TITANE - A LOVE LETTER TO DAVID CRONENBERG

David Cronenberg is a major influence in my life - Julia Ducournau, filmisnow.com

Crash  / 
Titane

This isn’t a review or a critique of Julia Docournou’s Titane. While there’s certainly lots of misunderstood reviews and think-pieces out there, you can still find some solid reviews on the film if you look hard enough. Titane is something that touches on everything from auto-eroticism & body transformation to childhood trauma & the idea of family. There’s a lot going on and a lot to write about and plenty to decipher. I just don’t think there’s any point to add yet another “review” or opinion on this heavily talked about film. I would like it to be known that I really am fascinated by this film...

My specific fascination with Titane concerns Ducournau‘s love of David Cronenberg and the imprint he has on her work.

*THIS CONTAINS HEAVY VISUAL SPOILERS SO IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN TITANE YET - DO NOT KEEP READING*

It’s no mystery that Titane is heavily influenced by David Cronenberg’s Crash. That was the big selling point coming out of it’s Cannes debut. Outside of both films being about intense auto-eroticism, Julia Ducournau has admitted to the influence herself…

I prefer the term ‘mutation’ inherited from Cronenberg - Julia Docournou

Crash  / 
Titane

Crash  / 
Titane

Crash  / 
Titane

Crash  / 
Titane

The biggest Crash homage is the opening sequence. It’s not so much that both films essentially start with intense car wrecks. It’s the immediate cut to the operating table in both Titane & Crash that makes the connection stronger…

Crash  / 
Titane

But the Crash influence is just one layer. I’d go so far to say that it’s almost surface. Cronenberg’s DNA is all over Titane. Not just Crash.
In fact - Cronenberg has influenced Julia Ducournau l since day one…

David Cronenberg is a major influence in my life. I discovered his films when I was a teenager - Julia Ducournau, focusfeatures.com

Faith Healer / 
Raw

The Fly / 
Junior

It should also be mentioned that Titane co-star (and veteran filmmaker) Bertrand Bonello also has some light ties to Cronenberg as well.
In On War, Mathieu Amalric (who plays a character name “Bertrand”) watches eXistenZ in one scene…

eXistenZ in Bonello's On War

Throughout the film I caught imagery from Cronenberg’s early (and almost never talked about) stuff like Fast Company…

Fast Company / 
Titane

...to M Butterfly in terms of transformed gender roles. Vincent Lindon’s obliviousness (…denial?) to the true identity of Adrien in Titane is quite similar to Jeremy Irons’ mindstate  in M Butterfly

M Butterfly / 
Titane

Then there’s his more well know films which seemed to have rubbed off in various ways…

Scanners / 
Titane

Dead Ringers / 
Titane

A History Of Violence / 
Titane

Dead Ringers / 
Titane

The Fly / 
Titane

Eastern Promises  / 
Titane

The Brood /  Titane

The Fly / 
Titane

The Fly / 
Titane

Maps To The Stars / 
Titane

Cosmopolis/ 
Titane

Shivers / 
Titane

Shivers / 
Titane

Dead Ringers / 
Titane

A History Of Violence / 
Titane

The Dead Zone / 
Titane

Shivers / 
Titane

At times Titane comes off like a slight reworking of Cronenberg’s Rabid more than Crash. Not only do both films begin with an auto accident that quickly transitions to the operating table (something brought to my attention by Martin Kessler), but the basic plot of the attractive woman that becomes a serial killer post-auto accident is basically the plot of Titane…

Rabid / 
Titane

Rabid / 
Titane

Rabid / 
Titane

A major positive of Titane (besides the fact that it exists) is that it got me to go back and think about how films like Fast Company & Rabid planted the seeds for Cronenberg’s fascination with the story of Crash (in addition to his obvious overall fascination with body transformation).

THE MOVIES THAT DEFINE NEW YORK - PART 2

 

I made a guest appearance in the latest Wrong Reel short; Movies That Define New York.

Click the image above (or here) to see myself, Bill Scurry, Bill Teck, Dan Pullen, Adam Rackoff, James Hancock and Moose Matson talk about some of our favorite New York-based films.

