Hit Me With Your Best Shot - Pocahontas

I know.

I suck at blogging.

I haven't even posted anything dance-related in... well, let's just say way too long and leave it at that. I guess that's what comes from actually having to work at teaching dance; I spend all my free time choreographing and planning lessons now.

But that doesn't matter, because I really like writing for The Film Experience when I can, and I especially like participating in Nathaniel's Hit Me With Your Best Shot series. It's fun, and when I've seen the chosen film and had to agonize over which shot to choose, it's more interesting to see what other people chose. It's a sense of community that I just love.

Anyway, this week's selection is Disney's Pocahontas. Not exactly the strongest film of the so-called "Disney Renaissance", but probably the most underrated. Coming as it did immediately following The Lion King, it was probably going to feel like a let-down anyway, but Disney does not have the best track record in dealing sensitively with other cultures (Peter Pan), so the choice to tell the story of the Native American Pocahontas and British explorer John Smith was probably not the best choice of story for them. And honestly, at it's best, Pocahontas feels more like a dry run for the much better Mulan than its own fully-formed film. Even so, I remember first seeing the trailer for Pocahontas when I was a young boy of about 10 and being kind of awed by it. The trailer was basically just the full "Colors of the Wind" sequence, but it was strikingly different from anything Disney had done before and in one spectacular moment, downright breathtakingly gorgeous:

THAT. Is so fucking gorgeous that you momentarily forget that the phrase "can you paint with all the colors of the wind" is maybe the most ridiculous lyric Stephen Schwartz has ever written (which is saying something). I don't think there's ever been a moment that impressionistic in a narrative Disney feature film before or maybe even since. It's completely singular, instantly recognizable, and bordering on iconic, a high-water mark for the film's animation. But it's not my choice for the best shot.

I certainly thought it was going to be when I sat down to watch the film, but that's the way these things usually go, isn't it? You think you remember a film, and then you watch it after many, many years, and you learn things you never knew you never knew.

Or, you know, you just see something that completely passed you by the first time. Whatever.

Anyway, my choice for Best Shot is contained in what is in my opinion the film's best song, "Savages". In it, the British colonists and the Native Americans each prepare to do violence to the other group, and sing a song with remarkably similar lyrics, prompting the (perhaps obvious) question of who the real savages are. It sounds a bit obvious, but it's a very mature theme for what is clearly a children's film, and the film doesn't shy away from it, coming up with some striking imagery of guns and cannons replacing the bodies of the colonists and of the Native Americans putting their warpaint on.

The best moment comes at the end of the number. As the two sides prepare, fires in both camps send streams of smoke up into the air, reflecting the growing shadows of their soldiers. The shadows get stretched and distorted almost beyond recognition as the clouds of war continue to expand, and they meet, like this:

followed immediately by a crash of lightning and the end of the number. It's one of the best images of a vision of war I think I've ever seen, and it's something that couldn't really be done in a live-action film. There are more painterly shots in Pocahontas (which certainly isn't the prettiest of Disney films), but I think this is the most meaningful, the most multi-faceted, and perhaps the most adult. It's dealing with big themes that kids don't think about and visualizing them in a way that kids can understand at every level: it's clear not only what's happening, but that's what happening is wrong, and both sides are equally to blame. That's probably the best theme Disney was ever going to get out of telling this story, and this shot encapsulates it perfectly.

. . .

There's also room for a totally dirty interpretation of this shot that amuses me, even though I don't subscribe to the whole "Disney movies were totally dirty and made to fuck up kids without them knowing!" thing.

Hit Me With Your Best Shot - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

This will be a post of confessions.

Confession #1: I haven't blogged a single damn thing for far too long. I wish I could say that it's because I've been too busy, but honestly, I was only really busy while I was performing in January-February and then back in September-October.

Confession #2: I can really only do this sort of thing on a deadline. If I see something that I feel REALLY compelled to write about, then I have to do it right away or it will never get done, but that rarely happens with something that would be appropriate for this particular forum...

