Object #66 - Poker Chips - A Hard Day's Night (1964)

Dir. Richard Lester 

A great film is one you can return to after many a year, finding your viewing experience completely changed. My first viewing of Blade Runner had me intrigued, but frankly, a little bored - this at the age of 15/16; my second viewing, age 17/18, had me drawn into the world of neon, smoke, and Replicants, fully comprehending the plot this time around, and starting to appreciate the subtext of the narrative; third viewing, not long after, it became (and remains) my favourite film. It wasn't a 'click' moment, but rather the unveiling of a beautiful art piece that resonates to my very core, bit by bit, each viewing. Although I will admit, it can drag in places, I wasn't wrong that first time, but I was missing so much. 

So far in my amateur dive into all things film, it's a rule that has stayed true - if you leave a film with the thought "That was...alright", but with a feeling in your chest and brain that there's more to uncover, then, boy, that might just be a film that resonates with you. Always trust your gut. It works for TV as well, with my latest example being the finale to Doctor Who's series ten, The Doctor Falls. First viewing - great moments, choppy scenes, a smidge unsatisfying. Second viewing, day later - a 10/10 episode, the closest Who has ever come to mythological storytelling, with the bonus of sticking the landing. Moments such as the departure of a secondary companion, which felt rushed and weak first time around, become beautifully understated and thematically satisfying exits when you know the outcome and structure of the episode, and have mulled it over a bit. 

In the case of A Hard Day's Night, I first watched it at around the age of 17, during that sacred period that everyone (it must be everyone, right?) goes through in their life - discovering The Beatles. This odd little B&W, mock-documentary, where the Fab Four seem to be there only to perform all the iconography that you would later see in Beatles photo-books, attached to articles online, and on all sorts of merch. You think of The Beatles, you think of images like the one below, except maybe in your head they had groups of screaming girls behind them. It doesn't matter, because like all pop culture, it seems to be in not only your DNA, but everyone's. Fine details non-existent - a cultural hodge-podge of screaming girls, twangy guitars, harmonised vocals, and suited young Liverpudlians? That's more like it.

The film itself was neither here nor there. It was almost a check-list tick -

 i) A Hard Day's Night 

ii) Help!

iii) Magical Mystery Tour

etc. etc. 

To know The Beatles was to have listened to all the albums, viewed all the films, and caught up on the fifty year head-start every older person on the planet seemed to have. The film is a culture piece, not in the sense of reflecting culture, but the fact that it is culture. Does is matter if those screaming girls at the start of the film were real fans, actors, or a mix of both? Not a bit, because if Lester wanted to catch reality he could have had them actually run out on a street and roll a camera. Instead, what we have is an encapsulation of Beatlemania, and one that is done in the eye of the storm of 1963, by the filmmakers and The Beatles themselves, as the boys 'act' scripted versions of their own personalities. It's reality, enhanced. The camera angles as the fans rush into the foyer do so much to convey excitement, and are in fact almost more true recordings of the emotions The Beatles created, than it would be to plonk a camera in the middle of the street and record rabid fans in real-doc fashion. 

Here then, my first viewing of the film was almost the most accurate, as it was consumed by myself as a part of the myth of The Beatles. I didn't pay attention to things like shot composition, camera placement/movement, or editing, I simply experienced the film on a visceral level, and what I saw was a reflection of Beatlemania, the humour of the Beatles (Did they trade quippy one-liners like that in reality? Doesn't matter, that's how they've passed into pop culture.), and of course, the music of the Beatles early in their careers. 

Skip ahead a good few years, and here I am re-watching the film, almost everything from that first watch with regards to plot forgotten - the most remembered being Paul's grandfather (Wilfrid Brambell) and stuff happening on a train. This time I know what was happening in 60s cinema, not in encyclopedic detail, but enough of an understanding to know what was the common style (particularly in Britain) and which filmmakers were pushing boundaries. Lo and behold, this mockumentary thing I passed off as fodder in the Beatles myth, suddenly becomes a precursor to MTV,  kinetic documentary cinema, and a contemporary to the French New Wave. 

Here's a film which takes the rebelliousness in film-making that Truffaut, Godard, and Chobral were beginning to display in films like Breathless, or The 400 Blows, and not only successfully mimics it from a British viewpoint, but manages to add to it a unique spin. From my experience, the early New Wave tends to use editing as its most potent weapon, in an obvious way. Whereas, with A Hard Day's Night, the camera itself seems to be doing more of the work, particularly the way it's placed. 

Take for example, the famous Can't Buy Me Love sequence, where the four leave the stuffy recording studio, head down the fire escape, and dance in a field like a bunch of kids. Smarter people than I have analysed each and every cut, but what I love about the camera-work is how them simply going down the fire escape has such energy. The way the camera looks up at them, light twinkling through as their feet clatter down, the camera turning, following their action. It's not rocket science, but the camera is selling this feeling of freedom, and it's working with the music, not against like the stagey set-ups of the rehearsals inside. 

Honestly, even look at that screenshot above, and notice how Ringo opens his arms, welcoming the world, happy to be free. Yet paired with the church, and the religious imagery of Christ on the right side of the shot, that famous quote of The Beatles "Being bigger than Jesus" swims into your mind and is made truth - here they are, fresh from recordings that will conquer the living rooms of thousands/millions, ready to be embraced as deities, and yet deities that want something money can't buy, love, and the simple pleasure of frolicking in a field. Even that is enhanced by the film-making to become a stepping stone to their conquering of the medium of editing, and music video itself. 

