Walking Through Doors

This past Sunday I was fortunate enough to attend the premiere of Steppenwolf Theatre’s “The Doppelgänger”, which is this improbable blend of broad farce and cutting geopolitical commentary that actually comes off. Because we were standby, however, there was fear before sitting down that our seats would be saddled with obstructed views, meaning we might not be able to see some action in the wings, including going in and out of doors. If that sounds menial, well, in a broad farce, going in and out of doors is often everything. In fact, going in and out of doors is so often more than just going in and out of doors, particularly at the movies.

Doors, of course, easily lend themselves to metaphors. Entire academic papers have been devoted to the meaning of doors in “The Godfather” and “The Searchers.” Doors frequently become obvious entry points to a new world – like “The Wizard of Oz” – or exit points from an old world – like “The Truman Show.” In last year’s masterful “The Lost City of Z”, the door at the end through which Sienna Miller’s Nina Fawcett exits suggests a character not so much entering a new world or exiting an old one as vanishing into some ineffable dimension in-between. Then there is “Ghostbusters”, where the door motif is conspicuously present throughout, brought home by Egan (Harold Ramis) in the rollicking prison cell exposition scene when he declares: “Something terrible is about to enter our world and this building is obviously the door.”

In “Pulp Fiction”, however, when Uma Thurman’s Mia Wallace walked through the bathroom door at Jack Rabbit Slim’s there wasn’t anything mystical waiting, just some, uh, adult powder. And yet it isn’t about what’s on the other side of the door or what going through the door means; it’s about how Thurman goes through the door. She goes through the door with the air of a cocksure gunslinger in the wild, wild west re-imagined as a cosmopolitan in reverie. She goes through the door like James Brown shrieks as “(I Got You) I Feel Good” begins.

“Pulp Fiction” was formative for this central Iowa teenager just starting to really get into film, but much of that influence correlated directly to its form. There was something else, though, that formed me. Last year when considering whether or not Chris Pratt is a movie star (he isn’t) I cited an old Tommy Craggs quote in which he lamented how film critics rarely ever anymore simply describe how actors move across the screen. And that’s a shame because the way actors move across the screen is as vital as the way they speak, react, or pretend to jump out of airplanes. And even as someone who used to mimic Errol Flynn’s movement during his initial escape from Nottingham Castle in “Adventures of Robin Hood” when I was kid, the paramount importance of physical movement in movie performances had never really occurred to me until I saw Uma, awesome, awesome Uma, walk through that door. So I guess, in a way, the mere physical act of her going through that door really was an entry point to a whole new world.

The Real Slugs of Pulp Fiction

"Pulp Fiction" was released twenty years ago this month. I think this means I'm supposed to post some sort of comprehensive retrospective breaking down, in order, its genesis, its violence, its structure, its influence and its legacy. I think I'm supposed to talk about how its existence as postmodern pastiche correlates directly to its moral emptiness and how that moral emptiness coorelates directly to the 666 briefcase which likely (?) contains Marsellus Wallace's soul and how Marsellus Wallace's soul correlates directly to the film's circular structure which correlates directly to the film's Vanilla Coke™-infused nostalgia trip which, I think, brings me back to it being a postmodern pastiche. But there is something each rehash of the rehash of the rehash of the rehash of the rehash, etc., doesn't mention. I'm talking, of course, about Sammy the Slug.

"The Banana Slug, a bright yellow, slimy, shell-less mollusk commonly found on the redwood forest floor," says the UC Santa Cruz web site, "was the unofficial mascot for UC Santa Cruz coed teams since the university's early years. The students' embrace of such a lowly creature was their response to the fierce athletic competition fostered at most American universities." Why Q.T. chose to give an onscreen shout-out to the Banana Slug seems to boil down to an ex-girlfriend, as Andrea Pyka of City On A Hill Press reported eight years ago. Or maybe Tarantino just likes slugs like he likes Uma Thurman's feet. 

