9 minute read
Film
36
FILM
[STINKERS]
Collapsing Under Its Own Weight
e Whale might be Darren Aronofsky’s worst film
Written by EILEEN G’SELL
The Whale
Directed by Darren Aronofsky. Written by Sameul D. Hunter. Starring Brendan Fraser, Saide Sink, Hong Chau, Ty Simpkins and Samantha Morton. Now showing at Landmark Plaza Frotenac Cinema.
Darren Aronofsky has long been obsessed with the frailty and defilement of the human body. From a heroin addicted amputee in Requiem for a Dream (2000) to an aging, steroid-addled hardbody in The Wrestler ( ), from a bulimic ballerina in Black Swan ( ) to a pregnant trophy wife in Mother! (2017), the filmmaker’s most memorable leads move through the world in bodies that betray them or are betrayed by them in equal measure.
His latest psychological drama The Whale is no different — though the type of body portrayed onscreen, and how that body is visually rendered, has prompted no small amount of controversy. Is the graphic depiction of a pound man dying of heart failure automatically grotesque Is the fat suit donned by lead actor Brendan Fraser itself a form of fat phobia Or, rather, is the film humanizing indeed heroizing — a character whose body we are all too groomed to shame hile all these questions are worth pursuing as far as the ethics of representation are concerned, they have little bearing on the quality of this film, which unfortunately cannot be categorized as one of Aronofsky’s better movies. Indeed, it may very well be his worst (and I say this as one of the only critics out there who enjoyed Mother!). Adapted from a play of
Brendan Fraser plays Charlie in e Whale. | A24
the same name by Samuel D. Hunter, The Whale often feels trapped within its own stage like domestic setting through which Charlie, the film’s reclusive hero, struggles to heave himself off his couch and move within his Idaho apartment. The narrow Academy ratio lends further claustrophobia to the frame deliberate, perhaps, as it forces our eyes to focus on Charlie, but tendentious in insisting that his body, as spectacle, is enough to lend the movie dramatic heft.
To say this movie is heavy handed is an understatement Aronofsky and Hunter overtly spell out the terms of harlie’s tragic decline and assign unambiguous moral virtues to virtually all the characters onscreen. In an early scene, we learn from iz (Hong hau, who manages to make even the most stilted dialogue plausible), harlie’s good friend and, we later learn, the sister of Alan, his deceased male lover, that he has “only a week to live” if he refuses to go to the hospital. From there on out, the film’s narrative is divided into “Day ,” “Day ,” etc., just in case we were not already concerned that harlie might be on his way out.
Facing imminent mortality, harlie has good reason to avoid devoting his final week to his job teaching the basics of a five paragraph essay to indifferent undergrads online and so spends the bulk of the film trying to make peace with his estranged teenage daughter, llie (Sadie Sink), and ex wife Mary (Samantha Morton). A sadistic high schooler as devoted to mocking her fat dad as she is in collecting his life savings, llie is not your typical flannel sporting, smartphone scrolling en delinquent. She manages to exhibit exactly zero redeeming values, despite harlie’s incessant fawning about her being “an amazing person.” “I’m worried she’s forgotten what an amazing person she is,” he tells Mary, and somehow, we’re supposed to believe this.
Similarly, we are supposed to believe that the body harlie stuffs with food is an actual obese body. But it is clearly not. In a way, the excess of the fat suit visually distracts from the realities of living in such a body. At times, I found myself stricken with sympathy for harlie attempting to complete basic, everyday tasks, then would find myself thinking, “But that doesn’t look real.” Did he have to be pounds Fraser is already a large actor and would arguably be even more vulnerable onscreen as a very overweight man, rather than a morbidly obese one.
In case any were in doubt of the film’s gravitas, Moby Dick is repeatedly referenced to remind us. eading from what is supposedly llie’s handwritten middle school essay on Herman Melville’s classic ( ho reads the unabridged version in seventh grade ), harlie finds meaning in his own sadness, apparently redeemed by the possibility that his daughter was able, at some point, to discern sadness, too. hat is most sad about this movie, however, is that none of the people onscreen no matter their size bear the complexity of any one of Melville’s minor characters. And it’s too bad. A moving drama about a sympathetic fat person is something I’d love to see but Aronofsky was not the director to make that movie. n
Is the fat suit itself a form of fat phobia? Or is the film humanizing — indeed heroizing — a character whose body we are groomed to shame?