Do you see how I wasn't wrong that first time around? But now my eyes are opened and I can see! See the majesty of The Beatles! Not only as musical pioneers, but as avatars of the quick-cut, hand-held shot, music videos we all love today, and which feed themselves in and out of film itself, the place where the likes of Ridley Scott (lest we forget, the director of Blade Runner) and David Fincher would cut their teeth. 

But, beyond all this film magic, what I love about A Hard Day's Night is Paul's Granddad. He's unique to this film, a creation of Alun Owen the screenwriter, an older man to counterbalance the four, and bring a more classic sense of British humour to the film. Nowhere is this blend of styles more apparent than the party scene early in the film, scored to I Wanna Be Your Man, and All Your Loving, where the editing literally makes a point to show Paul's Granddad up to some japes in a casino, as the boys (scored by their own revolutionary music) party, trade quips with guests/journalists, and in the case of Ringo, awkwardly but lovably dance. Yet, both are funny.

There's a great bit where Paul's Granddad is playing baccarat, and upon finding he's lost all his chips, he hastily scrawls a bill on a piece of paper, puts it on an empty plate, walks over, flapping a towel over his arm, and presents it to a patron on the nearest table. The patron, looks, scowls a bit, then puts two chips as payment on the plate. Granddad returns to the baccarat table, tips the chips out and places a bet, exclaiming "Bingo!" as he nibbles on some food.

It suddenly feels like and Ealing comedy, and a damn good one as well, as the move of Paul's granddad is surprisingly effective, completely off-the-cuff, and endemic of a British guy who's a bit weaselly but completely lovable. Who better to portray this than the 'dirty old man' (or is it clean, as the four keep reminding us?) Wilfrid Brambell, famous as Arthur Steptoe? This clash of styles is echoed by the camera-work, as the casino scenes are more static, traditional affairs, which cut right into hand-helds of Ringo dancing, showing us the difference in generation - but each funny, unique, and mythological in their own way. Paul's Granddad with a foot in the past, BBC, Ealing, older-fashioned suit vs. The Beatles, music to openly dance to, novel camera-work in exteriors rather than the studio, and suits which disguise the rebellious youths.  

In sum, watch films from every era, re-watch films that you have unfinished business with, and discover the connections and synergy that comes from generations working together to create something that will stand the test of time. Dance like a child, be a crafty old geezer, take your camera outside, make music, and remember that money can't buy you love. 

Object #65 - Ladder - A Gorgeous Girl Like Me (1972)

Dir. Francois Truffaut

People who call Truffaut over-rated are fools. Dismissing films like Jules and Jim, The 400 Blows, or Day For Night can only be done by someone who's trying to make a point, be that against Truffaut, or against the entire French New Wave. I'm not one to dismiss criticism lightly, because frankly, to do so is to stifle your own growth as an appreciator of film. That said, if you dislike all of Truffaut's films then I'm sorry, there is some cinema greatness that you will be worse off for not having in your life. We're all allowed one or two, after all, you can't love every film by every great director, I understand that. But my fear is that someone will view, say, 400 Blows and write off the 'lesser' films of Truffaut as a complete no-go, as why bother with the lesser works of a director you don't appreciate? I feel this fear because I did it myself. 

Yes I know, look at me the Truffaut spokesman speaking ill of the Oh-Great Master. But I did. I saw Shoot the Pianist and thought: "Not bad. Not entirely my cup of tea.". I then ignored his films for nearly two years. Then I saw Jules and Jim, and boy, I dug that groove hard. Since then I've been playing catch up. Digging into the 'lesser' works, the B-Grade, say The Soft Skin (which to call B-grade is massively insulting, but there you go), I was still digging it. Then I came to A Gorgeous Girl Like Me, which has only gained a bit of traction lately due to a new HD transfer, and said to myself: "Just get this one out of the way, and move on to the later stuff". For the record - I'm a fucking moron who should never listen to himself. 

A Gorgeous Girl Like Me is a film that once you watch it, you wonder where it's been all your life. Let's talk about the object to illustrate why. The film opens with a young sociologist (Andre Dussollier) entering a female prison-ward to interview Camille Bliss (Bernadette Lafont), imprisoned for the murder of her father, early in her life, and her lover, more recently. The young sociologist, Stanislas, is out of his depth the moment Camille first interacts with him. This is entirely within character for her. She is a woman who throughout the film, can dominate men to do her bidding with the mere promise of sex, the provision of sex, or the withholding of sex. Now, this may give you the wrong impression, but rest assured, Camille is an incredible character beyond her sexual appeal. The sex-drive of men makes them buffoons, and their sexual quirks are exploited by Camille to full effect. Like an unwitting insect, Stanislas has walked into her spider-web, and she will spins her charms on him, to his full knowledge, and yet he will find himself unable to resist. He will help free her from prison, and it will sting him, but to him, oh what a pleasurable sting.

The playfulness of Camille, brought to vivid life by Bernadette Lafont, makes her stand out, even in the drab prison environment. Her choice of song to test the microphone for the interview, the very fact she chooses to sing, paint a picture of a woman un-encumbered by the worry of a prison sentence. It is very rare to see Camille entirely alone, so we can't tell if she's putting this on to charm Stanislas, but it seems to be 100% her, which is both endearing and terrifying, as prison is no deterrent at all to her. 

