A "Dark" Diamond in the Rough Emerges

Last year was, by modern standards, a pretty solid year for motion pictures. My pick for the best of them would be the Coen Bros.' No Country For Old Men, but I was also fond of There Will Be Blood, Away From Her, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Gone Baby Gone, The Counterfeiters, Into the Wild, Once, Persepolis, Michael Clayton, Rescue Dawn, Zodiac, Ratatouille, Juno, Enchanted, and several others. Unfortunately, 2008 has been a different story altogether.

Characters have once again taken a backseat to formulaic plots and unspectacular “spectacle”. High profile disappointments have flooded the big screen market; Cloverfield, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, The Incredible Hulk, The Happening, Hancock, and Journey to the Center of the Earth, just to name a few. Don't get me wrong, Iron Man was great fun and very well made, but it wouldn't have been near last year's Top 10. Quite frankly, up until about three weeks ago I thought HBO's fifth season of The Wire was going to finish out 2008 destroying everything at theaters.

That was when I saw WALL-E, the latest and arguably greatest film from Pixar (see the original post in this blog). Suddenly, the sun had risen again over the dreary cinematic landscape and things no longer looked quite so bleak. Reinvigorated, I took a look at Mongol and Hellboy II next. I appreciated the costumes and set decoration of Mongol, while the art direction and creature design in Hellboy II were simply stunning. Still, though both films were somewhat above average, it wasn't until July 20th that I became convinced WALL-E was no fluke. 2008 had more great films in store.

I was vacationing in San Antonio, TX at the time, taking in the Alamo, the Natural Bridge Caverns, the River Walk, and Sea World. Not another soul among my party professed interest in adding an IMAX theater, twenty-three miles from our hotel, to our busy itinerary (most of the show times were sold out anyway). Forced to take matters into my own hands, I ended up at a downtown San Antonio bus stop, with a homeless man, at 5:30 AM on Sunday morning. It was still pitch dark when I arrived at the Santikos Palladium theater about two minutes after the 6:15 start time, and it was so packed I had to sit in the third row.

Luckily, The Dark Knight is the kind of film that would have been good from any seat in the house. I found 2005's Batman Begins to be a solid superhero origin story that suffered from a weak third act, but with The Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan tops his first effort with relative ease. I have enjoyed all of Nolan's films since Memento in 2000, and this may very well be his finest film to date. It is, without reservation, the best superhero movie I have ever seen.

Many have compared The Dark Knight to Michael Mann's 1995 film, Heat, and though Nolan has admitted the influence, they aren't much alike outside of the bank heist scenes and a similar exploration of the thin line between good and evil. Without a doubt, however, Nolan's film has more in common with great cinematic crime epics than with traditional comic book movies. In fact, those interested in a film for the whole family with a hero to cheer for, a villain to boo, a climactic showdown, and an upbeat ending, should stick with Iron Man. The Dark Knight is as “dark” as its name implies, and many may find it lacking in the kind of fun generally associated with superhero movies.

In addition, this entry in the franchise is even more grounded in reality than the last. There is not a single “super power” to be accounted for, it's all technology and psychological manipulation. The Gotham of Batman Begins, with that identifiable Metropolis/Blade Runner influence in the art direction, has been replaced by a Gotham that looks exactly like what it is: Chicago, Illinois. Bruce Wayne is more human this time around as well; he tires of spending his nights as a masked vigilante and regrets the negative side effects of Batman on Gotham's populace. He seeks a new hero (“a hero with a face”) to take his place.

Therein lies the plot of the film. The new District Attorney, Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), is referred to as Gotham's “White Knight” due to his fierce determination in bringing down the mob and reducing crime. Though Bruce Wayne is originally abrasive toward him, as Dent is dating the woman he loves, Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal replacing Katie Holmes), he ultimately realizes that this is a man who could truly lead Gotham into a brighter future. Unfortunately, the mob is the least of Gotham's problems when a new chaotic figure appears in the form of the Joker (Heath Ledger).

To defeat his enemy in a non-lethal manner, as Batman's moral code demands, Bruce Wayne seeks to understand what is behind the Joker's actions. Michael Caine, returning as Alfred, Wayne's butler, has a great scene where he explains to Bruce that not every villain has a motive beyond “watching the world burn”. In his own sick, twisted way the Joker does have a motive, however. He seeks to prove that social order is an illusion, by bringing down the very figures that inspire hope among the people; namely Harvey Dent and Batman. He wants to destroy the foundation and watch the house fall. If the Joker has to die to get Batman to break his code, he still wins. That is the vile nature of what Batman, Dent, and all of Gotham are facing in The Dark Knight.

