I recently had the opportunity to purchase the beautiful book pictured above. From the introduction:

We asked the artistic directors of ten prestigious film festivals to nominate ten of the best emerging film directors working today.

The participants are:

• Cameron Bailey and Piers Handling, Toronto International Film Festival
• Trevor Groth, Sundance Film Festival
• Kim Dong-Ho, Pusan International Film Festival
• Li Cheuk-To, Hong Kong International Film Festival
• Frederic Maire, Locarno International Film Festival
• Marco Muller, Venice International Film Festival
• Olivier Pere, Cannes Directors’ Fortnight
• Azize Tan, Istanbul International Film Festival
• Christoph Terhechte, Berlin International Film Festival
• Sergio Wolf, Buenos Aires International Independent Film Festival

The book features a synopsis of one chosen film, a review by the  festival director who chose it, and some information on the film’s director, including prizes, format and where they went to school. When I saw that last bit of information, I realized it might be fascinating to examine where these great new directors decide to go to film/theater school (if at all). I also looked at what these filmmakers decided to shoot on, to see whether HD has taken over film (it hasn’t).

The format I have chosen is the following:

Director’s Name – Working Country – Film Chosen – Film/Theater School? – Format

Here they are:

1. Maren Ade – Germany – “Alle Anderen (Everyone Else)” – University of Film and Television, Munich – 35 mm

2. Ashim Ahluwalia – India – “John & Jane” – Bard College – 35 mm

3. Lisandro Alonso – Argentina – “Los Muertos” – N/A (Cinema Studies Degree) – 35 mm

4. Özcan Alper – Turkey – “Autumn” – N/A (Physics Degree) – 35 mm

5. Rabah Ameur-Zaimeche – France – Adhen (Dernier Maquis) – N/A (Social Sciences Degree) – HD

6. Judd Apatow – USA – “Funny People” – (2 years USC screenwriting, dropped out) – 35 mm

7. Andrea Arnold – UK – “Red Road” – N/A – HD

8. Aditya Assat – Thailand – “Wonderful Town” – USC – HD

9. Lionel Baier – Switzerland/France – “Stealth” – University of Lausanne, Switzerland – DV

10. Sophie Barthes – USA – “Cold Souls” – Columbia Film School – 35 mm

11. Aida Begic – Bosnia and Herzegovina – “Snow” – Academy of Performing Arts, Sarajevo – 35 mm

12. Cristoffer Bow – Denmark – “Allegro” – National Film School of Denmark – 35 mm

13. Bong Joon-Ho – Korea – “The Host” – Korean Academy of Film Arts – 35 mm

14. Jan Bonny – Germany – “Counterparts” – Academy of Media Arts, Cologne – 16 mm

15. Serge Bozon – France – “La France” – N/A – 35 mm

16. Andrew Bujalski – USA – “Beeswax” – Harvard – Super 16 mm

17. Yoon-Chul Chung – South Korea – “Marathon” – Hanyang University, Australian Film & TV School, Sydney – 35 mm

18. Denis Cote – Canada – “All That She Wants” – N/A – HD

19. Pepe Diokno – Phillipines – “Clash” – University of the Phillipines Film Institute – HD

20. Quentin Dupieux – France – “Steak” – N/A – 35 mm

21. Jay and Mark Duplass – USA – “Baghead” – (Jay – UT  Austin – Mark – N/A) – HD

22. Nash Edgerton – Australia – “The Square” – N/A – 35 mm

23. Edwin – Indonesia – “Blind Pig Who Wants to Fly” – Jakarta Institute of the Arts – 35 mm

24. Fernando Eimbcke – Mexico – “Lake Tahoe” – Film School in Mexico City – 35 mm

25. Paz Encina – Paraguay – “Paraguayan Hammock” – Universidad del Cine, Buenos Aires, Argentina – 35 mm

26. Pelin Esmer – Turkey – “10 to 11″ – N/A – 35 mm

27. Jim Finn – USA – “La Trinchera Luminosa del Presidente Gonzalo” – N/A – Hi-8

28. Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden – USA – “Sugar” – NYU/Columbia – 35 mm

