'Selma is a 2014 American historical drama film directed by Ava DuVernay and written by Paul Webb and DuVernay. It is based on the 1965 Selma to Montgomery voting rights marches led by James Bevel, Hosea Williams, and Martin Luther King, Jr. of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and John Lewis of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) The film stars British actors David Oyelowo as King, Tom Wilkinson as President Lyndon Johnson, Tim Roth as George Wallace, Carmen Ejogo as Coretta Scott King, and American rapper and actor Common as Bevel.' (Wikipedia)
To those who were born post-equal opportunities legislation, it may seem anachronistic that black people in the United States despite having the right to vote were obstructed from doing so by State bureaucracy in the south as late as the 1960s. This film gives us real insight into the beliefs and courage of not only black people who marched peacefully against the state storm-troopers of Alabama, but also the white people who joined them, and who were attacked and in one instance in the film killed for their belief in the right of all people, despite colour or creed, to place their vote and by doing so, elect their own politicians to represent their best interests.
The part of Martin Luther King, is played with sincerity and veracity by David Oyelowo. We see the tensions and stress that leadership demands of him and its effect on his family. However, I wanted more variety in his tone and at times the anguished Christ-like scenes could have done with more editing. Apparently, in one particular area the film falls down on accuracy; that is King's relationship with Lyndon Johnson., who is portrayed as an obstacle to progress. The writer says she's a story teller and not a custodian of history, but surely it is unfair to the legacy of both men to falsify the relationship in the guise of a good story?
Thoroughly recommended. Selma is on general release now.
Showing posts with label films. Show all posts
Showing posts with label films. Show all posts
Tuesday, 10 February 2015
Wednesday, 21 January 2015
RELATIONSHIPS & POWER
Over the last week or so we've had a bumper film viewing. We've seen The Imitation Game, Theory of Everything and Whiplash.
The Imitation Game is a 2014 historical thriller film about British mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst and pioneering computer scientist Alan Turing who was a key figure in cracking Nazi Germany's naval Enigma code which helped the Allies win the Second World War, only to later be criminally prosecuted for his homosexuality. The film stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Turing, and is directed by Morten Tyldum, with a screenplay by Graham Moore based on the biography Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges.
The Theory of Everything is a 2014 British biographical romantic drama film directed by James Marsh and adapted by Anthony McCarten from the memoir Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen by Jane Wilde Hawking, which deals with her relationship with her ex-husband, theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, his diagnosis of motor neuron disease, and his success in physics
.
Whiplash is a 2014 American drama film written and directed by Damien Chazelle. The film stars Miles Teller as a young jazz drummer who attends one of the best music schools in the country under the tutelage of the school’s fearsome maestro of jazz. It also stars Paul Reiser, Melissa Benoist, Austin Stowell, Jayson Blair, and Kavita Patil.
The three films are outstanding in their own way as they explore the complexities of brilliance and the relationship of the man to his superiors and colleagues, the husband and wife, and the maestro and student. All positions of power in their own way.
The Imitation Game's portrayal of the man Alan Turing is fully rounded, showing his complex personality, his love for a fellow student who dies in childhood, and after whom he names his invention, the first computer essentially, called Chris; his brilliance as an adult mathematician, the impact of his autism on his social relationships, and the tragedy of being prosecuted for homosexual behaviour at a time when it was still illegal and linked to this, his suicide, before what he achieved in cracking the Enigma Code could be made public. (the 50 year secrecy laws).
Contrast this The Theory of Everything, the story of another scientist, Stephen Hawkins, from the point of view of Jane, his wife. The story is primarily her story of their relationship. I heard her interviewed on Woman's Hour recently, and she said that she became utterly exhausted in looking after her husband, as his motor neuron disease worsened. She had to sit up night after night with him as he had a tendency to choke. The only respite she got was when her mother occasionally came to stay. He refused outside help.This grind of exhaustion and personal sacrifice is only hinted at in the film. She to me is the hero, the heroine of this relationship.
