Gateway Cinephiles

3-Minute Intro: Glengarry Glen Ross

Screened: April 29, 2008
Format: DVD - Lions Gate (2002)
Selected By: Roland

James Foley’s 1992 film adaptation of David Mamet’s modern theatrical landmark, Glengarry Glenn Ross, is a bit of legend, a case study in uncompromising, prestige filmmaking outside the studio system. The play shocked and tantalized prospective filmmakers and actors following its 1984 premiere, but the film adaptation languished in development hell for years before the final cast and crew were settled and a slim budget was painstakingly scraped together. Glengarry remains the most noteworthy feature film directed by Foley. While his steady, emphatic hand keeps the film humming along, the strength of Glengarry rests on the source material, and on a plethora of searing performances.

Chicago native Mamet caught critics’ attention with his early off-Broadway plays, including American Buffalo, but it was Glengarry Glen Ross that secured him a place in the modern American theater canon and won him a Pulitzer Prize. The play, set over two days in a high-pressure Chicago real estate office, features seminal Mamet hallmarks, including realistic, rough-hewn dialogue peppered with foul language. (The cast of the film famously referred to their production as Death of Fucking Salesman.) The play’s discomfiting themes and notorious obscenity hindered its translation to the screen for over a decade. In the end, Mamet himself penned the adaptation, and many cast members took significant pay cuts for the opportunity to appear in the film.

And what a cast it is. Glengarry boasts one the most impressive dramatic ensembles of the past fifty years. Any member could and has held together a feature film with his own talents: Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Alan Arkin, Ed Harris, Kevin Spacey, Jonathan Pryce, and Alec Baldwin, in a role Mamet added to the script specifically for him. Pacino delivers a vicious portrayal that taps into the raw elements of his familiar screen persona. The real standout, however, is Lemmon, who in the autumn of career delivers one of his most painful and humane performances, walking away with the Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival. Working from the raw material of Mamet’s absorbing lines, Glengarry Glenn Ross’ performers sculpt a portrait of despairing masculinity, an American Dream that is choking on contempt, duplicity, and delusion.

Review: The Duchess of Langeais (Ne Touchez Pas la Hache)

2007
Director: Jacques Rivette
Viewed: April 26, 2008
Format: Theatrical Print

The Duchess of Langeais brings to mind a fundamental question about film quality: Can a movie be reasonably well-shot and well-acted in the service of Very Serious Themes, and yet still be a dull, dreadful mess? Are the two mutually exclusive? Last year, Pascale Ferran’s Lady Chatterley, a film that seems increasingly like a fumbled embarrassment with the passage of time, suggested that the two aspects could coexist in the same film. Now here is another French adaptation of a revered author’s work that evokes a comparably contradictory sensation. In this case, the author is Honore de Balzac, and the director is New Wave icon Jacques Rivette. I have a hard time calling this a Bad Film, but it is almost certainly a failure. If I squint very hard I can almost be convinced of the phantoms of an engaging work, and maybe even understand—but not share—the praise that this film has received from my admired critics such as Glenn Kenny and Noel Murray. Yet I can’t lie to myself: I just don’t see it.

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Film Diary: Cloverfield

2008
Director: Matt Reeves
Viewed: April 28, 2008
Format: DVD - Paramount (2008)

Film Diary: Deep Blue Sea

1999
Director: Renny Harlin
Viewed: April 27, 2008
Format: Television - Cinemax

Film Diary: Lars and the Real Girl

2007
Director: Craig Gillespie
Viewed: April 25, 2008
Format: DVD - MGM (2008)

Film Diary: The Darjeeling Limited

2007
Director: Wes Anderson
Viewed: April 26, 2008
Format: DVD - 20th Century Fox (2008)

Film Diary: Hotel Chevalier

2007
Director: Wes Anderson
Viewed: April 26, 2008
Format: DVD - 20th Century Fox (2008)

Film Diary: Regular Lovers (Les Amants Réguliers)

2006
Director: Philippe Garrel
Viewed: April 26, 2008
Format: DVD - Zeitgeist Films (2007)

The Rule of Three: It’s Funny Because It Hurts

This installment of the Rule of Three features scenes of great slapstick, those moments that make you recoil in vicarious pain even as you laugh. The lowest form of comedy? Sure. But when done well, slapstick can deliver a succinct jab of sublime human misery. These are moments that stick with you and elicit a wincing smile even when you know they’re coming.

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Film Diary: No Country For Old Men

2007
Directors: Ethan Coen and Joel Coen
Viewed: April 24, 2008
Format: Blu-ray - Miramax / Paramount (2008)