15. District 9 (2009)

What would happen if an alien spaceship came to Earth over South Africa?

District 9 tells the story of what happens after an alien ship appears over Johannesburg, South Africa in 1982. The locals watch and wait, but for months, the ship just hovers there with no signs of movement. Finally, the government sends in a team to investigate and it finds the ship is populated by a large group of very malnourished aliens. Suddenly the aliens become the world's newest refugee group. Humanitarian aid is called in, and a special area (the District 9 of the title) is built for the aliens to live in. There is one big problem, however: their ship is broken, so the aliens are stuck being South Africa's permanent guests. Over the next two decades, District 9 devolves into being a slum; this, added the governmental costs of keeping the aliens alive creates tension with the citizens of South Africa and leads to interspecies violence. By 2010, a decision has been made to raze District 9 and relocate the aliens to a new site 200 kilometers away from Johannesburg. The film opens with documentary-style interviews recounting the appointment of an affable and naive bureaucrat named Wikus van de Merwe to lead the eviction and relocation efforts. The interviews hint that something went terribly awry with the operation, and one interviewee mentions feeling like Wikus' actions during the operation felt like "a betrayal." You can't believe that happy-go-lucky Wikus is capable of doing anything to betray his fellow humans, but over the course of the film, you see the circumstances he is trapped in and how that alters his humanity.

I was blown away by this movie. It turned the premise of "aliens coming to Earth" on its head and tackles themes like racism, xenophobia, bureaucracy, and military force. The aliens land in an unexpected place, and they need our help, which we give. But then the alien issue turns from "how can we help them?" into "how can we get rid of them?"

Unsurprisingly, the plot was heavily influenced by the director's growing up during apartheid in South Africa. The razing of District 9 is even inspired by a real event when the residents of a mixed-race district in Cape Town were forcibly removed so their area could be used exclusively by the white population.

The most surprising thing about this movie is that it's the first feature film for both its director and lead actor. What a heck of a first film. I liked everything about it. It's framed by a faux-documentary that gives it a sense of realism. A lot of science fiction films are intended to be allegorical, but this one really brings it home. Highly recommended viewing.

I'm caving...sorta

I've decided to amend my original plan to watch the 1001 movies in chronological order. I'm already losing steam and I need to get my momentum back. I'm not always in the mood to watch a long silent movie, you know what I mean? From now on I'm not going to focus so much on chronology and just try to check movies off the list. I might do them thematically and spend a whole month watching dystopian sci fi, or go by director or country.

I've been in the mood to watch Blade Runner recently, so now I can. The new plan (to get through the list as fast as I can) starts.....now.

Moby Dick, the Essex, and Ships on the Silver Screen

Remember a few years ago when Russell Crowe was in Master and Commander, that really awesome movie about a British warship that had an ending that was perfectly poised for a sequel? I'm really disappointed a sequel hasn't happened. I guess it's still possible, though unlikely. Hollywood seems preoccupied with other stuff now.

I got to thinking about it after I read this blog about the sinking of the Essex, which partially inspired Moby Dick and is one of the most amazing survival stories in modern history. I have been fascinated by anything related to Moby Dick and 19th century seafaring ever since I was a kid. My dad knows all about whales; he studied whales in his free time before I was born and I'm convinced that the only person who could tell you more about whales would be an actual marine biologist. Moby Dick loomed large in my house growing up. My dad references it more than any other literary work. You have to know it to keep up with him. In addition to being an amateur cetologist, dad also has encyclopedic knowledge of 19th century whaling and naval warfare. I think he enjoyed the "nuts and bolts" passages in Moby Dick more than anyone else who has ever read it. Let's be honest, most of us skipped over those parts, if we made it through the book at all.

I was really happy to see that blog from the Smithsonian. There are actually two true stories that served as Herman Melville's main inspiration when he was writing Moby Dick. The character of Moby Dick (yep, he's a character) was inspired by a real-life albino whale named Mocha Dick who was famous for his large size and many skirmishes with whaleships. This whale was a legend. When he was finally killed, his body yielded over 100 barrels of oil and there were numerous harpoons stuck in him from previous chase attempts. All of these traits would make their way into Melville's book.

