Public Enemies

Yesterday, I finally saw Michael Mann's new gangster movie, Public Enemies, starring Johnny Depp as John Dillinger and Christian Bale as Melvin Purvis, the G-Man on his trail. I've been an admirer of Mann's for years, if not precisely a fan (or fanatic), and the qualities for which I've most admired him are well displayed here: restless, creative risk-taking to the limits of big-budget studio filmmaking, technological experimentation and almost casually virtuosic direction of action set pieces.

From the general audience standpoint, only the latter quality really matters. Most viewers will have no idea that they just watched a film that was not shot on film at all, but in high definition video, let alone that Mann changed frame rates a couple of times in the film to deliberately make it look like video as we're used to seeing it on TV, rather than video aping the frame rate of standard film projection (24 frames per second). This is not to say that these techniques do not affect the audience, necessarily. Most people just don't notice them and don't care about them.

In my book, this is how it should be. Technology - yes, even spectacular FX - ought not be noticed as such. An audience should be too busy engaging with the film on some human level, like emotionally or intellectually, to notice how well the technology works. For people like me, this is sometimes difficult, because we are too steeped in filmmaking itself to fail to notice the man behind the curtain, as it were. Though a small group over all, there are plenty of film fans who fall into this category. We can talk about Mann's color palette, which HD camera he used, why he shot this period film in an almost documentary style and what was behind his decision to sometimes shoot at a higher frame rate, thereby making scenes inspired by 30s newsreels appear to have been filmed by present-day cable news crews. Is this aesthetic choice a sly commentary on John Dillinger's celebrity, suggesting that things haven't changed all that much in America? Maybe, but why make such a commentary in a way guaranteed to sail over the heads of most viewers? Will they simply sense this aspect, without quite being able to put their fingers on it? (Or perhaps his critique is too commonplace, made many times before in superior films like Bonnie and Clyde and Badlands, to name two in a similar vein, as well as in many films of various quality, to have much impact.)

Whether the audience can sense the subtler changes that digital cinema can bring to the moviegoing experience is a pretty interesting question, for some, and it's questions like that that make Public Enemies an interesting film, for some. But this kind of experience is awfully cerebral, disappointingly so for a film packed with superb actors and based on such terrific characters and fascinating history. Barely anything human in the film registered with me - the only character I was really interested in was Billy Crudup's winking, bow-legged, feral J. Edgar Hoover. I applaud Mann for understanding we did not to see an elaborate backstory for Dillinger or his nemesis, for trusting his audience enough to drop us right into the action, but this does not mean every character should be a cipher. We all like Johnny Depp, but we still need a character. Christian Bale registers even less - practically anyone could have played the role to equal or greater effect. Marion Cotillard serves only a vague (and elsewhere wholly disregarded) historicity as Dillinger's girlfriend, Billie Frechette, but the affair delivers no chemistry, no romance, and only meager story- and plot-related value. Why is she even here?

Some of Mann's story choices, as friends have pointed out to me, are bold. There is no "final confrontation" scene between Depp and Bale, for example; instead, Dillinger's last words after he's gunned down are delivered to a supporting character, who tells them to Frechette in the final scene. This is one of many small ways Mann rejects conventional Hollywood storytelling - the almost complete lack of expository detail is another - and these are smart, interesting choices. I believe that this can be done, though, while still finding room for the kind of genuine, specific, shocking, documentary humanity that is required for truly engaging, full-throated storytelling.

As a postscript, I would add that it's truly weird to watch a film set in the early 1930s in which, perhaps, two cigarettes are seen. A key moment at the end of the film has Bale lighting a cigar to signal the other Feds that Dillinger has left the building - only, unless I blinked and missed it, we don't even see him light the cigar. We see the cigar, we see the matches, we see him raising a lit match out of frame, then on to something else. As an artistic choice, this smoking ban is fine, albeit weirdly and totally inaccurate, if that's really what was wanted. Except, that's not the story - this is just corporate self-censorship to spare us the shock of seeing Johnny Depp and Christian Bale smoke. The movie is already rated R. So what gives?

Polymeric Thin Films

That would be a good name for a film company, by which I mean a motion picture company. I often write about that kind of film, but the Google Advertising Bot advertised about the polymeric thin kind.

Additional thoughts

The previous post limns my disgust with Ben Stein's piss-poorly reasoned pro-Intelligent Design film, Expelled, although I didn't go into much detail on what I felt was so weak about his argument. Today, I've read an interesting piece by The Ethicist, in his weekly "Moral of the Story" column. On the subject of the current war over health care in the Congress, Cohen asks, "Is some debate so suspect as to be unethical?"

That's an interesting question - what he means is, when you're a politician or political operative making public statements and arguments on a contentious topic, such as whether there ought to be a "public option," do you have any kind of ethical responsibility to argue from logic employing truthful information or is it permissible to just lie your ovoid, turd-blossomy head off?

