Hail Caesar (aka Hail, Caesar!)

This week we screened the most recent film from the Coen Brothers: Hail Caesar.

early on in our society's existence we screened Fargo (on the basis that it is mandatory for all film societies to show it at some point in their existence), but Hail Caesar was quite different: a screwball comedy set in 19502 Hollywood. It went down well, but some people were a little disappointed by George Clooney's role, as it was quite different from his more box-office friendly work. I enjoyed it very much.

Here are my notes:

Hail, Caesar!

USA 2016                    104 minutes

Director:                      Ethan and Joel Coen

Starring:                        Josh Brolin, George Clooney, Alden Ehrenreich, Ralph Fiennes, Jonah Hill, Scarlett Johansson, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton and Channing Tatum

“The Coen brothers’ lovingly goofy latest comes on like a breezy flipside companion-piece to Barton Fink – a jaunt through the underbelly of old Hollywood which finds not the fiery hell of the tortured artist but the upbeat splash of synchronised swimming, On the Town toe-tapping and toga-wearing biblical balderdash. With a ramshackle plot that appears to have been cooked up after drawing deep on the Dude’s biggest bong, the film pinballs between awol movie stars, red-scare nightmares and Bikini Atoll bomb tests, while raising important questions of whether God is still angry (“what, he got over it?”), how to make a lasso out of spaghetti, and the secret of balancing a bunch of bananas on your head (it’s all in the hips, lips, eyes and thighs, apparently).”

Mark Kermode

In Hollywood in the 1950s Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin) works for Capitol Pictures as a fixer whose role is to keep scandals relating to film stars out of the press. His current work load includes concealing the news that DeeAnna Morgan (Scarlett Johansson) is pregnant, rescuing alcoholic actor Baird Whitlock (George Clooney) from a group of kidnappers whose members include Burt Gurney (Channing Tatum), an actor currently filming a musical comedy about sailors, and arranging for Laurence Laurentz (Ralph Fiennes) to cast young singing western film star Hobie Doyle (Alden Ehrenreich) in the period drama he is directing.

In Hollywood the 1950s was the time of the Cold War and the Red Scare: its response was to create escapist entertainment: westerns, musicals with extravagant dance sequences, aquatic spectacles and Roman epics with massive casts. The Coen Brothers saw the films of this period on TV when they were growing up and commented:

“We loved that stuff. We just didn’t realise we were watching crap.”

For the purposes of this film they re-created their own versions of these films and for verisimilitude shot them on film rather than employing digital cinematography which they have used for their most recent films.

The Coen Brothers first created Capital Pictures for Barton Fink (1991), but Eddie Mannix was a real character, although his real life was far more sordid than depicted in this film: he used his network of contacts to cover up, among other things, Judy Garland’s drug use, Great Garbo’s bi-sexuality, and was even suspected of involvement in the murder of Superman star George Reeves. The Guardian contains a regular feature called Reel History which a historian rates films based on real events for both Entertainment and History. For the former it receives an A- but a fail for the latter. In mitigation the article contains    the following verdict on the film:

 “The Coen brothers have done an Eddie Mannix on Eddie Mannix, covering up all the darkest, dirtiest parts of his story to create a sparkling comedy. Everything you see on screen is completely historically inaccurate – but that’s the point. Hail, Caesar! can wear its fail grade with pride."

 Here is the trailer:

 

 

 

Bridge of Spies

This week we screened Bridge of Spies. I'd seen and enjoyed it at the cinema, but even so a second screening was even better.

My notes are as follows

Bridge of Spies

USA 2016                    141 minutes

Director:                      Stephen Spielberg

Starring:                        Tom Hanks, Mark Rylance, Amy Ryan, Alan Alda and Austin Stowell

Awards and Nominations

• Won Oscar for Best Supporting Actor (Mark Rylance) and five further nominations including Best Film, Best Original Screenplay and Best Soundtrack
• Won BAFTA for Best Supporting Actor (Mark Rylance) and eight further nominations including Best Director, Best Film, Best Original Screenplay, Best Original Cinematography and Best Soundtrack

“Steven Spielberg’s Cold War spy-swap drama Bridge of Spies is a movie of glorious craftsmanship, human sympathy and flair. It’s a consciously old-fashioned piece of Hollywood storytelling conceived in something like the heartfelt, ingenuous style of Frank Capra. Where once we had Mr Smith Goes To Washington — here we have Mr Hanks Goes To West Berlin.”

 

Peter Bradshaw

50 Best Films of 2015

(Bridge of Spies was number two)

 During the Cold War the CIA recruits insurance lawyer James B Donovan (Tom Hanks) to negotiate the release and exchange of Francis G (Gary) Powers (Austin Stowell), the pilot of a U-2 spy plane shot down over East Germany. Donovan travels to Berlin to negotiate the deal, offering as an exchange the Soviet spy Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance) whom Donovan had previously defended during his trial for espionage in the US.

