The Redundancy of Repetition

The term "Formulaic" has stepped over the borders from math and science into the world of art and Cinema. Producers find a collection of variables that work well together (i.e. make unprecedented amounts of money) and then try to recreate that same set of variables over and over until finally the mass audience boycotts it completely or one of their experiments bombs so poorly they cannot risk their reputation by association. In the business world, to an extent this makes sense. If you worship the dollar, do what the Almighty Dollar's Accolytes will rush to pay homage to. In this, I can forgive the Money men. They are not unlike monkeys. They see, they do. Monkeys, however, have the good sense to move on when something stinks.

I have a greater complaint with those who are in a creative position and also bend to this inexhaustible Hollywood Machine of Shit. Sometimes it is a matter of feeding the family. Sometimes it is sheer laziness. More often than is acceptable, it is greed.

Welcome to Hollywood. That's why its called Show Business...not Show Art.

We often joke that "if you've seen one [insert genre] movie, you've seen them all." On a surface level this will always be true to an extent. Westerns will always have cowboys, horses and probably guns, Jerry Bruckheimer films will always blow stuff up while completely bending the laws of physics to do it...and romances will always have mushy tripe that bolsters stock in facial tissue companies and antacids. The latter for girls like me who would rather watch a man being eviscerated than feel the slightest interest in who Bridget Jones is boffing and snogging. Truthfully...one more movie with Meg Ryan attempting to be cute and its going to cross into a level of creepiness that will eventually make for excellent psychological horror. I already have nightmares if merely threatened with Sleepless in Seattle or You've Got mail. I tremble to think what 2008's The Women will be for the masses of women who use words like "empowerment" because a TV show talk host taught them its "true meaning."

It was once said that no idea is ever new. It has all been thought of before. And my father used to tell me that I could never write a movie in which the basic plot and theme isn't already in a Shakespearean play. Both ideas (apparently old) are available for debate, but not now. I'm focusing on those who do not even try to disprove that theory.

So what makes anything fresh, new or creative? Presentation. Jumble the Universal variables around in such a manner that the audience forgets that they've seen or heard it before. This generally will work, though we often find book reviews and film reviews, etcetera, making reference to other books or films or even authors and directors past. It is inevitable...inescapable even that this will be done. People need reference because they don't like anything TOO new...it's scary.

Yes, that was sarcasm.

When this kind of comparison becomes a death sentence for authors and screenwriters is when the comparisons are too easily made to their own past works. Authors, too often, become known as That Author. The one who writes sexually taboo horror. That author. The one who writes cyber-punk with a political agenda. That author. The one that writes Steven Spielberg movies...yes. That one.

Film writers can all too often fall into the same pigeon holes, and this, of course, perpetuated by the Hollywood Machine that demands another Blockbuster like the one in the Summer of 2006. Writers don't get weekly pay checks with a set yearly salary. They get what they get for this book or that script, and unless they are in that upper 5% echelon...they don't get much. So when a big Hollywood Head says I'll pay you this...now write it. The monkey loads their typewriter.

So why am I still bitching if I just justified my own complaints? Because I'm not bitching about John Logan writing Bats..because he went on to do something else (Any Given Sunday), something different (Gladiator), something BETTER (The Aviator, The Last Samurai) . I'm bitching about the Steven Kings and the Alex Kurtzmans. Alex Kurtzman can be pinned immediately as a sci-fi/fantasy writer. Ding! Fries are done... He wrote The Island which is easily summarized as follows:

Every excellent sci-fi movie you've ever seen re-enacted by a cast of hot bodies, (i.e. Ewan MacGregor, Scarlett Johansen and Sean Bean).

Period. No need to write that review for you, that's all you need to know. Take any fantastic sci-fi, THX-1138, Bladerunner, Coma, The Man Who Fell to Earth, and plenty more. From that mind-blowing film debut, he's gone on to write Mission Impossible 3 (because 1 & 2 simply were NOT enough), Transformers (which was decent...but based on a CARTOON which was based on TOYS)...and he's now slated to write Transformers 2!! And Star Trek is currently filming, don't we already HAVE like 15 Star Trek movies?? Do we see the pattern or shall I call an elementary school level mathematician over to point it out.

I had intended at one point to write a full length review of that film...and perhaps if pressed to I still shall, but I truly feel it comes down to redundancy of pop culture. No less offensive than The Island was the film The Secret Window, written by David Koepp and, of course, based on the novel by Steven King. David Koepp has twenty-four writing credits on IMDb. Of those twenty-four, FOURTEEN are based on pre-existing material, be it a novel, television series, a radio show (two of those) or even just the sequel to a previous film or series of films. Do not misunderstand, I do think David Koepp is an excellent writer. He wrote Carlito's Way, which for the record was also a novel adaptation. However, the point in hand is repetition. Rehashing old material, or even more dangerously, regurgitating your own over and over. In the case of The Secret Window, the biggest offender is Steven King. Within that film there are so many themes consistently found within his OWN previous novels that once again, it is as if you are watching all of them over again.

