Tag: Christian Bale

Knight of Cups

“Knight of Cups” stars Christian Bale in a spiritual journey through LA and follow-up to “The Tree of Life.”

KnightofCupsIn ways that are both enlightening and maddening, Terrence Malick continues to demonstrate in his latest film “Knight of Cups” a remarkable eye for visuals and creative ways of playing with depth. Since “The Tree of Life,” Malick’s polarizing masterpiece, critics have divided on whether Malick’s movies have grown tired, in that they’re beautiful and breathtaking, but too much like all his others.“Knight of Cups” follows in “Tree of Life’s” tradition as a dreamy, formless, spiritual, often indulgent film of a man drifting through life as hushed voiceovers adorn the images. But in small ways, Malick shows he’s still experimenting and innovating within his style, employing the now three-time Oscar winner Emmanuel Lubezki to engineer turbulent, liberated and delirious fish-eye shots using GoPro cameras. At times the film arguably looks more like Jean-Luc Godard’s “Goodbye to Language 3D” than it does “The Tree of Life,” and you wonder what brilliant and creative things Malick might do in 3D or another new format. And lord knows that with Lubezki he has the means.

Yes, “Knight of Cups” is still very “Malick-esque,” but for all its excesses, “Knight of Cups” still feels beguiling as a thoughtful, artistic look at existentialism, at examining what it means to be alive, even amid so much excitement, sex, opulence and hedonism.

“You think that when you reach a certain age things will start to make sense. That’s damnation. They never come together. Just splashed out there.” Malick explores this thesis throughout “Knight of Cups” both thematically and formally. Watching it is like witnessing a flashback of a life as an otherworldly spirit. The film’s weightless camera wanders around to observe moments and emotions rather than a concrete story. Everything’s “just splashed out there,” disconnected in ways that can be as frustrating as they are invigorating.

Our vessel is the wealthy Hollywood playboy and screenwriter Rick (Christian Bale). He revisits the relationships in his life, from fast friends, past lovers, bosses, brothers and fathers, and in each encounter he drifts without much feeling or words to articulate his mood. One of his girlfriends, the punk, free spirit Della (Imogen Poots), challenges his depression with the question, “Am I bringing you back to life?” With his reckless brother Barry (Wes Bentley), he can communicate entirely through posturing and body language. His ex-wife Nancy (Cate Blanchett) still loves and hates Rick passionately, but likely knows more about him than he ever will.

The title “Knight of Cups” refers to a tarot card and fairy tale of a man who can’t remember he’s the king’s son after drinking from a special cup. Each of Malick’s vignettes, as broken up through chapters, shows a man trying to remember who he is and who he was. Other films have shown men disillusioned with their life of wealth, women and splendor. But in “Knight of Cups,” even during a massive, celebrity-cameo filled party sequence at a glorious palatial estate, the film’s graceful editing, score and cinematography suggest something beyond just Rick’s glittering anguish.

Even a trip to Las Vegas finds a new mystique through Malick’s eye. It’s lush and beautiful rather than loud, sensational and trashy. He’s separated the confetti-filled, neon colored raves from their typical emotions and associated them instead with something gorgeous and ethereal. In Malick’s Vegas, there are as many peaceful, Zen moments as when he takes Rick inside a tranquil Buddhist monastery.

At a certain point however, the film’s weightless quality itself does grow aimless, even anemic. If “Knight of Cups” observes a life in progress from afar, then sure enough it will be filled with highs, lows and even boredom. How many impeccable shots of beautiful women frolicking barefoot on the beach can you honestly have?

There’s no doubt that Malick’s latest has some indulgence and seriously inscrutable moments. It falls short of “The Tree of Life’s” masterful reverie but surpasses the drearier slog of his last film, the equally formless “To the Wonder.” But “Knight of Cups” is its own film, and rather than turning in on his own bad habits, Malick is just beginning to find new meaning in the world.

3 ½ stars

Out of the Furnace

Christian Bale and Casey Affleck star in Scott Cooper’s grim Americana noir.

