LA Cinema Youth

Thought I might as well share this with the society.

Zhang Yimou’s To Live is a dense and extremely powerful account of the communist takeover of China, told in a sweeping and literary sort of style over a period of several decades. Films with this much ambition can be compelling and rich or bloated and portentous, depending upon its execution. To Live, however, is every bit a masterful work of complexity and nuance, though it’s as cinematic as a film should be. It can be difficult to watch, and at times, rather painful. Yet, through its own honesty, it successfully transports us into day-to-day life during this period, from its costs to its trivialities. It is a mighty achievement for these and other reasons, making it a must see for anyone seeking to better understand the people and history of China.

The film starts well before the Communist takeover, with the collapse of the Xu family. Fugui, the father, loses his home and family with a single night of gambling. Eventually, he reforms himself and returns to his wife, but must tour the country as the leader of a puppet troupe in order to make a living for her and their two children. During one performance, his troupe is kidnapped and forced into the army of Chiang Kai-shek to battle against Mao Zedong. He survives the harrowing experience and the army’s collapse to return to his family once more, but now lives beneath the government against which he was previously forced to battle. The rest of the film details the changes and tragedies that ensue.

Amazingly, though Yimou was forced to complete this film under the very government which this story takes place, there is some degree of subversion and subtle criticism running throughout. A factory accident is portrayed as an isolated incident, Zedong’s troops are kind to Fugui when he’s captured, and public officials take their treatment as justly deserved desserts. However, one must suspect Yimou sees little good in the proletariat revolution, which causes grave results in the film and a graphic reminder of the dangers of generational disconnect. Though certain execution scenes take place off-screen, and the methods are never directly criticized, these sequences still seem unjust and terrifying to anyone who does not already support them. Yet, in between these events, the Xus simply try to live as normal a life as they can, always running into trouble with communism but never directly condemning it. Though not a pro-Communist film, To Live makes it clear that the people of this time were quite ordinary, in spite of their conditions being separate from ours.

As a piece of technical filmmaking, Yimou particularly impresses with his use of color. He captures the cold of winter with a few browns and greens set against a wasteland of white. The interior of a bar features all the warm reds you’d expect for a place of danger and sought comfort. Yue Lu captures these bright colors perfectly with his cinematography. However, though Yimou composes his visuals wiith the sure hand of a master, he takes a restrained approach which presents the locales and characters without any unnecessary virtuoso flash or camera movement. Besides this, there’s very little to say about the technical elements of the film, as they remain quite consistent and unchanging throughout in telling its story.

To Live is a film recommended to anyone with a strong will and a thirst for historical storytelling. There are times when watching this uncompromising work can be painful, death’s effect on the family is displayed fully and with absolute sincerity. However, if one can endure, he or she will find a rich tapestry of history, familial strength, and sub-plot which wraps up in the end as the portrait of a day in the life of a family like yours or mine. This is Yimou’s version of King Vidor’s The Crowd, another great film concerning an average family in early twentieth century New York. However, this film shows how these people exist in a country berated by some living here in America. More than anyone else, those people should see To Live in order to view how similar we can be to these people in our artistry and our souls.

When a writer becomes a director, any number of outcomes are possible. In some cases, you’ll get a John Huston or a Billy Wilder, directors who started as in-demand writers and eventually became exalted in both categories. More often, however, you’ll have writers who come to the job thinking strictly in narrative terms and failing to develop that vital visual flair. As such, their projects emerge as interesting but immature works.

Charlie Kaufman has proven his mettle as a visionary writer many times before, but he addresses his scripts as what they are: blueprints to be utilized in a visual sense. The subjects and styles he’s dabbled in (surrealism especially) seem tailor made for visual storytelling. However, the reigns have always been in the hands of capable music video directors like Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry. That he’s made his first film as director is an event of potential celebration or disappointment.

Oh, well. It should at least be interesting.

