Fallen but not quite Forgotten

These photos were taken for a project on "Fallen Princesses" by Dina Goldstein. She says: "These works place Fairy Tale characters in modern day scenarios. In all of the images the Princess is placed in an environment that articulates her conflict. The '...happily ever after' is replaced with a realistic outcome and addresses current issues."

While this project is a great idea in theory, I don't think Goldstein put enough effort into cementing her jabs. Specifically, the Jasmine and Little Red Riding Hood photos have caused a great amount of controversy on the internet because their messages are so unclear. Is Jasmine supposed to be a terrorist or a soldier? Why is she the only Princess to have a photo centered around race? The Little Red Riding Hood photo could have gone in so many directions. A pedophilia centered photo would have been more appropriate. Is she reinforcing the stereotype that fat people are only fat because they eat junk food?

Personally, my favorite of the bunch is the Snow White photo. It has the most direct agenda and I've often pictured Snow White in that very setting.

What do you guys and gals think? You can read the actual article here and read more commentary about the project at Bitch Magazine.

Belle is working hard to stay beautiful.

Jasmine is fighting...something?

Little Red isn't so little.

Chemo has taken its toll on Rapunzel's long golden locks.

Cinderella lost her slipper in that shot glass.

Snow White should have stayed with her little friends in the forest.

From Jungle Red to White Bread: The Women (1939) to The Women (2008)

"There is a name for you, ladies, but it isn't used in high society... outside of a kennel." - Crystal Allen, The Women (1939)


When Clare Booth Lace wrote The Women in the mid ’30s, she had one main objective: to satirize the hell out of all the rich, petty women surrounding her in high society. Ms. Booth Lace worked for a living, married an intellectual equal, and only joined in on the malicious sewing circle of death out of sheer curiosity and disbelief. She found that the female upper crust managed to avoid mass suicide by stockpiling up on soap opera shenanigans in order to keep life interesting. Tabloid affairs, catfights, and pop fashions added the spice while gossip, lunches, and parties added fuel to the fire. No one really liked each other and yet they were always together, flitting about like ruffled hens in a barnyard. Clare Booth Lace saw the dramatic and comedic potential in satirizing their lives as well as knocking the bourgeois down a peg or two at the height of the economic crisis. Needless to say, the all-female play she ended up writing was a smash hit and MGM quickly nabbed the rights to the story in 1938.

After being fired from Gone with the Wind (despite filming its best scenes) famed woman’s picture director, George Cukor, stepped on the set of The Women and immediately got to work. Jane Murfin and Anita Loos, who penned Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, adapted the play for the screen and “jazzed up its lingerie” with naughty sexual innuendo. Together, Cukor, Loos, and Murfin faithfully brought the story of Mrs. Stephen Haines (Mary), a darling, rich housewife whose life is turned upside down when her husband has an affair with a perfume salesgirl, to life with all of the zest and zing of the original play. The film starred Norma Shearer as Mary, who was finally free of creative restrictions because her husband, producer Irving Thalberg had died that year. It also starred the adorably gawky Rosalind Russell as catty Sylvia Fowler, Joan Crawford as sultry perfume girl Crystal Allen, and Joan Fontaine and Paulette Goddard as two more hens in the hen house. These five ladies headline an entire female cast that delights as well as destructs. All bets were off with this throng. And yet, despite the scrumptious catharsis one feels while watching these dillies do their dallies, Cukor also manages to make us feel empathetic for their plights as well. He was the best woman’s picture director in the business because he, as a gay male working in the industry, understood the feeling of being an outsider housed in polite casings for mass consumption. Though he clearly dislikes most of the women in The Women, he still recognizes their own brand of persecution at the hands of patriarchy. For instance, if the film had been placed in the hands of any other director, I think the character of Crystal Allen would only have hit the “slut” note and backed away. Cukor admires her sexiness and daring for going after what she wants and he and Joan Crawford make her a three-dimensional character. Like Scarlett O’Hara, Crystal Allen isn’t afraid of ambition and hunts for success the only way she knows how: by conniving and clawing her way into a solid, wealthy marriage. I think the real threat she instills in the rich bitches around her isn’t that she’s going after Mary’s husband. No, they hate and tear her down because she uses those jungle red nails to grasp what they did once upon a time, except she’s doing it from a lower social status and succeeding all the same.

