Worst Literary Adaptations, Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3- I only had time for The Scarlet Letter and Lady in the Lake this week, although I nearly chose a few others before deciding to hold off so I could write When Good Directors Go Bad columns about them.
Of all the genres of movies out there, none maintains such a direct connection to the emotions as the musical. Most musicals have used this power to evoke in audiences an ecstatic joy, but a chosen few have had a different goal in mind. Here are five of them- all are excellent, but none of them really leaves you floating on air.
West Side Story- coming at the tail end of the golden age of Hollywood musicals, this adaptation of Leonard Bernstein's Broadway smash combined the elaborate choreography of its predecessors with the blue-collar, inner-city milieu that had become more prevalent over the past decade. The story combines the ill-fated lovers of Romeo and Juliet with a touch of the social-problem picture, and although it's leavened with great music and powerhouse dancing, it's nonetheless a far cry from Gene Kelly hanging from a lamp post. If downbeat musicals can be classified a subgenre, this was the wellspring.
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg- more than four decades later, Jacques Demy's masterpiece remains the ultimate musical weepie. The film cannily charms you early on with its candy colored storefronts, singing mechanics, and the gorgeous Catherine Deneuve, all of it set to a gorgeous stem-to-stern Michel Legrand song score. But around the time we really start to love the lovely but shallow lovers, life decides it has other plans for them, and promptly tears them apart. As each learns to live without the other, their characters become more substantial, but at the cost of their youthful innocence. Umbrellas is one of the rare musicals with a theme that's entirely pragmatic, dealing with the tragic inevitability of setting aside childish dreams and growing the hell up. Also, I believe that modern medicine has proven that anyone who doesn't get choked up by the time the film reaches its final scene (posted above) doesn't have a soul.
All That Jazz- of all filmmakers who tackled musicals during the 1970s, Bob Fosse was the most successful. His earlier film Cabaret was a strong contender for this list, lest we forget, for example, that Liza's final showstopping number is sung to a room full of Nazis. But this list is unimaginable without All That Jazz, in which Fosse adopts the template of 8 1/2 to display his own foibles and frailties. Roy Scheider's Joe Gideon is a real piece of work- a pill-popping, womanizing, authority-bucking, workaholic genius- and Fosse to his credit gives us one of the most lacerating cinematic portraits of an artist ever made, all the more startling because the artist is himself. More than that, Fosse paints show business as an industry that not only encourages but rewards people like this, forgiving them their sins and enabling their addictions until every little drop of life has been wrung out of them. The film's final scene says it all- Gideon's corpse being zipped up in a bodybag as "There's No Business Like Show Business" plays in the background.
(apologies for the poor video quality)
Pennies From Heaven- audiences in 1981 were caught completely unawares by this film, with the famously wild-and-crazy Steve Martin cast as a two-timing, down'n'out sheet music salesman whose only solace is in his own fantasy world, inspired by big-screen musicals. Herbert Ross' astounding production numbers hearken back to the heyday of Busby Berkeley and Fred Astaire, celebrating their graceful hoofing and complex blocking while highlighting the lockstep form of good cheer that made them almost off-putting. But even more disturbing is the contrast between these scenes and the film's "real" world, in which Martin browbeats his puritanical wife, seduces, impregnates, and abandons small-town schoolteacher Bernadette Peters (which leads her into becoming a prostitute) and ends up being executed for a murder he didn't commit. The film was written by the great Dennis Potter, based on his BBC miniseries, and true to his style nearly all of the songs in the film are lip-synched to period recordings. The exception is in the climactic number, in which Martin, standing atop the gallows, speak-sings the title song to the audience, so deep has he fallen into his delusions. Of all the bitter pills on this list, Pennies From Heaven may be the toughest to swallow.
Dancer in the Dark- Lars Von Trier has never been known for his cheerful visions, and when he announced he was making a musical there were quite a few raised eyebrows. But rather than crafting a joyful romp, Von Trier went in the opposite direction, making perhaps the most emotionally draining film of his career. Much like Pennies From Heaven, Dancer's protagonist Selma (an raw performance by the inimitable Björk) escapes from her dreary existence through song, but unlike Ross' film, Von Trier barely makes any visual distinction between Selma's fantasies and her harsh reality. Selma is a martyr in the tradition of silent melodrama, sacrificing everything- her eyesight, her freedom, and finally her life- to save the son from the congenital eye disease that plagues her. Dancer in the Dark is a major film, and an important one, but even more than other films on the list, it's so oppressively melodramatic that I'm not sure I'd ever want to subject myself to it again. But no matter- it hits you so hard the first time around that you won't forget it.