And it is. I’d go so far as to say it’s very good. In fact, by the end I found myself falling in love with the vision and the uncompromising nature with which it’s conveyed. Kaufman has never been this ambitious or inventive before. Synecdoche, New York begins like many modern comic-dramas and soon devolves into a hellish combination of 8 1/2, Zerkalo, and Inland Empire, thus purging itself of any chance at box office success. Yet, though the critics may scratch their heads over this, and the public stands little chance of understanding its virtues, I feel this may be Kaufman’s masterpiece, if not his best paced film.

Synecdoche begins ordinarily enough. The first act keeps things relatively believable, with its protagonist, playwright Caden Cotard (played by the always superb Philip Seymour Hoffman), in a dead-end marriage and an artistic life gone unappreciated by his family. Everyone loves his new play except for his wife, who leaves him with their daughter to go to Germany. Strangely, Cotard begins to suffer from a variety of diseases and maladies after the nozzle of a faucet breaks and slams into his brain, creating a permanent bump. From this point on, we watch Cotard seem to enter a dream world in which time marches on and his troubles with women ranging from his ex-wife to his daughter to his many lovers forever torture him.

Thus, he decides to funnel his frustrations into a strange project: A life-sized scale model of New York City in which hundreds of actors play out an everlasting script. This part of the story grows ever more confusing as Cotard hires actors to play himself and his lover. When the actor hired to play Cotard starts courting his real-life lover, it becomes quite clear that attempting to understand this film in literal terms is impossible.

Let it be perfectly understood that, even by Charlie Kaufman standards, this film is decidedly avant-garde in its storytelling approach. We’ve no way of knowing the film isn’t a dream, or if it’s half-dream ala Mulholland Drive or 8 1/2. Part of what makes this film so admirable is its dedication to this surrealistic world, even going so far as having Cotard see himself and his family in adds in magazines and on television without the usually inevitable clarification of the hallucinatory nature of these visions.

What most concerned me was whether Kaufman could make the jump to directing, but he rises to the occasion. In fact, he has a real chance of matching or surpassing Jonze and Gondry before him. He may lack the economy or pacing of those directors, but his visuals are remarkably poetic and abstract, and he knows how to combine scenes to create an eerie tone throughout the picture.

All the same, responses from others have mixed. It’s easy to see why. Not everyone will like Synecdoche, New York, especially those uninterested in these sorts of experimental works. However, those people should not dismiss the film upon first viewing, as Kaufman has powerful things to say about human misery. One can take this work as pessimistic or as an objective study of the toll of wallowing in self-pity. The film is uncompromisingly tuned into this character’s way of thinking, which emits a Kafka-esque sense of despair. Whether the protagonist truly lives such a horrid life or merely dreams it is up to the audience, but we nevertheless can learn from his mistakes. Kaufman and Hoffman have crafted a character that is simultaneously pathetically neurotic and heartbreakingly sympathetic, dealing with fears we ourselves must contemplate, death not being the least of them.

Whether or not you ultimately enjoy what Kaufman’s offered, I wholeheartedly recommend that audiences at least experience what Charlie Kaufman has composed. It’s certainly entered my very short list of must-see films from this largely underwhelming year. Even if he hasn’t perfected his directing style, Kaufman has displayed serious talent in the field, and I commend him for it. Commendations should go to every aspect of this film, for it’s one of those mighty experimental achievements so rarely seen in cinema. That alone is worth the price of admission.

I’m sorry for taking so long, but I’m finally back with something new. I’ve been quite busy the past week with my screenwriting class, and everything before that was laziness. However, I’ve returned, and I’ve got a movie review to go with this world-changing event.

You may already be familiar with Judd Apatow and his team from such recent successful comedies as The 40 Year Old Virgin, Anchorman, and Superbad. My personal favorite Apatow-produced comedy is the latter. I found Superbad to be the funniest and most honest among these movies. Seeing as Pineapple Express was written by the same team (that being star Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg) I was intrigued by this latest foul-mouthed, drugged-up action/comedy from the Apatow team.

