KAJOL
Okay, this one is a bit of a stretch since there's over a billion people around the globe who are well aware of this fine actress's considerable talents. However, Kajol remains an example of the kinds of acting talent that lie outside English language (not to mention, Western) cine-sphere.
While Hollywood (and any heterosexual man with a pulse) swoons over her contemporary Aishwarya Rai, Kajol remains under the radar.
A pity, since Kajol's range and gravitas would give the Winslets and Streeps (yes!) a serious run for their money.
One of the most talented actresses to emerge from Bollywood in the Nineties, Kajol is best known for her pairings with superstar Shahrukh Khan, and their collective chemistry is always a joy to behold (and really helps during the really, really long song-and-dance numbers).
While most Bollywood films are weighed down by sentiment and melodramatic plotting (not to mention 3 hour running times and 6-12 song-and-dance numbers...), Kajol is the rare talent that can bring a film back to some semblance of (movie) reality.
With decent comic timing and a penchant for the zany, she is also a pretty good comedienne, as shown by her performance in KUCH KUCH HOTA HAI (1998), in which she comes close to channelling the spirit of screwball queen Carol Lombard (another fine talent awaiting rediscovery!).
A character actress blessed with a movie star's looks, Kajol has played everything from villainous femmes to romantic heroines (check out her award-winning work as a blind lover in 2006's FANAA).
She's also rather unique in India for not constantly working (a trait generally unheard of in Bollywood), choosing to spend time with her family while choosing roles that will stretch her talents.
Still only in her thirties, Kajol is an exciting talent who continues to grow and develop as one of the world's most popular and respected thespians.
Am I smitten? Of course, but my personal endorsement aside, take a look and you'll soon be convinced that Kajol is the real deal.
Original post 6-8-2010
Sunday, 27 April 2014
Sunday, 16 March 2014
Die Hard. In a building
This is a post about movies in which a person or persons are trapped in a building by other persons. Kinda. Read on!
REAR WINDOW (1954)
Not really an action movie, but in many ways, the forerunner of every claustrophobic thriller from WAIT UNTIL DARK to DIE HARD. Enough has already been written about the virtues of this masterpiece. Go watch it. NOW.
THE MARAUDERS (1955)
I have not seen this movie in 12 years. It might be shit. But from what I remember it was about a lone farmer protecting a watering hole from a gang of unpleasant reprobates with only an immigrant woman and her little son to help. It also boasts one of my favorite genre cliches - the main villain who initiates the plot is taken out early and his place is taken by his insane and depraved subordinate. Thus a tense standoff is turned into a bloodbath. Or in this case, a dustup. Surprisingly dark for a mid 50s western, it boasts a memorably ironic climax.
WAIT UNTIL DARK (1967)
Maybe the first proto-slasher movie, the climax to this tense thriller works just as well as a mini-action movie, with its disabled heroine using all her wits to MacGyver the baddies' attempts to break into her basement apartment.
Audrey Hepburn makes for an unlikely badass and Alan Arkin makes an equally strong impression as her terrifying antagonist. Director Terrence Young, a veteran of the Bond films, earns his stripes with a cruel, ironic touch which turns a hoary premise into a truly hair-raising ride.
ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 (1976)
Scary as hell, this movie gets LA in a way I can relate to. It's the movie that put John Carpenter on the map, and it serves as an inspiration to low budget filmmakers everywhere on how to turn out a memorable genre film on limited resources.
DIE HARD (1988)
The macdaddy of 'people stuck in a something' action films. While movies like SPEED and THE RAID come close, DIE HARD's clockwork plotting, sense of verisimilitude and a cast of memorable characters elevate it beyond the realm of mere genre classic.
THE RAID (2011)
This movie is great. I'm not as high on it as a lot of other people, but it is great to see someone pick up the bloody mantle of John Carpenter and John McTiernan to deliver an action movie that feels like a genuine roller coaster ride.
Some people say it's better than DIE HARD. It isn't. But on its own terms, it's excellent and boasts a final fight that stands with the best of them.
