So I finally saw Stanley Kubrick's BARRY LYNDON and it was really enjoyable! For a 3-hour costume period drama, I wasn't expecting to as much as I did! Granted, I did watch it in a few segments. And, like 2001, which I also re-watched recently, it has an intermission. (I wish that was still a thing they did for longer movies). It's hard to know whether the "Kubrick" factor was the big part of my enjoyment of the film--it did really feel like one of his films--but I do know that the story was compelling, the acting great, and the cinematography beautiful. I had heard that most of the film, if not all of it, was shot using just natural and candle light, and it is very evident. I myself am definitely a fan of using natural and available light, and in a period film like this, set in the 1770s, I find that the shadow of artificial movie lighting can really distract me and take me out of the story. Instead, here we have gorgeous scenes where huge swaths of light stream in through tall palace windows, or gentle afternoon sunlight filters through the trees in a forest. Kubrick was also said to be influenced heavily by the paintings of the era, and it is very evident. There are many shots that I'm sure must be direct references to works of art, and the composition of a lot of scenes look quite art-like, with couples placed conveniently in corners of the frame having discussions, or maybe a sheep dog lying lazily in the foreground, a small group of people out rowing in a pond, or maybe a drunk luxuriating on a couch with his hat pulled over his eyes. Aside from the technical and Kubrick-based aspects I like, I found myself really enjoying the story as well, which is never a bad thing in a film this length. It follows Redmond Barry (Ryan O'Neal), an Irish lad who basically, through adventure and misadventure, winds up working his way up the ladder of European aristocracy. He is a likeable character, but not without faults, and O'Neal was wonderful taking him through the years from naive country boy, to aged aristocrat. So, if you have seen Kubrick's films and enjoy his style, his tracking shots, his occasional zooms, and his precise composition, then this is definitely recommended viewing. It also won four Oscars, for, not surprisingly, Cinematography, Costume Design, Art Direction, and Musical Score. Kubrick himself was nominated for Best Director, Best Picture, and Best Adapted Screenplay. If you've never seen a Kubrick film before, maybe don't start with this, start with FULL METAL JACKET, CLOCKWORK ORANGE, or even THE SHINING, but if you are an avid filmgoer with a passion for beautiful composition in your shots, then this, I have a feeling, you will enjoy!
I know that 2012 (the movie) has come and gone and we're all waiting for the real December 2012 to come along so we can see whether the world crumbles apart or whether Roland Emmerich has a big fat red face, but until then take a look at these two teaser trailers: Roland Emmerich's 2012 (2009) and Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980). Emmerich, or whoever cut the trailer, appropriated the intense and bizarre music and the simple yet effective concept from Kubrick's teaser, and I can't say that I'm against it. It totally works. Even if you aren't aware of the infamous Shining trailer, it is quite, at first, eerie, then horrifying, just like the The Shining version.
That all being said, I think the teaser for The Shining is just that much better, because a) I'm biased to Stanley Kubrick, and b) it's just so much simpler: the one unbroken shot, the building tension, and then the release, which the camera just keeps rolling and is soon completely submerged. But I do like in the 2012 one how the music lines up with the monk gonging the big bell.
All this talk about the movie 2012 reminds me of this great little article on The Onion. How do they churn out such consistently funny pieces?
I LOVE each of these pictures. Directors in action. Part of me would be very, very happy to be a set stills photographer for the rest of my life. But when I look at these pictures, I truly know that being a filmmaker is what I want to do. Something about pictures like these spark some kind of excitement and inspiration in me, but it's really hard to pinpoint! I guess it just looks like good fun.
Dr. Strangelove: Or, How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb is undoubtedly one of Kubrick's finer works, if not his finest. Like many other Kubrick films, it is often imitated, but never duplicated. I put it pretty much at the top of the list, for a number of reasons.
1. Obviously, Peter Sellers. Three characters. Two in the same scene. All before greenscreen/splitscreen/Nicholas-Cage-in-Adaptation. All hilarious. The man was a deranged genius, a child trapped in a man's body. If you have not seen the biopic film "The Life and Death of Peter Sellers" and have even an ounce of interest in this enigmatic actor, definitely see it. It may just answer a few questions, and Geoffrey Rush IS Peter Sellers. It's pretty amazing. 2. George C. Scott. He's right there alongside Peter Sellers. The sequence when he, with the excitement of a ten-year-old boy, is describing how amazing it is to see B-52s fly overhead is priceless. 3. Excellent dialogue: "Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the War Room!" 4. That sexually suggestive mid-air refueling Pablo Ferro-designed opening title sequence. 5. Sterling Hayden. From what I understand he came out of retirement to play this role. Who WHOA I just realized played the Police Chief that Michael assassinates in the restaurant in The Godfather! 6. Slim Pickens riding that H-bomb. 7. James Earl Jones as a young man. 8. The set design: From the war room with "The Big Board" and buffet, to the interior of the bomber, which apparently according to the USAF was eerily accurate to the classified designs of actual bombers! 9. The song "We'll Meet Again." 10. This amazing and revolutionary trailer, also designed by Pablo Ferro:
If you have seen Roman Coppola's film CQ, the trailer for Dr. Strangelove might seem familiar. Have a look at the trailer for the film inside the the film in CQ, Codename: Dragonfly:
Further influence can be seen in the 2009 British political satire, In The Loop (nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay at the most recent Academy Awards!), both in the subject matter: humorous misunderstandings and miscommunication leading to war, as well as in the promotional materials, like the obvious stylistic references to the above-posted Strangelove poster and the trailer.
