Following his father’s unfortunate death, Fleming went on to attend Eton College, by far one of the top schools in all of Britain, and Sandhurst, an elite military academy. After graduating, he briefly worked at Reuters news agency before attempting a career in high finance. However, as World War II began it became clear that Fleming’s interests lay somewhere else.

Throughout the war, Fleming paid close attention to the role of espionage in world conflict. He was able to do this after receiving a commission in the Royal Navy and work in British Naval Intelligence before eventually becoming the assistant to Admiral John Godfrey, director of Naval Intelligence. During this role, Fleming was given private information on how Britain planned to win the war, travelling around the world on numerous occasions to manage intelligence operations.

James Bond

Almost immediately after the war ended, Fleming began writing a novel using all the experience he had garnered over the last decade. The influence is clear throughout the James Bond novels, even down to the inspiration behind the character. For instance, ‘M’ is clearly modelled after Fleming’s own boss Admiral Godfrey. As to whether the plots of James Bond books were inspired by true events we will never know, as Fleming was sworn to secrecy.

The series began in 1953, with the release of Casino Royale. Although Casino Royale received little attention at the time, it went on to inspire numerous movie adaptations and has become one of the best-known instalments in the franchise. It has everything; suspense, thrill, triumph and, according to online casino Betway, an unforgettable game of baccarat. Fleming soon released a sequel to his first novel in 1954, entitled Live and Let Die, which was swiftly followed by both Moonraker and Diamonds Are Forever.

As the tales kept on coming, more and more readers began picking up copies to see what their favourite bad guy-busting, women-wooing, card-playing British spy was up to. It’s even rumoured that American president John F. Kennedy was one of Fleming’s avid readers, alongside Prince Philip. In total, Fleming released 12 James Bond novels as well as a number of short stories based on the spy. He even saw Sean Connery bring his beloved character life in 1962’s Dr. No. It’s even possible that Fleming’s input in this first Bond movie helped cement Bond as the protagonist in one of the world’s most famous, lengthy film franchises, which has starred the likes of Daniel Craig, Pierce Brosnan and Roger Moore.

To this day, new generations of authors continue Fleming’s legacy by publishing new chapters in the James Bond story. On the official Ian Fleming website, alongside the classic tales penned by the author himself, there are new series, such as Young Bond written by Steven Cole, which many readers now consider canon. Moneypenny even has her own spin-off created by Kate Westbrook, in addition to numerous graphic novels created by some of the most talented illustrators and authors of our time including Andy Diggle, Luca Caslanguida and Van Jensen. Arguably the most impressive modern series though is the continuation of Bond, which already features 28 accepted novels by a number of well-known authors such as John Gardener, Sebastian Faulks and Anthony Horowitz.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

Of course, avid readers will know that the James Bond novels aren’t Fleming’s only popular releases. Sometime before the release of the first James Bond novel, Fleming had married his beloved wife Anne Rothermere. In 1952, the couple had welcomed their only child Caspar into the world. It was for his only son that Fleming wrote Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: The Magical Car.

Released on October 22, 1964, and illustrated by John Burningham, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is the last book Fleming ever wrote, though he did not live to see it published. It is said that Fleming took his inspiration for the 48-page story from a series of aero-engined cars created by Louis Zborowski at Higham Park in the early 1920s, no doubt wanting to inspire his young son once the magnificent author passed away.

Like the James Bond series, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was adapted into a film, which was released in 1968, having been penned by Roald Dahl and Ken Hughes. It also inspired a musical, produced by Albert R. Broccoli, pitched as “The Most Fantasmagorical stage musical in the history of everything”.

Hopefully, Fleming would have enjoyed the musical thoroughly, as well as the numerous spin-off novels and movies that his James Bond series has received. It truly is a credit to him that so many new generations want to pick up his novels and propel them forward into the future, despite the original author no longer being with us.

References & Sources

Betway Casino: Casino – James Bond Highlights
War History Online – Ian Fleming’s Service in the British Intelligence During WWII
Ian Fleming – Official Site
007 – All the James Bonds

Photo Credits

Bond – Johan Oomen on flickr – Some Rights Reserved

Guest Author Bio
Matthew Wright

Matthew Wright is a content editor who graduated from Kings College in London. A writer by day and reader by night, he enjoys cooking and cycling on the weekends.

Taking Woodstock

Ang Lee says of this film:

After making several tragic movies in a row, I was looking to do a comedy – and one without cynicism. It’s also a story of liberation, honesty, and tolerance – and of a “naïve spirit” that we cannot and must not lose.

Taking Woodstock is the story of Elliot Tiber, a young, gay Jewish man, who has repressed his sexuality and given up his creative and spiritual freedom in a seemingly hopeless attempt to save his parents’ failing, derelict, and debt-ridden motel in upstate New York. When the venue originally selected by the organizers of the 1969 Woodstock music festival rejects their proposal, Elliot steps in and offers the farm of a neighbour instead, hoping that the expected influx of visitors will transform his parents’ business. His expectations, along with the estimated number of festival-goers are exceeded beyond measure.

Elliot’s relationship with his parents, survivors of anti-Jewish pogroms in the Soviet Union, is difficult. His mother is paranoid, angry, and rigid; his father is frustratingly passive. The loving and peaceful vibes of the festival, overwhelming at first as thousands of sexually liberated and uninhibited young people show up more or less on a weekend, transform both Elliot and his parents.  

Taking Woodstock is perhaps the exception to the rule that has governed Ang Lee films since Sense and Sensibility; it is characterized more by the director’s handling of familiar themes – repression and family relationships – than by radical innovation and risk-taking. As always, however, his obsessive attention to detail and his empathy for and psychological probing of characters on the fringe or in distress encourage more than a single viewing of the film.

Life of Pi

Following the relative safety of Taking Woodstock, Lee again ventured into dangerous territory. In The Cinema of Ang Lee: The Other Side of The Screen, Whitney Crothers Dilley points out the many challenges Lee faced in turning Canadian author Yann Martel’s 2002 Booker-Prize-winning novel into a movie:

… long stretches during which nothing happens, as well as the fact that the book is open to many interpretations, literal and metaphorical. In addition, Lee chose to work with 3D technology for the first time, also using CGI, which had plagued him during Hulk. The story is also complex in the telling, involving Indian, French, Japanese, Taiwanese, Mexican, and Canadian cultural elements – the narrative concerns national identity as well as personal identity. Finally, there was the author Yann Martel’s own assertion that the book was “unfilmable.”

Piscine Molitor Patel, named after a Paris swimming pool, is an Indian boy living in the former French city, Pondicherry. Teased by his classmates because his name sounds like “pissing,” the boy shortens it to Pi, effectively ending the teasing by impressing both his peers and his teachers when he writes out the full value of the mathematical pi on several blackboards at school. Pi is fascinated with religion and adopts Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam simultaneously. The boy’s parents own and operate a zoo on city property, and Pi is fascinated with the Bengal tiger, Richard Parker, desiring to befriend the animal by making it an offering of fresh meat. His father, who believes only in science, attempts to show him the real nature of animals of prey by tying a young goat to the tiger’s cage in front of the boy and forcing Pi to watch as Richard Parker kills the goat and drags it away to be eaten.