OutoftheFurnacePosterThere’s a moment in “Out of the Furnace” when a backwoods, villainous hick named Harlan DeGroat has a deer skinned to its bones hanging from the ceiling. The imagery calls to mind something absolutely raw, as though this bleak look at Americana symbolized all that’s emotional and open about the people who live this way. But Director Scott Cooper’s prized trophy doesn’t have that much meat on its bones to begin with. “Out of the Furnace” feels frustratingly unspecific, empty and generic, no matter how gritty the characters are.

It starts as a story of two brothers grappling with the complications of poverty, crumbling industry, crime, family, violence and more before taking a left turn as a revenge story driven by not much at all. Cooper has loaded his film with imagery and personalities full of gravitas as though that were enough.

Russell and Rodney Baze (Christian Bale and Casey Affleck) are two good ‘ole boys with little to their name beyond their factory jobs and their truck. Russell has a girlfriend he loves dearly (Zoe Saldana) and a father on his death bed, but he’s yanked violently from those loves when he gets involved in a drunk driving wreck that kills a woman and child. While his brother lies in prison, Rodney has lost thousands gambling and looks to repay his debts through illegal bare-knuckle brawls. As a former soldier, fighting seems to be all he knows.

Rodney eventually finds his way to the most rural of rural areas, where the meth dealer and backwoods boss Harlan DeGroat (Woody Harrelson) has organized a fight that gets Rodney in trouble. Russell, now free from prison, looks to rescue his brother and bring him back home.

These are men full of rage, anger and addiction, but none of it seems specific or tied to a real backstory or social issue. That Rodney is driven to fight as a result of his veteran status is treated as a given. The police claim they have no jurisdiction in Harlan’s gangster society up in the hills, and yet their dynamic as criminals seem to have no real impact on Anytown, USA where “Out of the Furnace” is set. Rodney is forced to take a dive during his fight, but it’s never explained why there should be an unspoken tension and danger between Harlan and Rodney’s manager (Willem Dafoe). “Am I supposed to be scared because he sucks on a lollipop,” Rodney asks of Harlan. Cooper struggles to explain why we should be afraid of Harlan, but with a line like this he calls attention to how cartoonishly cliché and short tempered Harrelson’s character is in the first place.

In fact all of the industrial, Americana imagery in the film contains an understated melodrama but doesn’t seem to signify much of anything in particular. Saldana is the film’s only named female character, and she’s given absolutely zero to do. And Bale’s Russell is the protagonist, but possibly only to serve as an ironic counterpoint to his more troubled brother. “Out of the Furnace” ends on a heavy note, and the cinematography makes it to be a movie of purpose, but it’s without much purpose at all.

2 ½ stars

American Hustle

“American Hustle” is David O. Russell’s brilliant charade of a movie led by an amazing cast.

 

Christian Bale gained 43 pounds for his role in “American Hustle.” When he first appears on screen, he spends minutes “perfecting” an elaborate comb over of glued on hair and parted strands that will fool no one.

The beauty is that Bale and O. Russell have fooled everyone. We immediately are torn between the “real” Bale, the real character he’s portraying or the carefully tailored version he’s putting on for his associates, and if this portrayal is good enough, we’ll believe whatever these master performers put in front of us.

“American Hustle” is a brilliant charade of a movie. It’s a talky, intricate and intrigue filled caper in which everyone’s a con artist and there’s little sense of what’s real and what isn’t. We’ve been conditioned to believe in the movies there’s a certain element of truth within each story, no matter how fictional, fantastical or how deceitful and crafty the characters.

O. Russell’s film takes the real life story of ABSCAM, a ‘70s FBI sting operation that convicted several congressmen and a senator, and turns that concept of reality on its head. He opens the film with “Some of this actually happened,” a clever twist on the ambiguous “Based on a True Story,” and inhabits his and Eric Singer’s screenplay with a wacky, high octane and deliciously fun investigation that can’t be fully followed, trusted or believed in the slightest. Continue reading “American Hustle”

Christopher Nolan: Someone more than a man; a symbol

This is the first in my new series, 21st Century Masters, a collection of director profiles specifically on directors and their films from the year 2000 onward. With some exceptions, films made before 2000 are not the subject of these profiles. These are attempts to understand the legacy of filmmakers here and now, not of the past.

