The Encyclopedia of Film Criticism: Kenji Fujishima

Kenji Fujishima

Some of the first things about Total Recall I latched onto as a young cinephile were its dazzling production design and special effects, its breathless action sequences, its over-the-top violence—in short, its surface....Today, though, my appreciation for Paul Verhoeven's mind trip goes beyond simple nostalgia, and hinges on how its seductive look and immediate visceral pleasures are wily in their concealment of grand themes.

Contributed to: Slant Magazine, The Daily Targum, In Review Online, The Wall Street Journal, The Home News Tribune and The L Magazine.

Influences: Pauline Kael, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Matt Zoller Seitz, Armond White, Fernando F. Croce, Dave Kehr, Richard Brody 

Born in Queens, NY and raised in East Brunswick, N.J., Kenji Fujishima (December 4, 1985-) has slyly become one of the most reliably logical and easily digestible critics in the US. Soft-spoken, kind and gentle, his unfailingly pleasant demeanor conceals a ravenous intellect and a style that effortlessly dances a step ahead of the reader. 

In his own words: "My interest in cinephilia and film criticism came relatively late in the game compared to many of my colleagues. I was much more into music—classical, for the most part—than movies early on, and when I started playing the piano and the violin during my elementary-school years, I initially thought I’d be pursuing musical performance when I grew up. In those years, though, I also read The Newark Star-Ledger’s film reviews pretty regularly…and then, probably sometime during middle or junior high school, I borrowed a copy of Pauline Kael’s final collection of film reviews, Movie Love (1991), from my local library in East Brunswick, N.J. That was when I had my first film-criticism “eureka!” moment, when, upon her recommendation, I decided to give Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets a shot on VHS and not only found the film to be a quietly mind-blowing experience, but found her ecstatic review of it to beautifully mirror my own feelings. Not only was I hooked on her criticism, but thanks to the Internet, I was able to discover other crucial voices on my own: Jonathan Rosenbaum (especially for introducing me to the work of world-cinema auteurs like Hou Hsiao-hsien, Abbas Kiarostami and Béla Tarr), Matt Zoller Seitz (for his focus on finding meaning in technique), Armond White (for simply his fire-and-brimstone polemical style, whether or not I agreed with his stances or not), Fernando F. Croce (for his lyrical economy of expression), and others."

"Still, it wasn’t until after my sophomore year of my undergraduate college education at Rutgers University—after an initial two years of agonizing over my choice of major—that I decided to focus my energies on film criticism. Technically, I ended up majoring in journalism with a minor in cinema studies—but I became active with Rutgers’ daily newspaper, The Daily Targum, writing film reviews for them before becoming the film editor of its weekly Inside Beat entertainment section. One year, for the Targum, I decided it might be fun to get a film critic’s perspective on the year’s Oscar race; it is for that reason that I decided to reach out to Matt Zoller Seitz, then Newark Star-Ledger television critic and New York Press film critic. In some ways, that feature opened the door for my entry into The House Next Door when Seitz decided to open up what was initially his own personal blog to various outside contributors…and essentially, that’s how I got my foot in the door of this business we call film criticism."

And we can all be grateful he did. Since his debut, Kenji has kept to a handful of outlets, releasing one sturdily written piece after another. Like the classical music he loves so much, there's a grace to his diction. His sentence structure, especially his interplay of verbs and adjectives, move with a ballerina's seemingly effortless flow. Look at this sentence in his review of Onur Tukel's Summer of Blood: "...it's becoming apparent that Onur Tukel is developing a distinct on-screen persona: that of a cynical motormouth whose disaffected hipster veneer masks a core selfishness." The meter is delectable, reading as smoothly in one's head as it does out loud. There's an old world construction to it. You'd expect to read something with that confident rhythm from one of the romantic poets. Read this passage from his review of Quiz Show and feel it tugging you down like a steady river current: "Though the film’s vision of capitalistic exploitation is damning, thankfully the filmmakers don’t forgo the flawed, wounded human beings at the heart of this sobering tale in favor of political point-making." Easygoing but with such urgent force behind it. He's a conductor, compelling the proper dynamic from the orchestra at his fingertips. 

