crawford human being. That's one of the reasons it is so much fun to watch Faye Dunaway "become" Joan Crawford.

 
Wise: It takes a lot of eyebrow pencil and even more cojones. 

Werth: Like the book, Mommie Dearest the movie tells the story of how Golden Age Hollywood movie star Joan Crawford adopted Christina (played as a teen and older adult by Diana Scarwid) and the subsequent wire-hanger-inspired abuse that followed. And as with the book, the scenes without Joan are a snooze. 

Dunaway is literally possessed by Crawford and translates Crawford's larger than life screen persona into her portrayal. Crawford doing something as simple as taking a shower or putting on elbow lotion becomes a full-scale MGM production. Almost everything in this movie looks like it's from a movie. There is no sense of reality... with the exception of one scene where Joan confesses to Chrisitna that she's broke. Dunaway tones down the makeup and the gestures to become what might be a glimpse of what Crawford was really like. Dunaway's physical resemblance to Crawford is eerie, especially when you add-in that Dunaway was the same age as Crawford at this time, was dealing with the same career issues, and had even just adopted a child—although Dunaway lied to the press for years and claimed to have given birth to her son.

Wise: Art imitating life channeling crazy. 

Werth: Dunaway's unearthly connection to Crawford produces a portrayal that is so monstrous you can't take your eyes off it. The eyebrows, the lips, the held-back shoulders and perfectly timed puffs of smoke fill the screen. Unfortunately that over-the-top performance also turned what was supposed to be a dramatic treatment of child abuse into a camp classic that had gay men around the country shouting the lines back at the screen. 

In the end, no less than Christina Crawford herself denied that her mother acted like that. I don't like Mommie Dearest for what it did to Crawford's image, but I do have to give props to Dunaway, whose dedication to the part is something Joan Crawford would appreciate.

Wise: Little Children (2006) focuses on another bad mommy in an extreme situation.  Sarah Pierce (Kate Winslet) is a young suburban mother with a daughter she doesn't understand and an older husband who's become hooked on internet porn.  At the park one day she meets former college football star Brad Adamson (Patrick Wilson) who's supposed to be studying for the bar, but wastes his hours daydreaming about former glory. 

They begin a flirtation that quickly escalates into an affair, igniting a domestic firestorm when Brad's wife Kathy (Jennifer Connelly) catches on to their dalliance.  During all this, Brad's buddy Larry, a former cop, has a begun a campaign to expose and harass recently released sex offender Ronny McGorvey (Jackie Earle Haley).
  

Werth: Sex offender, dead guy who kills you in your dreams, a super hero with a bag on his head. Jackie Earle Haley better be careful of typecasting.

Wise: Director Todd Field adapted Tom Perrotta's novel with  the help of the author, and it's interesting to see how the book and the film diverge.  Most of the plot points are the same, but the leap from page to screen erased some of the author's black humor while heightening the interconnectedness of the characters.  A scene at the local pool, for example, contrasts Sarah and Brad's growing romance with Ronny's own conflicting desires to become a regular member of society while indulging in his squirmy desires.  

The juxtaposition not only points out the risk that Sarah and Brad are taking, it also suggests the longings that all three characters have that can never be fulfilled.  

Werth: Seeing Wilson's rear end was fulfillment enough for me.

Wise: Winslet, who has made a career of great performances, is particularly good here, if a bit more subtle than in other films.  Her Sarah begins frumpy, shoulders hunched as if she is still poring over the feminist texts she studied in college.  

As the affair progresses, she becomes more golden, her body less lumpy and more voluptuous, while her speaking voice becomes less nasal and more direct.  This is no typical movie makeover scene, instead it's a carefully calibrated depiction of a woman discovering both what she wants and what she doesn't need.  

Wilson has a bit less to do, but manages to cast off his somewhat effete persona and play a believable jock plagued by regret.  

But it's Haley who's the real stunner here, transforming himself from a washed-up kid star to a character actor with incredible depth.  His Ronny is both poignant and tragic, slyly comic, and well deserving of his Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor.  

Werth: I hope you're satisfied that we covered both literature and motherhood in one fell gab.

Wise: Indeed we have, now let's get to those pancakes.

Werth: Tune in next week for more light and fluffy Film Gab!

 

True to Life Film Gab

Werth: Hello, Wise.

Wise: Hello, Werth. What cinematic plans do you have for this weekend?

Werth: Well if I can recover from Film Gab favorite Chris Hill's birthday margaritas, I'd like to go see Argo.

Wise: Oh right. The new Affleck flick based on the recently declassified CIA mission to rescue U.S diplomats during the Iran hostage crisis while disguised as a Hollywood film crew.

Werth: It's perfect—real life imitating Hollywood when Hollywood has always enjoyed taking true stories and turning them into movies. But oftentimes movie-making has played fast and loose with the truth. David Lean's Oscar-winner The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) is a perfect example of a movie that people think is based on true events—but is actually more movie magic than reality.  

Kwai tells the story of a group of WWII British POWs led by stalwart Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guinness) who endure torture and starvation in order to build a bridge for their Japanese captors.