29. Ari Folman – Israel – “Waltz with Bashir” – Tel Aviv University – 35 mm, 2D Animation

30. Tom Ford – USA – “A Single Man” – NYU/Parson’s The New School for Design – 35 mm

31. Cary Fukunaga – USA – “Sin Nombre” – NYU – 35 mm

32. Chris Fuller – USA – “Loren Cass” – N/A – Super 16 mm

33. Jonathan Glazer - UK – “Birth” – N/A (Theater Design) – 35 mm

34. Miguel Gomes – Portugal – “Our Beloved Month of August” – Escole Superior de Teatro e Cinema, Amadora, Portugal – 35 mm

35. Douglas Gordon – UK – “Zidane: A 21st Centure Portrait” – The Slade School of Fine Art, London, UK – 35 mm

36. Bradley Rust Gray – USA – “The Exploding Girl” – USC, BFI, School of Art Institute Chicago, Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts, Auburn University – 4K Digital

37. Valeska Grisebach – Germany – “Longing” – Vienna Film Academy – 35 mm

38. Lance Hammer – USA – “Ballast” – USC – 35 mm

39. Mia Hansen-Løve – France – “All is Forgiven” – Paris Drama Conservatory – 35 mm

40. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck – Germany – “The Lives of Others” – Munich Film Academy – 35 mm

41. Jody Hill – USA – “The Foot Fist Way” – University of North Carolina – 16 mm

42. Hiromasa Hirosue – Japan – “Fourteen” – N/A – 35 mm

43. Ho Yuhang – Malaysia – “Rain Dogs” – Iowa State University – 35 mm

44. Jiang Wen – China – “The Sun Also Rises” – Central Drama Academy, Bejing, China – 35 mm

45. Rian Johnson – USA – “Brick” – USC – 35 mm

46. Miranda July – USA – “Me You and Everyone We Know” – N/A – HD

47. Huseyin Karabey – Turkey – “Gitmek: My Marlon and Brando” – N/A – HDV

48. Farah Khan – India – “Om Shanti Om” – N/A – 35 mm

49. Eric Khoo – Singapore – “Be With Me” – N/A – HD

50. So Yong Kim – USA – “In Between Days” – School of the Arts Institute Chicago – Digital, 16 mm

51. Ulrich Kohler – Germany – “Windows on Monday” – University of Fine Arts, Hamburg, Germany – 35 mm

52. Eran Kolirin – Israel – “The Band’s Visit” – N/A – 35 mm

53. Isaki Lacuesta – Spain – “The Legend of Time” – Universidad Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain – HD

54. Pablo Larrain – Chile – “Tony Manero” – UNIACC University, Santiago, Chile – Super 16 mm

55. Liu Jiayin – China – “Oxhide II” – Bejing Film Academy – HD

56. Liu Jie – China – “Courthouse On the Horseback” – Bejing Film Academy – 35 mm

57. Lu Chuan – China – “Mountain Patrol: Kekexili” – Bejing Film Academy – 35 mm

58. Lucrecia Martel – Argentina – “The Headless Woman” – National Experimentation Filmmaking School, Buenos Aires, Argentina – 35 mm

59. Raya Martin – Phillipines – “A Short Film About the Indio Nacional” – College of Mass Communication, University of the Phillipines, Diliman, Phillipines – DV, 35 mm

60. Tom Mccarthy – USA – “The Visitor” – Yale School of Drama – 35 mm

61. Steve McQueen – UK – “Hunger” – N/A – 35 mm

62. Brillante Mendoza – Philippines – “The Masseur” – N/A – Mini DV

63. Cristian Mungiu – Romania – “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” – Bucharest Theater and Film School, Romania – 35 mm

64. Radu Muntean – Romania – “The Paper Will Be Blue” – Bucharest Theater and Film School, Romania – 16 mm

65. Gerardo Naranjo – Mexico – “I’m Gonna Explode” – AFI – 35 mm

66. Shriin Neshat – Iran – “Women Without Men” – UC Berkeley – Super 35 mm

67. Ning Hao – China – “Mongolian Ping Pong” – Bejing Film Academy – 35 mm

68. Noh Young-Seok – Korea – “Daytime Drinking” – N/A – HD

69. Veiko Õunpuu – Estonia – “Autumn Ball” – Estonian Academy of Arts, Tallinn, Estonia – 35 mm

70. Asli Özge – Turkey – “Men On the Bridge” – Marmara University – HD

71. Gyogy Palfi – Hungary – “Taxidermia” – Theater and Film Academy, Budapest, Hungary – 35 mm

72. Ho-Cheung Pang – Hong Kong – “Beyond Our Ken” – N/A – 35 mm

73. Sarah Polley – Canada – “Away From Her” – N/A – 35 mm

74. Corneliu Porumboiu – Romania – “Police, Adjective” – National University of Drama and Film, Bucharest, Romania – 35 mm

