2 Films by Michael Haneke

I watched two films by Michael Haneke last night with my girlfriend. I like sometimes to sit and watch several things by the same director, especially one as put together as Haneke. I'd only seen one of his films before, FUNNY GAMES (the original version), and liked it a lot.



First we watched CACHE. This film is about a couple (played by Juliette Binoche and Daniel Auteuil) who realized they are being taped by surveillance cameras. The tapes are left at their house wrapped in a child's drawings, such as of a child head vomiting blood. There's a lot of interesting perspective work in the film. The first shot is of the front of an apartment in a street and it sits static for several minutes before you realize you are watching one of the surveillance tapes. There is a lot of strange, Lynchian energy in the film: particularly from the LOST HIGHWAY-esque premise, but also from the clean long shots and the stylized settings and the interspersing of short and long takes, as well as the fact that a lot of the film is left open-ended. I like open-ended films, especially mysteries. I'd rather have less questions answered and more to think about rather than "know" why everything happens. Things continue to get more strange and miscontrued as the film continues, and the way it ends leaves you even more so wondering what exactly just happened. Overall, an absorbing movie. I enjoyed it.



The second Haneke film we watched was THE PIANO TEACHER, which I'd heard good things about, but didn't know anything about the film other than it is about a piano teacher's student trying to seduce her. Could be material for boring over-sexualized romance crap, but this movie went any way but the one you might expect from it. There was never a moment that I wasn't fully attentive to what was happening on screen, and I was continually surprised by the way Haneke twisted what was going on, making a film that is unlike any I've ever seen. This is another thing I think Haneke has in common with Lynch: they set up an expectation (in Lynch by using noir and 50's style campiness) and continue to turn it further and further on its head, not for the sake of exploitation, but in a way that feels genuine and fresh to the screen. This film is definitely rarely what you expect of it, is not "precious" in execution, does not make you feel like you might think "shit, I am watching this because it's foreign and I'm supposed to like it," is genuinely different than most any other movie I've seen and for honest-seeming reasons, is fun to watch. The same things could be said of CACHE.

I think one of the most interesting things about Haneke's stuff (other than the excellence of his shots and development of the narrative) is the way it is edited. He very rarely leaves extraneous material in. He cuts out of scenes, especially the most dramatic ones, early, so that it doesn't have a chance to get stale or boring. You often want more. This displeases many people. Many scenes, particularly the ending shots of both films we saw, end seemingly abruptly, in the middle of the upswing. I like that. It lets the film go on after the film is over. The only times he seems to use long takes is in particularly awkward moments, or in ones that you can't quite figure out why they are there, as if he's zooming deeper and deeper into a bruise or a flat panel. Eventually the texture emerges. And then just as quickly he cuts away.

Writing could benefit from using these kind of techniques. As I've said before, I don't think there's ever been a great literature-based companion to the work of Lynch, and Haneke is probably in the same boat. But I think there's definitely something in these works to be mined: techniques that haven't been put quite to use yet in language. There are many that touch on it, such as some stuff by Robbe-Grillet, particularly JEALOUSY, which I really like, and definitely some Kafka, and occasionally in modern writers like Brian Evenson, Jose Saramago, David Markson and even David Foster Wallace (particularly in OBLIVION), but none that get at it the way I would like to.

I think I want my NEXT BOOK to be OF THIS NATURE. I've begun to think about WHAT I WANT TO DO but I don't know exactly WHERE IT WILL COME FROM. I've been relaxing the past week. No particular ideas drumming. Though watching this kind of stuff makes me feel READY TO RECEIVE, I guess, I think. I don't know why I'm saying it all like this, but okay.

THERE WILL BE BLOOD

I saw P.T. Anderson's new movie last night, THERE WILL BE BLOOD. I was super excited about this movie as I love all of his other films, and the fact that Daniel Day-Lewis was starring couldn't have made it more compelling. I'd been waiting for this one for a while.

