jürgen fauth’s muckworld

None of the movies I saw this week thrilled as much as the conclusion to the first part of T. H. White’s The Once and Future King. After 200 pages of young Wart’s education, we finally get to the part about the sword in the stone. It’s Merlyn’s final lesson, presented in a hallucinatory passage that feels as if Walt Disney adapted Revelations and laced it with zen wisdom:

“Oh, Merlyn,” cried the Wart, “help me to get this weapon.”

There was a a kind of rushing noise, and a long chord played along with it. All round the churchyard there were hundreds of old friends. They rose over the church wall all together, like the Punch and Judy ghosts of remembered days, and there were badgers and nightingales and vulgar crows and hares and wild geese and falcons and fishes and dogs and dainty unicorns and solitary wasps and corkindrills and hedgehogs and griffins and the thousand other animals he had met. They loomed round the church wall, the lovers and helpers of the Wart, and they all spoke solemnly in turn. Some of them had come from the banners in the church, where they were painted in heraldry, some from the waters and the sky and the fields about–but all, down to the smallest shrew mouse, had come to help on account of love. Wart felt his power grow.

“Put your back into it,” said a Luce (or pike) off one of the heraldic banners, “as you once did when I was going to snap you up. Remember that power springs from the nape of the neck.”

“What about those forearms,” asked a Badger gravely, “that are held together by a chest? Come along, my dear embryo, and find your tool.”

A Merlin sitting at the top of the yew tree cried out, “Now then, Captain Wart, what is the first law of the foot? I thought I once heard something about never letting go?”

“Don’t work like a stalling woodpecker,” urged a Tawny Owl affectionately. “Keep up a steady effort, my duck, and you will have it yet.”

A white-front said, “Now, Wart, if you were once able to fly the great North Sea, surely you can co-ordinate a few little wing-muscles here and there? Fold your powers together, with the spirit of your mind, and it will come out like butter. Come along, Homo sapiens, for all we humble friends of yours are waiting here to cheer.”

The Wart walked up to the great sword for the third time. He put out his right hand softly and drew it out as gently as from a scabbard.

I also enjoyed a Greek feast at Zenon Taverna with Jordan and Ann, ramen at Menchanko-Tei, swung a cow in Rayman Raving Rabbids, and installed a brand new operating system. Saw a few movies, too:

Blind Mountain/Mang shan. Li Yang, 2007. ***
Funny Games. Michael Haneke, 1997. **
Funny Games U.S. Michael Haneke, 2007. **
Love Songs/ Les Chansons d’amour. Christophe Honoré ***
My Blueberry Nights. Wong Kar Wai, 2007. ***
Sleep Dealer. Alex Rivera, 2008. **
Water Lillies/Naissance des pieuvres. Céline Sciamma, 2007. **
plus The Wire. Season 2 **** and Prime Suspect 5 ****

In anticipation of the sequel, Marcy and I rewatched the original 1998 movie, a solid historical drama with a healthy Godfather finish and an astounding performance by Cate Blanchett. The new film, also directed by Shekhar Kapur, picks up the story where it left off and sees the Virgin Queen through to the defeat of the Armada in 1588. As spymaster Walsingham, Geoffrey Rush is once again trying to outplot the Spanish. Abbie Cornish plays the maid with the bursting bodice who has the “ear of the Queen” and makes love in front of sundry fireplaces. Samantha Morton gets to stick her neck out as Mary, Queen of Scots. And Elizabeth once again suffers for her country, unable to pick a husband or escape — like Helen Mirren’s QEII — from the constraints of her office.

Yes, there’s a good deal of soap opera in Elizabeth: The Golden Age, but by the time the fire ships appear, this movie has become something quite different. The beacons of England are lit (cf. Return of the King), a CGI fleet is tossed about in a storm (cf. 300), the Queen harangues the troops on a coiffed horse, and Clive Owen, as the raffish pirate Sir Walter Raleigh, does some honest-to-god swashbuckling. Forget the soap: we have reached the emotional pitch of opera.

Kapur’s sweeping spectacle forgoes all musty pretensions of middle-brow edutainment, and if you expected a history lesson you’ll emerge from the theater deaf and dumb. Elizabeth: The Golden Age is the work of a director who is intoxicated with the power of cinema, and as an aficionado of Revenge of the Sith, I felt right at home in his world. Visually, it’s as overstuffed as any of the Star Wars prequels, bombarding us with new colors, angles, sweeping vistas, and scenery-chewing performances. The soundtrack is every bit as overwhelming as John William’s famous fanfare, and Padme Amidala would have killed for this Queen’s hairdos and extravagant costumes. Elizabeth: The Golden Age opens on October 12.

