Contour At The Movies

So, I was checking out Roger Ebert’s online review for the the movie UP IN THE AIR (my own will be online shortly) when I got to the bottom of the review’s webpage and found this series of sponsored ads automatically pinned to the review by Yahoo’s algorithmic brain:

Why these four?  Well, “Online College Degree” I assume is there because Anna Kendrick plays a character described as an “ambitious new graduate.”

The two refinance ads I assume are there because the review talks about the subject of the film; people being fired (and presumably being grateful to know that they can help their cashflow by refinancing their homes.)

And why the ad for “Aloe Vera Product?”  Because the film co-starts Vera Farmiga.  Duh!

- Jeffrey Alan Schechter

Overall Impression – Whether you’re a fan of Tarantino or not, if you love the language of movies you must, Must, MUST see this movie.

THE FOUR QUESTIONS

Who’s your main character? – There are really TWO stories at work here, however the main character is Shoshanna Dreyfus .

What’s she trying to accomplish? – Professional: Kill Nazis. Personal: Not be discovered to be a Jew in hiding.  Private: Avenge the death of her family.

Who’s trying to stop her? – At the most basic level, SS soldier Hans Landa.

What happens if she fails? – She will be discovered and killed.

THE FOUR ARCHETYPES

Orphan – Shoshanna’s family is wiped out by Nazis when they are given up by the dairy farmer who has hidden them.

Wanderer – Shoshanna inherits a movie theatre in Paris where she blends into the city life until she is courted by the pestering war hero Frederick Zoller.

Warrior – Zoller convinces Goebbels to hold a premiere at Shoshanna’s cinema, inspiring Shoshanna to come up with the idea to kill all of the Nazis who will be in attendance.  She recruits her lover to help, and together plot the destruction of her theatre and all the people in it.

Martyr – Shoshanna gives up her beloved cinema and ultimately her life to carry out her plan, unaware that there is a band of murderous “Basterds” in the theatre with the same idea.

AND, IN THE END…

Quentin Tarantino seems like such a train-off-the-rails in interviews that it’s hard to imagine him inspiring so many talented people to work at the highest levels in the business which they so clearly do in his movies.  But perhaps I’m just jealous, because here is a man who doesn’t just loves movies more than I do, he loves them more than ANYONE does.  That love must be contagious because not only is INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS a lesson in audacious dialog, it’s a master class in filmmaking and acting.  Every shot is beautifully composed and lit; every performance is startling and pitch perfect.  Much like PULP FICTION, INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS is a multi-strand story, layered with stunning dialog and punctuated by machine gun fire.

Why have I pegged Melanie Laurent’s character ‘Shoshanna’ as the main character when it’s Brad Pitt’s face on the posters?  I’ll grant that it’s tricky identifying the hero of INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, but  I always fall back on five principles when trying to determine the main character:

Principle #1 – The climactic battle  is always ‘the Good Guy vs the Bad Guy over the Stakes.’ In INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, one might argue that at the end it’s Brad Pitt’s character battling Landa over whether he’ll stop the Basterds plot to kill Hitler, but it’s not much of a battle.  More of a chit-chat.  Shoshanna is fighting to carry HER revenge plot to it’s conclusion.

Principle #2 – The main character is the one who changes the most from the start of the film to the end.  Aldo is exactly the same at the end as he is in the beginning.  Shoshanna goes from dirty, scared girl to self-assured, self-sacrificing woman.

Principle #3 – The main character is exactly like the main opponent, but with a moral center. The Nazis want to kill Jews.  Shoshanna wants to kill Nazis.  And while it’s true that so do the Basterds, their desire is built on racial revenge: they’re all Jewish.  Shoshanna is the one whom the Nazis were personally cruel to, the one with the deepest wound.  She has a moral centre, and the Basterds…well…perhaps less so.

Principle #4 – The main character drives the action. Aldo gets his order from OSS.  Shoshanna comes up with her plan on her own, by her own.

Principle #5 - The main character usually gets the biggest martyr moment at the end. Hands down, Shoshanna gives up the most in order to see her plan through.

Not unlike PULP FICTION, INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS doesn’t violate the rules of storytelling (vis Contour) but demonstrates how structure need not be formulaic.  It’s also an object lesson on scriptwriting that gets noticed.  I often caution people against trying to launch themselves with a script that’s too difficult.  I have to believe that if Joe Blow from Ogallala had written INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, people would have sat up and noticed him.   An ear for dialog, an understanding of human nature, the ability to communicate your love and passion for story with single-minded devotion, an innate comprehension of how stories work, and cajones the size of Nazi-Occupied France are all you need to be your own Tarantino.

- Jeffrey Alan Schechter

Overall Impression – Not the Second Coming, but it’ll do for now.

THE FOUR QUESTIONS

Who’s your main character? – Jake Sulley.

What’s he trying to accomplish? – Professional: Integrate into the Na’vi people to help them. Personal: Find his place in the world now  that he’s lost use of his legs.  Private: Unclear.  Possibly believe in something in the aftermath of his brother’s death (but I may be projecting.)

Who’s trying to stop him? – Both the Na’vi, who don’t trust him, and Colonel Miles Quaritch, who feels that Jake’s gone native.

What happens if he fails? – The Na’vi will be destroyed and their sentient planet will be laid waste.

THE FOUR ARCHETYPES

Orphan – Jake’s twin brother is dead and — thanks to sharing his genius brother’s genome code — Jake is an outcast both to the scientists on the planet (he has no training) as well as to the soldiers who are less than sympathetic to a paraplegic soldier on such a hostile planet.

