A film is a snapshot of the world at a place and time. It says, “This is who we are now,” and to future generations, it will say, “This is who we were then.” Films provide a metric for how far we have come or how little we have changed. What I would like to do here, then, is to take a snapshot of the snapshot, to pick images or sequences from some of the year’s best films that somehow represent a larger piece of our collective puzzle.
Traditionally, I have used this space in my annual
Year in Review series for the Best & Worst column, identifying the positive
and negative trends taking place in the film industry and filmgoing experience.
That column frankly felt like a futile gesture this year in the wake of the
ongoing sexual harassment and abuse scandal that has shaken Hollywood to its
foundation. To call such abuse a negative trend feels glib and dismissive,
however accurate, and no film business trends column would be complete without
such a discussion.
Briefly, the rampant sexual abuse perpetrated by
powerful members of the Hollywood community – almost universally men – has been
dispiriting but not shocking. I say not shocking because throughout history,
wherever power has been consolidated abuse has thrived. This is true of the
political and business worlds, as well as film. However predictable these
behaviors, it does not diminish their evil. If any good can be said to have
come from this, it is the hope the #MeToo movement has raised awareness of the
disheartening prevalence and disgusting banality of these abuses and the
problem, now named, can be fixed sooner rather than later.
Elsewhere in the cinema world, things continued
apace with theater revenues dropping even as ticket and concession prices rose.
The MoviePass subscription service rocked the industry with its business model
of essentially giving away movie tickets to those willing to take them, and the
theater business, ever fearful of change, tried to battle back the upstart by
incentivizing the theatergoing experience any way it could. This will be an
interesting development to watch as 2018 unfolds and perhaps serves as a litmus
test for new vs. old business practices. It may even provide the key for just what
it will take to get people going to the cinemas again, if this is even
possible.
A State of the Cinematic Union, however, feels
less vital this year than years past, which is not to say it will not return in
future installments of this column. Instead, this year, I wanted to introduce a
new feature, the Top 10 Moments. This will not be the first site to compile
such a list, and I have thought for years about introducing one. Now, the time
feels right, and two moments this year made it feel so – the No. 10 moment on
this list and the No. 1.
These are the moments that will stay with us once
the rest of 2017 has fallen away, the moments that will remind us of who we
were and just what it meant to be us. These are the Top 10 Moments of 2017:
10.
When Bobby lights a cigarette, and the motel lights come on – from The
Florida Project, directed by Sean Baker
Bobby (Willem Dafoe)
stands on the balcony at dusk. It has been another hectic day managing the
Magic Castle, the motel on the outskirts of Disney World where mostly poor families
have made their temporary homes. If this is a castle, then Bobby is its king,
but he does not feel much like one. In fact, he has stepped out on the balcony
to steal a moment of peace, a quick cigarette before returning to the
backbreaking work of running his little kingdom.
He lights his cigarette,
and the porch lights of every room in the complex come on. It is a fleeting
moment – blink and you might miss it – but it encapsulates his character
perfectly. The motel lights are on a timer, surely, coming on as the sun goes
down, and we realize Bobby is, too. He lights his cigarette and the lights come
on because they are on the same schedule, part of the same entity, inseparable
from one another.
All of the moments
discussed below take place over entire scenes or sequences. They build, some
slowly, some rapidly, to an apex of shock or catharsis. This moment, though, is
a flash, a brief flicker, and then it is gone. In the time it takes to light a
cigarette, we learn almost all we need to know about Bobby and his world, and all
the filmmaker asks of us is to pay attention. We’d be foolish not to.
9. When we learn what happened to the Engineers –
from Alien: Covenant, directed by Ridley Scott
Now, one could argue it shouldn’t take a whole
second movie for the first movie to make sense, but that is neither here nor
there. As great as I think Prometheus is, everything in Alien:
Covenant makes it that much better, that much more interesting. Covenant
brings the Alien franchise full circle in a way that is both satisfying
and shocking. It somehow makes perfect sense yet is so radical it boggles the
mind.
Prometheus leaves off on the
question: Where did the Engineers, those mysterious beings from deep space who
seem to be the creators of life on Earth, come from? Did some other being
create them? I will not discuss the specifics here because they would
constitute major spoilers if you have not seen the film – for which it would be
best to go in blind – but Alien: Covenant’s manner of dealing with these
questions raises the level of the entire Alien franchise to high art.
The moment we learn what happened to our creators is at once profoundly beautiful,
philosophical, nihilistic, and perfect.
8. When Kay makes the decision to publish –
from The Post, directed by Steven Spielberg
Kay is the owner and publisher of the Washington
Post, a position she inherited through her husband’s death but would have
gotten by birthright alone, if not for the sexist nature of the industry. She
is questioned and doubted and patronized by the men around her who don’t wield
her power but by virtue of their gender believe they should have a seat at the
table. It is difficult to watch as Kay struggles to find her voice, to find her
cause, and that is what the Pentagon Papers provide.