75. Cristi Puiu – Romania – “The Death of Mr. Lazarescu” – Ecole Supérieure d’Art Visuel, Geneva, Switzerland – 35 mm

76. Philippe Ramos – France – “Captain Ahab” – N/A – 35 mm

77. Kelly Reichardt – USA – “Old Joy” – School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. – Super 16 mm

78. Carlos Reygadas – Mexico – “Silent Light” – Escuela Libre de Derecho, Mexico City, Mexico – 35 mm

79. Enrique Rivero - Spain – “Parque Via” – Universidad Anáhuac, Huixquilucan, Mexico – Super 16 mm

80. Joao Pedro Rodrigues – Portugal – “Two Drifters” – Lisbon Film School, Portugal – 35 mm

81. Gyeong-Tae Roh - South Korea – “Land of Scarecrows” – Columbia College Chicago, San Francisco Art Institute – Super 16 mm

82. Axelle Ropert – France – “The Wolberg Family” – N/A – 35 mm, Cinemascope

83. Gianfranco Rosi – Eritrea – “Below Sea Level” – NYU – 35 mm

84. Esther Rots – Netherlands – “Can Go Through Skin” – School of Fine Arts, Arnhem, Netherlands – Super 16 mm

85. Wisit Sasanatieng – Thailand – “Citizen Dog” – N/A – 35 mm

86. Jean-Stephane Sauvaire - France – “Johnny Mad Dog” – N/A – HD

87. Liev Schreiber – USA – “Everything Is Illuminated” – Yale University – 35 mm

88. Albert Serra – Spain – “Honor of the Knights” – N/A – 35 mm

89. Zack Snyder – USA – “Watchmen” – Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, California, USA – 35 mm

90. Auraeus Solito – Philippines – “The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros” – Theater Arts, University of the Philippines, Quezon City, Philippines – Mini DV

91. Izumi Takahashi – Japan – “The Soup, One Morning” – N/A – Mini DV

92. Tariq Teguia – Algeria – “Rome Rather Than You” – N/A – 35 mm

93. Syfi Teoman – Turkey – “Summer Book” – Polish National Film School, Lodz, Poland – 35 mm

94. Hugo Vieira Da Silva - Portugal – “Body Rice” – Escola Superior de Teatro a Cinema, Lisbon, Portugal – Super 16 mm

95. Taika Waititi – New Zealand – “Eagle Vs Shark” – N/A – 35 mm

96. Hans Weingartner – Germany – “The Edukators” – Academy of Media Arts, Cologne, Germany – DVCPRO50

97. Henner Winckler – Germay – “Lucy” – University of Fine Arts, Hamburg, Germany – Super 16 mm

98. Jong-Chan Yoon – South Korea – “Blue Swallow” – Syracuse University – Super 35 mm

99. Zhang Lu – China – “Grain in Ear” – N/A – 35 mm

100. Andrei Zvyagintsev – Russia – “The Banishment” – Moscow State Theater School, Russia – 35 mm

Whew! And that’s the new big watching list for this year. Send me any errors/omissions you might find.

Buy it on Amazon.

The Sundance shorts program began as a box of VHS tapes in 1989. In 2010 there were more than 6,000 short films submitted. For her five years as a shorts programmer Roberta Munroe was responsible for wading through them, deciding which ones would make it to Sundance.

I recently attended her excellent Short Film Workshop, where she posited an interesting theory; even though the number of shorts being made has exploded, the number of really good short films hitting the festivals each year hovers around 300. Whether there are 600 or 6,000 shorts sitting in the Sundance Institute’s mailbox this year, that’s generally the number that will be good.