THE BLOOD ORANGES (SPECIAL GUEST BLOGGER NATHANIEL DRAKE CARLSON)

Philip Haas's adaptation of John Hawkes' novel is likely the least celebrated of his 90's era literary adaptations. Both The Music of Chance and especially Angels & Insects garner far more praise and attention. But as much as I respect and respond to both of those this one seems to me an even greater achievement. Its lack of notoriety I attribute mostly to a lack of presence/distribution and an excessive concentration by many of those who have seen it upon what is perceived to be its more risible elements (such as much of Charles Dance's dialogue). But this misses what is remarkable about the picture.

Set in the idyllic splendor of rural, coastal Mexico it's an extended consideration of and elaboration upon the notion of a self created and sustained idea of paradise, of utopia. As such its location in what is otherwise an impoverished area provides some ironic inflection for the privileged characters whose vision this is. Charles Dance and Sheryl Lee portray a married couple extolling the virtues of sexual freedom and open relationships (the movie is pointedly set in 1970 whereas the book is far more oblique in regards to both setting and time period--it really is of the mind's eye there). Into their lives comes another couple who are less uninhibited and must be made to see the merits of such a lifestyle and worldview. Tragic events do follow but they are by no means schematically attributed to any clear cut moral deficiency. It's a subdued tangle of mixed motives and perspectives set against a landscape of heightened expression, resulting in actions that can be understood in a variety of different ways. The "story" could not be simpler on a superficial level but it's the richness of the themes and subtext that are grasped as though on the periphery of vision which leave such a lingering sense of fulfillment. Haas's overall aesthetic is also a fitting complement to the material, amping up all the inherent implications of the romanticizing and exoticizing inclinations of his characters. The story is told out of sequence, in a way that gives appropriate but subtle emphasis to each vignette or scene, and employs an effective series of fade to orange or red transitions straight out of the cinema of someone like Roeg. All of this, meanwhile, is accompanied by a deeply evocative Angelo Badalamenti score.


Though the film was released in 1997 it often really does seem like an artifact from another era altogether, another world even, in which its very particular and pronounced sexual politics might be more acceptable. It may be, however, that an incapacity to read style and understand stylistic expression could form another impediment to an appreciation of the film. There is indeed much in the dialogue alone which exemplifies this (such as Cyril describing himself as a "sex-singer"). But part of the specific difficulty here has to do with the adaptation of a text which is defiantly lyrical in its language and symbolic into cinematic imagery that is inevitably unyielding and literal.

 

I've loved this film since I first saw it when it was initially released on home video but I only finally read the book a few years ago. That was a singular experience for me as I will confess that I regard the book as "better" than the film but this means little since I regard the book as among the very finest pieces of fiction I've ever encountered, almost even a validation of fiction as extreme as that may sound. It's an astonishingly sustained treatment of the comprehensive, all encompassing lyric vision that opens up much further and goes deeper than the film. It also goes far beyond the film's most clearly suggested themes of emphasis upon the controlling power of the narcissistic individual ego. Many critics still like to point that out (as Roger Sale famously said, "There is cruelty here that, because unadmitted, is not even palliated by the relish of sadism.") but as far as I'm concerned part of the book's breathtaking accomplishment is that such critiques are noted ironically within and yet ultimately made to seem minor, inconsequential (much of this has to do with Hawkes' own view on his work vs. what critics just assumed he must be doing). I had a conversation shortly after I read it with a professor of literature who had written a piece comparing the book to the film. He came away very dissatisfied with the film unsurprisingly. And though his arguments are very good, convincing ones they simply fail to give the film credit for what it does do--which is aim for what it can that's within its grasp, the grasp of what cinema can do, and accomplish that with excellence. The true test was in returning to the film after all this, which I did and was relieved and somewhat amazed to discover how well it held up to that kind of scrutiny, the most penetrating kind I can imagine.

- Nathaniel Drake Carlson

A FEW WORDS ON CANDYMAN (2021)

A few weeks ago critic/pundit Angelica Jade caught some momentary flack online for her harsh (yet honest) review of Nia Dicosta’s Candyman. Not that she shouldn’t have gotten pushback. The review is written to invite dialogue and some pushback. But it’s as if she was expected to blindly like the movie just because she’s Black. Having finally watched Candyman myself, I can say that she was pretty on point (read the review here).