On Dinosaur 13

To some extent, Petersen's use of a wide aspect ratio and Morton's emphatic score takes its cues from Larson's passion—the expansive frame more given to exuding an openness to natural environments, the music expressing perhaps more than Larson himself is willing to outwardly show (he remains a generally stoic camera subject throughout). Perhaps that's why its final shot—of Larson going back out into the desert, pickax in hand, in an extreme wide shot—is as surprisingly affecting as it is. Larson may not have ended up with exactly the outcome he desired (and the film vehemently argues that he deserved better than the outcome he got), but his love of fossil-hunting at least remained thankfully undimmed through it all.

On Sunshine Superman

Boenish’s infectious enthusiasm generally tended to spread to the people around him—and damned if it doesn’t get to us as well. Perhaps the sheer preponderance of Boenish’s self-shot footage is key to the effectiveness of Sunshine Superman. It’s one thing to hear Boenish spouting inspirational platitudes about thinking outside societal boxes and following your bliss; it’s quite another, however, to see the man himself putting his philosophies into mad practice, and moreover, to see his own filmed results as thrilling illustration. In the end, it doesn’t matter so much that the reenactments can sometimes be cheesy, the pacing in the second half somewhat lumbering, the hagiography occasionally oppressive. Such doubts are bound to be swept away when faced with the spectacle of real people momentarily suspended in air, engulfed by their surroundings, experiencing the intoxicating freedom of defying the laws of society and nature. Sunshine Superman may not inspire anyone to climb up and fall from a tall building, but the underlying liberating ethos behind such devil-may-care behavior comes across resonantly and passionately.

On Cinderella

Kenneth Branagh's Cinderella is, for the most part, a straightforward retelling of the fairy tale, and the Walt Disney Pictures imprimatur ensures that the filmmaker forgoes the more violent moments in the Brothers Grimm version of the story (no one cuts their toes off here in order to fit into Cinderella's glass slipper; to see that, you'd have to turn to Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods). Which isn't to say that the film doesn't have its own distinct virtues. Dante Ferretti's color production design and Sandy Powell's wide-ranging costumes (the black-with-green-stripes design on wicked stepmother Lady Tremaine's dress offers an expressive contrast with Cinderella's initial plain pink dress) are so intoxicatingly colorful that every shot has the immersiveness of a dream. But it's the emotional reality with which Branagh, screenwriter Chris Weitz, and his cast ground this Cinderella that makes it as affecting as it is. 

Branagh fully understands the societal critique underlying the tale, and brings it out into the open: The world that surrounds Cinderella is one in which surface appearances matter more than inner beauty, class status is a kind of mental prison from which only a few are able to break free, and climbing up the social ladder is believed to be the only sure route toward happiness....

....Most of all, though, this Cinderella resonates as an ideological battle between Cinderella's (Lily James) natural optimism and Lady Tremaine's (Cate Blanchett) viciously calculating pragmatism. While the former ultimately wins out, Branagh isn't above occasionally giving the latter perspective its due. Even as Blanchett generally plays her character to the delicious black-hearted hilt, she does offer fleeting glimpses of the painful life experience that has shaped her appalling current behavior. And though the film sprinkles in those intermittent moments of bitter adult wisdom, Branagh, as with the film's main character, never allows Cinderella to sink into heavy-spiritedness. A sense of play reigns over the proceedings, perhaps encapsulated most amusingly by Helena Bonham Carter's Fairy Godmother, played with a kind of jokey, no-nonsense gleam in her eyes that nevertheless feels completely sincere rather than snarky. That just about sums up the film in a nutshell: It may not reinvent any wheels, but it's been made with enough care and belief in its material that it manages to refresh our relationship to the iconic tale, reminding us of why its message, of kindness triumphing over evil, has endured for so long.

