This land has got some shallow graves with deep divides and subtle shades

[sovay]

I really want to live in the kind of economy where I could afford vacations.

I would also like to live in the kind of economy where Diane Duane doesn't need to crowdfund in order not to be evicted and homeless, but here we are, so follow the link. [edit] She has now successfully done so, and along with her husband sends profound thanks to everyone who purchased or donated, but I still do not find it reasonable that she had to.

Last night I watched Winter's Bone (2010), directed by Debra Granik. It looked essential to women in noir, its cast included John Hawkes, I had been meaning to see it for years. It is the kind of film I will have trouble talking about even when I get the time for it, because of how much I loved it: a spare murder ballad of a movie, neither condescending nor romantic, and further proof that neo-noir doesn't need to be defined by a retro style in order to qualify for the genre; it cracks its protagonist's world open, sets her hunting for truth like the title, the cold, intimate, irreducible common denominator beneath debatable flesh and blood. It's about what can and can't be said, by individuals, by families, what can and can't be known. It's not sociological, but it is political in the way that being alive in a society is political. It's beautifully shot. I'd much rather have seen it win Best Picture than The King's Speech, a film I liked very much. The fact that Granik was nominated for co-adapting the screenplay but not for directing the picture demonstrates the depth to which the Academy must have had its head up its ass that year. Looking at Jennifer Lawrence's filmography, I'm not sure anyone has ever again asked her to play as tough and ordinary and original a part as the protagonist of this film; I understand how The Hunger Games happened, but she could have gone from Ree Dolly to Antigone. You can think of Winter's Bone as Sophokles for twenty-first-century America, honestly, and not pretentiously at all. What can you know and live with? What's forgivable and how far should a family carry the weight of what's not? What will you risk your life to see done for the ones you love? The film suggests answers, but it's noir: asking the questions is more important. They change the shape of the world, even when holding it together is all you have ever set out to do.

Comments

[kore]

I forgot, I wanted to add, the Handmaid's Tale miniseries did voiceovers very well (remarkably, the actress not only recorded the voiceovers, but MEMORIZED them and sat there running them in her head while they shot the footage -- the director was amazed at how well they matched up and asked her what she was doing). But as you say, that's a miniseries, with a lot more room to breathe.

(Another rule of thumb I heard was "LIMIT the voiceovers! As few as possible!" But....why? Just because I guess. Marguerite Duras wrote a play in which the actors silently interacted while voices from the back of the theatre narrated the play, and their own feelings, hopes, fears. I think it stayed that way in the film she wrote from it, too, I'm not sure. Some novels, a lot of the famous ones, are all voice. Or a lot of other famous ones, like Middlemarch, are all psychology and interconnections. How do you get that into two hours? Why does the limit have to be two hours anyway? Why not make connected movies like they used to do in Europe?)

Full-cast radio adaptations seem like a great solution to me, but we don't do those in America do we. sigh. //clutches at the BBC

[sovay]

(remarkably, the actress not only recorded the voiceovers, but MEMORIZED them and sat there running them in her head while they shot the footage -- the director was amazed at how well they matched up and asked her what she was doing)

I think of that as a very theatrical way to do it and I approve.

Marguerite Duras wrote a play in which the actors silently interacted while voices from the back of the theatre narrated the play, and their own feelings, hopes, fears.

That had to be more successful than O'Neill's Strange Interlude, which I am unable even to name without mentally quoting Groucho Marx. "Here I am talking of parties. I came down here for a party. What happens? Nothing. Not even ice cream. The gods look down and laugh. This would be a better world for children if the parents had to eat the spinach."

How do you get that into two hours? Why does the limit have to be two hours anyway? Why not make connected movies like they used to do in Europe?

Because I'm not sure Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (or The Hunger Games: Mockingjay) in two parts was a good idea? I know neither of them was exactly Sissi, but they are the only recent examples coming to mind right now; see also how Peter Jackson got three movies out of The Hobbit. Or whatever infinite installments the Marvel movies turned into.

Full-cast radio adaptations seem like a great solution to me, but we don't do those in America do we. sigh. //clutches at the BBC

I hope the BBC is good for a migraine.

[moon_custafer]

I think of that as a very theatrical way to do it and I approve.

I really wish I could recall the 19th-century play I read about years ago, which ends with an epilogue that consists of the Good Old Man character tidying up before heading to bed, and the stage directions include a monologue about the play’s events which the actor is to think, but not say out loud. I’m pretty sure it was aimed at a popular audience too, this wasn’t some avant-garde production.

(Justice includes a completely wordless scene of the protagonist in solitary confinement, but though the stage directions are extremely detailed, they only list actions.)

which I am unable even to name without mentally quoting Groucho Marx.

“And in those corridors I see strange figures, weird figures -- Steel 186, Anaconda 74…”

[sovay]

I really wish I could recall the 19th-century play I read about years ago, which ends with an epilogue that consists of the Good Old Man character tidying up before heading to bed, and the stage directions include a monologue about the play’s events which the actor is to think, but not say out loud.

I have no idea which play that would be, but that's cool.

“And in those corridors I see strange figures, weird figures -- Steel 186, Anaconda 74…”

I will almost certainly see the 1988 TV version of Strange Interlude someday because of Edward Petherbridge, but until then I am essentially all right with the fact that Animal Crackers destroyed my ability to take it seriously.