Skip to main content
Establishing Shot Indiana University

Missing: Inaction

Posted on by Chris Forrester

A man looks out a window in between curtains

Still from Missing

Chris Forrester articulates how Costa-Gavras’s drama subverts the idea of the “Hollywood true story” movie in favor of realism and harsh truths.

For those unfamiliar with its filmmaker, Costa-Gavras’s Palme d’Or-winning Missing (1982 — it shared the win with the Turkish film Yol) may come as a bitter surprise. It stars Jack Lemmon as a conservative New York businessman, Ed, in search of a missing son, Charlie, who disappeared during a military coup in Chile. Sissy Spacek, Beth, is his lefty daughter-in-law, and the pair bristle at one another’s political reads on the conflict: she blames the American government for Charlie’s disappearance, while Ed blames her so-called radical politics. The script by Costa-Gavras and Donald E. Stewart is based on the nonfiction book The Execution of Charles Horman: An American Sacrifice.  

Taking this familiar construct — the true story drama fronted by familiar Hollywood A-listers — at face value, one may expect the usual outcomes: triumph in the face of adversity, the righting of a ship not too waterlogged to sail again, the usual Hollywood reassurance that the good guys do always win. Its title, the same as a 1982 reprint of the source material, does some significant legwork in the illusion; the blunt hopelessness of the original Execution… title is omnipresent in the film, but its retitling handily tracks along with the false hope of seeing the stars of Some Like It Hot (Wilder, 1959) and Coal Miner’s Daughter (Apted, 1980). But, true to life, Missing offers no such happy ending.

(more…)

The Fear of the (Technological) Other: Clown in a Cornfield and Red Rooms

Posted on by Alex Brannan

A person in a clown mask stands in a corn field, wielding a chainsaw

“Frendo the Clown” stalks teens in a cornfield in Eli Craig’s Clown in a Cornfield

Alex Brannan takes a look at the clever interrogation of technology in a throwback slasher starring a bloodthirsty clown and a bone-chilling thriller from Canada.

The Cinema’s upcoming double feature of Eli Craig’s Clown in a Cornfield and Pascal Plante’s Red Rooms present two modern spins on classic horror subgenres: the slasher and psychological thriller, respectively. Both films assess relevant tropes within contemporary contexts, and in doing so they draw on representations of technology in horror cinema to make broader points about society.

Clown in a Cornfield and Red Rooms take two drastically different approaches to technology. The former takes, at first, a traditionalist approach to technology in horror. Since the inception of mobile telephony, technology has been a sore spot for all manner of horror movie baddies. How can Jason Voorhees do his zombified machete routine if all the characters have constant access to the rest of the world at the touch of a button? It has become quite common for characters in horror movies to conveniently lose access to their cell phones, or they somehow manage to land themselves in one of the few pockets of the country where network communications don’t reach.

(more…)

Be an Outcast, Save the World in Donnie Darko

Posted on by Noni Ford

Donnie Darko looking at a book while Karen Pomeroy looks over his shoulder

Donnie Darko (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Karen Pomeroy (Drew Barrymore)

Noni Ford describes how the cult classic’s outsider characters question the normalization and acceptance of their town’s insidious behavior.

Gretchen: “Donnie Darko. What the hell kind of name is that? It’s like some sort of superhero or something.”

Donnie: “What makes you think I’m not?”

Donnie never says the things we think he’ll say, and though he does understand the social hierarchy and pecking order of his bus stop along with high school life, he’s a clear outsider. When we find him at the scene that contains the dialogue above, he has just survived a freak near-death experience due to sleepwalking. Other characters marvel at his luck and while he does seem to be dazed when considering his present circumstances, he’s more attuned to the mysterious character of Frank, who has told him the end of the world will come in 28 days. Oh, and launching into a relationship with Gretchen, who becomes his girlfriend for the rest of the movie.

We don’t know that he’s going to be a hero in this story, and through most of the movie he doesn’t seem to at all be racing to prevent this pending calamity. Instead, he lives his life as normal with frequent interruptions from Frank, who causes him to wreak havoc around the town. He doesn’t stand up much for people around him, and he talks very minimally with his foul-mouthed friends, who he is tied to more in proximity than affection.