The Encyclopedia of Film Criticism - Olivia Collette

Olivia Collette

Since becoming agnostic, I’ve often said that I preferred it when I believed in a god, because it meant believing in a magical afterlife…When I die, I probably still won’t believe in god, at least not with any certainty. But I will no doubt wish that I did.

Influences: "Roger Ebert was probably the greatest influence, and he inspired me in a couple of ways. Firstly, and I say this in “My Favorite Roger”, he was a terrific writer, and one I turned to often when I was studying film theory. The second thing he made me appreciate was how to be a better reader. Even if I only knew him for 3 short years, I can’t begin to express what a privilege it was to be one of the people in his entourage in those later years.

Another influence is Matt Zoller Seitz, who I started reading after meeting him at Ebertfest 2011. I doubt he realizes this, but I nearly peed myself when he first complimented my writing, and then asked me to contribute to the Grand Budapest Hotel book, which is sort of an appendix to his book The Wes Anderson Collection. I wrote the chapter on music. I especially enjoy his TV recaps, because while most recappers tell you the order of things that happened in an episode, Matt tells you what was really going on. He talks about the layers rather than the events. And then there’s how he does it, which is just so many levels of good. 

Finally, there’s Odie Henderson and Steven Boone. They have very different styles of writing, and they’re both equally captivating. I especially recommend Odie’s Silicon Valley recaps and everything Boone’s written for Capital New York. Every now and then, Odie and Boone write together in a kind of epistolary blog post, which, for me, is an absolute treat. We haven’t necessarily worked together, but we’ve had the pleasure of talking to each other live, and the exchanges are incredible. They shape my writing because as a writer, I strive to have a voice as distinct as theirs. So I guess what I’m really saying is, I’m lucky to have worked with people I also admire greatly."


Proud champion of: Norman Jewison, Night and Fog, Jesus Christ Superstar, Ari Folman, Moonstruck, Tous les matins du monde, Ron Fricke, Celda 211, El laberinto del fauno, A Serious Man, Michael Slovis, Yin shi nan nu, Wandâfuru raifu, Pedro Almodóvar, Pleasantville, Federico Fellini, Suspiria, Volver, ¡Átame!, Denys Arcand, Pepi, Luci, Bom y otras chicas del montón, Brian Froud, Koyaanisqatsi, Persepolis, Wes Anderson, Julie/Julia, Lee Daniels, The NeverEnding Story, The Dark Crystal, Michel Gondry, The Doinel Cycle, Agnès Varda

Contributed to: The McGill News, Caustic Truths, Journal Place Publique, enRoute, eHow, RogerEbert.com, Montreal Gazette, Mondo*Arc, The Spectator Arts Blog, World Film Locations (San Francisco), Sparksheet, Indiewire/Press Play, Urbania, Huffington Post Québec and her writing is collected at oliviacollette.com


Despite a gift for it, Montreal-based Olivia Collette (October 19, 1976-) doesn't consider herself a film critic: "I feel I’m a journalist first, and an art critic second. And I say “art critic” because I’ve written about music, cinema and TV. And I put the emphasis on “journalist” because I’m much more interested in a variety of topics that shape society, not just art; things like linguistics, architecture, urban planning, transportation, politics; stuff that’s not necessarily artsy."

"What made it possible for me to even dabble in criticism was a combination of things: namely writing, studying film theory in university, and studying music before going into film theory. Even when I was studying music, it became clear that I was far more interested in deconstructing an art medium than being the artist. Although there are parts of me that still need those artistic outlets, writing will always be the most fulfilling thing for me."