Pi’s father decides to move the family to Canada and to transport the animals with them to be sold in the West. On the voyage their ship is sunk by a storm and the family, along with most of the animals, is lost at sea. The only survivors are Pi, a wounded zebra, a female orangutan named Orange Juice, a hyena, and Richard Parker. The zebra and the orangutan are killed by the hyena, which is in turned killed and eaten by the tiger, leaving Pi and Richard Parker to face each other off on the lifeboat.

Pi is an intelligent, thoughtful, and resourceful young man. Not only must he survive on a lifeboat adrift in the Pacific Ocean, but he also must deal with a ravenous, 450-lb. tiger with whom he shares the craft. He uses the resources at hand as well as cleverness to feed himself and Richard Parker, ultimately mastering his fear and training the animal to respect him. The two companions are no match, however, for the wrath of nature and come close to death on the boat before landing on a strange island inhabited with millions of meerkats and offering plentiful food for Pi and Richard Parker. Pi believes that he can spend the rest of his life on the island until he realizes that it is as dangerous as it is idyllic. He and the tiger set out on the boat again and they finally reach Mexico. Richard Parker jumps off the boat and walks into the jungle without looking back. Pi is rescued.

Lee says, “In some ways movie-making is the way I live my life, and many people – in this case, thousands of people – they spend nearly four years in an endeavour to tell a story they believe in. So it’s a big responsibility. We work very hard, day and night, soulfully. We take a leap of faith…. It’s a new movie, so it’s gotta be different from everything else I’ve done. I’ve never ventured so much: we got kids, animals, water, 3D – all the most difficult part of filmmaking.”

And the leap is four years long. It includes one year of pre-production just to sell the idea of the film, involving the development of a script from the novel, with the difficulty of translating the multiple layers of the story; of filming a boy alone on the ocean and showing what his thoughts are in the process of surviving; of making a book about ideas cinematic.” It includes using inspirational artwork, a photo essay of India, and a forty-minute animated “previs” to sell the idea to the studio. And employing “an army of agents” over a four-to-five-month period to screen 3000 to 4000 boys in the process of casting an unknown, inexperienced, undisciplined young actor to play the role of Pi. Taking over an abandoned airport in Taiwan and spending millions on sound stage, indoor pool, wave pool (overcoming the challenge of creating realistic swells found in the middle of the ocean). Taking on the challenge of making realistic animals, especially 450-lb tiger with CG; editor Tim Squyres says, “Our animals had to look absolutely, positively real, at a level that no one had ever done before, and I don’t know if anybody really was sure that it was going to get pulled off.” And there was even greater challenge in animating these creatures in 3G, with some shots taking six months to complete. There was the actual filming: shooting in water is difficult, and shooting in 3D is difficult, so Lee could not do what he usually does: take a huge number of shots and then edit down. “So we relied on very concisely managed master shots. That’s a risk. It takes experience to design exactly what you want to do. You don’t have safety. Whatever is there that will make ti into the film – you have to make sure that works.”

Lee’s great leap of faith landed him and his film in a field of clover. Life of Pi was a technical, artistic, and box-office triumph, winning four Academy Awards, including best director, best cinematography, best original score, and best visual effects, and earning a box office of over $600 million on a budget of $120 million.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mX2HBsHbNZM

***

Life of Pi is perhaps the richest jewel in Ang Lee’s crown of cinematic achievement. It is the avatar of his abiding view of filmmaking, that it is a process of learning through risk-taking. “I see movies as a way of learning about the world, about myself, and learning about my relationship with people and art.” But for Lee, making movies is also a way of learning about making movies. Pi’s production designer, David Gropman: “Ang is the ultimate professor, mentor, and student. He’s like the student trying to master the class. At the same time he’s teaching you and bringing you along the way and it’s wonderful combination, incredibly inspiring to work for a director like that.”

Screenwriter David Magee offers the finest assessment of the director’s philosophy of making films: “Ang talks about what it’s like to conquer a film essentially, to go on a great journey and finally get to a point where you have reached a moment where the story you’re trying to tell, in your heart and in your mind, and what comes out on the screen seem to coincide. That point of mastery is something that is beyond you and it reaches for something greater.”

Amen.

Image Credits

“Taking Woodstock Poster” Wikipedia. Fair Use

“Life of Pi Poster” Wikipedia. Fair Use

Hulk

In this 2003 film, Lee’s first big-budget Hollywood project, the director attempts to add psychological sophistication and philosophical depth to a comic-book story. The result is a critical and commercial disappointment, but Hulk shows once again the director’s penchant for risk-taking and his refusal to engage in formulaic movie-making.

Hulk is the story of a young genetic scientist, Bruce Banner, who unbeknownst to him, is the son of another researcher who conducted unauthorized experiments with disastrous results, landing himself in prison. David Banner also experimented on his son. Bruce is in a relationship with fellow researcher Betty Ross, who complains of his emotional unavailability. Bruce also suffers from nightmares that are clues to his hidden past. A lab accident unleashes a terrible rage that causes Bruce to be transformed into a giant green hulk that wreaks havoc on people and property. Meanwhile David is somehow freed and seeks to take advantage of his son’s genetic mutation, and the military officer responsible for David’s incarceration just happens to be Betty Father and the general in charge of stopping the rampaging Hulk.

In her study of Ang Lee’s work, The Cinema of Ang Lee: The Other Side of the Screen, critic Whitney Crothers Dilley compares Hulk with the comic-book-turned-action-feature that preceded it: Spiderman:

In some ways it can be argued, however, that the Hulk film is rendered more imaginatively and takes more daring risks. For example, the structure of the plot in Spider-Man is a straightforward hero-versus-nemesis theme, while Hulk explores family drama in several directions: Bruce versus his own father, Bruce’s mother versus his father (in flashback), Betty versus her father, and finally, Betty versus Bruce. In addition, the presentation of the Hulk is unique in its use of comic book conventions from the written page. For example, in the opening of the film, the Green Marvel font of the main titles pays cultural homage to the original comic books. In addition, during certain action sequences Lee splits the screen into multiple comic panels that dramatize the original comic strip format of the Hulk narrative. Moreover, Lee comments that the film has a complex philosophical subtext involving change and transformation embodied by lichen growing on rocks and mutation at a cellular and molecular level; images representing this idea occur throughout the movie.

Ultimately, Ang Lee’s Hulk is about taking risks and attempting to transform the genre of hero-action movies in the same way the director has experimented with the conventions of genre in his past films. In stretching to create a unique vision, the filmmakers worked hard to bring a depth to the film that is surprising in its sophistication.

The critics, and audiences, were not kind to Lee’s effort, however. New York Times movie critic A.O. Scott writes: “[Hulk] might be described … as incredible, but only in a negative sense: incredibly long, incredibly tedious, incredibly turgid. As for the grumpy green giant himself, I’m sorry to say that he is not very credible at all.”

Dilley says, “The thinking man’s action movie about Man’s inner demons did not hold broad appeal. While some critics praised Lee’s daring departure from the conventional treatment of the comic book drama, the film was pummeled by most viewers who criticized the effort to turn Hulk into Hamlet with art-house visual effects.”

