W.E., Chronicle, and The Woman in Black
Various kinds of scary
W.E.
One positive thing to be said about Madonna's new movie, W.E., is that it is leagues better than her first directing effort, the 2008 Filth and Wisdom. But then many things are, periodontal surgery among them. Unlike that earlier film, this one is beautifully photographed (by Hagen Bogdanski, who also shot The Lives of Others), and so the endlessly shuttling Grand Tour locations—London, Paris, Cannes—glide by in preening detail, and the deluxe interiors speak softly of serious money.
That's the good part. The picture's problem—well, one of its problems—is that it presents for our appreciative contemplation two of the most worthless jet-setting parasites of the last century: Edward, Duke of Windsor, and Wallis Simpson, the American clothes-horse divorcee for whom he abdicated the Throne of England. In 1937, directly after stepping down, Edward married his brittle inamorata, and together they spent the next 35 years doing absolutely nothing but spending epic amounts of his hand-me-down royal fortune in the gaudiest possible ways. Having no other purpose, they became style icons among the international idle rich—he in his tailored tweeds, she in pricey Dior and Vionnet and the emeralds and pearls with which he continually showered her. Unsurprisingly, Madonna excavates this aspect of her subjects with gusto.
To focus on fashion in depicting a couple who once had dinner with Hitler, and are widely attested to have maintained a chummy relationship with the Nazis well into the war, is an appalling decision. (Madonna's take on this is: Hey, lots of people had dinner with Hitler—and indeed we can picture the Führer in his Berghof, sitting down with Goebbels and Göring for a hearty Bavarian repast.) She also attempts to present Edward as a man of conscience—a man of the people, even. (At one point we see him rousing a crowd of miserable jobless Welshmen with a cry of "Something must be done!") These feeble rehabilitative strategies are too unpersuasive to maintain, however.
Apart from the gaping vacancy at the center of the film, Madonna chose, for some reason, to write the script with Alek Keshishian, heretofore best-known for directing her 1991 tour documentary, Truth or Dare. The result is a garble of scattershot incidents strewn with clots of overripe dialogue. In one scene, set in a drafty mansion, Wallis (played by Andrea Riseborough in the movie's only lively performance) tells Edward (James D'Arcy) that she's cold; his reply: "Maybe you need someone to keep you warm." Later, when Edward tells Wallis that he has decided to quit the monarchy in order to marry her, her prescient response is, "I will be the most despised woman in the world."
Even more debilitating is the movie's structure, which defies sustained comprehension. Madonna cuts back and forth between the duke and his consort as they go about their trivial lives—from the 1930s into the early '70s—and a separate story, set in New York in 1998, in which a fictitious young woman named Wally (Abbie Cornish), obsessed with her deceased namesake, moons around among a display of the Windsors' possessions, which are being offered up for auction at Sotheby's. Like Wallis, in one of her earlier marriages, Wally is burdened with an abusive husband; and like Wallis, she yearns for true love. That she eventually finds it in the arms of a lowly Ukrainian security guard (Oscar Isaac) who plays classical piano in his shabby loft is a conceit ridiculous beyond the call of implausibility.
There are moments in this movie of such honking absurdity that one can only slump in wonder. A decadent party scene, for instance, presumably set in the 1960s, in which the wealthy revelers writhe about to the strains of the Sex Pistols' "Pretty Vacant." And a later scene in which Edward, on his deathbed, asks the similarly elderly Wallis to dance for him, and she totters over to a record player and cranks up the Chubby Checker version of "The Twist"—and then proceeds to actually do the dance, for rather longer than any other director might feel it wise to show. Of a special silliness are the moments when Wally and Wallis somehow interpenetrate their separate eras to spend time together – sitting side by side on a park bench, encountering each other on a Paris street ("Get a life!" Wallis hisses). Our amazement is unending.
A lot of time and effort has gone into the making of this movie, particularly in the areas of art direction and costume design. But the purportedly grand love story of Wallis and Edward is a puny thing in the context of their deplorable lives. The actors here are ill-served, the sometimes impressive visual textures are squandered, and a bout of desperate reediting following the movie's disastrous premiere at last year's Venice Film Festival has been in vain. W.E. remains at the end what it was at the beginning and continues to be throughout: a flamboyantly misconceived mess.
Chronicle
With Chronicle, the shaky-cam "real footage" movie, on the cusp of propelling some viewers into face-clawing lamentation, finally grows up. The picture has a rousing spirit and an unexpected emotional warmth. It features good (if little-known) actors, a solid genre plot, and surprisingly slick effects that are especially impressive for being so seamlessly woven into the film's low-budget look. The movie hustles by in less than 90 minutes, and it's a lot of fun.
The story, by director Josh Trank and screenwriter Max Landis—both feature-film first-timers—is a clever riff on the superhero theme. Andrew Detmer (Dane DeHaan, a True Blood alumnus) is the kid with the video cam—a lonely nerd documenting his miserable homelife with an abusive father (Michael Kelly) and bedridden, dying mother (Bo Petersen). Andrew is a high-school senior, shunned by the cool kids and tormented by the usual crew of varsity troglodytes—all the more so after he starts bringing his new camera to school. His only semi-friends are his amiable cousin Matt (Alex Russell) and, for reasons unclear, the gleamingly popular Steve Montgomery (Michael B. Jordan, of Friday Night Lights).
One day, out in the woods, these three happen across a large hole that leads deep underground. Descending into it, they find something very strange, and soon after clambering back up to the surface discover that they've suddenly developed nifty new telekinetic powers. At first they use this gift for fun and pranks—floating little Lego bricks up into the air, baffling car owners by shuffling their vehicles around in parking lots. Then, with continued practice, they discover that they can rise up into the air themselves, and soon they're swooping around through the clouds.
As an early reference to Schopenhauer (!) suggests, such lighthearted enjoyment can't last. Andrew is a young man gnawed by teen trauma, and his hunger for payback—now entirely possible—festers darkly. He starts small—levitating a spider and then pulling it apart in midair with his mind (a striking effect)—but quickly moves on, dispensing rough justice to highway tailgaters and settling scores with his loudmouth dad. As his taste for mayhem mounts, we marvel that some of the film's elaborate havoc could be covered by its reported $15-million budget.
The basic challenge in pulling off a movie like this is camera POV. Here, an antidote for hand-held visual monotony is built into the concept: among the many things Andrew can levitate is his vidcam, thus enabling plausible overhead shots and traveling side views. And the introduction of a pretty blonde video blogger named Casey (Ashley Hinshaw) allows for the recording of scenes in which Andrew plays no part. You still wonder how feasible it would be to descend a crowded school staircase with your eyes glued to a viewfinder (and at the end you wonder how all the footage we're seeing was somehow assembled), but genre fans will accept that you have to roll with this sort of thing. At its conclusion, the picture leaves open the possibility of a sequel—on the evidence of this film, possibly a not-bad idea.
The Woman in Black
The Woman in Black reaches back into the horror-movie past, long before mad slashers and crazed gore frenzies infested the genre, to present us with an unapologetically old-fashioned haunted-house exercise. The picture pays vivid tribute to the fog-choked byways and richly decorated interiors of the old Hammer horror films (and is in fact the first release by that newly resurrected studio after some 30 years of commercial hibernation). But it also partakes of the narcoleptic pacing that hobbled some of those old pictures, and so despite this movie's stylish design and agreeably vintage frights, it is also, sad to report, kind of boring.
The story is derived from a 1983 novel by Susan Hill that was previously adapted for British TV and radio, and has been running in a London stage version for more than 20 years. Clearly there's an audience for this time-tested material; it only remains to be seen whether it's an audience that also goes to the movies.
The setting is vaguely Victorian (although a briefly glimpsed newspaper story about Arthur Conan Doyle's conversion to spiritualism would place it closer to the 1920s). Daniel Radcliffe, in his first post-Potter film role, plays Arthur Kipps, a morose young lawyer still shattered by the death of his wife in childbirth four years earlier. He is dispatched by his London office to the faraway village of Crythin Gifford, there to organize the estate of a recently deceased old woman. Arriving by train in the grim, unwelcoming village, he makes his way to her even grimmer residence—a dismal stone mansion situated in nearby marshlands at the end of a long road that's submerged by high tides for many hours of each day.
Thus isolated, Kipps gets right to work. Sorting through records and letters, he eventually learns that the dead woman once had a young son; he died at an early age and ever since, a large number of local children have mysteriously followed suit. If it need be said, these dead kids are not really gone—nor is another notionally departed figure, a black-veiled woman who lurks in the surrounding forest, staring up through the rain and sometimes, alarmingly, making her way inside the house, where she peers out of high windows to spectral effect.
