Considering that Sam's least favorite films of the year so far are 'Lovely and Amazing' and '13 Conversations About One Thing,' both directed by women, I can't imagine he would have enjoyed Stephen Daldry's 'The Hours' had he tagged along to the special screening I attended last Tuesday night. Of course, Daldry is not a woman, but the film is most certainly centered around women and, one could argue, presents the same set of problems as those movies. Sam wrote: "Both scripts suffered from a terminal lack of subtext and an annoying tendency to have their characters psychologically evaluate each other." Congratulations Sam, you just summed up 'The Hours' in one sentence. As is my tendency these days, I hadn't read a single review of the movie before going in, but I couldn't help but recall David Edelstein's quip in the Slate Movie Club that 'The Hours' was the longest pair of 'em he had spent all year. I feared I was going to suffer similarly after the opening credit sequence, which introduces us to the film's three female protagonists and sets up the movie's structural conceit of slipping between three different eras -- the 1920s, '50s and the present day. I expected the connections between the three characters to be clear, but I didn't expect the editing to be so obvious as to cut from Nicole Kidman's Virginia Woolf brushing her hair to Julianne Moore's '50s housewife brushing her hair, to Meryl Streep's modern day woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown brushing her hair, and so on interminably. Fortunately, the credits weren't indicative of the whole film, which isn't to say that Daldry and screenwriter David Hare couldn't have employed more subtlelty throughout. If subtext and characters who don't emotionally undress each other every time they speak is what you want in a movie -- and usually I do -- you will loathe 'The Hours.' Yet, somehow I didn't loathe it. All of the performances were predictably first-rate -- unlike Sam and a few others I know, I love Julianne Moore -- and the story cleverly culminates in a way that connects the three narratives in a literal, and not just figurative, sense. I'm sure some people in the audience saw it coming, but for me it was a "surprise" ending that worked because it felt absolutely organic, rather than shaking the foundations of the narrative. My one major criticism is one that was discussed in the Slate Movie Club to some extent -- the Philip Glass score. I come from the school that says that music in both theater and film should be felt and not heard. If you're actually listening to the score, then it is distracting you from the film. My own personal preference would be to never have to listen music with dialogue. If the screenwriter, director and actors are all doing their jobs, then I don't need music to direct my emotions. In the case of 'The Hours,' the score is not only bothersome because it enduced flashbacks of watching 'The Thin Blue Line' (also, Glass' work, of course) but it is virtually omni-present throughout the film. During the post-screening Q&A, the book's author, Michael Cunningham -- a charming, intelligent, self-deprecating but confident writer who could easily allay any problems you had with the movie -- said that the choice to use the score in such a heavy-handed manner was a deliberate one, though I can't report precisely what the intent was because I wasn't taking notes at this point and his explanation was a bit convoluted... something about standing in for the lyrical quality of the novel (not his novel, specifically, but novels in general). He admitted that it will bother some people because it is not what audiences are used to. It's definitely not background music, and it doesn't necessarily correspond with what is occurring on screen. "I love it for that," Cunningham said. So I guess we can fault the filmmakers for producing a bad/distracting score, but we can't fault them for not understanding how to use music because they clearly made a choice to use it a certain way. When asked what some of his favorite movies were growing up, Cunningham listed Altman's 'McCabe and Mrs. Miller,' 'Chinatown,' 'All About Eve' (which he followed with a humorous "of course," acknowledging the obviousness of a gay man picking that film), and the two Godfather movies.
Monday, January 13, 2003
RAIN DELAY & THE HOURS - I've got less than an hour to try to squeeze in some blogging, so here goes. First off, Sam and I will not be publishing our Top Ten of 2002 until Wednesday. There are a handful of movies I have to see before then or else my list could wind up being illegitimate -- namely, 'Y Tu Mama Tambien' (which I rented on DVD this weekend) and 'Gangs of New York' (which I will see Tuesday night.) I hope to fit in 'About Schmidt' as well, but no guarantees. Tuesday I will have brief reviews of all the movies I have seen over the past two weeks that I haven't found time to write about yet -- 'Adaptation,' 'Antwone Fisher,' 'Catch Me If You Can' and Spike Lee's '25th Hour.' I'll also try to throw in some comments about two rentals from this past weekend -- 'Lovely & Amazing,' which was anything but, and 'Unfaithful.' I had to see whether Diane Lane's performance lived up to all the hype.
