Home - This Recording

Entries in leonardo dicaprio (4)

Monday

Dec212015

FILM

In Which We Retreat To The Place Of The Revenant

Monday, December 21, 2015 at 10:56AM

Ghost Story

by ALEX CARNEVALE

The Revenant
dir. Alejandro G. Iñárritu
156 minutes

I was watching a nature documentary the other day about giraffes. I feel stupid saying it, but I never knew they had horns. When we first view the men of The Revenant, a group of beaver-trappers who collect pelts for a fledgling Colorado concern, it feels like we have never seen human beings before. Not them or the bleak, hollow wilderness that surrounds them. The sets in The Revenant more closely resemble the surface of an alien planet.

Critically injured by a bear, Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio), struggles across this landscape. He is principally concerned with never being in a place from which he cannot escape. Initially chased by an Indian tribe looking for an abducted woman, the pelters retreated to their boat. Instead of merely navigating their way back on the river, they decide to cross overland, which involves passing difficult terrain. Then a bear.

Domnhall Gleeson is fantastic as Andrew Henry, the leader of Glass' expedition. He is the only easily understood member of the entire cast, which includes the garbled-voice Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy), a veteran who was half-scalped by indigenous people and survived. Fitzgerald holds Glass in contempt because the man knows the pelt area far better than he does, and because the navigator brings along his teenage, half-Indian son Hawk (Forrest Goodluck).

Eventually The Revenant starts to track along the lines of any revenge story, but before it becomes predictable, its chaos is both enticing and exciting in a fashion no viewer could expect. In the opening twenty minutes, Iñárritu provides a shock to the system is unlike any other in his medium. Afterwards, he wants to have it both ways: a true art film is within his reach, but he holds himself back from any larger messages or conclusions drawn from this measurement of humanity. A more basic and understandable tale takes over.

There is one scene where Glass approaches a herd of bison. The main action is at the front of his field of vision, where a couple of wolves take down a younger bison. But the whole story far exceeds the primacy of the kill that is occurring. This is a suitable metaphor for The Revenant as a whole, where the focus of Iñárritu's camera is often merely a backdrop for a larger canvas.

There is a constant stream of violence that takes place over the course of The Revenant. DiCaprio's quick and subversive mobility implies he has far more body control than we might have expected from him. In the scene where he strips down to nothing, his pink carapace is small and vaguely childlike; most of all it is undeniably human, which we might not have expected. Innaritu is a surprising genius at making his action scenes nervously thrilling, and it would be fun to watch him do his version of a John Woo movie.

Instead, The Revenant makes its violence both exciting and consequential. Glass is in danger from every single aspect of his environment, even the plants and trees. It might be fun to watch how this is equally true in civilized society, but Glass senses this to be the case and immediately heads back out into the wilderness after a hot bath. It is the only thing he understands by that point.

DiCaprio has always been a technically impressive actor. It is a lot more fun to watch him play a normal character rather than one that rides of the momentum of his vast smile to create a personality. Hugh Glass is not really happy for a moment during The Revenant, and we suspect that he might not even know what satisfaction was if he found it. This makes for a more compelling protagonist.

If The Revenant had no dialogue at all, it would still be among the best films of the year, since its accomplishments in cinematography and versimilitude should change the way every historical film is made. There is no goofy explanation or epilogue, or tags to let us know where and when we bear witness; just simple immersion in another world. Even as we are engrossed in an entirely foreign and disturbingly real new place, the focus here is exclusively on people rather than any of the material things they equip to survive. This is what comes across as most shocking: how little they carry with them.

Alex Carnevale is the editor of This Recording.

"God's Gift to Man" - Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers (mp3)

"Wooden Heart" - Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers (mp3)

In Which Every Morning When We Wake Up Robert Rodriguez

Tuesday, September 23, 2014 at 11:10AM

Mexican Goddess

by DICK CHENEY

From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
creator Robert Rodriguez

I still think the casting in Pulp Fiction was all wrong. Bruce Willis was too old to play a prize-fighter. Uma Thurman looked pretty good but she didn't seem like some crime lord's wife, and I still don't understand what the point of flirting with a gay hitman was. Also giving someone a long speech before killing them, especially if they are Phil LaMarr? Pulp Fiction had a lot of plot holes, and it was also missing something very crucial: Wilmer Valderrama in a key role.