All of Cukor’s characters have that gray matter feel to them. The ladies’ start out at one extreme and gradually gravitate toward the middle of the spectrum by the film’s end. Though they’re all terrible people in one way or another, the film still manages to celebrate the camaraderie of the female soul through so many different types of powder puffed trixies. We don’t watch the film to see Mary get her husband back; we watch it to see women interact with one another on an even playing field that usually involves witty banter, fabulous clothes (Adrian is a saint), and equal doses of social backstabbing and friendship. Diane English doesn’t understand that.

With her first feature film, English successfully pecked out all aspects of the original Women that made it so timeless. Now, it’s just Sex and the City with better source material. Before directing, English’s previous claim to fame was writing and producing the somewhat feminist hit show, Murphy Brown, with Candice Bergan. She’s been tinkling around with this remake for over a decade and finally released it last year. And yet, her efforts are no more artistically apparent than your average run-of-the-mill director for hire job. Go figure?

In the updated story, there are fewer female characters and fewer bouts of feminine bravado and brassiere blazing. Mary Haines (Meg Ryan) is a happy-go-lucky rich hippie chick living in NYC’s suburbs with her tween daughter and wall street bound hubby. Her best friends are Sylvia Fowler (Annette Benning), a fashion magazine editor, Edie Cohen (Debra Messing), an artsy stay-at-home mom with four daughters and baby #5 on the way (she wants a boy, of course), and Alex Fisher (Jada Pinkett Smith), a stereotypical lesbian with one published book under her belt. The bland as balls Crystal Allen in this version is played by the insipid Eva Mendes, who has the right look for the part (I guess…), but none of the pizzazz or personality of her originator. Well, that’s kind of unfair because few people could live up to Joan Crawford’s personal laundress, let alone one of the parts she played. But both Mendez and the direction English took with her character are about as interesting as white painted walls. Fortunately, Cloris Leachman, Candice Bergan, Bette Midler, and Carrie Fisher in supporting roles make up for some of the wishy-washy main characters, though they can hardly save the day.

No, the remake fails to live up to the original’s bite because it’s just too nice. Too nice and too phony. While it’s always a pleasure to see women on screen get their groove on in the workplace and bond with one another, there’s just nothing earnest or potent within the film’s narrative to make it worthwhile. These modern women may pursue goals when they’re not around their men, but the male characters are still the driving force of their actions. By taking out the apparent satire of the original to make her version more friendly, Diane English has also taken out the emotional resonance and chemistry of the characters as well. The original film’s tagline may be “It’s all about men,” but it’s really about the women and how we use society’s perceptions of ourselves to manipulate certain situations and ideas. The women in the remake have little to no original thoughts and only pursue life by bouncing off the invisible male characters dealings.

On one of the documentaries included in the DVD, Diane English gives a guided tour through the history of her relationship with the remake and why she wanted to do it in the first place. She thought it was a good story, but “women don’t act that way anymore” and the original’s “camp value” detracted from its social message. How can someone so passionate about a project miss the point so thoroughly? Many terrible remakes have been created by modern Hollywood to eliminate the so-called camp/antique feel of classic cinema. How is the original campy? Just because they wear big hats and yell occasionally? It’s truly ironic and sad that a female director and mostly female crew managed to be just as unfeeling and convoluted about the female role as everyone else in Hollywood these days.

What might have been a golden opportunity to update a classic was truly wasted with English’s The Women.

A Woman in Berlin

This was originally published in Sadie magazine.

