Big Ideas Simply Explained - The Movie Book

ANGELS AND MONSTERS 249 What else to watch: In Which We Serve (1942) ■ The Cruel Sea (1953) ■ Above Us the Waves (1955) ■ The Enemy Below (1957) ■ Sink the Bismarck! (1960) ■ The Hunt for Red October (1990) ■ Crimson Tide (1995) ■ Lebanon (2009) Nerves become strained as the mechanics desperately try to figure out a way of refloating the U-boat before it becomes crushed by depth pressure. made war thrilling. Not all critics inside a real U-boat (on dry land), popping of rivets as the boat dives agreed with Buchheim. Audiences which could be tilted to 45 degrees to a dangerously low depth. Second came out of the movie drained to simulate a sudden dive. Two is the cinematography of Jost physically and emotionally. techniques contribute to the Vacano. Despite the cramped space, Petersen’s movie does not depend heightened realism. The first is Vacano used a handheld camera to on thrilling action sequences, an innovative use of sound. When create a sense of intimacy, training though there are those. Rather, it destroyers are circling above the himself to run through narrow oscillates between tense moments U-boat, all we hear in the silence spaces and over bulkheads. The of danger and the tedium of weeks are the sonar pings ringing off the effect he created has influenced of fruitless hunting, in which the hull, or the ferrous groaning and a whole generation of movies. ■ relationships between crew members becomes fraught. The movie’s grip is in its psychology rather than in its action sequences. As its tagline said, it is “A journey to the edge of the mind.” Putting us in the boat Das Boot’s power stems from the director’s determination to attain realism. He makes viewers understand what it was like to be in a wartime submarine, attempting desperate repairs, running out of oxygen and time. The movie was shot almost entirely Wolfgang Petersen Director Wolfgang Petersen is Germany’s the prestige to direct Hollywood leading director of action movies. thrillers such as In the Line Born in Emden, Germany, in 1941, of Fire with Clint Eastwood, he studied theater in Berlin and Outbreak (1995) with Dustin Hamburg, before enrolling in the Hoffman, and the hugely Berlin Film and Television popular Air Force One with Academy, after which he was Harrison Ford, Gary Oldman, making movies for television. In and Glenn Close. 1974, he directed his first feature, the thriller One of the Other of Us, Key movies and then in 1977 the controversial Die Konsequenz, a movie about 1981 Das Boot gay love. But he made his name 1993 In the Line of Fire with Das Boot, which gave him 1997 Air Force One

I’VE SEEN THINGS YOU PEOPLE WOULDN’T BELIEVE BLADE RUNNER / 1982



252 BLADE RUNNER N ear the end of Blade As poignant as any sci-fi film Runner, Roy Batty (Rutger I know… a film noir that IN CONTEXT Hauer), a fugitive at large bleeds over into tragedy. in a near-future Los Angeles, David Thomson GENRE delivers his last words to an ex-cop Science fiction, thriller called Deckard (Harrison Ford). “I’ve Have You Seen…?, 2008 seen things you people wouldn’t DIRECTOR believe,” he says softly. “Attack Lang’s Metropolis (1927) to the Ridley Scott ships on fire off the shoulder of mysterious black obelisk that Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in bookends Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A WRITERS the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. Space Odyssey (1968). While Blade Hampton Fancher, David All those moments will be lost in Runner also shimmers with visual Webb Peoples (screenplay); time, like tears in rain. Time to die.” poetry, it is Batty’s lament, a few Philip K. Dick (novel, Do lines of semi-improvised dialogue, Androids Dream of The speech strikes at a moral that truly cements the movie’s Electric Sheep?) dilemma, because Roy Batty place in movie history. The words isn’t human—he’s a “replicant,” articulate a question that hangs STARS an android bioengineered by over Scott’s enigmatic masterpiece: Harrison Ford, Rutger industrial scientists at the what does it mean to be human? Hauer, Sean Young, all-powerful Tyrell Corporation. Daryl Hannah Replicants are supposed to be Blade Runner is set in 2019, a machines, yet Batty’s desire to live long way off to the audiences who BEFORE and questioning nature prove that first lined up to see it in 1982. 1979 Ridley Scott’s first foray he has consciousness. For Deckard, At the time of its release, the movie into the future is the science- a specially trained detective (blade presented a new kind of future, a fiction horror Alien. runner) whose job it is to hunt down weird fusion of familiar elements: and liquidate rogue replicants, this corporate buildings the size and AFTER realization is particularly relevant. shape of Babylonian ziggurats; the 2006 Philip K. Dick’s novel If Batty can feel sorrow and longing, A Scanner Darkly, about a then how is he any different from future in the grip of an all-out his creators? war on drugs, is adapted as a partially animated thriller. A hanging question Science-fiction cinema is often 2012 Ridley Scott returns memorable for its unforgettable to science fiction with visual images, from the robotic Prometheus, a prequel to Maria sparking into life in Fritz the Alien franchise. Minute by minute 00:31 01:02 01:44 Rachael visits Rachael shoots Leon After a chase across 00:07 Deckard at his to save Deckard. Back the rooftops, Batty saves Leon shoots the blade apartment. He at Deckard’s apartment, Deckard from falling. Batty runner Holden, who has tells her about her they make love. then sits down and dies. been testing him to see memories to show her if he is a replicant. that she’s a replicant. 00:00 00:15 00:30 00:45 01:00 01:15 01:30 02:00 00:17 00:50 01:22 01:52 Deckard tests Rachael Deckard tracks down Sebastian helps Batty As Deckard and Rachael and discovers that she is a Zhora to a bar where she get an audience with leave his apartment, he picks replicant. Tyrell tells him performs with a snake. Tyrell. Batty asks Tyrell up an origami unicorn. Does that she does not know He chases her and for more life, but is told Gaff know his dreams? Does what she is. shoots her dead. that it is not possible. that make him a replicant?

ANGELS AND MONSTERS 253 What else to watch: Metropolis (1927, pp.32–33) ■ 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968, pp.192–93) ■ Brazil (1985, p.340) ■ Ghost in the Shell (1995) ■ Gattaca (1997) Genetic designer J. F. Sebastian In Blade Runner, the future is Ridley Scott Director (William Sanderson, left) helps Pris a place in which humans and (Daryl Hannah) to reach Tyrell. He machines have become all but Ridley Scott is a British has a premature-aging disease that indistinguishable. Robotics, voice- director, born in 1937, whose makes replicants sympathetic to him. activated computer systems, bionic movies combine cool visual implants, artificial intelligence, and style with dynamic storytelling teeming night markets like those genetic programming are part of and crowd-pleasing Hollywood of Tokyo in the 1980s; the mean the culture, and all controlled by chutzpah. His debut feature, streets of postwar pulp detective faceless corporate mega-entities. The Duellists, was swiftly fiction; the crumbling architecture In this dehumanized age, people followed by science-fiction of 19th-century Los Angeles. The are forced to take a polygraph-like horror Alien and the futuristic flying cars offer viewers a futuristic exam (the “Voight-Kampff test”) dystopia Blade Runner, two glimpse, but they are piloted by to prove that they are human. classics of modern cinema. militaristic beat cops—symbols Through the 1980s, Scott of fear rather than progress. The replicants are the ultimate established himself as a product of this bleakly mechanized hard-working filmmaker, but it Dystopian vision human society. They look and act was not until the 1991 mold- For moviegoers more used to like people, but they are not people. breaking female road-movie the escapism of Star Wars (1977), They have limited lifespans—four Thelma & Louise that he came Scott’s vision of a mashed-up years in Batty’s case—and are bred close to matching the success near-future is disorienting. In its “off-world,” forbidden to visit Earth. of his science-fiction double depiction of people’s relationship Deckard believes these unfortunate act. A decade later he hit big with new technologies, the movie creatures are nothing more than once more, going back in time retains its power to unnerve. automatons—until he falls in love with the Roman epic Gladiator. with Rachael during his hunt for ❯❯ In 2001, Scott directed the war movie, Black Hawk Down, It’s not an easy thing to meet based on a US raid on your maker. Mogadishu. He returned to science fiction in 2012 with the Roy Batty / Blade Runner Alien prequel Prometheus. Key movies 1977 The Duellists 1979 Alien 1982 Blade Runner 1991 Thelma & Louise 2000 Gladiator

254 BLADE RUNNER Batty pulls Deckard to safety before sitting down and ending the chase. He knows that his time is nearly over, and finally gives up the urge to carry on. Batty and his three associates, who truth as he interrogates her. He also says Batty as he dangles the have come to Earth in search of senses something else, a gnawing battered Deckard from a rooftop. answers. Rachael (Sean Young) is fear that his own memories could “That’s what it is to be a slave.” a Tyrell employee who, unusually, also be an illusion. Is Deckard a Batty and his fellow replicants are doesn’t know she’s a replicant—she replicant too? How would he know? staging a revolution, forcing their can remember growing up. Deckard makers to see them as possessors tells her those memories are fake, Human identity crisis of souls in need of liberation. They copied from her creator’s niece, but Blade Runner is a portrait of humanity have been labeled inhuman, called he cannot banish his own nagging in the throes of an identity crisis, “skin jobs” by Police Chief Bryant doubts: Rachael, like Batty, like all but Scott’s movie is also concerned (M. Emmet Walsh). They are replicants, is a living being, and with inhumanity. “Quite an “retired” rather than killed, and Deckard senses the stirring of this experience to live in fear, isn’t it?” society treats them accordingly. Blade Runner is prescient— it foresees a world immersed in technology, an urban sprawl in which humans adopt machines as extensions of themselves. As its vision of tomorrow edges nearer, the movie’s questions grow more insistent. How long will it be before our own inventions begin to think, question, and feel like us? How will we respond to their awakening? When they refer to us bitterly as “you people,” will we be able to look them in the eye—or will we be too afraid of seeing our own reflection? ■ Is Deckard a replicant? Many Blade Runner fans speculate that Deckard is a replicant. Replicant There are a number of possible clues. • Deckard’s eyes glow orange (as replicants’ do) in a few scenes. Human • Replicants are illegal on Earth; why would • Rachael asks Deckard if he has taken the Tyrell allow Deckard to operate independently, Voight-Kampff test; he doesn’t answer. and why would police employ a replicant? • When Roy—a replicant—saves Deckard • Deckard doesn’t respond to the origami from falling off the roof, he shouts “Kinship!” unicorn that Gaff leaves outside his room and its implication that he is a replicant. • Deckard dreams of a unicorn; blade runner Gaff places an origami unicorn outside his room, hinting • Philip K. Dick’s original book explicitly states that Deckard is human. that Deckard’s memories are implanted. • Ford endorses this view. • Scott states that Deckard is a replicant.

ANGELS AND MONSTERS 255 The movie was first released with a voice-over by Deckard explaining the plot, and an upbeat ending. In 2007, a “final cut” was released with both removed on Scott’s request.

