The holidays hath left me flustered. In the midst of the onslaught of neverending final papers/presentations and the Christmas and New Year's festivities that seem to take up more time then they should, I have been behind lately in my writing on the things that have been going on at the movies. First thing's first: I saw A Dangerous Method and Hugo a few weeks ago and felt compelled to write reviews, but the aforementioned events took over and rendered my input rather nil. But enough of that Scroogian attitude. The time has finally arrived to voice my approval, and I was fortunate enough to have penned some notes on my viewing experiences while the films rummaged and whipped through my mind like a bat out of that place Tim Tebow dare not go. It's time to catch up. Like this summer's hit romanticization of the ghosts of artists past, Midnight in Paris, David Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method has a great deal of fun with famously influential historical figures. Focusing on Carl Jung, Sabina Speilrein, and that old barrel of laughs, Sigmund Freud, Cronenberg's take on what maybe-could've-been is presented with one eye admiring its characters and the other winking at its game audience. If you've ever wondered why Freud was so sex-obsessed, perhaps it's because, as Jung mockingly implies, it's because he never got any himself. And how could he not have been fixated on daddy issues — Speilrein and the later introduced Dr. Otto used what their damaging daddies gave them to become able psychologists and noble citizens themselves. The film is invested enough in its subjects (and its subjects' subjects) that it's able to engage in a little knowing fun. In one scene, Spielrein, a virgin upon meeting Jung, gets deflowered by the man as he keeps his tidy work clothes on. How doctorly!
The birth of S&M as founded by Jung? Speilrein represents what Jung can't receive at home: his bland wife is pure vanilla to Speilrein's all too desirable willingness to be dominated. Even though the Mrs. produces the babies (although a son is notably hard to come by), papa has to occasionally see the mistress to advance his studies. Or are they her studies? In an ironic series of events, Speilrein gradually develops from patient to doctor — the exuberant Otto, on the other hand, marches the opposite route. Once dependent on Jung, Spielrein, the educated temptress, brings about a role reversal of sardonic proportions. Seen as a man of great esteem, Jung becomes a depressive soul with an airy gaze. Being able to cure those we sleep with can leave us rather glum, blue-balled, and regretful.
Curiously, the film makes the case that many of Jung's observations and theories were organic; he can attribute the snapping of a wooden bookcase to a feeling in his stomach, and the impending wars by way of his nightmares encompassing the floods of the blood of Europe. Jung, while in tune with what his mind and body are trying to alert him of, can't always make sense of it. That Freud and Speilrein's lives ended tragically by the hands of the Nazis almost seems to be a representative example of Jung's uneasiness with the ethereal.
Filled with voiceovers (lots of letter-reading) and camera positioning active yet quietly calm (faces placed in the foreground and background in a single shot, providing a nice, superimposed contrast), A Dangerous Method may be considered slow by some folk. It's a talky movie about social issues and the psychology it influences (or is it the other way around?). Freud and Jung are presented ultimately as rivals, of course, but for a little while at least, there may be a hint of attraction developing between the two — while Cronenberg doesn't strive for homoeroticism, something more than just intellectual foreplay appears to be brewing underneath. All's fair in love and war, and Freud's relationship with Jung, and Jung's relationship with Speilrein, can be categorized as father-child, teacher-student, master-apprentice, and lover-lover? A film like A Dangerous Method invites Freudian analysis.
Martin Scorsese's Hugo, in all its big-budget, holiday glory, is a sweet movie, also delving in the Midnight in Paris syndrome, and would in most cases be summed up as a family entertainment. Just one question: will most families get it? As I'm unsure to as to whether or not mentioning a particular character in the film constitutes as a spoiler, let me just note that Hugo may bore those that haven't the slightest clue where it's coming from. Even when the "mystery" is revealed, you may find yourselves confused or unmoved by its significance. For those in that group, Scorsese throws in humorous and equally tiresome slapstick and saccharine scenarios involving a stodgy guard and his comrade canine — come to think of it, most of the ensemble featured in the film's main set piece, an eloquently sparkling train station, serve as a nostaglic reminder of a less cynical style of moviemaking. The film's first half, told from the point-of-view of children, is charming, if a bit routine.
Hugo's second half is where I'm sure most of its supporters find themselves falling head over heels to praise. As the industrialized revolution brought about the mechanics of moviemaking, Hugo's real reason for being stems from the birth of the motion picture industry. Tarantino-like in its joy, Scorsese plays with the idea of film as memory (Hugo's dad's memory of a certain cinematic image, Isabelle's grandfather's fading, or rather refusal of memory), and film as precedent artifact (at times — and there is nothing wrong with this — Hugo plays like a two hour advertisement for Scorsese's invaluable preservation group, the World Film Foundation). It's no coincidence that it takes a cinephile, a former pudgy child on-set auteur admirer played by Michael Stuhlbarg, to preserve the work of a famous French director and reignite the man's artistic drive.
