To get the taste of the last blog post's subject out of my mouth, I decided to watch the HD-DVD version of Batman Begins. I forgot, or more accurately relearned, that video and aural bells and whistles ("mixed metaphor there, doc") cannot strengthen a meandering script--in the case of this film, who's the real villain. I liked the actors, but the action was too choppy and disjointed, so I spent my time trying to figure out which portions of Chicago* were real, and which portions the product of CGI. (Lower Wacker Drive--again!?)
Michael Caine's effortlessly polished performance as Alfred, the butler ("Nevv-ah!"), though, led me to pop in a movie I had been meaning to watch, Get Carter (NOT the abominable remake with Sylvester Stallone). In the original 1971 production, Caine plays a London gangster who journeys north to Newcastle to investigate the death of his brother. My ulterior motive for watching this was the portrayal of a Newcastle gangster chief by John Osborne--his only appearance, as far as I know, in films.
Well, Osborne's performance was languidly reptilian and Newcastle's industrial grunge pictorially fascinating (was that why they picked Seattle for the remake?). But the movie as a whole was unsatisfying, maybe because it was too knowing. On the train ride north, Carter is reading Raymond Chandler's Farewell, My Lovely--the title is shown twice, in case you miss it. OK, nice in-joke--except a spiv like Carter would read Mickey Spillane if anything--not Chandler's simile-sodden prose and period wisecracks. And the plot itself, while suitably quest-like (and it's Chandler who names a character Orfamay Quest, and in FML, Mrs. Grayle), just gets too numbing. And director Mike Hodges overuses telephoto shots--why use that lens in an over-the-shoulder shot when the blur of the person in front obscures the face of the speaker?
But one moment of pure movie acting made my viewing worthwhile. After bedding a northern gangster's girlfriend, Carter turns on a 16mm porn movie for some entertainment. As the movie goes on, Carter realizes the identity of one of the participants, and the way that Caine shows that dawning revelation, both cognitively and emotionally, is masterful. In that moment of pure film, I "got" Carter.
*It's ironic that here they use Chicago as a model for Gotham City, because in the comics Gotham City was modeled on New York, and Metropolis on Chicago. Smallville was in Illinois.
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5 comments:
I never got that Metropolis was supposed to be Chicago in the old Superman books. I'll have to look at those again. My dad grew up in Chicago in the days when those books were being created.
I agree with you on Batman Begins. A good overall gestalt, and decent acting (Caine at the top, of course) but little plot.
So did I (grow up in Chicago). :)
Well, I see from Wikipedia that Smallville has no set location, other than its proximity to Metropolis. Eventually it was located in Kansas.
Metropolis--well, I always took it in the 1950s that Gotham City, because of the name "Gotham," was New York City (the nickname given it by Washington Irving). Therefore, Metropolis would be Chicago, since Smallville was a more Midwestern town.
I see that Metropolis has also been seen as having its origins in Toronto and Cleveland.
That's what happens when you stop following a cultural myth for 45 years.
Maybe it depends on which of the infinite Earths you're on?
Me think me only Bizzaro on this Earth sometimes.
Syncronicity! (from, of all places, the December 24, 1927 record reviews in "The New Yorker")...
"IN A SHADY NOOK BY A BABBLING BROOK and DREAM KISSES. The Gotham Troubadours (Gotham seems to be a slang for New York) always are sweet and yet loud. This is a good foot-warmer."
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