Gateway Cinephiles

Film Diary: Lady in the Water

2006
M. Night Shyamalan
Viewed: November 28, 2007
Format: DVD - Warner Brothers (2006)

Review: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Le Scaphandre et le Papillon)

2007
Director: Julian Schnabel
Viewed: November 18, 2007
Format: Theatrical Print

Melodramas about infirmity or disability have never struck me as appealing entertainment in the same escapist vein as, say, action films or romantic comedies. Why on earth would anyone want to lose themselves in a tale of human physical frailty, even if said tale is awkwardly molded into an uplifting parable? Perhaps illness, however it is fictionalized, still cuts closer to the bone for me than glossed violence or passion. Regardless, the disease film subgenre is now so common in television film that its typical narrative arc—Struggle Against Adversity Leads to Revelation Just Before Death—has been thoroughly desiccated of emotional heft.

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3-Minute Intro: C.S.A. - The Confederate States of America

Screened: November 26, 2007
Format: DVD - IFC (2006)
Selected by: Becky

“The Civil War was about states’ rights, not slavery.” This simple, persistent bit of racist apologetics is the thorn provoking Kevin Willmott’s independently produced 2004 mockumetary C.S.A: The Confederate States of America. The film’s hook is straightforward and provocative: What if the South had won the Civil War? Staged as a censored British documentary examining American history since the Confederacy’s victory at Gettysburg, C.S.A. is a dark satire with wicked ambitions. Specifically, Willmott aspires for his audience—black and white alike—to chuckle nervously, squirm with discomfort, and think honestly about America’s past and future.

Exhibiting a studied eye for documentary filmmaking tropes, but leaving aside the somber tone, Willmott uses photographs and film footage—much of it staged or digitally doctored—to create an artificial 140-year history where Abraham Lincoln was a fugitive and America was a Nazi ally during World War II. C.S.A. could fit into the weeknight schedule of some parallel universe History Channel, right down to the commercials featuring racist caricatures. Canadian black abolitionists provide the outsider’s perspective on the racist American empire that has swallowed up the Western hemisphere and used slavery as a solution to or distraction from every national crisis.

Some detractors have nitpicked C.S.A.’s humor as awkward and its alternate history as woefully far-fetched, but such critiques seem misplaced given Willmott’s resources, aptitudes, and intentions. Shot in sections over the course of three years on a shoestring budget, C.S.A. has been described by Willmott not as a “What If” thought experiment, but a “What Is” salvo, a so-scary-it’s-funny rumination on where we came from and where we are headed. For all its sensational twists, the history depicted in C.S.A. bears an uncanny, even improbable, similarity to that of our world. Despite this contrivance, budget production values, and some sketchy digital effects, Willmott has crafted a work of grim historical revisionism, a film that throttles America’s collective amnesia over our roots. After all, if the racism that motivated American slavery has been purged from modern society, C.S.A. should be a frivolous science fiction distraction, as amusing as an Earth ruled by dinosaurs. If C.S.A. prompts uneasiness in us, how far from the mark can it really be?

Film Diary: Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead

2007
Director: Sidney Lumet
Viewed: November 24, 2007
Format: Theatrical Print

Film Diary: Night Watch (Nochnoy Dozor)

2004
Director: Timur Bekmambetov
Viewed: November 22, 2007
Format: DVD - 20th Century Fox (2006)

Film Diary: Volver

2007
Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Viewed: November 20, 2007
Format: DVD - Sony (2007)

Film Diary: Apocalypto

2006
Director: Mel Gibson
Viewed: November 18 and 20, 2007
Format: DVD - Touchstone (2007)

3-Minute Intro: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

Screened: November 19, 2007
Format: DVD - Warner Brothers (1997)
Selected by: Stephanie

Miloš Forman’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest swept all five major Oscar categories in 1975, and since then it has acquired its standing as one of the finest American dramas. However, its production was storied and uncertain. Forman’s film was an unauthorized adaptation of Ken Kesey’s 1962 best-selling novel. The notorious counter-culture author was displeased with the story alterations, and never saw the completed film before his death. Kirk Douglas owned the rights to the adaptation and had planned on starring, but it was his son Michael who left a successful television career to produce Cuckoo’s Nest. Forman and star Jack Nicholson reportedly clashed over the story, culminating in a Nicholson-led actors’ coup.

To this day, Cuckoo’s Nest remains a misunderstood film. Properly approached, it is not a film about mental illness. Kesey’s novel was inspired by his work at the Menlo Park Veterans Hospital, as well as his participation in the CIA-funded MK-ULTRA study, which investigated the effects of psychotropic drugs. Mental health and pharmacology are stage dressing; the story’s true themes relate to the elements of social order, including control, conformity, and freedom. Cuckoo’s Nest was the first American film from Czechoslovakian New Wave director Forman. Forman’s Eastern Bloc fingerprints are evident in the strong allegorical criticisms of authoritarianism, mass surveillance, and election fraud. Forman approaches his characters’ mental illnesses with humor, not realism. In this way, he signals that this is not a manipulative movie-of-the-week, but something both lighter and deeper.

The memorable cast includes Christopher Lloyd and Brad Dourif in their first film; an early appearance by Danny DeVito; and an acting debut by park ranger Will Sampson as “Chief” Bromden. The mythic performances that dominate Cuckoo’s Nest, in roles that would come to define the film, are those of Nicholson and Louise Fletcher. As Randle McMurphy, Nicholson cements his status as an icon of masculine rage, impish defiance, and modern uncertainty. Equally astonishing is Fletcher as contemptible, icily calm Nurse Ratched. In Ratched she conjures a wholly original villain, one who makes the most banal actions seem monstrous. The conflict between McMurphy and Ratched—and its tragic resolution—remains one of American film’s most profound depictions of the dynamics of power.

Film Diary: Persepolis

2007
Directors: Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Parannaud
Viewed: November 17, 2007
Format: Theatrical Print

Film Diary: Planet Terror

2007
Director: Robert Rodriguez
Viewed: November 16, 2007
Format: DVD - Weinstein (2007)