The film has such wonderful performances all around, it is almost a shame that all the credit seems to be going to Ledger. He is terrific, certainly, and in my view this performance was second only to his turn as Ennis Del Mar in Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain. His loss is extremely tragic; I considered him to be the finest of all 20-30 year old actors, long before he passed. However, I feel we should also acknowledge the superb job done here by Aaron Eckhart, Gary Oldman, Christian Bale (whose Batman voice doesn't bother me), Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, and Maggie Gyllenhaal. Needless to say, these actors all benefit from a terrific script penned by Christopher Nolan and his brother, Jonathan.

Though The Dark Knight has a few too many hokey one liners and tends to overstate its themes and message, neither issue takes away from its effectiveness. Furthermore, legitimate questions have been raised about scenes that leave the audience hanging. At one point, a large group of people in a penthouse are still in danger while Batman is in the street below, and Nolan simply cuts to the next day. In another example, the means of a certain “escape” aren't fully revealed (EDIT 8/04: On a subsequent viewing, I realized the Joker has a shard of glass, not a knife). Still, is it necessary that absolutely everything be spelled out for us? I would like to see how audiences that enjoy being spoon fed would react to, say, a Tarkovsky film. I can hear it now, “Why did that bird just land on the boy's head like that?!”

At 152 minutes, The Dark Knight is long, but never overstays its welcome. Several people have voiced the opinion that 30-40 minutes could have been shaved off the end and saved for the next film. I adamantly disagree. If the last forty minutes were cut, the film as a whole would lose all resonance. I dare say that the events which transpire in the final act of the The Dark Knight are the entire point of the film; the culmination of everything it had been building toward. At 112 minutes, we would have a lean, mean summer movie. At 152 minutes, we have the greatest superhero film ever made, and a film that may end up being the best of the year.

By the way, if you haven't seen this film in an IMAX theater, then you haven't seen it at all. Period. While other 35mm movies shown on IMAX screens have been converted to the format, The Dark Knight is the first major theatrical film to actually have footage (over twenty minutes worth) shot with 15-perforation/70mm IMAX cameras. The immense scale and clarity of these images is a mind-blowing revelation for film fanatics, like myself. The action sequences benefit not only from better choreography than those in Batman Begins, they are also show pieces to be awed over now, thanks to the IMAX format and Wally Pfister's cinematography. Even with today's sophisticated home theaters, The Dark Knight in IMAX proves a vast separation remains between private and public venues. When The Dark Knight comes to Blu-ray, no matter how amazing it looks, it won't measure up to the IMAX theater experience.

See The Dark Knight. See it in IMAX.

ADDITIONAL NOTE:
I saw the French film, Tell No One, yesterday afternoon. Talk about a movie with a “hook”. In the beginning, a pediatrician (Francois Cluzet) and his wife (Marie Josee-Croze) go skinny dipping at night in an isolated lake, and the wife wanders off alone following an argument. The husband hears a loud noise and chases after her, guided by the sound of her screams, but is knocked out by an unseen assailant. Then, eight years after his wife's murder by a serial killer, the husband reads a newspaper story about two bodies being unearthed near the lake where she died. The case is reopened, and he is now a suspect. Making things even stranger, the husband receives an email from his dead wife.

Based on the American novel by Harlan Coben, and released in France in November 2006, Tell No One is a satisfying mystery/thriller/romance; certainly a “must see” for U.S. viewers this year. Though it was pretty convoluted, it was never difficult to follow. Unfortunately, the middle aged couple sitting behind me during the show might disagree with that sentiment. At one point, when a character was mentioned by name, I overheard the man ask, “Who the hell is that?”, to which the wife responded, “Don't ask me...” At least six times over the course of the film I heard the wife say, “This is thoroughly confusing.”

The film is not confusing in the slightest, and all of the clues add up. Do the characters always make the brightest decisions? No. Are there some elements of the mystery, once explained, that don't quite hold up under scrutiny? Probably so. Does it feel more like an American film than a French film? Without a doubt. Still, the performances are good, the script is solid, and for two hours most viewers will be thoroughly engaged, trying to solve the puzzle. I had a good time.

WALL-E: The Return of Visual Storytelling

Here is my brief summation, as if I had written a full review and this was my closing sentence: WALL-E is a fantastic film, but it is not for everyone.

