Nuts in May

In an earlier post regarding the DVD release of the Mike Leigh at the BBC box-set, I described this particular film, Nuts in May (first broadcast January 13th, 1976), as "loose and rambling"; a two word pairing that not only underlines the direction that these characters take throughout the course of their literal journey through the English countryside as defined by the plot, but in the practical, presentational way in which Leigh allows his story to unfold and eventually develop. In what has now become fairly characteristic of the director's individual approach to cinema, Nuts in May is an intelligent if somewhat fairly broad character-study enlivened by moments of keenly observed social-satire; where the elements of conflict, drama and humour central to our engagement with the film are created by the endearingly awkward interactions between each member of the cast, and the often uncomfortable, or sometimes absurd situations, to which they're confined.

Although it is a much lighter film in disposition than the majority of Leigh's work, either before or since, the general thematic development of Nuts in May is nonetheless an essential example of Leigh's particular ability to create moments of conflicting drama from even the most honest and basic of situations. These situations could (and indeed do) include anything from the pitching of a tent or the excavation of a centuries old fossil, to the more reflective, interpersonal moments, of which the vast majority seem drawn from the small-scale spectacle of everyday life. In taking these two characters and introducing them as a married couple, eventually revealing the minute details of their lifestyle and pursuits through the wry dialog and the interaction of the characters, Leigh is able to create something that works on several levels; not simply as a character study, or as a wider satire on a particular subculture or general ideology, but as something that establishes a number of themes germane to the broader parameters of Leigh's cinema: chiefly, the ideas of conflict and co-existence.

Despite being set within the midst of the beautiful rolling-green countryside of Dorset, on the south-west coast of England, Nuts in May has enough similarities to later films like Grown Ups (1980) or Meantime (1984), in which the domestic disputes and disagreements of different characters attempting to get along with one another is used to explore deeper, more complex themes pertaining to the basics of human psychology. In fact, Leigh himself has stated that his intention with Nuts in May was to produce an urban drama in a rural setting, so that the contrasts between characters from numerous walks of life attempting to co-inhabit a particular shared space - like the cramped living rooms and kitchens that one might find in the suburbs, or on a council estate - could be used as a springboard for the purposes of discussing more universal themes or ideas not necessarily related to plot.



As something of a departure for Leigh, not just in terms of its setting or in the basic concept of characters on the road (so to speak), Nuts in May could be seen as an attempt at filtering its drama (in both structure and approach) through two very different and distinct filmmaking forms. Most obviously, the situation comedy, or in fact, more specifically, the English situation comedy, as typified by the likes of The Good Life (1975) or The Last of the Summer Wine (1973) - in which eccentric if well-meaning characters are established and then placed into a recognisably, every-day situation - and the road movie: as our two characters become almost like guides to this strange shambolic trek around the English coast, bringing us along, as if passengers on a journey, and allowing us to share in the ups and downs of their experiences. As ever, Leigh captures this action in a way that is mostly unobtrusive, observing these characters, either in a very reserved, almost documentarian approach, or shooting hand-held from the back of the couple's car (which continues that notion of the audience as part of the drama; the brought-along hitchhiker, caught up in the narrative and along for the ride).

It is in the relationship between the two central characters that the basis for the various emotional responses to both the comedy and the drama are formed; with the obvious contrasts of background and attitude - as one character's quirks or preoccupations are played off against another wildly different character - being used in order to trigger personal associations in an attempt to make the situations more real and our response to these characters, as they move from laughable to sympathetic, all the more authentic. Unlike many of Leigh's others films for television, the characters from Nuts in May were pre-existing, with the film created around two characters that Leigh had originally developed for an earlier theatre production, in which the domestic-life of the central couple was documented in a kind of two-act, interior-set comedy of manners - more in keeping perhaps with the director's follow-up film, the highly successful and now fairly iconic television play, Abigail's Party (1977). In adapting these characters for the cinema, Leigh opens the drama up; taking his characters on the road, removing them from their protective domestic setting in which their traits and eccentricities were freely accepted, and turning them loose on the world, so that these same characteristics can be observed by both the audience and the supporting cast to better contrast the deeper psychological implications of their actions.



In this sense, the title of the film, as ever with Leigh's screen titles, has certain hidden implications, here relating back to the traditional children's rhyme: which establishes a certain generational background and the notion of a pairing between the male and female protagonists (and also, you could argue, the male and female characters that will later appear on the fringes of the narrative). However, the title can also work as a fairly obvious though no less amusing pun; the idea that the nuts in season are actually the two central characters; nuts, as in "oddballs", on holiday in the month of May (with May relating to the May Day celebrations, or the May Bank Holiday, when families often plan weekends away). The film opens with the screen title rendered in a cheerful font - brightly coloured in an almost picture-postcard parody to better make light of that once most curious of English pursuits: the countryside camping holiday - superimposed over a shot of the ferry as it arrives in Dorset with the two main characters in tow. On the soundtrack our jovial protagonists Keith (Roger Sloman) and Candice-Marie (Alison Steadman) sing their own self-composed folk song about an escape to the country, in which the improbably twee-lyrics and the yearning sense of innocence as expressed in the song's particular worldview, seems to underline the broader aspects of their relationship and the general dynamics of the trip itself.