"I feel that I got started with film essays before getting the chance to review anything. I really like to analyze the shit out of things, so I suppose the first time I did that, and made a significant mark, was when I wrote an essay in university about the visual theme of chess in Jesus Christ Superstar. It wasn’t the first film essay I wrote, but it was the one that made the most waves. My professor really liked the idea, and my cousin, who’s a religious scholar, used my premise to dig into representations of Christ in pop culture. "

"The first time I published any kind of review, it was in a community newspaper called Journal Place Publique, and it was about Yagayah, a play co-written by d’bi young and Naila Belvett. The first time I started to commit to writing about pop culture was on my blog, and it was with this entry, which I followed up with this piece [on devilry in the movies]. And eventually led to this piece [on video games], which continues to be the most popular on my blog: The first time I wrote for Roger Ebert about film was with a piece on the role of architecture in Inception."

Olivia identifying herself as a journalist is the key to understanding her film writing. Her pieces have an honesty, not only about the fundamental form and image in front of her, but about herself and what she brings to every piece of art she encounters. Kent Jones, among others, has frequently called for, to put it simplistically, people to actually write about the movie they're watching, and Olivia is one of the few writers who rarely strays from what can be known about the film, about its reality, and about how it achieves its effect on the viewer. Her prose, candid, funny and relatable, lowers a bridge for readers, offering an easy, rewarding rapport. She thoroughly researches the movies she watches to fully engross herself in the artist's intentions and palette. Her endlessly fascinating look at religion informs her writing on film, in that both approach something unknowable with two feet firmly planted on the ground. She offers the safety of the rational world while examining gigantic, often terrifying subjects, offering her healthily skeptical POV as a way into discussing sacred cows, from religion to sexism to blockbusters. Every subject is treated equally, with the same scrutiny and openness. More concisely, Olivia Collette is fearless. 


On Laurence Anyways: 
The film's biggest strength is dealing with a taboo as if it wasn't. When Laurence starts dressing in women's clothing, she looks less like Jenna Talackova and more like an awkward man in a skirt, because it takes time to get comfortable with who you are. Eventually she returns to pants because a dress doesn't make the lady. Despite her ability for great tenderness, Laurence can also be selfish and rude. She's not an angelic transgender heroine; she's just exceedingly normal.


On A Hijacking:
The bulk of the stress revolves around 12 phone calls between Peter and Omar. Connor is always present to make sure each conversation never gets frantic. The one time things reach Samuel L. Jackson pitch, there are immediate consequences. The film earns Dogme points with handheld cinematography and uncomfortable, sometimes inefficient lighting. But Lindholm wanted to achieve maximum realism. So the boat scenes were filmed on a real ship in the Indian Ocean. A satellite phone was set up on the boat to make phone calls to the actors in Denmark, so echoes and lagging weren't scripted and the reactions were often improvised. Gary Skjoldmose-Porter, who plays Connor, is an actual hostage negotiator. He convinced Lindholm not to create a plasma screen-filled situation room and instead opt for a small conference set-up and sticking red tape on the phone the CEO would use. Other non-actors include 4 of the crewmembers of the MV Rozen, which was hijacked by Somali pirates in 2007. "Violence is expensive," is the simple — and loaded — thing that director Alrick Brown said during Ebertfest 2011, when someone asked him why there was a lack of bloodshed in "Kinyarwanda," a movie about the 1994 Rwandan genocide. That's why all the violence in "A Hijacking" occurs off-screen.


On The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey:
Some people hate "Dune" because it's nothing like the novel, but venerate "The Shining" for the same reason. You can't please everyone when you adapt a book to film, so you're better off hoping you'll please anyone. Even if it's just a handful, it's those few who will be your fiercest defenders against the purists. So let's start with what Peter Jackson's "The Hobbit" isn't: If you read the book, it's not the book you read. It includes plot elements from "The Hobbit," details that weren't fleshed out in "The Lord of the Rings" movies, bits from the "LOTR" appendices, and stuff that was created for the sake of this new trilogy.

We all know why, too. As a standalone story, "The Hobbit" had enough material for just one movie: a Hobbit named Bilbo Baggins is recruited by the wizard Gandalf and 13 dwarves to reclaim the kingdom that was stolen from them by a dragon; along the way, the company fights dangerous trolls and orcs, while Bilbo finds a ring that makes him invisible; it all leads to a final conflict. The End. 

