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Last Will & Testament (2012)
A quiet, profoundly effective film
The miasma that is the Authorship Question is fraught with twists and turns, accusations and counter-accusations, tom-foolery and skulduggery, Elizabethan codes and battle Royals whose stakes may seem academic but to the participants very real indeed. In fact, it is hard to separate the modern from the historical, and a pattern of intrigue not too dissimilar from the "Shakespearean" Canon itself. "Last Will. And Testament" is an all-around brilliant film, not flashy, not terribly ground- breaking when it comes to cinematic technique, but tells a complicated story simply, eloquently, sticking to essential details without getting mired in overkill. It's obvious the film could be a 10-part miniseries but, to the uninitiated, for whom this film is really meant, is a perfect start to an incredible story. Liberal sprinklings of the scenes from "Anonymous" avidly help fill the pictorial void of too many talking heads, although it should be said that nothing what they say is wasted, all of it compelling, and each person vivid and real.
Told mainly from the Oxfordian point-of-view, it's a pretty convincing outline of the major issues from start to finish, offering a nice historical overview of Elizabethan England to start— not the nicest place to be, politically speaking; "off with their heads" was a phrase heard and performed often to non-believers—and moving through the known history of William Shaksper (not much), the authorship question itself, and the likely candidate—Edward de Vere —and the many pieces of puzzle that form the final picture.
Along the way, we are treated to observances from many experts on both sides—more from the Oxfordian view than the Stratfordian side.
The film makes many small, wonderful points throughout, not in a hard-hitting way, but subtly, intellectually, almost unfurling rather than documenting. Beautifully photographed, warmly edited, and nicely told, it's a great start for the uninformed, and bodes well for the future.
If there is a fault—and this is a very minor one—it's that the film is almost too polite. It postulates very plausible, fully realized coincidences and connections and allows both sides their say but never in the company of someone who disagrees with them. The interviewer is unseen and unheard and is never Socratically engaged, trying to draw the interviewee out of their comfort zones, trying to illicit the "big reveal." In an age of Michael Moore confrontation, this is a positive—almost antiquated respite—it manages this well, and allows the film to tell a story without being didactic about it. Even so, just a little back & forth questioning of the interviewees would have been nice and not particularly unwarranted, while still treating the subject with the reverence it requires and not allowing experts from either side blind exposure to their opinions.
That said, the two Stratfordians come across as fine scholars and gentlemen but who have still, essentially, missed the boat. They resolutely cling to their story like a boy caught with their hand in a cookie jar who deny the truth even while sent to the corner. Stanley Wells fares worst—his statement that Cecil is NOT Polonius in Hamlet is amongst his worst obfuscations, as is his claim than anything Shakespeare needed to know was taught to him in his grade school at Stratford-on-Avon, even though the level of knowledge contained within in the plays, as any expert can attest, is so specific to higher learning amongst the royals and the worlds best tutors, that no commoner could ever have had that kind of access. To them, Shakespeare just was, and then wasn't. Burning brightly for a short time, he lived, wrote, and died in a vacuum. Hardly the very soul of mankind whose plays were about courtly matters (he didn't have access to), travel to remote parts of the world (he'd never been to), or numerous and specific references to books (in languages he didn't understand), and on and on and on.
The film wraps up nicely with the de Vere heirs and their direct connection to the original publications of the First Folio, even mentioning the less-famous river Avon that runs close by and through a little town called Stratford-sub-Castle near Wilton House (the ancestral home of the de Veres)—a clear jab to those who believe that Jonson meant the more famous one at Stratford-on-Avon when he penned the words 'the sweet Bard of Avon' and not this modest river which, intellectually and geographically, makes all the sense in the world.
New evidence of de Vere's lengthy trip to the continent, and how this translated into the plays is presented. The film every-so-briefly touches upon the Prince Tudor theories I & II and how this has diluted —if not set back the cause a bit—the message of the Oxfordians. The Sonnets and their place in history as last gasp of a dying, forgotten man-who-would-be-king is an especially poignant, tear-jerking part of the documentary.
The Stratfordians, clearly, do not have much of an intellectual leg to stand on—the weakness of their arguments is in plain sight for all to see—as the preponderance of best evidence slowly moves from Stratford-on-Avon (and has for sometime in reality) and settles into the very heart of Elizabethan England, directly in the heart of courtiers and gentlemen, and points to a supremely flawed man possessed of singular, titanic knowledge, wit, and courage, whose writing has spanned the Ages and is directly responsible for much about the genius of man, but whose mortal coil is destined (hopefully for not too much longer) to remain metaphorically boxed in the ground, suffering his fame and genius not in silence but through the great words and scenes of his stage plays.
