ANG LEE AND THE FUTURE OF CINEMA

Throughout his career, Ang Lee has made intimate films which dealt with family dysfunction. His earlier films Pushing Hands, Eat Drink Man Woman, and The Wedding Banquet examined inter-generational conflict between parents and their offspring, while his American films such as The Ice Storm and Brokeback Mountain explored how the nuclear family was threatened and disrupted by outside forces. What connected all these films together was Lee’s concern for exploring how the central family unit could survive in a rapidly changing society. Critics praised Lee for his work, and heralded him as a contemporary master of small-scale dramas.

Then, Lee surprised many with his embrace of large budget, effects heavy films that at first glance were completely different from his smaller, more intimate films. With Life of Pi, Lee used 3D and CGI technology to create an epic adventure film that veered into fantasy territory. Life of Pi received both commercial success and critical acclaim, and was celebrated as a visually extravagant adventure story. However, upon closer inspection, Life of Pi was also ultimately a film about the family unit; the central premise of the film was about how a close-knit family was torn apart by a tragic event which forever changed the life of the son.

With his subsequent films after Life of Pi, Lee further explored technological advances in cinema by experimenting with high frame rates. Lee filmed Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk using 60 frames per second, resulting in a hyper realistic visual aesthetic. Then, with Gemini Man, Lee went even further and filmed in 120 frames per second. Although on the surface Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk and Gemini Man seem to have nothing in common with Lee’s smaller films, they are further continuations of Lee’s exploration of the family.

In Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, Lee explores how the central character struggles to choose between his biological family and the new “family” he found in his Bravo Squad army unit, led by the surrogate father figures of Sergeant Breem and Sergeant Dime.  In Gemini Man, Will Smith’s character is a government assassin who never had a family of his own. He then discovers a surrogate family in the form of another agent by the name of Dani, who becomes his unofficial “wife,” and with the discovery of his younger cloned self, who becomes his “son.” It’s interesting to note how in both films, the main characters find their true families outside of their biological families.

Also, the central conflict in both films involves the protagonists trying to keep the bonds with their newfound family intact against outer forces which threaten to tear apart their surrogate family units.  Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk is about how the media and American society keeps misinterpreting and wanting to take advantage of the “family unit” of the soldiers for their own purposes. Gemini Man is about Will Smith trying to prevent the government from separating him from his surrogate son in the form of his cloned self.

With the thematic consistency between Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk and Gemini Man with Lee’s earlier critically acclaimed films, the question remains as to why these more recent films were so negatively received?  Much of the hostility towards these films can be explained by the technology that Lee used in these two films. High frame rate shooting is traditionally reserved for sporting events or live events such as concerts and awards ceremonies. The reason for this is because high frame rate visuals are very crisp and clear, and thus they make viewers feel more like they are a part of the event.

 

By applying this same “live” feel to the medium of narrative cinema, Lee is also attempting to make the viewer feel like they are actually experiencing what they are seeing on screen in real time. He wants to separate the usual distance which traditional 24 frames per second film creates for viewers, and instead make us feel like we are fully engulfed in the cinematic experience. Indeed, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk is set during an actual sporting event, and the Iraq war scenes feel like CNN live embeds. Lee is immersing us directly into the action of the film.

Traditionally, viewers of cinema want to feel like they are seeing a fictional recreation of real life; this is what 24 frames per second films accomplish by establishing a clear separation between the viewer and what they are seeing on screen. 24 frames per second creates a sheen of film movement and texture which is not like real life. Instead, it gives cinema the texture and feel of a separate, fictional realm of storytelling.

We have been cognitively trained through decades of film viewing to approach and see cinema in this manner. As a result, when we are forced out of our comfort zone and made to feel like we are no longer separated from the illusion of cinema, our natural reaction is discomfort and hostility. Hence, this explains the overwhelmingly negative reception for Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk and Gemini Man.

On their own merits, both Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk and Gemini Man are emotionally powerful and skillfully made explorations about the family unit.  It may take a long time for cinema viewers to embrace 120 frames per second filming, or perhaps they will never fully embrace it. However, all art forms evolve and I believe that a more hyper real form of cinema is the next major evolution in cinema. Silent films evolved into sound films, black and white films evolved into color films, and now we are in the digital evolution of filmmaking.

