My Life Without Me

 

directed by Isabel Coixet (2003)

It made me cry.  I give props to a movie that can do that.  Even if it's just a hitch in my chest or a moistening at the corner of my eyes, it's something to be able to move someone emotionally.  Maudlin melodrama, aw.

I figured going in that this would make me cry though.  I mean c'mon it's got a Sarah Polley as a young mom dying of cancer?  How could it NOT make me cry.  I ditched it at the VIFF when it played because I was already seeing too many movies making me sad that year, plus viewing opportunities were bound to come around again.

Sarah Polley plays Ann, a blue collar young mom who works the night shift cleaning (with Amanda Plummer) at a university,. (SFU - this film was shot in Vancouver.)  She's got 2 young daughters, a husband, (Scott Speedman), who loves her and a mom, (Deborah Harry), who does too, but doesn't know how to show it very well.  Also her father, (Alfred Molina uncredited), is in jail.

She finds out she's dying and makes her bucket list.  It's a simple list.  She doesn't want a lot of stuff, just some experiences, to set her husband up with someone new, and to leave messages for her children.  She loves her kids and husband, and what she wants doesn't dilute that love.  Even though I thought it was unrealistic that she had this much control around her illness, keeping it so secret.  That felt a little wrong, but still, I can understand wanting to protect your family from the grief and worry of a protracted illness.  I think though that hiding terminal illness is also denying them the experience of gradually coming to terms with that coming death.  Death is painful, and a quick death is not necessarily better than one where you see it a long ways off.  It's just a different experience.  I'm guessing that at some point she wouldn't be able to hide it, but that part of the story doesn't happen on film.

It's not really believable, I mean it is - on a story level, you can buy this happening. It's based on a short story so obviously it's believable that someone wrote it, and it's believable on a general character arc level too,  but on a more realistic level,  I think you'd see more fighting to live and checking out your options, also asking for support from your family.  When you hear a doctor, (Julian Richings), in a pretty awesome role), say you're too young and too full of cancer for us to do anything, I call bullshit that you don't get a 2nd opinion.   Maybe that reaction makes more sense in a country without socialised medicine, but whatever, she just snap, decides well I'm dying I guess I have a big secret now, like she was all prepared and just waiting for the opportunity to run the bucket list down.  Naw, that's too harsh.  She does contemplative in a coffee shop marking down her wants, and I think they just didn't belabour the internal dialogue she had on coming to terms with the idea of the inevitability of her death.  They just had her narrate on the fact that she didn't want her family's last days with her to be filled with worry.

She's pretty selfish too.  Her bucket list stuff is all self interested, but that's okay, she's young and naive.  She talks about not doing drugs in high school except taking hits off her husbands joints and not inhaling, like that president, Bill Clinton.  She's not very edjumacated eh?  And she's fucking DYING.  I don't begrudge self interest in that scenario.

Two months to live and she wants to fall in love and make a guy fall in love with her.  Which makes for the weirdest fucking romance ever.  DOOMED romance, some people might think it's super romantic, but It thought it was a fucking asshole thing to do - make a guy fall in love with you, and fall in love with him when you are dying!  And that's what makes it OK to be such a jerk - oh you're dying I forgive you.  It's a pretty sweet romance though, and I felt so sorry for Mark Ruffalo!  Still they give each other lots, even though their time together is brief, and like I said this is a story, and besides, the time she spent with him, seemed to be time when her kids and husband weren't around anyhow.  Yay for daytime adulterous romance!

It's selfish wanting to make a guy fall in love with you when you've already got a man who loves you.  But you met your husband at the last Nirvana concert ever when you were 16? 17?  And you've never even complained about not ever having anything new or going on vacation or living in a trailer behind your mom's house, or working a minimum wage dead end job, or, or, whatever else that's shitty in her life.  She could be a total bitch and a whiny titty baby about her hard luck life but she's actually fairly happy and content, appreciating her kids and her man, and she didn't need to f'n DIE to get that.  She isn't even very pissed off about dying.  All she wants to do is dance, and make romance.  WTF?!!  That's really the main thing that bugged me.  She was so already there in terms of accepting her death.  I'd have liked to see more process around that.  That didn't feel real.  She was too calm and zen.  Not that there's anything wrong with that, just it seemed unrealistic.

It is passionate and romantic and that zen deliberateness is a slow burn that hadt me thinking about the film long after I watched it.  It's a good film that I enjoyed, and I liked the soundtrack too.

There's a thread on imdb where her bucket list totally gets slammed for being slack compared to Homer Simpson's.  I felt some of the same indignation and judgement, but I still think the movie is a good watch. 

RIP my sweet baby kitty (final post April 10, 2012)

Juncture

directed by  James Seale (2007)

Juncture is a noirish revenge flick with a pretty good ending that leaves an opening for sequels, or just for imaginating what happens next.  It's satisfying on a bloodthirsty level, but it's a real B flick, not terrible, but not super compelling either.  It's something that probably read real well as a screenplay.  You've got a protagonist who's a well to do good looking lady executive, with a tragic past, and an even more tragic future.  Isn't that always the way though?  Anna Carter, (Kristine Blackport), is head of a richie rich charity board and gives out cash money to worthwhile causes, though you hear her talk about that more than you see her do it, mostly she just flies around the country and talks snotty to her boss.  Actually the flick could have done away with the majority of those scenes, because the real action is around her off the books job as a gun toting lady vengeance. She's the one woman taxi driver weather underground travelling around the country and raining bullets down on the scum to clean up the streets.  It starts off with a bang, she offs a child molester just been sprung from jail, then goes on from there unbottling her genie with the hand gun so to grant other bad folk a Charles Bronson Death Wish.  There's character development scenes around her relationship to her boss and her law clerking best friend, also some ooolala sexy time with a new guy trying to spark a romance, but whatever, because this one is all about the Dirty Harriet action.  Oh yeah, she has cancer in her brain and that's why she decides to do something mean with the rest of her life.

I have to admit I'm a little ashamed for enjoying this.  I like these vengeance flicks though, and I like them even better when it's a woman dealing out the vigilante justice.  It's not that great though, in truth I fast forwarded much of it. It's got some interesting camera work but all told it's not much of a much.  Made the most of a low budget though.  Good job there, James Seale.  I hope you get summat even more pulpier next go round.

Ocean's Elevenses

directed by Lewis Milestone (1960) Steven Soderbergh (2001)

I figured it'd be a good idea to compare the 1960 original to the 2001 remake and as I settled in to watch the original, I felt good. The Saul Bass opening credits animation were swell and the whole thing had a smooth easy feel with all the characters seeming real comfortable with each other having chemistry and patter.  I got bored pretty quick though.  Jesus gawd all this breezy chatter, natty suits, drinking booze, smoking cigarettes, and gorgeous dames....how long is it going to take before we get to the action?  An hour of introducing all the damn actors is really stretching it, but I guess when you've got 11 guys to characterise it takes some time.

