MY MOVIE SHELF: Philadelphia

 

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 166+6 new=172  Days to go: 166

Movie #211:  Philadelphia

In my experience, Tom Hanks has had two roles in which his entire persona has fallen away and only the character has remained. The second was Forrest Gump, notable in part because it placed him in contention with an elite group of actors who have had multiple Best Actor Oscar wins, let alone back to back. The first was Philadelphia.

In Philadelphia Hanks plays Andrew Beckett, an attorney at a prestigious firm in the city. He’s a legal rock star, slam dunking cases left and right, and being given one of the most high-profile clients to the firm in some time. He’s on the fast track to a partnership, but he’s living with AIDS — a fact that no one at the office is told. Andy’s illness progresses (exacerbated, no doubt, by the stress of his job) and he works on his case at home or off-hours to stay out of the office during his treatment and period of notable lesions. Unfortunately, something happens with the brief he’s prepared and no one is able to find it either on his desk or in his computer, uncovering it in central filing only at the last possible moment. Andy is blamed for this mishap and he is fired, for which he plans to bring suit against his employers (including Jason Robards as Charles Wheeler). He contends that he was fired for having AIDS, for keeping it from the partners, and for being a homosexual. And he has a case.

However, finding an attorney to represent him is another story. He goes to nine before he finds himself in the office of Joe Miller (Denzel Washington), a slick personal injury lawyer complete with obnoxious television spots and an ambulance chaser mentality. Joe doesn’t want this case either, though, and it’s obvious as to why. When Andy reveals his condition, Joe is immediately standoffish and paranoid. He doesn’t want to be anywhere near Andy, for fear of contracting the disease himself.

Joe is incredibly bigoted and prejudiced against homosexuals — enough so that it was uncomfortable to witness his vitriol even at a time when a lot of people publicly held similar views — but in the structure of the film he acts as an audience surrogate. In 1993 especially, Joe’s views of the gay community and of AIDS in general were common views, and Joe’s gradual enlightenment and acceptance of Andrew’s life and humanity mirror the kind of transformation that’s occurred in American society over the past twenty years. Vice President Joe Biden was mildly derided (as Joe Biden often is) when he made the claim that Will & Grace opened a lot of eyes to the idea of homosexuals being just like everyone else, but he wasn’t wrong. It’s the very idea that fuels the #WeNeedDiverseBooks movement as well — seeing a variety of people, of lifestyles, of cultures in the art and culture we consume helps us to understand and build tolerance and promote equality across the board. Will & Grace absolutely changed the public’s idea of what it means to be a homosexual, and it didn’t come out until 1998. When Philadelphia came out at the end of 1993, society was five years younger, five years less evolved, and Washington’s portrayal of a deeply close-minded and homophobic individual was vital because it was not at all unique or exaggerated. It was an authentic and honest portrayal. I don’t think he gets enough credit for that.

One of the ways Philadelphia seeks to humanize Andrew and make him more relatable to society at large is to equate his situation with that of the Civil Rights Movement. There are three scenes in which this is specifically accomplished, and yet as unmistakable as the moves are they are subtle enough to feel organic and earned in the world of the story. First there’s the library scene, in which Joe is the recipient of some suspicious glances, as if he doesn’t belong in a law library, just before Andrew himself is encouraged to go to a “private research room” — separate but equal — in order to not make the other patrons uncomfortable. This is the scene in which Joe himself realizes the similarities between the plights of these two groups of people. He starts to recognize the quest for acceptance as a universal one, and he decides to take Andrew’s case. Next there’s the scene in which Andrew is preparing his family for the trial, and despite his sister Jill (Ann Dowd in weird brassy blonde hair) fearing for what it will put their parents through, his mother (Joanne Woodward) says, “I didn’t raise my children to sit at the back of the bus.” She’s overtly and vocally making the connection that this is just another quest for civil rights, this time for the homosexual community instead of the black one. And then there’s the testimony of Anthea (Anna Deavere Smith) at trial, in which she describes her personal experiences with inconspicuous racism and discrimination (the kind that is not overt or hostile but is still mired in disdain and fear of the “other”) and chastises the defense counsel (Mary Steenburgen) for oversimplifying such a complex issue. This is to let us know that these prejudices exist in the shadows and corners of our lives, that we’re often not aware of them, but that they still have a negative impact overall. It’s that kind of statement that forces us to be more conscious of our own biases and to curb or correct them when we notice them arise. That’s a huge step of forward progress in our collective thinking for a movie to attempt, yet Philadelphia succeeds at it beautifully.