I want to get away she said
I want to get away
I'll take you on a trip he said
We'll have a holiday
We'll be with Mother Nature
And laugh and sing and play
I want to get away she said
I want to get away

I wonder where we'll go, she said
I wonder where we'll go
I'll look around the world, he said
I'll search both high and low
The prettiest is Dorset, it has so many charms
We'll walk across the hills and dales
And look at all the farms

The contrast between these two forms, with the characters singing their song with a dual guitar and banjo accompaniment over a travelogue of images shot from the back of the couple's car, creates that perfect evocation of the escape to the country - the get-away, as it were - where couples would leave behind the toil and the strife of the suburbs or the big city and get back to nature. That Keith, in his self-composed lyric to the song, expresses an urge to walk across the hills and dales "looking at all the farms" is in complete contrast to Candice-Marie, who corrects his lyric, claiming that "linking each other's arms" is the more emotionally expressive dénouement to the pastoral evocation that they're creating. Keith's natural reaction is to dismiss the suggestion - "that doesn't scan!" - seems to illustrate right from the very beginning the sense of order and efficiency that Keith strives for; setting their holiday to a strict day-to-day timetable and preplanning every facet of the trip, right down to the most effective footwear for clambering on rocks or walking the footpath to the beach.

As the relationship develops, and the correlation between the two characters becomes more clearly defined, we can question the subtleties of this introduction, or what it says about our protagonists. When Candice-Marie sings "I want to get away", are we to see this simply as a yearning for the open road, fresh air and countryside, or is it instead a subtle hint to her dissatisfaction with the strict, know-it-all Keith? We can take it either way. Likewise, in the later scene, when the couple perform their song about London Zoo, which has the same melody, chord structure and rhythm as the song from earlier in the film, the phrasing of the lines "I want to see the zoo, she said, I want to see the zoo" / "I want to take you there, he said, I want to go with you" could hint at the fact that despite his bluster and need to get his own way, it is actually Candice-Marie who wears the trousers in the relationship, and without her, Keith would effectively be nothing. If we choose this interpretation, then the relationship between Candice-Marie and their campsite neighbour Ray (Anthony O'Donnell) takes on a different quality, as she seems to be generally interested in the young man, even coercing her husband into taking a picture of the two of them together. It also, to some extent, explains the sexless relationship that the married couple share, with the particular association between them seeming at times to be more like that of the teacher and his student. He is full of his own stuff and nonsense, older than his years. She works in a toy shop and sleeps with a purple kitten-shaped hot water bottle named Prudence.



The brilliance of Nuts in May is that it allows these characters to develop and evolve naturally, without relying on the usual melodramatic superfluities, intrusion of plot twists or creative editing to make the process more direct. The narrative builds gradually, introducing the two central characters, placing them in a situation, allowing them the time to interact with the situation, to use it as a means of developing their own characters in more detail, before another character is introduced into the situation to cause a conflict that drives the narrative further towards its natural resolution. With the arrival of Ray, and later the brash and jubilant couple Honky and Finger (played by Sheila Kelley and Stephen Bill), Leigh creates a natural chain of events that will push the characters to the very edges of their patience, once again illustrating that idea of co-existence, or the neighbourhood power struggle that he would return to in Grown Ups, or Home Sweet Home (1982).



Although the issue of class, so often crucial to much of Leigh's wok, and particularly of these early television films, such as Hard Labour (1973) or Abigail's Party, is mostly absent from the development of Nuts in May, it does find a certain parallel with the way Keith and Candice-Marie are seen by the locals, who can smell their suburban back-to-nature bullshit from a mile off. It's particularly palpable in the scenes between our central couple and the pig farmer, who seems to get an enormous amount of pleasure from informing Keith that the filed in which they wish to spend the night doesn't have a toilet, and the policeman, who, in one of the most cruel scenes in the film, stops the couple and penalises Keith for having obscured the rear-window of his car with camping equipment. There is also some hint to the nastier side of Keith, who, in angrily confronting Honky and Finger, screams to them to "get back to [their] tenements", which cuts through the audience with all the ferocity of a particularly violent racial slur. However, such moments simply add depth to the characters, never turning them into caricatures, as is the usual criticism of Leigh's work, but simply offering the different shades and aspects of a personality that makes up the greater whole.