I recognised Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and was surprised at how small Sammy Davis Jr. was.  He reminded me of Prince in his song piece - which is also the theme song of the flick, and the main riff plays all throughout out.  And the Prince thang is more size wise and on a performance level, because Sammy and Prince don't really have the same kinda sound.

The other actors, I couldn't place except for the skull-faced Henry Silva. He's got a real distinctive look, and I know him even if it's only because he's so recognisable. I think he's best known as for his bad guy roles. There's also Norman Fell.  Mr Furley!!  And Shirley MacLaine makes a brief cameo as a drunk girl, Dean Martin gets to make out with - for crime's sake.  She did the film so she could hang out with her Rat Pack buddies - they would do their club acts at night then shoot in the early morning.  Much of the dialogue was just improvised as they were good buddies with close rapport.

One interesting bit of trivia - Sammy Davis Jr. wasn't allowed to stay in any of the Casinos he performed at because of racism.  It took sway and direct intervention from Sinatra to get the Casinos to put aside their no coloureds bullshit.

I liked the period details and style. I liked seeing the narrow ties and tight suits.  The women were all dressed sharp too,  with glamour dresses, especially in the burlesque scene, Honeyface has a gorgeous outfit. Overall folk are well dressed, probably because people dressed more formally in 1960, at least in this movie they did.


The movie is pretty dumb.  I didn't buy the whole caper, but it's got old school Vegas as the backdrop and that is totally intriguing.  Vegas just seems like a bunch of regular old nightclubs, except with one armed bandits and games tables.  You can marvel at just how much the place has changed.   I liked it okay.  The movie is fun, and the ending completely redeems the ridiculous story.

Now for the sequel...

I recognised every star in this one, because it's chock full of them, plus it's of my era.  And I recognised this Vegas too.  It's so much bigger and flashy gaudy, the scale so much more more more and beyond belief compared to the itty bitty little casinos of the past. Vegas is so a  star in this.  Yay for cross promotions!

Both films work well for Vegas promotion. 

Andy Garcia owns the vault servicing the 3 casinos targeted for robbery, MGM Grand, Mirage and The Bellagio.  I'm guessing The Bellagio was the newest at the time of the 2001 filming, and that's why it got the most product placement promotion.  I'm also guessing Garcia is a stand in for Steve Wynn.

The caper in this one is much more elaborate, more like a spy flick, all full of contraptions and gadgets.  It's far more ridiculous in its complexity.  The first caper was ridiculous too, but it's way outshone by the remake's shenanigans. 

I'm glad the Oceans 11, 2.0 was more a riff on the original concept than a straight up remake.  I was expecting the cast of criminals to be a bunch of Iraq veterans and that they weren't was refreshing.  It's often better if a film confounds expectations. Overall, I found the 2nd iteration to be more entertaining.  The original was slower, and went off on tangents, and musical numbers by Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr,  especially showcasing these stars, and as much as I enjoyed that, I liked that the sequel was more plot driven.  Both were fairly dismissive of women.  Julia Roberts gets a bigger part as Danny Ocean's, (George Clooney), wife than Angie Dickinson did as Sinatra's ex-Mrs. Ocean.  The one actor of the principle cast of 2.0 that I didn't recognise was Shaebo Qin.  He was recruited from The Peking Acrobats and doesn't act except for his roles in the Ocean's flicks.  I thought his ethnicity was played for laughs.  


They're both fun, but I think the 2nd one is a more entertaining heist.

Gaslight

 directed by George Cukor (1944)

 Jesus does Isabella Rossellini ever look like her mom Ingrid Bergman.

 Aside from that observation, I forgot to write anything about this movie right after I watched it, so this review will be brief.

It was good.  The story is great, except for a rather anticlimactic ending, and the acting is stellar by everyone involved.  Joseph Cotton is a snoopy American with a snazzy manner, suspicious of that foreigner Charles Boyer. While Boyer is sleazy and supercilious, he's awsome spooky too.  Ingrid Bergman is the fragile object of affection, eyed possessively by both men and she's more than just a pretty face.  It takes skill to appear vulnerable and tormented.  Angela Lansbury is great in her role as a maid on the make, and she's pretty gorgeous and nasty too.  It's a good portrayal of the upper classes in the fussy and mannerly Victorian era.  I liked the sets and costumes, it looks beautiful, and it's altogether, a pretty great thriller, that's entirely entertaining.  I can see why the term gaslight came in to use, because it's such a memorable production particularly in terms of illustrating the diabolical type of evil it would take to "gaslight" someone.  It makes sense that the title was coined as a term and referenced over time so often because it well depicts the matrix of deceit and manipulation the abusive/Svengali male entangles around their thrall in order to control them and this is an insidious dynamic which gets play in most all abusive relationships. 

I got caught up in the story too.  The villain is a terrible man, and what he does is  soooo wrong.  I was getting mad watching him be such a snakey jerk.  Still, it's soooo sexist!   It's redonkulous how often female characters are written as lambs to the slaughter victims. Whatever though, because it's worth a look.  It's a fun psycho-killer showdown, satisfaction guaranteed!

Monsieur Lazhar

directed by  Philippe Falardeau (2011)

Based on a play by Evelyne de la Cheneliere, this award winning French language flick stars Mohamed Fellag, as an Algerian refugee in Montreal who takes on the job of teaching a grade 6 class traumatised by the suicide of their teacher.  Although, there are a lot of children in this film, it isn't full of your typical Hollywood kids mugging for the camera.  It's realistic kid acting with a well done story that garnered enough respect that it was selected as Canada's offering for the Oscars.  It made it to the final 5, only to lose out to the Iranian selection, A Seperation. Monsieur Lazhar is an interesting man who has his own issues and wisdom that he brings to the classroom.

Seriously though, what the hell?  A teacher hangs herself in the middle of a work day, IN THE CLASSROOM while the kids are at recess?  Jayzus. 

Aside from that dramatic premise and beginning, about the only thing I had a hard time with was the fact that Monsieur Lazhar was able to get a job as a substitute teacher.  There's no way that would happen, at least not in a well run school.  Credentials and references would for sure get checked, and I thought the racism aspect was glossed over some as immigrants are treated with suspicion in most every society, especially Muslim folk in Western countries in a post 9-11 world.  Terroriste!  These are fairly quibbling problems though as it's not really about the immigrant experience, it's much more about the aftermath of trauma.  Monsieur Lazhar didn't need to be an immigrant, he just needed to be a survivor of trauma.