Sadly, World War II seems like cinematic roadkill these days. World cinema, especially Hollywood, treads over so much of the subject year after year with story after story that there really shouldn’t be much of the narrative carcass left to peck. So much glossy exposure to any event is bound to desensitize viewers. Though I’d glanced at the corpse beforehand, watching A Woman in Berlin truly brought this idea to my attention. My cynical, jaded eyes made me think it was another dime a dozen World War II picture the first time I saw it. However, upon my second viewing, I realized my mistake and acknowledged that it’s actually one of the more distinctive films to be released about the fray in many years. One of the last taboos of the Second World War occurred as it was waning down in 1945. The Russians took hold of Germany for seven months and made Berlin their headquarters. Unfortunately, the Russians also demonstrated their clout by forcing the remaining German women, children, and elderly to do their bidding. Though it’s hard to estimate, it’s been said that thousands, perhaps even millions, of German women were raped during this short Russian occupation. One of them, a worldly journalist who calls herself Anonyma, wrote her experiences in a diary that was later published across the globe. She is one of the few surviving women to ever tell this story because, according to the film and press notes, it affronts German women to even mention this time period. A Woman in Berlin is an adaptation of her personal saga. Before the war, the German-born Anonyma (played by Nina Hoss) lived a life of cultural refinery as an educated writer. She used her fluency in five languages to report on stories from around the world. Both her diary and the film itself utilize her journalistic instincts to present her story in an unsentimental, objective fashion. There’s no apple pie Americana or tragic GI romance to make us feel for the characters—just realistic human reasoning for us to connect with and understand. The romance between Anonyma and the Russian officer is seen purely as solace and not as the end-all-be-all romantic awakening like it is in films like Pearl Harbor and Black Book (Zwartboek). Despite the brutality she endures, Anonyma never sees herself as a victim. Why should we? In exchange for bodily security and a smidgen of power, Anonyma and the other women in her band of generally nameless pioneers prostitute themselves to the highest-ranking Russian officers. Though the movie entertains a World War II movie cliché through Anonyma’s relationship to her officer, the filmmakers don’t make it the focal point of her journey. The film’s strongest scenes occur when Anonyma and the other afflicted women sit around and converse about their lives. Without shame or remorse, they candidly talk and even laugh about how many times they’ve been raped, the effects of syphilis, and their fears for Germany after the war is over. By excluding men from these scenes, the women are able, probably for the only time in their lives, to discuss their situation without feeling ashamed or disgraced. These parts of the movie are more harrowing than any battle scene ever could be. Much like Fassbinder’s Maria in The Marriage of Maria Braun and Marlene Dietrich in Blonde Venus, the anonymous, enigmatic Anonyma is a resilient German heroine who demands survival at any cost. The unsentimental view with which she observes and writes about her current circumstances also applies to her fearless persona. In more than one scene, she gallantly walks up to a hoard of catcalling, threatening Russian officers and demands that attention be paid to the rape crisis. While she’s met with outright hostility and callous attitudes, it doesn’t stop her from trying again and fighting back. Even without a real name, Anonyma resonates because her mission for survival is so direct, hard-boiled, and sincere. German filmmaker Max Färberböck, famous for his highly acclaimed Aimée & Jaguar, is devoted to portraying the situation fairly and accurately. For the most part, he does not present the Russian officers as faceless monsters or the women as nameless victims or statistics (which makes the plentiful rape scenes even more traumatic to watch). Though Färberböck clearly sides with the women in the film, he also creates an underlying political ambiguity between all of the characters. The movie is neutral and sympathetic to both German and Russian beliefs. It never takes the easy route by exploiting the circumstances for a political agenda. Aside from the brief, generic battle scenes on the streets of Berlin, the film soars in articulating Anonyma’s inspiring endurance tale. After her book was met with an astounding amount of controversy, Anonyma refused to take credit for her work and demanded that her real name never be printed, even after her death. To this day, her book is seen as the pivotal source for information about the Russian’s stay in 1945 Germany. A story like this could never really have a happy ending, but Anonyma and lots of other women survived the ordeal and quietly rebuilt their lives from the bottom-up. Anonymously or not, Anonyma bravely spoke against injustice when nobody else would. I can only hope that she used her objective reasoning to recognize what an impact she made in the world by sharing her experiences as both a rape and war survivor.

Sara's Favorite Movies of 2008

Yes, I know it's March. So what!

2008 was one of the best and worst years of my life. On the plus side, I graduated from college with high honors, presented a paper at Notre Dame, started my professional writing career, and reunited with my dog-child, Libby. Negatively speaking, my life was turned upside down shortly after graduation because of my impending move to Madison, WI. Though I hated my entire stay in Madison for many reasons, my gravest complaint about the situation is that it single-handedly withdrew me from cinema culture and my film project. Failure isn’t something I’m accustomed to or take lightly. I rarely quit something once I’ve started it. I’m sincerely sorry to everyone who joined-in on my feminist film bandwagon and felt let down by the sporadic posting.