As is often the case with Leigh's work, the richness of these characterisations and the work that he and his actors put into the creation of these fully-functioning individuals - with full back stories and carefully drawn relationships - seems to push the viewer into becoming an armchair psychiatrist, trying to "understand" these characters, their actions and their motivations. However, to read too directly into these sketches could easily take away from the immediacy of the drama, or the sheer entertainment value that comes from witnessing these perfectly nuanced performances, where those involved act and react to the situations, or to the other characters, and make it seem entirely without effort. Although plagued by eccentricities and at times downright exasperating traits, we never find these characters repellent or repulsive. We enjoy the company of Keith and Candice-Marie, even though they're irritating, or occasionally self-righteous. Even with Keith, all well-meaning arrogance and authoritative tone, attempting to force his lifestyle on the various other characters encountered during the course of his journey, and condescending in his approach to his own wife, who in turn is skittish and naive, peeking out from beneath an oversized bobble-hat and national-health glasses, and speaking in a slow, monotonous drone, each sentence posed as a question, we nonetheless feel something for these characters, and can offer empathy and understanding when the film ends on a note of quiet desperation.

In a recent interview with the broadcaster Mark Lawson for the BBC (to coincide with the release of this particular box-set), Leigh claimed that his preferred ending for the film would have had Keith and Candice-Marie camped out atop the enormous phallic erection of The Cerne Abbas giant - which would, in his mind, have been the perfect ironic critique of the couple's central relationship - but the lack of funding made it impossible. As it stands, the current ending is just fine. There's no shot of the ferry to end the film, or to wrap up this disastrous journey, so we're left with the suggestion that this closing scene, tranquil enough, but also fairly tragic in its own way, will just continue, with Candice-Marie happily strumming out a song about the need for conservation, as Keith pops behind the pigpen with a roll of toilet paper, giving some vague reference to what would have been Leigh's original title, "Eaten By A Pig".

Ready for the Floor

A continuation of a theme that I accidentally stumbled upon a month ago with my post on the Florence and the Machine video for Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up); the realisation that Lights in the Dusk needed something a little more colourful and contemporary to elevate it above the kind dreary nonsense so often featured on the pages of this blog. It could also be seen as a clear attempt to smuggle in some music discussion through the backdoor... which is always fun, but not enough to dedicate an entire space to.

At any rate, I thought it would be interesting if every other month or so, I wrote about one of my favourite music videos from each year, reserving the discussion only for videos that seem to aspire to something greater than the usual promotional gestures or the basic gone-but-then-forgotten generators of consumer hype. Although it's generally true that most media spectators can find at least some worth in the work of directors like Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry or Chris Cunningham (to name a few), there are still a number of videos that go without celebration, simply because many choose to see them as nothing more than empty promotional-work with no artistic merit, which of course, seems a little unfair – especially when many of the greatest music videos feature more creativity and imagination than the average feature film.

This particular clip, Ready for the Floor, by the British electro-pop band Hot Chip, strikes me as a particularly vibrant example of the perfect pop video; clever, concise, and above all else unique to the image of the band. In a few basic frames it succeeds in capturing the eye of the potential viewer with its unforgettable visual presentation; mixing pop-culture and pop-art in a way that makes it approachable, not only as an exciting piece of music-television, but also as something that wouldn't seem out of place in the pages of a glossy, ultra-hip, art and design magazine, such as Juxtapoz or PIG.

The notion that this particular combination of sound and image seems very modern, very fresh, and in some ways characteristic of a generation defined by its fascination with second-hand style or an obsession with childhood nostalgia.

Ready for the Floor directed by Nima Nourizadeh, 2008:

Ready for the Floor is exactly what I was describing in the earlier post when I referred to the "emphasis on the conceptual element; of lines, shapes, colours and contrasts." It is, in other words, a concept video - the kind that has become increasingly passé over the subsequent year, with several high-profile mainstream artistes successfully copying a similar look and feel from the video in question to the point where this particular appropriation, or look, has become predictable, or worse, entirely generic. For example, an electro-pop band in the year 2009 who want to appear on the vanguard of the avant-garde can easily throw in a few Commodore 64 effects or references to the kind of subject-matter that Kraftwerk were singing about on the album Computer World (1981) and still find themselves on the right side of the cutting edge.

However, we should remember that Hot Chip had been developing this kind of sound since 2004; even as the scene was still swooning for the lad-rock of bands like The Libertines and Arctic Monkeys. It feels specific to their image – to the image that their music creates, and to the particular personality of the band as a whole. That mixture of the nostalgic - exemplified by the current wave of 1980s style-references in fashion and design - mixed with the contemporary; the post-post modern notion that any idea has relevance, regardless of where it came.

The director of this clip, Nima Nourizadeh, took the song's throwaway reference to the Tim Burton-directed Batman (1989) - "you're my number one guy" (rather that than the more endlessly quotable "this town needs an enema") - and ran with it; creating a neon-coloured ode to Jack Nicholson's Joker by way of Ceaser Romero. The iconography is particularly relevant to anyone who grew up during that specific period, circa the late 1980s; from the two-face references predominantly evident in the dancing Vicky Vales' or the literal split-personality of lead-singer Alexis Taylor (who here looks like a cross-between the late-80s kids' show presenter Timmy Mallet and a Spike-era Elvis Costello), to the birthday gifts filled with poisonous gas, the Tetris-themed production design and the ghosts of Robert Palmer's oft-parodied video for his song Addicted to Love. It also reminds me a little of the classic videos that New Order made for the singles Blue Monday and True Faith; where the ideas of performance and conceptual design were blended together to create Haute Culture pantomime pieces; or something that might have been more at home in the Guggenheim than broadcast on MTV.