I've been mulling over Famous Last Words for a while now, with last week's quote the one I planned to start with. But it was Andrew Bemis' recent top 10 list of great voiceover narration that spurred me to kick this feature off last week. However, I was greatly saddened that none of you recognized this quote, the immortal final lines from Andrew's #1 pick, Terence Malick's Days of Heaven. Could it possibly be that you've never seen it? If so, shame on you. It's a stone cold masterpiece, and pretty soon you will have no excuse not to have seen it.
But perhaps a different strategy is in order to get this series revved up. I'm not sure you could get much further from Malick's early-period stunner than this film, the final lines of which are found below with the names removed:
“Where ya headed, cowboy?” “Nowhere special.” “Nowhere special... I always wanted to go there.” “Come on.”
Name the movie. I KNOW that at least some of you have seen this one...
With sad musicals highlighted in the previous post, I figured I'd rebound by posting something on the lighter side. Behold, one of the funniest musical numbers of recent years...
One of the most buzzed about events among cinematic bloggers this past month has been “31 Days of Spielberg,” on the blog Windmills of My Mind. As the title implies, blogger Damian Arlyn set himself the goal of reviewing at length every film by his favorite director, as well as some TV episodes and even a movie (Poltergeist) that Spielberg produced but didn’t direct. It was a mammoth undertaking, and eventually each day’s review was being spotlighted by the great Matt Zoller Seitz on his popular and highly cinema-savvy blog, The House Next Door. However, ever since it was revealed on Spielbergfilms.com this past week that Arlyn had appropratied sections of Warren Buckland’s book Directed by Steven Spielberg: Poetics of the Contemporary Hollywood Blockbuster without proper attribution, a small tempest has broken out- Arlyn admitted to the plagiarism, and his pieces was summarily dropped from the House Next Door's list of contributors.
Naturally, this has stirred up a good amount of debate. Arlyn’s defenders have stepped up to defend his humility, and cite the old adage that “good writers borrow, while great writers steal.” On the other side, his detractors believe that while his intent might have been benign, Arlyn’s use of plagiarism is inexcusable. Regardless of what side you’re on, I believe this incident could potentially have tangible, wide-reaching effects on cinematic writing on the Internet. With the proliferation of DIY Web sites and blogs, there has been an explosion of film criticism on the Web, much of it of an informal nature compared to print criticism. However, over the past year a number of print critics have stepped forward to question the legitimacy of criticism on the Internet. I fear that Arlyn’s very public lapse in judgment, and the resultant controversy, could very well give these naysayers plenty of grist for their argument as to the frivolous nature of film writing on the Web.
Personally, I believe that the Web is the next frontier of film criticism, and the logical progression of cinephilia. As such, I can’t help but find these old-guard critics’ objections more than a little fuddy-duddy-ish, reeking of defensiveness at losing their critical cachet to a bunch of movie-loving kids. However, some of those who have spoken out against movie bloggers (such as Time Magazine’s Richard Schickel) exert a fair amount of influence, and if their anti-blogger screeds seemed like smug elitism before, just wait until they hear about Damian Arlyn. I worry that many of my very talented fellow web-based critics (such as those listed on my blogroll) could find their efforts marginalized as a result of this incident, and frankly that’s an idea I have a hard time accepting. Or maybe I just believe that having your opinions printed on real paper doesn’t make you a good critic; lucid, well-expressed opinions do.
In closing, I just want to state that I have never to my knowledge plagiarized the work of another. If I have done so without my knowledge, I sincerely apologize.
For all of you who have been reading my (and everyone else's) stuff over at Screengrab, thank you. For the last six months or so, we've worked hard to increase activity over there, and these efforts have panned out, thanks largely to the dedication of our former editor, Bilge Ebiri, who was good enough to hire me based largely on my somewhat overblown rep as a "badass." All in all, I find it a little hard to believe I've lasted this long, but somehow I've been an active contributor for almost half a year now, which surprises me as much if not more than anyone.