At first I was convinced this was the same school from David Cronenberg's The Brood, but that was filmed in Toronto, and this one takes place in Montreal.  I guess it's more the atmospheric dread in the scholastic setting that felt similar. The Brood's murderous rage babies going to pick up their sister, and incidentally murdering the teacher created the same feeling of wrongness I got from the aftermath of this film's suicidal teacher. 

The movie has an over arcing message of surmounting tragedy, and it's not done in a trite or melodramatic way.  The kids have gone through something terrible and so has Monsieur Lazhar.  He is able to show his charges that the way through those feelings is not to pretend death and despair don't exist, but to acknowledge and go on in spite of them.   It's a good flick.

Big Miracle

directed by Ken Kwapis (2012)

Spoilers!  (but it's based on a true story so I dunno, I think that automatically disqualifies me from having to make a spoiler warning. You're getting one anyway.  You're welcome.)

Blah.  This is what you get when Hollywood messes with a true life animal rescue story.  It feels like a Disney flick, but it's a Universal production that's based on the true events around an incident in the late 80's when some Grey Whales became trapped under the ice in Alaska.  It's so calculated and crappy heartwarming with product placement and good people coming together because they love the whales.... and for mutual benefit too.  This movie was made to capitalise on people's love of animals and besides,  saving whales is such a noble cause right?  Of course I'm being terribly cynical, but geez, even though it's got a Free Willy redemptive ending, it's altogether a bad feeling flick. 

It stars John Krasinski as a news reporter whiling away in the sticks, and Drew Barrymore is his shrill hippie granola Cassandra ex-girlfriend, who screeches about environmental disaster while everyone tunes her out. The Office dude is interviewing her in one scene where she's saying, "Eat your fish before it's so full of mercury it kills you!",  and  "In 15 years you'll be drinking bottled water because the tap water is poison too!" He tries to get her to tone the doom down saying,  "Everyone just changed the channel!"  Yeah,  the truth is too scary eh?  Then she talks about how whales are just like us, swimming in the ocean fishlike people who are scared.  And we're scared too,  just most people are busy buying shit so they don't feel that anxiety, and they're caught up working hard so they can make money so they can buy more shit and this cycle takes up all their energy and ability to care about anything outside world of excess consumption.

There were some indigenous folk in the film but the focus was on the white people and their white people problems.  It's actually more fitting into the romantic comedy mode than having much to do with the whales.  The romance with the pilot and the White House rep was apparently real, but much of the stuff related to the whales wasn't.  For instance, there were more than the three whales, and the reason they don't all make it is because of human error, not that the baby whale got respiratory issues.  They were accidentally playing killer whale sounds and these sounds scared the whales away from the breathing holes since Killer Whales prey on Grey Whales.  And nobody dived down to untangle a whale's tail from netting.  Though I have to admit, that scene choked me up.  Aw, poor whale being all tangled.  That's not right!  Yeah, the movie knows how to push buttons. Another thing that bugged me, is that it kinda sucks that it's such a white person movie when so much of the action was obviously Indigenous.   I have to admit it's got some balance for what it is though, because I recognise that it's made for the broadest possible audience, mainly American, and that's mostly white people, and they only seem to care about seeing stories about other white people, so whatever I guess.  It is what it is.  It's got some romance and some whales and some Alaskan neechis who are actually played by the local people.  So I give it props for what NDN content there is.

There was a  guy in a whale suit promoting the Vancouver Aquarium and a woman handed $1 off admission coupons to everyone going in, but the best part would have to be when the aquarium lady said we could stop global warming by using less energy and taking a bus, or shutting off a light.  Yeah right, That's the Big Miracle there, if people turning off a light bulb could add up enough to make a difference.   Every little bit counts I guess.  It's not like there are some people in the world consuming crazy disproportionate amounts of resources.  Nah, it'll take a whole lot more than a few light bulbs going off to change the current trajectory of global warming and resource depletion.  I don't think I'll live to see the paradigm shift required for significant change, but I think I'm seeing the beginnings of it, and this movie's attempt to cash in on that ideological sea change is a reflection of that process, and actually represents progress of some sort.

It's not a super awesome good flick, but it shows that people have their hearts in the right place, and that we can cooperate.  It's a family thing, that will appeal to moms and dads and their kids too.  If you don't think on things too hard after, you'll probably come away with a good feeling.
 

Max (2002)

written/directed by Menno Meyjes (2002)

Max Rothman, (John Cusack), is a one armed art dealer who takes young Hitler under his wing and encourages him to open himself up to new ideas and branch out into abstract art.  It's based on a play and was produced by John Cusack. Whatever, I think this is a rude flick.  Hitler was a terrible man and this is an unnecessary story that does nothing to illuminate the human condition.  It's a cheap way to give a story gravitas by making it about Hitler.  It humanises Hitler some, but is that admirable?  It's all made up too, and I hate the idea of people thinking Hitler came "THIS CLOSE" to not being the 20th Century's greatest villain.  It's not like Hitler really had an art dealer taking an interest in him and amping up his Jew hatred due to the condescending manner Cusack displays towards him.  Hitler wanted to be an architect, and applied for a scholarship before he became a soldier, his artistic aspirations were behind him after The Great War.

Speilberg passed on the project because he didn't want to dishonour Holocaust survivors, but encouraged Menno Meyjes to follow through on his screenplay.  John Cusack was an associate producer and he gave up his salary to help the project along.

I enjoyed the depictions of the art scene, and Hitler's distase for the decadence within that arena was well displayed, with his bitterness and all, shining bright due to Noah Taylor's ranting spit flying oratory skills.  Seeing Hitler getting trained in the art of propaganda was a nice touch too, and a good way to show that Hitler was a man of his time.  His racist beliefs weren't of his own creation, hatred of Jews and Gypsies and "lower" classes, were commonplace and everywhere, and still are. The Nazis were simply very effective at harnessing and channelling that powerfully destructive and ugly reality.  Sexism, racism, ethnic cleansing, war, othering....it's not like we've come a long way, baby! really very much at all when we consider the big picture.

There's a great scene where Max puts on a performance piece about war - very avante garde dadaesque speechifying about propaganda against a backdrop of a giant meat grinder.  Max lost his arm in WWI, and his fake arm puppet floats into the grinder and the piece ends with him seemingly slowly sinking into the grinder, while red clay oozes out the front through the grinder holes.  Meat for the war machine.  Hitler is incensed.  Disgusting!! he shrieks and stomps out.

Best line? c'mon Hitler! I'll buy you a lemonade!