Although the video tells a story, placing the band at the mercy of an evil genius and forced to carry out a series of offbeat tasks in order to guarantee their escape (or so we assume), it doesn't really conform to any easily identifiable narrative like some of the more ambitious music videos often do. Instead, it presents these scenes as sketches that flow, one into the next, as if following the panels of a comic-strip (again, the retro Batman references of the pre-Chris Nolan variety). We can trace the line, left to right, like the vocals drifting from speaker to speaker, and pulled by that looped guitar riff that carries us through the song.

It also plays on the title, which, as written, could be something as innocent as ready for the dance floor - especially given the up-tempo nature of the music - but here, in the visual sense, seems evocative of something like the killing floor; in which the ready participants must sing karaoke into a microphone gun, or traverse a big-top style torture chamber that reminds us of a Game Boy classic.

Ready for the Floor directed by Nima Nourizadeh, 2008:

Tetris designed and programmed by Alexey Pajitnov, 1984:

Ready for the Floor directed by Nima Nourizadeh, 2008:

Pull My Heart Away

Quite possibly the second most impressive music video of 2009, made all the more remarkable in this particular instance given the fact that the performer, Jack Peñate, was a recording artist pretty far off my musical radar before the beginning of the year, and that's putting it politely. In fact, I genuinely despised his first album and the whole NME approved mock-cockney conversational vocals over a Housemartins-lite backing track shtick that he had goin' on circa 2007. Perhaps I was just being bitter because my own career as a singer songwriter had ended so catastrophically (although, to be honest, I never really put the work in); but even so the lightweight faux-indie-pop styling of his earlier work and image certainly didn't prepare me for this shift into a vaguely late '80s but also quite contemporary The Cure meets a James Ford production style effort that this particular track is steeped in. And while the song shimmers with chiming guitar riffs and confident multi-tracked vocals, the video itself more than matches the adventure with this hazy evocation of burnt-out desert desolation that perfectly captures the juxtaposition of the joyous abandon and intense melancholy explicit in the verse/chorus interchange.

Once again I can't really put into words what is so remarkable about this clip. I guess like the Florence and the Machine video that I wrote about in August, this particular video seems like it's been sent out as a transmission from another world; a world where artists aren't obliged to sell their music, or themselves in order to make a mark, and where the finished product doesn't scream "buy me, buy me, buy me" in an endorsement of its own cultural insignificance. There's no regard for fashion here - but at the same time it looks incredibly fashionable, precisely because it looks like nothing else (or at least nothing else that's being produced right now). In fact, it looks like it could have come from 1968 or 1988, or 1991 for that matter: superficially bringing to mind the Stéphane Sednaoui-directed video for the U2 single Mysterious Ways. The fact that it just happens to comes from this year, a year dominated by theatrically minded young women with synthesisers and a penchant for suggestive stage attire, lazily provocative pop acts, award show invasions and a host of gone-but-then-forgotten flavour of the month R&B groups trying to spice up the usual urban posturing with a touch of Grime, makes it all the more exciting.

Pull My Heart Away directed by Jack Peñate & Cherise Payne, 2009:

The visual associations might be entirely personal, but for me the look of this video and the exotic evocation of ruined temples, figures in the landscape, ecstasy and shadow dancing recall elements of loosely avant-garde filmmakers like Werner Herzog, Kenneth Anger and Philippe Garrel. Though such particular associations are no doubt accidental, put there by my own overactive imagination (because that's just the way my mind registers these images), it nonetheless enlivens this clip with a sense of something greater. A window into something, and not just something designed to sell records or catch the eye of the passing vidiot, but something that works at creating a suggestion of the song's intent. It is after all a fairly twee lyric about the breakup of a relationship and could have quite easily been reduced to the kind of nonsense of Second Minute or Hour, where the video doesn't really offer anything beyond, you know, promoting the song (and the elements of the song that are most saleable). Instead, Peñate and the director have decided to produce a video that interprets the themes behind the song; the emptiness of failure, the loneliness of the post-breakup mindset, the barren wasteland of life beyond that sense of purpose; the exploration of the ancient ruins of existence as viewed through a glass orb that obscures the memory even further, like the lyrics to a pop song.

"It's not like my feet are stuck to the floor –" he sings, and indeed, this is a video full of movement; full of awkward dancing around objects; a half-hearted celebration, to "dance the pain away" as someone once wrote. It's quaint. Peñate may indeed still be a prick, but there's desperation to the movement, to this event, which seems to be perfectly in line with the general tone of the music. In the images there are traces of Fata Morgana, of the climactic dream sequence in The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, of the "Falconer" scene in Le Lit de la vierge, or of the general aimless exploration of The Inner Scar. Perhaps these similarities don't register to anyone else; perhaps you disagree with me, or think I'm talking bull-shit, but the reminder of these objects, for me, is as special as the objects themselves. To me, this is a brave piece of music promotion; it's simple to the point of 'let's go to Jordan with a Super 8 camera and film some stuff'-simple; it's not immediately exciting; it's not glamorous; it celebrates the old, the ancient - but these things make it worthy of merit. More importantly though, it's the sense that these images don't immediately spring to mind when you hear the song, but when you see the two put together it works perfectly, and afterwards you can't imagine one existing without the other.