The film did end up enjoying moderate success at the box office though: on a budget of $120 million, Hulk brought in $254.4 million in revenue.

 Brokeback Mountain

For Lee, the making of Hulk was an exhausting and ultimately demoralizing enterprise; he even contemplated no longer making movies, or at least taking a very long rest. But when presented with the challenge of making Brokeback Mountain, Lee could not resist. As he told Charlie Rose, “The material is just as challenging [as that of Hulk], if not more, for obvious reasons, but I like that kind of work. I need to work instead of sitting at home feeling bad for myself. I need something; I need a direction.” For Lee, making Brokeback Mountain was “a healing process.”

When asked in an interview to articulate the essence of his filmmaking, Lee replied, “Repression, the struggle between how you want to behave as a social animal and the desire to be honest with your free will.” The theme of repression looms large indeed in Brokeback Mountain, most particularly in the character Ennis Del Mar; thus the essential coherence of Ang Lee’s films continues. Once again, nevertheless, the director has chosen a cinematic path others dared not or could not take. The screenplay for the movie, based on Annie Proulx’s short story and written by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana, had been written several years before the movie was actually produced and became known as “the greatest un-producible screenplay ever written.” The material was just too sensitive at the time. Director Gus Van Sant wanted to make the film, but was unable to cast Ennis; his first choice for the role, Matt Damon, reportedly told him, “Gus, I did a gay movie (The Talented Mr. Ripley), then a cowboy movie (All The Pretty Horses). I can’t follow it up with a gay-cowboy movie!”

When Lee first read the story and the script, before he made Hulk, he didn’t think anyone would make it or see it. But as with other projects, the story haunted him, so he decided to make the film despite the obstacles.

The result was an artistic masterpiece and a box-office hit.

Please read my review of this film here.

Lust, Caution

In 1938, in the early years of the military occupation of China by the Japanese, a young female student at Lingnan University, Wang Jiazhi (Tang Wei), is persuaded by a handsome and charismatic fellow student (Kuang Yumin, played by the pop star Wang Leehom) to assume a role in a patriotic play that he and his friends and classmates are producing. The play provokes a passionate response from the audience and Wang is immediately seduced by the thrill of performance. When Kuang suggests that the group move from theatrical activism to the dangerous reality of political assassination, Wang, naïve in her enthusiasm, eagerly pledges her commitment to the plot

The plan is to insinuate the group, but most specifically Wang, into the privileged but secret life of notorious collaborator Mr. Yee, who works for the Japanese occupation forces in Hong Kong, arresting and torturing members of the resistance. Wang is to adopt the role of the wealthy Mai Taitai (Mrs. Mai), becoming a player in games of mah-jong with Yee’s wife and escorting her on shopping trips. The naïve student soon takes to the role of elegant and sophisticated matron, and when she first meets Mr. Yee as she plays mah-jong with his wife and her friends, there is a spark between them. The fantasy soon explodes into brutal reality, however, when a friend of Kuang who has discovered the group’s plans and attempts to blackmail them is murdered by her co-conspirators in a most gruesome fashion before her eyes. Although she continues to play her part in the plot, the conspiracy collapses when Yee is suddenly transferred to Shanghai.

Four years later Wang finds herself in Shanghai attending college and living with an aunt. She is reunited with Kuang, who has been keeping her under surveillance, and he introduces her to Old Woo, who is the head of the resistance in the area. Wang recommits herself to the assassination plan and is soon once again intimately involved with the Yee family. She and Mr. Yee begin a clandestine affair that is at once thrilling and terrifying for Wang. The couple engages in violent and wanton lovemaking (which is somewhat graphically depicted in the film), and their emotional engagement deepens as the affair progresses. As a consequence of his infatuation with Wang, Yee leaves himself vulnerable to the assassination plot, but on the day that the deed is to take place, Wang gives Yee a warning and he escapes. The plotters, including Wang, are caught and summarily executed in a quarry near the city.

Lust, Caution is based on a short story by the beloved Chinese writer Eileen Chang (Zhang Ailing). Again, it is a story that haunted Lee and drove him to engage in yet another risky cinematic enterprise. The anti-Japanese resistance, which strengthened the fledgling Chinese Communist Party by gaining the support of the masses and perfecting the techniques of guerilla warfare that ultimately led Mao Zedong’s forces to victory over the Nationalist army in the civil war that followed the defeat of the Japanese, is an icon of Chinese patriotism to this day. For Lee to prick this icon through having his heroine betray the cause by falling in love with a collaborator and foiling a plot to bring him to justice risks provoking the ire of the Chinese government, always sensitive, which has exploited anti-Japanese sentiment and the role of the Communist Party in vanquishing the occupiers as a pillar of its popular support for many decades. In fact, in the scene in which Wang says to Yee, “Go now,” thus betraying her cause, the dialogue was changed for Chinese audiences to “Let’s go.” It is difficult to imagine such a suggestion triggering Yee’s sudden flight.

There was risk also involved in including the three scenes of graphic sex. The filmmakers knew that Lust, Caution would be given an NC-17 rating, the most restrictive prohibition handed out by censors, but Lee refused to delete any of the footage (although the scenes were altered for Mainland Chinese audiences) and the rating was applied.

Finally, as with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Lee faced the challenge of appealing to both Asian and Western audiences with this movie. While there was criticism from both sides (for example, Chinese audiences found it too fast-paced; Western audiences thought it was too slow), the film generally received positive reviews from Western and Chinese critics. Lust, Caution won the 2007 Golden Lion International Venice Film Festival Award and seven Golden Horse awards at the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival. On a budget of $15 million, Lust, Caution grossed over $67 million at the box office worldwide and has generated more than $24 million in DVD sales and rentals in the U.S. alone.

Image Credits

“Hulk Poster” Wikipedia. Fair Use

“Brokeback Mountain Poster” Wikipedia. Fair Use

“Lust, Caution Poster” Wikipedia. Fair Use

Ice Storm Poster

The Ice Storm

While the subject in this film remains family, The Ice Storm is a radical departure from Lee’s first four commercial efforts. The Trilogy and Sense and Sensibility can be characterized as romantic and gently comedic, and each film ends neatly in a positive resolution of the plot whereas The Ice Storm is much darker and edgier in tone. The characters are more complex and the families more dysfunctional; the outcome, tinged with tragedy, is ambiguous. In The Ice Storm Lee probes more deeply into the psyche of each character, brilliantly integrating the details of the historical, cultural, and environmental moment into the mood that both drives and is driven by the evolution of those psyches.

The action of the film takes place over the 1973 Thanksgiving weekend in New Canaan, Connecticut and culminates in the ice storm that actually took place in Norther New England in December of that year. The plot revolves around the unhealthy interactions of two families – the Hoods and the Carvers, who are suburban neighbours and friends. Ben Hood (Kevin Kline) is having an affair with Janey Carver, a bored upper-middle-class housewife, and is experiencing disillusionment in his career. Ben’s wife Elena is undergoing her own mid-life crisis and is caught in the act of shoplifting. The children, by turns dreamy, rebellious, libidinous, and reckless – reflect the angst of the parents.

