TIFF 2011 - Neil Young Life

Neil Young Life (2011) dir. Jonathan Demme
Starring Neil Young

***

By Greg Klymkiw

On the other side of Winnipeg
Neil and The Squires played the Zone
But then he went to play
For awhile in Thunder Bay
He never looked back and he’s never coming home
-Randy Bachmann "Prairie Town"

Ultimately, Neil Young belongs to the world, but it's the city of Winnipeg that allows Him to be shared.

Toronto, the pathetic, self-absorbed self-proclaimed centre of the universe tries to claim everything as their own. Yes, Neil was born in Toronto, the City of (to coin a phrase from the late, great Canadian literary giant Scott Symons) Smugly Fucklings, but His earliest, most formative years were spent on the prairies and in the deep bush territory of Northern Ontario.

Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem, but He will always be Jesus of Nazareth.

You follow?

From the North Ontario town of Omemee, Neil and his Mom eventually moved to The 'Peg where they lived in Fort Rouge (a south-end enclave for those of the working class). He played numerous gigs at the immortal Kelvin High School and this is where he formed his first major group The Squires.

For me, and those of my ilk, Our Lord will always be Neil Young of Winnipeg.

It is then, with heavy heart I report that His latest concert film, Neil Young Life was shot at Toronto's Massey Hall.

My Father, why hast Thou forsaken me?

"Because, My son, much as Winnipeg will always be My spiritual home, it is now a cesspool that has nary a single venue worthy of My Holy Voice and Hallowed Words."

Sad, but true. Massey Hall in Toronto is an astounding venue for Neil Young. It is replete with history, whilst most of Winnipeg's history has been systematically decimated. All Winnipeg has these days is a grotesque downtown arena built on the demolished ruins of a historic department store called Eaton's - this after the historic Winnipeg Arena, the original home to Canada's National hockey team, the Winnipeg Maroons and the glorious Winnipeg Jets in the lamented World Hockey Association, was levelled. Now, all that remains is an acoustically perfect, but cold and history bereft venue bearing the name of the Manitoba Telephone System.

An arena named after a telephone company is no place to capture Our Lord on celluloid.

And ultimately, the raison d'etre of Jonathan Demme's latest cinematic record of a great live performance is seeing Neil Young in concert like you could never see him live in ANY venue - up close and personal, through the lens of a great artist.

Neil Young Life features some of the most astounding footage of the hallowed rock legend you will ever see committed to film.

Neil is admittedly in great form here, but the star of the movie is definitely director Jonathan Demme. Only one filmmaker has ever been able to capture live performance as brilliantly as Demme - Martin Scorsese. But not even Marty has delivered as MANY great live performance documentaries as Demme. Will anyone ever forget their first screening of The Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense? This was truly one of the most exciting and visually gorgeous concert films imaginable (save, perhaps, for Scorsese's The Last Waltz). Demme managed to outdo even himself with the astounding Swimming To Cambodia wherein he captured the genius of the late Spaulding Gray delivering one of his outstanding monologues.

Demme's crowning glory, however, must surely be the trilogy of Our Lord's concert films Neil Young Heart of Gold, Neil Young Trunk Show and now Neil Young Life.

The best of the three is still Heart of Gold - it had the most clearly defined aesthetic approach of the three films, but there are plenty stunning moments in Life; a heartbreaking "Down By the River", numerous great renderings of material off His "Le Noise" album and finally, a truly powerful sequence in honour of those slain during the Kent State Massacre.

The sequence begins with Neil driving around his old hometown of Omemee and admitting that the only time he listens to music these days is when he is driving in cars - this statement leads into the sweetest cut imaginable as Neil launches into one of the most soulful renderings of "Ohio" I have ever experienced. Neil is in exquisite form here - his passion and intensity is pitched so acutely that one could close one's eyes and just listen and be forced to open them to allow a flood of tears to pour out.

What pushes us over the top emotionally during this sequence is the beautifully edited newsreel footage of the Kent State Massacre, a roll call of those innocent young people murdered by the National Guard and finally, a collage of the victims' photos accompanied by their dates of birth and death - all the more gut wrenching as the photographs reveal such brightness and promise in the eyes of those who were slaughtered like pigs by their own government - and for no reason.

