Shutters Edition 2 (January)

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Dear Reader, This is our Second Edition of Shutters and we are simply thrilled to bring you a film magazine with an aesthetic sensibility. It is your antidote to the mass produced and the mundane.

We here at Shutters love film and believe in its power to illuminate and transcend.

In this edition of Shutters readers have given The Nod to Annie Hall.

That’s a movie chosen by readers as having the best opening and closing lines.

You will find these lines on the inside and back cover of Shutters.

Nominations for The Nod can be made online at www.shutters films.com Enjoy!

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25306473 25306473 25306473 25306473 Kwik Kopy 25306473 25306473 The Guardian, The Sydney Morning Herald, The New York Times, The Telegraph, The Village Voice, WhatCulture, Non Fics, IMBD, Rotten Tomatoes, Wikipedia, Slant Magazine, New York Review of Books. www.shutters films.com

Give them pleasure. The pleasure they get when they wake from a nightmare. The Way Way Back 1. Did you have a good world when you died? Enough to base a movie on? Blue Is the Warmest Color 5. Either a film has something to say to you or it hasn’t. If you are moved by it, you don’t need it explained to you. If not, no explanation can make you moved by it. Philomena 9. All you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun.

August Osage County 13. Everything belongs to the inspired

PAST

and dedicated thief… words, colors, light, sounds, stone, wood, bronze belong to the living artist. They belong to anyone who can use them. Loot the Louvre!.. Vive le vol-pure, shameless, total. We are not responsible. Steal anything in sight. The Great Beauty 17. Last, but not least - in fact, this is most important - you need a happy ending. However, if you can create tragic situations and evoke a few tears before the happy ending, it will work much better. How I Live Now 21. Cinema is the ultimate pervert art. It doesn’t give you what you desire - it tells you how to desire. Inside Llewyn Davis 25. That’s the kind of movie that I like to make, where there is an invented reality and the audience is going to go someplace where hopefully they’ve never been before. Her 29.

Oh how Shakespeare would have loved cinema! I Origins 35.

When everything gets answered, it’s fake. Le Week-End 39.

Film is not the art of scholars, but of illiterates. The Grand Budapest Hotel 43.

Film lovers are sick people. Is

FUTURE

the Man Who Is Tall Happy? 47. You’re beautiful. Yes you are, you’re very very beautiful. Extremely beautiful.

Wadjda 51.

In my opinion, there are two things that can absolutely not be carried to the screen - the realistic presentation of the sexual act and praying to God. The Lunchbox 55. I have often thought it was very arrogant to suppose you could make a film for anybody but yourself. Under the Skin 59. Everything I learned I learned from the movies. Only Lovers Left Alive 63.

IMMORTAL

The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder. The Philadelphia Story 69. Certain things leave you in your life and certain things stay with you.

And that’s why we’re all interested in movies - those ones that make you feel, you still think about.

Rear Window 73.

It’s funny how the colours of the real world only seem really real when you watch them on a screen. Some Like It Hot 77.

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Life moves pretty fast.

If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

- Ferris, from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986) Films from the last six months ... to help you stop and look around so you don’t miss anything...

IN RETROSPECT...

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t’s fun.

It’s lighthearted with just the right amount of soul searching and hidden meaning.

The Way Way Back will enthrall and entertain audiences of all ages.

Of course this is only possible if you enter the cinema with the right mind set. If you are searching for a totally accurate portrayal of life without any form of comedic instruction then you will find yourself very disappointed. However if you approach it realistically then you, like us, will find yourself quite besotted.

The acting in the film is solid with a young cast backed up by some more seasoned actors including Toni Collette and Sam Rockwell. It was nice to see Steve Carell moving out of his typecast role of the loveable fool and into something more original and almost villainous. These actors do a wonderful job of sharing the limelight with their youthful cast including Liam James as young Duncan and Anna Sophia Robb as the love interest Susanna.

The premise of the movie is nothing new.

It’s nothing revolutionary. It won’t change the face of the earth. Over the course of the summer holidays miserable, introverted teenage boy finds a self confidence he never had through his friendship with an older quirky character who lets him work at the local

Easily digestible, nothing revolutionary but it’s a solid film.

It’s reliably entertaining and relatable, appealing to the idealist in all of us. Maybe it’s not enough to warrant a stampede heading

REVIEW

The Way Way Back answers the question of what summer could be like if it turned out just as it does in our dreams. It’s a coming of age movie, a movie of ideals, an answer to the “what if ”. The answer turns out quite wonderful for 14 year old Duncan who is having the summer holiday from hell. Yet by the films end, one leaves the cinema feeling inspired and only partially perturbed that our lives aren’t quite like the movie.

water park. You may only give the story a cursory thought after viewing but not every film has to be a Forest Gump, Avatar or Citizen Cane.

Some are more subtle. Some are not meant to provoke, only to please. It may even be a future contender for our Sound magazine selection with a shout out going to the final song, Power Hungry by Apache Relay. Again a cult following is not going to spring up from the wings yelling, “My name is Antonio Banderas. You killed my father. Prepare to die”. But that doesn’t mean the script wasn’t seamless.

Maybe the mark of its perfection was the fact that it didn’t stand out.

Instead it managed to fly under the radar - a realistic, unassuming and amusing portrayal of family life.

6th June 2 0 1 3 ( a u s ) S y d n e y F i l m Festival T A G S S u m m e r F a m i l y C o m i n g of Age B e a c h Divorce L i f e W a t e r P a r k

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Why isn’t life like the movies.

It’s a common cry. Couples such as Sandy and Danny from Grease, Baby and Johnny from Dirty Dancing, Lloyd and Diane from Say Anything and now Susanna and Duncan (seen to your right and left)- they all epitomise the summer fling, that has crystalised itself on the big screen.

West Side Story The perfect love is born, thrives briefly, and dies a swift and brutal death, all during a few scorching months on the streets of New York. The film takes its cues from Romeo and Juliet, but its couple, played by Richard Beymer and Natalie Wood, is far less fickle than Shakespeare’s famous teenyboppers. We know they’re doomed, even as we wish with all our hearts and souls for them to find happiness.

Roman Holiday Audrey Hepburn’s Princess Ann takes a day off and tosses aside her royal tiara for a jaunt through Rome on the back of a scooter. She’s joined by Gregory Peck’s cynical journalist, who is too captivated by the woman herself to exploit

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the opportunity that has dropped into his lap. Sometimes what you don’t do means a thousand times more than what you do, as the bittersweet finale proves.

Much Ado About Nothing

The Graduate Few flings are more aimless than the one involving Ben Braddock, played by a young Dustin Hoffman, who’s seduced by his parents’ friend Mrs Robinson, played by

Dirty Dancing Originally dismissed as a derivative crowd pleaser, this pic has stood the test of time, thanks to the chemistry between the late Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey. He plays the working class dance instructor at a Catskills resort, while she’s the college bound teen entranced by his charms.

Despite the titular dance moves, the mov-

ie has a sense of innocence that matches the setting perfectly.

If Way you

you enjoyed The Way Back then may also enjoy…

The Kings of Summer (2013) Enough Said (2013) Moonrise Kingdom (2012) Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012) Safety Not Guaranteed (2012) Waitress (2007) Little Miss Sunshine (2006) The Kids Are Alright (2003)

THE ICONIC SUMMER ROMANCE

Kenneth Branagh uses the hills of Italy to bring Shakespeare’s story to life, filled with food, wine, and a couple played by Branagh and then wife Emma Thompson, who loathe each other so much that it can only be love. The film’s visual splendour proves Shakespeare’s cinematic potential, while the characters’ rapport has served as the template for countless romantic comedies that have followed.

a middle aged Ann Bancroft, and seemingly participates because he has nothing better to do. His affair takes a lurching left turn when he falls for Mrs Robinson’s daughter and seemingly casual emotions go horribly awry.

In the midst of the fairy tale loves perpetrated by most movies, it comes as a bracing dose of messy reality.

Originality:7/10 Short Term Success:9/10 Immortality: 5/10 Sound:7/10

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B L U E IS THE WARMEST C lL lR

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ig success in the film business sometimes means opening a can of worms along with the champagne.

The Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival went to the epic and erotic love story Blue Is the Warmest Color. Such was its reception that the jury and its president, Steven Spielberg, insisted the prize be accepted not only by the director, Franco Tunisian film maker Abdellatif Kechiche, but also by his two young stars, Léa Seydoux and Adèle Exarchopoulos.

REVIEW

When the love affair starts, Emma has blue hair. As the relationship proceeds, the blue color grows out.

This, Kechiche shows, is a bad sign.

Their love is cooling. Emma is always the more dominant partner. She is better educated, more worldly and higher up the social scale. When Emma’s art career takes off, Kechiche shows how she is starting inexorably to outgrow Adèle, and yet it is Adèle who develops a kind of emotional maturity that Emma, the increasingly smug careerist, can’t match.

The movie’s final sequence is heart stoppingly ambiguous. Yet the point is surely that there is no guarantee that either Adèle or Emma will ever find anything as good ever again.

The notion that they can each go on to find a better or richer experience is illusory. This isn’t young love or first love. It is love - as cataclysmic and destructive and sensual and unforgettable as the real thing must always be. To paraphrase Woody Allen, if it doesn’t make the rest of your life look like a massive letdown then you’re not doing it right. Here is Emma and Adèle’s moment, the definitive blaze.