256 I CAN’T FIGURE OUT IF YOU’RE A DETECTIVE OR A PERVERT BLUE VELVET / 1986 IN CONTEXT R ich, haunting and Jeffrey (Kyle MacLachlan) finds subversive, Blue Velvet himself trapped in Dorothy’s closet GENRE is the story of a college when Frank arrives. He must look Thriller, mystery student drawn into the seamy on helpless at what unfolds. underside of his hometown after he DIRECTOR finds a severed human ear in a field. his later masterpiece, Mulholland David Lynch Dr. Instead it follows the structure Since his extraordinary 1977 of an old-fashioned film noir, as WRITER debut with Eraserhead, David the curious but strait-laced young David Lynch Lynch has become a genre unto student Jeffrey (Kyle MacLachlan) himself, a master of combining the falls for the wholesome Sandy STARS shocking, the comic, and the (Laura Dern), but is also attracted Kyle MacLachlan, Isabella surreal in what feel like visions to the nightclub singer Dorothy Rossellini, Dennis Hopper, straight from the subconscious— (Isabella Rossellini), who is trapped Laura Dern cinematic dreams (or nightmares). in an abusive relationship with the If anything, Blue Velvet is one of psychopathic villain Frank (Dennis BEFORE his more straightforward movies, Hopper). This dynamic is clearly 1957 Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear without the complex structure of Window explores the nature of voyeurism as a wheelchair- bound photographer spies on his neighbors. 1977 Lynch’s debut feature Eraserhead is a surreal horror shot in black and white. AFTER 1980 The Elephant Man is Lynch’s sensitive real-life drama about a disfigured man. 2001 Mulholland Dr. is Lynch’s neo-noir LA mystery about an aspiring actress.

ANGELS AND MONSTERS 257 What else to watch: Peeping Tom (1960, p.334) ■ Eraserhead (1977, p.338) ■ Lost Highway (1997) ■ Mulholland Dr. (2001, p.342) ■ Inland Empire (2006) a throwback to the noir era, although innocence is as much of a lie as David Lynch Director Lynch adds a very modern take on the seemingly perfect front yard sexual deviancy and voyeurism. from the prologue. David Lynch was born in 1946 The repulsion we feel in witnessing in Missoula, Montana, a small Frank’s perversions is amplified by Blue Velvet approaches horror in town not dissimilar to those Lynch’s fondness for noir tropes, so a new way. Its depravity derives not featured in his movies. His that the audience is made to feel from guns and gore, but from sex debut feature, Eraserhead, that he is corrupting something used as a vehicle for the worst was a cult success that took familiar to them all. aspects of humanity. The hero, him to Hollywood, where he Jeffrey, is seen hiding in a closet, directed The Elephant Man The horror beneath a voyeur peeping at Dorothy. Frank and Dune. The latter was a One of Lynch’s favorite stylistic is threatening physically, but his flop, but he reestablished themes is the artificiality of postwar sado-masochism is what makes his career with the critical Americana and the darkness that him terrifying. This key moment, success of Blue Velvet and lies beneath it. The opening scene placing us in the closet with Jeffrey the surreal TV series Twin pans through an idealized suburban as he watches Frank rape Dorothy, yard, with neat, white picket fences is one of cinema’s Peaks. He has since and blooming flowers, the owner most unsettling followed a singular of which suffers a stroke while examinations path, creating watering his plants. The family pet of sexual movies that rushes to drink the water from the deviancy, as could only ever discarded hose, while the shot pans well as being have been made deeper into the grass to reveal a the moment by him. colony of ants foraging relentlessly. when Lynch The surface world is a veneer of perfected his Key movies happiness, below which there exists distinctive themes, baseness, struggle, and violence. tones, and 1977 Eraserhead darkness. ■ 1986 Blue Velvet This theme is 1990 Wild at Heart continued in the 2001 Mulholland Dr. director’s use of 2006 Inland Empire music. From Bobby Vinton’s Blue Velvet in the title track to Roy Orbison’s In Dreams, Lynch hijacks innocent songs of romantic longing and juxtaposes them with Frank’s broken sexuality, going so far as to have him quote the lyrics while he beats up Jeffrey. It’s almost as if the music’s You’ve got about The blue velvet of the one second to title is a robe that Frank live buddy! forces Dorothy to wear as he rapes her. Typically for Frank Booth / Blue Velvet Lynch, a beautiful thing is used for a corrupt end.

258 WHY AM I ME, AND WHY NOT YOU? WINGS OF DESIRE / 1987 IN CONTEXT I nspired by the visionary story of an angel, tired of his poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke immortal life of care, who falls in GENRE and scripted by the playwright love with a circus trapeze artist— New German Cinema Peter Handke, Wim Wenders’ and of another, played by Peter Wings of Desire (Der Himmel über Falk, who has already found DIRECTOR Berlin) is both a moving allegory contentment by crossing over. Wim Wenders of Berlin—just two years before the fall of the Wall—and a poignant The angels Damiel (Bruno Ganz) and WRITERS study of the need for love and what Cassiel (Otto Sander) are an invisible Wim Wenders, Peter it means to be human. It is the presence in people’s lives. Handke, Richard Reitinger STARS Bruno Ganz, Solveig Dommartin, Otto Sander, Curt Bois, Peter Falk BEFORE 1953 Yasujiro Ozu’s Tokyo Story shows everyday life as a struggle of quiet desperation. 1972 Andrei Tarkovsky meditates on existence with Solaris, a slow-paced science-fiction movie. AFTER 1993 Wenders’ sequel to Wings of Desire is Faraway, So Close!

ANGELS AND MONSTERS 259 What else to watch: La Belle et la Bête (1946, pp.84–85) ■ It’s a Wonderful Life (1946, pp.88–93) ■ Andrei Rublev (1966) ■ Alice in the Cities (1974) ■ The American Friend (1977) ■ The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979) Film is a very, very powerful medium. It can either confirm the idea that things are wonderful the way they are, or it can reinforce the conception that things can be changed. Wim Wenders Watching from on high and dreams, almost as if they were The movie At the beginning of the movie two listening to snatches from different poster shows angels, Damiel (Bruno Ganz) and radio stations while turning the the angel Damiel Cassiel (Otto Sander), gaze down dial—parents worried about their perched high above at the city of Berlin from on high, son, the memories of a Holocaust Berlin at the top of gliding through the air or poised victim. The angels may sometimes the Victory Statue. atop the city’s great monuments. be sensed, but only children can The movie’s They are there to listen and actually see them. sweeping shots observe, as they have done since give an angel’s-eye long before the city was built. view of the city. Their role is to give people hope, or the intuition that they are not Why am I here? alone. However, they are unable At the start of the movie is a to intervene directly—and they poem, written by Handke, which are unable to experience anything explains why. “When the child physically themselves. was a child, it didn’t know it was a child. Everything was full of life, The movie unfolds at a and all life was one.” Later in the measured pace. It is patient, like movie, the poem continues, “When the angels themselves as they the child was a child, it was the listen in on human thoughts, fears, time of the following questions: Why am I me and why not you? To draw all the demons of the earth Why am I here and why not there?” from passers-by and to chase them out into the world. To be a savage. The angels, who know the answers to these questions, are Marion / Wings of Desire somehow bereft. They might know and see everything as they gaze ❯❯

260 WINGS OF DESIRE Physical and metaphysical themes of duality are explored within the movie. Self-reflective and alone, Marion is the earthly equivalent of the angel Damiel. is the right decision, because Peter Falk, an angel who crossed over long ago, is a living testament of contentment. In crossing over, he has not lost his spiritual side but reunites the spiritual with the material, the child with the adult. He can still sense the presence of the angels, saying “I can’t see you, but I know you’re here.” down from on high—as the movie captures the pleasure in everyday Finish vs spontaneity shows with its dizzying aerial experiments with identity that are The parts of Damiel and Cassiel shots. But they feel nothing of the beyond the angels. were scripted by Peter Handke, simple sensual pleasures of being since Wenders felt the angels human, the joy in the mundane— Separations should speak in elevated language, a division shown cinematically Wings of Desire is about dualities but Peter Falk’s part is almost by shooting every scene with and separations. Set in a city entirely improvised. Falk plays a the angels in black and white. divided artificially by the Berlin version of himself, an American In an improvised scene, Peter Wall, the spiritual is actor who is in Berlin to make Falk tries on various hats with a separated from a movie about its Nazi past. costume director, a simple act that the sensual, The children in the streets as the heavenly call him “Columbo,” The film is like music from the mundane, after the or a landscape: It clears men from women, adults from children. Above all, the movie is TV detective in the a space in my mind, about how we are all separated series that had made Falk and in that space I can from each other, and a deep sense a famous screen presence. of loneliness runs through it. consider questions. At one point, Wenders noticed Roger Ebert When the angel Damiel begins Falk making sketches of extras. to fall for the beautiful but lonely He decided to incorporate this into Chicago Sun-Times, 1998 trapeze artist Marion (Solveig the movie, and had Falk improvise Dommartin), we sense that they a voice-over, which gains resonance should be together. The process is from its roughness: “These people slow, and in the end Damiel must are extras, extra people,” says finally choose whether or not to Falk. “Extras are so patient.” give up his immortal status in The contrast between the refined, order to experience a physical rehearsed script of the angels love for this woman. The viewer and the rough spontaneity and is encouraged to believe that this mundanity of the scenes with Falk represents the two halves of human life that need to come together.

ANGELS AND MONSTERS 261 Marion is a trapeze artist at a failing circus. She lives in a trailer, and leads a lonely existence dancing on her own and wandering the streets of Berlin. Wenders dedicated his movie meditations full of spiritual Wim Wenders to three “filmmaking angels,” yearning. Rainer Maria Rilke once Director directors whose work inspired wrote that “Physical pleasure… him. The first is Yasujiro Ozu, is a great unending experience, Born in Düsseldorf, Germany, who showed how to depict the which is given us, a knowing of in 1945, Wim Wenders is quiet desperation of the mundane. the world, the fullness and the known for his lush, lyrical The second, François Truffaut, glory of all knowing.” Falk’s joy in filmmaking. He studied the simple experience of tasting medicine and philosophy at demonstrated how to film the coffee is spiritual and drives home university before dropping reality of children as a profound the idea that to have experience at out to become a painter. experience. The third, Andrei all is a wonder of being alive. ■ However, cinema became his Tarkovsky, created slow-paced focus and he enrolled in the University of Television and The whole place is full of those who Film Munich (HFF). Wenders are dreaming the same dream. soon became one of the leading lights of the New Cassiel / Wings of Desire German Cinema movement. The director first came to prominence with his feature The Goalkeeper’s Fear of the Penalty Kick, based on a novel by Peter Handke. The English- language Paris, Texas, with a screenplay by Sam Shepard, brought him international fame. He has also made documentaries, the most successful of which was Buena Vista Social Club, about a group of aging musicians in Havana, Cuba. Key movies 1972 The Goalkeeper’s Fear of the Penalty Kick 1984 Paris, Texas 1987 Wings of Desire 1999 Buena Vista Social Club

