Stanley Kubrick Retrospective

The word auteur (or author if French is a little too high brow for you) is thrown around quite liberally these days. Most filmmakers who write and/or direct films with a distinct and singular vision are inevitably described as auteurs. Unfortunately for the elitist film geeks, the auteur theory is really just that – a theory. A term coined by French new wave filmmaker Francois Truffaut in his 1954 essay Une certaine tendance du cinéma français, the auteur theory is simply a way of perceiving a film as the product of a single mind, stamped indelibly with the motifs and concepts of an individual: the Director.

This may be the belief of the odd egocentric blowhard as they lambast their film crew through a bullhorn but the reality is, like or not, that one person does not make a film. Period. Of course one person can initiate a film, bring together the elements and focus the talents of the collective on the realisation of a film but, to put it bluntly: if an auteur stood on an empty film set, it’d be highly unlikely that a film would spontaneously erupt from thin air.

Of course, like all opinions of film journalists who like the sound of their own waffling: there is always an exception to the rule; and that exception was Stanley Kubrick. To describe Kubrick as an auteur is an insult to his brilliance; point of fact Kubrick hated the term. No, Kubrick was a control freak, an obsessive creative on the never ending quest for perfection and on the journey to the unattainable; he made some of the greatest films in the history of cinema.

As it happens, July 26th was Stanley’s birthday. He was born the son of Eastern European Jew’s; in the Bronx, New York City, 1928.
His father, a well-respected Doctor, introduced Stanley to two of the three great passions in his life: Chess and Photography. Stanley’s love of Chess directly affected the way he approached his career and the strategic way in which he would conduct his professional relationships. Stanley’s third passion was Jazz. His youthful ambition to be a professional drummer would soon be overtaken by his obsession with photography. He proved his remarkable talent for photography at a young age; he was made the official school photographer and after selling some of his early shots to Look magazine, he eventually was taken on as a staff member, remaining there for four years. One photo essay in particular: Prize-fighter, led to Kubrick’s initial foray into filmmaking: a 35mm documentary about a boxer, entitled Day of the Fight this was followed by two more documentaries: The Flying Padre & The Seafarers.
After exploring the documentary form, which was a natural progression from his photojournalism, Kubrick shifted his gaze to feature films. In 1953 he directed
Fear and Desire, a war film (of a kind) about four soldiers in a fictitious war, trapped behind enemy lines. The film was hampered by production difficulties and the fact that Kubrick shot it silent and post-sync all the audio and sound effects, which added significantly to the production costs. When it was completed, it was poorly received. Fear and Desire is really only noteworthy when viewed retrospectively, as a master filmmaker finding his feet and testing his abilities. Kubrick himself labelled the film ‘amateurish’, which is a pretty apt description. For his next film, Kubrick directed Killer’s Kiss, a noir-ish thriller about a prize fighter who becomes involved with the wrong girl. The film was a marked improvement on Kubrick’s previous effort and showed that he was a fast learner. Its crisp black and white cinematography and atmospheric set pieces showed Kubrick’s developing style and the film was met with positive reviews but failed to make a dent in the box office. It did however bring Kubrick to the attention of James B Harris; a young producer. The pair formed Harris- Kubrick Productions and together they went on to make Kubrick’s next feature, also in the crime thriller genre: The Killing. The story of ex-con Johnny Clay and his intricately planned racetrack heist; The Killing shows Kubrick operating on all cylinders as a fully developed filmmaker in his own right. His experimentation with structure in The Killing was a large influence on Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. Kubrick penned the taut script and then wisely asked ‘Dime Store Dostoevsky’ Jim Thompson (who wrote The Getaway) to script the hardboiled dialogue.

After The Killing, Kubrick and Harris made Paths of Glory, which starred Kirk Douglas and was shot on location in Munich, Germany. The film told the story of the bitter trench warfare between the French and the German armies during WWI. Douglas played French soldier Colonel Dax; who’s superior General Broulard (Adolphe Menjou) orders Dax and his men to assault a heavily fortified enemy position against impossible odds. The primary reason for this lunacy is the prestige (and possible promotion) that it will earn the General in his military career. Despite their orders to attack the position, the soldiers retreat under heavy bombardment. The spiteful Broulard orders a court- martial and demands that three of the men in the company are made examples of and charged with cowardice, a crime punishable by death. Colonel Dax then defends the men at their court-martial.

With Paths of Glory, Kubrick finally established himself as a force to be reckoned with, not only in Hollywood but in filmmaking as an art form. Paths of Glory is note-perfect, there simply isn’t a misstep or ill-conceived scene in the film and it ranks as one of the greatest war films (or anti-war films) ever made. So often accused of being cold and unfeeling as a filmmaker; the deeply moving final scene of Paths of Glory reveals a compassion and empathy that marks the beginning of a recurring theme in a lot of Kubrick’s work – the loss (or absence) of humanity and it’s toll.

After Paths of Glory, Kubrick was tapped to direct One Eyed Jack’s, a western starring Marlon Brando but when Brando decided to direct the film himself, Kubrick left the project after having spent six months in development. Shortly afterwards, Kirk Douglas invited Kubrick to helm Spartacus, the original director Anthony Mann having been fired by Douglas (who was executive producer) after ‘creative differences’. Kubrick agreed and hit the ground running. He was 31 and was directing some of the biggest screen stars of the time: Laurence Olivier, Peter Ustinov, Tony Curtis & Charles Laughton.

Kubrick was famously undaunted at the prospect of directing such a famous cast and set to work trying to make the film his own, under considerable creative constraints. Unable to alter the script (penned by blacklisted Hollywood screenwriter Dalton Trumbo) Kubrick felt it was full of ‘stupid moralising’ regardless he pressed on, spending six weeks alone shooting a major battle sequence. Adding more pressure, crew members resented Kubrick’s rather ‘hands-on’ method of Direction. Cinematographer Russell Metty walked off the set, complaining that Kubrick wasn’t giving him the freedom to do his job. On returning to the set, Kubrick told him to ‘shut up and butt out’ and as a result, Kubrick assumed a majority of the Cinematography work on Spartacus.
Metty complained about this right up until the film’s release and even tried to have his name removed from the credits. Ironically, Metty went on to receive the Academy Award for Cinematography.

After Spartacus, Kubrick collaborated once more with his producing partner James Harris on an adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov’s controversial novel Lolita, the story of Paedophiliac college professor Humbert Humbert and his obsessive love for a sexually active 12 year old girl. A taboo subject even today (as Adrian Lyne found out when he filmed his version in 1997), in 1962 filming Lolita was tantamount to insanity. Kubrick offered the role of Humbert to a host of A-list actors (including Cary Grant who deemed the offer personally insulting) eventually casting James Mason as the hapless Humbert and new-comer Sue Lyon as the eponymous object of his infatuation. Kubrick cast British actor Peter Sellers in the role of the enigmatic Clare Quilty (a minor character in the book that Nabokov expanded for his screenplay) and spent more time with Sellers preparing the character of Quilty than with any other cast members, causing Mason to opine that he had accepted the wrong part. In some scenes Kubrick would cover Sellers with two or three cameras, in order to capture any improvisation that Sellers might engage in. Invariably, Sellers was gold on take one, patchy on take two and practically spent by take three. It would be the first of two collaborations between Sellers and Kubrick.