DREDD (2012)
This feels like the kind of movie Walter Hill used to dash off in his late 70s/early 80s heyday. A stripped down vehicle for Mega City One's resident badass, every aspect of this film is pared to the bone, from the terse dialogue, action-speaks-louder character moments and the economical choice to keep the story contained to one mega-block.
While not as imaginative in its set pieces as THE RAID, DREDD is far from the poor second cousin some critics shrugged it off as. Like ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13, DREDD is a tribute to the work of a talented group of filmmakers overcoming the economic constraints imposed by a low budget.
WHITE HOUSE DOWN (2013)
Okay, so this movie is Die Hard. And it's set in the White House. But it is awesome.
If OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN felt like an 80s throwback (earnest, R rated, kinda racist), WHITE HOUSE DOWN feels like it just fell out of a time warp from 1996, sharing the same ironic bluster of Roland Emmerich's INDEPENDENCE DAY, the heavy hitter of that year's blockbusters.
Fast and funny, the makers of White House Down know exactly what kind of movie they are making. The kind where Channing Tatum threatens a squirrel with his gun, the President fires a rocket launcher and someone wears a necklace of hand grenades.
A breath of fresh air in a summer of grim'n'gritty misery (MAN OF STEEL, WORLD WAR Z), WHITE HOUSE DOWN did not get the love it deserved. But that love starts here, dammit! Go see it now!
Random post to show I am not dead
Rocket, SUCKER PUNCH [22-8-2011]
Jena Malone is a fine actress, with street cred up the wazoo, and a chin that remains an endless fascination to me. Which makes it all the more interesting when she takes on a more commercial project.
Sadly her instincts in these cases can be hit-and-miss. CONTACT was cool, apart from the crazy ending. STEP MOM was hokey, mawkish nonsense that'll make your grannie cry. Her last fling with Hollywood was jungle horror THE RUINS. She was pretty good in it, turning a token 'final girl' into an untrustworthy, mixed up twenty-something. THE RUINS could have been great, but it was about killer weeds. So I laughed at it.
However, just as her performance in THE RUINS was rather better than it deserved, so it goes with Zack Snyder's idontknowhathehellitsabout movie.
Now I'm not suggesting her performance is Oscar calibre, but she certainly made me care a damn sight more about Rocket than Emily Browning's Babydoll. A part of this is in the writing. Generally speaking, it sucks. HOWEVER, intentional or not (hey we can hope), Malone is considerably better served by the script (okay stop laughing) than most of the other actors. Her characterization and backstory are also better served by the fact that writer-director extraordinaire Sack, I mean, Zack Snyder does not show said backstory in flashback, thus allowing the viewer to imagine what could have landed her in a brothel/madhouse/whateverthehellitis, without the ridiculously over-stylized aesthetic he brings to Babydoll's "tragic" past (although I can understand how she's so traumatized. I'd be pretty screwed up too if the first twenty years of my life were telescoped into a music video).
Another factor is looks. Without meaning to sound cruel, Malone is not traditionally good-looking. Which is not to say she is not good-looking or sexy, she is just not as idealized. She stands out from the other actresses, who are a little more along the lines of classical notions of feminine beauty (certainly the kind you find in a brothel/comic book/video game/whathefuckisthispos). For this rather superficial reason (hey remember what we're dealing with here) Rocket comes off as a little bit more relatable.
The final factor is the performance itself. As I said before, it ain't perfect. There are (quite) a few moments where she seems to strain with the "dire-logue" Snyder gives her. While I may be suffering from the delayed effects of some forgotten hallucinogen, here's my take on why Rocket works and the rest of the movie doesn't:
As I said before, while the script is poor, it does give Malone's character the barest pieces of an arc (or at least more of an arc than Browning), and the actress does manage, however inconsistently, to produce a more solid characterization than her peers.
At first, Malone plays her as a sarcastic and less tough version of her sister Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish). However, as the story progresses (READER: What story?) there are several key moments in which our perceptions of Rocket are forced to change. The moment after Babydoll rescues her from being raped is a great little character moment. She attempts to laugh it off and resume her sarcastic veneer, yet in the following scene we see her lose the fake smile as she turns to get a glass of water with deadened eyes. When she tells her sister that she can't "take much more of this", Malone utters the line with a tremulous voice, as though she fighting the mother of all panic attacks. There is a sense of fragility about Rocket which is lacking from the other girls. Rocket seems to be the only character with a believable reaction to being stuck in a brothel/WTFdontcarenomore - and that makes us (or me, at least) care.