Phantoms of Nabua

Phantoms of Nabua directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2009:

A film about the impressions of light and memory, described by its director as an exploration on the concept of remembrance and extinction. The title, Phantoms of Nabua (2009), therefore establishes the location, and through the particular evocation of the word phantoms, defines the presentation of these characters emerging, half-formed, from the fires that surround them. The film, which runs for close to eleven minutes in duration (with credits), is part of Weerasethakul's multi-platform 'Primitive' project, which is described by it's creator as a "portrait of home." Weerasethakul states that, like the previous experiment, A Letter to Uncle Boonmee (2009), this film "portrays a communication of light; the lights that exude, on the one hand, the comfort of home, and on the other, destruction." In this respect, it is a film, like much of Weerasethakul's work, that is defined by its images; which are striking, precisely because their relative simplicity - as in the way that these manifestations seem to be created from everyday objects that we might find anywhere around us at any given time - is in a complete contrast with the overwhelming otherworldliness of the manner in which they are used.

This contrast of light, of the natural and the artificial, is of particular significance in how we approach the film; creating a disparity, as ever with this director, where one line intersects another, creating drama and emotional connection from the juxtaposition of two immediately disparate forms. In his more clearly defined narrative work, such as Tropical Malady (Sud pralad, 2004) or Syndromes and a Century (Sang sattawat, 2006), these disparate forms are illustrated by two divergent narrative strands that coalesce. As we view the films, not knowing or expecting such shifts to occur, we're disarmed by the experience; seeing the switch from a level of, for example, documentary realism into pure folklore, as largely disruptive. However, when we think about these tricks again, after the initial viewing, and return to the films in an attempt to try and discover these great mysteries that lurk behind each moment, we see that the two strands complement one another on a much greater level. Certain parallels and similarities can be gleaned from paying close attention to the significance of certain objects, or the introduction of a character, their movements and approach. It also has a lot to do with location. In Tropical Malady, or more specifically perhaps in Blissfully Yours (Sud sanaeha, 2002), the location plays an important part in understanding the drama and the way that it unfolds.

Even the name of the place - Nabua - is rich in exotic suggestion; already creating the image of a jungle at night (hot and wet from the fresh summer rain) before the film has even begun. The lightning storm that introduces the film - real or man-made - also sets a tone for the experiments to follow. Already we're seeing the contrast between the natural and the artificial - both the differences and the similarities - in two distinct presentations; like the two layers of projection from which the film is made - an artificial recording of a literal projection of light on a canvas, capturing another artificial recording against the backdrop of a jungle at night. In this respect, Phantoms of Nabua is a folding of one film into another, with Weerasethakul taking footage from another installation, projecting it on a screen in the middle of a playground illuminated by a solitary fluorescent tube, and allowing the film on screen (as in - one frame within another) to captivate his characters; creating a near-supernatural atmosphere that stresses the extraordinary power of the image, and the impact on those who see it. Thus, in its purest form, it is the expression of the spectacle as it relates to those experiencing it; these lights - like the light from a cinema screen - burning through the dark.

Phantoms of Nabua directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2009:

Weerasethakul compares the project to the book A Man Who Can Recall His Past Lives, claiming that "Primitive is about reincarnation and transformation; a celebration of the destructive force in nature and in us that burns in order to be reborn and mutate." Into this we have the football match – the ball being passed back and forth in a potential representation of the shot/reverse-shot, before setting the screen ablaze. The significance here is unknown. However, these encounters of light, illuminating the pitch-black canvas of night - (obscurité, oh ma lumière) - tell a story. Each object tells a story. In introducing the film and explaining the significance of the fluorescent tube that lights the area directly above the goalposts where the action plays out, Weerasethakul writes: "for an economic reason, most of the houses in Asia are illuminated by fluorescent lights. Even though these lights make the skin look pale, even dead, for me they relate to home, to being home." If each object can be read on such a level, revealing more of Weerasethakul's personal intentions, then we can better appreciate the importance of how each individual object has a meaning, and how each part of this installation can be seen together to create a greater whole.

