August 12, 2003

There is something about Open Range…

As I watched Kevin Costner’s return to the western, I was struck by the very clear effort to do some things the way they used to be done. The pace, the length of shots, the passion for terrain, the clipped dialogue… it all had its charm. I don’t know what was left on the cutting room floor and why. I do know that the movie comes up a bit short.

Besides the little bumps and bruises, there are some serious structural problems. The film essentially covers much of the territory of Unforgiven. But unlike Eastwood’s classic, Open Range tends to pull its punches, talking a lot more about the dark side of Costner’s character than making you feel it. The connective tissue between the two films is Eastwood’s A Perfect World, a film that starred Costner, that worked against the conventional grain with its John Lee Hancock screenplay. Hancock continued to work against the grain until it became fashionable in his directorial work, which includes this winter’s The Alamo. A Perfect World was considered a failure at home before becoming a huge hit overseas. Open Range is also part Silverado, the movie that launched Costner’s career, but without most of the humor. That would be okay. But what is missing is Larry Kasden’s great success at making the few-against-many gunfights into clever surprising applause-creating fun.

That said, I was glad to see Costner’s work here. I ran a letter a few weeks ago from a reader who complained that I was being too hard on Seabiscuit. But I see a real distinction between the two films. Where Seabiscuit reeked of vanity and hubris and failed ideas that simply should have been cut, Open Range’s good intentions and gentle charms are unavoidable. And if there were a solution to its troubles, I would imagine that it would be more screen time, not less. (The pace of the first act is glacial, but…)

You are going to see a lot of glowing reviews of this film… a film that will die on the vine because there simply is no serious support from Disney… because critics are so happy to see the effort to reach for something greater. That feature this film shares with Seabiscuit.

The odd thing is, I understand where Disney is on this. It is not an easy sell. It is a movie at a different pace than most. It’s a period piece. The storyline is not a 30 second winner. (“Free grazers are attacked by angry ranchers and the free grazers take a stand, while one’s dark past and lover boy hormones both surface.”) Kevin Costner is not money in the bank, nor is Duvall, nor is Bening. And if the film felt like something the studio was pushing instead of a late season underdog, some of the film’s potential champions would be much more cynical about the film.

But Open Range got me thinking, again, about the entire summer and how we now seem to react to movies that are not easily put in a box. Open Range, which I am guessing will have a hard time grossing $25 million, does not deserve to be folded up and neatly put away in the media “failure” box. It would be easier to get really enthusiastic about it if there were masterstrokes that really blew me away. But Costner did a solid job. There was no genius at play and the mistakes did distract me. But Costner showed better directing chops than at least a third of the directors at work this summer.

This is not, I suppose, an argument that is meant for mainstream audiences, but for people who really love movies. Even if you are not a pro and you don’t cotton to analytical analysis of movies, there are elements that you should be championing.

No matter what you think about The Hulk or The Matrix Reloaded, they do not belong on some continuum of disappointment with The In Laws and Legally Blonde 2. It would not make much sense to encourage people to do more of what we don’t like. But we should be giving out some points for aspiration. Down With Love was reaching for something unique and really interesting. American Wedding is not. The latter will be far more successful than the former. And, I suppose, it is more successful in entertaining its target audience. But in retrospect, American Wedding will be the better-remembered movie because of its box office success.

Aspirations are not enough. But the way we write things off is equally, if not more, problematic. Gigli deserves to be smacked around. But I can’t argue with Roger Ebert’s contention that there is something else going on beyond celebrity vanity. I would love to wander around the footage from that film and see whether there is even more of the quirky stuff. The “Penis Speech” is mediocre, mostly because it is not really honest enough. A man’s perspective on his penis is a funny idea for a speech. The “Vagina Speech” fares much better because it is relentless. But again, it doesn’t offer the real insight that it pretends to and becomes laughable as a result. Still, it was just a step away from genius. Likewise, the metaphor of the retarded boy who is obsessed with Baywatch. It played like the Wapner thing in Rain Man. But there was probably some smarter intent. It failed. But it does not deserve to be Pluto Nashed. It is much more analogous to Swept Away. You just can’t go that far out on a limb and fail… you will get crushed.

On the flip side, for me at least, is Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, which does deserve some props for attempting a new style of filmmaking. Unfortunately, the style attempted involves the complete and unmitigated removal of all depth or even expositional significance from every second of the film. I would say that the result is like watching two hours of MTV2, but that is an insult to MTV2. Music videos tend, like commercials, to have a story that an audience can connect with. CA:FT made no such effort. I believed the guy from A-Ha came out of the comic book at the diner a lot more than I believed anything in Full Throttle.

