George Washington

Jess mentioned this film in her last post.

Here's the trailer for his for his first film:



I've not seen Snow Angels, but, as I'm harder on art than my wife, I'll likely put this one on the backburner for a while before I watch it.

David Gordon Green: Has He Lost It Or What?

I don't know if I should be disappointed in David Gordon Green or what. I watched his latest film Snow Angels today, which is an adapted work from a novel by Stewart O'Nan. Green showed some great potential with his earlier films George Washington and All The Real Girls, but ever since Undertow, his films have just been stuck in muck.

The biggest problem with this film is that there are too many losers with too many problems. Again, we're given glimpses of people in a small town and they suffer one tragedy after another. The only thing realistic and good about the film is the relationship between the two teenagers, as opposed to the adults, who are just ridiculous. Yes someone will have the occasional affair, or have the occasional drinking problem, but not to this degree. On a film level, just in terms of cinema, this is not in a league with his first two, though Green does manage to sprinkle in the realistic dialogue, even though the characters are not particularly memorable or interesting people.

"Oh you're just criticizing it because it's a 'tragic tale' and you're biased against films about working class losers," is what you're thinking. Not at all. Snow Angels actually reminded me of a worse version of The Jimmy Show--in that it's not nearly as well written and not as realistic. Yes, there is power to be found in realism. The guy who plays Kate Beckinsale's husband is just a ridiculous, cliched character, and the last third of the film devolves into soap opera trash.

The only thing redeemable is the relationship between Arthur and the teenage girl, and there are some other good dialogue moments, but Snow Angels was very, very disappointing, largely in part because I thought the film was off to a good start, and then it just took the cheap, Hollywood way out. Granted, since this film is based on O'Nan's novel, it's not really Green's "fault" per se, but why choose poor material to work with? Why is Green, who clearly has screenwriting talent, wasting his time on these adapted screenplays? His best work is his own material.

How critics could rave about this and criticize his earlier work just shows how dumbed down they like it. Sorry, but drowning, alcoholism, adultery, murder and suicide shoved into one just does not work. The film spent TOO MUCH TIME on this boring shit, when it should have been focusing on Arthur and his relationship with his dad (Griffin Dunne) who, by the way, is far more interesting than Sam Rockwell's loser character.

Watching this only made me want to rewrite the damn thing from start to finish. Ugh. Bad, bad stuff. And any good is ultimately drowned out by all the bad. I certainly won't be reaching for a Stewart O'Nan book anytime soon. Another film this reminds me of is a lesser Sweet Hereafter, even though that's not a great film either. Here's the trailer:



And here's a real snow angel for you.

George Washington

Last week I saw David Gordon Green’s film George Washington. Like All The Real Girls, this film is one that could have taken a more predictable turn, but instead focused on characters instead of obvious plotting. By this, I mean that it isn’t hard to see how the accidental death of a young man could have turned into a predictable Hollywood film.

I think that overall All The Real Girls is probably the better of the two, but this one shares many of the later one’s positives, including a unique approach with dialogue, good characterization that avoids stereotypes, and a poetic approach to the presentation of images, where the eye can linger on a shot as it would on a poetic line.

Here is a snippet of Dan’s review of the film, where he discusses the narrative approach of the film, as well as how the film achieves its poetic effect in its contrast of dialogue and images.

“That said, this film is not really a narrative, more of a simple series of linked vignettes that trace a several week period over a summer, which opens with a dreamy panoramic and poetic monologue spoken by a young girl named Nasia (Candace Evanofski), that weaves poetry out of the banal snippets that drift in and out of even the most prosaic minds, such as, ‘I like to go to beautiful places where there’s waterfalls and empty fields.’ This is not immanently poetic, but juxtaposed with the camera work it takes on a heightened, almost ecstatic, state. Some criticize the film by stating real children do not speak that way, but, a) I’ve known them, and a read of Anne Of Green Gables shows they’ve always been around, and b) the poesy is not of the character, but what the character says in relation to her station on life.”

Here is a taste of the film courtesy of Youtube:

All The Real Girls

A friend and I watched David Gordon Green’s All The Real Girls the other night. I’ve long been curious about this director after reading some of the reviews of his films on Cosmoetica. If you read them over, the reviews of the first two films describe someone with the potential for greatness, but then the third details a kind of regression as he has began making more conventional Hollywood films. To be fair, though, I’ve only seen this one film, so far. I was impressed with this well-written and visually gorgeous film, so if the director is now working below his potential, that is truly a shame.

In terms of ‘what happens,’ this film could easily have been turned into a more conventional drama, like something from Dawson’s Creek. The quality of the dialogue, and the stress on character development over a standard melodramatic romance plot, really help to propel this film beyond the predictable film it could have been.

It has some beautiful cinematography, and for those who lament how so many movies these days are so rapidly edited and manipulated with CGI, this is a film where you can really enjoy looking at the visuals. There are many poetic shots where the director will linger on an image.

Here's a little sliver from Dan's review:

"... Other images and scenes that stick are the aforementioned crippled dog, the scenes in the clothing mill, where fluffs of material in the air give way to time lapse clouds over the Appalachians, and a scene where Noel confesses how she accidentally killed a boy on a fishing trip with her dad, and then scarred herself as punishment, so she would never forget the pain, among a bevy of others. These all endear, but mostly reify the characters to the audience, for this film is also shorn of so many of the stereotypes about Southern life that Hollywood seems to thrive on. This is due to the terrific screenplay by Green, adapted from a story that he and Schneider wrote. Green shows that he has a good ear for realistic dialogue, and knowing how to edit the moment so that the most seemingly mundane words take on a poetic resonance. In short, what his characters say is not particularly deep, but the ideas behind those words are. His average folk simply have grasps that surpass their reach."

Here's the trailer for the film: