Misfortunes of Imaginary Beings: 09/07/15

A blog formerly known as Bookishness / By Charles Matthews

"Dazzled by so many and such marvelous inventions, the people of Macondo ... became indignant over the living images that the prosperous merchant Bruno Crespi projected in the theater with the lion-head ticket windows, for a character who had died and was buried in one film and for whose misfortune tears had been shed would reappear alive and transformed into an Arab in the next one. The audience, who had paid two cents apiece to share the difficulties of the actors, would not tolerate that outlandish fraud and they broke up the seats. The mayor, at the urging of Bruno Crespi, explained in a proclamation that the cinema was a machine of illusions that did not merit the emotional outbursts of the audience. With that discouraging explanation many ... decided not to return to the movies, considering that they already had too many troubles of their own to weep over the acted-out misfortunes of imaginary beings."
--Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Monday, September 7, 2015

Saw (James Wan, 2004)

Ned Bellamy and Danny Glover in Saw

Adam Faulkner-Stanheight: Leigh Whannell
Dr. Lawrence Gordon: Cary Elwes
Det. David Tapp: Danny Glover
Det. Steven Sing: Ken Leung
Kerry: Dina Meyer
Paul: Mike Butters
Mark: Paul Gutrecht
Zep Hindle: Michael Emerson
Brett: Benito Martinez
Amanda: Shawnee Smith
Diana Gordon: Makenzie Vega
Alison Gordon: Monica Potter
Jeff: Ned Bellamy
Jigsaw: Tobin Bell

Director: James Wan
Screenplay: Leigh Whannell, James Wan
Cinematography: David A. Armstrong
Production design: Julie Berghoff
Film editing: Kevin Greutert
Music: Charlie Clouser

My daughter was shocked to see James Wan's Saw in the DVR queue, but hey, a movie-watcher can't just limit himself to Rossellini and Renoir. So when I saw this coming up on the schedule, I decided to record it. After all, it's a prime example of an independent filmmaker's breakthrough into success and of a trend in horror movies, spawning numerous sequels. So what if it does have a 48% rating on Rotten Tomatoes? There were actually some reputable critics like David Edelstein and Owen Gleiberman who reviewed it favorably. And anyway, film critics are typically hard on genre pictures. So maybe I'd like it. I'm not averse to horror: I watch Hannibal and Penny Dreadful on TV, and anyway, I know all that blood is corn syrup and food coloring. The truth is, however, that Saw is neither as good as I'd hoped nor as bad as I feared. The central plight -- two men trapped in a grungy bathroom, one tasked with killing the other in order to spare the lives of his wife and daughter -- is a compelling one, much better than those old teenagers-who-must-die-because-they-have-sex slasher movie plots. Gradually, with the help of good actors like Cary Elwes, Danny Glover, and Michael Emerson, the plot thickens. But then it goes haywire: Screenwriter Leigh Whannell (who plays one of the trapped men) and director Wan seem to think that if one plot twist is good, then half a dozen will be great. The result instead is incoherence, and the ending is such an obvious attempt to provide an opportunity for sequels that it feels like a cheat. It's also a measure of how far we've gone in 11 years, too, that the violence seems tamer than what's routinely presented on even commercial television, where the serial killer has become a weary character trope. The only characters for whom I felt much empathy were the bound-and-gagged wife and child played by Monica Potter and Makenzie Vega, clinging together in terror. I'm always uneasy when I see children performing in films that they should under no circumstances be allowed to watch. On the other hand, it seems to have done Vega, who made Saw when she was 10 years old, no great harm: She now has a recurring role on the TV series The Good Wife.