HOLY MOTORS (or, It's About Time!)

Holy Motors (dir. Leos Carax) - 4.5/5

Repulsive, transgressive, unpredictable, sentimental... Leos Carax's Holy Motors is all these things and more. A raw, visceral celebration (condemnation?) of cinematic tropes and tricks, it's the only movie of recent memory that can inspire revulsion and even tears within just a few minutes.

Ostensibly, Holy Motors is about an actor moving from job to job (or "appointments," as he and his chauffeur refer to them), and all his joys, successes, heartbreaks, and failures throughout the course of a single day. A similar description could apply to James Joyce's groundbreaking novel, Ulysses, but a more apt comparison would be to his follow-up, Finnegans Wake (except for the part about the actor).

After all, it's not like this is simply about what you see and what you hear... except when it is. This isn't about "plot"... except when it is.

Holy Motors is about attitude, joy, emotion, aggression, love, sexuality, familiarity... About how a lot of us just spend our days shuffling along from "appointment to appointment" - changing our roles, our appearances, and our behaviors depending on what's expected of us and what we expect of the world... But that's too simplistic and "artsy" a description.

It's also about chaos, the unexpected, and doing something because you want to, because you can, because you know it's right, or because you know it's wrong. When you get right down to it, a number of things in this film almost make you laugh because they're just so preposterous... and then a number of things DO make you laugh because they're just so preposterous... and while you could easily dismiss the film for being weird for weird's sake, there's a lot more at play here than that - and you know it. There's a confidence here, a swagger sorely missing from mainstream movies. Carax and his team had a clear vision, and they went out and put it on screen. For good or ill, they pulled it off.

If you decry Hollywood for not taking chances, then - please - watch this movie and all its chances.

What other movie can make you laugh, gasp, and tingle? think about your place in the world, in the universe... in your own life? can ramble along, tearing through everything in sight with such anger and ferocity... and then leave you heartsick, longing for love, and caught up in a musical number? In many ways, Holy Motors is about manipulation - how we manipulate others and ourselves, and (on a more basic level) how storytellers manipulate their stories and their audiences simultaneously. It defies cliches, and then indulges in the very cliches it defies.

(Also, this doesn't really fit with the rest of the review, but something has to be said for the work of lead actor Denis Lavant. Playing eleven characters is a daunting task for any actor, but he pulls it off incredibly. Aside from some interaction with his chauffeur and a female analog late in the film, this is essentially a one-man show. Not only does he play different characters, he creates an entirely different physicality and appearance for each one. They move differently, they talk differently. It's really something extraordinary.)

I loved this movie within about two minutes of watching it, and while I can't say other readers will, you've at least got to admire the guts it took to make it.

A Little Perspective

Back during my undergrad, I was heavily involved in the online film community. IMDb primarily, but other web sites as well. Point being: I'm no stranger to hyperbole, both from myself and others... But there's a disturbing trend going on at IMDb, and I need to say a little something about it.

Just check out the Top 250... Something seem a little off to you?

First, entirely too many "modern" titles (ie, post-1975 - yes, I'm using Jaws as a demarcation point); second, entirely too many "fanboy" titles (all the various sci-fi/fantasy trilogies); and finally, most disturbing, there's way too much Christopher Nolan. (I thought about wording that differently, but hey - let's just say what I mean to say.)

Now, I've got nothing against Nolan per se, and I've enjoyed most of his movies, but... seriously? In the Top 100 alone (though Batman Begins is right at 105), he has five titles! ... Christopher Nolan has only made eight feature-length movies! Do you mean to tell me that Nolan, who's really only been around since 2000 with his much lauded Memento, is one of the best filmmakers in history? The only single director I see with more titles is Stanley Kubrick, and the only one with a better "batting average" I notice is Quentin Tarantino.

This bugs me, and kind of annoys me...

Nolan is talented, but he has a very narrow skill set. The dialogue is usually pretty bad... and I don't mean mediocre or average - I mean bad. Exceptions here and there, but for the most part too much exposition, too little humor, no personality... He really should not be a screenwriter. Visually speaking, he's a paradox: the lighting is generally dark, moody, atmospheric (which I like), but the shots themselves - the compositions, the mise en scene, etc - are incredibly simplistic. Even when the camera moves, characters tend to occupy the center of the frame, only moving to the side for traditional cross-cutting during dialogue scenes. Everything is incredibly sleek and polished, but that's not the same thing as visual innovation/ingenuity/tension; he's mistaking size/scale for aesthetic.

Jim Emerson has written extensively about Nolan's (lack of) visual aesthetic, but you don't need to be a film essayist or critic to notice it - just watch his fight scenes. What has always amazed me with Nolan, after making so many action movies, is that he is still utterly incompetant at directing action. Most action scenes are covered up with polished editing, or obsessive cross-cutting, but the action itself is poorly choreographed, a bore to watch, and you can almost never tell what's happening!