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he Cannes Film Festival is one of the most widely recognised and attended film festivals internationally. Just the possibility of attending it is something that all film buffs young and old relish. And this past year’s staring attraction was Blue Is the Warmest Color.

The central issue with the Cannes Film Festival is that the quality it offers can cause attendance to be strictly ‘elitist’. Unless your husband’s uncle has a friend who knew someone who knows someone who works for the festival committee any regular Joe or Sally like you or me has no chance of ever making it into the hallowed halls. As with all of these events, glamorous celebrities attended and paparazzi swarmed. And the next day the tabloids reported the hit and miss fashion spectacles. And I’m torn between thinking that this is just the way it is and being concerned that the film indus-

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try has become more about the celebrities than the art of making a movie.

But never the less attending this film festival is certainly something to aspire to and for good reason. The quality of the films is high as represented by the outstanding response received for Blue Is the Warmest Color. In fact it received a standing ovation.

It also ranked highest amongst the critics and polls in the

festival. The Cannes Film Festival had many other standout films including Nebraska and the controversial Only God Forgives. However with Grace of Monaco staring Nicole Kidman inspired by Grace Kelly’s life being slammed by critics, it was not a promising start to the festival. We have yet to make an assessment on that movie however anything Grace Kelly related is surely an interesting prospect.

If you enjoyed Blue Is the Warmest Color then you may also enjoy‌ Take This Waltz (2012) Blue Jasmine (2013) Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011) The Great Beauty (2013) Venus in Furs (1995, 2014)

THE CANNES FILM FESTIVAL

Originality:9/10 Short Term Success:7/10 Immortality:5/10 Sound:4/10

3 0 t h A u g u s t 2 0 1 3 ( u s a ) Telluride F i l m Festival Abdellatiff Kec h i c h e T A G S Sexuality Y o u t h C o m i n g of Age Lesbian F r e n c h D r a m a

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PHIL lME NA 3 1 s t August 2 0 1 3 Stephen Frears (italy) T h e Venice F i l m Festival T A G S W W 2 F a m i ly Journalism Convent Politics Religion

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REVIEW

n Philomena, Judi Dench’s portrayal of a stubborn, kind hearted Irish Catholic trying to discover what became of the son she was forced to give up as a teenager is so quietly moving that it feels lit from within. A major theme of this film from Stephen Frears is forgiveness. Judi Dench’s Philomena Lee glows with the radiance of someone serene in her faith despite inhumane treatment by the church.

That she makes you believe her character has the capacity to forgive provides the movie with a solid moral center.

Philomena has many facets. It is a comedic road movie, a detective story, an infuriated anticlerical screed, and an inquiry into faith and the limitations of reason, all rolled together. Fairly sophisticated about spiritual matters, it takes pains to distinguish faith from institutionalized piety. It also has a surprising political subtext in its comparison of the church’s oppression and punishment of unmarried sex - what the convent’s harsh mother superior denounces as “carnal incontinence” - with homophobia and the United States government’s reluctance to deal with the AIDS crisis in the 1980s. Philomena recalls sensing that her son, even when he was a tot, would grow up to be gay.

Even through improbable moments and abrupt changes of pace and tone, Judi Dench and Martin Coogan hold the movie together and pull forward a story that ends where it began.

In giving equal weight to Martin’s skepticism and Philomena’s faith, it manages to have its cake and eat it too.

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n the United States alone during the 1950s and 1960s, more than one and a half million women and girls were forced to give their babies up for adoption. This was part of a larger trend that ran throughout Western countries during that time.

It was supposed to be a period of prosperity and contentment, and unwanted pregnancies clashed with that image.

The myth is that all these babies were gratefully handed over by ‘bad girls’ who couldn’t otherwise take care of them. The new dramatic film Philomena breaks apart that myth.

And there’s a

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2012 documentary called A Girl Like Her, which does the same.Philomena is based on the true story of Philomena Lee, an Irish woman who was one of those good girls gone ‘bad’.

In the ’50s, her father abandoned her to a convent after she got pregnant, and the nuns later sold her son to an American couple without her knowing. Fifty years on, Philomena (played with wonderful nuance by Judi Dench) goes in search of her child with the help of journalist Martin Sixsmith (Steve Coogan).

While Philomena is not issue focused, there is enough information dropped about forced adoptions in the story to make anyone’s blood boil. Already, the book and film have helped spur a movement to get the Irish Magdalene asylums to open up their records about their practices.Philomena is a very funny, gentle and occasionally sorrowful little film. But it’s also just one woman’s story. A Girl Like Her is about many women who went through similar trials to that of Philomena Lee. The documentary focuses on forced adoptions in America during the same time that she lost her son in Ireland. Viewed in conjunction with Philomena, it does a great job of

JUDI DENCH

contextualizing Philomena Lee’s situation as a young adult, even though the doc takes place an ocean away from the events of the dramatized film. Repression of women is quite similar across borders, after all.

Separately, both movies are great, though the edge goes to the doc. A Girl Like Her has much less fat on it, and Philomena occasionally indulges in what feels like artifice - the snobby guy and sincere old woman dynamic between Coogan and Dench, most notably. But taken together, both films are stronger for the pairing, reinforcing one another in tone and historical context.

They make for one of the best, and most cry worthy, double features of the year.

If you enjoyed Philomena then you may also enjoy‌ Dallas Buyers Club (2013) Blue Valentine (2010) The White Ribbon (2009) The Trip (2011) Mona Lisa Smile (2003) The Magdalene Sisters (2003) A Girl Like Her (2012) Originality:10/10 Short Term Success:7/10 Immortality: 8/10 Sound:5/10

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9 t h September 2 0 1 3 (canada) T h e Toronto F i l m Festival John Wells T A G S Oklahoma F a m i l y U n c o n ventional Relationships F a m i ly Feud

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AUGUST lS A G E ClUNTY

Originality:9/10 Short Term Success:5/10 Immortality:7/10 Sound:3/10

REVIEW

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ou don’t have to love it. You barely even have to like it. August Osage County is a hit and miss spectacle.

If family feuds and loud dinner scenes appeal to you then this is the film for you. But even if they don’t, there is no way you could deny the raw acting power present in the film. Meryl Streep’s performance alone is enough to elevate it. When you throw in the prowess of Ewan McGregor, Benedict Cumberbatch and Julia Roberts it truly is a spectacle.

The result of this is an incredibly dramatic portrayal of the mess that is family life acted to utter perfection. As stated this may not be a film for everyone but an appreciation of the acting skills of its leads is enough to land August Osage County an eternal place in our books. However in saying that, the plot is slow and rather frustrating, the characters do seem to spend a lot of time trying and failing to have civil meals with each other. Despite this the film is well worth your efforts even if only to appreciate the acting skills and not necessarily the finer plot details.

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marvel of the cinema world, Meryl Streep has enthralled generations from her prowess in Sophie’s Choice to the fashion inspired generation who watched The Devil Wears Prada. She is hailed as one of the most talented actresses of the age even managing to pull off a musical in Mama Mia. After years of admiring, respecting, even revering the work of Meryl Streep, what was it that made audiences suddenly totally fall in love with her in The Devil Wears Prada? It’s not that we ever took her for granted - 14 Oscar nominations and two wins in 28 years would hardly permit that - but there’s a different kind of excitement about Streep now in her late fifties, that wasn’t there before.

She’s proving now, in the freedom and prosperity of a spectacularly attractive late middle age, that she can do effortless as well as strenuous, ensemble as well as star, enjoy rather than hide behind her talent. More than that, it’s as if audiences who’d been lulled into a catatonia of admiration or vexation were forced to wake up and take notice of the dazzling dexterity and audacity of this woman who has amassed a body of work that’s phenomenal any way you look at it, but especially at a time and in a filmmaking climate tyrannized by the male adolescent demographic. From 1977 to 2007, three decades in which a Hollywood was busy merchandising global franchises and blockbusters and independent cinema was proving itself, Meryl Streep made 44 mostly

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she makes us feel less alone.

If you enjoyed August Osage County then you may also enjoy…

Labour Day (2013) Postcards From the Edge (1990) Little Miss Sunshine (2006) Harold and Maude (1971) The Royal Tenenbaums (2002)

PLAY TO FILM

high profile films. And, to borrow the anthem of Shirley MacLaine who plays her mother in Postcards From the Edge, “she’s still here” not just here, but on her own terms, not Hollywood’s.

The music of regret might be one theme song that hovers over her films. So many things have happened in the past, so many unfulfilled hopes raised. And despite, or perhaps because of, the excitement or expectation of her love scenes, there’s always a sense of impermanence in which she allows us to feel her essential aloneness. Whether seeking the “passion” of the orchid thief, or looking back to the perfect moment of a Cape Cod morning, or emulating the life of action, she’s yearning for the return of those peak experiences, anxious for her life to assume importance and intensity. But Streep’s greatness as a performer is to let us in on the hollowness of this desire, while at the same time, in showing us how to endure loneliness,

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THE GREAT BEAUTY 17

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REVIEW

ome movies come barreling out of their caves like armies on a warpath, self-consciously defining themselves as events and becoming part of history in the process.

We should embrace these rare explosions when they happen, even more so now perhaps than in the ‘60s, when such filmmaking was thick on the ground.