That brevity won't do for such a lucrative franchise. And Hollywood economics dictates this must be a trilogy. Sporadic insertions of the Middle-Earth mythology were the only way to stretch the otherwise succinct saga over three films. Just the same, any film--whether it's adapted from a novel, comic book, TV series or video game--deserves to be reviewed as a separate entity, and on its own merits.

The Encyclopedia of Film Criticism: Kevin B. Lee

Kevin B. Lee

How to look at a movie isn’t something to take for granted. There are as many ways to look at a movie as there are stars in outer space. So we have to ask ourselves: which ways of looking are the ones we want to lead us as we make our way through this infinite universe of images?

Known for: pioneering the short-form video essay. Shedding light on non-canonical Chinese cinema.

Contributed to: Senses of Cinema, Chicago Reader, Cinema Scope, Cineaste, Slant, The House Next Door, Moving Image Source, The Auteurs/Mubi, Time Out New York, Fandor, Time Out Chicago, Cine-File, IndieWire, Press Play, Roger Ebert.com, Shooting Down Pictures, Sight & Sound, Slate, The New York Times.

Noted Champion of: In The City of Sylvia, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Edward Yang, Kate Lyn Sheil, Wang Bing. 

Influences: Harun Farocki ("always looking for new ways to see"), Theodor Adorno ("ferocity of skepticism, especially of cinema"), Walter Benjamin ("transformative vision"), Siegfried Kracauer ("curiosity in mass culture"), Jonathan Rosenbaum ("cinephilia with conscience"), Nicole Brenez ("championing the margins and marginalized"), Manny Farber ("dramatist of restless thought"), Roger Ebert ("populism with smarts and decency"), David Bordwell ("consummate science"), Tom Gunning ("at home in the unknowable"), Chris Marker ("seductive subjectivity"), Serge Daney ("that voice, so clear and purposeful"), Dennis Lim ("master surveyor of the scene"), Matt Zoller Seitz ("pure charisma"), Catherine Grant ("information empowerment"), Ed Gonzalez ("relentless DIY work ethic"), Keith Uhlich and Dan Sallitt ("fearless embrace of personal passions"), Mike D'Angelo and Michael Sicinski ("living termite critics"), The Otolith Group / Kodwo Eshun ("if only for the way he talks"), John Gianvito ("spiritual light"), Slavoj Zizek ("Everything is NOT awesome; Everything Is Ideology"), Thom Andersen ("Essay Plays Cinema"), Guy Debord ("he gave us the spectacles to properly see our society").

One of a few biographies you can find on Kevin B. Lee (January 21st 1975-) begins: A highly regarded producer of critical video essays, Kevin B. Lee blurs the line between filmmaker and film critic. Which would sum it up neatly except that his personality lights his critical work from within like a thousand flood lights. From his earliest piece, a biography of Jia Zhangke for Senses of Cinema, his predilections are clear. A healthy suspicion of canonical logic (his take down of Argo for Slate, at the height of its popularity, is among his most read pieces), a dialogue with critics laced with humility, and the fearless forging of a new path. After a list of everyone Jia's been compared to and the critics who made the comparisons, he quickly shifts gears: 

While these impressive points of reference may lend a feeling of familiarity to those unacquainted with Jia’s films, what risks getting lost in the translation is the glorious strangeness of Jia’s aesthetic. It’s worth making this point because the strangeness of the world is itself a central theme of Jia’s films. It’s a strangeness that descends on his characters and impedes their ability to cope with changes which may be as imperceptible as the shifting trends in music and fashion over months and years, or as sudden and calamitous as a factory explosion. 

