The Screengrab : down by law

Jailhouse Rock: The Greatest Prison Films of All Time (Part Two)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 21:15:00 GMT

TITICUT FOLLIES (1967)

Before I got my driver’s license, the only way to get to Boston from my hometown of Middleboro, Massachusetts (besides a ride from Mom & Dad) was a local bus that stopped at a prison in the neighboring town of Bridgewater to pick up the newly released ex-cons and ship ‘em home (or the nearest equivalent). Years later, I discovered the prison was actually the notorious state hospital for alcoholics, sex offenders and the criminally insane profiled in Frederick Wiseman’s controversial documentary Titicut Follies, a movie even more disturbing than all those long-ago bus rides. In stark black and white, Wiseman shows the subhuman conditions of the 1960s version of the facility and the desperation of the inmates (including one poor bastard I still remember vividly, years after the first and only time I watched the film, who keeps explaining, over and over again, that he’s perfectly sane and would really, really, really like to leave the premises). As an avid psychedelic drug enthusiast in my younger days, winding up in a mental hospital (mistakenly or not) has always been high on my list of worst-case scenarios, but Titicut Follies (named for the grimly surreal inmate “talent show” depicted in the film) is worst-case by way of 18th century Bedlam: “We see men needlessly stripped bare, insulted, herded about callously, mocked, taunted,” Robert Coles wrote of the film in The New Republic. “We see them ignored or locked interminably in cells. We hear the craziness in the air...” Massachusetts was so embarrassed by the film they tried not only to ban it, but also to have all copies destroyed (!) on the grounds that somehow the documentary violated the patients’ dignity more than, say, being held indefinitely in cell blocks without toilets and periodically hosed down. Wiseman asserted repeatedly that he’d received permission from all the patients who appeared in the film (or their guardians), yet (according to Wikipedia, at least) the film wasn’t legally cleared for general public release until 1991, at which point the Massachusetts State Supreme Court also stipulated the film would need to include a “brief explanation...that changes and improvements have taken place at Massachusetts' Correctional Institution in Bridgewater since 1966.” One would hope.

THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1991)

In this year of Rachel Getting Married, it’s not at all hard to see why Jonathan Demme once made a movie that swept the Oscars. What’s surprising is that he won it for The Silence of the Lambs, a movie that in lesser hands, with a lesser cast, would have been little more than a clever genre exercise. But Demme’s capable direction, a masterful sense of mood and tone, and some stunning performances carried it into the realms of greatness, with Anthony Hopkins’ brutally mannered performance proving what a great villain can do for a movie. Some prison films are all about the experience of being on the inside, but others derive their tension and power from the time-honored tradition of the jailbreak. While Dr. Hannibal Lecter’s escape from his dismal subterranean dungeon (where he’s kept from touching anything solid, even a pen cap) is inevitable, it differs from most escape yarns in that the criminal’s liberation is something that fills us with dread instead of excitement. Lecter’s cruel psychological manipulation leads him out from the underground, and his brutal violence unleashes him on the world again after a decade of imprisonment. The movie’s final scenes are less a triumph than a threat: Satan unleashed upon the world again.

ANIMAL FACTORY (2000)

Steve Buscemi does an admirable job, in his second full-length directorial effort, of conveying the casual brutality and bizarre social cycles of prison life. By refusing both glamorization and utter degradation, he keeps his storytelling solid and balanced, allowing the powerful action on screen to work itself out in more subtle ways. Edward Furlong’s young convict finds himself totally unprepared for prison life, and even after he’s taken under the wing of ex-gang boss Willem Dafoe, he finds himself given over to fear that shapes his reactions to the prison world as much as any real violence or sexual assault. Buscemi’s simple, un-flashy approach is perfect for the material, and he wisely keeps himself off camera and lets his actors and situations tell the story. Of course, he’s aided and abetted, so to speak, by a worthy bunch of co-conspirators: the screenplay to Animal Factory was written by Eddie Bunker – best known as Mr. Blue in Reservoir Dogs, but also an established writer, actor, and career criminal whose own stints in prison inspired the script. Bunker’s friend Danny Trejo – a man he spent time with in prison and who, like him, was redeemed through his art – also has a leading role in the film, which is one of the reasons it reeks of authenticity.