The other true story that inspired Moby Dick was that of the Essex. The Essex was an American whaleship that was rammed and sunk by a sperm whale in 1820. Melville folded the idea of a whale ramming a ship into his book, but he didn't include what happened after, which was even more unbelievable: stranded at just about the most remote possible location on earth (more than 1200 miles from the nearest island), the sailors set out in open whaleboats to find land. Eight of them survived the epic ordeal--3 months on the open sea, starvation, cannibalism, the works--and all of them, yes ALL returned to sea after they got back to New England. Can you believe they recovered and went back to sea? Well, they didn't all totally recover. The captain of the Essex would survive two MORE shipwrecks before backers finally deemed him an unlucky "Jonah" and he was forced to spend the rest of his life on land. The first mate hoarded food in his attic later in life and eventually had to be put in an institution.

Whaleboat like the ones the Essex crew used

There is a fantastic book about the Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick that has all the gory details of what went down. This book is on my short list of "books I read in a single day." I couldn't put it down. It is well worth your time.

I wish Hollywood would make some more good movies about ships. The 1956 version of Moby Dick is really good, although not many people have seen it because it was a commercial flop. Audiences couldn't handle Gregory Peck playing a villain (Captain Ahab). The story of the Essex could make a fantastic movie with the right director attached. And there needs to be a Master and Commander sequel.

If you're in the mood for other movies about ships: Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) is really good, is also based on a true story, and stars Clark Gable and Charles Laughton! I haven't seen the 1962 remake with Marlon Brando, so I can't comment on whether that one is worth your time or not.

Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage is another great book I couldn't put down that is about a true story of survival.

America's Homegirl: Nora Ephron

I went to Austin, Texas last week for a few days to visit my boyfriend and I bought this book to read on my flights home. I was all prepared to be a literary genius by the time I deplaned. But when I got to the airport, I realized I had left the book on his kitchen table. <sadface> So I high-tailed it to the airport bookstore and luckily they had this book I'd heard really good things about that has been on my reading list for a while, but I never got around to checking out.

I'm glad that it got accidentally got bumped up to the top spot, because it entertained me all the way home. Here are a couple of my favorite quotes.

From her chapter on cooking -

Just before I'd moved to New York, two historic events had occurred: The birth control pill had been invented, and the first Julia Child cookbook was published. As a result, everyone was having sex, and when the sex was over, you cooked something.

On the weird true stories one encounters as a journalist -

I can't get over this aspect of journalism. I can't believe how real life never lets you down. I can't understand why anyone would write fiction when what actually happens is so amazing.

Nora did, of course, get into writing fiction. She wrote my favorite romantic comedy, When Harry Met Sally, and she also directed Sleepless in Seattle, which has one of my favorite scenes in a movie, ever:

I might have to do a little Ephron Fest this weekend and toast to her memory. She seems like one of those great people who was absolutely beloved by everyone who knew her. And she gave some great advice (passed down from her parents) in her book: everything is copy. Everything you see, do, and hear in life can become writing material.

Introverts and Movies

I just finished reading Susan Cain’s book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking (you have probably seen her TED talk.)

It was less of the self help manual for introverts that I expected and more of a plea to all people to understand that the person who talks the loudest does not always have the best ideas, and introverts shouldn't be pressured to fit into the "extrovert ideal." They contribute unique input and skills just the way they are.

I started wondering: are there certain jobs in the movie business that attract more introverts than other areas? Writing, editing?

Who are some great introverted characters from movies?

The first two that came to mind were Amelie (Amelie) and Andy Dufresne (Shawshank Redemption). They're not your typical heroes. They're quiet and hard to peg, but also sneaky and brilliant in their own ways.

Some of the qualities Susan Cain talks about in regards to introversion are tenacity and focus. These qualities can empower shy, gentle people (Gandhi, Rosa Parks) to oppose great foes. 