The movie pushed buttons for me.  On the one hand it's an interesting what if story, but it's about HITLER and it's all fictional bullshit!  On a metaphorical level there is some truth but I kept bumping up against the fact that really it's lies, lies, lies.   And it's so melodramatic too, with an OMG so stupid tragic ending.  Puhleez.  I did like the political machinations shown.  Even though I believe that it's inevitable that current knowledge of political realities inform interpretations of the past, what is shown is still very interesting. The movie highlights the development of propaganda in support of wedge politics, where hatred of one group is used to consolidate and leverage political power.  It's still a very valid strategy, but one that has become more nuanced and less overt.  Code words are used now and it's more based on class divisions than racial ones.  Though ethnic and cultural divisions are strong still too.  Just goes to show you , that we've still got a long way to go, baby!

Awful Normal

directed by Celesta Davis (2004)

Another documentary about sexual abuse, but this one focuses on the survivors rather than the perpetrator.  It's made by Celesta Davis and documents the process she goes through in coming to terms with her personal experiences with childhood sexual abuse.  She and her sister were both molested by a family friend and when they told their parents, the parents decided to simply ignore the abuse, which apparently was a fairly common practise in the swinging 70's.  Perhaps it was the permissive attitude around the sexual revolution that contributed to that, but I think it's more that childhood sexual abuse was a taboo subject that people didn't deal with very well. Anyhow, the impetus for the documentary came when Celesta learns via a news announcement over the radio that the son of her abuser was arrested for some kind of sex crime. She then decides to confront her abuser and to film everything along the way.
 
I watched this one on Netflix, via my ipod, while lolling in bed.  Lounging that is - I wasn't inclined to laugh out loud much while watching this flick.  I haven't watched many movies on the ipod, though it's pretty convenient.  Anyhow, I have a personal stake in the subject of the film, since I'm also a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, but I don't particularly agree with the process the sisters utilise.  I have no interest in having anything to do with my abuser.  I don't think I'd get anything out of it except stress, but the sisters, especially Celeste are convinced of the validity of meeting up with their abuser.  For them it was a good idea, but I thought the idea was gross.

The sisters do eventually get to talk with the guy and it made my skin crawl.  Celesta feels much better after the confrontation, and that made me wonder.  Did she have to meet up with him to have that closure?  What is closure anyway?  Can't you find peace about how you've been hurt without having to engage with the person who hurt you?  Isn't it giving the abuser more power if you let them run a number on you about why they did what they did?  Who cares why?  What they did was wrong, and they suck.  Leave it at that.  I think engaging with someone is only important if you want to continue a relationship with them, and let's face it, who wants to continue a relationship with the person who violated them?

I can understand wanting to unload to your abuser, and explicitly state how much they hurt you.  I support restorative justice and victim offender reconciliation processes.  I think though, that it's important for survivors to realise that it might not be very satisfying to interact with the person that hurt you.  Perhaps they will justify their actions or deny your feelings and experiences.

The  hope is that it's a healing encounter; the survivor says their piece, giving them peace of mind,  and the offender is forced to hear out the impact of their actions, and come face to face with the repercussion of their actions and be held accountable.  In optimal circumstances, the abuser is moved to sincere contrition and apologises, and the survivor is able to forgive them and move on.  But who cares about them, is how I feel personally.  You dun what you dun, and I'm done with you.  Maybe this is harsh, but from the perspective of a victim, the drama of dealing with an abuser doesn't offer much incentive since there's so much rumination over the abuse.  I think it can be psychologically damaging to focus attention on how someone hurt you, but I expect it's part of a process to recontextualise that past experience.  I simply question the necessity of including the perpetrator in that process.  It could just be my knee jerk reaction though, because it's fairly easy for me to not have anything to do with my abuser.  Perhaps this means I'm locked in some kind of eternal victimhood, but I don't think so.  I survived a terrible experience that plagued me for a good many years.  It happened to me when I was a little girl and I can't change that.  But lots of bad things have happened to me.  Lots of good things too.  My perspective now, is to try not to focus on the bad things.

I understand that survivors and offenders still have to live in the same world and restorative justice acknowledges that and attempts to make that a less painful reality.  One positive element of is this kind of interaction, aside from the possibility of it bringing peace to both the survivors and offenders, is that it might preclude further victims.   I'm dubious about that being a realistic outcome, but hope springs eternal. 

Stevie

directed by Steve James (2002)

What happens to the people we leave behind?

Steve James signed on with the Big Brother program when he was in college in the 1990's.  He and Stevie, (Stephen Fielding), established a bond when the boy was 11.  James finished college and moved on, but he didn't forget about Stevie.  This documentary is about him reconnecting with his "Little Brother", 10 years later.

I was about ready to throw in the towel pretty early on because the documentary felt exploitive of the disparities between a well to do film maker versus his simple minded rural redneck "Little Brother".   Then bam! Stevie is accused of molesting an 8 year old relative while babysitting.  What!?  Did we just enter the sordid zone?  Damn sure became compelling viewing after that revelation.  I couldn't stop watching.

Especially riveting are the interviews with Stevie's aunt, the mother of the victim. Her righteous anger is contrasted with some compassionate statements later on, and that is precisely what makes the documentary interesting.  It presents a fairly dispassionate viewpoint by illustrating the dynamics behind his upbringing,  and showcasing Stevie as he is:  a victim and victimizer both. Stevie wasn't a monster born in a vacuum;  it took a whole lot of abuse and neglect to create a man lacking the empathy and morals that would make committing such a terrible crime impossible.  His mother and grandmother are shown behaving badly with regards to him and each other. You hear about how his mom never wanted him and how horribly she treated him. The neglect and abuse is heightened when compared to the daughter she did look after, though the mom is no candidate for mother of the year with her regards to her daughter either.

Another really good sequence is when Stevie and his girlfriend Tonya, visit Chicago. Tonya is a sweet girl, and both Stevie and her have disability related incomes but they are talking about getting married even though that would affect both of their SSI monies.  In the city, they stay with Tricia, one of Tonya's high school friends. Tricia has cerebral palsy, which makes it a bit hard to understand her, but she's straight to the point with Tonya, and asks if he did it - sexually abused his cousin.  Tonya equivocates, but admits, yeah, there's evidence.  Tricia then talks about what happened to her personally with sexual abuse or assault, I'm not sure what but, Tonya knows what she's gone through in terms of bringing her abuser to justice.  Tricia may have a hard time enunciating, but she is super articulate on her own devastating experience.  She's compassionate towards Stevie, but she's first and foremost, Tonya's friend, and she prods Tonya to think about what kind of man Stevie actually is before taking steps towards marrying him.

