Moneyball
This wasn’t too bad for a baseball movie, a genre in which I have very little interest. Luckily there weren’t too many scenes of game play (other than an interminable montage of the record-breaking win), as the film is more about the behind-the-scenes world of the game. The subject matter, therefore, is interesting, but the film falters in many places in its craft. What I found most grating was the constant use of shot/reverse-shot setups. Nearly every conversation was staged this way, with alternating shots of one actor speaking or reacting to another. Using more two-shots not only adds variety, but also gives the actors more space to act with rather than against each other. For more effective editing of dialogue scenes, see any Howard Hawks film (and it helps that his dialogue is of rather higher quality than that in Moneyball). So this really isn’t an actors’ film, though Jonah Hill gives a very good performance and deserves his nomination. The other grating element is the score, which was simply awful. It is a fine example of how music can detrimentally overdetermine a film’s action. Ironically, the score to The Artist is much less intrusive even though there is so much more of it. But my biggest qualm is the treatment of the ball players: the film gives a good illustration of how professional sports players are bought and sold like horseflesh, but it should have gone further in critiquing that exchange of bodies. Even though the film’s message would seem to be that you have to look below the surface to best use someone’s talents, the characters on both sides of the ‘moneyball’ theory act in the same way, exchanging people as commodities. In summary (before I turn into Adorno), Moneyball was not as bad as I feared it might be, but it still wasn’t very good. Unfortunately this seems to be a mantra for many of the nominated films, most of which have some glaring flaws but none of which are truly bad (for the record, my benchmark for the truly bad is Black Swan, to which I might devote another post).
The Tree of Life
This is definitely the most ambitious film of the year, and it’s a mess, but a compelling one. Some scenes are stunning, especially those that focus on nature. Malick doesn’t film people very well: there are far too many steadicam and handheld shots, which results in a sense of vertigo, and the many jump cuts draw attention to the camera rather than to the acting and the subject matter. Many have called this a deeply philosophical film, but it’s really rather obvious: you try to reconcile between the way of the Father and the way of the Mother. The scenes of the creation of the world don’t fit but they’re beautiful; maybe Malick should become a nature documentary filmmaker. The present-day scenes with Sean Penn aren’t enough a part of the film to really feel necessary. We don’t need the extra layer. That said, the last dream-like scene is great, as is the first montage of the three brothers growing up. In those scenes, more about mood than about character, the camera’s fluidity works well. The sound design and integration of music is excellent throughout. In short, this is the twenty-first-century version of 2001, just with Berlioz’s Requiem instead of Ligeti’s. Both films share the attempt to tell you everything about life in a little over two hours, and although both fail they are worthy attempts.
War Horse
I seem to remember enjoying this when I saw it last month in the cinema, but I’ve quite forgotten everything about it by now. It’s that kind of film.
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