Boardwalk Empire

I just finished the much-lauded Boardwalk Empire and really loved it. It was, for the most part, a pleasure to watch: an intricate, sprawling series, testament to the roaring twenties and their excesses. That said, I did – and still do – have some serious reservations about certain aspects the series. For, given the fanfare, the presence of Scorsese, and the involvement of many of the best people involved in The Sopranos, we were lead to expect great things. But does it deliver? Or is it unfair to compare anything to The Sopranos and The Wire, even if it invites those very comparisons?

My first thought is that the fact that Boardwalk Empire being a period piece, set in 1920, surely counts against it. As, despite every detail of that decade being accurately and lovingly recreated by the crew, there is a certain lack of depth to some of what is going on – through no real fault of their own. For me, it’s no coincidence that The Wire and The Sopranos are modern day series, filmed on location as much as possible, that reflect the complexities of modern life. Somehow things just seem simpler 90 years ago, and they may well have been: 2D to our 3D. It just means that every problem is one gunshot away from being fixed and storylines can be tied up neatly in an instant. The second Nelson baptism scene is stark evidence of this.

The incredible set

I must say, the look-at-how-different-things-were-back-then vibe isn’t as bad as Mad Men, but there is an element of that in some scenes. The speech of Chalky White (Omar Little from The Wire), whilst being characteristically charismatic and excellent, is almost certainly anachronistic and incongruous, which, considering the efforts made for authenticity, seems a bit dumb. Nucky even asks: “What’s a motherfucker?” after speaking with White, as if to illustrate its ridiculousness.

The acting, though, is almost universally impressive. Buscemi, typically, is a towering presence: an Actor with a capital ‘A’. The support cast (Shooter McGavin, Tommy from Snatch et al.) are also so brilliant you nearly forget your watching a series. The Brits among them certainly prove more adept at Stateside accents that Dominic West as McNulty. However, the one exception is Jimmy: a man so wooden (“He’s shell-shocked”, I hear you cry), I fear he may be a Keanu Reeves-Liz Hurley lovechild. It’s a massive disappointment to see bad acting in HBO dramas, so rarely does it happen, but here is a key character, badly-played and possibly badly-drawn.

That minor setback aside, I love the rest of the characters. Especially Nelson Van Alden, whose Catholic crusade against the sin and iniquities of alcohol and Atlantic City is a key element in the show’s balance. As many of the personae are based on real people, the dichotomy between fact and fiction puts the show in an awkward – if interesting – position. How closely will they adhere to history and does this matter? It certainly sets the series up to be a saga, as the majority of the historical figures lasted a long time at the top.

Nucky speaking to the press

Even so, the Soprano’s comparisons are also slightly annoying, because, if you scratch the surface a bit, you’ll find that many of the concerns are identical. Thus, morality, murder and inner anguish; the women behind criminal bosses and their problems; and the souring of the American dream take centre stage. As good as it is, I don’t think it’s wise to consciously make comparisons with one of the very best things to ever appear on the small screen – 2 Pints of Lager reruns aside. At worst, it seems like déjà vu.

All in all, the first season is a very promising one – better than the first Breaking Bad and Mad Men series were, anyway. I certainly have hope that it will be a return to the grand days of HBO. Not being The Sopranos isn’t a crime, even if they kind of want it to be another Sopranos; I can enjoy films that aren’t The Godfather, can’t I? I’m sure that the next twelve episodes will be better and hope that most of the issues I have will be ironed out. For that I await the Season 2 première with baited breath, as there can never be too much good TV.

Enter the Void (Soudain la vide)

Poster

Gaspar Noé, former enfant terrible of the French cinema world, is a bit mental. No longer an enfant, much of what he commits to celluloid is still terrible – in the truest sense of the word. He has been linked to the movement dubbed the New French Extremity and his previous feature was the profoundly disturbing Irréversible, famous for its never-ending rape scene, amongst other things. His most recent film, Enter the Void, is also transgressive, but is ultimately concerned with the metaphysical matters of life and death – and psychotropic substances.

Before giving a synopsis of the story, I should make clear that the film is completely bat-shit and quite possibly a classic; therefore, what might sound very simple is actually much more: a mind-bending and unforgettable trip (pun intended).