Then there's the bizarre sequence with members of the Aryan Nation that had me shaking my head.  It takes all kinds I guess.

Stevie's had a sad, circumscribed, life and the tragedy is that it appears to have been an entirely avoidable corruption of his potential.  If he had been raised by people who loved and nurtured him, who knows what kind of man he might have been.  There's a part where the director puts Stevie in touch with a foster parent couple who were caring, and who Stevie obviously felt loved by, but they also talk about how they stopped Stevie from getting raped a few times when he was in the group home where they worked.  The implication being that they weren't able to protect him all the time, and for sure weren't able to protect him once they stopped working in that group home.

I felt really sad after I watched this.  I don't know that I can make a convincing argument that Stevie was exploited by the director, but I feel like he was.  It was inherently voyeuristic and I felt a bit of shame that I was being entertained watching this real life Jerry Springer show.  The fact that I feel simultaneously revolted and sympathetic towards Stevie means the director did a good job, though I don't think he deserves any commendations for deciding to make the documentary in the first place.  What was the point?  To illustrate how a system that fails kids creates adults who end up in jail?  I think that fact is well established, and this particular documentary doesn't bring anything but anecdote to that discussion.  The best thing that can result from this film, as the director in the interviw below states, paraphrasing Stevie's sister, "There are other families like hers out there, and this film might be able to help them."  While this is true, knowing there are other people who have gone through the same problems does make it easier somehow to bear up under that burden,  the film still feels sleazy and that potential benefit to society comes at the expense of a man who seemingly lacks the intellect to understand what he was getting into with the whole film making process.

Stevie was abused and neglected from the time he was born, and what he had to endure growing up can be seen as a blueprint for him becoming a criminal and a sex offender.  Instead of being reared in a safe environment he was tossed around and tormented, instead of being cherished and loved he was told how worthless he was and abandoned.  This documentary is an indictment of both the biological caregivers who failed him, as well as the social services that are supposed to step in to protect children from abuse and neglect.  Stevie never really had a chance.   He's a prime example of "falling through the cracks" in the social safety net.  I'm not trying to make excuses for his appalling behaviour, but seeing how he was raised, well it's more like he was trained on how to be a bad person than a decent one.

Maybe I am reactionary when it comes to my dislike of this film, but I don't think so.  If you took out the sexual abuse angle and showed Stevie being a run of the mill underacheiver, guilty of less heinous crimes, it would maybe feel even more exploitive, because then you wouldn't have his being a sex offender helping you to overlook and justify the fact that his squalid circumstances and entirely all too common life story are being shown as much for people's amusement as for any overarcing societal benefit.  Perhaps I'm being too cynical, but I really feel that many people watching this will do it with a disdainful eye, looking down with a perspective of superiority and disgust, at hillbilly rurals they judge to be their lessers.  Compassion for folk in dissimilar circumstances can be hard to come by.

I'm trying to seperate my feelings about Stevie in particular, from my feelings about the film as a whole.  I think it's guilty of the American fallacy of focusing on the individual and not seeing the forest for the trees.  It doesn't extrapolate Stevie's circumstances to the innumerable children in the exact same shoes as him, leaving that step up to the viewers.  It's an obvious conclusion though, so I hope viewers will come away with a sense of outrage that prompts more than the kneejerk conservative reaction towards criminals - lock 'em all up and throw away the key.  My hope is that they'll be putting it all together and thinking about the reasons why little kids grow up to become criminals, and that will make them want to make the world a better place, especially for children at risk.

 IMO, universal social programs as well as programs that target vulnerable populations are among the most effective ways to make sure kids are helped before they are damaged.  Once they're messed up, it's much harder to repair them, but it's not impossible.  Attempts made to heal kids who've been victimized by violence and neglect would reap so many benefits for society as a whole, not to mention for the abused kids who grow up and presumably make the same mistakes parenting their children.  The cycle will continue indefinitely, if we don't target money so kids are supported in ways that preclude them growing up to be prisoners.   I believe that, generally speaking, spending money on prisons is a misallocation of resources that should have been spent earlier - on child devlopment and societal structural supports.  That's a much better value for our dollar and would create a much healthier society.

trailer

The Greatest Movie Ever Sold

directed by Morgan Spurlock (2011)

Sell sell sell!!! Buy buy buy!! Would you like brands with that?

Supersize Me Spurlock makes a documentary about branding and product placement, by explicating the process.  That's the whole enchilada.  He films everything, his research, interviews with ad men and agents, the pitch sessions to the various companies he lands time with,  and so on. 

It's a simple idea and effectively shows how compromised the end result naturally is, because companies won't give money to anything that challenges the image they are trying to create, nor to their bottom line.  They don't care about art at all.  What they want is to create desire for their product.  Whatever kind of media that takes on sponsors, or product placement, is completely beholden to the sponsors, and the companies are comfortable demanding changes that fit their ideas of  how their product should be showcased.  It becomes a case of the tail wagging the dog, because money talks and the companies make sure to spell every aspect of what they want in the contract before the filmmakers get paid.  And what's crazy is this is the norm, and it doesn't sound unreasonable until you see how MUCH of it is going on in every business everywhere, and it's even infiltrating the public sector. 

Advertising!!!!

It just might be teh devil.

My favourite part of the film is when he goes to São Paulo.  In 2007, advertising was banned.  It was amazing seeing a city without ads everywhere.  In interviews, business keepers explained that they've had to rely on word of mouth instead of ads to bring in business.  Commerce wasn't destroyed.  Advertising could be curtailed, but I don't think people are even aware of that possibility as something worth considering.

It's an interesting idea though.

 

A Dangerous Method

directed by David Cronenberg, (2011)

Last night I went to see A Dangerous Method.  I was quite excited and full of anticipation since it's a Cronenberg joint with a star studded cast: Michael Fassbender as Carl Jung, Viggo Mortensen as Sigmund Freud, also Kiera Knightley, and Vincent Cassel as mental patients who are more than the usually portrayed gibbering idiots.

It wasn't what I expected.  Actually it sort of was what I expected, because the trailer makes it look like a gothic romance with Knightly's Sabina Speilrein as the prize in a pissing contest between the two doctors, and I wasn't far off.

