Everyone has a different way of watching movies, and different people expect different things from movies, to take the bridge over the River Obvious. It often depends on why the viewer comes to the movies. Are they here for an emotional experience, or an intellectual experience?
It might seem a little sophomoric to try to divide moviegoers into two groups: emotional or technical. It's a little like saying there are two types of people: those who like bacon in their ranch dressing and those who do not. However, we are not talking about something sitting out on the picnic table for a few hours that, 45 minutes after consumption, initiates a thundering stampede to the Port-a-Potty.
WENDY AND LUCY has proven to be a surprisingly useful litmus test to single out the emotional from the technical viewer. People who loved the movie tended to be satisfied with the way the story was told. It was a bare-bones tale rendered without splash and coyness. The purity of purpose and the raw acting of Academy Award nominated actress Michelle Williams gave the film a living pulse. There are other viewers, perhaps more emotional, who focused on how the movie made them feel. In WENDY AND LUCY, a young woman is trying to get from one place to another. The obstacles that roughen her road are very real--not some contrivance from a screenwriter whose only life experience is through the conduit of TV, where everything ends with a neat bow no matter who lives or dies. WENDY AND LUCY lives in the reality that everything is a journey with an indeterminate beginning and end. Those who appreciate scripting outside the Hollywood box will appreciate this movie. Meanwhile, for some emotional viewers, this tale is rendered so well it becomes a bit of a downer. The genius of the film is in the scarcity of information that leads to such an emotional response. No car chases. No dramatic outbursts. No volcanic sobbing. The story is told with the lilt of a word or a certain deadness in the eyes. The reaction to WENDY AND LUCY seems to be divided between those who took the story to heart and found it a bummer, and those who loved the way the movie was built.
Meanwhile, SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE used every emotional trick in the book to make one fall in love with the story and the characters. As local reviewer John Ginn said, "It's a foreign film for those who have never seen a foreign film." He suggests that viewing films from other parts of the world might be a little too much work for the average American viewer. SLUMDOG is a British production replete with labyrinthine chases, hammy drama, volcanic sobbing, and violence. To be fair, it's a good script rendered masterfully by a veteran director, Danny Boyle. The masses loved it--even those who resisted foreign films. How could they not? Those who did not embrace it might have felt bludgeoned by the glaring emotional manipulation. Yes, the characters are in love. Got it. In the movie THE WRESTLER, the look in Marisa Tomei's face as she watched The Ram walk away said more than a mountain of special effects, fast editing, and the characters' doey eyes IN SLUMDOG.
THE WRESTLER was not an easy movie to love, due primarily to its subject matter. Professional wrestler The Ram is watching the grains of sand filling the bottom of his hourglass. Rendered flawlessly by Mickey Rourke, we can feel every broken bone and injury this wrestler has endured and inflicted. It is an old story, as they all are. But such a story with such a director as Darren Aronofsky (REQUIEM FOR A DREAM) saves THE WRESTLER, making it into something accessible--a story that could have easily become pornographic. How he did this will be of interest to those who watch movies for the "how." Those who watch the movies for the "why" may not come away with the same appreciation.
Rourke can generate nostalgia among those who have been following him and his tumultuous career since his breakout film, 9 1/2 WEEKS. The fact is, he was a real ass, to the point where he harpooned his career. He surfaced from that life to be the actor he is today. Having access to the darker parts of human existence doesn't hurt when rendering a character such as The Ram. Having his demons under control, yet to being able to call on them for the part, adds texture to his performance. The story was full of anger, strippers, drugs, testosterone, and blood. Are these things tools, or is this the real story of the film? It depends on the viewers' ability to put up with distasteful things to get through to the soul of the movie. THE WRESTLER dips deeply into the seedier side of the pool of humanity. People who choose to live their lives outside of that arena might not care how the shot of The Ram walking into the ring is mimicked beautifully when he is walking down the corridor to his dehumanizing job dealing with the public at the deli counter. Strippers are easy targets for bad jokes and sexual assumptions. But watching them work on the big screen can fail to titillate. This intentional failure adds to the story. Tomei has made more than one recent screen appearance without her clothes. She will be 45 this year. In the hands of director Aronofsy she can compare nicely to the other strippers half her age. But her character really shines when she is clothed and out of the darkened club. Her place on the pole on stage is not how she defines herself, and the line between work and life is broad, and not easily permeated. This allows her to pay the bills and feed her kid by appealing to men offering money in exchange for the fantasy of making her into whatever they want. As with most people who do this for a living, it erodes her soul. Tomei's character staves off this erosion by maintaining two identities-eventually learning that who she is on the stage does not have to define her real life.
THE WRESTLER sent some people out of the auditorium before the film was over. Some viewers do not separate the craft from the story. This movie was arguably one of the most finely crafted films of the year, yet the subject matter eclipsed that for some viewers. This is not to judge those who can desensitize themselves from the gore and inhumanity, or those who cannot see the art through the story. People view films through their own lives. If a viewers' emotional baggage is too heavy, it can make or break their experience.
Often viewers have little choice about whether their reactions to a movie will be emotional or technical. Viewers predisposed to the technical often see the story as secondary. Right up until the story becomes about them. Aronofsky's earlier work, REQUIEM FOR A DREAM, is a work of genius. If a viewer has issues with substance abuse, this film can either be unwatchable or speak to them with a voice of understanding.
The reason for independent cinema is to give voice to films that do not land in one camp or the other-technical or emotional. Most studio movies are calculated to make the most money in the box office. Independent films lean toward the filmmakers' vision rather than toward what the market will bear. It is the purity of this vision that appeals to the viewers less encumbered by multiplex expectations. There is a place for both emotional and technical viewers in independent cinema. This mixture generally will not be determined by focus groups.
Then again, there is a rather large segment of the independent/foreign movie-going population that chooses movies for neither technical or emotional reasons. They choose the movie based on whether it has subtitles. Since their hearing is not that great, it is a way of seeing a movie in a theater without having to make out the dialog-they can read it. As with any group of people, dividing them into two groups doesn't really work, no matter how fresh the ranch dressing.
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