I don't want to overburden Malone with too much praise. If the other actresses had been better served with more developed characters, and the whole fantasy action crap ripped out, I'm sure they would have delivered proper performances, instead of striking manga poses. However, as it stands, her performance makes SUCKER PUNCH just a mite more tolerable.
Tuesday, 5 March 2013
Obscure musicians I'm currently diggin'
I wish I could of a clever pun for the title of this post, but ah well. Here's a few artists I've discovered over the last year. They aren't that famous and they could not be considered 'in' with current musical tastes but that's what makes them interesting to my eardrums after a decade of repetitive dance beats and Auto-tune extravaganzas.
KEITH WASHINGTON
This guy's music was close to being my soundtrack to last summer, which is somewhat ironic since Washington hasn't had an album out since '98.
An odd beast in the climate of the early 90s, and even more so now, Washington is more of an old-school balladeer. In the age of hip hop and new jack, his first two albums sound both out-of-date and timeless in their use of lush orchestral arrangements and restrained use of synthesizers.
Benefiting from the lush production of Qwest Records (Quincy Jones' old outfit), Washington's first two albums are a sign of the path RnB did not take, standing out as a modern extension of the ballads Luther Vandross, Freddie Jackson and Alexander O'Neal produced in the Eighties. A worthy compliment to the influence of new jack swing and gangster rap that rose to popularity in the early 90s, Washington was unable to maintain a consistent output and his last LP, despite a strong neo-soul pedigree failed to keep his star on the rise.
Talk of a new LP has been floating around for the last few years, but for now Washington remains a worthy yet under-utilized talent.
Key tracks: While his first album is filled with strong tracks, 'Kissing You' was the big hit, and for good reason.
CLEAR LIGHT
A one album wonder, but one that boasts eclecticism and bat shit insanity in abundance. Seen as a possible follow-up to Elektra's heavy hitters, The Doors (their titular album was produced by Doors producer Paul Rothchild), the band collapsed shortly after its release due to a combination of its poor chart performance and corporate pressure to become more commercial. The punchline to their sorry story is that half the band ended up enlisted as session players to beef up the Doors' sound in the studio.
Key tracks: 'Sand' is fun, crazy and vaguely annoying all at the same time. 'Mr Blue' is a remake of a folk song by Tom Paxton that turns the jokey irony of the original into a dark phantasmagoria of encroaching paranoia. Bizarre yet inspired.
WILL DOWNING
Boasting a silky, full-blooded baritone, Downing is something of a dinosaur in today's musical landscape. Originally marketed as a flat-out RnB singer in the style of Luther Vandross, it took a while for Downing to define himself. He had a few minor dance hits in the late Eighties and gained a strong following in the UK and Europe, but artistic satisfaction and stateside success eluded him.
Facing pressure from the money men to go in a more commercial direction following the middling returns of his second LP, Downing chose to focus on a project which foregrounded his love of old school soul and jazz standards. The result, A Dream Fulfilled (1991), overcame his label's dour predictions to become his most popular release. It also laid down the blueprint for the rest of his career.
Managing the trick of never being fashionable or predictable, he has overcame changing labels and personal illness to produce a run of strong albums that manage to run the line between vintage and contemporary sounds. Now an independent, the 'Prince of Sophisticated Soul' has taken the radical approach of meeting the short attention span of the iTunes generation by issuing EPs of 3-4 tracks, with little reduction in quality.
Key albums: Downing is the most consistent performer of the bunch, having produced albums at the rate of every 1-2 years. The early albums are fun, but the most dated of his work, with early tracks like 'Free' and a memorable adaption of Coltrane's 'A Love Supreme' pointing toward future ventures. I haven't listened to all of the albums from Dream Fulfilled on, but from the ones I have heard, 1995's Moods, 1998's overtly jazzy Pleasures of the Night, 2002's Sensual Journey and 2007's After Tonight provide an excellent spectrum for showcasing Downing's timeless, unpretentious approach to his brand of jazz-inflected RnB.