Whatever the case may be, the UC Santa Cruz Banana Slugs Women's Volleyball team, currently 11-5, takes on Redlands tonight, and we here at Cinema Romantico would like to wish them the best.

(What was this post about?)

5 Insert Shots I Love

Recently on Vimeo, Josh Forrest compiled a super cut of all the insert shots employed by director David Fincher and his editors for the fantastic "Zodiac." This, as it had to, got me to thinking about my own favorite insert shots. Because insert shots, when utilized to the fullest extent of their function, can yield a kind of momentary poetry, an incision of of insight not merely into the film's mind but into the filmmaker's mind. This is because an insert shot - which are quite often those sudden close-ups you see in the midst of wider shots enveloping all the characters in their entire locale - can get right down to the true bizness in a way those Everything In The Frame shots can't.

The problem is that I have - and this is a rough estimate - 17,487 favorite insert shots. So I decided to engage in a blogging exercise. I decided to sit down with a pen and paper and scribble whatever five insert shots I love that first jumped into my head. The five that follow, I swear, came rattling right out before any others even threatened to worm their way in. Make of that what you will. Forward march.

5 Insert Shots I Love

Pulp Fiction

Well, duh.

Ferris Bueller's Day Off

John Hughes' unforgettable ode to teenage rebellion is chock full of memorable insert shots, but the hilarious non-forebodeingness of who and what this one signifies has always been the first that involuntarily leaps to mind. Before you even see his face you know his cheese is about to get left out in the wind.

 Out Of Sight

Jack sits down opposite Karen at the Motor City hotel bar. He sets his beloved Zippo beside her glass of beloved bourbon. Nick passes out.

United 93

There is a simply remarkable moment in Paul Greengrass's simply remarkable "United 93" when the first jet has crashed into the World Trade Center and it is then relayed to the Chief of Air Traffic Control Operations at the FAA that the tapes having caught the hijackers' voices on tape are heard to say: "We have some planes." "We have some planes?" the Chief repeats, emphasizing the plural. And as he does, the film cuts to the above shot, a display of every flight currently in United States airspace, every goddamn one of them another potential hijack to the FAA. It's a split-second that effortlessly embodies the terror and confusion of that horrific day.

Die Hard

Per CigarettesInCinema.com there have been 7.8 million cigarettes smoked in the cinema. And of those 7.8 cigarettes, roughly 500,000 of them have been stubbed out. But no cigarette stubbed out on the silver screen has echoed with such charismatically haughty evilness as Hans Gruber in "Die Hard", the exceptional thief's exceptional designer shoes contrasting with John McClane's ravaged bare feet in the background.

5 Movie Moments Of Significant Technical Personal Influence

Recently on his site - And So It Begins - Alex Withrow broke down the infamous Spike Lee double dolly shot, the shot wherein, as Alex writes, “(Lee) sets up a dolly per usual, then puts the actor on another dolly, and moves the camera and the actor at the same time.” This gives the impression that the actor and/or the character is floating through the air.

As I communicated to him in the comments, I vividly recall the first time I saw this shot. This is because “Malcolm X” was the first Spike Lee film I had ever seen and being released in the fall of 1993 it arrived but a few short months after I had first seen “Last of the Mohicans” (on home video) and therefore just begun my free fall into cinematic obsession. I was still in the infant stages of grasping the inner-workings of a film and very late in “Malcolm X”, in a titanic performance that should have won him the Oscar (though Pacino should have won an Oscar years earlier so the Academy had to square with him first), as the title character makes his way to the Audubon Ballroom where his assassination awaits, Sam Cooke’s astonishing “A Change Is Gonna Come” augmenting the mood, he appears to float just above the sidewalk courtesy of the double dolly, illuminating Malcolm’s own sense of looming fate. It’s a moment to take away your breath. It took away mine, that’s for sure, partly because of the moment’s emotion and partly because I remember thinking, “What is the camera DOING?”

It was one of the earliest moments I consciously became aware of how a movie was being made. Those are big moments when you’re young. These were the biggest.