Her business – and by association, the past and
future of her family – is at stake. She stands to lose everything she built and
worked for, so the decision to publish does not come lightly. Finally, though,
she can longer bow to the men in her life – not even Ben. She makes this
decision because she believes it is right, because she decides it is her time
to come out of the shadows and flex the muscle she has always had but was
afraid to use. She will no longer be silent, and neither will her paper.
7. When a dinner party art show goes wrong –
from The Square, directed by Ruben Östlund
We talked in yesterday’s feature about Östlund’s investigation in The Square of how little
separates order and chaos and how quickly the rule of law can devolve into the
law of nature. We are not so far from our primal selves, Östlund argues, and
the repeated use of primates and a primate-man performance art piece drives
this point home.
The museum at the center of the story hosts a
dinner party for its donors and patrons. The moneyed elite gather to be
entertained, to be pampered, to be coddled, and in some respects, to be thanked
for their contributions. In essence, they are here to reaffirm to themselves
and everyone else there would be no museum without them. It is a giant pat on
the back, a self-congratulatory evening of conspicuous consumption. It is, by
most definitions, order.
Enter chaos, in the form of the aforementioned
performance art piece in which the artist, aided by a pair of mechanical arm
apparatuses, bounces around the opulent dining hall, imitating a chimpanzee or
other primate. It begins innocently, amusingly enough, but ever so slowly, the
situation escalates. This is no longer performance art but assault – an assault
on these wealthy donors’ values, on their primness, on their beloved social
structure. When they sense what is under attack, they fight back in the most
shocking and brutal way imaginable. It is precisely what the artist intended,
if perhaps not the outcome he predicted.
6. When Mildred Hayes sees a deer in the field –
from Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri, directed by Martin
McDonagh
But it can’t all be pain and rage. There must be
some relief. As Mildred tends to the flowers she has planted in front of the
billboards that give the film its title, a deer arrives in the meadow. It
stands just yards from Mildred. They lock eyes. It is an otherworldly moment in
an otherwise heavily grounded film. Time seems to stop. They linger in silence.
McDonagh’s cinema brand is such that you half expect a gunshot to ring out and
a hunter’s bullet to pierce the animal’s heart. But no such break in tension is
coming.
Finally, Mildred
tells the deer: “You’re pretty. But you ain’t her.” In a beautiful stroke of
the pen, McDonagh denies us the easy metaphor. Of course we see in this
beautiful, innocent creature the daughter Mildred lost so senselessly and violently.
That is what we are meant to see. But Mildred will not be placated by such
symbols. She has already turned away god in the form of the town preacher, and
now she turns away nature itself. Only the real-world justice she seeks will
do. And like that, the deer is gone.
5.
When two inmates hug and all we hear is the beating of a heart – from The
Work, directed by Jairus McCleary and Gethin Aldous
Toxic masculinity is
a phrase that gets tossed around a lot, enough that its meaning has somewhat
muddied, particularly for the uninitiated. It is essentially the cultural
pressure felt by men to uphold standards of masculine gender roles – violence and
anger, mostly, with a general inability to express emotion thrown in for good
measure. This leads to all sorts of societal ills and takes men places both
privileged and less so. For the subjects of McCleary and Aldous’ magnificent
documentary, it has brought them to Folsom Prison.
The men in this film
are almost all criminals, most of them violent offenders, but what they truly
share is the capacity to change. They are the film’s subjects because they have
chosen to break the cycles of neglect, abuse, and violence that brought them
here. They choose to undergo intensive rounds of group therapy that at times devolve
into primal screaming sessions. It is all meant to unleash the emotions these
men have so long held back, to force them to confront their deepest fears and
insecurities with no safety net but the support of the group.
It is a powerful
film, deeply moving, and it feels revolutionary to watch hardened criminals
bawling unselfconsciously about thoughts of suicide, their fathers, their
friends, and all the promises they have broken and lives they have damaged. In
one particularly brutal stretch, an inmate suggests he will kill himself, and
another pleads with him not to. They lock eyes, and one makes the other promise
not to kill himself. Then they hug, and they hold each other so closely, the
microphones strapped to them pick up only their hearts beating. It is the thump
of pain, resilience, and ultimately change.
4.
When “the incident” goes down – from I, Tonya, directed by Craig
Gillespie
The filmmakers know
what you came to see. Everyone knows. We all want the same thing here in one
way or another. Yeah, there’s the interesting character study and the wonderful
dissection of class in America. There are the bravura performances and stellar
direction. The finely tuned writing. All of that is there, and surely some of
us entered the theater to be wowed by it. But deep down, we are all a little
curious. We want to see what the film refers to as “the incident.” We want to
watch as poor Nancy Kerrigan’s knee is busted by some thug.
Gillespie has taken
heat in some corners for directing I, Tonya
like Scorsese-lite. The film’s trailer even plays up these comparisons, proudly
wearing the badge as the “Goodfellas
of figure skating” movies. Admittedly, there are flashes of that, but Scorsese’s
influence is far and wide, and it is to be expected even in the most unexpected
places – say a figure skating biopic. But this gives Gillespie too little
credit. He has constructed something else, something that operates on its own
time, its own wavelength. When this sequence arrives, it feels like it could
only be a piece of the puzzle I, Tonya
is meant to reveal.