You can definitely see that tenacity in Andy Dufresne's character. Part of Shawshank Redemption is taken up by Andy's crusade to get better books for Shawshank Prison's small library. After he gets books, he acquires money to renovate and expand the library. Then he adds a music library, and he gets resources to start a GED program. And on and on. He single-handedly creates this amazing place for his prisonmates to go and stimulate their minds, something no one previously thought possible. Which leads to one of my favorite movie quotes of all time (Morgan Freeman's character speaking): 

"Prison time is slow time, so you do what you can to keep going. Some fellas collect stamps. Others build matchstick houses. Andy built a library." 

Andy finds his greatest foe in Shawshank Prison's Warden Norton. Norton is a cruel and merciless man who loves to hear himself preach. He uses and abuses Andy, but Andy has the last word when he gets revenge in the most fantastic way possible. And it's fantastic because it was a trap he had laid over the course of many years and no one saw it coming. Then you start thinking back over things he said and did throughout the movie that now make more sense. He was always a man with a plan. 

Tenacity and focus.

I've already got a running list of great supporting characters in movies, but now I'm going to start a list of great introverted characters as well. I think people are inspired by the way introverted characters solve unusual problems, because isn't that how we view life sometimes? A series of problems to solve? It takes a lot of creativity to make it through. Sometimes the quietest people have the best ideas for what to do. Active imaginations can do wonders.

Quiet is an interesting book and I recommend reading it. It's got some great food for thought. If you read it too, I'd love to know what you thought. And let me know if you can think of any memorable introverted characters I can add to my list. 

Creativity as a Moving Force

In this TED talk, Elizabeth Gilbert (author of Eat, Pray, Love) discusses creativity and how elusive it can be. The ancient Greeks came up with an explanation for this, positing that creativity doesn't come from within our own beings, it's brought to us by mysterious "geniuses." Gilbert also talks about the fears people hold about creativity, that success makes you doomed to always live in the shadow of the one thing that made you famous. Her goal in all of this is to encourage people to view creativity in a new (old, really) light and lessen the burden of our expectations on each other.

The idea of viewing creativity as a moving force that is sometimes there and sometimes not resonates with me. Just this week I was talking to my uncle Judd, also a writer, about his work habits and he said that his output usually occurs in bursts. The idea of a creative genius makes me think of the scene in Mary Poppins where you see the weathervane changing directions, and in comes Mary, flying through the air with her umbrella. But she'll only stay until the wind changes again.

Gilbert doesn't directly address this in the video above, but listening to her talk and reading about her career got me thinking about this other trait of creativity: most people do their best work in the middle of their careers. Many of the greatest minds in history hit their strides only after years of hard work and dedication. Child prodigies and early masterpieces are the exception, not the rule.

I first read about this probably a year ago, and then I found proof of it when I went on a months-long Tolstoy bender. I read all 12 of Tolstoy's novels and novellas, which represent a span of about 60 years of his life. I could see an increase in his clarity of expression as I read through all the books. His two great masterpieces, War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are numbers 6 and 7 on that list of 12.

I find all of this extremely comforting. As Gilbert says, your obligation is to show up every day and keep plugging away--and the more you show up and do your job, the more likely one of those creative geniuses will stop by for a visit.

14. Nanook of the North (1922)

The first documentary on the 1001 list, Nanook of the North is a groundbreaking film that depicts the rigors of subsistence living in northern Quebec. It follows the eponymous Nanook as he hunts, builds igloos, and engages in other survival-related activities to keep his family from starving or freezing to death. Also depicted in the film are Nanook's wife, Nyla, and their children.

Nanook of the North was the first documentary in history to be commercially successful and is still praised as one of the greatest achievements in the genre. In fact, this film almost singlehandedly established documentary as a new genre, though a name didn't exist for it yet. Very early one-reel films had depicted people going about their daily lives, but this was the first feature-length film to depict "real life" and focus on one subject. The only problem is, almost everything in Nanook of the North is staged. The family in the movie wasn't really a family, they were members of an Inuit community that director Robert Flaherty cast in the roles. The main character's name wasn't even Nanook. And he didn't die of starvation shortly after filming as the film claims.

