It Cannot Be Taken Away, Ever

In an interview with Jamie Graham of Total Film magazine, Daniel Day-Lewis discussed his early love for the cinema. Day-Lewis talked about "This Sporting Life," "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning," and "Kes." He also talked about "Taxi Driver."

"'Taxi Driver' was huge," he said. "That was sort of my awakening to the possibilities in America, which had never occurred to me--that I would be part of American cinema."

According to Day-Lewis, he and his friends saw "Taxi Driver" about five or six times and were completely mesmerized by the film, and of the work of its star, Robert De Niro. "You know, I've admired him from that moment ever since. He's one of the great actors. Not just of our time, but of all time."

Since Day-Lewis first saw De Niro, the two have become very similar. Both are world renowned stars and acting heavy weights, known for their painstaking methods to achieve a performance. Sometimes it may seem a bit weird, like De Niro ordering clothes from Al Capone's tailor when portraying the infamous gangster in "The Untouchables," or Day-Lewis walking around New York City dressed in 19th century attire while filming "The Age of Innocence." The two also are the few to have won two Oscars. Both are also two of Martin Scorsese's favorite actors.

Graham's next question was a thoughtless one, a question of groupthink proportions: "[De Niro] now churns out three or four films a year and doesn't exhibit the commitment of old. As someone who looks up to him, what do you think of him phoning in performances?"

Day-Lewis did not buy it. Here is his response verbatim: "I've actually got a lot of pleasure from some of his performances in the last few years. A lot. I love him as a comedian; he makes me laugh a lot. I actually watched "Analyze This" again recently with my boys and it made me laugh. I just loved it. I loved it that he could take the piss out of himself to that extent. I really am not that judgmental, and I find it quite upsetting when people re-assess his work in the light of his choices in the last few years. You cannot take away from what he has given to the cinema. It cannot be taken away, ever."

Need anymore be written?

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Shutter Island

Martin Scorsese's "The Departed" began with the usual notes: the Rolling Stone's cool "Gimme Shelter," a favorite of Scorsese's, for it has also appeared in his "Goodfellas" and "Casino." The lyrics, about a coming storm, could certainly be seen as allegorical, but they would be more fitting here, in his "Shutter Island," because much of the film takes place during violent rain. How, though, could the Rolling Stones' music fit in this period piece set in the 1950s, a psychological thriller and mystery.

Instead, the opening notes are Ingram Marshall's "Fog Tropes." The notes are complicated but quiet, and fit not only with the ship approaching the island but also with the melancholic, dark and gloomy atmosphere of this movie. Wisely, Scorsese has opted for a soundtrack that lacks an original score but instead is one of modern classical music. Move over George Harrison, Eric Clapton and the Ronettes--here come Max Richter, John Cage, and Krzysztof Penderecki.

Scrosese's films have famously dealt with everything from gangsters, rock 'n' roll, and Jesus Christ. Here, his theme and mood is more closely aligned with "The Aviator" than it is with "The Departed" (save for the paranoia aspect). Both were made for visceral experiences in psychology, and both are spectacular. With the "Aviator," there are so many aspects of Hughes's story--his love life with many woman (and possibly men), his brief role in politics, and his giant empire. Instead, Scorsese started with Hughes as a filmmaker, and the film evolved into a story about Hughes as a psychological subject. In "Shutter Island," a similar route is chosen: it starts as a rather conventional thriller and mystery, then goes through a metamorphosis into psychological study. Psychology is an under-appreciated component of many films and never seems to get its fair share of discussion (such as the groupthink aspect of "12 Angry Men").

Leonardo DiCaprio (Howard Hughes in Scorsese's "The Aviator" and also the lead in his "Gangs of New York" and "The Departed" and probably many more to come) is Teddy Daniels, a U.S. Marshall sent to Shutter Island off the coast of Boston to investigate the recent escape of a patient. He is there with his partner Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo), and becomes aware that everything is not as it seems. The island hosts a hospital for the criminally insane, and one of their patients, or as Teddy repeatedly calls, "prisoners," has escaped, "as if she completely vanished." The man in charge, a sympathetic and progressive psychologist (Ben Kingsley), is not providing much help, and things are not getting better, especially as a tempest of a storm is coming in. Teddy himself seems to have recovered, but not completely, from the death of his wife, and his temper is easily sparked.