I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG (1932)

The melodramatic tone of most ‘30s films leads to an inevitable graying, and Mervyn LeRoy’s then-controversial I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang hasn’t aged like a fine wine. But it’s still an extremely worthwhile movie, with a harrowing escape scene and the nervous, twitchy shoulders of Oscar-nominated Paul Muni as a World War I vet who fled the intolerably brutal justice of the Georgia prison system. Based on a true story – in fact, Robert Burns, the man on whom Muni’s character was based, served as a technical adviser on the film while still a fugitive until he was forced to hit the road again – Chain Gang fudged the facts a bit. It’s no secret that the movie’s particulars were a bit glossed over in order to make Muni more appealing to audiences hard-hit by the Depression. But it certainly doesn’t make him a noble figure by any means; his downward spiral and lowlife ways only make it more shocking when we see how he’s systematically dehumanized by the chain gang system, which was little more than state-sponsored slavery. Even 75 years later, the movie’s final scene packs a punch, as Muni answers the question of how he manages to live with a simple, harsh response: “I steal.”

DOWN BY LAW (1986)

You don’t often hear the phrase “quirky prison comedy”, but if anyone can carry off that particular genre blend, it’s Jim Jarmusch. Assembling a unique cast – John Lurie as a big-talking pimp, Tom Waits as a laconic disc jockey, and Roberto Begnini (in his first English-speaking role, if you can call it that) as a bewildered Italian tourist – he deftly mixes together screwball comedy, existential drama, and the kind of quiet indie strangeness that would become his hallmark over the years to come. Compelled to escape from prison more or less because they can’t stand being stuck in the same cell with one another anymore (their scenes in jail are probably the funniest prison scenes this side of the end of The Producers), the three break out and trudge through the gorgeously photographed Louisiana bayou; they escape imprisonment, but they can’t escape each other, and freedom seems to have precious little to distinguish itself from jail for them. A perfect companion piece to Jarmusch’s Stranger Than Paradise, Down By Law is perhaps the greatest of Jarmusch’s "beautiful losers" movies, and the whole thing should be experienced like your last night before heading off to jail: through a cloud of smoke and a fog of booze, with a good-looking and dangerous girl by your side.

Click Here For Part One, Three, Four & Five

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Leonard Pierce

Independent Film Festival of Boston 2008

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 16:00:00 GMT

The Boston Film Festival began in 1976 at the late, lamented Orson Welles Cinema in Cambridge, and was reborn, in a new incarnation, in 1985. Although hardly a big, buzzy fest like Sundance or Toronto, packed with deal-making, career-launching glamour, the BFF was still an exciting venue for independent cinema, where local audiences got their first glimpse of films like Blue Velvet and Down By Law, complete with special guest appearances by the likes of David Lynch. And, while the Boston Film Festival is still up and running, offering hometown premieres of future arthouse fodder like Jesus Camp and The U.S. Versus John Lennon, it’s telling that the Best Comedic Actor Award at last year’s edition of the fest went to Dane Cook for Good Luck Chuck.

But even as The BFF becomes ever more non-essential, the Independent Film Festival of Boston (which kicked off last night with the East Coast premiere of local hero Brad Anderson’s latest, Transsiberian) has restored the excitement and thrill of discovery to Beantown's movie-going diet.

Reflecting the fresh energy and opportunity of the Hub’s resurgent indie scene (as well as its recent adoption by Martin Scorcese and other Hollywood players), the IFFB presents itself as a vital, hands-on event, with a “filmmaker friendly” focus, offering panels like “Breaking into the Boston Film Industry” while championing homegrown talent like Anderson and mumblecore progenitor Andrew Bujalski (Funny Ha Ha).

Click here for more information on IFFB 2008 (which runs through April 29), and stay tuned for reviews of this year’s festival fare!

When Good Directors Go Bad: Year of the Horse (1997, Jim Jarmusch)

Paul Clark — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 19:00:00 GMT

For almost three decades now, Jim Jarmusch has been one of the heroes of American independent cinema. The deadpan humor and multicultural vibe of his best works have influenced directors worldwide, and his maverick sensibility has practically defined the term “independent filmmaker.” While this sensibility hasn’t endeared him to the Hollywood bigwigs (his insistence that he retain the rights to the negatives of all his films would be a dealbreaker for most studios) it’s made him something of a hero to followers of indie-film, because he’s a director who gets away with making whatever he damn pleases.