Paolo Sorrentino’s The Great Beauty

blasts off from its very first plunge into the social stew of contemporary Rome, conscientiously reinventing Fellini’s La Dolce Vita for the 21st century and nailing the city’s chattering leisure class to the wall for all time. There’s little sense in trying to resist the film’s relentless boogie-woogie party vibe, its visual banquet, its unpredictable sense of satire, its fools’ parade of modern grotesques, or its river of startling melancholy, turning from a wary trickle to a flash flood by film’s end. Sorrentino’s vision is the size of Rome itself, and his confidence is dazzling.

So densely inhabited it’s a movie you visit, not merely watch.

An epic art film sub genre that may well have begun with Fellini’s classic more than a half-century ago and continues with The Great Beauty.

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n interview with Paolo Sorrentino, on the eve of the Oscars, to talk about his film, The Great Beauty.

Can you talk about the writing process?

I put down a first draft by myself and then I send it to my co-writer Umberto Contarello and he reads it and then writes a second draft. And then he sends me a second draft and I work on a third draft and send it back. This ping-pong game continues until I shoot.

What did you find was the element that linked all of those initial ideas?

The link is the lead character of the journalist, who is able to navigate through all of these worlds and had the opportunity to connect the dots and tie all of these stories together.

What is your approach to selecting music for the movie?

It is music itself that informs the film, back at the writing stage. I listen to a lot of music. I hear music and if I find that a particular piece mirrors the spirit or an atmosphere that I want to describe, then I use it.

The camera always seems to be in motion. Do you have any kind of philosophy in terms of when it’s appropriate to move the camera?

First of all, film is an illusion. About being able to solve a mystery. By moving the camera I’m following a thread that

Originality:10/10 Short Term Success:7/10 Immortality: 10/10 Sound:10/10

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9 t h September 2013 P a o l o Sorrent i n o (canada) Toronto Internat i o n a l F i l m Festival T A G S R o m e Old Age P a r t y N i g h t c l u b s A r t Romance R e g r e t DIRECTOR SPEAKS leads to the unveiling of a mystery. And I like to tell this tale – of the revelation. The filmmakers I grew up watching, like Martin Scorsese or Fellini or Bertolucci, move the camera a lot, and I grew up liking that.

If you enjoyed The Great Beauty then you may also enjoy‌ I Vitelloni (1953) La Dolce Vita (1960) Roma (1972) Amarcord (1973) The Phantom of Liberty (1974) The Best Offer (2013) Detatchment (2011)

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HlW I LIVE NlW T

his film is more of a landmark film than a truly amazing film spectacle. It is flawlessly executed with some breathtaking scenes but post apocalyptic stories seem to be a dime a dozen now.

However How I Live Now does an exceptional job in breaking many of the stereotypes associated with this concept.

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1 0 t h September 2 0 1 3 (canada) Toronto F i l m Festival K e v i n McDonald T A G S Unconventional Relationships Country Dystopia England

REVIEW

The world, as we know it, ends and instead of chronicling the story of the world regaining its footing, the story focuses on the people who get lost in the crowd. The one’s whose only aim is to get back to their family and home. In this way it strikes an empathetic and relatable chord in viewers.

The central element of the story concerns the romance between the film’s 16 year old American heroine, Daisy, and her 17 year old English cousin, Eddie. Their infatuation is abruptly interrupted by a nuclear explosion in London that forces them to contend with a post apocalyptic world in which survival is the priority.

Visually the film is dominated by the colour green. The green flora and fauna and the natural splendour of the landscape is something the film relies heavily upon. The director does this very effectively by contrasting darker hues with these tonal qualities to create a visually dynamic experience.

We have to say our favourite scene was the one, ‘with the body bags’ and past that we shall say no more!

But wow, congratulations to the director, original author and script writer. An A+ in emotionally manipulating your audience. Well worth seeing on the big screen for visually dramatic impact but you can still enjoy it at home. May also be worth reading the book first as it offers a lot more elaboration of plot points and deeper insights into emotional motivation.

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Originality:7/10 Short Term Success:6/10 Immortality: 6/10 Sound:8/10

H

ow I Live Now is the film adaptation of Meg Rosoff’s debut novel, of the same name. Here Rosoff talks about the film, the writing process, and the importance of voice in fiction.

How I Live Now is so voice-driven. Did you start off with your plot, or did you start with Daisy?

I never start out with plot.. Usually I start with either a single line, or in the case of Daisy, it was really the sound of her voice in my head.

I’m really lousy at plot, so I just took the oldest children’s book plot in the world: a kid goes to live with another family. And I was writing during the period in the run-up to the

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invasion of Iraq by the U.K. and the U.S., and it was a very frightening time. So that was really echoing around in my head, and whatever’s echoing around in your head comes out in your book.

Did you set out to write a YA book?

It was kind of by mistake. I wrote a practice novel, a horse book, and it became very, very dark. My agent said, “I don’t think I can sell a horse book with so much sex in there.” I said to her, “If it’s supposed to be a book for teenagers, what are the rules?” She told me that really there are no rules - just write the fiercest book you can write and I’ll sell it. So I just unleashed the floodgates. And I still do when I write. I say to people, “You’re not trying to write a best-seller, you’re trying to write a book that resonates, that really breaks glass.”

Can you describe the experience of seeing your work on the screen?

Possibly the weirdest moment was when I went into the house that they shot in, which was

BOOK TO FILM

a complete art director’s artifice. All the peeling wallpaper, the funny junk, the unmade beds were stuck there by an art director, and that slightly freaked me out, because that house was in my head, and they had somehow managed to create it. In terms of the characters, they were all different from the way I saw them. I felt it was apart from me - it was Kevin McDonald’s version of a book I wrote 10 years ago, and I didn’t expect it to be a literal translation.

The first time I saw it I was a little shocked by some of the differences.

The strength of his film comes from real raw power, whereas the strength of my book came from emotional power. But by the time I saw it the second time, I was forgetting my own vision and looking at his, and I thought it worked amazingly well. I was pretty carried away by the power of it. And also by the acting: those kids were just astonishing, and what you saw on the screen was real. He had them together for a month rehearsing, and they bonded unbelievably. And of course Saoirse and George, who played Daisy and Edmund, really did fall in love on set.

If you enjoyed How I Live Now then you may also enjoy…

The Hunger Games (2012, 2013, 2014) Ginger and Rosa (2013) Anna Karenina (1935, 1997, 2012) The Lovely Bones (2009) Lovelace (2013)

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INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS

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REVIEW

he film is wildly accomplished; moving, rich, funny and exhilarating in a way that leaves you tingling from head to toe. It’s an instant fixture on the Coen brothers A list, which is no small compliment. Yet in the Oscar and Bafta shortlists it was mostly ignored – no Best Picture, Best Actor or Best Director nominations.

Does that matter? In the long term, of course not, and while in the short term it’s disappointing, in Llewyn’s case it also feels cosmically appropriate. The questions Inside Llewyn Davis poses, about the ultimate worth of our life’s work, resonate deeper than the results of an award ceremony. When a film wins prizes that is all well and good, but its true value – well, that’s blowin’ in the wind.

2 8 t h September 2 0 1 3 (usa)New York Film Festival The Coen Brothers T A G S Musician R e a l Life 1 9 6 0 ’ s H o m e less Cat

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Originality:8/10 Short Term Success:6/10 Immortality: 8/10 Sound:9/10

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nside Llewyn Davis is based loosely upon Bob Dylan’s life.

While he has had many films made about him he has also been the star of a select few.

Bob Dylan had his first acting gig aged 21 on British TV with a play called Madhouse on Castle Street.

His first album had been released but few people in Britain would have known him; this was a few months before Freewheelin’ hit the shelves and Dylan fever (which is like Beatlemania, only less wild and more pretentious) swept the Western world. He intended to play the lead but quickly proved that he wasn’t interested in learning lines and was more interested in his recent discovery of cannabis, so David Warner was hired as the lead and Dylan provided a Greek chorus to the action.

The rock ‘n’ roll royalty of the ‘60s almost all tried their hand at acting; John Lennon did How I Won the War for Richard Lester, and Mick Jagger did Performance for Nicolas Roeg. Later, David Bowie, Lou Reed and Paul Simon would follow

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This artistically adventurous trend is one we see continuing with Dylan’s release of a Christmas album and his new DJ hobby. Either way you look at it Bob Dylan still remains a controversial and prominent figure of the 21st Century with his ever changing musical inclination, acting career and the inspiration he provides other films such as Inside Llewyn Davis.

If you enjoyed Inside Llewyn Davis then you may also enjoy...

I’m Not There (2007) Almost Famous (2000) Blue Valentine (2010) Take This Waltz (2012) The Fighter (2010) Mrs Dalloway (1998)

HISTORY AND FILM

suit. Aside from the built in fan base, the logic seems to be that someone who can give a captivating performance on stage must be able to hold an audience’s attention on screen, although this logic hasn’t always held up. Mick Jagger on stage was and is an explosion of sex and energy and fun.

On screen he’s like a negative of himself, and most of his contemporaries were no better.

Dylan has over the course of his life starred in many films to mixed acclaim, maybe most notably Don’t Look Back and Knocking on Heaven’s Door.

