What's Eating Gilbert Grape?

Last night I saw my latest DVD from Amazon, What's Eating Gilbert Grape? My children had recommended it to me, but I knew nothing about it, only that it featured the young Leonardo Di Caprio. I'm a great admirer of Di Caprio, and feel he is a major talent; this film more than confirmed my opinion.
He gives an astonishing performance as Arnie, Johnny Depp's 'special needs' younger brother who is obsessed with climbing tall and dangerous structures. There's no trace of the blazing tyro seen briefly in Celebrity, just an expression of the essence of a fragile, damaged being that is so complete that it is impossible to believe that we are seeing a performance.
The film was a joy from start to finish; a small masterpiece. Photographed by the peerless Sven Nykvist, cinematographer for several Woody Allen films and many of Ingmar Bergman's, it looked a European film, with beautifully composed shots - the scene in which the children gather round the bedside of their recently-deceased mother had the atmosphere and luminosity of a Dutch interior.
I'd had no idea Johnny Depp was in the film - he's Gilbert Grape in fact, the central character. His performance is characteristically unselfish, allowing others to shine; he's intense, yet gentle and wonderfully contained. The frighteningly-obese mother is played by Darlene Cates, who was discovered on a talk show, and her performance is heartbreaking. The scene in which she rouses herself to go to the police station where Arnie has been detained, after years lying prone on a couch in front of the TV, her children bringing her vast meals, is remarkable; as is the scene in which she agonisingly confesses that she never intended to become so fat.
The film is, above all, about tolerance and acceptance of difference, and the understanding and realisation that a lowly status in life is sometimes not the worst thing in the world; that what is. on the surface dysfunctional, can actually be warm, loving and caring, that the acceptance of disappointment can be a positive, life-affirming quality.
Nevertheless, Arnie and Gilbert escape after their mother's death, taking off in a caravan with Juliette Lewis and her grandmother. They have the chance of a different life, still with the difficulties and problems of the old life, but with the possibility of change, ending on a note of hope and uplift; not in the classic Hollywood manner of mindless redemption, but leaving us knowing that Gilbert has found someone sympathetic who is happy to help care for Arnie and include him in their life.
The film is, in the end, all about inclusion, the real meaning of the word. Not a facile mantra, but its reality, that helping others and caring for them, enabling them to have lives of their own, is central to what it means to be human.
Lasse Halstrom directed; his recent films have been too soft-centred - this isn't. His My Life as a Dog was delightful - it's a shame he hasn't been able to maintain the standards set by that and Gilbert Grape. Never mind - he's responsible for 2 delightful films, both of which are small, enduring masterpieces.

The Dead

Watched John Huston's The Dead last night. I found this beautiful, haunting film extraordinarily moving, and bought myself a copy to keep from Amazon right away. I don't buy many films, but I know I will want to see this again and again. It's a work of great depth and richness; Huston's final film (he died soon after completing it). It's a small-scale film, whose settings consist of merely one house, the inside of a carriage, and a hotel room, yet by the end one is left with a feeling of being cut adrift in the vastness of time and space. It lays bare the transience of life, and the disappointments that come to blight, overshadow and diminish early idealism and hope, yet one is left with the feeling that home, family and friends can prove an anchor of sorts to help guide us through the mists and swamps with which life presents us.
There's a great deal of warmth, love and humour in this film, and one gets the feeling that Huston wanted the film to be a final love letter to his ancestral homeland. His depiction of the sprawling group of friends and family, gathered together to celebrate Twelfth Night, manages, paradoxically, to convey loss, yearning and a deep emptiness and melancholy, yet joy and good humour at the same time.
I'll certainly read The Dubliners now, the collection where one can find 'The Dead'. I've never read any James Joyce - I've never been able to manage his novels but have always been aware that there's more to him than Finnegan's Wake.