KEITH WASHINGTON
This guy's music was close to being my soundtrack to last summer, which is somewhat ironic since Washington hasn't had an album out since '98.
An odd beast in the climate of the early 90s, and even more so now, Washington is more of an old-school balladeer. In the age of hip hop and new jack, his first two albums sound both out-of-date and timeless in their use of lush orchestral arrangements and restrained use of synthesizers.
Benefiting from the lush production of Qwest Records (Quincy Jones' old outfit), Washington's first two albums are a sign of the path RnB did not take, standing out as a modern extension of the ballads Luther Vandross, Freddie Jackson and Alexander O'Neal produced in the Eighties. A worthy compliment to the influence of new jack swing and gangster rap that rose to popularity in the early 90s, Washington was unable to maintain a consistent output and his last LP, despite a strong neo-soul pedigree failed to keep his star on the rise.
Talk of a new LP has been floating around for the last few years, but for now Washington remains a worthy yet under-utilized talent.
Key tracks: While his first album is filled with strong tracks, 'Kissing You' was the big hit, and for good reason.
CLEAR LIGHT
A one album wonder, but one that boasts eclecticism and bat shit insanity in abundance. Seen as a possible follow-up to Elektra's heavy hitters, The Doors (their titular album was produced by Doors producer Paul Rothchild), the band collapsed shortly after its release due to a combination of its poor chart performance and corporate pressure to become more commercial. The punchline to their sorry story is that half the band ended up enlisted as session players to beef up the Doors' sound in the studio.
Key tracks: 'Sand' is fun, crazy and vaguely annoying all at the same time. 'Mr Blue' is a remake of a folk song by Tom Paxton that turns the jokey irony of the original into a dark phantasmagoria of encroaching paranoia. Bizarre yet inspired.
WILL DOWNING
Boasting a silky, full-blooded baritone, Downing is something of a dinosaur in today's musical landscape. Originally marketed as a flat-out RnB singer in the style of Luther Vandross, it took a while for Downing to define himself. He had a few minor dance hits in the late Eighties and gained a strong following in the UK and Europe, but artistic satisfaction and stateside success eluded him.
Facing pressure from the money men to go in a more commercial direction following the middling returns of his second LP, Downing chose to focus on a project which foregrounded his love of old school soul and jazz standards. The result, A Dream Fulfilled (1991), overcame his label's dour predictions to become his most popular release. It also laid down the blueprint for the rest of his career.
Managing the trick of never being fashionable or predictable, he has overcame changing labels and personal illness to produce a run of strong albums that manage to run the line between vintage and contemporary sounds. Now an independent, the 'Prince of Sophisticated Soul' has taken the radical approach of meeting the short attention span of the iTunes generation by issuing EPs of 3-4 tracks, with little reduction in quality.
Key albums: Downing is the most consistent performer of the bunch, having produced albums at the rate of every 1-2 years. The early albums are fun, but the most dated of his work, with early tracks like 'Free' and a memorable adaption of Coltrane's 'A Love Supreme' pointing toward future ventures. I haven't listened to all of the albums from Dream Fulfilled on, but from the ones I have heard, 1995's Moods, 1998's overtly jazzy Pleasures of the Night, 2002's Sensual Journey and 2007's After Tonight provide an excellent spectrum for showcasing Downing's timeless, unpretentious approach to his brand of jazz-inflected RnB.
Tuesday, 30 October 2012
A few TV pilots that should have been given their wings
HEAT VISION & JACK (1999)
KORGOTH OF BARBARIA (2006)
"I've dated girls uglier than you for breakfast!"
The title sequence alone had me wanting a series. For anyone who loves 1982's gloriously unhinged CONAN THE BARABRIAN and has a sense of humor, this is for you! The makers of KORGOTH take no account for good taste, diving into the goldmine of cliches which is 30s Sword-n-Sorcery fiction. Not only do they take the tropes of the 80s flicks they inspired (sex, violence, gore), there are gags which reference the cover art of Frank Frazetta, 80s heavy metal and even a few shout outs to HP Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos.
