Film Pairings — The Oddness Of Other People

Around Christmas each year my parents would force (yes “force”) my brother and I to visit their old friends and their families, bringing with us a tin of mother’s oatmeal cookies. The older folks (25 or so) would talk of old times while we kids who did not know each other, would stare at each other with controlled disdain. I remember how odd it all was.  I remember other people’s houses had their own smells and the furniture was, in my mind, depressing. The cookies they served were just wrong. How could people live like this?  Strange places, strange kids, strange parents. I was always glad when this awkward holiday tradition was over and we were home where things weren’t always good, but where they were comfortable.

Thank goodness, I’m over that particular childhood peculiarity. Generally I love the diversity that exists in the human species.  But watching these two movies I revisited this sense of unease, prompted by the oddness of others, especially others in an eternal state of disconnection. This double feature is an odd pairing, two films inhabited by people who live in bubbles that glance each other in passing.

Foxcatcher validates the cliché, “truth is stranger than fiction.”  John du Pont, ornithologist, philatelist and philanthropist as well as having a wrestling obsession is a member of the du Pont dynasty,  probably America’s richest family at the time. As John Steve Carrel) provides a portrait of a convincingly strange and needy, gun-toting loser whose mother had to buy him a friend when he was young.  Nothing much changed as he grew older. Only now he could buy his own friend.  He sought out, manipulated and essentially bought a young and vulnerable Olympic wrestler ostensibly to groom for the Olympics. The motive is iffy and subject to interpretation.  The new protégé, (Channing Tatum), has self-worth problems of his own.  He grew up in the shadow of his more talented older brother (Mark Ruffalo) and welcomed du Pont’s attention.  The new emotionally wounded friends were destined to destroy each other. Vanessa Redgrave played the cold, wealthy matriarch who could barely tolerate being in the same room as her son.  Bennett Miller directed this critically hailed film. The cast is flawless.

American Beauty validates another cliché, that truth is often found in fiction. Away from the chilled and rarefied air of the the upper class in Foxcatcher, we descend into the middle class, its hunger for conformity, its silly materially measured success and its great capacity for and encouragement of insincerity. Kevin Spacey plays a man bored with his own mediocrity and the values of the living dead who surround him.  He wants out. While his current life has left its share of collateral damage, getting out isn’t without wreckage. He has a neurotic daughter, a disconnected wife and damaged neighbors. With help from a solid cast  — Annette Bening, Chris Cooper and Wes Bentley among them — the film reminds us that even with salvation, we don’t get out alive.  Sam Mendes directed the multiple award-winning 1999 classic.

Both films provide a smooth but far from simple glimpse into the complicated lives of their inhabitants. There are no simple answers.  Right and wrong are not self-evident. As crime films of a sort, guilt and innocence are nonetheless hard to parse. Both are movies you might like to savor or discuss. Both, it seems to me, take us to unpleasant worlds, its inhabitants bumping into each other blindly.  Perhaps you should sip your wine until the credits role.

Film Pairing — The Naughty Joe Orton And A British Education

While the American establishment was attempting to quash the literary influences of such iconoclastic writers as Jack Kerouac, Great Britain’s legendary theatre scene was dealing with its own challenge to the status quo. Out of nowhere a naughty, disrespectful playwright emerged, bringing dark humor, violence, and obscenity to the London stage. His name was Joe Orton and like many rebels, his early death may have sealed his fame. Kerouac died at 47 in 1969 of alcohol abuse. Orton out did him. He died at 34 in 1967 of repeated hammer blows to the head.

In his short life Orton wrote several well-received plays — What the Butler Saw, The Ruffian on the Stair and Loot to name a few. As far as I know only Loot and Entertaining Mr. Sloane made it to film, and also as far as I know, only Sloane (1970) is available for viewing. It stars a very funny and horny Beryl Reid and a hilariously prim and proper Harry Andrews. It also stars Peter McEnery who spends most of the film in his jockey briefs attempting to titillate or offend those with whom he co-inhabits a big, gloomy house. There is sex, murder, and an unquantifiable amount of rude behavior. The play was outrageous and caused the young Orton to be noticed and applauded. Orton seemed to enjoy the attention, positive and negative.

