pt at large

The Artist: Beyond Words

The Artist: A romantic comedy/drama on film the old fashioned way - silent and sweet.


I loved this film. Going to see a silent movie like “The Artist” has to be as revolutionary an experience today as going to a talkie must have been in 1929. Instead of wondering exactly what the actors were saying and how they sounded and what the tone of voice conveyed, the audience could finally HEAR it all.

In 2012, going to see “The Artist” is a totally retro experience. It took me the first part of the one hour and forty minute film to get the hang of it. I was taken in by watching the actors emote, waiting for the captions to appear, and even tried to read lips to see how close my interpretation got to the caption that might have rolled out a few seconds later.

Or not. Some sequences didn't have captions because the film asked me to interpret, to fill in the blanks, as if saying, hey this is pretty obvious, we don't need to feed you captions for this, buddy, you got two eyes, you can figure it out yourself.

Lots of the scenes involved only two characters. The interplay of body language, facial expressions were like a code that movie goers at the time were used to, a pantomime script that conveyed feelings, words, intentions.

The faces of the two stars, Jean Dujardin as veteran silent screen star George Valentin and Berenice Bejo as emerging star of talkies Pepper Miller, are perfect landscapes for the film, expressive and appealing. The camera loves them and they love it back. They have the old time knack of arching an eyebrow, pursing the lip, speaking with their eyes, and unleashing smashingly fabulous, playful smiles. And they're beautiful.

In crowd scenes, it was fun watching the carefully orchestrated expressions of every person, fascinating faces and outfits, all of them carefully chosen even if there were a hundred of them, sort of a playful Hieronymus Bosch. They were an animated mosaic that functioned like a silent Greek chorus.

The silence in the theater was a bit unnerving as the first scenes began to roll. I breathed a sigh of relief when the film score, the music that practically shouted the kind of emotion the actors were feeling, joy, sadness, fear, sympathy, just in case you missed the droop in their shoulders or lightness in their gait or anger in their eyes, kicked in.

I was busy experiencing the film in an entirely different way. It was cool that the director figured out I would know what was going on in some scenes without him having to add the captions. Which, by the way, were usually in big white letters on the black background and not too many words in any one caption.

Oh, by the way, did I say the whole film is in black and white? Totally retro. The movie making scenes embedded in the story depict the period at the beginning of the 1930s when silent films and their stars were about to be eclipsed by movies that had their own music embedded in them and later the actors’ voices. Miracle! They talked! And you could hear them!

In an odd way, watching a silent film is an interactive experience. I had to integrate the music and captions with the arc of the story. My eyes began to flit over the details of every scene looking for clues about the narrative and my ears picked up the signals of the music  which, like today, announce tension, suspense, mystery.

Most of the scenes were set sparely so that every detail in them propelled the story. The actor's fabulous period clothing and the furnishings weren't competing with the actor's voices. One of priceless scenes you'd miss if you weren't scanning the frame - the washed up actor Valentin walks disconsolately down a deserted city street – in the background, a distant theater marquee reads "The Lonely Star."

One of the film's unforgettably poignant sequences shows star-struck Pepper Miller, still an unknown actress, sneaking into Valentin's dressing room and putting her arm through the sleeve of his jacket to produce a gloriously touching pantomime of him embracing her (see the trailer link).

“The Artist” has a formula that has thrived since film was celluloid: Fame, Fall, Redemption. It is lovingly produced and a ton of fun to watch.

The Book Of Grace: Powerful Acting, Problematic Resolution

THE BOOK OF GRACE
A Play by Suzan-Lori Parks
Directed by: David D. Wheeler
Assistant director, Lewis Wheeler. Sets, Eric D. Diaz. Lights, Kenneth Helvig. Costumes, Tristan Scott Barton Raines. Sound, David Wilson. Projection, Jason Weber. Presented by Company One.
Through May 7, 2011

Wild Wednesdays All tickets $18 

Thursday and Sunday Full — $30 (side); $35 (center) Students (w/ ID) —$15 (all tickets) Seniors — $30 (all tickets)
Friday & Saturday Full — $33 (side); $38 (center) Students (w/ ID) — $15 (all tickets) Seniors — $30 (all tickets)
Pay What You Can Performances (min $6) – Sundays, April 17 & 24, 2p.m.

All the pieces are there. Talented actors, world class director, award winning playwright, creative theater company, great set, intimate theater space to contain the action. Alas, all these elements float along on the surface together for a bit over two hours like pieces of a puzzle, touching, rebounding off one another but never locking together in a way that satisfies.

From the play’s program, we know that a young man will appear at the south Texas border town home of his estranged father and the father’s young second wife. And we know that secrets will be revealed and apparent tranquility will be shattered.

The theater darkens for the opening act. Each of the three characters is spotlighted for a brief monologue that sets the scene and gives us a big chunk of information about their emotional states.