Screenplay writer Matt Charman became interested in Donovan after reading about him in a biography of President Kennedy; after a meeting with Donovan’s son in New York he pitched his story to several studios, with DreamWorks choosing to buy it and then Spielberg deciding to direct. DreamWorks then brought in the Coen Brothers to revise Charman’s original script, although their work with Charman was collaborative, as Charman confirmed in an interview:

“[The Coen Brothers] were able to really punch up the negotiations on the back end of the movie, then they handed the baton back to me to do a pass after they did their pass, to make the movie just sit in a place we all wanted it to. The flavour they brought is so fun and enjoyable. It needed to be entertaining but truthful.”

 Inevitably for the purposes of the film the screenplay had to compromise with strict historical accuracy: the most significant of the changes is that it shortens the timescales of events which while increasing tension can give a misleading impression of the whole operation. However most reviewers accepted this departure from the historical record as inevitable, and the film itself acknowledges this by advertising itself as being “inspired by true events”.

The film is a US/German co-production and Spielberg used many actual Berlin locations for scenes that actually took place there, including the former Tempelhof Airport for Donovan’s arrival and the real Glienicke Bridge (the so-called “Bridge of Spies”) to film the prisoner exchange. For the latter location the German government closed the bridge to traffic for a weekend to allow filming to take place, and Angela Merkel visited the set to watch the filming.

On its release the film received many positive reviews and many nominations during the awards season, but it was Mark Rylance who won most of the film’s awards for his role as Rudolf Abel. He had already won Tony and Olivier Awards for his stage work in New York and London as well as several BAFTA awards for his TV work, most recently for his role as Thomas Cromwell in the BBC adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall (2015), and so this Oscar has allowed him to complete an uncommon “triple” win.

Here is the trailer:

 

The Universe of the Coen Brothers

Having finally caught up with - and very much enjoyed - Hail, Caesar this article about the universe of the Coen Brothers was fascinating:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/aug/22/coen-brothers-universe-john-turturro-big-lebowski-jesus-quintana

Hail, Caesar is definitely a film for our Film Club. And I still need to catch up with the TV version of Fargo.

Cats in Films

As any fule kno the real purpose of the internet is to disseminate pictures of cats - and thay also appear in many films

Thus I could not overlook this brilliant article by Anne Billson (tentatively linked to Inside Llewyn Davies which featured a prominent cat) listing the most memorable feline peformnances:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/10572306/Cats-improve-every-film-they-are-in.html 

But as the co-carer of two ginger cats it was a shock to see how many ginger cats appeared on her list - as well as in Inside Llewyn Davies.

The 20 Best Films of all Time chosen by me - Part 3

And now we move on to thrillers.  Once again this is my own selection, and the only criterion is that I have to have seen any film I nominate.

1. The Lady Vanishes
I read some time last year that you could not consider yourself a serious film fan unless you had seen The Lady Vanishes.  I'd read about it many times but had never seen it - at least no consciously.  Fortunately a quick internet order remedied the deficiency: I really enjoyed it and it has an amazing vitality that belies its 1938 release date.

2. The Long Good Friday
I'd been a fan of Helen Mirren ever since O Lucky Man - I'd even watched her on Jackanory reading a story in an amazingly low cut Jacobethen dress - but this was the first time I'd seen her in a role that did justice to her talent.  Bob Hoskins is pretty good too (understatement) and the whole film really caught the zeitgeist.

3. Casablanca
I'm not sure if this is a thriller or a lovely story, but who cares.  It's a film I could see forever, and it was the film that my wife and I went to on our first date: a double bill with Play It Again Sam. We'll always have Casablanca.

4. Fargo
In our film society we try t show the best of releases, but several years ago we made an exception for Fargo - still one of the best films in a very strong field from the Coen brothers.  since I'd first seen it I'd actually visited Minnesota several times for work and recognised the accent, but fortunately all my trips were in the Spring or the Autumn.  And now I even have my own wood chipper.

5. Chinatown
I first saw this in my first year at university when I suddenly became aware of the big world of films that opened up around me. It's a brilliant homage to Hollywood of the 1940s as well as a key film of the 1970s - and several of the characters play key roles in David Thomson's brilliantly unsettling novel Suspects.

