America by Walker Evans

Walker Evans (1903-1975) was undoubtedly one of America’s greatest photographers.  His black-and-white images stand as time capsules of an America now gone but still familiar.  Evans is best known for his iconic images of sharecroppers hit hard by The Great Depression as part of his work for the Farm Security Administration.  During my recent visit to Cooperstown, NY and the Fenimore Art Museum, I was able to see their amazing collection of Walker Evans’ photographs.  I was struck most not by his most famous images from the Dust Bowl and America’s Heartland, but by his images of America’s East Coast during the same time period.  His photographs of people and places spanning the hardened core of America’s original thirteen states from New York City to Atlanta captured an America that was shell-shocked but resilient, an over-developed and industrialized stretch of the Eastern Seaboard that was crumbling and decaying but populated by survivors — an America that would eventually pull through the Great Depression and produce the Greatest Generation defined by their heroic actions in World War Two.

Here are some of my favorite images from Walker Evans:

1.  Girl in Fulton Street (NYC, 1929).  I don’t know if this was taken before or after the Crash of ‘29, but there is a knowing look painted on this girl’s face…and you can see nervousness beneath the veneer.  Should she be scared to death or just slightly annoyed by the impending doom?

2.  Torn Movie Poster (Unknown, 1930).  The actual photograph is larger, but this close-up strikes at the heart of the composition.  This brilliantly captures the fear and the anxiety felt during the early years of the Great Depression that left many literally tearing at the scraps left over…or as modern rockers Muse might say, “It’s time the fat cats had a heart attack.”  Bonus points to anyone who can identify the film.

3.  Billboards and Houses in Atlanta (Georgia, 1936).  There is so much detail captured here…houses that have probably long since been demolished and movies no one remembers or watches anymore.

4.  Graveyard and Steel Mill in Bethlehem (Pennsylvania, 1935).  This image speaks volumes about an America mourning a crumbling infrastructure.

5.  Sons of American Legion (Bethlehem, PA, 1935).  From left to right, the boys facing out represent a motley crew of characters:  the serious one, the wisecracker, the impatient one, and the slow one.  Less than ten years later they would be marching off to war and would become the Greatest Generation.

6.  Joe’s Auto Graveyard (Pennsylvania, 1936).  This one says it all, doesn’t it?  When that scrap-metal was turned into tanks, America was reborn.

Written commentary by David H. Schleicher

All Photographs by Walker Evans.

Halloween Horror Film Festival

The Schleicher Spin now proudly presents:

A Guide to a Great Halloween Horror Film Festival

Step One:  Set the mood with the classics.

...and we go walking...after midnight...out in the moonlight...

• Vampyr (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1932) — Though religious persecution was a dominant theme in Dreyer’s canon, this moody piece of work was his one attempt at pure horror.  This plays like a filmed night-terror and contains so many dreamy, spooky, and downright bizarre images that you’re left with but one choice: surrender to the Dane’s macabre vision.  The corpse’s-eye-view of a funeral procession is a special delight that has yet to be matched in nearly 80 years of cinema.
• Freaks (Tod Browning, 1932) — While it’s easy for some to dismiss this as a literal circus sideshow, Browning’s still controversial masterpiece is a haunting portrayal of the horrors of Group Think.  When our anti-heroine receives her final comeuppance in the scene with the deformed and unfortunate beings crawling through the mud in the rain under railroad cars wielding knives and revenge, it makes for one of the most chilling climaxes in film history. 
• Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931) — Boris Karloff’s lumbering monster has become memorialized and overused to the point of mockery, but there’s still something both horrific and sympathetic about his portrayal.  The infamous “drowning scene” still packs a wallop…especially with the emotional follow-up of the father carrying the little girl’s body through the village streets.  After all these years…this film is still ALIVE!   IT’S ALIIIIIIIIVE!

Step Two:  Settle in with a glass of wine or a cup of tea, get cozy and watch a classic ghost story.

• The Innocents (Jack Clayton, 1961) — Deborah Kerr’s performance and Freddie Francis’ cinematography make this a near perfect adaptation of Henry James’ potboiler “The Turn of the Screw”. 
• If you care to watch something more modern, the recent spins on the same psychological horror, 2001’s The Others (anchored by Nicole Kidman) or 2007’s The Orphanage (anchored by Belen Rueda) would also fit the bill quite nicely.

Step Three:  Break out the popcorn and have a hell-of-a-time with these creepy ”fun-scary” hits.

• Halloween (John Carpenter, 1978) — Really?  Did you think this wouldn’t be on the list?  For the love of all that is holy, please make sure you watch the Carpenter original and not Rob Zombie’s ridiculous Hillybilly-deluxe retread. 
• Fright Night (Tom Holland, 1985) — This Rear Window-inspired tongue-in-cheek vampire romp is one of my all time favorites from childhood.  Comes complete with a kick-ass totally ’80’s theme song and awesomely grotty make-up effects.
• Drag Me To Hell (Sam Raimi, 2009) — Gypsy curses, nasty demons, mortgage re-financing, cheesy effects, a smoking-hot Alison Lohman and a talking goat made this the most fun I have had at the movies in years.  Raimi pulls out all the stops and all the eyeballs and drains all the embalming fluid along the way.  Enjoy.

