Showing posts with label Alexander Payne. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alexander Payne. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
Nebraska
Alexander Payne's "The Descendants", which the bureau chief liked quite a bit, marked the first time that the director had merged his dark humor with some heart. He pulls that feat off again in "Nebraska." The two films offer some interesting contrasts of social class. The prize that concerns the King family in "The Descendants" is 25,000 acres of pristine family land in Kauai, the sale of which will make the family members very rich. The supposed "grand prize" of a million dollars in "Nebraska" is recognized by everyone who examines the document to be a magazine subscription come-on; everyone except for the aged and confused Woody Grant (Bruce Dern).
At the start of the film the old man is drunk and has set off to walk on the highway from Billings Montana to Lincoln Nebraska to get his grand prize. He's picked up by the police and his son David (Will Forte) gets him out of jail but when Woody sets off again, David decides he'll drive Woody to Lincoln. The film is the trip. It's a trip back in time since they stop in Woody's home town in Nebraska where a lot of Woody's family still live. An impromptu family reunion is organized. David's mother Kate (June Squibb) and his older brother Ross (Bob Odenkirk) come down from Billings to join them. Woody blurts out that he has won a million dollars and the extended family refuses to believe the immediate family's statement that that this isn't true. Old debts are suddenly remembered or created.
It's a exercise in deadpan dark humor but also has some moving moments. Some of them are created by Phedon Papamichael's black-and-white cinematography which finds amazing beauty in the enormous depopulated prairie landscape. Alexander Payne comes by his take on Midwesterners honestly since he was raised in Lincoln. The film has a satisfying ending and I recommend it.
At the start of the film the old man is drunk and has set off to walk on the highway from Billings Montana to Lincoln Nebraska to get his grand prize. He's picked up by the police and his son David (Will Forte) gets him out of jail but when Woody sets off again, David decides he'll drive Woody to Lincoln. The film is the trip. It's a trip back in time since they stop in Woody's home town in Nebraska where a lot of Woody's family still live. An impromptu family reunion is organized. David's mother Kate (June Squibb) and his older brother Ross (Bob Odenkirk) come down from Billings to join them. Woody blurts out that he has won a million dollars and the extended family refuses to believe the immediate family's statement that that this isn't true. Old debts are suddenly remembered or created.
It's a exercise in deadpan dark humor but also has some moving moments. Some of them are created by Phedon Papamichael's black-and-white cinematography which finds amazing beauty in the enormous depopulated prairie landscape. Alexander Payne comes by his take on Midwesterners honestly since he was raised in Lincoln. The film has a satisfying ending and I recommend it.
Thursday, December 15, 2011
The Descendants
In the middle 80s, Madame Le Chef and I went on vacation to the Hawaiian island of Maui. A travel agent had found us a very reasonably priced hotel. It turned out the good price was because it was in an unfashionable part of the island near the airport and lacked a sea view. On the other hand it came with a free rental car (we just had to pay for the gas). Think how long ago 26 years is. I've just mentioned two things that barely exist anymore, travel agents and free rental cars.
We used the car to drive all over the island and discovered the same thing that millions of other visitors have. Under the typical American layer of highways, subdivisions and malls Hawaii is a tropical paradise. All those millions of visitors haven't destroyed it. And the locals there are living their quotidian lives, like humans everywhere: loving, working, raising children, growing older, dying. In Alexander Payne's, "The Descendants", George Clooney's narration makes this point, early on, in a way that is perhaps too on the nose, but it's a point worth making.
Of course Clooney's character, Matt King, is not a typical local. He's a member of Hawaii's white ruling class and he, and his enormous extended family, own 25,000 acres of undeveloped land on Kauai. It's going to be sold and it will make everyone in the family very rich. That's just one of the things complicating his life. His wife's in a coma. He's been a mostly absent father but now he has to be the parent of their two girls. There are even more complications that I won't go into.
I haven't been a rabid fan of Alexander Payne's films. I liked "Election" but really disliked "About Schmidt", which I thought was condescending. I liked parts of "Citizen Ruth" and of "Sideways". I think "The Descendants" is his best film. It has a few really funny things in it but digs deeper into the stuff of living than he ever has before. Recommended.
We used the car to drive all over the island and discovered the same thing that millions of other visitors have. Under the typical American layer of highways, subdivisions and malls Hawaii is a tropical paradise. All those millions of visitors haven't destroyed it. And the locals there are living their quotidian lives, like humans everywhere: loving, working, raising children, growing older, dying. In Alexander Payne's, "The Descendants", George Clooney's narration makes this point, early on, in a way that is perhaps too on the nose, but it's a point worth making.
Of course Clooney's character, Matt King, is not a typical local. He's a member of Hawaii's white ruling class and he, and his enormous extended family, own 25,000 acres of undeveloped land on Kauai. It's going to be sold and it will make everyone in the family very rich. That's just one of the things complicating his life. His wife's in a coma. He's been a mostly absent father but now he has to be the parent of their two girls. There are even more complications that I won't go into.
I haven't been a rabid fan of Alexander Payne's films. I liked "Election" but really disliked "About Schmidt", which I thought was condescending. I liked parts of "Citizen Ruth" and of "Sideways". I think "The Descendants" is his best film. It has a few really funny things in it but digs deeper into the stuff of living than he ever has before. Recommended.
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