The trailer also, if I'm not mistaken, pulls music from Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange.
This is a really great film, and I am dying to get my hands on a copy of the British television series it is based on, The Thick Of It. Peter Capaldi plays one of my favorite foul-mouthed characters in recent years, Malcolm Tucker. Anyways these are just a few little nuggets that have been in the back of my mind for a couple months.
Now, feel free to disagree with me, but these are a handful of trailers that I've always thought were much better than the actual film, meaning I watched them endlessly and probably built them up way too much and was just bound to be disappointed. But here they are. Some of them turned out to be mediocre films, or bad films, or even good films, but to me, their pinnacle was actually the trailer.
1. Vanilla Sky (2001).
This wasn't by any means a bad film, but the trailer for me is a lot more intriguing. Vanilla Sky is a muddled remake of, from what I understand, what is already also a bit of a muddled Spanish film, Abre Los Oyos (Open Your Eyes). For some reason, there's something about the atmosphere of it that I didn't like; I didn't want to spend 2 hours in it. I think a large part of it was the Tom Cruise character. I really don't mind Tom Cruise, I think he has become a victim of his own success, but his character isn't likeable at all. Even though he is a totally manipulative jerk in the film who is trying to redeem himself, I didn't care if he did redeem himself in the end. But I do respect this movie, mostly, and it did introduce me to that amazing Icelandic band of bands, Sigur Ros. What appeals to me most of all about this trailer is the music: in particular the Looper (first song) and Chemical Brothers song featured in the last third of it. Director Cameron Crowe probably had something to do with choosing the music for it, as he tends to have a major hand in the musical selections of his works, however, when the best thing about a film is the soundtrack, you have to wonder if maybe the director should have just trusted his music supervisor, and focused a little more on creating a coherent narrative. A lot of the imagery in the trailer is really evocative though, and it is cut together smartly.
2. Jarhead (2005).
Some people felt really strongly about this film, but in the end, I didn't feel much of anything at all. I mean, I kind of get it, from what I recall it is about the emotional toll of going to war, even if a soldier doesn't end up seeing much (or any) action. The boredom and the stress of preparation for combat, and then the anxiety of being exposed extreme situations, death, and conflict, these are all powerful concepts and discussions that should be had, however an interesting film it does not necessarily make. The American soldiers in Iraq (this is about the first Gulf War) were all dressed up with no where to go, and the film is in the exact same situation! So it is kind of a flawed concept to begin with. There is an HBO series called Generation Kill which also tackles similar concepts, and it handles it much better. So just watch that. Or if you don't have seven hours, watch Three Kings instead. That is an excellent Gulf War film, period. So, the trailer. What do I like about it? Mostly, the Kanye West song Jesus Walks. Yes, I can see a theme developing here. Music plays a powerful role in stirring interest in a film, and we will see how in most of the remaining examples here. I watched the trailer over and over when it came out, though now that I rewatch it, I'm not as enthused. Either way, at one time, this trailer really ignited something in me.
3. Code 46 (2003).
I don't think anybody saw this film, other than myself and the two people who I watched it with. It was pretty bad, and quite incoherent, which is a shame because I think it had really good intentions, and on paper sounds like an awesome film that I would like to watch. Tim Robbins and Samantha Morton (a wonderful actress I would like to dedicate an entire post to) star in this mystery thriller set in the near future (my absolute favorite time period for a film to be set--I'm looking at you, Blade Runner, Minority Report, Children of Men, Gattaca, etc.). I initially found out about it in a magazine article which talked about the production and how the producers were traveling the world to find existing futuristic settings and architecture in front of which to stage their film. Anyways, maybe this film will resurface in the future as a lost and misunderstood film, though I doubt it. After watching it with my friends, I actually was compelled to show them the trailer, just to justify my desire for making them sit through it! Thanks, friends. The trailer isn't particularly stunning, it just teases you with a number of interesting concepts.