I understand that Jade can be harsh at times and the “let people enjoy things” crowd can get easily triggered by people like her. But, in my personal opinion, thoughts like hers are needed with films like this. Anyone can & should have an opinion on anything they want. But who better to critique something like Candyman with a fine tooth comb than a prominent & vocal Black critic?
I know folks were rooting for this movie (and it’s still a success at the end of the day) but I did find it funny that a Black a person’s negative opinion about a film concerning deep Black issues was challenged in a somewhat immature way by non-Black people (mostly White if we’re being specific). It’s that pretentious neo-liberalism that feels like an overbearing cancer sometimes. Don’t you find it odd that the same people who cry about representation and having more Black voices gets mad at an actual (well thought out) Black voice when they don’t “fall in line”? I certainly find it odd…
Some folks have even gone so far as to call Angelica Jade the “female Armond White”. For those of you that are unfamiliar, Armond White is a very smart film critic notorious of being extra critical towards predominantly Black movies & shows (history only proves this. Look it up). I do find this label a little unfair because nowadays (and for quite some time) White’s entire personality is mostly based around being a Black conservative because now more than ever, Black conservatives love to make that conservative identity their armor in an effort to separate themselves from the pack. Today’s Black conservatives get off on being so-called “free thinkers” yet they support the same people, have the same talking points and kind of all think alike. Weird how that works out, huh?
That’s not to say Black folks on the opposite end of the political spectrum are free thinkers either. But when it comes to today’s Black conservatives they really think they’re something special when they truly aren’t. They just aren’t.
Angelica Jade isn’t really part of that crowd as far as I’m concerned.

Anyway…

I didn’t hate Candyman, but it seems like now more than ever movies (and TV shows) with Black leads exploring Black stories are being made to please folks on social media and, quite frankly, people that aren’t even Black. We’re at a point where a form of research for a movie is just scrolling social media to get ideas (see: Zola). While I don’t make it a part of my personality or wear it on a t-shirt for fake clout, I’ve been the victim of racism, police discrimination, and fetishy romanticization simply because I’m a (large) Black man. I don’t always need a movie to reinforce these things on a surface level. I already live it in real life.

Now…in no way should the atrocities & injustices committed against folks that look like me be swept under the rug or downplayed, but at the same time, Jesus Christ - Black characters can be defined by things other than trauma and drama and pain and other things that have become a moneymaking scheme by movie & television studios.

It’s like there’s an unspoken checklist of things to have in every popular Black movie/show in order for it to succeed or be taken seriously. It’s all so surface & cheap. Shows like Them, certain specific elements of Lovecraft Country, the Watchmen series on HBO, The First Purge, etc etc etc. 

Honestly - I slowly started to give up on Lovecraft when they made Emmet Till a “fun little Easter egg” on the show. I call bullshit. Emmet Till is more than a Easter egg/bookmark in a silly science fiction story. He was a child that was brutally murdered. But “blue check” twitter and the “I am not my ancestors” sector of Black folks thinks shit like that is cute & witty. It isn’t.

And does almost everything horror and/or thriller-related have to be some subpar reworking of Get Out (a movie I like but I don’t even like to admit I like nowadays because the majority of the fanbase behind it is so cringy and don’t even realize they’re the demographic being made fun of and criticized in Get Out)?


I guess one positive of Candyman is that it does make nods to classic films that came before it.

Cinderella / Candyman

Cinderella /
 Candyman

Cinderella /
 Candyman

Bram Stoker's Dracula /
 Candyman

Nosferatu / Candyman

Nosferatu / Candyman

Psycho / Candyman

There's even a possible reference to Jordan Peele's work...

US /
Candyman

This is totally speculative on my part but the idea of the haunted artwork on film, which we saw not too long ago in Velvet Buzzsaw, can be traced back to the early silent film The Portrait...

The Portrait /
Candyman

The Portrait /
Candyman

But a few cute references ain’t enough. Not even for me and that’s my “thing”…


I commend Dacosta for trying to correct certain elements of the original Candyman that didn’t sit well with some of us (the ghost of a slave murdered by white people that terrorizes other Black people is a tad bit wonky). I don’t want to give too much away or spoil anything but the big reveal towards the end is one big huge “wait - huh?” moment.
I do encourage you all to see the movie to come up with your own conclusion. It does need to be seen in order to truly grasp how much of an overall misfire it is.
And outside of the continued trend of making Black pain, Black trauma and serious internal Black issues a money-making genre, Candyman was just kind of bland, boring and messy.