Given the uproar that had already developed with the Production Code and the Catholic Legion of Decency; Lolita’s age was changed from 12 (as it is in the book) to a slightly more acceptable 14. Kubrick shot the film in England, mainly to distance himself from the controversy in the United States; eventually Kubrick would make his home there. It would be the first major production over which Kubrick would have creative control. Dancing around the censors forced Kubrick to layer the film with incredible subtlety and employ the use of metaphor and bizarre loaded visual puns (such as Humbert slapping a stuffed beaver with a tennis racket at the aptly named ‘Camp Climax’) as opposed to being literal or obvious. Thanks to the controversy, the film met with box office success but the critics’ opinions were mixed, some complaining that the film lacked the book’s depth and psychological detail; which seems an obvious deduction given the furore created by the Legion of Decency combined with the social taboos of the day. The films greatest critic was probably Kubrick himself who famously remarked that had he known how much he would be forced to cut and alter, he’d have never attempted the film at all. He remarked on the pressures of the films production with some regret: "I would fault myself in one area of the film, because of all the pressure over the Production Code and the Catholic Legion of Decency at the time, I wasn't able to give any weight at all to the erotic aspect of Humbert's relationship with Lolita; and because his sexual obsession was only hinted at, it was assumed too quickly that Humbert was in love, whereas in the novel this comes as a discovery at the end."

After Lolita, Kubrick parted ways with Producer James Harris, assuming producing duties on all his subsequent films. His next project was an adaptation of ‘Red Alert’, a thriller by Peter George about a nuclear ‘accident’. As Kubrick feverishly researched the film he came to the decision to make the film as a black comedy.
Thus Dr Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb was born. Again, Kubrick would collaborate with Peter Sellers, who would perform multiple roles in the film, the humour of which was pitch black, endearing it to the younger audiences during the turbulent sixties. It has since become one of Kubrick’s most loved and enduring works. Released in 1964, hot on the heels of the Cuban Missile crisis, the film was derided by many critics for its ‘sick’ humour.
The equivalent reaction today would be to make a comedy about the collapse of the World Trade Centre. When considered in the proper context, the sheer balls of Dr Strangelove is one of its most appealing aspects. Its anarchic assault on the inherent stupidity of nuclear warfare was a breath of fresh air and Sellers utterly surreal performance as the eponymous Doctor is the stuff of legend and has been commented on and poured over by far better writers than myself. You can check out Brian Siano’s great commentary on Dr Strangelove at: http://www.visualmemory.co.uk/amk/doc/0017.html

It’s been a much commented upon fact that Kubrick’s mind was like a sponge and his intellect, vast and probing. He had an extraordinary capacity for assimilating knowledge and that aptitude could be focused like a laser towards almost any topic. He was known to hold conversations with his collaborators (most often via telephone, his preferred method of communication) that would last several hours – or more. British film critic the late Alexander Walker, who knew Kubrick and wrote of his work better than anyone, famously described a dinner conversation between he and Kubrick: "An evening's conversation with him has covered such areas as optical perception in relation to man's survival; the phenomenon of phosphene; German coastal gun emplacements in Normandy; compromised safety margins in commercial flying; Dr Goebbels' role as a pioneer film publicist; the Right's inability to produce dialecticians to match the Left's; the Legion of Decency's pressures during the making of Lolita; S.A.M.-3 missiles in the Arab-Israeli conflict; Irish politics and the possibility of similarities in the voice prints of demagogues; and of course, chess."

Over his career as a filmmaker, Kubrick had absorbed huge amounts of research and information and when choosing a subject for a film, he would often be engaged by a subject or concept and would seek out a novel which could provide a framework around which he could ‘wrap’ his ideas, moulding and shaping the piece till it assumed the form he’d intended for it. This usually meant a large number of disgruntled novelists were left in his wake as he deconstructed the novels he adapted.

Following Strangelove, Kubrick was drawn to a science fiction short story called The Sentinel by British author Arthur C Clarke. He engaged Clarke’s services to adapt his own work and set about developing the story into what would become 2001: A Space Odyssey. Perhaps Kubrick’s greatest cinematic achievement, its lasting power thanks largely in part to the extraordinary impact of its images (the film only contains 40 minutes of dialogue); aided in no small amount by the superior special effects which even today hold their own against the best CGI which, considering the film is 30 years old, is a staggering achievement.

Of working under Kubrick’s intense scriptwriting brain-drain, Clarke remarked: “Every time I get through a session with Stanley, I have to go lie down."
This often unbearable intellectual intensity is repeated throughout the rest of Kubrick’s career; screenwriters and collaborators of Kubrick’s describe a common feeling of being used-up and spent after having worked with the director. Some react with volatility and become disgruntled (Frederic Raphael, who worked with Kubrick on Eyes Wide Shut, wrote a scathing ‘tell-all’ book about his experiences called Eyes Wide Open) but others are more philosophical and are even appreciative of the chance to work with such a unique talent as Kubrick. Michael Herr, who worked with Kubrick on the screenplay for Full Metal Jacket - along with Gustav Hasford, the author of that films source material; the short story The Short-Timers - also found Kubrick’s intense working style rigorous but was affected by Kubrick’s humanity, sharp wit and sense of humour. In his book Kubrick published after Kubrick’s death in 1999, Herr reveals Kubrick as a fan of The Simpson’s & Seinfeld ; one wonders what the filmmaker thought of the numerous references to his films that are littered throughout The Simpson’s numerous episodes.

In the years following 2001: A Space Odyssey, Kubrick’s subsequent films have grown in status and have retrospectively achieved a kind of iconic status, this is due largely in part to the director’s decidedly un-prolific output. This meant the ever growing fan base of Stanley Kubrick’s films would wait with baited breath for each successive film, content in the knowledge that they would experience a filmic event that was (and remains) wholly uncommon within the cinema realm. Every film was something to savour, to watch again and again. It was a unique connection between an audience and a filmmaker like Kubrick, we were grateful he existed. As Friedrich Nietzsche said “The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude”

Over 30 years Kubrick produced & directed only five films. They are among his most famous: A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket and Eyes Wide Shut. The images of which have branded themselves into the collective unconscious: the bowler-hat clad Alex in A Clockwork Orange, flanked by his ‘droogs’, getting ready for ‘a bit of the old ultra-violence’, the axe-wielding Jack Torrance pursuing his terrified son through an ice maze in The Shining, the dream-as-reality Venetian masked orgy in Eyes Wide Shut, the tightly wound, abusive Gunnery Sgt. Hartman lambasting his recruits in Full Metal Jacket – Kubrick’s cinematic eye was entirely unmatchable. His obsession was all pervasive, as if he was more of a conduit for a film, than an author of it.

Every man has his own purpose: the only imperative is to follow it, to embrace it, no matter where it leads – Henry Miller

V For Vendetta

Here's the trailer for the long awaited adaptation of Alan Moore's masterpiece of comic book storytelling: V for Vendetta.
It's directed by James McTeigue - the 1st A.D on the Matrix Films. The Wachowski Brothers are producing and have written the script. You can check it out here

The Descent

DIRECTED BY: Neil Marshall
WRITTEN BY: Neil Marshall
STARRING: Shauna Macdonald, Natalie Mendoza, Alex Reid, Saskia Mulder, Nora Jane Noone, MyAnna Buring

Let’s face it, modern horror has suffered a slight case of anaemia of late; with the notable exception of Eli Roth’s Cabin Fever & Zack Snyder’s rather excellent Dawn of the Dead, most U.S horror films seem to consist of annoyingly attractive starlets being cleverly slaughtered in relatively bloodless, self-referential exercises in style. The visceral quality that grabbed audiences by the throat in Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead and Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre seems to have ebbed away to the confines of cheap horror destined for the straight-to-video wasteland.

In 2002, British Filmmaker Neil Marshall wrote and directed his debut feature: Dog Soldiers. A strange concoction of genre clichés (werewolves, log cabins) its witty script and brutal horror proved a success with critics and audiences alike. Along with recent efforts, such as Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later and Ed Wright’s Shaun of the Dead, it’s helped pull the Brit-horror genre kicking and screaming from its tepid mire. Marshall’s sophomore effort, The Descent is out on July 8th and promises to be an altogether different animal, grounding itself very much in reality in order to mine its scares.