Robert Flaherty was a young prospector and explorer sent to the Arctic by a railroad company in the early 20th century. Somewhere around 1913-14 he started filming the Inuit he encountered on his travels. For the next couple of years, he filmed them going about their daily lives until he had enough footage for a feature-length film. Then tragedy struck: he dropped a cigarette butt on the negative of his film (it's flammable stuff) and 30,000 feet of it burned up in an instant. He wasn't satisfied with the scenes left in tact, so he decided to raise money and return to the Arctic to shoot new footage.

Upon his return north in 1920, Flaherty set about making his film with a more focused plan than what he had before. He cast a few Inuit as the main characters of his film and hired other members of the Inuit community to be his crew. By this time, the Inuit in the area had started wearing Western-style clothing and hunting with guns, but Flaherty wanted to depict their traditional way of life, so in the film they only wear animal skins and hunt with weapons carved from animal bones. The hunting scenes in the movie are real--the actor playing Nanook actually kills live animals on camera (I don't recommend watching this if you're a vegetarian).

One of the most interesting scenes shows the family building an igloo from start to finish. In reality, more than one igloo was built for this sequence: the "family" built one to be shot from the outside, and another 3-sided igloo was built with the 4th side open so Flaherty could shoot some inside shots.

Even if the activities were staged, it's still interesting to see the traditional Inuit way of life and the movie is a good example of salvage ethnography. Even if the Inuit had been exposed to Western influences by 1922, they weren't so far removed from their traditional habits that they didn't know how to hunt with just a knife or a spear. I suspect there are plenty of scenes in modern documentaries that are staged for effect.

Unlike Flaherty, the Inuit involved in the film did receive any concrete benefits from the film. The woman who played Nyla reportedly bore a son fathered by Flaherty, but Flaherty never acknowledged him, despite the difficult circumstances of the boy's life--he was part of a group of Inuit relocated by the Canadian government to the High Arctic in the 1950s. The actor who played Nanook died of tuberculosis a few short years after the film was released.

The success of this film brought Flaherty worldwide acclaim and allowed him to continue directing films. His second film would inspire a fellow film-maker to coin the term "documentary." There are two other films by Flaherty on the 1001 list, Tabu and The Louisiana Story, both of which are hybrid documentary/narrative films with ethnographic themes.

13. Nosferatu (1922)

Nosferatu is the second great Expressionist film on the 1001 list (here's the first.) Its director, F.W. Murnau was one of the poster boys for German Expressionist cinema and one of the most influential directors of the Silent Era in general. He spent the first few years of his career making a name for himself in Germany, and then immigrated to the United States in 1926 to work in Hollywood. He would die of injuries sustained in a car crash at the tender age of 42, but he achieved great heights in his relatively short career.

Nosferatu is Murnau's best known film, but the origins of the film began with producer Albin Grau. When he was fighting in World War I in 1916, a Serbian farmer told Grau that the farmer's father was one of the undead, a vampire. A lifelong student of the occult, Grau was intrigued.

Fast forward to 1921. Grau and partner Enrico Dieckmann established Prana Film for the purpose of producing films with supernatural or occult themes. Remembering the Serbian farmer's tale from five years earlier, Grau decided their first film would be about vampires.

Grau and Dieckmann hired a writer experienced in dark romanticism to write a screenplay based on Bram Stoker's Dracula. The playwright renamed the characters and changed other aspects of the story enough that the filmmakers hoped they could get away with not having film rights to the book.

The resulting screenplay was detailed and rhythmic, filled with copious notes on lighting and camera angles. Murnau would rewrite some portions of the screenplay, but he kept the rhythmic feel in tact, even using a metronome during filming to keep the actors' movements in time with his script notes.

Murnau hired actor Max Schreck to play the film's version of Dracula, Count Orlok. His involvement in the film would become legendary in its own right (more on that later), but in real life he was an actor who had both stage and film experience before he was offered Nosferatu.