Roberta’s book lays out the path to making one of those 300 with wit and candor. The book covers every stage of the filmmaking process, from story development and structure through exhibition and distribution. It’s wonderfully practical; addressing subjects as diverse as money, cameras, and festivals with an honesty that could only come from someone at the small end of the filmmaking funnel. Vide chapter titles like “Why 43 Minute Shorts Never Really Work,” and “How to avoid kicking your producer in the throat.”

Munroe emphasizes filmmaking as a collaborative process, highlighing the importance of underestimated contributors such as assistant directors, casting directors, editors and producers, all of whom play a vital role in most films’ success. Yes, you can do everything when you make a short. The result will be entirely yours, but will often be weaker than what you might have achieved with the aid and expertise of a few skilled professionals.

For interested parties there is also a heading on whether or not to go to film school. Hearing arguments on film school from a programmer’s perspective is refreshing (Columbia seems to be a  favorite). The moral of the story; if you decide you can afford to go to film school, pick one that focuses on STORY.

With the proper help, commitment and faith, making a short film can be an amazing process. The digital age has brought us the greatest opportunities for short filmmakers since D.W. Griffith. This book attempts to make the process cleaner and more fun. Possibly even a reminder of why some of us didn’t end up going to law school.

Hello, Thanks is a wonderful little short film by Andy Blubaugh, which premiered at the 2006 Sundance film festival. Andy was recently written up in Indiewire’s recently revived Futures Column, which looks at up and coming independent filmmakers. Blubaugh is based in Portland Oregon.

Hello Thanks uses what Blubaugh calls “speculative documentary construction,” to weave a narrative around his quest for love through the personal ads in Portland.

The charming and poignant style of the documentary, with samples of interviews throughout, reminded me of the band the Books. This song, “Take Time,” is one of my favorites.

“Major studio releases in 2007 averaged $35.9 million per film in total spending for consumer marketing in the United States, according to the MPAA.”

This book looks at how, where and why those millions of dollars are spent. I finished this excellent look at studio and studio-independent marketing practices about a week ago. This is the most complete, exhaustive, and up-to-date look at major movie marketing I have found.

My only misgiving about the book is its subtitle “a handbook of strategies and tactics.” The strategies and tactics discussed in the book are those of massive studios and studio-independents, entities capable of putting up the massive sums of money necessary for the nationwide release of a major motion picture. This is not a how to book, this is a how it’s done book.

For advice on how to market your small independent film I would recommend filmfestivalsecrets, The New Rules of Marketing and PR, Friends Fans and Followers and a new website I was recently made aware of; internet marketing for filmmakers. The latter’s website can look a bit kitschy, but so far I have found a lot of practical advice through their free mailing list (membership is $30 a month).

Despite the misleading subtitle Marich’s book is a fascinating, erudite look at a complex and vital part of the film world. He traces movie marketing in a practical, understandable fashion, including very up-to-date figures on box office, marketing budgets, release schedules, merchandising sales and more. This book tells you where money is spent and earned, often reading like an economics textbook as well as a history one; each chapter ends with a section tracing the history of each components of film marketing and distribution.

The book is filled with real-world examples of hits and misses in movie marketing. One favorite that comes to mind involves E.T.

The famous candy-luring scene was originally pitched to Milk Duds, who balked. Afterwards Hershey Chocolate provided its Reese’s Pieces and the rest is history. When E.T. became a blockbuster the sales of Reese’s Pieces shot up 65%.

You will leave this book with a more informed understanding of the economics, creativity and necessity of movie marketing. I highly recommend it.

For more information and excerpts you can visit the book’s homepage. The book is also available in the marketing section of my store (another way to support this blog!)

I’ve been listening to the copy that I downloaded for free from Wired this week. Chris Anderson practices what he preaches, offering the book free to US users on Scribd, in the aforementioned free audio format, and in a paid book form on Amazon. Anderson, the editor in chief of Wired magazine released his last book, The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More, in 2006. Eugene Hernandez from Indiewire described The Long Tail for culture as:

“how a number of businesses that make their money selling culture (music, movies, books) make an increasing amount of revenue not from the high-profile hits, but from increasingly popular niche content. Bigger libraries of say indie films, aimed at reaching narrow audiences, can be more valuable than blockbusters over time. “

Anderson begins his examination of free by discussing Monty Python’s battle against online pirates. To combat the low quality pirated versions of their videos found on youtube, the Monty Python troupe opened their own channel with high quality videos, accompanied by a sardonic reproach:

“For 3 years you YouTubers have been ripping us off, taking tens of thousands of our videos and putting them on YouTube. Now the tables are turned. It’s time for us to take matters into our own hands.