That said, it's been tough. Since Bilge stepped down, I've felt added pressure to supply content to keep Screengrab at a consistently high level of awesomeness. Up to this point I've obliged, but it's been taking a toll on my writing, and I've recently come to the conclusion that I'm overextending myself. It would be one thing if I was writing for a living and as such had time to mull over my pieces all day, but as it stands the pressures of half a dozen pieces a week, coupled with increased responsibilities at work and the demands, however meager, of my social life, get to be overwhelming. So I recently informed Peter, my new editor, that I'll be scaling back my contributions to Screengrab to roughly three pieces per week. I'll still be doing my weekly Trailer Roundup, as well as some entries for Bilge's weekly lists. But rather than writing a Movie Moment column every week, it'll alternate weeks with When Good Directors Go Bad. I feel a little guilty about this, since the Movie Moment has become a signature column for me and I know that others enjoy it as well. But committing myself to two long pieces a week, amid everything else, got really hard to sustain, and it's a wonder I was able to keep it up as long as I did.
Anyway, I hope you aren't too broken up about this. Please continue to visit Screengrab, where Bryan, DK, Leonard, Phil, Faisal and the gang are continuing to fight the good fight for movie nerds everywhere. And if I'm not around as much, know that it's because when it comes to writing about what I love, I believe in quality over quantity.
At the end of every calendar year, I have a tradition of re-watching the best film I saw that past year. But when New Year's Eve rolled around, I got a little anxious because I didn't have a real masterpiece from 2006 to help me ring in the New Year. So I decided to head over to the local discount theatre and re-watch The Prestige, a movie that I originally found entertaining and intriguing, and about which I had a strange feeling that maybe I'd missed something the first time around. Lo and behold, sitting there in the theatre, I was enthralled, and I finally saw The Prestige for the masterpiece it is. Somehow, my annual tradition had worked itself out after all.
The Prestige is the rare film that demands to be watched more than once. On the first viewing, I responded to the style of the film- it's a first-class entertainment- as well as the cleverness of the plot and how it manifested itself. But it took a second viewing for me to really appreciate what director Christopher Nolan was really up to here. Nolan, who with his brother Jonathan adopted a novel by Christopher Priest, has with Memento and now The Prestige become the reigning king of intelligent, twisty thrillers that are thematically deep instead of merely clever. It's this depth that makes his films fascinating for viewing after viewing even after we know where the story is going. There are so many intriguing levels to The Prestige- the single-minded obsessiveness its magician protagonists have toward their chosen art, the blurred line between science and magic, even the metaphysical implications of the various incarnations of "The Man in the Box." Nolan works magic of his own, balancing the heavy stuff with a heavy dose of showmanship, while guiding a sterling cast that includes Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Rebecca Hall, and David Bowie. To me, The Prestige is half Angier, half Borden, and all masterpiece.
So now that I'd found a film to occupy the top spot on my list, what could possibly complement it? You may think it's easy pairing two movies together like this, but to me it's like choosing a wine to go with a meal- pick the wrong one and the meal loses much of its luster. I toyed with the idea of placing Jean-Pierre Melville's finally-released Resistance epic Army of Shadows, as well as Don Hertzfeldt's latest animated marvel, Everything Will Be OK. However, in my ongoing effort to keep my readership- hey there folks!- abreast of the sometimes strange and esoteric offerings outside the eye of the American distribution system, I soon settled on the as-yet-undistributed Interkosmos.
The first feature by Chicago-based video artist Jim Finn, Interkosmoscould easily be pitched as "The Max Fischer Players in space." And to be sure, Finn feels like something of a kindred spirit to Wes Anderson. But don't let that discourage you, Steve- Finn is a uniquely gifted filmmaker in his own right. Interkosmos is a faux documentary about an apocryphal, ill-fated deep space mission undertaken by an alliance of Eastern bloc nations during the heyday of the Cold War to establish a storehouse of Communist knowledge on one of the moons of Jupiter (got that?). It's an ambitious project for any first feature, especially given the film's minute budget, and its short running time of 71 minutes. But Finn is a talent to be reckoned with, exploring the minutiae of the mission in detail while infusing it with his own offbeat brand of humor. Some of the film's best moments are tangential to the plot- an impromptu production number during a field hockey game, or a salute to that great Communist pet, the guinea pig. But at the center of the film is a love story involving two crew members who to their dismay are traveling on separate ships. Whether we're watching them carry on a silent flirtation at a party or debating the merits of that capitalist anthem "The Trolley Song" over their radios, their love feels completely tangible, and is all the more moving for being so understated. In a way, Interkosmos is a spiritual cousin to The Prestige, as both films deal with brilliant characters who are willing to sacrifice everything for their calling. On top of that, they're both exceedingly entertaining. And who could ask for more than that?
