Reviews

La Mome is a sophisticated biopic with a first rate cast and rich production values. Marion Cotillard's performance in her role as Edith Piaf was technically proficient but somewhat cold and enigmatic. At first I interpreted this approach to be a reflection of the character: perhaps in life Ms. Piaf was a cipher to those around her, cold and distant. The dialog, direction and film editing with its constant flashbacks and flash forwards, reinforce this interpretation. But the opposite is true. The details of her life after her discovery as a singer are well documented and her life itself was a passionate, if tragic, one. Thus we are left to determine whether the obvious deficiencies in the movie are those of the actor, the writers, the director (who co-wrote) or all three. I cannot sort it out and so must fault all involved. Meaty female leading roles of the sort tackled here by Ms. Cotillard are rare indeed and her performance in showcasing Pilaf's life from young woman to a prematurely aged wreck (she was only 48 when she died of liver failure but if the movie is to be believed she looked to be at least 30 years older) has its "wow" moments. But the whole is less than the parts. The character doesn't develop over the course of the movie nor is insight into her life provided through either the writing, direction or performance. Her death and many significant facts of her life are purposely obscured or shrouded in mystery--to an unnecessary degree. The most significant of these failures are her activities during the German occupation during World War II. One would think this period, rather than the tedious post-War period of physical decline and drug abuse, would have deserved at least some treatment. I suspect it is because this period of her life is a controversial one. Was she a Nazi collaborator and traitor or a secret member of the French Resistance? To the writers and director of 'La Mome' the years 1940-1945 never happened despite the fact that the song that inspired the alternative title to this film: 'La Vie En Rose' was authored and released in 1945. So what is to be made of this movie? As an artistic work I believe it is a failure for it shrinks from dealing with any of the significant issues of Piaf's time that speak to ours. From a technical perspective the art direction, the ensemble performances, the music and the cinematography are first rate.

"There Will Be Blood" is a movie written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson and loosely based on Upton Sinclair's book "Oil", which itself was based on the Harding Administration's Teapot Dome Scandal. That being said it is quickly apparent that the movie is about the life of one man, Daniel Plainview, played by Daniel Day-Lewis in the most powerful performance of his distinguished career. Plainview is ambition, greed and the desire for power incarnate. He pursues silver and by accident finds oil on his claims. One of his partners is accidentally killed during an oil extraction operation and he takes the orphaned child of the man as his own, naming him H.W., and uses the boy as a device to establish himself as a family man as he obtains claims from poor farmers, making himself one of the wealthiest oilmen in California. H.W. is played by several child and one adult actor over the course of the movie but during most of its course by Dillon Freasier in an effectively understated role. Soon he is approached by a man named Paul Sunday, played by Paul Dano, who informs Plainview of oil on his family's land in Little Boston, California, information for which he obtains a bribe. Plainview goes to Little Boston and finds evidence of an "ocean of oil" under the land while under the pretense of a quail hunting trip with his son, H.W., at the Sunday farm. In obtaining the rights to the oil under the Sunday farm Plainview pays the family $5,000 in advance and promises another $5,000 to Eli Sunday to establish a church, of which he imagines himself pastor. Plainview then takes steps to ensure that he can monopolize the oil under Little Boston against all competitors.

The plot is thus established so that the characters may play out their lives in what is to be a tragedy of epic proportions. The film explores Plainview's exploitation of the farmers of the poor community, his false concern for his workers, his manipulation of H.W., of which he seems only vaguely aware until later in life and the love-hate relationship with Eli Sunday and his church; a complicated dance of death that eventually plays itself out with the inevitable murder of one of the characters.

What Anderson has created is a story of our time. Plainview is rapacious Capitalism and greed while Eli Sunday is both Plainview's agent and antagonist, simultaneously using religious fervor to assist in the exploitation of his flock while living off of Plainview's largess. Were it only a polemic, however, the film would have failed as many polemics do. Instead the writer has created his characters as living, breathing people: people who change their stripes in front of different audiences, who themselves act within worlds of their own making; people who are only vaguely aware of their own motivations and blind to the motivations of others. All of this is laid out before the viewer who is forced to be a participant in the drama, to take sides as the story plays itself out, only to be surprised by each twist and turn of the plot and the surprising and disturbing ending.

The cinematography in the film is outstanding, the editing and writing first rate. The first 20 minutes of the film is absent dialog, making the imagery that much more important, forcing the focus of the film, Daniel Day-Lewis as Plainview, to embody the character in movement and nuance--a talent more attuned to the silent era than the modern era of film. The camera moves with the characters and participates with them carrying the audience with the characters and the action, challenging the viewer's perceptions and understanding of events at every turn, just as the characters themselves are confused and manipulated by those same events.