House

House is back! Channel 5 is normally uncharted territory for me, but I've made an exception for House, and for Tim Marlow's arts documentaries which manage to be accessible and engaging yet sufficiently erudite, and manage without the irritatingly unnecessary dramatised scenes and flashy camerawork which mar so many documentaries these days. Andrew Graham-Dixon's recent series on BBC-4, The Art of Eternity was a notable exception.
Anyway, I enjoy House for a variety of reasons. First, Hugh Laurie. His American accent has improved, but he still retains his English manner of speech. It helps mark him out as exceptional, giving him a quasi-mythical quality helping create an acute and distinctively un-American character who is quite clearly meant to be a Sherlock Holmes pour nos jours.
I also like his sharp and snappy coterie of Watsons, a group of intelliegent young medics who are nice to look at and have well-defined personalities. They've settled into their roles now and the characters are now fully-formed.
As usual with formula TV, the unpredictable keeps happening, to keep audience interest. This begins as a virtue, and then it becomes a formula in itself which one comes to enjoy and appreciate. This is what being a fan of a series is all about.
I don't watch much formula TVnowadays, just this and Lost, but I do have a sneaking fondness for it and like to indulge every now and then, particularly when it's as good as this. One of life's guilty pleasures

Telly on the computer

I've just watched 2 episodes of Lost on my PC - Sky One's been withdrawn from cable, and as I've watched it from the beginning, finding it strangely compulsive in a shallow kind of way, one of my sons has been supplying me with episodes downloaded from a Canadian website and burned on to DVD. So I've been able to keep up; in fact I think I might be ahead of Sky now. Such is the nature of modern technology. It got me musing about the nature of my TV viewing. I know it sounds a bit sad, but, just out of interest, I've kept a TV blog for the last few months - noting down the programmes I've watched all the way through (excluding the news and my Neighbours habit), and the medium I've used to watch it. This is actually quite interesting as it's becomae a barometer of the change in viewing habits. It's clear that I now watch less and less live TV. Most of my viewing is now DVDs of films and TV series, my own videotaping (sometimes it's the only way - still), and the useful Replay facility you get with cable, where they select a few programmes from the BBC and Channel 4 and keep them for a week. Within those categories are some sub-sections - my DVDs range from the free ones from the front of newspapers, the 3 per month I get from Amazon DVD rental, ones borrowed from various children, all of whom have collections, and downloads or copies. Plust the odd pay-per-view movie. I don't actually have very many myself, and have made a conscious decision not to collect them. I really don't see the point of accumulating DVDs just because you can - I feel overloaded with media as it is.
I don't think I'm that exceptional, but I'm sure that there are still plenty of people who just settle down to whatever's on every evening - I know, I work with a few of them. But it seems clear that more and more people are adopting habits and tailoring their viewing to suit their lifestyles - because they can.
I do know that I'm not necessarily typical - I know people who only watch Sky Sports and the odd Sky One or Channel 5 series such as CSI, indeed I remember when I was a child there were people who always watched ITV, never going near the BBC. My parents were very loyal to the BBC and rarely had ITV on, except for Take Your Pick and Double Your Money which they loved. I always felt a bit rebellious if I turned over to see what was always referred to as 'the other side'.
I still feel I have a close relationship with the Corporation and wouldn't dream of turning to anything else for those big occasions, and certainly only ever watch it for the news. It really is an extraordinary organisation - there's nothing like it anywhere else in the world. I can understand why some are suspicious of it, and mistrustful - its power is extraordinary - but I do feel the world would be a poorer place without it.
Me - I have a habit of dozing off mid-evening, so the chances of managing to see anything live at primetime all the way through, are remote. So it makes sense to watch stuff that's pre-packaged in whatever format, as I can always catch up if I do fall asleep, or watch it later in the evening when I tend to be a bit more wide-awake. I rarely watch more than 1 or 2 programmes a night at the most and my aim is entertainment that also challenges me - in fact, anything that makes me think a bit.
Anyway - I enjoyed Lost - and I expect I'll quickly get used to watching TV on the computer, just like I've got used to digital TV, DVD, video, pay-per-view etc etc.