Elizabeth. Shekhar Kapur, 1998. ***
Elizabeth: The Golden Age. Shekhar Kapur, 2007. ****

The trailer:

Frears, Mirren, Morgan. Photo: Eugene Hernandez/indieWIRE

I’ve watched and written about this movie more than once, but a DVD commentary with Stephen Frears and Peter Morgan was reason enough to give it another whirl. On the audio track, the film’s director and screenwriter are every bit as entertaining as they were at the NYFF press conference, but I was disappointed to find them somewhat reluctant to share tricks of the trade. Instead, they delight in pointing out jokes and sharing their favorite lines. (Peter Morgan’s is a single word: “Mummy?”)

There is, however, a short discussion of the meaning of the stag, and right before the end, they make a few incisive comments about the nature of truth. Apparently, The Queen gets all sorts of details completely wrong, most notably the sets. (They say in reality the inside of Buckingham Palace resembles a “dilapidated hotel.”) Yet nobody criticized the film for this, which leads Stephen Frears to observe that “plausability is more complex than just getting things right.” They end on an affirmation of the power of fiction: “You can only tell the truth by lying.” Amen.

The Queen. Stephen Frears, 2006. *****

Another acerbic tale from Claude Chabrol. Isabelle Huppert, without much makeup but equipped with an iron will, plays a judge investigating large-scale corporate fraud and government corruption. The powerful woman opposing very powerful men in dinky offices echoes Helen Mirren’s struggle to “grab the machos by the balls” in Prime Suspect, although the crimes here remain abstract. The complex script is executed with masterful confidence, but the English title is a cynical joke: according to Chabrol, there is nothing funny about power. Comedy of Power comes out on DVD on Tuesday.

L’Ivresse du pouvoir. Claude Chabrol, 2006. ****

• The spoilerific trailer:

Like a distant cousin of Le Petit Lieutenant’s Nathalie Baye, Helen Mirren plays a determined female  detective in this BBC cop show. The series starts in 1991 when DCI Jane Tennison gets her first murder case; there are six more installments before the 2006 “Final Act.” The murders are grisly, London’s wet and gray, and her all-male colleagues won’t respect her, but Helen Mirren lights up the drab interiors with acting every bit as accomplished as the role she just got an Oscar nomination for.  I’m no expert on police procedurals–I’ve never seen a single episode of CSI: Anywhere–but the intricate and reversal-rich plotting of this first four-hour part is full of surprises. I particularly liked the extended focus on the suspect and his family, which creates something akin to what Karen Moncrieff, talking about The Dead Girl, called “the community of murder”–people brought together by crime. It’s also fun to spot future giants of English acting in minor roles. Ralph Fiennes, decked out in leather duds, is interrogated about a murdered prostitute, and Tom Wilkinson plays Mirren’s boyfriend, who expects her to solve the case and have the avocado dip ready for the dinner party, too. ****
[tags]helen mirren, ralph fiennes, tom wilkinson, crime, cops, murder, 4 stars, tv, london, nathalie baye, karen moncrieff[/tags]

Together with two dozen of our esteemed colleagues, we spent the afternoon voting for the annual New York Film Critics Online awards. Stephen Frears’ The Queen was a clear favorite, winning no less than five categories: Best Picture, Best Screenplay, Best Director, as well as acting awards for Helen Mirren and Michael Sheen. Guillermo del Toro’s fable Pan’s Labyrinth won for Best Foreign Film, and the climate change shocker An Inconvenient Truth was awarded Best Documentary. See the complete list of winners.

[tags]nyfo, film, awards, jurgen, marcy, nyc, the queen, helen mirren, documentary, pan’s labyrinth, guillermo del toro, al gore, michael sheen, stephen frears[/tags]

You can watch good movies again and again, but only great movies get better every time. Helen Mirren is getting all the press for her outstanding performance as QEII, but the writing is what made that performance possible. Peter Morgan’s screenplay manages to be at once historically specific and archetypal, using a unique week in English history to illustrate eternal truths about the balancing of power, innovation, and tradition, and he does it all with heartbreaking candor and genuine British wit. The Queen is superbly structured, doesn’t waste a second, and continues to reveal new layers of brilliance every time. I’m still trying to rewatch Shortbus, INLAND EMPIRE, Volver, and Pan’s Labyrinth before we vote for our awards next weekend, but this is one of my absolute favorite movies of the year.

The Queen. Stephen Frears, 2006. *****

• Previously on muckworld
  
• On muckworld, again
  
• On About.com

[tags]5 stars, aristocracy, england, film, helen mirren, stephen frears, peter morgan[/tags]

I’ll post about this party later.