What do you think The Ethicist has to say about that?

As it relates to the Stein film, if you watch it you'll notice that the smug, arrogant, condescending Stein is about as lazy and partisan in his approach to his issue as many Republicans have been in considering the health care issue. It's as easy, and as devoid of any actual meaning, to simply say that Obama's a "socialist" as it is for Stein to hint that those who agree that evolution is science fact are Nazis. Or tantamount to Nazis. Or whatever he was saying.

Baby with the bathwater

Recently, I have seen two very different documentaries on two very controversial topics.

Tony Kaye's 2006 Lake of Fire is a harrowing, 2 1/2 hour black and white take on abortion, a great piece of work. It manages to be convincingly balanced, giving time to many different voices, from crazies advocating the murder of abortion providers to Jane Roe herself to Pat Buchanan, Dershowitz and old man Chomsky, as well as to a number of mere mortals, and lesser creatures, such as Randall Terry. It's tough going, with graphic images of abortions and relentless craziness, no matter what your personal beliefs. Dershowitz and loony Chomsky are very amusing, at points, and right on target, of course. The film is worth seeing for its clarity and compassion for all its subjects - it will make you stop and consider your own attitudes more closely. I am curious to know more about how the final scenes were constructed - whether some events were restaged or if multiple cameras were used - but either way, a serious, thought-provoking documentary.

Also provocative, though I know not what of, is Nathan Frankowski's Ben Stein starrer Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, a well-shot but smug and disappointingly boneheaded film about academic freedom vis-a-vis Intelligent Design. Sadly, for him, Stein is also credited as a writer. The film makes an important point about the dangers of squelching academic freedom - in this case, in the way that (according to the film) many scientists have been ostracized, even to the point of ending careers, for the sin of expressing an open mind toward Intelligent Design - which is that science must always be willing to question its own assumptions, no matter how entrenched. Scientists must be willing - and have the freedom - to be wrong, in the name of seeking truth.

Scientists seek what we might call natural truth. Evolution by means of natural selection is such a natural truth; an accepted law of biology. Biologists who do not accept this are heretical, and few, but this is not necessarily a reason to fire them. However, religious faith is not in conflict with biology. There are plenty of religious Darwinists (the film's perjorative term for anyone who believes in evolution) who have no trouble whatsoever balancing these two worldviews. Indeed, I think most people are capable of holding multiple views on a single topic without feeling that they have to choose only one. This is what makes the extreme views on the topic of origins so perplexing - atheists who categorically insist on the non-existence of God and fundamentalists who insist that, I don't know, the earth is actually a six thousand year old walnut.

What Stein and Company do here is skate over the surface of an issue that could really use a compassionate, clear-eyed exploration, as in Lake of Fire. Instead, Expelled is hideous propaganda in sheep's clothing; I mean, for the love of Jesus H. Christ, by the end Stein is literally comparing proponents of evolution to Nazis. You see, the Nazis used eugenics theories based on Darwinism to justify the murder of the Jews. So that's where Darwin's theories lead. In other words, if some crazy-evil bastards twist science-based ideas beyond recognition to further their crazy evil, we should question the validity of the science? That's as stupid as the argument that says we should be atheists because bad things have been done in the name of religion. That's throwing out the baby with the bathwater. And, disturbingly, Stein goes to Dachau to make this argument. Look what evolution did! It killed 6 million Jews. Watch out, lest evolution do it again! Stein is Jewish, but he has no trouble trading on this unspeakable horror perpetrated against his own people to argue a totally unrelated and truly fatuous point.

There was a time when I respected Ben Stein. I thought he was a smart guy, even if I didn't always agree with him. But this film shows that he's just one more shallow, opportunistic conservative media whore. Now he's doing commercials for Comcast. Can he sink any lower?

Okay, I'll talk about copyright for a second

I have so far largely avoided talking about one of my pet issues on this blog, namely the tangle of thorns known as the current take on copyright law in the U.S. I've avoided it mostly so I wouldn't end up writing only about this topic, though I have mentioned it on occasion, because in my experience people hate this issue and find it incredibly boring. I'd like to tackle it at some point, though, and try to make it interesting to people, and try to make it matter to them. I think fixing our broken copyright system matters a great deal and gets to the very heart of our democracy, our First Amendment right to free speech.

Today, though, I just wanted to mention a very specific case. Back in February, I wrote about the Oscars which had just been handed out. At the time, I embedded a YouTube clip from the broadcast of a skit performed by Seth Rogen and James Franco as their Pineapple Express characters. It was a hilarious skit, one of the (few) highlights of the telecast and, after watching PE again the other night, I wanted to watch the skit again.

