The Weekly Gravy #22

Well, that was a hell of a week, no? Gonna be feeling the effects of that for a while.

I didn’t get a ton of movies watched this week, although less because of the news and more because I was out of town over the weekend and working most of yesterday. So I only have two major reviews this time, but they’re both pretty important films for this point in time—and they’re both really good! And we start with…

Mank (2020) – ****

In 1940, Herman J. Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman), recuperating from a car accident, finds himself at a ranch in the San Bernadino Valley trying to write the first draft of Citizen Kane, reflecting as he does so on his life over the past decade, when he was one of Hollywood’s leading screenwriters, but also a raging alcoholic and just enough of a gadfly to get himself into trouble without ever quite getting himself kicked out of town. He draws upon his time in the inner circle of William Randolph Hearst (Charles Dance), his friendship with Marion Davies (Amanda Seyfried), his struggles with the studio bosses, and the 1934 California gubernatorial election, in which the hard-left Democrat Upton Sinclair was soundly defeated, in part owing to propaganda produced by MGM.

In the present, he butts heads with his British secretary, Rita Alexander (Lily Collins), his long-suffering wife Sara (Tuppence Middleton), producer John Houseman (Sam Troughton), and of course, Orson Welles (Tom Burke), who’s giving the washed-up Mankiewicz the best chance he’s had in years…but wants sole screen credit for the script. And that’s the last point, legitimizing a long-debunked myth, which is for me the greatest failing of the film, if not quite the only one.

The script, written some 20 years ago by director David Fincher’s late father Jack (reputedly with some revisions by producer Eric Roth), is immensely ambitious, blending past and present in a fashion which verges on stream-of-consciousness, and encompasses a vast array of supporting characters, although Mankiewicz himself is at the center of almost every scene. As a result, some elements feel under-nourished, with Davies’ character and her bond with Mankiewicz being compelling enough that you wish there was more, and the fleeting subplot about Alexander’s worrying over her husband, who’s serving in the RAF, is generic enough that you wish there was less.

At the same time, individual scenes are extremely well-written, with crackling dialogue that captures the style of a time and place, as well as Mankiewicz’s own volatile charisma, and rivets the viewer. And even a climactic scene which feels decidedly on-the-nose (the “Don Quixote” speech) is capped with a real-life line I was just waiting to hear: “Don’t worry, the white wine came up with the fish.”

Of course, it’s Oldman’s performance upon which so much of the film’s success rests, and it’s a magnificent one. It would be easy to overplay such a role, to revel in the self-destruction and drunkenness and acerbic wit, but Oldman always feels like an authentic hot mess. You simply believe in him as a brilliant man who’s his own worst enemy, who tries to balance his ideals with his utter cynicism, and who ultimately does his best work by recasting the facts in a new and daring mold. Whether or not he wins a second Oscar for this (and I do think this a better performance than the one he won an Oscar for), it’s one of the best performances I’ve seen this year.

But he’s got good support, even if it’s very much his show. Seyfried, who’s gotten some early awards attention in a weak year for supporting actresses, is especially solid, showing Davies’ inner wit and gilded-cage loneliness alongside her public vivacity and vanity (“I already made my exit”). Middleton is underused, but gives an effective portrait of long-suffering devotion. Burke, who was so good in The Souvenir, is quite good here as well in a much smaller role, capturing all of the young Welles’ bravado and arrogance. Dance is a properly imperious and genially ruthless Hearst, and Arliss Howard is a suitably pompous L.B. Mayer. But again, it’s Mankiewicz’s story and Oldman’s show.

He does, to be sure, get considerable help from Fincher, who diligently evokes Old Hollywood both in the cinematography, the theatrical fade-outs, the stylization, and the monaural sound. Fincher has a knack for capturing magnetically toxic characters, and “Mank” is no exception; he’s at odds with the glamour of Tinseltown but in tune with its snappy patter, which he hones to a cutting edge—he’s aptly described as a “court jester,” or as Hearst suggests, an organ grinder’s monkey who thinks the grinder plays because he dances. Fincher does his very best work with a stronger narrative, but he certainly performs admirably.

