The Black Dahlia December 30, 2006
Posted by clydefro in : Modern Films, 2000s , 1 comment so far
Uninspiringly dull, The Black Dahlia
These criticisms are particularly disappointing on a personal level, as this was a film I’d been looking forward to since David Fincher was originally attached to direct (allegedly in black and white) with Mark Wahlberg and Josh Hartnett starring. Wahlberg also dropped out and was replaced by Aaron Eckhart while Hartnett, unfortunately, still had nothing better to do when the cameras finally began rolling with De Palma at the helm. The two actors play police officers Dwight “Bucky” Bleichert (Hartnett) and Lee Blanchard (Eckhart), both of whom also used to box from time to time. Much of the film’s first half is promising, as we see the two boxing cops face off in the ring for a fund raiser in support of a police-friendly ballot proposition. The successful passing of the initiative leads to promotions for each, and the two men become partners serving warrants.
This partnership translates to their personal lives as Bleichart becomes a frequent guest at the home of Blanchard and his live-in female companion Kay Lake (Scarlett Johansson). While the detectives are on a stakeout, a young woman’s heavily mutilated body is found in a field nearby. The victim is Elizabeth Short, a wannabe starlet from Boston, who’s dubbed the Black Dahlia by the press. Along with the murder case, there are other stories interwoven from Ellroy’s book involving a man Blanchard had arrested in a bank heist who’s now about to be released from prison and Bleichert’s investigation of a wealthy Dahlia lookalike (Hilary Swank). Eventually, everything meshes into a connected, mildly coherent storyline but not until the underwhelming end of the movie.
For this film to really work, the performances need to be top-notch and they just aren’t. Hartnett is simply not a good actor. He’s not equipped with the emotional range required to effectively play Bleichert. Eckhart is merely okay and, through no fault of his own, isn’t given the opportunity to show much of what makes Blanchard tick. He’s clearly a secondary character in the film, whose motivations are never really explored. While I’ve always found Scarlett Johansson an alluring screen presence, she should avoid taking roles like this one as she probably doesn’t do it justice. Her performance comes across as acting more than feeling. Both Hartnett and her seem too young or inexperienced to fully inhabit their roles.
On the bright side, it was good to see Hilary Swank in a more feminine part for a change, albeit as a bisexual. She comes out mostly unscathed, as does Mia Kirshner, who gives the most interesting and best performance in the film, playing the ill-fated Elizabeth Short in black and white (and Academy ratio) screen test clips from before the murder. The Betty Short we see in this footage is a bright-eyed, if somewhat delusional, innocent slowly shattered by her failed dreams of becoming a movie star. However, simply seeing Hartnett, given his limited range, as he watches the clips falls far short of showing what it is about this woman that’s compelled so many people for nearly fifty years. Then there’s Fiona Shaw, who manages to nearly ruin the movie with her mere two scenes by launching into hysterics that seem to belong in another film entirely.
My main source of disappointment lies in the great potential lurking in Ellroy’s novel. It’s one thing to make a humdrum movie out of nothing, but it’s entirely different when the starting point is such an impressive book. For example, the triangle between the two cops and Kay Lake should have been an intense, psychological web of lies and revelations. Instead, we have a few loose ends quickly tied up long after anyone cares. The Dahlia murder, despite not being the focus of most of the movie before, dominates the unsatisfying ending. De Palma pays as little attention as possible to the crime throughout, until the very end when the director suddenly jumps out with a dispassionate crib sheet containing the details of the killing. This leaves the viewer, who will not understand most anything at the end unless close attention is paid, wondering why the Bleichert-Lake-Blanchard arc was teased so much if the finale is just going to descend into a bland whodunit with a killer we barely know or care about.
Overall, I just wanted De Palma to make up his mind with which story he was telling - the Dahlia murder or the detectives working it. Trying to merge the two was an unfortunate choice that ends up muddying the whole thing. Even though it would have strayed from the source material, I would have preferred the murder to have remained unsolved in the movie to allow for more of an exploration into the mindsets of the detectives and their shared paramour. Blanchard disappeared way too early, before his personality was fully established and his story had been better explored by Ellroy. I’m the last person who’d fault a film simply for straying from its source material, but such an obvious step down artistically can be maddening when a much better option exists in the original version.