High frame rate was designed specifically for digital filmmaking, and Ang Lee is exploring how we as viewers and filmmakers can continue to see and make cinema which advances the evolution of digital technology.  Almost all aspects of our lives are becoming increasingly reliant on an online world that is based on a virtual, digital form of reality.  The next evolution in film is a plunge into this digital world through high frame rate technology; Ang Lee is just giving us the extra push to immerse ourselves in this brave new world.

WHAT IS CINEMA IN A DIGITAL STREAMING AGE?

As the recent rise and fall of the independent streaming service FilmStruck demonstrated, the nature of film viewing is in a constant state of evolution.  FilmStruck started out as a collaboration between TCM (Turner Classic Movies, owned by Time Warner) and The Criterion Collection, with a mission statement of providing an art-house streaming alternative to tech giants Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu.  The traditional streaming services primarily focus on original programming and modern blockbuster films, while mostly leaving out older films from before the 1990s and more obscure foreign films.  FilmStruck filled this void by providing instant access to older classic films and a wide assortment of foreign films from countries as far flung as Senegal and Macedonia.

However, as soon as FilmStruck owner Time Warner merged with the telecommunications giant AT&T, profit became the main driving force for Time Warner, and naturally they axed FilmStruck. In their own words, AT&T stated that FilmStruck was too much of a "niche" market; in other words, it wasn't earning enough of a profit.  Now, the question still remains-- why wasn't FilmStruck more profitable?

Much of this has to do with the nature of film viewing itself.  Most people who consider themselves to be true adherents of cinema still prefer the actual theatrical experience of viewing film rather than through streaming services or even through the physical mediums of DVDs and blu-rays.  FilmStruck was created to appeal to this dedicated demographic of film lovers, so due to its nature as a streaming service, it was doomed from the start.

There is still a large digital database of classic and foreign films, as demonstrated by FilmStruck, but the question now is who owns this catalog?  This is the central question for film lovers, and the rallying cry now for why physical media is still preferable to streaming.  By having a film on a DVD or blu-ray, we own the film on a permanent basis, without having to worry about whether or not it will one day disappear online due to profitability issues.  Yes, the shelves of film lovers like myself are overflowing with DVDs and blu-rays of films, and we have to constantly find creative ways to make more space in our homes to accommodate our ever expanding collections of films.  But, this is the sacrifice we are willing to make in order to have permanent access to the films we love.

From its beginnings in small, smoke-filled theaters with musical accompaniment, through the advent of sound and color, and onto the digital age, film has changed drastically as a medium itself and how we as spectators view it.  Theatrical viewing has dwindled, with the majority of people preferring to watch films in their own living rooms with the latest streaming technology.  The physical medium of film viewing via DVDs and blu-rays, and now the latest 4K UHD format, is still popular among passionate film lovers, but it is becoming obsolete among the general viewing public. 

If the physical format does not survive and/or is drastically reduced, we have to realize that streaming services such as FilmStruck are a viable alternative for viewing films.  Although it took several months for it to work out its kinks, by the time it was fully functioning, FilmStruck was a marvel to behold.  It functioned very much like an online streaming film school, with the films being organized into different categories such as country of origin, historical period, or director.  FilmStruck also had its own original programming, with interviews with prominent directors such as Barry Jenkins, Philip Kaufman, and Damien Chazelle, as well as short introductions to the films by celebrated film commentators like Alicia Malone.  While it existed, FilmStruck filled an essential gap in the online streaming world.

The question of ownership is not easily resolved, as having a physical copy of a film in a lavish edition such as those created by Arrow and Criterion is not the same as having a digital online copy of a film.  However, having streaming access to a film and owning a physical copy should not be mutually exclusive.  The streaming copy of the film can be used whenever we want to easily access a film we love without having to search for that film in our cavernous DVD/blu-ray collections.  If we want to view the film more in-depth, then we have the alternative of the physical copy too. 

