Review: Brokeback Mountain (2005)

“I can tell you this, I probably won’t see Brokeback Mountain again. It’s too long and moves too slow and once you’ve seen a great landscape do you really get the same thrill watching it again.”

Max Travis, Brokeback Mountain 2005 Review

I was dismissive of Brokeback Mountain in early 2026. I saw it, not necessarily because it piqued my interest, but because it had been nominated for Best Picture. As an aspiring cineaste, I thought I should see all the movies nominated for Best Picture. My review lasted a few sentences, mentioned that the movie “got the details right” (it beats 39-year-old Max how 19-year-old Max could have known that), and then went on to say I would have rather they nominated “King Kong” or “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” for Best Picture.

I still think “King Kong” and “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” got snubbed, but my opinion of “Brokeback Mountain” has risen dramatically upon the second viewing, now twenty years later. It is in fact a very good movie, whose main themes become more recognizable and more appreciable the more life experience the viewer has.

I don’t think it occurred to me when watching this movie in early 2026, but the movie spans twenty years of time, I believe from 1963 to 1983. In 1963, two ranch hands, Ennis Del Mar (played by Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (played by Jake Gyllenhaal), are hired to watch over a herd of sheep on Brokeback Mountain over the summer. By fits and starts and despite a heavy dose of denial, they become lovers. Then the summer ends too soon, and it seems that the romance ends there as well. Ennis Del Mar, already engaged to Alma (played by Michelle Williams), keeps the marriage date and soon thereafter sires two girls. These girls grow up. In the last scene, one of them, Alma Jr., (played by Kate Mara, about six years before I learned her name via House of Cards), is aged 19 and invites her estranged father to her wedding. He inquires as to whether her betrothed loves her, leaving unsaid his concern that her husband-to-be may be just like him, a closeted gay man who married and cheated on a woman he didn’t love.

The story of Brokeback Mountain is about what didn’t happen during those twenty years. These two men fell in love in 1963 and then spent twenty years not acting on it, or acting on it, but only halfway. They both get married and both commit adultery, heading off into the Wyoming wilderness a few times a year on “fishing trips”. There seem to be several opportunities to end the charade. Jack Twist, perhaps too reckless, brings up the possibility several times, and at one point, after Del Mar’s well-earned divorce, certainly believes that this time they will be together for real. Jack Twist is ready to divorce his wife as soon as Del Mar approves of the plan. But Del Mar doesn’t have it in him. He is too much of an ordinary man in the times he was living in.

Heath Ledger’s performance of Ennis Del Mar is very much a revelation. I didn’t quite get why it was so good until the second viewing. The character is very introverted, the little that he speaks seems to escape out of the side of his mouth. And then this character that changes very little, goes through twenty years of not changing enough. Ultimately he is a coward. Not an exceptional coward, mind you, just an ordinary one, up against societal forces that a normal person understandably cower from. A veritable parade of people try to get to him and it seems he would rather be alone than have to deal with the consequences of meeting them as himself.

I use the judgmental label of “coward” purposefully because I think the only way to understand this movie is to see it as a tragedy, one in which there are unfair societal forces sure, but also one in which the characters make bad decisions that detrimentally affect themselves and those around them. Because what Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist are doing is wrong. I’m not talking about the homosexuality. I’m talking about the adultery. This is more pronounced in one marriage than the other. Alma, a woman who loves her husband, is very much wronged by the actions of Del Mar. The other marriage, and this went way over my head on the first viewing, might be a marriage of convenience initiated by the other wife, Lureen Newsome (played by Anne Hathaway) who may have chosen Jack Twist because he was gay (the homosexuality is a lot more obvious with Twist then it is with Del Mar). That is, she may have chosen Jack Twist because she is a lesbian and intended to be through with the romance part of the marriage just as soon as she gave her parents a grandchild. Again, I didn’t pick up on this possibility at all during the first viewing. I half-expect that the first gay person I try out this theory will shake their head as if it was so painfully obvious.

I have notoriously bad gay-dar. This likely comes from being raised in a socially conservative area (Orange County, California) combined with a complete lack of bisexuality. I’ve heard homesexuality is not necessarily black and white, but a spectrum, and it would seem to me that I’m on the complete opposite end of the spectrum from homosexuality. I recall being weirded out by the brief love scenes in this movie twenty years ago. I was still uncomfortable watching them after twenty years, though I understand why the scene is important to the movie. But even a person devoid of homosexuality, and one who finds the physical idea of it frankly repulsive, will understand the historical prejudice against it has no place in our day and age. (The taboo is historically universal which infers, to me at least, a utility beyond mere prejudice. I think it is about public health. You prevent the spread of STDs by having marriage only between male and female virgins.) Modern medicine however obviates that concern, rendering the taboo pointless and ultimately harmful not only to the homosexuals but everyone around them. This movie makes plain the collateral damage, which is mainly borne by the spouses of closeted men. Here, we may consider Alma. She only has one life and Del Mar wasted a good decade of it.

