MMMM (as in: MM-MM, good) is a film more interested in observation than statement; the space between words. A great deal of its scenes focus exclusively on Martha, character’s often speaking to her from just off-camera. Sometimes they are onscreen, but out of focus. Nothing feels real to her. It is precisely this kind of observational approach, this kind of respect for the silence that makes the film’s most emotionally palpable scenes work.
"She's just a picture"
Shortly after Martha has arrived and been dubbed Marcy May by Patrick, she sits in a small barn on their compound during what appears to be a sort of cult talent show. Patrick encourages artistic expression, at least from the men. Eventually, Patrick himself picks up a guitar and announces that he’s written a song for Marcy May. She is flattered, then, entranced. He sings that she’s “just a picture that lives on his wall,” and in that moment she feels, and is, beautiful. The scene reminded me how powerful a film can be when it doesn’t get in its own way.
We are taught in film school that you shouldn’t say what you can show. Film is a visual medium, but often times clever dialogue (which of course has its place) supersedes the visual art one can create with silent observation. Take, for example, the intro sequence to There Will Be Blood (2007). Fifteen minutes of quiet tells us about Daniel Plainview better than any piece of dialogue could have. Or how about my favorite moment in one of Paul Thomas Anderson’s earlier films, Boogie Nights (1997)? It’s the scene when Dirk Diggler, strung out on coke, flinching from the firecrackers his dealer’s Asian boy-toy keeps setting off (yeah, you read that correctly), finally realizes what he’s gotten himself into. The camera slowly creeps towards him. He says nothing because it’s all over his face. It’s a long take and that’s precisely what makes it work: the transition. “What. Am. I. DOING. HERE?!?!”
The ending of the (underrated) film Michael Clayton (2007) has another lovely, silent moment. After all that Michael has been through (questioning your place in this world can be exhausting) he hops into a cab and tells the cabbie to just drive. The camera holds on his face the entire time the credits roll along side it. He doesn’t run home to tell his son he loves him or try to reconcile with his ex-wife. He doesn’t dramatically quit his job. He doesn’t even say a word, but there it is.
Then there is the classic ending of The Graduate (1967), with Ben and Elaine sitting in the back of a bus, Elaine wearing her dress from the wedding Ben had just convinced her to abandon. The two laugh at the absurdity of what just occurred, then, slowly, they stop. They sit in silence. They are not really in love, so what do they do now?
Don’t say what you can show. When Marcy May sits and listens to Patrick’s song it isn’t the words that have captured her, it’s his steely, confident gaze. It’s his body language, exuding quiet confidence. It’s the way he makes her feel like she’s the only one sitting there despite the fact that we are certain this isn’t the first time he’s written a song for one of his girls. He tells her that “she’s just a picture,” and a picture is worth a thousand words.
—
Kevin Mattison is co-editor of The Idler, as well as being an occassional film review contributor for Real Detroit Weekly, a filmmaker and videographer. You can follow him on Twitter at @kmmattison.
]]>It turned out that Boogie Nights wasn’t really about porn, which was disappointing. It turned out to be a film about family and acceptance. It turned out to be pretty amazing, which was less disappointing. I immediately began to check up on the film’s director, Paul Thomas Anderson, and learned that, despite thinking that I had discovered a new filmmaker that evening, I had actually had his very first film, Hard Eight (1996) sitting in my collection for quite some time (on VHS. Yikes).
Back in the day, when video stores were abundant, I used to make a regular practice out of scrapping together some cash and trolling their aisles. I would watch anything and everything with an interesting cover. One day I stumbled across Hard Eight, starring Phillip Baker Hall, John C. Reilly and Gwyneth Paltrow. I’m not even sure what made me pick it up. The cover was unassuming. Just images of each of the actor’s faces with some dice next to them. I must have thought that there would be some nudity (Give me a break! I was still in high school, after all). It was billed as a casino thriller, but turned out to be a far cry from it.
I mentioned earlier that Boogie Nights was about family — specifically the idea that blood doesn’t necessarily make a family and that one can find family anywhere, even in the porn industry — but the theme is pervasive in Anderson’s work. Magnolia (1999), his epic follow-up to Boogie Nights, is filled with broken and makeshift families. The protagonist of Punch-Drunk Love (2002) is dealing with an overbearing gaggle of sisters who have, in a way, created a monster, and There Will Be Blood (2007) places a fair amount of weight on Daniel Plainview’s (poor) relationship with his son and his imposter brother. It is no surprise that Hard Eight is really about family as well.
The film’s protagonist, Sydney (Which was the original name of the film and, for some time after the film’s release, the only title Paul would acknowledge), played by the immensely talented Phillip Baker Hall, meets a young man named John (John C.Reilly) sitting outside of a diner just outside of Las Vegas, Nevada. John is down on his luck and Sydney kindly, if not somewhat randomly, offers to buy him a cup of coffee and give him a cigarette. As the story goes, the scene that follows, the scene where John confesses to Sydney that he’s been in Vegas trying to win enough money to pay for his mother’s funeral over coffee and cigarettes, is a scene Anderson wrote after dropping out of film school, having only been there for a few weeks. He says that he left and got his tuition returned to him after turning in a copy of a scene from David Mamet’s Hoffa (1992) and getting a C+.