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H E R

Originality:10/10 Short Term Success:7/10 Immortality:9/10 Sound:9/10

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REVIEW

pike Jonze’s relationship comedy Her is set in a techno perfect Los Angeles of the near future, a utopia with the tiniest hint of dys. Everything tends to be lit with a dreamy, woozy kind of afternoon sunshine and lens flare, in a place where a contented, diverse population mills happily around, rather like a TV ad for Apple computers.

Her is a really distinctive piece of work, which has drawn countless adoring notices and endless gags about Siri, the voice of Apple’s iPhone. I wished I liked it more. It is engagingly self-aware and excruciatingly self-conscious, wearing its hipness on its sleeve. It’s ingenious and yet remarkably contrived. The film seems very new, but the sentimental ending is as old as the hills.

There are however some great moments. Joaquin Phoenix presents a mixture of quirky character traits as Theodore Twombly, a lonely guy with an unattractive moustache and glasses who wears the high waisted slacks that have apparently become fashionable for men in this era. Theodore’s life changes when his computer gets an entirely new operating system, linked to a smartphone with earpiece. It’s a sophisticated artificial intelligence with a female voice called Samantha, played by Scarlett Johansson.

Theodore falls deeply in love with Samantha, and she with him, but she is a mystery, a mystery partly signalled by the title: “her” rather than “she”, the object of a man’s perception and entranced bafflement.

The film unwinds, inevitably, in a sentimental and slightly moralistic way, but it is seductive and subversive when it suggests that their relationship is part of an evolving landscape: a world in which men and women are increasingly having relationships with their “OS” and the stigma is dwindling.

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n Spike Jonze’s Oscar nominated, futuristic film Her, computers compose music, carry on seamless conversations with humans, organize emails instantaneously, and even fall in love. But what appears to be pure sci-fi has more grounding in actual science than the casual viewer might believe.

Stephen Wolfram, whose Wolfram Alpha drives the artificial intelligence like component of Siri on the iPhone, thinks that an operating system like Samantha as depicted in the film is not only possible, the technology behind it isn’t that far off. “The mechanics of getting the AI to work - I don’t think that’s the most challenging part,” he said in an interview with Speakeasy. “The challenging part is, in a sense: Define the meaningful product.”

Unlike Samantha, a powerful AI that performs many roles personal assistant, companion, lover, composer, coach - the AI of the future will likely be built with specific goals in mind. “One of the confusing things that I used to believe is that you can make a general purpose AI that is kind of human like, that has a super version of exact human attributes,” said Wolfram. “That’s really not the pattern that we’re seeing.“ He predicts that we will soon have better personal assistant systems that read and analyse our email. “Realistically what’s going to happen is it’s going to be this nice information presentation of the different emails, and a stack of ones that are about

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this, and a stack of ones that are about that.” Indeed, services like SaneBox and even Gmail’s filtering tabs have already moved in that direction.

In Her, Samantha and Theodore Twombly, have a relationship that appears to exhibit all the elements of a typical romance, despite Samantha’s lack of a physical body. They talk late into the night, relax on the beach and even go out on a double date with friends.

But whether a computer can really ‘love’ us back is another matter. Philosophers have split up the question into two parts, said Peter Norvig, from Google. “Does it today, or could it ever, act in such a way as if it was really intelligent or like a person, or actually in love?” he said. “Even if it could pass that, then the philosophers also want to know, just because it acts that way, is it really doing that? Is it really in

love, or is it really intelligent?”

Because there’s no way to answer that question, engineers and scientists tend to go with a more operational definition as established in the early days of AI. “If you can answer the questions right, then that’s all that counts,” said Norvig. “You won’t ask, ‘Well are you really intelligent?’ We’ll just grant you the fact that you’re intelligent.”

If you enjoyed Her then you may also enjoy…

Electric Dreams (1984) Midnight in Paris (2011) Lost In Translation (2003) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) Catfish (2010)

THE TREND OF TECHNOLOGY

1 2 t h October 2 0 1 3 S p i k e J o n z e ( u s a ) New York F i l m Festival T A G S Sci Fi Virtual Romance Unconv e n tional Romance U r b a n

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Do you know that place between being asleep and awake, where you still remember your dreams? That’s where I’ll always love you... that’s where I’ll always wait for you.

- Tinkerbell to Peter Pan in Hook (1991) Films coming out in the next six months worth waiting for...

PREDICTING THE FUTURE...

I lRIGINS 35

1 8 t h January 2 0 1 4 M i k e Kahill ( u s a ) Sundance F i l m Festival T A G S Science Biology F a t e E y e s Romance D e a t h I n d i a

henever a film sets out to tackle the ‘big question’ of fate I am always cautious. There are a number of ways such an endeavour could go.

It can alienate a portion of its viewers with controversial dec-

EXPECTATIONS

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larations or it sits on the fence and attempts to appease the masses.

I can’t say that I am particularly excited by either prospect. The success of the movie is determined by the success of either of these realisations. However as a whole, most films choose to sit on the fence, taking a hard line neither way and choosing to end in some bittersweet melodrama that leaves the final interpretation to the viewer.

I am guessing that I Origins will fall into this category. However despite my lack of disposition either way it would be nice if a film took a chance on a controversial issue. This would however butt it up against the issue of money and economics - major drivers of the film industry. I don’t necessarily have to agree with the opinion presented however it might be a nice break from the cautious norm. The most notable performance of this film might just be the beautiful French actor, Astrid Berges-Frisbey, who many would know from her role in the latest Pirates of the Caribbean instalment. It might be nice to see her in a more serious pensive role however this film is an anomaly in subject and presentation so may be hard to judge before seeing.

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hat is there between fate and free will?

Can one’s ‘free will’ change one’s fate?

To understand their relationship, let us first know what fate and free will are.

Fate in simple terms is the sum total of what we have done in the past with our bodies and minds, and which have not got exhausted by coming to fruition.

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Free will is the facility granted by God to all souls, to think, desire and decide as they please.

Even God does not interfere in this. We all know that we can think what we like; we can desire what we wish; and, ultimately, it is the individual only who decides his or her course of action. Even when compelled, an individual has to decide whether to go along or rebel. And, of course, face the consequences.

Both are absolute except in the case of devotees of God; God does intervene in favour of his devotees those who are surrendered souls. We cannot change anyone’s fate; neither can anyone change ours. So what do we do with our relatives and friends, who are on a collision course with harm.

Relatives are persons brought together due to their respective karmas, i.e. we deserve them. Relatives are not our extensions, as we erroneously assume them to be like we do with a son or a daughter.

We are together for a limited period and then go our separate ways, i.e. we are separated either by death or even earlier by other means.

The question that arises is: Can we influence them

FATE

with their free will and fate?

We can only try but in the ultimate analysis, they have to agree to be influenced. Therefore, you should not be greatly disturbed when a relative or a friend is bent upon committing ‘hara-kiri’.

That is his or her free will.

You are safe with your own fate. And if you happen to be a devotee of God, you enjoy double protection - God’s and of your pious karmas. And, the choice is yours as much as the will is yours.

You may enjoy I, Origins if you liked...

Another Earth (2011) Alien Visitor (1995) 2001 A Space Odyssey (1968)

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LE WEEKEND

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2 5 t h January 2 0 1 4 R o g e r Michell (sweden) Gรถteborg International F i l m Festival T A G S Britain Holiday France F o o d Marriage Divorce

“H

EXPECTATIONS

ere’s to the future.” Curzon Film World has debuted the trailer for the new film from acclaimed South African director Roger Michell (Enduring Love, Changing Lanes, Venus, Notting Hill) titled Le Week-End, premiering at the Toronto Film Festival in September. Jim Broadbent and Lindsay Duncan star as an old married couple celebrating their wedding anniversary in Paris. While there, they run into an old friend, played by Jeff Goldblum, who “gives them a new vision on life and love.” Even though I haven’t married yet, I still find this trailer adorable, amusing and just kind of charming. Plus it makes me want to visit Paris.

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P

rolific and much loved character actor Jim Broadbent is currently in two films vying for cinema goers’ attention: Filth (take a look, it only just missed out on our selection) in which he plays an Australian accented tapeworm turned psy-

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chiatrist, and Le WeekEnd, a Hanif Kureishi penned drama about a sagging marriage.

Here are five of our favourite Jim Broadbent performances…

The Iron Lady: You need an actor to do charming and steadfast?

Jim’s your man, with his enor-

mously likeable portrayal of Dennis Thatcher.

Moulin Rouge: Jim brings just the right level of hysteria to his performance as Harold Zidler, the larger than life Moulin Rouge MC in Baz Luhrmann’s gaudy, histrionic musical.

Iris: Similar to The Iron Lady in temperament only here he was a bit more earnest and a bit less posh.

And really the combination of him and Judy Dench could be nothing short of amazing.

Another Year: He’s worked

with Mike Leigh many times, most recently in 2010’s Another Year, in which he and Ruth Sheen are Tom and Gerri, the happily married couple at the film’s centre.

Hot Fuzz: And lastly his avuncular but ineffectual police inspector in Hot Fuzz.

