(no subject)
Jul. 17th, 2005 12:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatLast night while watching the commentaries to Million Dollar Baby, Clint Eastwood provided some good advice. He'd been asked why he wanted to make the movie, what appealed to him or motivated him. Clint, being a minimalist, said:"I liked the story. It's the same reason I made the movie Mystic River, I read a synopsis of the book, then the book in two sittings and thought, I like this, I think it would make a great movie and did so." He went on to state:"I'm not interested in analyzing why I like certain things and don't like others...I just like them and that's that." There's something to be said for just liking something or not liking something and not caring why. I know I' overanalyze things. Critical/Analytical brain has its uses, sure, but also its flaws - this being one of them. Can't help but think the Clint Eastwoods of this world are happier. Learning to turn of that component, is proving to be quite the challenge.
That said saw two good movies this weekend. [Also saw Battle Star Galatica - which continues to be in my opinion the best show on television, hands down. I know why I like it - it's completely character driven and every single character no matter how minor is well-rounded and examined. Some of my favorites are actually minor supporting characters. Also one of the few shows on TV that plays with gender role reversals without blinking an eye or making an issue out of it - last one that did this was Farscape.]
The two movies were:
Million Dollar Baby and surprisingly enough Little Black Book which Wales had recommended.
She told me - "this was good, I really enjoyed it, you should try it." Me, staring at the synopsis, uncertain - a woman working in daytime tv is prompted by her colleagues to check out her boyfriend's background by delving into his little black book or palm pilot. Yet, it appeals to my mood a little more than Hide and Seek which I'm weighing in my other hand. Also it's a light comedy, need light comedy. So I rent it. Wales:"Don't blame me if you hate it, but I really liked it. Also word to the wise don't rent Meet The Fockers - I've seen it, really didn't like it." Knowing that Wales usually likes the type of comedy seen in Meet The Fockers better than I do and that she loved Meet The Parents, I take her advice. Not expecting much more than a light fluffy by-the-numbers girl meets guy, loses guy, gets guy again...as depicted on the cover, I'm pleasantly surprised by the film. It's not that story at all and actually well written, the characters all nicely rounded out, we get backstories, we have an idea who they are, and unlike most of these comedies - the focus is on what they do for a living, their careers, their hopes, dreams, not just the sex or romantic entanglement. Also, the ending was not what I expected but definitely what I wanted. It's a great rental for single women. One of the few I've seen in which well...that would be telling the ending.
Million Dollar Baby is also a surprise.
I knew it would be good, but it is not the sappy tear-jerker or preachy message movie I expected, so much as a character piece. I didn't cry during it, possibly because the news media had already spoiled me on the twists so I was aware of certain hints to them in the film, that I might not have been unspoiled. That said, the spoilers in no way hurt my enjoyment of it. The movie is not really about euthanasia - it is about the choices a bunch of people make and why they make them. Completely character driven story, not a thematically driven one, which explains why Eastwood liked it and why he was probably bewildered by the hubbub. Eastwood is an actor's director - he's not interested in making a statement with his pictures (even when he makes one, almost by accident), so much as he is interested in a character's emotional journey from point A to point B and showing that journey. The more complicated and conflicted the character - the more interested Eastwood is.
Million Dollar Baby is a three-character piece - three fighters, who are struggling with complex emotional and familial issues. There's Maggie, the white-trash waitress from Missouri who wants to be a fighter and has been to achieve this dream, largely on her own for three years. (Maggie is very real to me as is her family - since I've met and known people like this. Heck some of them are my own relatives.) Maggie seeks out Frankie - a trainer that she has watched with male boxers and wants to train her. Frankie - is a man who goes to church every single day, drives his parish priest wacky, and owns/runs a boxing gym with his pal Dupris. Frankie also cannot stand to see his boxers hurt - which is why he's never made it to the title fights, he holds them back, so they leave him for managers who do not care quite so much. Then there's Dupris - the narrator of the story, who was not in the original short story by FX Toole. He was taken by Paul Haggis from another short story in the same volumn of work and inserted in this one. Dupris was one of Frankie's fighters, but Frankie wasn't his manager exactly. Dupris - sees himself in Maggie. The movie misleads you - you think it will go one way - it goes another - it is not a by-the-numbers boxing story a la Rocky. Nor is it the typical "Mercy Killing" tale that many in the media wanted to lable it as.
Rather it is a simple tale of how three people connect to one another and through their connection are in a sense redeemed, become better people. And it uses boxing as a metaphor for how people handle life. Boxing, the narrator states using the writer's words, is a backwards sport. You step into a punch, and away to deliver one. You pivot on your left, when you want to go right, and pivot on your right when you want to go left. You take the pain, when your body tells you to flee from it. A wonderful metaphor for how these three characters grapple with life - are they fleeing from it, when they should fight or fighting when they should flee? Is part of their struggle with life, outside of the three of them, the fact that they handle it much the same way a boxer boxes? The contradictions in the film are fascinating. And the film does not tell you what is right or wrong, it merely shows what happens and why the characters are compelled to follow the course they do.