From Dusk Till Dawn, the 1996 version, had George Clooney. It was before he met Steven Soderbergh and contracted the airborne virus of self-righteousness; it was before he turned an engagement with a semi-pretty lawyer into a public makeover emphasizing what a great guy he is. He was still doing that annoying thing where he lowered his head and looked up through his brow to talk to other actors.

I am ashamed to admit I thought the accent from That 70s Show was how he really talked.

The new George Clooney (D.J. Cotrana) looks like a miniature version of his hunky predecessor. Everything about the series version is a little smaller, a little less depraved, but it turns out that is just what the concept needed. The new From Dusk Till Dawn fixes almost everything that was wrong with the first one, including killing off one of the Gecko brothers far, far too soon. Recently released on Netflix in its entirety, the show has already been renewed for a second season.

Stacy Keibler is salivating for the third time today.

Seth and Richard Gecko's journey from Los Angeles to a strip club in Mexico that traps them inside deserved a lot better. It was one of Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino's first projects, and if George Clooney wanted in their movie, they had to take him, even if he was kind of bad and mealy-mouthed in the role.

The casting of Seth Gecko is no better here, but the casting of Zane Holtz as Richard Gecko is entirely improved, since Tarantino wasn't much of a performer either. Even after only a few minutes of From Dusk Till Dawn, you get how much of television has entirely the wrong tone for its content - Rodriguez's control over that aspect allows you to relax and enjoy the litany of stupid cultural references we have come to expect from Quentin Tarantino-inspired diegesis.

MIght be best not to take your wardrobe cues from Frank Miller there Bob

The original surprise of From Dusk Till Dawn is that you could be surprised by it, assuming you did not know it was a supernatural movie to begin with. In 1996, the twist came so out of nowhere it is hard to imagine the drama without it, but now that the mystery is gone, the concept has to rise or fall on its own momentum. In 1996, we were surprised by a lot of things, I mean, who even knew why a man would put a cigar tube in a woman's vagina in those innocent days?

Valderrama himself is a revelation as a powerful vampire masterminding the crime spree of the two disturbed brothers. Opposite Mexican pop star Eiza Gonzalez as Santanico Pandemonium, the pair deepen the flimsy role popularized by Salma Hayek. The extensive background on the vampires is not really necessary, but the tone is so much fun that it obscures all the flaws in the concept.

She should take her pep talk to the UN

The Gecko brothers meet up with a former reverend (Robert Patrick) taking his kids to Mexico as he flees a vehicle manslaughter charge, it was kind of hard to imagine Harvey Keitel as a man of the cloth. Robert Patrick makes a much better Jacob Fuller, and Juliette Lewis was a bit old to be the virginal sacrifice/ preacher's daughter. Replacing her in our hearts is Noah's Madison Davenport, who kind of looks like an off-brand Emma Watson.

She's eighteen and you're disgusting.

Davenport's star turn here is perfect. She is just tantalizing enough to be impossible; the character is deeper than any female in the entirety of Rodriguez's oeuvre to this point. Instead of being simply a survivor, we understand and appreciate what it means to be a woman torn apart by the men around her. Turning Kate into a real heroine rectifies nearly all my complaints about the original.

How I learned I want to marry Robert Patrick.

Rodriguez's talents are rare in the industry: he gets nuanced, emotional performances out of young actors that other directors can't, and his control over when violence happens and how people react to it stands out too. Where he is not so unusual is his love for the stems of his leading ladies. Fortunately the women of From Dusk Till Dawn are overall too young for him, and judging from the excessive screen time and gratuitous nudity Eva Green had on display in the latest Sin City, he had other priorities.

On some level worshipping women as gods or beacons of purity is as destructive as positioning them as prostitutes, but at least in From Dusk Till Dawn, they get a chance to select their fate for themselves.

Dick Cheney is the senior contributor to This Recording. You can find an archive of his writing on This Recording here.

"I Keep Running" - Ryan Adams (mp3)

"Jacksonville" - Ryan Adams (mp3)

In Which We Are Having Champagne With You Fine People

Monday, December 5, 2011 at 10:43AM

Dolls

by DURGA CHEW-BOSE

Titanic
dir. James Cameron
194 minutes

James Cameron’s Titanic immediately prompts a series of awkward poses and bulky pomp: Rose’s half-cupped hand resting shyly on her forehead as Jack draws her naked, or the flimsy way in which she touches the brim of her boarding hat, or their kiss on the boat’s bow — gawky and oddly angled — or Jack and Rose’s post-coital embrace, his boyishly sweaty head resting on her maternal bosom. The entire film plays out like puberty — self-conscious and smug, as if clocking in future nostalgia, now.

