I lived a beautiful life today…

It’s one of my favorite quotes from The World According To Garp.  But it’s true.  I started my day with an interview with LWT about badly behaved celebs.  I spent the afternoon helping my sister move.  I found time to have a brawl with Jeff Wells over his Soderbergh bashing.  And I closed with Signs.  I spent time and effort with friends and enemies and others.  And I remembered, as I sometimes need to, why I am in this game.

Then, of course, I had to consider that ridiculous Newsweek cover. 

This has nothing to do with Signs’ success or failure as a piece or art or as a piece of commercial filmmaking.  This has to do with the unmitigated absurdity of comparing M. Night Shyamalan to Steven Spielberg in any but the most tenuous of ways.  Compare Shyamalan to Rod Serling.  Compare Shyamalan and the religious underpinnings in all of his work to Paul Schrader… or if you want a bigger name, to Scorsese by association with Schrader.  Compare Shyamalan to the old TV directors turned film directors who really knew their craft, but who didn’t always find a lot to say.

But Spielberg?  No.  Spielberg was part of a group.  Shyamalan is a loner.  Spielberg made his mark early as one of the greatest visualists ever.  Shyamalan’s films look good, but if you could find someone who could identify a “Shyamalan shot,” I’d buy you a big bag of candy.  And Spielberg would make his biggest mark on the industry as a producer, as a supporter of (then) young directors like Robert Zemeckis, Chris Columbus, Larry Kasden, Joe Dante and as the force behind such franchise films as Men in Black, Gremlins, Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, An American Tail and Poltergeist… which ironically may be the prior hit film most reminiscent of Shyamalan’s latest. 

Spielberg was, is and will be an industry unto himself.  The only other director who has any right to be compared to Spielberg is Ron Howard, whose remarkable run of success as a director combined with his position in Imagine Entertainment qualifies him to be in the game.  Spielberg made a couple of movies about aliens.  Shyamalan made a movie about aliens, kind of.  Shyamalan’s story is about faith and centers on one man and his family as a template.  Spielberg’s films have been about the idea of alien interaction.  All of Shyamalan’s films are about lost souls trying to regain their footing in their lives.  Someday, he might make a film from the alien point of view… that might be fascinating.  M. Night Shyamalan’s Starman 2. 

Newsweek is not alone in making unfathomable comparisons.  Shyamalan himself has the audacity to compare himself to Hitchcock with the opening score in his new film.  With all due respect to Shyamalan, Hitchcock would spin in his grave to think his tight, spartan, plot-driven films were being compared to Shyamalan’s Chinese Water Torture style of suspense filmmaking.

But back to the other comparisons… Shyamalan is a gifted showman.  He knows how to manipulate the audience.  His placement of comic beats and his ability to build suspense after eons of dry spells is remarkable.  And, most clearly, Shyamalan works the territory of religiosity, failed and re-found.  Perhaps this makes Shyamalan the greatest rebel among commercial filmmakers of this era.  (The urge comes to say that if you speeded things up and added pubic hair, Shyamalan would be Darren Aronofsky, but that’s not really fair, even if it is a good line.  Note to fellow journalists: Just because you can make it sound cool doesn’t make it true.) 

The only other commercial filmmakers working in the realm of God as openly as Shyamalan are Scorsese and Schrader.  Obviously, The Last Temptation of Christ is on that list.  But Bringing Out The Dead is an overt reimagining of Jesus in modern day and Kundun shows that Scorsese’s passion for religion is not limited to Christianity, but to the principles he sees at the heart of his religious belief. 

Schrader is playing in spirituality almost every time out.  Blue Collar, Hardcore, Cat People, Mishima, Light Sleeper and Touch are about, respectively, auto workers, pornography, science fiction, a Japanese poet, a drug dealer and a con.  And all six are also about God and Schrader’s struggle with that relationship. 

Shyamalan has made a movie about a man, led by a child, seeking the truth about his own mortality, a movie about a man who can’t accept his place on this earth driven to the truth by another man trying to overcome his childhood demons and, now, a movie about a man whose lost faith in God requires an interstellar challenge  – I’ll leave the question of what really happens to you, as moviegoers, until you see the film.

