Ebert thinks back on his days with Gene Siskel
Ebert turns in a thoughtful remembrance of Gene Siskel.
Once we were invited to speak to the Harvard Law School Film Society. We walked into their Mock Trial courtroom armed with all sorts of notes, but somehow got started on a funny note, and the whole appearance became stand-up comedy. Separately or together, we were never funnier. Even the audience questions were funny. Roars of laughter for 90 minutes. I'm not making this up. I don't know what happened. Afterwards Gene said, "We could do this in Vegas. No, I'm serious." He was always serious about things like that.
That night we had dinner together in a hotel in Cambridge, and had our longest and deepest philosophical discussion. We talked about life and death, the cosmos, our place in the grand scheme of things, the meaning of it all. There was a reason Gene studied philosophy: He was a natural.
He spoke about his Judaism, which he took very seriously. His parents had started the first synagogue on the North Shore after World War II. "I had a lot of long talks with my father about our religion," Gene told me. "He said it wasn't necessary to think too much about an afterlife. What was important was this life, how we live it, what we contribute, our families, and the memories we leave." Gene said, "The importance of Judaism isn't simply theological, or, in the minds of some Jews, necessarily theological at all. It is that we have stayed together and respected these things for thousands of years, and so it is important that we continue." In a few words, this was one of the most touching descriptions of Judaism I had ever heard.
This isn't the time for anyone to slam Siskel's perspective on Judaism. He was a man who cared about excellence and truth-telling, and I miss him too.
But I will say that I do suspect there was more to it than that... that perhaps he didn't even realize it. He must have been drawn to something more than mere tradition. I don't think Ebert would find it "touching" if someone said, "The importance of [Nazism] isn't simply theological, or, in the minds of some [Nazis], necessarily theological at all. It is that we have stayed together and respected these things for thousands of years, and so it is important that we continue." And I don't think Siskel would either.
No, I suspect that Siskel stayed with Judaism for more than just tradition. I suspect there was something beautiful, something true about it that kept him from wanting to stray too far from it.
Maybe that's just wishful thinking. Whatever the case, Siskel also clearly respected the tradition of great filmmaking, and I'm grateful to him for the part he played in teaching me to care about excellence as I grew up staring at the television and imagining all of those movies that he and Ebert discussed, most of which I still have yet to see.
Let the Right One In (2008)
This review was originally published at Good Letters, the daily blog for Image journal.
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NOTE: The following (including the comment thread) contains spoilers about scenes in the film Let the Right One In.
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Blood on her lips, eyes wide with lust, Eli stares at Oskar and commands him to run.
Oskar is confused. To seal a child's contract of friendship — a “blood bond” — he's carved open his hand with a knife. Little does he know he's just awakened the worst in his new friend. It doesn't take him long to see the truth: she's a vampire. No matter. Eli's his only friend, and he's not about to let that change.
Ah, young love.
Last Saturday was Valentine's Day, and several people asked me to recommend a romantic date movie. I resisted the urge to say Let the Right One In. I worried about the phone calls I'd get in return.
But why not Let the Right One In? Tomas Alfredson’s moody horror movie is, above all, a love story—and one of the most thoughtful to play big screens in years.
Alfredson’s film introduces us to twelve-year-old boy Oskar (Kare Hedebrant) who lives a lonely existence in suburban Swedish tenement complex. Born with a “Kick Me” sign on his back, he's bullied at school and left to fantasize about knifing them when he's alone at home.
Like a ghost he moves unseen past those responsible for loving and protecting him. Who can blame him for accepting the friendship of Eli (Lina Leandersson), the waifish, androgynous vampire next door? Never mind that this creepy twelve-year-old may actually be hundreds of years old. After a few moments of sharing a Rubik's Cube, they develop a delicate trust.
Let the Right One In isn't for the squeamish—Eli's diet is human blood, and her longtime supplier, Håkan, has blood-collection down to a science. But there's more meditation than murder here. Eli's vampiric qualities are revealed slowly and without fanfare—barefoot strolls in the snow, an aversion to sunlight, and wide-eyed paralysis in doorways. (Vampires can't come in unless you invite them.)
