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Chicago or Gangs of New York? Nicole Kidman or Renee Zellweger? The Academy Awards are just days away, placing many of us in the grip of Oscar fever. The Oscars are a unique media event. It has the star power, glamour and --- when done right --- production value to transfix a worldwide audience. As we follow the Oscar races and check off boxes in our office pools, this is a great time to read and think about movies.
In 2000, Rick Lyman began writing articles for The New York Times in a series titled "Watching Movies With." The set-up was simple. Lyman and a subject (almost always an accomplished actor or director) watched a movie chosen by the filmmaker. While watching the movie, the subject discussed the things they saw and felt that made the movie important to them. Lyman's series enjoyed great popularity and the articles have been compiled into a book called WATCHING MOVIES. The book works for the simple reason that it presents serious filmmakers as movie lovers. And with only one glaring exception, they were all able to smartly and precisely communicate --- often in emotional ways --- why we go to the movies.
The book includes twenty-one articles with filmmakers who chose deeply personal movies they saw as children or young men and women. Harvey Weinstein, founder of and producer at Miramax Films, was twelve years old when he saw Exodus in 1960. He picked this movie because he was moved by the portrayal of Jews fighting for their own homeland in the post-World War II era. "I see Jerusalem here," Weinstein says, "and I feel like going there tomorrow." Ang Lee, the great director of movies like The Ice Storm and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon chose a Chinese-made film called Love Eternal, which he saw while growing up in Taiwan. It was not "the greatest movie" he's seen. "But there is something so honest . . . about it. I cry. I always cry . . . I watch it for that feeling, the feeling of the innocence of watching a movie and wanting to believe."
Many of the filmmakers agreed that movies made in the last quarter century --- movies they made and starred in --- do not measure up to those they grew up with. None suggested that movies today are better than those in generations past. In Kevin Costner's razor sharp analysis of Cool Hand Luke, he laments how filmmakers today are afraid --- afraid to linger on a crucial moment, afraid to go quiet when, in fact, silence may be the most effective way to convey certain messages. Costner, director Barry Levinson and others attribute these fears to a Hollywood culture obsessed with hurrying up, cutting quick and making audiences feel good at the expense of movie quality. And they have a point.
The MTV-ization of American cinema is nearly complete. Audiences are overwhelmed with seizure-inducing quick cuts, dumbed-down dialogue and hyper-pacing that gets way ahead of whatever plot lines may be developing. One of the chief purveyors of this style of filmmaking is Michael Bay, the director of empty summertime blockbusters like The Rock and Pearl Harbor. Bay's segment in WATCHING MOVIES is by far the least insightful. He chose to watch West Side Story and at one point commented, "Oh man, that's a great cut." Lyman asked Bay what makes a great cut and Bay responded, "It's very hard to describe what makes a good cut. I know it when I see it." He knows it when he sees it? In other words, a powerful Hollywood director whose movies cost $100 million cannot, for the life of him, explain what makes a good cut. Bay should check in with Denzel Washington, who beautifully deconstructs the 1980 drama Ordinary People. He explains that a well-timed cut keeps the audience involved in the story. One cut was "a visual way of tying two scenes together. Having . . . one light going off and then a cut to another light going off" simultaneously connects one scene to the next.
One of the book's chief pleasures is in feeling the filmmakers' passion for the movies. Three filmmakers --- grown men! --- literally slapped their knees in joy during pivotal moments in their movies of choice. Quentin Tarantino, the unsentimental director of violence infused movies like Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs, got all squishy over the love between a man and his horse in The Golden Stallion, featuring Roy Rogers and Trigger. John Travolta was emotional for much of his viewing of Yankee Doodle Dandy with James Cagney. It turns out that Travolta, our Yankee Disco Dandy, idolized Cagney and the two developed a warm friendship late in Cagney's life. Travolta could not fight back the tears while watching Cagney's deathbed scene at the end of the movie.
Lyman skillfully rounds out the filmmakers' analysis by, for example, economically explaining important plot points in many of the movies, or defining directing techniques mentioned by the subjects. The articles all have a natural flow; Lyman never steps on a subject's comments or otherwise intrudes on a great point. And while all the subjects (except Bay) were wonderful, one wonders why Lyman included five directors in their 30's. This is a disproportionate number, especially considering that WATCHING MOVIES includes only three women and, bafflingly, no screenwriters. These minor quibbles aside, this is a great book that has come out at the perfect time. Enjoy WATCHING MOVIES and enjoy the Oscars!
--- Reviewed by Andrew Musicus
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