THE MAN IN TRAMP'S CLOTHING

“Listen, Matthew! 
When Chaplin wanted a beautiful shot, he knew how 
– better than Keaton, better than anybody!” 

Theo (Louis Garrel) is almost aggressive in his defence against Matthew (Michael Pitt) in Bertolucci’s ‘the Dreamers’ (2003) as they compare Chaplin and Keaton on who was/is the better filmmaker. Of course one could agree to disagree, but would that work for an apple of my eye as opposed the orange on your mind whose citrus, you think, refreshes you? Where it’s human to compare and it’s prudent not to. 

Chaplin is, beyond doubt, the biggest star in the world. Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson – they can all vie for his position, but the extents of endearment don’t quite match. Chaplin was and is the epitome of ‘universal appeal’ across time and space, a consequence of him being able to make a canvas out of film-reel and finger-print his way to a masterpiece – in every portrait, every shot; every burst of unimaginable creativity in a performance deeper than the spectacle. 

The comparison between Chaplin and Keaton is almost a comparison between the head and the heart, taking two people with separate realms of influence. Chaplin has long been branded the king of melodrama, the ‘tramp with the golden heart’; the idealistic pantomime act soaked in emotion and spiced with spirit that the establishment was intolerant to, at that point in time. The biggest doubt cast on Chaplin and his quixotic endeavours, thus, is that of contemporary relevance, or any relevance, for that matter, to real world solutions as opposed to romantic notions – a doubt that doesn’t question his greatness but his pertinence. While Chaplin is the world’s biggest showman, Keaton is considered to be more. 

It’s in this line that the Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalyst, Slavoj Zizek, plays a crucial role in exemplifying Chaplin as one of the most profound of filmmakers – in whose depths are layers of psychology from a man who understood humans by understanding himself. Zizek, thus, empowers Chaplin with a psychoanalytical perspective brought to those 'beautiful shots' that the world continues to be in awe of, now for more than their visual and emotional impact. 

Take, for example, this shot from ‘the Circus’ (1928), one of the very few films before ‘Limelight’ (1952) with an autobiographical overtone – it can’t be denied that Chaplin slipped in elements of his own life wherever he could, his shots and sequences being statements to a world he couldn’t meet through any other means. Outside, he was the Ladies’ man, famous for his affairs and linkages. But the screen was the space where he could be what he strived to be – an idealist that the world (and himself, as a part of it) had rendered him incapable of being. 

In ‘the Circus’, Chaplin plays his usual Tramp, parked, this time, beside a travelling circus. Merna Kennedy plays the girl on the sawdust waiting for the angel Gabriel to save her from her step-father who ran the circus. The Tramp starts off well, an accidental star in a show he revolutionized. The circus does have clowns, but he’s branded ‘the Funny Man’ in a show of irony. He holds his act as ransom to save the girl from ill-treatment, she reciprocates with gratefulness on her part. 

As is the fate of Chaplin, the die-hard romantic, he construes kindness to be ‘love’ – that which he’s so deprived of. His love has no sexual connotations to it, and in that it is strange how conclusive he is in name-tagging it. His is an attraction without the ‘attraction’; that of being in love with a woman who “don’t even appeal” to him, like Dylan once sang.

The shot comes right after he eavesdrops on a conversation between Merna and a girl-friend of hers, about a man she’s fallen in love with. The Tramp thinks it’s him, does a jig with happy music in the background – another facet of Chaplin’s genius – and buys a ring to propose. Then he hides behind the curtain again and listens in as she tells her friend that it’s the new tight-rope walker – a tall gentleman, perennially suited-up. Reading between the lines, we see an analogy with the silent-talkie divide in a paradigm shift that broke many careers. Chaplin did sustain the turn of the tide to a great extent, though, and is one of the very few rare exceptions, that way. 

The entire film is in fast-forward (Chaplin shot at 12 frames per second and projected at 24), but the action slows down for this shot. The Tramp realizes, with ring in hand, that it’s not what he thought it was. It’s minimalist with himself in the centre, as the man who brought about his own embarrassment. An interesting thing to note is that the embarrassment is not external but is a consequence of self-reflection. He hasn’t lost his face to anyone – he hadn’t proclaimed his love to the woman and been turned down, he hasn’t told anyone else about it. It’s himself who he has let down in his blind pursuit to complete one half of the jigsaw puzzle that he had completely forgotten about the other. 