The story follows bereaved widow, Sarah (Macdonald) and her good intentioned friends Juno (Mendoza) and Beth (Reid) taking her on a caving holiday in the remote Appalachian mountains in the U.S. Along for the ride are half-sisters Rebecca (Mulder) and Sam (Buring) and BASE-jumping thrill-seeker Holly (Noone)
After a series of errors (and one character’s bad judgement call) the women soon find themselves lost in the cave system and they struggle to discover a way out. They soon stumble upon evidence of something living deep in the caverns and they realise that they may soon become prey to something far more malevolent and far more disturbing than a wild animal; a creature without mercy or reason, with an unquenchable taste for human flesh. As their grotesque adversaries attack, terror causes the group to fray at the edges, loyalties disintegrate and the group sink into madness.

The female cast admirably hold their own, in roles that require not only believability but also a large degree of physical stamina. The films deliberate pacing, mood-building and eye for character development means that the moments of gore and brutality (and there are many) pay-off admirably. Once the films bizarre antagonists present themselves, it kicks into high gear with some profoundly disturbing moments involving claustrophobia in small spaces, cannibalism, brutal climbing injuries and one sequence featuring a character completely immersing herself in a deep bog of blood, guts and bodily fluids.

The Descent was filmed at Pinewood studios, where the cavern sets were constructed by Production Designer Simon Bowles (who had previously worked with Marshall on Dog Soldiers) with an eye for authenticity and claustrophobia. Larger cave climbing sequences were digitally composited but considering this, the films budgetary constraints have been well concealed. These cramped subterranean environs seem an obvious setting for a film of this kind and Marshall and Cinematographer Sam McCurdy make the most of the surroundings utilising the available light sources of blue-hued phosphorous and sickly green glow-sticks.

Marshall has created something of a companion-piece to his all-male Dog Soldiers.
An all-female horror that defies plot prediction and respects its characters enough to not have them dissolve into scream-queens the minute a threat presents itself. Several of the characters could even give Linda T2 Hamilton a run for her money in the alpha-female-brutal-ass-kicking stakes. While The Descent is hardly blazing a trail in terms of the genre, it does manage to breathe brutal and visceral fresh air into what is unavoidably, well-traversed terrain. It should be applauded for achieving what very few modern horrors can: it scares the living shit out of you.

JARROD WALKER

The Descent - Director Neil Marshall Interview

British horror has had something of a resurgence in recent years, spearheading the push is Neil Marshall, who helmed 2002’s Dog Soldiers. I managed to have a chat with him recently, about his new horror film: The Descent. A subterranean chiller in which a group of female cave explorers run into some seriously nasty underground dwellers with a taste for human flesh. I met Marshall at a basement club in Soho, which although it’s the middle of the day, feels a little too cave like for my taste….

Each generation of horror filmmaker inevitably inspires the next, who were your horror heroes?
I guess my number one horror hero and the filmmaker who inspired me the most is John Carpenter. Halloween, The Fog and The Thing are films that I grew up with and that I just absolutely love. They’re just superb. In very different ways: Halloween is a very, very simple, economic concept and done very well. The Fog is a very creepy ghost story, well played out - quite low key in a lot of ways; it’s not the one that people often remember. The Thing just for its psychological aspects and because it’s so visceral which took it to a whole new limit and I love that, the creativity of it is just superb – and the ending, I loved the ending of The Thing, the bleakness of it all. I love the idea that that’s what horror allows you to do, to have no happy endings and too many horror films nowadays do have happy endings and I wanted to do something different.

I really liked the fact that many of the women in the film, rather than crumble into ‘scream queens’, react to the circumstances in very real ways, some of them becoming brutal and violent and fighting back and others degenerating into hysteria. What was the horror potential of an all-female cast compared to the all-male cast of Dog Soldiers?
I thought since we had women on board it was a chance to make it more brutal (laughs) I mean anyone who’s ever seen girls’ fight - it’s pretty savage stuff isn’t it? (laughs) I wanted to utilize all that hair pulling, eye poking and fingernail gouging that girls’ get into. It has a raw-ness to it but I didn’t want to make them a bunch of Ripley-Linda Hamilton types – there’s one character that does do that but there’s other characters who behave in very different kinds of ways. There’s only one character who behaves overtly heroic but she’s also an incredibly flawed individual. So I didn’t want to conform to any previous stereotypes. They’re just a bunch of disparate individuals: one’s a schoolteacher, one’s a climber, one’s a doctor – they’re not going to behave in the same way under the same circumstances. In Dog Soldiers they were a bunch of soldiers, they’re trained to behave as a unit under pressure - these girls aren’t. So there’s no way they were going to behave the same way, to do that would’ve been very wrong for the characters.
I thought it was better for scares. If you’ve got a group that sticks together, you’ve got that strength in numbers concept. Well this group doesn’t stick together, they flee, they tear each other apart: physically, psychologically, emotionally – and that makes the whole situation far more scary because you’ve got nothing to cling on to.

I wanted to ask you about working with composer, David Julyan.
(Julyan has previously worked with Christopher Nolan on Memento and Insomnia) Obviously music is one of the most important things in a horror and you’ve mentioned John Carpenter’s films as a major influence on you - (Carpenter composes his own scores) - I find Carpenter’s music creates a mood that’s far more effective than mere jumps or scares. In The Descent, Julyan’s music really helps to successfully create an atmosphere of dread. How did the opportunity to work with him come about? I wanted a very minimalist, very haunting and very atmospheric score. One day I’d love to get John Carpenter to score a film for me - that’d be fantastic, just to get him to write the music because I’ve grown up with John Carpenter’s scores in his films. But with David Julyan it was an interesting turn of events that when I was writing the script – I listen to film soundtracks when I’m writing - I was listening to the Insomnia soundtrack, just playing it again and again and again - and it’s so haunting and so visual as well. So when it came to choosing a composer I said ‘ can we have a look at getting David Julyan?’ and they did - he was available. I didn’t actually realise he was London based, I thought he was American or something, I had no idea. So he came in, I met him and he was well up for it and he agreed to do the score. For me that was just a dream come true and just brings the whole thing full circle. He has this incredible dark edge to him and he really likes exploring his dark side with his music. That was perfect for this. He’s delivered a truly memorable and haunting score that compliments the film perfectly.

Do you think you’d like to stick with the horror genre? As a director, does it interest you enough or would you like to try your hand at a drama?
Horror does absolutely interest me, I love doing it but I don’t want to just do horror - I have too many other stories to tell. The main theme that goes on with everything I write at the moment is probably action led stuff, that’s what I really enjoy doing. Action, character-led stuff and whether it’s horror or not doesn’t really matter - but I want to take it back now and do something else. I’ve explored horror in two different ways and I don’t want to get tired of it, I never want to get bored with it. So I want to go away, do something totally different and return to horror at a later date. I think that’d be a lot of fun to do.

Have you got anything planned at the moment?
I’ve got a couple of ideas, I’ve got a medieval heist movie and a World War II action thriller which is ‘Die Hard meets Remains of the Day’ (laughs) If you can piece those two together! So I’m working on a lot of ideas and who knows what’s going to be next but they’re the kinds of things I’m concentrating on. Something a little bit bigger, a little bit broader, for a broader audience but still remaining true to my roots, which is: action led, ensemble cast, tight locations – just looking at it for thrills.

Will there be a sequel to Dog Soldiers?
I believe a sequel may be happening but I’m not involved with it.

With the publicist looming in my peripheral vision, I figure it’s time to wrap up and say goodbye. I mention to Neil that I’m a fan of the ‘super-glue triage’ sequence in Dog Soldiers in which Sean Pertwee has his guts super-glued back inside his body. I tell him that it was what really put that movie over the top for me. Marshall laughs and I thank him for his time. He politely bids me goodbye and I make my way out of the subterranean club, being careful to avoid any mutated cannibals that may have escaped from Marshall’s brain and secreted themselves in a dark corner, waiting to feed on passing journalist’s.