262 I THOUGHT THIS ONLY HAPPENED IN THE MOVIES WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN / 1988 IN CONTEXT W omen on the Verge of the 1940s. It looks to the past, but a Nervous Breakdown the movie’s comedy is also thrillingly GENRE (Mujeres al borde de un contemporary. Post-Franco Madrid Comedy drama ataque de nervios) is the story of is the perfect setting for its manic Pepa (Carmen Maura), a Spanish farce, with Almódovar whipping up DIRECTOR actress who dubs the voices of US subplots involving Arab terrorists, Pedro Almodóvar movies with her faithless boyfriend, dance-crazy cab drivers, and soup Iván (Fernando Guillén). Their spiked with sleeping pills. Yet the WRITER relationship is not so much a love boisterous stuff is shot through with Pedro Almodóvar story as a door-slamming farce. the director’s trademark sense STARS Panic attack of humanity.■ Carmen Maura, Antonio It’s perhaps appropriate that the Banderas, Julieta Serrano, meaning of the movie’s title María Barranco gets lost in translation. The ataques de nervios of the BEFORE Spanish title refers to a 1980 Almodóvar makes panic attack, a state of his ultra low-budget, playfully breathlessness that outrageous debut with Pepi, director Pedro Almodóvar Luci, Bom, and Other Girls sustains at a madcap pace Like Mom. inspired by the Hollywood “screwball” comedies of AFTER 1999 All About My Mother, At Pepa’s one of Almodóvar’s best, brings apartment, a all his themes to the boil. suicidal Candela (María Barranco) 2002 Almodóvar’s Talk to is distracted by Her is a controversial, highly Carlos (Antonio charged romantic thriller Banderas). about two men caring for two women, both of whom What else to watch: Matador (1986) ■ Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (1989) ■ are in a coma. High Heels (1991) ■ Live Flesh (1997) ■ Volver (2006) ■ The Skin I Live In (2011)

ANGELS AND MONSTERS 263 BEING HAPPY ISN’T ALL THAT GREAT SEX, LIES, AND VIDEOTAPE / 1989 IN CONTEXT G raham (James Spader), MacDowell) is married to Graham’s the protagonist of Sex, old friend John (Peter Gallagher), GENRE Lies, and Videotape, is who is cheating on her with her Independent drama young, handsome, intelligent— sister. Ann and John no longer and impotent. He achieves sexual make love, and Ann thinks sex DIRECTOR satisfaction only when watching is overrated. At first horrified by Steven Soderbergh videos he has made of female Graham’s unusual predilections, acquaintances talking about about which he is disarmingly WRITER their sexual fantasies. Ann (Andie open, Ann soon opens herself up Steven Soderbergh on camera—and in the process discovers that she is not quite STARS who she thought she was. James Spader, Andie MacDowell, Peter Gallagher, The movie launched the career Laura San Giacomo of director Steven Soderbergh, who would go on to become one BEFORE of the most unpredictable talents 1974 John Cassavetes’ A in American movies. Just as Woman Under the Influence significantly, it was vital in kindling is financed by the director a new wave of US independent mortgaging his house; it wins cinema. After his movie won the him an Oscar nomination. Palme d’Or, Soderbergh’s success AFTER helped lay the ground for creators 1991 Richard Linklater’s like Spike Lee, Richard Linklater, Slacker is a freewheeling and Quentin Tarantino, who work amble through Austin, Texas, outside the studio system. ■ that receives acclaim amid renewed interest in new young Written in a week and made American filmmakers. on a small budget, Sex, Lies, and Videotape nonetheless managed 1998 Soderbergh has a to achieve box-office success. mainstream hit with Out of Sight, starring George Clooney. What else to watch: Do the Right Thing (1989, p.264) ■ Slacker (1991) ■ Reservoir Dogs (1992, p.340) ■ Safe (1995) ■ In the Company of Men (1997)

264 TODAY’S TEMPERATURE’S GONNA RISE UP OVER 100 DEGREES DO THE RIGHT THING / 1989 IN CONTEXT F ew movies capture the unease. The story is set in New drama of city life as York, in the diverse Brooklyn GENRE successfully as Spike Lee’s neighborhood of Bedford- Drama Do the Right Thing. The story is Stuyvesant, where racial tension is driven by outrage at racial never far beneath the surface. As DIRECTOR discrimination, but the movie the temperature rises, the veneer of Spike Lee conveys its message with sizzling civility begins to crack, and a energy and a refusal to offer any montage of characters is shown WRITER easy solutions. From the first scene, delivering a stream of racial abuse Spike Lee in which a radio DJ announces the direct to camera, each face wild heat wave that engulfs his listeners, with hatred. STARS the physical discomfort of the Spike Lee, Danny Aiello, characters is a metaphor for social Mookie, played by Lee himself, Ossie Davis, John Turturro works as a pizza delivery man for Do the Right Thing doesn’t ask Sal (Danny Aiello). Previously seen BEFORE its audiences to choose sides; as a tolerant man, Sal unleashes his 1965 In The Hill, directed by it is scrupulously fair to both own verbal tirade when black youths Sidney Lumet, racial tensions sides, in a story where it is our stage a protest after an argument rise among soldiers in the society itself that is not fair. over why his restaurant only displays intense heat of Libya’s desert. pictures of Italian-Americans, when Roger Ebert most of his customers are black. As 1986 She’s Gotta Have It is tempers fray, the protest escalates Lee’s comedy about a Brooklyn into violence. By the time the police girl juggling three suitors. arrive, the whole neighborhood is threatening to boil over into chaos. AFTER 1992 Lee makes Malcolm X, Do the Right Thing is a movie a critically acclaimed biopic of brimming with life but shot through the radical civil rights activist. with ambivalence. Even in a racially diverse community, it is 2006 Inside Man is Lee’s saying, there is a worrying limit to hugely successful movie anyone’s tolerance. ■ about a Wall Street bank heist, starring Denzel Washington. What else to watch: The Cardinal (1963) ■ Jungle Fever (1991) ■ Malcolm X (1992) ■ 25th Hour (2002) ■ Inside Man (2006) ■ Selma (2014)

ANGELS AND MONSTERS 265 SHE HAS THE FACE OF BUDDHA AND THE HEART OF A SCORPION RAISE THE RED LANTERN / 1991 IN CONTEXT W ith its portrayal of the its admirers as a feminist parable, traditional formalities of director Zhang Yimou insists it was GENRE the past, Raise the Red neither. His use of the color red is Historical drama Lantern initially seems more archaic perhaps best seen as a metaphor for than it really is: it is set in the 1920s, the constraining effects of Chinese DIRECTOR in the warlord era before China’s Communism after the crackdown Zhang Yimou Civil War of 1927. Songlian (Gong Li) that followed the Tiananmen is a penniless teenage girl who Square protests of 1989. WRITERS becomes the fourth concubine Ni Zhen (screenplay); of Master Chen. Rivals, the four Fading hopes Su Tong (novel) women live in an uneasy truce, but Betrayed by her rivals and a jealous Songlian soon learns that she is the maid, Songlian goes mad. She swaps STARS target of a secret conspiracy. her elaborate robes for her white Gong Li, He Saifei, Cao school blouse, oblivious to the red Cuifen, Jingwu Ma Although the movie was initially lanterns that are lit to show whom seen by its critics as a tourist-board the master chooses each night. ■ BEFORE version of Chinese history and by 1984 Zhang Yimou is the cinematographer for Chen The red Kaige’s historical drama lanterns Yellow Earth. symbolize each concubine’s 1987 Red Sorghum, Zhang’s desperate hope debut, wins the top prize at that the Master the 1988 Berlin Film Festival. will favor her over the others. 1990 Zhang’s rural drama Ju Dou is China’s first nomination What else to watch: One and Eight (1983) ■ Yellow Earth (1984) ■ for an Academy Award for Best The Old Well (1986) ■ Red Sorghum (1987) ■ Ju Dou (1990) Foreign Language film. AFTER 2002 Zhang’s wuxia martial arts epic, Hero, is a global hit.

SMALL WORLD 1992–PRESENT



268 INTRODUCTION Quentin Tarantino’s Danish directors David Lynch continues to debut feature, the Lars von Trier and stylish thriller Thomas Vinterberg take explore nonlinear Ang Lee brings wuxia Reservoir Dogs, an artistic “vow of chastity” with their narratives in Lost to an international announces a confident Dogme 95 manifesto. new talent. Highway; Curtis Hanson audience with conjures up the spirit of film Crouching Tiger, noir with LA Confidential. Hidden Dragon. 1992 1995 1997 2000 1994 1996 1998 2002 With a story by Quentin Joel and Ethan Coen Vinterberg’s Contemporary Tarantino, Oliver Stone find warmth in a tale first Dogme movie, gang life is vividly shocks and challenges of icy violence with portrayed in City of audiences with the Festen, is shot God, while Gangs Fargo, while David using a handheld of New York depicts violence of Natural Cronenberg provokes digital camera. 19th-century crime. Born Killers. audiences with Crash. A s this book nears the When people ask me if I wuxia but purpose made by its end of its broad sweep of went to film school, I tell them Taiwanese-American director Ang movie history, the time Lee to be accessible to audiences has come to introduce Quentin “no, I went to films.” across the world. From Brazil, Tarantino. By the early 1990s, a Quentin Tarantino Fernando Meirelles’s City of God century of movies was available to applied the stylistic swagger of filmmakers to pay homage to and norm for movie lovers to celebrate Martin Scorsese to a story set in to repurpose. Tarantino—a movie the movies of Southeast Asia, the favelas of Rio. obsessive who filled his movies Turkey, India, and Latin America. with endless nudges and nods to Cultures clashed, to glorious effect: Digital revolution that past—was a controversial Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon A less heralded revolution also figure from the moment the world was a martial arts extravaganza stirred in the last days of the 20th saw his debut Reservoir Dogs. But steeped in the Chinese tradition of century. Since the dawn of cinema, no one could question the filmmakers had been just that: excitement he generated. film was not just the name of the art form, it was what physically Beyond Hollywood went into cameras and projectors. From the 1990s onward, Hollywood In 1998, the Danish family drama was increasingly one part of a Festen, filmed according to the bigger story. The curious audience rules of the Dogme 95 manifesto, was looking far afield, and rather became the first high-profile movie than the occasional box-office to be shot on digital video, then breakout, it was becoming the mostly used in cheap home

