Looper
SPOILER ALERT
Rian Johnson’s Looper is a crafty film. It’s a movie that uses it’s effects sparingly in service of its story and characters. Not the other way around. It’s a rare sci-fi film that feels much more grounded in reality than many of its predecessors. That’s because Johnson’s future seems very close to our present. And he doesn’t fall in to the trap of trying to explain his movie’s technological logic. Time travel works. We don’t know how. And frankly it doesn’t manner. It appears fairly low tech.
There were two parts of the film that really left a mark on me. The first is when one of the Old Loopers, sent back to the past to die, escapes. He is eventually captured after his younger self, a Young Looper is also captured. Johnson produces a horrifying sequence in which the Old Looper begins to lose appendages. He frantically tries to make his way to an address which suddenly appears as a scar on his arm. He begins to lose fingers, a foot, his tongue, and his nose. By the time he arrives he’s nothing more than a wiggling torso. It reminded me of a scene from the old Lone Wolf and Cub series in which a ninja is chopped to pieces, bit by bit, until he is hopping around on one leg with no arms, ears, or nose.
Soon after we get a glimpse of a room in which the Young Looper appears to be on a bloodied surgery table. Johnson’s understands, just as David Fincher did in Seven, that what we fill in with our own imagination is often more terrifying than what is on screen. Why the Young Looper isn’t killed is briefly explained. The logic is shaky, and Johnson smartly doesn’t dwell on it. It’s enough to know that the Old Looper is forced to reveal himself in this grisly manner.
The second moment in the film that really got me thinking is when our lead, Young Joe, first encounters his old self, Old Joe, and allows Old Joe to escape. Soon after Johnson makes an interesting editing decision. When Young Joe is knocked unconscious during a chase, Johnson cuts back again to the moment Old Joe first appears from the future.
At this point Young Joe kills Old Joe with no problem. Joe goes on to live his life. We see him as he ages 30 years, is eventually captured, and sent back to the past to be killed by his younger self. We then see how this Joe escapes from a young Joe, and starts his own quest in the past. The movie soon returns to the moment Young Joe loses consciousness from earlier in the story.
This was an interesting choice. Johnson could have stuck with Young Joe from the beginning of the film, followed him as he killed his old self, aged, went back in time, and escaped from his younger self. Instead Johnson starts with Young Joe not killing Old Joe and then cuts back to show us a reality where Young Joe kills Old Joe. Why?
I believe it’s for two purposes. Instead of creating a strictly linear story line following a Young Joe from present to future to past, Johnson’s editing decision creates two distinct Joes. Young Joe, who does not kill his older self, is a different person than Old Joe. In an alternate reality Old Joe, when he was young, did kill his older self. It’s these two Joes, young and old, “innocent” and guilty, that are at odds through the movie. The second purpose of this edit actually allows us, the audience, to time travel within the space of the movie. If Johnson didn’t provide this cut then technically we would always be moving forward in linear movie time even if the characters move backwards in clock time. You can bet this editing choice was debated vigorously by the filmmakers.
Looper deserves another viewing. Not because there are little clues or idiosyncrasies to discover. It’s a good movie which delivers. And that’s enough.
Thoughts on Munich
My wife and I watched Munich last night. I had seen it once before, years ago. Now it is even more relevant than before. Why? Because my wife and I have been living in Israel for the last three years. We are moving back to the States. But we met and married in Israel. And as American-Israeli Jews we have a new perspective on the conflict.
I am not going to comment on the known or assumed political leanings of the people behind the movie, and the book on which it is based. Nor am I going to make any sweeping accusations against one side or the other.
There is one scene in the movie that, for me, really epitomizes the debate over the Israeli-Palestininan conflict. The scene is a quiet dialogue between Avner the Mossad assassin and Ali, a PLO agent. After mistakenly sharing the same safe house, Ali and his team believe that the Israelis are members of the PLO supporting ETA, Basque Separatists.
To me the scene illustrates the filmmakers’ takes on the absurdity of the conflict; the tit for tat violence that seems to have no end. However I feel that the scene may have been missed opportunity. Of course lesser filmmakers may have thrown in a “we’re so alike” scene. That would have been false here. But what would have happened if the filmmakers wrote a scene that defended one side’s actions as right and the other side as wrong?
I am not so sure. After living in Israel I have my own view of the conflict, which I will not share here. As a filmmaker I believe it is not the job of a filmmaker to preach. However that shouldn’t stop brave filmmakers from questioning the established narrative. From asking audiences to think for themselves. Does this scene ask the audience to think? In my opinion, yes, without a doubt. But not for the reasons I would have chosen.
I found Ali’s responses to Avner’s two main points evasive. When Avner says that the Palestinians, “can’t take back a country you never had.” Ali responds with an obscenity. Ali does not answer the question but instead replies with new threats of violence. When Avner says to Ali that “there are lots of places for Arabs [to go].” Ali responds with an attack, “You are a Jew sympathizer.”
For me, here was a chance for the filmmakers to address two main points of the conflict. The origin of Palestinians, and the inability of neighboring Arab countries to absorb the refugees. What direction could the filmmakers have gone? One way or the other, but I wish they would have chosen one.
What do you think?
Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol (MI4)
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The following appeared in the Jerusalem Post print and online December 2011
PDF to be published soon
Note the following is the original submission and does not include changes by the editor
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Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (MI4) is this year’s best action blockbuster, and the best of the series. We follow the Impossible Mission Force, IMF, led by the venerable Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) as they chase a rogue Russian terrorist hell-bent on destroying the world. This is an immense, globetrotting adventure that takes us from the rooftops of Budapest and the streets of Mumbai to the dizzying heights of the Burj Khalifa, world’s tallest building located in Dubai.
Avant-Garde and Commercial Cinema
The Life and Death of 9413: a Hollywood Extra (1937) full movie on YouTube
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Avant-Garde and Commercial Cinema
Traditionally, the avant-garde and commercial cinemas have been defined as separate and oppositional. Recently, the boundaries between the avant-garde and commercial cinemas have been blurred. This blurring occurs across the production, distribution, and discourses of avant-garde and commercial cinemas. It seems that both cinemas borrow and exchange ideas and techniques. Arguably, the avant-garde and commercial cinema are reliant upon each other. The avant-garde needs the commercial cinema’s ability to attract and keep audiences. The commercial needs the avant-garde cinema’s ability to discover new cinematic techniques. Three films typify this exchange between the avant-garde and commercial. They are: The Life and Death of 9413-A Hollywood Extra (1928), Spellbound (1945), and La Jetee (The Pier, 1962). These films blend avant-garde and commercial elements to create a cinema that defies hasty classification.
Sunrise A Song of Two Humans, Sequence Analysis
Sequenced analyzed for essay – Sunrise (part 4) on YouTube
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Sunrise a Song of Two Humans, Sequence Analysis
F.W. Murnau’s 1927 film Sunrise a Song of Two Humans constructs “… a text marked by fluid boundaries – junctions that trace the subtle connection between entities rather than their clear demarcation” (08). Lucy Fischer’s 1998 thesis describes the total effect of Murnau’s narrative and cinematic devices. The sequence in which the Man, George O’Brien, and the Wife, Janet Gaynor, travel to the city by trolley exemplifies Murnau’s use of mise-en-scene, cinematography, and editing to create a border crossing with emblematic significance. The sequence begins when the Man fails to drown his Wife. The Wife, terrified of his intentions, runs away boarding a passing trolley. The Man follows her onto the trolley, beginning their transition into the city. From here on the sequence will be referred to as ‘the trip to the city sequence.’
Twisted Ladder Movies 