(more…)

L’Argent: How Money Moves

Posted on by Establishing Shot

A pair of hands holds up a piece of paper money with a city street in the background

Still from L’Argent

City Lights Film Series curator Ahmed Tahsin Shams uncovers the raw pulse of human struggle in Robert Bresson’s L’Argent.

Bresson’s swan song shared the Best Director prize at Cannes 1983 with Andrei Tarkovsky, presented by Orson Welles. What a moment to cherish! It appears to be a summit of cinematic geniuses, a sacred trinity of visionary auteurs on stage. Thirteen films in four decades, yet a style so distinct it became “Bressonian”: non-actors, plain speech, no score, and images that refuse to flatter. Robert Bresson’s L’Argent (Money, 1983, France) is a film that grips you not with explosions or twists, but with the slow unraveling of a life derailed by a single counterfeit bill (Martin 1999). Bresson called it a story of “the visible god” of money clashing with the invisible pull of conscience (Hayward 1986).

In my view, this film not only echoes Tolstoy’s novella The Forged Coupon (1911) but also strips it down to expose how everyday choices can snowball into chaos, foreshadowing modern tales of inequality and inner turmoil. Some films chase you with action; others whisper truths that linger. L’Argent does the latter — it observes lives like a mirror, reflecting the quiet prisons we build around ourselves (Hayward 1986). It does not rush; it accumulates moments, pushing characters toward edges they never saw coming (Johnson 1984).

(more…)

The Early Comedies of Val Kilmer

Posted on by Jesse Pasternack

Poster for Real Genius

Poster for Real Genius

Jesse Pasternack looks back at the comedic work Val Kilmer brought to the screen in the ’80s and how it precipitated his later movie stardom.

Val Kilmer was one of the most beloved American actors of the second half of the 20th century. Over the course of his decades-long career, he received acclaim for his work in action films and dramas like Top Gun (1986), The Doors (1991), and Heat (1995). But he also excelled in comedy, especially in the early days of his career. It was in those first comedic roles that he demonstrated the charisma, physicality, and commitment which he would put to good use in his more famous parts.

(more…)

“Told You I’m Never Going Back:” Michael Mann’s Heat

Posted on by Chris Forrester

Two men sit across from each other in a restaurant

Two sides of the same coin: Al Pacino and Robert De Niro in Heat

Chris Forrester breaks down the mirroring between Al Pacino and Robert De Niro’s characters, the vicious cycle of the carceral system, and more in 1995’s cops-and-robbers saga Heat.

You might expect the most enduring image of a three-hour crime epic from the genre’s most accomplished filmmaker since Martin Scorsese (Goodfellas, Casino) or Brian De Palma (Scarface, Carlito’s Way) to involve machine gun muzzle flashes, criminals on the run, a car chase, an expression of some sort of intensity. But if there is one frame in Michael Mann’s Heat (1995) that rises above its 10,212 compatriots as the film’s most iconic, it comes from a rather quiet passage of two men speaking. In part, this is a product of extra-narrative significance; Heat marked only the second time New Hollywood screen legends Al Pacino and Robert De Niro had appeared in the same movie (The Godfather Part II, in which De Niro plays a younger Vito Corleone in flashbacks), and the first in which they’d shared the screen. This scene, a modest dramatic centerpiece that arrives somewhere near the midpoint, is that moment.

Moreover, it clarifies an operating thesis statement that’s been gestating for the preceding 80-or-so minutes: that these men, a cop (Pacino) and a robber (De Niro), are not so different. Over a late night coffee, awash in the soothing hubbub of an open-late Los Angeles cafe, the pair evince a similar steely professionalism. “So, you never wanted a regular-type life?” asks Pacino’s Vincent Hanna, the LAPD lieutenant tasked with tracking down the professional thieves behind an armored car robbery (the film’s pulse-pounding opening set-piece). “This regular-type life, that your life?” retorts the target he can identify but not yet convict, De Niro’s Neil McCauley, with a wry smile.

(more…)
Skip to toolbar