By minimizing moments of wild violence and supernatural mayhem that most directors would recklessly indulge, Alfredson gives us time to find pity for Eli, and space to consider correlations between the plight of the vampire and the poor, the alcoholic, the television addict, and other manifestations of loneliness and destructive dependency.
But the film's not preachy, nor overly political. Its heart is broken over Oskar's isolation from meaningful human contact. All around him, marriages fail, teachers are distracted, and friendships have been formed from necessity rather than delight. The possibility of asking adults for help seems never to have occurred to him.
One friend, knowing my taste in movies, encouraged me to see Let the Right One In, saying, “You'll love it! It's a Krzysztof Kieslowski vampire movie!” And Oskar's sprawling tenement complex does indeed recall that oppressive apartment building in The Decalogue, as do the bleak winter backdrops. (Cinephiles may be reminded of Bergman and Kaurismaki as well.)
But while it is one of the most artful of its genre, it's still limited by genre conventions. The crowd-pleasing conclusion—a revenge-oriented bloodbath filmed with riveting intensity and a POV trick that's pure genius — seems convenient and predictable considering the surprises and courageous choices of the first ninety minutes. John Ajvide Lindqvist's screenplay, based on his novel, sets us up to tolerate and even excuse the monster's killings by lining up disposable blood donors. Thus, as with The Silence of the Lambs, viewers are easily drawn into rooting for the monster.
Still, why quibble? Compared to other vampire films, it's remarkable how many conventions this one avoids. For every moment of bloodshed, subtle special effects, and CGI cats throwing spectacular hissy fits, there are subtleties and surprises that transcend this exhausted genre.
Perhaps it would be more useful to consider this film in the context of another genre — stories of youthful alienation and coming-of-age in an age of parental neglect.
This is easily the best film about children I've seen since Shane Black's This is England. Young Shaun, that film's persecuted subject, is also twelve years old. He responds to poverty, neglect, and his father's death in the Balkans by seeking companionship and respect among a community of resourceful, supportive, and exciting friends — the local gang of skinheads.
Similarly troubling, Jacob Aaron Estes's Mean Creek takes us into Lord of the Flies territory, putting a bunch of young teens out in a boat, where they gang up against a misunderstood bully, with consequences that change their lives forever.
I was also reminded of Hirokazu Koreeda's Nobody Knows, which dramatizes a true story about a Tokyo twelve-year-old abandoned to sustain himself and his younger siblings through cleverness and thievery. The title of that film is a cry for help, just as this monster movie's title is an exhortation, a warning to the lonely and the vulnerable.
Here's a horror film with truly haunting implications. You may walk away thinking about how young people fall into street-gang warfare or religious extremism. When the proper role models fail to step up, charismatic and powerful monsters too easily fill the void. In This is England, Shaun walks past the Church of Christ. The windows are boarded shut. There's not a believer in sight. He's off to play with the neo-Nazis. In Let the Right One In, Oskar smiles for joy when his guardian demon comes to the rescue. Whether his beloved is male or female, we know he'll rise up and return the favor.
As I write this, kids are shouting obscenities at one another on the street corner outside. It's the language they've been taught. They're turning to those who have time for them. Who can blame them? All these lonely twelve-year-olds, looking for love and failing to find it in all the right places. I pray for some of “the right ones” to intervene.
"Life of Pi" interests yet another talented director
First it was Jean-Pierre Jeunet.
Then it was M. Night Shyamalan.
Now, Variety reports, Ang Lee is considering Yann Martel's Life of Pi.
Have you read it? Which director would you pick? It'll take someone with a poetic sensibility and a flair for fantasy. I'd certainly get in line for a Lee version.
Browser: Passion of the Rourke. Horton Hears Ken Morefield. Decemberists. Frost/Nixon nixed. Milk of Sorrow. Leonard Cohen. Laura Gibson.
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A.G. Harmon on The Wrestler and its reference to The Passion of the Christ.
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Ken Morefield on where Horton Hears a Who went wrong. Earlier: My own problems with that playful pachyderm..
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Frost/Nixon could have been done right, says Rick Olson.
. . . The filmmakers could have gotten it right, but they chose to tell it wrong. There seems to have been an agenda at work that refused to recognize that the apology originated in the Nixon camp. The building up of Frost into a (reluctant) hero would have been blunted by showing that he didn’t wring the apology out of Nixon after all. Howard and Morgan seem to have required that tired, old Hollywood stereotype: the hero who doesn’t start out that way, but who rises to the occasion in the end.