Lest a recommendation seem curious, I should point out that I did find a lot to like in The Black Dahlia. Working as both a blessing and a curse, L.A. Confidential, one of the finest films of the last ten years, probably boosted interest in another adaptation of an Ellroy book while also burdening it with an incredibly high standard of comparison. I think The Black Dahlia wilts under such comparisons, but it’s still an above-average effort regardless of its failures. If you can make out the story, it’s fairly compelling (though still far inferior to Ellroy’s novel) and the look and feel of the movie, despite being a little undistinguished, is a welcome attempt at re-creating 1940s Los Angeles via Bulgaria, where it was actually filmed. While something seems off visually (too drab, maybe), I don’t want to fault the filmmakers too much for the look, given the limitations of the shoot, when it’s not nearly as problematic as the miscasting of Hartnett and some of the decisions in the storytelling.
Ultimately, The Black Dahlia is a highly frustrating film that is unlikely to please those most interested in what it has to offer, let alone the average moviegoer. The Universal DVD at least has a nice variation of the theatrical poster on its cover (though not as striking as the French one-sheet that I’ve included here) and featurettes that provide more information on the actual murder case, as well as some making-of footage and a corporate sponsored fluff piece about the “De Palma touch,” amid the usual self-congratulatory backslapping. Despite its shortcomings, I’d still recommend the film to those with an interest in the subject matter. It’s a watchable failure that should be seen before being dismissed. Overall, however, it adds up to a forgettable effort that should have been better.
Remember the Night December 24, 2006
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, 1940s , add a comment
I’m continuing my unofficial series on films unavailable on DVD that were directed by Mitchell Leisen and written by brilliant future writer-directors (see Midnight) with Remember the Night, from 1940. Scripted by Preston Sturges, the film is set at Christmas in New York City (although Paramount released it in early January for some reason, probably the worst time of the year to release a Christmas-themed movie). After catching up with the film recently via its Turner Classic Movies debut, I searched around the internet for information about this neglected gem. I read almost everything I could find about the film, which wasn’t much, and nearly every article or blurb seemed to point out its status as a forgotten Christmas treasure with a perfect balance of sentimentality and humor. Well then, why, I wondered, is Remember the Night not better known, even among classic film buffs.
It certainly seems to have the pedigree. Leisen was a capable director who had just made the wonderful Midnight, written for the screen by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett, the year before. Sturges was a true wunderkind who began his string of classic comedies the year after Remember the Night, which would be the last screenplay he wrote but didn’t also direct, was released. Stars Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray are genuinely likeable, popular actors who reteamed for one of the absolute greatest movies of all time four years later when they made Double Indemnity so one would think that the interest would definitely be there in that regard.
The cast of supporting characters is quite good as well, with Beulah Bondi and Sterling Holloway (who’d go on to voice such Disney characters as Winnie the Pooh and the Cheshire Cat) featured prominently. There are no legal problems regarding its showing or release to home video (it was released on VHS, but prices are now outrageously hefty for a copy). Universal controls those rights, from their lucrative deal with Paramount, but thus far there’s been no hint that they’re interested in providing a DVD release, even though the print shown on TCM looked quite good and absent any significant damage.
Then there’s the film itself, which is not quite at the level of other films scripted by Sturges, but still manages to be highly enjoyable. It’s genuinely moving and romantic at times, as well as offering a decent amount of humor. Opening with a shot of a woman’s wristwatch in a jewelry store, we soon realize that she has left the store without paying for her expensive timepiece. She’s later caught trying to pawn the watch and arrested. The next scenes take place in a courtroom with prosecutor Fred MacMurray trying to convict the shoplifter, played by the enchanting Barbara Stanwyck. MacMurray’s problem is that it’s much more difficult, he claims, to persuade a jury to convict near Christmas, especially when the accused is female.
Following an over-the-top summation by the defense attorney, who posits that his client may have been hypnotized by the shiny jewels (!), MacMurray wins a continuance to have the trial postponed until after Christmas, leaving Stanwyck in jail for the holiday. With his guilt getting the better of him, MacMurray has a bail bondsman provide her release and the next thing you know the two are on their way to Indiana, where it just so happens both of them are from. Not surprisingly, although it never seems like a foregone conclusion in these actors’ hands, the two grow closer during their time away from the big city and they begin to dread the pending remainder of the trial. The ending shouldn’t be spoiled, but it’s well done and comparatively realistic despite being somewhat unsatisfying.