Fargo

Apparently it is mandatory for every film society to show Fargo.  We fulfilled this obligation several years ago, and when I was researching for my notes I found the wonderful extract from a piece by David Thomson which I was able to quote in full:

 

Fargo

USA 1996       (98 minutes)

Director:          Joel Cohen

Starring:          Frances McDormand, William H. Macy and Steve Buscemi

 Awards and Nominations

Won                Oscar for Best Original Screenplay

                        Oscar for Leading Actress (Frances McDormand)

Nominated for five further Oscars

Won                BAFTA for Best Original Screenplay

Won                Best Director (Joel Coen)

Nominated for a further five baftas

Won                Best Director (Joel Coen) at Cannes Film Festival

Nominated for Golden Palm

An overall total of 49 wins and 19 nominations

In Minnesota a small-time business man with severe financial problems hires two inept hoodlums to kidnap his wife in an attempt to obtain ransom from his father-in-law.  However the plot goes murderously wrong and a heavily-pregnant sheriff arrives from Minneapolis to solve the string of unexpected deaths in her jurisdiction.

The film claims to be based on a true story, but in his introduction to the published screenplay Ethan Coen undermines this:

“The story that follows is about Minnesota.  It evokes the abstract landscape of our childhood – a bleak, windswept tundra, resembling Siberia except for its Ford dealerships and Hardee’s restaurants.  It aims to be homey and exotic, and pretends to be true.”

Subsequently it emerged that the Coens’ inspiration was a 1986 murder in Connecticut where a husband used a wood chipper to dispose of his wife’s body – the Coens moved the location to Minnesota because they had been born and brought up on the outskirts of Minneapolis. 
 
The film was launched to universal acclaim and secured many awards.  It has secured its place in cinema history and recently David Thompson included it as one of only three films released in 1996 in his book “Have You Seen?” A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films where he summarised its appeal as follows:

“Fargo is just 97 minutes long, compact and efficient (cost $7 million; earnings $24.5 million), a sort of “the gang’s all here” of American independent film, and a quiet knockout.  When the snow is that thick, you won’t hear a body or a Douglas fir fall, just the hush being underlined.  But the tonal range of the film is what is leaving puffs of breath in the air.  From one moment to the next this film is gruesome, bloody and “Oh no!” as well as so funny you wish those starchy voices would stop talking for a second.”

In a career of nearly 25 years the Coen brothers have produced a series of brilliant films that have been successful with both festival and multiplex audiences.  Fargo is arguably their greatest film and until No Country For Old Men (2007) it was their most successful in terms of nominations and awards.

 

In case you need any more encouragement, here's the trailer:

 

 

A Serious Man

Welcome to 2011!  Here are my notes for our first screening of the New Year:

A Serious Man


USA 2009 105 minutes

Director: Ethan and Joel Cohen

Starring: Michael Stuhlbarg, Sari Lennick, Richard Kind and Fred Melamed

Nominations and Awards

• Nominated for two Oscars (Best Film and Best Original Screenplay)

• A further eight wins and 28 nominations including BAFTA nomination for best original screenplay


“If it is possible to imagine a Woody Allen script with all the schtick exfoliated, and then filmed by Lynch, that master of conveying the under-the-skin bizarreness of small-town America, you have A Serious Man. Although perplexing and unnerving, with a finale that will not satisfy all tastes, the Coen brothers' latest film is the most daring project they have ever undertaken. It is mordant. It is philosophical. It addresses all the big questions. It is frequently hilarious. And it feels like somewhere along the line David Lynch took over.”

Joe Queenan

Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg), a professor of theoretical physics in Minnesota in 1967 is planning his son’s bar mitzvah when his wife (Sari Lennick) tells him that their marriage is over: she wants a divorce so that she can marry Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed), a smug and wealthy widower. Larry has never been particularly religious, but with his life suddenly in pieces he becomes convinced that only the local rabbis can help him.

Joel and Ethan Coen grew up in a Jewish household in Minnesota in the 1960s and in A Serious Man they have produced a story that for the first time is set both in the location and at the time in which they grew up. The film is quite different from any of its predecessors and their decision not to cast established film stars (Michael Stuhlbarg was cast on the basis of his stage work in New York and has very few film credits, even in minor roles) means that it is difficult for an audience to get its bearings as the story develops. Also the film begins in an entirely unexpected way, with an unsettling folk tale drenched in mortality and fear that may – or may not – be linked to the main story. The Coens have always produced films which contain a brilliant mix of bright comedy and bitter darkness, and when as in A Serious Man they get the balance right the result can be marvellous.

In a career of more than 25 years the Coens have produced a series of brilliant films that have been successful with both festival and multiplex audiences. In recent years they have reached new heights of success: No Country for Old Men won four Oscars, including Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Film, A Serious Man received two Oscar nominations, and their most recent film, a remake of True Grit with Jeff Bridges in the lead role, has just opened to rave reviews and whispers of potential Oscar nominations.