The Prisoner (2009)
Vaguely Interesting but mostly off-the-mark reboot.
Too much dialog written in the most obvious fashion. Too little mystery. Too little tension. The essential drama and motivation of the story missing as much as No. 6's mind.
The issues with this series have less to do with its similarity or non-similarity to its source material than it has with the tenor of contemporary film-making and writing. Classicism and all its artistic forms have all but disappeared from education, so it is not surprising that what passes off as entertainment today is hardly groundbreaking or even interesting. There are exceptions to the rule, of course, but by and large episodic television is at a low point.
It isn't even so much that Prisoner 2.0 differs from the original (in itself not necessarily a bad thing if handled properly) but the fact there is little personality to the proceedings is its major weakness.
Film-making, collaborative or auteur, rely on the singular voice of its many artists ringing out in concert, guided by the deliberate hand of a producer or director who sees the forest for the trees. Film-making is about style as much as about content and the two have to cohere meaningfully. When it doesn't, as in this new reboot, the results are muddled.
The presence of Ian McKellen isn't enough to elevate it and Caviezel simply miscast.
Too bad.
Florence Nightingale (1985)
Missed opportunities with a difficult subject matter
The life of Florence Nightingale--one of the great intellectual titans this world has ever known--is fascinating and dramatic, and one fraught with sacrifice, courage, and great sadness.
As someone who spent two years with the subject through research and by writing and completing a full-length spec script on Nightingale (written and registered before NBC's TV movie was available on DVD), I viewed this film more as series of missed opportunities and plodding digressions, distinguished more by what the left out or glossed over or ill- advisedly reinvented than by what they left in.
Overall, the teleplay was fine for what is was up until the point Florence arrives in the Crimea. Once in Turkey, however, the biopic simply falls flat on it face, finding little drama and even less resolution. While I completely understand that not every nuance of history can be examined and budgetary constraints determined structure and style, the teleplay failed to capture even the essence of any real tension vs. resolution. Everything just neatly fell into place while real life and real history is far messier.
For instance, watching the movie, one is left with the feeling that while FN's mother may have had some disagreement with her choice in career, she was generally okay with it. In fact, their arguments were frequent and very loud--a veritable boxing match that was constant and damaging. Florence rather despised her mother and the matronly traditions she stood for.
Florence herself did not make a connection between the sickness of her men and the "sickness" of Barracks Hospital. In fact, Florence, or the British Army, did not understand (or believe) that airborne or water-borne diseases existed, hence no alarm was made by the decaying carcasses contaminating the water supply.
While the teleplay did mention that God was her inspiration and that he "spoke" to her, the film leads you to believe He did this on this one time. In fact, her writings reveal a deep and unbridled relationship with God and many incidents of "conversation", the most dramatic one being on her 30th birthday after a particularly mystical trip to Egypt and Greece. Florence's struggle with the meaning and message of her belief in the Divine mandate is one of the key--some would say flaw, others would say divinely sacrificial--aspects of her character that is the hardest to digest and/or dramatize.
In the 20 years since the teleplay, there have been several major works published on her life and times, and these have aided immeasurably in our understanding of the complex nature of Florence Nightingale. And I don't want to mistakenly fault the teleplay for not having the benefit of future research. History changes as events reveal themselves over the blanket of time.
Yet, the drama failed to exploit the information it had on hand at the moment to any large degree, taking a middle of the road stance based more on mythology than real life. It did further injustice by embellishing the myth even more with Hollywood half-truths.
And it could be that the complexity of her life is too difficult for any one film to examine. Many are mystified by her, as she both mesmerized and infuriated people all at the same time--perhaps herself most of all. She is both scion and Saint, linguist and mathematician, prolific researcher and writer, a mystic, a healer, and beacon of hope to generations, a national heroine.
When you are all that, where is there room for the "real" you?
The Golden Compass (2007)
Chris Weiz C-minus; Studio F
Chris Weiz C-minus; Studio F
Time will tell of the fate of Golden Compass. Time will tell if Chris Weiz's career can recover. Time will tell which New Line Executives will get the boot and many will, the likes one hasn't seen in Hollywood in years or, more seriously, if the studio has the finances to sustain and repay the debt incurred to make the film. Golden Compass could very well go down in history as the "Heaven's Gate" of the new millennia.