Confession #3: ...which is why I am able to participate in Nathaniel's Hit Me With Your Best Shot series whenever it's happening. There's an assignment and a deadline. It's just like being in college again! Only with a WAY cooler professor.

Confession #4: I haven't seen Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind since the first time I saw it in 2004. I haven't watched it for several reasons. Because I wanted to preserve the memory of that first, magical viewing. Because I was dreadfully afraid that it would not have the same impact on me on another viewing. Because I was dreadfully afraid that it WOULD have the same impact on me on another viewing. Because it so burned itself into my psyche upon that first viewing that I actually haven't needed to watch my DVD copy in order to watch it again. It's one of very few films that I constantly carry around in my memory, completely intact.

Confession #5: I wasn't going to watch Eternal Sunshine again for this because I already knew the shot I would choose.

Confession #6: Because I hadn't seen the film in ten years, I figured I owed it to Charlie Kaufman, Michel Gondry, Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Elijah Wood, Mark Ruffalo, Kirsten Dunst, Tom Wilkinson, and cinematographer Ellen Kuras to watch it again before choosing.

Confession #7: This was going to be my pick for Best Shot

Confession #8: This is my actual pick for Best Shot

Confession #9: Apparently, I didn't remember Eternal Sunshine quite as well as I thought I did. Some things actually hit me harder this time around (the way Carrey whispers "This is the last time I saw you"). Some performances struck me as far slyer than I originally gave them credit for (just how much does Mark Ruffalo know about Dunst and Wilkinson's relationship?). And Kate Winslet was even more wondrous, partially because on this viewing I realized that Clementine is not nearly as clearly-drawn in the script as she is in Winslet's performance. HOW did she lose the Oscar for this?!? And while I remembered Jon Brion's score almost note for note, I had gone so long without associating it with these images that it completely stunned me how perfect (and oftentimes counterintuitive) it was. The sound in general, actually, was far more effective than I remember.

Confession #10: As someone who has taken the train to work from CT to NYC for the past six and a half years while living with someone, Joel's entire opening monologue struck me in a way that I was not prepared for. So much so, that I saw the film almost completely differently this time around. Joel and Clementine's relationship suddenly meant so much more - I understood it on a level I definitely do NOT recall from the first time around (when I was still in college). Commuting to work does weird things to you - you become a slave to not just your work schedule, but to the train timetables. It saps most (if not all) of your energy - you don't want to go out in the city because you just want to get home, and you don't want to go out at home because you just spent all day "out". Having someone to come home to is such a wonderful thing, but commuting puts a weird strain on relationships - you simultaneously want to spend more and less time with your partner because time alone becomes more precious of a commodity. Your life feels more part of a machine that keeps grinding you down than if you were driving to work (especially for a short distance), and free time is something that suddenly only becomes available to you on weekends - if it isn't completely taken up by errands. And if your partner doesn't commute - they just don't get what it feels like, the toll it takes on you. So, yeah, Eternal Sunshine hit me right where I live.

Confession #11: I had completely forgotten about the shot I ended up choosing, but MAN it hit me like a ton of bricks on this viewing. The one I had thought I was going to pick still made me gasp (it just comes out of nowhere, so otherworldly), but this one, which comes almost immediately after, wrecked me. Everyone knows and loves the beautiful first shot of Clem and Joel on the ice (next to the gigantic crack - the one that was on all the posters and DVD covers), and this shot is designed to recall it - and actually does a great job of recontextualizing that first shot. In the first one, Clementine and Joel are pretty happy. The crack in the ice represents the ugly, imperfect parts of their past (forgotten) relationship. In this shot, Clem is gone, and so is the crack. The ice is perfect. Joel should be happy - this is what he wanted - but he's not. Life should be perfect without the pain - and it may look that way - but it's not. In trying to protect ourselves by erasing or avoiding emotional scars, we end up becoming our own worst enemies. There's a handful of great quotes in Eternal Sunshine, but for me the one that best sums it up goes unsaid: 'Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.

Confession #12: As a commuter, I was tempted to choose the shot where people keep vanishing from Grand Central Terminal as the Best Shot. OH how often I've wanted that to happen as I'm running to catch the train home!