He bows his head in shame but his eyes assert; they speak of resolution. For a moment, we lose the Tramp as a gentleman shines out from inside the Tramp’s clothes; the gentleman who has always been there and kept reserved for moments like these. For a moment, we see the ‘Man’ outlast the concept – a Man who, in this case, loves a woman who doesn’t love him back. There is disappointment, there is pain, there is anger. And to top it all, there’s a firm resolve in the fact that he can’t do anything about it and that he, in fact, shouldn’t do anything about it. It isn’t like a Man to force anyone’s hand or to beg for the same, and he knows that. 

Chaplin is raw Ego hidden behind a struggle for idealism, which is Matthew’s defence in not liking him. It can’t be denied. He hides his embarrassment behind a screen in this photograph. To the outside world (that is, Merna), he is intact and in constant performance - you'd have to split the curtains to see the man behind. For, needless to say, he is a man who keeps the best of himself hidden from the rest of the world – the side of his which is most beautiful in that it is misshapen, flawed, angry, embarrassed and truly human.

ON HARD-BALL SELLING AND COMPULSIVE TECHNOLOGY

Peter Jackson, acclaimed director of the ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy, was in a bit of a pickle last year when he announced that he was going to shoot its prequel ‘the Hobbit’ at 48 frames per second – the usual and requisite amount is 24 fps. Digital projection systems are programmed to operate at 24 fps, which means that for ‘the Hobbit’ (to be released in two parts, in December 2012 and 2013) to hit screens later this year, they’d need an upgrade to facilitate the doubling of rate of projection. 

In addition, in what he dubs ‘the mega-epic pissing contest’, Film-Critic Roger Ebert (writing for the ‘Chicago Sun times’) takes the case of James Cameron (‘Titanic’, ‘Avatar’) who has come out saying that he’s planning to film ‘Avatar 2’ at 60 fps! He also adds with detail on how almost 17000 screens across North America are ‘already’ potent enough having done what’s necessary and are set to project images at 48 fps with a surcharge to be added to the basic cost of the movie ticket. About 39000 screens, he says, would have to do the same by the end of the year, and they’d all together have to be prepared when Cameron brings his bomb along in 2013. 

If this was a pissing contest, they’re crossing streams; it’s pouring on our faces. 

Now, it’s common knowledge that 3D projection had, by itself, caused a hike in ticket price in the past, for a decrease in brightness and picture-quality – for which you don’t need statistics to substantiate. All you have to do is lift your glasses the next time you’re at the theatre. That should help distinguish to yourself the film you wanted to watch from the one you were made to. 

Worse is the fate of enduring a film that has merely been ‘3D-fied’ as opposed to a film that was born so. There are films shot in 3D (like ‘Avatar’) and there are those which incorporate 3D elements through post-processing (like ‘Clash of the Titans’). The comparison is akin to that between a good photograph and one that’s Photoshopped – there’s something lowly about the latter that you can tell but you don’t have enough to file a complaint. The technology is new, it seems exciting; kids love it, parents don’t seem to have a choice – ‘Schindler’s list’ doesn’t play in theatres anymore. Martin Scorsese has endorsed it, with specific reference to Georges Melies’ idea of Film as ‘Spectacle’ in ‘Hugo’, his own authentic contribution to the 3D universe. 

It’s like the surgical procedure that a Good Doctor showed and the quacks of the world were quick to claim license to carry it out on their own. 

We’re days past the premiere of arguably the most awaited movie event of a decade, made by a man who has constantly turned 3D down with a different plan for grandeur in mind. I say ‘decade’ with comfort because I’m sure they didn’t ‘wait’ for movies, back in the day. Today, people play audience to a Trade Fair at home, on TV sets and the internet and it’s like the title-credits are losing out to pre-release marketing as far as ‘first impressions’ go. Speed-Dating seems to have won the People’s Choice award trumping good old-fashioned meet-cute. Trailers are ‘pleasure Bots’ in this lucid dream that plays out like a Philip K. Dick novel of man causing his own disappointment. 