He pays tribute, then drills deeper into the issue than he feels anyone else has gone. Perhaps that's why he was uniquely qualified to help popularize and lay out the stylistic foundations for the video essay form, as we know it today. His thorough and thoughtful analysis, on documentary and the question of cinematic reality especially, has allowed him contribute to an almost unprecedented list of highly esteemed outlets including most recently The New York Times. He continues writing criticism to this day, as always his finger on the ever-quicking pulse of the artform and its champions, and it's just as incisive as his video work, but Lee's contributions are of paramount importance to the flourishing of internet criticism. Short form video essays are something only possible in the age of the internet, and they're a great example of the ways in which modern critics can dig deeper into texts than was ever possible in the past. Lee has looked at the unique prowess of certain directors, such as when he charted the evolution of Paul Thomas Anderson in five choice steadicam shots or when he and Matt Zoller Seitz took apart the obsessions that fuel the films of Oliver Stone, as well as the stylistic development of the TV show The Wire. Lee became an unwilling culture warrior when Youtube deleted all of his content in 2009, including clips and full essays on films, citing copyright infringement. In his article on the injustice, Seitz had this to say on Lee's work: Kevin's trailblazing example inspired me to give up print journalism last year and concentrate on filmmaking, and make video essays—criticism with moving pictures—a key part of my new life. High praise and proof that Lee had indeed changed the way many of us relate to and review movies. 

Lee's criticism on the history of Chinese cinema is of particular interest to anyone interested in world cinema. In tackling a largely unheralded Canon, Lee humbly admits his amateur status (unnecessarily, as he's twice the authority most American critics are) and shines a light onto both contemporary and classical work. His work at dGenerate films, a non-theatrical distribution company, further illustrates his commitment to giving a voice to the best unknown Chinese filmmakers. Below is his essay comprised of clips from 50 major films from the start of the artform to 2011. 

For the Moving Image Source, an essay on six contemporary Chinese films:

And finally, among my personal favourites on this subject, his two-part A Revolution on Screen, concerning films made between 1949-1966, a crucial time for the shifting national and cultural identity:

A good entryway into his work on modern independent film from his position as founding editor at Fandor's blog (he also served as editor-in-chief for the video/blog haven Press Play from 2012-2013), this piece on Kate Lyn Sheil's performance in Amy Seimitz' scorching two-hander Sun Don't Shine. It's wonderful not only as an example of granting attention to a work in need of a greater audience, but also it's tuned to Lee's frequency as a critic. The moments that speak loudest to him are often completely silent, and his amazing command of film technique has allowed him to bring those haunting moments to the attention of an audience hungry for new perspectives on art. 

Hearing Voices: Thoughts on To The Wonder

I'm in exactly the same theatre I was in when Tree of Life had its first public screening in the US, the basement of a Landmark. I remember the anticipation then, of everyone, including the ushers, being nervous about what we were all about to see. This was an event and the sold out theatre proved it. A man came out ten minutes before the film started and reminded us we could buy concessions upstairs. No one had ever and no one has yet to do that again before a movie screening. Ned Hinkle used to remind Brattle patrons that they could buy beer, but that was because they'd only just had the bar put in. This was different, the man in front of me was shaking almost imperceptibly, as if his job were on the line and this movie's performance was what was going to make the difference. Two years later To The Wonder is about to start and the theatre is all but empty. 

It's a little earlier in the day this time, and there are more screenings planned later today (shorter runtime, more daily showings) and finally I see a man walk down the aisles. He isn't nervous. There having trouble with the DCP and would we go upstairs to wait for the next screening. Sure. I have a half hour to kill now and I'm running through all the pressnotes I've read in my head. I'm remembering Dan Kasman and Fernando Croce's correspondences about it, their measured praise. And then I remember Darren Hughes; "Where's all the shit?" The film was too clean, too pretty, too itself for Darren, who still didn't hate it. But then, even if you go in with the wrong mind for it, as Stephanie Zacharek did, and find it obnoxiously self-indulgent and embarrassing, you can't hate all of it, right? It then occurs to me, Zacharek is changing publications. So is Scott Tobias. Will this be the last film they review before the move? Like all Malick, it's a road film, so this would be a fitting departure for them, but I won't know that til later. The movie starts and I can't give this another thought.  