JARROD WALKER

Batman Begins Premiere

On June 12th, Batman Begins had its London premier at the Odeon Leicester Square. Most of the Batman Begins cast were in attendance and I managed to have a chat with them. Producer Charles Roven, first on the carpet, compared the merits of Batman Begins to the other mooted Batman projects floating around Tinseltown: “Once Bryan Singer was announced as the director of Superman Returns, Warner Bros. started looking at ways in which they could re-invigorate the Batman franchise. As they had just done Insomnia with Chris, they asked him about the kind of movie that he'd like to do (he had also been courted as a possible director of Troy) and when Chris talked to David Goyer and came in to talk to Warner Bros. about his idea to take the Batman franchise back to its origins, the studio agreed that the best thing to do was an origin story, and one that would be grounded in reality. So that's really how it came about.” I also asked him about how much freedom Nolan had within the studio production behemoth to tell the story he wanted to tell: “Here's the thing, Chris is an amazing filmmaker, he has all the talent in the world and he's also incredibly responsible and collaborative, so there wasn't any need to restrict him or his process. The thing about this film was that everybody was on the same page, the whole way. It doesn't always work that way, (laughs) especially when working within creative endeavours that have to also generate some business bottom line…the biggest problem we had was just trying to maintain the stamin to do it all…it was a big production.”

The general optimism about the quality of the film was echoed by the rest of the cast. 28 Days Later star Cillian Murphy (who plays the villainous Dr. Johnathan Crane, a.k.a. the Scarecrow) seemed happy to just be involved: “I'm just very proud of the film, so you don't mind doing all this if you're proud of what you've done…besides, Batman 's the best comic book hero…. He's definitely the coolest.”

Tom Wilkinson of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, who plays mobster Carmine Falcone in the film, seemed slightly bemused with all the fuss. He told me he doesn't usually come to “these sorts of things” but his family harassed him into attending. When asked how he liked working with Chris Nolan, he replied “He's brilliant… relaxed, a really wonderful guy. We got on great. I always think that you know (laughs) ‘I really get on well with this guy, I'm gonna be in ALL his movies' and they NEVER hire you again!”

Wilkinson headed inside just as Batman Begins' director Christopher Nolan and his wife, producer Emma Thomas, sauntered up the red carpet smiling and waving. Having just come from the L.A premier a few days earlier, Nolan looked a little worn out: “It was a long shoot and it required a lot more physical stamina than I'm used to. But at the same time we had a great team around us so it made it quite a lot of fun.” I asked him about his plans for the future, if we might see a Batman sequel or his planned follow-ups: Victorian thriller The Prestige or the big business-as-war comic adaptation The Exec ? Nolan wearily admitted that he's still getting out from under the Bat: “I really don't know what's happening yet, making this film has been a pretty overwhelming experience and releasing it's been an overwhelming experience, as you can see from tonight (nods at the crowds) so once I get that past me then I'll figure it out.”

Eventually the man of the hour, Batman himself, Christian Bale wandered over. He was clearly uncomfortable in the glare of the cameras but stopped to chat regardless. And he was under no illusions about all the attention: “This is a great reception and everything but they're applauding Batman (nods his head in the direction of the cheering mob), they're not applauding Christian Bale, that's for sure.” As for the pressures of bringing back ‘the Bat,' he explained “I think the principle thing with this is we're not ‘bringing it back,' we're reinventing it, very respectfully ignoring everything that came before. We're taking it back to what Bob Kane [ Batman's creator] intended.” Bale was itching to escape inside, but a journalist next to me managed to blurt out, “Will Robin be back?” Bale thought for a moment, his face registering annoyance and amusement before breaking into a smile: “I hope not!”

Batman Begins

Dir. Christopher Nolan, US, 2005, 141 mins
Cast: Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Katie Holmes, Ken Watanabe,Cillian Murphy, Liam Neeson, Rutger Hauer, Tom Wilkinson & Gary Oldman

In 1989, Tim Burton’s gothic and surreal Batman captured the public imagination and went on to become the biggest film of that year. Its success became the benchmark for all future comic adaptations. Each successive Batman sequel grew more and more indulgent, focusing on the misguided philosophy that comic book equals nonsensical camp. Batman and its sequels: Batman Returns, Batman Forever and the ill fated Batman & Robin, bore little to no resemblance to the Dark Knight of the contemporary comics and graphic novels. Laden with camp theatrics, ridiculously over-choreographed fight scenes and some seriously wooden performances, the films descended into self parody, which sealed the series fate by the time Batman & Robin’s end credits rolled.

In the period since then, many different visions of Batman have been mooted as possible franchise re-starters. Filmmaker Darren Aronofsky (Pi, Requiem for a Dream) worked on a first draft screenplay of Year One, co-written with Sin City helmer Frank Miller (based on his graphic novel). Year One completely re-invented Batman, having Bruce Wayne as a homeless man instead of billionaire playboy and re-making Alfred, Wayne’s butler, as a black mechanic named ‘Big Al’.

Another proposed project was Wolfgang (Das Boot) Petersen’s Batman vs. Superman which would’ve revived two Warner Bros. franchises at once, with Jude Law proposed as the Man of Steel and Colin Farrell as the eponymous Dark Knight.

As fate would have it, Memento writer/director, the London-born Christopher Nolan, had just finished his re-working of Erik Skjoldbjærg’s Insomnia with Al Pacino. Having proven himself as a storyteller of consummate intelligence and of being more than capable of helming a major studio film, Nolan was a solid choice to helm Warner Bros. favoured screenplay Batman Begins. An entirely new effort by screenwriter David S. Goyer, it is certainly not as extreme a ‘restart’ as Year One promised to be nevertheless it is no doubt hoped it will reintroduce the world to a darker, more visceral winged avenger and reinvigorate the franchise accordingly.

In order to accomplish this, Nolan and Goyer have taken Batman back to his genesis.

Nolan, who admits to knowing very little about comic book lore, worked on Goyer’s first draft screenplay once the screenwriter left to helm his directorial debut Blade: Trinity. Nolan’s lack of comic knowledge appears to have been a major advantage.

With Batman Begins, the pair has stripped back the surrealism, the camp and the cartoon characterisations. This Batman is believable, human and as such, riddled with fear and anger. As a theme, fear runs through this film like a black vein: fear drives Wayne and holds him prisoner, fear is used as a weapon by several different characters (including Batman) and only in facing his fear does Bruce Wayne hope to find an end to his torment.

The story opens with Bruce Wayne (Bale) held prisoner in a Bhutanese prison, fighting with inmates and fighting with himself. He’s a wanderer, cut adrift from the world when he could find no way to deal with the murder of his parents when he was a child. Wayne has travelled to the ends of the earth to search for a way to resolve the conflict within him. A mysterious stranger named Henri Ducard (Neeson) appears at the prison, offering help and guidance to Wayne and the means to fight the injustice that he sees in the world. Ducard arranges Wayne’s release.

Once free, Wayne begins the long ascent to the mountaintop temple of the ‘League of Shadows’, a mysterious ninja sect. There, Wayne is trained by Henri Ducard and the sect’s mysterious leader, Ra’s al Ghul (Watanabe). Over time, Wayne masters the skills that will enable him to become an unstoppable fighter of crime, injustice and evil. On his eventual return to Gotham, Wayne finds the city in the grip of crime and corruption. Using Ducard’s advice, Wayne chooses a symbol in order to become something ‘more than a man’, an emblem of something far greater, in order to create fear in the hearts of evildoers. With the help of his trusted butler Alfred (Caine), Wayne Enterprises and techno-wiz Lucius Fox (Freeman), Bruce Wayne assembles an arsenal of prototype weapons and gadgets. Sophisticated military body-armour, grappling hook guns, a utility belt of defensive weaponry and most notably ‘The Tumbler’, a vehicle designed for bridge building, which looks like a hybrid between a monster truck and a stealth fighter. The vehicle’s destructive power is awesome to behold as it ploughs through police cars and walls in many of the films high-octane action sequences.