There are very few movies in which the plot revolves around characters that are wasting everybody’s time. These are not exciting movies to watch. We want to see people take action in their lives. We want them to succeed, yes, but if that is not possible, we at least want to see them try. When a movie comes along in which even “trying” does not happen, it screws with the intuitive expectations of the audience. There is this kind of notorious story, first a novel, and then a movie, entitled “Remains of the Day.” The story, by a Japanese author Kazuo Ishiguro, was written to deliberately convey the most wasted life possible. He chose to tell a story about an English Butler before and during World War II who runs the manor of an aristocratic with Nazi sympathies. This Japanese author felt that a life dedicated blindly to service was a waste both personally, and in this case, politically.  (It is a very Japanese detail that the author was interested in this theme but couldn’t look inward enough to actually make the story take place in Japan. The ability to do this, is one of reasons why Godzilla Minus One is such an extraordinary film.) One of the plot points is that this butler (played by Sir Anthony Hopkins) has the opportunity to hire two Jewish refugees but chooses not to out of deference to his Lord's politics. About a decade later, he expresses relief when he learns that the two girls weren’t murdered. You just want to shake this guy. The movie is splendidly acted and expertly does what it sets out to do. But given that the goal is to tell a story of missed chances and frustration, I can’t say I can recommend it.

If movies about people who make the wrong choices are not exactly easy to watch, they can however be instructive. For a movie like “Brokeback Mountain”, it may serve as a cultural impetus to change. Or it can spur a change in one’s personal life. I once saw a movie called “Broadcast News”, which is a 1987 movie written and directed by James L. Brooks. It is ostensibly a love triangle romance between a television newscast producer (Holly Hunter at her most attractive), a smart, funny and serious reporter (Albert Brooks), and a charming but vapid news anchor (William Hurt). Albert Brooks should have the upper hand in this romantic tug-of-war except he isn’t really trying. Or at least not trying in good faith. He uses his intelligence and sarcasm to belittle his opposition but not get ahead himself. He criticises Holly Hunter for not choosing him, but doesn’t actually put himself out there to be chosen. There is a particular moment in the movie where Holly Hunter essentially gives him the go ahead to win her over and he responds with a fantastically cruel remark. In the end, he doesn’t get the girl not because he can’t (or as he thinks, she doesn’t understand how much better he is then the other guy) but because he wasn’t playing to win. He was playing as if he already lost and, I don’t know, trying to improve his standing in the eyes of history. You know, you only have one life, and it throws enough at you to make things hard enough. What these types of movies do is show you that you don’t have to make it harder on yourself.

Manchester by the Sea (3/5 Stars)

Lee Chandler (played by Casey Affleck) works as a janitor in a housing project in Boston. He fixes stuff and doesn’t take shit from the tenants. His boss excoriates him for not taking shit from the tenants. Lee Chandler points out that he’s cheap, he does good work, and he knows about a bunch of illegal stuff the boss does on the side. “So do what you have to do,” he says. Lee doesn’t care if he gets fired. He goes to a local bar at night. Women try to hit on him but he doesn’t respond. He starts a fight later on that night. Lee doesn’t really have a problem with the other guy. He wants to get punched in the face.

There is tragedy in Lee’s past. As the particular nature of it is only revealed half-way through the movie, it is technically a spoiler. But given that it seems to be the premise of Lee’s character and various flashbacks point to a wife and three children that are no longer there, you can take a guess at what happened. My guess was that Lee got drunk and while driving everyone home from a party somewhere he got them all killed in a car crash. I wasn’t too far off.

“Manchester by the Sea,” is the name of the town where this tragedy took place and where the people from his past still live (or are buried). Lee doesn’t visit. And when he does its because something bad has happened, specifically his brother, Joe Chandler (played by Kyle Chandler) is in the hospital. Joe has congenital heart disease and every once in awhile collapses and is taken to the hospital. In the opening scenes of this movie, Joe collapses and dies. Lee goes to Manchester by the Sea where he sees Joe’s friends at the hospital and picks up Joe’s teenage son, Patrick (played by Lucas Hedges) from hockey practice.

