”... Jesus Christ.”

Well, if nothing else, this is an unforgettable experience. I didn’t know much about this movie at all until only recently when a little birdy piqued my interest without so much as even mentioning the stunning young performance by Mara Hobel, who plays the young Christina Crawford for a much larger portion of the movie than I would’ve expected.

If there’s a problem, it’s that though Faye Dunaway is undeniably fascinating in the title role as Joan Crawford, she’s still Faye Dunaway and not Joan Crawford. I don’t know if that quite makes sense to anyone else. The movie opens with a series of shots of fragments of her body and face, and they convey an impression of Crawford that is almost creepily convincing … until the reveal of the face, which belongs to Faye Dunaway. Maybe it’s because I’ve not seen any of Crawford’s movies outside of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (not a bad preparation for watching this, incidentally), but I’d count Dunaway as as great a movie star as Crawford … and for me that kind of got in the way somehow.

Henry Mancini’s score is great, as is the actress who plays the older Christina. It’s a little TV-ish … I’m almost inclined to recommend the Shirley Temple biopic I watched recently as a perfect double bill companion, though the two couldn’t be more different in mood. It’s a movie I’ll certainly watch again and probably even add to my DVD collection sometime. It really is perfectly encapsulated by that quote I began with, lol, it’s another I’d really rather just say, “Just see it!” than strain to fill 3 paragraphs over.

In the hopes of enhancing my enjoyment of the remaining films in my little Shirley Temple “season” lol … okay, the planned programme was delayed for technical reasons … I decided to finally watch this that’s been gathering dust in my room for quite some time. I was immediately more interested when I saw director Nadia Tass’ name in the credits but couldn’t quite remember why – looking up on the IMDb I was reminded, she did two of the American Girl movies including the best one, Samantha, and the even better (non-American-Girl) Amy.

Being TV bound, this production is closer in quality to the American Girl movies than anything, but that’s not bad company to be in. The script feels like it’s really just been culled from snippets of memories and anecdotes (a book by Shirley is credited as the source) and really just breezes through the more notable movies with occasional dips into her homelife which is almost clichéd, daddy spending her money, mommy being stage mommy, brothers being brothers.

I can’t imagine any actress could’ve done a better job than Ashley Rose Orr as Shirley. There’s something kind of tacky and cheap I find about movies like this from the outset (especially when they’re made for TV) and there’s something inherently “wrong” in seeing a young actress in the 21st century in those costumes in full colour*, not to mention how ridiculous it would be easy for the then 10-year-old Orr to feel prancing around in them, but she does it all, from the dancing to the “Good Ship Lollipop” (doing all her own singing), at times (particularly with the singing) almost startlingly well. The faithful reproduction of the movie sets etc, especially considering it’s a TV production, deserves mention too. At times if you caught in in your peripheral vision you’d almost be forgiven for thinking a colourized version of the real thing was on. For what it is, I really can’t fault it, and I personally enjoyed it more than a couple of the actual movies.

* Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a problem with it – but at a time when just about every day now I read about someone somewhere going crazy about pre-teens being oversexualised, I feel like the only way to beat them is to join them.

The most extraordinary thing about this movie to me is the humanity in it – the kind of humanity that it would be so easy to think insensitive and to exclude from such a story. Almost from the very moment “Jean-Do” realises his condition, we’re laughing with him at the strangest things even while sharing his most private despair. It’s often said when tragedy strikes how, “it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy,” or words to that effect. There’s a weird sense in which, here – and this can’t help but come out the wrong way – it couldn’t have happened to a more perfect guy, a fashionista who didn’t know what life was; and there couldn’t be a more perfect director than Julian Schnabel with his background and style to find this odd tone in the story.

It’s impossible to be insensitive about locked-in syndrome; the hard thing is in building the life and reality around it. I don’t know if that makes sense; I wish I had more time to write this review, I guess, but this weekend’s busy. In any case, that’s why I only just made one final adjustment in my Oscar predix and I’m rooting for Schnabel in the directing category; and not just in retrospect for Basquiat (which I for one loved) as I’d expected.

I was really surprised by just how much of the movie is seen through Jean-Do’s one eye – it’s really amazing how consistently interesting the whole thing is in the visual department despite this. It’s just a unique, compelling, and surprisingly funny movie I can’t wait to watch again in less hurried a fashion than “must watch before the Oscars!” lol.

“You’re playing with your life.”
“So? You’ve got to play with something.”

