Friday, July 8, 2011

THE CINEMA OF CLAIRE DENIS TOLD THROUGH IMAGES & STILLS

You are the woman who makes the sexy films- Wong Kar Wai  upon meeting Claire Denis at Cannes
If we're gonna explore Michael Haneke, then its only right that we do one of these on Claire Denis seeing is that they are, in my opinion, the 2 best active directors working in film right now. There's even a few similarities between them (which is odd because Denis & Haneke are quite different from one another). By now you should all be familiar with her name if you've been reading my blog (i mean, just look at all the Claire Denis-related tags on the right). After working under directors like Wim Wenders (Paris Texas & wings of desire), Jim Jarmusch (down by law) and working as a casting director for Tarkovsky (the sacrifice), its only right that she went on to being one of the few directors who can make the seamless transition from gritty realism (no fear no die & i cant sleep), to blood & gore (Trouble Every Day) to the surreal (Friday Night & The Intruder) to semi-personal explorations (chocolat & white material) without breaking stride. Just like the previous entries, we're gonna explore the common themes, actors, shots and other various elements found in all of Denis' films by looking at some of my favorite images from her movies. For a director who makes movies that go for long stretches of time with little or no dialogue, you  kinda have to rely on beautiful imagery...

THE SENSUOUS HUMAN BODY:
As I mentioned in my review of 'Troube Every Day', one of Denis' trademarks is how she films the bodies of her actors. 'Beau Travail', a film where the virtually all male cast spends half of the film half nude, is another good example. Denis' films have always had this unspoken sensuous vibe about them, and the way she films her actors and actresses when they're nude or almost nude really emphasises this. She even managed to show how arousing a woman can be completely clothed in 'Nenette & Boni' simply by filming Valerie Bruni's Tedeschi's natural curves. Both men & women are shot the same, and Denis doesn't put more emphasis on naked women than she does the men. Whats also very interesting is that for such a sensuous filmmaker, very few of her films have actual sex scenes (unless the you count horrific scenes in Trouble Every Day as "sex scenes"), yet her work is still very arousing. And the films that do have "sex scenes", like 'Friday Night', are shot very unconventionally...
Nenette & Boni
Nenette & Boni
Beau Travail


Beau Travail
Beau Travail
Beau Travail
Trouble Every Day
Trouble Every Day

The Intruder



INTIMACY & TOUCH:
This falls in to a similar same realm as the "sensuous human body" category. Denis has this talent for creating very intimate and/or touching moments between 2 characters (sometimes even when they're fully clothed). Denis can get her point across just by filming one hand touching another. And these moments aren't always just sexual either (although at the same time she does have plenty of that in her films). She's filmed plenty of intimate moments between Father & Daughter like in '35 Shots Of Rum'. What made that film so great was that had any other director been given that material, they would have made the story in to some dysfunctional incestuous-toned film. But Denis managed to stray away from that obvious route and ended up making one of the few non-dysfunctional father/daughter relationship movies in recent years (Sofia Coppola's 'Somewhere' is another good recent example). She's also created some intimate moments between Brother & Sister like in 'Nenette & Boni'. Sure they spend the majority of the movie arguing and (literally) fighting with each other, but there's also a few nice moments between them (like the scene when Boni places his head on Nenette's stomach to feel what i assume is the baby kicking). 
Choclat
Nenette & Boni
Nenette & Boni


Trouble Every Day


Friday Night
35 Shots Of Rum
35 Shots Of Rum
Bastards


DREAMS, FLASHBACKS & THE ERA OF THE TINDERSTICKS:
I don't think its a mystery that as soon as The Tindersticks started doing the music for her films that all of her work since 'Nenette & Boni' (the first film that tindersticks scored for Denis in '96) has had this dreamy atmosphere. Furthermore, it seems like since 1996 Denis has incorporated dreams, day dreams, zoning out and flashbacks in to the plots of her films. In 'Nenette' & Boni' we're introduced to Nenette at the beginning of the film with her eyes closed, zoning out in the swimming pool (set to the tindersticks dreamy soundtrack). And all through out the film, Boni dreams about the baker's wife that he has a crush on. And 'Friday Night' and 'The Intruder' each feel like one long surreal dream instead of an actual movie. In 'The Intruder', one minute you're watching Michel Subor swimming in the ocean, and the next scene is someone frozen in ice, followed by people running through the woods at night. That film represents true stream of consciousness. Denis has dabbled in flashbacks before 1996. The majority of her first film (Chocolat) is one big flashback. But its filmed in a more traditional way. Later on in her career she started to blur the line between flashbacks & dreams. All of the flashback scenes in movies like 'Trouble Every Day' & 'Beau Travail' (i realize tindersticks didn't do the soundtrack for this movie) looked more like dreams than they did actual flashbacks...
Nenette & Boni
Nenette & Boni
Trouble Every Day
Friday Night
The Intruder