The Devil Wears Prada & The Illusionist

I've seen two films in the last few days - both mainstream entertainment productions. The first was The Devil Wears Prada, my latest Amazon DVD rental. When it was first released I couldn'tn quite justify the cost and effort of going to see it at the cinema, but I knew I'd want to see it at some point, if nothing else because of Meryl Streep. She's my age, for a start, and is simply getting better and better. Well, she thoroughly deserved her Oscar nomination, effortlessly dominating the screen in all her scenes, and looking marvellous at the same time. The film is thoroughly entertaining; slight but well-put-together and excellently acted, not just by Streep. Anne Hathaway was pretty good, acting with sharp-eyed, intelligent innocence. The offices, bars and streets of New York were all convincingly portrayed, and I've strongly recommended the film to all my female relatives, daughter, sister-in-law and niece, with the caveat that their brothers, boyfriends and husbands are likely to run a mile!
I took ny nephew and niece (11 and 14) to see The Illusionist at the cinema. The film seems very popular for some reason; I'm not sure why as there are no major stars in it, and it doesn't exactly leap out at you as a must-see. Much has been made of the fact that the film is supposed to have suffered by the prior release of The Prestige, also about Victorian magicians, but the fact remains that The Prestige is a vastly superior film on every level. Edward Norton isn't a bad actor, but he couldn't quite carry the film. He probably does have the ability to provide a strong centre to a film, didn't manage it here. I knew nothing about the director, Neil Burger (he's directed once prior to this, a low-budget film called Interview with an Assasin, which I'd never heard of). Apparently he's lined up to direct the next-but-one Narnia film, Voyage of the Dawn Treader; I have to wonder what he's actually done to be given such a high-profile job, but he's not the first director to gather himself a reputation without actually having achieved anything substantial.
Anyway - The Illusionist, while having some good moments, also has some long, dull spells, and I have to confess my concentration wandered for much of the first half, and I confess to briefly dozing off a couple of times. The film perked up, though, and improved. The scenes when Eisenhem, the magician, performs his magic tricks in the theatre, are very well done indeed, creating palpable tension, and Norton does very well here. But the female lead, played by an actress I'd never heard of, called Jessica Biel, suffered by not only physically resembling Scarlet Johansen, who plays the female lead in The Prestige, and therefore appears to be SJ-lite, but, seems as insubstantial as one of the wraiths that Norton/Eisenhem conjures up as part of his routime.
My main problem was that, because I kept losing concentration, I couldn't help focusing on Norton's extremely bad wig and poorly-dyed facial hair, a fatal flaw as once you've noticed it, it obscures everything else. The film did pick in the last 45 minutes, but there was rather too much heritage-mingering, with costumes and landscapes taking centre-stage. I'm getting a bit bored with period authenticity and am looking for something a bit different, and again, The Prestige do better here. I really must get the DVD out and see it again and see if my feelings that it's a better film, are justified
I had a look at a few reviews - needless to say, my bete-noir, Peter Bradshaw, preferred it to The Prestige, which he found 'swollen' and 'self-admiring', and described it as 'smart, sharp and economically-achieved'. Philip French, my favourite, agrees with me about TP, calling it 'probably a masterpiece'; 'large, dense and ambitious', though he liked The Illusionist, and, as usual, his comments are perceptive enough to encourage me to take another look at it when it comes out on DVD.
I did find it somewhat muddled and flaccid for the first hour, and, interestingly, my niece, who provided me with an intelligent and succinct critique in the car on the way home, without any prompting, concurred. I encourage her to think about movies, and she's quite a fan. I told her she should get The Prestige out on DVD (she hasn't seen it yet), and tell me what she thinks. It'd be a good exercise in comparing and contrasting - just the sort of thing to do as practice for GCSE English, and much more fun than the usual sort of dull stuff they have to do for homework.
Anyway, it was a fun afternoon, and I'm glad I made the effort to go out. My nephew thought it was 'great' and that was all I got out of him. Some good trailers, including the new Zhang Yimou, The Curse of the Golden Flower, which I shall surely be taking him to see.