Another way Philadelphia opens the minds of Joe (and its viewers) is through Andrew’s family. Not only does he have a loving and committed relationship with his long-standing partner Miguel (Antonio Banderas), he has a large, accepting and wonderful family. He’s both a younger brother and an older one. He’s a cherished son. He’s a beloved uncle. If Andrew had had just one or two family members, their blind and unconditional acceptance of him might easily be written off as the obligation of people who don’t have anyone else. But that’s not the case here. Andrew has several siblings, all of whom have spouses and children, plus two supportive parents. They’re all behind him one hundred percent. They don’t hesitate to touch him. They hug and they kiss him.  They treat him as any family would treat a beloved member who was dying, and by showing that as normal, as to be expected, the movie is once again showing Joe (and the audience) how like everyone else Andrew really is. It seems crazy to me that this is a thing that needed (that still needs, actually) to be expressed, but it did, and it worked. The public perception and acceptance of the LGBT community has undergone overwhelming transformations in the twenty-one years since Philadelphia came out, and while this one movie didn’t make all the difference, it definitely made some. At the end of the film, when Joe is securing Andy’s oxygen mask and touching his face, it’s a lovely expression of intimacy and trust and friendship that has completely superseded all his previous fears, scorn and reservations.

It’s such a powerful moment, in fact, it would be an understandable and effective end point for the film, but Philadelphia thinks Andy (and the millions of other lives lost to AIDS) deserve better. The film is not going to end focusing on Andy’s death, but on his life. So when Joe gets the call from Miguel in the middle of the night, and family and friends start to gather at Miguel’s following funeral services we don’t get to see, the camera pans around to all the lives Andy’s touched, to all the lives of his nieces and nephews and brothers and sisters that are continuing on, and on the home videos of his youth — so much like every other youth of his generation — with his curls, his cowboy costumes, his baseball playing, and his running on the beach. His was a life like any other, filled with love and treasured memories. It’s a beautiful and necessary sentiment, and I love that the movie ends on that note.

Philadelphia is not the sort of film that I associate with rich visuals or luxe cinematography (although there are some lovely and affecting shots used here and there), but it’s the kind of film that sneaks up on you, I think. It takes up residence in your mind and becomes part of your thought process, your perceptions, your perspectives. And that’s how it’s most effective. That’s where it really makes an impact that stands the test of time.

That’s what makes Philadelphia such a great and important film.

MY MOVIE SHELF: Interview with the Vampire

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 227  Days to go: 232

Movie #150:  Interview with the Vampire

Once again, we find ourselves at a movie adapted from a very popular book, in which book fans were severely disappointed and I, having tried and failed to ever get into the book, dug the film immensely. In fact, my appreciation for Interview with the Vampire only grows with time.

Kirsten Dunst is everything in this movie, and there’s not a soul on earth who will disagree with that. As child vampire Claudia, Dunst is delicate and doll-like, yet a vicious and unconscionable murderer. She embodies everything sweet and loving about a child, as well as everything selfish and temperamental, unable to process her complicated emotions and unwilling to delay gratification. She is a spoiled little princess and a terrifying monster. Her performance is riveting, hypnotic, intense. Her mood swings keep everyone on edge, from other characters in the film to the film’s audience themselves. Her pain and anger over never growing up, over forever being this porcelain doll, is heart-wrenching, and yet so, so scary. The vengeance she takes on Lestat (Tom Cruise) for damning her to this life is one of the more haunting things I’ve ever seen in a film, but it’s nothing — NOTHING — compared to the vengeance the Paris vampires take on Claudia. It’s no wonder her existence centers the film and that even though the story is technically about Louis (Brad Pitt) and his life as a vampire, it revolves totally around Claudia — her death, her rebirth, and her destruction.