While MacMurray is effective and an enjoyable screen presence, the film really belongs to Barbara Stanwyck. As anyone who’s seen The Lady Eve, directed by Sturges a year later, can attest, she was at her alluring height at this time and her performance here is really of a high caliber. I read one article on the film that mentioned Sturges’ original script focused much more on MacMurray’s character, but Leisen was very impressed with Stanwyck and altered the final product to make her the main character. If this is accurate then it was a good decision by Leisen (who didn’t always have the best instincts in such situations and didn’t appreciate input from his screenwriters), catering to the strengths of both MacMurray, who evokes a perfect sense of noble understatement, and Stanwyck, who excelled at playing strong female characters while retaining just the right amount of sensitivity.
Now, returning to the idea of Remember the Night as an underseen Christmas classic, it’s worth mentioning that the film doesn’t have a lot of the things found in other, more enduring holiday films. While there’s a healthy dash of humor, it’s more romance than comedy overall with the romance not really kicking in for much of the picture and, even then, unavoidably as somewhat of a doomed proposition given the circumstances. Also, the sentimentality is never grating and not as heavy as in many other holiday-themed classics. In fact, Christmas serves mostly as a backdrop for the story, necessary to bring these two together, and not as the film’s main attraction. The only scene that feels truly to belong in a Christmas-themed film is when MacMurray’s family, along with Stanwyck, are gathered around their tree. Of course, many of the themes in the film are closely tied to Christmas and certainly appropriate to the holiday. Nevertheless, my point is that it works as a seasonal favorite while also playing well other times of the year, more so than, say, Miracle on 34th Street or It’s a Wonderful Life.
Unfortunately, the use of Fred “Snowflake” Toones as MacMurray’s butler Rufus is, despite being thankfully brief and only in the first part of the film, cringingly offensive to today’s audiences and troubling enough to make me wonder if it may have contributed to Remember the Night’s unavailability on DVD. I’m not a believer in censoring or ignoring shameful moments in cinema history, but I can also see (even if I don’t agree with) the argument for suppressing such hurtful content. The problem thus lies in the numerous instances in classic movies with racially insensitive scenes, making it virtually impossible to release unaltered versions of many otherwise worthy films without including some offensive content. The only real solution is to trust the audience enough to allow for these films to be released despite their undesirable moments, with the hope that we can learn from past mistakes and recognize the wrongness in such scenes.
Despite those brief, distasteful moments, Remember the Night remains a more than worthy candidate for DVD release and a welcome addition to the holiday film catalog. There are enough of the staples we’ve come to expect from such films, while also providing a refreshing absence of cloying sentimentality. As in It’s a Wonderful Life, there are some serious themes and darker ideas explored in Remember the Night that would please the cynical viewers who are fed up with more saccharine fare. And the romance between the tough prosecutor and his accused is effective enough to melt even the most Grinch-like of hearts. All in all, it’s a fine film made even more enjoyable by its relative obscurity, which adds a sense of discovery that’s becoming increasingly rare nowadays.
Leave Her to Heaven December 22, 2006
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, 1940s , add a comment
Humans are so easily seduced by beauty that we often associate it with positive qualities such as virtue, innocence and goodness. Regardless of how much we know about beautiful things, we want to think the best of them and often demonstrate an unearned sense of trust as though they’re somehow above normal fallibility. Children are taught at a young age to think of villainous characters as ugly, beastly creatures through fairy tales and other stories. Movies and television shows frequently show us dark, grimy streets as synonymous to dangerous areas where crime always threatens. By contrast, the wilderness, instead of being a lonely, isolated locale, is thought of as serene, calm and pure. Sunny suburbia with its green lawns and abundant flowers has come to symbolize a happy safety which, aside from subversive films such as Blue Velvet, has continued the positive reinforcement of beauty as a wholesome quality.