I was as eager to watch ‘the Dark Knight Rises’ as it hit the screen on the 20th of July. But I hate to think my interest in it needn’t have been my own. I don’t know how much of it was ‘felt’ and how much ‘drilled into’ my head against my will – it’s like second-thoughts in the middle of a leap of faith as a voice inside says ‘suicide’. The film has been around for a year almost, debuting online with a teaser that ‘leaked’ and a Prologue last fall as popularized by director Christopher Nolan, having started it with the last instalment, ‘the Dark Knight.’ 

My opinion on the film aside, there’s no doubt that Nolan, with such impressive films as ‘Memento’, ‘Insomnia’ and ‘Batman Begins’ to his credit, would come up with (fairly) engaging fare. Isn’t the hype, in that case, a sort of insistence upon a point that has already been made? 

But then Nolan doesn’t believe in 3D. He’s wary of the ill-effects. In a time where the most obscure of family fare comes slapped with the 3D tag like free candy, it almost appears noble that he denounces it. Or is it? 

An IMAX ticket (in a report by Penn Manor High School) costs about $15.50 (for adults). A regular movie ticket costs about $9.50, while a DVD, let out a few months post-release, costs about $15. I don’t even need to point you to the outrage. Of course, this isn’t a move on my part to question the filmmaker’s intentions. He insists on spectacle, where the spectacle exists by itself; it merely needs to be told. He’s someone doing the telling. I understand. I’m a lover of this spectacle and wouldn’t intend blasphemy. 

Isn’t it a semi-fantastic, wishful thought to say that, though, these days? A more appropriate line would be to say that “the spectacle is manufactured and exists to be sold.” The Weinstein Company would counter-sign it with MPAA approval. 

I’d like to close this write-up with a line from Chomsky’s ‘the Common Good’ (1998), the context being how we fancy ourselves to be in an age of uprising against the totalitarianism of institutions, be it a State, an Education system or even the Entertainment industry; how we think nothing escapes our sensibility, even if not our attention. 

“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum – even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.” 

In other words, Christopher Nolan is smart. Peter Jackson is smart. James Cameron is smart; the Weinsteins are smart and so is the MPAA. 

The big question here is “Are we?”

THE SHEER DELIGHT OF WATCHING HIM RISE

DIRECTED BY CHRISTOPHER NOLAN 

STARRING: CHRISTIAN BALE, ANNE HATHAWAY, TOM HARDY, MICHAEL CAINE, GARY OLDMAN, MORGAN FREEMAN, JOSEPH GORDON-LEVITT with CILLIAN MURPHY, JOSH PENCE and LIAM NEESON 

I liked ‘the Dark Knight Rises’ in much the same way that I liked ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II’ and I trust that by saying that I mean no one any discredit. I had always wondered if J.K. Rowling had thought things through to completion before she even began with the franchise – it’s a mystery that has so far been unexplained. But I know for a fact in the case of Christopher Nolan that nothing was preordained. The script to the third film was ‘cracked’ as he puts it; the ends were tied. And it all comes down to how well he could do it. 

So how well has he done it? We shall have to look at the source material for that, regardless of the fact that the screenplay is original and penned by Nolan along with brother Jonathan. The film introduces three characters from various phases of the Batman spectrum as published by DC comics, but the focal point as far as I could see was in the introduction of Bane as a physical counterpart to a fairly weakened Batman. Bane seems to have first appeared in a comic called ‘Knightfall’ where he’s famous for having broken Batman’s back – it was a moment’s half-smile to see the scene repeated on screen, rather religiously. 

Bane (Tom Hardy) breaks Batman’s back, Selina Kyle has his. Nolan has always done a wonderful job of giving comic characters enough human features to inspire empathy in all. Even in the most apathetic character of his – the Joker – he could bring about understanding, if not get us fit our feet in his shoes. Selina, played by Anne Hathaway enhancing the shades of haughtiness we saw in ‘Havoc’, is as capable of vulnerability as Batman wears on bat-suit sleeve. Bane, we see, is capable of some of his own as well. All these people are humans behind their masks where not all who are unmasked are as human as we might see them to be. We had Ra’s Al Ghul (Liam Neeson) and Dr. Jonathan Crane (Cillian Murphy, who returns for a rather pointless, but exciting, cameo) in ‘Batman Begins’ as examples. In ‘the Dark Knight’ we had Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart). That we have yet another in ‘the Dark Knight Rises’ is all I shall say at this point in time. 