On the Friday after Thanksgiving Elena discovers the affair between her husband and Janey and a fight ensues. However, the pair feel obliged to attend a neighbourhood party despite the worsening weather and their mutual hostility. The event turns out to be a “key party,” where guests place their car keys in a bowl on arrival and at the end of the evening, each female partygoer picks a set of keys from the bowl and goes home with the male owner of the car to which the keys belong. Janey hooks up with a young man, Ben makes an attempt at protest, and Janey’s husband Jim thereby also discovers the affair. Jim and Elena make a clumsy attempt at sex in his car, he offers to drive her home, and discovering the road blocked, ends up taking her to the Carvers’ house, where Elena discovers her teenaged daughter Wendy in bed, naked, with the prepubescent younger Carver boy. Meanwhile, Mikey Carver has gone out into the ice storm. He slides down an icy hill and at the bottom rests on a guardrail at the side of the road. A tree, heavy with ice, falls on a live wire, which lands on the guardrail, electrocuting the boy. His body is found by Ben, who takes the boy back to the Carver house and delivers it to Jim, who is devastated.

At the end of the film, Ben, Elena, and Wendy Hood are at the train station, where they have just picked up Wendy’s older brother Paul, who had taken the last train in from New York, where he had been hoping, futilely, to seduce one his classmates. As the four members of the Hood family are sitting in the car, Ben begins sobbing uncontrollably.

The Ice Storm, like Brokeback Mountain, is a quintessentially American film. The social and cultural context in which the plot of the movie unfolds is the product of the sexual revolution and of the momentous political events that took place in the United States the 1960s. For those of us who were alive and aware in 1973, The Ice Storm actually feels like 1973. Ang Lee arrived in the United States as a student from Taiwan – where he had grown up in a cultural, social, and political milieu entirely different from that depicted in the film – in 1978. Yet the director was curious and courageous – and haunted – enough to immerse himself in the cultural artefacts of this period and create a film that faithfully and beautifully captures the angst and the emptiness of the post-60s era.

Ride With The Devil Poster

Ride with the Devil    

In Ride with the Devil, the “thoroughly Chinese filmmaker” again takes the cinematic road less traveled: he makes a movie about the American Civil War in which the “bad guys,” military supporters of the Southern cause, are the protagonists. This oddly unsatisfying film follows the fortunes of a group of young Confederate sympathisers, called Bushwhackers, as they kill Yankees in Missouri, the only southern state to support the Union in the Civil War.

The first act of the plot unfolds in a conventional manner. The father of Jake Roedel’s (Tobey Maguire) best friend Jack Bull Chiles (Skeet Ulrich) is murdered by pro-Union Jayhawkers on the day his daughter is married. Jake and Jack join a small band of Bushwhackers and patrol the countryside on horseback, often disguised as Union soldiers, killing as many Jayhawkers and their sympathisers as they can. The gang, which includes a freed slave named Holt (Jeffrey Wright), manages to stay one step ahead of the better organized, better equipped Union army. Near the end of this act, Jake learns that his father, a Union supporter, has been brutally murdered by a Union prisoner that Jake set free.

When the gang splits up to hunker down for the winter, the plot loses its momentum and moves the characters into a cycle of action and rest that quickly becomes uninteresting. Members of the Bushwhackers are killed off, leaving only Roedel and Holt. By the end of the film, Roedel has lost his southern racist “values” and abandoned his killing ways; he has become a husband and a father. Through the death of his saviour, Holt has achieved true freedom; he sets off to find his mother in Texas.

Here is the final paragraph of Roger Ebert’s review of Ride with the Devil:

Watching the film, I could see that Ang Lee and his frequent collaborator, screenwriter James Schamus, were in search of something serious. “Ride With the Devil” does not have conventional rewards or payoffs, does not simplify a complex situation, doesn’t punch up the action or the romance simply to entertain. But it is, sad to say, not a very entertaining movie; it’s a long slog unless you’re fascinated by the undercurrents. It’s a film that would inspire useful discussion in a history class, but for ordinary moviegoers, it’s slow and forbidding.

Director Lee is fascinated by the undercurrents, more than he is by conventional storytelling. He is attracted to this story because it is told from the point of view of the losing side, and as a Taiwanese, Lee carries an intrinsic empathy for the loser (the Kuomintang, or Nationalists, retreated to Taiwan after losing the civil war to the communists in the last half of the 1940s; later, they lost again, when the world withdrew diplomatic recognition in favour of recognizing the communist regime on the Mainland in the 1970s). “Was I scared when I did it? Of course, I was scared. Who am I to portray the Bushwhackers?”

The film was a financial disaster. From a $35 million production budget, it earned a paltry $635,000 at the box office. In contrast, Lee’s first English-language film, Sense and Sensibility earned $135 million worldwide on a budget of $16 million, and the movie that followed Ride with the Devil, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon made $230 million from a production cost of $15 million.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon poster

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Apparently undaunted by the box-office failure of his most recent project, Ang Lee believed that after making six films he had acquired enough experience to take the next giant leap and fulfil his boyhood dream of making a martial arts film. Of course, for Lee, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon would not be just any martial arts movie; it had to be made according to “my way of interpreting what a martial arts film should be.” That meant accomplishing the near impossible: balancing the spellbinding choreography of fighting sequences, the heart of the genre, with the sensibilities of an art-house film. Along with dazzling swordplay, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon would have romance, feminist social commentary, gorgeous cinematography, a compelling score, and fine acting. Would such a film appeal to audiences and achieve success in both the traditional market for martial arts movies and in the West? This was the risk the director was willing to take in order to realize his dream.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is the story of two women, a man, and a famous sword in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912). Li Mu Bai (Chow), a revered swordsman, has decided to retire and wants to gift his four-hundred-year-old weapon, Green Destiny, to a patron in Beijing, Sir Te. He asks Yu Shu Lien (Yeoh), the unmarried head of a thriving family business and also a skilled martial artist, to take the sword to Beijing and give it to Sir Te. Li Mu Bai and Shu Lien have long harboured passionate feelings for one another but have been unable, due to circumstances and tradition, to express their love.

Sir Te invites Shu Lien to stay at his luxurious home as his guest. Staying with the nobleman at the same time are the governor of Beijing and his daughter Yu Ren (Zhang Ziyi), a beautiful young woman of haughty aristocratic demeanour who also happens to possess a seemingly childish curiosity regarding the life of the itinerant martial artist. She meets Shu Lien as the older woman is carrying the precious sword to the place in which it is to be kept in Sir Te’s home. In the middle of the night Yu Ren steals the sword, revealing the secret that she is also a brilliant martial artist. The adventure begins.

Along the way an undercover policeman is murdered by Jade Fox, the female killer of Li Mu Bai’s master; Yu Ren is abducted by a gang of desert marauders and becomes the lover of the gang’s leader, Luo Xiaohu, known as Dark Cloud; Li Mu Bai recovers Green Destiny and pledges to use it to exact vengeance for the death of his master; there is a quirky swordfight between Yu Ren and Li Mubai in the treetops of a bamboo forest; and finally, Li Mu Bai vanquishes his nemesis but loses his own life in the process. And there is no tidy resolution at the end of the movie.