I feel like Interview with the Vampire was a turning point for Brad Pitt’s career. He’d been working a long time, and he’d even had some starring roles at that time, in notable, interesting things like Cool World, Kalifornia and A River Runs Through It, but Interview with the Vampire (and Legends of the Fall, which came out maybe two months later) brought him to the big time — costarring with A-listers in big marquee films. None of that might’ve been possible without Interview.

The trick with playing Louis is that he’s got to be charismatic and sympathetic enough to carry the film, to be a narrator we care about, while also being the melancholy figure who so frustrates Lestat. (He’s not wrong when he accuses Louis of whining all the time.) It’s this balance of personality and sorrow that is so alluring and attractive to the interviewer (Christian Slater) while still failing to relay (perhaps by whining too much, and thereby being tuned out) what a damned existence it is. From the first moments in the interview room, to the first moments of the story, when Louis is still human and mourning his wife and child, he radiates sadness and loss. He is withdrawn and depressive, constantly in existential crisis yet resigned to it. And yet, his love — his raw NEED — for Claudia is almost tangible, it’s so strong. How else would he act but to indulge and spoil her, to grant her every wish? She’s everything to him, making her insistence on him creating a mother for her a huge betrayal, and her loss to the Paris vampires an unbearable pain. The cold, black hate with which he reaps his justice could not be stopped, could not be contained, could not have led to any other conclusion. And the ensuing offer from Armand (Antonio Banderas), to travel the world with him, as tempting as it may be, is untenable. He will retreat to his solitary sorrow, as he was perhaps always meant to live.

The most controversial casting choice of the film came in the form of Tom Cruise. Lestat was one of the most magnetic and beloved characters of Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles books, and even though Tom Cruise — especially in the mid-90s — was certainly a magnetic and beloved actor, he wasn’t the right kind of magnetic or beloved. People complained about his intensity, his hair color, his general manic attack of all his roles — everything. But I think Tom Cruise makes a fascinating Lestat. In fact, his natural manic intensity is one of the things that makes Lestat so forceful and impatient in the film, so irresistible and so hated. He’s a ridiculous dandy, a snob, a commanding presence and a demanding patriarch. Perhaps it’s how his reputation and persona has evolved over the years, but all that feels like it aligns perfectly with Tom Cruise to me. I enjoy his transformation from powerful and menacing to impotent and terrified, and then back to smirkingly arrogant. And honestly, the scene with his reptilian skin as he becomes engulfed in flame and climbs the walls is burned on my brain. I think about it way more than probably any other human on earth, it was so horrific to me.

Interview with the Vampire is so interesting, too, because of the overtly sexual tone of the tale — and not just sexual, but homosexual. Lestat says he and Louis are Claudia’s fathers; she is their daughter. The drinking of blood, while often sexualized in vampire movies, is even more so in this one as blood is drained not just from necks but from breasts and wrists and fingers and lips and tongues (and likely other places too). Lestat has a clear affinity for young men or boys. Armand and Louis want each other openly. Claudia covets the bodies of supple, nubile women. And even though it is never sexualized, the relationship between Louis and Claudia blurs the lines between father-daughter and husband-wife. The complex and layered feelings the characters all have for one another gives the film greater depth, bigger obstacles and higher stakes, and allows for the gray areas that exist between extremes, and allows for characters and situations that are both right and wrong.

Back in December of 1993 I got my first introduction to the internet via talker clients where (mostly) college kids around the U.S. and U.K. adopted a persona and chatted endlessly online. I made friends in those digital environments, friends who merged into my real life and became huge pieces of me, of who I was then and of who I am now. A year after my first foray into that universe, a bunch of us met up for a weekend of parties and nerd fun. One such activity was going to see Interview with the Vampire on opening night. We took up a huge percentage of the theater, were somewhat rowdy before the movie started, and probably frightened more than a few other theater goers, but it’s one of those memories that I will fondly remember forever and another way I find I love Interview with the Vampire that most others don’t understand. I’m okay with that, though.

MY MOVIE SHELF: Four Rooms

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 262 Days to go: 258

Movie #115: Four Rooms

In a nutshell, Four Rooms is a fantastic experiment. It consists of four separate vignettes, each written and directed by four different filmmakers, connected simply by the thread that they all take place on New Year’s Eve in the Mon Signor Hotel, Hollywood, where Ted the Bellhop (Tim Roth) is the only one on duty.