Peter Jackson completes Guillermo del Toro The Hurt Locker wins SMALL WORLD 269 his blockbuster Lord of mixes fantasy with director Kathryn gritty realism in his Bigelow an Oscar; Jackson’s The Hobbit: the Rings trilogy; Danny Boyle adds a An Unexpected Tarantino continues to Spanish drama show stylish invention Pan’s Labyrinth. touch of Bollywood Journey is the first with Kill Bill: Volume 1. style to Slumdog commercial feature Millionaire. movie to be shot at a high frame rate of 48 frames per second. 2003 2006 2008 2012 2003 2007 2011 2013 Park Chan-wook’s Paul Thomas Anderson Turkish director Nuri In Gravity, Alfonso innovative and violent tells a tale of oil and Bilge Ceylan’s Once Upon Cuarón uses the latest thriller Oldboy brings greed in his historical a Time in Anatolia charts computer technology South Korean cinema epic There Will to produce a visually Be Blood. the grim duties of a to an international homicide team. stunning 3D space audience. adventure. camcorders. Nothing would be the jagged energy of its special the children of a German village in the same again. In the short term, effects ideal for a story about the 1913, used digital technology to filmmakers now had cameras so Iraq War. More significant, perhaps, erase stray signs of modern life. small and light they could move was that its director, Kathryn through scenes with boundless Bigelow, became the first woman In the blockbuster Gravity, on agility. For some (among them to win an Oscar as Best Director. the other hand, nothing was what it Tarantino), the loss of film was seemed; its outer space adventure an ongoing tragedy. For others, Computer effects had mostly been filmed with a lone digital put filmmaking in the For much of the course of this Sandra Bullock locked for months hands of people who could never book, “special effects” were the into a “cage” in front of a green have afforded to get their ideas on preserve of a certain kind of screen, “space” to be added later. screen otherwise—and made the movie: big-budget spectaculars, riches of movie history accessible the sons (and daughters) of Yet Georges Méliès would surely to anyone with a memory stick. King Kong and animator Ray have smiled at finding we were Harryhausen. By now, movies of still thrilling ourselves with trips The digital revolution not only all kinds were being made in to the stars. While it was firmly transformed the way movies were front of computers. German earthbound, he would have shot, it also changed how they were director Michael Haneke’s admired Boyhood too: shot for a seen, as noiseless digital projection hypnotically austere filmmaking few days every year for 12 years replaced the time-honored whir could hardly have been further to map one child’s journey through of 35 mm. from the additive-packed summer life, it sounded like a gimmick. blockbuster; yet The White Ribbon, In fact, it reminded you, with Other barriers were also falling. his tale of strange goings-on among enormous power, what it was to The Hurt Locker was a movie that, be human. What better emblem in 2008, felt impossibly modern— for the movies could there be? ■

THE TRUTH IS YOU’RE THE WEAK. AND I’M THE TYRANNY OF EVIL MEN PULP FICTION / 1994



272 PULP FICTION I n the early 1990s, a movie Pulp Fiction, which kept up the fanatic and video-store clerk verbal zing of its predecessor IN CONTEXT named Quentin Tarantino, but also introduced a dazzlingly originally from Knoxville, Tennessee, inventive structure and A-list GENRE had a seismic impact on American Hollywood stars. Crime, thriller movies. Although the likes of Richard Linklater and Spike Lee Tarantino’s profane, freewheeling DIRECTOR had brought exciting new ideas style was like an adrenaline shot to Quentin Tarantino to American cinema, it had been a the heart—a motif that would appear long time since it had felt dangerous. in Pulp Fiction. Part of what made WRITERS Tarantino relocated to Southern him such a novelty was his approach Quentin Tarantino, Roger California, and his debut as the to genre. Just as Reservoir Dogs had Avary (story); Quentin director of Reservoir Dogs felt very reimagined the heist movie, so Pulp Tarantino (script) dangerous indeed—a foul-mouthed, Fiction took the conventions of the blood-soaked crime story that was B-movie—a gangland killing, a STARS also incredibly funny. Two years boxer taking a dive, and a hitman John Travolta, Samuel L. later, Tarantino followed up with in search of redemption—and Jackson, Uma Thurman, repurposed them in new, brilliantly Bruce Willis knowing ways. The result has the stylistic charge of a genre movie BEFORE while remaining a genuinely original 1955 Noir thriller Kiss Me and innovative movie experience. Deadly features a glowing suitcase that’s thought to have Structural shift inspired the one in Pulp Fiction. One of the iconic elements of Pulp Fiction is its use of nonlinear AFTER storytelling. By fracturing the 1997 Similarly to Pulp Fiction, narrative, Tarantino does not allow Tarantino’s Jackie Brown the audience to settle into the weaves together a large cast traditional rhythms of watching ❯❯ and many plot elements. Vincent Vega (John Travolta) pairs 2003 Revenge romp Kill Bill up with Mia Wallace (Uma Thurman) at sees Tarantino elevating Uma Jack Rabbit Slim’s for some comically Thurman to a blood-soaked clichéd dance moves. starring role. 00:54 01:43 02:13 Minute by minute Returning to her Butch escapes from Jules and Vincent house after the night the dungeon, but goes arrive at the diner for 00:20 out with Vincent, Mia back with a sword to some breakfast. Jules On a job for Marsellus accidentally overdoses free Marsellus. He then discusses his miracle Wallace, Jules and Vincent on Vincent’s heroin. He takes off on Zed’s bike. and announces that he shoot some men who have takes her to his dealer is quitting the business. taken a suitcase belonging for an adrenaline shot. to Marsellus. 00:00 00:30 01:00 01:30 02:00 02:34 00:24 01:29 02:01 02:22 At Marsellus’s club, Butch returns to his The Wolf is called to Pumpkin takes Butch agrees to take a fall. apartment to look for his clean up the mess after Jules’s wallet and As he is leaving, Vincent watch. He finds a gun and Vincent accidentally asks about the case. and Jules arrive dressed in shoots Vincent as Vincent shoots Marvin while Jules allows Pumpkin T-shirts and shorts. comes out of the bathroom. Marvin is in the to leave with the wallet backseat of the car with but without the case. Vincent and Jules.

SMALL WORLD 273 What else to watch: Kiss Me Deadly (1955, p.134) ■ Shoot the Piano Player (1960) ■ Band of Outsiders (1964) ■ Blood Simple (1984, p.339) ■ Reservoir Dogs (1992, p.340) ■ True Romance (1993) ■ Jackie Brown (1997) ■ Go (1999) This iconic poster for Pulp Fiction apes the covers of the trashy crime novels from which it draws its title, right down to the 10-cent price tag and much-thumbed appearance.

274 PULP FICTION a crime thriller. Instead of a story Nobody’s gonna hurt anybody. We’re with an identifiable beginning, gonna be like three little Fonzies here. middle, and end, the movie features And what’s Fonzie like? a segmented structure in which three self-contained stories are told Jules / Pulp Fiction out of sync with one another. The director is careful to ensure that in the plot of all three stories, for deliberately avoids projecting his each segment feels like part of one example, and key protagonists from own sense of right and wrong onto world, so he connects the stories one story show up for walk-on parts his characters. The most telling through the supporting characters: in other plotlines. Vincent Vega instance of this is found in one of gangland kingpin Marsellus (John Travolta), who spends much the movie’s earlier sequences, in Wallace is featured prominently of the first hour as a lead character, which Vincent and Jules make their recedes into a supporting role as first appearance. The audience first Prelude to the movie progresses—he shows up lays eyes on them as they have a “The Gold for a brief (and unfortunate) cameo low-key conversation about fast Watch” 1 in “The Gold Watch” storyline food, during which they appear to featuring washed-up boxer Butch be charismatic, likeable characters Prelude to Coolidge (Bruce Willis), then plays who are fun to hang out with. “Vincent Vega second fiddle to his partner Jules However, they are professional and Mia Wallace” Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) in the killers on their way to a hit, and final segment, as the latter following their conversation they are “The Bonnie experiences a spiritual awakening. shown doing something monstrous, Situation” something that would traditionally The result of this disassembled be considered evil. This framing of Prologue The Diner structure is that Pulp Fiction isn’t their characters forces viewers to about any one character or story, accept Pulp Fiction’s nonjudgmental Epilogue The Diner but instead is almost a mood piece, designed to evoke the feel of Los “Vincent Vega Angeles and the slick but seedy and Mia Wallace” characters who live there. At the end of each segment, the story’s Prelude to momentum comes to a halt and the “The Gold movie reboots in another place, Watch” 2 with other people, at an indeterminate point in time. “The Gold Watch” Amoral morality Pulp Fiction’s nonlinear narrative Crime thrillers are not known for starts in the middle. When its chapters stories about morally upstanding are arranged chronologically, does the individuals doing good, yet as well story seem less open-ended? as having clearly identifiable heroes and villains, most of them have a distinct idea of what is right and wrong, even if that doesn’t always comply with the letter of the law. In Pulp Fiction, however, Tarantino

stance and conditions them for the You get intoxicated by it… SMALL WORLD 275 best way to appreciate the movie, high on the rediscovery which is simply to submit and go Quentin Tarantino along for the ride. of how pleasurable a movie Director can be. I’m not sure I’ve ever Pulp Fiction, in all its obscene encountered a filmmaker who Quentin Tarantino was born glory, is perhaps one of the best in Knoxville, Tennessee, in examples in movies of how combined discipline and 1963. After dropping out of originality and daring will win out. control with sheer wild-ass joy high school at 15 to pursue an There were a lot of obstacles the way that Tarantino does. acting career, he was diverted between the critical establishment into writing scripts by a and the movie, from its language to Owen Gleiberman meeting with producer its violence to its subject matter Lawrence Bender. His first (indeed, it was famously and Entertainment Weekly, 1994 movie, Reservoir Dogs, gained controversially beaten to the 1995 him international acclaim, and Best Picture Oscar by Steven you’re looking for a fresh and his follow-up, Pulp Fiction, Spielberg’s far more conventional engrossing take on the well-trodden won the Palme d’Or as well Forrest Gump), yet its enduring territory of the criminal underworld, as earning him the Oscar for popularity shows that it functions Best Original Screenplay. perfectly as a showcase for you can’t do much better than Tarantino has since made Tarantino’s talent as a filmmaker, Pulp Fiction. ■ movies in a variety of genres, with the broken structure allowing from revenge thrillers in the for singular moments of directorial Kill Bill series to war movies flair to become prominent instead with Inglourious Basterds of being lost as part of the whole. If (2009) and Westerns with Django Unchained. His movies continue to do well with both critics and audiences. Key movies 1992 Reservoir Dogs 1994 Pulp Fiction 2003 Kill Bill: Volume 1 2012 Django Unchained Although he is being held at gunpoint, Pumpkin (Tim Roth) is about to witness a truly unusual moment of enlightenment as Jules vows to change his ways.

276 I FEEL SOMETHING IMPORTANT IS HAPPENING AROUND ME. AND IT SCARES ME THREE COLORS: RED / 1994 IN CONTEXT T hree Colors: Red is the former judge, Joseph Kern (Jean- final part of Krzysztof Louis Trintignant). Valentine and GENRE Kieslowski’s trilogy based Kern form a strange rapport, such Drama on the three colors of the French that, had they not missed each flag: red, white, and blue. Each other by a mere 40 years, they DIRECTOR movie explores one of the three may have fallen in love. Krzysztof Kieslowski ideals of the French Revolution: liberty in Blue (1993), equality in Reclusive observer WRITERS White (1994), and, in Red, fraternity. Kern has resigned from his career. Krzysztof Kieslowski, Red is the warmest, most Tired of passing judgement, he Krzysztof Piesiewicz sympathetic of the three movies, now simply wants to be an featuring an affecting performance observer. He STARS by Irène Jacob as Valentine. watches life Irène Jacob, Jean-Louis Trintignant Set in Geneva, Switzerland, the movie, shot through with symbolic BEFORE red, tells what at first seem to 1987 In Blind Chance, be stories of separate lives, until Kieslowski explores the deeper connections emerge. The influence of chance and choice central story is of a young in three alternate stories about model, Valentine, who a man catching a train. accidentally runs over a dog with her car. She 1991 Kieslowski teams up takes the dog to its with Irène Jacob for the first owner, a reclusive time with The Double Life of Veronique. Valentine (Irène Jacob) discovers AFTER that the dog 2002 Kieslowski’s last she injured is screenplay, Heaven, is directed pregnant. Kern by Tom Twyker and stars Cate gives the dog Blanchett. It had been written to her when as the first in a new trilogy. she returns it to him.