The filmmaker Douglas Sirk dared to peel back this apparent beauty (well over forty years before Best Picture winner American Beauty shoved the tagline “look closer” down audiences’ throats) and show its ugly underside with his forays into the subversive melodrama of films such as All That Heaven Allows, Magnificent Obsession and Imitation of Life. The latter two of these had actually been filmed roughly twenty years before Sirk’s versions by director John M. Stahl. Stahl’s major contribution to showing beauty as a deceptive tool to achieving horrifically evil outcomes is the 1945 film Leave Her to Heaven
On the surface, Leave Her to Heaven looks like one of the most beautifully gorgeous movies of its era. The rich Technicolor is put to great use in the many outdoor scenes. We see vivid blue skies, rippling water, and rugged mountains. Then we have Gene Tierney, certainly one of the most luminous presences to ever appear onscreen. Just one year prior, Dana Andrews was so taken with her in Laura that he fell in love with her picture despite thinking she was dead. By being so closely associated with her attractive looks, Tierney was the perfect choice for the role of Ellen in Leave Her to Heaven. It continued the misleading aesthetic of plastering beauty on the screen despite the film’s inherent nastiness and parallels to film noir.
In the film, Ellen meets Richard Harland (the bland Cornel Wilde) on a train when she drops a book, of which he happens to be the author, in front of him. This is the type of first encounter perfectly suited for a romantic comedy, yet Leave Her to Heaven is neither of these. That’s not apparent throughout most of the first half, however, as we see the couple fall for each other, culminating in Ellen breaking her engagement to a fledgling district attorney (Vincent Price) via telegram and quickly marrying Richard. This all happens just days after spreading her father’s ashes on horseback, which we see in a scene that’s memorable for both its cinematography and as a testament to Ellen’s peculiar feelings for her father.
Things begin to go awry shortly after the marriage, when Ellen feels Richard’s brother Danny (a “cripple,” as Ellen describes him) is infringing on her time with her new husband. Hints of sexual frustration run rampant as Ellen’s morning approach into Richard’s bed is interrupted by Danny pecking on the thin walls right behind them. The younger brother’s chilling fate is sealed, but Ellen’s jealousy and paranoia (hints of which are shown in the stories she tells about the time she spent with her father) will continue until she’s no longer capable of such emotions. Her idea to substitute a new baby for the loss of Danny is a momentary solution until she realizes how much attention a child would divert from her. By the time her jealousy reaches its zenith, as she suspects Richard has fallen for her adopted sister Ruth, Ellen decides to get back at both of them regardless of the personal consequences.
Tierney’s performance is best appreciated on a second viewing, I think, after the viewer already knows the lengths in which her character goes to keep her husband to herself and, then, punish him for his perceived neglect. Being aware of Ellen’s future actions makes Tierney all the more chilling early on, especially when she describes her future husband’s physical resemblance to her recently deceased father. The seemingly innocent suggestion, met with uncertain glances by the rest of her family, becomes a warning sign for Ellen’s future actions. Likewise the unexpected engagement thrust on the couple from Ellen’s seemingly impulsive rationale to dump her fiance serves as an ominous foreshadowing of things to come. Tierney’s sunny demeanor in these first several scenes, along with the idea that she’s acting just as an audience would expect from a lead actress in a Technicolor melodrama, make for a greater jolt of an impact once she puts on those dark sunglasses and transforms into an icy murderess.
The courtroom scenes at the end, as well as the ridiculous bookends of Richard returning from two years in prison, are by far the film’s weakest segments. By no coincidence, those happen to be the only times when Gene Tierney isn’t on the screen and they make you realize how important her presence is to elevate Leave Her to Heaven above the corny and dated melodrama of other similar movies. Vincent Price hammily questioning witnesses is just not as captivating as Gene Tierney doing pretty much anything. It’s a small complaint, but I also couldn’t help but be frustrated by the completely moronic behavior of the defense attorney both in court and as the opening storyteller at the beginning. As a lawyer, it’s most likely not a good idea to tell a total stranger that you were probably responsible for a client’s two-year prison term.
Until it descends into a laughable courtroom drama (blatant disregard for the rules of hearsay in film makes me cringe!), Leave Her to Heaven is an interesting spin on both melodrama and film noir, as though the two sub-genres gave birth to a beautifully disturbed slice of cinema. The focus on a jealously paranoid (and beautiful) murderer as a heroine makes the film much more compelling than it would have been if she were a peripheral character. It twists the preconceived notions the audience has about main characters in movies, as well as about beauty, by offering up a lead actress who ably transforms herself into the opposite of what we’ve come to expect from movies of the 1940s and earlier. She’s the well-liked gunfighter with the white hat who carries himself like a sheriff, but then shoots an unarmed man in the back. Just as we don’t often see such activity in westerns, it’s rare to find a movie that so willfully turns assumptions upside down as Leave Her to Heaven.