Step Four:  Get artsy.

...another beautiful day at the beach.

• Nosferatu (Werner Herzog, 1979) — Okay, so F. W. Murnau’s 1922 original is iconic and undoubtedly one of the most celebrated classics of silent film and German Expressionism.  But Herzog’s brilliant update compliments, enhances and celebrates the original while creating its own ghastly imagery.  This is that rare case where the remake might be better than the source.  Klaus Kinski and Isabelle Adjani are like tortured images from gothic paintings and etchings come to life to become undead.  More of a meditation on vampire iconography in film and the mythology that haunts our minds, from the skull-and-bones opening credits to the Wagner-themed journey to the Count’s castle to the dire closing shot of the sand blowing over the beach, this is the most artistic horror film ever made. 

Finally:  Watch the greatest horror film ever made.

What film combines the iconic imagery, the psychological horror, the ghosts, the classic performances, the genuine scares and the artistry?

• The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980) — Kubrick’s eerily symbolic and painstakingly detailed re-working of Stephen King’s hack-novel is a masterstroke of filmmaking hubris.  Here’s that rare instance where the film adaptation is better…way better…than the book.  In fact, I would argue it exists in a whole different universe.  The music…the maze…the pacing…the blood…the elevators…and those hallways are the stuff of nightmares.  All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.  And anyone who puts together a Halloween Horror Film Festival without The Shining should be axed.

Danny, won't you come play with us...forever?

Written by David H. Schleicher

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Check out the great thread on Kubrick’s masterpiece, The Shining, over at Wonders in the Dark.

For a comparison of The Innocents with its source material, “The Turn of the Screw”, read my previous article, Turning the Screws.

Here’s my original review of The Orphanage.

And check out my raving about Drag Me to Hell.

So what’s your favorite horror film?  What movie scared you the most?  What would you include in your own Halloween Horror Film Festival?  Speak your mind in the comment box.

Autumn in Cooperstown

As not only the birthplace of baseball but also the birthplace of the American novel, Cooperstown, New York (named for the family that spawned America’s first great novelist, James Fenimore Cooper) is an endless source of inspiration.  After last year’s visit in early Spring, I decided I wanted to attempt making a yearly pilgrimage to the place of Glimmerglass and Doubleday, leaves and lakes, ballplayers and writers, Coopers and Mohicans.  Mid-Autumn is an intoxicating sight to behold in Cooperstown and around Lake Otsego.  It’s the time of year when the “off season” is just beginning, part-time locals are enjoying a less crowded hamlet before retiring to warmer climates, year-round natives are still enjoying the nicer weather, the last shot of selective tourists leisurely ascends into town for fall foliage or in honor of the baseball playoff season, the few remaining sailboats glide over Glimmerglass, and the wildlife still roams freely but sleepily as they settle in for their upcoming long winter’s nap.  Hibernation, ice and loneliness await as the leaves slowly dance down from the treetops and cover the sidewalks as a kindly colorful omen to the white snow that will blanket the area all too soon.

Naturally, one can’t help but snap as many pictures as possible.  It took close to 200 snapshots, and here’s a sample:

Written and photographed by David H. Schleicher

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Points of interest if you plan to visit Cooperstown, NY:

The National Baseball Hall of Fame

The Fenimore Art Museum – currently showcasing an astounding exhibit called “America’s Rome: Artists in the Eternal City, 1800-1900″ and houses a collection of black-and-white Walker Evans photography that is a Shangri-La for those interested in Great Depression-era photographs.

The Farmers’ Museum

Hyde Hall – about 9 miles outside of Cooperstown at the top of Lake Otsego. This is near impossible to find without a GPS, though well worth the effort for the highly personalized tours given by the most friendly and knowledgeable staff.

Otesaga Resort – a great photo op with killer views of the lake.

The Tunnicliff Inn – the oldest inn in town, just a block from the Hall of Fame, a perfect place to stay.

Nicoletta’s Italian Cafe – a shockingly good place for dinner right on Main Street.

Bear Pond Winery – five dollar tastings and damn good wine.

Cooperstown Brewery – two dollar tastings and damn good beer.  Actually located in Milford, the friendly owner doesn’t skimp on the samples and will wax bitterly about the new tax laws or any other topic if you engage him.

The Coen Brothers Didn’t Do Anything

I wish my confirmation had been as fun as this kid's bar mitzvah!

We’re Very Serious Men

They had made it quite clear, hadn’t they, these Coen Brothers, that they didn’t much care about their audience’s expectations.  Hell, spare for Marge Gunderson in Fargo, they had never much cared for their characters either.  While they looked down on their subjects, they often looked right through those who watched…those faithful who tolerated the abominations that were Intolerable Cruelty and The Ladykillers only left to be confounded by the philosophical nonsense wrapped in the ultra-slick throwback genre packaging of No Country for Old Men.  Sure, we laughed at the hatchet job that was their star-studded Burn After Reading…but where had that magic gone?  Where were those brothers who had brought us Miller’s Crossing and Barton Fink and Fargo?  Had they really sold themselves out to those who had embraced The Big Lebowski as their magnum opus?  Oh, why had you forsaken us, Coen Brothers?  Where had you gone?  What did we do to deserve this?  We didn’t do anything!

