Women Make Film

TCM saves me again with "Women Make Film" a fourteen hour documentary which is a Master Class in filmmaking.  The one twist is that every film used as an example of film technique is directed by a woman.  The documentary is, ironically, created by a man, Mark Cousins.  It is narrated by Tilda Swinton, among others.  Her voice is evocative but can be hypnotic.  In general I watch one episode a week so I can absorb it all.  TCM is backing up "Women Make Film" by broadcasting 100 of the films mentioned in the documentary.  It's all ... breathtaking.  I actually take notes during the documentary, learning new things about the structure, style and rhythm of film.  And then, I watch the films.  As many as I can, anyway.  They are all over the map.  Good to Great.  Silents to contemporary.  Realism, Romance, Horror, Documentary, Action -- just everything.  They come from every corner of the globe and are shot with great precision and almost planned sloppiness.  High budget to low.  The thing is, they are just films.  Not films by women, but films.  I don't know that anyone watching them would say "this is a movie made by a woman" or even "this is a feminist film" although there are feminist threads in the most male-oriented productions.  The essential question is whether or not these films would change if they were made by men.  That is unanswerable.  But watching this documentary, and these films, is fascinating.  Only 11 more hours, and some 94 films, to go!

"Downton Abbey"

Just finished binge-watching the entire "Downton Abbey" series (but not the film, yet).  Loved it.  So easy to understand why this was such a huge, popular hit.  Some called it an historical soap opera, others a romance.  It was both, and a lot more.  The British do everything well and, from a production standpoint, it is top-notch.  Writing, setting, direction, acting.  The one and only thing that could be improved on is editing which jumps awkwardly through as the timeline skips a beat now and then.  It's a minor complaint.  What is "Downton Abbey" about?  Everything.  There is a huge cast and every character, each and every last character, has a story.  None of them are simple and even the bad guys have complexity, if not mitigation, in their actions.  Like "Upstairs, Downstairs" it reflects the seismic change which occurred in a small window of time.  The series opens with the sinking of the Titanic, which is metaphor for the death of an era.  In no time, electricity in homes transforms domestic life.  Kitchens have refrigerators and electric mixers, which makes dramatic changes in food choices.  Hair dryers and curlers make a significant impact on hair care and style, telephones allow for instant communication and speed up life as a whole.  With radios, news begins to fly rather than crawl.  The changes are embraced by some, fought by others, which sets up a kind of upheaval on every level of society.  The first Labor government is elected.  Amidst all of this we see the second major theme of the tale.  Aspiration.  The upstairs folk, the rich, they drift and try to find meaning.  The downstairs workers dream, and they dream big.  Some of those dreams allow them to rise above, in other cases the dreams take hold with the hunger of a python and they are strangled in the process of trying to reach up.  Then there is Love.  All kinds of love.  Tragic love, new love, mature love, imperfect love, unrequited love, passionate love, comfortable love.  There is, of course, a lot of drama.  Happy people make for a boring show.  But in the end love triumphs, dreams are fulfilled and balance is found ... if only for a moment in time.  A kind of perfect escape in our own history-making time.  Worth a week or so if you want to get away.  The interaction of two characters, in particular, is worth the price of admission.  I howled at the exchanges between Maggie Smith's Dowager and Phyllis Logan's Mrs. Hughes characters.  Best laughs I've had since this whole thing started.  Enjoy.

Bleak

In search of things to watch I've stumbled upon rebroadcasts of Canadian shows "Coroner" and "Transplant" on the CW, as well as "Tell Me a Story" (rebroadcast from CBS All Access).  Upcoming is the so-called international thriller "Devils" and yet another version of "Swamp Thing".  I think I'll pass.  They are all dark.  Very dark.  Not a giggle, a chuckle, or a teeny spark of light.  Love scenes are conducted in shadowed alleys or parking lots with the sound of traffic in the distance.  They are completely opposite from the hazy, sunshine-through-curtains, beautifully-scored scenes in your average rom-com.  The best of the bunch is "Transplant" which has relevant themes and yummy Hamza Haq but each and every character has a back story which makes them sad.  "Coroner" is even worse with a recent widow struggling with the loss of her unhappy marriage and the depression of her son -- while working as a coroner and fighting off panic attacks which hide a terrible secret from her past.  The casts are strong, the filming great, the writing superior, and yet ... I just can't take any more sad in this time, in this very weird time.  A long time ago I read a book on acting which said that actors must find the love, find the humor, in everything.  Shakespeare knew this.  He put the gravedigger scene in "Hamlet" specifically to lighten the load before the bitter end.  Writers of much of our recent entertainments seem to have forgetten this.  It isn't a new trend but perhaps more noticeable now than "before".  I don't want stupid, there is plenty of brain-numbing stupid about, but a plea for something smart and funny?  It might help with the gloom.  

"Being Reuben"

I don't watch much reality TV but I'm pretty starved for new content at this point.  Enter the CW, rebroadcasting a British TV series "Being Reuben".  In very easy-to-take 30 minute episodes we follow 14 year-old Reuben de Maid, a Welsh boy who is working hard to become a Social Media influencer.  He is a surprising figure.  A boy who does an amazing job applying makeup, a young man who holds his own when meeting with adults from major marketing firms.  But he is also just a kid, one who fights his mom on doing homework, doesn't clean up after himself and who refuses to eat healthy.  It's an interesting mix.  The show follows his professional career as well as his typical 14 year old rebellions (along with two younger siblings).  Reuben's extended family is engaging as well.  There is his imperfect mom trying to balance her own job with motherhood and his adorable Bampa (grandfather) who is not a modernist but is warm and loving even when Reuben's world seems mystifying to him.  The father makes a brief appearance, and, like Bampa, is a tad overwhelmed by it all.  The agent enters in now and then to keep things on track and the older brother is only seen in a photo and rarely mentioned.  And there lies the challenge of so-called "reality" TV.  There is no such thing, of course.  Situations are manipulated, heavy editing allows us, the viewers, to see what the producers want us to see, giving a skewed outlook to a life, or lives, which are most likely pretty complicated.  It's entertaining and revealing, but only to a point.  And no, I won't go so far to say that it is "reality", but it was worth the time.