Maggie tells Frankie in a scene early on about how her father did a mercy killing, it's a throw-away line that I'd forgotten. Until she refers to it later. Frankie, we discover early on, can't handle the idea of making the life or death decisions - it's why he never takes a risk on the title and the boxer he has at the beginning of the film leaves him for another manager. The guilt tears at him from the inside. Dupris - focuses on the fact that if you can make it, get that dream - take that chance, the world be damned. He lost an eye in a fight, but he doesn't regret it, he'd rather lose the eye than not have had that chance to do that fight. And Maggie - well she's a fighter, the only one who doesn't listen to everything Frankie says, who does it her own way, who reminds perhaps too much of the daughter he is estranged from, she will do whatever it takes to have her dream. Yet, she wants life on her terms and that's the irony, because life refuses to operate completely the way she wishes.
Frankie makes three decisions in the film - each reluctant, none predictable - the first to train Maggie, the second to go for the title with a female boxer that he knows fights dirty and does the type of punch that if delivered under the wrong circumstances could kill you (he avoides the boxer on the first go, but after Maggie does a world tour and wins several fights and this female boxer approaches him for a title round in Vegas, he goes for it- which results in Maggie breaking her neck and becoming paralyzed), and the third to put Maggie out of her misery. The second decision inadvertently leads to the third decision, which nearly destroys him and causes him to leave his life of boxing, Dupris, the gym behind never to return.
The direction of the film is simple, but gripping. Eastwood unlike Scorsese, Spielberg, or any number of big name directors, isn't into doing multiple takes or gimmicks. As he states to the interviewer on the extras - sometimes it's better not to show the audience everything, don't show them the crying face, hide it from them. It's what the audience doesn't see that is often what intriques them the most. He uses light and shadow a great deal more. Soft focus. No fancy camera angles. And he doesn't cry "action" on his sets, just says whenever your ready - because the tension, Eastwood says, shows up on camera and throws it off ever so slightly. He also uses lots of improv, allows his actors to inhabit their characters and play and react. If the first shot works, that's the one he takes. This may explain why Eastwood's films feel at times more real to me than many of the films I've seen. I lose myself inside them. I feel as if I'm inside the story, feeling it. While when I watched Aviator, I felt detached. Or Minority Report - same level of detachment. As if the director with all his gimmicks is somehow distancing me from the story.
Million Dollar Baby may be one of the best films I've seen this year. Certainly ranks up there with No More Tears Sister in emotional depth and its ability to depict the choices an individual makes and why they make them, without preaching or telling us what those choices are or should have been.
A good film or book in my opinion is one that allows me for a few moments to walk in the shoes of the characters, to be inside someone else's head. Million Dollar Baby does this quite well.
That said saw two good movies this weekend. [Also saw Battle Star Galatica - which continues to be in my opinion the best show on television, hands down. I know why I like it - it's completely character driven and every single character no matter how minor is well-rounded and examined. Some of my favorites are actually minor supporting characters. Also one of the few shows on TV that plays with gender role reversals without blinking an eye or making an issue out of it - last one that did this was Farscape.]
The two movies were:
Million Dollar Baby and surprisingly enough Little Black Book which Wales had recommended.
She told me - "this was good, I really enjoyed it, you should try it." Me, staring at the synopsis, uncertain - a woman working in daytime tv is prompted by her colleagues to check out her boyfriend's background by delving into his little black book or palm pilot. Yet, it appeals to my mood a little more than Hide and Seek which I'm weighing in my other hand. Also it's a light comedy, need light comedy. So I rent it. Wales:"Don't blame me if you hate it, but I really liked it. Also word to the wise don't rent Meet The Fockers - I've seen it, really didn't like it." Knowing that Wales usually likes the type of comedy seen in Meet The Fockers better than I do and that she loved Meet The Parents, I take her advice. Not expecting much more than a light fluffy by-the-numbers girl meets guy, loses guy, gets guy again...as depicted on the cover, I'm pleasantly surprised by the film. It's not that story at all and actually well written, the characters all nicely rounded out, we get backstories, we have an idea who they are, and unlike most of these comedies - the focus is on what they do for a living, their careers, their hopes, dreams, not just the sex or romantic entanglement. Also, the ending was not what I expected but definitely what I wanted. It's a great rental for single women. One of the few I've seen in which well...that would be telling the ending.
Million Dollar Baby is also a surprise.
I knew it would be good, but it is not the sappy tear-jerker or preachy message movie I expected, so much as a character piece. I didn't cry during it, possibly because the news media had already spoiled me on the twists so I was aware of certain hints to them in the film, that I might not have been unspoiled. That said, the spoilers in no way hurt my enjoyment of it. The movie is not really about euthanasia - it is about the choices a bunch of people make and why they make them. Completely character driven story, not a thematically driven one, which explains why Eastwood liked it and why he was probably bewildered by the hubbub. Eastwood is an actor's director - he's not interested in making a statement with his pictures (even when he makes one, almost by accident), so much as he is interested in a character's emotional journey from point A to point B and showing that journey. The more complicated and conflicted the character - the more interested Eastwood is.