We know who you are, we know where you live and we could come after you in ways too horrible to tell. But being the extraordinarily nice chaps we are, we’ve figured a better way to get our own back: We’ve launched our own Monty Python channel on YouTube.

No more of those crap quality videos you’ve been posting. We’re giving you the real thing – HQ videos delivered straight from our vault.

What’s more, we’re taking our most viewed clips and uploading brand new HQ versions. And what’s even more, we’re letting you see absolutely everything for free. So there!

But we want something in return.

None of your driveling, mindless comments. Instead, we want you to click on the links, buy our movies & TV shows and soften our pain and disgust at being ripped off all these years.”

Their DVD sales soared. Anderson uses this as a starting point for his discussion of the use of free content to entice users to purchase paid content, like the Monty Python DVDs.

Anderson distinguishes between the “bits” economy and the “atoms” economy. The bits economy is based on three basic features: storage, processing and bandwidth. The cost of these items are continually declining, making the production of  digital content, like that on this blog, virtually free. He balances the negative opportunity costs involved in producing free online content with the positive exposure that producing content creates for its authors.

The book is well written (and read) and is filled with entertaining and enlightening anecdotes. It reminded me of the work of Malcolm Gladwell, who offers a serious reality check in his article on Free for the New Yorker:

“There are four strands of argument here: a technological claim (digital infrastructure is effectively Free), a psychological claim (consumers love Free), a procedural claim (Free means never having to make a judgment), and a commercial claim (the market created by the technological Free and the psychological Free can make you a lot of money). The only problem is that in the middle of laying out what he sees as the new business model of the digital age Anderson is forced to admit that one of his main case studies, YouTube, “has so far failed to make any money for Google.””

Oh Youtube. Gladwell continues to comment that they are likely to lose a half a billion dollars this year, not such an appealing argument for the free content. Mark Cuban goes so far as to claim that Youtube destroyed any possibility of monetizing online video by becoming the world’s largest subsidizer of bandwidth.

Attempts at monetizing youtube through advertising have proven difficult. Companies are not interested in associating their product with baby cat videos or happy slapping. Youtube’s democratization of video is often seen as a quantitative phenomenon rather than a qualitative one. Youtube addresses a different market (or non-market) than a company like HBO, which with a healthy paying subscriber base and superior content seems to be its business and content antithesis. Youtube allowed the world to broadcast itself, but in doing so we also discovered how bad most of us are at making films.

All criticism aside, I highly recommend Anderson’s book. It is exciting, well written and argued, and, perhaps best of all, free.

The road of the novice filmmaker is paved with thorns. There is an extremely apt metaphor used in the last edition of film school confidential:

“Far more people are making low-budget independent films today than the market for such films can sustain. It is said that during the California gold rush of 1849 few of the gold miners struck it rich, but the businessmen who transported the miners, who clothed them, fed them, and sold them supplies, did very well. There’s virtually no money to be made in making independent films, but countless businesses turn a healthy profit by providing goods and services to filmmakers who, like the forty-niners, are pouring every penny they have ever earned – or will ever earn – into making their dreams come true.”

A sage warning to all those who want to make films; there’s no money and no more future Spielbergs. When looking through Amazon at books on filmmaking, I always cringe at the range of books and services catering to filmmakers. I often feel like a forty niner.

This book is worth its weight in gold to the novice filmmaker. The first book on filmmaking that I, in my infinite wisdom, bought was Chris Gore’s Ultimate Film Festival Guide. I figured that I was already brilliant enough to skip over all the technical details like how to tell a story or why you should NEVER make a short film about someone who commits suicide (for more of these clichés I highly recommend D.U.M.P.S. or Directing Unsuccessful Motion Picture Shorts). The film that resulted from my extensive study never did make it to Cannes like I thought, although someday it will  be available on this website.