However, we have a new member of the ring this time around. David Gordon Green has attained a following as a poetic art-film maker of vision and ingenuity. What many people don’t know about is Green’s closet Steven Seagal fandom. This may serve as a piece of the puzzle explaining why the director of Snow Angels and All the Real Girls suddenly decided to make a stoner action/comedy. Indeed, compared to the other offerings from this group, Pineapple Express is the most visually complex and meticulously edited. They’ve grown quite a bit with this film.

But that’s not what the people want to see. Everyone wants a bunch of stoners to act like idiots and make us laugh, and that’s what we get. Ironically, the deepest director the group has ever worked with has made a film without any of the themes from Knocked Up or Superbad, and what tenderness there is comes off as ironic and self-concious. He has made a comedy, pure and simple. And it’s funny.

After a hilarious and slightly baffling intro revealing the history behind the illegality of pot, we jump right into the everyday life of Public Servant Dale Denton, played by Rogen. Dale’s life consists of finding his clients, dropping them a subpoena, enduring their curses, and getting stoned in between. Other than his highschooler girlfriend (their story doesn’t resolve the way you’d expect) and a drug dealer named Saul (James Franco), he doesn’t have many friends, but he’s happy because he’s stoned.

One day, whilst persuing his public duty, he witnesses a murder at the hands of one of his clients, Ted Jones (played by Gary Cole). He makes an escape to his prior destination, Saul’s house. Normally, they could go on without Ted Jones knowing who they are, except Saul has recently sold Dale some extraordinary and rare weed: Pineapple Express. And he’s the only person in the city who has it. And Dale has dropped his doobie at the murder scene. And a corrupt cop was present, making a call to the police impossible. And Ted is at war with the Asians. And he thinks Dale is working for them. And Dale has to get to dinner with his girlfriends parents.

The plot doesn’t really matter. For the first two acts, it’s really just an excuse for Seth Rogen and James Franco to respond to strange circumstances as only the perpetually stoned would. Far be it for me to spoil some of the many brilliant lines and set-pieces within, but the entire team takes tired cliches such as the friend being forced against his will to trap the protagonists or the expository interrogation and puts the Cheech & Chong twist on them.

As for the action half of the equation, Green directs this like a low-budget 80s stupidity spectacular mixed with the cinematographic bombast of Tony Scott (with better geography, which is a bit sad considering Tony Scott makes serious action movies). Green always has a self-awareness to his sequences, which makes otherwise stupid contrivances plausible. Pineapple Express takes a similar approach to Hot Fuzz last year, with subtle differences. Whereas Hot Fuzz emulated Hollywood formula in inappropriate locations with odd participants, this film takes a completely understandable context and inverts the cliches, as if the main characters have taken their moves from Steven Seagal and Michael Bay and can never quite get them right. In the final act, the entire production shifts into full-on action, though the film still feels like a humorous deconstruction. You’ll see the baffling employment of deus ex machina, people failing to die when they really should be, and cheesy one-liners aplenty, and you’ll love every minute of it.

David Gordon Green really seems to know action movies, which is what allows him to emulate the style so well. He’s also brought his regular cinematographer, Tim Orr, into the action, so there’s a sheen uncharacteristic of most Apatow produced movies. It isn’t Roger Deakins or Gordon Willis work, but it isn’t supposed to be. It nails the simplistic work of your standard Michael Mann knockoff while adding enough brightness that it’s pleasing to the eye without drawing attention to itself. As for Green’s framing, it’s flat and wide as always, eschewing camera tricks for the scenes that don’t need them and skillfully using handheld to heighten the tension and humor of certain scenes. Direction so sophisticated, yet, so restrained is quite rare for movies in general, and we have the treat of seeing it used in a stoner comedy.