At the will reading, his brother throws him a curve ball. The will says Lee Chandler will be Patrick’s guardian. This is something Joe although he knew he would die soon, did not inform Lee of because as Lee puts it, “he knows I would have never agreed to it. Being guardian to Patrick necessarily entails Lee moving back to Manchester by the Sea and trying to live with the tragedy. The story is well written and directed by Kenneth Lonergan who treats his subject with patience, care, and good humor. Casey Affleck’s performance is perfect and a scene he shares with his ex-wife, Randi, played by Michelle Williams, is one of the saddest scenes in movies. (Michelle Williams, it is fair to say, is underused in the movie but when she is on screen, she captivates).

As a slice of life or character study, “Manchester by the Sea” is as good as it gets. But its tragic centerpiece calls for something more than a glimpse into the lives of these people. Kenneth Lonergan owes us some theory on what it all means or what the next correct step is in Lee’s life. This the movie does not provide. The tragedy occurred for no particular reason and Lee’s life has no particular lesson to teach us. It’s okay for comedy to be pointless, but tragedy needs something more. Lonergan made me cry a little, he owes me that.  

 Perhaps a good idea would have been to tell two parallel stories. One for Lee and the other for Randi. After all, Randi got remarried and had another kid. How she accomplished that in the wake of the tragedy while Lee couldn’t would be interesting and instructive to see.

Oz: The Great and Powerful (3/5 Stars)

Darth Vader, check. Wicked Witch of the West, check. All we need now is a movie that explores the past psychological trauma of Lord Sauron of Mordor.

James Franco stars as the titular Oz in Director Sam Raimi’s newest film, “Oz: The Great and Powerful” a prequel of sorts to “The Wizard of Oz” that focuses on how Oz got to Oz and became the Wizard of Oz. Like Dorothy he makes the trip via a black and white Kansas twister and lands in a country complete with color. This time though it’s a world of 3D digital construction and this leads to one of the more concurrent flaws in this type of movie. The characters don’t seem to be looking at what they are looking at. Someday I hope to see a character look upon a glorious digital landscape such as Oz and just be incredibly amazed by it. Like struck deaf and dumb for at least a moment or two. This doesn’t really happen to Oz, who acts more like he is a kind of bored James Franco walking around in a green screen room.

The “Wizard of Oz” is one of our odder modern fables. We know all the characters: the witches, good and wicked, the wizard, a charlatan all smoke and mirrors, the land inhabited by munchkins, yellow brick roads and emerald cities. But does anyone remember what all this is there for or why it exists at all? What’s the point of this magical land?

The most satisfying explanation I have heard is that the tale is meant to be not only a children’s story but also a work of political symbolism concerning the late 19^th century Populist movement. That would explain why Dorothy is from Kansas a bastion of populists and why the magical slippers are made of silver (not ruby red!) the free coinage of silver being a major platform of Populism. There are a multitude of other theoretical political symbols. The yellow brick road represents the gold standard. The scarecrow without a brain represents western farmers, the tin man with no heart represents the eastern factory worker, and the cowardly lion is none other than William Jennings Bryan three-time presidential candidate. Some symbols are kind of really obvious. The poppy fields that put all travelers under sleeping spells represent the scourge of opium and the inhabitants of the town of China are the actual Chinese. So when one of the wicked witches destroys the town of China (and this happens in this movie) it can and probably does represent the mistreatment of the Chinese immigrant labor force (at least in the book). And then there is perhaps the best wickedly satirical symbol of all, The Wizard. He represents the Gilded Age Presidents of the latter 19^th century, a series of forgettable not very influential or powerful men of seemingly great influence and power. Everybody thinks the president has power and can solve all their problems, but in reality it is all smoke and mirrors and the best he can do is hand out clever gifts like instead of a brain, a university degree.

It is a credit to the original author, L. Frank Baum, that adaptations can ignore the politics behind the book and still work on a basic though rather arbitrary level. But complete ignorance of the original politics, as the recent adaptations (Both Broadway “Wicked” and “Oz: The Great and Powerful”) illustrate, prevent these artworks from achieving greatness. This modern desire we have to humanize the Wicked Witch of the West is a huge mistake. The Witch in political symbolism is not human at all. It is a symbol of huge monopolistic corporations that terrorize the various constituents symbolically represented in the Land of Oz. The Populist movement put a lot of stock in the idea that the free coinage of silver (i.e. the magic silver slippers) would save them from these interests. More likely though, the end of a very long drought that swept the Midwest in the 1890s would actually be the key. There is a reason why water is the magical ingredient that melts the witch. But who cares about all this right? Who cares! Who cares! Okay I will get to my point. The Wicked Witch needs to be evil incarnate. Her character does not really work any other way. After all she will go on to enslave flying monkey minions and bomb the countryside with fireballs. To say the motivation for that type of behavior comes from a misunderstanding in a love triangle doesn’t quite fit. One recalls how Darth Vader decided to murder millions of people after Natalie Portman died. A tragedy for sure but I think it's fair to say that Darth overreacted. Some characters motivations are best left unexplained. After all, that is one of things that made Margaret Hamilton’s performance in the 1939 movie so memorable. The witch is absolutely wicked for no apparent reason at all other than that it is in her nature as a wicked witch.