Beyond this, it is important to have an online streaming database of classic and foreign films not offered by the traditional tech giants.  Each successive generation changes its viewing habits, so we as film lovers have to adjust our expectations for film viewing accordingly, or we risk having the entire history of film disappearing and being replaced by Netflix original programming.  For this reason, it is essential that a streaming service such as FilmStruck remains functioning to preserve the history of film for future generations.

THE BEST FILMMAKERS OF ALL TIME

Is there truly an objective way to determine who the best filmmakers of all time are?  There’s always some subjectivity and personal opinion which are bound to come into play when making these kinds of decisions.  However, I do believe that if we set some guidelines to adhere by, it is possible to make a mostly objective list of the greatest filmmakers of all time.

So, the question arises—what are these guidelines?  For me, the most important criteria to adhere to is whether or not the filmmaker contributed in any way to innovating or advancing the medium of film.  Just as the most innovative scientists were able to come up with theories that contributed to the evolution of technology, we must similarly determine if there were certain filmmakers who were able to elevate cinema to a higher level. 

An equally important criteria is whether or not the filmmaker has influenced other filmmakers.  All art forms are influenced by earlier works of art, and there is a reason why this happens.  It’s because the original art work had a lasting and important impact on the field in question.  When an important innovation occurs, it is oftentimes misunderstood and questioned by many, and thus it may sometimes takes years, and even decades, before the innovation is even acknowledged by the wider society. 

There are many examples of films that were dismissed upon their initial release, only to be regarded as significant works of art in later years.  This is because these films were ahead of their time, and it oftentimes takes society some time to catch up to them. 

So, with these guidelines in place, here is my list of the ten greatest filmmakers of all time, along with their most important films:

1.     Stanley Kubrick (Paths of Glory, Dr. Strangelove, 2001)

2.     Jean Luc Godard (Breathless, Masculin Féminin, Histoire(s) du cinéma)

3.     Akira Kurosawa (Rashomon, The Seven Samurai, Ran)

4.     Alfred Hitchcock (Psycho, Vertigo, Rear Window)

5.     Sergei Eisenstein (Strike, Alexander Nevsky, Battleship Potemkin)

6.     Ingmar Bergman (The Virgin Spring, Scenes from a Marriage, The Seventh Seal)

7.     Edward Yang (The Terrorizers, A Brighter Summer Day, Yi Yi)

8.     Fritz Lang (Die Nibelungen, Metropolis, M)

9.     Orson Welles (The Magnificent Ambersons, Citizen Kane, Mr. Arkadin)

10.  Federico Fellini (Nights of Cabiria, 8 ½, La Dolce Vita)

Honorable Mentions:  John Ford, Bela Tarr, D.W. Griffith, Martin Scorsese

 

FILM REVIEW: A DANGEROUS METHOD

David Cronenberg has spent his entire career exploring the ideas of sexual perversion as defined by Sigmund Freud and the struggle between what Carl Jung termed the anima and the animus, or the concepts of the masculine and the feminine.  So, it is no surprise that Cronenberg would make his most fully realized and insightful film with A Dangerous Method, the story of the uneasy friendship between Freud and Jung. 

A Dangerous Method examines the relationship between Freud (Viggo Mortenson) and Jung (Michael Fassbinder), and how this intellectual alliance is affected by Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley), a patient of Jung’s who is suffering from severe trauma.  Sabina gradually makes her way into the lives of both men, and grows to become their intellectual equal when she becomes a prominent psychologist. 

It is interesting to note that Cronenberg films Sabina so that she is androgynous in appearance; this is purposefully done to emphasize how she embodies the male and female ideas that Freud and Jung embody, respectively.  The competing theories of Freud and Jung merge into those of Sabina’s work as a psychologist, as she has in a sense reconciled the anima nature of Jung’s theories with the animus nature of Freud’s. 

Jung theorized that when anima and animus combined, they would form one being which has both female and male aspects, known as Mercurius.  With her androgynous nature, Sabina has become Cronenberg’s version of Mercurius. 

Similarly, Freud is filmed as being very masculine and unyielding in appearance, while Jung is portrayed as being feminine and soft.  Freud, with his emphasis on the validity of science and logic, embodies the masculine ideal in psychoanalysis, while Jung, with his interest in Eastern-inspired mystical theories, embodies the feminine ideal. 