It goes back to those two original contrasts; the lights that exude the comfort of home or destruction, which are apparent throughout. So the fluorescent tube, with its recollections of home, and the fire which destroys the screen, are explicitly underlined. But then how do we interpret the light that burns behind the screen? This alien-light, reminding us of the strange lights that danced in the trees in the second part of Tropical Malady - or the lights from Steven Spielberg's science-fiction masterpiece Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) - which defy classification, but affect us, emotionally? Is this flickering light, like the light cast from the reflection of a mirror, a destructive force, numbing those that experience it; or is it an altogether more wholesome light – a light that allows these characters to transcend, beyond the primitive tribal rituals of football, or the creation of fire, or the past-violence of Nabua itself, and becoming more like the monolith from Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) – a harbinger of greater change.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind directed by Steven Spielberg, 1977:

Phantoms of Nabua directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2009:

2001: A Space Odyssey directed by Stanley Kubrick, 1968:

Visiting Uwe

Visiting Uwe (subtitled: The Uwe Boll Homestory, 2008), is director / presenter Fabian Hübner's sit-down chat with the notorious German film director Uwe Boll; a contentious figure, best known to most viewers for his continually derided videogame adaptations, such as House of the Dead (2003),BloodRayne (2005) and In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (2007).

Although the current vogue amongst cinephiles of the World Wide Web is to dismiss everything Boll has been involved with, not even agreeing to approach it from the perspective of the so-bad-it's-good variety of cinema's guilty treasures, Hübner's film presents itself as a surprisingly sympathetic portrait of the artist as a middle-aged man; offering Boll the platform to defend himself against the criticisms and accusations that have been thrown at him throughout the course of his career, while also giving the audience a chance to get to know the man behind the myth; establishing a personality beyond the provocation, or the outlandish stunts that have been used to undermine the integrity of Boll's work or the legitimacy of his filmmaking intent. It also allows Boll the opportunity to elucidate on the topic of film, something he seems genuinely passionate about; and although many of his opinions run contrary to my own, I was nonetheless surprised at how interesting Boll could be when discussing his cinematic likes and dislikes in this relaxed and impartial environment.

Presented in sparse black and white and cluttered with elements of split-screen and inter-titles to keep the individual segments of conversation on track, Hübner's fifty-minute film is the kind of documentary in which the actual filmmaking apparatus is allowed to intrude upon the scene; making the process of recording this "event" - the meeting of two filmmakers for the basis of cultural curiosity - a kind of film about filmmaking in its self. Of course, we can assume that this particular aesthetic - very hip, but also deliberately nostalgic; looking back to the period of cinéma-vérité or the nouvelle vague for the purposes of fly-on-the-wall observation - is part of Hübner's general modus operandi as established by his work on the web serial AVANT*GARDE (2008), the particular decision to conduct the interview with this approach in place has a more interesting effect than simply appearing cool or cutting-edge. Specifically, it reinforces the image of Boll as a serious filmmaker largely by framing him against a background of the general paraphernalia of his profession: film cameras, microphones, light-stands and monitors, etcetera.

By placing the filmmaker in this environment, Hübner is able to legitimise Boll's opinions; misdirecting the audience away from the obvious points of controversy and disarming us with a constant reminder of the difficulties and dishonesty of cinema production at its most bare and basic form.

Visiting Uwe directed by Fabian Hübner, 2008:

In the first part of the film, we have a sort-of credit sequence, in which we see Hübner leaving his apartment, heading to the airport and boarding a plane to his required destination. This sequence is somewhat unnecessary; edited like a low-budget hip-hop video and scored by some generic emo-rock band - which is hardly representative of the film as a complete piece of work. From here, a brief wander around the Boll family kitchen stressing the importance of the cappuccino machine, before the two men (and Hübner's accompanying camera operator) get down to the business at hand. From this point on, the film is structured primarily around a series of back-and-forth interview sequences inter-cut with more general scenes of Boll showing the interviewer (and the audience) around his home and offices.

Although on-paper, such a description could call to mind something as vacuous as Cribs (2000), the MTV-produced series, wherein a variety of tasteless celebrities encouraged the cameras into their homes and played up to a crude "nouveau riche" persona, the location and the particular emphasis on the objects found in Boll's home, and more specifically his personal archives, help to further develop the reality of the filmmaker away from the hype and the hatred, to create a more human portrait, in which the man, with his hopes and aspirations, is given a kind of perspective by the framing of Hübner's film.

In this sense, I'm reminded of a quote by Jean-Luc Godard that I've used before: "Objects exist, and if one pays more attention to them than to people, it is precisely because they exist more than the people. Dead objects are still alive. Living people are often already dead." It seems apt given the further significance of the subtitle, The Uwe Boll Homestory, as in the "home-story", as in every home tells a story (perhaps?), which gives the film its added weight. These objects that we discover - film canisters, posters, sleeves for forgotten VHS cassettes, promotional material, trailers and teasers, etc - define the Boll persona; reaffirming it, again, away from the negativity or the endless complaints of gamers of the "Uwe Boll destroyed my childhood" variety, and convinces us that the line between a director considered great and a director considered to be (essentially) without merit, is faint.

When Boll pours through the archives, finding the original 35mm print of his first film, the spoof comedy experiment German Fried Movie (1991), or treats the director (and again, the audience) to the newly edited trailer for his then-most-recent film, the Vietnam War drama Tunnel Rats (2008), we begin to see the emerging image of a man who lives for his work, is proud of it, and more importantly, sees it as a real privilege to be able to make a living in a profession that he's dreamed about since the age of ten.

