Tag: Amour

MY BUDDY ROG

Posted on by Lloyd Marken

Pulitzer Prize Winning Film Critic Roger Ebert passed away April 4, 2013 aged 70 years old. When I started dating my wife I referred to him as ‘My Buddy Rog’ whose review of Australia would ensure Karen would not refer to him as ‘Her Buddy Rog’. That’s how much his writing meant and make no mistake I do not truly consider him a friend. We never met and I never knew the man. You should leave the word friend for people truly close to you. Yet the expression ‘My Buddy Rog’ reflects something. Roger Ebert was a great writer but he wrote for everyone. He was not a snob who didn’t appreciate blockbusters but he was mercilessly witty when putting down films with poor writing or bad intentions. You really have to discover him for yourself so I will try to keep this short.

I still have it. © Copyright Lloyd Marken
© Copyright Lloyd Marken

When I was 9, I was handed a copy of his 1989 Four Star Movie Guide and I quickly leafed through to find reviews on movies I knew. I was already aware of the making of movies and was interested in reading films being judged for their components. Star Wars, Superman and Who Framed Roger Rabbit were all dutifully there. As the years went by I came to read other reviews and seek out those films too. There are still many to see but this is how I came to know Roger. Through his words. I did not hear his voice when I read those reviews and having not seen most of the films what I enjoyed about the reviews was his own writing. The review for Claire’s Knee and Lucas were mesmerising. Runaway Train promised amazing visceral stunts. One review related an alcoholic smashing a battle of booze and then trying to soak it up and drink some drops from a towel. This would become more poignant with his own later revelations. I would argue some of his reviews were a work of art themselves and I direct you to his American Graffiti review for an example of why I fell in love with Ebert the writer. Here is but a taste from the master,

“When I went to see George Lucas’s “American Graffiti” that whole world — a world that now seems incomparably distant and innocent — was brought back with a rush of feeling that wasn’t so much nostalgia as culture shock. Remembering my high school generation, I can only wonder at how unprepared we were for the loss of innocence that took place in America with the series of hammer blows beginning with the assassination of President Kennedy.

The great divide was November 22, 1963,and nothing was ever the same again.”

In the mid-1990s my family got a copy of Cinemania ’95 CD and I could suddenly read his reviews of films that he didn’t give 4 stars to. Then the internet came into being and I found his reviews posted on the Chicago Sun Times website with all his current reviews and one’s going back to 1985. I was going to university and studying film and often would look to see how Ebert had judged the works of these auteurs. As an American critic he was a man of his time, Pauline Kael and the like were changing the nature of film criticism as the French New Wave hit in the 1960s with Fellini doing his thing in Italy and then the great American Film Renaissance began with Altman, Coppola, De Palma, Lucas, Mazurky, Peckinpah, Scorcese, Spielberg. Film reviews used to be allocated to a journalist every week to be quickly done up for opening day but this changed as the position of films in pop culture developed and Ebert became the face of this.

In America he is probably best known for Siskel and Ebert where he and Gene Siskel sparred over their opinions of new releases. I never read Siskel’s writings but with the help of YouTube I have been able to newly discover such an indelible part of Ebert’s success. Now I know Ebert’s voice but more importantly how great the two were as a double act. What a pair.       

Ebert blogged on his website and some of his writings were part of informing my opinions as a young man. We didn’t always agree but I appreciated how well he considered this world and how much empathy he felt for his fellow humans. You didn’t have to agree with him, he welcomed discussion of the things that were important. When salivary gland cancer robbed him of his voice and transformed his appearance Ebert’s blog became a vital form of communicating to the world without relying on software to give his words a voice. His blog took on a new life those last few years when he refused to go quietly into the light. My favourite piece of his and one of my favourite pieces of writing is the following about his father http://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journal/my-old-man

 Sometimes he poignantly referred to mortality in such late great reviews for Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work and Amour. After his death, My Life was released which is a wonderful documentary that details his life story and showed the deep bond he had with his beautiful wife Chaz. Karen watched and enjoyed My Life and liked Roger too after viewing his story. I marvel at an interview Ebert had with Howard Stern where he holds himself quite well against the shock jock. That is the man we all lost with his jaw and yet for me those last 8 years he remained as full an entity as he ever had been. It all came back to the words he wrote because they were the most important thing and he still had that. Yet the words stopped too, 3 years ago. I’ve found good critics out there since. I love some of Vulture’s and The A.V. Club’s writers on television series and I enjoy some of my fellow bloggers insights. But there is only one Roger Ebert and I miss having his opinion to read. Still there are films he reviewed I have not yet seen and reviews I have not yet read. That is the legacy of his work. I care to imagine the legacy of him is his family and friends. If that is the case, my buddy Rog gave a lot in this life for us to enjoy.