If this were the only sequence worth watching in the film, then the entire picture would still be worth seeing. In fact, while Neil Young Life - as a film - falls a bit short of Heart of Gold, the Kent State sequence renders some of the entire trilogy's greatest moments.

What the movie is lacking is not really its fault since the whole approach is to meant to be All-Neil-All-The-Time, but the fact remains, one misses Neil's interaction with the guest artists accompanying Him during Heart of Gold and that of His band in the second picture. Life is, however, a bit more successful than Trunk Show, which occasionally felt too distanced and impersonal.

At the end of the day, all three films are an important record of a Man who might well be the mightiest musical bard in all contemporary music. An ideal situation - which I plan to do as soon as I can - is to watch all three pictures back to back and preferably in one marathon sitting.

I'm salivating at the prospect of doing so.

One technique I love in Life are the amazing extreme close-ups - the camera straight on Young's lower jowls and mouth whilst the camera remains fixed on Our Lord emoting with a simple in and out bob of His head.

And for those of us who care, there are numerous shots of Neil Young wearing a Manitoba Moose hat.

It sure warmed my cockles.

Something Wild

Something Wild (1986) dir. Jonathan Demme
Starring: Melanie Griffith, Jeff Daniels, Ray Liotta

****

By Alan Bacchus

There’s not much to celebrate from ‘80s cinema. I posted an article about this topic a few years back (HERE), and I actually forgot to put Jonathan Demme on this list. Something Wild, new to Criterion Collection deification, stands up as one of the best films of the decade. It sits in a pile of unquantifiable quirky films of the ‘80s, which are distinct to the decade and represent the attempt of filmmakers to subvert the strong capitalist conservative values of that time. We could also include Martin Scorsese’s After Hours and a handful of Jim Jarmusch films (Down By Law, Stranger in Paradise, Mystery Train) in this bucket.

I can distinctly remember my reaction watching this film for the first time years ago, specifically the remarkable midpoint tonal switch from fun, fluffy romantic road movie to a dark and violent kidnapping and revenge tale. The moment occurs in a convenience store, where Charlie Driggs (Jeff Daniels), a meek suburban schmuck who, on the second day of his rambunctious, spur of the moment road trip with his flighty free spirit girlfriend Lulu, is caught in an armed robbery heist with a dangerous criminal. The scene is punctuated by a raucous punk song and features Ray Liotta losing his cool and throwing around and pistol whipping store patrons, as well as a mighty cool freeze frame in the middle of the action for good measure. It’s a Martin Scorsese-type scene all the way, and we can’t help but think Marty saw this and decided to cast Liotta in Goodfellas.

The scene is also famous for influencing Paul Thomas Andersons' famous midpoint tonal shift in Boogie Nights, when (spoiler alert) William H. Macy’s character, after witnessing his wife boning another dude for the umpteenth time, decides to blow his own head off in the middle of a party. As in Something Wild, this scene represented a distinct turn to the dark side for Anderson.

Liotta is indeed a revelation in this film, a pocket full of rage so dangerous and threatening we can feel it through the screen in our seats. Jeff Daniels and Melanie Griffith also give fabulous performances. It's one of Griffith’s signature roles, the high-pitch voiced cock-tease character she would hone over the next ten years or so. For Daniels, his “awe shucks” personality represents the conservativeness of Americana in the decade, which makes Lulu’s seduction and corruption as the skewer into the social and political values of the period so delightful.

Demme was a master of using real locations and real personalities from these settings to create authenticity and realism. Watch the scene in the second half, when Charlie, who, while stalking the reunited lovers Lulu and Ray, enters a convenience store to buy a disguise. It’s a comical scene with Charlie donning a garish t-shirt and ludicrously tacky sunglasses. But watch his interaction with the other actors, who seem to exist in the space instead of being ‘placed’ there for the purposes of the film. Same with the end credits when Lulu and Charlie walk away along the sidewalk. The camera pans to a street vendor singing a reggae ditty. Demme has no reason to point his camera at her other than the fact that it feels right for the scene. I doubt this was in the script or even the shot list at the beginning of the day. But it’s the mark of a great filmmaker running on all cylinders and unable to make a mistake.

Something Wild is a classic from a decade with very little classics.

Something Wild is available on Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection.

