It’s hard to stay interested in all the palace intrigues when brilliant creativity shines in your eyes…

This is turning out to be one of the greatest seasons in memory for serious, historic drama that makes you squirm in your seat, hoping that something more compelling than important will eventually happen.  In the weeks to come, amidst a flurry of also-ran historical/biographical films, there are some really excellent films, including Antwone Fisher, Bloody Sunday, Bowling For Columbine, City of God, Max and Rabbit-Proof Fence. 

And then, there are two of the best Jewish Holocaust dramas ever made, The Grey Zone and The Pianist.  I saw The Grey Zone back at Toronto 2001 and have been a supporter ever since.  I hope to see it again before it finally gets released in a few weeks.  But Tuesday night, I saw The Pianist for the first time.

Roman Polanski’s first great work in over 20 years, The Pianist examines a terrible time in world history with a personal eye, remarkably subtle and complex given that the film is centered on the horrors of the Warsaw ghetto.  Polanski’s touch is so deft that he guides his central character by many of the events of the time, but never rubs your face in the ugliness.  It just happens, as in real life.

The Grey Zone takes a rather different tack, focusing specifically on the dichotomy of jews, in the concentration camps, who chose to ease the way of other jews to their deaths as a way of preserving their own lives.   This issue is in The Pianist too, but it is only part of the story.  Likewise, Istvan Szabo’s Taking Sides, which will be showing at the Mill Valley Film Festival (where I am headed next week), deals with the question of personal responsibility for atrocities by people who looked the other way rather than taking specific negative action.  (The film still has not U.S. distribution.)  Again, the issue is in The Pianist, but that is not what the movie is about.

The movie is about… well, it is about so many things.  It is about death, but it is about survival.  It is about mindless brutality, but it is also about kindness.  It is about expression, but it is also about unbearable restraint. 

The Pianist snuck up on me.  I mean, I knew everything that was coming.  I know the history.  I know the moments that have been put on film.  Yet, in scene after scene, The Pianist took me to places familiar and unexpected.  I kept on waiting for a “movie” to start… for Polanski and screenwriter Ronald Harwood to reach for a familiar convention… even a familiar convention that is a twist.  (Coincidentally, and much to my surprise, Harwood also wrote Taking Sides.) 

I had an anticipatory conversation about the film with a friend the other day and he was going on about Adrian Brody’s limitations, never mind that he is considered one of the most respected young actors among young directors these days.  But I thought about it as I watched Brody’s performance and, like the film, Brody never fell back on normal techniques either.  The performance is so subtle that it’s hard to imagine Brody getting much awards attention.  But he is spectacularly real in this role, even if I never believed he was playing any of the spectacular piano solos.

The Pianist grew on me, scene after scene after scene, right though the closing credits that saw the exit of only two of the 80 some-odd people in the screening I attended.  And after looking at the imdb’s list of 191 titles that have “holocaust” as a keyword, I think it’s safe to say that The Pianist is the best drama about the Jewish Holocaust that I have ever seen.  And there have been some great films.  The only documentary that I think I would put ahead of The Pianist is Shoah, still the most remarkable document of that period in history that has been created. 

The weird part for me is that how settled I feel about the feel … relaxed, in an odd way.  I think it may be even better than I now feel it is… or maybe it’s just that I will be able to intellectualize the experience more after seeing it again.  All I know right now is that it snuck up on me and found a place in my soul by being unrelentingly humane and viciously true and… beyond words.

THE RETURN OF THE INDIE:  One of the most amazing things about The Pianist, in retrospect, is that it continues the breathtaking run of Jim Schamus & Co. at the recently re-launched, re-named Focus Features.  There are few companies with a line-up that can boast films as good as Far From Heaven, The Pianist and 8 Women in the same season, not to mention earlier releases Monsoon Wedding and The Kid Stays in the Picture.

But there is more going on out there than just Focus Features’ zero-to-eighty kick-off.  While we talk about the major studios losing any discernable difference from one another, the bigger indies are finding that their voices are more and more specific, as defined by their leadership.

Miramax is still the biggest bulldog on the block, but Harvey Weinstein’s high-flying and capricious nature and Brother Bob’s interest in cash flow remain the defining signposts for the company.  Miramax has four movies coming out between December 25 & December 27 and reports have the studio still making significant changes on two of the films, both of which were thought to have been all-but-locked by now, one is coming from a smash debut in its native Italy, and the fourth is just starting the test screening process and seems sure to become another contentious story.  But all four movies are expected to be big.