The young man, Buddy (Jesse Tolbert) is black. His father and stepmother, awaiting their turn for their initial monologue, are white. Buddy has been honorably discharged from the Army.  After years of little communication between them, he’s sought out his father in this Texas border town to confront him for an act he may have committed when Buddy was a boy. Buddy wants an apology for we’re led to believe was sexual abuse, maybe even wants a declaration of love from a man who may not be capable of that emotion.

The brittle character of Buddy’s white father, Vet (Steven Barkhimer), describes his job of keeping the US border safe from intrusion by aliens. “Aliens. That’s what we’re up against… . They’re not like us. That’s why we’ve got to keep them out,’’ says Vet, adding pointedly, “Sometimes the alien is right in your own home. Sometimes right in your own blood. And you’ve got to build a wall around it.’’

It’s clear that Vet’s ideas of containment aren’t confined to illegal immigrants. “My shrink says I have boundary issues,” he says. He also has a mean streak.

We see Grace (Frances Idlebrook), Vet’s wife, in her waitress outfit, giving Vet sunny advice on how to manage his first conversation with the estranged son he hasn’t seen in years.  With her body language, wringing of hands and forced smile, there is something manic about Grace’s  there’s-goodness-to-be-found-all-around-us attitude.

What happens in the first encounter between Grace and Buddy is unexpected to the point of stretching credulity. They’re both living in the grip of Vet’s demeaning, almost clinical behavior but there’s enough tension building in the play to make their behavior out of place, perhaps the playwright’s strategy to make the arc of the play more fraught than it already is.

Frances Idlebrook is terrific as Grace, the tightly wound wife contained under Vet’s thumb. Grace has discovered that the only safe way to channel her fear of Vet is to secretly write a book, The Book of Grace, in which she inserts stories and anecdotes of evidence that good does exist outside the boundaries of her own house.

Playwright Suzan-Lori Parks uses Grace as a narrator to help unfold the story. Grace’s reading of her book, and her frequent brief appearances to deliver “footnotes” during the action, is the window through which Parks gives us the back-story.

Buddy’s references to an act Vet may have committed on him is powerful stuff. Vet’s obsessive need to keep his trousers neatly creased, and comparing the creases to the borders he protects, “Everything on this side is ours. Everything on that side is yours. You stay where you belong, we stay where we belong,” reveals his struggle to keep his inner life as contained as possible.  This is a man with serious trust issues.

The tension that builds during the first act and a half seems to hit its own border in the last two scenes. Immediately preceding these scenes, Grace’s searing meltdown at Vet’s cruelty, her white hot rage at Vet for controlling her life as assiduously as he patrols the US border, is that of a woman unspooling from years of oppression. It’s an awe-inspiring piece of acting.

The action becomes unnaturally forced after that. Buddy’s behavior in the final scene between Grace and Vet is unfathomable, given his experience with Vet and his plan to seek revenge. The final scene, which would be spoiler material to divulge, is just not credible, way too forced – too much the playwright’s need to tidy up what hasn’t been resolved already.

We’re left with three damaged souls in limbo. If any play needed moments of catharsis to relieve the emotional pain suffered all around, it would be The Book of Grace.  I exited the theater thinking that I witnessed three powerful performances that left me thinking, “What’s the point?”


Photos by Lisa Voll courtesy of Company One website.

 

The Savages

This satisfying ensemble of Laura Linney, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Philip Bosco shows the strain, the love, the secrets between brother and sister as they take responsibility to care for their nursing-home-bound father (Bosco). This is as close to an ‘art house’ movie that Hollywood can get.

The film subtly shows the siblings cope with shreds of their shared past as they do their best to manage their own mid-life crises while dealing with their dying father. When you’re not wincing, you’re chuckling at the dry humor in exchanges between brother and sister.

Vignettes that make up the movie ring true scene after scene. You can sense the institutional smell of the nursing home, the scent of the siblings' perspiration in their rumpled clothes, and the grudging bond of shared sorrow and love that lie beneath their conflicting ideas about their father's care, their own failing professional aspirations and personal relationships.

The simple story isn’t gussied up with pretty details. The way the three dress, the interiors of the siblings' living spaces, and their shaky relationships with the opposite sex fit together like pieces of a miniature jigsaw puzzle.

The sibling’s sharp edged memories of their childhood could easily drive a wedge between them. They’re making the peace with each other that they could never achieve with their father.

The acting is brilliant, funny, sad, and uplifting. The only place Hollywood gets in the way is the tidy resolution in the last few minutes. Luckily, the previous 110 minutes of honest filmmaking leave a more lasting impact.

Friends with money

"Friends with money", is a layered and ambiguous slice-of-life film about friends and couples, and the ties that bind them or knot them together like hostages.
The scenes of the three couples and one friend together have the feel of spontaneous ensemble acting. Worth seeing if you like films that arent neatly packaged with tidy beginnings and endings. Not recommended as a first date movie.