Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life: Grade B

B
Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life

Eric Elmosnino, Lucy Gordon, Laetitia Casta, Doug Jones; Writer-Director Joann Sfar (French, subtitled)

Serge Gainsbourg was a pop singer-songwriter in France who enjoyed enormous fame in the mid 1960’s. Though virtually unknown in America today, this biopic is worth seeing because it is a visual feast, an auditory feast, and an acting feast.

Writer-Director Joann Sfar is a creator of comic books (or “graphic novels,” as they are reverently known) and his uninhibited, surrealistic visual sensibility dominates the film, especially in the first half, which covers the childhood of Lucien Ginsberg (real name) in Nazi-occupied Paris. The boy’s alter-ego is a huge balloon with tiny arms and legs, that follows him around, mocking his self-image as an ugly kid, and his Jewishness. The anti-semitism of the Vichy regime is noted, but the story line is really about the boy’s irreverent, iconoclastic, precocious, artistic soul, as he develops his talent as a painter. At times, his alter-ego is represented by an animated figure that swoops around Paris. These early scenes get an A+ for creativity and visual attractiveness.

But it is nominally a biography, so the boy becomes a man (suddenly, without incident), a piano player and song-writer who works sleazy bars and hopes to succeed as a painter. His alter-ego is now played, wonderfully, by a costumed icon with huge nose and ears (Jones), who follows him around and seems to represent his grounding, his center, who he really is (in his mind). Gainsbourg (the adult stage name) is played brilliantly by the relatively unknown actor Elmosnino. His presentation, always through a blue cloud of Gauloises smoke, is simply eye-gripping. In his own voice he sings in the style of ‘60’s chanson, and the songs are great. He cavorts with multiple women, including Bridget Bardot, wonderfully played by Casta, a sensation in her own right. He performs a fabulous reggae version of the Marseillaise, and as he becomes a huge star, also becomes a drunken fool who loses his compass.

During the last half of the film, the visual creativity that was so stunning earlier, fades, and the movie focuses on the psychological development of the artist as he loses his center but never despairs that, though others around him do. The last half runs far too long and dwells too closely, without insight, on basically an unattractive person, diminishing the overall effectiveness of the movie. Nevertheless the film is a work of art worth seeking out.

Howl: Grade B

B
Howl (2010)

Allen Ginsberg, James Franco, Mary-Louise Parker, Jeff Daniels, David Strathairn, Treat Williams, Jon Hamm, Bob Balaban; Co-writers and Co-directors Rob Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman.

Ginsberg’s long poem, Howl, was published in 1957 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. The book was promptly seized by the San Francisco police, and Ferlinghetti, not Ginsberg, was arrested for obscenity. The subsequent trial, dramatized in this film, discusses aspects of the poem and the obscenity statute via trial lawyers Strathairn and Hamm, before judge Balaban. That dramatization illustrates what sorts of arguments were made in defining obscenity in literature back then. Supposedly all the dialog in this movie was really spoken by the original players. While the acting is quite good, the sequence says more about 1950’s morals than about the poem.

The courtroom drama is intercut with a documentary style interview with Ginsberg, played brilliantly by Franco, in which he explains and defends the poem and discusses his artistic process and his awakening as a homosexual. Another intercut thread is a set of faux-archival shots of Ginsberg (again Franco) reading the poem at a coffee shop, and of scenes from Ginsberg’s young life (he wrote the poem when he was 29). And finally, there is an intercut thread of surrealistic animations, mostly human figures swooping about like Tinker-Bell, streaming stardust behind them, to the soundtrack of Franco reading the poem. So all four of these threads are chopped up and re-woven so you don’t get bored just listening to the poem straight through. As a cinematic technique it is brilliant. Somebody should do the same for Eliot’s The Wasteland, and other difficult modern poems.

Yet despite the clever construction of the movie, I was often bored, because the poem itself is just plain tedious in long stretches, and the film insisted on re-reading sections of it, which only increased the pain. There are brilliant passages in the poem, to be sure, both thematically and acoustically/musically. I love “Boxcar, boxcar, boxcar” as a line, for example. It sounds great, looks great, and it is very satisfying to say, and who could think of that?

So there is no denying that the poem has its brilliance. But it is over a half-century old now, and is no longer shocking. Nobody cares any more if you are homosexual; nobody cares if you say “asshole” a lot. In its time, though, the poem was extremely radical, and still worth reading today. The movie covers the poem pretty thoroughly so it is not necessary to know it beforehand.

Ginsberg himself was not that interesting of a character, so the biography aspect of the film is not riveting. Sure, he struggled with his sexual and professional identities and with drugs, but a lot of people have done the same. So while Ginsberg was probably the most celebrated poet of the twentieth century, that doesn’t make the poem better than it is. Conclusion: great movie making, okay subject matter.

William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe: Grade C

C
William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe (2009)

William Kunstler (historical footage). Directors: Emily and Sarah Kunstler.

This is an interesting biographical snapshot of a remarkable defense lawyer who was at the forefront of radical politics in the ‘60s and ‘70s. He defended gangsters, murderers and mobsters, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. He defended the inmates who revolted at Attica prison, members of the Chicago Seven, the Black Panthers, and the American Indian Movement at Wounded Knee. The biography is also therefore a review of troubled times in America, a time when many of us, like Kunstler, for the first time realized that the government was not “on our side,” but bent on self preservation and crushing dissent. That was a startling realization that spawned and sustained much social unrest.

Kunstler’s two daughters obviously tried to be sure the project was not simply a paean to their father nor a sentimental memoir. They succeeded in that. It is a reasonably balanced view of the man, his times, his accomplishments and failures, although not his motivation. The filmmakers claim to struggle, even now, to understand how their father could defend some very nasty people who were clearly not innocent. However, I simply do not believe that these educated, wealthy, articulate women are confused about that. It is quite obvious that the clients’ innocence or guilt had absolutely nothing to do with Kunstler’s choices, and this is true for any good defense attorney. What they defend is the legal system itself, by making it earn its legitimacy. The daughters’ alleged confusion about that is, in my view, just a dishonest patina added to the picture to dumb down the message, and maybe to inject some artificial mystery into what otherwise is a mildly interesting report.

Tyson: Grade D

D
Tyson (2008)
Mike Tyson; Writer-Director James Toback.

This documentary biography of boxing champion Mike Tyson is mildly interesting. Head shots of him (now in his 40’s and retired) talking about his life are interspersed with archival clips from his life, mostly from the ring, but also of weddings, press conferences, and so on.

He had a remarkable life, rising from poor, neglected street kid in Brooklyn to a multi-millionaire, international sports figure. Along the way he served prison time for rape, and famously, bit off part of the ear of one of his heavyweight opponents during a match. But no topic is pursued in detail. There is no interviewer and no hard questions are posed. Tyson simply rambles on in self-exculpatory fashion. He does reveal himself, perhaps more than he intended, as an angry and depressed, uneducated, under-socialized criminal, irresponsible and financially incompetent; a rapist and a drug addict (all this by his own admission except the rape charge, which he denies without detail). How interesting can a psychopath like that be? His moments of self-reflection produce banal conclusions. He seems not capable of providing insight into his, or any life. For crucial incidents (such as the ear-biting), he simply denies personal responsibility (“I just blacked out momentarily”). Maybe that’s so, but it illuminates nothing. The result is a superficial exercise in self-aggrandizement, of value only for dedicated fans.