This became painfully obvious to me as I sat in the theater, personally enthralled by the Pixar magic up on the screen, but unable to escape the huffing, general restlessness, and constant blasts of cell phone light piercing the darkness to my immediate right. That was all my girlfriend's doing. Needless to say, she hated the movie. I'm not sure how everyone else in the theater felt, but thankfully laughter and general amusement seemed to continue up to the final credits. A goth-looking teen couple left about halfway through, never to return, but if anything I considered that an advertisement for the film's high quality.

I must admit, I need to see the film again without the perpetual distraction and discomfort caused by countless shrewd glances and a text message that read: “This is stupid.” Yes, more lovely moments courtesy of my girlfriend. Had WALL-E run thirty minutes longer, I may have ended up a permanent resident of the theater, at least until the cleaning crew came in and discovered my dead body.

So, why did my girlfriend not enjoy WALL-E? Her most telling reaction/explanation came about twenty-five minutes in. I looked over and saw her mouth the phrase, “Does anyone ever talk?!” I suppose I had failed to warn her that the film has very little dialogue, and indeed practically zero dialogue for the first thirty minutes or so. Little did she know that was the very reason I was excited to see it. WALL-E adheres to the old saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Not always a true statement, I admit. Precious few “pictures” in an Ed Wood movie, for example, are worth any words at all. However, in the hands of the highly imaginative minds employed at Pixar, each image is filled with such intricate detail, one can only pity the writer who attempts to paint the same scene in sentences.

I admire films that fully exploit the unique strengths of this medium to tell their stories. Within the first ten minutes it is clear that, due to pollution in the future, the human race has abandoned Earth aboard a massive spaceship called the Axiom, leaving behind scores of robots to clean up the mess. WALL-E is one such robot. Much like an infant, WALL-E can not express himself through words, but he need not speak to be fully understood. We see that he is lonely, we know how badly he yearns for companionship, we realize the sun gives him life (he's solar powered), we understand that his sole intended function is to compress trash, day in and day out, long after the other models like him have gone quiet and still.

We get to see his personality as well, and machine or not, he certainly has one. After a long day of work, we see him return to the home he has made over the centuries (an old storage shed), where he removes his treads as if they were shoes, watches an old VHS copy of “Hello Dolly!” on a magnified iPod, and remains safe from the frequent storms brewing outside. Illuminated by Christmas lights, we see WALL-E's little collection of knick knacks, the various treasures he has saved in an Igloo Playmate ice chest while he's out doing what he was built to do. One nice gag has him discovering a diamond ring, then tossing it aside in favor of the box it was in, which intrigues him.


When WALL-E watches “Hello Dolly!”, he stares in wide-robot-eyed amazement as the two characters on-screen sing and stroll down the street. WALL-E looks longingly at their hands, the physical connection between them. We see a close-up of WALL-E's own “hands” as he tenderly puts them together, one holding the other, just to imagine what it might be like. Not a word is spoken, but those images are infinitely more poetic and rewarding than someone saying, “I'm lonely, I need to hold someone.” And if the viewer turned away for even a few seconds, the moment would be lost.

Ever since the advent of sound in cinema, this kind of visual storytelling has become something of a lost art. Even now, the very best filmmakers usually find a way to say more in their images than dialogue alone could ever convey. It's like Robert Altman once said, “Images are the reason for film, otherwise you might as well turn off the picture and call it radio.”

Indeed, in the 1940's, families used to gather around the radio, not the television, and listen to radio dramas. People were wizards in that medium as well. Orson Welles, for example, was an expert in the use of sound to tell a story, and later proved an innovator in the use of images too. Honestly though, a person who reads a magazine or cleans the house or lifts weights while “watching” a movie, is doing nothing more than listening to the damn radio. If one finds comfort in missing the entire point of this visual medium, then he or she might as well be living in the 1940's as far as I'm concerned. The images truly are the one and only difference between motion pictures and a radio drama.

I am not implying, however, that WALL-E is a silent film. That would be absurd, untrue, and a grave insult to the immensely talented sound design team. Pixar utilizes everything at its disposal here, image and sound in equal measure, to create a beautifully realized future world and a highly poignant tale. Still, WALL-E is director Andrew Stanton's “love letter” to the films he adores, many of which happen to be from the silent era. Sound effects and music may be accounted for, but dialogue would be superfluous.

In a recent A.V. Club interview, Stanton said:

We definitely felt like, “You know, we should look at the masters because these guys had decades to become the best at telling stories without the dependency of dialogue.” So we watched a Chaplin film and a Keaton film and sometimes a Harold Lloyd film every day at lunch for almost a year and a half, the story crew and the animation crew. And became pretty much familiar with their entire bodies of work. You walk away from that thinking, “What can't you tell completely visually?” These guys were just...everything seemed possible to convey. And you realized how much of that staging and legwork was actually lost when sound came in. People got lazy and just sort of relied on the dialogue to get stuff across.