And yet, we all watched it and we all remember it well. And for those didn’t and still haven’t, that reluctance, by some means, has joined the spectacle too.

Made for 200 million dollars, the story is of course quite simple. Wandering artist, Jack, spots engaged society girl, Rose. He’s told he cannot have her. Their meet-cute, so to speak, transpires during her failed suicide attempt off of the boat’s stern. As the ship sinks a few days later, and the two clutch its railings, Rose reminds Jack, “This is where we first met.”

Their friendship soon turns to courtship and Rose’s mother forbids her daughter to see him, reminding Rose of their family’s dire financial troubles as she tightly laces her corset. Rose defies. The ship hits the iceberg. Jack and Rose go down with it, and as they wait for the lifeboats to return, Jack asks Rose to promise him that she’ll survive, that she "won’t give up."

Plot aside, nothing provokes our nostalgia quite like images of what Leo and Kate looked like then. Despite some bad roles, they’ve both continued to rise and work with great directors, but something about their pairing as Jack Dawson and Rose Dewitt Bukater remains crystallized. They are the Prom King and Queen of 90s disaster movies; Ben and Liv a distant second.

DiCaprio used to be much smaller. He didn’t fill out his shirts and his head was not yet square. His jaw line was sharp and flanked the contour of his heart-shaped face. As Jack, when he’d bite into a roll of bread or gulp a glass of beer, or smile breathlessly at Rose, one could see it most in his jaw. His eyebrows were devilish and no matter what he was thinking, there was always a chance it wasn’t good, though almost certainly fun. He threatened charm and mischief, both — that’s what 90s heartthrobs did. A fortune of personality! Funny props in photo shoots! Rare flashes of teeth!

Like Annie Hall, Jack hails from Chippewa Falls. And like Annie Hall, the way he pronounced his hometown endowed him with a preparedness that outdid anyone else on the boat. We trust him from the very start: “You jump, I jump.” For all we know Chippewa Falls is the land of boy scouts and tomboys. La-di-da, la-di-da...

At the time, Kate was a relative unknown. I have a distinct memory of reading a mini-piece in Seventeen where Winslet was asked questions about her co-star. We weren’t yet interested in her. Un-American, she was the opposite of Claire Danes. Kate didn’t appear dreamy and dopey, or stare longingly out of windows or stand willowy against door thresholds. She was neither long-winded nor wary. She wasn’t another Winona or a tongue-tied sweetheart like Gwyneth. Her hair was not flat. She was not a 90s waif. She didn’t seem to harvest much angst.

So who exactly was Kate Winslet? On a 1998 cover of Rolling Stone she’s wearing an unbuttoned peacoat, lace bra, and pleated skirt. The whole thing looks cheerless and uncoordinated. But inside, Winslet seems happier: one shot sultry, the other one goofy and grungy with coastal messy hair and a white Lifesaver (get it?!) cased in her cushiony lips.

As Rose, Winslet looked incredible; especially so in the second half of the film, post-berg, ice cold. Most actresses (and women) do. Think Julie Christie in Dr. Zhivago, Uma Thurman in Beautiful Girls, Joan Allen in The Ice Storm, and Kate, again, in Eternal Sunshine. Cheeks naturally narrow, lips darken, skin gets slightly severe with occasional blushes. Even in that first scene where she meets Jack on the stern, her hair appears extra red and ribbony. If you’ve never played with or petted cold hair, not wet just cold, I highly recommend it. The smell of morning shampoo and cold air is dreamy.

Her dresses, diaphanous with filmy layers of beaded constellations, with cinched waists and framed necklines, were somehow intended for lapping seawater, or to float up beside her as she wielded an axe, rudderless and storming through rising tides and flickering lights. Winslet’s great at expressing urgency and obligation. Her brow furrows, her eyes dart. I bet she’s great at charades.

Durga Chew-Bose is the senior editor of This Recording. She is a writer living in Brooklyn. She last wrote in these pages about the director Barbara Loden. You can find an archive of her writing on This Recording here. She tumbls here and twitters here.