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When I was
growing up, there was a movie theater in downtown Washington D.C. called the
Pix (no match for the Capitol, the Palace, the Columbia, the Warner), and I
noted once that it was showing “Burlesque in Harlem.” I would ask my mother
what burlesque was. Later films there would have titles like “Um Boy.”
So we have
burlesque here encapsulated in bigger issues, one of them presented by the
widow heroine Mrs. Henderson, whose son died in World War I with a “French
postcard” but never got to see a nude member of the opposite sex. A
deprivation for a heterosexual. So, when her husband’s death (in 1937) leaves
her with the ability to do anything she wants (like “give to charity” and
“shop”) she buys a London stage and sets up shop as the Windmill Theater, which
offers Variety, and that includes nudity. You see it all, with verbal
comments (unshaved), and at one point the men have to undress, when Mrs.
Henderson tells Mr. Van Damm, “I see that you are Jewish!” (Is that
because he is hairy, or because he is circumcised?) The movie is filled with
adult jokes like this, the kind that wind up on email chain letters, and they
are funny.
It gets dead
serious, though, during the Blitz and the Battle of Britain in 1940. Since
the Windmill is largely underground, they can keep the show going, it is by
and large a physically safe refuge from the bombs. (The movie shows some
pretty effective black and white news footage of Hitler’s invasion, to
contrast with the garish colors of the stage sets. Aquamarine blue is especially
prevalent.) But finally it takes a direct hit, and the British
government tries to close the establishment. This gets a bit heavy, about the
sacrifices that civilians have to make – there have already been scenes of
the blackouts. But the show goes on and the place never closes.
The
Illusionist (2006,
Yari Film Group/Bob Yari, dir. Neil Burger, story Steven Millhauser
"Eisenheim the Illusionist," PG-13, Czech/UK, 110 min). Why does
this fantasy with big stars have a new entrepreneurial distributor, when
something like the Fox Searchlight sounds right? Well, if you want to make a
movie, you don't need the studios any more. You can go to the hedge funds, or
overseas, To places like Spain or, her, the Czech Republic. That is, if you
have clout. That is what Tom Cruise intends to do, and he'll probably make
his own films on this level at least. (He doesn't need Paramount now.) The
film, with plenty of ambitious big stars with a moral message, cost about $16
M, which is not pocket change for a college student. And it translates a
philosophy lesson into an entertaining period piece, Vienna around 1900, but
actually filmed in the Czech Republic apparently with local money. The
"three act screenplay structure" here is mostly within one long flashback
told by inspector Uhl (Paul Giamatti), and the film creates the mood of
a Shyamalan film (I would expect that director to go this route next).
The flashback itself birfurcates, as we first see the young magician as a
teen (Aaron Johnson), meeting an old man on a trail, getting powers, and then
trying to save his beloved. The adult relationship between a thirtyish
Eisenheim (Ed Norton) and Sophie (Jessica Biel) is the centerpiece, with one
very passionate scene, around which Eisenheim drapes his theatrical career of
magic shows.
Now, he has all
kinds of tricks -- growing orange trees and the like, but the best seems to
be resurrecting people from the dead as holograms. The story intentionally
lets us decide if his apparitions are "real." (At one place, Uhl demonstrates
a kaledioscopic like device that might have produced them.) The police are
after him because he is stirring things up, actually threatening the
Austria-Hungarian monarchy. Prince Leopold (Rufus Sewell) is also after
Sophie, and may have killed her when she refuses him. Then, OK, no problem,
Eisenheim can resurrect her from the dead. Not only does this become
Hitchcockian, it is still political. Eisenheim is perturbing the status quo
with images and shows whose meaning is in the eye of the beholder, and that
is the problem. Truth is not objective. Eisenheim draws great attention to
himself, to the consternation of the monarchy; his act is something like
1900's anticipation of an Internet con search engines a century later. He
even tells a crowd gathered at the police station that his act is an
illusion. Bue even Eisenheim doesn't know what the truth is, because there
isn't any.
I've even had a
situation like this concerning one of my own online scripts, when found by an
employer. What did it say about me? I don't know. It's what you want to
believe. That is the problem.
The
Prestige (2006,
Touchstone/Warner Bros./Newmarket, dir. Christopher Nolan, novel by
Christopher Priest, USA/UK, 128 min, PG-13). First, note the unusual
distribution setup. The theatrical prints show Disney's Buena Vista as the
official distributor, but Newmarket is usually a distributor of small indie
films, including Nolan's own "Memento". The film required $40
million and two major studios, even though it is aimed to be perceived as an
"art" film, a combo of murder mystery, sci-fi and period. This may
portend a trend, where directors and actors get together and arrange their
own funding, and hit the festivals with the advantages of enormous resources.
Michael Caine,
playing Cutter, explains the setup well. "There are three parts to any
magic trick. The first part is The Pledge. The second part is The Turn. But
you have to bring the object back. The third part is called The
Prestige." Now The Prestige pretty much forms the paradigm for the whole
movie plot about two magicians rivaling each other in 1899 London. Christian
Bale plays Alfred Borden, who is to hang for the murder of his rival Rupert
Angier, played by Hugh Jackman. Scarlet Johansson plays Olivia Wenscombe, who
plays one rival against another, offering "trade secrets" and then
reversing course. David Bowie is scientist Nikolas Tesla, whom both magicians
contact in Colorado for competitive advantage. Tesla, portrayed as the
inventor of alternating current, has a "box" that can make an
object disappear and be teleported instantly, and sometimes seems to
duplicate objects, including hats, cats and people. Toward the end, the
mystery takes on a David Lynch quality, with duplicate bodies and swapping
identities, stuff that almost anticipates ideas in books by Arthur C. Clarke
or perhaps Clive Barker. Nolan seems to present the incidents in the very
intricate plot out of sequence, a favorite technique of his. The portrayal of
the "technology" of magic is more detailed here than in "The
Illusionist" and Nolan's work here makes me wonder if he could take on
Clive Barker's monumental 1991 novel "Imajica."
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