“Shitsville.” That’s the name Killing Them Softly director Andrew Dominik gave to the film’s nameless town, in which low-level criminals, ambitious mid-tier gangsters, nihilistic assassins, and the mob’s professional managerial class engage in warfare of the most savage kind. Onscreen, other states are mentioned (New York, Maryland, Florida), and the film itself was filmed in post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans, though some of the characters speak with Boston accents that are pulled from the source material, George V. Higgins’s novel Cogan’s Trade. But Dominik, by shifting Higgins’s narrative 30 or so years into the future and situating it specifically during the 2008 Presidential election, refuses to limit this story to one place.
[This month, Musings pays homage to Produced and Abandoned: The Best Films Youve Never Seen, a review anthology from the National Society of Film Critics that championed studio orphans from the 70s and 80s. In the days before the Internet, young cinephiles like myself relied on reference books and anthologies to lead us to film we might not have discovered otherwise. Released in 1990, Produced and Abandoned was a foundational piece of work, introducing me to such wonders as Cutters Way, Lost in America, High Tide, Choose Me, Housekeeping, and Fat City. (You can find the full list of entries here.) Over the next four weeks, Musings will offer its own selection of tarnished gems, in the hope theyll get a second look. Or, more likely, a first. Scott Tobias, editor.]
Most people prefer movies to be affirming, in some way. Life-affirming, love-affirming, norm-affirmingjust so long as something we believe (or want to believe) gets reinforced, everybodys happy. Declining to satisfy that desire is step one en route to making an art film, or what publicists who are nervous about the word art like to call a specialty release. These, too, cater to viewers preconceived notions about the world (good luck finding something that doesnt), but they target notions that are less commonly held, which makes them less commercially viable. Deriving enjoyment from genuinely despairing or pessimistic movies is a taste that must be acquired, and only a small subset of the population has the time or the inclination. These are the folks wholl go see a Moonlight, say, or a Manchester By The Sea. Theyre game.
Its possible to alienate these adventurous, open-minded viewers, too, though, by making a movie thats not just challenging or upsetting, but flat-out nihilistic. A movie that assumes the worst about human nature, with few (if any) mollifying grace notes. A movie that, at least to some extent, glorifies venality and ugliness. Alienate is too mild a word for the common reaction, actually. They will be pissed off.
Such was the reception that greeted The Counselor back in 2013. Expectations for the film were sky high: It features a superb cast (Michael Fassbender, Pnlope Cruz, Javier Bardem, Cameron Diaz, and Brad Pitt); was directed by Ridley Scott (a decidedly erratic talent, but still capable of greatness); and, most exciting of all, boasts a screenplay from Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Cormac McCarthy. McCarthys books had been adapted several timesmost notably by the Coen Brothers, whose version of No Country for Old Men won multiple Oscarsbut hed never before written an original story expressly for the big screen. Had The Counselor been made available intravenously, many would have mainlined it without hesitation.
Cue the adrenaline-shot scene from Pulp Fiction. Not all of the Counselor reviews were negative, by any means, but the critics who hated it really, really hated it. Meet the Worst Movie Ever Made ran the headline on Andrew OHehirs savage takedown at Salon, and that wasnt some editors hype; in the actual piece, OHehir expands his assessment to the worst movie in the history of the universe, thereby dismissing the possibility that alien life forms in faraway galaxies may possibly have committed an even greater sin against cinema. Other reviews in major publications deemed the film lethally pretentious, a jaw-dropping misfire, and unforgivably phony, talky and dull. (Characters do indeed talky on the phony sometimes.) Audiences were similarly repulsed: The Counselor got a dismal D in Cinemascores survey, which generally skews so positive that you can currently find an A- assigned to the likes of Assassin’s Creed (Metacritic score: 36/100) and Collateral Beauty (Metacritic score: 23/100). Its not a popular title.
Here are a few reasons why many people seem to hate it:
The narrative is ludicrously convoluted.
All of the characters speak primarily in lengthy philosophical monologues.
Its just a catalogue of horrible things happening to people who mostly deserve them.
Cameron Diaz fucks a car.
Well come back to that last one. Lets start at the beginning, with the basic story McCarthy wants to tell. The Counselor is about a drug deal that goes horrifically wrong, mostly because the title character (played by Fassbender; we never learn the guys name), whos never done this before and just wants to make some quick cash, has not the slightest clue what hes doing. Thats essentially all you need to know, as far as making sense of events is concerned. McCarthy lays out some essential detailshow the drugs are transported, and by whom, and whos looking for a way to intercept the shipmentbut only in the service of making it clear that what befalls the counselor is to some degree just very bad luck. What matters is that he was completely unprepared for the possibility that some random misfortune could cost multiple people their lives. Indeed, even the characters, like Brad Pitts Westray, who consider themselves prepared, and keep warning the counselor that hes unprepared, are not themselves really prepared.