5 Movie Moments Of Significant Technical Personal Influence

1. Raiders of the Lost Ark. The moment in the Nepalese bar when Indy enters to greet Marion but we don’t see him – rather, we see his shadow looming over her. Although I was at an age where I still would have thought “ALF” made for good TV, I’m still pretty sure I saw this and thought, “Great shot. GREAT.SHOT.” (And almost as good was the moment later in the same scene when you don’t see the Nazi thug get shot – you see the Nazi thug’s shadow get shot.)

1 (A). Adventures of Robin Hood. Almost a copycat of the “Raiders” moment (which is to say, the “Raiders” moment is almost a copycat of this one), in the midst of the climactic fencing tete-a-tete between heroic Robin of Locksley and nefarious Sir Guy of Gisbourne (the greatest cinematic swordfight of all time, and this is NOT debatable) the two men carry their duel just off screen and we continue to watch as their interlocked shadows are brilliantly cast against a colossal castle pillar. It is breathtaking (regardless of how many times it has been parodied). At this point in my life I honestly cannot remember if I saw this shadow (as I've written many times before I was practically raised on Errol Flynn/Olivia de Havilland pictures) or the “Raiders” shadow first so they both should be mentioned.

2. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. John Hughes' 1986 day-in-the-life classic was, as I have written many times before, a seminal film in my movie-obsessed existence. But it was not merely seminal from an emotional standpoint, it was also seminal from a filmmaking standpoint. This is to say that all of a sudden Ferris (Matthew Broderick) looked right into the camera - looked right at me! - and started talking. He had broken the fourth wall, though I had no idea what the fourth wall was or, consequently, how one could break it. All I knew was I felt an unexplainable rush - he was inviting me along for his ride and I was more than ready to go.

3. The Untouchables. Sometimes I feel guilty admitting my first real comprehension of camera tricks came via Brian DePalma rather than, say, Martin Scorsese – it’s like admitting “Out of the Blue” had more of an effect on me than “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” (which it did) – but when you’re barely a teen “The Untouchables” is easier to digest and process than Scorsese’s much tougher work. Late in the film that charismatic thug Al Capone (Robert DeNiro) sends a couple weapon-toting flunkies to the Racine-set flat of Malone (Sean Connery) to, as they say, take him out. One of the flunkies sneaks in through an open first floor window and tracks Malone through the elongated apartment, down hallways, through rooms, suspense heightening, and it is all seen via the flunky’s swiftly moving Point-of-View. “Wait,” I kinda remember thinking, “this isn’t the camera following Malone. This is the GUY.”



4. Pulp Fiction. I have made it more than well known that Uma Thurman’s performance as Mia Wallace is one of the greatest influences on my existence as a movie loving nut job but, of course, this landmark 1994 film was as much about its auteur, Quentin Tarantino, as Uma. And there comes the moment Mia and Vincent (John Travolta) pull up to Jack Rabbit Slims and Vincent decrees he wants to go somewhere else and get a steak and Mia says “You can get a steak here, daddy-o” (which is a line reading of a thousand compliments) and then adds “don’t be a…” which leads to her forming a square in the air which Tarantino actually outlines on the screen as she does it. Bewildered, I thought, “That’s allowed?” Why, yes, “Pulp Fiction” explained, it is.

5. Saturday Night Fever. In high school I was constantly attempting to craft short movies on this massively old-school VHS camcorder (ah, the old days) and I will never forget trying and failing to make this movie about a private detective investigating a rash of drive-by coconutings (do not, under any circumstances, ask) and trying in utter vain to rip off the still-transcendent opening of this disco-era classic. (Perhaps I failed to rip it off because you could tell by the way I walk that I am most decidedly not a woman’s man.) The editing, the camera work, the music, the breezy, Travolta-esque cocksureness, the paint can, it all blends together into an opening set with the snazziest polyester table cloth. It’s straight filmmaking, baby, and somehow, even though I didn’t know that’s what it was, I knew that’s what it was.

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