It is initially filmed, blinks ‘n’ all, from the perspective of the protagonist, Oscar, a small-time American drug dealer living in Tokyo with his younger sister. Crucially he has just started reading the Tibetan Book of the Dead, given to him by a hirsute Gallic buddy, and is fascinated by all hallucinogenic drugs. The same evening, he is shot dead in the toilet of a nightclub called The Void after a drug deal goes wrong. From that point on, the camera leaves his body and floats above the city: the soul’s-eye view – at once exploring the impact of his death on those closest to him and looking for a new place to be reincarnated. Reliving a tragic past through traumatic memories and dreams of the characters, the movie is a unique ride, where one is never sure quite what to expect.

It should be noted that the cinematography in this film is some of the best I have ever seen. The camera seamlessly swoops through rooms and walls, rises above the city, and goes in and out of people’s heads and bodies. It is mesmerizing from first to last. The acting, however, is not. It grates at the start, as the French guy is particularly terrible: as natural as Prince Philip at a rave. After you become immersed in the films aesthetic, though, it is less noticeable, but still, occasionally, frustrating. The film is really long, too, but it’s a case of: could he have done it any other way? Not really, for me.

Critics have noted that it’s “not everyone’s cup of tea”, presumably because a lot of it looks like an art film, has a “nightmare-porn aesthetic” and contains abortion, full-frontal nudity, erect penises, in-body ejaculation, Freudian incest, drugs and more. But is the point of art, of which cinema is a medium, not to challenge? To make us think about life anew?

One man’s pretentious (a word used more often than not by idiots) is another man’s life-affirming. Annoying in its “Is-The-Void-really-life-or-death” sort of way, I would recommend this film to everyone, as Noé is definitely trying something new with the medium, which very few can say they are. Long, ambient, indulgent, loopy and frustrating it may be, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a classic.

Number9Dream

UK paperback cover

When reading the foreword to David Foster Wallace’s mammoth Infinite Jest this week, I was struck by the opening few lines of Dave Eggers’ goggle-eyed (yet good) mini-essay. There, he talked about the debate surrounding readability in contemporary fiction: is it a “popular medium”, or should it be “challenging, generally and thematically”? The reasoning behind the latter was that “the rewards can be much greater when one’s mind has been exercised and thus (presumably) expanded.” Of course, he was referring to Foster Wallace’s inimitable style, but it got me thinking – has there ever been an author better at straddling the two sides of the debate than David Mitchell?

I had just read Mitchell’s enchanting second novel, Number9Dream, so my opinions were undoubtedly coloured, if not skewed. But the thought remains, so readable, yet complicated and crazy are his fictions. In fact, Eggers might as well have been talking about him.

Number9Dream is ostensibly a coming-of-age story in eight parts; nineteen-year-old Eiji Miyake has moved from rural southern Japan to the bright lights of Tokyo to complete several rites of passage and, essentially, discover himself. These include (but are not limited to) finding out the identity of his father, overcoming the loss of a family member and dealing with his distant mother. If it sounds straightforward or even derivative, don’t be fooled. What actually unfolds is an incredible, unique, thrill-a-minute story combining computer games, fables, diary entries, fantasies and (of course) dreams. The Yakuza and Kai Ten ‘kamikaze’ submarine pilots also feature, not to mention romance.

Tokyo

What astounds is not simply the sheer heft of Mitchell’s imagination, or even his preternatural skills as a storyteller, but the quality of his prose. For, despite the difficulties involved with the use of the first-person, the lyrical voice and descriptions are consistently beautiful. Especially fine are his depictions of the natural world, their sublimity almost Romantic. Obviously, due to his name-dropping of Murakami and Auster and the non-linear and complicated structure, he is often lumped in with the postmodern. But that shouldn’t, and seemingly doesn’t, put anyone off, which was exactly my point at the start.