[This month, Musings pays homage to Produced and Abandoned: The Best Films You’ve Never Seen, a review anthology from the National Society of Film Critics that championed studio orphans from the ‘70s and ‘80s. In the days before the Internet, young cinephiles like myself relied on reference books and anthologies to lead us to film we might not have discovered otherwise. Released in 1990, Produced and Abandoned was a foundational piece of work, introducing me to such wonders as Cutter’s Way, Lost in America, High Tide, Choose Me, Housekeeping, and Fat City. (You can find the full list of entries here.) Over the next four weeks, Musings will offer its own selection of tarnished gems, in the hope they’ll get a second look. Or, more likely, a first. —Scott Tobias, editor.]
Most people prefer movies to be affirming, in some way. Life-affirming, love-affirming, norm-affirming—just so long as something we believe (or want to believe) gets reinforced, everybody’s happy. Declining to satisfy that desire is step one en route to making an art film, or what publicists who are nervous about the word “art” like to call a specialty release. These, too, cater to viewers’ preconceived notions about the world (good luck finding something that doesn’t), but they target notions that are less commonly held, which makes them less commercially viable. Deriving enjoyment from genuinely despairing or pessimistic movies is a taste that must be acquired, and only a small subset of the population has the time or the inclination. These are the folks who’ll go see a Moonlight, say, or a Manchester By The Sea. They’re game.
It’s possible to alienate these adventurous, open-minded viewers, too, though, by making a movie that’s not just challenging or upsetting, but flat-out nihilistic. A movie that assumes the worst about human nature, with few (if any) mollifying grace notes. A movie that, at least to some extent, glorifies venality and ugliness. “Alienate” is too mild a word for the common reaction, actually. They will be pissed off.
Such was the reception that greeted The Counselor back in 2013. Expectations for the film were sky high: It features a superb cast (Michael Fassbender, Pénélope Cruz, Javier Bardem, Cameron Diaz, and Brad Pitt); was directed by Ridley Scott (a decidedly erratic talent, but still capable of greatness); and, most exciting of all, boasts a screenplay from Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Cormac McCarthy. McCarthy’s books had been adapted several times—most notably by the Coen Brothers, whose version of No Country for Old Men won multiple Oscars—but he’d never before written an original story expressly for the big screen. Had The Counselor been made available intravenously, many would have mainlined it without hesitation.
Cue the adrenaline-shot scene from Pulp Fiction. Not all of the Counselor reviews were negative, by any means, but the critics who hated it really, really hated it. “Meet the Worst Movie Ever Made” ran the headline on Andrew O’Hehir’s savage takedown at Salon, and that wasn’t some editor’s hype; in the actual piece, O’Hehir expands his assessment to “the worst movie in the history of the universe,” thereby dismissing the possibility that alien life forms in faraway galaxies may possibly have committed an even greater sin against cinema. Other reviews in major publications deemed the film “lethally pretentious,” “a jaw-dropping misfire,” and “unforgivably phony, talky and dull.” (Characters do indeed talky on the phony sometimes.) Audiences were similarly repulsed: The Counselor got a dismal D in Cinemascore’s survey, which generally skews so positive that you can currently find an A- assigned to the likes of Assassin’s Creed (Metacritic score: 36/100) and Collateral Beauty (Metacritic score: 23/100). It’s not a popular title.
Here are a few reasons why many people seem to hate it:
The narrative is ludicrously convoluted.
All of the characters speak primarily in lengthy philosophical monologues.
It’s just a catalogue of horrible things happening to people who mostly deserve them.
Cameron Diaz fucks a car.
We’ll come back to that last one. Let’s start at the beginning, with the basic story McCarthy wants to tell. The Counselor is about a drug deal that goes horrifically wrong, mostly because the title character (played by Fassbender; we never learn the guy’s name), who’s never done this before and just wants to make some quick cash, has not the slightest clue what he’s doing. That’s essentially all you need to know, as far as making sense of events is concerned. McCarthy lays out some essential details—how the drugs are transported, and by whom, and who’s looking for a way to intercept the shipment—but only in the service of making it clear that what befalls the counselor is to some degree just very bad luck. What matters is that he was completely unprepared for the possibility that some random misfortune could cost multiple people their lives. Indeed, even the characters, like Brad Pitt’s Westray, who consider themselves prepared, and keep warning the counselor that he’s unprepared, are not themselves really prepared.
[This month, Musings pays homage to Produced and Abandoned: The Best Films Youve Never Seen, a review anthology from the National Society of Film Critics that championed studio orphans from the 70s and 80s. In the days before the Internet, young cinephiles like myself relied on reference books and anthologies to lead us to film we might not have discovered otherwise. Released in 1990, Produced and Abandoned was a foundational piece of work, introducing me to such wonders as Cutters Way, Lost in America, High Tide, Choose Me, Housekeeping, and Fat City. (You can find the full list of entries here.) Over the next four weeks, Musings will offer its own selection of tarnished gems, in the hope theyll get a second look. Or, more likely, a first. Scott Tobias, editor.]