SMALL WORLD 277 What else to watch: Ashes and Diamonds (1958, pp. 146–47) ■ We Have to Kill This Love (1972) ■ Europa, Europa (1990) ■ The Double Life of Veronique (1991) from his windows and eavesdrops Kern (Jean-Louis Trintignant) Krzysztof Kieslowski on his neighbors’ telephone reevaluates his life after meeting Director conversations. It eventually Valentine. But before he can give her transpires that one of those on the advice he thinks she needs, he Polish director Krzysztof whom he eavesdrops is a young must first do the right thing himself. Kieslowski is renowned for judge, Auguste—Valentine’s his moving meditations on neighbor whom she’s never met. Underpinning the movie is a concern the human spirit. He was born In an uncanny echo of Kern’s own with the fraternity of human souls in Warsaw in 1941. His father past, Auguste is being betrayed across time and gender. Those suffered from TB, so his by his weather-girl partner Karin. bonds can easily be lost to false childhood was nomadic, connections—like the phone lines as the family moved around Kern convinces Valentine to that seem to link Valentine and her sanatoriums. At 16 he tried try to mend her relationship with lover and that Kern eavesdrops on, training as a fireman, then her boyfriend in England. She and like the windows through as a theater technician, takes his advice, but fate has which the judge spies, which give before finally enrolling at the the illusion of contact but make real Lódz film school. He made different plans, bringing connection impossible. Only once documentaries in the 1960s together the glass is shattered can a real which were skilled in getting Valentine and bond, a real physical connection across subversive messages her neighbor. between people, be restored. that the authorities would miss. His first major hit movie, Yet the two main characters The Double Life of Veronique, manage to relate to one another explored human emotion in a way that enriches the lives of through the lives of two both of them, and this clear truth identical women, one Polish adds a warm feeling to the movie’s and the other French. He enigmatic ending. There is no then followed with his lauded obvious sense or clear message to Three Colors trilogy before be absorbed as the closing credits surprisingly announcing his roll by, merely an impressionistic retirement. He died suddenly reflection on the lives we have been in 1996, at just 54. eavesdropping on for a brief time. ■ Key movies 1988 A Short Film about Killing 1989 Decalogue 1991 The Double Life of Veronique 1994 Three Colors: Red

278 GET BUSY LIVING OR GET BUSY DYING THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION / 1994 IN CONTEXT A movie that The movie’s deals with initially low GENRE the triumph returns at Drama of the human spirit the box office over adversity has a were rapidly DIRECTOR delicate line to tread. offset by Frank Darabont Misjudge the balance seven Oscar between dignity and nominations WRITERS suffering and the Frank Darabont triumph will either feel and lasting (screenplay); Stephen hollow or not worth the popularity King (short story) ordeal, for protagonist with the and audience alike. public. STARS Tim Robbins, Morgan In The Shawshank 1947, Andy is a sensitive, thoughtful Freeman, Bob Gunton Redemption, with its man. His strength is not physical; story of a man who is it derives from his belief in the BEFORE sentenced to life in a individual’s inviolate right to justice 1979 Escape from Alcatraz prison run by a corrupt warden, and humane treatment, which allows tells the true story of a director Frank Darabont achieves him to maintain his integrity even breakout from prison. the perfect balance. The movie when his situation seems hopeless. emphasizes humanity over 1983 The Woman in the Room brutality, and it has become one Although Andy is trapped in a is Darabont’s first movie, also of the most popular movies ever system that seeks to crush him and based on a Stephen King story. made about the power of self-belief. institutionalize him, the audience has the impression that he is freer AFTER Unconventional prisoner than many of those at liberty. He 1995 Tim Robbins directs In its lead character, Andy Dufresne never loses hope that life can get Dead Man Walking, the (Tim Robbins), the movie subverts better, whether he is campaigning story of a man on death row. the tough-guy protagonist of for an improved prison library or previous prison dramas such as cutting a deal with one of the most 1999 Darabont films King’s Cool Hand Luke (1967) or Escape brutal guards to get his fellow The Green Mile, another prison from Alcatraz (1979). A former jailbirds a beer after a day’s labor. drama, set in the 1930s. banker who is convicted of murdering his wife and her lover in

SMALL WORLD 279 What else to watch: Cool Hand Luke (1967) ■ Midnight Express (1978) ■ Escape from Alcatraz (1979) ■ The Shining (1980, p.339) ■ Sleepers (1996) ■ The Green Mile (1999) ■ The Majestic (2001) ■ The Mist (2007) ■ A Prophet (2009) It is this hope that impels Andy Frank Darabont Director to turn the tables on the brutal Warden Norton (Bob Gunton), who The child of short story. This brought him exploits Andy’s bookkeeping skills Hungarian worldwide acclaim and an Oscar in order to launder money. Each immigrants, nomination. He directed more night, Andy chips away at his cell Frank Darabont adaptations of King’s work in wall in order to carry out an escape was born in The Green Mile and The Mist, that is 20 years in the making. His 1959 in a refugee camp in before working on TV horror determination also inspires his Montbéliard, France, and moved series The Walking Dead friend Red (Morgan Freeman) with his family to the US as between 2010 and 2011. to find his own redemption. an infant. He began his career with various jobs on movie sets, Key movies Paying the price including as production assistant In contrast, fellow inmate Brooks on the horror movie Hell Night 1994 The Shawshank Hatlen (James Whitmore) is so (1981). His first full feature was Redemption dependent on the certainties of The Shawshank Redemption, an 1999 The Green Mile prison life that he dreads his adaptation of a Stephen King 2007 The Mist release. When Brooks is let out on parole in 1954, he is shown what makes Andy’s Fellow lifer Red (Morgan attempting to cross a road, shocked fortitude so miraculous. Freeman) is drawn by the by the speed of traffic, overwhelmed The Shawshank steely determination of in an enormous world. Brooks is Redemption suggests that Andy (Tim Robbins) not neither weak nor cowardly, but he it is possible for a person to be broken. Red’s slow, does not know how to cope. to hold on to their self- measured voice-over worth even in the very as the movie’s Time in prison direst of circumstances, and narrator adds to its can change to maintain their humanity somber dignity. people, often even in the face of the most for the worse, inhumane treatment. ■ and this is

280 TO INFINITY AND BEYOND! TOY STORY / 1995 © Disney·Pixar T oy Story is a landmark appeal derives from its highly movie: it was the first full- original characters and its plot—a IN CONTEXT length film to use entirely simple yet heart-warming buddy computer-generated imagery (CGI) story with plenty of excellent gags. GENRE instead of traditional hand-drawn Animation, adventure animation. Pixar, the new studio From the outset, Pixar set out behind the movie, convinced movie- to be modern, and chose not to DIRECTOR goers of CGI’s possibilities without seek inspiration in fairy tales and John Lasseter relying solely on its technological legends—the staples of Disney novelty. Indeed, much of the movie’s animated movies. In fact, the central WRITERS conflict in Toy Story is about old John Lasseter, Pete versus new. A boy, Andy, discards Docter, Andrew Stanton, his favorite toy, Woody, a cowboy Joe Ranft (original story); of the Old West, when given a Buzz Joss Whedon, Andrew Lightyear, a futuristic space-ranger Stanton, Joel Cohen, Alec toy. Critics have suggested that Sokolow (screenplay) Woody’s difficulty in accepting the new toy, with its gadgets and STARS laser, and his grouchy attitude Tom Hanks, Tim Allen mirror audience fears about CGI excess replacing much-loved classic BEFORE animation. The film shows Woody 1991 Disney’s Beauty and can coexist with Buzz. There the Beast uses some CGI. is a place for nostalgia alongside progress, particularly when it comes AFTER in a package as good as Toy Story. ■ 1998 CGI moves on in A Bug’s Life, Lasseter’s ant colony tale. Woody watches enviously as Buzz Lightyear wows the toys. Buzz 1999 Toy Story 2, the first fully has no idea that he is a child’s toy— digital film, is another big hit. one of the jokes that drives the plot. 2007 Ratatouille combines © Disney·Pixar CGI with a daring, original plot. What else to watch: Monsters, Inc. (2001) ■ The Incredibles (2004) ■ 2012 Lasseter produces a 3D Toy Story 2 (1999) ■ Ratatouille (2007) ■ WALL·E (2008) ■ Toy Story 3 (2010) version of Beauty and the Beast.

SMALL WORLD 281 IT’S NOT HOW YOU FALL THAT MATTERS. IT’S HOW YOU LAND LA HAINE / 1995 IN CONTEXT M athieu Kassovitz’s La All the kids around Haine (Hate) is a movie the world have the same GENRE driven by the anger of problems—in London, New Drama three young men from a riot-scarred housing project in the banlieues York, Paris, wherever. DIRECTOR (high-rise, poor suburbs) of Paris. It Mathieu Kassovitz Mathieu Kassovitz won Kassovitz the award for Best Director at Cannes, yet its violence Bickle in Martin Scorsese’s movie WRITER and its criticism of the police made Taxi Driver, is determined to take Mathieu Kassovitz it hugely controversial. revenge on the police. But as Vinz realizes that he is no killer, the three STARS The three men are all sons of are drawn into a spiral of violence Vincent Cassel, Hubert immigrants—Vinz (Vincent Cassel) involving police and racist thugs. Koundé, Saïd Taghmaoui is Jewish, Hubert (Hubert Koundé) is black, Saïd (Saïd Taghmaoui) is The stark black-and-white BEFORE Arab—and the anger in the movie photography, filmed mostly in the 1993 Café au Lait, Kassovitz’s is fueled by the marginalization banlieues, and the intensity of the first movie, is influenced by of minorities. The trigger for the acting, particularly from Cassel, give Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It. action is a bavure (slipup) by the movie rawness and realism. Few the police, who beat Abdel, one movies have captured the divide AFTER of the trio’s friends, into a coma. between the haves and have-nots 2001 As an actor, Kassovitz quite so uncompromisingly. ■ stars in the hugely successful A spiral of violence comedy Amélie. Such bavures were disturbingly common in France at the time, and 2011 Rebellion, a thriller set Kassovitz says he started writing in French New Caledonia, is a the movie on April 6, 1993, the day critical success for Kassovitz, a young man from Zaire, Makome with some of the anger that M’Bowole, was shot dead in police fueled La Haine. custody. In the movie, Vinz, who models himself on vigilante Travis 2014 In Girlhood, French director Céline Sciamma tells What else to watch: The 400 Blows (1959, pp.150–55) ■ Do the Right Thing another drama of the banlieues, (1989, p.264) ■ Amélie (2001, pp.298–99) ■ City of God (2002, pp.304–09) from a girl’s perspective.