I cannot imagine why someone thought Mila Kunis would be correct for this role. First of all, she does not look anything like the Wicked Witch. The Wicked Witch has an infamously angular profile. Mila’s face is way too round. Second, she fails to lend any acting bite to her performance. As a result she doesn’t sound or act evil in a convincing fashion. Weirdly, Rachel Weisz is capable of both of these qualities. Why didn’t anyone think to switch the roles around?

This movie needed to be more creative and ingenious than it is. I wasn’t too impressed with the Wizard who spends more time explaining to people that he doesn’t have powers than tricking them into thinking that he does. But hey it is probably the best movie out there right now so what else are you going to see. 

Meek's Cutoff (3/5 Stars)

Day (???), Wagon Axel broke, LOST

Director Kelly Reichardt and star Michelle Williams, the team from “Wendy and Lucy,” are collaborating for the second time on the near perfect movie about a lost wagon train on the Oregon Trail in 1845 named “Meek’s Cutoff.” The star rating I gave and the words “near perfect” may confuse you. Let me explain. Star ratings aren’t really helpful in that it rates a movie good or not relative to all movies and not other in kind movies of a particular genre. For instance I gave “Sucker Punch,” a flawed movie, four stars mainly for its ambition. It tried for about 100 things and got fifty of them right. “Meek’s Cutoff,” a near perfect movie, gets three stars because it is small. It tried about 10 things and got nine of them right before ending on an ambiguous anti-climax that I didn’t really care for. Does that mean people should like “Sucker Punch” more than “Meek’s Cutoff” generally. No of course not. I just like a bigger movie, that’s all. What I’m trying to say I guess is that the reader is better off reading the review before deciding whether they want to see the movie or not. The mark of a superior reviewer is one that describes a movie well enough that someone interested in that type of movie will have their interest piqued whether or not the reviewer liked it himself (and vice versa). 

In describing Reichardt’s work one has to take out some pretty arty words. Words like “contemplative,” “aesthetic,” “serene,” “minimalist,” etc. Reichardt likes setting her places in Oregon. She likes lingering in long shots. She focuses in on minute details and treats conversations like she would the cinematography. Most of them are not entirely important and fit nicely into the background. I would be surprised if the budget for this movie went into seven figures. In a way, Reichardt works like the wagon train. She’s out there in the wilderness with very little crew or way of direction, trying out something original that almost nobody will see. Still the movie is very well made. The score gives the movie an unsettling tone. The acting is exceedingly natural. Over time, as the water runs out and tensions rise, suspense builds. The climax of the movie should be completely unexciting by any normal movie standard as it involves a situation that is often only the start of much larger action sequences. But here it still works because there is such a sense of reality that people pointing guns at each other feels very serious. It also helps that one is a woman who does so reluctantly. “Meek’s Cutoff” isn’t some sort of revisionist history. The Michelle Williams character, like the other women in the three wagon train, is of her time and place. She acts subordinate to her husband and men in general. But she also doesn’t want to die. And after wandering the desert being led by a braggart named Meek (played by Bruce Greenwood) who hasn’t the slightest idea of where he is going nor the slightest inclination to admit it, she becomes less and less enthusiastic about standing around waiting for the water to run out. Little by little she oversteps her bounds in the politest way possible until finally there is no more room for being polite.   

It was once said by William Goldman (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) that the hardest thing about writing a Western was finding something interesting for the women to do while the men had fun shooting each other and what not. “Meek’s Cutoff” doesn’t necessarily give the women things to do that usually belong to the men, but it is told through the POV of the women. Normally this wouldn’t be so interesting as it involves them spending a good amount of screen time gathering brush, cleaning, and cooking. But here it serves the movie’s purpose in that it underscores the complete hopelessness of the journey. It’s one thing to have an argument over whether to go North or South in search of water, it’s another thing to have to silently stand around while the men argue over which way to go off in the distance. Things get more complicated when Meek captures a lone Indian. He has the bright idea to kill the heathen right then and there. Or perhaps they could ask the Indian to lead them to water. I guess you can say this is the Oregon Trail version of the modern cliché of a guy not wanting to ask for directions.