In the world of science fiction, the space epics and technological thrillers might be the moneymakers, but the greatest films in the genre are first and foremost about ideas. The two best (and not coincidentally the two smartest) science fiction films released in 2006 were Children of Men and A Scanner Darkly. Alfonso Cuaron's Children of Men, based on a novel by P.D. James, imagines the year 2027, in which no children have been born in nearly two decades. It's a world of despair- to quote "Ruby Tuesday," which we hear several times during the film, "dying all the time / lose your dreams and you will lose your mind." In the middle of the chaos we meet Theo (Clive Owen) who is tasked to transport through the countryside a young prostitute with a secret- she's pregnant. Cuaron, like Kubrick in his later films, plunges the audience into the world of the film without pausing for exposition or character development, and it's a lot to handle on the first viewing. Heck, it's tempting just to groove on the film's visual design the first time around- with its production design combining crumbling cities with cutting edge technology and its cinematography which is both luminous and hardscrabble, this is the supreme technical achievement of last year. But as overwhelming an experience as Children of Men can be, it never once loses the audience, a credit to Owen's rock-solid presence and especially the visionary direction of Cuaron. In the end, Children of Men is a hopeful film, one in which life doesn't merely endure, but prevails.
Richard Linkater's A Scanner Darkly will if nothing else go down as one of the few movies that's done right by author Philip K. Dick, whose futuristic visions have too often translated into simplistic chase thrillers, light on the science. The hero of A Scanner Darkly is an undercover cop (Keanu Reeves) assigned to monitor a group of addicts, but his biggest struggle is against the drugs he's taken, which have caused his true identity to get lost in the shuffle. Linklater and animator Bob Sabiston have created a futuristic world on a shoestring by using the same kind of digital rotoscoping they previously utilized in Waking Life, although to a very different end- if Waking Life wanted to expand your consciousness, A Scanner Darkly is a bad trip gone berserk. But this is hardly a just-say-no drug parable. The film is often very funny, especially during scenes involving our hero and his addict friends, wonderfully played by Robert Downey Jr. and Woody Harrelson, as well as a parallel storyline involving the downward spiral of another friend (Rory Cochrane), culminating in one of the most mind-bending death trips I've ever seen. In addition, Linklater doesn't shy away from Dick's paranoia, in which he wonders after the government's complicity in the so-called War on Drugs. But above all A Scanner Darkly is a film that grieves over the losses caused by drugs. Just before the credits roll, Linklater quotes the end of Dick's book, in which he commemorates those friends who have lost their lives and minds from drug use, and in doing so he invites us to do the same for those in our lives.
Given the oh-so-serious "prestige movies" that Hollywood often sells as art, one sometimes forgets that many of our greatest directors- Hawks, Ford, Ray, Hitchcock- specialized in genre pictures. Continuing their proud tradition in 2006 were Martin Scorsese and Spike Lee, the latter of whom is the only double-dipper on this year's list. Lee's Inside Man is on one level a cleverly-written heist film, in which NYPD detective Denzel Washington faces off against criminal mastermind Clive Owen. But the boilerplate plot outline doesn't begin to describe the pleasures Inside Man has in store. The film sets up a fascinating contrast between its principal characters' styles- Owen's cool-headed efficiency and obsessive planning facing off against the style and swagger of Washington, who plays the character as a man who clearly enjoys what he does for a living. In the middle of it all is Lee himself, who takes the genre storyline as an excuse for playful direction, coupled with some of his pet themes- New York multiculturalism, the gulf between the haves and have-nots, and the reckoning he wishes would rain down upon all those who exploit the misfortunes of others. Inside Man is above all a grand entertainment in the classic tradition, but one only Spike Lee could have made this way.