On Dangerous Ground December 14, 2006
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, 1950s, Nicholas Ray , 3 comments
If asked to pick only one actor who most personified film noir, most people would probably choose either Humphrey Bogart or Robert Mitchum. However, after watching many of these films on DVD over the past few years, I’d be inclined to pick Robert Ryan. My rationale is fairly simple. Bogart, with few exceptions, is much more charismatic and charming than Ryan, who would certainly never have been cast in any of the likeable anti-hero roles (think Sam Spade, Rick Blaine and Philip Marlowe) with which we associate Bogart. Ryan’s formidable 6′4″ frame negated the need to smart-talk his way out of jams like Bogart often did. Instead, we often see Ryan as a lit fuse, pounding his fists into whatever has the misfortune of getting in his way.
Mitchum, in contrast to Bogart, was adept at playing it cool or nasty (see Out of the Past and The Night of the Hunter), but, probably as a result of both his popularity and longevity, also frequently got shoved into romantic roles (often with some adventure thrown in as well) before finally settling into several television miniseries parts and reminding people that beef was what’s for dinner. In a sense, Ryan’s versatility was never really tested and that’s precisely why he’s the perfect noir actor. The first images that come to mind of Ryan are most likely to be from one of his many noir roles. Even in films not strictly adhering to noir aesthetics, such as The Naked Spur or Bad Day at Black Rock, Ryan’s characters often remain entrenched in the noir mold, mysteriously flawed or even downright cruel.
Aside from being noir icons, all three men also worked with director Nicholas Ray. Bogart gave arguably his best performance as screenwriter Dixon Steele in Ray’s In a Lonely Place, while Mitchum’s time at RKO coincided with Ray’s uncredited contributions to Macao and The Racket, as well as The Lusty Men, a Ray-helmed western co-starring Susan Hayward that’s curiously still unavailable on DVD. Robert Ryan appeared prominently in five films that Ray worked on, including On Dangerous Ground
Wilson is a police officer troubled by the constant crime and corruption in the city and questioning whether his dedication has gotten him anywhere. His way of coping includes violent interrogation of suspects and using whatever means necessary to catch criminals. These methods, along with his own loneliness, are starting to catch up with him when his superior sends him upstate to investigate the murder of a young girl. Once there, he reluctantly partners with the girl’s father (Ward Bond), who’s looking only for revenge, and finally finds an emotional connection, in the unlikely form of the killer’s blind sister, played by Ida Lupino (who is inexplicably given top billing - and featured in the poster’s absurd tagline - despite only appearing in the final half of the film).
Clocking in at a brisk 82 minutes, On Dangerous Ground really manages to use the most of its short running time. The film’s first third or so, taking place in the city, is filled with dark shadows and shiny urban streets that have become hallmarks of the noir genre. Especially striking is the innovative use of a hand-held camera. Scenes such as a chase into an alleyway become jarringly realistic, an unexpected touch for a film well over fifty years old. When the setting shifts upstate, the darkness (both externally and internally for the protagonist) transforms into snowy white vistas that are photographed impressively, if not breathtakingly (albeit made less so by the muddy and disappointing R1 DVD transfer). The bleak, bright landscape, as well as certain elements of the story, is reminiscent of the modern anti-noir Insomnia.
Bernard Herrmann’s score provides a unique aural burst in the action scenes of On Dangerous Ground. Sounding sort of like a dry run for his memorable Vertigo score, Herrmann’s instrumentation is strikingly effective and a vast improvement over the scores usually found in similar films, which often seem to serve as the orchestral version of a laughtrack by instructing viewers when to feel particular emotions. While I can understand how some might find it distracting, Herrmann’s work here is nearly impossible to ignore or forget and provides an added dimension to the film experience.
When I watch the films of Nicholas Ray, I’m consistently amazed at what he was able to accomplish while working for studios in an era of such heavy censorship. The 1950s were not kind to many visionary filmmakers, who were often forced to water down their ideas or removed entirely from a production. Yet, Ray was able to make films that are like almost nothing else produced during that time. He explored the themes of alienation and loneliness, topics rarely broached by his American contemporaries, with keen awareness and without judging his characters. His frequent refusal to tack on happy endings (notwithstanding the final redemption, ordered by RKO head Howard Hughes, found in On Dangerous Ground) is especially refreshing in light of seeing so many inane finales where everything is wrapped up with a shiny red bow.