Bringing along paranoia and emotional wailing is another couple on the wagon train played by Paul Dano and Zoe Kazan. Every time I see Dano he is hanging out in an unforgiving desert (Little Miss Sunshine, There Will be Blood.) You would think at some point he would get a tan. Anyway he has been perfectly cast. Mr. Paleface does not belong here. He should not have come. Providing the movie with the necessary amount of historical racism is Shirley Henderson. She has a nice way of going about it, like for instance fearfully remarking that Indians are murderous non-beings and then subsequently backing up the statement with the words, “It’s a well documented fact.” On some level every truthful historical movie is going to have characters that are flawed in such a way. Almost everybody back then was what we would call racist and sexist today. Future generations will probably say similar things about us I’m sure, though for what I have no idea. 

One of my favorite books, “The Education of Henry Adams” had the following quote in it that caught my eye:

“The study of history is useful to the historian in teaching him of his ignorance of women; and the mass of this ignorance crushes one who is familiar enough with what are called historical sources to realize how few women have ever been known. The woman who is known only through a man is known wrong, and excepting one or two like Mme. de Sevigne, no woman has pictured herself.” (1905)

Growing up in school you have this notion that all of world history is accessible simply by opening a book, but this isn’t the case. History is limited by memory and preserved only by the efforts of real people who take the time to write it down. It is a profound truth that the people who did write things down were mainly concerned with men and were almost never women. According to what I’ve rated on Netflix, I have seen 1,511 movies. I can count on one hand how many of these were stories about historical women told by a woman (In this, I am subscribing to the auteur theory of filmmaking by crediting the role of author to not the writer but the director of a movie. In either case, still one hand) Specifically, I have only seen two movies. One was Sofia Coppola’s “Marie Antoinette,” and now this one. This isn’t simply me being not very broad in movie choices nor is it completely the fault of the Hollywood boy’s club (though admittedly they do a downright awful job of marketing their products to half the movie going public.) It represents a literal gap in our knowledge of the world. These stories are lost to history. “Meek’s Cutoff” is based on a true story. There was a guide on the Oregon Trail named Stephen Meek who led a wagon trail in 1845 off into an uninhabitable no-man’s land. He didn’t know where he was going. The train ran out of water. People died and the settlers mutinied. But there were thousands of wagons not just three. And the Michelle Williams character? She’s completely fictional. Certainly there were women there. Yes, they did all the work we see them do in this movie. But if they had any personalities at all, we have no way of knowing what they consisted of. Nobody bothered to record it.

Blue Valentine (4/5 Stars)

You always hurt the one you love,

The one you shouldn’t hurt at all.

You always take the sweetest rose

And crush it till the petals fall.

You always break the kindest heart,

With a hasty word you can’t recall.

And if I broke

Your heart last night,

It’s because

…I love you…

Most

Of

All

One of the most memorable descriptions of divorce I’ve heard is that it’s like a death in the family. The twist is that it’s you who has died. All the memories, all the moments, they are all part of some past life distantly remembered. You’re dead and the one you loved has moved on.

“Blue Valentine,” documents the death of the marriage between Dean (Ryan Gosling) and Cynthia (Michelle Williams) over a particularly blue weekend. This is interspersed with poignant scenes from their early love six years before. Little by little things are revealed, stuff is said, and mistakes are made until finally it’s all over. Both Dean and Cynthia are decent people so it is fair to ask why this isn’t working. They ask themselves the same question. The structure of the story has many layers. At times we like one person more than the other. Than something happens. We switch sides. Something else happens. We oscillate back and forth. And then finally there are just so many things that it becomes impossible to tell who exactly is at fault. In the end, everybody and nobody is to blame. It’s just sad, that’s all. 

The Writer and Director of “Blue Valentine,” is Derek Cianfrance. This is his debut feature film. He has a talent for natural yet articulate dialogue. The movie tends to enter Terrence Malick territory at times. The words sound like things that people would ordinarily say but at times they float above the scenes, the sounds and mouths don’t exactly match, creating this ethereal poetic quality. At times the movie is more a meditation on love than a story about it. And then at other times the realism is truly cutting. Fights between parents are inherently disturbing. Cianfrance presents them at a distance usually behind windows, doors, and shades, almost as if the camera is a child who is afraid to watch. There is a particularly perfect scene that should be instantly recognizable. It contains the sort of argument where the people endlessly repeat themselves at successively higher volumes. The problems aren’t getting worked out. They’re just sort of exploding everywhere. Thankfully there are other moments that take place in the past which are just as nice as the bad things are bad. At one point Dean serenades Cynthia with the above song. (An odd song choice but still a good one.) And at another time Cynthia has a particularly good joke about a child molester and a kid who go for a walk in the woods. There’s a discussion over whether it is funny or not. I thought it was.