But even Lee had nothing on the master himself, Martin Scorsese. The Departed, Scorsese's remake of the Hong Kong crime saga Infernal Affairs, transplanted himself from New York to Boston, but wisely didn't mess with his signature insistent style. In addition to the gangbusters premise of the original film- a cop goes undercover in the mob, a gangster infiltrates the police, and they try to flush each other out- the film is blessed with an irresistable screenplay that's both narratively tight and gloriously raunchy. And that cast- Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio play the lead roles flawlessly, and the supporting cast is killer- Mark Wahlberg, Alec Baldwin, Martin Sheen, Vera Farmiga, Ray Winstone, and more. There has been some debate over Jack Nicholson's grandiose performance as crime lord Frank Costello, but I thought it worked- here's a man who's maintained his power through violence for so long that he's lost all perspective of the outside world, causing his sanity to spiral completely of control. But this is first and foremost Scorsese's achievement, a 2 1/2 hour gangland epic that never grows ponderous or self-important, and serves as a superlative entry into the genre he's returned to many times over the years with such vivid results. It says a lot about how impossible The Departed is to ignore that, even in an awards season filled with logy period pieces and message movies, it was The Departed that ended up taking home the biggest prize, and garnering Scorsese a long-overdue Best Director Oscar to boot. In many ways, it's as much a belated acknowledgment of the contributions of genre masters of the past as it is a testament to Scorsese's own brilliant career.
The box-office success of nonfiction works by directors like Michael Moore and Morgan Spurlock has led to an upswing in documentary production. Most of those films are as thematically unchallenging as they are aesthetically uninspired, but a few major filmmakers have contributed to the form as well. The two best documentaries I saw in 2006 were Dave Chappelle's Block Partyand When the Levees Broke. Dave Chappelle's Block Party, directed by Michel Gondry, documents a free street concert given by Chappelle in fall 2004, between his $50 million Comedy Central payday and his well-publicized breakdown. Here, Chappelle proves to be a funny and gracious master of ceremonies, and his hand-picked lineup of hip-hop all-stars is daunting: Mos Def, Kanye West, Erykah Badu, Common, even the (briefly) reunited Fugees. But what prevents the film from being a straightforward concert movie is the way Gondry and his editors shuffle back and forth in time between the show and the preparation stage- at one point, the film actually cuts from Chappelle telling a joke to the crowd to rehearsing it with the band (complete with Mos on drums). Like Michael Wadleigh's Woodstock, Block Party is a cinematic celebration of a community that was as glorious as it was short-lived.
When the Levees Broke also deals with community, but unlike the community of Dave Chappelle's lock Party, New Orleans was supposed to last. Following the cataclysmic floods of September 2005, Spike Lee took a camera crew down to the Big Easy to survey the damage and interview the survivors. Made for HBO, When the Levees Broke is an angry film, one that's unafraid to point fingers at those whose negligence and incompetence led to the tragedy. But Lee himself treads lightly, never allowing his style to dominate, and the anger of the film comes from the interviewees, to whom Lee shows real empathy. When the Levees Broke is more than four hours long, approaching the disaster from practically every angle, from the history and culture of New Orleans to the appalling conditions in the Superdome, to exploring the circumstances that led to the tragedy. But in the end, this movie is about people- those who survived only to see their lives ruined, those who aided in the rescue and cleanup, even those who may have been at fault. When the Levees Broke takes the anonymous residents of New Orleans from the news and given them back their names and voices, culminating in one of the most moving end credits sequences I've ever seen, a roll-call of all the film's interviewees that I wouldn't dare spoil.
Thirty years ago today, the great Groucho Marx shuffled off this mortal coil, just three days after Elvis Presley died. I believe there is no better way to commemorate the passing of these two giants than this (warning: NSFW):
You are both sorely missed, although, it must be said, not necessarily by the same people.
While not every movie can be wrapped up in a nice little bow at the end, sometimes filmmakers are able to give the audience a perfect little sign-off. Whether it's a snatch of dialogue that boils down everything that's come before or just a great line in and of itself, there's a special sort of pleasure in a great final line, as it allows us to leave on a high note.
Starting this week, I'll be posting some of my favorites here. Rather than attributing them to their respective films, I'll give you folks the pleasure of remembering them. I'm starting with one which I think you'll agree is a must for a series like this. Enjoy!
“This girl, she didn't know where she was goin' or what she was goin' to do. She didn't have no money on her. Maybe she'd meet up with a character. I was hopin' things would work out for her. She was a good friend of mine.”