I, personally, came to Mitchell late, bogged down by university reading lists, and only finishing his first novel, Ghostwritten, just over twelve months ago. Though, now bitten by the bug, I can see myself reading the rest sharpish. He really is that good, the best sort of literary fiction. As the Wachowskis are apparently adapting Cloud Atlas for the big screen, he’ll probably be brought to an even wider audience, which can only be a good thing.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams

As I have previously pointed out, I am a great admirer of the work of Werner Herzog. And while he hasn’t exactly changed tack over the last few years, his recent documentary filmmaking has been especially impressive. Documentaries such as Grizzly Man and Encounters at the End of The World approach perfection in the form, striving as they do for Herzog’s idea of “ecstatic truth” and the essence of the human soul. The director’s latest documentary, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, may appear slightly different, yet has, in fact, the very same objective.

Through good fortune and reputation, the director had the chance to make a film about the cave paintings of the Chauvet Cave in southern France – the oldest known examples of prehistoric art, made roughly 32,000 years ago. Discovered in 1994 after remaining sealed for millennia, access to the public has always been completely restricted, given that human breath can cause mould to grow on the paintings. True to type, with a crew of only four people permitted, Herzog decided to make a 3D film, in order to make the viewer’s experience and appreciation of the cave more real. So, combining this footage with interviews with scientists and experts, he attempts to provide some sort of background and reason for these miraculous works of art.

Though it is not always executed to perfection, the 3D element is vital to the films success: immersing you as it does in the cave environment. It also allows you to appreciate the walls’ contours and their impact on the paintings. The “serene pace” of the camera’s movement ensures the images stay with you, for they truly are some of the most striking pictures you could ever hope to see – almost too good to be true. Herzog has spoken of the “intensity of the paintings” and the “drama” which affected him; I’m happy to report none of it’s lost here.

Paintings from the Chauvet Cave

There are, of course, some typically Herzogian flourishes in the film: such as an image of Fred Astaire dancing with his shadow in Swing Time (“the most quintessential moment in cinema” according to the Bavarian), plus the superimposed sound of a heartbeat and a crazy postscript involving mutant albino crocodiles; but they all serve a purpose. For Herzog, the key to the human soul is found somewhere in the “abyss” that he sees in the cave. To enter in there is to look back to simpler times and universal truth: why the need for artistic representation? Why no pictures of man?

I should point out that while it is an incredible watch, I didn’t think Cave of Forgotten Dreams quite scaled the heights of his last two documentaries; it felt spellbinding, though slight. Whether it was because it didn’t expose the lack of meaning in life and the cruelty of the world with the trademark bleak existentialism I have come to expect, I don’t know. What I do know is that it is a film that should be seen to be believed: a necessary use of 3D. I can’t wait to see what he does next.

Gang Gang Dance and Highlife – XOYO 16/05/2011

 Eye Contact cover

On Monday, I had the rare treat of seeing a band I really love play an intimate show, just after the release of an amazing, critically-acclaimed new record. The venue was Old Street’s XOYO, the band were Brooklyn experimentalists, Gang Gang Dance, and the record is Eye Contact.

Providing the support was Highlife, London-born NYC musician Sleepy Doug Shaw, who also happens to be the current GGD bass player. I had heard last year’s excellent Best Bless EP and was interested to see him perform. I arrived about fifteen minutes after he started, so I can’t speak for the first few songs, but, from what I saw, he was playing completely different material this time around. Gone were the clean guitar lines and untreated vocals; in were reverb, delay and a host of other pedal effects. The songs were similarly circular, though, and characterised by loops and haunted vocals. Low-key in mood where the E.P. had been up beat and cheery, it was interesting without quite scaling the heights of the tracks that I knew.

Highlife

After Shaw had left the stage, several beers later, without a word, the space in front of the stage thickened up in anticipation for the main act. And the crowd itself was decent. A sell-out, as expected, it had an interesting combination of the older gent, the scenester couple and the ‘regular’ person; all of whom seemed to get more involved than many other small indie gigs in East London venues.