If I could go back to those carefree days I would have picked up this book first. Before Aristotle, before Egri. Mackendrick, who was an accomplished filmmaker before becoming the dean of Calarts, not only offers amazingly useful advice on filmmaking. He also offers a compendium of novice filmmaker pathologies. If you have some experience, reading this book will remind you of the many “brilliant ideas” of your filmmaking youth. If you are starting out, this book mention charts out the rocky terrain of storytelling.

Read it and do your best to avoid the hucksters on your way to California, fame and poverty.

For the last few weeks I have been discussing the disappearance of sex from cinema. People still have sex in movies, but its presence seems superfluous, something for filmmakers to pay uncomfortable lip service to. A simple cut from a kiss to a cigarette seems to suffice for this essential human act.

The seventies were a different time. Movies like this one, or Straw Dogs, challenged our notion  and understanding of sexuality before pornography became larger than the music industry. It has always been a difficult topic for me, one heavily associated with first christian and later feminist-inspired guilt.

We are all composed of desires, most of which, if ever acknowledged, go unfulfilled. People often seem content with security, and lull their basic instincts into a daily routine that passes for love.

In this film, where characters eschew their names and past, a space is created where primal passion can exist. As Jeanne says:

The workers retire to a secret flat,

take off their overalls,

become men and women again,

and make love.

Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider Embrace

Afterward a return to modern society becomes impossible, Chekov’s gun becomes necessary to destroy the monstrous desire that has been unleashed. We return to our daily lives, shaken, questioning our capacity to feel for one another.

Not so with Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch Drunk Love. I felt like a little child watching it three nights ago. It is hard to contain my excitement and admiration for this film, but first an anecdote;

I didn’t like this movie the first time I saw it at 17. I thought it strange. I was going out that night and offered it to my mom, who was staying home. I told her to watch out because it was a little weird. When I returned home that night I went into the living room.

“How was it?”

“Oh it was really strange.”

Her reaction seemed too much, so I went over to the DVD player and took out the disc. She had watched the special features, shuffling from interview to interview. Strange movie indeed.

But brilliant. Adam Sandler’s performance is stunning. As Roger Ebert says in his review “Given a director and a screenplay that sees through the Sandler persona, that understands it as the disguise of a suffering outsider, Sandler reveals depths and tones we may have suspected but couldn’t bring into focus.”

Sandler plays Barry Egan, a lonely, repressed, productive and wholly idiosyncratic purveyor of novelty toilet plungers (known as fungers). His seven sisters constantly invade his life with phonecalls, advice, and embarrassing childhood stories. After kicking in a sliding glass door at one of his sister’s embarrassing birthday parties, Barry calls a phone sex hotline. The consequences of his phonecall and his involvement with Lena Leonard (Emily Watson), become the two stabilizing plot lines in this wonderfully unpredictable romantic story.

This is musical comedy in the tradition of Ernst Lubitsch and a personal favorite; Jean Luc Godard’s A Woman is A Woman. Of the many brilliant elements in this film, the performances, the cinematography and the writing, what struck me the most this time was the music. The film was loaded with it, and it helped the prevailing mood tremendously. Godard called A Woman is a Woman a “Neorealist Musical, that is, a contradiction in terms.” I don’t think that is necessarily the case. Both elements enhance each other, the playfulness and surrealism of the musical completments the realism and emotional identification of naturalism.

One of the most famous musical collaborations in the History of Film took place between director Sergei Eisenstein and composer Sergei Prokofiev on the film Alexander Nevsky. Prokofiev worked on the music throughout the production process, and the famous battle on the ice was cut to his already finished score.

PT Anderson and Jon Brion used a similar collaborative process in the creation of Punch Drunk Love. Sandler’s relationship to the harmonium that is literally dropped in front of him is based in part on Brion’s own experience. He also found and repaired a harmonium in the exact same fashion as Barry does in the film. Anderson knew while writing the script that he wanted a harmonium in the film and worked very closely with Brion, who took detailed notes, on creating the music during the production of the film.

A testament to bringing composers in early as true collaborators. Right now it often feels as though composers are used as “emotional correction,” in a similar manner to color correction. I generally dislike music in films exactly for this reason; they’re trying to tell you what to feel. The effect is infinitely more subtle and beautiful in Punch Drunk Love, I believe in part because the music developed organically in harmony with the other parts of the film. Music composition is just like any other creative process, it requires time, thought, revision, and a lot of work. Every bit of it paid off in this film. Wonderful.