The complexity of the financing for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was labyrinthine. The fighting sequences took months of preparation and practice and often dozens of takes to perfect. The location shooting was often logistically challenging and physically wearing. The actors and the crew were a Babel of languages; Chow Yun-fat (first language Cantonese) and Michelle Yeoh (first languages English and Malay) both had to study Mandarin for their parts before they could speak a line on film. Yet Ang Lee was unwavering in his determination to make the film in his own way. The gamble paid off, both in critical acclaim and in box office returns. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon garnered ten Academy Award nominations, including for best picture and best director, and ended up with four Oscars (best foreign-language film, best cinematography, music, and art direction/set decoration).

Image Credits

“Film Poster for The Ice Storm.” Wikipedia, Fair Use

“rwtdposter2.” Wikipedia, Fair Use

“Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon poster.” Wikipedia, Fair Use

Ang Lee

Ang Lee’s reaction to the surprise and admiration that followed his making of Sense and Sensibility is a perfect reflection of the essential quality of his career as a director subsequent to that film. His first three movies, Pushing Hands, The Wedding Banquet, and Eat, Drink, Man, Woman – often dubbed the “Father Knows Best Trilogy” – were, in his words, about the struggle between social obligation and the exercise of free will. Many people were stunned that Lee was asked to make Sense and Sensibility, a film which depicted a world that, for all appearances could not have been further away from the one explored in the “Trilogy.” Perhaps even more astonishing was Lee’s successful collaboration with screenwriter/leading actress Emma Thompson in creating an entertaining, thoroughly British period piece.

But Lee brushed off the awe surrounding his involvement with Sense and Sensibility, arguing that he felt “very at home” making the film because the theme was consistent with that of the Trilogy. He said that when people approached him to tell him that they loved the movie, “I just wanted to punch them, I was so irritated.” He realized after making Sense and Sensibility, in “which I am doing the same vibe, three in Chinese, one in English,” that he needed to change his approach to filmmaking. “I could not pigeonhole myself to a certain vibe, a certain type of filmmaking and a certain way of communicating myself to the audience.” Lee became a risk-taker, an innovator. “Then I really started this journey of keeping deconstructing what I just did and trying to find new things so I can feel I’m alive, I’m fresh. Now I’m facing new challenges. So every movie has to have some kind of impossible elements in it – or elements that are impossible to put together.”

Ang Lee’s next film, The Ice Storm, marks the beginning of his new approach to making movies: on the one hand breaking new ground – “… each time I want to make a leap as far away from the previous one or what I know of because then I can pretend I do that for the first time, like a virgin” – on the other hand mitigating the fear that risk-taking elicits by falling back on what he calls “coherence,” which for Lee means constantly revisiting the “subject matter of freedom, repression social obligation – the struggle of social obligation and personal free will.”

In a number of interviews in which he was asked about the genesis of many of his films, Lee talks about being haunted by a story, or even an image, usually from a book. For The Ice Storm, it was page 200 of Rick Moody’s novel, on which the young character, played by Elijah Wood in the film, slides gleefully down an icy street to his death by electrocution. For Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, it was the last paragraph of the last page in the fourth volume of a “pulpy” wuxia fiction series introduced to him by a friend in Taiwan. He was haunted by Annie Proulx’s short story in the collection Wyoming Stories, “Brokeback Mountain” and by Yann Martel’s The Life of Pi.

Perhaps there is coincidence in the fact that most of these “haunting” stories were extremely difficult to make into films, only partially because of the vast cultural distance between the subject matter of the work and a director who identifies himself as a thoroughly Chinese filmmaker (“I was brought up in certain ways that influence my work…. I lived in a Chinese environment until I was 23 and that is something I cannot change”). However, one can also easily imagine that a significant element of the haunting experience was the challenge that such stories presented to this director, one of whose guiding artistic principles is “If a topic isn’t terrifying enough, or sensitive enough, I won’t want to make the movie.”

Although I had seen, and admired, The Wedding Banquet, Sense and Sensibility, and The Ice Storm, I was not conscious of Ang Lee’s unique combination of courage and skill as a director until I saw Brokeback Mountain in 2006. How was it possible that a Chinese filmmaker, raised and educated in the traditional conservative culture of Nationalist Taiwan (his parents migrated from Mainland China, along with Chiang Kai-shek and his Nationalist Chinese army, before the Communist takeover of the Mainland in 1949) could so realistically, so completely, and so movingly evoke the pain experienced by two repressed gay men in the cowboy culture of 1960s rural Wyoming? One could only consider the remoteness of the possibility of Martin Scorsese or Robert Altman successfully capturing both authentic tone and cultural nuances if either were to attempt to make a film like Eat, Drink, Man, Woman to be able to imagine the enormity of Lee’s accomplishment.

Lee’s philosophy of filmmaking is the antithesis of the Hollywood approach. “I have a lot of curiosity; I feel my career is like a prolonged film school. I just love to learn how to make movies. How do you … do that combat scene? How do you put boys with guns on horseback? How do [you make characters] fly … putting a wire on people, just yank them this way and slash them that way? For different genres I get to learn movies from all those great filmmakers like Hong Kong action choreographer[s] – that’s some of the greatest filmmakers. Here [i.e., in Hollywood] they’re … they made sure you’re doing safely.”

In an interview with Charlie Rose following the release of The Ice Storm, Lee’s long-time producer and screenwriter, James Schamus, explained that many non-American directors, beginning with Fritz Lang and Billy Wilder in the 1930s and more recently including John Woo and Wolfgang Petersen, have been sucked into the Hollywood filmmaking machine, making commercial films just like those of many of their American counterparts. “What makes Ang so special is that they haven’t gotten to him yet on that level; he’s gotten to them. I think Ang’s come into the States and he’s really maintained – probably through his position as an independent filmmaker here in New York – a real respectful and respectable distance from that machine, and I think that’s what makes his films so different.”

In Part Two and in subsequent parts, we will look at some of the films of Ang Lee, beginning with The Ice Storm, in order to trace this journey of seeking to satisfy curiosity and of taking risks.

Image Credit

“LIFE OF PI, Ang Lee, 35th Mill Valley Film Festival” by Diginmag. Creative Commons Fickr. Some rights reserved.

In the entertainment business, uncertainty and hopelessness is the elephant in the room that no one wants to acknowledge or speak about. Hopelessness and despair are a daily battle for everyone of us actors. And for an Extra or a Day-Player or an “Under 5 Role”… this can be extremely tough. There is nothing more difficult than to be treated as a “Less-Than” on a set. To be divided into groups (Extra’s and Featured) as soon as you hit the set can sometimes be demoralizing. Until I joined SAG and AFTRA, (because I got lucky enough to get a role that enabled me to join), I had to endure this treatment for years. But I loved just being on a film set…watching the actors and crew work to get the shot in the can. Standing in the background afforded me the opportunity to watch and learn, and I loved every second of it. But when you are an actor/actress, you have to be able to look forward to the day that you can actually “speak lines” on the set. If that is not a possibility, then you have to ask yourself…”Is this what I want to do for the next 20 years?” It’s an important question. One that each of us must ask at some point in our acting careers. I include myself, because I am also an actor trying to make it here in L.A. and I still ask myself this question periodically.