Wise: Kind of like the last time I was at Uniqlo. 

Werth: Shears, a U.S. naval officer (the oft bare-chested William Holden) escapes and is soon leading a group of commandos to blow-up the bridge that Nicholson has taken such care to build. In typical Lean fashion, nature sets a stunning backdrop for this story of human chutzpah and conflict. 

Shot mostly in the dense jungles of Ceylon, the local flora provides a very real cage to trap these men (and actors) in. If you want to grab a bottle of water while watching Lawrence of Arabia, in Kwai you want to grab a moist towelette and a flyswatter. 

Part of Lean's genius was creating all-encompassing atmosphere by replacing sets made by man with sets designed by God.

Wise: Does God get credit for set design?

Werth: The other thing Lean did very well was choose and direct amazing actors. William Holden is as brash, smart-mouthed and rugged as ever—so American he should be made of apple pie. 

Former Asian silent film star Sessue Hayakawa earned an Oscar nom for his role as camp commander Colonel Saito, a cold bastard who finds his well-run deathcamp turned upside-down by Nicholson. 

Which brings me to Guinness. The ease with which Guinness portrays Nicholson is breathtaking. This career soldier's desire for rules and regulations is so deep that he will stand quoting a copy of the Geneva Convention while his captors focus a machine gun on him and his men. 

It should come off as comical how this man justifies building a bridge for the enemy so that he can keep his men's morale up. But Guinness inhabits the unbending role so completely there is no room for comedy. He rightly earned a Best Actor Oscar for making this complex character so real.

Wise: So what about the movie isn't true?

Werth: Try most of it. There was a bridge built by British POWs over the Mae Klong River (Thailand) in 1943, but that's where the similarities end. In fact, when the movie was originally released, veterans who worked on the bridge were fairly upset at the depiction, pointing out that there was no whistling in their camp, and the real-life Col. Nicholson, Phillip Toosey, actually worked to sabotage the bridge instead of building one he could be proud of.

Wise: Long before Peter Jackson was corralling Hobbits or remaking the greatest monkey pic from the Golden Age of Hollywood, he was busy examining the inner lives 1950's teenage girls.  

Werth: Something he has in common with Errol Flynn.  

Wise: Heavenly Creatures (1994) dramatizes the notorious Parker-Hulme murder case in which two New Zealand teenagers developed an incredibly intense friendship that led to the brutal beating death of one girl's mother.  

Juliet Hulme (Kate Winslet), the privileged daughter of an English academic, and Pauline Parker (Melanie Lynskey), the beetle-browed offspring of working class parents, came from very different backgrounds, but they bond over childhood illnesses and a shared love for James Mason and Mario Lanza.  

Together they create an all-consuming fantasy world, and when their parents begin to worry that their fierce friendship would tip inevitably into lesbianism, plans were made to separate them.  Lashing out, the girls bludgeon Pauline's mother and hope to flee to Hollywood.  

Werth: It might have been easier for them to just wear tight sweaters and hang around the soda fountain.
 

Wise: This is the first film appearance of both Winslet and Lynskey, and it's incredible how committed they both are to their performances.  Winslet is by turns fragile and venomous, already displaying the talent that has made her the darling of awards season.  

And Lynskey, who has until recently been mostly confined to sidekick roles (including a long-running stint on Two and a Half Men), reveals the ferocity inside not-so-pretty girls who have something to prove.  

Werth: You'd be ferocious too if you had to act with Charlie Sheen for eight years.

Wise: But it is Peter Jackson himself who does the most amazing work here.  Writing the script with his longtime partner Fran Walsh, he finds the heart of the picture in the girls' friendship and not in the frenzy surrounding the trial.  Plus, as director, he is somehow able to seamlessly combine period piece, fantasy film, domestic drama, and murder mystery into a beautifully integrated whole. 

The film isn't about lurid details—although the scene with a brick in stocking bashing Pauline's mother's skull would turn anyone's stomach—but about the beauty and danger offered by the creative life.

Werth: Speaking of creative, I have to pick-out which flavor margarita I'm going to drink several of tonight.

Wise: Tune in next week for more salt or no-salt Film Gab!

The Gabeur Theory

Wise: Hello, Werth.

Werth: Bonjour, mon gabber. Comment ça va?

Wise: I think you have some croissant stuck in your teeth. 

Werth: No, I just saw Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom.

Wise: In French?

Werth: I was just struck by how stylistic Wes Anderson's work is, and how he could be considered a modern auteur director.

Wise: And since French critics like Francois Truffaut came up with the auteur theory in the 1950's, you started speaking Gallic-ly.

Werth: Très bien. While not everyone buys into the auteur theory (yes, Pauline Kael, I'm talking about you), what Truffaut and his ilk sought to do was to discuss certain directors' bodies of work by highlighting the visual and stylistic similarities in their films. Originally they used the auteur theory to define Hitchcock, Hawks, Kurosawa and others.

Wise: But the theory works equally well with contemporary directors, many of whom were just as influenced by the Cahiers du Cinéma crowd as they were the films they discussed.  