Minutes later, Gang Gang Dance came on stage to a hearty welcome, and, without too much faffing around, plunged straight into some recently released material that was both melodic and out-there, like the band themselves. The second song, ‘House Jam’ – part of which, incidentally, Florence (of Machine fame) cribbed and has to pay them royalties for – got the audience going a bit more. People  even began to sway and dance (yes, dance!) to the futuristic beat. 12-minute single, ‘Glass Jar’, was a particular highlight of the set, unfurling as it does so engagingly, along with new cut, ‘MindKilla’: the later getting the crowd the most frenzied. But, what was interesting for me was that they played a handful of new songs not released in the UK and extended others in a jam-like fashion, not pausing between songs.

GGD from my phone

I absolutely loved every single minute of it, sweatiness aside, and thought Lizzy Bougastos’ siren-like vocals formidable live. Even the Japanese guy who joined them on stage, dancing with a binbag, couldn’t detract from her magnetic presence. For anyone not familiar with their signature sound – or sound palette – it is nigh-impossible to describe; however, their melding of Eastern dance music, sub bass and space-age sounds is incredible to behold, when seen live. I just hope I get the chance to see them again soon, as they are without question one of the coolest live band’s I’ve seen.

GasLand

As I have said before, indignation – as frustrating an emotion as it undoubtedly is – is a good feeling to have when watching a documentary. It means the thing is working. Josh Fox’s directorial debut, the Oscar-nominated GasLand, definitely left me with disbelief and anger in spades, and, in doing so it is an exceedingly effective protest documentary.

The film tells the story of bespectacled thirty-something Fox, a Pennsylvania forest-dweller thanks to his Thoreau-esque “hippy parents”, who is offered $100,000 by a natural-gas company to use his land for drilling. Intrigued and perplexed, he investigates the matter further and discovers that his house is above a shale that is one of the world’s largest natural gas deposits: a “sea of gas”. Further investigation leads him to discover that the process used to extract the water from the ground, known as hydraulic fracturing or “fracking”, has an execrable and toxic effect on the water table, people’s drinking water and the environment as a whole. Like the good, educated, middle-class crusader that he is, he decides the only logical next-step is to make a documentary film about the pernicious effects of fracking and natural gas extraction.

Fox at home

Facetiousness aside, the movie he makes is on a worthy subject and it’s an acutely revealing document. It shows how through the work of public enemy number one (or two, depending on your view) Dick Cheney, the former CEO of Halliburton (one of the largest gas companies) and lobbyists, Congress passed a bill exempting natural gas and oil companies’ from the Safe Drinking Water Act of the 1970s. Therefore, those companies have been free to pollute people’s water with carcinogens and other deadly chemicals, such as benzene. This mix of gas and the fracking liquid has caused not only tap water – yes, good ole H₂O – to be flammable, but also severe health problems, such as brain damage, in people who live near drill sites.

Not fit for tooth-brushing

Surreal shots of flammable water and ruined landscapes form just a small part of the impressive imagery on show in GasLand. The sheer poetry of the bucolic images of the forest and the plains, combined with Fox’s banjo playing, was impressive: a welcome antidote to the usual Inside Job-style barrage of charts and gaudy graphs. The director’s sub-Terence Davies gravelly voice-over work was occasionally annoying, but did spin a poetic line or two every so often, adding to the homespun and likeable tone of the doc.

Better than the eventual winner, Inside job, this is a brilliant, if 15 minutes over-long, film in a year of great documentaries. With the possibility of fracking hitting European shores soon, it is essential viewing.

Lumet and Pacino – Serpico and A Dog Day Afternoon

Despite once being sixteen and revelling in all things East Coast, gangster and Italian, I had never seen two of Al Pacino’s classic films: Serpico and A Dog Day Afternoon. So, in an attempt to appreciate two of the defining works of the late, great Sidney Lumet, I watched them both back to back. While both movies, in many ways, chart similar preoccupations of the director, they are actually very different beasts. Most obviously, genre-wise, Serpico is a curious blend of cop film and biopic, whereas A Dog Day Afternoon is very much a heist movie. However, neither of them is straight down the line.

The trademark social realism of Lumet is obvious from the very first minutes of Serpico; his New York has none of the glossy sheen of Breakfast at Tiffany’s or Woody Allen. What it does have is full-frontal nudity and rapes, chockablock as it is with hoodlums and vagrants. The film recounts the true-life story of New York cop Frank Serpico, an odd, honest officer infatuated with counter-culture who testified against police corruption in the NYPD. Covering a period of roughly twelve years, from Serpico’s graduation up till just after he is shot on the face on the job, the main signifiers of the passage of time are his shaggy dog and even shaggier facial hair.