The performances by Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams are both great and equally matched. They are two of the best actors of their generation. Michelle Williams in particular is always interesting to watch. She is one of the most tragic actresses out there. I don’t believe I’ve seen her in a movie without some sort of unrequited love going on. (Shutter Island, Synecdoche New York, I’m Not There, Brokeback Mountain). This goes all the way back to “Dick” when she had the misfortune of developing a major crush on Richard Nixon. Talk about a curse. It’s been over a decade and her characters haven’t seemed able to ever get over it yet. Congrats on the Oscar Nomination. What with this movie and “Shutter Island," earlier in the year, she has earned it. 

p.s. The fact that this movie initially got an NC-17 rating I find rather insulting. Sure there are sex scenes but it should be obvious to anybody with a working sense of empathy that they are neither intended to be nor in actuality are prurient. Logically, you would think the rating system for movies would have something to do with morality, but really it seems to be based solely on mathematical measurements of the amount of skin showing or seconds of heavy breathing. This is decidedly not pornography. It is a genuine and sincere movie about a serious subject and everyone involved deserves an apology. 

  

Shutter Island (4/5 Stars) February 24, 2010

A heartbreaking study of staggering sadness.

Teddy Daniels fought in the Second World War. He was there when the Allies liberated Dachau, a Nazi concentration camp. He saw the emaciated shrunken faces of the prisoners. He walked past frozen piles of murdered corpses, too many to count. Him and some of the other American soldiers took the German soldiers stationed there, stood them up against a wire fence, and shot them execution style. It wasn’t warfare. It was murder and Teddy knew it. Teddy came home and married a woman he dearly loved. Their marriage was strained. One day she found a closet full of whiskey flasks. She asked him why he drank so much in a compassionate and worried voice. “I killed a lot of people in the war,” he replied throat full of guilt and sorrow. Teddy witnessed cruel random tragedy twice. His wife died from smoke inhalation when a pyromaniac set fire to their apartment building. He has dreams of her almost every night. They embrace in mercy and forgiveness and then she burns up from within and turns into ashes in his arms. He is left alone grasping the air around him.

Such is the background of the U.S. Marshall (played by Leonardo Dicaprio) who is investigating the disappearance of a patient at an insane asylum for the criminally insane in Martin Scorsese’s newest movie Shutter Island. The trailers suggest that this movie is from the horror genre but don’t be mistaken, this is out and out film noir and it fits in perfectly with its time period, the Golden Age of Film Noir, the early 1950s. 

The plot twists and turns so much that I feel compelled to leave most of it out of my review simply because I would probably need to see the movie again just to make sure I have it right. In the end though, the plot itself is just a red herring. The real story here is in the character development. When Martin Scorsese won his first Oscar for the The Departed he joked that it was the first movie he had made that had a plot. He’s back to his old ways in an ingeniously disguised way. 

But what do I mean that this isn't a horror film. Well, in your regular horror film the criminally insane (like say Hannibal Lector or Mike Myers) are explained just enough to completely freak you out. Here, the crazy people are explained to the point where you really really understand why they’ve gone crazy. Instead of being afraid of them, you empathize with them. And let me tell you, it takes some serious trauma to become criminally insane. Keep in mind that Teddy Daniels is the sane one in this story. Everyone other patient (including the 67th) has gone through worse. One place where this really shows is in the casting. The woman who went missing was guilty of drowning her three children. She isn’t played by a deformed hag of a woman. Scorsese instead chose to cast Emily Mortimer, an actress who can easily play the ‘sweetest woman in the world’ roles (Lars and the Real Girl.) Filling in other supporting roles are inherently compassionate actors like Ben Kingsley (Ghandi, Schindler’s List), Michelle Williams (Synecdoche New York), and Mark Ruffalo (Eternal Sunshine). Scorsese doesn’t want to just scare us. He wants to break our hearts. 

Scorsese is a master at empathy. Watching his movies makes one grow as a person. He chooses perhaps the hardest possible characters to relate with and provides the viewer with an opportunity to sympathize and understand them. (A violent loner like Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver. An inarticulate brute like Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull. Even someone as inhuman as Jesus Christ himself in The Last Temptation of Christ.) Here, he chooses the criminally insane as his muse. I can’t imagine any other filmmaker doing a better job. I heard that in the late 70s Scorsese was hospitalized with deep depression and apparently thought that Raging Bull would be the last movie he would make. I don’t know if that’s the cause, but it is certainly clear that this guy understands suffering inside and out. 