The primary flaw of the film is its conclusion, which is fairly simple to guess almost immediately and not clever or original. Indeed, it even seems to hurt the film slightly above being just a simple annoyance. But it is the details that matter and which are so attractive, with a crescendo of intensity and a perfectionist's direction. There is a hint of Cold War paranoia, possible Nazi allegories and the ethics of lobotomies. There is rain--constant rain--fire, rats, disfigured faces, loud music reminiscent of the old Hollywood era, with whispers and shouts in the dark. The intensity level is so high and there are hardly any moments of rest. When it is not raining, it is snowing, but surely nothing is more peaceful than it was before. There are obvious influences here, such as Hitchcock's "Psycho" and "Vertigo," Kubrick's "The Shining," and to a lesser extent Demme's "The Silence of the Lambs" and Michael Powell's "Peeping Tom." (Perhaps it would be an annoying reminder to point out that the late Powell's wife is Thelma Schoonmaker, Scorsese's frequent editor.) This level of Scorsese being influenced is quite striking, simply because it is usually Scorsese who does the influencing (like on the works of Paul Thomas Anderson and Quentin Tarantino), not the one who is influenced. Regardless, being influenced is hardly ever a bad thing, and the influences are appreciated.

And unlike some directors who have recently had their actors play make-believe in front of green screens, Scorsese always brings out the best in his performers, particularly DiCaprio, who has been better and better in each Scorsese film. His other actors--Ruffalo, Kingsley, Michelle Williams, Max von Sydow, Emily Mortimer, Patricia Clarkson, Jackie Earle Haley, Elias Koteas, Ted Levine and John Carroll Lynch--are all fantastic, as well.

This is a film in which the ending--that sometimes make or break moment--was not so satisfying to me, but Scorsese's craftsmanship is so perfect as it always is that I seldom thought of the ending. Instead, I remembered everything I liked about it--its thrills, its noir approach and its effect. With a director as terrific as Scorsese, who really cares about the endings? There is no buyer's remorse here.

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Dying as Fast as the Compact Disc

I had a professor who reminded me of Pauline Kael. My professor had a profound sense of authority and audacity to her, and she could instantly command respect as well as admiration (incidentally, she was the same professor I mentioned in my review of "Every Little Step"). I deeply admired her intellect, just as I deeply admire Kael's (may she rest in peace). In 2001, when Pauline Kael died, I was a freshman in high school, just starting my true love affair with the movies and having no idea who she was. I had grown up with Siskel and Ebert, and even then I never listened to them or read their reviews, and I only slightly remember the death of Gene Siskel, but I knew that "Siskel and Ebert give it two thumbs up" really meant something.

With Kael's death, many have since argued that film criticism is dead, or at least it's barely on life support. Many simultaneously claim that the collapse was brought on actually by Siskel and Ebert themselves with their simplistic little thumbs, effectively "dumbing down" film criticism. Some have argued that Ben Lyons was the final insult.

I asked on the Internet Movie Database if film criticism is really dying. One individual wrote a response: criticism is dying, in all cases, and the significance of a film's successful outcome, due to journalistic criticism, is getting smaller, due to the fact that "NOBODY gives a sh*it" (individual's words).

The individual further argued that it would be difficult for any of us to remember a time when somebody said, "If that critic thinks it's a bad record of a bad movie, then I'm skipping it." Nobody cares anymore about "what 'he,' 'she,' or 'they' of 'that' magazine (for example) say about anything. And we should be thankful that the power of the review is dying. In the 70s or 80s, if a movie managed to get a bad rating, by a media-darling of 'bigger significance,' distributors would in some cases drop the ball on the project. Because of that, some ares in the States, or some countries even, never got a chance to see a specific movie (for example)--just because of what ONE SINGLE person thought. It's a new age and era, and even though the reviewer will live on, his power and significance is undoubtedly dying as fast as the Compact Disc."

Quite a pessimistic assessment.

On a side note, my question was not so much whether or not film criticism is as potent as it used to be, but whether or not it was as worthy to read as it used to be. My curiosity was not based on the lack of influence from the film critics these days, but by the so-called "death" in film criticism quality.

Kael once said that if you wanted to actually write what you thought, you had to find the right magazine. She knew these people, she said, and they were not as stupid as what they were writing. Thankfully, the internet has provided a vehicle in which many can engage in dialogue on the cinema. It seems pointless to debate the "death" of movie criticism, but perhaps the commenter was accurate: maybe it is a good thing that the voice of one is trumped by the voice of many. I don't know; I tend to side with the argument that "a person is smart, people are dumb."

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On Violence in Movies

Last year, as his "Inglourious Basterds" was setting itself up for at least one Oscar win for the following March, Quentin Tarantino was asked to discuss his favorite twenty films since 1992 (the year in which his first film, "Reservoir Dogs," was released). The films varied from Korean drama/thrillers like Park Chan-wook's "Joint Security Area" to Paul Thomas Anderson's brilliant "Boogie Nights" to Trey Parker and Matt Stone's masterpiece "Team America: World Police." His favorite film was the 2000 Japanese film "Battle Royale," directed by Kinji Fukasaku. It was a movie Tarantino wished he had made.