Where were the Coen Brothers?

In 1960’s Minnesota.  Their boyhood home.  Where it all began.

Stripped down to the bare bones, A Serious Man is a very serious apology…or is it an explanation…or is it a parable…or is it none and all of those things?

Mild-mannered physics professor Larry Gopnik (a shockingly sympathetic Michael Stuhlbarg) can’t seem to catch a break.  His wife (Sari Lennick) is leaving him for the all too calm and sooth-talking Sy Alberman (who played by Fred Melamed ranks as a Coen Brothers’ character for the ages).  His daughter (Jessica McManus) cares only about her hair and her friends.  His son (Aaron Wolff) is too busy smoking pot and listening to Jefferson Airplane to care much about his upcoming bar mitzvah.  His brother (Richard Kind) suffers from all sorts of physical and psychological ailments and can’t seem to get off Larry’s couch except to commit crimes against morality.  And these are just his family problems.  Poor Larry can’t even get an appointment with the senior rabbi to discuss his ever-expanding crisis situation.  While seeking advice from those unfit to give it, Larry adopts as his mantra, “But I didn’t do anything.”

Peppered with their usual black humor and a very stinging jab at their Jewish roots, the Coen Brothers paint a vision of human misery that transcends the typical Hollywood view of suburban dystopia.  The film opens with a bizarre ”old wives’ tale” about a woman who mistakes a man for an evil ghost.  Through the rest of the film other “parables” are weaved in and out the narrative to shine light on Larry’s existential quagmire suffocated by a very real-life shit-storm.  The film, fittingly and organically (unlike the contrived closing scene of No Country for Old Men) ends abruptly in media res with a closing shot that sums up the Coen Brothers’ view of life.  It really sticks in your throat. 

Why do these bad things keep happening to Larry?  Why does anything happen to anybody?  What is the meaning of all this?  Why have the Coen Brothers made so many bad films over the years?  Do they hate us?

No, you see, they don’t.  If they did, if they didn’t care, they wouldn’t share this very special film with us.  With A Serious Man, the Coen Brothers seem to be confessing to their faithful.  “This is who we are.  This is where we came from.  Is it any wonder why we are the way we are?  This is why we make movies like we do.  This is why we treat you like this.  We can’t help it.  We didn’t do anything.  And if by some small miracle you see something profound in the nothingness…”

I imagine A Serious Man could be for Jews what last winter’s Doubt was for Catholics.  It’s a test of our faith…our faith in movies.  Just as Quentin Tarantino reclaimed his position as our cinematic dictator earlier this year with Inglourious Basterds, the Coen Brothers have now reasserted themselves into our collective psyche as our cinematic rabbis with A Serious Man.  They’ve always been here making movies for the faifhtful and the faithless, and what you take from each of their films depends on your perspective.  Their movies are what you make of them.

Eh, I guess they thought that they should tell us this, or maybe they shouldn’t have.  Was it really important?

Wasn’t it Marge Gunderson who taught us there are more important things in life………than all of this? 

Whatever this is.

Written by David H. Schleicher

Revisiting The Sweet Hereafter – The Best Film of the 1990’s

Why do I get that sinking feeling when thinking about great films from the 1990's?

There is no such thing as a simple list.

The 1990’s proved to be as ponderous as it was wondrous when looking back on its contributions to cinema.  It was the decade where I came of age as a film buff, but many of its films that seemed at the time to speak so strongly to my generation just haven’t held up that well to scrutiny as years have passed.  It was a decade that saw one of the most original filmmakers of the 1980’s, David Lynch, do his most astounding work on television with Twin Peaks.  In film, the Coen Brothers hit their stride while a contemplative Canuck (Atom Egoyan) and an insane Dane (Lars Von Trier) reached career pinnacles.  Meanwhile, emerging from the British Isles were the classically refined works of Anthony Minghella and Sam Mendes.  But it was in the Coen Brothers’ America where many saw a mini-Renaissance.  Unlike the 1970’s, which produced a plethora of auteurs (Scorsese, Spielberg, De Palma, Coppola, Lucas) who were birthed in formal film schools, the 1990’s saw the emergence of a new generation of auteurs (Tarantino, PT Anderson, Fincher, Spike Jonze) who developed their styles first by working in music videos or by being products of their own self-guided fan-boy obsessed film clubs after dropping out of film school.

I wrestled with my desire to put a film from the decade’s infancy, Lars Von Trier’s trippy post-WWII German train-based thriller, Europa, at the top of my list.  Yet every time I watch that film, it grows more tiring to examine.  It’s almost too audacious, self-conscious…avant-garde, yet I can’t deny a love for its style and themes.  Released in 1990, it was a harbinger of the type of cinema that would dominate the end of the decade, most notably in 1999; a year claimed by many from my generation to be one of cinema’s greatest.  1999 was a dizzyingly invigorating year to be a 20 year-old film buff.  It seemed every niche market was being conquered by young up-and-coming auteurs, mainstream films were more daring and imaginative than usual, and every so-called great film from that year was speaking directly to me — to my generation.  But films like Fight Club, Being John Malkovich and American Beauty, while worthy of making the list, aren’t the type that hold up very well over time.  They are at once dated and defined by their audacity and generational context.  And fittingly, it’s the even odder (Ravenous) or unfairly little seen films (The End of the Affair) from ‘99 that I find myself wishing to return to over and over again.  Back in ‘99, I was sure a film from that year would top my list of Best Films of the 1990’s, but alas my love affair with ‘99 died quickly, and it was the films from 1996 and 1997 that soon emerged as the most memorable.