Film noir as a genre grew into popularity at a distinct time in American History. World War II had begun and ended. The Korean War, which is usually forgotten but killed thousands of Americans started just a few years later. The Soviet Union had just gotten the bomb and America was in full Red Scare mode. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder had yet to be identified but must have existed on a grand scale. Take a look at the classic film noir movies then: Hardboiled cynical men, untrustworthy women, nihilistic plots and gloomy photography. Everybody smoked and drank nonstop. This movie has the same dark feel to it. The mood is so encapsulating that at times I thought it would have worked better had it been shot in black and white. There’s an especially cool cinematic trick Scorsese used in the dream sequences to give it an eerier than usual feel. Pay special attention to the cigarette smoke. It seems to be going in reverse sucked back into the cigarette. I can’t wait for this guy’s next movie.

Synecdoche, New York 10/26/08

It struck me as odd that I walked out of this movie wondering whether it was just good or one of the best movies ever made. The problem, like all of Charlie Kaufman's stories, is that there is nothing to compare it to. So I can't say that it is like this movie or that one. I can't say if you liked this movie, than you're bound to like Synecdoche, or if you disliked such and such then you will really hate it. Reviews are at their best comparative. I watch a film and decide whether it fits, shorthands, or supersedes its genres and rules. I pass on that knowledge to help others decide whether they want to spend $12 and two hours of their time watching it. But what can I do when a movie stands alone? I can honestly say that I have never seen anything like it. That even Kaufman's previous incredibly original works (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) are only vaguely similar, and still only in matters that are coincidental. (i.e. They all take place in New York). I can say this, I cannot imagine the movie being any better. I cannot conceive of any wrong choices. Each scene was something I had never seen before. I can describe what I felt. I laughed at many parts. I wore a grin through many supposedly depressing scenes. I felt a terrible sadness at certain points. And during the final scenes my mouth was held open by awe at what I was witnessing. I have no idea how long the movie was. I completely lost track of time. 
I suppose now I should try to explain it, although I fear the entire point of the movie was to present something beyond explaining. Synecdoche is defined as "a part representing the whole or the whole representing a part." The movie is about the ambitious folly of a play director named Caden, played brilliantly by Philip Seymour Hoffman. Caden deals with synecdoche's as a career. A stage is a synecdoche of a life just like a movie based on actual events is a synecdoche of those events. Caden may be a synecdoche of Kaufman. The women in this movie may be synecdoche's of women in Kaufman's life. This review is a synecdoche of the movie. It may be argued that no matter how hard I try I will not be able to capture the true essence of the movie in this review. Much like how Caden will not be able to capture the true essence of life in his plays. Even if, like in this movie, he built a life-size version of New York inside a warehouse, had tens of thousands of extras, and a budget that apparently has no bounds. 
At the same time, Caden is dying. He doesn't know how but he is. Organs fail on him mysteriously. He suffers a seizure. His body revolts in humiliating and painful ways. He wants to do something of significance. Something that is true and right before he leaves this world.
Moreover, Caden has trouble with his 1st marriage (Catherine Keener). He has trouble with his second marriage (Michelle Williams). He has an unrequited love affair with a third woman (Samantha Morton). And he loses his daughter, who he forever remembers as a four year old, to devious people in a faraway land. Everything is slowly slipping away. He's waging several losing wars on several different fronts. The film is mired in depression and there is much talk about death. We witness no less than four or five funeral scenes. Years evaporate between scenes. Slowly everybody Caden knows dies. 
The film starts off in reality but somewhere near the middle the line starts getting blurry. About two thirds of the way through we can no longer tell what's going on. Scenes repeat themselves once, then get played again in the warehouse. They never seem exactly right. Caden throws great effort around. He has an endless sea of post-it notes. At one point he muses 'I don't know why I make it so complicated.' In the end he no longer has the ability to keep the play alive on his own. He casts somebody to be him and then goes off and takes the role of an extra. A war somehow breaks out on the set. Caden walks down the New York streets he built. Bodies are strewn everywhere. All the extras have died. My God what have I done?
Why on earth would anyone like a film described like this? Because every scene, every exchange, every line of dialogue, every performance belies the somber mood and depressing atmosphere. Caden can't seem to make a perfect play, but Charlie Kaufman can make a perfect movie. I have never seen a more ambitious, epic, or original film about failure. It is hard to tell how people will take this movie. I picture everyone exiting the theater stunned, not knowing what they have just witnessed. Maybe they will nitpick about certain degrading elements that are true to every life. Maybe they will give up and say 'that can't happen. What am I watching?' These are good questions and totally defensible arguments. I myself am at a loss of what to think at times. Even Charlie Kaufman has refused to discuss what the movie 'means.' 
This movie should get nods for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Original Screenplay, Best Supporting Actress (Take your pick from Samantha Morton, Catherine Keener, Emily Watson, Dianne Wiest, etc.) Best Production Design, Best Editing, Best Sound Editing, etc. Having said that, I would not be surprised, and I wouldn't blame anyone, if it received no nominations at all. I can only assume it is going to take ten to fifteen years for this movie to sink into mass consciousness. Somebody out there is going to have to write a synecdoche that describes concisely what the movie means and put forth an argument that allows it to gain mass appeal. That might take awhile. It might never happen.