However, I’m going to try and make amends by catching-up on some of the more important female-driven flicks I missed last year. Those reviews will appear alongside the new reviews of 2009 releases because I‘m going in for year two, round two with my project. Hopefully I’ll be all caught-up by the end of spring.

As it stands now, I don’t think it would be ethical for me to write my proposed essay on 2008 female cinema. I’ll wait until I feel I’ve seen enough 2008 releases to warrant that endeavor.

Until that day in May, I’ll leave you with my mishmash of a top ten list. I think it accurately represents my very weird (but mostly awesome) taste in movies. I keep looking at this list and wondering what in the hell it must say about me. But if you’re reading it, then you probably know that I’m more interested and attracted to films that attempt to tread new thematic ground instead of meandering through the same old shit over and over again. All ten of these flicks, as varied as they are in budget and genre, are brave, brazen works of art that made a significant impact upon my way of thinking and feeling. They’re also films you won’t generally find on most generic top ten lists. I love Wall-E as much as the rest of ’em, but it’s been written about enough.

Aside from The Last Mistress (which is my favorite flick of ‘08), they are presented in no particular preferential order:

Ahem...

The Last Mistress (2007, Catherine Breillat)

Asia Argento is my favorite presence in 2008 cinema. While her other efforts this past year (Boarding Gate, Mother of Tears) were more or less under appreciated by the greater cinephile world, I’m very grateful that The Last Mistress earned some well-deserved praise and recognition. As an actress, I find Argento perfectly suited for the melding and melting of the great cinematic auteurs and their projects. Much like Deneuve and Magnani in their prime, her unique style transcends language, genre, and even gender conventions.

However, I don’t think her specific knack was fully utilized until Breillat cast her as the enigmatic La Vellini, a fiery French/Spanish coquette who, despite her better judgment, is drawn to the flame of eternal love with a subtly charming, social-climbing scallywag named Ryno de Marigny (Fu‘ad Ait Aattou). Though they’ve basically been together for ten years, Ryno is set to end their relationship permanently because he is about to marry a virtuous, boring heiress for financial security.

Breillat may not be the most skilled contemporary cinematic artist working today, but her compositions for The Last Mistress (which are full of dramatic reds, whites, and blacks) are candid pathways to classic romance. The passion Vellini and Ryno feel for one another as well as the plights they encounter greatly remind me of a dirty version of Rochester and Jane Eyre in Bronte’s novel or even Scarlett and Rhett in Gone with the Wind. It’s epic in emotion and enduring in intimacy.

But classic doesn’t always have to mean “stilted.” Though The Last Mistress is a period piece and the exhibited themes are as old as time, the combination of Breillat’s modern sexual flare for storytelling and Argento’s fearless chutzpah makes the material feel light, fresh and deeply affecting.

Like the blood Vellini sucks and licks from Ryno’s bullet wound, The Last Mistress is dripping wet with cinematic fervor and everlasting romance. I've already seen it three times and I can't wait to watch it again.

The Genre and Gender-Benders with a Super Natural Flare
Mad Detective (2007, Johnnie To)
Let the Right One In (2008, Tomas Alfredson)

Mad Detective: Johnnie To is one of contemporary cinema’s greatest treasures. Like Exiled and the Election duo, The Mad Detective addresses masculinity and male kinship in a sensitive, almost trusting fashion that is really unique. There’s no useless dick-swagger or one-upsmanship in the To world, just a lot of sweet bad ass guys and (some) gals who know how to use weapons effectively and purposefully. Plus, the film is really funny, bat-shit insane, and full of weird mythology.

Let the Right One In: As a bit of a vampire fiend, I applaud Let the Right One In’s ability to simultaneously distance itself from traditional vampire fare through the relationship of the main characters and somehow stay true to its mythological roots by simple integration. The fact that Eli is a vampire is secondary to the essential building blocks of their coming of age tale. Sadly, this flick is already slated for a remake by the likes of JJ Abrams – a film that will no doubt take away all of the mystique and sensitivity of the original. Plus, Eli will undoubtedly be a girl and the tender gender-bender angle will be lost in the process.

The Cheese Stands Alone
Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired (2008, Marina Zenovich)

I’ve already written about this one here. Similarly to The Thin Blue Line, Zenovich dissects the entrails of this chaotic court case and unravels the truth entangled within it. Her efforts may have allowed Polanski to come back to the US if he wants to as well.