Silence of the Lambs

Silence of the Lambs (1991) dir. Jonathan Demme
Starring: Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glenn, Ted Levine, Anthony Heald

****

By Alan Bacchus

There’s no real need to shower ‘Silence of the Lambs’ with any more praise. Its place in cinema and pop culture history is as rock solid as the ‘Wizard of Oz’. I’ve seen it a dozen times, and even catch snippets of it from the numerous A&E HD replays on TV. But this film is not meant to be seen on Sunday television, or with commercials, or in snippets when flipping through channels at the halftime break during televised football games. Nor was it meant to be seen in grossly edited versions for family friendly television – shame on you TBS.

It had been years since I’ve actually devoted adequate time to this picture - a quiet anti-social uninterrupted Saturday night with the lights down and with a crisp high definition Blu-Ray presentation – the next best thing to the theatrical experience.

I knew the film was good, even great, but with my full attention, mood, environment, and viewing quality all aligning properly it becomes a pure transcendental engrossing cinematic experience, nearly as good as seeing it for the first time. And think that a dark (really dark) genre picture released in February could sweep all major categories of the Oscars proves that every once in a while the Academy can get it right.

Director Jonathan Demme achieves cinematic perfection in bringing Thomas Harris’ brooding and wholly disturbing serial killer tale to screen with all its gothic tones and grimy seediness intact. Sure the performances are great, not only the award-winning lead performances but the dozen or so character actors that really make the picture work, and make Hopkins and Foster look so good. Anthony Heald as the loathsome and slimy Chilton, Scott Glenn as the FBI heavy Jack Crawford, Charles Napier as the Tennessee cop over his head with Lecter in his custody, the soothing gentle giant quality of Frankie Faison as Barney, even the two geeky bug experts who help Agent Starling identify the moth are memorable in two small scenes.

It’s easy to dismiss Demme's unflashy camera work - a style not all that different than his other films, most of which were warm-hearted Hal Ashby-esque dramatic-comedies. Demme’s close-ups, many of them centre-framed with the actors looking straight into the camera, helps lock in the audience to the characters – like what Errol Morris does with interrotron interviewing device. Tak Fujimoto’s visual design would seem more natural, and less stylish than say, Michael Mann/Dante Spinotti’s icy-coolness of “Manhunter” or David Fincher/Darius Khondji’s underlit tattered texture of “Se7evn”, but look closely and you’ll find it a precise and controlled look. Careful camera placement is used to subliminally subjugate Starling to both her environment and the other male characters; even his steadycam is used differently. The camera movement isn’t meant to be smooth and steady, instead using longer lenses on a steadycam allows the camera to move unencumbered by dolly track, yet keep the same organic shake as with traditional dolly moves.

Lambs has a remarkable sense of urgency, leapfrogging over ‘Manhunter’ and especially the oft-stolid “Se7en” in terms of pace. Hannibal Lecter’s introduction is a marvel. We all know it’s a great reveal from Starling’s lengthy walk past the grimy prison cells of Lecter’s basement neighbours, but the scene is the climax of a lengthy and expertly directed sequence of shots. As the slippery Dr. Chilton leads Starling through the cavernous hallways of the Hospital his dialogue controls the pace of their movements, editor Craig McKay punctuating each beat with a smash cut to a door opening or door closing, creating a relentless momentum enhanced by Howard Shore's heavy music.

Actually all the technical achievements above are glued together by Howard Shore’s ominous and brooding score. Before scoring films Shore was best known as the original musical director of Saturday Night Live. He then began his feature film career collaborating on all of David Cronenberg’s pictures starting with “The Brood”. Shore’s trademark sound, in what I can only describe as a soundscape of slow, pulsating, ambient noises, which increases in volume and power with the intensity of the emotion, helped Cronenberg achieve the ungodly squirm inducing terror of his great 80’s films. Though he composed a few scores for other directors in the 80’s, it wasn’t until Demme tapped him for ‘Lambs’ did he reach a new level in his career. David Fincher recognized the power of his music and got him to essentially recreate his ‘Lambs’ score for ‘Se7en’. Shore, of course, reached his career pinnacle winning three Oscars for his “Lord of the Rings” music.

I think we take “Silence of the Lambs’ for granted. Horror/thrillers are a genre which encourages stylistic flourishes. And so Demme's muted style makes 'Lambs' an enigma for auteur enthusiasts (me included). Unlike Michael Mann, or David Fincher’s films we can’t track the stylistic or thematic evolution of this film through Demme’s filmography. Even after ‘Lambs’, Demme hasn’t attempted anything like this picture again.