Normally, oddly experimental or gimmicky films like this don’t see wide release and, in turn, aren’t seen by wide audiences. But Four Rooms boasts segments by Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez (in addition to less well-known Allison Anders and Alexandre Rockwell), plus appearances by Madonna, Lili Taylor, Ione Skye, Antonio Banderas, Bruce Willis, Jennifer Beals, Kathy Griffin and Marisa Tomei, among others. So there’s a bit of a draw to this film.

Each of the four segments are quirky and fun, with Ted being more than a little inconvenienced by each unconventional request, though he also finds himself pretty nicely rewarded in most of them. It’s very interesting to notice the different writing and directing styles evidenced in each separate vignette, how scenes with the same large-scale setting and main character can be still be individualistic, with their own strengths and weaknesses. For my money, the third segment (“The Misbehavers”) is the strongest, the last (“The Man From Hollywood”) is the most astonishing and the most talked-about, the first (“The Missing Ingredient”) is most fun, and the second (“The Wrong Man”) is the darkest and most disturbing.

“The Misbehavers” features a man (Antonio Banderas) and his wife (Tamlyn Tomita) leaving their willfull and spoiled children alone in room 309, with Ted checking in on them. There is drinking, smoking, Salma Hayek on a nudie channel, spontaneous vomit, and a foul-smelling surprise. It’s excellently paced and it builds a lot of tension and suspense.

“The Man From Hollywood” features an unusual bet between friends (Quentin Tarantino and Paul Calderon) that requires a delivery of a block of wood, three nails, a ball of twine, a donut, a club sandwich, and a hatchet. There’s also Tarantino going crazy over the superiority of Cristal and a ranting (and uncredited) Bruce Willis.

“The Missing Ingredient” features a coven of witches that include Madonna, Valeria Golina, Ione Skye, Lili Taylor, Sammi Davis and Alicia Witt. (I am still incredibly upset Alicia Witt’s career never exploded. She was the best, most perfect thing about Cybill.) They have a little magic to undertake, and are in need of Ted’s … services.

“The Wrong Man” is a psychological torture game between combating spouses (David Proval and Jennifer Beals) and any unlucky man who happens to walk through their door. They don’t have any needles, but they do have a big fucking gun.

There are callbacks and running jokes and a pretty hilarious performance by Marisa Tomei as a completely baked party-goer named Margaret, not to mention Tim Roth being swishy and twitchy and completely mercenary with regard to the tasks he is given, which is super fun to watch. Plus the witches cast their spells in rhyme, and Ted is apparently pretty killer in the sack.

It’s not family-friendly in the least, but it’s a great time and I wish filmmakers today were able to stretch themselves in these kinds of unique and interesting ways, because it broadens the possibilities of the art form and allows for more voices in this realm. It’s a valuable film to own and to study and to enjoy. I hope to see more like it one day.

MY MOVIE SHELF: Evita

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 276  Days to go: 268

Movie #101: Evita

Evita marks the coming together of so many things that I love: movie musicals, feminist stories, the Argentine Tango (though I would not know that was what it was until Dancing With The Stars informed me, many years later), songs that resonated with me emotionally, clever lyrics, Madonna and baby news. It would seem odd if I didn’t adore it, honestly, but of course I do.

Madonna has often said that the role of Evita was one she was born to play, and I believe her. As the film portrays her, Eva (Evita) Peron was a woman of great ambition and passion. She was used and exploited by men, and so she used and exploited them right back. She wanted to be famous, and she wasn’t going to settle for anything less than it all. That sounds exactly like Madonna to me.

Also like Madonna is the fact that a woman who exploits her own sexuality and displays bald ambition and performs calculated moves is someone to be reviled and looked down upon — certainly the case with Eva. A man’s ambition is something to be proud of, a woman’s ambition is something to scorn. But despite the detractors, Evita and Madonna both managed to become exactly what they wanted to be, with millions of devotees and a worldwide stage.