After collaring an assortment of corrupt officials and criminal goons, Batman soon gains the trust of honest cop Jim Gordon (Oldman, in a wonderfully understated role) and Assistant D.A (and Bruce Wayne’s childhood sweetheart) Rachel Dawes (Holmes). Batman sets about ridding Gotham of some of its more notorious criminals such as Carmine Falcone (Wilkinson, in a fine turn) and a particularly nasty psychiatrist, Dr Jonathan Crane (Murphy) a.k.a. The Scarecrow, whose most deadly weapon is fear itself.

Every facet that we have come to know of the Batman story has been re-evaluated and approached from an angle of realism and believability. Everything is explained: why Wayne chooses to embody a Bat, why he chooses the suit, how he discovers the Bat cave and even why the Bat suit has ears. Bruce Wayne/ Batman’s motives are treated with authenticity, the action is treated with realism (as well as being refreshingly devoid of CGI) and as a coherent whole, the film is simply the best combination of intelligent storytelling and summer blockbuster fare that has been seen in a multiplex in a long, long time.

As Bruce Wayne/Batman, Bale is simply magnificent. He’s an unusually intense actor and here his talents are put to use well. His Bruce Wayne is essentially three people: Bruce Wayne the intensely private and introspective loner, Bruce Wayne the foppish womanising playboy and Batman, the dark and quite frankly scary creation that’s hell-bent on dishing out justice and traversing the line between vigilante and responsible citizen.

It’s a testament to Bale’s performance that an hour of screen time passes before we see Batman yet the film could just as easily hold an audience enthralled with the story of Wayne and his tortured search for peace. Once the Dark Knight makes his first excursion into Gotham’s underbelly, he is creepy, malevolent and very scary.

The rest of the cast perform their roles without a bum note between them: Neeson, Watanabe (in his small but pivotal role), Freeman, Hauer, Wilkinson, Oldman, Murphy and Caine; all turn in uniformly fine performances. It’s only Holmes, whose youth undermines the authority inherent in her role, that threatens to derail the film but Nolan’s keen eye for performance and story assures that the film holds together regardless.

The editing is spare and ruthless with the film rattling along at a pace that never lets the audience get bored or complacent and long-time Nolan collaborator Nathan Crowley’s production design is superb, mixing hyper-real and existing cityscapes to create Gotham’s stunning skyline. In Batman Begins, a truly gifted filmmaker has realised a comic book adaptation that transcends the comic book-to-film genre to become truly great storytelling and the first REAL Batman film.

Jarrod Walker

Flight of the Phoenix

Dir: John Moore, 2004, USA, 113 mins
Cast: Dennis Quaid, Giovanni Ribisi, Hugh Laurie


Hollywood seems to be churning out a glut of remakes, re-imaginings and re-workings in recent times. Original thought seems to have taken a back seat in favour of tried and tested concepts and stories which appear to be safe, bankable and audience friendly. From blowing the dust off ancient TV fare (Charlie's Angel's, Mission Impossible, Wild Wild West, Starsky & Hutch, The Avengers, Scooby Doo) to any number of cinematic retreads (Man On Fire, The Bourne Identity, The Grudge, Ring, Assault on Precinct 13, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) there seems to be no let-up in the major studios' (and indeed filmmakers') insatiable desire to one-up, out-do and re-jig the film classics (and the not-so-classic) of yore.

Even ‘respectable' filmmakers see no problem in flogging the proverbial dead cinematic horse. Soon we will witness the no-doubt impressive delivery of Peter Jackson's long gestating King Kong and Michael Mann's cover version of his own TV creation Miami Vice will soon hit screens with Colin Farrell & Jamie Foxx weighing in as Crockett & Tubbs, pulling up their pastel suit jacket sleeves, setting their sights on drug cartel scumbags and wading into the fray.

It's a hit-and-miss process to be sure, and the results vary dramatically. Tim Burton's ill-advised Planet of the Apes was expected to be a visionary epic but arrived as a stillborn atrocity. The aforementioned Michael Mann remade his little known and long forgotten TV pilot LA Takedown into a great example of what can be accomplished with a remake, given some serious script doctoring and decent casting; the result? LA crime saga Heat starring Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, in what many regard as their best roles in recent years.

So who can tell what makes for a dynamite story idea and what's simply a tired, yawn inducing rehash destined for a high speed sprint to straight-to-video hell?

Despite the fact that most of the top money earners of all time were risky, innovative ventures, there seems to be no shortage in attempts to harvest the collective unconscious and regurgitate rather than innovate.

Into this cinematic climate crashes Flight of the Phoenix, a reworking of Robert Aldrich's excellent 1965 film that starred the incomparable James Stewart (as well as Sir Richard Attenborough and the late-great Peter Finch). It marks the sophomore effort of Irish born commercial director John Moore (his previous outing being the Owen Wilson actioner Behind Enemy Lines).

Then, as now, the story was spare and beautifully uncomplicated: a cargo aircraft laden with a motley group of workers, crash lands in the midst of a sand storm in the Gobi desert. With the assistance of the most irritating and unpopular member of the group, aircraft designer Elliot (Ribisi), the surviving passengers resolve to fashion a new aircraft out of the old one and fly it out of the desert to safety. The pilot of the downed aircraft, Frank Towns (Quaid) is a curmudgeonly, salt-of-the-earth type of guy and realising that he is the only one who can fly the patchwork aircraft, he's hesitant to risk more lives on a plan that potentially could kill them all. Stranded amidst the endless expanse of dunes, in a 2,000 square mile search area and with no hope of rescue or survival, they decide that they have no option but to try to get out under their own steam and (as the film's tagline says) - the only way out - is up.

One of Hollywood 's most underrated and consistently reliable lead actors, Quaid is wonderfully effective as Towns, the grizzled pilot-with-a-heart-of-gold, he wears the role like an old shoe. The supporting ensemble cast, notably Ribisi as their unlikely saviour, as well as Miranda Otto, Hugh Laurie and Tyrese Gibson (who reprises the role played by Attenborough in the original) all capably tow the genre line and prove sure and solid support. With a modern spin placed on the story and some fairly major plot alterations, including an encounter with some seriously badass plainsmen, comparisons with the original are inevitable and it's likely that this version of Flight of the Phoenix will be seen as inferior.

Aldrich's '65 classic was a feat of storytelling and fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants location filmmaking (legendary stunt pilot Paul Mantz was killed during principle photography), it was also at least a half hour longer. In spite of such comparisons, director John Moore's visual verve, his passion for avionics, hatred of CGI and sense for ‘good ole fashioned storytelling' imbues Flight of the Phoenix with the necessary believability and sense of adventure to deliver the requisite thrills and spills one would expect from this type of fare.

It rises above the stigma that is usually attached to a ‘studio remake' and condenses the original's scope, action and drama into a palatable rollercoaster adventure, delivering its own stylised, tightly edited take on the original story and as a Sunday afternoon popcorn actioner, it more than delivers. In short: it does what it says on the tin and for this kind of genre film; there can be no higher praise.

John Moore Interview

In 2001, Irish born commercial director, John Moore, put his long held obsession with aviation to good use and revealed himself to be a talented director of action with the entertaining adventure film Behind Enemy Lines . His latest film Flight of the Phoenix is a remake of Robert Aldrich's 1965 survival epic of the same name.

So how did you come to be involved in the remaking of ‘Flight of the Phoenix '?