As I racked my brain trying to compile my list, one film from this decade kept creeping in…slowly, quietly, like a melancholy dream or a welcome ghost…and thoughts of it drape over me like a warm blanket. 

That film that still haunts me more than any other from the decade is Atom Egoyan’s 1997 adaptation of Russell Bank’s novel, The Sweet Hereafter.  With its “Pied Piper” motif, elliptically intertwining plotlines and astutely revealing study of grief, Egoyan, who had hinted at something masterful earlier in the decade with Exotica, reached a rarified artistic zenith, and though not for lack of ambition or trying — witness Ararat or the more recent Adoration — hasn’t approached these heights scaled since.

In 1997 Egoyan’s masterpiece made its way through the art-house circuit on waves of rapturous fanfare and was most notable for being the film that finished second to LA Confidential in almost every ballot for the end-of-the-year critics’ awards.  I also still vividly recall an article that appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer when The Sweet Hereafter came to the Ritz Theaters in December of ‘97.  The film critic compared Egoyan’s low-budget indie film with James Cameron’s Titanic (which at the time was the most expensive film ever made) on the basis of an opinion that the two films represented the differences in how Canadians and Americans viewed death.  While Titanic was smothering multiplexes and making everyone swoon with its bombastic and epic view of death in cold waters, The Sweet Hereafter was taking a more restrained approach to tragedy and large vehicles sinking in the ice.  A crass luxury ocean-liner with two star-crossed lovers versus a school bus full of children…both sank, but only one transcended the popular notion of cinema as entertainment.

“With enough rage and helplessness…your love turns into something else.”

“Let me direct your rage.”

Unlike many other buzzed about films from the decade, The Sweet Hereafter grows richer and more rewarding with each viewing.  Here are some things that one becomes more in tune with each visit:

• the delicately fractured structure of Egoyan’s layered screenplay
• the subtle cinematography of Paul Sarossy
• the heartbreak in Mychael Danna’s lute-laden score
• the stinging dialogue from Russell Banks channeled perfectly through Ian Holm and Bruce Greenwood
• the hardened and reckless fragility of Sarah Polley’s performance

In 2003, not long after I first began posting my amateur movie reviews on the IMDB, I posted a review of The Sweet Hereafter, some six years after first experiencing it, that was brief and to the point.  I chose at the time to title the review simply, “The Best Film of the 1990’s”.  I was as sure then as I am now of that declaration.  The Sweet Hereafter is a film that is best left to speak for itself.  The less said about it, much like death itself, the better.   After watching it, you too will understand when I say…

“We’re all citizens of a different town now.”

Written by David H. Schleicher

The Pied Piper is calling.

Lightly edited for the “readability” factor…here is my original review from February of 2003 in all its glorious brevity:

The Best Film of the 1990’s

Author: David H. Schleicher

Brutally honest, haunting, cold, austere and elliptical in the unfolding of plot and story, Atom Egoyan’s restrained but powerful look at a small Canadian town ripped apart by tragedy and now invaded by a troubled lawyer (played expertly by Ian Holm) looking to make a killing off their grief is one of the most artistic portraits of the sorrow of everyday people ever conceived. The scene where Bruce Greenwood’s character witnesses the school bus carrying his two children and all the hopes and dreams of a small town skid nonchalantly off an icy road and onto a frozen body of water that can’t possibly hold the vehicle’s weight is among the most chilling, heart-wrenching and gut-dropping scenes ever put on film. The revelations unearthed during the lawyer’s investigation are both quietly disturbing and all too true to life. The intertwining tales of the townsfolk and the ultimately heartbroken lawyer are exquisitely handled by Egoyan and leave the viewer feeling the same loss as the characters. Tragedy befalls us all. Luckily, every once in awhile, so does great art. 

Originally posted on the Internet Movie Database.

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And now, David H. Schleicher presents his Top 25 Films of the 1990’s, followed by a chronological list of honorable mentions:

1. The Sweet Hereafter (1997, Atom Egoyan)
2. Europa/Zentropa (1990, Lars Von Trier)
3. Goodfellas (1990, Martin Scorsese)
4. Fargo (1996, The Coen Brothers)
5. Secrets and Lies (1996, Mike Leigh)
6. Breaking the Waves (1996, Lars Von Trier)
7. The English Patient (1996, Anthony Minghella)
8. Short Cuts (1993, Robert Altman)
9. Kundun (1997, Martin Scorsese)
10. Schindler’s List (1993, Steven Spielberg)
11. Braveheart (1995, Mel Gibson)
12. Boogie Nights (1997, Paul Thomas Anderson)
13. The Thief (1997, Pavel Chukhraj)
14. King of the Hill (1993, Steven Soderbergh)
15. Toto the Hero (1991, Jaco Van Dormael)
16. American Beauty (1999, Sam Mendes)
17. Miller’s Crossing (1990, The Coen Brothers)
18. The Truman Show (1998, Peter Weir)
19. Twelve Monkeys (1995, Terry Gilliam)
20. Being John Malkovich (1999, Spike Jonze)
21. Ravenous (1999, Antonia Bird)
22. Eve’s Bayou (1997, Kasi Lemmons)
23. Magnolia (1999, Paul Thomas Anderson)
24. The End of the Affair (1999, Neil Jordan)
25. Exotica (1994, Atom Egoyan)