Sony Classics’ Tom Bernard & Michael Barker are true independents and stick by their guns in a big way.  Bernard is hot for a film called Winged Migration, which has been compared to the great festival documentary, Hybrid… which barely got any distribution.  But Sony Classics takes it on fearlessly while they still invest in traditionally commercial projects like Auto Focus and indie sure-bets like Lisa Cholodenko’s Laurel Canyon. 

UA under Bingham Ray is undeniably Bing.  Of one obvious pick-up by another indie, Ray said, “They can have ****** and ***** 2… I wouldn’t buy that *****.”   And indeed, he wouldn’t.  His first film was the underseen Oscar winning classic, No Man’s Land.  It was tough, smart, funny and a little nuts… just like Bingham.  And this year, it’s 24 Hour Party People, CQ, Igby Goes Down, Mike Leigh’s All or Nothing, Michael Moore’s Bowling For Columbine and the buzz-building Nicholas Nickleby. 

Ruth Vitale and David Dinerstein have proven to have wonderful taste heading up Paramount Classics.  Unfortunately, parent Paramount hasn’t kicked in the kind of marketing dollars that could make the good taste pay off as well as it might, so more than the crusts are cut off.   But films like Our Lady of the Assassins, Bloody Sunday, Mostly Martha, You Can Count on Me, Girl on the Bridge, Focus, The Virgin Suicides and Sunshine are all films of which to be proud.

Lion’s Gate has become the place to take your controversial film that you also think can be commercial.  I have a feeling that American Cinematheque/Vitagraph Films may have to be the ones to distribute Gaspar Noe’s Irreversible in the U.S…. that would be a coup for them.  Artisan’s focus is a little unclear, except that in this post-Blair Witch era they find films that they feel have unusual hooks that are very marketable.  Samuel Goldwyn is also a bit blurry.  Others, like ThinkFilm and Premiere are too young to figure.  But the trend is towards strong personalities. 

BY THE WAY:  Happy birthday to my godson, Darrius.  He is 13 today, which means that I will be 38 tomorrow.  Oy.  Just 32 years or 8000 columns away from retirement.  I need to sit down… Darrius, get my walker!!!!

READER OF THE DAY:  One of my favorite lunatics from Buffalo wrote:  “Mr. Baywatch:  Regarding Kate Bosworth, I believe she will be naked in an upcoming film. I have seen pictures (possibly from Rules of Attraction) and that's all I know.

Wait a minute, F**K IGN! Those bastards are affiliated with theforce.net who pissed me off one time. I have given those people mpegs and links numerous times. One time I gave them a little news and forgot to write the site I saw it on and they got pissed. F**k them. All the s**t I uploaded and they yell at me. S**t, I gave them a behind the scenes at ILM server farm from a piece on TechTV, 30 f**king megs, a lot to encode on my lesser computer back then. Don't give those losers any more press. Those assholes want people to pay for XBOX games reviews online.

F**k Martin Scorsese, Susan Sarandon and any other entertainment person who criticizes the people who support them. Sarandon called my favorite movies, "the Hollywood Movies", the "car wreck movies" and that "the smart movies are for the fall." Listen bitch, I have supported your ass in Stepmom and now you disrespect your customers (the ticket buyers)? There are more ideas in Mission to Mars and Event Horizon than all of her movies put together. Of course, now Sarandon is doing the second in the series of the DUNE saga for the Sci-fi Channel in April. Why does the entertainment industry criticize their audience? Scorsese said similar things in EW's Fall Movie preview about Hollywood movies. Listen you should-have-listened-to-George-Lucas-and-made-GONY-cheaper-with-virtual- sets-director, remaking Cape Fear and directing that ambulance-driver-with-that-dude-who-married-a-Presley movie were not good choices. But, I will still go see Gangs of New York because Qui-Gon Jinn err Liam Neeson is in it. Another director said in the same issue that audience is craving new ideas. No, we are not, we just want 2 more LOTR's and Matrixes and one more SW films.

Oh, I almost forgot to say: f**k you, Aidan Quinn! This asshole said on page 39 of EW's September 27th issue: "there was all this talk about how there was going to be a new wave of meaningful films and less blowup terrorist action. That's turned out not to be the case." When has this guy ever made a meaningful film? The Matrix was meaningful, s**t even the medical industry is now using the cgi human body model developed for the  Hollow Man movie for research.

I figured if David Hasselhoff on his Hot Button website started to say f**k, I was then empowered to do so also.

Drew Bledsoe”

E ME:  Guessed wrong, snow blower.  Brian From Buffalo manages to get through THB every day and still loves junk food movies.  Where are the rest of you on that?  Do you want ore art or more films that stick to your fillings?