 

More accurate, it wasn't what I hoped.  A romantic triangle develops. Sabina's Choice?  Gone With The Psychiatrist? There's Something About Psychotherapy?  It mainly focuses on the interpersonal relationships of Jung to his patient/student/colleague/lover Speilrein, with some dramatic exposition between him and Otto Gross, (Vincent Cassel), another psychiatrist who becomes his patient.  I was more interested in the relationship between Jung and Freud, and that is shown, but mostly the gradual deterioration from mutual admiration to animosity that developed between them.  I was hoping it was all about the dangerous method - the how and why to the development of the ideas behind psychoanalysis.  But instead of that I got a lot of shrieking Kiera Knightley.  I didn't like her performance much, at least not her bony gaunt face grimacing with over the top madness.  I mean, sure you can depict the ugly reality of psychosis or delusion, obsession etc, but what was shown seemed so phony and affected.  I found it hard to square what I watched with my real life interactions with people who have mental illness.  Perhaps I haven't been around enough crazy people.

What did I like?  I liked how Jung made fun of Freud for interpreting everything in sexual terms.  I liked how Freud is petty and wanting to maintain his power and authority.  I liked how Freud was jealous.  The humanisation of him was interesting, but there definitely felt like there was a simplistic castigation of him and a simultaneous elevation of Jungian ideals.  Dinosaur Freud being evolved out of relevance by the more spiritually minded questing and robustly lusty mammalian Jung upstart.


After reading this article, I'm even more disappointed in the flick.

The importance of Sabina Speilrein was alluded to, but not explicated, in fact exploited would be more accurate, because not much is known of her intimate relations with Jung.  The details of their possible sexual and romantic exploits are completely imagined, yet most people who watch this flick will take what they see as fact.  In truth, I'm kind of appalled at how her story has been ransacked and prostituted as a literary device in service of titillation.

Also on the do not want side, Viggo Mortensen had a ridiculous nose appendage, a Jewish schnozz, that looked absolutely fako, and Kiera's accent sounded like Ver iz Sqverel, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Natasha.

Finally, I think Fassbender did a better job in Shame.  I think his role in that was more nuanced, difficult and challenging than this one.

Coriolanus

directed by Ralph Fiennes (2011)

I didn't even know there was a play called Coriolanus.  Shakespeare no less.  It set me up the bomb, thinking dayum, why ain't this ever been made into a movie?  Is it Shakespeare's shittiest work or what?  What's the story mang?

Well, I dunno why this isn't more popular, probably because it's too bloodthirsty.  Joe was hating on it, feeling bored and eye rolly of it.  We got into a heated discussion about how believable or translatable it is to modern times.

It's done up with modern trappings. No Togas, or laurel wreaths.  Instead of Roman garb,  soldier/general Coriolanus wears a conventional uniform, a dressier one when he's getting his accolades with the politicians and in green battle fatigues when he's in the field killing the enemy like the super soldier he is.

That's another aspect that bugged Joe.  The whole idea of a super soldier.

I felt like it was condemning of a militaristic ideology, while he more felt it promoted and glorified one, because it neglected to include other more important factors like who controls the military.  Rogue generals are fewer and farther between in the modern era.  I still feel it was more a story of the individual - another thing that bugged him.  The emphasis on individual actions.

But the personal is political.  Coriolanus's mom, (Vanessa Redgrave), bred herself a super soldier, and he bred himself a son who was gonna be a super soldier too.  The context of the conflict was less important than the essential nature of the conflict, that of one nation or state, subjugating another.  And what does a warrior culture do but justify the need for a warrior class by making sure that war continues.  Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.  This cynical tale shines a light some on the machinations behind the scenes that makes sure the ballet of blood and bullets is a neverending story, and that might be disheartening, but it's honest.  It's human weakness and moral flaws that exacerbate conflict.

I like watching Shakespeare. I like how I have to pay attention to what's going on and try figure out what was said.  I spend much of the time watching in a state of huh?  Whatssat?  Ohhhh ok,  and I don't get that much from most any other kind of flick.  Most flicks are OBVIOUS.   Everything is telegraphed and that can be BORING.  Shakespeare makes you work a bit for your entertainment.

It's got some damn fine scenes of the sexy mens too.  Probably the most war mongery homoerotic flick I've seen since 300, and that starred Gerard Butler too.  Though there might be others that are more sexier, just that I ain't seen them.  I'm not often watching war oriented flicks generally, but I hear they're popular with the macho set.  I'm thinking this might fly with all the dudes what like FPS war games since the action scenes are modern warfare.  Could be a cross promotional venture -   Coriolanus coming soon to a console system near you!!

hand to hand combats - boss fight

I CAN'T SLEEP (J'ai Pas Sommeil)

directed by Claire Denis (1994)

I got this one from the library.  It had a bunch of superlative blurbs on the DVD cover, so I grabbed it, thinking hmmm...Claire Denis, that director rings a bell.  It started off with a woman on a multi-lane highway driving towards a city.  I thought I saw Montreal on one of the overhead signs, so I figured, ok this is a Quebecois film, but then you see her car's Cyrillic license plate and it's Paris she's heading towards.  (The sign actually said Montreiul.)  The woman is smoking, listening to a jury rigged tape deck.  She's so beautiful in her beat up car, all glamorous and carefree with a cigarette dangling down from her lips, then quick cut, you see two guys and a bulldog tooling by in the next lane in a slack jawed reaction shot.

Ok, I'm gonna stop with the rundown of what all happens in the movie, just in case you actually want to see it for yourself.  It's pretty good, and I was interested in what was going to happen all the way through until the end.  In fact, it could have kept going and I would still be into the characters and wanting to know how their stories unfolded.  It's very much an ensemble piece with a bunch of folk tangentially connected by circumstance.  It's sort of a murder mystery, but it's not done in the conventional way of a thriller.  In fact it's just laid out for you about half way through, oh that killer?  Here ya go, this is the killer, and you thought they was just folks.  Well they are, but they is a killer too!!! Cue Psycho violin skree skree skree. That's one point of the flick I'm guessing.  Psycho killers are all around us and they don't look any different.  Selfishness and cold callousness can be measured on a spectrum, and we've all got some healthy self interest. We're all at least part time narcissists.

SPOILERS

The only problem I have with the movie, is it has some very bad guys in it and it's kinda shitty that one of the bad guys is also a marginalised minority.  He's a queer, cross dressing black dude, who is also a GRANNY KILLER!!  I feel like his trans/queer otherness was being used as a sensationalistic backdrop to make sense of his killer role.

I dunno, maybe it's just me.  Because there were other bad folk, his boyfriend was a killer too, but he was less developed, besides, he was queer too.

Mostly the film seemed to be about the privilege of France born folk versus the struggle of immigrants.   It posed questions of morality around privilege and exploitation, without ever really giving any answers, more look at this unfairness here.  Except that Daiga, the Lithuanian girl who frames the flick, (it starts and ends on her trip to and from Paris), she's sort of the hero, and she's selfish.  And that's presented as normal.  I guess it is normal.  Human beings are kind of assholes.

