My Week With Marilyn

My Week With Marilyn  (January 2012)

(Directed by Simon Curtis 2011)

Biographical tales on film have to bend your imagination a little because of the challenge in finding actors who truly resemble the character from history they are portraying. In these days of prosthetics a lot can be done to enhance and transform the face. A broader chin here, a pointier nose there.

How then do you offer a visualisation of a memoir written by Colin Clark who was the third director on the movie The Prince and the Showgirl starring Laurence Olivier and Marilyn Monroe ? On the one hand we have a glamourous and attractive stage and movie star of the twentieth century, and on the other we have an iconic sex symbol. Both these actors have played formative parts in the psyche of anyone interested in stage and cinema over the age of 60. Perhaps therefore, Kenneth Branagh and Michelle Williams are able to get away with their portrayals without too big a leap of faith. Williams is able to do this through the decent direction – glimpses of Monroe’s earlier performances as played by Williams are spliced into the story to show us where she has come from.

The story offers us a Monroe that aspires to be not an iconic film star but a serious actor. This she is trying to achieve by employing  “method” acting teacher Paula Strasberg Someone should have told her that this was not the film to practice her method acting with. Branagh releases his frustration on Zoe Wanamakers excellent Strasberg , “Well, you had better tell her to pretend to believe in her character…”. We also see sweeping shots of what she is reading in her bedroom, James Joyce’s Ulysses , an echo of the Eve Arnold portrait. It is the play between Olivier and Monroe that offers the more interesting episodes of this memoir, as observed by Clark, played by Eddie Redmayne. His boyish portrayal of Clark is the story thread of the film. This relates to how he falls in love with Monroe, who is beginning her addiction to barbiturates and allowing her vulnerability to affect everything she does. Her (paid) supporters protect her ego which gets a battering in the process of her clashes with Olivier on the film set.

This is a very British film which has all the trappings of a re-watchable movie.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (30 December 2011)

[David Fincher 2010]

Stieg Larsson’s Swedish trilogy about the eccentric, highly intelligent, computer hacking, confident and totally independent woman who becomes befriended by a journalist when he is hired by a former corporate company founder to investigate the historical disappearance of his granddaughter – has already been filmed in the Swedish language. The three books were filmed in 2009 and released the same year in Britain. The popularity of the books worldwide meant that it would not be long before the American studios decided to to make a version that meant that it could be seen without having to spend nearly three hours reading subtitles. On this occasion, the remake is justified for that reason. It is unfair to compare the two films simply because they both follow the story in all its complexities without deviation, apart from one (possibly important) detail at the end of David Fincher’s film. If you read the book, and I strongly advise you to read the book, you will spot it easily.

The lead male character in the story, Mikael Blomkvist, played by Daniel Craig has lost a major court case when the subject of an article he has published sues him for libel. His investigative journalistic qualities come to the attention of the founding non-executive of a corporate company who is desperate to find out what happened to his granddaughter who had disappeared some twenty years previously and on whose anniversary he receives a mysterious framed flower. To assist him, the subject of the title, Lisbeth Salander, who is working part time as an investigator with a private security firm, is recruited because of her extraordinary ability in discovering background information on Blomkvist for his new employers.  Salander is played by Rooney Mara and both she and Craig deliver excellent performances in the roles of the key players in the story. Although there are times when you recall Craig in his role as James Bond, his Blomkvist is a far superior part for him to play.

The reason why the book should be read before seeing the film is because it is so complicated to follow on screen alone and the challenge is to be able to understand the subtlety of the twists and turns as they unfold on the screen, thus leaving the viewer with confusion on occasions with regard to the complexities of the family history. The details of the family history are crucial to the story behind the girl’s disappearance and the book reader is able to linger on these at a slower speed. The film does not do justice to the family members and we meet them only too briefly. Only the one family member, who we discover is behind the reason for the granddaughter’s disappearance, is given this opportunity of in depth treatment and this is at the end when his true nature is uncovered in terrifying detail. This particular sequence keeps you on the edge of your seat with the fear he creates.

The title of the book when it was published in Sweden was The Woman Who Hates Men and as Lisbeth Salander unfolds her own part of the story in the film, the purpose behind the title is revealed. Rooney Mara acts the part superbly on the screen without going beyond exactly what we understood in the book. The visualisation of the sexual violence she experiences is offered without exaggeration, and although a real challenge to sit through, is noted for it’s lack of gratuity and titillation. This is a long film of a long book which David Fincher completed with integrity. It felt Swedish and the non-Swedish actors worked hard to sustain quasi Swedish accents. Even the IKEA style interiors gave it an aura of authenticity.

".........but you have to keep the line tight"

“……………..but you have to keep the line tight”

We all watch films and come away with iconic snippets of dialogue.

Each and every classic has a famous line which is easily remembered when quoted but a challenge to think of when offered a film title to quote from. Either that or a film is misquoted. It is a myth that Bergman said “Play it again Sam.” (Play it Sam, play it for me). But not all films are classics, yet they offer up meaningful lines that stay with their followers, like lines that jump out from a book. They mean something important to the reader or the viewer but have to be explained to others who have not picked up on it.

At the end of Walk the Line (James Mangold 2005), there is a repatriation scene between Johnny Cash and his family. The children are playing with their grandfather, using a pair of tins at the end of a long piece of string. This is a string telephone and the children call to Johnny Cash, played by Joaquin Phoenix, to show him what they are doing. He spots the slack string and he shouts back at them “…………but you have to keep the line tight.” This was the last piece of dialogue in the film and it sums up the whole point of the film. Cash had been living his life in such a way that he was in danger of losing everything at one point. His redemption was in understanding the need for focus and keeping what was important to him tight. This quote has become a staple in my repertoire of sayings especially when there is a call for an element of discipline or focus in a task or a problem that needs solving.

For many years I have been maintaining a blog on the subject of my allotment and the experience of growing and harvesting. It was a mixture of humour and parody, lists and facts, but always on the subject of fruit, vegetables and flowers that I grew with and sometimes without, success. As the years went by I began to realise that it was a blog of random news that often went in cycles. I knew a few of the 100 or so folk who read it each week. But what value it had was only in the initial fun that I had in compiling it. The problem was that I was not growing with it and there was a limit to the inventiveness of reporting on the allotment. I had this problem with listening to the Archers for the first time in my life last year. After six months I soon realised that nothing ever happened. Unless one of the writers through a spanner in the works, such as someone falling off a roof.

Cinema and film are a passion of mine. I might not go more than once per week. I watch film at home and record many from Film Four. I am blessed with an independent cinema in the city centre, Glasgow Film Theatre, and also have the benefit of a multiplex when I need to see a blockbuster or movie that does not get round the independent circuit.

So now you will understand not only the title of this new blog, but also a little of the reasoning behind compiling it. Each posting will be a review of a new film that I have seen as close to the date of posting as possible. It will be an opinionated review, not a critique, and never longer than an A4 sheet – thus keeping the line tight.