Evita is of course based on the Broadway musical of the same name, but unlike other stage-to-screen adaptations, this one is performed entirely in song. Entirely. There are a couple whispered or spoken interludes, but they’re still almost always accompanied by music, meaning essentially the whole thing is sung. That’s a tricky feat to pull off, especially with so many people disdainful of the musical already, but even more so without the framing and structure of spoken dialogue to provide context and support to the music. In Evita, the only framing comes in the form of Ché (Antonio Banderas), an Everyman figure who narrates and provides commentary on the film’s events. He’s the bartender in the restaurant, the worker in the factories, the protester marching in the streets. He represents the poor of Argentina — the people Eva appealed to and, in some cases, those who felt let down by her. It’s a startlingly ambitious musical (again, much like Evita herself) to combine the complex and volatile history of Argentinian politics in the 1940s with the story of the life and death of Eva Peron, but Ché is there to help guide us through the transitions (through all the songs), and it works beautifully.

Being largely unfamiliar with Argentinian politics, I can’t say the movie succeeds quite as well as it would like to with making the audience care about the rise of the Labor Party or the accusations of fascism or the supposed disapproval of the military and of Juan Peron’s (Jonathan Pryce) advisers toward his relationship with Eva, but it definitely resonates emotionally with the story of the rise of Eva herself. Madonna’s first scenes are of her waking up with a singer visiting her little town. She’s supposed to be fifteen here, but I’ll allow it since actually having a girl who looked fifteen waking up with this obviously much older man (he even looks older than Madonna) would be gross. She’s smitten with him and believes he loves her, that he’s going to take her away with him to Buenos Aires now. (“Would I have done what I did if I hadn’t thought — if I hadn’t known — we would stay together.”) She’s full of hopes and dreams and spitfire, and though you see her companion clearly doesn’t want her with him, it’s still a blow when she follows him to his home, where he is greeted by his wife and children.

From there she transitions to the song “Another Suitcase in Another Hall,” which I listened to incessantly in early 1997. The last few months of 1996 had been bad ones for me, and 1997 started off as a challenge as well. I was lost, I was floundering, and I wasn’t sure where to go next. When Evita came out on Christmas Day 1996, this was the song that spoke to me. It fully captured the lack of direction and focus I felt, the essence of being at sea and alone. “Being used to trouble, I anticipate it. But all the same I hate it — wouldn’t you?” The lyrics spoke to me — all of them — but no more than here:

“Time and time again I’ve said that I don’t care,
That I’m immune to gloom, that I’m hard through and through.
But every time it matters all my words desert me,
So anyone can hurt me–and they do.”

Having been put down and derided my whole life, I’d developed something of an armored exterior. I would be cool, be “chill,” be “like one of the guys.” But inside I was always the same vulnerable girl who never belonged anywhere, who no one ever noticed, who couldn’t count on anyone to ever be there for her. It still creeps up on me now, sometimes. So with these lines, I felt a kinship with Evita — and with Madonna — as if, at least in that infinitesimal, insignificant way, I was understood. You can watch and listen to the whole song here:

The next song, “Goodnight and Thank You,” is also one of my favorites, as it explains and justifies Evita’s upward mobility, complete with obscene hand gestures from Banderas. And while “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina” is the signature for a reason — it’s a sweeping, anthemic, regal song, the simple strains of “You Must Love Me,” an original composition written especially for the film, is quite lovely and affecting. I also appreciate how, when it won the Oscar for Best Original Song, Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber thanked (the wretchedly awful eventual Best Picture winner) The English Patient for not having any songs. It’s the little things.

Some other little things I love about Evita are sprinkled throughout — like how the tango is danced for all occasions and to express all emotions: sadness, lust, celebration, whatever. Or how the lyrics of “Another Suitcase in Another Hall” are reprised by Juan Peron’s mistress when Eva takes over the role. Or how there’s a sly line about “okay, she can’t act,” which also is a criticism that’s followed Madonna herself quite a bit, though she accomplishes some excellent work here. Or how Banderas was an obsession of Madonna’s once upon a time, appearing in Truth or Dare as the little known Spanish actor he was in 1991, who despite her obvious lust, wasn’t interested in her at all. It feels like the best inside joke of all time. Or how Madonna found out she was pregnant with Lourdes while filming, and you can maybe see evidence of a little tummy in a few of her scenes.

Evita is a difficult musical to love, really, but it does hold a lot of sentimental meaning for me, so I hold it in very high regard. And every now and then, I pull it down off the shelf and sing for a solid two hours and fifteen minutes.