Visiting Uwe directed by Fabian Hübner, 2008:

In approaching the film in such a way, the audience can see Boll as a filmmaker first and foremost. The notion of the director as the most hated in the world "ever" becomes subdued, and we can see and ultimately accept a man who is passionate about what he does and confident enough in his own opinions to know exactly what he wants, regardless of what anyone else might think. He's been nominated for three Golden Raspberry awards thus far (unfairly, in my opinion, but such "awards" are meaningless from any perspective), but when he discusses the nature of cinema, and how in the grand scheme of things it is genre cinema that prevails over the art-house, we buy every word of it. When Boll dismisses Tarkovsky as "refined tedium", Hübner rolls his eyes (no doubt) in tandem with the audience.

However... does Boll have a point? When Little Miss Sunshine (2006) or Juno (2007) can bring in blockbuster style box-office on a $9 million budget, is there really a growing audience for something like Silent Light (Stellet licht, 2007) or The Man from London (A Londoni férfi, 2007); or are these films destined to play to the same niche audiences - never breaking out of the art-film ghetto? In describing the situation, Boll defines his position: "You have to be realistic; in the USA, 90% of people have never heard of Fellini, Antonioni or Bertolucci. Now, you could tell them about La dolce vita (1960), or Marcello Mastroianni, and perhaps a few would understand the reference, but they don't really care."

Statements like this are bound to provoke a response, but is Boll correct in his opinion that the films of John Ford will endure beyond the cinema of Jean-Luc Godard? After all, people like Hitchcock, Kubrick and Leone, who were often dismissed by the majority of mainstream critics at the height of their creative success, are now seen as absolute masters of the medium, more so than any erstwhile-hip, avant-garde deconstructionist or poet of the silver screen. He also points the finger of judgement at directors like Michael Bay and Eli Roth, who are in the position to make challenging, subversive work with a relevant social and political message, but instead produce insipid, generic nonsense designed to woo fans or score points at the box-office.

Whether or not we agree with Boll's statements, there is no denying that there is an element of his personality that seems intent on challenging his detractors by offering them fodder, either by taking on his critics in a boxing match, or through statements of knowing self-deprecation; claiming that his career will be over in fifteen years, or that the secret to winning an Academy Award is to produce the film that kills the most Nazis. It would seem to be part of the Boll persona; this notion of playing into the (negative) expectations of the critics, and then backing away from it, doing something quite radical and arguing your case from the perspective of a misunderstood genius in a way that makes the whole thing appear to be some kind of situationist-inspired stunt. How else can we explain the career trajectory of a man who is set to follow a serious, documentary-style drama about the situation in Darfur with a film called Zombie Massacre?

Visiting Uwe directed by Fabian Hübner, 2008:

Hübner's film is broken up into a series of specific talking points: "idols", "cinema", "art-house", "filmmaker", "critics", etc, in which the filmmaker attempts to draw a more clearly defined picture of Boll and his particular reputation. His answers to these questions are often surprising, from his admiration for Orson Welles, who Boll describes as "the most interesting director ever, not only as an artist, but as a person as well" before reeling off a list of films including Macbeth (1948) and F for Fake (1972), to an interest in the work of John Ford, Lars von Trier, Martin Scorsese and Luis Buñuel. In describing his inspiration for becoming a director, Boll talks about seeing Mutiny on the Bounty (1962) while still in elementary school, and assuming that the life of a film director was comparable to being a ship's captain - like Trevor Howard, steering his crew into uncharted waters in search of new adventures. It explains some of the reckless ambition evident in Boll's work; the image of this small-town kid, pulling together enough money to make a film, setting his sights on Hollywood, and then using tax-breaks and independent investors to set up his own production company operating out of Frankfurt by way of Vancouver. He now has the kind of control and freedom of independence that most directors can only dream about; even though the situation has its downsides - he's generally despised and pre-judged on every film, with the vast majority of critics pre-rating his work a 1/10 on sites like the Internet Database months before the movies have even been released.

For the most part Hübner keeps his distance, allowing Boll to present his side of the story with only the most minimal of argument and interjection. If anything, this could possibly be described as the film's biggest flaw, with the interviewer never forcing the interviewee to explain his opinions in any kind of greater depth. It would have been interesting to see how Boll, as a fairly headstrong and confrontational character, might have worked with a more aggressive approach, but then there's always the risk that the proceedings could have become another adolescent piece of Boll-bating; complaining about the supposed Ed Wood quality of films like House of the Dead or Alone in the Dark (both mediocre films at best, or worst), but offering no real insight or sense of critical worth. Instead, Visiting Uwe positions itself as a rare insight into a genuine pop-culture phenomenon; a director who in less than a decade, has established a reputation as being one of the worst filmmakers in contemporary cinema, and yet, despite the constant protests and online nitpicking, has continued to work prolifically and independently, tackling everything from horror movies, to action films, to state-of-the-world polemics, and even a low-brow comedy.