The filmmaking reflects this playfulness, which comes as no surprise considering it's Truffaut. Saying that, most of his visual and editing uniqueness is contained in the early flashback to Camille's murder of her father. Her father argues with her mother, off-screen, as we see a young Camille pluck at a banjo. This annoys her father, who throws a box at her, and we see him burst out of the house - a rotund, bullish man, who steps down, kicks at the dirt, then steps on her banjo. He literally kicks his way about the farm, kicking his young daughter on the butt. If nothing else gives you the tone of the film, it's the fact that she is sent boosted into the air, with a whimsical musical note, and lands in a hay-bale. It's clearly an effect, what looks like by wire, and that's the point. Truffaut does not constrain himself to hard realism, and casts it aside when needed. The recollection of Camille is entirely hers, and is one where a kick up the arse sends you up like a cartoon character.

Very quickly, the screen geometrically closes up on her surprised face, blackening the rest of the frame. It's not the first time Truffaut has used such a trick, but the inclusion here adds to the playfulness, not in any massively significant way, but it's a touch that simply by being unique and unexpected, gives the scene (and the film as a whole) a levity, life. Her father climbs into a barn-loft used to store wood, and again, stomps his way about looking for a right piece. The next shot has the ladder float upwards, being carried by someone as the camera pans left following the ladder, before it is lowered and falls out of frame to the right, revealing in the next shot that's it's Camille carrying it. We hear her father shout, a loud thud, see Camille briefly turn her head and smile, nodding to herself at a job well done. She leaves screen-left, the ladder trailing behind. We see the father dead on the ground, surrounded by chickens, having fallen out of incompetence at the ladder's disappearance. 

I've seen playful murders on screen before, but never quite like this. The way the ladder floats, Truffaut withholding the identity of the carrier, almost making it seem as if the ladder is literally floating away of its own volition. It isn't a mystery by any means, we know Camille will be involved, but it's playful, and I love the fact that it's done with some nice camera work. The fact that it's a little girl efficiently killing her father adds to the humour as it's treated as such a non-event. What the editing achieves, as I alluded to earlier, is a setting apart of Camille's recollections in comparison to the dull prison environment. This doesn't really last or become a pointed rule and that's why I love it. Childhood is a playful time, so why not have some fun with film conventions as we show the plot-necessary event?

Even in the 'lesser' Truffauts, you will find gems like this. I enjoy the entire film for being so fun, and for its full embrace of sex as a tool for humour. You look at your trash like Sex-Tape and compare it to this, and it's night and day; where one treats sex as a cheap punchline, this revels in using sex on a character, plot, and thematic level. But I like the Carry On films, so take my judgement as you see fit. My point with this post is to remind myself, and you the reader, to never underestimate or put down a filmmaker that is great, or that you appreciate, as what drew you to them in the first place is oftentimes not a fluke, but may not express itself as fully in some works as in others. Also in this case, fuck general opinion as you could be seriously missing out on something that just clicks with you, like A Gorgeous Girl Like Me did with, well, me. 

Object #64 - Bucket - Bicycle Thieves (1948)

Dir. Vittorio De Sica

There is power in reflecting life on film. Objectively, the ability to empathise with characters on screen shouldn't matter in our appreciation of a film. Subjectively, and in practice, that's bullshit. Take one look at the Harry Potter fandom and it's clear that a large majority of those fans love the world of Hogwarts because they would wish to be there themselves, in the shoes of Harry, Hermione, or Gryffindor Student #84. Hell, some people watch Breaking Bad and empathise so wholly with the journey of Walter White from chemistry teacher to drug baron, that they whine and moan about how horrible a wife Skylar White is. Objectively, she is the wife of a man who, while suffering from cancer, spends his remaining time not with his family, but cooking and selling drugs to pay for his treatment. That excuse is lost as the series continues, and he cooks for the pleasure of it, but still, some people stand with him, and the amount of times I've seen Skylar called a bitch is unbelievable. But is that a bad thing?

The answer is of course, yes, one of the reasons being the above. But arguably, the show-runners and filmmakers of Breaking Bad succeed in making us empathise with Walter to such a degree that we at the very least understand his drives as a person, whether we support him is a different matter, but many do. Skylar doesn't support Walt, and so she becomes this shrewish woman to some viewers, bringing down this outlaw, drug dealer vibe that the show bathes us in. Scorsese's Wolf of Wall Street does the same thing as in a drug-haze Jordan Belfort attempts to drive away with his child, crashing the car, his child's head slamming into the seat - it comes like a bucket of cold water, breaking us away from the outrageous fun of the previous two hours, and showing us the true Jordan, an incompetent, dangerous father.

Speaking of buckets (how's that for a clunky segway?), we have Bicycle Thieves. Here, as with most Italian Neo-realist films, the goal is to portray the lives of present-day (post WWII) Italians, often poor, and to have us see them not as larger than life characters on a screen, but as real people, merely shown to us via the screen. I spoke in my last post about Vertov and the cinema-eye, showing us the true world, well this is it again, however it is no documentary. It is fiction, but done in such a way to reflect real-life that it may as well be a documentary. The plot has a political bent, as we see how the country fails to find work for all the returning soldiers of WWII, and this tale, of a man and his family making ends meet to afford a bicycle so that he can hang posters of new Hollywood movies over Rome, is one of many. 