Confession #13: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind hasn't changed at all in the ten years since I first saw it, but I have. I thought I remembered it perfectly, and maybe I did, but the emotions I experienced during this viewing were completely different than what I remember from the first viewing. I reacted to different scenes, and some scenes hit me in different ways. That's the funny thing about memory. While what happened is always the same, they way you remember it changes over time. And I love that this film about memories - how they affect us, and how we can affect them - proves to be a perfect example of that.

Hit Me With Your Best Shot - The Bad And The Beautiful

This post will be brief only by necessity, as I'm in rehearsals right now and am just flat exhausted. But this week's selection for Hit Me With Your Best Shot was on TCM last weekend, when I actually had a moment to breathe, so I watched it and just had to write about it.

This was the first time I had seen Vincente Minnelli's The Bad And The Beautiful, and I enjoyed every delicious, Hollywood-insidery moment of it (I don't know what Gloria Grahame was doing winning an Oscar for a glorified cameo when Jean Hagen was digging up comic gold right and left in Singin' In The Rain, but the Academy's shocking disdain for Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly's masterpiece is neither here nor there). The whole thing is a movie-lover's wet dream, with Lana Turner being fabulous, Kirk Douglas being despicable, and tons of backstage so-THAT'S-how-they-make-movies tidbits and stunning tracking shots following the filming of tracking shots.

But as much as it is about the making of Hollywood films and the making (and un-making) of Hollywood careers, what the film was really about, to me, was the pull of artistic genius. In my life in the theater, I've come across my fair share of brilliant people who exert this strange pull on all those around them. You can't quite describe it, except to say that they could talk you into doing just about anything, despite the fact that you know there are invisible, potentially dangerous strings attached. No matter how many times they burn you, you keep coming back when they call, because they bring something out of you that no one else does. It's very much like a disfunctional relationship with a toxic lover - you know they're bad for you, but the sex is so good that you can't stay away.

Anyway, that's part of why the final shot of The Bad And The Beautiful seemed so perfect to me. While Kirk Douglas's defeated asshole of a producer pitches his new film idea, the one that will bring him back from poverty, to his old partner, the actress, director, and writer he burned along his way to glory listen in, going from this:

to this:

Come ON. That is a perfectly lit and composed shot. And, as each of them slowly comes into the light, it mimics the film's trifurcated structure. It also shows the irresistible pull of those damned artistic genius assholes. Even when your better judgment is begging you to leave them alone, there's always that little voice inside you, nudging you ever closer to their orbit, stroking your ego if only to prepare it for the inevitable crash to earth. For all the fun this film is, that's a pretty powerful note to end on.

Mary Poppins - Step In Time

This week's Hit Me With Your Best Shot is Mary Poppins, and I desperately wanted to participate, both because I haven't done so at all in the second half of this season (much less blogged at all), and because I have always loved Mary Poppins. But, lo and behold, I find myself incapable of truly doing so! You see, so many of my favorite parts of Mary Poppins, the parts I really want to talk about, didn't really include any shots that made me sit up in my seat and take notice. It's a remarkably well-constructed film, one that actually gets better as it goes along, but most of the cinematography is unremarkable, except for some stunning nighttime shots of the London roofscape...

"A trackless jungle!"

...which I largely suspect to be matte paintings.

I really wanted to go with something from "Feed the Birds", the most haunting lullaby Disney ever produced, because it always exerted a strange hypnotic pull over me when I was younger. Those shots of the cathedral, blurred around the edges, with the almost see-thru birds flying around it are incredibly affecting, but not a single one of them really summed up the number.

Mary Poppins is quite sneaky that way, bringing in some things quite radical for a children's film. For one, there isn't really a plot, for another, there are several ballads (like "Feed the Birds") that threaten to put kids to sleep but actually deepen the film and the characters. And for another, it's very anti-establishment: Mrs. Banks is a suffragette, at one point making sure that her maid put rotten eggs in her bag so that she can throw them at the Prime Minister in Downing Street, and Mr. Banks is a banker at quite possibly the creepiest bank ever in the history of the world:

And I so love how little Michael starts what must be a total economic meltdown after he tries to take back his tuppence from the greedy Bank President (who, let's be honest, basically stole it from him anyway). A surprisingly prescient moment, teaching children how silly adults get about money. But again, there are no really great shots in that bank melee.