There are three steps to Christopher Nolan’s directing process.

  1. He shows you something ordinary, which it probably isn’t.
  2. He takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary.
  3. But you wouldn’t clap yet, because he has to bring everything back.

Conveniently, this is the same model Michael Caine explains in “The Prestige.” A good “magician,” he says, tries to do something new, but not everyone can. A good “magician” gives total devotion to his art.

This is Chris Nolan in a nutshell. He begins with a film that demands your patience and attention, one that feels gritty, realistic and serious but has a little something more. Then, he astounds with monumental twists, stunning special effects, sweeping vistas and a screenplay that ever so slightly bends what’s possible. But Nolan’s real game is in showing you how its all done. He arranges elaborate procedures for his characters with strict rules and principles for them to follow. Then they’re confined to boxy, talky and methodic scenes of dialogue to lay the exposition open for scrutiny.

By doing this in each of his eight films, Nolan has been able to take over the world. No director in the 21st Century has emerged as a more distinctive, important voice for film as a popular art form than him. Other directors have been more critically acclaimed and others have slightly larger box office receipts, but no other director to make his or her mark in the last 12 years has come close to uniting adoring fanboys and appreciative film buffs than Nolan.

Nolan’s films are about singular ideas. His legacy comes from getting modern audiences in the multiplex to obsess over their films, study them with scrupulous attention and adhere to them as important texts made to be discussed.

Like Batman himself, Nolan is a symbol more than a director. He currently has the clout to take on any project he pleases and the fervent belief by many that he can do no wrong. And if through his audience he can transcend the idea that his film is just a movie made for entertainment value, he can become a beacon for something better than what we have in the movies today.

“You take it away… to show them what they had.” Continue reading “Christopher Nolan: Someone more than a man; a symbol”

The Dark Knight Rises

The bat signal is lit. Since 2008’s “The Dark Knight,” the world needed another proper superhero movie, one that tested our minds and rattled our core.

Christopher Nolan’s follow-up, “The Dark Knight Rises,” is more of an enduring challenge than some will expect. For others, it will even feel little like a superhero movie. But its heavy themes of untapped emotion and social anarchy dwarf the flimsy blandness of “The Avengers” and “The Amazing Spiderman.” It does the Batman franchise proud. Continue reading “The Dark Knight Rises”

The Fighter

David O. Russell takes the boxing movie and makes it into a rich family dramedy.

I wasn’t looking at Mark Wahlberg when he was training in the boxing ring. I wasn’t watching his gloves either, moving swiftly and smoothly from blow to blow. I was watching Christian Bale playing Wahlberg’s coked out brother as he’s training in the ring along with him. In “The Fighter,” he’s not just bobbing and weaving to block the punches.

Bale portrays Dicky Eklund, the brother of Wahlberg’s Micky Ward. Ward is the fighter, training to win a title, looking for romance and struggling with his own sense of self. Dicky already had his chance. 14 years ago, he knocked down Sugar Ray Leonard and became the pride of Lowell, Massachusetts. Now it’s 1993, and he’s addicted to crack, but still he’s the life of the party. Continue reading “The Fighter”

The New World

Even children know the story of Pocahontas. Her story does not need to be retold, and in fact it is slightly historically inaccurate. But there is still beauty in the story, and leave it to Terrence Malick to evoke the natural wonder contained within the British’s encounter with the “naturals” in “The New World.”

To make the Pocahontas tale a story for adults, Malick embeds in the film a message about the way we communicate when presented with something new. John Smith (Colin Farrell) begins the film as a stoic and silent convict in the crew to settle the colony of Jamestown. Upon arriving in the new world, it is expected of him to rebuild his reputation and communicate to the crew he is worthy of accepting the responsibility of exploring when presented with new circumstances. Continue reading “The New World”