Directed by SAMURAI JACK creator Genndy Tartakovsky, KORGOTH benefits from a similarly deadpan approach to its subject, albeit with an R rating.
LOOKWELL (1991)
The story of a former star of yesteryear making a comeback as a latter-day crime fighter, LOOKWELL should have been the beginning of a comeback for BATMAN star Adam West. West is in his element, playing a delusional actor who believes his experience as a 70s television cop qualifies him to aid the police.
A worthy companion to POLICE SQUAD! and SLEDGEHAMMER!, LOOKWELL never made it to air, consigning West's second greatest performance to the dustbin until the fame of its co-writer, Conan O'Brien, and the enduring appeal of its star resurrected it on Youtube.
"If I feel so much as one bullet hit me, I'll come over there and pull your lungs through your nostrils."
One of the chief joys of this incredibly bizarre un-aired pilot is the chance to see Ron "the bad guy from TIME COP" Silver send himself up in great style as 'Ron Silver', a former astronaut-turned-super villain (with an occasional sideline in acting) on the hunt for the titular duo. When he's not being recognized as the villain from a Van Damme movie ("Get a pen and I'll write you an autograph!"), Silver is a ruthless killing machine, destroying anyone who gets in his way. He's so diabolically evil he even monologues to himself about how diabolically evil he is.
And who are the heroes standing in this fiend's path? Well, there is Jack, a former astronaut-turned-fugitive who gains super-intelligence when his brain is literally baked by the sun. His only weakness is that when the sun goes down, he loses his super-intellect.
And then there is Heat Vision, a motor bike possessed by the mind of Jack's former un-employeed roommate, whose weaknesses include running out of petrol and being pushed over. Why is he called Heat Vision? No idea.
Sadly, we shall never know how this clash of the titans would have ended. Fox cancelled series production and any chance of a return (talk of a feature film has been bubbling since '08) ended when Silver succumbed to cancer in 2009.
And who are the heroes standing in this fiend's path? Well, there is Jack, a former astronaut-turned-fugitive who gains super-intelligence when his brain is literally baked by the sun. His only weakness is that when the sun goes down, he loses his super-intellect.
And then there is Heat Vision, a motor bike possessed by the mind of Jack's former un-employeed roommate, whose weaknesses include running out of petrol and being pushed over. Why is he called Heat Vision? No idea.
Sadly, we shall never know how this clash of the titans would have ended. Fox cancelled series production and any chance of a return (talk of a feature film has been bubbling since '08) ended when Silver succumbed to cancer in 2009.
KORGOTH OF BARBARIA (2006)
The title sequence alone had me wanting a series. For anyone who loves 1982's gloriously unhinged CONAN THE BARABRIAN and has a sense of humor, this is for you! The makers of KORGOTH take no account for good taste, diving into the goldmine of cliches which is 30s Sword-n-Sorcery fiction. Not only do they take the tropes of the 80s flicks they inspired (sex, violence, gore), there are gags which reference the cover art of Frank Frazetta, 80s heavy metal and even a few shout outs to HP Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos.
Directed by SAMURAI JACK creator Genndy Tartakovsky, KORGOTH benefits from a similarly deadpan approach to its subject, albeit with an R rating.
LOOKWELL (1991)
The story of a former star of yesteryear making a comeback as a latter-day crime fighter, LOOKWELL should have been the beginning of a comeback for BATMAN star Adam West. West is in his element, playing a delusional actor who believes his experience as a 70s television cop qualifies him to aid the police.
A worthy companion to POLICE SQUAD! and SLEDGEHAMMER!, LOOKWELL never made it to air, consigning West's second greatest performance to the dustbin until the fame of its co-writer, Conan O'Brien, and the enduring appeal of its star resurrected it on Youtube.
THE GIRL WHO MADE ME WANT TO SET MY EYES ON FIRE
Rooney Mara, NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET
In light of Mara's recent success, I feel almost cruel in posting this, but her work in the awful 2010 remake really had my capillaries flowing. I really don't know how to describe it. I'd like to say you'll have to see it for yourself, but that would involve taking two hours out of your life to actually watch it.