Examples abound, but the best one I can think of is the fight scene with Bane in The Dark Knight Rises (I'm referring to the first one, but the same could be said of both)... Let's just think through this for a few minutes... The scene is a big deal. Batman is supposed to be broken down. Not just defeated, but easily defeated. Nolan is obviously trying to make the scene as simplistic as possible: lots of long takes and wide shots meant to show off the actors and their choreography; it's almost entirely hand-to-hand; and the only sound comes from the fight itself... If there was ever a moment for a film to be visually exciting, this is it! ... and yet, the scene falls flat... and you find yourself wondering when, if ever, it's going to end...

There a few reasons this scene fails: (1) It's poorly choreographed. In this day and age, with mainstream successes like The Matrix, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and countless others, if you want to show off your fight scenes, you really have to show off. This looks more like something we would have seen during the seventies in a drama - ie, the actors aren't stuntmen or even action stars, so they don't want to bother themselves with complicated movements: they'll just trade blows for a while until someone wins. (2) It's boring. There's nothing at stake here! Earlier in the film, Alfred implies that Wayne's ego is getting too big (ie, he assumes he'll handily defeat Bane if he has to, he's underestimating this new foe, etc); when he starts getting pummeled, he starts getting desperate - he uses tricks and various gadgets... This makes perfect sense, but it doesn't amount to anything. We don't feel his desperation, we don't feel his pain, so it just seems like the actors are doing this because the scripts requires it, not because their characters demand it. (3) It goes on too long. A good fight scene is like a good movie: it requires an arc. There's a clear start, climax, and resolution. The fight obviously starts and stops, but it doesn't build to anything. There's no "defining moment," if you will. That moment should be, obviously, when Bane finally defeats Batman and humiliates him, but aside from some punishing sound effects, it just feels like more of the same. By the end, we should be looking at Batman the way Catwoman is: feeling utterly depressed and helpless, wondering if he'll live. But none of that tension is there, because the scene just goes on too long without any sort of emotional resonance.

Now... don't think I'm a hater, either. Nolan is the only current filmmaker I can think of who's at least trying (though not always succeeding) to make dumb action films palatable for a smart audience. He's also pretty good with the "broad" strokes of a film - ie, the basic storyline or arc, and general character motivations. And while we're at it, you've got to give it to him for being methodical and logical. His storylines are incredibly dense and complicated beyond necessity, but each piece clicks together fairly nicely; I'd like to see him whittle something down for the sake of simplicity, but that's not what he's interested in... Nolan's greatest strength, however, has always been his way with actors. He consistently gets strong performances, and I think that's why his movies have done so well with the critics. If you look at something like his Batman series, the storylines and scripts are not so different from other, typical Hollywood blockbusters (more refined maybe, but not necessarily better, at least on the page), but the acting elevates the material. I commend him for that.

....

I'm sorry if this seemed like an assault on Christopher Nolan, but I'm just saying - let's be realistic here. He's a good contemporary filmmaker, but he's not one of the best; and if his career thus far is any indication, he'll never be one of the best. My feeling is he'll be remembered primarily as a craftsman who elevated action movies to the level of opera, but that's about it.

I know part of the danger of "popular" lists like the IMDb 250 is that most people don't know what a good movie is, but that's also what makes it interesting: you can really see what resonates with the public, even if you don't think it should. I would rank my list entirely differently, but a good number of titles from the IMDb Top 250 would wind up on my own "greatest movie" list, so really it's a matter of preference.

Back in the Day

This is one of my biggest pet peeves: parents who complain about "kids these days." The older generation, fine, they're not currently raising any children, so it's a little different, but basically this applies only to parents who currently have kids in the home.

Here's the complaint: "Well, if I said that to my parents, they would have beat my ass," or "I remember when kids had respect for their parents," or "Kids these days really need a good spanking,"or "Every kid now has a cellphone, or a car - I had to work for mine!" and so on. I think you get what I mean.

Basically, parents are complaining that the current generation has a sense of entitlement and a complete lack of discipline.

Now, here's the tricky part... I'm not disagreeing. I worked in retail for a long time - I've seen kids of all ages and backgrounds - and I actually agree that most kids need stricter discipline in their lives. BUT it's ultimately the parents' responsibility to provide that discipline. If you're complaining about "kids these days," and you've got kids, you're essentially criticizing your own job as a parent.