You may enjoy Le Week-End if you liked…

Midnight In Paris (2011) Hope Springs (2012) Before Sunrise (1995) Before Sunset (2004) Before Midnight (2013)

THE PARIS APPEAL

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T G B P H 43

H E R A N D U D A E S T lT E L

he first thing one might expect from any Wes Anderson film is to be totally and utterly visually dazzled. The bright pinks and contrasting tonal qualities that are now so synonymous with Wes Anderson films promise you an amazing viewing experience. However with his classic dead pans and straight on shots, Wes Anderson’s work sometimes straddles the line between tactfully confronting and downright awkward. This was the main criticism of many of his earlier films. Beautiful and meaningful nobody could deny but sometimes cringe worthy with its prolonged silence and slow motion scenes. However Moonrise Kingdom was such an amazing experience we have the highest hopes for his follow up film.

The incredible array of actors is an element that could make or break the film. With so many outstanding actors in the cast the film runs the risk of being acted within an inch of its life.

However Ralph Fiennes talent as an actor is nothing to be sniffed

EXPECTATIONS

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at.

And the establishment of a newbie, Tony Revolori, as Zero (“Get your hands off my lobby boy!”) may help to dilute the rather intense cast.

The proposed story line is vastly intriguing and it is f a s c i n a ting to see Wes Anderson adopting some historical elements into his script.

The Grand Budapest Hotel also seems to be one of the more complicated plots in a Wes Anderson film.

As a whole we can’t wait to see the next instalment in Wes Anderson’s collection of the wacky and wonderful.

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es Anderson - you either love him or you hate him. I find myself sitting firmly on the love side. But it’s not just his newly found critical and social acclaim that finds Wes Anderson on the forefront of one’s mind. It’s the numerous well renowned actors flocking for a part in his films even if only a supporting one. Look at The Grand Budapest Hotel, almost every single acting role in the film is played by an A list actor. Owen Wilson, a regular in other Anderson film’s, only has one line of dialogue.

Not to say he doesn’t do it well… but it makes me question the point of him taking such a role. He certainly isn’t selling the film. More like an added extra you don’t discover until half way through. So this poses the question what is it that we as the audience actually seem to find so appealing in Wes Anderson’s films… and what is it that actors find so appealing in playing one of his characters? As an audience member I would probably have to say the originality of his films visually is one of the most appealing characteristics. There really isn’t anyone in cinema right now who produces a

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film with the same quirky flair that Wes Anderson does. Some might go so far as to say that his films are more art than cinema with each shot a carefully and symmetrically laid out plan.

Being more art than cinema may account for his attraction to the A listed acting fraternity that throws itself at his films.

You may enjoy The Grand Budapest Hotel if you liked‌ Rushmore (1998) Moonrise Kingdom (2012) Blue Jasmine (2013) The Kings of Summer (2012) Ruby Sparks (2012) Submarine (2011) The Descendants (2011) Happythankyoumoreplease (2010) Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012)

THE WES ANDERSON EFFECT

6 t h February 2014 Wes Anderson ( g e r m a n y ) Berlin International F i l m Festival T A G S Retail/ Service A r t Inheritance Europe Prison Budapest

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IS THE M

A

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WHl IS T A LL H A P P 47

Y

?

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onsider the following intriguing proposition - a filmed encounter between scatterbrained film director Michel Gondry and the distinguished linguist and political activist Noam Chomsky entitled Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy? Thinking about that one? With its subtitle An Animated Conversation, you know that Gondry won’t be restricting himself to the traditional head shot interview format.

The concept itself promises to be either a huge failure or a massive success. It also risks alienating a certain portion of its audience with a very tai-

lored philosophical exploration. However if it manages to balance philosophy with some personalised anecdotes it could create an accessible and engaging film.

EXPECTATIONS

Whether or not this will be achieved remains to be seen. The trailer focuses on one central premise as the title  implies - is the man who is tall happy?

Now how many different ways can this one premise be examined? Between Gondry and Chomsky I suspect many. With the positive psychology movement taking hold of society the concept of what exactly makes us happy is drawcard cinema. This is a film that promises much and might just deliver.

1 2 t h February 2 0 1 3 Michel Gondry (germany) Berlin International F i l m Festival CĂŠdric Klapisch T A G S F a m i ly Philosophy Science D o c u mentary

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oam Chomsky,in an essay from 1966 speaks about the need for intellectuals to safeguard the truth- a taster of what you may be in for while watching, Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy?

IT IS THE RESPONSIBILITY of intellectuals to speak the truth and to expose lies.

This, at least, may seem enough of a truism to pass over without comment. Not so, however. For the modern intellectual, it is not at all obvious. Thus we have Martin Heidegger writing, in a pro-Hitler declaration of 1933, that “truth is the revelation of that which makes a people certain, clear, and strong in its action and knowledge”; it is only this kind of “truth” that one has a responsibility to speak.

Americans tend to be more forthright.

When Arthur Schlesinger was asked by The New York Times in November, 1965, to explain the contradiction between his published account of the Bay of Pigs incident and the story he had given the press at the time of the attack, he simply remarked that he had lied… It is of no particular interest that one man is quite happy to lie in behalf of a cause which he knows to be unjust; but it is significant that such events provoke so little response in the intellectual community—for example, no one has said that there is something strange in the of-

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NOAM CHOMSKY

fer of a major chair in the humanities to a historian who feels it to be his duty to persuade the world that an American-sponsored invasion of a nearby country is nothing of the sort. And what of the incredible sequence of lies on the part of our government and its spokesmen concerning such matters as negotiations in Vietnam? The facts are known to all who care to know.

The press, foreign and domestic, has presented documentation to refute each falsehood as it appears. But the power of the government’s propaganda apparatus is such that the citizen who does not undertake a research project on the subject can hardly hope to confront government pronouncements with fact.

You may enjoy, Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy? if you enjoyed...

Noam Chomsky: Distorted Morality (2003) Pirates and Emperors (2004) Imperial Grand Strategy (2006)

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W A D J D A 51

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EXPECTATIONS

s far as expectations go Wadjda looks set to deliver. As aptly stated in the trailer it certainly is a film of firsts.

It is the first feature film shot entirely in Saudi Arabia where cinemas are prohibited.

Such were the difficulties director Haifaa Al Mansour - Saudi Arabia’s first female filmmaker - faced that she had to direct the scenes from a caravan so she would not be publicly visible. She is considered one of the most significant filmmakers in her country and completed her Master’s degree in Directing and Film Studies at the University of Sydney.

She has three successful short films and an award winning 2005 documentary Women Without Shadows. However the direction Wadjda chooses to take has yet to be seen. Will it be a politically motivated film? Religiously motivated?

Or less contrived in plot? After all its setting in Saudi Arabia cannot be the only sustainable factor of its plot.

Al Mansour’s work is both praised and criticised within her own country as she usually deals with taboo topics and her films encourage discussion of Saudi Arabia’s traditional and restrictive culture and its strict Sharia law. The trailer for Wadjda presents a simple story exploring the role of females in male dominated Saudi Arabia as well as a coming of age story for a young Muslim girl who only wants to own and ride a bicycle. The subject matter is one that can find some purchase in our world. There is also something cool and refreshing every time you watch a film in subtitles. While your attention may in some ways be split, it forces you to concentrate on every word and conversation – a strong and necessary attribute to any film’s success.

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adjda, being touted as the first feature film shot entirely in Saudi Arabia - a country with no movie theaters and a relationship with cinema that’s complicated at best - tells the story of a defiant 10 year old pushing back against the social expectations that define her life as a young Saudi woman.

Wadjda’s source of independence comes in the form of a green bicycle she wants to buy for herself. But girls in Saudi Arabia don’t ride bicycles, so she has to be creative.

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6 t h M a r c h 2 0 1 4 Haifaa Al-Mans o u r ( n z ) T A G S S a u d i Arabia Female Director Children Marriage School Religion

WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT?

Director Haifaa Al Mansour has stated she wanted to make a film “that mirrors reality as much as possible.”

“I couldn’t make a film where women are all innocent and they’re all striving to be free and all that; it’s not real,” she says.

“I think a lot of women are the gatekeepers, a lot of women reinforce the values ... For me, it was not making women all the victims, and men are the oppressors.”

You may enjoy Wadjda if you liked…

The White Balloon (1995) The Mirror (1999) The Circle (2000) Offside (2006) Persepolis (2008) City of Life (2009) A Separation (2011) Sepideh : Reaching for the Stars (2014)

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T H E LUNCHB l X

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2 5 t h February 2 0 1 4 Ritesh B a t r a ( u k ) Glasgow F i l m Festival Robert Stromb e r g T A G S L u n c h Delivery Housew i f e Secret Romance

I

EXPECTATIONS

t’s hard to know what exactly to expect from The Lunchbox. I first discovered it on a scan of the upcoming Sydney Film Festival program. I followed up this discovery with the news that it had been a sizeable success in its country of origin, India. Ritesh Batra’s Mumbai-set romance arranges a tender marriage of Brief Encounter with Ernst Lubitsch’s The Shop Around the Corner. Bollywood star Irrfan Khan plays Saajan, an ageing office drone who finds the wrong lunchbox delivered to his desk and stumbles into a chaste relationship with Nimrat Kaur’s unhappy housewife. I cannot be the only one questing where the source of inspiration for a story like this comes from. I mean it’s certainly not the premise for your average romance so you have to wonder. Based upon a true story perhaps? A stroke of midnight inspiration? Either way it will hopefully make for an enticingly soulful experience.