Filming took place in Germany (the town shots) and Slovakia (Count Orlok's castle). The production could only afford one camera, so there was only one original negative of the film (!!!).

Dracula is an epistolary novel, where the plot is told through a series of documents--diary entries, letters, newspaper articles, etc. The film keeps this format in tact, using the documents as title cards.

The beginning of the movie starts out just as Dracula does: young lawyer travels to visit Transylvanian Count on business.

Near the middle, it starts to deviate a little: the Count, now revealed to be a vampire, makes his way to Germany (England in the book.)

The ending of the movie differs more widely from the book than the rest of the story (I won't spoil it here).

The character of Van Helsing is almost completely left out of the movie, which made me really sad because I read the book a couple years ago and Van Helsing was my favorite character by far. It would have been nice if the studio had made a part 2 focusing on the Van Helsing parts of the book, but sadly, they never got the chance.

The film was released in 1922 with an ad campaign and a lavish release party and the producers had high hopes for its success. But the fate of the film's legacy was threatened when Bram Stoker's widow sued for copyright infringement and won. At Mrs. Stoker's request, the court ordered that all the existing prints and negatives be destroyed.

Luckily, at least one print survived outside Germany. Copies were made and the film surfaced again in the late 20s. This is why the release date is sometimes listed as 1929: that's when it was first shown in the United States.

The costs of the lawsuit caused Prana Film to declare bankrupty. Albin Grau's vision of a studio producing only supernatural-themed films would be short lived. But in its brief existence, Prana Film did give the world one groundbreaking classic.

Another part of the film that miraculously survives to this day is the shooting locations. Almost all of the buildings used in the film survived World War II and are still standing in Wismar and Lübeck, Germany, and northern Slovakia. One could feasibly make a pilgrimage there. Maybe Nosferatu tours already exist?

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One interesting thing about reading/watching stuff about vampires is you get to see how vampire lore has evolved over time. Most modern depictions of vampires show the influence of Stoker's characterization of Count Dracula as a cool, suave aristocrat. Nosferatu's vampire is a Count, but has none of the gentlemanly manners of the Count in Stoker's book. He's 100% creepy and is more of a rat/lizard creature than a human.

In addition to the indelible images of Count Orlok that this film contributed to the world, Nosferatu is also the point of origin for the idea that sunlight is fatal to vampires. That was not in earlier vampire fiction, but it entered the canon of vampire lore starting with this film. It demonstrates how much movies play a role in shaping public consciousness. An earlier example from the 1001 list is Birth of a Nation, which established burning crosses and white costumes as KKK iconography.

Nosferatu has inspired at least two feature-length films. The first was Werner Herzog's 1979 film Nosferatu: Phantom of the Night, starring Klaus Kinski (awesome in whatever role he plays). By 1979, Dracula had entered the public domain, so Herzog restored the original character names from the book. He wanted to make a stylistic homage to Nosferatu because he considered it the greatest German film ever produced, and he even copied some shots verbatim. This movie is on the 1001 list, so I'll be watching it at some point. 

The second feature film based on or inspired by Nosferatu was Shadow of a Vampire in 2000. Its plot is based on the legend that Max Schreck really was a vampire and director F.W. Murnau (played by John Malkovich) convinced him to appear in Nosferatu, but Murnau doesn't tell the rest of the cast and crew that they're dealing with a real vampire. The myth about Schreck began when someone claimed there was no evidence he had been in any other movies (this was later proved to be false). If it were true, that would have been the greatest casting move in history. Shadow of a Vampire is not on the 1001 list, but I might watch it anyway, because the premise sounds pretty entertaining. The role of Max-Schreck as real vampire" was reportedly written specifically for Willem Dafoe (more inspired casting).

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So that's the general story of Nosferatu. A little more about the nuts and bolts of the movie:

It's one thing to look at pictures of Count Orlok and think he is creepy, but it's a totally other feeling to actually see him in motion.