Everyone has heard the old saying that the best way to understand someone is to walk a mile in his shoes. This is the governing principle behind two of 2006's best foreign films, The Death of Mr. Lazarescu and L'Enfant. In Cristi Puiu's The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, we follow the title character for almost two and a half hours, practically in real time, and while this approach doesn't allow for much knowledge into his past, it makes it up for it in eliciting sympathy for his plight. Lazarescu is anchored by its two principal performers, with Ion Fiscuteanu giving a brave performance in the title role, and Lumenita Gheorghiu as the most stable presence in his final hours, a paramedic who ferries him to several hospitals. As the night progresses, Lazarescu meets doctor after doctor, most of whom are callous to him, quick to call him out on his drinking and poor diet but reluctant to waste a bed on such a hopeless case. While their feelings might have been more understandable in a more conventional story, they seem practically monstrous here, which is a credit to how closely Puiu follows his doomed hero. Surprisingly, Puiu cuts to the credits just as Lazarescu is about to die, alone, while waiting for surgery- the perfect ending to a lonely story, in which not even the audience is around to witness the hero's death.
L'Enfant (The Child) won a second Palme d'Or for the Dardenne brothers, Luc and Jean-Pierre, at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival. This ought to remove all doubt that, after just four fictional features, the Dardennes are among the world's greatest directors. And while I found L'Enfant to be possibly the least of their films, it's still a formidable work. The film's biggest achievement is its unsparing yet evenhanded portrait of a rather loathsome character- Bruno (Jeremie Renier), a petty criminal who will do anything for a buck, as long as it doesn't involve work. When Bruno's girlfriend Sonia brings home her newborn baby, Bruno scarcely waits before selling it to a black-market adoption ring. Much of the film's drama comes from Bruno's efforts to get the child back, not so much out of guilt as the fear of running afoul of the cops and the desire to win back Sonia, who for reasons Bruno can't understand had grown attached to the kid. All the while, the Dardennes invite us to consider what their story means- is it meant to be taken at face value, or is it symbolic? And if so, symbolic of what? Cold capitalism run amok? The dark side of our post-sexual liberation mindset? In the end, one interpretation is as good as another. The Dardennes' key theme, as always, is the possibility of redemption, which is there for Bruno as much as for anyone, although it'll take more than forgiveness to put Bruno back on track. The final scene of L'Enfant is a deliberate nod to Bresson's Pickpocket, and if anyone can hope to carry the mantle of Bresson, it's them.
In a time when respectable, often stodgy period films are dominating the end of year awards season, it's good to see adventurous filmmakers giving the genre a kick in the pants. Two films which did so particularly well last year were Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story and Gabrielle. While Shandy takes its inspiration from Laurence Sterne's legendary yet rarely read literary classic, the novel serves largely as a jumping-off point. Director Michael Winterbottom wisely avoids straightforward adaptation, instead making a film about a film crew adapting Shandy for the big screen, starring Steve Coogan. The form of the film feels like a more manic Day for Night, but in terms of tone it's best described as Airplane! for humanities majors- full of references to literature and classic cinema (everything from 8 1/2 to Fassbinder to, most memorably, Lancelot du Lac), and above all hilarious. In its strange way, Shandy serves as an illustration of the difference between the media of literature and film, not only the processes of creating them, but just as importantly the expectations we have of them. Plus, as Winterbottom surrogate Jeremy Northam says in the film, "it's funny. Isn't that enough?" There are so few cinematic adaptations of great books that work in movie form, but even fewer have Steve Coogan dropping a hot chestnut down his pants.
Gabrielle, on the other hand, is as brutal as Shandy is funny- and that's pretty brutal. Adapting Henry James' story The Return, director Patrice Chéreau tells the story of the fallout from a wife's attempts to escape her loveless marriage. While Jean (Pascal Greggory) is content to love his wife dispassionately, his wife Gabrielle (Isabelle Huppert) resists the ossification of their marriage, and her sudden decision to leave stirs up emotions that she hasn't felt in years, as well as feelings her husband isn't willing or ready to deal with. Gabrielle is essentially a two-hander between its stars, and with Chéreau's firm guidance they turn the story into scintillating drama, lending both heated arguments and simple gestures a real, and rare urgency. In addition, Chéreau breaks free from the constraints of period-film convention, switching between black and white and color at various points during the film, and even filling the screen with large, boldfaced text in several pivotal scenes. But for all the stylistic flourishes on display, it never feels like dicking around, but works as a visual equivalent to the passion unleashed by the story. It's a credit to all involved that the film's final revelation is both surprising and inevitable.
