my cinematic a to zed: u - v

>SPOILER ALERT<

Unfaithful: (2002. dir: Adrian Lyne) Adrian Lyne is nothing if not controversial. Often accused of misogyny (in some cases, a cringe-inducingly difficult thing to deny), I prefer to think he is less interested in denigrating women than in digging around in that fascinating mulch of our darkest passions and watching the dreadful consequences that grow from the fertile grounds of our obsessions.

A friend of mine whose opinions I hold in high regard dismisses this film on the moral ground that it presents the guilt of a woman's infidelity as a crime equal to or greater than the murder committed by her husband. But if you think of it as a French film (which seems fair, since it's based on Claude Chabrol's 1969 La Femme Infidele), the question alters. Those crazy Francais have always said (on film, at least) that passion is passion, whether its manifestation is sex or murder. I'm not saying a concern with ethics has no place in film-making, but a very well-made film gets an out-of-jail-free card to examine human situations from a place transcending moral questions. This is one such well-made film, with an extraordinarily strong internal cohesion intrinsic in its story, and I'm willing to let Lyne go where he likes because his journey really does serve the telling of it.

The film has two disparate halves: the beginnings of the affair between the not-so-ironically-named Constance (Diane Lane) and the young bookseller Paul (Olivier Martinez), then the consequences of the meeting between Paul and Constance's husband, Edward (Richard Gere). The story is wonderfully told by way of close-ups and mirroring images (Constance frantically scrubbing away signs of her infidelity in one public lav and her husband later scrubbing frantically away signs of the murder in another; garbage blowing in the windstorm which may be seen as the initiator of the affair and garbage blowing later in the rubbish heap where Edward buries the body; an intimate close-up of the nape of a neck is mirrored in two very different contexts), and edited by Anne Coates (Lawrence of Arabia) who brings to it an absolutely perfect tempo, with room to breathe but steadily building tension, a tempo which implies from the first shots (the wind picking up, blowing a boat against a dock, knocking over a bicycle) a powerful suggestion of predestination taking a hand. Shakespeare often used a "wild place" -- a forest, an uncultivated moor, Petrucchio's house,-- as liminal ground where everyday laws soften and blur and, for a short while, a carnivalesque misrule of less reasonable gods reigns, breaking up the previous order so a new one will be established in its aftermath. Lyne uses his windstorm in this manner, as a transient fury which touches down for a moment and leaves whole lives disordered in it wake. The story rises relentlessly up from there into its last, whispered exchange, culminating in a truly great final image.

My generation as a whole has a collective soft spot for both Diane Lane and Jodi Foster because we grew up with them. That confessed, you'd have a hard time convincing me Lane didn't deserve an Oscar for this (which Nicole Kidman took home for putting on a fake nose. Behold Hollywood's wafer-thin values: a beautiful woman makes herself ugly, the Academy shudders with horror, thinking it's the bravest act ever, and would gladly give her a Nobel for it if it were able). She avoids all the cliches about the rich, suburban homemaker and remains grounded and likable; her affair, her repentance, and her decision to stand by her husband are clearly chosen and completely believable in context.

It's no secret that I love a director who can tell a story through pictures without drawing attention to himself, and this is a great example. The spoken words are the gorgeous block of marble from which a masterwork is carved. The train scene alone stands as a genius stroke of nonverbal communication: on her way home from her initial assignation, she recalls the encounter with palpable corporeality. The two scenes -- the lovemaking (without question, this movie has the best sex ever filmed) and the reminiscence -- are powerfully interwoven, and it's no surprise to learn that Anne Coates also edited Out of Sight, with its love scene so well-integrated into the continuing story.




and again: >SPOILER ALERT<

the Verdict: (1982. dir: Sidney Lumet) In this Mamet-penned courtroom drama, the halls of justice are ice-cold, gleaming, brilliant, austere, and the verdict goes to the party with the most expensive lawyer. Paul Newman is Frank Galvin, a man at lowest ebb, a broken, alcoholic ambulance-chaser grovelling at funerals for possible work. Given a chance to press a lawsuit on behalf of the family of a healthy woman who lapsed into coma after supposedly minor surgery, he finds his passion again and begins the gruelling and dangerous climb back into self-respect. James Mason plays his powerhouse opponent with easy command, and Charlotte Rampling is perfectly cast as the inscrutable beauty Galvin loves.

Newman's greatest strength lay in his unbreachable likability even when playing the most despicable roles, a quality which allowed him to barge all-out and gangbusters into the dark side without ever alienating an audience. It's a knack few have, and although I can think of actors who'd have been technically better as Galvin, in this very cold and harsh world it's Newman's unfailing warmth that's necessary to make this cringing failure of a man watchable. Galvin's task is Herculean, the suit impossible to win, which makes the unfolding arduous but the pay-off all the sweeter. Lumet and his crew (DP: Andrzej Bartkowiak, ed: Peter Frank) have an easy technical grace and the self-confidence to allow space, which in this context grants a possibility of thawing in this ice-cold world, a single moment in which springtime is conceivable before winter renews its grip. It's also got a marvellous early appearance by Mamet's then-wife Lindsay Crouse, maybe the best thing she ever put on film, husky-voiced and genuine, before she stopped showing us her feelings entirely, which seemed to be around the time of the Mamet-helmed House of Games in 1987.