The Cronenberg film which most resembles A Dangerous Method is Dead Ringers.  Dead Ringers also deals with two doctors, twin brothers both played by Jeremy Irons, who become involved with a female patient of theirs.  Like Freud and Jung from A Dangerous Method, the doctors in Dead Ringers are overtly masculine and feminine in nature, while the woman they are involved in is androgynous in nature.  Thus, with Dead Ringers, Cronenberg was already exploring the psycho-sexual issues that the three central characters of A Dangerous Method embody.

Cronenberg examines this intriguing interplay between Freud, Jung, and Sabina in a very straightforward manner, which actually works better than portraying it in a more fantastical way.  If Cronenberg had made A Dangerous Method earlier in his career, when he specialized in films filled with surreal and shocking imagery like Videodrome, Naked Lunch, and Scanners, he probably would have visualized much of the surreal aspects of the film.

There are scenes where Jung describes his many fantastical dreams to Freud in vivid detail, and in another scene Sabina tells Jung about a recurrent nightmare she has about being attacked by a fleshy appendage.  Cronenberg has chosen to hold back and not portrays these sequences visually; instead, he purposefully leaves them to the audience’s imagination. 

He does so because for the older Cronenberg, his purpose is no longer to shock the audience in order to get his point across.  Instead, he wants the audience to focus on the ideas and concepts of the film, rather than being distracted by surreal imagery.  This calculated move has already alienated many of Cronenberg’s fans, who have dismissed A Dangerous Method as being nothing more than an overly talky costume drama.

However, A Dangerous Method still explores all the concepts that Cronenberg has been dealing with throughout his career, including sexual aberration, the struggle between anima and animus, and repulsion of the flesh, but does so in a much more cerebral and intellectually stimulating manner. 

Most of A Dangerous Method consists of Jung, Freud, and Sabina sitting in rooms discussing their various theories and ideas.  Cronenberg is forcing the audience to approach his film in a new way, by focusing on what is being said, rather than being swayed by horrific imagery.  This new approach gives the viewer a chance to reflect upon the dialogue, and to approach each scene as a mental exercise in which they can actively engage with the intellectual discussions that are occurring.

With A Dangerous Method’s many scenes of verbal sparring between Freud, Jung, and Sabina, Cronenberg has found a way to convey his obsessions and concerns in a less literal level, and discovered that sometimes it is better to engage the audience through their head instead of their heart. 

FILM REVIEW: ANTIVIRAL

It is not always an easy task to break into a field in which one of your parents has already excelled at, especially if your father is David Cronenberg, who is considered by many to be one of our most brilliant living filmmakers.  So, it took a lot of guts for Brandon Cronenberg to decide to plunge into his own filmmaking career.  The first thing that everyone will want to know is if Brandon is as good as his legendary father.

I think that this is an unfair question to ask because, number one, Brandon has only made one film so far, while his father has a long and varied filmography, and number two, I think all filmmakers and artists should be judged on the merits of their own work, without having to compare them to their respected fathers or mothers.  But, just to make you, my fellow reader, feel better…I will say this:

Brandon Cronenberg knows how to make movies, and he does have a very promising career ahead of him.

With his film Antiviral, Brandon Cronenberg has shown that he does have the trace DNA of his father in him, with his thematic concerns with body horror, the merger of the human body with technology, and aberrant sexual behavior.

Antiviral is a cold, clinical, and darkly humorous film about Syd March (Caleb Landry Jones), a disease-obsessed man who works at the Lucas Clinic, a company that specializes in injecting customers with diseases taken directly from their favorite celebrities. 

However, in addition to carrying out the mandatory injections into his customers, Syd starts secretly injecting himself with these diseases.  After he injects himself with the virus from the Lucas Clinic’s celebrity spokeswoman Hannah Geist, Syd finds himself involved in a labyrinthian conspiracy involving corrupt pharmaceutical companies, greedy scientists, and a mysterious doctor played by Malcolm McDowell.