For instance, Ang Lee who has genre-jumped memorably throughout his career— the domestic drama of The Ice Storm (1997); screwball mix-ups in The Wedding Banquet (1993); martial arts thrills in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000); and even superhero blockbuster Hulk (2003)—still puts his stylistic stamp on everything he does.  

Werth: I'm just glad he got Heath and Jake naked in Brokeback Mountain (2005).

Wise: While Lee's films are all deeply interested in character, I'd say that his style is most evident in the careful way he uses image to communicate the delicate balance between reason and emotion.  And nowhere is that more evident than in his adaptation of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility (1995).  Working from an Oscar-winning script written by his star Emma Thompson, Lee takes Austen's premise of two sisters and their very different love affairs and uses it to explore his own fascination with estrangement and constraint and the ways in which they both can be shattered by passion.  

Werth: And bonnets. Lots of bonnets.

Wise: Banished from their home by the vagaries of British entitlement, sisters Elinor (Thompson) and Marianne (Kate Winslet) Dashwood retire to a remote cottage with their mother and younger sister Margaret.  The seclusion only heightens the sisters' natural tendencies—Elinor to circumspection; Marianne to passion—and colors their interactions with potential suitors.  

Werth: Although sadly there is no gravity-defying, kung fu swordplay.  

Wise: The film is full of dualities: will Marianne choose the dashing Willoughby (a very sexy Greg Wise) or the more restrained Colonel Brandon (Alan Rickman)?; will Elinor rely on decorum or will she toss it aside in pursuit of true love (a remarkably stutter-free Hugh Grant)?  Lee delights in these choices and dramatizes them onscreen.  

He and cinematographer Michael Coulter carefully compose each shot, but often disrupt the harmony with turbulence, whether with a fluttering curtain, a jagged hedgerow, or Marianne's frantic dash across the hillside.  While seeming unobtrusive, his camera moves pointedly reveal character, confining Elinor's suffering to a corner of the frame while Marianne's theatrics devour the screen.  

But perhaps most characteristic of Lee's work is his use of the sky—rumor persists that he insisted on expensive CGI clouds to perfect a single shot—to express his characters' aspirations and to signal the emotional tenor of a scene.  His sensitivity, tempered by rationality, infuses each of his films with not only a distinctive look, but also a set of themes that makes his work instantly recognizable and deeply personal. 

Werth: A director that many consider to be a good candidate for auteur status is Stanley Kubrick. Throughout a wide range of film genres, Kubrick's films have a distinct visual style and viewpoint that make his work unmistakeable. One of his most popular films is 1964's long-titled Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Originally conceived as a thriller based on Peter George's Red Alert, Kubrick's re-writes of the script kept getting funnier and funnier. So he decided that the best way to communicate his dark theme of nuclear detente was through satire, and, with writer Terry Southern's help, he soon had a hilarious dark comedy script to shoot.

Wise: I wonder if Battleship began as a thoughtful examination of nuclear responsibility? 

Werth: A crazed general trips an alarm sending U.S. bombers to drop nukes on Russia starting a domino effect that insures the destruction of both countries and the world. Now just reading the plot, it's hard to find anything funny about it, but all one has to do is look at some of the character names to know that this movie has a wicked sense of humor.

Peter Sellers masterfully improvises three characters: Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, President Merkin Muffley and the ex-Nazi scientist Dr. Strangelove. George C. Scott chews up the scenery in the War Room as gum-chewing General Buck Turgidson. Sterling Hayden is the body fluid-obsessed commander of Burpelson Airbase, General Jack Ripper. Slim Pickens drawls his way onto a nuclear warhead as Major '"King" Kong. But Keenan Wynn really tips the comedy name scales as Colonel "Bat" Guano.

Wise: Clearly Kubrick should not name children.

Werth: Kubrick's genius with his dramatic material (like Full Metal Jacket (1987) and A Clockwork Orange (1971)) was to wrap his real world themes in dark, ridiculous comedy. He worked this idea of overlapping real and unreal into how he shot his films as well. The opening scene is visual poetry with the credits appearing over stock footage of a mid-air plane re-fueling that winds up looking like plane sex to the tune of "Try a Little Tenderness."

Fantastical sets like the War Room are shot under high, focused, overhead lighting to give a sense of realism (much like his use of candlelight in Barry Lyndon (1975)).

His use of handheld cameras for the assault on Burpelson gives a documentary style to the action, but his very long takes and static, often dramatic, camera angles for other scenes create a striking cinematic effect (much like his long tracking shots using a Steadicam in The Shining (1981) and Eyes Wide Shut (1999)).

His attention to details like cockpit checklists and phone conversations is so precise in its grasp of reality, that it makes a viewer wonder why the "boring stuff" wasn't cut-out of the movie.

That dual quality of being aware and at the same time not aware that you are watching a movie is a cohesive theme that resonates through all of Kubrick's films, making him an arguable example of the visual and thematic auteur director.

Wise: I wonder if Truffaut would think Film Gab was an auteur blog.

Werth: Tune in to Film Gab next week when we use a Ouija board and a French phrasebook to find out!