It begins with digital. Digital images, no mistaking them. Has he embraced this? A small camera wielded by a character, man-made creation, as opposed to universal creation. But they rarely resurface. The first real shot is perfect: a woman crossing a train's tray table to be literally on the lap of and in the face of the man she has a crush on. Shot in that improbable, incredibly defined, wide angle that Malick and Emmanuel Lubezki mastered for The Tree of Life. These are people. They're in love. They effortlessly reign over the frame, divine to their director. The france stuff is new for Malick. His previous films start with undeniable force and assertion. This is about a boy who changed my life, a man who murders his boss, an American on an island he clearly doesn't belong on, a ship discovering america, a cosmic whisper and the death of a boy. Here, just people, if the most well dressed people in his canon. Clearly just people: their footprints vanish in the mud in Normandy. They soon leave France for America. A mistake. 

Affleck is Gary Cooper. Maybe his best performance. He isn't speaking, and Malick knows if he talks too much then he's Ben Affleck, moviestar, and not a man with problems. His posture is different, haunched, tense and masculine, but it's a perfectly forced masculinity. It's not his, it's borrowed. Affleck gets so much right. He's a real person. He reminds me of someone I know, right down to his trouble with women. First Brad Pitt, now Ben Affleck. In remaking movie stars in the image of people he knew, Malick's finding people I know, too. People, not characters. It's Malick who makes them human, and then Lubezki makes them gods. In Tree of Life, the two men were god, looking at creation and its most insignificant organisms. There, they observed. Here they worship. The people are titans. Affleck as Cooper is a monument. He can't say anything to Kurylenko's face; he's spent years not being able or feeling welcome to articulate feeling like this. Kurylenko is a marvel. She, like Affleck, has never been better and she's a fine addittion to Malick's voiceover artists. Maybe my favourite. I think about Matt Zoller Seitz' essays on Malick, and his talking with Peter Labuza about voiceover. Did he use the word contrapuntal? Or am I imagining that? Does this count? I suppose not as they do compliment each other, the voice and the images. Except... except for the subtitles. When Rachel McAdams and Ben Affleck join the unconscious fray, their words float as well as anything, but Javier Bardem's beautifully lisping Spanish and Kurylenko's otherworldly French have to show up on screen for us to see. Does this interrupt the images. Do they pull you away from the rhythm? I wonder what Matt makes of it? 

Then the film breaks. It's digital, so it doesn't really, but the technology is so new that we don't even have words for when it breaks down. That's a troubling thought and I fear for the future of film, fleetingly. We see Affleck pick Kurylenko up and swing her once, twice, then the all the colors turn a different shade of red and he keeps on swinging. Then the screen goes black. I go to get someone but another patron beats me to the projectionist whose down in the lobby. I think about Mark Kermode and the way he talks about projection. An artform. No, a performance, that's what he calls it. I think about his friend Dave Norris, the last projectionist standing. He surely wouldn't have let this happen. The audience is awfully quiet. This is clearly not the event that Tree of Life was if the audience is ok with the projector shutting off twenty minutes into the film. Or maybe...maybe the film has calmed them. I know it's done as much to me. How could I be mad? I'm watching To The Wonder. It occurs to me that this has everything to do with the voiceover and Bardem's sermons. Choice. Avoiding choice is a sin, he says. I like to think this makes our auteur pro-Abortion, but that's just me bringing that to the film. It'd be easy to make the case but who knows? No, what's clear is the answer to Hughes question. Where's all the shit? Why does no one do anything ugly in Malick films? Because we're ugly, foul things, people, we kill, we conquer and rape and steal and and piss and shit and drink and do hard drugs and hurt the people we love. But he doesn't have to show those things because those urge don't come with a lot of choice. Everyone has to relieve themselves, no different than a horse, the horses that made a mess of Hughes' property. Nothing dynamic in it. No chance of being a better person for it. No discovery. If someone decides to drink themselves to death or be violent, it's the easy choice, like peeing against a tree if you can't find a bathroom or don't feel like walking to one. It's easy to be cruel to whomever, it comes naturally in many cases. I think Morrissey said something similar. 