Another theme seemed to be alienation.  Are immigrants more alienated?  Are richer people more alienated than poor folk?  Are queer folk more alienated?  The more alienated you are - does that mean you're more likely to commit crimes?  Is that a specious line of questioning?

I don't know the answers to any of these questions, but I'm thinking thoughts like this, because of this movie, and that's pretty right on IMO.

I liked the music too. I guess Jean-Louis Murat is a big deal singer in France, and I can see why.  He's got a smooth easy listening sound, and he's easy on the eyes too.

Also, the murders in the film are based on real crimes.  Thierry Paulin killed at least 20 grannies in late 80's Paris. He died in jail within a year of his arrest due to AIDS related complications and was never convicted of the crimes he stood accused of, and confessed to BTW.


And sadly, Yekaterina Golubeva, the actress who played the Lithuanian beauty Daiga, committed suicide this past summer.   She was 44.

Golden Globes 2011

I recorded The Golden Globes last night.  Watched them when I woke up before I got spoilers on the winners from my email or wherever.  I don't remember watching them before, though I do know they have a reputation for more shenanigans than other awards, that the stars get drunk and cut loose more, also that there is controversy regarding awards/nominations being bought.  Like c'mon, The Tourist getting a nod?  That was such a piece of crap film.  It makes sense though; there's so much benefit to be gained for a product with an award.   Even a nomination gives whatever a sheen of prestige.  Of course the integrity of the process should be questioned, but who really cares?  It's just entertainment, and yeah it's a big money business, but it's only show biz, right?

Anyhow, this was the first time I watched an awards show with the DVR, and it was nice being able to rewind and skip bits. The show is long and boring though.  There's not much of interest aside from looking at the celebrities and seeing who you can recognise and speculate on what all plastic surgeries they might have had or whether it's just ageing that's transformed them.  If you haven't watched any of the nominations, it's more difficult to predict who will win, but more important, if you ain't watched anything in the category, you can't weigh in with your own opinion and therefore, you have less investment in the outcome.   I've seen most of the nominated films, but even  I didn't much care who or what won. 

I thought maybe Jeremy Irons had too much to drink when he started shoulder groping the diminutive Dr. Aida Takla O'Reilly, President of the Hollywood Foreign Press.  She giggled and looked uncomfortable as he leaned over her, draping his arm around her and being all massagey finger hands.  Joe thought maybe he was just trying to get closer to the mic, but I thought he was showing bad boundaries, a fairly common thing where men assume women are fine with hugginess.  Could be he's a huggy guy.  Who knows, but the reaction shots of Nicole Kidman and Madonna, where they did not look impressed, seem to indicate they thought he was crossing lines too.

I liked when Jimmy Fallon made fun of Adam Levine - show me your moves like Jagger.  I guess this was a reference to a song of  Levine's.  I've never heard the song, Maroon 5? but it's always fun seeing a big ego get prickly in the face of criticism.  I did like Lambert's big floppy bow tie and tux.

I tried not to judge any of the stars for their looks, except it's hard not too what with all the too smooth and wrinkles stretched tight plastic surgeried older actresses. When Jessica Lange won, I was marvelling on how's she's totally redone in the mode of Jane Fonda and Mary Tyler Moore.  The reaction shots while she was giving her acceptance speech were of her cohorts and about half the fun of seeing them was figuring out which of them has had much more work done than others.  I don't think there's an undone women in Hollywood.  It's just part of the business, keeping your looks up to an unnatural standard.  The men get work done too, but they seem to start later, and there's less pressure on them to look young and beautiful anyhow.

I noticed a few of the dresses, the standouts being Reese Witherspoon looking Hollywood glamorous gorgeous in a red dealio that emphasised her curves.

and Jessica Biel in a see-through super slutty lacy looks like a wedding dress. 

 

I felt sorry for Angelina Jolie some, as her sleeveless gown emphasised how so, so bony she's become. 
 Makes me worry for her some. 

Also Natalie Portman's dress had a big hip wing that looked like a mistake.

There is so much TV I have never heard of, and have no interest in seeing.  There were a couple few series I've actually watched an episode of, but very few TV shows nominated intrigued me enough where I'd make the time commitment to check out a new series.  What if I like it?  It's way too much of an investment getting into a series.  I like movies much better.  Over and done with in the 90 - 120 minute range usually.

Morgan Freeman winning the Cecile B. Demille award was a bit excruciating to watch.  Sidney Poitier was having problems reading the teleprompter and his intro came off super pompous and fatuous.  Made me roll my eyes some, and I like Morgan Freeman.  He's done a whole lot of interesting work.  Still, it seems to me that he's like an Uncle Tom kinda guy who has done roles that make Americans feel like racism is in the past and really we shouldn't even be talking about it anymore.  Meanwhile more black men are in jail now than were slaves in 1850.  It was sweet that Freeman said, in his house, the award would be known as the Sidney Poitier award.

I'm happy The Help got some play as this is a movie that overtly addresses racism, albeit in the past. Octavia Spencer won best supporting actress for playing a maid who talks shit about her bitchy employer through a proxy white girl.  It's kinda pathetic that this is how the issue of racism is presented, but I guess any talk on these issues is progress.  At least she gave a nod to the dignity and worth of domestic labourers.  This was THE ONLY political moment in the whole show, aside from Clooney massaging Brad Pitts ego for his charity work where?  In the world....outside of Hollywood.  I guess the stars are aware they are in an enclave of privilege and playing up the part is part of the game too.  Gervais's offhand comment at the end that he hoped the champagne, gift bags, and gold took everyones' mind off the recession, backs that up.

Dream Lover

directed by Nicholas Kazan (1993)

I caught this playing about 1/2 way through.  It's an early 90s thriller starring Mädchen Amick and James Spader, but it feels like it was written in the 50's.  It's an old school story, with some ridiculous bits, but overall it's a lot of fun. It's got a Hitchcock feel with the suspense. Spader doesn't get to be weird much in it, as this was back in the days when he was a straight up pretty boy, but he does a good job.  So does Amick with the femme fatale role.

Mädchen Amick is lying to her husband about her past and James Spader gradually twigs to the fact that his wife is not who she says she is.  He finally confronts her with proof of her lies when he tracks down her parents and brings them home.  The scene when he bugged eyed watches her reaction is priceless.  I missed the beginning where they get together, but I didn't really mind because I think the best part of the movie is probably the cat and mouse gamesmanship.  It's a gas....light.

Bonus: there's some crazy carnival dream segments that would make David Lynch proud.