Honorable Mentions from the 1990’s:

• Wild at Heart (1990, David Lynch)
• Barton Fink (1991, The Coen Brothers)
• The Last of the Mohicans (1992, Michael Mann)
• Twin Peaks:  Fire Walk With Me (1992, David Lynch)
• Groundhog Day (1993, Harold Ramis)
• The Piano (1993, Jane Campion)
• Heavenly Creatures (1994, Peter Jackson)
• Casino (1995, Martin Scorsese)
• The City of Lost Children (1995, Caro & Jeunet)
• Heat (1995, Michael Mann)
• LA Confidential (1997, Curtis Hanson)
• Lost Highway (1997, David Lynch)
• Saving Private Ryan (1998, Steven Spielberg)
• Fight Club (1999, David Fincher)
• The Limey (1999, Steven Soderbergh)
• Office Space (1999, Mike Judge)
• The Straight Story (1999, David Lynch)

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To view a full archive of my favorite films by decade, click on My Favorite Films  – also on the sidebar.

Or go 80’s style and click on Revisiting Paris, Texas – The Best Film of the 1980’s.

Also be sure to check out the polling for Best Films of the 1990’s soon to be going on at Wonders in the Dark pending the results of their 1980’s polling.

Silent Light

And so it begins...

Strangely enough, following one post on how light — particularly the beautiful light in September — can affect photography and another on The Greatest Living Film Composers, I finally watched Silent Light — a film drenched in breathtaking images and natural lighting that has no music score.  It’s one of those art films that was much discussed last year amongst cineastes but little seen by anyone outside of the international film festival circuit.  As fall is often the season of slowing down and taking stock of your life, it could only be considered perfect timing that Netflix delivered it to my door just as we approached the autumnal equinox.

A Resurrection of Cinema

Carlos Reygadas’ Silent Light (Stellet Licht) is a direct descendent of silent film.  One would suspect that at the end of the silent film era this is how the true artists — the Langs, the Dreyers, the Murnaus — mulled over this new ability to accompany their moving pictures with sound.  How would they manipulate the sound to mirror the themes and motifs in their imagery?  How would they tell their stories not only with what is heard, but with what isn’t heard?  Can you imagine what they would’ve been able to accomplish in those early years had they the technology of today?  Few modern filmmakers appreciate this contemplation and manipulation of sound for artistic purposes.  Stanley Kubrick most certainly did.  Terrence Malick, Werner Herzog and David Lynch do.  So does Carlos Reygadas, and thanks to him, you no longer need to imagine what our early auteurs would’ve been able to achieve with modern methods.

In Silent Light, Reygadas creates one of the most astounding sound designs I have ever heard, awash in natural noise, the clamoring of manmade machinery and the near silent whispers of people speaking Plautdietsch.  It evokes an otherworldly existence beyond what is known through the five senses with which humans are endowed.

Reygadas bookends his film with jaw-dropping, slowly panning images of a sunrise and a sunset that each last about six minutes.  Only the cacophony of crickets, bellowing cows and the occasional bird call is used for accompaniment.  This births a meditative trance that takes the viewer from the intimate close quarters of the terrestrial to the boundless realms of the extra-terrestrial.

We've been spending most our lives living in a Mennonite paradise.

In between these bookends is a story of a Mennonite community in Chihuahua, Mexico.  Reygadas’ intimate depiction of their agrarian world is reminiscent of Ermanno Olmni’s 1978 masterpiece, The Tree of Wooden Clogs.  He creates a deliberately slow pace to mirror the lifestyle of the Mennonites.  There are times when the pacing becomes tedious, and I could’ve done without the scenes of people driving trucks and tractors, but overall it is meant to bring the viewer to a level of meditation similar to that of the Mennonites.  By shutting themselves off from most of the outside world and maintaining a self-sufficient existence, the Mennonites lead lives rich in silent moments and contemplation of things greater than themselves.  The Mennonites are as much tied to the land and to nature as they are to their immediate families and larger community.  As we learn about a father’s extramarital affair, we see the emotional turmoil it causes him, his wife and his lover, yet somehow even through the worst of times they are able to shield it from their children.

Anyone who has seen Carl Dreyer’s 1955 Christian allegory Ordet will be able to divine the film’s outcome after a particularly tragic event.  In some ways, it’s an act of faith on the viewers with this knowledge of Ordet that Silent Light will end this way, yet it’s still nonetheless miraculous when it finally happens.  However, Reygadas seems to imply that is not any special knowledge or a faith in any god, but a faith in each other and humanity that enables communities like the Mennonites to accept and overcome great tragedies and allows them to keep their dignity through life, death and everything in between.