The Weird and the Whimsy: Two Underrated Gems
Boarding Gate (2007, Olivier Assayas)
Be Kind Rewind (2008, Michel Gondry)

Boarding Gate: Dirty-pretty is the term I’d use to describe Boarding Gate. It’s messy, kind of slutty, and chockfull of Assaya’s jet-setting, sleek aesthetics. While it lacks the soul of Clean and the cinematic pulse of Demonlover and Irma Vep, I’m somehow more passionately drawn to Boarding Gate than any of his other flicks. Go figure?

Be Kind Rewind: Sadly, earnest cinema is mostly a thing of the past. Films today are either too self-aware of their intentions or too auto-fellatious (I’m looking at you, Quentin Tarantino) to pull it off. That’s why it’s so remarkable that a big-budgeted flick that references countless blockbusters and starring Jack Black succeeds so admirably. It also celebrates history and the importance of a close-knit community in this otherwise commercial world. Plus, it’s absolutely whimsical! The references and good-natured feelings practically bounce off the screen with vivacity and warmth.

I Promise They’re Not Porn
Itty Bitty Titty Committee (2008, Jamie Babbit)
Midnight Meat Train (2008, Ryuhei Kitamura)

Itty Bitty Titty Committee: This is what Jessica Valenti’s rant-happy Full Frontal Feminism should have felt like. I wish I could have seen a movie like this when I was a teenager because it would have made the “f” word seem much more tangible and realistic. It’s a great introduction to feminism because it’s not pandering or self-conscious about its intentions and makes feminism appealing in a fun, political fashion. It would have played much better on the festival circuit and on DVD if it didn’t have such a terrible name. Many video stores refused to carry it because they thought it was porn. Hopefully it’ll become a classic much like Babbit’s other film, But, I’m a Cheerleader.

Midnight Meat Train: A contemporary horror film with a social conscience? Get out of here! Based on Clive Barker’s short story of the same name, Midnight Meat Train is a taut thriller with lots of amazing, eye-popping gore (snicker, snicker) that also acts as a scathing critique of the modern art world. Plus, the relationships existing between each of the characters feels genuine and human, unlike other recent horror flicks where all of those assets are taken for granted.

Socially Conscious without being Self-Conscious
It’s a Free World…(2007, Ken Loach)
Frozen River (2008, Courtney Hunt)

It’s a Free World…: Speaking of scathing critiques, this Ken Loach picture doesn’t let anyone off the hook with its wise look at our capitalistic system. I don’t really want to talk about the story because it’s such an impacting experience all the way through, but the film really is a forceful sledgehammer of intentionally exploitive circumstances.

Frozen River: Unlike Wendy and Lucy or even The Wrestler, Frozen River understands that poverty, while it certainly sucks, isn’t an entirely black and white situation. Being poor forces you to be creative and grateful for what comes. No one in this movie just sits around and mopes because they’re unfed, poorly paid or flat broke, they go out into the world and try to make their lives better. Alas, some of their choices aren’t always the right ones, but they don’t wriggle out of their mistakes either. It’s refreshing to see characters facing everything in their lives head-on. I can’t wait to see what Courtney Hunt does next.

Honorable Mentions:
Shotgun Stories, Girls Rock!, and Caramel.

Mainstream Flicks I Loved:
Wall-E and Milk.

Ones I Liked:
The Dark Knight, Happy-Go-Lucky, Rachel Getting Married, Encounters at the End of the World, Reprise, Mother of Tears, The Wrestler, Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Body of Lies, Flight of the Red Balloon, Christmas Tale, Paranoid Park, etc.

Biggest Disappointments:
Wendy and Lucy, Changeling, Sex and the City, and though my expectations certainly weren’t very high to begin with, Iron Man. Ugh.

Shit List:
The Reader, Gran Torino, Australia, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and too many more to mention.

Sad I missed:
Duchess of Langeais, Synecdoche, NY, Fear(s) of the Dark, The Pool, Sparrow, Bachelor Machines, Chop Shop, In The City of Sylvia, Quantum of Solace (kind of…), Sylvia Scarlett at the Gene Siskel Film Center, The Tenant at the Music Box, Last Year at Marienbad at the Music Box, Lola Montes at the Music Box, and probably more.


