Screenhead

Continuing in our look back on the last decade, Screenhead examines the major movie events of the year 2004. For previous years, click to visit the article: 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003.

The Passion of Mel

Mel Gibson’s religious personal life meant very little to film fans at first, who were pretty happy seeing Mel rip up the screen in the cop action series Lethal Weapon, or in the post-apocalyptic Mad Max films. But all that changed in 2004, when Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ was released. Charting the supposed last days of Christian saviour Jesus Christ, the film was made using the languages of the time (Aramaic, Latin, and Hebrew), and thus was considered box-office poison by many studios. Gibson funded a lot of the film himself, and was unable to go for a full-scale marketing strategy. Luckily for him, he didn’t need it, as churches around the nation were doing all the promotion for him. Opening on religious holiday Ash Wednesday, the film made $65 million in 3 days, and eventually made over $600 million worldwide, making it the most successful independent movie of all time.

The film proved that the hegemony of Hollywood has a habit of neglecting the millions of people that don’t make up their target market. And yet we haven’t seen anything like The Passion since. The closest example is the films by the Kendrick brothers, who use church donations to fund films spreading Christian messages, and whose 2008 film Fireproof earned $33 million at the box office, despite only costing half a million dollars. What made The Passion so interesting was the proof of blind faith still prominent throughout the world. For fans of the film were surely only moved because of their prior knowledge of the story of Christ. Gibson’s film is an exercise in torture porn (see below), telling very little about Christ’s story, or supposed messages. Instead, the film wallows in the gore, with countless torture scenes, and even a few that are not present in any religious texts (such as a crow plucking out the eye of the crucified thief who taunted Christ, or when Christ crushes a snake with his foot), creating a sense of nausea and sympathy only on a very visceral and animalistic level. Nevertheless, The Passion is a fascinating cinematic phenomenon.

Sideways and the Rut of Indie Cinema

One of, I’m sure, many Hollywood industry rules is never to underestimate the power of comedy. My Greek Fat Wedding was proof of that. But trends in independent cinema this decade seemed to lean towards the comic. 2004 was proof of this trend with the unexpected success of Alexander Payne’s delightful Sideways. The tale of two 40-somethings who take a trip to California’s wine county in advance of one of them getting married. It’s a gentle premise fortified with two great tragic-comic performances by leads Paul Giamatti and Thomas Hayden Church, with a smart script about truly growing up, and not hiding in boyish charm or pretentiousness. The film made over $100 million worldwide.

But the quality of Sideways was an exception. In the last decade there are many examples of low-budget indie comedies that attempt to utilise the same traits but end up become stale, which for me is the opposite of what independent cinema should be trying to do. Films like The Station Agent, Juno, Little Miss Sunshine, and especially the criminally self-indulgent Garden State, all may have fared well in the box office or on DVD, but all are guilty for their formulaic elements: a quirky sidekick that usually produces “humour” from being stupid or weird; an existential crisis from a super- serious protagonist, self-consciously cool dialogue, self-consciously cool music, and using the theme of family dysfunction. Indie film is usually independent because of its habit of taking risks with cinematic norms. And while all of these films have amusing moments, they’re more tragic for their lack of ambition than their “meaningful” heroes.

The Changing Face of Horror Part 1

Horror films have always had their place in the film industry, mostly due to costing relatively little to make and occasionally scoring big. The last major horror releases this decade were the rather silly Final Destination and Resident Evil films. But in 2004 the low-budget (it cost just over a million dollars, which is petty cash for Hollywood standards) film Saw, in which two men find themselves trapped in a room, forced to make some terrible choices in order to escape, while the culprit is hunted down by the police. Initially labelled a psychological thriller, its use of cheap shocks and nasty torture influenced the horror scene greatly. The next year saw (no pun intended) the release of the vile shocker Hostel, in which backpackers in Slovakia are kidnapped and imprisoned until wealthy businessmen murder them in the most gory ways possible. In 2006 the sub-genre was labelled torture porn for its gratuitous violence and, as George Romero famously said, for “lacking metaphor”. Countless examples came out over the years, and the series of Saw movies were very profitable for the genre. However, 2009 saw the final nail in the coffin for torture porn, with a number of failed originals followed up by Saw 6’s disappointing box office intake.

But it wasn’t just torture porn that rose in 2004. Another sub-genre, this time an old but relatively unknown one, was resurrected by a bunch of cheeky Brits. Horror comedy is almost as old as the horror genre itself, but failed to reach the masses (unless you count Ghostbusters or the Scary Movie spoofs, which I don’t). But director Edgar Wright and actors Simon Pegg and Nick Frost teamed together (all friends from the breathless comedy series Spaced) and decided to make a comedy zombie film (or rom-zom-com as they called it) called Shaun of the Dead. Its relentless jokes and film references made it a hit with cult-film fans, and boosted the profile of the genre. Recent examples include Severance, Slither, Grindhouse, and the highly successful Zombieland (see The Changing Face of Horror Part 2 in the upcoming 2009 section). Pegg went on to start a Hollywood career, and he, Frost and Wright, are due to complete their Blood and Ice Cream Trilogy (which included Shaun and action comedy Hot Fuzz) next year with The World’s End.