I do want filmmakers like Nia Dacosta to succeed and thrive (we need more & more mainstream big budget/blockbuster directors that are Black as far as I’m concerned). But I also think we need to be more critical and expect more from certain films (and tv) that claim to “represent” Black people and their/our stories.
I’m not going to blindly like/support something just because I’m Black and it’s Black. It kind of feels like that’s the expectation these days (this is essentially how Tyler Perry got to where he is today and some folks still don’t see that they got played by him).

ANNETTE

Much like the term; “Lynchian”, the word pretentious has been thrown around so much in film criticism that it means almost nothing now. I feel like a fraud using it to describe Annette but pretentious is the first thing that comes to mind. And what’s funny is I’m willing to bet there’s someone out there right now using “Lynchian” as a way to describe Leos Carax’s latest film in the most sincere way possible. 

Did Holy Motors go to Leos Carax’s head? I understand that Annette is supposed to be absurd, cynical & satirical. But putting all that aside for a moment - it’s like Carax’s latest feature is a combination of cutting room floor scenes from Holy Motors (that should’ve remained on the cutting room floor), mixed with ridiculous ideas that should’ve just stayed inside the director’s head (it’s nice to dream big but not everything needs to be a reality). And the biggest kicker is there’s no Denis Lavant (that sounds like a silly nitpicky criticism but I’ll get to why that’s important later). Annette isn’t all bad. But at the end of the day it’s a disappointment. This is the kind of movie letterboxd open mic stand-up comedian critics dream off. And that’s part of the problem. I know it wasn’t intentional but Annette comes off like a movie that was made for movie people on twitter & letterboxd who are more interested in memeifying actors, making quirky puns and getting off witty one-liners instead of expressing genuine thoughts & opinions. 

Think I’m wrong? Let’s look at what some of these bootleg Steven Wright imitators have to say about Annette (note the first borderline Lynchian label at the top)...

This is what I’m talking about. How many modern actors (outside of Al Pacino or Adam Sandler) are as memefied as Adam Driver is right now? How often do you scroll some platform on the internet and see that image of Adam Driver punching the wall in A Marriage Story? I think stuff like that hurts an actor’s legacy & legitimacy to some degree. Even on the smallest scale. I think a lot of that subconscious stuff is carried over in to Annette unfortunately (and it’s not Adam Driver’s fault either). This is just the current state of things.

I remember when Annette screened at Cannes a few months ago and all anyone had to talk/tweet about was a “tOtAlLy InSaNe” musical number that incorporated cunnilingus. Now that I’ve seen this so-called infamous scene I ask you all; “what was the big deal?” But again - this is what I’m talking about - Adam Driver? Cunnilingus? Musical? Let me get out my meme template!
It’s funny because Annette does address bullshit like this (people laughing at things that aren’t that funny or making a big deal out of nothing). That is one of the few good qualities about this movie. Unfortunately there just aren’t that many.


In addition to referencing and downright recreating shots from his previous films...

Holy Motors /
Annette

Holy Motors /
Annette

Holy Motors /
Annette

Bad Blood /
Annette

there’s lots of Pinocchio homages throughout…

Pinocchio / Annette

Pinocchio / Annette

Pinocchio / Annette

And I could be reaching but there also appears to be a reference to Carax's mentor/hero Jean Luc Godard...

Sympathy For The Devil /
Annette

and I know they aren't shot identically, the finale of Annette is very similar to Matthew Barney's Cremaster Cycle 1...