Archival/Retrospective Highlights of 2008:
- An American in Paris & Meet Me in St. Louis (July, The Music Box)
- The Young Girls of Rochefort (April (?), Rosenbaum’s Transition series at the Gene Siskel Film Center)
- Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (April, Wisconsin International Film Festival)
- The Big Country (April, Wisconsin International Film Festival)
- Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (May, Rosenbaum’s Transition Series at the Gene Siskel Film Center)
- Max Ophuls retrospective (Fall, UW-Madison)
- Text of Light (March, White Light Series at La Salle Bank Cinema/Bank of America Cinema)
- Posthumously Yours: The Films of Zack Stiglicz (January, Gene Siskel Film Center)
- Insect Woman (Imamura retrospective, Gene Siskel Film Center)
- 4th Annual Horror Movie Massacre (October, Music Box). Highlights: Old Dark House, Dead Alive, Phantom of the Paradise, Keaton’s The Haunted House, and the aforementioned Midnight Meat Train.
- Day of Wrath (December, Music Box)

Favorite DVD Releases/Discoveries:

Releases:

- Kenji Mizoguchi’s Fallen Women (Street of Shame, Sisters of the Gion, Osaka Elegy, Women of the Night), Eclipse Series #13
- Ernst Lubitsch’s Musicals (Smiling Lieutenant, Monte Carlo, Love Parade, One Hour with You), Eclipse Series #8
- Bette Davis Collection vol. 3 (Old Maid, In this Our Life, All This, And Heaven Too, Deception, The Great Lie, Watch on the Rhine), Warner Bros.
- An American in Paris SE, Warner Bros.
- Gigi SE, Warner Bros.

Discoveries:
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV Series
- The Quiet (2005, Jamie Babbit)
- Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman (2006, Jennifer Fox)
- Pilgrimage (1933, John Ford)

Movies I’m Looking Forward to Most in 2009:
The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, Public Enemies, Bronson, Tree of Life, Up, Bright Star, Puffball, Summer Hours, Bad Lieutenant: The Port of New Orleans, and lots more.

Favorite Actress: Asia Argento for The Last Mistress, Boarding Gate, and The Mother of Tears.

Favorite Actor: Michael Shannon for Shotgun Stories and Revolutionary Road.

Lastly, I'd like to thank all of the following cinematic institutions for showing all these great movies:

Music Box Theatre

The Gene Siskel Film Center

Doc Films

Landmark Century Centre Cinema

White Light Cinema Series

The Nightingale

Bank of America Cinema

AMC River East 21

Facets Cinematheque

Please, do your best to support these Chicago institutions by attending their movies. Aside from the AMC and Landmark, they’re all (mostly) independent venues that would certainly benefit from your attendance.

Revolutionary Road

A variation of this review was also posted here at The Feminist Review.


In 1997, Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio changed the face of cinema history by starring in the highest grossing film of all time, Titanic. Despite its expensively hokey exterior, Titanic demonstrated that DiCaprio and Winslet have talent to burn and mutually possess an intimate, intense chemistry that keeps audiences coming back for more. Following the success of the picture, both actors skyrocketed to superstar level fame, but neither one of them succumbed to the pressure by rarely appearing in mediocre work. Instead, each one continues to flourish as an artist by choosing their material wisely and challenging themselves with difficult characters.

Needless to say, their time apart from one another has been fruitful; both actors have earned critical success as well as multiple Oscar nominations since their pairing. The parts they’ve played over the past eleven years have ultimately helped in preparing them for the two most demanding characters of their careers thus far: Frank and April Wheeler in Revolutionary Road. As a pair of nobodies who think they’re somebody’s in the 1950’s, Frank and April are coming to terms with the fact that they’re living the same suburban lie as everyone around them. On an individual level, April is dealing with the unhappy housewife syndrome (which would later be ordained the Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan) while Frank grapples with the loss of masculinity in the mindless workaday business world. In their reunion film, Winslet and DiCaprio are full-blown adults that are struggling to find the beauty within themselves, their relationship, and the stagnant society surrounding them.

Revolutionary Road is based on the highly acclaimed novel of the same name by Richard Yates. Though the movie is somewhat plot-less, it revolves around Frank and April: a pair of nobodies who think they‘re somebodies living the same 1950s suburban lie as everyone else around them. By meandering through their life decisions, the now thirty-something couple find themselves settled down with two kids in a house with a white picket fence on the prestigiously middle class Revolutionary Road.