Wiki-Filmmaking

Wikipedia must have been a university student’s dream. The site, an encyclopaedia in which anyone can contribute to, was one of many of the social tools that gave the net its unique identity in modern society. By 2004 Wikipedia was huge, and social networking sites such as Myspace were becoming part of our daily lives. And the ideology of social film-making had its beginning in this year, with the release of the documentary Voices of Iraq. The project involved the provision of 150 video cameras to people in Iraq in order to film their lives, and provide a voice to the people of a ruptured nation. It’s a voice that’s vital when the world mostly sees reports from the US military, as opposed to the bystander. The film has been added to the collection of the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences for its innovation.

Still, it’s difficult to find many other examples of social film-making. The diversity offered by the end has seemed to allow closed-minded solipsists to stand on their virtual soap-boxes as opposed to bringing people together to create something. However, this year saw the release of All Tomorrow’s Parties, a documentary on the alternative musical festival which incorporated footage shot by dozens of fans. The A Swarm of Angels project, in which anyone could invest and have their say in making a movie from the idea right through to distribution, received attention in 2006 but not much has been seen since. Yet social networking is more important than ever, with Facebook application design being a career for some, not to mention the upcoming feature film about Facebook, written by Aaron Sorkin and directed by David Fincher. And even 2009 has shown how these sites can affect marketing, with Google now able to track a film’s popularity through Facebook and Twitter conversations. Perhaps next decade will see a tectonic shift in film-making methods, so that it can catch up with the rest of the world.

A Primer to Mumblecore

Thanks to the wonderful world of the web, it doesn’t take long for a movement or genre, especially when a catchy/ironic name is applied, to catch on and prompt endless debate on forums. So it’s interesting to see how Mumblecore never found much more than a very niche audience. The term mumblecore was first coined (as a joke) in 2005, but there were already several examples, such as the films of director Andrew Bujalski. The films were low-budget dramas or comedies, often involving disenfranchised slackers, and relying on improvisation. Indeed, it’s no surprise that the movement’s inspiration came from the films of the great John Cassavetes.

One film that may or may not be a mumblecore flick is Primer, an ambitious science fiction made for about $7000. It’s an intriguing tale about a group of engineers who accidentally create a time-machine, only to find themselves in a loop of paradoxes, avoiding copies of copies of copies of themselves. It’s a confusing yet intricate plot that does not pander to the lowest common denominator. The film is one of the better films of the decade, and certainly worth investigating (although it may need multiple viewings to grasp).

Nevertheless, mumblecore, with or without Primer, seems to have been more of a stepping-stone to bigger and clearer projects, as opposed to a Dogma-like movement, as Bujalski’s latest film, Beeswax, is a focused affair shot on film. The graveyard of this short-lived subgenre is already gathering dust somewhere, despite the recent Humpday being one of the genre’s best efforts.

We Said Goodbye To: Marlon Brando

The phrase “they don’t make them like they used to” can certainly be proven with the example of Marlon Brando, an actor that had more presence and charisma than ability. And that alone is enough to make him one of cinema’s icons.

A troublemaker from the start, Brando got himself expelled from high-school after riding a motorbike through it. He also got kicked out of a theatre company in his early career. But he also had passion, being an activist for Israel, African American civil rights, and native Americans. It was this passion that got him the lead role of Stanley in the original stage run of A Streetcar Named Desire, with playwright Tenessee Williams deeming him perfect for the role. That perfect was replicated in the 1951’s film adaptation, which earned Brando an Oscar nomination. He spent the decade wowing audiences and critics with his intense performances (often attributed to his use of Method Acting), receiving more award nominations in films such as Viva Zapata and Julius Caesar, until he won for On the Waterfront. The film’s famous “I coulda been a contender” scene was actually improvised with fellow actor Rod Steiger. Brando also became the face of counterculture for the 50’s, his biker flick The Wild One inspiring the likes of James Dean and teen-oriented films.

The 60’s saw Brando perform in a string of box-office failures, although he did deliver great performances in Burn and Reflections in a Golden Eye. But it wasn’t until 1972 that Brando made his comeback was Vito Corleone in The Godfather, a role he almost wasn’t granted until director Francis Ford Coppola fought hard for him. Brando received another Oscar (which he refused to pick up in protest against negative depictions of native Americans on screen) and his career was boosted by appearing in films like Apocalypse Now, the pretentious Last Tango in Paris (which is only worth watching for Brando), and The Missouri Breaks. Brando’s reputation for being difficult was solidified by his fee and perk demands, receiving almost $4 million for a brief appearance in Superman (a film he failed to memorise the script for, so had the words glued to props around him) and making another 10 million for his percentage of the profit.

Brando descended into a comic eccentric after the 70’s, gaining weight (he claimed food was his only friend), befriended fellow weirdo Michael Jackson, and appearing in several films in the 90’s and delivering poor performances. His friend Jack Nicholson believed that Brando spent his last years with little or no money, dying of respiratory failure complicated by several conditions, including liver cancer and diabetes. It was a sad end to an actor that used to bring such passion and vigour to performances. Brando may not have had the range of other actors, but he had the capacity to absorb himself in his roles until he created something powerful and unforgettable.

Films of the Year

Hotel Rwanda
Primer
Downfall
Sideways
2046

By Eoin O’Faolain

Future Years: 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009

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

Popularity: 1% [?]