Is Pineapple Express flawed? Some scenes go on a little longer than they should, but otherwise there’s nothing in particular to complain about.  The worst I can come up with is that Pineapple Express probably isn’t high art, but who can judge such things? In fact, as a piece of deconstructionist satire, one could consider Pineapple Express a work of art in a Godardian sort of way. But, more importantly, Pineapple Express makes you giggle whether you’ve walked in stoned or not. See it, take the family, introduce them to a gateway film to harder, stupider action movies. Judd Apatow and company have never been better.

Dear Youth Cinema Society Members,

If I am slow to post my thoughts on this film, it is only because I find it difficult to do justice to what may very well be one of the great works of the decade. Ever since John Lasseter and company blew our minds with Toy Story thirteen years ago, this is the film Pixar has been building up to. Over time, their technology has improved, their worlds have been more fully realized, and their characters and themes have grown progressively more mature. It has all built up to this little film called WALL-E, a movie that functions as much as a brilliant piece of science-fiction as a thoroughly entertaining family flick.

There is no denying that WALL-E was a risky move on Pixar’s part. Thematically, it could potentially have turned off adults fearful that its post-apocalyptic setting would be depressing or frightening to their children (it’s always the parents, not the children). Secondly, and possibly more disastrous, very few of the film’s many robotic characters say much more than each other’s names. A certain camp of people have predicted the film’s demise due to this quirk. So, has WALL-E overcome this potential hitch?

We open on a sparsely populated, thickly polluted world with a joyfully ironic tune in the background. It’s a magical opening, but it’s like nothing we’ve ever seen from Pixar. Enter our robotic pal, WALL-E. He’s the last robot of his kind in this desolate wasteland, but he has a friend in his nameless cockroach buddy. Wall-E spends his days accomplishing his directive, which is to compact all the garbage on Earth, but he’s in no rush. He spends just as much time sifting through the garbage in search of interesting items, which he houses along with himself in his own little station, a structure that doubles as shelter during the harsh nighttime sandstorms. His spoils include a cigarette lighter, an old casette, and, most importantely, the musical Hello, Dolly! (that’s the title, not my pretentious punctuation) It’s through this film that WALL-E learns the concept of love, and begins to itch for a mate of his own.

Wall-E also happens to come across a plant, which he stores away in a shoe unknowing of just how crucial it’s about to become. He learns soon enough, after another day of going through his morning routine (he has to slip on his treads just like the rest of us) he notices a little red dot on the ground. He follows and catches it only to find a ship about to drop right on top of him. WALL-E hides as a routine begins that ends in the ejection of the robot EVE onto Earth’s terrain. WALL-E and EVE couldn’t be any more different, with WALL-E’s older, clunkier, ground-based design and EVE’s sleek, levitating, iPod-esque look (Steve Jobs was a consultant for her design). What’s also interesting is how the gender roles are swapped here, with EVE being a tough, well-armed robot and WALL-E being the more sensitive of the two.

Their first meeting doesn’t exactly go well. Of course, being the unspoiled, lonely, timid romantic that he is, WALL-E follows EVE around anyway as she accomplishes some mysterious objective, which she is clearly more interested in than WALL-E. However, like WALL-E, EVE is a robot with an actual personality who would rather fly around free than scan random things. However, WALL-E does provide her with shelter when a sandstorm kicks up, and here they begin to relate through WALL-E’s collection; EVE is able to unlock elements of certain objects that WALL-E could never figure out on his own. But it’s the plant that EVE was here for, and when WALL-E reveals it she takes it from him and shuts off. WALL-E has no clue what’s going on, but he takes care of her in this mode nonetheless. Alas, the ship from which EVE first stepped on Earth comes to take her away, and WALL-E is forced to tag along.

I really do not wish to spoil any more. I could elaborate on the themes of what makes us human, and how the story teaches us to be aware of our surroundings. But I’ll leave that all for you to find out.