Part bio-pic, part celebration of a wide-eyed film culture, Hugo draws parallels between the old (featuring a Harold Lloyd scene and old silent footage of a train plummeting from a building) and the new (Scorsese re-stages the Lloyd scene late in Hugo as the title character hangs from a clock to avoid The Artist Formerly Known as Borat, and the train scene connection is easily apparent). One could even say that the initial audience reaction to the Lumiere's Brothers' Arrival of a Train is similar to one's current exposure to 3-D. For and against the popularized format, Scorsese uses 3-D in playful circumstances; old storyboards flying furiously around a bedroom, the very famous face of a moon coming directly at the audience, shoes walking over Isabelle's fallen body, the comical guard's face leaning in and over the audience, etc.
Alas, there's one sequence that proves unnecessary, one which involves a dream within a dream, both implying too much. Man, infatuated with the machines he surrounds himself with daily, starts to believe that he is morphing into one himself. Are the inner workings of a human body much different than the nuts and bolts of a clock? Could a clock's cogs be compared to that of a film camera or a film projector? If an automaton is shaped like a human and writes like a human, is it a human? (no, because it doesn't think, therefore it isn't). While the questions the film poses are interesting, it feels like a thesis for a heavier movie.
For their emphasis on film editing and camera trickery, motion picture directors could be viewed as post-industrial magicians. If one in particular comes to mind, he should, and you are the right person for this movie. Better than their last outing together, Shutter Island, Scorsese here gives Ben Kingsley his best role in years, and it's to both men's credit that the film works as a hyperlink between historical fact and creative fiction. Like Super 8, Hugo is about the struggles and impending rewards of filmmaking's collaborative aspects. If it's not up to par with Scorsese's best, we can at least be thankful that it comes from the heart and that it will give enough people a worthwhile reason to rush home to Wikipedia. Like David Cronenberg's latest, Scorsese revises history in order to make us appreciate it more.
A Dangerous Method: Highly Recommended Hugo: Recommended
Martin Scorsese's Hugo, in all its big-budget, holiday glory, is a sweet movie, also delving in the Midnight in Paris syndrome, and would in most cases be summed up as a family entertainment. Just one question: will most families get it? As I'm unsure to as to whether or not mentioning a particular character in the film constitutes as a spoiler, let me just note that Hugo may bore those that haven't the slightest clue where it's coming from. Even when the "mystery" is revealed, you may find yourselves confused or unmoved by its significance. For those in that group, Scorsese throws in humorous and equally tiresome slapstick and saccharine scenarios involving a stodgy guard and his comrade canine — come to think of it, most of the ensemble featured in the film's main set piece, an eloquently sparkling train station, serve as a nostaglic reminder of a less cynical style of moviemaking. The film's first half, told from the point-of-view of children, is charming, if a bit routine.Hugo's second half is where I'm sure most of its supporters find themselves falling head over heels to praise. As the industrialized revolution brought about the mechanics of moviemaking, Hugo's real reason for being stems from the birth of the motion picture industry. Tarantino-like in its joy, Scorsese plays with the idea of film as memory (Hugo's dad's memory of a certain cinematic image, Isabelle's grandfather's fading, or rather refusal of memory), and film as precedent artifact (at times — and there is nothing wrong with this — Hugo plays like a two hour advertisement for Scorsese's invaluable preservation group, the World Film Foundation). It's no coincidence that it takes a cinephile, a former pudgy child on-set auteur admirer played by Michael Stuhlbarg, to preserve the work of a famous French director and reignite the man's artistic drive.
Part bio-pic, part celebration of a wide-eyed film culture, Hugo draws parallels between the old (featuring a Harold Lloyd scene and old silent footage of a train plummeting from a building) and the new (Scorsese re-stages the Lloyd scene late in Hugo as the title character hangs from a clock to avoid The Artist Formerly Known as Borat, and the train scene connection is easily apparent). One could even say that the initial audience reaction to the Lumiere's Brothers' Arrival of a Train is similar to one's current exposure to 3-D. For and against the popularized format, Scorsese uses 3-D in playful circumstances; old storyboards flying furiously around a bedroom, the very famous face of a moon coming directly at the audience, shoes walking over Isabelle's fallen body, the comical guard's face leaning in and over the audience, etc.
Alas, there's one sequence that proves unnecessary, one which involves a dream within a dream, both implying too much. Man, infatuated with the machines he surrounds himself with daily, starts to believe that he is morphing into one himself. Are the inner workings of a human body much different than the nuts and bolts of a clock? Could a clock's cogs be compared to that of a film camera or a film projector? If an automaton is shaped like a human and writes like a human, is it a human? (no, because it doesn't think, therefore it isn't). While the questions the film poses are interesting, it feels like a thesis for a heavier movie.
For their emphasis on film editing and camera trickery, motion picture directors could be viewed as post-industrial magicians. If one in particular comes to mind, he should, and you are the right person for this movie. Better than their last outing together, Shutter Island, Scorsese here gives Ben Kingsley his best role in years, and it's to both men's credit that the film works as a hyperlink between historical fact and creative fiction. Like Super 8, Hugo is about the struggles and impending rewards of filmmaking's collaborative aspects. If it's not up to par with Scorsese's best, we can at least be thankful that it comes from the heart and that it will give enough people a worthwhile reason to rush home to Wikipedia. Like David Cronenberg's latest, Scorsese revises history in order to make us appreciate it more.
A Dangerous Method: Highly Recommended Hugo: Recommended
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