Issues of the after-life, our own power in our lives and the question of whether God really exists are all Sunday School issues, make no mistake.   I remember a 30-minute drama series on Sunday mornings that featured familiar actors and which turned out each week to be religious morality tales.  But they felt like “regular” drama, so God’s presence was always a little shocking at the end.  (See: Davey & Goliath, now hocking Mountain Dew)  This show… someone out there will know the name… combined with the Twilight Zone IS M. Night Shyamalan, who has taken this style and writ it big on the screen. 

I am now convinced that Shyamalan’s following is more than just people desperate for a good dramatic story well told, willing to sit through the world’s slowest build to get to the good stuff.  Shyamalan is touching our need for the comfort of a higher power.  I wonder whether he gets a little too close to the light (Carol Anne) in Signs.  But that will wait until my review of the film on Friday.

THE NEW YORK TIMES:  You know, the Times fired a good man who did a lot for the arts when they let John Rockwell go from the editorship of Arts & Leisure.  But I have to say, the newspaper’s overall coverage of the film world seems to be getting better every day.  Rick Lyman seems to be getting challenged to do more complex work and the stories that are getting the green light seem to be more complex – going beyond the artist – than I ever remember in film.  (The Times has always been a better paper for theater and fine art than film.) 

In the last couple of days, two more pieces well worth the read.  Lyman writes on Bing Ray and the growing importance of art division UA to the struggling MGM.  The story is here.  The only objection I have is that the transition of UA into an art arm happened under Francis Coppola and while my highest wish would be a proper examination of why that relationship didn’t take, I would settle for an acknowledgement of that fact.  (Where does Lyman think that the films Ray “inherited” came from?)  But a good story and Bing Ray deserves to be held high as an example.  Because of MGM’s sickness, he has a chance to shine with his division and so far, it’s been a damned good ride.

A couple of days ago, Michael Cieply did a piece of the Times on USC’s Peter Stark producing program.  Good stuff with great insight into how so much of this industry works.  Huzzah.  (It’s here)

A TAD IRRITATING:  Gary Winick, whose Tadpole irritated me mostly because of the grotesque degree by which it is overrated – it’s a good sitcom episode – has pushed my button again.   He does what a pro never does… he’s pointing a finger at a crew member for the poor visual quality of his film.  The specific crew member is Tadpole DP Hubert Tacnazowski and the attack is on the level of, “don’t hire this guy,” though he never says that.  What he does do is to accuse him of disinterest, lack of skill and simply not caring… three accusations that would make any director interested in hiring Tacnazowski in future think more than twice and likely cross him off of their list. 

What Winick doesn’t acknowledge is that the film was made on a 13-day shooting schedule or that he is not a polished director himself.  What is ironic is that Winick comes close to admitting that he really doesn’t know what he is doing behind the camera in the very same article.  First, he admits that the actors pretty much directed themselves.  He also goes on to infer that he is channeling the spirit of Charlie Chaplin with the use of digital production. 

But the telling story, to me, is when Winick explains, naively, that he doesn’t know how to handle the most basic of film staples… a table scene.  He tells the Boston Globe’s Ty Burr, “In the restaurant scene [featuring Stanford, Weaver, Ritter, Neuwirth, and multiple comic subtexts], every person at that table has reactions that are spectacular. So if I'm watching it like a theatergoer, which in rehearsals I am, it's great - but who do I focus on? If I was Mike Figgis doing Time Code, I could do it.” 

Uh, Gary… that’s the difference between being a film director and being a guy with a camera.  That is the embodiment of what is scary about digital.  Firstly, you don’t have the skills to get through the production of five minutes of Figgis’ Time Code effort.  You clearly don’t understand the complexity of his work in that film and you are insulting a director who has never made anything as visually shoddy as Tadpole in his life.  I’m the first to admit that there are story problems on Time Code, but the complexity of the work is astonishing.  And let it be noted that Figgis never did anything as cheap as using four cameras to shoot a table scene so he could get everyone’s reactions into the film.  Figgis’ film edits itself while it is being shot.  When Figgis uses two cameras in one sequence, the result is moments like the sex scene between Salma Hayek and Stellan Skaarsgard in which the two characters and the cameras that are following them come together… and when the two characters come together (literally and figuratively), they also end up in the same frame.  He takes a classic visual transition and rethinks it in the multi-camera digital form.  That’s a long way from trying to shoot a table scene in a farce.