Considerable stretches of this 95-minute movie are devoted to Kipps creeping through spooky corridors with candle held high, summoned by strange knocks and rumblings and sudden shrieks, and unsettled by bloody footprints, dangling corpses and pallid children who clearly mean him no good. The picture is thick with decrepit atmosphere, and director James Watkins (Eden Lake) clearly savors it. He has a tight, cleanly fashioned script to follow (by Jane Goldman, who also worked on Kick-Ass and X-Men: First Class), and some effective actors (especially Ciarán Hinds and Janet McTeer as a local landowner and his dotty wife). But the story's unvarying predictability, additionally lumbered by Radcliffe's glum and inexpressive performance, becalms the proceedings. Viewers new to this venerable genre may find its quaintness refreshing; those with longer memories might not. Two guys filing out of the screening I saw were divided. "That was really scary," one of them said. To which his companion replied: "I fell asleep."
Kurt Loder is a writer living in New York. His third book, a collection of film reviews called The Good, the Bad and the Godawful, is now available. Follow him on Twitter at kurt_loder.
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This is about the most critical I’ve ever seen Loder towards a movie and he still seems to be pulling punches. It would be entertaining to see this reviewed by someone much more vicious.
Yes. I get the feeling this could have been like Ebert’s North review:
I don’t agree with Roger a lot, but usually when I do, we agree completely. And he has written some scathing reviews over the years. And that one was a doozy.
The “your movie sucks” was a classic review.
Don’t all eastern erupean hourly wage workers play orchestral or classical instruments?
man, I haven’t even started drinking at the liberty on the rocks meeting tonight and I’m already typing like I’m a few doubles on the rocks into the night!
Will there be some banner saying, “Reason Commenters Sit Here!”?
Bald fat due with a beard. We’ll be in the front.
Bald fat due with a beard.
1. I don’t know how you knew how to describe me, but it’s creepy.
2. I kind of imagine all libertarians who would meet at a bar to fit this description.
looking for the bilover?—datebi*cO’m— is a site for bisexual and bicurious singles and friends.Here you can find hundreds of thousands of open-minded singles & couples looking to explore their bisexuality.sign up for free.
I’m glad to hear that Hammer is back in the production business, but this doesn’t seem like an auspicious start.
I had seen the commercials for Chronicle and it looked sort of interesting (it reminded me of Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy From Mars), so I think I’ll go check it out.
I’m glad to hear that Hammer is back in the production business, but this doesn’t seem like an auspicious start.
There’s another haunted-house movie coming out at the same time called The Innkeepers that looks somewhat promising.
Two of my favorite horror movies are The Others and The Orphanage. Both used atmosphere and slowly mounting tension to great effect (versus blood and gore and monsters). These two movies look like they’re in somewhat the same vein.
I’m still not sure if I’ll ever buy Daniel Radcliffe as anyone other than Harry Potter.
The Orphanage is easily one of the creepiest and unnerving movies I have seen in a while. In fact I probably would not have to see it had I known it would be so nerve racking. I have an overactive imagination that seems to repulse all efforts from my rational mind to calm it down so I end up not sleeping well for a week or so. Some of the visuals in that movie are just pure nightmare fuel. It also had an unusually touching end for a horror movie. Highly recommended (for those who like horror movies).
The Orphanage is easily one of the creepiest and unnerving movies I have seen in a while. In fact I probably would not have to see it had I known it would be so nerve racking.
And to think it accomplished all that without taking the easy way out and resorting to violence, bloodshed, monsters, and “boo” moments, the way most Hollywood horror flicks do. It’s the same sort of skillful filmmaking that made The Others such a great film, and which has me intruiged with these two new movies.
I went through periodontal surgery a few months ago. It wasn’t all that bad.
Now imagine if madonna was your periodontal surgeon!
Now imagine if madonna was your periodontal surgeon!
Now imagine you’re Madonna’s gynecologist! No speculums necessary!
1. Realities of futility
If one examines socialist realism, one is faced with a choice: either reject dialectic narrative or conclude that truth is capable of significant form, given that Sontag’s analysis of Marxist socialism is invalid. But the premise of socialist realism states that art is used to reinforce archaic, sexist perceptions of class.
Geoffrey[1] implies that we have to choose between Marxist socialism and Lacanist obscurity. However, the example of the neoconstructive paradigm of expression intrinsic to Smith’s Clerks emerges again in Dogma, although in a more mythopoetical sense.