So, I am forced to instead talk about one of the greatest dance numbers ever filmed, "Step In Time". And even here I find myself at a loss for words, except that I adore the way choreographer Marc Breaux (whose next project was Julie Andrews'  next film, The Sound of Music) uses absolutely everything you could conceivably find on a rooftop, having the chimney sweeps dance on railings, climb up and down smokestacks, dance over and balance on the lip at the edge of the roof... it's ingenius, fun choreography, and takes a very silly, overly simple song and turns it into a major production number entirely worth it's eight-minute length. It's filmed really smartly, balancing mid-shots, long shots, and close-ups quite well, letting us in on the fun while still letting us see the dancing as much as possible (although there are probably a few too many reaction shots from the kids, who are, shall we say, not the greatest actors Disney ever found). Yes, now that I'm older I can see the seams show when Julie Andrews jumps up in the air for her multiple tours, but when I was a kid, my jaw always dropped. The performances of Dick Van Dyke and the rest of the ensemble help greatly, too - they make it infectious. Seeing this number, you would think it would be great fun to be a chimney sweep, no?

And I love when the soot-stained crew travels down the chimney into the spic-and-span Banks household, possibly even more than the rooftop shenanigans, as they flip the maid, chase the cook, march for women's rights with Mrs. Banks, and leave a befuddled Mr. Banks shouting "What's all this?!?" over and over and over (David Tomlinson never fails to make me lol when he gets frustrated). And that final shot of them all dancing, jigging, and backflipping down the street is a glorious fade-out to the number.

And yeah, I know the silhouette of the dancers dancing on the chimneys is a beaut, but my favorite shot has always been this one, which immediately precedes that iconic shot:

It's an ever-so-slightly vertiginous shot, totally selling that this entire number is actually taking place on the rooftops of London and not on a soundstage somewhere, maybe 5 feet off the ground. With the added danger of dancing over a hole! One foot wrong and down you go!

Down you go, step in time!

Down you go, step in time!

Never need a reason,

Never need a rhyme!

Down you go, step in time!

Dammit, now I'm never going to get that song out of my head. Ah well, the movie's been in there for years, and it's quite delightful to have around.

Favorite moment: walking on hands between the rooftops, then dropping down, hanging on only by the feet
Length: approx. 8:10
Number of cuts: 96

Hit Me With Your Best Shot - Fantasia

Curse you, Nathaniel!

Choosing a best shot from Fantasia is (as I mentioned earlier), a fool's errand, even when you're allowed to pick one shot from each sequence. Not to mention the fact that I haven't seen the film since I was a child, and even then I tended to fast-forward through the entire middle (the entirety of Rite of Spring and portions of Pastoral Symphony, both of which have exciting moments but are far too long for a child's attention span). On top of that, the purpose of choosing Fantasia is to celebrate the centennial of Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring", which has always been my least favorite section of the movie.

And on top of all that, I have been super busy this week.

But rewatching some of the sequences over the past week, I've been reminded just how freaking gorgeous Fantasia is. Practically every frame is a work of art, even in the sequences I dislike. I mean, Disney itself has marketed just about every frame from The Sorcerer's Apprentice in one form or another, and for good reason. It's possibly the most iconic piece of animation in the Disney canon. Which is exactly why picking anything from Mickey's big moment would be way too easy. But upon watching the sequence again, I was struck by this moment:

Foreshadowing the last sequence in an anthology film? Has any other anthology film ever done that? Because, come on. Even if Yen Sid (heh heh) is conjuring a butterfly, in the beginning it totally looks like the malevolent terror Chernabog, the mountain/demon star of Night on Bald Mountain and scourge of countless childhood nightmares.