Contrast again Whiplash the story of the relationship of a teacher to his student, studying jazz and drums at an American college. This is a story of misplaced intention, bullying, abuse of power, revenge, loneliness and suffering, but also of outstanding courage, overwhelming determination and hard, hard work in the desire to win and seek approval from the maestro tutor. This relationship, to me, was the most disturbing of the three films we saw.
What price, brilliance?
All films currently on general release. All recommended.
The three films are outstanding in their own way as they explore the complexities of brilliance and the relationship of the man to his superiors and colleagues, the husband and wife, and the maestro and student. All positions of power in their own way.
The Imitation Game's portrayal of the man Alan Turing is fully rounded, showing his complex personality, his love for a fellow student who dies in childhood, and after whom he names his invention, the first computer essentially, called Chris; his brilliance as an adult mathematician, the impact of his autism on his social relationships, and the tragedy of being prosecuted for homosexual behaviour at a time when it was still illegal and linked to this, his suicide, before what he achieved in cracking the Enigma Code could be made public. (the 50 year secrecy laws).
Contrast this The Theory of Everything, the story of another scientist, Stephen Hawkins, from the point of view of Jane, his wife. The story is primarily her story of their relationship. I heard her interviewed on Woman's Hour recently, and she said that she became utterly exhausted in looking after her husband, as his motor neuron disease worsened. She had to sit up night after night with him as he had a tendency to choke. The only respite she got was when her mother occasionally came to stay. He refused outside help.This grind of exhaustion and personal sacrifice is only hinted at in the film. She to me is the hero, the heroine of this relationship.
Contrast again Whiplash the story of the relationship of a teacher to his student, studying jazz and drums at an American college. This is a story of misplaced intention, bullying, abuse of power, revenge, loneliness and suffering, but also of outstanding courage, overwhelming determination and hard, hard work in the desire to win and seek approval from the maestro tutor. This relationship, to me, was the most disturbing of the three films we saw.
What price, brilliance?
All films currently on general release. All recommended.
Monday, 17 November 2014
THE IMITATION GAME
The Imitation Game is a 2014 British-American historical thriller film about British mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst and pioneering computer scientist Alan Turing, a key figure in cracking Nazi Germany's Enigma code that helped the Allies win World War II, only to later be criminally prosecuted for his homosexuality. It stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Turing, Keira Knightly as Joan, and is directed by Morten Tyldum with a screenplay by Graham Moore, based on the biography Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges.
Cumberbatch's performance is awesome. He plays complex Turing with sensitivity, arrogance, a brilliant mind, and total autism in his relationships with his colleagues.
I'm not a fan of Keira Knightly and I'm not sure how true the character of Joan is in the Turing story, but she is convincing as his fiancé willing to put up with Turing's homosexuality in order to save him from criminal conviction and to enable the work of cracking the enigma code to continue. He knows it won't work.
There are really touching flashbacks to his childhood at boarding school, where he suffers horrendous bullying, has a close friendship (his only friend) with Christopher, who later dies of TB. Turing names the machine he creates after his friend. Later, it is called the Turing Machine, the first computer.
Turing and his team crack the German's Enigma code, with 180 million million possible settings during the war but it was kept a secret as it was feared that the Germans would quickly invent another code just as impenetrable. In the process many lives were sacrificed to win the war. The team used calculus to help the War Office devise a strategy that would not raise the German's suspicions. It is said that cracking the Enigma code shortened the war by two years and saved 14million lives.
Sadly, a few years after the war, Turing was convicted of indecent behaviour, and instead of prison was offered hormone treatment to cure his homosexual tendencies. This led to his eventual suicide. The Enigma code remained a secret for 50 years.
Very highly recommended, The Imitation Game is on General Release now.
Cumberbatch's performance is awesome. He plays complex Turing with sensitivity, arrogance, a brilliant mind, and total autism in his relationships with his colleagues.