There are so many opportunities here that your life can change tomorrow. Tomorrow! And I have seen it first-hand!

My next-door neighbor who I have known for 15 years, is in his 50’s and he just landed his first regular role on a TV show last month. And his advice is… don’t stop. Don’t give up hope. Keep going and it will work out.

However, he is the exception, not the rule. But the one thing that I have noticed is that he was always hopeful about his future. He was always working at his craft. And this dedication constantly brought jobs, in both TV and Commercials. Now he has a family and a house to keep up…so this was always his reality check. These were the very things that gave him hope and drive to continue in the face of overwhelming odds.

Professor Fred Luthans, management professor specializing in Organizational Behavior has an approach that he calls (POB) Positive Organizational Behavior. The goal of POB, which can work very well with actors and actresses is to:

1. Shift the emphasis away from what is wrong with people to what is right with people.
2. Focus on one’s strengths, as opposed to beating yourself up due to perceived weaknesses or screw-ups.
3. Be interested and increase your resilience, as opposed to ones vulnerabilities.
4. Concern yourself with enhancing and growing one’s wellness, prosperity and the good life, as opposed to going into the dark side.

Luthans and his colleagues have identified four qualities as the critical component in Positive Organizational Behavior.

A. Self efficacy:  having confidence to take on and put in the necessary effort to succeed at challenging tasks

B. Optimism: making a positive attribution and expectation about succeeding now and in the future

C. Hope: persevering toward goals and, when necessary, redirecting paths to goals in order to succeed

E. Resilience: when beset by problems and adversity, sustaining and bouncing back and even beyond to attain success.

As actors, we can very easily accomplish the third point: Finding different ways to achieve your goals. With cameras being so cheap, hell…you can even make a film on your cell phone or iPad, you can literally side step the entire Hollywood madness and create your own films. This is what I have started to do, and it has been an amazing experience so far.

Making the leap to POB can have a remarkable impact on how we do business as actors. It pulls the intense focus away from under-performing, and it puts the attention instead on high performance… asking “how can we create more of this?”

Psychologists associate these four qualities with higher performance, commitment, and satisfaction. I think one of the most interesting and exciting things about these four qualities is that they are malleable and open to improvement when incorporated into ones life on a day-to-day basis.

How would this apply to actors? Well, I think that as actors, most of us were never taught these basic qualities. When, or even if, we went to college, we were more interested in stage combat, or vocal training, or how to delve into a character and make it real. Or just getting on stage and acting in front of an audience. But for me, the good news here is that if these qualities are “open to improvement” then we can learn these and get better at them with practice.

Instead of drifting into alcohol or drugs or any other thing I might use to mask my disappointment and the pain of my rejection or unemployment… I am going to surround myself with friends and family. Or I am going to make my own film. Or write my own script. Or join an acting class to constantly hone my craft for when that day does come.

There is an important distinction to be made here: It is the division between hope and wishing.

Those that are hopeful are actively trying to find the best path of action to take while delving into the daily obstacles. However, research has shown that many of those who have “hope” are in reality only wishfully thinking and passively going through the motions, as if they are in denial about their actual circumstances.

So, how long does an actor stay hopeful?

This is a very personal decision that every single one of us who aspire to be a working or successful actor must make some day. The only way to know if you’re on course is to perform a reality check every five years. Or any time period that you feel comfortable making or deciding on. For me personally, I have been getting cast in TV and film 3-4 times per year. Is this enough for me?? Of Course Not!!! But I am not willing to walk away quite yet. Because as I mentioned earlier – in this town, your life can change tomorrow! So you must make a choice on how long you are willing to try. And as an extra, this decision can be even more painful and excruciating. How can you know when to leave when you’ve never been given your shot??? BUT…by acting on some useful tips and advice,  you can see if you’re making any real progress. That evidence can be in the form of:

• You get representation from an established agent
• You start getting cast in acting jobs…commercials, theater roles, TV and film
• Callbacks on mainstream projects
• You receive several rave reviews from known critics for your work

In other words, there has to be irrefutable proof that you have the skill and ability to achieve a long-term career as an actor. If none of those elements are present, you can try waiting another five years for the next reality check, but it would be a mistake to go further than that.

As for my next door neighbor, or a couple of well-known actors in their 50’s that got their big breaks late in life – Richard Jenkins and Michael Emerson, please understand those guys were working actors known to the casting community before they made it big. And Louie C.K. from the show “LOUIE” was a respected comic who kept building on his accomplishments. If any of them did a reality check after five years, I’m sure they would’ve seen the kind of progress I’m talking about.

Charles Grodin, a wonderful actor best known to me for his fabulous performance in “Midnight Run” said it best: “Reach for it, but don’t fall off the edge of the world. I wish you could all get what you want, but there’s nothing as valuable as a useful happy life, and rumor has it there are some people who have achieved that who aren’t actors.”

“Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune
without the words and never stops at all.”– Emily Dickinson (1830 – 1886)

Photo Credits

Hope – by pol sifter on flickr – Some Rights Reserved

Mountains – Creative Commons morgueFile

Guest Author Bio
John Montana

John Montana is an actor living with his wife in L.A. and has begun to make short films. His most recent film, “Hungry” has been accepted into 24 film festivals all over the world. Check out his short films at No Title Production Films.

Follow John: Facebook

Before the age of ‘real’ T.V., viewers would never be able to safely experience the danger associated with being a crab fisherman (Deadliest Catch), learn what it takes to become a head chef beneath the tutelage of a culinary maniac (Hell’s Kitchen), or come to know just how tough and cut-throat the world of fashion can be (America’s Next Top Model).

And while many of the best programming that reality television has to offer is of the competitive variety, shows like Syfy’s Face Off is unique among the genre in one important respect: It gives viewers the kind of insight into the film industry that is generally reserved for those already working in the field, or those who happen to enroll in a qualified makeup school.

This ‘peeling the curtain back’ approach to television is arguably what provides reality programming with the kind of hook that keeps viewers coming back for more—it essentially acknowledges our need to know and understand how things work and how things come to be.

Face Off – Not Starring Nicholas Cage

Have you ever been watching a movie and thought to yourself, ‘How did they so effectively create that character?’ or ‘where did they get the idea for that special effects makeup?’. I think it is safe to say that we all have at one time or another; but did you ever expect to get an in-depth answer to either of those once rhetorical questions?

Face Off pits makeup artists from all walks of life against one another in a wide variety of makeup-based competitions—everything from beauty makeup to full-blown creature creation. Along the way, the audience has the opportunity to learn a thing or two about what makes movie quality makeups so believable, why things like a clean edge matters, and why an artist might choose to use latex rather than polyfoam to create prosthetics.

Hosted by McKenzie Westmore, daughter of makeup guru Michael Westmore (the hands responsible for creating some of the most memorable makeups throughout the Star Trek universe), the series is already well into its ninth season, and shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon.

No Substitute for Getting Your Hands Dirty

Obviously, as good of a job as a show like Face Off might do for introducing the idea of turning a passion in film into a career, it just isn’t a substitute for getting your hands dirty and trying it out for yourself. That’s why you might have noticed that there is no shortage of summer camps and academic institutions that are completely devoted to training the next generation of special effects makeup artists.