Just before the sequence
plays out, as we all know it must, Margot Robbie, delivering the year’s best
performance, snarls into the camera: “This is what you all came to see!” Then
from the low gliding camera to the pulsing music, the performances to the
dramatic irony of the whole situation, Gillespie does not disappoint. It is
tense, propulsive, wild, and inevitable. By this point, it is more Shakespeare
than Scorsese, a grand, fatalistic tragedy. And we got to see it all.
3.
When Elisa and the Amphibian Man share a dance – from The Shape of
Water, directed by Guillermo del Toro
For everything else The Shape of Water wants to be – all of
which it is, from Cold War thriller to satire to romance – it is most of all a
loving tribute to film itself. There is no other reason to put Elisa’s (Sally
Hawkins) apartment directly above a movie theater than to proclaim loudly and for
all to hear that this movie loves the movies. Del Toro has spoken of his direct
influences, including the great old monster-movie actor Lon Cheney, and those drip
through in every frame.
Yet it is not a
monster movie that inspires the film’s most lively and gorgeous sequence. Rather,
the inspiration comes from the films of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, rewritten
for a deaf-mute woman and the lonely Amphibian Man (Doug Jones) she loves. In a
fantasy sequence of the highest order, the soundtrack swells, the real world
melts away, and Elisa and the creature are transported to a black and white
wonderland where the curtains shimmer and dance floor reflects their love back
up to them.
It is a perfect choice,
made all the more perfect by the actors’ performances. Hawkins, of course, is
brilliant, but Jones truly mesmerizes in this sequence. Buried beneath layers
of prosthetics, make-up, and visual effects, Jones makes us feel the warmth and
passion simmering within this ancient creature. He makes the unknowable known,
and it is no longer a question of how a woman could fall in love with an Amphibian
Man, but rather how the rest of the world couldn’t.
2.
When a woman cries in the rain – from Foxtrot, directed by Samuel
Maoz
On their surface,
the top two moments here deal with much the same subject matter, but each film
comes at its story from a markedly different angle. While the No. 1 moment is
about fostering empathy, this moment of quiet devastation is achieved by
demonstrating a complete lack of empathy. We spoke yesterday about Maoz’s film
as a condemnation of the dehumanizing effects of war, both on soldiers and citizens.
In this heartbreaking moment, the writer-director drives that point home.
The second act of Foxtrot takes place entirely at a
roadside checkpoint manned by Israeli soldiers. We see the monotony of their
day as minutes and hours tick by, offering little interest or excitement. It is
rare even that this road is used, but the soldiers sit at their posts,
automatic weapons in hand, ready for the action or adventure the army promised
them. Instead, day after day, there is just boredom. So they make their own
brand of cruel fun.
With the exception
of Israeli military personnel, the only cars that ever seem to come by here belong
to Palestinian citizens. One evening, in a torrential downpour, a car pulls up.
The soldiers stop it and notice a well dressed husband and wife, clearly on
their way to an event. For no reason in particular, they force the man and
woman to get out of the car and stand in the rain. As the woman’s gown and
makeup and hair are ruined, the soldiers just look on. She tries to remain
strong, but the effect of their cruelty – in fact the very reason for it – is to
break her. She cries, and in the rain, it appears as a never-ending stream of
tears. And we cry with her for a world so drained of humanity and decency.
1.
When Jeannine sees her portrait on the front of her home – from Faces
Places, directed by Agnès Varda and JR
Another woman brought
to tears on a dreary day, but this time, it is because she is overwhelmed by
the depth of feeling and connection she senses. Faces Places is an attempt by Varda and JR to recreate through
their art the souls of the people they meet and places they visit. Their canvasses
are found in the world around them, and their subjects are the individuals who
inhabit those worlds. Fleeting as the physical portraits they create may be,
their impact remains long after the poster paper JR works with has been washed away.
The film is broken
down into a series of scenes and meetings. Varda and JR visit several farms. They
visit the docks. They visit an industrial work site. They visit a small seaside
town. In all of these places, they document what it means to be a person existing
among other people, inseparable from your environment. Each sequence has its
own style of resolution and catharsis, and each sticks its landing wonderfully,
but none hits as hard as the filmmakers’ first visit to a small mining
community that has been left almost entirely abandoned.
A row of houses,
where once legions of miners came back after long, grueling days of work, now
sits mostly empty but for one woman, Jeannine, who refuses to leave. This is
her home, and she will not be going anywhere. Varda and JR rightly see in her
the spirit of a freedom fighter, a revolutionary, and they post her portrait on
the front of her home as big as the house itself. When they bring her out to
see it, it is as though she is seeing herself for the first time. She is seeing
herself in a new way, through the eyes of a pair of admiring filmmakers who saw
in her something worth capturing and preserving. One wishes more films even
tried to capture such beauty and soul, if only for a moment.
Check back tomorrow as we conclude our Year in Review series with
Last Cinema Standing’s 10 Top Films of 2017, and be sure to go back through all
of the Year in Review pieces posted throughout the week.
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