Well, the producer, John Davis - I had done ‘Behind Enemy Lines' with him - it was his gig really. He's a fellow airplane nut and while we were making ‘Behind Enemy Lines' he kept slipping this under the door saying “Are you sure you don't want to do this next?” (laughs) and I kind of resisted it for a while thinking ‘oh fuck! Don't tell me you want to do another fucking airplane crash movie' (laughs) but the story's just so damn good and I love all those Robinson Crusoe/Castaway/MacGyver ‘How are we going to wring the last drop of coconut juice out of this' kind of movies and I really do enjoy survival pictures. They're the kind of stories where an audience member has a kind of synaptic reflex response: ‘what would I do in that situation?' There's something primeval about that scenario that makes you wonder how you'd do. So it was John Davis that really pushed it to me and we started work on it in February 2002 – it took a long time to get this film made, it'll be three years this month that I've been working on it full time. It took a long time to develop it - it slipped a little bit for year and went into a ‘development wobbly'. All credit to Twentieth Century Fox - because some people were like ‘is this a drama or an action movie?' Hybrids don't go down very well in the studio system. They make the marketing department very fucking nervous. It's a bit like bringing an ugly girlfriend home (laughs) ‘Come on! She's got a great personality! Give her a chance!' It's a tough situation.

When you came aboard, was the script a done deal? Did you work on it with (screenwriter of ‘Out of Sight') Scott Frank?

I worked with Scott Frank. We brought Ed Burns on very late in the process, to do a dialogue polish because he's got a knack for writing what comes out of peoples mouths (and making it sound like) like it would come out of peoples mouths. I worked on it alone for a while - we had a fundamental flaw in the original script. Dennis Quaid's character was initially part of the original crew, so there was a major lack of conflict - they were all in it together and I flipped that around, so that he's actually picking them up and closing down their oil well. He's kind of the grim reaper. It's like firing a bunch of people then getting stuck in the elevator with them. So we inverted it and made Dennis an outsider…and I think that's what kind of got the script over the edge. That's when the studio said ‘ok that makes more sense'.

Have you seen the original film?

I haven't seen it from frame one to frame last – I've seen it patchily, on TV – I decided not to watch it. Quite simply there was no upside – and we had very honourable intentions going into it, I didn't want to, with malice or forethought, assail a cinematic classic. I mean we didn't want to set it on Jupiter and take the piss out of it. The story is the same story - and look - there'll be some fans out there with fucking telescopic rifles, with my fucking head in the cross hairs – and that's fine, but I think to be fair to us – the original is a great story but it's quite stage-y. At that time only ‘Lawrence of Arabia' had the sort of scope that this film needed and that film cost a zillion dollars – so that's what we could bring to it. Scope. We shot it in Namibia – it's a real desert, a big badass desert – there's no CG work in there at all. So there was no upside to see the original – I mean what would happen? I'd be on the set one morning and go (feigns horror) ‘Oh fuck! We're gonna fuck this up – I've seen this bit and we're gonna fuck this right up!' (laughs) You know what I mean? What would be the point of that?

In the original film, Giovanni Ribisi's character ‘Elliot' (played by Hardy Kruger) was German and everyone hates him because of that?

That's right. They (the filmmaker's) had that device at their disposal. I mean (feigns disgust) ‘don't tell me the fucking Nazi's gonna have the solution!' (laughs) They had that device available to them. That fucking little German motherfucker can't be right, he can't be better than the American!, and Jimmy Stewart, he's all American! Lacking that dynamic - instead of making Giovanni's character German – we just had the conflict between him and Dennis be on an intellectual level – y'know, he's just the arrogant little motherfucker you love to hate. (laughs) So – look - when you do a remake, you know what you sign up for, you open yourself up to a world of fucking comparisons – there's no point arguing with that. If it's a crap film, then it's a crap film - and I don't know what to say to Someone who says ‘it's not as good as the original' - fair enough mate, but did you like it anyway?

In the original they built a real life ‘ Phoenix ' and flew it – but the stuntman Was killed – did you think of attempting something as ambitious as that?

Yeah – Paul Mantz (legendary stunt pilot) was killed flying it, and believe me, there is a ghost of the ‘Phoenix' – there really is. We wanted to go a step further because in the original they did a spectacular cheat - they built a full size version of the ‘Phoenix' as a set piece and then used a Texan T-6 to double for it while in flight. (It's generally believed that the ‘Phoenix' was actually flown for the film) We wanted to go one step further, we wanted to build a real, functioning ‘Phoenix' - out of composite material, a full scale flying version - with stunt aviators on the wings…and we came that close! What stopped us? Fucking insurance! So we built a full scale one that we pushed with a dragster, and a 12-foot radio controlled model…only because CG looks crap - and until it doesn't, it will (laughs)

So how did you accomplish the crash sequence?

Using very unsophisticated methods! We used miniatures, which is pretty much a dying art now. I think ‘Independence Day' was the last big feature to use miniatures - Except for ‘The Lord of the Rings' – Yeah well that's in a class all its own really, isn't it? I mean there's ‘normal' films and then there's ‘ Lord of the Rings'! (laughs) But the C-119, the plane that crashes, is a miniature that we crashed and filmed using a spider-cam (developed for ‘Spiderman' – it's a floating camera, suspended on cables). For the interior shots of the crash, because there are no sets in the movie, everything you see is part of a real aircraft - so we took a fuselage and built a wheel around it; a ‘gimble' - it was 14 meters tall - we wrapped a steel cable around the ‘gimble' and attached it to a truck, the truck would then drive away, literally yanking it - like starting a lawnmower - and the fuselage would rotate, enabling us to get a cheap ‘vomit comet' - that ‘zero g' weightless effect. This was all practically done, out in the desert - we used an abandoned fish warehouse - (laughs) really pleasant place to work! In the heat! Nice touch! But we couldn't rehearse because the danger was that the actors would say ‘fuck that! I'm out of here' - after one take – so we put nine cameras in and we got three takes before two of the actors refused to do it again (laughs)

You worked with Owen Wilson on his own much of the time in ‘Behind Enemy Lines' – but you worked with an ensemble cast of 12 this time around – how was that?

Look – I was absolutely convinced that there would be a mutiny. I was absolutely convinced, I mean we're out there in the desert – I thought they would all get together and say ‘this cunt doesn't know what he's doing! Lets get him replaced!' (laughs) Honestly, I got quite paranoid - Owen Wilson's a really relaxed, funny guy. If there's a problem he takes you into a corner and has a quiet word, y'know? But this was throwing ten or twelve people together, what was likely to happen is that two or three of them wouldn't like each other and then the pin is out of the fucking grenade. But luckily enough, what happened was the opposite, everyone was like ‘let's not fight! Let's all get along!' - maybe it was a result of being so remote, so far from home – but I benefited from that – and Dennis was a big help – he's a real morale booster- sort of guy – but I was shooting seven days a week so they could bond all they fucking liked! They did go out a lot together – they got on very well, a lot of them went on safari on weekends and stuff like that. They stopped short of getting the ‘Lord of the Rings' tattoos! (laughs) - but they drank like bastards! (laughs) They fucking put it away, I mean they're meant to be starving and they had beer guts on them! (laughs)

Any dream projects involving aircraft that you'd like to do?

Yeah – I very nearly made the Chuck Yeager story, who was the first person to break the sound barrier– with the legendary producer Richard Zanuck…and that might yet happen. Dick, Mike Medavoy (former agent- turned Producer) and I went out to Edwards Air Force base (where Yeager first broke the sound barrier in 1947) about 2 years ago now, and we met with Yeager who jumped into his F –15, while we were standing in the desert and he went up and broke the sound barrier - again! He's 72! (continued) But it's a difficult project – as I realised after many drafts of the script, you know, there's nothing as boring as success – the problem with a script about Chuck is that there's no drama –– he broke the sound barrier, broke about 15 other records – but there's no failure and there's drama in failure. I mean they didn't make Titanic because it made it to New York ! Some think he failed in becoming an astronaut but that just wasn't who he was - Yeager was essential to the test program back then, you know, he was a ‘whack-job' - ‘Here's the keys, get in that - you see if it flies, we'll be over there!' (laughs) and if you've ever known an astronaut you'll know that they are not the most exciting people in the world – they're very fucking boring people – and you need them to be. They're like airline pilots, you don't want a jovial, joking sort of guy flying an airliner, you want the boring fucking tea- drinker - that's the guy you want. But it wasn't Yeager. The space program dumped Yeager because they didn't need rock and roller's anymore, they needed very straight, reliable people who could fit into the machine. They started eradicating personality from the space program. So Chuck had the rug pulled out from under him – which is why he still has issues with the space program but he's an amazing guy – and the movie may still happen yet, I hope it does. So, after three years working on ‘ Phoenix ' are you going to take a break? No, I'm definitely not taking a holiday – you know there's a statute of limitations on being a director. I don't know if you know this but after 53 days – if you haven't directed anything, you're just a bloke. (laughs) You know what I mean? So I'd like to get onto something as soon as possibly – I'll direct a fucking hemorrhoid commercial if I have to (laughs) – if you're not directing, you kind of lose yourself and you start to lose that definition thing (of being a ‘Director')

Ever think you might take a step back from action and do a different sort of story?