An additional benefit of the show is that it doesn’t really hold anything back in terms of depicting how demanding and difficult the profession is. Think about it. There are no graphic design or freelance writing shows, no shows depicting how difficult it is to be a plumber or the common issues that arise on a daily basis for an electrician. The point is, shows like Face Off act as a sort of ‘take your child to work day’ for those interested in pursuing the profession.

The Types of Programmes You’re Likely to Find

Sure, CGI is gaining ground on conventional special effects, but there will always be a need for those with the creativity and skill to bring any number of character designs to life—and make them believable. To that end, there are many academic institutions across North America that have developed a reputation for producing some of the best makeup artisans in the business. If you happen to be among the talented individuals looking to make your mark as part of the effects crew of a television, film, or stage production, consider one of the following institutions:

• Webster University
• Carnegie Mellon University
• Seneca College
• Cinema Makeup School
• Art of Makeup School

Photo Credits

Wikimedia Commons—Public Domain

Guest Author Bio

John Berwick
John Berwick may be a Technical Writer by trade, but he enjoys blogging and voicing his opinion on a wide variety of topics more than anything else in the world. He has written for many different sectors including health care, software development, security, marketing, and e-commerce industries.

Visit John’s Site: John Berwick Freelance

1. Your movie Hyena Road had its World Premier at TIFF. What inspired you to produce this film?

It started with a trip to Afghanistan as a group of people visiting the troops.  I was utterly mesmerized by the experience, in particular because the war zone seemed to bear no relationship to what I had been told by government or media.  Although I had no intention to ever make another war film (because they are horribly complex and difficult to finance) I thought I should at least return and photograph what I could, since we were beginning to talk about pulling out of combat operations.  I returned about a year later with a camera team and we spent a couple of weeks outside the wire at a Forward Operating Base, pointing our cameras at everything and anything — artillery strikes, chopper runs, mounted convoys, foot patrols, etc.  It was during that trip, in conversations with soldiers of every rank and specialty that I started to assemble the anecdotes that would eventually form the basis of the script.  All the events and characters (including the Afghan characters) are based on the people I met and the stories I was told during that trip.  The only thing I really did as a writer was to assemble the events and characters into a coherent narrative, one that makes for an exciting evening in the cinema and hopefully provokes discussion and curiosity about our long mission with ISAF (International Security Assistance Force).

Warrant Officer Ryan Sanders (Rossif Sutherland), The Cleaner (Nabil Elouahabi) and
Captain Pete Mitchell (Paul Gross) discussing an upcoming military operation.

 2. What segments of the film where shot in Afghanistan, Manitoba and Jordan?

The footage from the actual war zone that we captured in Afghanistan is sprinkled throughout the film, intercut with footage we shot in both Jordan and Manitoba.  We shot for 3 weeks at Canadian Forces Base Shilo, Manitoba and one night at 17 Wing in Winnipeg (air force base).  We shot the balance of the exteriors in Jordan, based out of Aqaba.
 

3. What impact did the geography of Afghanistan have on you personally and how do you think it impacted the Canadian soldiers out on combat and humanitarian missions?

The geography of Afghanistan is staggeringly beautiful to my eye, rivaling anything in say the American southwest.  There was something about the paradox of a stunning landscape ripped apart by 30 years of constant warfare that was heartbreaking.  I think for most soldiers in the CAF (Canadian Armed Forces), however, they saw the landscape as a work space, their area of operations and although perhaps beautiful it was also potentially lethal, since death could arrive from the most seemingly benign source. A clod of earth could conceal an IED (improvised explosive device).  I think the pervasive dust and the punishing heat (regularly 50 degrees Celsius during the summer months) also took its toll.  I only had the briefest taste of the stress and tension of being in that environment but can extrapolate to how one would feel at the end of a seven or eight month rotation and can imagine how exhausted a soldier or NGO worker would be when the tour concluded.

Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) soldiers on foot patrol.

4. Did the geography of any of the locations you filmed have an impact (logistics, inspiration, etc.) on filming the movie?

Geography always has an impact on filming, although we do our best to limit the challenge when we’re choosing locations.  Jordan was settled on as the country where we could duplicate Kandahar and brought with it all sorts of logistical challenges.  Notably, we were shipping all manner of military grade items into one of the world’s most turbulent neighbourhoods — black powder, functioning assault rifles, detonation cord, etc.  All of this took an enormous amount of effort to clear through customs, airline manifest, etc.  Jordan itself was a joy to film in but some of the locations — on the sides of mountains, for instance — took a great deal of planning to ensure efficiency and above all safety.

The Ghost (Niamatullah Arghandabi) and Capt. Pete Mitchell.

5. From the moral soul-searching of the kidnapping of Afghan children scenes, to the quiet moments on Kandahar Air Base and the heart pounding ambush sequences, what insight did you want to provide to Canadian viewers on Canada’s combat mission in Afghanistan, and why is that important?

One of our prime directives was to ensure that we were authentic and accurate in our treatment of what the atmosphere of the war zone was and the protocols of how we prosecuted the mission.  Given the response of veterans of the conflict, I think we can say with a good degree of confidence that we were successful in that goal.  The film captures the chaotic, brutal poetry of the conflict.  The structure of the script incorporates three main plots:  the ‘kinetic’ war (shooting and killing); the ‘non-kinetic’ war (what we might call Hearts and Minds); and the Afghans who were our partners.  I would like to hope that we have captured the fluid nature of this modern war, one in which there appears to be no fixed moral compass and presents the soldier with an almost impossibly opaque and complex environment.  This might be characterized as ‘post-modern’ warfare, one that bears little relationship to the relatively simple moral conflict of, say, the Second World War.

W.O. Sanders, Capt. Pete Mitchell and CAF Rifleman (Kamiran Aldeo) escaping a Taliban ambush.

6. Throughout the movie you use quotes from Alexander The Great, whose armies fought in Afghanistan, which seem to imply that outside militaries may for a while hold the ground in Afghanistan but in the end they all withdraw. Is this the lesson that you want viewers to leave with?

I’m not sure I was trying to say that ground cannot be held.  Their is an oft repeated maxim that Afghanistan has never been conquered which is not exactly true.  It has been conquered but perhaps never held.  But for most armies that have marched in there (in recorded history starting with Alexander) Afghanistan was not a goal — it was a means to a different goal, the route they had to take.  The difference with ISAF is that the coalition was not attempting to ‘conquer’ the land and great efforts were taken to minimize the footprint on the local population — we did not live in Kandahar City as the US did in Saigon for example.  We were truly attempting to work in partnership with those Afghans (the majority of the population) to assist them in creating a coherent country, one that could withstand the predations of the insurgent and neighbouring countries.  Whether or not the mission was successful is for time to determine.  And, as the Afghans would say, ‘Inshallah it was worth it’.

Master Corporal Travis Davidson (Allan Hawco) at a Forward Operating Base.

Watch the HYENA ROAD Trailer

Photo Credits

All photos by Elevation Pictures – All Rights Reserved

A Late Quartet Poster

The Fugue Quartet has been playing music together successfully for twenty-five years, but from the early scenes of A Late Quartet, it is clear that the emotional and musical cohesion of the group is breaking down, and the quartet soon appears to be in danger of breaking up.

