Summer Viewing

Hello fellow cinemaniacs,

You may have noticed the Film Journal sidebar. I hope to be maintaining it on a biweekly basis. For those who might be curious about my summer viewings, I present the following list (from the seminal to the deplorable):

Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959) * * * * *

Synecdoche, New York (2008) * * * * *

Bamako (2007) * * * *1/2

The Decline of the American Empire (1986) * * * *1/2

Up (2009) * * * *1/2

Bolt (2008) * * * *

Happy-Go-Lucky (2008) * * * *

The Purple Rose of Cairo (1984) * * * *

Rachel Getting Married (2008) * * * *
Wendy and Lucy (2008) * * * *

Ashes of Time Redux (2008) * * *1/2

Blast of Silence (1961) * * *1/2

The Class (2008) * * *1/2

Frozen River (2008) * * *1/2

Lake of Fire (2007) * * *1/2

Milk (2008) * * *1/2

Pontypool (2009) * * *1/2

Revolutionary Road (2008) * * *1/2

Snow Angels (2008) * * *1/2

Son of Rambow (2008) * * *1/2

Star Trek (2009) * * *1/2

Still Life (2007) * * *1/2

The Wrestler (2008) * * *1/2

Appaloosa (2008) * * *

Changeling (2008) * * *

Diary of the Dead (2008) * * *

Encounters at the End of the World (2008) * * *

Frost/Nixon (2008) * * *

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009) * * *

House of Flying Daggers (2004) * * *

Ichi the Killer (2001) * * *

I've Loved You So Long (2008) * * *

JCVD (2008) * * *

Quantum of Solace (2008) * * *

Role Models (2008) * * *

Standard Operating Procedure (2008) * * *

Valkyrie (2008) * * *

Cadillac Records * *1/2

Gran Torino (2008) * *1/2

Hamlet 2 (2008) * *1/2

Of Time and the City (2009) * */12

Step Brothers (2008) * *1/2

W. (2008) * *1/2

Yes Man (2008) * *1/2

Doubt (2008) * *

The Forbidden Kingdom (2008) * *

Mongol (2008) * *

Religulous (2008) * *

Sukiyaki Western Django (2008) * *

Sunshine Clearing (2009) * *

Watchmen (2009) *

Wolverine (2009) *

Feel free to chime in with comments, criticisms, or suggestions for my ever-expanding viewing list.

For all of you cinephiles who don't already know about this enterprise, check out the following sites: The 1,000 Greatest Films and The 21st Century's Most Acclaimed Films, both sponsored by the indispensable They Shoot Pictures, Don't They? (see my sidebar Links for their home page).

Duplicity (Tony Gilroy, 2009)

Duplicity commences with an engaging pas de deux between two predatory cats – a series of shifting tactics, performative evaluations, and self-aware flirtations – that winds its way into the bedroom of a four star hotel in Dubai. The dance ends in an unconventional manner – Julia Roberts drugging Clive Owen and making off with top-secret documents left in his charge – and with a stylistic, Soderberghian flourish: moving split-screens present several moments from various stages of Roberts post-coital departure. In one frame, she has already left the room; in another, she simultaneously checks on the slumbering Owen. This spy is forever in two places at once – caught between an impossible but undeniable attraction on the one hand and a kind of self-interested professionalism that could only erode the trust from which that attraction might flourish.

This is Duplicity’s central dilemma, and the stuff of true screwball fantasies. It is followed immediately by another dance of sorts – this time between the CEOs of two cosmetic juggernauts – and its petty brutality and clumsiness is a hilarious contrast to the sleek, animal elegance of its precursor. On a greyish landing strip of an anonymous airport, two parked Lear jets face off against one another in frank symmetry. Rattling his finger like a sabre in super slow-motion on the right side of the frame in the following cut – his face somehow undulating with hatred – is Tom Wilkinson venting his spleen towards someone out of frame. With a cut, Paul Giamatti is revealed on the far left of the frame, equally enraged. As if slogging through currents of bile, the two gradually make their way toward one another, while their horrified cronies look on. The two titans meet, and the ensuing clash seems to last hours, even though it’s only a brief scuffle: the professorial Wilkinson and the gnomish Giamatti flail about on the tarmac in a brutish reduction of the corporate warfare upon which Roberts and Wilson will try to capitalize.

Between these contrasting “numbers,” are labyrinthine twists and turns of plots, layers of deception, and exquisitely played acts of self-conscious performances. James Naremore has spoken of “expressive incoherence” as being an important aspect of an evaluative assessment of acting: scenes in which we are presented with a performer consciously performing within the story (acts of deception, or moments of emotional repression are good examples). Duplicity – as its title implies – is rife with such moments: Clive Owen channelling Cary Grant in Bringing Up Baby (1938) as he masquerades as a clumsy Texan doctor is one delicious example. But a great part of the film’s pleasures are also built upon moments of performance that are surprisingly revealed as such, and scenes in which diegetic audiences explicitly mirror our own regard for the aptitude of the principal actors.

The pre-eminent example is the “rehearsed” encounter between Owen and Roberts, in which they literally replay a scripted version of one of their previous venomous encounters in order to throw off the suspicion of their employers (who may be – and in fact are – following their every move). This encounter is originally played straight, and we are provided with a forum to compare their biting repartee to the lacerations that the two actors inflicted upon one another in their previous outing, Closer (2004). A brief moment of surreality occurs later, when their dialogue is repeated word for word (with some notable variations) in a flashback: we are thrown for a loop (caught within the various crisscrossing nets of deception that the film deploys) until we realize that the originally presented encounter was an elaborate act, performed as part of the lovers’ scheme. Retroactively, we can then assess the qualities of these mirrored encounters and marvel at the shades of difference these two pre-eminent actors bring to the scenes. Certainly, Owens and Roberts have their diegetic fans within the film itself: two field agents chuckle over a play-by-play recording of the scene, taking turns mimicking Owen’s poshness (“Eye oh-wnnn yewww,” they chortle to one another). We are also treated to a literal rehearsal of the encounter during yet another flashback. Owens and Roberts wend their way through a line run of the encounter that they’ll play out the next day: he, gently reminding her to enunciate in between sips of chardonnay (“Are you directing me?” she teases); she, reclining in bed and chiding him for engaging in the star privilege of script revision (“Wrong,” says she, correcting his improvisatory vulgarity, “It’s ‘people I’ve slept with’”).

And yet, neither of these two players realize that their dress rehearsal is being observed by a hidden audience. We track up into a light fixture in the ceiling, through its wiring, and emerge from a speaker placed on the desk of the foxy Tom Wilkinson, who chuckles appreciatively – paternally, even – at their snappy interplay. Aren’t these two Hollywood luminaries simply marvellous? The two actor-cum-directors remain unaware that their “show” has been very craftily stage managed until they attempt to reap the dividends from their treachery (as the camera tracks backward from the dazed couple in the final shot – leaving them to their entangled futures of mutual suspicion – Owen intones, “Well, at least we have each other.” Roberts, as usual, has the final word: “It really is that bad, isn’t it?”). Duplicity is rife with such moments, with actors stepping out from the rhythms of their own “numbers” in order to stand in as our analogues – admiring the playfulness of talented stars at work. In an era in which Hollywood so seldom provides us with opportunities for admiration, such intricacy is an occasion for dancing.