By using a simple narrative and universal symbols, Reygadas allows the audience to bring their own experiences and beliefs (or lack thereof) to the table.  One need not be religious or spiritual to relate to the people in Silent Light, only human. It’s as much in our nature to doubt ourselves and question our feelings as it is to imagine the miraculous, to envision a life after death, to fathom the limitless…the impossible…nothingness.

For any human being, moments of silent light are essential.  Yet, ironically, Silent Light is a very special film that needs to be recommended with caution.  Some will naturally see it as a huge waste of time and I would not argue with them, while others will respond to the limitless possibilities surrounding interpretations of its meaning which I will claim is not religious.  Reygadas’ film is only to be approached with care, patience and an open mind.  And for those who have been claiming for years that cinema is dead…I present to you this moment of silence.

Written by David H. Schleicher

...and this is the end?

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NOTE TO READERS:  I somehow managed to overlook cinematographer Alexis Zabe in my original review.  I wish to amend that here by posting a link to the Long Spaces blog where Zabe is given his due and more amazing screenshots from Silent Light can be found.

The Greatest Living Film Composers

And my Final answer is: These two kids bored me to death. Perhaps if they had been searching for classic film scores instead...

Recently I couldn’t decide if I wanted to write a scathing critique focusing on the banality of the painfully quirky (500) Days of Summer or pen a love letter to The “feel good” Final Destination where we gleefully watched ridiculously good-looking and stupid young people die in unfathomably moronic and elaborate stunt-deaths — in 3D no less! — but neither film really warrants such efforts or talk.  In times like these when searching for things worthy of writing about, my thoughts turn to my blog’s old stand-by and most popular feature:  The Greatest “Blank of All Time” Lists. 

I’ve toyed for quite some time with doing a list of film’s greatest cinematographers — which, by the way would look something like this:  Conrad L. Hall, Freddie Francis, Roger Deakins, Sven Nykvist, Caleb Deschanel (Zooey/Summer Finn’s accomplished father), Robert Elswit, Emmanuel Lubezki…but I digress –

– and then the random train of thought that surfing blogs engenders led me to a post on Peter Greenaway’s The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover over at Wonders in the Dark which in turn led me to google that film’s composer, Michael Nyman, which in turn led to the discovery of this:

 

 

This was taken from a website celebrating a 2007 art exhibition featuring the works of Arianne Douws and Ellen Vandepitte at a museum in the Sint-Amandsberg section of Ghent, Belgium.  Nyman’s aptly named “Book Depository” piece from his score for The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover is used to great effect over the slide show.  Be sure to watch the whole thing — and get a load of those killer staircases and long Kubrickian hallways!  This perfectly illustrates why Nyman is possibly the greatest living film composer.  His music doesn’t need the context of film to hold meaning.  It can exist outside of the world of film on its own or be used to compliment or enhance any number of other mediums and art forms.

This, of course, brings us to my list of…

The Greatest Living Film Composers:

1.  Michael Nyman

• Best Known For:  Coining the term “minimalism” in music and his theme to Jane Campion’s The Piano, which is world famous to people who haven’t even seen the film. 
• Essential Works:  The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover; The Piano; Gattaca; Ravenous; The End of the Affair; Man on Wire (which sampled much of his past work done for Peter Greenaway)
• Also be sure to check out his fascinating personal website, where more than just music in on display.

2.  Alexandre Desplat

• Best Known For:  His score for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and his ability to churn out beautiful music even when he’s just doing it for the obvious paycheck–see Hostage.  Like Nyman, his music can be enjoyed completely free of film context as stand-alone modern classical music.
• Essential Works:  Girl with a Pearl Earring, Birth, The Painted Veil, Lust Caution

3.  Carter Burwell

• Best Known For:  His frequent collaborations with the Coen Brothers.
• Essential Works:  Blood Simple, Miller’s Crossing, Barton Fink, Fargo, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, In Bruges

4.  Philip Glass

• Best Known For:  His neurotic, repetitive, transcendent minimalist technique which has resulted in a style that is instantly recognizable and loved as much as it is loathed.
• Essential Works:  Candyman, Kundun, The Hours, The Illusionist, Notes on a Scandal

5.  Angelo Badalementi

• Best Know For:  Being the Bernard Hermann to David Lynch’s Hitchcock,
• Essential Works:  Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks, The Straight Story, A Very Long Engagement

6.  Wojciech Kilar

• Best Known For:  His brooding, pulsing, frightfully undead score to Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula, which is another one of those works of music you know even if you don’t realize you know it because it has been sampled so many times in movie trailers, film and TV.
• Essential Works:  Bram Stoker’s Dracula, The Portrait of a Lady, The Ninth Gate, We Own the Night

7.  Ennio Morricone

• Best Known For:  His prolific longevity and all those classic scores for Sergio Leone.
• Essential Works:  Undoubtedly too long to list, though some of his unsung scores include The Untouchables and The Weather Man.  Those uninitiated might find his sampled works used recently in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds a good place to start.