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he movie, as the title suggests, centers around a lunchbox. In Mumbai there’s a “dabbawallah system” of delivering hot, home-cooked lunches to workers in their offices around the city. The dabbawallahs who deliver the lunches are extremely efficient, delivering up to 250,000 lunches each day and barely ever making a mistake.

The film, however, is about a glitch. One lunch keeps getting delivered to the wrong man. But when the woman making the meal confronts the dabbawallah he shakes his head and tells her it’s impossible. They never make mistakes, even Harvard came to study the delivery system, he tells her.

It’s true that they hardly make mistakes, says Stefan Thomke, the Harvard Business School professor who did that study.

So, what is their secret?

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he says.

“The information that’s on there gets the lunchbox back to the last distribution point and from the last point, it’s all about memory and they bring it back,” Thomke says.

Despite the fact that the premise of the movie is nearly impossible, Thomke still enjoyed the film.

“I loved the movie because it starts out with something that’s highly improbable, and isn’t that something that life is all about — something that is highly improbable,” he says.

Well put.

You may enjoy The Lunchbox if you liked…

The White Balloon (1995) Amelie (2001) Beginners (2010) Moonrise Kingdom (2012) Safety Not Guaranteed (2012) About Time (2013)

ONCE UPON A TIME...

“Their secret is the system,” says Thomke. This system is a very complicated dance of many, many elements, including the railway system in Mumbai. The dabbawallah rely on the train to deliver the lunchboxes around the city.

“The railway sort of helps them in unexpected ways. It synchronizes the system because in Mumbai the railway is one of the few things that always runs on time. It forces the entire organization to run according to a rhythm,” he says.

Another example of the perfection of the dabbawallah system is how they label the lunchboxes.

There’s very little information on the boxes.

“For example, there’s no return address,” says Thomke, “but these boxes have to go back to the person who gave them to you.”

How do they know where to return the lunchbox? That information is memorized by the dabbawallah,

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U N DER THE S K I N A

s always with the expectations of a film the investigation must start with the trailer.

The story is classic sci-fi. An alien on earth transformed into a human body but it is not the classic alien on earth premise. It is not a film to pull your heartstrings or wrap you up warm at night.

From the trailer we can assume only two things - it is meant to confront you and inspire a great deal of introspective reflection.

More useful in assessing the film than the

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2 n d M a r c h 2 0 1 4 ( u k ) Glasglow F i l m Festival T A G S A l i e n Depressing Rape Scotland Humanity

EXPECTATIONS

trailer was the official featurett released with the actor and director talking about their hopes for the film.

Another two things were gleamed from this - that a type of all consuming intensity is paramount to the film’s success and that great things can be expected from Scarlet Johansson’s acting.

The film itself has been a long time in production with the source material diverging from Michael Faber’s novel of the same name released in 2000. In 2001 director Jonathon Glazer began story boarding. It went through many stages of concept originally centering around two alien farmers (one of which was to be played by Brad Pitt). However what is most interesting about the proposed film may be the element of impromptu acting. The film promises highly sexual undertones and the director has chosen to have the sex scenes unscripted with the male actors barely aware of the scene’s direction. Such an intriguing concept promises some truly shocking and confronting moments.

We can only hope that it’s as unnerving and thought provoking as the premise and pre released footage would lead us to believe.

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hese are exciting times for Scarlett Johansson. In the past year, she has played the girlfriend of a porn addict, in Don Jon; she has played an operating system, using nothing but the honey of her voice, in Her; and she has seen her friend Scott Stringer become New York City Comptroller. It’s been one thrill after another. And now, on April 4th, she has two films coming out: Captain America: The Winter Soldier, in which she resumes her role from The Avengers as Black Widow, a do-gooder who dresses like a dominatrix; and Under the Skin, in which she undresses to do bad, and which is like nothing that Johansson buffs, or pretty much anyone else, have seen before. In February, clad in Dior, bejewelled in Cartier, and accompanied by her fiancé, Romain Dauriac, she was awarded an honorary César - the French equivalent of an Oscar.

“I’d never be so presumptuous as to say I could become a Frenchwoman,” she says. Give it time.

There is no getting away from Johansson, and that is how her uncountable fans, female as well as male, would like it to be forever. They do not want to get away. Even if they can’t afford to open a bottle of Moët & Chandon champagne, as endorsed by Johansson in 2011, they can still enjoy

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arm’s length. “I like to believe that the audience still wants to have the element of surprise,” she once said.

“I don’t want to see actors in their character costumes smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee.”

Yes, but millions of people do, and they will not be fended off without a fight. As Johansson admits, “I don’t think my generation of actor was picked apart like they are now. We came away unscathed.

It wasn’t like now, when you look at actors like Kristen Stewart or Jennifer Lawrence, and it’s crazy for them, it’s awful.”

SCARLETT JOHANSSON

her likeness on the shell case of their iPhone 5, and come a little closer to her with a deep sniff of The One, the Dolce & Gabbana fragrance that the actress, as an official face of the fashion house, is paid to advertise.

The irony is that, for all this sheen of modernity, she is an old-fashioned kind of star. She has faith in the gleam of stardom, and in the polished necessity of its allure - keeping her composure and her cool, but also keeping her public at

You may enjoy Under The Skin if you liked…

Only God Forgives (2013) The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951, 2008) The Place Beyond the Pines (2013) Blue Valentine (2010) Blade Runner (1982)

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lN L Y L lVERS LEFT ALIVE

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EXPECTATIONS

t is hard to know what to make of the film, Only Lovers Left Alive.

The vampire stigma will no doubt follow the film into the cinema however the film’s mythical quality is not something I am dreading.

In fact I am quite looking forward to what promises to be a fresh take on the whole vampire saga.

It’s time to revert back to the scary vampires, the questionably soulless and sexual undertones that always seem to follow. The writer and director, Jim Jarmusch, is also responsible for Stranger Than Paradise, Broken Flowers, Dead Man and Down by Law. This film chronicles an age old vampire couple who reunite in the 21st Century. However their reunion is disrupted by the arrival of the woman’s out of control sister. As far as actors are concerned Tilda Swinton and Tom Hidleston are expected to put on some wonderful performances.

Of course both of them are quite well known for playing brooding characters

however just because it’s something we have seen before doesn’t mean it should be any less enjoyable. And they both make excellent vampires with their pale and ethereal features. A tip of the hat to the make up crew. Mia Wasikowska also seems a talent that we have not seen enough of since she came onto the scene in Alice in Wonderland.

Visually the film is a compilation of rich mellow undertones and smooth dramatic scenes. Just the trailer’s opening would give you this indication with the rotating scenes and blurry focus shots. There really is something quite wonderfully sensual about the concept of vampires and visually nothing could match the theme better than what has been promised.

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et’s start off by dispelling the obvious.

Not every vampire movie is Twilight. Not everything vampire is copied, unoriginal or tacky. There was a time before the vampire name was slandered when the genre was taken seriously. Let’s look at the history.

The first major vampire book film combination to receive widespread appeal and recognition was Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Anne Rice’s, Interview With a Vampire, staring Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise, was also quite popular. The one main issue that we can point out is that all of the best vampire films seem to be derived from books. But in the very least there is a quite unpleasant stigma associated with the concept.

Something we can only hope that Only Lovers Left Alive aids in remedying.

Yes vampire films did kind of explode all over the cinema scene for a while there. But is that a bad thing? I argue not. Films featuring vampires have been around forever - or since around 1909 -

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and there’s a reason we keep coming back to them and the reason is not the vampires – it’s the plot. If they released film after film that followed the plotline of Dracula and just put different names on it then I would be all aboard the vampirefilms-are-getting-so-stupid train. The stories always differ though, to varying degrees of success. Most recently, and most prominently has been the Twilight saga which for the most part defanged vampires. The fear of the blood sucking fiend had been reduced to creatures that like to look pretty and date teenagers for no logical reason. While this, for most people, made the supernatural an adolescent stain on modern cinema, I personally think it’s excellent. It makes for more interesting cinema. We don’t know what to expect, because we’ve been handed so many extremes, there’s equal chance now in all supernatural fantasy films that it might be

brutal and intense or it could be a romantic comedy of a girl who just can’t decide which mythological boy to take to the prom.

You may enjoy The Only Lovers Left Alive if you liked…

Near Dark (1987) Vampire’s Kiss (1989) Interview With the Vampire The Addiction (1995) Byzantium (2012)

(1994)

VAMPIRES

1 7 t h A p r i l 2 0 1 4 J i m Jarmusch ( a u ) T A G S Vampire Horror Contemp o a r y Unusual Romance Depress i o n Addict i o n Family

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Immortality becomes them.

nanos gigantum humeris insidentes... standing on the shoulders of giants...

ACHIEVING IMMORTALITY...

T H E PHILADELP H I A S T lR Y 69

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he’s a haughty and demanding Philadelphia heiress; he’s an arrogant playboy. The Katharine Hepburn-Cary Grant pairing in The Philadelphia Story pits these two forces against one another. Their on screen chemistry highlights their effortless charisma and singular uniqueness. The Philadelphia Story takes place two years after Cary Grant behaved appallingly in his marriage to Hepburn. He’s now a recovering alcoholic and, if not apologetic, at least understanding of what he had and lost. One has to read between the lines to detect the engaging figure underneath the cool façade and cutting sarcasm. It’s as though he loves her but has to find his way in on his own terms. Love for him isn’t a sacrifice, but a negotiation, and that demands an equal partner.