282 I’M NOT SURE I AGREE WITH YOU ONE HUNDRED PERCENT ON YOUR POLICE WORK THERE, LOU FARGO / 1996 IN CONTEXT F argo is a tragic farce that Grimsrud (Peter Stormare) and plays out at the slow, steady Showalter (Steve Buscemi) are a pair GENRE pace of a glacier. It begins of hapless fools. Everything they do Crime drama, comedy with a car salesman named Jerry sinks them deeper into trouble. Lundegaard (William H. Macy), who DIRECTORS desperately needs money to save Dakota, in the small towns of Joel Coen, Ethan Coen himself from bankruptcy. Jerry Fargo and Brainerd, and on the hires grizzled goons Showalter bleak highway that connects WRITERS (Steve Buscemi) and Grimsrud them. During the course of the Joel Coen, Ethan Coen (Peter Stormare) to kidnap his wife kidnapping, Grimsrud accidentally (Kristin Rudrüd) and promises to kills a carful of people, and he and STARS split the ransom with the pair once Showalter soon find that it is hard William H. Macy, Frances the job is done. It’s a simple plan, to dispose of corpses in weather McDormand, Steve but, as with most things in Jerry’s so cold that graves cannot be dug Buscemi, Peter Stormare life, it goes horribly wrong. and flesh does not rot. Grimrud hits on a novel solution to this BEFORE Jerry’s crime plays out against problem in the movie’s audacious 1984 The Coens’ first feature, the blinding white wilderness of final act, but not before Brainerd’s Blood Simple, is a film noir in winter in Minnesota and North which ordinary folk are led to destruction by their own greed. AFTER 2013 Another winter’s tale, the Coens’ Inside Llewyn Davis is the tale of a down-on-his- luck songwriter in New York. 2014 In David Zellner’s Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter, a Japanese woman goes in search of treasure in Minnesota after watching Fargo, believing it to be real.

SMALL WORLD 283 What else to watch: Blood Simple (1984, p.339) ■ Miller’s Crossing (1990) ■ The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) ■ The Big Lebowksi (1998) ■ The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001) ■ True Grit (2010) Joel and Ethan Coen Directors As filmmakers, the Coen brothers are masters of balancing laughs Joel and Ethan genres as a starting point, before and chills, and thanks to its Coen have sprawling off in a direction of crime-thriller trappings and wintry made more than their own and crafting an off- landscape, Fargo is one of their 20 acclaimed kilter, funny-scary atmosphere chilliest works. The tone is set in movies. After their first, the that is entirely their own. the opening shot, when the camera sleek thriller Blood Simple, they peers at a car—Jerry’s—threading surprised admirers with Raising Key movies its way through the blizzard. A Arizona, a romantic black doom-laden musical score starts comedy, and have confounded 1984 Blood Simple up, and this doesn’t feel like a expectations ever since, fusing 1991 Barton Fink comedy: from the outset there darkness with laughs. The Coens 1996 Fargo are hints of horror. often use other movies and 2007 No Country for Old Men Marge is the heart of the story. police find his victims by the side accent that suggests she’s a bit of Her pregnancy is a symbol of of the road. The chief of police a bumpkin. But Marge is clearly hope in the white wasteland of is Marge Gunderson (Frances on the ball. Carefully, she traces double-crossing and butchery. McDormand), perhaps the only the trail of disasters back to Jerry, Although she is never in any real heavily pregnant detective in who’s not coping well with the danger, there is a lingering dread the history of cinema. pressure. Macy’s study in stress that she will be overcome by the (visible in the close-up far left) movie’s violence. But the Coen Uncommon detective brothers manage to maintain their Like everyone else in Brainerd is funny and upsetting, masterful balancing act amid the and Fargo, Marge has a folksy and he turns the folksy carnage, the nihilism of the case Scandinavian–American regional accent into forced to co-star with Marge’s a rhythm of despair. deeply rooted decency. ■ Marge (Frances There’s more to life than McDormand) inspects a little money, you know. the body of a state Don’tcha know that?… trooper. Her provincial I just don’t understand it. manner belies a sharp intelligence. Marge Gunderson / Fargo

284 WE’VE ALL LOST OUR CHILDREN THE SWEET HEREAFTER / 1997 IN CONTEXT M ost dramas build up to seek redress is a manifestation of tragedy; few begin with the despair in his own life, as he GENRE its aftermath. Canadian struggles to cope with losing his Drama director Atom Egoyan’s movie deals own daughter to drug addiction. with the fallout from two tragedies, DIRECTOR weaving them together in a subtle Seeking closure Atom Egoyan meditation on survivor’s guilt. Stevens meets his match in Nicole (Sarah Polley), a 15-year-old who was WRITERS In a town in British Columbia, on the bus but survived. Contrary to Atom Egoyan (screenplay); 14 children have died when the bus his expectations, Nicole has no rage; Russell Banks (novel) they were on slid into an icy lake. instead, she feels left behind, in a Lawyer Mitchell Stevens (Ian ghost town shattered by grief. Her STARS Holm) suspects negligence, and sabotaging of his case with a wholly Ian Holm, Sarah Polley, tries to build a case against the unexpected deposition is the payoff Caerthan Banks bus company and its driver, the to this beguiling movie. Why she horrified and otherwise harmless does it is something for both BEFORE Dolores (Gabrielle Rose). Stevens’ Stevens and the viewer to ponder. ■ 1994 Exotica, a story set in a bid to persuade reluctant locals to strip joint in Toronto, brings Nicole survives international attention to Atom the accident but is Egoyan’s work. left paralyzed. So too, in a sense, is AFTER the small town 2002 Ararat, Egoyan’s drama torn apart by the about the Armenian genocide loss of the children of 1915, wins critical acclaim who died that day. but faces distribution problems due to political pressure from What else to watch: Short Cuts (1993) ■ Exotica (1994) ■ Breaking the Turkey, which denies genocide. Waves (1996) ■ Ararat (2002) ■ Mystic River (2003) ■ 21 Grams (2003) 2009 Chloe, an erotic thriller staring Liam Neeson and Julianne Moore, is Egoyan’s biggest commercial hit.

SMALL WORLD 285 I MISS MY FATHER CENTRAL STATION / 1998 IN CONTEXT On its release in 1998, Walter her outraged friend, “He’ll be better Salles’s breakout hit was off.” That Dora eventually finds her GENRE immediately nominated conscience and puts things right is Drama for the Best Foreign Language no surprise, but what stands out Film Oscar. The story of an orphan is the naturalism and ease with DIRECTOR looking for his father might sound which the story develops. When Walter Salles like sentimental Hollywood fare, but Dora’s attempt to take the boy back in Salles’s hands it is an often dark, to his father backfires, she gives up WRITERS always clear-eyed look at big-city trying to outwit fate and simply Marcos Bernstein, poverty, given added authenticity by plays her part: once a reluctant João Emanuel Carneiro, the fact that its child star, Vinícius messenger, she makes sure this Walter Salles de Oliveira, was making ends meet package gets to its destination. ■ as a shoe-shine boy in Rio de STARS Janeiro when Salles spotted him. Fernanda Montenegro, Vinícius de Oliveira A journey This is not a heartwarming Although it is a boy, Jesué (de movie about a woman trying BEFORE Oliveira), who is lost, alone in Rio 1996 Terra Estrangeira after his mother dies in a road to help a pathetic orphan, (Foreign Land) is Salles’s first accident, Central Station (Central but a hard-edged film about notable movie, and it is shown do Brasil) isn’t so much the story a woman who thinks only at more than 40 film festivals of his emotional journey as that of around the world. Dora (Fernanda Montenegro), his of her own needs. reluctant guardian. Dora works at Roger Ebert AFTER the titular station, writing letters 2004 The Motorcycle Diaries, for illiterate people who trust her about the life of the young to mail them—but few make it to Che Guevara, brings Salles the mailbox, since Dora has no another international success. conscience. When she sells Jesué to an illegal adoption agency, she tells 2012 Salles’s On the Road, a screen adaptation of Jack What else to watch: Foreign Land (1996) ■ City of God (2002, pp.304–09) ■ Kerouac’s iconic novel, is a Carandiru (2003) ■ Slumdog Millionaire (2008, pp.318–19) commercial flop.

286 HERE’S TO THE MAN WHO KILLED MY SISTER FESTEN / 1998 IN CONTEXT O n March 13, 1995, a group movement. Following Dogme of Danish filmmakers rules, the movie takes place in one GENRE came together to create setting, a family-run hotel hosting Family drama an artistic manifesto. There were a patriarch’s 60th birthday dinner. many rules in this document, but His three estranged children return DIRECTOR the core idea behind the Dogme 95 for the occasion and dark secrets Thomas Vinterberg movement was the removal of are exposed. The claustrophobia artifice from cinema. Knocking away and intense realism of the filming WRITERS creative crutches and devices, from style add to the pressure-cooker Thomas Vinterberg, music to superficial dramatic tropes atmosphere gradually built up by Mogens Rukov such as murder, the goal was to the proceedings. purify movies, to tell stories that are STARS focused entirely on the characters The speech Ulrich Thomsen, and the moment they are in. Festen subverts social conventions, Henning Moritzen, perhaps most tellingly in its use Thomas Bo Larsen The first Dogme movie, Festen of a formal speech to expose the (The Celebration), was Thomas truths under the veneer of familial BEFORE Vinterberg’s contribution to the 1960 Jean-Luc Godard brought a new and radical Thomas Vinterberg Director filmmaking style to À bout de souffle. Thomas Kristian Levring, and Søren Vinterberg Kragh-Jacobsen. His movie AFTER was born in Festen was the first, and most 1998 The second Dogme Copenhagen, successful, of the movement, movie is Lars von Trier’s The Denmark, and was met with international Idiots, about a group of friends in 1969. After graduating from acclaim, including winning the who pretend to be disabled for the national film school of jury prize at Cannes. their own amusement. Denmark in 1993, he made his feature debut with The Biggest Key movies 1999 US director Harmony Heroes, a road movie that was Korine makes the first non- met with acclaim in his native 1996 The Biggest Heroes European Dogme movie, Julien Denmark. He later formed the 1998 Festen Donkey-Boy. Dogme 95 movement with 2003 It’s All About Love fellow directors Lars Von Trier, 2012 The Hunt

SMALL WORLD 287 What else to watch: The 400 Blows (1959, pp.150–55) ■ À bout de souffle (1960, pp.166–67) ■ Breaking the Waves (1996, p.341) ■ The Idiots (1998) ■ Julien Donkey-Boy (1999) ■ The King is Alive (2000) ■ Dear Wendy (2004) ■ The Hunt (2012) In removing artifice, Festen was Festen was one of the first a self-consciously “little” movie, in the movies to use digital cameras, tradition of the French New Wave. It and this gives it the feel of an cost just over $1 million to make. uncompromising family video, putting the viewer in the center of family whose private conversations the emotional firestorm. In doing so, have been full of lies for so long, it it makes the audience forget that it makes sense that the structural is watching a “movie.” There are no artifice of the speech becomes the musical cues to tell viewers when place to find honesty. to be upset, no empowering scenes of revenge. The movie presents the Anarchy and order disintegration of a family with a The Dogme 95 principle was a minimum of directorial comment, much-needed stripping back of leaving the audience free to decide frippery in the guise of punish what to feel, when to be horrified or prank, ridding cinema of overly amazed. By affording the viewer familiar trappings in order to get such trust, Festen leaves an right to the soul of the piece. affecting emotional mark. ■ politeness. Traditional speeches are Don’t diss my family, get it? often a contrived conversation that is used to mask an agenda or keep the Michael / Festen peace—it lends itself to dishonesty. In Festen, however, it is where characters are at their most honest. Once they have tapped a wine glass with a fork, they bare their souls. In his first speech, Christian (Ulrich Thomsen), the eldest son of the patriarch Helge (Henning Moritzen), accuses his father of committing a terrible crime against his children years earlier, one that ultimately led to his twin sister’s death. In this moment, Christian is fearless, yet a few moments later his father speaks to him privately and the mask returns—Christian apologizes and recants. The party, and the speeches, continue. For a After making a terrible and very public accusation against his father, Christian (Ulrich Tomsen, center) is forcibly ejected from the patriarch’s birthday party by his younger brother Michael (Thomas Bo Larsen, left).