8.  John Williams

• Best Known For:  His endless hit parade of instantly recognizable themes to blockbuster films from the 1970’s to today.  Unlike Michael Nyman or some of the others mentioned here, his scores are most potent and quite possibly inseparable from the context of the films for which they were composed.
• Essential Works:  Jaws, the entire Star Wars film canon, Superman, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jurassic Park, Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan,  the Harry Potter series

9.  James Horner

• Best Known For:  The score to a little film called Titanic.  His music is often dismissed as melodramatic, derivative and too self-referential, but I think much of his work is as memorable as the best of John Williams.
• Essential Works:  Willow, Glory, Field of Dreams, Braveheart, Titanic, The House of Sand and Fog, The New World, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

10.  Howard Shore

• Best Known For:  His signature score to The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
• Essential Works:  The Silence of the Lambs, Gangs of New York, Panic Room, Eastern Promises, Doubt

To the Dearly Departed:

• Max Steiner, you set the template for what film scores could and should be and no one will ever forget the work you did on Gone With the Wind.
• Bernard Hermann, for all those Hitchcock classics and from Welles’ Citizen Kane to Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, whenever the words “psycho” or “thriller” are mentioned, your music floods our memories and sends our hearts racing.
• Elmer Bernstein, your laundry list of classic themes are too numerous to list, but for my money, your theme for To Kill a Mockingbird might be the greatest film score of all time.

The One Hit Wonders:

• Anton Karas for his zither-crazed score to The Third Man
• Ry Cooder for his haunting chords in Paris, Texas
• Jonny Greenwood for his conjuring of psychotic strings for There Will Be Blood

Written by David H. Schleicher

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What’s your favorite film score or who is your favorite film composer?  Speak your mind in the comment form and let the discussions begin.

Light in September

In the Deep South of Faulkner Country it might be the Light in August that casts an inspirational glow, but in the Northeast nothing compares to the light in September.  On my annual daytrip out to Batsto Village, I was struck by how the light changed and undulated under the shade of the trees and passing cloud cover, casting an aura over the scenery that really only could’ve been appreciated with a continuously tracking camera that would capture all the nuances.  It’s times like these when I realize the limitations of the snapshot…but that’s not to say I didn’t capture as many of those moments and changes of light as I could.   Some of the photos around Batsto may appear as remakes or re-imaginings of shots from last year’s visit, but I also stopped at an ancient cemetery along Route 542 that boasted graves as far back as the mid-1800’s, and another picturesque graveyard in Hammonton along the White Horse Pike where new images were found.

Written and photographed by David H. Schleicher

No One Said It Would Be Easy

A writer's best and worst friend.

Labor Day weekend proved quite productive for the writer in me as I edited and revised two short stories in preparation for submission to fall fiction contests — see below for links to some of these great contests for new and established authors. The first was a story I had submitted previously to a few literary magazines. It needed some major reworking if it was ever going to stand a chance. Surely this “third final draft” is far superior to the “first final draft” I completed over a year ago…but will it be good enough to make it? Who knows? The second is a story I’ve been working on for quite some time and I finally feel it is complete after half a dozen vigorous rounds of editing and revision…but is it ready to be submitted?

During some of my down time this weekend I perused the web and found two great links for writers sharing in the stress of revising and editing their work. Many would say the editing and revision process is the bane of a writer’s existence, but it must be embraced in order to evolve as a writer and hopefully find success. I knew I had finally embraced the process when I woke up one morning not inspired by some great new “idea” for a story, but by an image of the manuscript I had toiled over the night before in my head with words crossed out and notes in the margins. I actually woke up excited about editing and revising my story…but then I realized it would have to wait as I had to get ready for work and go to my “day job.” Not having the time when inspired is the true bane of a writer’s life…but, hey, no one said it would be easy.

Another bane of the writer’s life is remembering all those rules about grammar, sentence structure and word usage. I bet you’ve always been told to never end a sentence in a preposition, right? Well, thanks to this helpful link from Grammar Girl, you can end your worries about prepositions. Apparently it’s okay to end a sentence with a preposition…sometimes…and there are some guidelines to follow when writing to impress. Also provided are helpful tips on how to eliminate unnecessary prepositions in other parts of your sentences…which should prove useful if you’re like me and need to trim some fat from your writing. Much of my early work was accused of being too wordy…and sometimes the easiest and most practical words to cut are those unnecessary prepositions.

Meanwhile, at Narrative Magazine editor Tom Jenks offers writers an invaluable guide with “A Brief Handbook on Revision for Writers.”  Narrative not only publishes some of the best literary fiction out there, but also provides great advice to its online community of writers. It’s free to join and read their online magazine, and any writer worth their salt would be amiss not to take advantage of all Narrative has to offer.

Written by David H. Schleicher

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And now for some of those contests:

Glimmer Train Press is holding their seasonal Fiction Open Contest as well as awarding their Best Start as a way to motivate emerging writers to tackle those daunting new projects.

Boulevard Online is calling for entries in its current Fall 2009 Story Contest.

Narrative’s Fall 2009 Story Contest is one of the few I found that is open to fiction, non-fiction and graphic stories.

For fellow Delaware Valley authors, Philadelphia Stories is offering the Marguerite McGlinn Prize for Fiction.

And also be sure to check out the 2009 Fall Fiction Contest at OnceWritten.com.

Have any writing tips, contest links or literary magazine recommendations you care to share with fellow readers and writers? Feel free to leave your suggestions in the comment form!