Andrew Stanton shares some similarities with his co-worker John Lasseter, but he’s an artist unto his own. As with Finding Nemo, Stanton isn’t afraid to go into deep, dark places with this story, which differs from Lasseter’s more comic, kid-friendly approach. That certainly isn’t a bad thing, but it prevents Lasseter from making anything that resembles this film. Finding Nemo wasn’t afraid to kill off a character in its opening, or to injure its young title character. Similarly, WALL-E has no fear in dealing with issues of mindless consumerism and the cost of human ignorance. Kids might not understand this, for they’ll be distracted by the characters, visuals, and story, but adults will certainly catch this and children will grow up to recognize these elements.

But what about that issue of WALL-E being unable to talk? Perhaps someone should’ve informed the sceptics that film is a visual medium that doesn’t even need dialogue if the makers don’t want it. Pixar’s animators obviously looked at movies from Charlie Chaplin and the like in order to convey the emotions of the robotic characters, and the result is a film of sparse dialogue where you don’t even notice the lack of conversation. Whether it’s EVE’s digitized eyes or WALL-E’s binocular head, subtlety counts for everything here. None of these characters appear inanimate, and that’s key for buying into the universe.

But the human characters are no slouches either…well, actually they are at first. Too much talk of this cast will lead to spoilers. However, I simply must throw in some praise for Jeff Garlin as the Captain as well the character’s animators for taking someone who could very well have been a huge joke and making him a person of depth and gradually uncovering wisdom. Another special mention goes to Fred Willard in a bizarre live-action role that’s both funny and sad considering his character is probably long-dead in the story.

This film’s breathtaking visuals need no description, but it would be unfair to overlook the audio, which plays a huge role here. When Andrew revealed WALL-E to me and my family, he described it at “R2-D2, The Movie.” It makes perfect sense that he would hire the original voice of R2-D2, Ben Burtt, to create most of the robotic voices and sound effects. In all honesty, the rough, distorted manner in which WALL-E states his name says far more about his character than any amount of dialogue ever could. Add to this Thomas Newman’s score (one of his very best) and you have a world that is far from silent. And speaking of music, Peter Gabriel supplies an end credits song that might just be one of the greatest things he’s ever sung.

I’m stunned. It’s quite likely that WALL-E is the best movie of Pixar’s entirely career, and one of the greatest animated pictures of all time. To think Pixar has accomplished so much in its short time in existence, and to think they still have years ahead of them. WALL-E simply is the best movie of this year, and I’ll be stunned if something better or even equal comes along. WALL-E has joined the ranks of Blade Runner, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Metropolis, and the greatest films of the science-fiction genre. Courses will be taken in college on how Wall-E changed the way we look at film. A minority will claim it is derivative of Short Circuit, but that cannot be cured. If there is any shread of love for cinema in you, Wall-E is a must see. If ever you’ve needed proof that animation is as much an art as live-action film, this is the evidence.

And I haven’t captured a fraction of my love with these words.

I can’t imagine what it must have been like for the Hulk fans who waited so long for Ang Lee’s take on the story in 2003 only to be bitterly disappointed. It had everything going for it: A great director, a great cast, and, most importantely, a giant green mass of muscles and bones out to destroy everything in sight. Sadly, it lacked one thing: a villain. Ang Lee had gone out of his way to create a different superhero film, one that focused on the character elements and made a metaphor into the antagonist. Personally, I thought the film was an interesting experiment, but it’s easy to see why people were so disappointed. It was a good movie, just not a good Hulk movie.

Marvel Studios have sought to make amends with their sequel/reboot, The Incredible Hulk. Gone is the arthouse style of Ang Lee, replaced by French action director Louis Leterrier (Transporter, Danny the Dog) and his more mainstream style. Has the story and character study been dropped? Absolutely not, but it has been weaved into a more narrative, action-packed script penned by Zak Penn and Edward Norton (the latter of which is uncredited). Don’t be mislead, for it is certainly a continuation of the last film, but the overhauled cast and crew makes it a very different experience. In fact, it’s an experience I very much prefer, as The Incredible Hulk is one of the very best superhero movies yet.