288 EVERYONE’S FEAR TAKES ON A LIFE OF ITS OWN RINGU / 1998 IN CONTEXT A s with many Nakata’s movie Western inspired a new genre GENRE horrors— of Japanese chillers, Horror Poltergeist (1982) and several of which The Blair Witch Project were remade by DIRECTOR (1999), for example— Hollywood. In these Hideo Nakata Hideo Nakata’s movie “J-horror” movies, Ringu (The Ring) draws the terror is less WRITER its shivers from folklore explicit, with less Hiroshi Takahashi and legend: in this case (screenplay); Kôji Suzuki an old samurai tale reliance on “jump (novel) transferred to modern- scares” and more left day urban Japan. The to the imagination. STARS movie is based on Kôji Nanako Matsushima, Suzuki’s hit 1991 novel tape lasts just Hioyuki Sanada, Rikiya of the same name, a few seconds Ôtaka, Yôichi Numata, which in turn was and contains Miki Nakatani inspired by a well-known strange imagery 18th-century ghost story about of a circle of light, a woman BEFORE a serving girl, Okiku, who is brushing her hair, a man with his 1996 Don’t Look Up, Nakata’s murdered by her lord. head covered, a pictogram seen in first feature, is not a box-office a close-up of an eye—all played in hit but gives him the critical Taking a key element from US the static crackle of a degraded, prestige to direct Ringu. horror movies in which teenagers are much-watched video. After each drawn to objects or places that are viewing of the tape, the viewer AFTER taboo or forbidden, Ringu concerns receives a phone call saying they 1999 Nakata completes a videotape that is being passed will die in seven days. A week later the story with Ringu 2. around provincial schools. The they are dead, their faces twisted by some unimaginable terror. 2002 Nakata directs Dark Water, which, like It’s not of this world. It’s Sadako’s his previous two movies, fury. And she’s put a curse on us. is remade by Hollywood. Ryuji Takayama / Ringu

SMALL WORLD 289 What else to watch: Kwaidan (1964) ■ Poltergeist (1982) ■ Ghost Actress (1996) ■ Rasen (1998) ■ Kairo (2001) ■ Dark Water (2002) ■ One Missed Call (2003) ■ Ju-on: The Grudge (2004) ■ Pulse (2006) ■ It Follows (2014) Reiko, a journalist, stares at the static that marks the end of the deadly videotape. Within moments, her phone will ring and a mysterious voice will tell her of her fate. The teen-horror element initially time, the story winds back into backstory, and so the focus seems to be a misdirect, since the past to uncover the terrible switches from the untimely deaths Ringu quite quickly becomes a secrets that have begun to seep of teenagers to Reiko’s attempt to detective yarn, with journalist into the present. right the injustice done to Sadako Reiko (Nanako Matsushima) in the past and lift her curse. And becoming interested in the case As with other Japanese horrors yet there are virtuoso moments of after discovering that her niece is that Ringu later inspired, there is a goose-bump horror to come, and one of the latest victims. Retracing prospect of redemption; although images that will haunt the viewer the girl’s final steps, Reiko finds the she is clearly a malevolent spirit, long after watching this movie. videotape and watches it. She then Sadako (and Okiku in the original Although Hollywood produced has seven days to avert her own folktale) has a sympathetic a watchable remake in 2002, it death—a race against time to could not inspire the same dread. decipher the mysterious imagery she has seen. By chance, Reiko’s The figure of Sadako became teenage son watches the tape too, an instant icon and influenced raising the stakes even higher. a whole genre. The imagery is based on Japanese yurei ghosts: Ghosts of the past she has a pale face and long, With Reiko inching closer to solving matted hair, suggesting that her the mystery, it almost seems as corpse received no burial rites though Nakata is going to abandon (Japanese women were traditionally the horror element altogether, as buried with their hair up, not Reiko begins to piece together the down). In this, the movie explores story of a famous psychic who lost the clash of ancient folktale and her powers when her daughter, Japanese modernity, with the Sadako (Rie Inô), was born. For a ghost’s terror hiding in something as prosaic as a videotape. ■ Hideo Nakata Director Born in rural in a new genre of Japanese Okayama in horror—J-horror—in which 1961, Hideo female leads are stalked by Nakata worked the ghosts of young girls. He for seven years continued the formula with as an assistant director before 2002’s Dark Water. making his debut with the 1996 fantasy-horror Don’t Look Up (or Key movies Ghost Actress). He secured his reputation internationally with 1996 Don’t Look Up Ringu, switching the gender of 1998 Ringu the protagonist in the tale on 1999 Ringu 2 which it is based. Ringu ushered 2002 Dark Water

A SWORD BY ITSELF RULES NOTHING. IT ONLY COMES ALIVE IN SKILLED HANDS CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON / 2000



292 CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON IN CONTEXT M ovies including Sense Critics noted the way it seemed and Sensibility (1995), to capture an idealized China, GENRE The Ice Storm (1997), and a China of dreams. As Ang Lee Wuxia (martial arts) Ride With the Devil (1999) propelled himself admitted, such a place Ang Lee to the A-list of Hollywood never really existed. But the DIRECTOR directors. So it was a brave move to combination of romance, balletic Ang Lee make his next project a martial arts martial arts sequences, and poetic movie set in ancient China with cinematography created a movie WRITERS dialogue entirely in Mandarin that Western audiences engaged Hui-Ling Wang, James Chinese. Yet Crouching Tiger, with. In China itself, however, the Schamus, Tsai Kuo-Jung Hidden Dragon justified the risk. initial response to the movie was (screenplay); Wang less positive, and an appreciation of Dulu (story) The movie is based on a wuxia its merits was slow in coming. novel (see box, below), written in STARS the 1930s by Chinese author Wang Among the best-known wuxia Chow Yun-fat, Michelle Dulu, the fourth title in his five-part in the West are the Once Upon a Yeoh, Zhang Ziyi, Crane-Iron Series. In the US and in Time in China series, which are Chang Chen Europe, the movie was an instant regarded as some of the best of critical and commercial hit, and the genre. Many Chinese critics BEFORE won the Oscar for best foreign film. viewed Ang Lee, despite his 1991 Once Upon a Time in Chinese roots, as a cultural tourist China, starring Jet Li, starts a It’s a good exam— jumping on the wuxia bandwagon craze for wuxia movies in Asia. how to tell a story and getting it wrong. The martial with a global sense. arts sequences were tame, they 1993 Ang Lee’s The Wedding complained. There was too much Banquet is Oscar-nominated Ang Lee talk and not enough action. In their for Best Foreign Language film. opinion, Ang Lee was pandering to Western audiences’ need for AFTER emotional involvement. 2004 Zhang Yimou’s visually stunning wuxia movie House Yet engaging the audiences of Flying Daggers, also starring emotionally and psychologically is Zhang Ziyi, is clearly aimed at precisely what Ang Lee intended. Western audiences. He believed that the popular martial arts movies had barely begun to explore the true meaning Wuxia movies Wuxia stories are an old tradition 1960s that they became a in China. The word wuxia means phenomenon in China. In the chivalrous warrior, and first 1990s, Hong Kong filmmakers emerged during the Ming Dynasty made the Once Upon a Time in (1368–1644). Like the knights of China series, featuring the folk European romances, wuxia hero Wong Fei-hung (played combined a quest for personal by Jet Li, left). perfection with skill in combat. Ming and Qing rulers tried to Crouching Tiger, Hidden suppress wuxia stories because Dragon changed the nature of of their emphasis on social justice, wuxia in China, with movies but they remained hugely popular. such as Zhang Yimou’s House The first wuxia movies were made of Flying Daggers (2004) telling in the 1920s, but it was in the a more psychological story than the earlier action-led movies.

SMALL WORLD 293 What else to watch: Once Upon a Time in China (1991) ■ Drunken Master II (1994) ■ Sense and Sensibility (1995) ■ Hero (2002) ■ House of Flying Daggers (2004) ■ Brokeback Mountain (2005) ■ Lust, Caution (2007) ■ Life of Pi (2012) Minute by minute 00:34 1:11 1:34 Li Mu Bai confronts Lo disrupts Jen’s wedding After dueling with Jen, 00:06 Jade Fox for poisoning his procession and urges her to Li Mu Bai throws Green Shu Lien delivers the legendary master. Jade Fox kills the return with him to the Destiny over a waterfall. sword Green Destiny to Sir Te policeman who has been desert. She runs away Jen Yu chases after it and in Beijing. There she meets the tracking her. disguised as a boy. is saved by Jade Fox. young Jen Yu, who is envious of Shu Lien’s warrior lifestyle. 00:00 00:20 00:40 01:00 01:20 01:40 02:00 00:10 00:50 1:26 1:45 A masked thief steals Lo, a bandit, slips into Jen Jen rejects Shu Lien’s Wounded by one of Green Destiny from Sir Te’s Yu’s bedroom. In flashback, we friendship and the pair Fox’s darts, Li Mu Bai study, and is chased by see him raiding her baggage duel spectacularly. Shu Lien speaks his love for Shu Shu Lien across the train in the desert, and the two wins, with a broken sword Lien. Jen asks Lo to rooftops of Beijing. of them falling in love. held to Jen Yu’s throat. make a wish. She then jumps off Mt. Wudang. Jen Yu is a skilled martial artist. After chasing Lo, a handsome bandit who has stolen her comb, she finds herself in his desert camp surrounded by brigands, and takes every one of them on in an acrobatic fight sequence. of wuxia. To get to the heart of its role in the Chinese psyche, he felt he had to “use Freudian or Western techniques to dissect what… is hidden in a repressed society—the sexual tension, the prohibited feelings.” In other words, he consciously used a Western approach to filmmaking to uncover a psychological meaning behind the action. Left unsaid I would rather be a ghost drifting by Most earlier wuxia movies pitched your side as a condemned soul than the viewer straight into the combat. enter heaven without you. Because of However, Crouching Tiger, Hidden your love, I will never be a lonely spirit. Dragon opens with a five-minute- long dialogue between a noble Li Mu Bai / Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon swordsman, Li Mu Bai (Chow Yun- fat) and a female warrior, Shu Lien (Michelle Yeoh). The story is set in the 18th century, during the Qing Dynasty. Li Mu Bai has retired from fighting and has joined a monastery as a path to enlightenment, but neither he nor Shu Lien can cast aside their love for each other, or ❯❯