Wanderer – After being nominally accepted by the indigenous people of the planet, the 10 foot tall Na’vi, Jake is trained DANCES WITH WOLVES style in how to be a member of their race.

Warrior – As Jake has fallen in love with the warrior princess Neytiri, Jake fights for his rightful place amongst the people, slowly being accepted as one of them.

Martyr – Jake gives up his association with being human in order to live and fight with the Na’vi against the destruction of their culture.

AND, IN THE END…

AVATAR redefines epic for the new, 3D awareness.  As always, James Cameron is filthy with creativity and light on meaningful dramaturgy.  His story rockets along like a neurotoxin-tipped arrow and is completely and totally serviced by the characters and dialog.  I know that sounds like damning with faint praise, but it really isn’t.  One doesn’t go to a Cameron movie expecting to hear Tarantino.  You go to see a visual impresario at work, and in the case of AVATAR you get your money’s worth.

AVATAR’s problem isn’t that it’s predictable; anyone who’s seen DANCES WITH WOLVES knows the AVATAR story.  The problem with the movie is that AVATAR wears its’ story on its’ sleeve as heavily as its’ politics.  It’s the evil corporate goon from ALIENS, teamed up with the evil company from TERMINATOR 2, employing the evil soldiers from THE ABYSS.  Cameron has an anti-establishment song to sing, only we’ve heard it before.

The  compelling aspect of AVATAR isn’t the story but the integration of 3D technology into the story.  For all it’s faults, what AVATAR does do is single-handedly usher in the era of adult 3D movies.  No cheap gimmicks here; just the dawning of a new era in immersive story-telling.  For that alone, AVATAR needs to be respected.

Ultimately, AVATAR is a standard story told in game-changing style.

- Jeffrey Alan Schechter

Overall Impression – A movie that generates small smiles instead of big laughs — which I can only assume was not the intent of the filmmakers.

THE FOUR QUESTIONS

Who’s your main character? – Jane (Meryl Streep.)

What’s she trying to accomplish? – Professional: Decide if she should give her ex-husband another chance. Personal: Find love.  Private: Be okay being comfortably middle-aged.

Who’s trying to stop her? – Noone, really.  She has her own uncertainties, and her ex-husband’s nightmare of a wife and stepson are certainly an issue, but Jane’s obstacles are really her own doing.

What happens if she fails? – Absolutely nothing.  She either ends up with her über-repentant husband (played nicely by Alec Baldwin) or ends up with the puppy dog eyed  architect who adores her (played by the largely wasted Steve Martin.)

THE FOUR ARCHETYPES

Orphan – The last of Jane’s children is off to college and she is, for the first time since her divorce 10 years earlier, completely alone (except for her great house, great job, great friends, and great life.)

Wanderer – After attending her son’s graduation in NY, she hooks up with her ex-husband and has a drunken fling with him, starting the process for Jane of trying to figure out how to be the ‘other’ women; even if it’s with her ex-husband.

Warrior – As the smitten architect who is remodelling her home becomes more smitten with her, Jane has to fight to keep her relationship with her ex from spiralling out of control, keep her kids from finding out (supposedly, we are told towards the end) so that they don’t get hurt again by their mom and dad’s relationship, and decide who she really wants to be in love with.

Martyr – Because she has two suitors, each one eager to be with her and neither one a total jerk, Jane stands to lose little or nothing.  She seemingly gives up nothing, sacrifices nothing.

AND, IN THE END…

IT’S COMPLICATED is a movie that suffers from a surfeit of star-power, much of it misplaced. Meryl Streep has trouble finding a date?!  Alec Baldwin is a good guy?!  Steve Martin is earnest?!   One can imagine the excitement as word came in that these three agreed to be in the movie, but however good they are on paper they do not serve the needs of the story.

The  movie is also hamstrung by it’s own gentility.   The average audience member can no more relate to the polite, warm, and (dare I say?) ‘uncomplicated’ lifestyle of the protagonists than they can relate to the characters in a Victorian comedy of manners.

Another problem with the film is that we are told many things but shown very little.  We are told that Jane hasn’t done the deed in 10 years, but we aren’t shown why.  We are told that Jane doesn’t want to hurt her kids, but we don’t see that they’re damaged goods, though they tell us that they were in their incredibly well-scrubbed undamaged way.  We are told that Jane’s ex-husband is a jerk, but he’s actually…uh…nice.  In many scenes, he’s a lot nicer than Jane.  Perhaps that’s the point of the story: how JERK plus TIME plus INTROSPECTION equals NICE GUY, but again we are told this in a speech by the ex-husband.

The story itself is as mild as the characters inhabiting it.  With the exception of deciding not to subject her kids (all young adults) to the vagaries of starting up a relationship with their dad again, Jane seemingly has very little going on that will fall apart regardless of who she chooses to be with.  SOPHIE’S CHOICE, it isn’t.  Ultimately the story collapses from being top-heavy with talent and bottom-light with conflict.

Here’s a bad pitch version of the same story, just a little different: Jane’s bakery business is failing, her kids have all moved out, she’s barely holding onto the house because she’s poured every penny she has into keeping the business going, she hasn’t gotten laid in a decade…and into THIS situation comes two guys.  The first is her rich ex-husband who had been a world-class jerk and may or may not still be (Jane can’t tell because he’s really ‘walking the walk’), and the second is sweet, sincere architect Adam who is caught between a rock and a hard place: Jane’s really late paying for the plans for the renovation she can now no longer afford (Adam’s boss wants Adam to collect NOW!) however he’s falling in love with her.    Oh, and Jane is played by Kathy Bates, not Meryl Streep.

- Jeffrey Alan Schechter