The quartet’s leader, cellist Peter Mitchell (Christopher Walken), lost his wife a year ago and has just been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. He declares that the Fugue’s first concert of the season will be his last and asks the group to begin looking for a replacement for him. Violist Juliette (“Jules”) Gelbart (Catherine Keener) is married to second violinist Robert Gelbart (Philip Seymour Hoffman), but the marriage is clearly devoid of bliss. First violinist Daniel Lerner (Mark Ivanir) is obsessed with musical precision, marking up every score with copious notes and directions. Lerner is single but had an affair with Jules before she married Robert; he falls in love with the Gelbarts’ daughter Alexandra, also a violinist.

The imminent changes to the group’s dynamics bring some old resentments and conflicts to the surface. Robert declares that he no longer wishes to play “second fiddle” to Lerner, demanding that the roles of first and second violin alternate between the two players. This suggestion is rejected out of hand by Lerner and Jules agrees with the first violinist, setting Robert off on an offended and jealous rage, which leads to a one-night stand with a flamenco dancer with whom he regularly jogs. The affair results in Jules asking Robert to move out. When Jules discovers that Alex is sleeping with Lerner, an explosion of pent-up daughter-mother resentment ends with Jules slapping Alex hard across the face and fleeing Alex’s apartment. Robert’s discovery of Lerner’s affair with his daughter leads to fisticuffs between him and the first violinist in Peter Mitchell’s house, resulting in Mitchell kicking them all out in disgust. Alex breaks up with Lerner.

These events appear as if they are essential ingredients in a cheesy afternoon soap opera, but A Late Quartet is decidedly not gratuitous melodrama. The humanity and devotion to musical artistry of the characters (and the marvellous performances of the actors who portray them) elevate this film to a work of rare beauty.

Peter Mitchell is a man of compassion, sensitivity, and sophistication. He is devoted, with quiet passion, to his late wife, an opera singer, to the quartet, and to each of its members. He is a skilled and patient teacher of young musicians. And he greets the end of his performing career and the approach of the devastation of Parkinson’s with a sublime grace. Christopher Walken, not known for the depth and range of his acting skills, is a delightful surprise here.

Robert Gelbart is a man of many facets – a brilliant musician who longs to take risks in his playing (but is frustrated by the cautious, controlled playing of Lerner), a loving husband and father, a volatile and formidable opponent in any dispute, an impulsive adolescent. As usual, Hoffman, like the great Meryl Streep, completely inhabits his character, bringing nuance to Robert that renders him utterly believable. Hoffman’s performance exemplifies the difference between craftsman and artist.

Jules is a complex person. She adores Peter, as if she is in need of a loving father, and her love and need blind her to the reality that Peter can no longer perform publicly with the quartet. For Jules, the music is everything; she cannot understand her daughter’s resentment of the long absences of her parents during the group’s many concert tours while she was growing up. She rejects her husband’s amorous advances as well as his suggestion that he share the first violin role with Lerner. Yet, in her way, she loves both Robert and her daughter.

Lerner’s almost neurotic need for precision – in his playing, in his search for the perfect bow, in the elaborate marking of each score – masks a passion, a desire to love and to be loved that is released in his affair with Alex. When she ultimately rejects him, he retreats to the stern and cold technician that is his comfort zone.

This film is about change and growth and new beginnings. The crisis precipitated by Peter’s illness and the relational conflicts that it engenders cause each of the members of the Fugue to examine himself or herself and to make the necessary personal adjustments that restore harmony to the quartet. It is a credit to the makers of this film and to the actors that bring it to life that these changes are not forced or false; rather, they appear to arise naturally from the circumstances and character of each member of the group.

Image Credit

“A Late Quartet Poster.” Wikipedia (free use policy)

Prince of Tides

A couple of years ago, thanks to the suggestion of Life As A Human’s Dan L. Hays, I gorged on Pat Conroy novels – The Great Santini, The Lords of Discipline, Beach Music, The Prince of Tides. Reading Conroy’s fiction is like partaking in a great literary feast: sumptuous language, meaty characters, savoury settings, and always, it seems, plenty of delicious food. The concoctions are so compelling that you read them like a kid, devouring the pages long past bedtime.

The Prince of Tides is the story of the South Carolina childhood of sensitive Tom Wingo and his siblings, twin sister Savannah and older brother Luke, a childhood twisted into an endless nightmare by a violent dreamer of a father and a scheming, ambitious mother. Tom and Savannah have been severely traumatized by their upbringing and their trauma is carried into their adult lives; both are ultimately helped, in different ways, by a New York psychiatrist named Susan Lowenstein.

While the novel paints the childhood years of the Wingo siblings in considerable detail, the film, directed by and starring Barbra Streisand, focuses more on the recovery, especially Tom’s.

Tom Wingo (Nick Nolte) remained in the South and is married to a successful doctor, with whom he is raising three daughters. The marriage is an unhappy one, though, as Tom is unemployed and drifting away from his wife (Blythe Danner) as a result of his feelings of inadequacy. Savannah, a poet who moved to New York, is suicidal and has recently made another, nearly successful, attempt on her life. Her psychiatrist, Lowenstein (Barbra Streisand), needs to unlock the secrets of her patient’s past in order to save her; as Savannah is more or less in a catatonic state, so Tom is summoned to New York to do the job.

What follows is an exquisitely choreographed portrayal of the process of transformation for Tom and of liberation for Lowenstein. Susan Lowenstein is a successful psychiatrist and a passionate advocate for Savannah, who is a poet of skill and sensitivity. Lowenstein (as Tom, who resists her efforts to unlock family secrets and is at the same time attracted to her, likes to call her) is in a dysfunctional relationship herself: she is married to a famous violinist, who is an arrogant, controlling philanderer. Their son (played by the real-life son of Streisand and actor Elliott Gould) longs to play football but his dream has been stifled by his father, who only sees him as a clone of himself. Despite her personal issues, the psychiatrist’s skill and passion succeed ultimately in convincing Tom to reveal the traumatic events of his and Savannah’s childhood, including a vicious sexual assault perpetrated by three escaped inmates, which Tom’s mother forced her children to cover up.

In one of the most beautifully rendered scenes I have experienced in watching films, Tom is transformed from an angry, cynical, wisecracking shell of a man to a deeply wounded child sobbing in the arms of Susan Lowenstein. Nolte is nothing less than magnificent here. Once the bottled-up – and tightly sealed, under pressure – emotion of Tom’s horror show of a childhood has been released, the sexual attraction toward Lowenstein that he has been experiencing is transformed into love. And after he becomes aware that he can love – SPOILER ALERT! – Lowenstein is forced to release him so that he may return to his wife and family.

Watching this movie (on at least two occasions), I did not at any time feel compelled to compare it to the novel. In my view, Streisand’s film stands successfully on its own as a moving tale of two wounded souls destined to meet in a brief but intense encounter in order to fulfill a profound need for healing and redemption.

Wonderfully acted by Streisand, Nolte, and Danner.

Image Credit

“Princeoftides.jpg.” Wikipedia. Reproduced under Fair Use law.