The film opens with Antonio (Lamberto Maggiorani) learning of the job opportunity that he's chosen for, but to accept it he must have a bike. He says he does, although he doesn't. He returns to his wife, Maria (Liannella Carell), she fetching water in two buckets for the house. She is clearly doing her bit, like the other wives, as housekeeper. Antonio relays the information to her, his personality apparent - slightly feckless, a worrier, who is lost in his own problems but doesn't solve them directly. She struggles to carry the buckets and he does nothing. He turns around to see her reaction to his worry that they cannot afford a bike, and she articulates her neck to the buckets. Almost snapped back to reality, Antonio reaches over and takes one of them, saving her the struggle.

The scene continues, as the walk back to their house. But that's it. That it the moment where the promise of Neo-realism, which I'd read up on a little before viewing the film, was met. See my previous Ponyo post to see how much I appreciate human moments on film. This was glorious. The detail adds nothing to the plot, but it provides spades of character-building. The way Maria struggles for a while, not even prompting Antonio, as she is used to this absent-minded treatment from her husband, who she nonetheless adores. The way Antonio immediately rights the wrong, and welcomes her input after taking the bucket. 

As they return home, we get another of these moments, as Maria goes into the bedroom and begins to take the sheets off, to Antonio's befuddlement. In that wonderful, determined way, she does this, then reaches into the cabinet drawer to remove the spare blankets, so that they can be sold to afford the bike. But wonderfully, the drawer sticks a bit, and in her frustrated mental state, this annoys her even more. She doesn't want to deprive them of the simple warmth of a bed, but she must do, and will do, so that her husband can afford the bike, get the job, and earn enough money to buy food, pay the rent, and eventually buy the sheets back. We've all had drawers stick when we're in a hurry, and it's doubly frustrating, and so what do we do? We empathise almost fully with Maria, and we see her as a real-person, dealing with real issues - Neo-realism in a nut-shell, accomplished not with camera trickery, but with the documentation of real, trivial things like forgetting to carry heavy buckets, or a stuck drawer.

As the two pawn the bed-sheets later, they sneak a look through the window of the warehouse and we see rows upon rows of similar sheets plied high, as the warehouse attendant must climb the wooden shelves to find room for them. This is how the film links to the wider social issues of the country, as hundreds, if not thousands of families go without necessities like bed-clothes to keep themselves alive. The much needed sheets however sit, among hundreds of their type, in a warehouse, benefiting nobody but the pawnbroker, and even he benefits little as who has the money to buy sheets? The film points fingers, but does it with an understanding that the person you point fingers at is just that, a person, with their own story, their own troubles.

The thief of Antonio's bicycle is later found, and is defended by his neighbours as an upstanding man. The old man who spoke to the thief only wants to be left alone, and the churchgoers look down on Antonio for disrupting their service. I mean it when I say that every character in Bicycle Thieves is believable. Each character has a story that can be inferred from their place in this era of Rome, and that story tends to be one of poverty. Antonio, Maria, and their son, Bruno's (Enzo Staiola) story is only one such story. In the close of the film, Antonio he attempts to steal a random bike, and he is accosted by the crowd, who see him as little more than a weak-willed thief. We know different, but only because we have been shown his story. Even the 'villains' of the world should be given the utmost empathy, as under poverty families begin to look out only for themselves, and this tends to harm others, ironically it is normally the poor, thus creating a cycle of misfortune for those already under economic blight. The world is not black and white, but grey, and on film, that grey is a rainbow of opportunity to explore.

Object #62 + #63 - Film / Camera - Man With a Movie Camera (1929) / Amy (2015)

Dir. Dziga Vertov / Asif Kapadia

We take for granted the artifice of film. Film, that is, a movie, a motion picture, is simply a quick succession of still images played in sequence. These sequences convey motion, the passage of time, and can be edited after the fact to create anything the director wants. The magic of cinema is the ability to manipulate images to create moving art. Now, this can happen in a Hollywood effects studio, where Chris Pine's Kirk will have a little touch up to make him the hero we know and love - a stunt rope edited away here, a blemish digitally removed there. That is art, the creation of a Hollywood hero, and don't let anyone tell you different. But what is oftentimes more difficult, and what the best filmmakers can achieve, is the editing of the real world, before it is captured on film - the immaculate staging and framing of Ozu, whose sets were constructed in such a way that they are almost symbiotically linked to the camera placement. One could not exist without the other to create the final, stationary shot.

Ozu is a wonderful example as he is at arguably the furthest extreme of moving image on film. Ozu's films are like those magical photographs of Harry Potter, the frame remains stationary, but the composition of the shot (or photo) allows the actors within the frame to play out the most human of drama. Ozu's films are windows into the worlds he has created. There is no clear opposite end to this spectrum, as once the camera moves, it has gone 360°, even if it doesn't use the entire spectrum available to it. You could say the quick-cuts of Greengrass in the Bourne films, which then includes those like Megaton who take it to the nth degree, nullifying any composition at all, and indeed, coherence. Found-footage movies are interesting spin-offs here as they are composed by a filmmaker and yet they are also not, as the freedom of movement creates spontaneity - almost filmic jazz, where no two takes will be the same.  

Frankly, what you will discuss down this road is the entirety of cinema and the field of cinematography, so it's best to talk about the early avent-garde genius of Dziga Vertov before we get carried away. The 68 minute movie (available on wikipedia in full) is not just a classic of cinema, but an educator. The film displays a dizzying amount of camera and editing trickery to simply document a Russian city and its people. It was both a culmination and ongoing experiment of the Kino-eye movement, which Vertov wrote at length on, and was used as a manifesto, alongside the other Kinos, to show how the camera would reflect the truth of the real-world. A political statement of Marxism as science - fascinating to read the passion of Vertov for this concept, even more fascinating is viewing his experimental films, which convey the concept. Film schools are built on this stuff, and lectures given. I've no doubt you could fill a semester or two discussing each technique used by Vertov in the film and what effects he wanted them to have. 

There is a sequence early in the film, where, after seeing Vertov film a group of men and women in a horse-drawn carriage, the so-far moving images suddenly stop. The horse's legs frozen mid-gallop. The carriage riders no longer move but stare at each other, frozen. The entire hustle and bustle of the street cut to a single frame. Before moving film, this was the artform to capture life - photography. That field also has rules of composition, and indeed motion pictures are by their very nature slaved to photography. What Vertov succeeds at doing here at a practical level is display to us the mechanics of the capturing of film, which is shown directly, as we see the editor at work, splicing these still images, on physical film, together. 

But emotionally, my god, what he does is a revelation! Life and death in the palm of our hands, nestled between running metal, captured on chemicals. The cameraman atop a moving car, filming the carriage - motion, excitement, the very thing Hollywood has perfected, like a roller-coaster the simple act of moving quickly gets you going. The added dimension of the cameraman being filmed to show us his actions, adding a meta notion to the camera-as-eye, as the cameraman filming a moving object is filmed by another cameraman atop another moving object. The street, full of people, going about their lives, frozen in time. It's something I touched upon in my piece on Chaplin's The Circus. As the moving image becomes still, life is stripped away, and we are left with but a taxidermy of the real-thing. A butterfly collection is beautiful to look at, like a collection of photographs, but it is static, dead, an approximation of the beauty of a live butterfly in motion. 

But Vertov goes further, as this entire emotion is only felt due to his editing of the sequence, an irony that I'm sure he grasped. Despite the documentary reflecting life as-is, the story it tells is done in the editing room - look no further than Charlie Brooker's demonstration of narrative editing of reality-TV. The spirit of film as a great step forward in our ability to capture life is playfully shown by Vertov in his experimental stop-motion sequences, his double-exposures, and techniques that to this day make you ask: "How the fuck did a guy and his camera do that in the 20's?".

Skipping over 85 years of filmaking, not least the entire genre of documentaries, we've reached Amy. Nothing has changed, yet everything has changed. Life is now captured by hand-held phones of the late 90's/early 00's, the picture quality worse than that of film as digital capturing of moving images are traded-off and balanced with the ergonomics of a multi-use media device. Over the course of Amy, phones become steadily smarter, starting to offer high-quality image capture and even motion-picture capture of a decent quality. As we begin the film with artifacted, low-meg phone footage of house-parties and teenage fun, and digital camera footage of an up and coming young Londoner, shot by her similarly young and up and coming manager, the world is ok. It's actually surreal to be utterly back in the 00's British world, with Tony Blair, crappy flip-phones, CD sales topping charts, DVDs as something new, fashion becoming that much more dated by the hour.  

    

Unfortunately, as the fame of the talented Amy Winehouse grows, the attention of those with more sophisticated technology comes a-calling. Paparazzi cameras now capture every public moment of Winehouse's life, in high quality, ready to be printed in crappy magazines, and crappy newspapers who dwell on the lows of the vulnerable star. Vertov, I think, would have embraced the earlier form, and I like to think he'd have done some fantastic work with it. There is a true-to-life beauty in those early videos of Winehouse, often done by herself, occasionally turning the camera to capture her own face, in raw detail. There is no Hollywood removal of pimples, dodgy mascara, or tear-stained make-up. Vertov's vision would have had to include this, and today, the everyday artistry of a Snapchat story, as how is that not the capturing of life? Every embarrassed look away from the camera, every knock-out performance in an underground bar, everyday life. 

There's a sequence towards the end of the film, where Winehouse leaves the hotel she is at to visit her husband who's in jail. What Kapadia does, as the director of this succession of images, both moving and still, is convey the extent to which Winehouse's life was not her own. Traditional moving image, i.e video footage from the phone of one of her entourage is replaced by a rapid succession of still, paparazzi images. The clicking, flashing, cacophony of noise and light is reflected, literally by Winehouse, as she is lit in that sickly bright way, separating her from her surroundings (the poorest imitation of a show spotlight), and reflected in her dead eyes. This is someone numb to the invasion of her privacy, no longer able to react to this machine-gun-like barrage on the senses in any way but getting to her destination as quickly as possible. We see the tragedy of her life in Kapadia's selection of images. There are enough photos taken of Winehouse stepping outside the doors of the hotel, to the door of her car, to actually, almost stop-motion-like, show us the movement. 

It uses the editing of film, here entirely digitally created, to make us feel that experience of the paparazzi hell. But the irony is, is that Winehouse as a subject thus allows us to fully understand her experience, due to this widespread documentation, both within and without. Quite simply, Kapadia has all the footage he needs to make his film from photos, and video footage shot by the paparazzi, the journalists, from the reality-TV show following her life (to make her father a quick buck), her friends and family, and of course, Amy herself. But Amy Winehouse was not a filmmaker, and as true to life as her phone-calls, texts, photos, and videos are in a Vertovian sense, the self she chose to express is found in her music. As the credits roll to her cover of Valerie, white words on black like a tombstone, we can mourn her with a greater understanding of her troubles, her passions, and the meaning behind her music. 

Object #61 - Griffith Observatory - La La Land (2016)

Dir. Damien Chazelle

What does it mean to be a musical in 2016? The musical has never truly gone away, but in comparison to the bevy released in the 50's and 60's, today's output is significantly less. You can usually count on one hand any relatively big-budget musicals from an entire year, and on an even smaller, finger-deprived hand the amount of actually good ones. 2016 had the excellent Sing Street, and as far as live-action goes...that's about it. On the animated front we have Moana, but that only continues the Disney tradition; Sing, which owes more to X-Factor than Singin' in the Rain; and, I don't know, Trolls, maybe? La La Land quite rightly stands out, not only as being live action, but a deliberate throw-back to the Hollywood musicals of old. It sticks the landing, to be understated (Can any other film say "14 Oscar nominations" this year?).

So if it calls back to Singin in the Rain, West Side Story, or Guys and Dolls, what does it have to make it unique? For the first 30/40 minutes of viewing the film (and I've only seen it the once so far), I was enjoying everything about it - the choreography, the impressive long-take (real or not) of the opening, Another Day of Sun, the playfulness of the homages to past musicals, and of course, the performances of Gosling and Stone, nowhere more delightful than in the poster-shot sequence of A Lovely Night. But, as refreshing as it was to see this done with such style in 2016, all I could think was: "So what?". Yes, I know, I am an arrogant little shit who couldn't make half a film as good as this - nay, a tenth. But, again, if you're going to do a modern-musical, one with bravura musical numbers and old-fashioned choreography, you need to do something new to set yourself apart. Bring something new to the table, use the techniques of the modern-day industry to not only match, but top, the classics.

It wasn't until the Planetarium sequence that I finally gave in and accepted that yes, La La Land, you deserve those nominations. [Spoiler territory here up until the middle of the film, if you've yet to see and still want to catch La La Land.] Honestly, it isn't anything remarkably out-there, and perhaps I'm being too unfair to the more understated way modern tech and filming techniques were used elsewhere in the film, but the sequence is so bold in adopting the fantasy made possible by CGI that I was swept away. 

Background: Mia (Emma Stone) and Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) have met, ignored each other, met again, and slowly become enamored with each other at this point in the film. We've had the centerpiece A Lovely Night sequence and they are on their way to love. The two go for a date, one which Mia has to firmly chose over a dull, socialite night with her current boyfriend. Seb's asked her to a screening of the James Dean classic Rebel Without A Cause, a film close to his heart, and one she's never seen. She arrives late, sits next to him in the dark, disallowing the ability for small-talk greetings, and as the film weaves its magic spell, they take each others hand, and lean in, ever so slowly, for their first kiss. 

Movie tropes tell us they will, and Chazelle shoots the scene beautifully so that it feels like an earned commitment to past tropes. But, as they lean in to seal the deal, the film stock catches alight, and the film abruptly ends (you don't get that with digital!), ruining the moment. The film cuts out during the sequence in Rebel where James Dean's character, Jim visits the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, on a school-trip. If you've never seen Rebel Without a Cause then, simply put, it's about the rebellious Jim and his relationship with Judy (Natalie Wood), as well as his close friend Plato (Sal Mineo). In that scene, they visit the observatory, go to the planetarium and see the star-show, before leaving to find that Jim's tires have been slashed. A fight breaks out, and Jim is challenged to a street-race, which sets in place the rest of the film.

None of that is particularly relevant, and just as I wrote about in my When Harry Met Sally post with Casablanca, I feel what Chazelle wanted here was a tie to the past of Hollywood on film, as with age the classics of romance themselves take on this romantic quality to the new-Hollywood couples like Mia and Seb. Funnily enough it also happens in Lost in Translation, with La Dolce Vita, which I forgot to mention in my last post, although admittedly that's not Hollywood. Anyway, in a spark of romantic idea (I can't remember who asks the other to go there) the two get in the car, and drive to the Griffith Observatory. The shot itself parallels the establishing shot of the observatory in Rebel Without A Cause, likely so we as the audience not only understand that it's the same location, but also so that the lineage of Hollywood is directly echoed. 

Without words, sung or not, the two see the sights of the building, before reaching that most romantic of locations - the planetarium. They sit down, in the dark, just as they did in the cinema earlier, and we feel that yep, that's deserved, it's an even greater place for that first kiss. But here we take that leap (literally) into the modern day. As they go to kiss, Seb instead lifts Mia up into the air, and she floats up, into the star-field. It's clearly done via wire, so again it purposefully doesn't escape the old traditions to start. But we cut, and suddenly they are both among the stars (see the first screenshot above). 

Here the music takes both us and them away, an instrumental version of their established theme, here let loose as they waltz among the stars themselves. It's a literalization of that love that makes you feel up in the stars, something that could only be done to this beautiful extent with today's CGI. People complain frequently about the soullessness of CGI, but if you ever want to refute that, look no further than this sequence. It uses CGI to bend reality, and give Mia and Seb the opportunity to dance together, and of course, kiss for the very first time in an environment that goes beyond LA, and yet is wholly a part of it.

By being so closely tied to Rebel Without A Cause, this sequence will be naturally paired with it in future. Some new Hollywood film will likely use the location again in some fresh, fantastic way, and that film will join La La Land in the mythologization of the Griffith Observatory as a building steeped in Hollywood lore. Here, that lore extends from Rebel Without A Cause, to pure romance, and with due tribute paid to the past, it reclaims the location to form something new - both as a scene, and via the techniques used to bring the scene to the screen. There is no better encapsulation of what makes La La Land great than this in my mind - it's here that it plant a flag and says: "Here, this is what a modern Hollywood musical can be", and indeed, what Hollywood films themselves can be - great, LA bound, and more than anything, alive.  

Object #60 - Shower-head - Lost in Translation (2003)

Dir. Sofia Coppola

Love blooms due to circumstance. You might think that's harsh, but it's true. Think of the love of your life, if you have one, and ask yourself - where did you meet? Say you work at a hospital and that's where you met your soul-mate, a doctor working in the cardiovascular clinic - isn't that massively lucky, that the perfect person for you worked two-flights down some stairs? We all know deep down (or not so deep down, it depends on your outlook on love and relationships) that 'soul-mates' and 'true-love' are all bullshit, but it's our way of expressing and romanticizing our profound love for that special someone. Tim Minchin's If I Didn't Have You sums this up completely, and what I love about that comic piano piece is the affection it has for this stupid biochemical process we call love. 

Lost in Translation has love bloom between two people, but only because of their meeting at a particular place - a physical place in the world, Tokyo, and respective places in life's journey. Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) has come along with her husband, John (Giovanni Ribisi) and spends her time mostly in a hotel room and tentatively exploring the foreign culture of Japan. Bob Harris (Bill Murray) is an American actor who is cashing in on his career fame to film a Japanese whiskey commercial. Both Charlotte and Bob are married, and both are disillusioned about the entire process, despite their differences in age. Bob remains married out of obligation, and for more than anything out of a desire to see his children grow and prosper, with his acting being a means of funding this prosperity. Charlotte is younger, just out of college and while this life-style should be glamorous, the wife of a jet-setting celebrity photographer (admittedly, a fairly low-rent one), it isn't what she desires, and in all honesty, she doesn't know what she desires.

Early in the film, Coppola front-loads images of Bob as physically out of step with this foreign country. He looms over the naturally shorter Japanese population, and is routinely bowed at to his own discomfort as it's clear he both doesn't know how to respond, but also doesn't feel he deserves to be bowed to. In one of the best scenes, he is instructed by the Japanese director (Yutaka Tadokoro) on how to perform the whiskey advert. The director speaks for a good thirty seconds a pop, and yet the interpreter (Kei Takyo) only relays the simplest of commands, and it is clear that something is being (*title drop alert*) lost in translation. The object for this entry is symbolic of this profound displacement that Bob and Charlotte feel. It's simple in the scene, Bob goes to shower, and the shower-head is set far too low, and even with adjustment he has to stoop to wash his hair. The very location is not made for someone like Bob.

Yet, it is only in Tokyo, and only at this point in both their lives that Bob and Charlotte could connect. If they met in a similar situation in America it just wouldn't be the same, as the very place they inhabit seems to call to both of them, they want to break free in this brief respite from the 'real' world that is their lives, and dive into something new. Of course, this is always more fun with someone new. Harris is played to absolute perfection by Murray, and it's his best role, written specifically for him by Coppola and quite rightly so as he seems to be Bob Harris in every moment he is on screen. They say the secret of acting is reacting, well here Harris, and ergo Murray, is constantly reacting to the very location, with wry humour-as-defense-mechanism and a sense of loneliness. 

Charlotte reacts to people, her husband who loves out of obligation, and who clearly wants to spend time with film-star and old acquaintance, Kelly (Anna Faris). There is never an air of affair here, to the film's benefit, it is simply a desire by John to suck-up to the 'glamour' associated with his job, despite Kelly being vapid and pure Hollywood. What I love about Coppola is that she's never overly critical of any one of these characters, we understand that John and Charlotte are simply mismatched for example. There's a moment I'm profoundly glad for late in the film where Kelly is seen performing karaoke at the lounge-bar of the hotel, a location central to the meeting of Bob and Charlotte, and the vapid dinner scenes Charlotte had to endure where Kelly bangs-on about diets and other things inane. Kelly performs karaoke to an uninterested bar, in a language they won't understand, and what we feel is pity. This 'great' actress is just as out of place as Bob and Charlotte, and just as alone, and it's Bob and Charlotte who've found something greater than a career high/low-light on a press tour, as Kelly is experiencing.

Bob and Charlotte explore Tokyo together - going to karaoke bars with the locals, bars with friends, even a visit to a hospital and as the nights go on, the two feel what can only be described as love towards one another. There is no lust, no passionate love-making, but something all-together deeper, a connection of soul only achievable in that particular place. Charlotte likely knows of Harris as an actor, but it is never brought up, and there's no imbalance in power roles, despite perhaps the wisdom of age. The closest thing to an 'imbalance' is in fact their height, and at one point as Charlotte helps Bob put a t-shirt on, he comments "You're too small" to which the reply is "You're too tall". They are two people who should not bond, should not click, and should not really have met, but opposites, even in something simple as height, attract. The two know that their connection comes with a time-limit, as the two will return to their respective wife/husband and carry on, whatever that may bring. 

The famous final scene leaves the final words of their relationship to the viewer's interpretation, but we know that the two will separate, and yet it is only by this separation that their relationship has any poignancy, indeed, it's likely Charlotte only approached Bob as she could assume that both he and she would not be here forever. Their relationship began as it ends, a transient thing, but one that the two will never forget (is that what he whispers in her ear?), and one that I believe gives both a passion to find true love that's sustainable. For Bob it's likely his children, but for Charlotte, it's hopefully another man, and it's thanks to this relationship that she will realize what has been missing from her relationship - true love.  