Alas, when I went to my post to watch the embedded clip, I clicked on it and got this message instead: "This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by AMPAS Oscars." In other words, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which hands out the Oscars and produces the awards show, did not authorize that clip to be shown on YouTube. I'd like to point out a few things about this:

First, if you followed the above link back to that post, you'll notice I have reembedded the clip from a different website. AMPAS's takedown request was completely useless, even though it seems to have been effective with regard to YouTube, because there are hundreds of other video sharing sites on the Web and once a popular clip has been passed around it's as near to impossible as makes no difference to take it down. The fast Google search I performed to find the clip somewhere other than YouTube yielded dozens of sites on the first results page. Bottom line: this brand of corporate censorship - oh, what? you think that's not the right word? you want me to grab a dictionary? - literally does not work.

Second, I'd like to know by what reasonable calculation the Academy loses one stinking dime by allowing fans to share a clip like this. I don't see it on their website. I don't see it exclusively licensed to another site, like Funny or Die. Is AMPAS going to release the clip in some other form, for instance, an Oscar highlights DVD? Maybe they will - and if that's the plan, would someone walk me through how leaving the clip up on YouTube fucks up that plan? Maybe you think that the argument is that no one would buy the DVD, or download, or whatever, if the clip was available for free. Really? How do you know that? How do you know that the kind of person who would actually buy such a DVD even knows that YouTube exists? How do you know that, even if they know the clip is on YouTube, that they wouldn't buy the DVD for the far superior quality and for all the other clips that such a DVD would theoretically contain? The truth is, no one has any idea but I would suggest that the tiny little market for such a DVD would not be hurt - in fact, with the right kind of promotion, it could be helped - by allowing that clip to be seen online.

Third, fuck AMPAS and its cadre of overpaid lawyers, billing hours just to justify their retainers. This is the kind of reflexive, thoughtless, overzealous, anti-consumer, anti-fan copyright protectionism that we, the people, need to crush like a mob hit in a trash compactor. This is the toughest aspect of the problem, though - getting "the people" to care about any of this. Much in the same way that some people are not in favor of taxing the wealthiest Americans a bit more to provide important services for poorer people because they think they themselves are going to be rich someday, even though there is almost no chance of that (amidst many other, much better arguments for the stupidity of their position), other folks think that the draconian copyright protections lobbied for and won by the media corporations might help them out when they create valuable content one day. Which they almost certainly will not. The "common sense" argument, that, well, of course AMPAS should take down the content, because it's their property, deserves a longer dissection than I feel like doing right now, but I will come back to it.

Fourth, and finally, at some point a different kind of common sense will have to prevail, by which media corporations will realize that they aren't getting anywhere with this type of behavior. Like the political argument that says the war on terror has ended up creating more terrorists, the war on "piracy" will only create more pirates. That is, when I hear that some mom in the Midwest - whatever her true motives - did some minor music sharing and so now has to fork over a million bucks to the recording industry, it makes me want to steal music and give it away to everyone I know. Ah, but will I actually do so? So, my hating the industry for being total dicks, so long as I don't steal anything, is of no concern?

The James Mangold Episode

When I was in film school, we would frequently have guest artist seminars, which I believe were "mandatory." There were a number of memorable guests - Martin Landau was the best, but we also saw Melvin van Peebles, Sally Menke and this awesome dolly grip. Another time, James Mangold brought his Johnny Cash biopic, Walk the Line. The school is the California Institute of the Arts, in Valencia, CA - Mangold is an alumnus, which I assume by some largess is how we got such a screening. CalArts almost never previewed current Hollywood films for their students - not artsy enough! Around the same time, some marketeers wanted to preview Hard Candy, an "edgy," but mediocre indie thriller starring Ellen Page, but the faculty canceled the screening on the basis of its not being good enough a film, I presume.

Typically, a guest artist for the film directing program would show a film or films and then have a Q&A.

I often find myself thinking about the Mangold screening. Prior to attending grad school, I had seen two James Mangold films, Heavy and Cop Land. I had a good opinion of him; I hadn't known about his CalArts connection before I went there. I can still recall his first film, Heavy, with its sensitive portrayal of a shy outcast, beautifully played by Pruitt Taylor Vince. Cop Land was fine and basically I thought he was a filmmaker who was slowly "going Hollywood" but had managed to hang on to a point of view and a level of quality that I respected, if not revered.

And actually, now that I think about it, it was one of our faculty, Gill Dennis, the film's writer, who hooked up the screening. I remember we filed into our cinema, the Bijou, built at the center of the art school's high modern superstructure, deep beneath the crust of the earth. Well, maybe not that deep. At the door, we had to surrender any digital acquisition devices - cameras, cell phones, bionics - that might compromise the studio's copyrights; I had none such.

