Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
Froggy rules. Plain and simple. He's the man on the spot in Cannes right now, and I strongly suggest Harry find Froggy, pull a Tom Ripley, and USE HIS INTERNET CONNECTION. Until that happens, Froggy's gonna keep filing great reports like the one below on a film that I am D Y I N G to see right now, the newest offering from my favorite working filmmakers, Joel and Ethan Coen. I haven't read this script because I don't want to know anything on this one before I walk in, yet I've read the script for their next film, TO THE WHITE SEA, at least a half-dozen times, just marvelling at the language of it. Go figure. Anyway... I had to stop reading this because of detail. Beware... there be spoilers ahead.
Froggy reporting in after the first press screening of the new film by Joel and Ethan Coen, THE MAN WHO WASN'T THERE.
I read this script a year ago, and when told that the Coens would be shooting for the first time in black and white, I felt that this film would be something special.
It is.
Imagine, if you will, the exquisitely detailed art direction of THE HUDSUCKER PROXY, with the pathos and wit of FARGO, and you have some idea of the atmosphere of this new film. You can't really call it a film noir by traditional means (as if anything the Coens produce can be easily encapsulated... how many film noirs have subplots about alien abduction, piano prodigies, gay door-to-door salesmen, and sidebars on the eight types of young men's hairstyles), but if the poster is anything to go by, that's the closest you'll get to a genre for it.
The title of the film really says a lot. Billy Bob Thornton plays Ed, a barber in a small Northern Calfornia town, sometime in the late 1940's or 50's. He's a quiet man, passive certainly, and he goes about his daily life with a silence and laconic fatalism. You wouldn't probably know what he was thinking if it wasn't for his voiceover, which hangs over the film from beginning to end.
Ed spends his day silently cutting hair while his brother-in-law (Michael Baladucco, from THE PRACTICE and O BROTHER) yaps away all day long. The only time Ed draws breath is to murmur 'Uh-huh', or more likely to draw in from the unfiltered cigarettes that are permanently attached to his lip. This is certainly a smoker's movie.
Ed's wife, Doris, is carrying on an affair with the (also married) owner of the department store where she works as a bookkeeper. Ed knows about it, the way a husband knows these things, but he doesn't seem to carry the inclination to confront, or even object, about the situation. Doris is played by the exquisite Frances McDormand, and the store owner by the brilliant James Gandolfini. Doris is not a villain, nor even unsympathetic to her husband. "You know I love you, Ed" she says, as he shaves her legs in the bath. But it's not the sort of love that Ed is sustained by.
Ed's life takes a turn with the arrival of a salesman (Jon Polito), looking for an investor to help him start a franchise of a radical new clothing stain removal process called "Dry Cleaning". All he needs is $10 000.
Ed sees this as his way out of his ordinary life. He sends an anonymous letter to Gandolfini, as someone that knows about the affair he's having, and threatens to expose him and Doris "to Ed" unless an amount of $10 000 is paid.
What happens next doesn't really warrant exposition. You have to follow the path this movie takes for yourself - the unpredictabilities of the plot are one of the major joys. I just want to mention a couple of things as to why this movie is such a masterpiece.
- The look of the film. Honestly, the production design nearly made me weep. The opening credits have the titles falling in front of a twirling barber shop pole, and the letters fall as shadows across and below it. The lighting echoes the great noir films but you're never made to feel as though the Coens are trying too hard. I know that this sort of thing isn't effortless, but each shot is composed so perfectly, they're all like paintings.
- The performances are all faultless. Billy Bob Thornton, as Ed, will surely be a favourite to take out Best Actor at the festival. He's magnificent as this everyday man who has had the life sucked out of him (not that there's anything to suggest he had much in him to begin with). Everyone else is great, but special mention goes out to Richard Jenkins as a local solicitor, and Scarlet Johannson as his blossoming teenage daughter who Ed takes an interest in. Finally, the great, great Tony Shalhoub has three scene chewing sequences as Ed's lawyer. Supporting Actor Oscar time for Tony, methinks.
I think this is a perfect film, that could dangerously be considered one for film-buffs, but I think that's not a bad thing. On the outside it doesn't appear to have abundantly more commercial potential that O Brother or Big Lebowski, even though I think it is much more refined and certainly more engaging. I do think it's an Oscar contender though. Those two earlier films were certainly a whole lot of fun, but for those people who were waiting for the Coens to get back to drama, I really think you're gonna get off on THE MAN WHO WASN'T THERE.
The Coens are at the peak of their form.
That's it for now - tomorrow I will have word on David Lynch's MULHOLLAND DRIVE.
Froggy
p.s. Ethan Hawke's CHELSEA WALLS is complete indulgent twaddle. Seems like a great guy, but I wish he'd stick to acting. If you're ever in need of cinematic sedative, look no further.