And that demands a test, which is the crux of the movie. The Philadelphia Story would never have worked nearly so perfectly without Grant. Add Hepburn’s persona, beautifully explored here in all its wonder, and James Stewart’s likeability, and George Cukor’s sensible, subtle, and lovingly unrushed direction of a firecracker script… the result is a studio picture far deeper and richer than its whimsical surface style might lead you to believe.

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2 3 r d December 1 9 4 0 George C u k o r (brazil) T A G S Marriage Divorce Ex Husb a n d Romance J o u r nalist Wealthy Philadelphia

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hen George Cukor, one of the giants of Hollywood cinema directing, saw Katharine Hepburn’s screen test, he knew there was something there - as he later recalled, “there was this odd creature ... she was unlike anybody I’d ever seen or heard.”

He was right and the rest is film history. But during her career, Hepburn went from being one of the hottest new talents in Hollywood to being “box office poison”.

And this is where The Philadelphia Story comes in. It marks the turning point in Hepburn’s film career. The movie is largely

the product of Hepburn’s willful quest to regain control of her career. The film is based on a play by the same name, written specifically for Hepburn by playwright Philip Barry.

The play ran for an unprecedented 415 performances and received rave reviews. Hepburn’s then boyfriend, Howard Hughes, purchased the rights for her so that she would be able to return to Hollywood and call her own shots. She signed a contract with MGM in exchange for veto power over the producer, director, screenwriter, and cast.

She stipulated that the film would be directed by Cukor. When the two men she wanted for the job, Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy, were unavailable, she settled for Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart. The entire film was shot in just eight weeks without a single retake. It was a box office smash and is still today ranked No 5 on the American Film Institute’s list of the 10 greatest films in the genre of Romantic Comedy.

You may enjoy The Philadelphia Story if you liked…..

Originality:8/10 Short Term Success:9/10 Immortality: 10/10 Sound:9/10

KATHERINE HEPBURN

It Happened One Night (1934) Sylvia Scarlett (1935) Bringing Up Baby (1938) Holiday (1938) My Favorite Wife (1940) High Society (1956)

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REAR WIN D lW

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1 s t August 1 9 5 4 Alfred Hitchc o c k ( u s a ) T A G S Murder Wheelc h a i r Photographer Unconv e n tional Romance

REVIEW

he boorish but fascinating pastime of peeking into other people’s homes - a thing that New York apartment dwellers have a slight disposition to do - is used by director Alfred Hitchcock to impel a tense and exciting exercise in his melodrama, Rear Window.

Setting his camera and James Stewart in an open casement that looks out upon the backyards and opposite buildings of a jumbled residential block off lower Fifth Avenue, allows his characters to discover a tingling lot about the neighbours’ goings on, including what appears to be a grisly murder by a sullen salesman across the way.

Hitchcock’s film is not ‘significant’. What it has to say about people and human nature is superficial and glib. But it does expose many facets of the loneliness of city life and it tacitly demonstrates the impulse of morbid curiosity. The purpose of it is sensation, and that it generally provides in the colourfulness of its detail and in the flood of menace toward the end.

James Stewart does a first class job, playing the whole thing from a wheel chair and making points with his expressions and eyes. His handling of a lens-hound’s paraphernalia in scanning the action across the way is very important to the colour and fascination of the film.

Grace Kelly as the beautiful model who loves him and joins in the game of spying upon a likely killer is fascinating, too. Thelma Ritter as a nurse who drops in daily, Wendell Corey as a dull professional sleuth, and Raymond Burr as the unsuspecting salesman, who is spied upon, perform with simple skill.

That might sound kind of dry and analytical, but when you’re watching the movie it delivers a visceral chill. It’s as if you’ve suddenly met eyes with a killer, and he’s exposed you as being complicit, if not in this specific crime, then at least in a kind of shared ‘original sin’ common to all humanity. Why are you so interested in his crime anyway?

It’s as if the murderer has personally ripped off the sheltering cover of the screen, flipped on the floodlights and exposed us all sitting huddled in our seats in the theatre (or now more likely on the couch), then asked us rather pointedly why we’re being entertained by his crime and his pain.

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hen we watch a movie it all appears seamless and perfect but knowing some of the details behind the scenes allows us to get an insight into the effort that goes into making a movie.

REAR WINDOW was shot on one set, which required months of planning and construction. The apartment-courtyard set consisted of 31 apartments, eight of which were completely furnished.

AT THE TIME, the set was the largest indoor set built at Paramount Studios.

The size of the set necessitated excavation of the soundstage floor. Thus Jeff’s apartment was actually at street level.

THE LENS James Stewart uses on his camera to spy on his neighbors, is reportedly a 400mm prime telephoto, the magnification of which, would render it near impossible to use effectively without a tripod.

THE FILM WAS unavailable for decades because its rights, together with four

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Originality:9/10 Short Term Success:9/10 Immortality: 8/10 Sound:7/10

changeover from day to night in under forty-five minutes.

ONCE DURING the filming, the lights were so hot that they set off the soundstage sprinkler system.

ALFRED HITCHCOCKis famous for director cameos in all his movies. In Rear Window he appears about a half hour into the film, winding the clock in the songwriter’s apartment.

REAR WINDOW is the only film in which Grace Kelly is seen with a cigarette. She refused to smoke in films, except this once.

RANKED #3 on the American Film Institute’s list of the 10 greatest films in the genre “Mystery” in June 2008.

THE AMERICAN Film Institute ranked this as the #48 Greatest Movie of All Time.

ALFRED HITCHCOCK

other pictures of the same period, were bought back

by Alfred Hitchcock and left as part of his legacy to his daughter. They’ve been known for long as the infamous “Five Lost Hitchcocks” among film buffs, and were re-released in theatres around 1984 after a 30-year absence.

The others are The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), Rope (1948), The Trouble with Harry (1955), and Vertigo (1958).

THERE WERE four separate lighting settings for the film which were meant to replicate early morning, afternoon, late evening, and night.

The heat from the lights was nearly unbearable for the actors on the top floor of the apartment building.

ONE THOUSAND arc lights were used to simulate sunlight.

Thanks to extensive pre-lighting of the set, the crew could make the

You may enjoy Rear Window if you liked…

The Rope (1948) Strangers on a Train (1951) Dial M for Murder (1954) To Catch a Thief (1955) Vertigo (1958) Marnie (1964)

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S lM E L I K E IT

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Originality:6/10 Short Term Success:10/10 Immortality: 7/10 Sound:7/10

hat a work of art and nature is Marilyn Monroe. She hasn’t aged into an icon, some citizen of the past, but still seems to be inventing herself as we watch her. She has the gift of appearing to hit on her lines of dialogue by happy inspiration, and there are passages in Billy Wilder’s Some Like It Hot where she and Tony Curtis exchange one liners like hot potatoes.

Wilder’s 1959 comedy is one of the enduring treasures of the movies, a film of inspiration and meticulous craft, a movie that’s about nothing but sex and yet pretends it’s about crime and greed.

It is laced with Wilder’s cheerful cynicism, so that no time is lost to soppiness and everyone behaves according to basic Darwinian drives. When sincere emotion strikes these characters, it blindsides them. Curtis thinks he wants only sex, Monroe thinks she wants only money, and they are as astonished as delighted to find they want only each other.

It’s a film well worth the watch if you are in the mood for some classic Marilyn Monroe and 50’s style fun.

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hings you may not know about Some Like It Hot. THE FILM’S original working title was Not Tonight, Josephine.

TO TEST the waters in their female drag outfits, Curtis and Lemmon went into the ladies’ room on the Goldwyn lot and fixed their makeup in front of the mirror, imitating how typical females would do it. When no women even seemed to notice their presence, they knew they looked convincing.

JERRY LEWIS was offered the role of the zany Daphne. Lewis turned down the role because he “didn’t think drag was funny.”

Lemmon, who earned an Oscar nomination for his performance, sent Lewis chocolates annually in gratitude. According to Jerry, every time he ran into Billy Wilder, Billy greeted him with, “Hello, Schmuck!”

MARILYN WAS actually pregnant during the filming, accounting for her slightly bigger-than-usual appearance. As a result, most of her stills were posed by her standins Evelyn Moriarty and Sandra Warner. Monroe’s head was later superimposed on the photos.

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IT REPORTEDLY took Marilyn 47 takes to correctly deliver her line “It’s me, Sugar,” in one scene.

Exasperated, director Wilder finally had the

line written on a blackboard for the actress to read.

In another, it took 59 takes to say the line “Where’s the bourbon?”

A fed-up Wilder had the line written on a slip of paper and placed in the drawer Marilyn was searching through.

If you watch the final climactic scene where Tony Curtis has to say goodbye to Marilyn over the phone, it is easy to see Marilyn’s eyes going back and forth, back and forth.

This is because she is reading her dialogue directly off a blackboard.

TONY CURTIS had to film take after take of his kissing scene with Marilyn, because she kept forgetting or flubbing her lines.

The kissing, of course, was not so unpleasant but before they kissed, poor Tony had to take a bite of a

chicken leg. Curtis grew so sick of chicken, he couldn’t eat it again for years. Curtis’ famous reply when asked by reporters what it was like to kiss Marilyn Monroe: “It was like kissing Hitler.”