With its central concept of a future society in which people inject themselves with diseases from their favorite celebrities, Antiviral is about the commodification and monetization of celebrity worship.  For Cronenberg, the obsession with celebrities that is engrained within our modern society is akin to a disease that threatens to destroy us. 

It is no coincidence that Syd’s customers are willing to risk their own health, and sometimes their own lives, in order to make some sort of a “connection” with the celebrities that they so much want to be like.  Cronenberg films the customers as looking pale and unhealthy, even before they have injected the diseases into themselves, while the celebrities they worship are shown as having pristine and attractive physical features.  However, the flawless outer appearances of celebrities covers up the many disease-carrying viruses and pathogens contained within their seemingly benign exteriors.

This disconnect between inner and outer appearances is a central theme throughout Antiviral.  The clean, white rooms of the Lucas Clinic at the beginning of the film gradually give way to scenes of blood-splattered walls and ruptured surfaces, as Syd discovers more and more about the nefarious, inner secrets of the Clinic.

Although it gets bogged down in exposition and pacing issues in its last act, for most of its running time, Antiviral is a cleverly made film that is alternately squirm-inducing, thought-provoking, and at times genuinely unsettling. 

FILM REVIEW: LIFE OF PI

Ang Lee has always been interested in exploring the conflict between our inner and outer desires, and how society oftentimes prevents us from revealing our true selves. 

Eat Drink Man Woman was about a woman who had to defer her dreams of being a professional chef in order to advance her career as a corporate executive and take care of her father.  The Ice Storm was about a whole family struggling with the traditional concept of the nuclear family and the more liberating sexual revolution of the 1970s.  Brokeback Mountain was about a married man living in a prejudiced society who had to repress his homosexuality. 

Now, with Life of Pi, Ang Lee has created his most powerful and complex film yet about how our innate needs and wishes can conflict with the wider society.

Life of Pi is based upon the Man Booker Prize winning novel of the same name by Yann Martel.  The film and book are about an Indian boy named Pi (played by Suraj Sharma as the young Pi, and Irrfan Khan as the adult Pi), who forms an unusual relationship with a tiger named Richard Parker.  After Pi survives a shipwreck, he is stranded in the ocean on a single lifeboat with Richard Parker, and he must learn how to live with and eventually gain the trust of the unpredictable tiger. 

From this simple story, Ang Lee creates a complex, multi-layered meditation on the nature of faith, compassion, and most importantly, the reconciliation of our inner desires with what society expects of us.  Life of Pi is told in flashbacks, as the adult Pi meets with a writer who wants to tell his story. 

The first part of Life of Pi deals with Pi’s journey to find God, as he moves from one religion to another.  At the same time, Pi’s spiritual journey keeps getting interrupted by his father, whose strict secular worldview conflicts with Pi’s more religious leanings. 

Pi’s father represents the wider society that Pi always finds himself competing with; in a world dominated by science and technology, how can someone as spiritually adventurous as Pi survive?  However, Pi is a headstrong individual, and he’s constantly getting in trouble with both his father and the society at large with his restless yearning to find deeper meaning in the world. 

Pi’s journey leads him to being adrift in a single lifeboat, where his worldview and very survival depend on how he deals with a carnivorous, dangerous tiger.  The tiger is symbolic of many things—it represents Pi’s own strong-willed, unyielding nature in the face of a society that won’t accept his beliefs, and it also is a stand-in for Pi’s father who, like the tiger, is both a figure of menace and threat, and also of immense compassion.

With the many visually astonishing scenes of Pi and the tiger framed against the vastness of the ocean, one gets the sense that there is a higher force at work, watching over Pi and guiding him in his journey of survival.  For the more religiously inclined, this force can be described as being God, but Ang Lee takes this concept further by suggesting that God is more than just a single, all-powerful figure. 

Instead, Ang Lee suggests that God is nature itself, as revealed in an astonishing sequence where Pi and the tiger find themselves on a lush island.  The island is a bountiful source of nutrients and fresh water for Pi and the tiger to live off of, but at the same time Pi discovers that the island also contains a more dangerous side which can lead to death.  Ang Lee is equating nature in the form of the island with God—both forces have the power to give and take away.