We begin with Bruce Banner (played this time by Edward Norton) having made a comparitively comfortable home out of Brazil. He can barely speak the language, and he’s stuck working in a run-down bottling plant, but at least the army isn’t shooting at him. Unfortunately, he’s forever in danger of making that despised transformation, and has a beeper to make sure his heart-rate never rises above two-hundred. He learns techniques to control his emotion. However, the most vital of his enterprises is a constant communication with a mysterious Mr. Blue, who aids Bruce in his attempt to find an antidote.

Unfortunately, he has an accident at the bottling facility. A drop of his gamma-infected blood winds up in one of the bottles, killing a consumer (the exact consumer will delight you) and bringing the army to Brazil to take him down. Of course, the operation is headed by General Thunderbolt Ross (William Hurt) who intends to use Hulk as a military weapon. But there’s also the issue of the main villain so sorely missing from the last Hulk, and here we have it manifested in Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth), a military agent. He and his team pursue Banner, only to provoke his inner monster to come out and clobber the living daylights out of his assailants.

Now, Banner goes on the run again and Blonsky is left embittered by his being uninformed about Hulk and the severe casualities inflicted on his unit. He demands an explanation from the General, and, getting what he wanted, asks to be subjected to a supersoldier experiment.

Banner, in the meantime, steals away to America in order to find data that could lead to the antidote he seaks. Along the way, he comes across his old lover, Betty Ross (this time played by Liv Tyler), who actually possesses the data Banner needs. Still, the army is forever at Banner’s heels, and his struggle gets more and more complicated. Without spoiling too much, Emil Blonsky eventually transforms into the villain Hulk fans had cried out for after the first film, and he provides a worthy adversary for Banner.

In fact, in most respects, this overhaul is an improvement upon the first film. I’ve heard people complain that this take on the story omits any character development and consists of pure “Hulk Smash!” We get plenty of “Hulk Smash” here that works beautifully, but there’s a reason it works. Granted, Lee’s film featured more apparent character elements, but Leterrier’s The Incredible Hulk doesn’t feel the need to focus on elements that are already there. Instead, it communicates these elements through the action, like any good action flick does, and in many ways the story is the key element that makes the action sequences as tension-filled and memorable as they are. Along with Speed Racer, The Incredible Hulk is a great example of how to execute action that is as meaningful and dramatic as it is thrilling.

Of course, Leterrier is no stranger to action, but he’s never had as good a script as he does here. It’s impossible to tell which elements are Zak Penn’s and which are Edward Norton’s, but the whole is both thrilling and surprisingly deep, though not so concentrated on either element that one exceeds the other. Its first act is the slowest, taking ample time to set up Bruce Banner’s story without any initial sign of the Hulk, which highlights something often missing in film today: build-up. The Hulk doesn’t show up until the second-act begins, Blonsky doesn’t make his transformation until the third-act, we don’t see “Mr. Blue” until near the end of the second-act. Of course, those who follow the comics already know who Mr. Blue is, but this film knows how to hook people in and pay-off their expectations.

As for the overhauled cast, that too improves greatly on the previous film. While Eric Bana was and still is an excellent actor, Norton puts a touch more subtlety into his performance. William Hurt’s General Ross has more menace than Sam Elliot’s, overall matching the role better than the previous actor (though, admittedly, there’s not as much depth to his character in this version). However, the biggest improvement is in Betty Ross: Liv Tyler sometimes overacts her role, but she is a massive improvement upon Jennifer Connelly’s performance in the last Hulk. As for new characters, we have both Tim Roth as Emil Blonsky and Tim Blake Nelson acting without the accent. Both are pitch-perfect for their roles, and both leave an impression (and it’s quite clear that Tim Blake Nelson will have a role in the sequel). I have few complaints with this cast.