Why I felt the need to consult source material was to show the ropes of responsibility that seem to have tied Nolan to the wall as he wrote this screenplay. For all you know, the ropes could be his own, where he wouldn’t want to do injustice to the film from two angles very dear and extremely competent – the previous two films on the one hand, the comic books on the other. There are two loose ends that he’s tied together with fond recollection and a lot of nostalgia inspired by means of spirituality that goes back to ‘Batman Begins’. There’s also a vague rekindling of the Joker’s famous social experiment from ‘the Dark Knight’ that doesn’t work as well the second time around. 

Nolan, thus, looks over his shoulder with a perpetual eye on the past as he makes his way ahead. The result is a heavily-directional pile of sequences that do little but propel the story forward. One of the most fundamental of reasons as to why I liked ‘Batman Begins’ was the power of its scenes where every single one of them stand out. ‘the Dark Knight’, I thought, was a close match, and it is in this aspect that ‘the Dark Knight Rises’ is a little bit of a letdown. I’ve always seen Nolan to be a man capable of bursts of genius alongside constant action so that the bar-chart doesn’t hit a low anytime. But ‘the Dark Knight Rises’ is a little too active for its own good. It’s like he shot a lot of scenes and found a way to fit them in on the editing table. 

Of course this doesn’t imply a complete lack of glory. Batman contributes to ample heroism in the limited screen space he has (Bruce Wayne dominates, even though not as convincingly as he did in ‘Batman Begins’). Selina Kyle does justice to a cameo stretched to the limit with one-liners that thrive on Hathaway’s grace. Bane has his moments in that, as I mentioned before, he’s almost a sort of body double; someone who could match Batman blow-by-blow. There is suspense that’s kept alive right up to the end and there is ambiguity, some cheeky stuff as well, which Nolan has proven, time and again, to be capable of. And then there are scenes that cry for attention as though they’ve been compelled to exist – like the one snapshot that’s supposed to sum up the spirit of the film on the whole, which looked posed and arranged than natural. That didn’t stop me from screaming myself hoarse at it, though. 

I disapproved of Nolan the last time he tried his hand with a big haul of actors (‘Inception’, to be specific). This isn’t to say he didn’t manage to ‘pull it off’ but to say that he does just that. In ‘the Dark Knight Rises’ we have too many characters with too little time – to an extent that one of them has to sleep with Mr. Wayne in a show of desperation. If it’s not fair on part of the characters, it’s even worse on the actors’ front. Aside from regulars Michael Caine (whose Alfred, this time, lacks the usual spice of sarcasm on a melodramatic high), Morgan Freeman (as Lucius Fox, who looks too composed for one put in a spot) and Gary Oldman (Jim Gordon spends too much time on a comfy hospital bed as the rookie runs around), we have Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Det. John Blake who interns with the Batman before recruitment for a permanent job. And we have Miranda Tate, a pioneer of Fusion Energy at Wayne Enterprises, a role that Marion Cotillard, I thought, shouldn’t have been cast in. 

 If there’s one thing I’d give Nolan total credit for, it’s that he knows his action choreography. Ben Affleck ('Gone Baby Gone', 'the Town') is the only other name that comes to mind when I think in those terms. ‘the Dark Knight Rises’ has more than usual – some too dull at times to put on the same pedestal as the man behind them. I could deal with that, though. This is, after all, a two-and-a-half star movie that gets three for the show. Except I’d give it four because I love Batman like that. And for Hans Zimmer and for the love of cheese.

THE TITLE WITHOUT THE SPIDER PUN

DIRECTED BY MARC WEBB 

STARRING: ANDREW GARFIELD, EMMA STONE, RHYS IFANS, DENIS LEARY, MARTIN SHEEN, SALLY FIELD, CHRIS ZYLKA with IRRFAN KHAN and a cameo by STAN LEE 

There’s no way that I can begin this analysis without talking about my kind of hero (whom I’ve talked about quite a bit before). He’s more of a character, really, but he’s an ideal and hence I call him a ‘Hero’. Anyway, this guy is a conversationalist. He’s kind of like what Ebert called Alvy Singer in his review of ‘Annie Hall’, about how Allen is a man who has his own running commentary alongside life; “a man who lives so he can talk about living,” if I had to quote. 