Seven years later, Frank and April now battle their individual demons by making each other miserable. They constantly fight, bicker, and moan, but never really do anything to make their lives or relationship better. Ultimately, the lack of communication and understanding within their world leads to disastrous consequences.


A filmed adaptation of the book has been in the coming-and-going stage of creation since the rights were bought in the 1960’s. Though, if you ask me, they should have let it stew a bit more on the page before bringing it to cinematic life.

Sam Mendes, the Oscar winning director of such films as American Beauty and Road to Perdition, was the wrong director to helm this project. Revolutionary Road suffers from the same bombastic arrogance that plagues the small-town America depicted in American Beauty. Both films are about contemplation and maturity, but there’s absolutely no sense of that within the film’s visual or thematic subtext. Each character is constantly spouting what they’re thinking without really thinking about what they‘re saying or feeling. Frank and April feel good about themselves because they understand the societal trap they’re inside, but they won’t do anything about it. Frank is afraid of the failure he may face if he leaves it and April is afraid of leaving Frank’s shadow, afraid of actually being April instead of Mrs. Frank Wheeler. The film itself is afraid to take flight and actually make a statement about the society April and Frank live in.

That’s not to say that the film doesn’t raise any potent issues and questions. Though presented like quarrels between children playing house, Frank and April’s tit-for-tat arguments with each other do address the surface level problems in the era’s middle class lifestyle. Gender roles, abortion, infidelity, and martyrdom are all nicely compressed into the film, but even those facets are too watered down and neutral to make a significant impact. Ultimately, it’s not the melodramatic potboilers that make Revolutionary Road compelling to watch, it’s the fear every single character possesses.

An “Oscar” film contender at its core, Revolutionary Road doesn’t succeed in influencing our cultural understanding of 1950s Americana. We’ve seen it all before and in much better place (Peyton Place, Written on the Wind, All That Heaven Allows, Harriet Craig, The Best of Everything, The Fifties: A Woman’s Oral History). What you will get out of Revolutionary Road is the pleasure of seeing three absolutely terrific performances by Kate Winslet (who was robbed of her nomination), Leonardo DiCaprio, and relative newcomer Michael Shannon, who steals the show in his limited time on screen. Coupled with Roger Deakins’ masterful cinematography, the performances are what make Revolutionary Road worth watching.

Pretty Baby (1978)

Before Brooke Shields took an elongated tour down mediocre lane, she appeared in at least one good flick: Louis Malle's Pretty Baby (1978). The film, which was released under a mass amount of controversy, centers around Violet (Brooke Shields) and her life in a 1917 New Orleans brothel. As this was 1917, there is little puritanical virtue embedded into the lives of the prostitutes or young Violet. All of the women, including Violet's mother, Hattie (Susan Sarandon), enjoy their work and relish the company of the other prostitutes. Violet is entranced by her surroundings and leaps for joy when her virginity is auctioned off to the highest bidder. But it's not all peaches and cream. There's an odd, disquieting sensation felt throughout the entirety of Pretty Baby that leaves an aching, lingering feeling in your gut after the film ends. Could it be happiness? Few films deal with sexual encounters as openly and maturely as Malle does with Pretty Baby and his treatment of Shields' and the world's oldest profession never feels gratuitous or cheap. It's certainly one of my favorite films. One can only hope that Criterion saves it from Paramount hell in the near future.

Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired

This review was also published in Sadie Magazine .

When I was twelve years old, my father introduced me to the work of Roman Polanski by showing me his most heralded film, Chinatown (1974). Though I couldn’t articulate it at the time, I was intensely attracted to the seedy, pessimistic vibe of it all—a vibe I would later come to know as the luminescent pulse that surges through the very flesh of almost every Polanski creation. Upon investigating more of his films and reading his wonderful autobiography, Roman by Polanski, I knew that Polanski, more than any other filmmaker I’d previously known or have known since, was my true cinematic soul mate. We share the same demons, desires, and, most importantly—at the risk of sounding corny—the same knack for survival and perseverance.

