Misfortunes of Imaginary Beings: 01/25/24

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

Thursday, January 25, 2024

The Yards (James Gray, 2000)

Mark Wahlberg and Joaquin Phoenix in The Yards

Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Joaquin Phoenix, Charlize Theron, James Caan, Ellen Burstyn, Faye Dunaway, Steve Lawrence, Andy Davoli, Tony Musante, Victor Argo, Tomas Milian, Robert Montano. Screenplay: James Gray, Matt Reeves. Cinematography: Harris Savides. Production design: Kevin Thompson. Film editing: Jeffrey Ford. Music: Howard Shore.

With its powerhouse cast acting glum, The Yards is a slow downer of a movie. But it repays attention, immersing us in an almost too-familiar milieu, the Mean Streets of New York City. It's more elegiac than the visions of the milieu given us by Scorsese, Coppola, Lumet and many others, portraying a city almost beyond hope and reform, in which the well-meaning can be dragged down by circumstance. Leo Handler (Mark Wahlberg) is certainly well-meaning: Just out of prison for a crime for which he took the fall for his friends, he would like to stay straight if only to help his ailing mother (Ellen Burstyn), but the corruption that is eating his friends and family, particularly his friend Willie Gutierrez (Joaquin Phoenix) and his uncle Frank (James Caan), is bound to swallow him up, too. Eventually, meaning well is not enough, and Leo finds himself taking the fall again. In the end, it turns out that the only way to fight the kind of corruption that ensnares Leo is with corruption itself, a truly vicious cycle. James Gray's steady, slow direction probably tested audiences too much, for the film was a box office loser. But it boasts superb ensemble work, with standout performances from Phoenix and Caan and particularly from Charlize Theron as Erica, Leo's cousin and Willie's girfriend. Howard Shore's music underscores Gray's melancholy vision.