Sydney teaches John how to get by in Vegas, a city where, if one is crafty enough, one doesn’t really need to get a “real job.” The Vegas that Anderson portrays here is not the glitz and glam that we’re used to. Instead, we get a glimpse of the real deal, Fremont Street at noon. Sparsely-lit casinos occupied by the sad and desperate.
Time passes with John and Sydney becoming fast friends. A pretty waitress named Clementine (Gwyneth Paltrow) catches John’s eye, which catches Sydney’s. Sydney gets to know her and discovers that she’s not unlike John, wide-eyed, damaged. He also notices that John’s been hanging around with a less desirable companion named Jimmy (Samuel L. Jackson), who knows a little something about Sydney’s past.
Eventually, more than halfway through the film, the plot catches up with the synopsis on the back of the VHS sleeve with John and Clementine finding themselves hiding in a hotel room with an unconscious man tied to their bed. How they got there is almost inconsequential. What is of great consequence is how Anderson uses this familiar scenario (disposing of the witness) to reveal a great deal about his characters, letting them drive the scene in unexpected directions.
When Sydney had last left Clementine and John they were preparing to head out shopping after Sydney had agreed to take Clementine in. He had discovered that she was occasionally going home with her customers for extra cash and took pity on her. Now, Sydney stands outside of a hotel room begging John to let him in after John himself had called him for help with a “situation.” John eventually lets him in, but only after Sydney promises not to be mad.
During this crucial scene we learn of John’s pliable good nature. He wants only to please those around him, and he’s just a touch stupid. We see the depths of Clementine’s damage, as the situation is explained to Sydney, the disappointed father. Hours before the hotel room incident, John and Clem had gotten married. Shortly thereafter, Clem had picked up another man at the bar and gone to the hotel with him. When he didn’t pay her she called John. John, not knowing how to handle such a situation, called Jimmy. Jimmy’s advice was, needless to say, less than helpful.
Sydney takes care of things like a professional. The professional he used to be. But the key moment for him is in his reaction to John telling him about the marriage. For a moment Sydney’s weathered, stoic face betrays joy. Not only a proud father, but a man who senses a balance shift within himself, wrongs being righted.
We soon learn that Sydney is responsible for the death of John’s father. Again, the circumstances are not important. What Sydney does for John in the film’s beginning and in the final moments is what really matters. Sydney, having sent Clem and John away to safety, deals with Jimmy, who has discovered his secret and is threatening to tell John if Sydney doesn’t pay up. He takes care of Jimmy the only way he knows how; the old way.
Anderson has shown a remarkable ability to tell a familiar story in a unique manner throughout his entire career. Hard Eight may not be the flashiest nor the most epic, but there is brilliance is in its subtlety. It is a Vegas movie that isn’t about Vegas, a gangster movie that isn’t about gangsters. Mostly, though, it is a film about a father’s atonement. It’s about wanting better for your child. It’s about the moment when Sydney, returning to the very same diner where he first met John after “taking care” of Jimmy, looks down and notices a spot of blood on his shirt cuff. Gently, he pulls down his jacket sleeve to cover it up.
—
Kevin Mattison is co-editor of The Idler, as well as being an occassional film review contributor for Real Detroit Weekly, a filmmaker and videographer. You can follow him on Twitter at @kmmattison.
]]>Often referred to as a “self-taught” or “VCR” filmmaker, Anderson learned all he needed about the craft from watching the films themselves. Everyone talks about his Scorsese-style camerawork and his Altman-esque proclivity towards ensemble casts, but rarely do you hear mention of what I believe is his most obvious influence: the musical. That Scorsese camerawork is there for sure, but Anderson’s is even bigger. It draws more attention to itself. And those Altman-sized casts are always inches away from breaking into song and dance! Anderson resists the urge to let it loose, but it sneaks out here and there.
Even more than technical similarity, it’s really Anderson’s use of music that signals his genre proclivities. He almost always puts music in the foreground. Boogie Nights thrives on its period disco soundtrack, right up until the pivotal Alfred Molina drug deal scene, when Rick Springfield and Night Ranger take over. Magnolia is driven by the music of Aimee Mann, in some cases quoting her directly.
Then there’s Punch-Drunk Love and There Will be Blood, both of which use music as a direct outward expression of their protagonists’ inner being. There is, for example, the scene in Punch-Drunk Love in which Barry Egan’s sister stomps towards him to a pot-and-pan-banging soundtrack beefed up with an almost tribal drumbeat, both of which emphasize her anger. When Barry calls up a phone sex hotline the soundtrack whispers and purrs along with the operator. Not to mention the inclusion of Shelley Duvall’s “He Needs Me,” lifted directly from the soundtrack of Robert Altman’s Popeye, which happens to be a musical!
Even the great oil epic There Will be Blood opens musically with one chilling, minor note signaling the madness to come. And its burning oil derrick scene is accompanied by a mad looping of clangs, pops, whirs and bangs.
All of these films contain signs that Anderson is right on the cusp of releasing his inner Busby Berkeley, but those signs are never more blatant than they are in his video for Fiona Apple’s “Paper Bag,” which serves to demonstrate how naturally the genre comes to him. How, if he could just cut loose, those precise long takes of his could easily become sweeping, epic camera moves, the kind that dance right along with the actors.
Get a load of that camera work! See any similarities?
I recently learned that Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest film, tentatively titled The Master, has been delayed indefinitely. It may be a sign. Now’s your chance, Paul! Let loose! Go forth and make that musical you’ve been hinting at for years!
]]>