Malick was raised by parents who split the difference between our worst urges. His dad, or what we gather of him through Pitt in Tree of Life, was a man dangerously consumed with anger. David Cairns hypothesizes that our anger comes from our having had the American Dream to fall short of. We're supposed to succeed and we don't. Because we believe in the Dream, same as we believe in a god whose looking out for us, we get real mad when our great loves look elsewhere. Here's Bardem and Affleck going into slums and seeing the lives of the unfortunate, proof that God isn't looking out for us. We have to do that. God's whatever makes you leave the comfort and security of doubt and gets you out into the world helping those to whom you can make a difference. 'God' is why Affleck remains mute for most of the film. He goes to church, same as Kurylenko, but neither of them seems to get what Bardem discovers. Going to church doesn't mean shit if you don't let it help you be the version of yourself you keep locked up: "an avalanche of tenderness." Movement. Evolution. We have to choose to evolve. Biological, behavioral theology. Finally something contrapuntal. 

Kurylenko says that Malick's one consistent direction on set was that everyone had to keep moving. If you stop, he urges you on. Because the one thing he hates is when people stop, when they refuse to think for themselves, to make choices, to examine our lives and make them better. Affleck makes for a compelling addendum to the male in Malick. A 21st century update of Badlands' Kit or Days of Heaven's Bill, with a fresh sense of willful blindness. Kit and Bill were outlaws, so had no real room to consider the feelings of their women, what they want, let alone need, but they did show them a certain level of tenderness and understanding. The Farmer in Days of Heaven came at the problem from a different angle: his heart was full of love and cared only about Abby. So when things go south he reacts violently. Affleck's too full of hang ups to quite be The Farmer, he won't give himself fully to love. What would the neighbors think? But he's a far cry from the soldiers of The Thin Red Line and The New World, always considering their place in the world, aware that they're insignificant. So there's precedent, but he's an old-fashioned male given a new coat of paint, fully in keeping with how men behave today. More evolution. 

And then leaving it strikes me that the last thing Roger Ebert ever wrote was a review of this film. Which means that there's a chance it was the last movie he ever saw. I have no proof, but I'm comforted by the thought. Here are people making boundless use of their bodies, the landscape, their homes, their minds. Their thoughts and desires are laid bare for us. Roger couldn't speak any longer, but his thoughts were just as available to us, just as rich, and full of love; accepting and appreciative of life's rich details. Bardem's prayer, his interpretation of God seems perfectly in keeping with Roger's attitude toward the end of life. I thought about Roger Ebert hearing the prayer that closes the film. And it becomes more than art. It's an experience, a continuation of a man's life, and maybe the comfort another found at the end of his. It's proof of the power of film, at least to me. Proof that film criticism is part of my religion, the son of film. Or maybe if film is a religious event, then criticism is my bible, recording and interpreting the events that change our lives, like Malick does when he puts biographical info in his dreamy narratives. And just as we hear the voices of his characters in his movies, I hear film critics wherever I go. He's clearly got something there. Watching this film my brain swelled with the different takes I'd encountered, of the words of critics, of possibilities introduced by people who do little else but consider what film means, making it richer. Even if I disagree with a review it make the film richer because it stands in opposition to one reading. We can't and won't all agree, but our disagreements make us better, they help us understand what we prize about works of art. That's why Terence Malick is so important to me and his films so close to my heart. He lays everything on the table so we can do the same in response. He knows we're not perfect, but he loves us anyway and no one makes even our worst impulses beautiful like he does. Maybe we're not God, but we're the closest thing we've got.