THE FILM’S FINAL classic line “Well, nobody’s perfect,” delivered by Joe Brown after his girlfriend Jack Lemmon reveals he is really a man, was just a throwaway line. It was used in the original take, but was going to be changed later when they found a better line.

UPON ITS ORIGINAL release, Some Like It Hot was banned in the state of Kansas. Cross-dressing was considered “too disturbing for Kansas.”

You may enjoy Some Like It Hot if you liked…

Sabrina (1954) The Seven Year Itch (1555) The Apartment (1960)

DID YOU KNOW? 2 9 t h M a r c h 1 9 5 9 B i l l y Wilder ( u s a ) T A G S M u s i c i a n s C r o s s Dressing Comedy A l c o holism B o a t s J a z z

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You enter the darkness with strangers the anticipation the warm embrace of your cinema seat the music begins and from this blackness... to another time another place... that is the power of the soundtrack in movies...

SOUND

7 t h September 1 9 8 7 Patricia Rozema ( p o r tugal) Figueira da Foz Film Festival T A G S Art Gall e r y Fantasy Canada

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REVIEW

have heard the mermaids singing, each to each; I do not think that they will sing to me.

- T. S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” Polly, played beautifully by Sheila McCarthy, is the heroine of I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing.

She is a 31 year old Toronto woman who does not think the mermaids will sing to her. A self effacing amateur photographer who goes to work for yuppie art curator Gabrielle, Polly expresses her admiration for Gabrielle’s work by secretly submitting the latter’s paintings to some appreciative critics. Gabrielle responds by behaving atrociously towards Polly. This shakes up Polly to the point that she realizes she’ll never succeed as an artist on her own terms as long as she hides behind the accomplishments of others. The most important thing in her life is photography, and sometimes she even dreams of the pictures she will take. Filmed on 16 millimetre, I’ve Heard The Mermaids Singing, effectively shifts from black and white to colour and back again to make its artistic statement and is accompanied by a haunting soundtrack of lyrical beauty.

Originality:9/10 Short Term Success:5/10 Immortality: 3/10 Sound:10/10

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ritic Brian D Johnson called it “ one of the most astounding first impressions in the history of Canadian cinema”.

I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing and its soundtrack aptly deserve this praise.

It was Patricia Rozema’s first movie and Mark Korven’s first movie soundtrack.

As a debut in both quarters it caused a sensa-

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tion.

Korven, a Canadian musician and composer, who went on to become known for the creation of music scores for film and television contributed a beautiful soundtrack to this astonishingly successful 1987 feature debut which won the Cannes festival’s Prix de la Jeunesse award for best film by a young director. Korven’s music and Rozema’s

direction helped to establish the film at or near the crest of what would later be described as Ontario’s New Wave.

From an initial budget of $350,000 Mermaids went on to earn roughly $6 million. Canadian film funding bodies responded by funnelling more resources into artist driven films and the era of Canadian film was underway.

Rozema told one critic, “I’m at-

transcend or to escape capture in representational systems such as language, music and film and the sometimes translucent boundary between fantasy and reality”.

This idealogical union between director and composer sees I’ve Heard the Mermaid’s Singing confront some quirky existential questions regarding our perceptions of the distinction between reality and fantasy and the role of escapism in everyday life.

In 1996 Korven went on to win Best Score at the Genie Awards for Curtis’s Charm (1995) and to be nominated six times between 1991 and 1998. His most recent work in 2011 has been in Martyn Burke’s Under Fire: Journalists in Combat which looks at the developments in wartime correspondence and how it has evolved into one of the most deadly and dangerous occupations in the

contemporary world. In conjunction with other scores it shows his versatility as a composer being able to traverse the distance between a fairy tale like movie in I’ve Heard the Mermaid’s Singing to the more gritty and realistic score required for documentary type productions such as Under Fire.

You may enjoy I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing if you liked…

Strangers In Good Company (1995) When Night Is Falling (1995) I Love You, I Love You Not (1996) Mansfield Park (1999) I Heard the Mermaids Singing (2008) Do I Love You? (2002)

I. HEART. CANADA

tracted to a kind of utopian vision.

In I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing you really have the reality, and then what could be – and that’s probably me doing another version of heaven.”

Korven’s soundtrack builds on this vision with sweeping lyrical compositions that echo Rozema’s attempt to evoke “another version of heaven”.

Korven states that his music is directly concerned with “ the nature of artistic creation and expression, the various aspects of human experience that threaten either to

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M O O N -

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ello my name is ruby and here is a bunch of random text to try and take up some of the room on my page.

None of the giberish i write looks realistic enough so i thought that i coul djust write some text.

Hows it going so far? yeah not too shabby i think. Wow the song playing right

Hows it g o i n g so far? y e a h not too shabby i think.

Wow the s o n g playing r i g h t now is r a n dom.... y e a h t h a t s probably enough.

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M l l K I N G D O M MllNNRISE RISE H K I N G KINGD DlMl M Originality:7/10 Short Term Success:9/10 Immortality: 8/10 Sound:10/10

REVIEW REVIEW

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es Anderson’s movies often mark out their own weirdly regressive, faintly dysfunctional space, from which the modern world has been politely excluded, and whose occupants communicate in a kind of modified private language. In Moonrise Kingdom he takes us back to 1965, to a little coastal town in New England called New Penzance. Perhaps, in its quaintness, it is more truthful to the homely values of a small town America, which often looked the same in the 1960s as it did in the ‘50s and ‘40s. Teenage newcomers Jared Gilman

and Kara Hayward play Sam and Suzy, two smart, unpopular kids who fall in love.

When they run away together, Anderson shows how the ensuing crisis discloses the older generation’s unhappiness. Bill Murray and Frances McDormand are Suzy’s parents; their marriage is in crisis and they are sunk in anxiety and self pity, sleeping in single beds, hardly ever meeting each other’s eye and addressing each other as “counsellor”, an affectionate in joke that has calcified into something almost as formal as courtroom style.

Anderson’s movies are vulnerable to the charge of being supercilious oddities, but there is elegance and formal brilliance in Moonrise Kingdom, as well as a lot of gentle, winning comedy. It’s subtle and understated and yet ultimately a moving film filled to the brim with quirky visual spectacles.

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tracks taken from recordings conducted by the composer himself. The music includes The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, conducted by Leonard Bernstein; Friday Afternoons; Simple Symphony; Noye’s Fludde (various excerpts, including the processions of animals into and out of the ark, and “The spacious firmament on high”); and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (“On the ground, sleep sound”).

An original score was composed by Alexandre Desplat, who worked previously with Anderson on The Fantastic Mr Fox with percussion compositions by frequent Anderson collaborator Mark Mothersbaugh. The final credits of the film features a deconstruct-

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f you’re wondering how important music is to the creative process then wonder no more. Wes Anderson demonstrates the ultimate intrinsic creative connection between film and music in Moonrise Kingdom. Described as an “eccentric pubescent love story”, the soundtrack features music by Benjamin Britten, a composer notable for his many works for children’s voices.

At Cannes, during the post-screening press conference, Anderson said that Britten’s music “had a huge effect on the whole movie, I think. The movie’s sort of set to it.” He goes on to say, “The play of Noye’s Fludde that is performed in it - my older brother and I were actually in a production of that when I was ten or eleven, and that music is something I’ve always remembered, and made a very strong impression on me. It is the colour of the movie in a way.”

Anderson weaves a highly creative tapestry with Moonrise Kingdom, blending his visual artistry with many Britten

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16th May 2012 Wes Anderson (france) Cannes F i l m Festival T A G S Run Away Children Affair Unconv e n tional Romance Orphan N e w England Police B o y S c o u t WESTERN AND CLASSICAL FUSION

ed rendition of Desplat’s original soundtrack in the style of Britten’s Young Person’s Guide, accompanied by a child’s voice to introduce each instrumental section.

It is a truly whimsical, enchanting and moving soundtrack that marries itself perfectly with the film and raises Moonrise Kingdom into one of our all time favourites.

You may enjoy Moonrise Kingdom if you liked…

The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) The Life Aquatic (2004) Little Miss Sunshine (2006) The Darjeeling Limited (2007) Half Nelson (2006) The Brothers Bloom (2008) The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) Midnight in Paris (2011) Beginners (2010) Submarine (2010) Safety Not Guaranteed (2012)

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There’s an old joke. Uh, two elderly woman are at a Catskills mountain resort, and one of ‘em says; “Boy the food at this place is really terrible.” The other one says, “Yeah I know, and such... small portions.” Well, thats essentially how I feel about life. Full of loneliness and misery and suffering and unhappiness, and its all over much too quickly.

- Annie Hall (1977)

After that it got pretty late, and we both had to go, but it was great seeing Annie again. I... I realised what a terrific person she was, and... and how much fun it was just knowing her; and I... I, I thought of that old joke, y’know, the, this... this guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, “Doc, uh, my brother’s crazy; he thinks he’s a chicken.” And, uh, the doctor says, “Well, why don’t you turn him in?” The guy says, “I would, but I need the eggs.” Well, I guess that’s pretty much now how I feel about relationships; y’know, they’re totally irrational, and crazy, and absurd, and... but, uh, I guess we keep goin’ through it because, uh, most of us... need the eggs.

- Annie Hall (1977)