They carry it through to the end of the picture, refusing to recognize that Nixon was actually rehabilitated, to a certain extent, by this interview. According to Aitken, he used the interview as a “springboard” to resurrect a career: he “emerged from the shadows of San Clemente and re-entered the spotlight of public life.” If you believe the movie, Frost was the absolute winner and Nixon continued in limbo, old and broken and tired.
That is the pity of a film like Frost/Nixon: as competent as it is, as well-crafted as it turns out to be, it could have been more. It could have explored the delicious irony that actually happened, that the interview both made Frost’s career and Nixon’s as well, in what Aitken calls a “win-win” situation. Instead, Howard and company insist on pumping up the jam to give us one more black-and-white situation. They seem not to realize that we’re big boys and girls, that we can handle a little complexity, a little un-tidiness, a little gray. Frost/Nixon coulda’ been a contender.
This doesn't surprise me. I'm still amazed that the chasm between the true story of John Nash and the crowdpleasing fiction called A Beautiful Mind. But audiences thanked Ron Howard for his version of reality, and Hollywood gave him the highest honor they can bestow. They were happy to accept that it was all "based on a true story." And they said a collective "ahhhhh" when the "happy couple" showed up at the coronation. It's not that we can't handle the truth. It's that we prefer versions that let us believe in "follow your heart" sentiments and that let us stand in judgment over the bad guys. (Here's my take on Frost/Nixon at Image.)
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Dare to brave the hazards of love. Check out the title track of the new Decemberists album on MySpace.
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A couple of days ago, the Berlin Film Festival gave Milk of Sorrow the Golden Bear award.
The movie, selected by an international board under this year's president Tilda Swinton, beat off competition from the Woody Harrelson-starring film The Messenger, and My One And Only, with Renee Zellweger, to take home the Golden Bear award for Best Picture on Saturday.
On receiving the award, Milk Of Sorrow filmmaker Claudia Llosa dedicated the win to her home country.
She said, "This is beautiful... this is such an honour. This is for Peru. This is for our country."
The runner-up Silver Bear was shared by Uruguay's Gigante and German drama Everyone Else.
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In recent Twitters, NPR's All Songs Considered has been hinting that they may be broadcasting Leonard Cohen's first U.S. concert in 15 years.
And speaking of NPR, they started streaming the new Laura Gibson album, Beasts of Seasons, online and it's beautiful.
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More to come, most probably.
Nothing Compares to You
Cinematical posted this scene today, and I'm going to post it merely to demonstrate that there is nothing... nothing... in Oscar's Best Picture category this year to compare to the acting, complexity, and achievement of Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXTc9BndmJQ
Still one of my favorite films of all time, and a brilliant work on the corruption of power in religion, politics, and business.
Robert Treskillard's Interview, and the CCSF Tour
Robert Treskillard, one of the bloggers for the CCSF Blog Tour, carried on an interview with me via email over the last several days, and today that interview is published on his site.
Thanks for the thoughtful questions, Robert!
More reviews are popping up here:
Today's favorite: Reunion Scenes
I once experienced a reunion that left me absolutely speechless. I was working in a video store when I got to know an interesting young couple. Regularly, they'd visit the store and ask, "So, Jeff, what should we watch tonight?" I'd recommend something, and off they'd go without bothering to do any more browsing.
Years later, I saw the fellow at a bus stop. He looked world-weary and a little lost. I asked him how he and his girlfriend were doing. His bus pulled up. He turned and looked at me and said, "She died in a fire at her apartment." Then he stood up, got on the bus, and I've never seen him since.
I had nightmares about that fire for years, thinking about that beautiful girl running back into her fiery apartment to try and save someone or something and never emerging from the inferno.
Several years later, I was on the phone with a friend and mentioned how I was still haunted by that tragedy. He said, "What are you talking about? I had dinner with her in San Francisco just a few weeks ago."
It was one of the happiest moments of my life. If you know me, you know I'm rarely speechless. It took me a few moments to find my voice. A few weeks later, she happened to walk through a coffee shop where I was chatting with a friend, and it's a good thing she recognized me, because I ran up and embraced her and cried a little.