4. Where The Wild Things Are (2009).
This might be one of the finest and most stirring trailers ever, and I don't mean to exaggerate. When this came out last year, EVERYONE was going batshit crazy over it. It has a fantastic Arcade Fire song, the source material is extremely dear to many, many people, director Spike Jonze is a skilled and beloved member of the cinema world, and the imagery is whimsical, youthful, exciting, and emotional (that sequence of shots of Max running away or towards the camera are amazing!). This was by no means whatsoever a bad film, I quite enjoyed it, it just didn't have a lot of material to go on. You have to give Jonze credit for not ruining something so precious as a children's story (I'm lookin at you, Tim Burton and Ron Howard!), and he stayed true to Maurice Sendak's vision. But it did portray quite well some of the turmoil, conflicts, and tough decisions that kids have to go through. Many films that take place inside someone's imagination or dreams tend to go over the top on the imagery level, but Where The Wild Things Are kept it regulated.
5. Bronson (2008).
Boasting to be the new generation's Clockwork Orange maybe isn't the smartest way to promote a film, nor is tailoring your style closely to a master filmmaker like Stanley Kubrick. I mean, by all means, if you shoot for the moon and miss, you'll often still land in the stars, however sometimes you'll just float away into deep space. I think that's about as far as I can take that analogy. This film is adrift in style with no real substance. And unfortunately, many of the funny moments in this trailer just don't work in the actual film. The film feels pretty much just an extended version of the latter half of Clockwork Orange when Alex is being rehabilitated, and well it's just a little dull. The lead performance of an almost unrecognizable Tom Hardy, in the actual film, is over-the-top and in the end wears thin. Clockwork Orange was so successful because in a way it is funny. It's a satire. The contents of this film just do not wink at the camera, there's no passion, and I never really got what the filmmaker was trying to convey. Yes, this guy is crazy, but unlike Clockwork Orange, it says nothing about whether society is crazy too. Yes, post-war England is drab, and people do bad things, but...? And is it unsensitive of me to say that Bronson's (the character's) crimes aren't heinous enough? He is kind of a petty criminal in the whole scheme of things, so why is he such a problem? Why doesn't he just shut up and serve his short sentence? All this being said, this trailer is wicked, it got me excited, and if you enjoy the style and imagery of a Kubrick film and are yearning to see something new from the late master, take a spin through this trailer, and then ponder how awesome A.I.: Artificial Intelligence could have been had Stanley Kubrick stayed alive long enough to direct it.
6. Pineapple Express (2008).
Am I wrong to say that this trailer almost single-handedly launched MIA's song Paper Planes into the stratosphere? Thug life!
7. Miami Vice (2006).
Sigh... what could have been! So much talent and promise here! Director Michael Mann is responsible for one of the greatest films of the 20th century and pretty much my all-time favorite: Heat. His profound examination of the 1990s LA crime world is almost certainly the best cops and robbers film, features a massive ensemble cast of fantastically nuanced performances, and still resonates today (in fact, Christopher Nolan cited it as a major source of inspiration for the Batman-Joker dichotomy in The Dark Knight). It somehow took a relatively simple concept, blew it up to epic proportions, and delivered in spades. The near-three-hour running time feels like nothing as we are intimately shown that detectives and even criminals have feelings. Amazing. I could talk about Heat forever, but we are here to talk about Miami Vice. Michael Mann created the seminal 80s television of the same name, and here revisited it with a passionless cast. Somehow, everyone in this film is a grouch, and Miami comes across as a bleak land of pain and suffering. But the trailer is awesome, again because of the bumpin Jay-Z/Linkin Park mash-up song. I also just love the imagery too. Make no mistake, this is an epic film as well. No expenses whatsoever appeared to have been spared, and the money is on the screen: jet-boats, Ferraris, lear-jets, Colin Farrell, Jamie Foxx, dance clubs. Unless you are a die-hard Michael Mann fan, I wouldn't recommend this film. Just watch the trailer, let your imagination ponder how cool it all could have been, then YouTube the finale of the film for that amazing Mogwai song that plays it out. There's one thing Mann always knows how to do, and that is a powerful end-scene (Again, Heat).
I love this picture Stanley Kubrick took of himself. He started out as a photographer! I was going to accompany this picture with a shot of what he looked like in later life, but... let's just enjoy this picture.
I always loved the quote below about Blade Runner. I wrote a paper on the film in university and I found this in an article that I have long since forgotten. I wish I had made a note of the source. Anyhow, I think this perfectly describes the appeal of Blade Runner to me.
"That's part of the poetry under the film's gaudy nightmare, the deep poignancy that underlies the vicious action. It's about people who flare up and die in a strange city glowing and dying all around them. When the expiring Roy talks about all the memories--fantastic, violent, bewitching--that will perish with him, he's clinging, for those last instants, to the validity of his strange, desperate, deadly life. Blade Runner has a quality that Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris and Stalker and Kubrick's 2001 have: a sense of awe and helplessness, before both technology and the universe itself, a sense (running counter to the spirit of most science fiction) that man cannot master surrounds him, that he is, finally, helpless."