Fantasia - Dance of the Hours

For this week's Hit Me With Your Best Shot, Nathaniel has chosen Disney's Fantasia, which poses a near-impossible task. Whole sequences of Fantasia are true works of art - how can you choose just one shot from the whole film as "best"? I haven't seen the whole film in years (since I was a kid), but I remember a lot of it vividly. Given the nature of this blog, it should come as no surprise that my favorite sequences are the Nutcracker Suite and this one right here:

I defy anyone to hear "Dance of the Hours" and not instantly see those dancing ostriches, hippopotamuses, elephants, and crocodiles. What I love about this sequence is how the animators constantly play with expectations. The piece starts with the ostriches, who are appropriately light and graceful, but far more flexible than you might expect. Next come the hippos, and boy do they not move according to expectations, even if all that effort tires them out. The elephants are like the hippos, only more playful. But it's those kooky crocs who steal the show. Much as I love this piece, it never really captures my attention until they show up, with their silly capes and mile-wide mouths. They should be the villains of the piece, but because of their goofy grins, they end up being far more funny than menacing, to the point that you're never sure if they want to eat the hippo or romance her.

Animator John Hench apparently resisted working on this segment because he knew nothing about ballet, so to appease him Walt Disney gave him season tickets and backstage access to the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. The end result is a perfect blend of ballet technique and animalistic movement. Little things like the way the ostriches walk, the literal shifting of weight in the hippos and elephants, and the way the crocodiles slither and curl up all speak to the real-life animals that inspire them, but are incorporated seamlessly into how they dance.

Taking full advantage of the possibilities of animation, the laws of physics are given a big ol' heave-ho, allowing the lead ostrich to be thrown up very high in the air very quickly, and then float down with enough time to do at least a hundred changements. It also allows the crocodiles to lift the hippos in any number of different, exciting, sometimes funny ways, like just using their tails!

Fantasia has lots of dance in it, but this is the only sequence that really uses dance (ballet specifically) as its driving force. It's also arguably the most fun, which should quiet all those people who decry ballet as boring. There are plenty of comic ballets, just as there are comic operas. Plus, if you picture people performing this instead of animated animals, it's still pretty great. Actually, seeing as how the whole thing is even structured like an actual ballet (the various ensembles each dance separately, followed by a pas de deux, then a grand finale with everyone dancing together), I would love to see some adventurous ballet company attempt this. They'd need some wires and some crazy costumes, but it could be a lot of fun.

Favorite Moment: the crocodiles' entrance, at first menacing, until they throw back their capes and have the silliest look on their faces - in perfect unison, of course (at 7:50 in the clip); and hippo's run-and-jump onto the croc, who attempts to catch her (at 9:10 in the clip) - because some (poor) partners really do feel like that when you try to lift them.
Length: Approx. 11:50

Hit Me With Your Best Shot - Summertime

Hello. My name is Daniel and I am a hopeless romantic.

I can't help it. I live for a very specific kind of romance in films: Love that comes unexpectedly, burns bright for a very short amount of time, and cannot, must not last. Star-crossed lovers who don't end up together, for whatever reason. I can't help it. Casablanca, In the Mood For Love, Brief Encounter, Before Sunrise... these films are like crack to me. And one of my favorites, one that has kind of sadly fallen through the cracks of history a bit, is David Lean's Summertime.

I was thrilled when Nathaniel announced this Katharine Hepburn-Rossano Brazzi picture, because I first saw it about a year ago and haven't seen it since. I was eager to give it a revisit. It is swooningly, heartbreakingly romantic in the best way, and it takes place in that most captivating of Italian cities (at least for me), Venice. And while Summertime is certainly a beautifully-shot film in a very beautiful place, every single shot I thought about choosing for this piece was just of Katharine Hepburn.

This is one of The Great Kate's Oscar nominations, and it's well-deserved. I'd even go so far as to say she should have won the Oscar for it. I can't count the number of shots in this film in which she amazes me with her ability to show that her heart is blooming and breaking at the same time. She's the main reason why Summertime works as well as it does. It could very well have worked with another actress (Bergman, say, or Bancroft), because, hey, it's pretty damn hard NOT to fall head over sensible heels for Rossano Brazzi (SWOON). But I can't think of another actress that could have made Jane Hudson work as well as Hepburn, solely because the character runs almost completely contrary to our thinking about her - or at least, to the image she tried to cultivate of herself.

