“Come… let me enchant you!”
No, not an actual line of dialogue, but it might as well be. Between the conscious aping of those formal conventions we’ve come to associate culturally with silent cinema (irises, flicker), the textual focus on questions of religion in the modern age, and the tawdry, almost impossibly obvious love triangle at its center, The Illusionist is that hoariest sort of magic trick - the early 20th century melodrama, with little place for subtlety or grace (there is after all, a Philip Glass score). Not that this is a bad thing, necessarily - subtlety and grace aren’t always the cinema’s best qualities. There’s a certain sameness to the proceedings in this film - it’s certainly not a film of the 2000s, eschewing the neo-Baroque for (excepting one awful Shyamalan-inspired montage) a relatively classicist approach, with ugly, murky chiaroscuro lighting and a relatively straightforward narrative. Why did this break out? I’ve been puzzling for days over what it was about this movie that the mass audiences of America are seeing, making it (besides that thing about the family in the van) the only “independent” (in the very loosest sense) film to do any business this year.
Anyway, enough on this movie, which really doesn’t deserve much thought. On Friday I picked up a copy of David Thomson’s New Biographical Dictionary of Film. The best entry so far is his laceration of Wes Anderson: “Watch this space. There’s a reason it’s blank. Someday he might be something.” Not an exact quote - I don’t have the book at hand because…
I’m moving. Tomorrow. And I’ve been shipping stuff for the past few days. I look forward to getting there and finding a job.
I’ve been having internal debates about the central narrative of Rome, my comedy of manners (aha! more information!) that I’m in the process of outlining. Within my basic concept there exist a pair of characters, each the antagonist to the other, each of whom could be a protagonist. Where one would be the easier way out, being a much more easily identifiable target of identification for those who would likely be my audience, I’m drawn inexplicably to making him the antagonist. Of course, in a film such as this, there really isn’t much antagonism per se, but it’s a serious question I have to figure out before I continue on this project.
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COMMENTS / 3 COMMENTS
Max added these pithy words on Sep 26 06 at 5:25 pmI liked The Illusionist, actually, and not just because I like Philip Glass and, believe it or not, Ed Norton. I thought it was a well-constructued and entertaining film, but I appreciated it most as a movie about movies. I find it odd that this hasn’t really been picked up on, but the whole damn thing is an extended metaphor for the cinema - at one point the evil prince dude bellows angrily “He’s manipulating the audience!” The film comments on the power of cinema to manipulate even as it blatantly manipulates us, and thus subverts it’s own mildly clever overdone flashback riddled twist-ending by being about the nature of that ending itself. It’s a film constantly in the process of evaluating it’s own cinematic machinations with a kind of twisted glee, and that’s what I liked best. It’s flawed, sure, and in the end still underwhelming, but it’s a solidly entertaining flick with some interesting dialogue to produce. Worth seeing, methinks.
And, on “Rome,” I say go with your gut.
Brendon added these pithy words on Sep 26 06 at 7:10 pmYou know - I had thoughts like this myself as I was watching it, but though I was mildly amused by the film’s indulgent self-referentiality, I found its engagement with those issues about as mild and insignificant as the narrative itself. It’s certainly an inoffensive film, and Norton is certainly fine in it (though Giamatti, looking here like a forgotten Civil War general, at times mercilessly overplays his hand - his jolly farty giggles in that final sequence were horribly embarrassing). I even enjoyed moments, but it’s just hard for me to fathom how this became one of the few surprise hits of the summer.
Tram added these pithy words on Sep 27 06 at 1:04 am“I find it odd that this hasn’t really been picked up on, but the whole damn thing is an extended metaphor for the cinema - at one point the evil prince dude bellows angrily ‘He’s manipulating the audience!’ ”
Jonathan Rosenbaum did.Anyhoo, I’ll probably check out The Illusionist on DVD or something. The Sundance buzz was meh at best. And I’m not really crazy over Norton or Giamatti as actors.
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