Life changes. Sometimes for good, sometimes for ill. We've got to keep up with those changes. A number of people believe kids would show more respect and be better disciplined if they were physically punished more often (or at all)... Fine, then do that. A number of people believe kids would be smarter and better as individuals if they had less technology (ie, no TV in their bedroom, no phone at a young age, no iPod, etc)... Fine, then do that.

Essentially, this is my message for parents: put your money where your mouth is. If you think you had the ideal childhood, or the ideal parent, or the ideal mix of love/discipline, then replicate that for your child... If you think your parents did a terrible job and you know where they went wrong, then do that for your child.

Stop complaining and do something.

They're your kids: their upbringing is completely up to you.

Nothing New

For as long as I can remember, I've found writing a cathartic, relaxing, and invigorating exercise. Jumping-jacks for the mind. The same with reading - an absolute requirement for any writer worth his salt.

A big part of writing is being frustrated. Maybe the biggest part, in fact. At least for me (and, I suspect, for most other writers, too). Aside from the purely practical aspects - ie, actually making time to sit down and hammer something out, good or bad - there are also the purely creative. These are an animal all their own. "What's the best way to say what I want to say?" "Is it worth saying in the first place?" ... and (for me), "What if someone else said this before... and better?"

Things started very simply... I used to write movie adaptations. Don't misunderstand me: I wasn't trying to adapt books into movies, I was making movies into short stories. This started at about age ten with my (then-)favorite movie, Predator. And from there Aliens (naturally). These weren't straight adaptations - I'd change the ending or hone in on characters/elements I thought were really cool, but for the most part it was all about the movie.

Not exactly "creative" writing.

Then I discovered the world of Monty Python, followed quickly by George Carlin, and I started trying to write funny little skits or poems. And after that came Woody Allen, perhaps the biggest influence on my life to that point in more ways than one. Woody Allen showed me that you could do anything in any medium, so long as you had the skill to pull it off. I'd never seen a movie where people talked to the camera, or where there were amusing little asides that had nothing to do with the story... So, naturally, these sorts of things started popping up in my stories and scripts.

(Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.)

Most of these stories have long since been lost. I wasn't exactly meticulous about saving things, and when the family computer crashed, I didn't make too strong an effort to recover them. As a point of fact: I don't really care what happens to them. It's fun to write and to see the collection I've amassed, but I almost never reread anything. Again, like Woody Allen, once it's done, I pretty much never look at it again. I'll craft and hone and finesse it for months, but once I have the thing in a finished form, that's it. I've never been big on rewriting; if I can't get it right after focusing my attention for all that time, it's probably not worth writing. Plus, it's good to learn from mistakes. Generally speaking, I start with an image or a sentence or an idea and just start writing - see where the piece takes me. One time I tried to outline everything beforehand - mapped out every "scene" and plot turn - and absolutely hated it. That was the most bland, heavy-handed piece of writing I ever did, and it was a chore to finish. That's why I like to just write and write and write and see what happens.

Although certain ideas and themes will always capture my interest (science, religion, extreme beliefs), I've always made a conscious effort to always try something new. That's another thing I admire about Woody Allen. Yes, he's definitely got a "type" of story that he prefers and is best at, but he is otherwise the most versatile filmmaker (I think) in American film history. Dramas, comedies, morality tales, slapstick, musicals, chamber plays, even German expressionism... Grant it, they've not always been successful attempts, but I admire the work ethic. The biggest pet peeve I had about classmates in film school was how many of them had already resigned themselves to certain genres - and were content to stay in those frameworks. Some people only made "comedies" or "horror films." I had success within satire, but I at least wanted to try something different. And what better opportunity than during school! ... Hence my surreal, experimental senior film that wasn't such a hit, but satisfied my own needs nevertheless.

And then I took a break... A long, long break. I didn't write a single bit of fiction for five years.

Lately, I've had an explosion of ideas. New experiments to try. Take the novellette. The story started with a single line, and the "gut feeling" that it would be about ten pages... After a while, I really dug in and tried to write something new, challenging, and exciting - not just a story, but an experience - and it ballooned into forty-five pages, including "illustrations." It wasn't just "Who was this guy and what happened to him?", but rather "Who IS this guy, and what IS happening to him?"... and how best to express that. Now that it's finally done, I see a few spots that are a little clunky and a couple sections that could have used more attention, but overall I'm very happy. I feel like I achieved my goal, so the piece is done. It's funny, it's sad, it'll make you scratch your head... Time for the next one.

I was told a long time ago that if I ever wanted to make it in the film industry, it would be by my own devices - ie, I wasn't writing blockbuster material, but might have a chance on the independent/festival circuit. This has always been true: I've never had even the slightest inclination to write a "this happened" type story. You know - page-turners, plot twisters. No, I always wanted to explore why did this happen, or to whom did this happen. (I've a great deal of respect for Richard Linklater - a filmmaker who has somehow made multiple, amazing films in which basically nothing happens. True character pieces with only a modicum of plot.) That something happened is not interesting: it's the personalities and circumstances and the ultimate reason (if any) that make it interesting... And, skill. Great writers can (and do) make the mundane sublime; bad writers, if they're to have any chance, have to be a little more desperate in their approach.