When we think of Kate, we mostly think of Tracy Lord, or Eleanor of Aquitaine, or Amanda Bonner, or Susan from Bringing Up Baby, or any other number of strong, forceful women. We may think of her as a romantic, but not in the sad, shy way of Jane Hudson. We do not think of her as someone who has never taken a vacation abroad, and certainly not as someone who would have trouble calling a waiter in a café. But Jane Hudson is all of these things, and Hepburn plays her as someone who resents that she is those things, even as she half-heartedly struggles to overcome them. She may laugh off her falling into a canal while wearing a white dress, but the second men start trying to dry her off, she finds the little boy who has attached himself to her and tells him to get her the hell out of there. Jane does not like attention. Perhaps being in her forties she has gotten used to not having it, and any time she gets it she finds it a strange, unnerving experience. Why would anyone pay attention to her? Why should they?

Well, they would because she looks like Katharine Hepburn, and even at her meekest, Kate has a presence about her. She just does. There's no hiding it or glossing over it. Perhaps this is what attracts Rossano Brazzi's Renato to her. That presence combined with her silence. She may be in her forties, but in many ways she is still an awkward teenager, amazed that such a beautiful, suave Italian man would take an interest in her, and not entirely sure if she wants it. There are very brief moments when you can see Kate rebelling against Jane - when Jane gets angry at herself for not being strong enough to do something she wants, that's clearly Kate - but it actually works in the character's favor. In the great scene when she tells Renato she is leaving later that day: She begins to cry, and Kate turns her head away from the camera, not willing to let the audience see her this weak, this sad. But at the same time, that makes the scene play much more interestingly than it might have, with Jane instead turning to the camera, or shaking her head back and forth. It's a simple motion that adds interest to the character where there really isn't on the page, and Hepburn's performance is filled with moments like that.

Which brings me to my Best Shot. It's from the final scene, one that has played out on the silver screen since time immemorial: Jane is getting on the train that will take her away from Venice, away from Renato. Will he come for her or not? This type of film is dependent on this scene to work. If this scene doesn't work, the film doesn't - it falls flat on its ass. As usual, the one leaving told the one that is being left specifically not to follow them, not to come after them, even though they really wanted the opposite. Even as she gets on the train, you can see the hope in Jane's eyes that Renato will disobey her. She wants him to; she doesn't want him to. She hates her self for wanting him to; she hates herself for hating herself. She must leave; she can't leave. She will leave.

And then, as usually happens, Renato does show up. With a gift. Just as the train is departing. She sees him. Even from very far away, she knows it's him. He runs with all his might to try and get the gift to her, but man is never faster than locomotive. So, standing at the end of the platform, he throws open the box and holds up the flower that was inside for her to see.

And then, this happens:

In six seconds, Kate goes from being down in the dumps to walking on cloud nine. Screenshots don't do it justice (sorry, I'm good with Photoshop but suck at making gifs). In motion, it's wondrous (you can see the whole scene here). This one shot made the movie for me the first time I saw it, and the second time it was the same punch to the gut. That's great acting. But more than that, it's great filmmaking. For a film like this to work just as well (if not better) the second time around, it has to hit some pretty deep emotions, and hit them well. Summertime, thanks to Katharine Hepburn, does just that.

*     *     *

I feel like I'm understating the importance of Rossano Brazzi in all of this. He is perfectly swoon-worthy as Renato, and he is personally on my list of Top Ten Sexiest Male Stars of All Time. Great as Kate is, this type of film doesn't work unless BOTH the leads are easy to fall in love with, and he is. OH, he is.

David Lean, too. Was there are an auteur as versatile as he? Great Expectations, Brief Encounter, Blithe Spirit, Lawrence of Arabia, Bridge on the River Kwai and this? The guy mastered practically every genre.