In this respect, Visiting Uwe is of interest mostly for the perspective that it offers in placing Boll's diverse and often eccentric career choices into some kind of greater context; illustrating that the roots of a film like Postal (2007) can be seen in the German Fried Movie, or how something like Stoic (2008) or the soon to be released Rampage (2009) can be traced back to his earlier exploitation films, such as Amoklauf (Run Amok, 1994).

Visiting Uwe directed by Fabian Hübner, 2008:


Postal directed by Uwe Boll, 2007


Stoic directed by Uwe Boll, 2009

Occasionally the infamous Boll bitterness creeps in, dismissing the criticisms of BloodRayne start Michael Madsen by shifting the focus on to the actor's alleged alcoholism, as well as presenting a lengthy rant against the aforementioned Bay (which had to be censored for legal reasons). However, even here, when Boll reacts with the unfocused venom of a spoilt Victorian child, we can see the tragedy of the man behind the legend. That level of bitterness that runs deeper than any kind of stunt or simple attention seeking; the kind of bitterness prevalent in someone who has achieved so much by their own limitations but still not enough to gain the respect of their public and peers.

Personally, I respect Boll. I can appreciate the work that he puts in to his films. As someone who tries, on occasion, to wear the hat of a film director, I know how hard it is to get funding - to a get a film off the ground without giving away control to the producers who care only about financial success. When you're from a small town, with no family or connections with the industry, such attempts to get a film made, and more importantly released, is an uphill struggle. As Boll protested in a 2007 interview with Chris Kohler of the website Wired; "You should admire that nobody else did what I did in the last ten years. Not one filmmaker out of Germany was able to raise money. All the German money went to the Hollywood studios; I was the only guy doing it. I did one movie after the other, not anybody else. I do my own distribution, my own project development, my own financing and everything. Nobody else did that. But in the opinion of the Boll bashers, I'm a talentless idiot! And you see it exactly the same."

At the end, can we even be sure of the motives for making this film, for interviewing Boll and allowing his personality to dominate, either as a work of ironic opposition - "Boll sucks so we think he's cool", etc - or a private joke between two men smart enough to know how the industry works and how both could benefit from the obvious publicity. Either way, Visiting Uwe is a fascinating interview that works well, precisely because of its unique position. Right down to the title - first name basis, as if visiting a friend; and indeed, between the more important stuff, there's some playful humour between these two characters which feeds back into the feeling that Boll is pulling the strings; manipulating the events to his own advantage, to create his own legacy and his own persona that defines it - like a modern-day Andy Kaufman – which, for me, makes the experience all the more rewarding.

Engrenages

Spiral / Cogs

You might be interested to know that Lights in the Dusk has a new favourite television series. The second season of the excellent Spiral (Engrenages, 2005-present) is currently winding down on BBC Four, and I have to say, the word compelling doesn't do it justice. As a crime serial, the progression from one episode to the next is astounding, with the writers successfully managing to weave one single strand of plot through several individual instalments, all the while re-establishing additional layers of drama and interaction as the narrative unfolds. In this sense, the English variation on the title is fitting, as the series presents these characters as existing in a vortex; each crossing paths from both sides of the law and back again, in a manner that relates explicitly to the chaos and confusion of these two particular platforms – the world of law and the world of criminality – as they disruptively coalesce. It also relates to the more literal translation of the title, basically "cogs", where each single component, character or sub-plot, can be seen as part of a much greater whole.

What sets this show apart from other Law and Order-type programmes is hard to define, but I think more than anything I enjoy the honesty of it. There are no real gimmicks or attempts to transcend the medium - which is perfectly fine as it is, and certainly doesn't have to toady to what armchair critics might consider more cinematic, and therefore worthy of praise. Spiral is content enough to offer the viewer solid drama and a plot that is worthy of consideration, precisely because it involves characters that are not only interesting, but more importantly, recognisable as human beings. I would also argue that Spiral is in some ways reminiscent of the harder-edged crime serials that we have in the UK – a grand tradition going as far back as Cracker (1993-1996) by Jimmy McGovern, or Prime Suspect (1991-2006) by Lynda La Plante, or more recently even with the excellent Wire in the Blood (2003-2008) (which I had intended to write something about, but never found the time) and Waking the Dead (2000-2009). It is also reminiscent of the short lived docudrama The Cops (1998-2001); another uncompromising police procedural that stressed a more realistic, street-level approach to the blending of drama and documentary technique.

Although the general style of point-and-shoot, handheld grittiness of the Lars von Trier/Paul Greengrass variety has become somewhat overused (to the point of almost cliché), I still feel that this particular series uses it well; especially with the general style of the show complementing that mixture of characters and locations, moving from the more familiar middle-class suburbs of Paris to the tenements and housing projects overrun by gangs and drug dealers (that generally exists in every major city, but is rarely seen in the more conventional exported media). I would love to eventually write a more in-depth examination of this show at a later date – maybe in the New Year when I should have managed to procure a copy of the first season box set, and ideally, would have more time to really give it the attention that it deserves. Nonetheless, I'm excited to see how the current series plays out over the next couple of weeks.

Spiral, series 2 - episode 4, directed by Gilles Bannier, 2008: