because you can't have too much entertainment... December 2000

Gotta Dance. Paint. Write.
Billy Elliott Dir: Steven Daldry Starring: Jamie Bell & Julie Walters
Pollock Dir: Ed Harris Starring: Ed Harris, Marcia Gay Harden & Amy Madigan
Before Night Falls Dir: Julian Starring: Javier Bardem, Olivier Martinez

(Oscar Lust Pt 2) The last time we met we discussed two films (Quills & Chocolat) with a similar theme (repression) and similar Oscar'ed intentions. Quills, though not quite successful was, at the very least, far from emptyheaded. In addition to repression it had a great deal to say about the artistic temperament and the OCDs of the creative life. Pollock, Billy Elliott, and Before Night Falls, three more films in the Oscar derby, are also solid investigations of the artistic life....a favorite subject of artists, natch. Hence the numerous movies that revolve around the theme come awards season. This triple feature also features three of the strongest male lead performances of 2000.

Billy.
If you have any trace of the film snob in you Billy Elliott has probably not been high on your must see list. It is routinely described as "inspirational" and "feel good" -- two descriptions that are trotted out ubiquitously and oft' misused. Don't let these quotes fool you. Billy Elliott is the genuine article. In case you've been living under a rock, this is the tale of a young lad in a destitute mining town who one day stumbles into a ballet class. He's supposed to be at boxing lessons. From that day on he can think of little else, so great is his desire to dance. Billy's artistic journey of self discovery is wonderfully played by Jamie Bell in an exceedingly charismatic performance, and anchored by a solid supporting cast all on journeys of their own.

If I have a complaint about the film it is that it has an excess of plot. The director is juggling a lot of story and a lot of characters and sometimes the film feels overstuffed. But this is a small complaint since it's difficult to say what should have been cut. The well drawn back story and environment informs much of Billy's own struggle. In the face of so much material, the movie relies a little too heavily on crosscutting to fit in all of the plot elements. Though the director and editor clearly have a gift for this technique, one wishes they would employ that gift with a little more restraint. The sequence with the most emotional power is one that is played out uninterrupted. Billy, no longer able to hide his desires, dances defiantly for his father in the empty gym. The absence of dialogue in the scene is bliss. Billy's passionate dancing and his father's stubborn silence in the face of his son's beauty is all the emotional climax a film could hope for.

I won't give away details, but you already know it has a happy ending so I can say more than I usually would about the resolution. One of the film's great strengths is that Billy's triumph in dance, which allows him to pursue a better life, also clearly marks the end of his current one. The clear sense of "Right. Time for you to go" is both feel good and feel bad. It's tougher love than you'd expect from an 'inspirational' tale and it's gripping. The film earns its emotional payoffs through grace, exuberance, and grit. And I'm happy to report that in doing so it avoids cheap sentiment altogether.

Jackson.
Pollock, unlike Billy Elliott, isn't a "feel good" picture at all (unless you consider how good great performances feel to cinema lovers.) It's sometimes painful to watch since it looks hard and intimately at a volatile marriage and the madness that so frequently seems to inhabit great artists. The film begins strongly with an interesting snaky entrance, a gallery opening through which the camera weaves until it lands on Pollocks haunted gaze (Does any actor have more intense eyes than Ed Harris? I think not!) From there on in you're thrust backwards into the prolonged flashback of a traditional biopic. You won't complain much because you'll be treated to two passionate and dazzling lead performances. Most of the Oscar focus on this film will be on Marcia Gay Harden as the painter Lee Krasner. She married Jackson Pollock, set her own career on the backburner, and endured a draining marriage to a genius who was also an emotionally distant/abusive alcoholic. Ed Harris is mesmerizing in the title role, all grunts and tears and brutal raw talent, and looking very much the part. Particularly strong are the scenes where he paints. Jackson's infamous "action painting" has legendary immediacy and movement. While he's painting the film feels like an action film for the art houses.

Though you'd be hard pressed to fault any of the performances in the picture, in the end I think Ed Harris should have chosen himself a more adventurous director. He has obvious talent with actors (no surprise there) and clear potential behind the scenes. However, in the end Pollock is itself about greatness with great performances...but it is not a great film. It is dissapointingly traditional considering it focuses on an abstract genius who broke traditions. It needed a director with some of the subject's bravura and expressionistic genius. Only then would it have been the kind of film worthy of its subject matter and performances.

Reinaldo.
Before Night Falls qualifies as the second motion picture of the season to center on an imprisoned, sexually promiscuous, compulsive writer. (Whew) Though Reinaldo Arenas isn't as famous as the Marquis de Sade (no adjectives are named for him) he gets a better film to show for his troubles and a better lead performance. Javier Bardem, (who you should remember from his strong work in Almodovar's Live Flesh a couple of years back) is already collecting plaudits and awards, and deservedly so. It's a refreshingly complete performance. He plays Reinaldo from his late teens until his 40s and never once do you feel the character's progression, age, body language, or artistic compulsions slipping from Bardem's able grasp.

Aside from the terrific star turn from Javier Bardem, most of the credit for the film's undeniable beauty must go to director Julian Schnabel (Basquiat). Though some may feel his gaze is too detached, his expansive take on the culture, economic and political conditions is very impressive when you consider how much ground it covers and how quickly. Some documentary-like detachment was probably neccessary for the sheer breadth of the story. Schnabel, an art star himself of the 80s, makes an even better director than he did a painter. Obsessive artistic impulses surge through the film; Reinaldo Arenas must write, Julian Schnabel must direct. You'll be glad on both accounts.

-Nathaniel

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