However, the most sorely needed improvement was needed in the effects department, and this film quite thankfully delivers. No longer does the Hulk look like a giant, overly-clean cartoon. His design is quite a bit more believable here, with a rougher and more detailed look. What’s most important is that is has exponentially more character. Hulk isn’t a hunk of CGI here; he’s a real character. All of these strengths are also inherent in Hulk’s enemy later in the film. Great praise should be given to this film’s effects team for doing such a remarkable job on bringing these characters to life.

Generally, I’m very surprised that this film turned out as great as it did. I haven’t mentioned how great the sound design and score are, but it’s just another factor that shows how much love these people have for the character. As previously mentioned, I feel Ang Lee’s Hulk is underrated, but there are serious flaws within, and this reboot fixes every one of my issues. Characterization is more understated, the acting is more consistent, the effects are an exponential improvement, and this film is just a lot more fun. It’s the Hulk film everyone clamored for five years ago. Many exciting references are made to the comic and TV show, many of which I had to read up on myself. Even if you’ve never been a fan of Bruce Banner, this film can be enjoyed as an action film, and it is perhaps the best of the year. Marvel Studios is quickly turning into the best thing that ever happened to superhero movies, and if this and Iron Man are any indication then we’ll be looking forward to a bright future for Marvel characters. Along with Iron Man,The Incredible Hulk is one of the best movies of the year.

As part of the joint venture Millionaires, Moguls, and Movie Stars, headed at the Huntington by USC and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, a brand-new print of the first take on this often remade story was prepared.

Underdog stories are practically ingrained in the American conciousness. We all love the story of average Joes and Janes rising from obscurity to become powerful, famous people in this nation. Whether it be Rocky or this early Technicolor film from David O. Selznick and William A. Wellman and its remake from 1954 (not so much the 1976 version). However, while Rocky remains a rousing piece of American culture, I’d argue this early film, suffering from Selznick’s gaudily literary excess, emerges more an entertaining relic of its time than a truly emotionally involving film that leaves any sort of impression. There are certainly elements in this film that work wonderfully, such as outstanding performances from Fredric March and May Robson in her small role. Unfortunately, all the flaws of the work of both William Wellman and David O. Selznick are present here, namely Wellman’s typical failure to connect a series of impressive scenes into a truly compelling whole and Selznick’s aforementioned problem. It all adds up to a work that is more tolerable than Selznick’s bloated, unpleasant Gone with the Wind, but seems to bear a prophetic stench that heralds the arrival of that antichrist of the cinema.

Janet Gaynor plays Esther Victoria Blodgett, a small-town girl with big-city dreams of stardom and glamour. Unfortunately, in order to obain her goal, she must deal with impossible odds, a disapproving mother, and her own plainness in face, backround, and name. Yet, with the encouragement (emotionally and financially) of her grandmother, she gets to Los Angeles anyway. She winds up stuck without a job in a rundown hotel with only two neighbors, one of which runs the place. The other is Danny McGuire, played by Andy Devine, a bumbling, generally kind-hearted man who nonetheless makes a poor first-impression when Esther asks about work. Despite this, the two of them make friends and Danny gets Esther her first job, that being waitressing for a crew of important film personalities. From this point on, Danny is dropped almost completely. He is one of the most crucial characters in the film, yet, besides popping up in a few sequences to add some comic relief, he’s abandoned completely as an integral character and turned from a person of depth into a plot device.

But enough about that debacle, for there’s another supporting character who winds up becoming one of the most interesting in any Selznick production. Frederic March gives one of his very finest performances as Norman Maine, the star whom Esther idolizes and later falls in love with. Before the waitressing gig, the two of them encountered each other at a concert, where Norman nearly started a drunken brawl and rudely hushed Esther. They encounter each other again at the party, where a fabulously drunk Norman (drunk due to his having recently finished an apparent flop) falls in love with the pretty waitress and runs away with her, leaving his girlfriend behind (though not without physical repercussion).