I remember seeing the trailer for this, seems like ages ago now, before anyone was really talking about it much at all, and I was really excited despite, I realise even more now having seen it, not really being such a huge fan of Edith Piaf, and not really knowing all that much about her life. And though I’d seen Marion Cotillard in a lot of stuff, like Innocence and more recently A Good Year, she’d never struck me either as a particularly outstanding actress nor, as here, as knock-out beautiful as she is.

It’s a beautiful film that kind of closes in on the sorrow in Piaf’s life, cutting in between her close to death and at two stages of her childhood (played by two absolutely wonderful girls both rightly given more screentime than I expected), with her in her prime scattered in between. At the end, an interviewer asks her about each phase we’ve seen: “What advice would you give a woman/a young girl/a child?” to which her every answer is “Love.” The structure first strikes one as jumpy, but the more I think about it now, the more phenomenally coherent I find it. To someone who knew so little about, basically, “what was she so sad about?”, the delivery of information is perfect.

Marion Cotillard is as perfect as “they” say. I really didn’t expect it, and much as I’ll love it if Julie Christie gets the Oscar, Cotillard’s performance is simply so much more. It’s in the later scenes of Piaf’s life that my heart simply drops out of my chest at how much Cotillard vanishes in the role. The make-up, of course, helps; but it’s a two-way effort of make-up, Cotillard working with it as much as it works with her. It’s truly astonishing.

I was sure I already had a review of this so this might end up a little on the short side. I’m pretty sure I’ve said something about Erzsebet Foldi before, that’s why I thought I’d reviewed it already … ‘cos what I thought I’d written was, how is this movie the only thing she was ever in?! An amazing dancer, beautiful to behold, so natural before the camera, and perfectly cast as Scheider’s loving, precious, brotherless, generous (“underlined 3 times” lol) daughter … yet this is her only film credit, it’s incredible.

Anyway, clearly the reason I watched this this weekend is due to the sad passing of Roy Scheider this past week. Of course, at 76, he had a great innings – certainly better than Bob Fosse, who he basically portrays here – but it still saddened me to hear of it. This movie already had resonance outside of its surface appearance due to just how much Fosse put himself into it. Now – at least, this week, I find it serves as a perfect farewell to Scheider. It struck me during the last scene how it might strike some as a tad tasteless to watch it at such a time, ‘cos I know there are a lot of people who prefer death be confined to grave grief, black suits, hearses and mourning; but I think it’s perfect in its attitude to death … that celebration scene of “Bye Bye Life” countered so slapfaced by the snapback to “the only reality” at the end, the body bag being zipped up.

You can see Scheider’s Gideon so many ways – ego is always mentioned in reviews of the movie; it’s easy to sense he has no self-awareness, doesn’t know what he’s doing or who he’s hurting etc. I think he has total self-awareness; he just doesn’t care. And to me the film’s biggest comment is: why should he, when death is so inevitable? It’s a kind of Fight Club / American Beauty type message, as dangerous as it is profound. I still don’t know what to make of these movies entirely, some days I love them and some days I realise what an ass I am to love them so; I know that when I’m watching they are fun though; that Scheider’s performance is incredible; that the song and dance numbers start brilliant and only get better as the movie goes on; that we’re lucky to even have one movie featuring Erzsebet Foldi; and that anything that can make me get in such a twist reviewing is pretty much always worthy of 5 hearts.

Little to add to the first review here but on BAFTA night to single out Sam Riley. I was shocked by his exclusion from most of the awards, let alone the whole movie in other categories, when nominations were first announced; after watching his performance a second time, my mind simply boggles. I honestly think this whole movie belongs up there with the likes of There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men this year, and his performance up with Day Lewis and Depp, not to mention the cinematography … it of course baffles me even more that it’s excluded from so many categories at the BAFTAs, and I hope it wins all that it’s up for.

November 27th, 2007:

I really didn’t know how I’d fare with this one, not really being a huge fan of Joy Division nor really even knowing much of their story or music except for what was touched on by the brilliant 24 hour Party People ... to illustrate how little, I didn’t know anything about Ian Curtis’ epilepsy. And I’ll admit, in light of 24 hour Party People, I did find myself wondering about the need for this movie.

It didn’t take long for me to realise this was one of the best movies of the year, though. I can be pretty picky about movies like this if they don’t feel like they gel as a whole from the start – the ensemble, the design, the authenticity, especially these days when it’s so much more possible, everything has to be right about these movies – and if nothing else, this one is certainly the best “period” movie of the year technical-wise up with Zodiac and American Gangster. This one betters both those by far though with the other less technical stuff – the stuff that makes cinema get inside you. The performances are all perfect, believable – I think it says it all that even Craig Parkinson’s turn as Tony Wilson works following Steve Coogan’s, at the time, seemingly irrepeatable take on the guy.