On Dangerous Ground, armed with Ray’s superb direction and Ryan’s archetypal performance, is a classic of its genre. It builds an atmosphere of uneasy intensity, flaunting its emotionally wounded hero in search of his ultimate redemption. The film is one of Ray’s best and proudly ranks alongside other first-rate examples of film noir. Even though I was disappointed in both the R1 DVD transfer and the decision by Warner Bros. to not offer the DVD separately from its box set, there’s little reason not to own such a fine film.
Gerry December 8, 2006
Posted by clydefro in : Modern Films, 2000s , add a comment
Is it possible to spoil a movie where almost nothing happens? What about when there’s no emotional attachment to the characters and their actions are rarely interesting and never explained? In Gerry
Here’s what we do see in Gerry: the two men, who call each other Gerry at different points in the movie as well as using the word as both a verb and noun, drive up to a hiking area; they lose their way and split up wherein Affleck “maroons” himself on a rock thirty feet or so above ground, leading to Damon building a “dirt mattress” for him to jump into; night falls and they bicker about how to get back to civilization; they begin seeing mirages as Affleck appears to descend into mental instability; Damon turns on his friend, choking Affleck to death before realizing he’s near the highway where he hitchhikes to safety. In between, we’re treated to very long shots of the desert, of the sky, and of the actors both close up and far away. It’s an empty story and Gerry is an empty film.
For me, the problem with the film lies in the total lack of interest in anything being shown. The two characters appear to the audience as essentially nameless beings placed in the desert without any backstory and with little reason to care about their fate. We know nothing about these men or their lives aside from their apparent friendship, one’s interest in a computer game about prairie life on the frontier, and that the other found humor in the idiocy of Wheel of Fortune contestants. Their actions are just as unhelpful since most of the movie shows them walking or standing silently. I suppose their silence could be seen as stoicism and thus opening up discussion as to some type of exploration into male behavior, but that seems to be grasping at straws with which we’re barely even tempted.
With hollow shells for characters, maybe Van Sant wants his audience to look elsewhere for their enlightment here. If so, he should have provided more than a maddening exercise in testing his viewers’ patience. The open-endedness allows for much interpretation, such as whether the name “Gerry” signals that we’re looking at two halves of the same coin, but there’s just not enough to go on to even make these types of absurd inquiries worthwhile. Any similar theories would certainly be stretching what we see on screen beyond logical inferences and into futile personal opinion.
If you favor sobriety when you watch your movies, I can’t see too much to recommend in Gerry. The two scenes that I found most striking were when Affleck was on the rock and the mirage part where we see Affleck talking to Damon just before Damon walks up and we realize Affleck was really talking to a hallucination. Both of these scenes were interesting, but would have been more effective in a better movie. Even the climactic choking scene is uninspiringly dull, without any real motivation. Did Damon teeter into madness or was he just sick of dealing with his friend? I don’t think there’s any way to know and, by the time we leave the characters, they’ve left minimal impression anyway.
Of course, it’s possible I’m missing something important that’s gone over my head about the film. Gus Van Sant is certainly a talented filmmaker, even if he seems prone to sometimes choosing projects better left unmade. Overall, though, Gerry just seems like it’s lacking in most everything we expect from movies. Regardless of personal taste, there must be something present to provide more interest than, say, looking out the window. Somewhere, with some additional information for the audience or more activity amongst the characters, this could be an interesting and thought-provoking movie. Unfortunately, Van Sant didn’t make that film and instead opted for a filmed coffee table book moonlighting as an existential struggle of two men stranded in the desert.
Inland Empire December 3, 2006
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I went to sleep thinking about Inland Empire and now I’ve awakened with Inland Empire still swirling around in my head. I think this is what David Lynch wants from his audience, and it’s hard to argue that his audience isn’t looking for the same thing. Otherwise, why would they continue to watch his movies. Lynch exploits the voyeur side of the viewer like no other film director, save possibly Hitchcock, and he dares you to keep watching. With Inland Empire, he has created his most difficult and challenging feature yet. The three-hour incomprehensible nightmare is a frustrating and bleak step into Lynch’s world, certain to polarize audiences who manage to sit through it.