Although Johnny Depp and John Turturro are a pleasure to watch, as always they are, the film was like eating terribly dry crackers with a bit of jam. After a while, all you really want is the jam but you have to take the crackers to get it. Having also directed, David Koepp did a fantastic job, proving he can handle darker genres as he had with Stir of Echoes. Unfortunately the material (his own writing based upon a short story. Secret Window, Secret Garden, by Stephen King) seemed to be an amalgamation of all the best, and a few of the worst parts, of previous Stephen King novel-turned-films. His main character, a writer, has isolated himself during a rocky marriage to work on his book, exhibits alcoholic behavior, begins having conversations with himself and with people who do not exist, begins to believe that a sinister man is trying to kill him only to discover this person is a facet of his own personality, murders his wife and gets away with it, only after several exciting axe-wielding fight scenes, clever one-liners...oh and a novel that is really just a repeated phrase over and over. The two most obvious sources of this already played out material are The Shining and The Dark Half.

Yawn. I just want my jam.

I only single these two films out as they are recent viewings in my household. There are, most definitely other films with which I would have even more grievances. This trend to repeat material, and inundate the screens with "tried and true" formulaic cinematic detritus, is not limited to singular offenders. Often we'll see more than one film released near to each other, and often one will over shadow the other for reasons that greatly vary from better marketing, to a "hotter" cast, but not necessarily because it is better. In some cases these dual releases are deliberate, as in the case of Flags of Our Fathers and Letters From Iwo-Jima. On the surface the films seem redundant- both referencing the same battle. However, it is a pleasant thing to witness that they are in fact quite different and because this is the case, it is difficult to hold anything against Clint Eastwood, or to mark one film as better than the other. More often than not, however, we see cases such as The Matrix and Equilibrium, The Illusionist and The Prestige, Deep Impact and Armageddon, The Brave One and Death Sentence...and so on.

I do not foresee that these types of trends will end. The mirror releases like the ones I just listed are only shadowed by "the followers" like We Own the Night, which followed quickly on the tails of The Departed. In the case of these two films, however, they are both of upstanding quality and therefore are usually forgiven any attempts at market advantage. More than likely, the producers were smart enough to space them at least a little distance apart so as to avoid one losing money to the other.

In the end, I suppose this is all just me complaining about "the System" and raging against the machine that I, myself, would so desperately love to be a part of, although not for money or for fame. I have a dozen ideas for films, a handful already on paper, and I have to admit...I would risk redundancy by writing Bats II: Second Flight if it meant my scripts would be read. And this, ladies and gentleman, is why the cycle is never ending.

Never Mind the Bollocks

Sex. Drugs. Rock n'Roll. Blah, Blah, Blah...Although in comparison to our day, the height of French Decadence hardly seems "Rock n'Roll", every generation has its punk stars and rockers; extremists that stand out with hedonistic and anarchist ways. Oh yes, boys and girls, there was punk before there was Punk.

Pink hair, crazy parties, promiscuous, casual sex, drinking, gambling, and a complete disdain for authority. Sounds like a description of any given music star from the late seventies on. I am, however, actually referring to Marie Antoinette...or, since some historians now contest the reputation that history has solidified for her...at least the rumors of Marie Antoinette.

While most would answer "FRENCH!" if asked Ms. 'Toinette's nationality, she was actually born of Austrian blood and married into French court at the age of fourteen. Yes, one...four.....fourteen. Her groom was then sixteen year old Dauphin Louis Auguste (Later to be King Louis XVI) who would fail to consummate their marriage for SEVEN years. What does a teenage girl whose husband is sexually repressed but abundantly wealthy do? She shops. She gambles. She has parties and she flirts. She indulges herself in whatever she can while balancing a disdain for the gossipy French court (not exclusively a French behavior folks...) and maintaining public popularity for herself and, as a result, Austria as a whole. And although she bucks tradition and social expectation, for a good many years this punk-rock girl still manages to stay favorably in the public eye.

Then she gambles away the treasury's money, engages in inappropriate (and strictly Austrian) behavior which shames the King, and turns a deaf ear and a blind eye to all those French peasants that she was previously renowned for so benevolently aiding. Marie slips French money to her Austrian brother Emperor Joseph, adulterates herself with Swedish Count Ferson, and conceived at least two of her children with him, had sexual affairs with both men and women, poisoned her own son whom she also sexually molested....or so the French rumor-mills claimed. It is debatable now how much of her reputation was unfavorable gossip (or outright lie and slander) and how much was truth, but truth did culminate in the storming of the palace at Versailles, the King and Queen and their children being taken to prison. Louis was executed, Marie's health failed due to self-imposed starvation, tuberculosis and possibly cancer until she was then also executed at the Guillotines on October 16, 1793.