The soundtrack, of course, is perfect. Mark Kermode has said all that needs to be said about how right the decision to have Sam Riley do his own singing was – the cool thing I think he didn’t mention though is how the band sounds too. Like I said, I’m not a Joy Division fan – I’m one of those people who know the songs but wouldn’t immediately name the artist … at best I’d be, like, “ummm … someone from the Manchester thing?” lol. But in addition to being a portrait of a doomed young artist to rank up there with The Doors, to a lesser extent Last Days, etc, this actually made me for the first time want to listen to the music too. The black and white photography is simply beautiful, it’s the kind of movie where almost every frame is an art print, and it’s far from being all misery like it could’ve been. It’s one of the best British films in ages, and I haven’t done my double bill recommendation thing in ages … even if it’s obvious, I can’t think of a better pair than this and the aforementioned Party People.

It’s the Kermode working again – I pretty much ran to hear all I could of Scott Walker after Mark Kermode’s review of this doc, astonished that I’d never heard of the man prior to it, even more astonished after I listened. I pretty much knew that I’d like Scott Walker the minute I heard about him, kinda like Nick Drake, Donovan, and others; and in the same way, having heard him, I kinda knew I’d like this documentary, since I even liked his latest work, “The Drift”. I think the BBC show “Imagine” broadcast a shortened version of this very film, too, ‘cos I recognised a lot of it from somewhere. So it could’ve been a dual influence that brought me to fandom.

On one level I guess this is a very flat telling of Walker’s story – an artist who worked in the confines of pop just so he could write, who finally broke free, who reached a pinnacle only to be inexplicably tossed aside by the public, but who kept on working in exile to make some of the most extraordinary, difficult, unique music of the last 30 years. It’s at its best in the cool stretches where we see Walker fans simply listening to his and the “Brothers” records – their own arranger commenting on one, “I must listen to some of these … and you’re sure I did this one?” ... everyone, even Bowie, still visibly overwhelmed by the sounds he brought into the world.

One issue I have, and it’s something I guess I’ve kind of been itching to talk about overall here or elsewhere so I might protest too strong here, but it’s the narration that speaks of the past in the present tense (”... they begin to record their last album ever …”) ... I hate when historians do that more than anything in the world, and it’s even worse when it’s inter-cut with the onscreen interviewees who, naturally, speak of the past in the past tense. Just a silly grr, I guess most people are fine with this lol.

In any case, it’s a gorgeous documentary about a gorgeous artist. To go back to the Mark Kermode connection, I think this unlike Heart of Gold really could bring Walker new fans – you’ve only to hear a bar of his early work to fall in love, and even though there’s a part of me that’s naturally repelled by his more recent stuff including “The Drift”, it’s impossible to ignore and irresistible not to delve further. And if you’ve any artistic inclinations whatsoever, you’ll be inspired more than you thought possible.

“Never look at yourself.”

At first I thought this might just be like the cinematic equivalent of Tori Amos’ “American Doll Posse” – a great concept but, by its very nature, doomed to be scatterbrained. Either that or something as surprisingly coherent as Palindromes. Certainly this is yet another 2007 movie – like Zodiac, American Gangster, 3:10 to Yuma – whose technical perfection far outweighs any real level of connection, at least for most of its duration … and while some seem quite capable of excusing such an absence, it’s a huge problem in my eyes if a film that should get inside you fails completely to do so.

I was kind of “raised”, and I think with good reason, to believe that if the first thing you find yourself mentioning of a movie is how good it looks, then it’s really not a good movie (for the record, I’m sure I’m guilty elsewhere on this site of exceptions to that rule, but it’s still a good rule). I just don’t think I got anything out of this that I haven’t got already, and couldn’t get again more easily, out of the music itself, the poetry in “Tarantula”, the “Chronicles” book, the Scorsese doc ... sure, they recreate the “Judas” moment and other stuff flawlessly … but is it essential as I find the other works? I’m not so sure.

There’s something about it that’s pretty much inherent in the title – it’s a portrait of an artist that, like that guy at the end of Citizen Kane, just about shrugs its shoulders and admits that it really can’t put a finger on him, that no man can be contained within a word, a soundbite, even a 2 hour ode such as this. I’ll admit that in the last 30 minutes I was completely captivated – in the end it does finally start to merge into something resembling a whole … so it’s also yet another movie for which a second viewing will be essential and could easily change everything I’ve written above. Cate Blanchett is as good as everybody is saying; I really liked Christian Bale’s portrayal, too; and the rest of the cast are about as appealing. Of course, the music rocks. But at this point, I’m almost afraid to say, it’s the visuals that stand out above all else.