Celebrity

Watched Woody Allen's Celebrity, my latest Amazon DVD rental. I ordered it because it's one of the few films of his that I haven't seen (I'm a big fan); I'd heard it wasn't good and wanted to see for myself.
Well, it had its moments, notably L Di Caprio, in a brief cameo as a spoilt movie brat. He's a remarkable talent, and his performance lit up the screen, blowing through the film like a whirlwind, blasting everyone else aside. Most of the women were very good as well, notably Charlize Theron (unrecognisable), and Melanie Griffith, though Judy Davis (brilliant in Deconstructing Harry and Husbands and Wives) seemed uncharacteristically uncomfortable.
But the film was dominated by an extremely unfortunate and misjudged performance by Kenneth Branagh, who chose to impersonate WA. The character was obviously intended to be a WA surrogate (its been done before with some success, notably John Cusack in Bullets Over Broadway), but his complete lack of credibility overshadowed the film, and basically destroyed it.
The structure was shambolic as well, careering all over the place - a real pity as some scenes were extremely funny. A real shame, as the subject is a sitting target for a coruscating satire, and the WA of a few years earlier would surely have provded it. A missed opportunity.
Still, he returned to form with his next film, Sweet and Lowdown, and I thought Match Point was a wonderfully chilly take on British life.
I've heard that Scoop, his latest film, hasn't found a distributor in the UK, and the US reviews on the IMDB don't look good. Still, he has produced some of the finest films of the last 40 years - Crimes and Misdemeanours is high on my 'Top Ten all-time greats' list.

mobile technology

Just a quick post - I saw an article in today's Guardian by Stuart Jeffries on how 'the world is becoming a poorer place' thanks to the mobile phone. No, Stuart - it's just becoming a different place. he laments the demise of, for example, the wristwatch, now we all have phones and don't need them any more. Well, speaking as someone who's reached the age of 56 and never worn a wristwatch, I find the clock on my mobile, yes, a useful piece of technology, but not really a substitute for the clock in my car, all the public clocks in town that I've always used, the radio at home, my kitchen clock, the clock on my computer, and the clock at work etc. etc.. We're surrounded by clocks - why on earth would I ever need one attached to me. I suppose if I lived in the country.........but I don't.
He also talks about confusing developments in technology - how kids now hold mobiles up in trains when playing music so others can hear them, contradicting what was always the point of the personal stereo, to hear music privately. To me it just illustrates people's unfailing inventiveness, their refusal to do what the marketplace tells them, and above all, the inexorable law, one ofthe greatest and most profound, that of unintended consequences.

He also talks about his nostalgia for the old-fashioned typewriter. Well, as someone who never mastered the typewriter, I've learned to type pretty fast and accurately on the PC. I'm completely self-taught and needed no expensive training of the type which was essential in the old days. We had a Secretarial Sixth Form at my school, where people could stay on for a year instead of doing A Levels, doing nothing but training to be secretaries. Not needed now - we can do it ourselves. That's got to be progress.

People will always use technological innovation in ways that are useful to them and these are often ways that were not what the inventors, manufacturers and marketing executives had in mind. And there are plenty that fall by the wayside, and I suspect that many of the gadgets on sale now will fall by the wayside, unused and unloved, indeed, many have already. Laserdisc, anyone?

The Hours

I finished The Hours by Michael Cunningham last night, staying up until midnight. I haven't read a book that's touched me so deeply for a long time. It's the way he manages to convey exactly how life is really lived, which is simply getting through each day. Myself, I learned a long time ago not to look to far ahead as you can never predict what's coming up and Cunningham manages to capture the simple dailiness of everyday life.
It's also about the despairs and joys at the heart of life in such a truthful way, that, when a particular insight drove home with such force that long-buried memories began to resurface.
And there are other, simple observations that struck home with startling clarity, as, when Virginia rushes out of the house to travel up to London for the day, to escape, he muses on the particularity of railway stations, how they are both a 'portal and a destination', 'slightly desolate even when crowded'. The description encapsulated for me the reason why I love Temple Meads (in Bristol) so much, and why I'll grab any chance I can to go there. I picked my son up from there the other night - it was, in one respect, bleak and lonely, with travellers hurrying off their train, and others hanging around, rather hopelessly gazing at the departure screens, yet I loved it, felt comforted by being there and felt very much at home.
Laura Brown's deeply ambivalent feelings about her role as a housewife and mother, and her longing to escape, so that she can read her book, also hit home. I remember feeling exactly like that when I was at home with my children - one evening I got in the car and just drove around the city for a coiple of hours just to get away, and I'm sure I'm not the only young mother who's felt like that, and fantasised about just disappeariing. Laura got away for good, and part of me admires her for it, and understands her.
And as for Virginia, well, she did it as well, and Richard, Laura's son. There is, in Cunningham's book, an understanding of the realities of suicide, that sometimes, there can be no other way out, that there is a courage there. I've never been in that desperate situation, but have gained an understanding of what drives people to the limit through reading Cunningham's book.
Like all the best books and films, it leaves you thinking. I wondered if Laura understood Richard's suicide through her own abandonment of him and through reading Virginia Woolf. I thought of Laura, breaking away and reading all Woolf's books, bot just Mrs Dalloway, and perhaps her biograpghy, letters and diaries.
Clarissa is the one who is left behind, the one who has chosen to lead the ordinary life, like most of us. And Cunningham celebrates that equally, without privileging the suicides. In fact, I felt that Clarissa is the true heroine of the book, the one who has chosen to give.