[NEVER FORGET]
Friendship and the ’80s
In Million Dollar Razzle Dazzle, a man competes on a fictional game show to save his friend’s life during the AIDS crisis
Written by JESSICA ROGEN
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Dan Steadman kept hearing similar sentiments: Americans have never lived through a pandemic in our lifetime, so we don’t know how to deal with it. It’s why we don’t understand vaccines.
But, he thought, what about AIDS?
“It really hit me,” Steadman says. “Is it just that you don’t care about that because you’re heterosexual? Or is it that you’ve forgotten? Or is it that you thought it was another person’s disease, and it didn’t impact you?”
Steadman stewed on this thought and then took action with the tool best available to him — filmmaking. The result of his efforts, Million Dollar Razzle Dazzle, debuted late last fall at two area movie theaters. It is now available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.
Set in the late ’80s, the film tells the story of contestants on a game show, Million Dollar Razzle Dazzle a.k.a. “The Most Luxurious TV Show in Ronald Reagan’s America.” The main character is Dwayne, a St. Louis man who is competing in order to win money to help a friend, Kyut. Recently diagnosed with HIV, Kyut needs money or a car to make his way to Mexico to obtain the experimental drug cocktails that were the only treatment option at the time.
Steadman, a veteran director who has made 12 features with his production company and acting school Circa87, had never previously considered making an AIDS movie because of all the powerful storytelling, such as Angels in America, that already existed. He’s quick to note that Million Dollar Razzle Dazzle isn’t only an AIDS movie, though.
It’s also a New Year’s Eve movie — Kyut shares his diagnosis with Dwayne with fireworks in the background. It’s a movie about a “tacky ’80s game show’’ that’s funny and fun at times, also following the stories of a host having a “kinky” affair and a male model. It’s a story about friendship in the LGBTQ community.
“I think a lot of people outside of my community don’t realize that we can just be friends and that we can really be a support system for each other,” Steadman says. “And that when we talk about the LGBTQ community, we’re talking about a real community of support and love, and that it’s not always built around sex.”
It’s also a personal story for Steadman. During the height of the AIDS crisis, he was growing up with a father, a Baptist youth pastor, who “felt that all gay people should go to an island and kill each other with AIDS.”
Being so young, Steadman only understood a small fraction of the crisis. But later, he experienced something of that time’s terror while living in Los Angeles and working in the industry there — when he was misdiagnosed with HIV.
“Fortunately, it was false, but I lived with that for two months before I found out the truth,” Steadman says. “I do not know what it’s like to contract HIV, but I know what it’s like to be told by a doctor. I know how immediately suicidal I felt … so I was able to write from a personal place.”
Steadman didn’t rely solely on his own experience, however. He also dove deep into research, through films and books — such as Borrowed Time by Paul Monette — about the AIDS crisis, with the help of local historian Steven Louis Brawley and the State Historical Society of Missouri, and by talking with people who had lived through that time. He was also able to include voices from the Gateway Men’s Chorus, who recorded the closing song that was composed by Steadman and Geoffrey Burch.
Steadman shot the film over the course of six months, using his students from Circa87 as his actors, writing toward their strengths or choosing to challenge them with their roles. He also filmed a pivotal New Year’s Eve scene on New Year’s last year in Grafton, Illinois, with a group of open-call extras.
“It’s very nerve-wracking because you’ve got a very limited time to get your shots because you’re working with fireworks,” he says.
Most of the movie was filmed much more intimately, though. For the most serious moments, Steadman closed the set, only allowing a handful of people in the room. He often filmed from far away with a long lens so the actors would have privacy and not be distracted by the moving parts.
But despite the inherent sadness of the topic, Steadman says Million Dollar Razzle Dazzle has some lightness to it. Several of the storylines are comedic in tone, and then there’s the ’80s itself. He insisted on vintage, authentic clothes and shot many of the scenes in buildings from that era, including in the Lincoln Theater in Belleville, Illinois.
That was also one of the two places where the movie debuted in September. Finally showing the film was a great moment.
“It felt so good to finally have it up on the big screen,” he says. “I always think of them as my children since I don’t have any, and it might be a little bit like sending that kid off to college — that’s what it felt like, almost tear jerking, because you’re going to miss them.” n
Dan Steadman directs outdoors. | COURTESY DAN STEADMAN