 

It's all on youtube, so I'm gonna watch what I missed.  James Spader and Mädchen Amick are both looking gorgeous in this, so I expect there will be some steamy seduction scenes.

Amick - "Getting to know someone is like peeling an onion.

Spader - "It makes you cry?

The Woodmans

Last night I watched The Woodmans, a documentary directed by C. Scott Willis that played on PBS. It also played the VIFF last year and I saw a bit of it then. I liked it, thought hmm, inneresting, and figured it'd be summat I'd be able to watch later.  I wish I'd seen it then though, because much of the photographic work shown is nude portraiture and the nudity was blurred, framed by distracting little black boxes. Annoying.  Come on people, it's just some naked bodiness...it's art! Chill out already.  Anyhow, it's a documentary that's mostly about Francesca Woodman, a photographer who killed herself when she was 22.  Actually, it was more about her family; I guess that's why it was called The Woodmans, but Francesca definitely dominates. Her parents, Betty and George are artists, along with her brother Charles, but it was Francesca who garnered the most fame and acclaim. After her death, though.  Unfortunately, this is so often the case, that it's somewhat a cliché, and the fact that there is a glamour and romanticism accrued around the suicide of artists, is also a factor that I think contributed to her death wish.

A excerpt from Francesca's journal :

"This action that i foresee has nothing to do with melodrama. It is that life that lived by me now is a series of exceptions. I was (am?) not unique but special. This is why i was an artist. I was inventing a language for people to see the everyday things i also see and show them something different. Nothing to do with not being able 'to take it' in a big city or with self doubt or because my heart is gone"

Since Francesca was raised by artists, she was schooled from birth about the importance of art.  George, the painter father said about art and the work ethic, you don't wait until you're inspired.  You go to your studio everyday and sharpen pencils when you don't have an idea.  You get one eventually.  His daughter was  even more driven.  When her dad was visiting her in NY and complaining about his career, she asked him if he'd called anyone that day and admonished him, you make ONE career related call everyday. He had his most prestigious opening in a group show at The Guggenheim, 5 days after she died.

Francesca took her first photograph at 13, when her father gave her a 6x6 camera.  By the time she went to art school in Rhode Island she'd already developed a substantial portfolio.  One of her classmates noted, that they were there to figure out what they wanted to do, but she already had that down.  She was a photographer.

Self portrait at 13 - a punnish photo with the photo cable linking to a cable knit sweater.

She was amazingly gifted and preternaturally driven.  I think she was bipolar.  Not much is revealed about her mental illness, or what diagnosis she had. All that's shared is she killed herself during a depression. 

She had tried to commit suicide shortly before she actually succeeded.  Her family was able to intervene and save her, but they weren't able save her from herself for long. It can be very difficult to help someone who is mired in a trough of depression. What is the cure for despair?  How do you alleviate it?  Her father said, "We seemed to be able to do nothing in particular to help her, and I just think that things unravelled."  His face betrayed some emotion at this point.  Otherwise he was so, so, stoic when talking about her.  You'd never know the pain he felt at losing her.  And the mother, wow, she was really good at compartmentalising her feelings about that.  When asked how she dealt with the guilt, she said she tried not to feel it.

January 19, 1981, the day Francesca  jumped off the Barbazon building was, according to George, a bad day.  She didn't get the NEA grant she was waiting on, and trifling though it may sound, her bike was stolen.  George and Betty bickered a bit about whether she knew that she didn't get the grant, but George was adamant that she knew. Whatever prompted her decision to end it, she'd had enough. Living can feel like such a burden when you are depressed, the weight of endless days of null headed existence stretching ever on can be a palpably horrifying contemplation. "My life at this point is like very old coffee-cup sediment and I would rather die young leaving various accomplishments . . . instead of pell-mell erasing all of these delicate things…”

It seems to me that her high expectations were what killed her.  She was so focused focused focused on her art career, and the art world is a crucible of intent itself focused on fame and acclaim, where she wasn't achieving or being recognised in the way she wanted. And her personality was, as many described her, intense...she was intensely needy emotionally, craving validation.  “I am so vain and I am so masochistic — how can they coexist?”   It must have galled her tremendously that her talent wasn't recognised.  And she was young, only 22; I don't remember having much perspective when I was that age.

Her friend Sloane said, "She was a fragile person.  It caused her to make beautiful pictures."

There's a scene with Charles, Francesca's older brother and a video and electronics artist, as the family splashes around in the pool of their beautiful pastoral Italian summer home, he's talking about how they all have egos, they all make art, and no one's art is better than another's.  Even though that's true on one level, on another it sounds like so much sour grapes.  Neither his work, nor his parents' got the attention that Francesca's did, her fame in the art world completely eclipses theirs, and they all have had to deal with that inescapable fact.   He says also, that he felt different, but that Francesca was special.

Both her parents continued successfully on in their careers.  Her mother, mostly with ceramics and her father, mainly a painter.  But Francesca? The fame and success she never got to experience, eventually far outstripped theirs. As one friend said, "as time went on and the kids needed tuition or whatever, I'd pull out another Woodman print and sell it. I have a stack of them."  Her suicide and the subsequent interest in her body of work is the tragedy that informs the Woodmans' lives. She made photographs for 8 years and for all their creativity, they were merely the bloom of what surely would have matured into swaths more intriguing and complex work.  And that loss of her potential is also the tragedy of her suicide.  On making it to 77, her father said he enjoyed his perspective on life as a 77 year old and ruefully observed that his daughter never got to experience that.  "I think to stay alive is a pretty good thing to do."

Betty said that her work changed after Francesca died.  She stopped making functional pottery.  When an admirer of an installation said "Your work makes me feel good", Betty mused that maybe that's why she does what she does - that she's trying to make herself feel good.

 

Betty Woodman's installation piece for the American Embassy in Beijing,

in honour of the 2008 Olympics. She works on it throughout the documentary.

Some of her father's photographic work actually incorporates his daughter's photographs into his own, a form of memento mori.  His style mirrors hers, as if he became one of her disciples in order to honour her.   

Her sudden and premature death has inevitably shaped their lives, and as much as they are stoic about their loss, they are artists first and foremost. Their life is their work, and her work has become a part of their lives as well. Betty and George must be the executors of Francesca's estate; they are the ones who decide how their daughter's photography is shown and promoted. They have been able to nurture her career in a way they couldn't when she was alive, and small comfort, though it may be, I'm sure it's satisfying that they have been able to keep that aspect of her alive in the public eye. That her photography finally got the recognition and respect Francesca felt was her due, must give them succour.  Pride is what may have undone her, that and her mental illness, but in the face of her talent, at least their pride over what she accomplished, must mitigate some of their grief, at the loss of her.