In purely cinematic terms, Life of Pi contains some of the most visually ravishing scenes in film history.  The aforementioned scenes on the island re-awaken a sense of wonder and amazement that has been missing in many of the more cynically inclined films of recent years.  Ang Lee uses 3D to astonishing effect in the many awe-inspiring scenes of Pi and the tiger as they encounter the variety of life that exists in the vastness of the ocean. 

Instead of using 3D to thrill the audience with cheap effects such as creatures popping out of the screen, Ang Lee is more interested in using the medium to engulf the viewer in what can best be called a communal re-connection with nature.  In one particularly effective scene, we see Pi and his lifeboat appearing as little more than a dot against the expansive ocean at night; the ocean waters reflect all the stars above, so it looks like Pi is floating through the vastness of space.

However, unlike some other recent 3D films, Ang Lee doesn’t let the technical spectacle of his film overwhelm the more intimate and philosophical aspects.  Life of Pi isn’t just about visual splendor and 3D effects; instead, it is a deep meditation on life and death, and our ultimate place in the universe. 

FILM REVIEW: GINGER & ROSA

Sally Potter’s Ginger & Rosa is an emotionally shattering film about how the sexual and political environment of the 1960s affects the lives of two teenage girls living in London.  Ginger (Elle Fanning) is introspective and quiet, and has a pessimistic view of the world, while her best friend Rosa (Alice Englert) is outgoing and adventurous, and views the world as full of possibilities.  The sometimes reckless abandonment of Rosa, who embodies the “free love” and sexual liberation ethos of the 1960s youth generation, attracts Ginger, despite her innate timidity. 

In fact, Ginger is more like her mother Natalie (Christina Hendricks), who is more reserved and at times obsessively anxious, while Rosa’s bold and temerarious personality is similar to Ginger’s father Roland (Alessandro Nivola), an anarchist whose brash behavior oftentimes leads to trouble.  Both Rosa and Roland fully embrace the more open-minded sexual mores of the 1960s counter-culture movement, as they casually engage in indiscriminate sex with multiple partners.

The main event of this era that informs every scene in Ginger & Rosa is the threat of nuclear annihilation.  As the film begins, we discover that Ginger and Rosa were born at the exact same moment in 1945 when the United States dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.  This event haunts Ginger when she becomes a teenager, and she spends her days and nights obsessively worrying about the end of the world as a result of a nuclear war. 

Indeed, the central concern of Ginger & Rosa is of an era, specifically the 1960s, coming to an end.  For Ginger, this end is a literal end brought about by a nuclear war.  However, on a more symbolic level, Sally Potter is exploring how the “free love” movement of the 1960s, when sexual partners were freely exchanged without consideration of emotional attachment or familial concerns, came to an end. 

The constant switching of sexual partners by both Rosa and Roland leads to the eventual destruction of their respective family units.  Rosa sleeps around to compensate for the lack of a real father figure in her life, leading to her mother falling deep into despair.  Roland sleeps with multiple women to the detriment of his wife and daughter, who are fully aware of his behavior. 

It is no coincidence that nuclear war is a central theme in Ginger & Rosa, an obvious allusion to the concept of the nuclear family which was formulated in the 1950s.  During the 1950s, the ideal nuclear family was based on the heterosexual couple of the mother and the father, along with the son and/or daughter.  This central unit had to fend for itself without the help of any outside support. 

Ginger & Rosa explores how this idea of the nuclear family came into direct conflict with the changing mores of the 1960s, as revealed by the characters of Rosa and Roland and their attempts to reshape the nuclear family.

Just as a nuclear bomb could destroy the whole world, Sally Potter reveals how the outdated concept of the nuclear family was broken apart and changed during the 1960s.  

This is also revealed with her introduction of a homosexual couple in the film, played by Timothy Spall and Oliver Platt, who form a sort of alternate nuclear family to Ginger’s heterosexual mother and father.

Ultimately, Ginger & Rosa, with its cast of anarchists, free-thinkers, sexually liberated men and women, and gay couples, is Sally Potter’s attempt to reconfigure the idea of the nuclear family into something more inclusive, open-minded, and more fitting to the ever-changing modern world.