Broadly speaking, Mara takes on the role of the heroine played by Heather Langenkamp in Wes Craven's 1984 original. Unlike Langenkamp, who played a vague approximation of a normal teenager, Mara is stuck playing some kind of damaged emo chick with a mysterious past. The most frightening part of uncovering her character's past is the chilling number of times the script ticks off various cliches: emo hair, emo music, crappy job, creepy emo male friends, pretentious emo sketching.
And then, on top of this Necronomicon of bad signs is the performance itself. Or more specifically, the voice. The only way I can describe it is if Lee Marvin's monotone had met Sylvestor Stallone's patented mumblemumble, and had a casual booze-soaked fling that resulted in this sad troglodyte creation. It's horrible, it's nigh-on unintelligable and it is frickin' hilarious.
It felt almost like Mara did an impression of Kristen Stewart in TWILIGHT for the gag reel, and the director didn't tell her to stop. When I wasn't laughing my head off, her mumbling had me reaching for the rewind just to figure out what the hell she was saying. I gave up because the movie was so crap I could not bear to watch it again.
While even the hounds of hell cannot convince me to re-watch the movie again, her performance was so flaccid it dips over from merely stiff to some kind of weirdly memorable anti-performance that I can't help but want to re-visit. Thankfully I've been able to resist the urge... so far.
Tuesday, 14 August 2012
A Short Walk Out A High Window
I'm sitting here in a moment of reverie. The day is officially retired. Obligations met, challenges dismissed, overlong pontifications endured. Fred Neil is singing 'The Water Is Wide'. Life is about to turn into a flood of major projects and equally, insufferably important minutiae. But right now, nestled in a comfy chair with my feet perched on its brother, I feel at peace.
Casting for my short film is now, hopefully complete. It has been an interesting search and I think I have found players capable of ripping my characters away from me and making them breath. It's exciting. I just hope I have done my homework so I can do them justice. Our first read-thru is this Saturday. Our rehearsal dates are already booked, which feels me with an indescribable sense of relief. It feels like the ship is on course and heading for its destination.
Next week I have to put on a production of the key scene from Tennessee Williams' black comedy BABY DOLL. It's a good scene. I can see why Elia Kazan chose to expand it into a feature-length movie. It's got a weird, loping gait to it that is alternatively comic, vulgar, sexy and disturbing.
The story is a doozy: Jake Meighan, a middle-aged plantation owner burns down his competitor's property and gets his business. Learning of the arson scheme, his damaged rival, Silva Vicarro, chooses to rectify his sense of injustice by taking the one thing the old man prizes more than his cotton: his very naive and very disturbed nymphet bride, the titular Baby Doll...
The scene I'm doing is the key confrontation between Baby Doll and Silva. It's a juicy piece of Southern Gothic, spiced up with Williams' ambiguous presentations of his characters' motives and impulses. I'm having a great deal of fun with my Director's Notes. It's going to be hard work but I'm getting the scene into a good piece, at least in my own mind. The first rehearsal is booked for this Thursday. I would have liked to start earlier, but casting for this has been a difficult, torturous process mired in all the cliches associated with the casting process.
I've been reading Elia Kazan's notes on A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE and they have been a huge help to me, especially in terms of releasing me from my fears of attacking what I feel are the flaws of Williams' text. While interesting, Williams too often resorts to having his characters blatantly highlight the themes of the story and the motivations of each character.
Combined with my desire to present a stream-lined treatment of my chosen scene, I felt free to cut and tighten the parts of the scene which would impede both its drama and (crucially) my cast's ability to learn their roles. In my role as editor I did not re-write anything. I simply cut lines which repeated and over-emphasized important points, or detracted from the scene's overall sense of impeding doom.
The most overt example of this process was the character of Jake. In the original text, Jake appeared for roughly the first 1/5 of the scene, and contributed a lengthy monologue on the attributes of his wife's large figure. After completely embarrassing his wife and Silva, he leaves to go to work. Now, in refining this role, I considered what I felt was Jake's main contributions to this scene.