I liked Walk the Line. I went in expecting just a bit less than what I got, which is always good. After all, it was a Hollywood movie, with stars - a studio-made pre-packaged hit. As such, for whatever year that was, it was a good movie. Quality product. Hollywood is what it is; if you're going to bitch and moan about everything studio - well, what's the fun in that? Studios have made great films and they still do - though WTL is not quite one of them, it's a well-made, entertaining film with bedazzling star performances and plaudits well-deserved. Me, I just feel like I'd rather see Johnny Cash in Space, in which the reincarnated Man in Black cleans up a one-speeder Martian frontier town, than a straightforward biopic, but I guess we need at least one of those, too.

At that time, as always, I was trying to do a lot of writing and struggling with it as usual. Gill Dennis was up on stage with Mangold, who was fielding a few questions after the screening. Per later analysis, our general impression of James Mangold, meaning amongst myself and my friends, was "D-Bag." Just, Hollywood douchery. But that's to be expected. Think about it - if you have success in Hollywood, it changes you. You don't necessarily realize how you come across to the Normals. You're not trying to be a D-Bag.

But, anyway, I asked him a question. The question was actually to elicit an answer from Gill, as well as Mangold. I wanted to know about the process of telling a well-known true story in terms of writing a screenplay - how do you know what to leave in, or out, or change factually to serve a dramatic necessity? My mistake was in the way I asked the question - I asked, What compromises did you have to make between the facts of Johnny Cash's real life and the dramatization of that life? I gave the question more context than that (explaining my interest in the writing process), but the key word here is compromises.

Mangold rejected that word. "We didn't make any compromises, really." He went on to talk about his and Gill's access to the Cashes, or something. The point is, he misunderstood my question in a way that really underscored the whole douchey thing, although it was my mistake - compromise was a bad choice of words. This guy was from Hollywood; they don't "compromise" there. They win. This was a shame from my perspective because I really did want to know about the practical and philosophical issues raised by writing history, biography in particular. But this guy was only interested in talking about his cock.

Just kidding, Mangold! It's cool - and the truth is, at the time, I just thought it was a funny little exchange, was bummed that I didn't get my question answered properly but accepted it. Afterward, however, a number of friends and associates came up to me and let me know how they felt about the way Mangold had failed to answer my question. In fact, all that stuff about douche bags probably came from them. What your friends say influences you. I didn't really know how to feel about the brush-off. I had very conscientiously tried to phrase my question in a neutral way. The last thing I wanted was to be seen as that asshole art school student who's trying to fuck with the Hollywood guy, which I really was not. But that's what happened.

His answer was just silly on its face - you "didn't compromise," c'mon, bullshit, life is compromise. Of course there's compromise in art sometimes, especially where commerce intersects. And in terms of my question, supposing he understood it, it's a bullshit answer, too. It's not possible to tell the entire story of a man's life. You begin editing as soon as you open your mouth. Otherwise you'd be there forever.

As an example, I have just described an episode from my own life, the one in which I briefly intersected with James Mangold, Film Director. I have forgotten many details, including the exact wording of my question, his exact response, at what point I first thought he was a douchebag, whether I thought that going in, when all of this occurred, who I was with and why, and almost everything else. Yet I keep remembering the episode. If Mangold's next announced film, "Untitled James Mangold Project," is, like it sounds, the life story of one James Mangold, will this episode be included?

One Wise Latina

Listening to some of the hearings on the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court, one marvels at a couple of things. First of all, this is a great country, with an extraordinary legal and political system. Secondly, this is a very strange, absurd and even ridiculous kind of theater. The purpose of these hearings is not clear to me.

It is well known that no nominee is going to say what she actually thinks about any issue that might come before the court, which is pretty much anything. Any time any such question is asked by the bloviators of the Judiciary Committee, who will do so at great length and with either trembling respect or barely concealed contempt, depending on their party affiliation, the nominee will parry by running through a list of important decisions by name while throwing in Latin terminology whenever possible, such as stare decisis and ex post facto, but without stating an opinion of any kind.

Nevertheless, the Senators keep on coming, trying to trip her up by getting her to admit that she has her own opinions and, in the meantime, testing her ability to recall specifics of potentially any high court case from our history. As theater it's unsatisfying because of its format: long-winded, self-serving, name-dropping questions followed by expert, extremely lawyerly equivocation, at once erudite, cautious and painfully dull. We can always hope for a Long Dong Silver surprise, but that's pretty unlikely.

As for Sotomayor's "wise Latina" comment, apart from the fact that it's just weird that our public figures are expected not to have any interesting thoughts or make any personal comments, ever, looking back over their entire lives, it just seems a particularly tiny straw to grab. If Clarence Thomas can sexually harass Anita Hill, pubic hairs and all, and get voted onto the Court, certainly Sonia Sotomayor can show some pride in her heritage and make a statement that pretty much anyone with the slightest poetic imagination would agree with, or at least understand in its context.