Yeah I'd like to do a love story – I fucking cry at the movies like a teenage girl - it's hard to make people emotionally invest – but I'd seriously like to do a love story - and just when the couple are about to kiss - then the set would blow up (laughs)


Any actors you'd like to want to direct?

Yeah – Gene Hackman – I had fun with Gene. We had only a short time together. His time on ‘Behind Enemy Lines' was only three weeks.

As a first time director on that film (Behind Enemy Lines), how easy was he to work with?

He's fantastic – you know, I've got this theory about celebrity, I think it's created by the people in inhabit the space between other peoples ideas. They create it as a third ‘force' to create their own industry – so you get warnings and shit like (whispers conspiratorially) ‘oh he can be very difficult' – and everyone falls for it. On the day, I get on the set and walk up to Gene and say ‘Hi Gene' and he says (impersonates Hackman) ‘Hey – how ya doing' and five minutes later he's hitting his mark and I say ‘action' and that's it. All the other crap is just that – crap – and I was almost had by some agent who's trying to pump up his part in the business.


So what are your favourite films?

Pretty much anything Tony Scott's touched – personally I don't think he's made a bad movie – in 30 years time someone's going to say ‘hey this guy was doing this stuff way before anyone else' – editorially he was the first guy to go ‘A to B to C to D – you know what, fuck B and C and go straight to D' – because he knows that audiences have a synaptic response to make that leap, to fill in the parts. Everybody rips him off, I rip him off – every cocksucking commercial director on the planet rips him off. I mean I saw ‘Spy Game' like five times! I fucking paid money, every time – gladly.

War of the Worlds Review

WAR OF THE WORLDS
DIRECTED BY: Steven Spielberg
WRITTEN BY: David Koepp & Josh Friedman
STARRING: Tom Cruise, Dakota Fanning, Justin Chatwin, Miranda Otto & Tim Robbins.

Whether we’re talking Independence Day or the TV series V (which Independence Day plagiarized outright), Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Day The Earth Stood Still, The Thing or even the Alien films; the concept of mankind falling prey to a dominant alien species is one that seems to massage the film-going public’s paranoia in a highly profitable way. Despite attempts at originality, all alien invasion films unavoidably riff on the one original story that spawned them: H.G Wells’ The War of the Worlds.

A member of the socialist Fabian society in London, H.G Wells’ writing allowed him to espouse his left wing ideals on the state of contemporary society and politics within the confines of a fantasy adventure story. Wells’ was inspired to write The War of the Worlds, ostensibly a damning of British Colonialism, after a conversation with his brother, regarding the 8,000 Aboriginal inhabitants of Tasmania who were decimated after the arrival of English settlers in Australia. Wells’ idea for The War of the Worlds sprang from the thought of what might happen if such an indifferent and technologically superior race was to land in England and exterminate the populous with such unsympathetic determination.

Orson Welles’ 1938 Halloween radio play of The War of the Worlds set the scene for the alien invasion at Grover’s Mill, New Jersey. This stateside tailoring of the quintessentially English story cemented the pre-WWII paranoia that was latent in the hearts of the American public, when the broadcast caused widespread panic and mass evacuations. George Pal’s 1958 version of The War of the Worlds (like Orson Welles’ radio play) also set the invasion at Grover’s Mill, New Jersey and tapped into the cold-war paranoia that was creeping across the globe. Fast-forward 46 years and uber-auteur Steven Spielberg is exploiting post-9/11 tensions in his own interpretation of the story: mixing hard-core science fiction and intimate familial drama.

In 2005’s War of the Worlds, screenwriter David Koepp has (once again) set the U.S invasion epicenter in New Jersey, focusing the story on Ray Ferrier (Cruise) a crane operator at the local dockyards who’s late picking up his young daughter Rachel (Fanning) and teenage son Robbie (Chatwin) from ex-wife Mary-Anne (Otto) for a rare weekend stay with their Dad. This further widens the already huge gap between ‘dead-beat Dad’ Ray and his kids, who think their father is an irresponsible loser who only cares about himself. After a ferocious lightening storm strikes in the town centre, the inhabitants worst nightmares are realized as huge ‘Tripods’ – alien walkers, ascend from deep underground and begin to systematically destroy every living thing in their path. A terrified and dumbstruck Ray loads his kids into the only working truck he can steal
and they hurriedly evacuate as the Tripods advance, destroying everything behind them. Thinking that he’s not up to the task of looking after his kids in a crisis, Ray heads for Boston in order to drop off his kids with someone infinitely more responsible than he is, his ex-wife. But in the ordeal that awaits Ray, he begins to find a semblance of the fatherhood that he’s lost and therefore some kind of redemption; to become the sort of father he should have been all along.

There are some great performances here; most noteworthy is Fanning, who’s extraordinarily naturalistic as Rachel, particularly in her opening scenes with Cruise. Cruise is always willing to take risks in his roles and in the kinds of films he appears in (which is something he doesn’t get nearly enough credit for) and he’s always up for portraying less-than-likeable characters, yet somehow he always allows an audience to connect. This has been most obvious in roles like P.T. Anderson’s Magnolia (the misogynistic Frank TJ Mackey was a role that could well have backfired) and in Michael Mann’s Collateral as the sociopath killer Vincent. Here, as the deeply flawed, not-so-great father Ray Ferrier, Cruise is in top form and make no mistake, he’s no action hero, Cruise plays him as an average guy just trying to keep his family alive.

Typically for Spielberg, family is the primary theme here yet the films undeniable attractions are its set pieces. There is no other filmmaker alive today who can pull off an action set piece as well as Spielberg and once the films spectacle kicks into high gear, it is jaw dropping. In keeping with the disturbing and dark tone, the destruction comes thick and fast and there are many sequences that stick in the mind such as a particularly harrowing sequence featuring a Tripod attacking a car ferry laden with hundreds of survivors and a surreal sequence featuring captured survivors and their ultimate use for the alien invaders. Longtime Spielberg collaborator Janusz Kaminski’s Cinematography in these sequences is surprisingly similar to the style he employed with Saving Private Ryan, shooting handheld, gritty and low, making the audience feel like eyewitnesses rather than mere observers. For the most part, everything is shot from the perspective of Ray and his family, if they don’t see it, we don’t see it. This almost-documentary style works particularly well during the first Tripod attack scene as people are disintegrated and turned to ash as they run in terror; their ashen remains and shredded clothing billow in the wind and settle on the survivors who run behind them. This is a particularly visceral sequence amplified all the more by the familiar 9/11 images of ghost-people covered with ash. Although the story’s similarity to H.G Wells’ original is tenuous, there are major plot parallels and all in all, it’s an admirable update. The tone (and denouement) of the book remains intact, as do the formidable images of the Tripods and the Red Weed. It’s also worth noting that this film took seven months to complete, from cameras first rolling in 2004 to the release in theatres for summer 2005; a stunning achievement for any filmmaker but given that this was the biggest budget Spielberg’s worked with to date, it’s no mean feat. Despite the hype (and the Katie/Tom overkill) War of the Worlds shows that Spielberg can still roll this kind of accomplished entertainment out of his sleeves in a matter of months, at a time when many of his contemporaries (Revenge of the Sith anyone?) can barely manage a passable intelligent summer blockbuster. War of the Worlds is a visually stunning, disturbing and visceral piece of work and it’s a fitting addition to the finer films in Spielberg’s oeuvre.