If you are shooting digital and you find that the film is directing you, you are not doing your job as a director.  Things do change in the editing room.  But for decades, directors have been shooting table scenes with funny beats and strong performances.  And those directors know how to shoot the actors and how to put together the performances in order to make the scene work… in the context of the movie.  When we watch a movie, we are watching the director’s voice.  The other artists - actors, for instance – are absolutely critical tools in bringing that voice forward.  But the director is in control.  When digital directors start talking like what they really want to have is high-quality security cameras shooting their great words… that’s what turns so many people right off of digital. 

And let’s all thank God that Michael Mann knew what the scene between DeNiro and Pacino in Heat was about and wasn’t just trying to put together an assemblage of their spectacular reactions. 

The story is here.

P.S.:  Ethan Hawke is quoted in the story, talking about editing Chelsea Walls, a movie I hated.  And he is 100% right.  On a movie like that, people who don’t like it are not going to like to more because it’s shorter and people who like it are going to like it with a little more depth.  This was the lesson of the great Almost Famous.  And it reminds me of Roger Ebert’s famous note, “No good movie is too long and no bad movie is short enough.”

READER OF THE DAY:   A first-time ROTD named BRIAN ARTHURS wrote in yesterday.  I am using his real name because I think that his letter is really wonderful and that everyone involved should know who wrote in to do the right thing.  He writes: “Please give credit to Don King, Sonny Miller and Michael Stewart for the water shots in Blue Crush. Pioneers in surf filming, it was their expertise that brings those sequences to life. They filmed without monitors for Stockwell and Co., who had to wait for the film to be processed before seeing what shots they got. When you see the girls getting rolled around underwater in the "washing machine" after a wipeout, the cameramen are getting rolled around too, and trying to keep the camera on the actor. I've been there. It's scary just trying to ride it out until the ocean lets you back up, let alone trying to capture someone else on film. Stewart is a professional bodyboarder and he captured images in the surf by balancing a camera on his board. The sound designers deserve credit, too, for capturing the sounds of the ocean better than on any other such film. As a surfer I was expecting the worst from Blue Crush, but ended up pleasantly surprised.  I felt like I needed a towel after leaving the theater."

And  ROTD regular PD BLUE writes:  "I agree with your assessment of critics and how they can unfairly go after a director. And it seems that some are attacking Soderbergh now. But as DeNiro said to Pacino in "Heat," there is a flip side to that coin. Some critics tend to praise anything that's a little different or arty as pure genius. And this too is happening with Full Frontal. I have read raves praising it as a masterpiece and riveting and mind-blowing. Pick your adjective. I have seen it, and I think it falls somewhere in between. There is a lot to admire. And I love Soderbergh. But it is not a masterpiece. It can be quite pretentious and boring at moments. Just wanted to play devil's advocate. As for Blue Crush, you and Wells love it, and for the life of me I can't believe that it's good. Granted, I have yet to see it. But the trailer is so corny and awful. I'm very curious."

DP RESPONDS: Absolutely!  Critics suck up to their darlings all the time.  And a big part of the backlash on Full Frontal is resentment of that by other critics.  Of course, when these angry critics are kissing the ass of their choice…

I have always felt that my responsibility as a critic – of film and everything else I criticize in these pages – is to add to the conversation… to show you a different perspective and to offer you entry points to aspects of the work that you may not have considered.  And I consider it an honor to be allowed to promote work that deserves special attention.  And to be free to rage against work that I consider inferior.  But I have to check myself daily to make sure that my ego – which is hefty – isn’t mixing in with my analysis of the work.  I am a smart man and I have a lot of skills, but the work I do is not about me and how smart I am… it’s about the movies… movies that I have not shown the skills to make myself.  Someday, I might go back to production.  But for now, I am working a beat that I love.  And my standards, which I am sure I dip below at times myself, are as high for journalism as they are for the movies.  The role of the journalist is to seek truth as a representative of the reader.  The job of the artist is inherently to be self-indulgent.  Get over it, boys.

As for Blue Crush, I would have never expected a surf chick movie to get better the second time around.  But it does.  I would never expect to see a surf chick movie that allows me/us to ogle young girls in skimpy, wet clothes but that doesn’t feel like it’s pandering.  One subversive trick is that there is a developing 15-year-old character whose presence made this viewer reconsider the way I was looking at the other girls.  But more so, the movie’s characters are real enough, thanks to the actresses and all the film’s makers, that you connect. 

E ME:  How have I been self-indulgent today?  Let me count the ways. 

What are the greatest table scenes you remember from movies and why?  And an extra widget to the first person that doesn’t mention Reservoir Dogs.