The Summer of War

Superfluous slasher sequels and Labor Day mean one thing for filmgoers: the long summer movie season is finally coming to a close.  Though I did my fair share of grumbling and there were alarmingly more “Colon: Movies” than ever before, the summer of 2009 ended up being a fairly solid season.  The year as a whole has been eerily reminiscent of 1999 in that there have been a slew of top-of-the-line “niche” films and both art-house and multiplex offerings have been more thoughtful than usual by delivering subtext and social commentary with their cliches, laughter, violence and gore.  Whether any of these films will matter ten years from now is hard to tell.  Looking back on the summer trends, I think I’ll always remember this 2009 season as the summer Hollywood went to war.

The Top Five Headlines from The Summer of War:

In the summer of 2009 Hollywood was in the business of war...and, cousin, business was-a-boomin'!

1. Quentin Tarantino Declares War on the Nazis!  Inglourious Basterds :  The most controversial, the most talked about, the most unexpected film of the summer is now on pace to be the biggest hit of Tarantino’s career.  Love it or loathe it, everyone is compelled to have an opinion.  Even those who have found it to be an immoral pulpy mess of a film agree on three things:  Christoph Waltz’s Hans Landa ranks among the best Nazi villains in film history, Tarantino’s conjuring of the ”face in the smoke” is a moving-image for the ages, and Brad Pitt is one funny bastard.
2. Kathryn Bigelow Cleans Up Hollywood’s Quagmire in Iraq!  The Hurt Locker  :  Hollywood has made a mess of the Iraq conflict on screen with dud after dud, but Bigelow hit all the right marks with her intimate and intense character study of an elite Army bomb squad in Baghdad. The reason her film is so engrossing is not just for the tension she builds, but also for the way her story transcends the current Middle East situation to deliver a timeless message about the inner turmoil of those brave (and sometimes reckless) soldiers who put their lives in harm’s way every day. 
3. England Declares War with America over Semantics!  In the Loop :  Ah, with war, there comes satire, and Armando Iannucci’s British import about a bumbling race to declare war is the funniest satire in years.  I can only hope that more people have been watching this on IFC On-Demand than have seen it in the theaters.
4. South Africa Declares War on Aliens!  District 9 :  Neil Blomkamp’s racially-conscious sci-fi allegory struck a cord with those looking for something original and thought-provoking in their entertainment.  This was just another reminder for me not to eat crustaceans, and I’ll never again look at those Nigerian spam-scam emails in the same way.
5. Sam Raimi Declares War on the Lamia — and the Schleicher Spin Declares Alison Lohman Hot as Hell!  Drag Me to Hell :  The perfect example of the perfect “niche” film — a big-budget A-list director returns to his low-budget B-level horror roots and creates a hell of a good time for his audience.  And, man, I still can’t get enough of that talking goat!

Other Notable Headlines from The Summer of War:

• Hollywood Declares War on Good Taste:  With both the latest sicko-bromance comedy, The Hangover, and the latest sicko-mockumentary from Sacha Baron Cohen, Bruno, Hollywood pushed the limits of good taste.  Never have I seen two films work harder for laughs, and while both made me chuckle (and want to up-chuck) in their own special ways, let’s be honest with ourselves, was any of it (besides the “tiger song” in the former and the “peace in the Middle East” bit in the later) that funny?  Seriously?
• Hollywood Declares War on our Childhood:  With the latest Michael Bay catastrophe on steroids, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen — which I successfully avoided like the pig flu — and Stephen Sommer’s gleefully stupid GI Joe: Rise of the Cobra — which I found to be a guilty pleasure thanks to the non-stop cartoon action and Sienna Miller’s skin-tight Baroness get-up — Hollywood pillaged our precious childhood memories for a cheap buck.  Gee, thanks, you wanna kick my puppy next?
• Hollywood Declares War on the Future:  In both J.J. Abrams’ shiny-happy-emo reboot of Star Trek (overrated but still good) and McG’s unnecessary and idiotic Terminator: Salvation (underrated but still bad) the future was on trial.  The verdict:  Leave it alone, Hollywood!
• Auteurs Come to Peace with Themselves and Nobody Watches:  Woody Allen returned to New York and found a perfect alter-ego in Larry David with the intermittently funny Whatever Works.  Meanwhile, Atom Egoyan continued to guarantee himself the smallest of audiences by birthing yet another cold piece of Canadian abstraction with the intermittently absorbing Adoration.  And finally, Sam Mendes knocked that bitter chip off his block and took us on a delightfully quirky detour with Away We Go, which of the three listed here most deserved to find a bigger audience.

And lastly:

• Biggest Disappointment:  Public Enemies
• Blockbuster that most bored me:  Harry Potter and the blah blah blah
• Movie I completely forgot about having seen until just now:  Ron Howard’s pointless Angels & Demons
• Buzzed about Movies I missed but plan to Netflix:  Up, Moon and 500 Days of Summer
• Movies I hope to never catch:  Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, The Ugly Truth, The Proposal, My Sister’s Keeper, The Time Traveler’s Wife

Written by David H. Schleicher

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So what films did you love or hate the most from the summer of 2009?  What will you most remember about Hollywood’s Summer of War?  Kick off the conversation in the comment form below!