Turned out her ex-boyfriend had become rather messed up and mean. And when I started to explain, I could tell that this was only the latest in a series of personal crimes he'd committed against her.
That was the best unexpected reunion of my life.
I'm writing a reunion scene this week, and it's got me thinking back through my favorite reunion scenes in films and literature. One stands out.
In Mike Leigh's Secrets and Lies, there's a long, one-take scene in a diner where a mother and daughter see each other for the first time in decades. For the mother, it is a huge and disorienting surprise. The scene plays out in ways that are funny, complicated, and painful. It's a testament to two extraordinary actors who gave a deeply intuitive and convincing scene.
Can you think of any great reunion scenes? Planned or unplanned. Happy or horrifying. Heartbreaking or awkward. Please share!
CCSF Blog Tour Reads "Cyndere's Midnight"
Many thanks to the bloggers of the CCSF Blog Tour who are commenting this week on Cyndere's Midnight, the sequel to Auralia's Colors!
I've already participated in several email interviews for this tour, and I'm delighted to find that some of the bloggers seem to have enjoyed the story. That's encouraging me as I write myself closer and closer to the end of the third book this week.
(Let me extend a special "thank you" to those bloggers who have spelled "Jeffrey" and "Auralia" correctly. Apparently, those two names are particularly challenging.)
Behind the Scenes with Bono: Rock, Politics, Poverty... and His Christian Faith
Believe it or not, I still hear Christians who declare that Bono isn't a believer. In spite of his testimonies in public, in print, in music, and in deed.
SOH What intrigues me, though, is this tricky place you are in, which is quite unprecedented in pop star terms. You have used your celebrity to go into the world of political activism, but also the world of corporate wealth and the super-rich, and all in the cause of fighting poverty. It's a tricky place for a rock'n'roller to be.
Bono "I know, I know. It's dangerous. And it worries Larry, and it worries the whole band, if truth be told. But, you know, here's the thing - they thought, all of them, Larry, Edge, Adam, that my campaigning would sink the ship."
SOH The U2 ship?
Bono "Yeah! They thought that the rotten tomatoes world rain down and people would not be able to hack it. That was before they started throwing them themselves [laughs]. They thought, one, that it would distract me. And more than that... They were just not into it at all.
SOH All three of them were against it?
Bono "Oh, I think so. I mean, Edge pleaded with me right at the start not to meet Bush. Five or six years ago. They all did."
SOH Initially, Bush wasn't so keen on meeting you, either. So how long did it take you to get a meeting with him?Bono "It took a while. He just did not want to meet me at first."
SOH How much difference does your faith make in these situations - your Christian faith?
Bono "A big difference. I mean, I had been a serious scourge of the religious right, and particularly the evangelicals, for their inaction on Africa. And, to be fair to them, after taking a serious beating they did get up and do something, and that gave Bush cover on his right flank."
SOH Did you ever get into theological debate with Bush?
Bono "Oh yeah! I wouldn't talk about it, but yeah."
SOH OK, I have to ask you this one. Did you ever pray with him?
Bono "Whoaah! (He reaches for his drink.) But I didn't inhale [laughs]. Look, I would always use the scriptures to argue my corner. There are 2,103 verses of scripture pertaining to dealing with the poor. That helps, and it also helps to know that.
"Boy, did my days of Bible study come in handy! And, by the way, it's an offence to me that religious people can close their eyes to this stuff. It's just really not allowed."
SOH From where I'm sitting, though, a lot of the people that you are bargaining with, and who are undoubtedly helping save lives in Africa, have also, by their actions elsewhere, shown a blatant disregard for human life on a grand scale. Surely, that, too, is their legacy?
Bono "Look, it's appalling and shocking and not ever excusable, the waste of human life. But on our issues, all I can say to you is that there are 29 million children in Africa who were not going to school and who now are. That's just in seven years. Now, that's not an excuse for a wrong-headed adventure. It's not an excuse. But I don't believe Tony Blair is evil. I know him enough to know that he is a sincere and serious person who would in any unserious way make those decisions and, though I disagreed with those decisions at the time, I think it's really simplistic to think that he is anyone's poodle."