As a woman you learn early and often how beauty is its own currency and how easily it can be turned against you.
Every generation has had otherworldly figures that communicate this truth writ large Lana Turner, Joan Crawford, Elizabeth Taylor, and, of course, Angelina Jolie. In previous generations, actresses learned to make a meal out of the male gaze and its relationship to the contradictory power women can find in using their own beauty as a weapon. This gave us indelible moments like Rita Hayworths striptease in Gilda, Michelle Pfeiffer slinking across the screen in latex as Catwoman in Batman Returns, and pretty much anytime 1950s sex bomb Marilyn Monroe had a camera in front of her. In Sunset Boulevard, when Norma Desmond looks at her past self on-screen with a mix of nostalgia and anger, she isnt just mourning the past of the industry that made her famous, but the power that came with the brand of womanhood she exhibited in her youth. In her third feature as writer-director, By the Sea, Angelina Jolie takes the rarely seen approach of interrogating the art of watching and being watched as a woman through a prickly, even combative female gaze.
At first glance, By the Sea has a simple, even thin plot, with not much to offer. In 1970s Malta, an American couple take a trip to a coastal hotel in hopes of fixing their rotting marriage. Vanessa (Jolie) is a former dancer in a perpetual opiate haze, numbing herself to a past tragedy, while Roland (Brad Pitt) is a formerly successful writer pickling himself with whatever booze is around. Things take a perverse turn when Vanessa discovers a peephole that lets her look into the room of the young, hot, newlyweds next door, La (Mlanie Laurent) and Francois (Melvil Poupaud). For a good portion of the film characters seem remarkably passive they drink, fuck, or lie dazed on balconies.
Upon closer examination, By the Sea proves to be a beguiling mix of existential erotic thriller and tone poeman audacious, challenging film brimming with heady ideas. With profound emotion and visual ingenuity, the film examines how love so often curdles into hate, the art of seeing and being seen, and meta-textually, the currency of movie stars in a cinematic landscape starved of them.
[This month, Musings pays homage to Produced and Abandoned: The Best Films You’ve Never Seen, a review anthology from the National Society of Film Critics that championed studio orphans from the ‘70s and ‘80s. In the days before the Internet, young cinephiles like myself relied on reference books and anthologies to lead us to film we might not have discovered otherwise. Released in 1990, Produced and Abandoned was a foundational piece of work, introducing me to such wonders as Cutter’s Way, Lost in America, High Tide, Choose Me, Housekeeping, and Fat City. (You can find the full list of entries here.) Over the next four weeks, Musings will offer its own selection of tarnished gems, in the hope they’ll get a second look. Or, more likely, a first. —Scott Tobias, editor.]
As a woman you learn early and often how beauty is its own currency and how easily it can be turned against you.
Every generation has had otherworldly figures that communicate this truth writ large— Lana Turner, Joan Crawford, Elizabeth Taylor, and, of course, Angelina Jolie. In previous generations, actresses learned to make a meal out of the male gaze and its relationship to the contradictory power women can find in using their own beauty as a weapon. This gave us indelible moments like Rita Hayworth’s striptease in Gilda, Michelle Pfeiffer slinking across the screen in latex as Catwoman in Batman Returns, and pretty much anytime 1950s sex bomb Marilyn Monroe had a camera in front of her. In Sunset Boulevard, when Norma Desmond looks at her past self on-screen with a mix of nostalgia and anger, she isn’t just mourning the past of the industry that made her famous, but the power that came with the brand of womanhood she exhibited in her youth. In her third feature as writer-director, By the Sea, Angelina Jolie takes the rarely seen approach of interrogating the art of watching and being watched as a woman through a prickly, even combative female gaze.
At first glance, By the Sea has a simple, even thin plot, with not much to offer. In 1970s Malta, an American couple take a trip to a coastal hotel in hopes of fixing their rotting marriage. Vanessa (Jolie) is a former dancer in a perpetual opiate haze, numbing herself to a past tragedy, while Roland (Brad Pitt) is a formerly successful writer pickling himself with whatever booze is around. Things take a perverse turn when Vanessa discovers a peephole that lets her look into the room of the young, hot, newlyweds next door, Léa (Mélanie Laurent) and Francois (Melvil Poupaud). For a good portion of the film characters seem remarkably passive — they drink, fuck, or lie dazed on balconies.
Upon closer examination, By the Sea proves to be a beguiling mix of existential erotic thriller and tone poem—an audacious, challenging film brimming with heady ideas. With profound emotion and visual ingenuity, the film examines how love so often curdles into hate, the art of seeing and being seen, and meta-textually, the currency of movie stars in a cinematic landscape starved of them.