Perhaps the proliferation of its quotable lines, the subsequent exploitation of the Lecter character for more sequels, the numerous DVD releases of the film and it’s healthy supply in Wal-Mart dump bins has overexposed this film. Well, another version is out in the market, a MGM-packaged Blu-Ray Hannibal Lecter Collection, containing ‘Lambs’, ‘Manhunter’, and ‘Hannibal’. At least its in Blu-Ray decently transferred to high definition. The belle of this bunch certainly is 'Silence of the Lambs'.

'Silence of the Lambs' is available on Blu-Ray from MGM Home Entertainment in 'The Hannibal Lecter Collection'

RACHEL GETTING MARRIED

Rachel Getting Married (2008) dir. Jonathan Demme
Starring: Anne Hathaway, Rosemarie Dewitt, Mather Zickel, Bill Irwin, Deborah Winger

**

With all the praise heaped on this Oscar-potential/‘Jonathan Demme Comeback’ picture, I need to find or create a support group for “Haters of Rachel Getting Married”. This overly self-conscious contrived melodrama purports to be realism through obvious handheld camera work and supremely boring documentary-like wedding footage, which ironically is so in-your-face politically correct it’s sickening.

Demme’s picture is intentionally bleak. There’s no sign of optimism or hope in any of the characters letting bygones be bygones. Maybe at another reunion, years later, things will get resolved, but for now, it’s war. Kym Buckman (Anne Hathaway) has just been released from rehab for her drug addiction which contributed to her younger brother’s death. That’s a hell of a lot of baggage to bring to her sister Rachel’s wedding, which coincidentally is scheduled the day after she gets out. Kym immediately resents being relegated to the end of the rehearsal dinner table and being ostracized from the “maid of honour” duties.  Since Kym is ticking timebomb of emotion – something which Rachel has trouble avoiding on this day of celebration - it makes for explosive fireworks.

In a number of heated arguments during the pre-wedding activities blame is shifted between everyone in the family – Dad, for being to controlling, Rachel, for being the perfect daughter, Kym, for demanding everyone’s attention, and Mom, for not taking any responsibility for the children whatsoever.

Demme concentrates so much on the Buckmans he forgets there’s other people in the room as well. Somehow the incumbent family doesn’t seem to care about the domestic fireworks because we never ever get a reaction from them. Rachel's fiancé Sidney never tries to intervene, never rolls his eyes and never says a word.

This only one of the annoying contrivances which get piled onto what should have been a four-hander story – a la “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf”. Instead, the wedding elements (assuming you got past the contrivance of scheduling a wedding the day after your sister who killed your younger brother gets out of rehab) just get in the way of the story.

In the spaces between the domestic disputes and sibling rivalry (the actual 'story'), Demme eats up screentime with a series of lengthy ‘life-like’ wedding scenes. There’s a 10 mins long rehearsal dinner where we get to sit through all the speeches from the wedding party. That stuff is excruciating enough at real weddings, so I don’t need to see it lived out on screen. And Demme’s hand-held camera – like those Dogma films from 10 years ago –is shot to look like camcorder footage. Ironically though, it’s an obvious device force-fed to us in the name of realism.

The other annoying contrivance is the overly ethnically diverse self-conscious wedding. Let’s go through the mélange of cultures represented at the Buckman wedding. Sidney is African-American, Rachel is Jewish yet everyone is dressed in traditional South Asian attire (the women are wearing Saris and the men wearing Indian robes). But Sidney and Rachel are going to live in Hawaii after the wedding so the men are wearing Leis around their necks. The scarf-wearing hipster band plays ultra-cool indie-pop music, until out of nowhere a Carnivale-style Brazilian samba band shows up.

If Demme had concentrated on the real storyline and stakes at hand, the wedding should have been a background to get the characters in a room together, Instead he spends so much time creating this impossibly cool wedding, it’s distracting from the fine performances being created. Hathaway will like get her Oscar nomination, but barely because Demme almost fucked it up by masturbated to his own ‘dream wedding.’

PS. At one point in the film when Kym dramatically confronts her mother’s culpability in the conflict another audience member at Toronto’s Varsity Cinema #8 groaned with the same emotional exhaustion I was feeling. It put the only genuine smile on my face. I should have found that guy after the movie and started a group hug.