The movie, based on a novel by Koshun Takami, takes place in a future Japan in which violence and rebellious youths have provoked the government to make laws requiring students to be gathered up and sent to an island in which they will participate in a competition to eliminate one another until there is only one left. The last survivor wins the game; the losers are dead. Both the book and the movie have generated a fair share of criticism for their violent content.

Fukasaku's film is epic and operatic, horrifying and yet beautiful, as these Japanese students struggle for survival to. What I appreciated the most in this film was the symbolism. Having difficulty attempting to figure out the allegories behind the film, I discovered one through a review (though I have not been able to find it again to give it proper citation) from a viewer who teaches in Japan. He discussed the unfortunate reality that Japanese youths face enormous pressure to succeed, especially in their education, and this is what sometimes inspires cheating at worst and uncreative teaching at best. Having spent close to a year teaching in South Korea, in which I have become acutely aware of this Asian youth competition and the strict and at times unethical expectations of students, I deeply appreciated Fukasaku's film and its allegory. I will concede though that Korean and Japanese students are different in some aspects. Scott Aubrey's essay on the two groups discusses the differences: Korean students tend to speak English in class regardless of grammar mistakes in an effort to communicate their ideas, while Japanese students tend to avoid speaking English unless they are perfectly confident they will deliver a perfect sentence. Aubrey also describes the level of patriotism between the two, as Koreans are incredibly proud of their enormous accomplishments in the face of so much tragedy, whereas Japan, after centuries of being the "aggressor," has now embraced pacifism and its students lack the nationalism of their Korean counterparts. This is a bit of digression, isn't it? Regardless, the metaphor found by this viewer was profound to me and elevated my experience of the film.

I couldn't help but notice, though, that Tarantino probably did not have the same reaction. For a man who has crafted his films with dialogue as witty and quick as Ben Hecht's, with a style and tone as entertaining as Sergio Leone's, and influences such as blaxploitation and Martin Scorsese, Tarantino has never seemed interested with societal themes. His other films on his list included ultra-violet movies like Japan's "Audition" and Korea's "Oldboy," and so it can be concluded that what attracted Tarantino to "Battle Royale" was its story, characters, and especially its violence.

Many find Tarantino to be obsessed with violence. His "Kill Bill," influenced by Japanese cinema, was criticized for being too violent. "Kill Bill" is a bit difficult to defend (I didn't care for it anyway, so defend I shall not), but his finer films like "Reservoir Dogs," "Pulp Fiction," and "Jackie Brown" have notably not shied away from violent characters or situations, but have been Greek-like in their portrayal of violence. The infamous ear scene in "Reservoir Dogs," for example, was not seen, as Tarantino's camera shifted to the left, away from the imagery. Not too dissimilar from "Oedipus," no?

The violence of "Battle Royale," though, is one aspect of the film I found difficult to forgive. Martin Scorsese defended violence in his films in an interview with NPR in 2002 for his movie "Gangs of New York." Scorsese claimed that violence is justified in films if it is honest. The violence of "Battle Royale" is, similar to countless Japanese films, hyperbolic. What is unusual, however, is that the violence is directed towards children. Gene Siskel said in his review of "Aliens" that one of the cheapest effects employed in films is to show a child in peril. Siskel would be absolutely disgusted by this film, because the violence is practically exclusive to teenagers, and unlike many Hollywood films in which older, adult actors play teenagers, these are genuine fifteen-year-olds playing these characters. Violence against children, in movies or not, has never been attractive to me, and these teenage characters are frightened, confused, and the vast, vast majority of them are killed in a terrible way. The first two executions in particular are such awful images and if they deserve some defense, it cannot be found from this reviewer. Tarantino will forever be more of an authority figure on motion pictures, and so it would be interesting to hear his thoughts on this.

Until then, it strikes the question of whether or not violence is always necessary in films, or if the world's filmmakers, like Tarantino, are obsessed with images of violence. If Scorsese is right that violence is necessary in movies if it is honest, then both American and Japanese filmmakers do not always fall in line with that, especially the makers of "Battle Royale."

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Crossing the Line

At the beginning of Daniel Gordon's documentary, "Crossing the Line," James Dresnok is "doing very good," but he's a little angry. Why he is angry is explained later, but the point is that Mr. Dresnok is a blue-eyed good ol' Southern boy, who happens to be living in North Korea.

Dresnok explains that he has never regretted coming to North Korea. His particular statements are what make his story and this film so fascinating. North Korea is universally acknowledged to be the last testament of the Cold War, completely isolated from the world and sheltered to the point of chronic alienation. Propaganda is propaganda (and Gordon and his crew do an extremely effective job at largely avoiding a propagandist vernacular and tone), and the Western world has come to fear North Korea, its nuclear arsenal, and its leader, believed by the West to be erratic and dangerous, possibly unstable. How could an American be living in North Korea? Has he been brainwashed? Is he being held against his will? No regrets? The latter appears so, and Dresnok will explain why. Mr. Dresnok is going to tell a story he has never told anyone.