Cremaster 1 / Annette

I try to stray away from negative reviews on here but Leos Carax is a PINNLAND EMPIRE favorite and I’m not a fake fan. I feel like I owe one of my favorite filmmakers genuine criticism over fake praise.
Going back to the Holy Motors comment I made - Annette really does reevaluate/re-examine what Carax explored back in 2012. The absurdity & pointlessness of being a celebrity (and the weird fetishization that comes along with it), the craziness of show business, exploitation, anger, rage, etc. The seeds were planted almost a decade ago. Holy Motors has a few musical numbers and Annette has more. Holy Motors touches on the sometimes pointlessness of repetition, and Annette takes that even further with it's dialogue & musical numbers. Even the color palette of Annette (which highlights the color green) is like Holy Motors turned up even more.
I have no problem with Leos Carax exploring the same subject matter over & over. With the exception of Pola X, every one of his movies is essentially a continuation of the previous one. It speaks volumes that the only two feature films without Carax’s regular collaborator; Denis Lavant sticks out a bit (Pola X is at least very good tho). I think that’s another reason that Annette falls short. It’s not just because Lavant is absent from the film. It’s because Adam Driver is playing a role that Lavant usually plays so well and Driver is not a good “replacement”. Lavant is Carax’s onscreen persona/alter-ego. It’s clear to me that Adam Driver’s tortured artist character in Annette is supposed to be Carax on some level. I just don’t buy Adam Driver as Carax like I do Lavant.

I can see how my criticism feels a little unfair so I urge you all to watch this (on Amazon prime) to come to your own conclusion. I do respect the ambition to shoot for the moon. It just missed it’s mark as far as I’m concerned.

SLOW MACHINE

I went in to this one mostly blind with an insane amount of excited skepticism after hearing it described as a; “lo-fi Brooklyn version of Inland Empire”. Not in recent times has a blurb about a movie made me simultaneously raise my eyebrows in genuine curiosity (the comparison to Inland Empire) and role my eyes to the back of my head due to the potential pretentiousness of it all (the “lo-fi Brooklyn” portion of the blurb). It’s best to ignore the “lo-fi Brooklyn” portion of the description (just say low budget) and focus on the Inland Empire part. I completely get where the Brooklyn “thing” comes from but these days the Brooklyn description is based off of so many things that have absolutely nothing to do with Brooklyn. Just out of town Brooklyn transplants who have hi-jacked what it means to be “Brooklyn” (as broad as that term may be).
And now apparently these transplants have gentrified criticism as well. 

There’s even some quick commentary on the current state of Brooklyn in Slow Machine:

Christ! What is Brooklyn anymore? Brooklyn is a white toddler in a RUN-DMC shirt!

Anyway, Slow Machine is certainly worthy of a comparison to Lynch’s flawed & disastrous masterpiece, but if we’re being real - it’s roots go all the way back to Persona (where things like Inland Empire, Mulholland Drive & Lost Highway all came from to some degree).

Some scenes are almost set-up like reinterpreted/reworked scenes from Persona in an abstract kind of way.

From super obvious moments…

Persona /
Slow Machine

To maybe not so obvious moments…

Persona /
Slow Machine

Slow Machine is a psychological thriller/disoriented fever dream about an actress in the midst of a mental crisis/psychological break. I’ve oversimplified the film quite a bit but I don’t want to give everything away (the film, which takes us from New York City to hiding out in Upstate New York, has many twists & turns ranging from counter-terrorism to awkward sexual advances & assault all in just over 70 minutes).

But as far as the basic plot goes - it sounds like Persona, right? The same could be said about everything from the aforementioned unofficial David Lynch trilogy to more recent Persona-sploitation stuff like Always Shine & Woodshock. There’s a very meta scene midway in to Slow Machine that comes right out of Always Shine (and real life) where our actress characters are awkwardly interrupted for a selfie…

Always Shine /
Slow Machine

These moments are interesting as I’m sure this is something Chloe Sevigny (bottom) deals with all the time. As far as Mackenzie Davis (top) this is something she probably deals with now having starred in films from the Terminator & Bladerunner franchises. But at the time Always Shine was made, she was a relatively smaller/up & coming actress.

To be honest, there isn’t anything very original I have to say about this that I haven’t already said about other films in this genre (read my thoughts about Always Shine, Persona, Images and the David Lynch trilogy on this blog).
I just wanted to drop a few quick words about Slow Machine mostly because it’s the best new movie I’ve seen this year so far.
I will say that one minor/major aspect about the film that really enhances it is the (intentional?) audio mixing. It’s very jarring and off-kiltered which matches the sometimes jarring and off-kiltered tone of the movie itself. There’s almost this intentional disconnect between the audio (the dialogue, the score and the background noise) and the accompanying video.


Watch this movie. There’s no excuse to skip Slow Machine as you can stream it online. After months of watching stuff like Godzilla vs Kong, Nobody, Mortal Kombat, Wrath Of Man, Conjuring 3, etc - this was a pleasant surprise/breath of fresh air.