No matter what anyone says, the “plot” of Inland Empire is going to have some major question marks regardless of how much you dissect what you’ve seen. There’s certainly a narrative to be found which, although extremely fractured, provides a basic outline of what’s on the screen. Laura Dern is playing an actress just cast in somewhat of a comeback role opposite Justin Theroux’s character, an actor with a reputation for bedding his female co-stars. Jeremy Irons is the director of the Southern melodrama-type film, which we learn was first filmed with Polish actors but never finished due to the deaths of its stars. It’s the rest of Inland Empire, meaning the great majority, that borders on incoherence.
Some of the scenes, like the frequent clips in Polish, can be explained while others, such as the humanlike rabbits voiced by Mulholland Drive cast members, are much more difficult to find their significance. Truthfully, no matter how much I think about it, those rabbits who appear as if they’re on a soundstage for a sitcom do not seem to fit anywhere with the rest of the movie. That’s okay, however, as viewers have realized that Lynch’s films can sometimes be puzzles with some pieces from other puzzles stuck in there and with other pieces missing altogether. David Lynch certainly doesn’t play by the rules of conventional filmmaking and that’s precisely the reason he has so many admirers. He’s built up a deserved reputation that allows him to make something like Inland Empire without too much of a backlash from those seeking linear narratives and coherent stories.
With so little information to grasp on to, the viewer truly becomes trapped in Lynch’s nightmare vision. What we often describe as nightmares rarely make sense and the disorienting feeling that accompanies them is often just as frightening. With Inland Empire, Lynch has crafted the closest thing to a nightmare that audiences have seen in some time, if ever. His use of digital video is certainly not the most aesthetically pleasing format for moviegoers, but it’s consistent with the grainy, dreamlike atmosphere he establishes elsewhere.
Aside from the general feeling of uneasiness that I’ve felt since watching it, I have two relatively minor criticisms of Inland Empire. First, I didn’t care for the distracting use of well-known movie stars in a couple of roles of little or no significance. William H. Macy shows up for literally a few seconds in a completely unimportant role and Mary Steenburgen has very little screentime as well. The latter’s role made little sense also, but at least it sort of fit thematically. Harry Dean Stanton has a tad more time on screen, but also seems useless aside from the laughs his bizarre comments elicit. His part is almost reminiscent of the superior role his Paris, Texas brother Dean Stockwell had in Blue Velvet, not in the two characters’ behavior so much as their strangeness in being there at all. There are a couple of more well-known actresses that pop up seemingly for little reason at the very end as well.
The other thing I found distractingly off in the movie was Lynch’s attempts in the second half to jolt his audience like they were watching a slasher film. I don’t need David Lynch using cheap techniques like sudden screams or flashing lights to startle me. The atmosphere he creates thoughout the film is so perfectly nightmarish that stunts like that are somewhat insulting and unnecessary. The movie is effectively creepy without these little tricks. Lynch has always known the value of off-kilter shocks (such as the “Loco-motion” performance here) so I was disappointed to see him use more conventional horror devices.
On another note, the screening I attended was surreal in itself. When David Lynch was introduced, he walked onto the stage with a man holding a trumpet. Lynch stepped to the microphone and said he’d like to begin with a trumpet improv. The man played his solo, the audience clapped and Lynch then read, I believe, a tribal poem of some kind. After the movie was over, Lynch talked a little about the digital video camera he used and how people tend to have problems with movies when they stray “just a hair” from being easily understandable. Of course Inland Empire is more than “just a hair” away from being easily understood and Lynch provided no additional clues, though I’m not sure I’d want to know anyway. Audience members were also rewarded with “David Lynch Signature Cup” coffee sample packs on their way out. “It’s all in the beans…and I’m just full of beans,” is printed on the label along with Lynch’s partially obscured face.
Some people will hate Inland Empire while others will declare it a masterpiece. I can’t say I’m in either camp. I found a lot to like about it after thinking about the movie for a while, but I was frustrated while watching it. It takes you to a place that’s far from pleasant and not somewhere I’d want to return to anytime soon. Then again, the only way to make sense of the thing is to see it again, as though repeating a nightmare. We’re all voyeurs. Lynch knows this. That’s why I’m sure I’ll see it again at some point.
I’ve intentionally omitted a rating because a movie like this is essentially impossible to rate.