The subject is interpolated into a Marxist socialism that includes reality as a whole. Therefore, in Chasing Amy, Smith affirms postdeconstructive patriarchialist theory; in Dogma he reiterates the neoconstructive paradigm of expression.
Foucault uses the term ‘subcapitalist theory’ to denote the absurdity of structuralist sexual identity. However, if the neoconstructive paradigm of expression holds, we have to choose between socialist realism and neosemiotic feminism.
2. The neoconstructive paradigm of expression and cultural discourse
“Society is meaningless,” says Debord. Drucker[2] holds that the works of Smith are not postmodern. But any number of materialisms concerning presemanticist deconstructive theory may be found.
Foucault’s essay on socialist realism suggests that expression must come from the collective unconscious. However, Sontag uses the term ‘the neoconstructive paradigm of expression’ to denote the difference between narrativity and class.
Lacan suggests the use of cultural discourse to challenge the status quo. Thus, a number of theories concerning not, in fact, discourse, but subdiscourse exist.
3. Discourses of dialectic
The main theme of the works of Joyce is the common ground between sexual identity and language. The neoconstructive paradigm of expression states that consciousness may be used to marginalize the Other. In a sense, the subject is contextualised into a socialist realism that includes culture as a reality.
“Sexual identity is fundamentally elitist,” says Sontag; however, according to Humphrey[3] , it is not so much sexual identity that is fundamentally elitist, but rather the economy, and eventually the collapse, of sexual identity. Baudrillard uses the term ‘the capitalist paradigm of expression’ to denote not theory, as Marx would have it, but posttheory. Therefore, if cultural discourse holds, we have to choose between socialist realism and predialectic discourse.
In Dubliners, Joyce denies capitalist posttextual theory; in Finnegan’s Wake, however, he deconstructs socialist realism. It could be said that the primary theme of Tilton’s[4] model of cultural discourse is the difference between class and society.
An abundance of deappropriations concerning the neoconstructive paradigm of expression may be revealed. However, the main theme of the works of Joyce is a self-fulfilling whole.
The premise of socialist realism suggests that the purpose of the reader is social comment, but only if art is interchangeable with language; if that is not the case, Sartre’s model of the neoconstructive paradigm of expression is one of “premodernist conceptual theory”, and thus part of the futility of reality. In a sense, Lyotard promotes the use of posttextual narrative to analyse sexual identity.
The collapse, and therefore the fatal flaw, of cultural discourse which is a central theme of Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man is also evident in Ulysses. It could be said that the primary theme of Pickett’s[5] essay on the neoconstructive paradigm of expression is the collapse of precultural class.
4. Joyce and socialist realism
If one examines cultural discourse, one is faced with a choice: either accept the textual paradigm of context or conclude that society, somewhat ironically, has intrinsic meaning. Geoffrey[6] implies that we have to choose between cultural discourse and subpatriarchial discourse. In a sense, several desituationisms concerning a mythopoetical paradox exist.
Textual discourse holds that consensus is a product of communication. It could be said that the characteristic theme of the works of Joyce is not deconstructivism, but neodeconstructivism.
Sontag uses the term ‘cultural discourse’ to denote a postcapitalist reality. Therefore, Debord suggests the use of socialist realism to deconstruct outmoded perceptions of sexuality.
5. Discourses of defining characteristic
“Society is used in the service of class divisions,” says Sontag; however, according to Hamburger[7] , it is not so much society that is used in the service of class divisions, but rather the rubicon, and thus the paradigm, of society. A number of theories concerning cultural discourse may be found. Thus, in Dubliners, Joyce reiterates the neoconstructive paradigm of expression; in Finnegan’s Wake he deconstructs deconstructive predialectic theory.
If one examines the neoconstructive paradigm of expression, one is faced with a choice: either reject Baudrillardist hyperreality or conclude that the task of the poet is deconstruction. An abundance of materialisms concerning the futility, and eventually the fatal flaw, of material sexual identity exist. However, the subject is interpolated into a socialist realism that includes truth as a totality.
In the works of Joyce, a predominant concept is the distinction between closing and opening. If the neoconstructive paradigm of expression holds, the works of Joyce are an example of self-supporting nihilism. But the main theme of Drucker’s[8] critique of cultural discourse is the common ground between art and sexual identity.