BREAKING STEREOTYPES:
Its always nice to know that in the era of Tyler Perry, Mo'nique and Big Momma's House (is it me, or has Martin Lawrence gotten EXTRA coonish these last few years) that there's still a few filmmakers out there that can portray black people as actual human beings instead of minstrel characters or sidekicks. The irony in all of this is that Denis, a white European, does this better than most of today's so-called prominent African American filmmakers. Its almost impossible to ignore the presence of her mostly black casts. And even when there are films that center around white main characters like 'The Intruder' or 'Nenette & Boni', she still makes it a point to have their presence shown even if its in a minor role (Alex Descas has 2 quick performances in both films as a doctor and a priest, respectively). From her first film to her most recent, in over 2 decades Claire Denis has made it point to give depth to her black characters...
Chocolat
No Fear, No Die
I Cant Sleep
Beau Travail
35 Shots Of Rum
White Material



THE WORLD ACCORDING TO CLAIRE:
Ive always felt that Claire Denis has placed herself in her own movies in some way shape or form. 'Chocolat' is the most obvious example because she's made it clear that its semi-autobiographical. But in my personal opinion, other characters like Solveig Dommartin in 'No Fear, No Die', Yekaterina Golubeva in 'I Cant Sleep' and Isabelle Hupert in 'White Material' (all white women characters surrounded by mostly black people) are kinda made to represent Denis. Not necessarily 100%, but there definitely pieces of Claire in those characters. I think Amy Taubin said it best when she said; If Denis’ films make people nervous—and they do—it is in part because they level the gaze of a white woman at black men. Indeed, it has often seemed as if Denis makes films to break the taboo around women looking—the woman behind the camera and the women on the screen.
Chocolate

No Fear No Die
I Cant Sleep
White Material
Voila L'enchainement


PROGRESSION:
Amy Taubin's quote about Denis' films kinda transitions nicely to this. In a way the previous 2 sections ("breaking stereotypes" & "the world according to Claire") kinda combine to form this category. Jude Law, Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Christian Bale, Colin Farrell, Matt Damon, Ben Afflceck, etc etc almost always have some on-screen romance in just about any film they're in. Yet with one hand you can count the number of on-screen romances black A-list actors like Denzel Washington, Samuel Jackson and even Will Smith have had. Clearly Hollywood still has some racial issues to get over. Its no mystery that Claire Denis makes it a point in just about all of her films to show an interracial couple (specifically black & white). Her on-screen romances represent the complete opposite of many repressed Hollywood films...
Chocolat
Beau Travail
Trouble Every Day
35 Shots Of Rum
Voila L'enchainement
I Cant Sleep




EMOTIONALLY UNSTABLE CHARACTERS:
Something i don't usually hear critics mention about Denis' films is the number of emotionally or mentally unstable characters that she's created over the years. 'Trouble Every Day' is the obvious example, but plenty of her other films involve some kind of break down, even if for a brief moment. By the end of 'No Fear, No Die', Jocelyn has kinda lost his mind. And it goes beyond the fact that he's an alcoholic. In 'I Cant Sleep', Richard Courcet's character murders old women, and his overall vibe as a person is just a little..."off". In the middle of 'Nenette & Boni', highlighted by the scene where Boni pretends to have sex with pizza dough, we see him fall under a deep, almost catatonic-like depression. Denis Lavant's character clearly has some internal emotional problems that he lets out on the dance floor at the end of 'Beau Travail' (the video for this is at the end of the blog). And like a switch, Isabelle Hupert's son in 'White Material' shaves his head and goes completely insane in the middle of the film.
No Fear No Die

Nenette & Boni
Beau Travail
Trouble Every Day
White Material


YOUTH/COMING OF AGE:
One thing i miss about Claire Denis' earlier work is her focus on youth and coming of age. Like Michael Haneke, Claire Denis is not only good at showing children and teenagers as the complex human beings that they really are (something a lot of directors don't do), but she has no problem throwing them in to adult situations like colonialism (Chocolat), the loss of ones virginity with older men (U.S. Go Home) or teen pregnancy & family dysfunction (Nenette & Boni)...
Chocolate
U.S. Go Home
Nenette & Boni

THE "CLAIRE DENIS GLARE":
Kubrick's got his, and so does Claire Denis. It seems like a regular thing for her to shoot her actors head on to the point where it feels like they're looking directly at us. With the exception of 'The Intruder' and 'Friday Night', this shot seems to only be designated for her male leads. I don't think its even up for debate that Alex Descas has one of the greatest stone faces in film today that'll always be associated with the films of Claire Denis. But Alex Descas isn't the only face that Denis loves to shoot...
Nenette & Boni
U.S. Go Home
Trouble Every Day
Beau Travail

Friday Night

Friday Night
The Intruder
The Intruder

35 Shots Of Rum

LANDSCAPES, BACKDROPS & NATURE:
Just about any bio you read on Claire Denis mentions how she moved around a lot as a kid because her parents wanted her to see the world. Clearly that had a lasting affect on her, and you can see it in how she films the environments and backdrops of her films...
Beau Travail
Beau Travail
The Intruder
The Intruder
White Material
Chocolat

Friday Night



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