These four character traits are also the most common themes running throughout Polanski’s work. Out of the seventeen feature films he has made, nearly all of them present a character—from Oliver Twist (Oliver Twist) to Rosemary Woodhouse (Rosemary's Baby)—who is thrown into a life or death situation and forced to dig him/herself out at any cost. More often than not, this cost becomes the central question for the characters within these narratives. How much does Rosemary want to have a child? How badly does Wladyslaw Szpilman (The Pianist) want to survive, and why? How much is the truth worth to J.J. Gittes (Chinatown)? The questions, like the answers, go on and on.

It’s not terribly puzzling to surmise where these large questions come from. Until recently, Polanski’s life seems to have represented one questionable tragedy after another. As a young lad in Poland, he was left to fend for himself after both of his parents were shipped off to concentration camps. And, after the war was finally over, only his father returned. In 1969, Polanski’s wife, the strikingly beautiful and sweet Sharon Tate, was murdered by the hands of the Manson family.

And, in 1978, Roman Polanski fled to France from the United States to avoid a fifty-year jail sentence for having sexual intercourse with a minor, Samantha (Gailey) Geimer. He had been commissioned by a French fashion magazine to do a photo shoot of young women and hired Ms. Geimer to be one of his models. The sexual act occurred during their second photo session at the home of Jack Nicholson in March of 1977.

The circumstances of the situation still remain mysterious. We now know that champagne and Quaaludes were involved, and that Polanski was charged with six felony crimes. This includes child molestation and sodomy, both of which were eventually pleaded down to a single misdemeanor of unlawful sexual conduct with a minor. Samantha Geimer has gone on the record multiple times since then telling the world that she has forgiven Polanski and that his work should not be impugned because of this one instance in his life. But, the truth is, despite creating a mélange of brilliant films since, like Tess (1979), Bitter Moon (1992), and the painfully unseen Oliver Twist (2005), Polanski’s artistic credibility has diminished in our country’s eyes because of it.




And, due to a thick haze of courtroom drama and mountains of obstructing paperwork, the details of the case were inaccessible to the public eye. This made it very easy for the bulk of the nation to look at this very complex situation with a black and white lens. You can’t sell anything as complex as the truth. It’s much easier to call “child molester” and watch the magazines fly off the rack.

In the recent documentary, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, filmmaker Marina Zenovich explores the netherworlds of this event and reveals that much of the agitation surrounding Polanski’s unique case was caused by the media-hungry Judge Laurence J. Rittenband, then notorious high-profile celebrity trials for his own ends. Though the case never officially went to trial, Rittenband often intentionally fed the media dynamic half-truths in order to both increase his own publicity and cloud the facts surrounding the case. Like a twisted magician, Rittenband created drama where there was none.

For instance, in the midst of the Polanski/Geimer madness, he staged a fake court session with each of the lawyers for the press, even though all of the players already knew the outcome. He was also the first judge to actually hold a press conference in his chambers. Through all this perplexing controversy, Polanski and Geimer reached an amiable plea bargain shortly after the preliminary hearings. The simple truth was that they both wanted to move on. Unfortunately for Polanski, Rittenband didn’t.

Though, initially, Rittenband honored their mutual decision, it wasn’t long before he succumbed to the controversy-starved media and reneged on his word. As Geimer says in the documentary: “Who wouldn’t think about running when facing a fifty-year sentence from a judge who was clearly more interested in his own reputation than a fair judgment or even the well-being of the victim?”

Zenovich not only does an immaculate job of sifting out the dirt of the case, she also does the near impossible: she attempts objective documentary filmmaking. Utilizing interviews with nearly everyone involved, a treasure trove of rare archive footage, and even clips from Polanski’s films, Zenovich accurately and patiently tells both sides of the story while simultaneously maintaining the non-judgmental eye required for such delicate material. She neither victimizes nor demonizes Polanski and Geimer. Instead, she treats her cinematic subjects as people, as living, intelligent beings that deserve to finally have their voices heard and recognized.

By providing this outlet for all of the players (except Polanski himself, as he doesn’t want to drudge up the past) in this epic saga, Zenovich has successfully created a nail-biting account of one of the most public media frenzies of the twentieth century. This documentary is smart and subtle and never relents on telling the whole truth, even if some of the details might make you uncomfortable. Zenovich doesn’t judge, and because of that, she has created one of the best documentaries of the past decade.

**Note** - As of last month, Polanski made the initial motions to get the thirty year old case thrown out of court, citing this documentary as enough evidence to put him in the clear. I love cinema.