James Joseph Dresnok has been living in North Korea twice as long as he lived in America. He has a sweet Southern twang, and is a large fellow, simultaneously frightening and harmless. He is described by the narrator Christian Slater (who is constantly matter-of-fact and neutral in his narration) as being of a broken home, abandoned parents, and developing a rebellious attitude, always wanting to run away. He is heartbroken in describing his first wife who fell in love with another man while he was stationed in Germany. He again left for the army and was stationed at the DMZ, a place Bill Clinton described as the scariest place on the planet. Having been to the DMZ myself, his statement is mostly accurate, though I would not use the word scary so much as surreal. After seriously disrespecting the orders of his superiors, he said "to hell with this," and in daylight ran across the mine field and was captured by North Korean soldiers. The recounts of his defection are described by Dresnock, U.S., and even North Korean soldiers (one of whom wanted to kill him because both of his parents had been killed by the Americans).

North Korea is scary enough now, so imagine what it would have been like for an American four decades ago. While South Korea is still one of the most homogeneous nations in the world, it is climbing towards one million foreigners in its land; the same cannot be said about their neighbors to the North, and North Koreans probably would have had even greater hatred and suspicion of Americans than today.

Dresnok soon met a fellow defector, and eventually there were a total of four. One of them was named Charles Jenkins. They all became scared, confused, and ready to retreat to the Soviet Union, whose embassy turned them back over to the North Koreans. Dresnok became determined to understand Korean culture and language and become one of them. The four were initially viewed skeptically by the North Koreans, but they, especially Dresnok, eventually became celebrities when the government instructed them to appear as American villains in a 1978 propaganda film. Incidentally, while South Korea's cinema has reached a global audience in an incredibly short period of time, North Korea claims to have given to a global audience the world's most "wonderful" movies. I challenge you to find someone who has seen a single North Korean film.

At the time of the filming, Dresnok was the last defector in North Korea. Two had died, and Jenkins and his wife, a Japanese woman who had been captured by North Korea, escaped to Japan. He was arrested and served thirty days in prison. He released a book describing his misery in Pyongyang, and claimed that Dresnok would beat him if he did not fully comply with the government's wishes. Dresnok claims he is an absolute liar, and Dresnok's emotions shift from reflective to empathetic to sad to proud (as almost any man his age would); it is here, in describing Jenkins—his actions and his words—where Dresnok gets really, really angry. As for Jenkins, he is still alive, living in Japan, and several years ago he returned briefly to the United States to visit his ninety-one-year-old mother before returning to Japan. Dresnok also has a family. His second wife was an Eastern European woman, who birthed him two handsome boys, and although it is not mentioned in the documentary, they are constantly striking awe and flirtation in Korean women, though one of them at least does not want to marry a Korean woman. Dresnok's third and current wife is the biracial daughter of a black parent (again, this is not mentioned in the documentary). Their very young son, Dresnok's third, has curly hair and darker skin. All three of his children are attractive, and Dresnok appears totally blissful in Pyongyang, a country where people are starving to death (at least the government recently executed the scapegoat behind their failed currency redenomination). Dresnok at least is perfectly aware that North Koreans are starving, and he is deeply moved that he still gets rice rations from the government.

Documentarians are often praised for their bravery. These filmmakers are incredibly brave, having filmed in North Korea for three different documentaries (one on the country's soccer team and another on athletes preparing for the Arirang Festival). They are also risking the possibility of facing accusations that they are giving undeserved attention to a defector, communist and anti-American traitor. Sympathy is sympathy and empathy is empathy. Do both exist here? It's in the eye of the beholder, but I found both, though I suppose I'm a little weary of being called a communist.

Movies are usually seen through prisms and experiences. Here's mine: I have lived in South Korea for about seven months. I have become much more interested in North Korea than I was in the United States, but not because South Koreans are interested in North Korea (most of them are clearly not). I have been to the DMZ, as mentioned, and tours to a city called Kaesong, or Gaesong, have been suspended by the South after North Korean soldiers shot and killed a South Korean tourist. The North and South are currently negotiating terms to open up the tours again. Relations between the two are currently at their usual worst, but if the tours were to reopen, I would consider traveling to Kaesong in a second. When I watched this film, it was about a week after a South Korean vessel suffered an explosion and thereby sank it, causing the deaths of nearly fifty South Korean navy men. As of now, it is not clear if North Korea was responsible. If conflicts do heat up again, Mr. Dresnok and I are geographically speaking not too far apart, and we will be first-row witnesses to the tempest.

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