Jarmusch’s 1995 masterpiece Dead Man marked his first collaboration with legendary rocker Neil Young, of whom Jarmusch was a longtime fan. Young’s mindbending score was divisive- Roger Ebert famously likened the sound to Young dropping his guitar over and over- but the film cemented a friendship between the two artists. So for his next film Jarmusch decided to go on the road with Neil Young and Crazy Horse, with the goal of making the concert film Year of the Horse. It was Jarmusch’s first documentary.

A few weeks ago I spotlighted in this column The Dark Wind, the sole fiction feature from master documentarian Errol Morris. For Jarmusch, Year of the Horse is no less misbegotten. Now, I don’t begrudge filmmakers- least of all gifted, independent-minded ones like Jarmusch- their attempts to break out of their filmmaking comfort zones. However, with Year of the Horse, Jarmusch shows almost no affinity for the documentary form.

In its opening credits, Year of the Horse proclaims that it was “proudly made in Super-8,” and the film is suffused with a lo-fi aesthetic that’s similar to most of Young’s best work. However, in such films as Stranger Than Paradise, Down by Law, and Dead Man, Jarmusch’s style is tight and deliberate, with little room for the kinds of accidents that one normally finds in a documentary of this sort. As a result, the film feels less like a charmingly hardscrabble Young work than a sloppy, amateurish mess.

Part of the problem is the music in the film. While I prefer Young’s rootsy albums like Harvest to his Crazy Horse work, the songs in the film are pretty solid. However, their concert performances have a tendency to drag on (and on and on), with lots of onstage improvisation between Young and his bandmates. While jamming can make for a great concert experience, it’s tough to make it interesting to those who aren’t actually in attendance, and Jarmusch never figures out how to make it work. Rather than focusing on the audience’s reaction to the music or really zeroing in on the musical chemistry between the band, Jarmusch too often cuts away from the concert to often random and usually uncompelling images.

Some of these images are merely distracting, as when Jarmusch intercuts footage of clouds or a passing train into the songs. But others are downright puzzling, as when the film cuts away from an onstage performance of “Fuckin’ Up” to show some decades-old footage of Crazy Horse bassist Billy Talbot shoplifting and getting arrested, a hamfisted attempt on Jarmusch’s part to turn the song into a music video, another form he isn’t particularly good at. Either way, the cutaways don’t help. Whereas Jarmusch seems to intend them to add interest to the stage performance, they merely serve to remind us of how the song is dragging on well past its logical end (one number finishes with the band playing the same chord nearly two dozen times). The only time the cutaways actually serve their intended purpose is when Jarmusch juxtaposes the 1996 concert performance of “Like a Hurricane” with footage of the same song taken from their 1986 tour. In this footage, in which Young already looks haggard, Jarmusch comes closest to illustrating the idea of how long Neil Young and Crazy Horse have been in the game.

At several times during the (mostly superfluous) band interviews in Year of the Horse, Crazy Horse guitarist Frank “Pancho” Sampedro remarks that Jarmusch will never be able to compress three decades of Crazy Horse history into a documentary. However, based on the evidence on display in the film, two hours seems far too long. I’m sure there were plenty of vivid experiences in the history of the band, but few of them appear to have been “proudly filmed on Super-8.” Seeing as how the most memorable thing that happens offstage in Year of the Horse is a floral centerpiece catching on fire, perhaps Jarmusch would have been better off sticking to the music itself.

But as I said, he’s always marched to his own drummer, and fortunately for his fans his next film was 1999’s fascinating Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, that wonderful one-of-a-kind combination of aging wiseguys and Hagakure-reading lone gunmen. In other words, definitely a step in the right direction. Jarmusch’s next film, The Limits of Control, is currently on track for a 2009 premiere.