Most disturbing for me is the anti-intellectualism displayed by the very same people who are mostly likely to raise their hands when asked who the intellectuals in the room are. In a new L.A. humor mag, L.A. Innuendo, a guy named Richard Rushfield attacks Rachel Weisz and her Black Book interviewer, Alastair McKay. While Weisz did not express herself terribly well (“A painting on a canvas might represent a person but a bed just represents a bed.”), there was a major Rushfield to judgment, as he looked for the joke and not for the meaning that was there for anyone who was really paying attention to see. Weisz was not talking about her work on The Mummy films, but was clearly channeling thoughts about her character in the hideous Neil LaBute film, The Shape of Things. McKay did not betray Rushfield by allowing a celebrity to vomit idiocy on the public. McKay betrayed Weisz by failing to do his job as a celebrity interviewer and channeling her ideas, which were evident, into a more coherent form. But it is much easier to make fun than to really look at what’s being said.

Weisz was quite intelligent to point out that there is “a break down of symbolism.” Forget the fuck-you complexity that turned the literally minded off of Eyes Wide Shut. This summer, Man on The Train and Swimming Pool took very similar turns in the end. And most of the time, the post-screening conversation seemed to be, “I really liked it. I don’t know about that ending, but I really liked it.” The clues are pretty clear. But there is, indeed, a break down of symbolic thinking. The third act agony of Adaptation was another such breakdown. Not every film is meant to be a piece of chocolate. Some of if it chewing gum, demanding that it be chewed and chewed and chewed to be fully appreciated.

Weisz also rather brilliantly offered, “”It’s not quite real. It’s like reality TV. You’re looking at fiction that’s saying, ‘I’m honestly and truly real, honestly, honestly. Promise, promise, promise. I’m real.’ And of course, it’s not…. Everybody has this hunger for something that’s really real, but the only thing that is going to be real is… Well, I don’t know what’s real anymore.” Honest. And accurate. Coming to terms with the illusion of reality is one of the most significant challenges of this generation. But because it was badly edited in some stupid gossip rag, it is dismissed by a guy who is writing for a magazine that was founded on the idea of puncturing what is false in L.A. Isn’t it Alanis?

Which brings us back to the movies. If Open Range were released in December, critics would be taking a harder look because of the perceived significance of that release date. It wouldn’t make the movie any different. Is it a coincidence that the Clint Eastwood directed films that are taken most seriously, with the exception of Unforgiven, did not star superstar Clint? How hard do people have to work to convince themselves that the author of all of the Star Wars movies, George Lucas, would deliver a distinctly improved film were he to hire another director to indulge his vision? After all, Richard Marquand directed and Larry Kasdan co-wrote the Ewoks, George didn’t. The genius of hiring a hot, up-n-coming director for the Alien series worked once and failed once. It took Fincher years to recover and Jeunet had to co back to France.

I know that it’s asking a lot. But every movie represents a lot of well-intended work by a lot of people. Reducing their work to simplistic, easily repeatable quips is really quite cruel and should be more a reflection on those who do it than on the work. Witness the twice repeated inaccurate reportage on FoxNews.com regarding Waterworld. The more the lie is repeated, the more it is perceived as reality.

Open Range deserves a little open space. As I wrote a while back, so did 3000 Miles To Graceland, especially on Costner’s part. The Postman may have crashed and burned, but Message in a Bottle and For The Love of the Game did not. (My feelings on those two were split.)

Of course, some will say that I am being too generous… or making excuses… or not being tough enough. Bullshit. Every time I read or hear, “Everyone knows…” in regards to movies, I know that a load of crap is coming my way.

Take your delight where you can. There is never enough.

READER OF THE DAY: SAM THE MAN writes: “I think I sort of admired SWAT more than I liked it -- Clark Johnson's attempt to do a Serpico/French Connection-type movie (note the Bullitt poster) is commendable, and I like the way he tweaks the

genre with things like unusual (i.e. non-hard rock) music choices (no, "Crosstown Traffic" and "Shattered" don't really work, but that "Time is running out" song over the airplane test run was strikingly effective). On the other hand, Johnson's attempt to make a 70s movie with a 00s (read: nonexistent) script was doomed from the outset, and casting Farrell (who to mind has yet to prove his supposed stardom) and Jackson (who can be a pretty lazy actor when he's not kicked into gear) doesn't help -- I was thinking about Bullitt and French Connection, and how McQueen and Hackman not only had at least a good 10 years on Farrell here, but experience to match: They're basically unattractive men whose wordly faces make them attractive, not pretty boys doing their best to look moody. (Does anyone, for even a second, believe Farrell as an ex-Navy Seal?)

Johnson also clearly doesn't have Jonathan Mostow's chops (can't believe I wrote that phrase) as an action director, so I found myself being puzzled over what should have been clearly telegraphed bits of business (as when Farrell gets pounced upon in the train yard at the end, and the lighting is so moody that you can't tell his hand's been pinned to the train car until he's almost done wrenching it off).I guess this all brings me perilously close to being one of those critics who's so fed up with cookie-cutter genre pictures that even minor variations in the formula seem like manna from heaven (though I don't think I ended up overpraising it in print). I guess I wouldn't say I exactly enjoyed SWAT, especially since it gets progressively more goofy and dumb as the plot kicks in about halfway through, but I'm glad to at least see someone, let alone a first-time feature director, get a chance to play with the genre.”

E ME: What movies were overly picked apart for you tastes lately?

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