Except that my hero would’ve taken things a step further. He’d record the conversations he makes, in and out of his profession. He’d work to sustain himself and buy cassettes for his recorder wherein he talks to record and records to talk – a simple case of life as a circle where the explanation ends right where it begins. 

Marc Webb’s ‘the Amazing Spiderman’ is not entirely my kind of hero, but he’s close. And in that way, he’s distinctive from Sam Raimi’s hero who lives to think and thinks to live in a pitiable struggle to externalize. Raimi’s hero (played by Tobey Maguire) loses his strength to contemplation as investment in character-building, his predicament more intensive in the fact that he just doesn’t talk. There isn’t a moment that Peter Parker isn’t in love with Mary-Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst), the cause of his frustration, and he thinks he needs to be Spiderman for him to deserve her; for her to ‘give back’. And she’s no Rachel Dawes. 

Peter Parker, in ‘the Amazing Spiderman’, doesn’t ask himself that question. His Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen, about as delightful as Jon Voight in the ‘National Treasure’ series) might not be as head-in-the-clouds as the one played by Cliff Robertson in Raimi’s series, but he’s less ambiguous. “With great power comes great responsibility,” is what Peter was left with, previously, alongside the ever-distressed MJ and Harry, the Prince (James Franco). Sheen’s Ben leaves him with even lesser, which is more. To him, and thus to Peter from then on, the gifted are obligated to share their endowments. If you do good math, you’re supposed to take it forward for the sake of humanity. Will Hunting wouldn’t survive an environment as this. 

But Peter doesn’t mind. In fact, it’s a philosophy that fits his mould. A passive resistance stunt in the beginning tells you he can take some blows. And yet you sense that somewhere inside he bides his time with an alarm set for when it’s time for him to give back. He gets himself out of trouble that he had gotten himself into in the first place. He fixes things that he broke – it’s almost like he has to break things so he’d get around to fixing them later. The entire premise, thus, rests all its weight on him as an existential plot device. Peter Parker doesn’t live his life: He deals with it. 

Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker reminded me of John Cusack as Lloyd Dobler from ‘Say Anything’, the twitchy, fast-talking, good-natured young romantic who wore heart on sleeve as a means to charm. Emma Stone’s Gwen Stacy isn’t a bad Diane Court (Ione Skye) herself. Between them is as enchanting and as sensible a romance as we’d never see between High-School students on the space of a screen. There isn’t a thing that Peter wouldn’t talk out loud, and even if he didn’t, Gwen has, in her, potential and care enough to understand. They just get each other, in short. 

So how diabolical is the Spiderman with his lady-problem all sorted out? Remember the scene in ‘Punch-Drunk Love’ where Barry Egan goes head-to-head against the guy at the furniture store saying he “has a love in his life” and how it makes him “stronger than you can ever imagine”? Add a radioactive spider-bite to that confidence and an all-encompassing thoroughness that he puts two and two together faster than Dr. Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans), the mad scientist at the cross-genetics lab at Oscorp could, and then push himself to atone for that blunder on a course that could very well cost his life – a walk on a tightrope that’s caught fire and he does it barefoot. 

Martin Sheen and Denis Leary are striking fits as Uncle Ben and Captain Stacy – responsible men in their respective realms. They do their share in moving the story forward, but they have their moments in halting the scene as human beings. This, however, doesn’t change the fact that they’re characters written to heighten melodrama and, wherever necessitated, deliver it. Sally Field isn’t as remarkable an Aunt May as Rosemary Harris made her to be, but the little reconciliation that happens with Peter towards the end, as well as the abrupt disappearance of Dr. Rajit Ratha (Irrfan Khan) after passing mentions of Norman Osborn makes it look like a sequel is in order. 

In a season of self-questioning superheroes, we have one who just likes to be. It falls in line with Webb’s ‘(500) Days of Summer’ as yet another convincing anti-cliché. Tom Hansen thought he felt love and then learnt on the move. Peter builds a web-shooter to facilitate. These are boys who turned men in an embrace of fate, made by a man who, I think, learnt to embrace his. This amazing Spiderman is quirky, neurotic; with his mind on his feet and his feet on a skateboard, his nemesis defeated by the human inside – much like Doc Oc. Between them, we have some great stunt sequences. The joy of CGI lies in the coherence of detail and not in streaks of undecipherable action. Very few filmmakers understand that. Marc Webb, excitingly, seems to be one of them.