This summary only scratches the surface of a wildly complex woman with a rather scandalous life. Wikipedia manages to delve even deeper. So why then, does a film that uses modern rock music, a movie poster far too reminiscent of a sex pistols album cover, and sporting an American actress not even attempting an Austrian accent fail so MISERABLY at truly conveying just who this young Queen was both in court and in private? It truly plays out as if a better title would have been The Virgin Suicide: 1793.

Let me tackle my grunts of dissatisfaction one at a time. Music. This, just like the completely ignored accents of Marie and Louis XVI, impresses upon the audience more a sense of laziness and wilted creativity in an attempt to be avante-garde. True creative genius would have been conveying a modern feeling of rock n'roll while staying within the relevant themes of the time period. Sophia Coppola, while a proven director, only manages to continually draw us out of the French Court of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette over and over with anachronistic lines and soundtracks. This use of modern music in period pieces isn't new, therefore not avante-garde, and did not work any better for me in A Knight's Tale. Inevitably it only dates the film causing it to lose its relevance to "modern audiences" when that "modern" is no longer chic...until, of course, it becomes "retro."

Rock n'roll?? The intensity of this film is more like listening to an old radio that only intermittently picks up a Top 40 Pop station and starts every day with an hour of white noise. This is no critique of the music selections, although those too were lacking. I speak of the passion, the energy, the sense of abandon and rebellion. While the cold handling of Marie's ingress to not only French life and married life, but the socially challenging politics of the French Court, would have been over-all considered well-done if there was a progressive build of tension which crescendo at some greatly dramatic denouement. What follows instead is a watered down, self-indulgent, wistful play-then-pout session that ultimately lacks the dramatic fire of such a rebellious woman, and pales in scandal to even the weakest of soap operas. The aforementioned Wikipedia article is a more exciting read than this film and wasted far less of my time while giving the added benefit of easy to follow character names. Other than Marie, Louis and the oh-so-sexy Count Ferson, my viewing partner and I resorted to referring to characters by their traits. The red-head chick. The gay guy. The Ambassador of Mercy guy. The King's whore. Etcetera.

The lack of character identification is a key indication of the lack-lustre performances of the cast. How one could collect such a brilliant group of people and fail to succeed is a mystery. Kirsten Dunst has only a handful of scenes in which she truly shines, most of which when she is NOT speaking. Danny Houston's appearances are sparse and far too brief. Rip Torn, Jason Schwartzman, Asia Argento, and an almost awkward insertion of Molly Shannon all fall short of inspiration. With such talented people, the question falls to material, direction or simply waning interest? Indeed, about the only emotion that Kirsten Dunst brings across quite clearly is deep frustration.

I identified completely.

The greatest tragedy of this film is that it fails to even portray the greatest tragedy of this woman's life! The French Revolution, for what it was, proved to be like any political uprising. Bloody and chaotic. Any war-induced governmental shift will result in the loss of lives and a string of political scape-goats waved to appease the masses and bolster favor for the new leaders. Marie Antoinette and Louis were exactly that. The absolutely outrageous accusations made against the woman during her two-day trial were SO harsh that even the very people who had stormed Versailles craving her blood fell on the side of sympathy for her. Ultimately, however, as history scripts, she was executed.

Sophia Coppolla's insipid biopic of the Queen went far past sympathetic to being completely uninspired and unsatisfying for its audience. One reviewer on IMDB so perfectly likened the film to "a movie about the Titanic that stops short of the sinking and all that nasty death at the end." And I think that description is more than adequate. While Sophia's other films, Virgin Suicides, Lost in Translation are hailed for their under-stated delivery, and rightly so, Marie Antoinette was a woman of excesses in a time of decadence, understatedness seems an almost absurd tact to attempt and the tale falls more in line with her whimsical "woe-to-be-a-girl" films such as Lick a Star and Bed, Bath and Beyond.

While I try to commit myself to any film I watch, seeing it through to the end just as one would look at every corner of a painting before deciding it was crap...I admittedly only continued to watch this film for the sake of my viewing partner who had far more interest than I...and because I really wanted to see some fucking blood and a head roll by the end of the movie. It would have at least vindicated some of the two-hours spent gaping at the poorly researched presentation of a historical figure's life in the cinematic equivalent of paper dolls. No one in this film struck me as a three-dimensional human....just pretty paper dolls dressed up as the roles of a little girl's fantasy in which no one understands her, no one loves her, and she just wants to have fun. If written by a 15 year old, this film may seem insightful and mature. For a thirty-six year old writer and director, however, it is self-indulgent and vapid.

When one considers that at thirty-eight years old, the real Marie Antoinette had lost everything dear to her, including her head, the film does nothing to convince us that this was a great loss to France or Humankind. With one snip of my scissors...this two-dimensional Marie Antoinette loses its head. The charge? Failure to perform.