Barry Egan starts the film alone and at work.

1. Vigo Mortensen did a great job with a great role. It held the film together.

2. Naomi Watts did a terrible job with a mediocre role. She looked like she couldn’t act her way out of a Fritos bag in this movie. I liked her in Mulholland Drive, but she was playing the same character, although a poorly written one, the same way in a completely different movie.

3. This is one of the most clear cut moral worlds I have ever seen passed off as a complex one. Like Paul Haggis’s Oscar winning travesty Crash, Eastern Promises offers the viewer a seemingly complex arena that wields moral messages like bludgeons. There is little doubt in our minds after the first five minutes who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. Vigo’s character being revealed as an undercover agent only affirms this.

The most egregious example are the scenes with the diary of the Prostitute, (which by the way is often the only thing keeping Naomi Watt’s character, which in my opinion could have been removed, around for long chunks of the film). No one assumes that the life of a naive eastern European woman turned prostitute is easy (for a heartbreaking, brutal and moving treatment of this subject see Lilya 4 Ever by Lukas Moodysson), but this felt like it was beating me over the head with a squeaky mallet. All scenes with the diary should have been cut. They were obvious to the point of condescension. Enough.

4. The set design. Way too clean, it looks like you could eat off every other surface in the movie. More time should have been spent.

The greatest strength of this film is the world it chose to explore. It is a fascinating, morally complex, difficult arena. That said they shot all of it in the ass. The weak godfather references (Vincent Cassel comes off like a pathetic mix of Fredo and Sonny), combined with cheap comic relief (Naomi Watts’s father) and the sheer black and whiteness of everything (did anyone think Vigo was going to turn out to be a bad guy?) and the diary (ahhhh!) ruin everything.

5. Many scenes where nothing really happens.

William Goldman, in his wonderful book Which Lie Did I Tell, talks about why movie heroes need to have mystery. He gives an example of one of the worst scenes he ever wrote, revisions for the Ghost and the Darkness, which is still a solid film. He was forced to make Michael Douglas’s character Remington (originally named Redbeard) more sympathetic by giving him a sad history, i.e.

Goldman says this is bad because it kills the mystery of the main character, which I think is a valid point. There are two other more serious flaws with the weepy background.

1. It slows down the story.

2. It often disrespects the audience.

3. It’s boring to sit watching characters talk about other characters.

Eastern Promises is full of expository scenes. Just because a film is a drama doesn’t mean that characters need to have long sessions where they explain each other’s lives for the audience’s benefit. It’s boring. I’m not against revealing character, but it’s usually a waste of time. I don’t need to know that Naomi Watts’ character had a miscarriage, if she’s a good enough actress I will know it or feel it intuitively through her performance. Characters reveal themselves to us through what they do, which is far more interesting than hearing stories about them. I think the need to explain everything, from the tatoos onward, comes from insecurity about the world and a disrespect for the audience’s understanding of it. If I want a detailed analysis of Russian gangsters I can look on Wikipedia. I generally go to see a movie to see characters acting in order to achieve a goal. Through their relative failure or success I learn  something about the complex world I live in. Storytelling built on white hat black hat morality will last about as long as an economy supported by imaginary money.

I have a lot of respect for Cronenberg. He is a pioneer and a visionary. I thought Naked Lunch was better than the book. A friend of mine said that he though Eastern Promises was alright, but it wasn’t a Cronenberg film. Although 40 million dollars have now been spent, I would take it as a complement.

McCarthy’s brilliant analysis of the growing violence in America is repeated here. Very little music or explanations are necessary.

On to personal matters;

I had a very good interview with UCLA in New York. They asked me a number of interesting questions, most of which I was prepared for thanks to the insights of studentfilms.com, which can seem uplifting, strange and desperate all at once, not unlike the application process.

On Monday I found out that I was waitlisted in non-ranked order. A blow. Then yesterday I lost my cell phone. Another blow. But, the cell phone came back, and I am 45 pages into the third version of my screenplay. I feel that I finally know my characters and the direction they are headed. I have a self-imposed deadline of my birthday, April 28th to finish the first draft, and I know that I will. The power of positive thinking.