I’m obsessed with originality. I hate the completely overdone system of having one break-through, jaw-dropping, ground breaking, oh-my-gosh-how-did-we-ever-exist-without-this innovation that gets followed by thirty knock-offs (ie: The Office. Watch the show or not, the writers and cast of that show are too funny to be ripped off in any other generic form). I love watching a movie with an ending that I didn’t guess thirty seconds into the trailer. Or that has a storyline that’s even slightly original and hasn’t been dragged through the Cliché Pond. I live for the narrative. Theater, literature, film, dance, music; give it a good story and I’m hooked.
People who have inspired me are:
Wes Anderson
All praise be to Wes Anderson. Anderson’s movies are like a friggin’ piece of cinnamon pumpkin pie topped with Cool Whip- ALWAYS as good as it sounds. What I love about Anderson’s quirky movies (other than the awesome recurring casting of Owens brothers and Anjelica Huston) is his brilliant use of tension and release. His movies take complicated human issues and mix them with the awkward (but unfortunately necessary) moments in life.
In The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), an estranged father attempts to reconnect with his family. Generically, that sound kind of like a Lifetime movie, cuing the moment when you turn the channel. But Anderson’s quirky details and engrossing back-story clinches the deal. For example, Ritchie Tenenbaum (Luke Wilson) is in love with his adopted sister, Margot Tenenbaum (Gweneth Paltrow). The entire film, Anderson uses their non-traditional, almost borderline incestuous relationship to build tension in the viewer. And after learning about Margot’s past relationships, Ritchie attempts suicide. Anderson uses the juxtaposition of Ritchie chopping his hair off to reflect his suicide attempt. In the climax of the scene, Ritchie is shown with blood streaming down his forearms, mingling with chunks of hair that is everywhere (one of the few scenes that’s shown in cooler bluer tones of light rather than the warm hues used in the rest of the movie). When Ritchie is found, it’s revealed that he did not succeed in killing himself and he is admitted to the hospital.
I remember being euphoric the first time I watched- “THANK GOD! They still have a chance!” And immediately, you’re forced to ask yourself all these nit-picky, morally gray questions. All the while you’re building up tension, wondering if Margot will ever find out what Ritchie did for her. Later, Margot is in Ritchie’s tent listening to old records and Ritchie joins her. Fiiiiinally. FINALLY. Finally, they talk. The entire movie focuses in on quite a dysfunctional family who never talks. About anything. And in these scenes near the close of the movie, the viewer is granted an actual moment of clarity between two characters.
This moment = Complete Catharsis.
Anderson’s tight control on his use of tension draws the viewer to become emotionally attached almost instantaneously. And with so much invested into a set of characters, the moment contrasts with the stilted, emotionally strangled scenes that are found earlier in the film. And just as you have a sense of peace with this entire gratuitous moment as Margot leaves the tent, she pops her head back in and says:
“I think we’re just going to have to secretly be in love and leave it at that, Ritchie.”
Snap. And the relaxed, trusting audience has been brought back into a tense cat-and-mouse situation.
In The Darjeeling Limited (2007), Anderson uses the setting of constant familial companionship to create tension. After the death of their father, three estranged brothers set off on a trip across India to gain peace with each of their selves. Again, Anderson uses the reunited family backdrop. While the specific storyline in itself is unique, the family scenario is so relatable. These three brothers, after a year of no communication, now being shoved together creates this fantastically awkward and tense situation. The tension feels so great because every viewer feels the tension in themselves.
Woody Allen
Woody Allen is funny. And I’m talkin’ before his hair went white, before the 2000s, before Soon-Yi Previn- back when he was funny and Diane Keaton was laughing up a storm with him, on and off-screen. The beauty of Allen is his use of text. For example, in Annie Hall (1977), Allen’s character Alvy keeps up a stream of conversation that, for the most part, never ceases throughout the film. He starts the film, and immediately you get a sense that his humor is smart while slightly self-depricating. His humor continues this way through the film, and all the while he is talkingtalkingtalking, Diane Keaton’s character is mostly listening and absorbing. So the words that she does contribute have more merit because it’s different the rambling we’ve heard for most of the film. The audience picks up on her softer, gentler words because there are less of them than Allen’s character’s. Because his character says so much, it is easier to slightly tune out to what he is saying and still get the gist of his conversation.
By doing this, it becomes clear that Keaton’s character, Annie, must be doing the same thing. Through Allen’s text, the viewer realizes that while Alvy asserts one statement about himself, the opposite is actually true. Alvy is a New York elitist Jew, through and through. Nowhere is better than New York and no one is as funny as he thinks he is. Through this, the viewer gets to see the more vulnerable aspects of Alvy. Over compensating for his own faults, Alvy judges the world in a harsh and cynical tone. The contrast to his judgment calls is the innocent, high-spirited Annie who only means well. Her dialogue is less frequent in the film, so naturally the audience is forced to listen more closely the rare times when she does speak. The subtext of Allen’s constant conversation for Alvy and Annie’s lack of words creates a relationship that clearly is dependent on Annie. While Alvy has the most say and continues to shape what Annie does, giving her reading suggestions and telling her to go to school, it is ultimately Annie who controls the relationship. Allen creates this subtext through the clingy bits of conversation Alvy hides well in his subtle put-downs of Annie.
I love Allen’s use of text because while it is witty and funny, it also serves a deeper purpose. Taken at face value, Allen’s text is good. I would say it was good enough to carry a viewer through the movie. Yet, when you re-watch the movie and examine the text more closely, you see that Allen has a gift with words because in the textual world of his films, which are always filled with constant chattering, a specific atmospheric mood is created. And Allen does it with such subtlety that a passive viewer would not catch it.
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick left America for England, where he created his masterpieces and stayed for the rest of his life. Kubrick inspires me because he had such total control. He moved away from Hollywood because he wanted the control to write, direct, produce- everything. He knew what he wanted his end product to look like and he knew how to do it. Kubrick’s films have unusual content in them (and as we all know from Roger Cooper, “content is kaing and quain, baby”).
While still in Hollywood, Kubrick directed Dr. Strangelove or How I Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964). The movie is set during the Cold War when the nuclear arms race threatened the safety of civilians both in America and Russia. Kubrick’s fantastic direction shows his clear and powerful use of didactically transferring information. The film, while originally planned to be a drama, is later turned into a comedy. Yet, without the cheesy laugh track and with intensely serious plot developments (at one point, a man shoots himself in the bathroom), the comedy is completely unique. The audience is left to interpret every situation as to whether it is humorous or not. And this freedom to choose forces the viewer to realize what his or her own personal sense of humor can achieve. The U.S. Armed Forces have mistakenly launched a nuclear missile on Russia? Funny. The Russians have built a doomsday device that will wipe out life on Earth? Funny. Released in the 1960s when tensions were still high and families were legitimately building bomb shelters for fear of nuclear war, the movie allowed America to laugh at itself. And through this, they (and viewers today) didactically learned how preposterous America can be. A rich country that has the means to do whatever they please is bound to be filled with some idiots.
In the same year, another film, Fail-Safe, was released which had a similar plotline of accidental nuclear war. The only difference was the Fail-Safe was a serious drama rather than a comedy. Dr. Strangelove garnered much more support and Fail-Safe was left to be watched by few. The fact that Americans chose to watch a comedy about their current predicament rather than a serious drama shows the need to escape. Kubrick recognized the necessity of escaping, and in a leap of faith that turned out to be spot on, he changed his film. If Dr. Strangelove had been a drama, it would not have had the same impact because these people knew how they would react to an accidental nuclear war. They were living with it 24/7.
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