still life: 'the ice storm'

The Ice Storm, 1997

Director: Ang Lee

Cinematographer: Frederick Elmes

Courtesy of filmgrab.

billy lynn's long halftime walk

Here is the environment the day of my Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk screening: a too-warm late-afternoon in October on the eve of a presidential election that has stirred up anger, uncertainty and anxiety for many. Earlier, I had passed by someone in Best Buy trying out the Oculus. He looked silly and also slightly creepy as he swiveled and flailed his arms.

With the use of 3D and a 120 frame rate (the first to be shot in its entirety this way), there has been a lot of blah blah about Ang Lee advancing "the form" but the joke may be on us. Whereas traditional film-making has long offered a sense of visual distance, the bright, polished look of this film gives it a hyper-realism that shows freckles, warts and all, including extras overacting. Throughout, like the appearance of the Oculus man, I felt silly in my 3D glasses with an audience of 3Ders, watching a movie that didn't feel like it needed to be in 3D. The technology is the most obvious aspect and also one of the least important. It can read tacky--like wearing an outfit with labels and price tags still on. But the slickness of its look also ends up parodying what a mainstream movie-going audience pines for--to be transported, dazzled and excited. But are war pictures supposed to be dazzling and exciting? Am I supposed to be entertained by 3D bullets and carnage, especially in a depiction of the war in Iraq? To its credit, in the film's use of the frame rate and its feverish, sometimes severe direct-to-camera closeups, there is something aptly unnerving in the sleek visuals as we experience the heightened senses and emotions of a traumatized soldier Billy Lynn (Joe Alwyn) at a football game.

After surviving a harrowing battle, Lynn's squad is invited as special guests to the Texas game by an oligarch with the last name Oglesby (Steve Martin) interested in making a movie deal about the troop's story at the denouncement of a celebratory "victory tour." The squad is ragtag and young, simultaneously childish and immature and yet wise-beyond-years, led by the stern and sarcastic Sgt. Dime (Garrett Hedlund). Lynn is unsettled by the recent death of his comrade (Vin Diesel) and the disconcerting contrast of home-life versus war-life. 

Billy Lynn is an oddball film from one of the most versatile directors alive (who has delivered masterpieces and misfires) that is crude in so many ways. Crude in its use of slick cinematography (lensed by John Toll, known for picaresque sweeping epics like Braveheart); crude in its strange, stunt casting; crude in its depiction of war; crude in the crude vocabulary of its characters; crude in its satire; crude in its frequent utilization of juxtaposition. It's an impossible film to market and a stinging antithesis to patriotic pics like American Sniper which raise so few questions. There is no skillful choreography on display but it's sort of Fosse in its indictment of American entertainment. David O. Russell's Three Kings also comes to mind in terms of the jokey tone and skittishness. Because our characters are laconic, sometimes inexpressive, Jean-Christophe Castelli's script, based upon a novel by Ben Fountain, isn't pitched in smart, snappy dialogue (the humor, like that of a 19-year old is sometimes awkward and lurching), instead the wit is left to the tone and the medium itself.

This is one of the few cinematic war satires I can think of that isn't a lampoon on an American war itself but a lampoon on American civilians in time of war. This is the most arresting and distinctive aspect of Lee's picture. The depiction of the stadium spectators, security, and handlers is flat-out contemptuous. There are flickers of shallow, hollow "thank yous for your service" and a tone-deaf press conference. A cheerleader with a helluva name (Faison Zorn, last name ironically the word for "wrath" in German, played believably with a dash of mockery by Makenzie Leigh) is introduced in a strong scene as an object of desire with a surfacey message of Christianity for Billy, who describes himself as "searching." 

It is certainly beneficial that British newcomer Alwyn is so excellent and expressive in his impressive film debut. He's the aching human heart of a movie that's sometimes feels brittle in its brightly-imaged derision. His sister, scarred by a car accident Billy was responsible for, is effectively played by Kristen Stewart whose character is a marginalized voice of reason, regret and urgency. The squad, haunted by the loss of one of their comrades, are a mixed-bag acting-wise but the way they are put on display like dolls in camo duds in the midst of the film's centerpiece--a faux-mounted of a very faux-feeling Destiny's Child half-time performance of "Soldier"--is completely inspired. It's a tremendous joke scene in its satire on spectacle. I was wrapped up in the drumline beat fireworky fakeiness (much ado has been made about the unmistakably fake Beyoncé who we see only from behind) and cynicism. They are also literally used by Martin, who, in the film's most meta-moments, gives them their limo-Hummer game-time spotlight treatment as an incentive to make a movie of their lives on the cheap.

As Billy stumbles to express to understand the "kind of fucked-up" purpose of his experience at the half-time show, the audience of this movie may walk away quizzical and underwhelmed as well. What to do and take away from this movie except another layer of queasy disdain for American life and American consumerism? Perhaps that's enough to be challenged by from this peculiar picture that's more provocative than I think it's been given credit for. In fact it continued to buzz and linger in my mind as I wrote some of this review standing in line in a busy Manhattann basement Marshall's on that too-warm October night, surrounded by a cacophony of shelved crap. ***1/2

-Jeffery Berg

a look at 'life of pi'

Ang Lee's (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, The Ice Storm, and Brokeback Mountain) cinematic adaptation of Yann Martel's Booker Prize-winning novel Life of Pi looks like it will be a visually dazzling experience.

The much-anticipated film will be out in theaters on November 21st.


Here's a behind-the-scenes look at the film.