I'm not a fan of Keira Knightly and I'm not sure how true the character of Joan is in the Turing story, but she is convincing as his fiancé willing to put up with Turing's homosexuality in order to save him from criminal conviction and to enable the work of cracking the enigma code to continue. He knows it won't work.
There are really touching flashbacks to his childhood at boarding school, where he suffers horrendous bullying, has a close friendship (his only friend) with Christopher, who later dies of TB. Turing names the machine he creates after his friend. Later, it is called the Turing Machine, the first computer.
Turing and his team crack the German's Enigma code, with 180 million million possible settings during the war but it was kept a secret as it was feared that the Germans would quickly invent another code just as impenetrable. In the process many lives were sacrificed to win the war. The team used calculus to help the War Office devise a strategy that would not raise the German's suspicions. It is said that cracking the Enigma code shortened the war by two years and saved 14million lives.
Sadly, a few years after the war, Turing was convicted of indecent behaviour, and instead of prison was offered hormone treatment to cure his homosexual tendencies. This led to his eventual suicide. The Enigma code remained a secret for 50 years.
Very highly recommended, The Imitation Game is on General Release now.
Thursday, 13 November 2014
INTERSTELLAR & CULTURE SHIFT
Interstellar is a 2014 space adventure film directed by Christopher Nolan. Starring Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, and Michael Caine, the film features a team of space travellers who journey through a wormhole in search of a new habitable planet. It was written by Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan; Theoretical physicist Kip Thorne, whose work inspired the film, acted as both scientific consultant and executive producer.
I saw the film the night before the launch of 'Culture Shift' and so the issues that the film raise were still floating around the following morning. The sense of 'apocalypse now' permeated the start of the launch with 'The re-enactment of art'- an interview with two artists by Suzi Goblik. In 1991 She wrote,
"I suspect we are at the end of something-a hypermasculinised modern culture whose social projects have become increasingly unecological and nonsustainable."
In the film, Interstellar, Michael Caine's character, the Head of NASA, says that human beings were not intended to save the planet, they were made to leave it. The film set a few decades in the future finds our planet choked by dust storms and ecological disasters, resources almost run out, the earth can no longer sustain our race. We follow explorers into space to find a place where we can all escape to, not as tourists but as emigrants. What is particularly moving to me is the exploration of what it is to be human, the attachments we need to survive, how we find our ways to adapt to loss, but the pain of separation can be unbearable. The relationship between father and daughter is especialy moving. Michael McConaughey's character, is brilliantly portrayed- an astronaut who has to leave his daughter, probably never to return-in order to save the human race.
Topically, Caine's character quotes the Dylan Thomas poem, 'Do not go gently into that dark night,' about the death of his father, 'Rage rage against the dying of the light.'
Coming back to the idea suggested by Suzi Gablik that we should always keep the image of apocalypse in our mind's eye, Interstellar certainly does that. To reaffirm the importance of both, here's another quote from the report, quoting Gablik.
" It is precisely to the periphery and the margins that we must look, if we are to find the cores that will be central to our society in the future, for it is here that they will be found to be emerging."
Interstellar is on general release now.
I saw the film the night before the launch of 'Culture Shift' and so the issues that the film raise were still floating around the following morning. The sense of 'apocalypse now' permeated the start of the launch with 'The re-enactment of art'- an interview with two artists by Suzi Goblik. In 1991 She wrote,
"I suspect we are at the end of something-a hypermasculinised modern culture whose social projects have become increasingly unecological and nonsustainable."
In the film, Interstellar, Michael Caine's character, the Head of NASA, says that human beings were not intended to save the planet, they were made to leave it. The film set a few decades in the future finds our planet choked by dust storms and ecological disasters, resources almost run out, the earth can no longer sustain our race. We follow explorers into space to find a place where we can all escape to, not as tourists but as emigrants. What is particularly moving to me is the exploration of what it is to be human, the attachments we need to survive, how we find our ways to adapt to loss, but the pain of separation can be unbearable. The relationship between father and daughter is especialy moving. Michael McConaughey's character, is brilliantly portrayed- an astronaut who has to leave his daughter, probably never to return-in order to save the human race.