Object #59 - Telephones - When Harry Met Sally (1989)

Dir. Rob Reiner

Communication is key to a good relationship. In our 2017 always-online, always close-to-hand smartphone world, the notion of being unable to communicate with the one you love is a foreign idea. The extreme to which you text/snapchat/whatsapp/call your loved one is unique to each relationship. I've known couples who had an almost constant stream of messages being sent between each other, and I've also known couples who only contact each other once or twice a day. Every relationship is different, and yet each technological iteration (even something as simple as a 'Seen at ___' notification) brings with them their own subtleties and subtext. Technology which aids communication always loses the power of face-to-face communication - a phone call doesn't allow you to see the subtlety of body language and facial expression; a text message has no tone of voice (well, that's debatable to an extent but again - subtleties of the medium); a video call appears face-to-face but dampens that spark that physical closeness brings. All these technologies are ghosts of the real-thing.

All that considered, the beauty of the (first) telephone scene in When Harry Met Sally is that the intimacy of watching a film in bed with your loved one is almost not lost at all, despite the two communicating entirely via hard-phone. Both Harry (Billy Crystal) and Sally (Meg Ryan) are apart physically, and both watch Casablanca together on a TV channel. The film pre-dates smartphones, and other early tech such as e-mail are not utilised as communicative aids in the relationship - screenwriter Nora Ephron would later explore this in depth with You've Got Mail, but here, it's a simpler time.

Rob Reiner, a tremendously versatile director of genre has had many successes, including Misery, Stand By Me, and This is Spinal Tap, among others. What I find refreshing about Reiner is that his direction is almost never what we've come to consider as 'outstanding' from our viewing of other, bolder films. He has no virtuoso camera-pans, no ten-minute long-shots, but what he does have is a fine control of camera placement and a hard-to-define knowledge of what makes a good film. A relatively simple editing trick is used in the scene, as we see Harry in bed on the left, and Sally on the right. There is a clear divide between the environments of the two - different bed-sheets, lighting conditions, and wallpaper and yet by placing these two camera angles next to each other we see Harry and Sally in bed, not separately, but together.

Harry and Sally are not in a relationship in this scene, in fact, they are never in a conventional relationship throughout most of the film. In their first meeting, Harry conveys his belief that women and men can never be of equal standing in friendship as a man is always thinking of sleeping with the woman, and so to remain friends (as they meet years later) they never consummate the relationship, remaining open and honest friends - discussing dates, the divide of men/women, and everything and anything. They are a source of comfort to each other in a world of misunderstanding between the sexes, and in this scene it's a phonecall before bed, sharing the brilliance of that most romantic of films - Casablanca.

The shot behind the two places their two heads right next to each other, as if they are embracing like lovers in a relationship do - and so Reiner is quite obviously drawing attention to the love that the two share despite being so far apart from one another. The telephones are the communicative line between the two. and just as in real life, it allows Harry to be that little more frank about Sally's 'high-maintenance' qualities. It isn't criticism intended to harm, it's truth, and one Sally responds to matter of factly: "Well I just want it the way I want it". That ever-elusive movie-magic rears its head here again; maybe it's something to do with the pairing of the scene with that classic of romance, Casablanca, that gives this scene something special - it's a wonderful encapsulation of what makes this film shine - Meg Ryan, Billy Crystal, Nora Ephron, and Rob Reiner.

Reiner one-ups himself later in the film, as he translates to the screen the four-way conversation between Harry, Sally, and respective close-friends Jess (Bruno Kirby), and Marie (Carrie Fisher). Harry and Sally have slept with each other for the first time and both regret breaking the unspoken rule, and confide in their friends. What makes the scene so funny is that Jess and Marie are in bed together, and each is the close friend of either Harry or Sally, so the conversations, which echo each other like a synchronised dance, could easily be swapped and would lose none of the meaning. 

Jess and Marie only met when a double-date intended to set Jess up with Sally, and Harry with Marie, was inverted, as Jess and Marie hit it off big-time, and Harry and Sally continually failed to see that they are the ones who are perfect for each other. 

It calls back to the earlier telephone scene and visually, with Jess and Marie separating the two, it is clear that that earlier connection between Harry and Sally has been broken. And yet, the conversations are so similar that even in separation the two are clearly perfect for one another as they deal with it in the same way. At one point Harry and Sally even cotton on to the fact that a similar conversation is happening in the background. The best bit of the scene for me is the moment Jess and Marie simultaneously offer a chat over breakfast at their place to deal with their issues, and the two turn to each other willing each other with their eyes to cancel that plan lest Harry and Sally both turn-up - it's hilarious comic timing.

The closest we get to the 'ghosting' of modern technology is by seeing how Harry's attempts to re-connect with Sally are ignored, with only the 'welcome' of an answering machine. Telephones then can be used as tools to ignore communication just as much as tools of communication, and by having these scenes in the film we see how Harry truly wants to reconnect with Sally. Again, Harry is able to say things here that he wouldn't be able to otherwise, even face-to-face, as the answering machine is not just an obstacle to talking to Sally, but a means of letting her hear his point of view. In the end, the two settle their differences face-to-face, and romance blooms. It's an interesting and 'modern' integration of technology with the classic romance film tropes by Ephron, who via two people (and sometimes four) talking, plays to her strengths - killer dialogue, brought faithfully, and robustly to screen by Reiner and the two wonderful leads.