Screengrab Q&A: Eran Kolirin, Director of The Band's Visit

Peter Smith — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 22:30:00 GMT

Eran Kolirin's first feature, The Band's Visit, opened in New York and Los Angeles last Friday. A poignant story of an Egyptian police band lost in Israel, the film has won a host of awards worldwide. That the film has done well internationally is fitting, since for all its apparent evocation of local politics, its themes are existential — can we connect with other people, or even with our own pasts? The Band's Visit makes the political personal, capturing perfectly the homesickness that can strike even when you're still at home. And if I'm making it sound grim, it's also got some great jokes. When I reached Kolirin on the phone last week, he sounded weary and lonely, stranded in the middle of a two-week press tour — probably the perfect position from which to promote this wry, bittersweet film.

What was your initial inspiration for this film?
It began with an image of the main character, of Tewfiq, a man in uniform who sings an Arabic song. [Then] part of what you do is to research within yourself why this story interests you. It has my own private nostalgia for Egyptian cinema — part of my lost youth or childhood. I share this incomplete feeling that all of the characters share, a feeling of living beside life and not really touching. A movie is a kind of mirror of your own self.

The central relationship between Tewfiq, the reserved bandleader, and Dina, the woman who takes him in, feels very real. How did you develop it?
No big secret to this. Some of it was developed while working with the actors. Sometimes in a good cast you get this kind of magic, and at least as far as I'm concerned, between Sasson Gabai and Ronit Elkabetz, this is what happened. During the rehearsals we rewrote the scenes. For example, the whole scene of them on the park bench was written through rehearsal.

That relationship encapsulates the whole subtext of the film—the question of whether it's possible to connect with another person. Even though it's about people from different cultures and different languages, there's a universal quality to that struggle.
I never thought I had these characters who are very different and this movie kind of brings them together — not at all, not for a second. It's the very starting point, I never doubted it: they're all the same. And this is why sometimes when people describe the movie as different cultures coming together. . . I never thought about it this way.

As you show in some of the family scenes, it's perfectly possible to feel lonely and isolated even within your own family — never mind different cultures.
Yeah. I kind of have this thing with loneliness. [laughs]

What are some of your favorite films?
Mike Leigh's High Hopes. Down by Law by Jarmusch. I like very much Jean-Claude Brisseau, Sound and Fury. With this movie, I was thinking also of Jacques Tati and Aki Kaurismaki, and I guess there are a lot of others — I like Wenders a lot, I like Bresson and I like Ozu.

There's a very sharp sense of place in this movie. This outpost town, Bet Hatikva, feels very real. I have very strong childhood memories from those places. Since I have asthma, they sometimes would take me to small towns — not where we shot, but towns not far away from there — what they would call in Israel development towns. And I have memories of these concrete buildings — this kind of monumental communist architecture in the desert, and this feeling of distance and emptiness.

I tried to shoot it more like I remembered it than the way it is. It took me a lot of time to understand how to get this feeling. I realized that what makes a difference is the sound of those places. Sometimes in the desert the wind blows in your ears and you go deaf for a second. We tried to somehow capture this feeling in the whole sound of the movie.

If you just told somebody you were making a film about Arabs lost in Israel, they might expect an obvious political statement, which this film isn't.
I know those expectations. In some ways it's kind of a colonialist approach. You're expected to be in this theater play they wrote. And you know, I live in the Middle East, and I'm aware of the politics. This is a political movie as far as I'm concerned. There are questions of culture, there are questions of the connection of Israel to the region, and how it's lost its connection through the process of capitalization and modernization. There's a very specific connection between the Israeli side and the Egyptian side in the movie. They share this same feeling of loss, nostalgia. If you listen close enough and you're acquainted with the cultural conflicts of the region, you would see the movie raises a lot of political questions. Not just the obvious ones about the conflict — I'm not saying those questions are not important, but it doesn't have the character saying, you know, "My brother was killed in the war," and then everyone can sleep comfortably in their beds having been reassured about what it was all about.

How has the film been received in Israel and Egypt?
Unfortunately, it cannot be shown in Egypt, formally anyway, but I've been reading quite a lot of articles from the Arab world about the movie, and I've gotten some good reactions. It's been reviewed quite well in Israel, and again, the nuances, they differ from place to place, but at the end of the day, the proportion of people loving it and not loving it is about the same all over.

Israel couldn't submit this film for an Oscar, because over half of it is in English. Were you disappointed?
I would like to say thank God, because without the Academy Award I've been flying all over the States for two weeks now and I miss home. If I had been a nominee, they would take me here for two months. I would kill myself.