Le bois par suite des arbres

La Femme du Vème (The woman in the Fifth)

Crit

Oh, of course: it's a roman numeral, and we're talking arrondissements; that was a puzzler for me until right before the film started.

What a delightfully dark, enigmatic, odd piece of work: American writer/English professor (Ethan Hawke, typecast) comes to Paris to reconnect with his 6-year-old daughter after some unspecified Bad Event has cost him his marriage and, apparently, some time in an institution either penal or psychiatric, depending on whose story you believe. His ex-wife is unsympathetic to his plight, but the Romanian-French translator widow of a Hungarian novelist (Kristin Scott Thomas) is not, and neither is the Polish waitress (Joanna Kulig, of whom let's see more, please) at the café/pension whose owner extends him credit but then forces him to participate in a mysterious but clearly sketchy enterprise.

And then things get weird, like Poe via Hitchcock. Or maybe Coover, as it finally seems to be a narrative about narrative, which probably explains why a lot of people on Rotten Tomatoes hate it but I quite liked it.

Simian I am

Monkeybone

(2001)

An amusing enough film with good special effects and some spectacular physical comedy by Chris Kattan but ultimately a fairly unimaginative treatment of the id-superego battle at its center. Three times is enough for me; somebody else's turn.

Small change

Moonrise Kingdom

Crit

OK, maybe someone besides Shakespeare has done underage love better, but not this year. This is beautiful without being pretty, sweet without making your teeth hurt, innocent but not ignorant, blithely unconcerned with realism but grounded in its own reality--and equally comfortable with Benjamin Britten or Hank Williams carrying the soundtrack. Cinematic virgins Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward are--and I know I use this adjective too much--perfect as the star-crossed 12-year-olds Sam and Suzy, and among Wes Anderson's usual suspects and happy first-timers, Bruce Willis deserves special mention for giving us all his customary charm and none of his customary smarm.

Moreover, since I can never again watch movies the way I used to, I have to rave about the camerawork (Robert D. Yeoman, DP for all of Anderson's live-action films), most notably the opening 360-degree pan that both paints the inside of the island house of one of the young lovers and establishes the tone and mood of the whole narrative.

Favorite film of the year so far? Yeah, I think I'll say that.

Trailers

• The Great Gatsby--Baz brings a thrilling Deco look to the story, but the trailer suggests that he's not much interested in Fitzgerald's language, which is disturbing. I'm open-minded but leery.
• Argo--It's Wag the Dog in reverse: in order to spirit 6 escaped hostages out of Iran, American intelligence stages a fake movie. Based on actual events, they say.
• Lawless--Another great-looking one, with Depression-era moonshiners battling nasty, corrupt cops.

Scary rearview

Scary Normal postmortem

So that happened.

Yesterday the director and the DP reviewed all the footage and the script supervisor jotted down a few continuity notes, but as of today the baby is pretty much in the care of the editor and the sound designer. I'm much less sad than I was a day ago, though still pretty empty-nesty. At the same time, I'm ready to get back to Mets games, and to Philip Roth, and to the Times crossword puzzle (well, OK, I've done most of the past 20 days' puzzles, but on a catch-as-catch-can basis rather than as part of a daily routine).

And I suppose I'm ready to get back to my day job--or if I'm not ready, I'd better get ready pretty quickly, as I'll be at my desk in less than 48 hours. And I can't deny that I'm better suited for and more skilled at that job than at the one I've been performing the past 3 weeks. As eager as I am to see the finished (or even rough cut) film, I am trepidatious about the inevitable forehead-slapping continuity errors--how many will there be?

Apart from that, though, I am as happy with the experience, and with the film we made, as I could possibly be. As I've probably said before, my expectations were high and were far exceeded by the actuality. And leaving the cast and crew behind will leave a hole in my heart the like of which I never would have imagined. That the screenwriter could produce a script filled with smart language and real people was no surprise--I've known for a long time that she can do words. But how did a first-time director manage to put together such a professional group of (mostly) young people on both sides of the camera? "Professional" in the sense of their approach to the work, that is--with a budget of {mumble} thousand dollars, she couldn't afford to pay anyone what he or she was worth, but it's hard to imagine a better film being made for that kind of money.

Proud, happy, enormously impressed, eager to see the results, and ready to commit to the next project in advance--and I'll be better at my job next time, I promise.

Scary wrap

Day 18, and there is no more set of Scary Normal

PPD, and it wasn't even my uterus. We wrapped last night with the final scene in the film, a raucous celebration that was stressful and exhausting for everyone involved and kept us going until past 1:30 a.m. I hope to be able to say something worthwhile later, but right now I have sufficient energy only to write that this is good, very good, I believe.

Scary interviews

Not on the set of Scary Normal, but rather at the director's house, where there is Tanqueray, and tonic, and limes

Gin-soaked excerpts from cast & crew interviews . . .

Cheeseblab: Laura, today’s scene was brutally emotional, and you had to perform it repeatedly. Were you ever tempted to grab the knife from the other scene and kill everyone else on the set?
Laura Anne Welle: No; however, I really did want to make Finn [Dallas, who played her character's brother, so it's really not as mean as it sounds] cry.

OK, that was uncomfortable . . .

CB: Sean, did you intentionally time the halts for sound issues to coincide with the emotional zeniths of Laura's lines?
Sean Whitsitt: No, it had to do with my gas, probably.

Yeah, OK, that makes sense . . .

CB: Kyle, as an award-winning producer, what’s it like to have to take orders from a first-time director?
Kyle Loughrin: Jen and I have talked about how she’s mostly done theater work, and I’ve done only film. There's an interesting contrast between her knowing how to deal with actors and my ability to use the camera--I can’t deal with actors. I don’t want to deal with people at all.

Yes! That's what I'm talkin' about! . . .

CB: Boss, you had a budget of $48.37; how did you make it happen?
Jen Bechtel: The best advice I’ve gotten on working on a low budget is to feed people, and we were able to do that essentially free, because people have donated food and service. And my executive producer has added gin and tonics to the mix.

I can testify to the accuracy of both of those statements.

CB: April, you had your throat cut in the comic scene today--
April Cleveland: That’s right, and it looks like a big, droopy--

And that's all we have time for today, but seriously, go to the Scary Normal Facebook page and like the hell out of us, yo!

Viscera

On the set of Scary Normal, day 16

The last emotionally grueling scene this afternoon, after a lighthearted one this a.m. We're taking a break right now from the gruelster, and I, for one, am hearing the call of the juniper berry that waits at the end of the day. And no work tonight, because we worked hard last night (did I mention that half a page took us 2 hours?), so there!