If one examines socialist realism, one is faced with a choice: either accept cultural discourse or conclude that narrativity is used to entrench sexism, but only if the premise of the neoconstructive paradigm of expression is valid. Debord uses the term ‘socialist realism’ to denote a postcapitalist reality. However, Lyotard promotes the use of cultural discourse to read and analyse class.
The primary theme of the works of Joyce is the genre of dialectic society. In a sense, Sontag uses the term ‘socialist realism’ to denote a mythopoetical whole.
Lacan’s analysis of the neoconstructive paradigm of expression implies that art has significance. But Sargeant[9] holds that we have to choose between cultural discourse and textual postpatriarchial theory.
The main theme of Drucker’s[10] critique of Lyotardist narrative is the meaninglessness, and subsequent dialectic, of dialectic class. It could be said that Bataille uses the term ‘the neoconstructive paradigm of expression’ to denote not discourse per se, but subdiscourse.
The example of cultural discourse depicted in Fellini’s Satyricon emerges again in Amarcord, although in a more postsemanticist sense. Thus, the characteristic theme of the works of Fellini is the difference between sexual identity and class.
Dialectic precultural theory suggests that the collective is capable of intentionality. However, the main theme of Hubbard’s[11] analysis of socialist realism is the failure, and some would say the defining characteristic, of capitalist sexual identity.
——————————————————————————–
1. Geoffrey, W. (1991) The Circular Sky: Socialist realism and the neoconstructive paradigm of expression. And/Or Press
2. Drucker, E. Y. H. ed. (1989) Socialist realism in the works of Joyce. Loompanics
3. Humphrey, U. L. (1994) Preconceptualist Deconstructions: Debordist image, rationalism and socialist realism. University of Michigan Press
4. Tilton, G. ed. (1983) The neoconstructive paradigm of expression and socialist realism. Panic Button Books
5. Pickett, J. G. N. (1972) Deconstructing Foucault: Socialist realism and the neoconstructive paradigm of expression. O’Reilly & Associates
6. Geoffrey, B. ed. (1980) The neoconstructive paradigm of expression and socialist realism. Schlangekraft
7. Hamburger, T. J. (1976) Contexts of Dialectic: Socialist realism and the neoconstructive paradigm of expression. University of North Carolina Press
8. Drucker, B. V. J. ed. (1990) Socialist realism in the works of Cage. Yale University Press
9. Sargeant, U. J. (1984) The Burning Door: Socialist realism, rationalism and subcapitalist socialism. Panic Button Books
10. Drucker, Q. ed. (1998) The neoconstructive paradigm of expression in the works of Fellini. Oxford University Press
11. Hubbard, L. Q. D. (1982) Reinventing Socialist realism: The neoconstructive paradigm of expression and socialist realism. And/Or Press
Having fun with the old ‘Postmodernism Generator’ website?
How did you know?
Having fun with the old ‘Postmodernism Generator’ website?
I’d never seen that, but it makes perfect sense that it should exist. Foucault must be spinning in his grave right now.
Indeed.
You all know the title of the third movie reminds you of Queensryche.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tr4qpH77Yio
Good reviews, Kurt, but for one small error: Hammer Studios was in fact resurrected last year with “Let Me In,” the better-than-the-original remake of “Let the Right One In.”
We got a little naughty in the theater.
We got a little naughty in the theater.
We got a little naughty in the theater.
About W.E., I have no problem with completely amoral movies in theory. I think a movie about two shameless people squandering their wealth, cavorting with Nazis, etc., with no inherent message, could be pretty good. It would be like, “Hey, we’re awful people who never got their comeuppance, deal with it.” However, even amoral movies end up moralizing and wrapping everything up at the end. Judging solely by Loder’s review, it seems the end of the movie seems like a desperate attempt to redeem the characters in the audience’s eyes. Because they were truly in love, none of the stuff before really mattered. That’s the point where movies about terrible people turn terrible themselves.
Kurt, I have a question about Chronicle. I wanna see it with some friends, but the shaky-cam footage is making me hesitate a bit. When I saw Cloverfield, I was on the verge of throwing up from the shaky-cam until I moved more to the back of the theater, but even that was kind of rough for me. Is the shaky-cam as bad as Cloverfield was? Or is it a bit more steady? No reviews I have seen have made this a point in their articles, so I take that to mean it must not be too bad, but I am still hesitant.
Dude is clearly corrupt as the day is long.
http://www.surfing-anon.tk
Dude is clearly corrupt as the day is long.
http://www.surfing-anon.tk