Heaven's Gate, you may recall, was a late-70s revisionist Western that bankrupted United Artists. At the time, it was the most expensive film made ($45 million dollars in production costs; another $30 million in advertising). The film, now considered a masterpiece, running 4 hours (with intermission), unfurled and improvised at its own, deliberate pace, telling a story about a significant, though little-understood episode in American history. Its length limited its ability to make its money back for its investors (2 showings per day). It was universally condemned by critics with such vehemence not read since Bosley Crowther's scathing comments about Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch. The studio, or director, depending on whom you believe, pulled the film from distribution. Within months, overwhelmed by crushing debt, all of its executive fired, had to sell the assets of the company to stay afloat, ending up as a week subsidiary of MGM.
Now, almost 30 years later, history could repeat itself. New Line Cinema, in their infinite wisdom, put their faith and money ($165 million dollars, not counting advertising) into a first-time-fantasy-film director by the name of Chris Weiz. The budget of this single film totaled 2/3s of the entire Rings trilogy. No wonder he quit the production at one point (only to be lured back). He may have earned points with the executives, but he didn't do his career any favors. New Line will have to do something to recoup this money. I predict you will see a theatrical re-issue of the extended-director cuts of the Lord of the Rings next summer, perhaps sooner. The company will have to get cash flow somehow because it is not going to happen with Golden Compass and what better way than to raid your archives.
All this is rather unfortunate, because no one wanted to see this film succeed more than I. As a great fan of the books I've read the trilogy twice the themes are extraordinary and complex, diving into areas hardly even addressed in adult literature. Written and published around the same time as Potter, they never quite took off into the stratosphere in the same way, but they were duly recognized by others as tackling compelling issues in equally compelling ways. Yes, the books have several interesting, but not debilitating, flaws what book wouldn't that tries to tackle situations both deeply mystical and, at the same time, deeply familial.
So, how do you make a film about God, about growing up, about death, about fantasy and imagination, about mother and father or the lack thereof, about the severing of the literal manifestation of your consciousness (metaphorically, free will) from your person?
Well, you don't do it like the film that is in your theaters today.
You do it by being brave as brave as your subject matter and not jettison plot elements just because they make you uncomfortable. The audience is smarter than you think!
You don't do it by editing the film in such a way that you are blitzkrieging through the film faster than Gen. Patton on his way to Germany.
You don't do it in a way that subverts the drama of the story because you are afraid of a "downer" anything. If that is the case, why bother making the film this film at all. Come on, folks!
You do it in a way that offers an intelligent script that doesn't pander or talk down to the audience
that can offer motivation without explanation, reasoning without coincidence, emotion without manipulation.
When you really think about it, this film is less science-fantasy than you might imagine. It is about family and relationships, the elemental forces of nature, and absolute power, not about fighting bears, flying witches, or sailing 'gyptians though they are PART of the story, they are not THE story.
A studio executive from way back once said: "If the scene is about the scene, then you are in deep s***!"
Helvetica (2007)
Fonts as social witness
The one bad review notwithstanding this is an honest, insightful film about the most ubiquitous of fonts, Helvetica. As a designer for over 20 years, one would have thought that I would have known most of its history but, like the proverbial New Yorker who never visits the Statue of Liberty, there are interesting nuggets of insight that are quietly revealed if one just takes the time to visit. Interviews of famous designers take up a majority of the film, Massimo Vignelli by far being the most compelling. Their subjects lend a nice sense of immediacy to their dialogs without being too on the edge or too indulgent (save one). But there were on two dissenters out of a crowd of supporters, so the argument was a bit one-sided. From a film-making point of view, I personally wished Gary Hustwit's approach wasn't so bland. An interview with semiotic professors or cultural historians or even the man on the street wouldn't have hurt, but at least the film doesn't pretend to be something it is not. Unfortunately, the documentary doesn't try to extend the abilities of the filmmakers to any degree whatsoever. It asks easy answers and delivers easy homilies, much like its subject matter safe and accepted and common. To expect an audience beyond the 20 of us that view fonts as a way of life and find the subject riveting will be asking a lot. Is Helvetica the greatest font every designed? No, absolutely not. Is it the one of the most influential? Undoubtedly. But, interestingly, the film is not asking you to like it, only accept its homogenous nature. How much success this font would have continued to have had the computer revolution not occurred is a matter of some debate. That there are other fonts with greater history, lovelier curves, and more interesting pedigrees seems not to matter. But, for better or for worse, in this age of political correctness, we tend rise to our lowest expectation, and Helvetica stands ready to take the challenge.