Erik Messerschmidt’s cinematography is even more admirable, both for shooting in black-and-white (rather than desaturated color) and for its sheer verve, in its noirish lighting, its shifts between the realistic and the dreamlike (or nightmarish), and its blend of brisk urgency and careful compositions. And at its best, Kirk Baxter’s editing has the same power as his work (with Angus Wall) on Fincher’s last few films, though it can’t totally overcome the flaws in the writing either. I’m not quite sure yet how I feel about the score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross; it’s certainly a solid, lushly nostalgic piece, but it didn’t strike me the way their previous scores for Fincher did. On the other hand, there’s no question that the sets and costumes are superb; convincing without being excessively showy.

Going into this film, I’d heard praise, condemnation and indifference from friends, critics, and other commentators alike. But Fincher’s films have almost always worked for me, usually extremely well, and I figured I was likely to embrace Mank. I may not love it the way I love Fight Club, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, or Gone Girl, but for all its flaws, I really enjoyed it. But I understand why others didn’t. Not everyone finds such stories about such men edifying.

Score: 89

I’m Thinking of Ending Things (2020) – ****

After watching I’m Thinking of Ending Things, I read some responses online from others who’d seen it, and read summaries of the film and the novel (which I haven’t read, but from the summary the film seems to have changed it for the better), which helped to clear up the story and deepen its sense of tragedy. I strongly recommend you do so only after seeing the film, not least because it’s the kind of film where the journey is more important than the destination, at least if you’re inclined to put yourself in Charlie Kaufman’s hands and follow the film on its long, winding path to…well, a riff on an iconic Broadway musical and a not-especially-beloved Oscar-winning biopic. If that doesn’t sound like your cup of tea, I can’t blame you. But it worked for me.

On a snowy day, you have a young woman, named Lucy, or perhaps Louisa (Jessie Buckley), who’s riding with her boyfriend Jake (Jesse Plemons) to visit his parents for the first time. Only she’s thinking of ending things, because Jake is a very sweet guy, but it’s just not clicking. They make talk, much of it good-natured but awkward. And they talk. And she sees odd things along the road, and receives calls she refuses to answer. Eventually they get to his house to meet his parents (Toni Collette and David Thewlis), but not after he shows her around their sad, decrepit farm. Once they go inside and have an incredibly awkward dinner, things begin to get stranger and stranger, time begins to warp, and the young woman becomes ever more anxious to leave, even as the weather grows worse.

From there, it goes places you’d never imagine and goes on tangents you can try to make sense of…or simply embrace for their sheer surreal fascination. And in the end, you might think it’s disappeared entirely into the realm of random weirdness, or you might think it’s found a singular way of combining fantasy and reality, of combining personal experience and cultural consumption, of putting on the screen both the craving of validation and the impulse to lick one’s wounds, especially when there are witnesses. I really ought to see it again, because now that I think I get it (as much it needs to be gotten), I can relish the whole experience that much more.

But I wouldn’t want to do that if I hadn’t found so much to cherish the first time around. As a director, Kaufman is a strong 3-3 with me right now; Synecdoche New York is magnificent and Anomalisa is damned good. Here, he adapts another writer’s work (Iain Reid, to be exact), and from the sound of it, he takes an already mind-screwy novel and makes it more ambiguous in uniquely cinematic ways. However much of the dialogue comes from the original novel, what we hear is brilliant and often bizarrely funny, with characters who could only exist in this incredibly specific context but do so beautifully. But Kaufman’s direction is no less important or impressive, with its imaginative visuals, pervasive aura of unease, and quietly stunning grasp of the lonely melancholy of snowy nights.

And of course, there are the performances, further demonstrating Kaufman’s skill with actors. Buckley, who deserved far more acclaim for her work in Wild Rose, should get some of that acclaim for her performance here, as the young woman who’s not entirely sure of anything, neither herself nor her relationship nor what happened just moments earlier. As the reality of the film grows more and more complicated, she never loses sight of the desperation, the snarky wit, the sadness, the confusion, and the fundamental humanity of this tricky but rewarding role. And Plemons is perfectly cast as the Nice Young Man who isn’t quite as Nice as he’d like to think he is—but who knows exactly what he thinks he is? Even he may not know. But I do know Plemons is superb.