Considering that Sam's least favorite films of the year so far are 'Lovely and Amazing' and '13 Conversations About One Thing,' both directed by women, I can't imagine he would have enjoyed Stephen Daldry's 'The Hours' had he tagged along to the special screening I attended last Tuesday night. Of course, Daldry is not a woman, but the film is most certainly centered around women and, one could argue, presents the same set of problems as those movies. Sam wrote: "Both scripts suffered from a terminal lack of subtext and an annoying tendency to have their characters psychologically evaluate each other." Congratulations Sam, you just summed up 'The Hours' in one sentence. As is my tendency these days, I hadn't read a single review of the movie before going in, but I couldn't help but recall David Edelstein's quip in the Slate Movie Club that 'The Hours' was the longest pair of 'em he had spent all year. I feared I was going to suffer similarly after the opening credit sequence, which introduces us to the film's three female protagonists and sets up the movie's structural conceit of slipping between three different eras -- the 1920s, '50s and the present day. I expected the connections between the three characters to be clear, but I didn't expect the editing to be so obvious as to cut from Nicole Kidman's Virginia Woolf brushing her hair to Julianne Moore's '50s housewife brushing her hair, to Meryl Streep's modern day woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown brushing her hair, and so on interminably. Fortunately, the credits weren't indicative of the whole film, which isn't to say that Daldry and screenwriter David Hare couldn't have employed more subtlelty throughout. If subtext and characters who don't emotionally undress each other every time they speak is what you want in a movie -- and usually I do -- you will loathe 'The Hours.' Yet, somehow I didn't loathe it. All of the performances were predictably first-rate -- unlike Sam and a few others I know, I love Julianne Moore -- and the story cleverly culminates in a way that connects the three narratives in a literal, and not just figurative, sense. I'm sure some people in the audience saw it coming, but for me it was a "surprise" ending that worked because it felt absolutely organic, rather than shaking the foundations of the narrative. My one major criticism is one that was discussed in the Slate Movie Club to some extent -- the Philip Glass score. I come from the school that says that music in both theater and film should be felt and not heard. If you're actually listening to the score, then it is distracting you from the film. My own personal preference would be to never have to listen music with dialogue. If the screenwriter, director and actors are all doing their jobs, then I don't need music to direct my emotions. In the case of 'The Hours,' the score is not only bothersome because it enduced flashbacks of watching 'The Thin Blue Line' (also, Glass' work, of course) but it is virtually omni-present throughout the film. During the post-screening Q&A, the book's author, Michael Cunningham -- a charming, intelligent, self-deprecating but confident writer who could easily allay any problems you had with the movie -- said that the choice to use the score in such a heavy-handed manner was a deliberate one, though I can't report precisely what the intent was because I wasn't taking notes at this point and his explanation was a bit convoluted... something about standing in for the lyrical quality of the novel (not his novel, specifically, but novels in general). He admitted that it will bother some people because it is not what audiences are used to. It's definitely not background music, and it doesn't necessarily correspond with what is occurring on screen. "I love it for that," Cunningham said. So I guess we can fault the filmmakers for producing a bad/distracting score, but we can't fault them for not understanding how to use music because they clearly made a choice to use it a certain way. When asked what some of his favorite movies were growing up, Cunningham listed Altman's 'McCabe and Mrs. Miller,' 'Chinatown,' 'All About Eve' (which he followed with a humorous "of course," acknowledging the obviousness of a gay man picking that film), and the two Godfather movies.
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Considering that Sam's least favorite films of the year so far are 'Lovely and Amazing' and '13 Conversations About One Thing,' both directed by women, I can't imagine he would have enjoyed Stephen Daldry's 'The Hours' had he tagged along to the special screening I attended last Tuesday night. Of course, Daldry is not a woman, but the film is most certainly centered around women and, one could argue, presents the same set of problems as those movies. Sam wrote: "Both scripts suffered from a terminal lack of subtext and an annoying tendency to have their characters psychologically evaluate each other." Congratulations Sam, you just summed up 'The Hours' in one sentence. As is my tendency these days, I hadn't read a single review of the movie before going in, but I couldn't help but recall David Edelstein's quip in the Slate Movie Club that 'The Hours' was the longest pair of 'em he had spent all year. I feared I was going to suffer similarly after the opening credit sequence, which introduces us to the film's three female protagonists and sets up the movie's structural conceit of slipping between three different eras -- the 1920s, '50s and the present day. I expected the connections between the three characters to be clear, but I didn't expect the editing to be so obvious as to cut from Nicole Kidman's Virginia Woolf brushing her hair to Julianne Moore's '50s housewife brushing her hair, to Meryl Streep's modern day woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown brushing her hair, and so on interminably. Fortunately, the credits weren't indicative of the whole film, which isn't to say that Daldry and screenwriter David Hare couldn't have employed more subtlelty throughout. If subtext and characters who don't emotionally undress each other every time they speak is what you want in a movie -- and usually I do -- you will loathe 'The Hours.' Yet, somehow I didn't loathe it. All of the performances were predictably first-rate -- unlike Sam and a few others I know, I love Julianne Moore -- and the story cleverly culminates in a way that connects the three narratives in a literal, and not just figurative, sense. I'm sure some people in the audience saw it coming, but for me it was a "surprise" ending that worked because it felt absolutely organic, rather than shaking the foundations of the narrative. My one major criticism is one that was discussed in the Slate Movie Club to some extent -- the Philip Glass score. I come from the school that says that music in both theater and film should be felt and not heard. If you're actually listening to the score, then it is distracting you from the film. My own personal preference would be to never have to listen music with dialogue. If the screenwriter, director and actors are all doing their jobs, then I don't need music to direct my emotions. In the case of 'The Hours,' the score is not only bothersome because it enduced flashbacks of watching 'The Thin Blue Line' (also, Glass' work, of course) but it is virtually omni-present throughout the film. During the post-screening Q&A, the book's author, Michael Cunningham -- a charming, intelligent, self-deprecating but confident writer who could easily allay any problems you had with the movie -- said that the choice to use the score in such a heavy-handed manner was a deliberate one, though I can't report precisely what the intent was because I wasn't taking notes at this point and his explanation was a bit convoluted... something about standing in for the lyrical quality of the novel (not his novel, specifically, but novels in general). He admitted that it will bother some people because it is not what audiences are used to. It's definitely not background music, and it doesn't necessarily correspond with what is occurring on screen. "I love it for that," Cunningham said. So I guess we can fault the filmmakers for producing a bad/distracting score, but we can't fault them for not understanding how to use music because they clearly made a choice to use it a certain way. When asked what some of his favorite movies were growing up, Cunningham listed Altman's 'McCabe and Mrs. Miller,' 'Chinatown,' 'All About Eve' (which he followed with a humorous "of course," acknowledging the obviousness of a gay man picking that film), and the two Godfather movies.
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