- he provides the context for the confrontation between Silva and Baby Doll (such as the fire) so the audience would understand what was going on without a lengthy spiel from me.
- his antagonistic, demeaning treatment of Silva would make his actions later in the scene more understandable, while still despicable.
- he sets up the notion of 'tit for tat' that Silva takes to a most idiosyncratic and disturbing extreme in his attempts at retribution for the destruction of his property.
Nowhere could I find a justification for Jake's love of big women. And so it fell out, and Jake's role was reduced to a highly charged page of repressed sexual and racial rage. In summary, he remained a tosser, and that was all that was needed.
How successful my task was will be proved this Thursday in rehearsal, and at next week's performance. But for now, I am appeased. The cast have read through the script and no one has asked any questions, so I'll take it as an acknowledgement that my surgery was successful.
Well, that's about it for now. It feels good to have a bit of a cyber yack to myself. I hope it was entertaining in some way. Good night.
Casting for my short film is now, hopefully complete. It has been an interesting search and I think I have found players capable of ripping my characters away from me and making them breath. It's exciting. I just hope I have done my homework so I can do them justice. Our first read-thru is this Saturday. Our rehearsal dates are already booked, which feels me with an indescribable sense of relief. It feels like the ship is on course and heading for its destination.
Next week I have to put on a production of the key scene from Tennessee Williams' black comedy BABY DOLL. It's a good scene. I can see why Elia Kazan chose to expand it into a feature-length movie. It's got a weird, loping gait to it that is alternatively comic, vulgar, sexy and disturbing.
The story is a doozy: Jake Meighan, a middle-aged plantation owner burns down his competitor's property and gets his business. Learning of the arson scheme, his damaged rival, Silva Vicarro, chooses to rectify his sense of injustice by taking the one thing the old man prizes more than his cotton: his very naive and very disturbed nymphet bride, the titular Baby Doll...
The scene I'm doing is the key confrontation between Baby Doll and Silva. It's a juicy piece of Southern Gothic, spiced up with Williams' ambiguous presentations of his characters' motives and impulses. I'm having a great deal of fun with my Director's Notes. It's going to be hard work but I'm getting the scene into a good piece, at least in my own mind. The first rehearsal is booked for this Thursday. I would have liked to start earlier, but casting for this has been a difficult, torturous process mired in all the cliches associated with the casting process.
I've been reading Elia Kazan's notes on A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE and they have been a huge help to me, especially in terms of releasing me from my fears of attacking what I feel are the flaws of Williams' text. While interesting, Williams too often resorts to having his characters blatantly highlight the themes of the story and the motivations of each character.
Combined with my desire to present a stream-lined treatment of my chosen scene, I felt free to cut and tighten the parts of the scene which would impede both its drama and (crucially) my cast's ability to learn their roles. In my role as editor I did not re-write anything. I simply cut lines which repeated and over-emphasized important points, or detracted from the scene's overall sense of impeding doom.
The most overt example of this process was the character of Jake. In the original text, Jake appeared for roughly the first 1/5 of the scene, and contributed a lengthy monologue on the attributes of his wife's large figure. After completely embarrassing his wife and Silva, he leaves to go to work. Now, in refining this role, I considered what I felt was Jake's main contributions to this scene.
- he provides the context for the confrontation between Silva and Baby Doll (such as the fire) so the audience would understand what was going on without a lengthy spiel from me.
- his antagonistic, demeaning treatment of Silva would make his actions later in the scene more understandable, while still despicable.
- he sets up the notion of 'tit for tat' that Silva takes to a most idiosyncratic and disturbing extreme in his attempts at retribution for the destruction of his property.
Nowhere could I find a justification for Jake's love of big women. And so it fell out, and Jake's role was reduced to a highly charged page of repressed sexual and racial rage. In summary, he remained a tosser, and that was all that was needed.
How successful my task was will be proved this Thursday in rehearsal, and at next week's performance. But for now, I am appeased. The cast have read through the script and no one has asked any questions, so I'll take it as an acknowledgement that my surgery was successful.
Well, that's about it for now. It feels good to have a bit of a cyber yack to myself. I hope it was entertaining in some way. Good night.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)