Collette is wonderfully weird as the quintessential embarrassing mother, doting on Jake like he was still a child and fawning over the young woman as if she were already her daughter-in-law. She must, like her co-stars, cope with the quicksilver reality of the material, but she does so beautifully. And Thewlis’ oblivious paternalism is a delight; his performance has a number of affectations which could’ve fallen flat, but thankfully don’t. In a smaller but vital role, Guy Boyd is poignantly effective. You’ll see what I mean, if you see it.

Łukasz Żal’s cinematography is spot-on throughout, framing the action to confuse and disorient the viewer as needed, or to keep the lengthy car scenes (which take up almost a third of the film) from growing monotonous. Even more credit is due to Robert Frazer’s editing, which must serve the ambitious narrative structure and does so very well indeed; if, at 135 minutes, it’s just a bit long (or maybe it just felt that way the first time), it kept me riveted all the way through. The production design (that wallpaper!), Jay Wadley’s score, and the sound design are all worthy kudos as well.

But it ultimately comes back to Kaufman’s great gift for combining the imaginative and surreal with the realistic and relatable. When I first watched the film, I thought of it like I thought of Holy Motors; not a riddle to be solved but a journey to be taken. Having encountered some reasonable solutions to its mysteries, I’ll back off from that, but I’ll only redouble my praise for the film, which is all the kinds of strange and funny and sad and creative that I go for, and uncomfortably resonant regarding my personal experience on top of it. It comes recommended.

Score: 93

two shorts by Petar Gligorovski – ***½

I’d never even heard of the Macedonian animator Petar Gligorovski (1938-1995) before my friend Ethan (mentioned in my “The Big Screen and I” posts) touted his work on social media. He lamented that much of Gligorovski’s work is now lost, and indeed, only two of his works seem to available, 1971’s Embrio No. M and 1977’s Adam 5 do 12. Both are populated by odd, ever-morphing, luminescent, vaguely humanoid figures, and available images from his other two (possibly lost) films, 1977’s Feniks and 1985’s A, depict similar figures, making them one of the signature touches of his small body of work, along with his heavily allegorical approach to theme.

Embrio appears to be an allegory both for the reproductive cycle and for enforced conformity, especially of the ideological variety – perhaps he was thinking of ideas as living things in their own right? You have a blue shape which mimics kissing lovers, then assumes a more…well, phallic shape after a time, issuing forth a pink shape which achieves a kind of personhood and plays with a sphere which changes from blue to pink.

Blue masses appear, downshouting and eventually squashing the pink form, and then attempt to enter the sphere, before becoming trapped in it, after which the pink form reappears and frees them. But all the while, another figure with a pin in hand approaches…to burst the bubble, perhaps? In the end, the cycle begins all over again. I can’t say I fully got it, but the cool imagery and the unusual use of sound effects made worth seeing.

I liked Adam rather better. The title is explained thus (I’m not sure if the quote was provided by Gligorovski himself or whence it originates):

According to the Bible, the first man walked on Earth at 5 minutes to 12 o’clock. It was Adam, and he lived 930 years. The clock has been showing 5 to 12 for a long time. The question is raised: till when? Because, once the countdown starts, the end is unavoidable.

So the film links an account of humanity’s creation with a warning signal of its possible destruction, the Doomsday Clock, and depicts a humanoid form being confronted by an array of clocks, each showing 5 minutes to 12, before being shown live-action images of real atrocities, many from World War II, before “Adam” tries and fails to pull the minute hand back, is confronted by pulsations which suggest shockwaves, driving “Adam” to their knees before a final clock appears and starts counting down – and “The End” appears, in several languages.

I think it’s the more effective of the two films, between its clearer message, haunting imagery, and the excellent score (“Raua Needmine” by Veljo Tormis, which wasn’t written for the film; I’m not sure if it was the intended accompaniment) which combines pounding drums and chanted vocals which are at once thrilling and unnerving. It’s not subtle by any means, but it’s a quintessential Cold War piece, and the type of film I could imagine seeing as a kid and sticking with me long after (like that “Clock Man” short on Pinwheel which they finally tracked down). In any case, you can watch both films in under 15 minutes, and it’s worth to discover a long-forgotten animator with a distinctive vision.

Score: Embrio No. M (78), Adam 5 do 12 (84)