The current piece could approach novel-length. It's a very tricky bit of business. James Joyce is my favorite author, and I adore stream-of-consciousness writing - Faulkner, Joyce himself, Woolf, Beckett, Dos Passos, etc. I'm trying to incorporate this into my latest story (even moreso than the novellette, which became stream-of-consciousness after a number of diversions and vignettes), and still find a way to actually make things happen. I don't want it to simply be a collection of non-sequitor thoughts, because then what's the point? Then I've failed on all counts. No, the idea is to really get in the heads of these people but still convey a sense of time passing and events occurring.

It's been a challenge, but a fun challenge. Some really neat devices and themes at work, and I look forward to developing them further. Ideally, I could work on this steadily and finish before school starts, but that's almost guaranteed not to happen. If I'm lucky, a first draft could be done by then, but that's the best I can hope for.

Which brings me to the tricky part (I know - brevity has never been a strength)... I feel like this is an interesting and important story to tell, but I don't want the technique or the form to overshadow the content (may be past that point already). A balancing act. I tried to write this once as a screenplay, but was never happy with the outcome; eventually, I abandoned it. I love the general concept, but could never quite get the structure right. I'm starting to have that problem again. The beginning and the end are pretty clear in mind - it's the in-between that's elusive.

What's it about? I don't want to give away too much in hope that some of you may actually read it, but essentially it's about family - a minor element of the novellette, the major theme this time: how we define it, how definitions change, what it means in the technology age. Some interesting things, I hope, but ultimately you'll be the judge.

Stephen King said once that there are essentially two types of writers: those who write for an audience ("popular" literature, essentially), and those who write for themselves. Not that I completely disagree, but I think that's too simplistic. Most fall on a continuum. For instance, I cannot fathom a writer who doesn't write for himself. But I would agree that some tend to try to satisfy curiosities within rather than describe or explore worlds without.

In the end, once it's done, the author is really the least significant part. It's up to the reader - whether one or many - to figure it out.

Progress Report

So, just a little update on how things are going with the New Year's resolutions...

(1) So far, no luck on the novellette. One magazine said No, and it's currently under review at another. Shouldn't expect it at all, but it'd be really cool to be a published author. Fingers crossed!

(2) Been very good with the resistance training, not so consistent with the cardio. Kate has fallen in love with Jillian Michaels, so we bought a few of her workout DVDs. It sounds silly, but she does a good job! Seriously. The favorite so far is No More Trouble Zones, which targets glutes, triceps, abs, and thighs. Just short of an hour, it's a chore to get through, but a good workout nevertheless. We've been trying to do that disc every other day, but sometimes our schedules (and sore bodies) demand otherwise.

Also changing things up with the weights: I'm going to try my hand at 5x5 training. Very simple in principle: choose a weight, do five exercises with five sets of five reps. Quite frankly, though, the workout program found through that link is too easy. You can finish in like fifteen minutes - barely enough time to get your heart rate up. So I combined all three workouts into one big routine. THAT'S a workout!

(3) I've been very good about the soda. I had a couple that I didn't really enjoy afterward (ie, drank one just to drink one), but I've been good about keeping it out of the house - pretty much only at movies.

(4) And the diet has been better too. I used to make my own trail mix and a sandwich for work every day, but I've changed that to a salad (spinach/walnuts/cranberries/goat cheese) and sandwich (PB&J)... and if I'm running late and only have time to make one, I make the salad. My hemoglobin should be nice and high!

Other than that, things are fairly mundane. Working on taxes, trying to sort out financial issues before grad school. We recently changed cable/internet providers to lower our monthly payment, and I'm also going to change my cellphone plan for the same reason. Gots to save money!


Again, just to keep track, here is some hard data...
Height: 5' 11" (unchanged)
Weight: 161 pounds (-3 from January 1)
BMI: 22.45 (didn't measure)
Body Fat (approximate): 12.5%
Measurements:
Neck: 13" (-1)
Chest: 38" (-0.5)
Shoulders: 14" (R)/13" (L) (unchanged)
Arms: 14" (R)/13.5" (L) (unchanged)
Forearms: 11" (R/L) (unchanged)
Waist: 33.5" (-2)
Hips: 37.5" (-0.5)
WHR: 0.89 (didn't measure)
Thighs: 21" (R/L)
Calves: 14" (R)/15" (L) (+1R/+1.5L)