Murder and other forms of criminal behavior appear to be central to all of Orton’s work. They were, in fact, central to his life. If you are interested in this brief but significant period of British theatre and quick rise and fall of one of its legends, you may also want to watch Prick Up Your Ears. The biographical film is based on the book by John Lahr, senior film critic for The New Yorker and directed by award-winning film director Stephen Frears. Gary Oldman, who resembles Orton, plays Joe. Alfred Molina plays Orton’s frustrated lover. Vanessa Redgrave is Orton’s agent and Wallace Shawn plays Lahr. The film (1987) covers the creative years that began when Orton and his lover met and lasted until the last brutal seconds of each of their lives.

The pairing of one of Orton’s most famous plays (adapted to film for posterity) and his well-told, if discomforting, biography can only intensify the argument of whether life mirrors art or visa versa. They certainly won’t settle it. Even so, it is quite an evening.

Not sure what to recommend as accompanying drinks. Certainly beer would work. This isn’t Noel Coward. Because it is cold in most of the English speaking countries in January, maybe a hot toddy — whiskey, hot water and honey with cloves or cinnamon. Or lemon. A hot toddy might calm your nerves and help bring on slumber after an evening of uneasy, embarrassingly funny and tragic drama.

Film Pairing — Three of a Kind: Blow Up, The Conversation, Blow Out

Blow Up (1966) — Michelangelo Antonioni directs David Hemmings, Vanessa Redgrave, Sarah Miles in what becomes a preview of the modish, faux glamorous seventies that would follow. A famous celebrity and fashion photographer discovers he has accidentally captured a murder on film. It is barely visible at first, so he begins to blow up sections of the image. It takes awhile to put the pieces together and the process (interrupted by some silly cavorting with giggling models) sets up oddly captivating unraveling of the mystery. Nominated for several international awards, including two Academy awards and the Cannes Grand Prix, Blow Up was the inspiration of at least two other films, one great, and one certainly good enough.

The Conversation (1974) — Francis Ford Coppola directs Gene Hackman, Robert Duvall and Harrison Ford in a movie no doubt inspired by Antonioni’s classic. The key element here doesn’t come from a small, almost hidden element in a photograph taken in a London park, but from untangling sound snippets on tape. Each fresh revelation of this conversation between two people in San Francisco’s Union Square leads to an eventual truth. Though the technology used in the film is now more than 30 years old, the current, extraordinary ability to invade privacy for good or evil and the unexpected consequences of doing so, is foreshadowed here. The story is intricate. The sensibility is realistic. The tension is palpable. Hackman is one of those actors who can make a mediocre movie good. Here, his talent and the movie itself are finely matched. The Conversation was nominated for three Academy Awards and received the Palm d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

If you have the time and inclination, consider a third movie for the evening. Not quite as history making as the first two and possibly more derivative than inspired, it is nonetheless a tightly woven and worthwhile thriller.

Blow Out (1981) — Brian DePalma directs John Travolta, Dennis Frantz and John Lithgow in a film that has elements of both its predecessors. Travolta plays a sound technician for a sleazy sex and horror moviemaker. In the course of trying to record ambient sounds out beyond the Philadelphia suburbs, he accidentally picks up a sound that suggests that the presumed accidental death of a presidential contender is, in reality, an assassination. The powerful are at play and Travolta possesses dangerous knowledge. No award nominations here. In fact, Blow Out was pretty much a loser at the box office. But don’t let that put you off. While DePalma seems to have made a career of aping others, often in a more violently and sexually exploitive style (Hitchcock’s Psycho versus DePalma’s Dressed to Kill, for example), this one works. Travolta’s performance exceeds expectations. DePalma’s real-life wife, Nancy Allen — also in Dressed to Kill — does a fine job in this film.

The evening libations? Perhaps a little champagne with Blow Up. While it is a great film, there is something a little too bubbly about the times. The Conversation is serious and, so something on the rocks here. You choose. With Blow Out, go back to the champagne. Now that a few bubbles have expired, it may be a match.