I saw the film when it came out a couple of years ago, and have seen it three times. All three women, Moore, Streep and Kidman, were perfect, and now I've read the book, I can see how successfully they brought the characters to life, illuminating their inner life in a way that perhaps Cunningham couldn't quite manage.

I can't see The Hours as a single artefact any more - book and film are indivisible and form a whole in tandem with each other. I can see myself watching and reading again and again.

Babel

Well, this is my first post - I've thought about what my theme's going to be and the obvious one is a diary of film, television programmes, books, exhibitions etc. I've been keeping a diary of films I've seen and books I've read for about 10 years, and I've always thought right at the back of my mind that I ought to write about what I've seen, read, heard etc. After all, I've been writing about film for years, ever since I did an OU module on media in the 1930s and 40s. I did an MA in British film history as well, so it's been my subject for a long time. I don't pretend to be a great film critic, but I like to talk about film and books.
Anyway, where to start? Well, I went to see Babel yesterday with my daughter, who's also a film fan. (I've brought all my kids up to love the movies, and I'm glad to say it's paid off - now they're grown up, it's almost the first thing we talk about when I see/phone them - 'what films have you seen recently?) We went to an afternoon screening - it's come back to Bristol for a week presumably because of its Oscar nomination (it was on for about 3-4 weeks when it was first released). I'd read the reviews - incredibly mixed - a few loved it, but many hated it, most notably Mark Kermode on Radio 5. I normally trust MK's judgement - don't always agree with him, but respect his opinion. Most haters felt the film was, to quote Peter Bradshaw in the Guardian (someone whose opinions I don't respect, although I always find myself checking him out), 'self-important' and 'conceited'. Kermode agreed, and thought the film was horribly 'up itself'. Whatever, it obviously excites emotion - I remember MK and Julie Myerson nearly coming to blows over it on Newsnight Review.
Bradshaw promises that the audience will come out 'irritated' and 'incredulous' at what he sees are the 'naive' and 'laughable' plot machinations. Well, the audience members I overheard discussing it in the loo afterwards were enthralled and overwhelmed. Myself - I didn't lose concentration once -drifting off for the odd doze has been an occupational hazard at the movies in the last couple of years - but not this time. It's certainly ambitious in scope, and too few films are these days. I think it's attempting to show the difficulty of connecting, our failure to communicate, misapprehensions, and the messy, chaotic ways in which we lead our lives. It raises many more questions than it answers, such as the problematic American couple who employ an illegal immigrant to look after their children while they 'experience' the third world.
Anyway, I like films that make me think long after I've seen them, and Iñárritu deserves praise, not the incredible level of condemnation he's received in many quarters for this film. I suppose he was somewhat overpraised for Amores Perros and is now getting a bit of a backlash, which often happens. Philip French's review in the Observer hit the nail on the head, I think. 'Some will think this film glib and overly schematic. I found it an impressive, beautifully acted work with a tragic sense of life'.
Yes, the film is a bit of a mess, but so is human nature, global politics and life in general. A brave and human film which will reverberate in my memory for a long time.