Million Dollar Baby is a three-character piece - three fighters, who are struggling with complex emotional and familial issues. There's Maggie, the white-trash waitress from Missouri who wants to be a fighter and has been to achieve this dream, largely on her own for three years. (Maggie is very real to me as is her family - since I've met and known people like this. Heck some of them are my own relatives.) Maggie seeks out Frankie - a trainer that she has watched with male boxers and wants to train her. Frankie - is a man who goes to church every single day, drives his parish priest wacky, and owns/runs a boxing gym with his pal Dupris. Frankie also cannot stand to see his boxers hurt - which is why he's never made it to the title fights, he holds them back, so they leave him for managers who do not care quite so much. Then there's Dupris - the narrator of the story, who was not in the original short story by FX Toole. He was taken by Paul Haggis from another short story in the same volumn of work and inserted in this one. Dupris was one of Frankie's fighters, but Frankie wasn't his manager exactly. Dupris - sees himself in Maggie. The movie misleads you - you think it will go one way - it goes another - it is not a by-the-numbers boxing story a la Rocky. Nor is it the typical "Mercy Killing" tale that many in the media wanted to lable it as.
Rather it is a simple tale of how three people connect to one another and through their connection are in a sense redeemed, become better people. And it uses boxing as a metaphor for how people handle life. Boxing, the narrator states using the writer's words, is a backwards sport. You step into a punch, and away to deliver one. You pivot on your left, when you want to go right, and pivot on your right when you want to go left. You take the pain, when your body tells you to flee from it. A wonderful metaphor for how these three characters grapple with life - are they fleeing from it, when they should fight or fighting when they should flee? Is part of their struggle with life, outside of the three of them, the fact that they handle it much the same way a boxer boxes? The contradictions in the film are fascinating. And the film does not tell you what is right or wrong, it merely shows what happens and why the characters are compelled to follow the course they do.
Maggie tells Frankie in a scene early on about how her father did a mercy killing, it's a throw-away line that I'd forgotten. Until she refers to it later. Frankie, we discover early on, can't handle the idea of making the life or death decisions - it's why he never takes a risk on the title and the boxer he has at the beginning of the film leaves him for another manager. The guilt tears at him from the inside. Dupris - focuses on the fact that if you can make it, get that dream - take that chance, the world be damned. He lost an eye in a fight, but he doesn't regret it, he'd rather lose the eye than not have had that chance to do that fight. And Maggie - well she's a fighter, the only one who doesn't listen to everything Frankie says, who does it her own way, who reminds perhaps too much of the daughter he is estranged from, she will do whatever it takes to have her dream. Yet, she wants life on her terms and that's the irony, because life refuses to operate completely the way she wishes.
Frankie makes three decisions in the film - each reluctant, none predictable - the first to train Maggie, the second to go for the title with a female boxer that he knows fights dirty and does the type of punch that if delivered under the wrong circumstances could kill you (he avoides the boxer on the first go, but after Maggie does a world tour and wins several fights and this female boxer approaches him for a title round in Vegas, he goes for it- which results in Maggie breaking her neck and becoming paralyzed), and the third to put Maggie out of her misery. The second decision inadvertently leads to the third decision, which nearly destroys him and causes him to leave his life of boxing, Dupris, the gym behind never to return.
The direction of the film is simple, but gripping. Eastwood unlike Scorsese, Spielberg, or any number of big name directors, isn't into doing multiple takes or gimmicks. As he states to the interviewer on the extras - sometimes it's better not to show the audience everything, don't show them the crying face, hide it from them. It's what the audience doesn't see that is often what intriques them the most. He uses light and shadow a great deal more. Soft focus. No fancy camera angles. And he doesn't cry "action" on his sets, just says whenever your ready - because the tension, Eastwood says, shows up on camera and throws it off ever so slightly. He also uses lots of improv, allows his actors to inhabit their characters and play and react. If the first shot works, that's the one he takes. This may explain why Eastwood's films feel at times more real to me than many of the films I've seen. I lose myself inside them. I feel as if I'm inside the story, feeling it. While when I watched Aviator, I felt detached. Or Minority Report - same level of detachment. As if the director with all his gimmicks is somehow distancing me from the story.
Million Dollar Baby may be one of the best films I've seen this year. Certainly ranks up there with No More Tears Sister in emotional depth and its ability to depict the choices an individual makes and why they make them, without preaching or telling us what those choices are or should have been.
A good film or book in my opinion is one that allows me for a few moments to walk in the shoes of the characters, to be inside someone else's head. Million Dollar Baby does this quite well.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-07-17 05:52 pm (UTC)dub ;o)
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2005-07-17 06:25 pm (UTC)