-Lloyd Marken

YOUTH IS WASTED ON THE OLD

Posted on by Lloyd Marken

Roger Ebert once wrote “That the firemen are going to come looking for all of us one of these days, sooner or later.” in reference to mortality in the film Amour. Within 3 months he was dead after fighting on without his voice and limited mobility for years. He did not go quietly into the night but the firemen had come. The giants of my adolescence as eclectic as Ebert and Tom Clancy are disappearing from my life. Youth shows me that Michael Caine and Harvey Keitel remain as strong as ever but here are playing characters well aware that there are a handful of years left in their lives. You can’t help but marvel at the passage of time.

Keitel and Caine share a lot of similarities in their personas and histories. Both served in the military as young men overseas, Caine as a Royal Fusilier in Korea and Keitel as a U.S. Marine in Lebanon, both rode film renaissances of their eras on either side of the Atlantic, both are identified with rough neighbourhoods of their youth Caine a Cockney from London and Keitel a Jew from Brooklyn, both got some big breaks in films playing criminals and both have been re-discovered by hip young filmmakers who revitalised their careers. Michael Caine is 82 and Harvey Keitel is 76, these are not ages where you believe you have all the time in the world left but they thankfully still enjoy working and we are the more fortunate for it.

Michael Caine stars as retired composer Fred Ballinger who is vacationing in the Swiss Alps at a health resort. His oldest friend, director Mick Boyle is also staying there brainstorming his new film with some young screenwriters. Also present is Rachel Weisz playing Lena Ballinger, Fred’s daughter and assistant who is married to Mick’s son. There is an overweight retired soccer star, the latest Miss Universe shows up and Paul Dano as a young film star who wants to do a good picture rather than be remembered playing a robot in a broad comedy. Jane Fonda essentially has one scene where she shows up as Boyle’s former star and muse Brenda Morel to be asked to headline his new ‘legacy’ film.

The film has its own leisurely pace observing each day one by one as Boyle fusses over his film, Ballinger is hounded to return to perform for the Queen and Lena deals with the aftermath of her marriage imploding. A key scene for revealing Fred’s current state is the only weak moment in the film because the Queen’s emissary appears remarkably ignorant and insistent. A great fallacy that comes naturally to us is that the old must somehow be wise but Youth shows clearly that both Fred and Mick still have questions they can’t answer even if they understand how fleeting and poignant it all is. It is a pleasure to watch these two performers bounce off each other. Caine as far back as The Ipcress File knew the power of a silent gaze and Keitel who has remained physically in shape all his life appears with still the exuberant energy of a boy ready to take on life. Your oldest friends bring out the child in you; there is something special when you see peers interact with each other. Many years ago in a hospital ward I finally saw my grandfather wasn’t just a grandfather but a brother and a young man somewhere inside bubbling to the surface. Notice how Caine plays a scene with Keitel compared to Dano or a young boy.

The film (relatively low budget) looks fantastic, the retreat itself surrounded by beautiful pine forest mountainsides has a courtyard where hip young bands play on a lit stage at night. In the morning rows upon rows of guests of various ages move through pools, saunas and massage tables in various states of undress. There is a celebration of flesh in all its forms in this film which reflects the earthy quality of Europeans when it comes to sex. Americans get excited by the garter underneath a skirt. Europeans count all the freckles and wrinkles on a bare thigh before devouring it lustfully no matter what the number. After all the firemen are coming. Even Madalina Diana Ghenea as Miss Universe displayed on the film’s marketing for a famous titillating descent naked into a pool is introduced as a human being before being celebrated as a goddess.

Director Paolo Sorrentino is a compelling visual artist engaging in both full blown dream sequences and one compelling close up shot of Weisz as she speaks about much that has been left unsaid for far too long. After that confrontation not much else is said between father and daughter for a bit and then it is. It can go like that sometimes with family. Lena worries about Fred and Fred worries about Lena but in the end they will find their solutions to their life crises themselves. It is nice to be loved though. The whole cast is uniformly exemplary but Sir Michael Caine is here once again taking on the lead role and giving one of his best performances ever-worthy of an Oscar as anything else I’ve seen this year. Even at this stage of life Fred Ballinger has a character arc and grows. He learns there are things to be done, there is still strength in these arms and there is not a moment to lose. The firemen are coming. This is one of the year’s best.

-Lloyd Marken