The movie stars 17-year-old Suraj Sharma in his film debut as Pi Patel.  Lee says of his actor, "The movie depends on Suraj. I would not shoot the film if it weren't for this person and his talent. He is very spirited... I was moved by his sincerity."

The cinematography is by Claudio Miranda (Oscar-nominated for his work on The Curious Case of Benjamin Button).

Here are some stunning stills from the film.

Miranda notes of the ceremony scene in India, “It is a real location and ceremony in India.  I really wanted to push that feeling; we had over 500,000 candles.  Producers, crew, actors, anyone around was lighting candles. 99% of all the lighting in that scene is candles. It looks amazing, I’m really giddy about that scene.”

photos courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation

This post was sponsored by Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation

the ice storm

Ang Lee's drama centers on two families in 1973 Connecticut suburbia. Ben Hood (Kevin Kline) is the father of bitter teen Wendy (Christina Ricci) and awkward prep schooler Paul (Tobey Maguire). Ben is cheating on his wife Elena (Joan Allen) with the droll and sultry next door neighbor Janey Carver (Sigourney Weaver). Janey and her husband George are distant from each other and from their two sons introspective Mikey (Elijah Wood) and gawky Sandy (Adam Hann-Byrd).

Released in 1997, a year before the Lewinsky scandal would shake up American ideas of morality and infidelity, and on the heels of the warm and supple Sense and Sensibility, the dark, acidic Ice Storm was regarded as an oddity. It was shut out at the Oscars for a sweeping disaster picture that audiences identified much more with. In subsequent years, The Ice Storm has gathered much more acclaim and was recently entered in the exclusive Criterion library. Looking back on it today and keeping in mind Lee's other great, near-flawless efforts (Crouching Tiger and Brokeback Mountain among them), his versatility with subject matter and tone is rather astonishing. The Ice Storm vividly re-creates an era on the edge of Nixon's resignation. There are some light touches in the self-awareness of the material. The early 1970s remains one of the most awkward eras in the American twentieth century. Some call the 1960s sexual revolution finally filtering into the suburbs a "trickle down effect." A student in Taiwan in the early 70s, Lee gives the film the feel of an outsider's point of view. Unlike the novel, the movie is less wrapped up in nostalgia or self-awareness. Before filming, Lee gave his cast cutouts of the time period. Unlike other films portraying the 70s, the film isn't bright and kitschy. The soft, moody lighting and the wry but straightforward performances make it a gloomy affair. There is also a cold distance to it (Lee is sometimes criticized for this, I think it only heightens the drama of his films even more).

The offbeat and vastly underrated score by Mychael Danna has a surprisingly ancient feel. Sparse and percussive, it would later influence other suburban dramas such as Thomas Newman's scoring of American Beauty. Danna has remarked that he "liked the irony of suggesting music endemic to Native Americans, to remind us that as the characters walk through the woods to their mod houses, the ground beneath their feet used to belong to civilizations that are long gone. Ang and I wanted to remind people of the power of Nature—that Nature was there before anyone else, and that Nature will be there when we’ve gone.”

With fondness for the era, costume designer Carol Oditz searched for a "visual grace," wanting to create "a surface tension, that was right for the characters in the story." There's a tenderness and awkwardness to the clothing and a slight cartoonishness (the the film begins with Tobey Maguire shifting through a comic book). But none of it goes into farce. Joan Allen's long dress looks particularly taxing on an icy driveway; Christina dons a poncho Red Riding hood coat; professionals lined up at the train stop decked out in khaki trenches. The garishness of costumes and the lack of morality is on full display in the drunken "key party" climax where the suburbanites swap carkeys (to their behemoth vehicles) and sexual partners.

There are many references: toe socks, Nixon masks, dated pop tunes (including a school band version of "The Morning After" appropriate for a film like this, since it is, in some regard, a disaster picture) are put to good use. All of this is tempered a bit by the performances of a fabulous cast. As one of the ineffectual parents, the usually broad, Shakespearean actor Kevin Kline delivers a quiet performance that ranges from comic to intensely somber. The usually wonderful Joan Allen delivers another bravura turn. In a winning moment, she mimics her daughter by riding a bike and then, unsuccessfully trying to steal lipstick from a drugstore. And Sigourney Weaver, who is often flat, is given a really wonderful role here. A bitter, relentlessly serious wannabe vixen, she goes through much of the film without a flicker of happiness. Her ridiculous waterbed (her husband hates it) captures her susceptibility to trends and her own marital and emotional unease. Her bored, cutting reaction ("I have a husband. I don't have a need for another one.") to a blabbering Kline is particularly priceless. And the younger cast members, notably Maguire and Ricci, are well-suited to their roles.

The production design was based on Cubism (a la ice cubes). The cold modern houses (though the Hood's is a touch warmer in tone) of the two families are deep in the woods, unlike the stately Colonial homes in Moody's novel. In concurrence with the image of ice, the visuals are full of glass and geometry (in the clothes, the furnishings, the wall art). Filmed in spring, the "ice" itself was sculpted and cast in resin--trees dipped in silicone, hair gel on windows. It still looks beautiful, haunting and real in an era of CGI. The effectiveness of the effects lends to the emotional wallop of the film's final tragedy: the death of a child on ice. ****

-Jeffery Berg

taking woodstock

I have to admit I'm a little underwhelmed by the trailer for Taking Woodstock. It looks more like Cameron Crowe territory than Ang Lee. But the premise, based on Elliot Tiber's autobiography, sounds good and I do love Lee and screenwriter James Schamus (who mixed comedy and drama so well in The Ice Storm). And Emile Hirsch is in it.