The movie is really different from any other Anderson movie. It contains very little of what I liked about all of his other films, with small exceptions. You should not go into this movie expecting to see those kind of films. This story is much more linear. There are hardly any of the long tracking shots that made certain scenes in other Anderson movies great. I love the shot in the second to last scene of BOOGIE NIGHTS where Burt Reynolds is walking around the house and all of the other characters are there in different rooms doing their own thing and there's a soft ominous music behind him that kind of puts the film to rest. There were more of those kind of moments in this film but also more that tried to make it something else, though the score of THERE WILL BE BLOOD was also key. It added a lot of tension and mood in a way that altered the images and made them more loaded.

Unfortunately THERE WILL BE BLOOD was missing a lot of the magic that I'd expected, though there was magic in other ways. Certainly Daniel Day-Lewis's performance was the center of the film. Without him, this movie would have been very boring. A lot of the camera and framing work that made other P.T. Anderson movies great to me was pared down and contained in little glimpses, short static shots that conveyed a lot of energy without any story. There are certain images that will stay in my head for a long time, but as a whole I think this movie doesn't quite come together. Instead it works as a series of images and vignettes. Moods. A collection. The shot of Daniel Day-Lewis floating in the ocean with a wave growing and looming up behind him over his head then transitioning to him sitting in a dark room was so excellent. Another certain, perhaps the most action-oriented scene in the film, was most like other Anderson pictures and worked very well to make me tense and nervous.

The first 2/3rds work so well, if slow-paced, in building a mood. It seemed as if the final 45 minutes or so was something put on speed-track by the producers, to wrap things up and make it more of a story. The last scene in the movie I absolutely hated. I wish I hadn't seen the last scene because I would have liked it a lot more. I would have liked it more if it had been 8 hours long instead of 2.5. This is still worth seeing but I'd probably never watch it again, unlike other Anderson films, all of which I've watched many times.

I am tired of seeing disappointing films. They disappoint me as much as music these days. This was still more satisfying than others, though not a perfect movie.

Coffee never disappoints.

cormac mccarthy and films

today i got these three books in the mail:



but looks like they are going to have to wait because last night i started my reread of BLOOD MERIDIAN and am already in awe of what i'd forgotten. i think the first time i read the book i went a little too fast and if i missed something because my brain started to wander in the same way it does to keep me up all night, i would just run it over. i am being careful to get every sentence this time, because every sentence is pretty much a masterpiece in itself.

as such:

"Already gunfire was general within the tent and a dozen exits had been hacked through the canvas walls and people were pouring out, women screaming, folk stumbling, folk trampled underfoot in the mud. The kid and his friend reached the hotel gallery and wiped the water from their eyes and turned to watch. As they did so the tent began to sway and buckle and like a huge and wounded medusa it slowly settled to the ground trailing tattered canvas walls and ratty guyropes over the ground."

that's on page 7.
and i haven't even really gotten to the Judge yet.
anyone who is interested in violent and/or macabre and/or backwoods wanderer literature should put this book at the top of their list.

i heard a couple years ago that david cronenberg had bought the rights to film this book. i can't imagine anyone being able to do that but i guess he'd be the most likely to pull it off if anyone. the new cronenberg film that's about to come out looks like it could be better than a history of violence, which i felt was a pretty underdeveloped story, even if it looked cool. not to mention the soon-to-come coen brothers adaptation of NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, which is also kind of potentially scary considering the coens' recent track record, but potentially awesome considering their earlier record.

hrphmhm.

rescue dawn

i saw the new werner herzog film RESCUE DAWN. it is about a pilot in vietnam who crashes and is kidnapped by vietnamese. the pilot is played by christian bale, who did a very good job, if slightly strange. he always delivers lines in a way that makes them seem different than what i imagined the writer would have imagined the delivery as.

for the first time in forever i felt good about having spent $8 to see a movie. every other time in the last 2 years with few exceptions i've felt cheated, bored or dumber after sitting for two hours in a dark room looking at a screen. RESCUE DAWN kept me compelled and eyes open and forgetful of my outside life for the duration of its playing. that was nice. it also operates much differently than any other way film i've seen. people should go see this movie.