I'm Not There November 26, 2007

I'm glad I know a fair deal about Bob Dylan. I once saw a four hour documentary on the guy. If I hadn't seen that, for certain I would have been hopelessly lost in this movie. It doesn't even attempt to explain Bob Dylan's life in any sort of factual way. If you don't come into the movie knowing certain landmark plot points (say for instance, the significance of a motorcycle accident) then you will not have the slightest idea what is going on. The movie is a landmark experiment in the structure of a biopic. It uses five actors and one actress to portray fictionalized versions of the same man. To its credit the movie works well enough to transcend the gimmick into a theme. But its not perfect, and a movie that could have been one of the years best is only somewhat superior.
There are six stories basically. The goal I bet would be to give each one equal weight and edit flawlessly back and forth between them. They edited flawlessly but didn't succeed in making them all interesting. I'm sure everyone who sees this film will agree there is one storyline and Dylan that is far superior to the others. This is the electric Jude portrayed by Cate Blanchett in a role that is sure to be nominated. Filmed in a stark contrast black and white this story is the funniest and certainly most memorable. Blanchett is uncanny. She's even more uncanny when considering in her last movie she played Queen Elizabeth I. There are plenty of great moments.
The drawback of the other stories is that they share too many similar themes to this one. Take for instance the Ben Whishaw storyline which consists only of a press conference. There isn't enough here for a story. I think they should have split up the lines amongst the other actors.
The Heath Ledger storyline doesn't have enough dialogue in it to hold it up. It's baseless, I didn't know what to think about it.
The real shame of this movie was the misuse of the Christian Bale storyline. This described the early folk career of Bob Dylan, but it doesn't get close to it. It's told in mock documentary style. We see the man from a distance and instead get an interview with Joan Baez. I would have loved to get to know this Bob Dylan more. He did exist at one point. Instead they made this story the prelude to the Cate Blanchett story. Too bad. 
Another weird thing is that they didn't use any of Bob Dylan's really famous songs. The only ones I recognized were "Times are a Changing, Mr. Jones, and Idiot Wind." Everything else was new. I haven't the slightest idea why they didn't choose to include such classics like 'Girl From North Country, Hard Rain's A Gonna Fall, Don't Think Twice, It Aint Me Babe, Like a Rolling Stone, Blowin in the Wind, or Stuck in the Middle with you.' I don't think they would have been that distracting honestly, and the movie would have surely benefitted from them. 

Brokeback Mountain 02/03/06

Two guys take jobs as ranch hands, spend a whole summer, and fall in love. It should end there but the whole world is against them. The world eventually wins and this romance becomes a tragedy. Such is the case of Brokeback Mountain, which for good reasons has scored alot of recognition this awards season. Not just because it's about gay cowboys, and this is Hollywood. It's getting recognition because it is a real story that gets all of the details right. (As far as I can tell)
However is this movie better than all the others this year. Does it deserve the best picture? In my humble opinion no. I would compare this movie to other best picture winners like Dances with Wolves, and Out of Africa. Yes they are great movies, yes they deserve recognition, but whoever watches these anymore. I can tell you this, I probably won't see Brokeback Mountain again. It's too long and moves too slow and once you've seen a great landscpe do you really get the same thrill in watching it again. 
Not saying that this movie is bad, but there are better ones out there this year. Here are my top five movies I'm thinking of buying this year. I will definitely watch these movies more than once. 1. King Kong 2. Pride and Prejudice 3. Matchpoint 4. Walk the Line 5. The 40-year old Virgin. These are movies I would want to see nominated this year. 
Here are the movies that were nominated instead: Brokeback Mountain, Capote, Good Night and Good Luck, Crash, and Munich. (I have yet too see Crash). All good movies, but are they the best. There is a bias in the academy, I think, towards drama, and against comedy, adventure, and remakes. In my opinion it is just as hard to make a superior comedy than it is to make a superior drama. So in that course of logic, hopefully we would have a balance of those genres, but it seems that there are certain films that we feel obligated to nominate whether they really deserve it or not. This hurts twofold. It brings a film attention that doesn't deserve it, and much more harmful: it takes away attention from films that do deserve our praise. (i.e. Raging Bull, Goodfellas, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, When Harry Met Sally..., Groundhog Day, There's Something about Mary) It really is a shame. Someday I hope that comedies and comedians get more credit. There's as much good in making people laugh as there is in making them cry.