294 CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON confess their feelings. Both are pei), the killer of his old master, Jen Yu rejects Shu Lien’s offer of constrained by notions of honor. to be the culprit. Before he can friendship and the pair duel. Shu Lien These unspoken desires heighten reveal his heart to Shu Lien, fights with every weapon available, but the sexual tension between them. therefore, Li Mu Bai must recover each is destroyed in turn by Jen Yu “Crouching tiger, hidden dragon” Green Destiny and avenge his wielding Green Destiny. is a Chinese expression alluding master’s death. to a situation full of danger. in a spectacular aerial chase, is in Women warriors fact Jen Yu (Zhang Ziyi), a fiery In Lee’s movie, chief among At this point in the narrative, it young noblewoman who has been these dangers is suppressed sexual becomes clear that Lee is making secretly trained in brilliant but desire. Just when Shu Lien and Li a second major departure from the uncontrolled combat skills by the Mu Bai seem about to overcome wuxia movie tradition by putting villainous Jade Fox, also a woman. propriety and declare their love, Li women to the fore. The sword thief, Mu Bai’s sword, Green Destiny, is who is shown leaping away across Li Mu Bai’s ally and his two stolen, and he suspects his elusive the rooftops of the Forbidden City adversaries are three strong women archenemy, Jade Fox (Cheng Pei- who all have major roles in the plot and the fighting. It is Li Mu Bai’s Fighters have rules, too. Friendship, beloved Shu Lien who plays the trust, integrity. Always keep your customary male part of sublime promise. Without rules we wouldn’t swordsman with Zen-like emotional survive long. control. Jen Yu and Jade Fox are their out-of-control opponents. Shu Lien / Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Jen Yu is in violent rebellion against the social and chivalric conventions Li Mu Bai and Shu

By Hollywood is only doing so SMALL WORLD 295 standards, the budget because he desires for Ang Lee’s movie was her sexually. Ang Lee Director small: $17 million. Studio executives were Jade Fox was once Born in 1954 in Taiwan, Ang taken aback when it a student of Li Mu Bai’s Lee graduated from the grossed $128 million old master, but killed National Taiwan College of in the US alone, and him when he tried to Arts before moving to the nearly $215 million take sexual advantage US. His first critical success internationally. of her. Her hostility as a came with The Wedding character, and her fury Banquet, the first of several Lien live by. She is and vengefulness, movies made with contemptuous of could also be sexual in screenwriter James Schamus. their self-discipline, origin. The entire story Lee returned to Taiwan to or as she sees it, is driven by sexual make Eat Drink Man Woman their self-repression. “Stop undercurrents. (1994), a critical and talking like a monk,” she retorts, commercial success. His when Li Mu Bai tries to advise her Fantastical fighting adaptation of Jane Austen’s that the sword is a state of mind. In another departure from Sense and Sensibility (1995), She has taken a lover, Lo (Chang genre tradition, the fighting with a screenplay by the Chen), a bandit, with whom she is scenes are not so much staged movie’s star, Emma sexually intimate, and defies her as choreographed, becoming Thompson, revealed his range. family (unthinkable in China at that extraordinary aerial ballets. In The tragedy The Ice Storm time) by escaping on her wedding the most stunning sequence, and the US Civil War drama night from an arranged, respectable with Li Mu Bai fighting Jen Yu Ride with the Devil (1999) marriage to a nobleman. amid swaying bamboos, the effect were followed by Crouching was not achieved with computer Tiger, Hidden Dragon and The Jen Yu acknowledges that trickery but with the actors flying Hulk (2003). He won an Oscar Li Mu Bai’s martial skills are on wires. The result is enigmatic for Best Director with greater than those of Jade Fox, rather than violent, capturing the Brokeback Mountain (2005), and she wants him as her teacher. mystery and poetry of a mythical about the gay relationship When he agrees, she says that he ancient China. ■ between two cowboys. A second Oscar came in 2012 Major fight scenes with Life of Pi. Jen Rooftop Key movies night fight Jade Fox 1993 The Wedding Banquet appears 1997 The Ice Storm Returning 2000 Crouching Tiger, the sword Hidden Dragon Teahouse 2012 Life of Pi fight Dueling sisters In the bamboo forest Rescuing Jen Li Mu Bai Shu Lien Jade Fox

296 YOU DON’T REMEMBER YOUR NAME? SPIRITED AWAY / 2001 IN CONTEXT T he animators at Tokyo’s film to win an Oscar. It was also a Studio Ghibli—chief among masterpiece of its genre, a glorious GENRE them cofounder Hayao flight of imagination based on the Animation, fantasy Miyazaki—have been making wildly idea of “the magical doorway” found inventive movies since 1986. With a in much children’s fiction. Children DIRECTOR highly distinctive style of animation often see reality as something to be Hayao Miyazaki influenced by the manga tradition of escaped from, and the genius of Japanese comic books, Studio Ghibli Spirited Away is allowing the child WRITER has expanded the tastes of in everyone to do just that. Hayao Miyazaki audiences around the world. After a long train journey, Chihiro STARS Miyazaki’s Spirited Away brought and the mysterious No-Face (left) have Rumi Hiiragi, Miyu Irino, Ghibli worldwide commercial tea with Zeniba, the twin sister of the Mari Natsuki success, and also acclaim—it was greedy and controlling witch Yubaba. the first foreign-language animation BEFORE 1979 The Castle of Cagliostro, the tale of a clever thief, is Miyazaki’s first movie. 1984 Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind stars a pacifist princess in a postapocalyptic world; its success leads to the creation of Studio Ghibli, home to a string of animation hits. 1997 Princess Mononoke is Miyazaki’s first movie to use computer graphics. AFTER 2013 The Wind Rises tells the fictionalized life story of aircraft designer Jiro Horikoshi.

SMALL WORLD 297 What else to watch: Laputa: Castle in the Sky (1986) ■ Grave of the Fireflies (1988) ■ Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989) ■ Princess Mononoke (1997) ■ The Cat Returns (2002) ■ Howl’s Moving Castle (2004) One subversive aspect of The bizarre town that Chihiro later reveal their caring side and Spirited Away compared with wanders into is home to Japan’s humanity. Even No-Face, the quiet Miyazaki’s other work and the legions of demons, spirits, and spirit who becomes the villain of the fantasy genre as a whole is that gods, where humans are turned movie’s second act, is also portrayed the fantasy realm presented here is into animals. Chihiro avoids the sympathetically, in his desire to often anything but majestic. While spell, but her parents do not. connect with Chihiro and his it does feature wondrous magic and attempts to give her gifts to win supernatural creatures, the movie by the end of the movie, the her over. The boundless imagination also focuses on the harrowing day- tyrannical Yubaba still holds that Miyazaki uses to create his to-day existence of the protagonist, sway, and while Chihiro fantastical worlds is matched by a 10-year-old girl called Chihiro, as manages to escape, many his endearing compassion for his she is put to work in a bathhouse others are left behind. characters—their strengths and run by the witch Yubaba. flaws, dreams and fears—and this For all the movie’s sense of allows us to care about them as Real fantasy wonder, it is this grounding in deeply as we marvel at them. ■ While the magical realms depicted reality, this refusal to whitewash in children’s fiction are usually more the darker elements of life, that This visual wonder is dangerous than our own, populated makes Spirited Away more the product of a fierce and as they are by strange and terrible poignant than many other fearless imagination whose monsters, they also come with a fantasy tales. It’s not about creations are unlike any significant upside: the characters defeating evil and creating a who wander into them will often be utopia, but instead about simply you’ve seen before. given a chance to win the crown or surviving and finding moments Kenneth Turan right some terrible wrong. In Spirited of happiness and compassion Away, however, not much changes: wherever you can. Los Angeles Times, 2002 Everyone has a story Spirited Away strives to portray its characters in an evenhanded and nuanced fashion. It often introduces characters in quite a harsh light— from the seemingly unsympathetic coworker Rin to Zeniba, Yubaba’s sister and fellow witch—only to Hayao Miyazaki Director Hayao Miyazaki 20 years later, with Princess was born in Mononoke. Spirited Away, his Tokyo in 1941; follow-up, won him an Oscar he and his and was perhaps his best- family were received movie. The Wind Rises, evacuated to escape the US in 2013, was his last movie. firebombing of Japanese cities. Miyazaki got his first job in Key movies animation in 1963, and made his directorial debut in 1979 with 1997 Princess Mononoke The Castle of Cagliostro. He rose 2001 Spirited Away to worldwide prominence almost 2013 The Wind Rises

298 I LIKE TO LOOK FOR THINGS NO-ONE ELSE CATCHES AMÉLIE / 2001 IN CONTEXT A fter enjoying In Amélie, Jeunet critical success succeeded in finding a GENRE in France, Jean- new take on the tired and Romantic comedy Pierre Jeunet’s first much-derided romantic venture into Hollywood comedy genre, using an DIRECTOR was a troubled one. Hired ambitious pairing of style Jean-Pierre Jeunet to direct the fourth movie and subject matter. in the science-fiction Alien WRITERS series, the project suffered a waitress meeting Guillaume Laurant, production difficulties and the man she’s Jean-Pierre Jeunet was released to mixed destined to fall in love with; in reviews. Jeunet returned to France practice the movie is a tribute to a STARS discouraged, and for his next movie virtuoso creativity and imagination. Audrey Tautou, Mathieu concocted Amélie, a work in which Despite the smallness of the central Kassovitz, Dominique Pinon every frame seems to celebrate a story, Jeunet uses techniques freedom that had perhaps been usually reserved for action movies BEFORE denied to him on his previous and epics. The far-reaching and 1991 Jeunet and Marc Caro’s project. Structurally, Amélie is a expansive script, the strong use of Delicatessen is an inventive romantic comedy—the story of color, and the experimental editing fantasy movie set in a postapocalyptic France. Jean-Pierre Jeunet Director 1995 The baroque fairy tale Jean-Pierre follow-up, The City of Lost The City of Lost Children gets Jeunet was Children, Jeunet was offered Jeunet noticed by Hollywood. born in the Alien: Resurrection. After it Loire region, performed poorly, he returned AFTER France, in 1953. to France and directed Amélie, 2004 Jeunet teams up with He bought his first movie camera his most celebrated movie. Tautou for the war drama at 17 when he studied animation A Very Long Engagement. at Cinémation studios. His first Key movies feature movie was Delicatessen, 2009 Micmacs is a comedy- which he codirected with Marc 1991 Delicatessen satire by Jeunet about the Caro. Based on the commercial 1995 The City of Lost Children arms industry. and critical success of their 2001 Amélie