I did enjoy the film and its unique combination of Greenwich Village hippy-dom and gritty urban policing, yet I also felt it didn’t quite satisfy me on either front. Initially captivating, the film loses its way slightly in the second half, where the testimony scenes are never as tense as they might have been. Even the much-lauded performance by Pacino wasn’t quite as awesome as I had expected – it was released a year after his outstanding turn as Michael Corleone in The Godfather Part One, for God’s sake.

Not as much of a classic as people have made out, Serpico is a solid, interesting portrait of an outsider – with an incredible wardrobe. A Dog Day Afternoon, on the other hand, is definitely a classic. Once more a portrayal of a pariah, it ticks all the boxes that Serpico failed to. For example, the increased back-story we get in A Dog Day helps us to empathise more with Pacino’s Sonny more and the heist-movie twists genuinely make him a more complex and surprising character.

The bungled bank job that form the film’s core show’s Sunny to be a trapped, frustrated outsider, with Sal the Lennie to his George. Pacino is fantastic in the role: a perfect example of brooding brilliance and method acting that truly convinces. Again, the movie deals uncomfortable 70s themes – in this case homosexuality and trans-gender issues – whilst remaining tense and surprising. It also has interesting things to say about TV, news reporting, celebrity and entertainment. In that and Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead, Lumet really did craft two of the best films in that genre. Just don’t believe the hype about Serpico.

A Visit From the Goon Squad

 U.K. Cover

Literary prizes are frustrating things. I mean, we all know that literature, like all art, is highly subjective – but its prizes are riven by politics, seemingly unearthing as many duds as genuine classics. At least that’s my take, having read a fair few recent Booker and Pulitzer winners; for every The Road or Vernon God Little, there’s a Tinkers or The Inheritance of Loss. So, given the fanfare of rave reviews, the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for fiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award, I approached Jennifer Egan’s A Visit From the Goon Squad with much trepidation – even if it did seem like my kind of book.

Thankfully I was wrong to feel apprehensive and can safely state that it is a wonderful book and a worthy winner. It is a bold and idiosyncratic work, which has much wisdom to impart about its central subject matter of time and its effects – and, by extension, the concomitant themes of ageing, loss and compromise. Much has been made of its experimentalism, but I think far too much. Egan herself has said, “experimentation serving anything other than a human story is boring, and I’m not interested in it;” Pynchon or Robbe-Grillet it ain’t. The fact that every chapter is told in a different way: 1^st person, 3^rd person, even 2^nd person – with different focalizations – and that there is a chapter told entirely in PowerPoint, is definitely distinctive. But there would have been no other way to compose the story without seeming repetitive.

For the book tells the story of a large cast of characters orbiting round the twin suns of Bennie Salazar, an ageing record producer and former punk rocker, and Sasha, his faithful assistant. It spans continents and decades: from the 1970s to the future, and explores not just the Proustian themes of À la rechereche du temps perdu, but also the modern effects of technology on human interaction. Therefore, playfulness with form allows the author to paint a more detailed, vivid picture of these sad, changing lives destroyed by excess and tinged with failure.

Jennifer Egan

There is also a virtuoso mixture of genres: ranging from political satire, through David Foster Wallace-esque non-fiction parody, right up to a dystopian future – each one pitch-perfect. Yet, as you might expect, given the central nature of the music industry, many of these stories are profoundly melancholy and affecting, narrating as they do the fall out of past immoderation. Nonetheless, it is the wisdom and compassion of Egan – not the skilful writing – that stood out for me. The characters all seem realistic, no matter how outré their behaviour and it all works towards a conclusion that never feels sentimental or mawkish.

I would recommend this gem of a novel to anyone – as there genuinely is something for everyone. Don’t be put off by PowerPoint chapter (which works wonderfully, by the way) or the word postmodern. This novel-in-pieces forms a triumphant whole. I'm intrigued and excited to see what HBO make of it.