Topically, Caine's character quotes the Dylan Thomas poem, 'Do not go gently into that dark night,' about the death of his father, 'Rage rage against the dying of the light.'
Coming back to the idea suggested by Suzi Gablik that we should always keep the image of apocalypse in our mind's eye, Interstellar certainly does that. To reaffirm the importance of both, here's another quote from the report, quoting Gablik.
" It is precisely to the periphery and the margins that we must look, if we are to find the cores that will be central to our society in the future, for it is here that they will be found to be emerging."
Interstellar is on general release now.
Friday, 31 October 2014
MR. TURNER
On general release from yesterday, I was really looking forward to this much awaited new Mike Leigh film about the life of the artist, JMW Turner-Billy to his family-well known for his marine landscapes and his watery sunsets. Timothy Spall's depiction of the character is full of depth, humour, bad temper, love, loss, sex,, meanness and pathos, but at times he does overdo the grunting.
The narrative starts with Billy already a well established painter at the Royal Academy, doing commissions for the gentry and the aristocracy. He takes two years over a painting for the Queen, who doesn't like its wishy-washy effects. In later work his colleagues at the Academy think his defused sunsets are down to his failing eyesight. His relationship with his father, who he calls 'Daddy', is very moving and we learn that Billy was abandoned by his mother, who he describes as a 'lunatic'. His relationships with his wife and grown up daughters are mystifying. He denies their existence. He has sex with his niece and assistant, who clearly adores him. But why does the actress play the character like Baldrick from BlackAdder?
I love Mike Leigh's work and the actors he uses is like a repertoire company of old friends. They are all very adaptable and quirky. His strength is in his characters;their feelings and relationships. But in this film, like some of his others, his weakness lies in the overall lack of tension, and some of the narrative feels repetitive and in need of editing.
I would have liked to have known more about Turner's earlier life, his struggles and the influences on him. I think more may have been made of his relationship with Constable. Who was the painter Hayden who he has an on-going barney with? I'd never heard of him. The best bit that gave me insight into how Turner was able to put truthful emotion, experience and passion of the elements into his sea/skyscapes, was seeing him strapped to the birds nest of a sailing ship in a Force ten gale in winter.
I would definitely recommend the film that no doubt will win Timothy Spall many accolades. Apparently it took seven years to make, and during that time Spall learnt to draw and paint for the part. Mr Turner is in cinemas now.
The narrative starts with Billy already a well established painter at the Royal Academy, doing commissions for the gentry and the aristocracy. He takes two years over a painting for the Queen, who doesn't like its wishy-washy effects. In later work his colleagues at the Academy think his defused sunsets are down to his failing eyesight. His relationship with his father, who he calls 'Daddy', is very moving and we learn that Billy was abandoned by his mother, who he describes as a 'lunatic'. His relationships with his wife and grown up daughters are mystifying. He denies their existence. He has sex with his niece and assistant, who clearly adores him. But why does the actress play the character like Baldrick from BlackAdder?
I love Mike Leigh's work and the actors he uses is like a repertoire company of old friends. They are all very adaptable and quirky. His strength is in his characters;their feelings and relationships. But in this film, like some of his others, his weakness lies in the overall lack of tension, and some of the narrative feels repetitive and in need of editing.
I would have liked to have known more about Turner's earlier life, his struggles and the influences on him. I think more may have been made of his relationship with Constable. Who was the painter Hayden who he has an on-going barney with? I'd never heard of him. The best bit that gave me insight into how Turner was able to put truthful emotion, experience and passion of the elements into his sea/skyscapes, was seeing him strapped to the birds nest of a sailing ship in a Force ten gale in winter.
I would definitely recommend the film that no doubt will win Timothy Spall many accolades. Apparently it took seven years to make, and during that time Spall learnt to draw and paint for the part. Mr Turner is in cinemas now.
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