JARROD WALKER

War of the Worlds Premiere

The stars were hardly being beaten away with a stick for the premiere of War of the Worlds in Leicester Square on June 19th. The only celebrity of any import to roll up the carpet was Nell McAndrew, who was pounced on by mob of press eager to feed on celebrity flesh. But the fans care not one bit about the lack of celebrity sizzle as they await the arrival of the man of the night: Tom Cruise. Steven Spielberg was absent from the event; ‘The Beard’ was unable to attend because of filming commitments in Malta. He’s shooting possibly the most controversial film he’s yet attempted; his untitled Munich Olympics project. In his absence, Cruise shoulders the event, assisted by his 11 year old War of the Worlds co-star Dakota Fanning. Anticipating the Cruiser’s now famous flesh pressing and autograph-signing marathon, the crowds fill up the square. Eventually, Tom and co-star Dakota Fanning arrive, the Cruiser’s all smiles and with girlfriend du jour, Katie Holmes in tow he wanders out onto the Odeon’s balcony to wave at his fans. A bland TV presenter hurls one leaden question after another at him, finishing by asking Cruise if he can relate to his ‘dead beat dad’ character Ray Ferrier in War of the Worlds. My hopes that Tom will put up his hand and admit to freebasing coke while torturing his children with cigarette burns are dashed as he answers: “No, I love being a dad!” The crowd roars its approval. They love Tom. They love Tom loving being a dad.

Venturing out to commune with the masses, Cruise, Holmes and Fanning do the meet & greet with press. Fanning eventually has time to stop and talk. I ask her about the experience of working with Spielberg, a renowned director of child stars: “It was a blast; it was such a great experience!” - the frighteningly articulate eleven year old drops sound bites like an old pro; “Steven’s such a great guy and it was so much fun working with him and Tom”. I ask her about the mooted Alice in Wonderland project that Spielberg is rumoured to be working on as an intended vehicle for her and she grins: “it’s still being written but the script so far is great! But nothing’s confirmed yet so we’ll have to see what happens, so fingers crossed!”

Ms Fanning continues off along the red carpet smiling her mostly-gum-and-braces smile and scribbling autographs on flyers. I await the arrival of the Cruiser who, as fortune would have it, has just had water sprayed in his face by a Channel Four TV crew. None to happy with the prank, Cruise chews the guy out in front of several camera crews. If it were any other star they’d have thrown themselves into the nearest transport van and legged it, leaving their security to get medieval on the poor hapless fool’s ass but to his credit, Cruise remains cool and moves to another side of the square to sign autographs for fans. Like hunters waiting for an immaculately dressed prey, we wait. Eventually, Tom does sidle by, if only for a fleeting Q & A. I ask him why War of the Worlds: “It’s a timeless piece and it’s a great story” He continues: “You know when Steven and I first discussed working together again, he pitched me three ideas and the last one was War of the Worlds and just seeing Steven Spielberg say ‘War of the Worlds’ made me think ‘I’ve got to see this movie!’ you know? I have to see this on the big screen! When we were making it we always thought of it as a ‘smallest, biggest film’ - it’s epic but it’s really about the journey of this family, it’s a totally subjective point-of-view. It’s the third in his trilogy; you have Close Encounters and E.T, now we have E.T gone gangster in War of the Worlds (laughs) you know, he’s a badass and I cannot wait for an audience to see it”
His publicist sidles up next to him and ushers Cruise away and with that, the most perfect teeth in show-business make their exit. Having undergone something of a public grilling with his very open love affair with Katie Holmes, Cruise seems utterly unaffected. Considering all the fuss, the water pistols, the adoring fans and the $135 million blockbuster that he’s shouldering the responsibility of, Cruise looks like he couldn’t be happier and given that early word on War of the Worlds is that it’s Spielberg’s best film in years, Cruise should rest easy. However, it’s unlikely he’ll sit still for long; he’s collaborating with director J.J. Abrams (creator of TV’s Alias and Lost) on Mission Impossible 3 which will go before the cameras on July 12th in Rome.

JARROD WALKER

Overnight Review

OVERNIGHT
DIRECTED BY Tony Montana & Mark Brian Smith
STARRING: Troy Duffy, Taylor Duffy, Tony Montana, Mark Brian Smith, Billy Connolly, Willem Dafoe


In 1997, a Boston doorman named Troy Duffy was swept away in a wave of publicity when a script he’d penned entitled The Boondock Saints was bought by Harvey Weinstein (of Miramax Films). Not only did Weinstein purchase the film for $1 Million, he also agreed to purchase the bar for which Duffy worked, co-owning the establishment with him. Harvey also agreed to hire Troy’s band The Brood to record the soundtrack for The Boondock Saints. In short, Troy was offered a golden ticket
He was Harvey’s boy. Once the promise of fame and fortune hit, Troy had his friends Tony Montana and Mark Brian Smith document his ‘rise to glory’, the footage of which forms the basis of Overnight, which plays less like a documentary and more like watching someone set fire to a Van Gogh.

With his directorial debut in the offing, Troy forms The Syndicate, a production company consisting primarily of members of The Brood and his fledgling documentary crew, Tony Montana and Mark Brian Smith. The Syndicate is intended as the production company by which Troy will ‘dominate’ global cinema and music. Meeting everyday to discuss his rise to ‘world domination’, Troy holds court.
Dressed in his trademark overalls, he chain-smokes cigarettes, guzzles beer and
lambastes his colleagues reminding them of what pathetic hanger’s on they are and how they ‘wouldn’t be anything without him’. Aside from hurling general abuse, Duffy spends a majority of his time getting trashed every night at his bar and languishing in his production offices making abusive phone calls to a variety of production executives and agents, wondering why his project isn’t the highest priority at Miramax and waiting for his impending takeover of Tinsel town.
There are several sequences in which Duffy meets with a variety of celebrities who have latched on to the buzz surrounding ‘Harvey’s boy’ however this honeymoon period soon ends when Duffy discovers that Miramax has put The Boondock Saints into ‘turnaround’ and shelved the film. At this point, Troy doesn’t just burn his bridges with Weinstein; he takes a flamethrower to them. This all culminates in an explosive conference call to Miramax in which Troy blusters and demands that his deep ‘cesspool of creativity’ be duly recognised. His crowning achievement is to end the conference call by calling Meryl Poster, the co-President of Production at Miramax, a c**t. Believing that aggression and castigation somehow equals business acumen, Duffy stumbles embarrassingly through a series of misadventures (including a recording contract for The Brood) and screws up one phenomenal opportunity after another. After destroying his relationship with Weinstein, he destroys his friendships with the documentary makers, claiming they have done nothing to warrant being paid and that they are worthless friends. Duffy is soon given a harsh lesson in the true power of ‘Harvey’, when he figures that he’ll shop his hotly touted script to other studios. Duffy is shocked to discover that no other studio will touch The Boondock Saints after Harvey has passed on it. Eventually a small independent company, Franchise Films, finances the picture but for less than half of what Miramax were prepared to put up for it. Duffy shoots his opus regardless with Billy Connelly and Willem Dafoe starring, an indication that the foul mouthed doorman does have at least a modicum of talent. It’s eventually released onto DVD where it’s found a cult audience.

Watching Troy piss a dream career up against a wall is surely one of finest examples of schardenfreud (pleasure in another’s misery) imaginable however as a three dimensional documentary, Overnight is hardly unbiased. If anything, it’s a total stitch-up orchestrated by disgruntled friends. However in the filmmakers defence, the stitching is ably done by Duffy himself, whose incessant rambling, abusiveness, posturing, pontificating and offensive verbosity - makes for one of the most compelling car-crashes of a documentary you’re ever likely to see.

JARROD WALKER