Screenhead

Continuing in our look back on the last decade, Screenhead examines the major movie events of the year 2001. For previous years, check out 2000 here.

The Rise of the Franchise

You’d think it would have been milked a lot earlier. Since the original Star Wars trilogy, there had been very few interconnected franchises around, despite the obvious appetite audiences would have for an extended movie series. But all that changed in 2001, the year that started two of cinema’s most successful franchises of all time. The story of orphan and fledgling wizard Harry Potter was already a huge hit when JK Rowling’s first novel hit the UK stores in 1997, and was even bigger in the US the following year. It didn’t take long for the rights to be sold and in November of 2001 Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone was released to great success, breaking opening day box office records and the, and the cast of unknown children became stars almost instantly (and managing to stay in their roles throughout the series, despite initial plans to recast). The films have raked in over $5 billion worldwide, and the last film, split into two films, is yet to be released.

But one can argue that there was even more anticipation of the first live-action adaptation of the classic and revered fantasy novel Lord of the Rings. Previous adaptations had been attempted, with directors such as John Boorman and Stanley Kubrick interested, but the best previous to 2001 was a relatively successful animated version of the first half of the tale (an official sequel never saw the light of day). Enter Kiwi director Peter Jackson, an innovative but largely unknown director, who dreamt of adapting the novels as a child. In the mid 90’s that dream came through, although Jackson originally intended on making two films for Miramax, was asked to make only one, and ended up shopping around until New Line suggested a proper trilogy. The film got its funding and Jackson filmed the entire trilogy in one extended shoot. The result was The Fellowship of the Ring, one of the finest blockbusters of all time and one of the few adaptations that bested the source material, balancing dark themes with light humour and bringing to life some great characters, especially the CGI Gollum whose mantra “my precious” is recognized today by all. The trilogy is the most successful of all time, and the final part, The Return of the King, nabbed 11 awards at the 2004 Oscars.

And surprisingly, 2001 also kicked off another franchise. The animation Shrek proved that Dreamworks could rival Pixar (in monetary terms, at least). The amusing take on fairy-tales, in which the beast is the real hero, stormed the summer box-office, and 2010 will see the release of a fourth Shrek film.

I Didn’t go to the Cinema to Read!

Many associate foreign cinema with dull dramas concerning characters subtlety concealing existential angst by doing very little besides the occasional melancholic sigh and chatting to associates for 2 hours. But all that changed at the start of this decade. After Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon came the release of several films from around the world that were not only successful, but incredibly easy watch, not to mention engaging at a basic storytelling level. Even France, known for its “Je mange, je pense” cinema, came up with the bizarre kung-fu period drama mashup Brotherhood of the Wolf and Amelie, Jean Pierre Jeunet’s wonderful tale of an imaginative girl’s coming to terms with the world around her. Despite criticism from French intellectuals (who pointlessly claimed that the film was unrealistic- was it the talking Polaroids that gave it away?), the film was a huge hit worldwide, and it remains the biggest-selling French film in the US.

Other foreign films at the time were also sweeping the world, and establishing careers for many of its cast and directors. The anime Spirited Away became Studio Ghibli’s biggest. Mexico’s Y Tu Mama Tambien, India’s Monsoon Wedding, and Spain’s The Devil’s Backbone all created interest in directors Alfonso Cuaron,  Mira Nair, and Guillermo Del Toro respectively.

Cruise/ Kidman and Celebrity Culture

Obsession with celebrity is decades old, but with the widespread availability of digital cameras and camcorders, getting an inappropriate glimpse of a famous couple got considerably easier in the last decade. And with “reality TV” filling up TV slots as the decade progressed, our infatuation with the real lives of actors, actresses and musicians seemed to grow. The decade started off with one of the most famous celebrity couples ending their relationship. Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman had been a couple in the limelight since they first hooked up on the set of Days of Thunder. They also appeared in Far and Away, and in the moody Eyes Wide Shut. Many still suspect it was Stanley Kubrick’s intense methodology of film-making that cause the rift between the couple. Others say it was their inability to have children (Kidman miscarried shortly after the divorce and they adopted children in the 90’s). But the important point is that this isn’t important, or anyone’s business, but that hasn’t stopped us from snooping into the relations of stars later in the decade (check out 2005 for the rise of Brangelina).

9/11 and Cinema

While 2001 was an exciting year for cinema it was also a year that changed the Western World (if not the globe) forever. No one needs to be reminded of our generations JFK assassination, as everyone knows where they were and what they were doing when hijacked planes crashed into New York’s twin towers and the Pentagon, killing thousands, and altering the way in which we understand the word ‘terrorism’ (and how governments use it as a tool to scare the population). Cinema can be one of the many ways in which we deal with such difficult situations, but it was several years before we saw any movies dealing directly with 9/11. The first reaction after the event was the consideration that the towers should be removed from every film and TV show, and anything that features the towers directly (such as that excellent episode of The Simpsons) to not be shown. Thankfully, the mammoth task was decided against, although the Spiderman movie had to undergo re-editing to remove the scenes of Spidey swinging around the towers.

However, what we saw shortly after the event was a spate of essentially amateur “documentaries” distributed freely on the net. My sarcastic inverted commas are due to these videos being little more than the projects of half-well-read conspiracy nuts. “Loose Change” and the original version of “Zeitgeist” posited half-baked theories that the US government  was participative in the attacks, but ultimately their logic fails to hold up due to their inability to scrutinize their own arguments in the same way the official facts were dissected. This community of the delusional is perhaps one of the problems of the web.

We Said Goodbye To: Jack Lemmon

Jack Lemmon, born in an elevator, son of a doughnut tycoon, was known as Hollywood’s nice guy. Not only did he play the lovable and somewhat goofy everyman, but throughout his long career he maintained a reputation as being just as nice behind the scenes, with very few people having anything negative to say about him. Recognised as a comic talent early in his acting career, winning a supporting Oscar for Mister Roberts, and shortly afterwards starring in one of the greatest comedies of all time, Some Like it Hot (bizarre trivia: Lemmon released an album covering some of the songs from that film entitled A Twist of Lemmon). It was here that Lemmon forged a partnership with director Billy Wilder, starring in many of his comedies including the heart-warming rom-com The Apartment. Wilder also created possibly the best comic duo in the last 50 years, when Lemmon and Walter Matthau joined together (or against each other) on the amusing The Fortune Cookie. The pair went on to make 10 more films together, including the iconic The Odd Couple. It’s no surprise that Matthau and Lemmon died within a year of each other, Matthau succumbing in 2000.

But Lemmon also proved to be an excellent dramatic actor, delivering lauded performances as a recovering alcoholic in Days of Wine and Roses, as a morally-conflicted executive in Save the Tiger (where he became the first actor to win 2 Oscars), and as a nerve-shattered whistle-blowing nuclear technician in The China Syndrome.

Films of the Year

The Royal Tenenbaums

Amelie

Monster’s Inc

Mulholland Drive

Sex and Lucia

By Eoin O’Faolain

Future Years: 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2009

Anything you think we’ve missed? Anything you disagree with? Let us know on the comments below!

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