Norman wants to help Esther become a star, but there’s still the matter of her “plainness” to address. And, so, Esther Blodgett becomes Vicki Lester, a name I find to be equally terrible if not more so than the first. No matter, because all that counts is the public’s reaction to her, which is both stunning and stunningly more positive than Norman’s. The rest of the film deals with her love for him growing at the same time that Norman’s star is falling. It’s a fascinating story idea that could lead to a poignant statement about the ephemeral nature of fame.

But there’s a problem: all this weight is relegated to Norman, while absolutely nothing rubs off on Esther. In fact, I’m almost convinced that Norman’s fate is blown-off as an obstacle for Esther rather than a tragedy for Norman, and rather than making a truthful statement about fame we end up with a conclusion that struggling will end in triumph. It’s as if Madame Bovary was told from Charles’s point of view, and the novel ended with a bright future ahead. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy underdog stories, but when the supporting player is an infinitely deeper and more fascinating character than the one you’ve spent the entire first act setting up, it means you’re trying to tack a a character study inside a popcorn melodrama. It’s a shame Douglas Sirk never remade this film, for he would have pulled it off with greater ability than Wellman could.

And don’t me wrong, for this is clearly a Selznick picture, but Wellman does have a story credit after all. It’s not clear what part of this picture is Wellman, what part is Selznick, and what part belongs to the throng of credited and uncredited screenwriters who contributed to the picture (Selznick among them). What can be figured out is what part Wellman plays in the visual direction, which is rather small for the director. Of course, the technicolor is among the finest of the thirties, and it carried over to Gone with the Wind without any recorded help from Wellman. It masks the unimaginative simplicity of the direction of most of the sequences, and amplifies those that do happen to be visually compelling. This is a common problem for Wellman’s sound films, which are anything but consistent despite a minimum of two or three classic sequences. Considering his poor use of audio, I don’t think the invention of sound was kind to the director.

Selznick’s imput wasn’t negative when it came to sound. For the first time, the audio in a Wellman film wasn’t dull. Thank Max Steiner. Widely considered one of the greatest early composers, he puts in yet another solid score for this film. Unfortunately, as with his Gone with the Wind score two years later, included are mind-numbingly trite, vomit-inducingly cliche popular tunes that add nothing to the scene and only served to distract me, though these don’t pop up so much that they ruin the score.

That’s one good thing Selznick does for Wellman, but it doesn’t entirely negate the bad things he does for this picture. His sense of acting is far more bombastic and ham-fisted than Wellman’s more tolerable, honest sensibilities. Janet Gaynor, that wonderful actress from films such as Sunrise, still manages to put across a considerable amount of genuine emotion despite the frequent sequences calling for overwrought hysterics, making her work infinitely more compelling than Vivien Leigh’s in Gone with the Wind (made up of nothing but hysterics), but it’s still a shame that Selznick forced his skewed acting sense upon her.

His skewed sense of storytelling is even more irritating. It begins with the bookending sequences of the opening and closing sections of the original script. What does it add to the film? Nothing. Why is it present? I honestly don’t know, but this thankfully isn’t a big issue. Bigger at stake is an old Selznick stand-by: mind-numbingly overlong monologues. I don’t know if Selznick really liked movies, but he most certainly liked books and plays, and seeked to equal their word count. Again, this is a problem that doesn’t make the film intolerable, but prevents it from being any more than a decent relic of its time and something easier to respect than to truly enjoy.

I don’t regret seeing A Star is Born, because there are some truly brilliant elements at play in the story. However, I don’t know if I will ever watch it again because it falls prey to so many classic Selznickian traps. Luckily, it’s not nearly as insufferably self-indulgent as Portrait of Jennie or, of course, Gone with the Wind, and the positives do make for some truly classic elements. However, anyone without quite a bit of patience would be better off sticking to the 1954 remake.