The bottom line is that this is a film at the level of Citizen Kane and Casablanca. I believe it will continue to enthrall audiences for many years. Its snubbing at the Oscars will only imbue it with greater artistic credibility. This is a film meant to challenge the viewer, the society, the powerful and conventionality. As such it is high art. Bravo.

The role of William Wilberforce in the abolition of the slave trade is an important one. I was interested in seeing a dramatization of the life of this important historical character and of the period in which he lived.

First, regarding the movie: it is a well acted period piece. It effectively shows many of the conventions of the period though it does so through a familiar stilted manner--in the way that an 18th and early 19th century gentleman of privileged means would want one to portray his or her time. The actors are all first-rate and they play their roles with both sensitivity and insight. The screenplay is somewhat confusing since the settings of the flashbacks in the movie are not sufficiently different between the periods to provide the sharp contrast that aid the viewer in following the story. They are also somewhat unnecessary since they are based on Wilberforce narrating his life while pursuing a late-life romance that never existed in reality. More on this to follow.

Now for the history, which is nearly non-existent. Mr. William Wilberforce was one of many abolitionists instrumental in the abolition of the slave trade, this much is true, and his lifetime commitment to his cause is one from which to draw lessons. Unfortunately any lessons that the movie can hope to tease from the history is purely fictional. Mr. Wilberforce befriended but was not in the same party of William Pitt, who was to be Prime Minister. He was an independent MP and his work habits considered poor. There is no evidence that Pitt ever offered him a place in his government though Wilberforce allied himself with his friend. He went through a type of religious conversion after traveling through Europe in 1784, not spontaneously as a result of study. His opposition to the slave trade did not come from a childhood friendship with John Newton but after meeting James Ramsay in 1783. He consulted Newton later in life after his activism. He did not become completely committed to the cause until 1786 after some urging by the abolitionist society known as the Testonites. He supported Pitt during the War with France in the suspension of Habeus Corpus and the infamous "Gagging Bills" that outlawed public gatherings of greater than 50 people. He did not marry a woman who followed his career and was herself an activist. His wife was, indeed, Barbara Ann Spooner but she displayed little interest in Wilberforce's political activities, tending herself to bearing him six children in less than 10 years and tending to his failing health later in life. They were married in 1797.

While Wilberforce's contribution to the abolition of the slave trade is undeniable there are others whose commitment and sacrifice was just as great or greater, such as Thomas Clarkson and others. The movie, therefore, comes off as a bit of anti-historical propaganda and, so, being a historical fiction of sorts, in the final analysis fails.

I watched this film after much of the controversy about it at Cannes had passed. The buzz in the U.S. press was that the film was slanted and reflected Lars Von Trier's ignorance of American society. Such arguments are specious on their face--there are examples of great literature and film making where the creator never set foot in the setting, as any reader of Shakespeare well knows. So discounting the self-appointed guardians of America, what exactly is this film about, what are the film's merits and why does it evoke such strong feelings from its audience, especially American ones? What Von Trier has done is take several American icons: the gangster, the small town, the woman in distress, the ideal of the common person, the local sage and the wise elder gentleman doctor, and has turned them on their head to create a timeless play about human motivation, greed and the corrupting influence of power. The people of Dogville are on the surface simple and decent people. Grace's arrival and her helplessness is the catalyst that, step by step, tempts the people of Dogville to inflict upon her greater and greater humiliations to feed their now unrestrained desires. So complete is her humiliation that the twist at the end leaves the viewer very little sympathy for the fate of Dogville's citizens. It is a powerful message and the judgment of the characters is one that takes no prisoners. That there are more than a few examples of this behavior in contemporary American society (and in the American past) and that it confronts these issues directly is the reason for the controversy surrounding it and--apart from the brilliant acting, especially by Ms. Kidman and Paul Bettany--what makes it great art. Von Trier has made a movie that is part of the quintessential American proletarian artistic tradition and its setting in 1930s America is part of the film's genius. That he is not an American and that this movie did not originate in Hollywood should give us all pause. There is a scene in which Grace confronts the people of Dogville with a critique of their bad behavior. Their response is to either deny the truth of what she has said or to blame Grace herself for tempting them. This movie, without being preachy or dogmatic, attempts to provide its own critique and received much the same reaction as the movie's protagonist. I would not be surprised if this was Von Trier's original intent. Dogville is a disturbing and powerful film.