Key word: lazy. Like Andrew Stanton, I'm a huge fan of Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, and, to a somewhat lesser extent, Harold Lloyd. So none of the references to those cinematic legends in WALL-E were lost on me. Overall, however, I would describe WALL-E as 2001: A Space Odyssey meets Jacques Tati, with a spoonful of Chaplin-esque pathos for good measure. Tati's comedy placed an emphasis on the marriage of image and sound (Playtime is so very brilliant), but dialogue was used sparingly. Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey can be seen in the science fiction setting and pacing of WALL-E (not to mention the numerous homages, such as the autopilot that resembles HAL 9000), and while 2001 wasn't a silent film per se, it did keep dialogue at a premium.

However, WALL-E is more character driven than a Tati picture or 2001, it is told on a more intimate scale and remains, at its core, a simple love story, which invites the comparison to Chaplin. In fact, there is a scene in WALL-E that unmistakably recalls the famous ending of 1931's City Lights, where the flower girl realizes the true identity of the Little Tramp.


Above, Left to Right: Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin
Below, Left to Right: Harold Lloyd, Jacques Tati


Even for those who are not aware of the many references to other films, WALL-E should still be a great experience. So why is it causing some viewers to huff and puff in theaters? Unfortunately, we probably don't need to look beyond our own living rooms these days to find the answer. We live in a world where “Law & Order” reruns, “CSI”, and countless other programs have turned people into passive viewers. Television has essentially become a radio again (mind you, I'm not referring to all television, just the majority of basic network television).

Granted, when you are sitting in a comfy chair watching anything you are, in a sense, passive. But we all know that some films demand more of us than others, forcing at least our brains to engage in more active participation. This doesn't occur with most television programs, where the visuals serve little purpose, redundant dialogue is constantly bashed into our skulls (“Do you get it yet? Are you sure you get it?! One more time to be certain!”), and everything is conveniently wrapped up in a lengthy explanation that may or may not take place in a courtroom.

If you fall asleep during an average episode, only to wake up at the end, chances are you won't miss a beat playing catch up. Nothing is required of the viewer whatsoever, which is why people have fallen into this pattern of “watching” TV as they piddle around the house. “I'm listening,” they say. Then they “watch” a film like 2001 or Terrence Malick's Days of Heaven and wonder why they don't know what the hell is going on, or why they ultimately disliked it. Like the scene in WALL-E that I described above: if you look away, you are lost, and there is no dialogue “safety net” waiting to rescue you.

Hey, isn't that what WALL-E had to say about humanity in the future? People fall into a certain pattern of laziness (in our case, lazy viewers), they eventually accept it as the norm, and after enough time passes, the human race entirely forgets about what really matters. Ok, so things aren't quite that dramatic here, but my point remains: too many people have forgotten the importance of images in a film. Images are, or at least should be, the single most crucial ingredient in any motion picture (hence the term “motion picture”).

Pixar knows this, but has never proven it quite so effectively as in WALL-E. As much as I enjoyed the Toy Story movies, The Incredibles, Finding Nemo, Ratatouille, and Pixar's other great works, WALL-E has to be their most accomplished film to date. Is it perfect? No, and that's not what I'm arguing. In fact, to be fair, I don't think it lives up to the very best works of Keaton, Chaplin, or Tati, nor do I think it is quite the masterpiece that 2001: A Space Odyssey is. The environmental message is a bit forced (skyscrapers of trash are more numerous than real buildings?), the second half of the film is not as strong as the first, and so forth.

Still, when all is said and done, WALL-E is one of the greatest animated films of all time, perhaps in my own top five (top ten for sure). I would still place Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away, Walt Disney's Pinocchio, and Isao Takahata's Grave of the Fireflies above it, while the finest of all, for me, may forever be Russian animator Yuri Norstein's A Tale of Tales. Nonetheless, WALL-E is a must see film. A special film.

There may be a few voices of dissent, but nothing can take away from Pixar's achievement here. When someone says Citizen Kane is “crap” (those who dislike it usually can't intelligently elaborate beyond that), does that make it any less of a film? No. It will always be held in high esteem by those who hold film itself in high esteem. By that same token, WALL-E will go down in history as one of the finest animated movies ever made. No amount of pissing, moaning, or texting "This is stupid" will ever change that.