The first time he appears on screen is some of the most awesomely creepy footage I've ever seen. He only blinks once in the entire movie, and he appears to slither across the screen as he moves with quick, tiny steps and hunched over shoulders. Like I said before, he seems like more of a rat/lizard creature than a person, and his character development doesn't go much further than that. 

This film has all the striking visuals and effective use of shadow that The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari does, but the main difference is that whereas Caligari was obviously shot on a stage with matte paintings as backgrounds, Nosferatu was shot on location. That does give the film an air of realism, and the Count's movements are all so perfect that I can see why some people did not believe Max Schreck was just playing a role. This movie probably has the widest range of visual effects I've seen yet in a film on the 1001 list.

I was sad they greatly diminished Van Helsing's character, but the changes to the plot make for a movie that's just right in pacing and length. It's available to watch on Netflix. I suggest you check it out.

Hitchcock Part 2

I finished the Hitchcock book.

There are a whopping 18 films by Hitchcock on the 1001 movie list, more than any other director, and they span 1929 to 1972. Does that make mean he's the greatest director in history? Not necessarily, but that's for you to decide. Hitchcock remained experimental throughout his career, even at the very height of his fame, and he was incredibly prolific--53 films in all, and he was even working on plans for a 54th at the end of his life until he realized he didn't have enough time left to finish it. These are among the reasons it's impossible to tell someone to watch just a couple Hitchcock movies. You have to see at least two from every decade.

In contrast to all that's been written portraying Hitchcock as a control freak who terrorized actresses, this book presents him as a much more benign character. It feels like there are two Hitchcocks: there's the concrete Hitchcock of everyday life, the man who loved food and wine, told dirty jokes, and prized his wife's opinion above all else. And then there's the more abstract Hitchcock, the one whose psyche is played out in his films.

The parts of the book that most interested me weren't about the making of his best known films, but what happened in between filming, the creative process he followed - how he would create an entire movie around an experimental technique or an idea for a single shot that had been floating around in his head. Sometimes ideas would slowly evolve for years, even decades, before he could actually spin them into something bigger. One of his more experimental pictures is Rope, the whole of which consists of ten long shots, a huge stylistic risk. North by Northwest came into being because Hitchcock had the idea of filming people crawling over the faces of Mount Rushmore.

In addition to being prolific and experimental, Hitchcock was also impressively resilient. In between all the hits and classics, there are the missteps like Under Capricorn and Torn Curtain, but he always bounced back. Just when everyone thought he was too past his prime to direct anything else worth watching, he directed Frenzy, his "late masterpiece." Whenever he tried something new and it didn't pan out, he would so "whoops, OK, that didn't work," but he never stopped creating.

His legacy has proven to be just as resilient, even after his death. Take Vertigo, for example. Possibly the most personal and enigmatic of all Hitchcock's films,  it received mixed reviews upon its release and didn't do well at the box office, but its reputation steadily rose over the years. Its crowning achievement was displacing Citizen Kane as the #1 on Sight and Sound's poll of the 10 best movies of all time in 2012, 54 years after its original release. Other movies have seen a rise in popularity over the years, but this one is the most impressive. How does something like that even happen? The only way I can explain it is that critics needed that long to digest it. With this film, Hitchcock took us deeper into his mind than we had ever been before and we needed time to process what we'd seen. Even those who were around during the filming said that this film in particular seemed to strike very personal chords with him.

In addition to all his other innovations, Hitchcock worked with a dizzying array of collaborators throughout his career. The ones most interesting to me were the writers. Over the years, he engaged award-winning novelists, playwrights, New Yorker columnists, actors, and everyone in between to write his movies. Another interesting collaboration: composer John Williams wrote the music for Hitchcock's final film, Family Plot.

So Hitchcock was a creative force to be reckoned with, but his greatest strength is his accessibility. And that's why he is so widely appreciated today. He made movies that were replete with meaning, yet not so convoluted that the everyman couldn't follow them. As his daughter said: above all else, he made movies for the audience. He gave people movies they could interpret on their own and keep interpreting long after he was gone.

I don't think there's anything more you could ask of a director.