'Tyrannosaur' and the actor-turned-director debate

The high quality of Paddy Considine’s acting, particularly in Shane Meadow’s early films and films such as Pawel Pawlikowski’s Last Resort, made the prospect of his directorial feature film debut, an exciting and intriguing one. It was a shame then that Considine’s skills as a filmmaker in Tyrannosaur failed to match his skills as an actor.

It is difficult to be openly critical of Tyrannosaur as its subject matter focuses on domestic abuse and alcoholism. These topics are rightly seen as socially important within society and therefore should not simply be regarded and subsequently critiqued for the merits of their entertainment value or lack thereof. However, while it is true that cinema should educate, stimulate thought and debate and pose challenging questions to audiences, films should, at the very least, be plausible or should provide new arguments and responses to sensitive debates and Tyrannosaur fails to do this.

On paper, the film should be a success. The acting, from a small cast, is uniformly excellent. Olivia Colman who plays Christian charity shop worker, Hannah, produces a performance regarded by many critics as revelatory. This is actually a fair assessment of her acting here as her turn as a beaten and humiliated but ultimately positive and kind woman marks a drastic contrast to her previous performances in UK sitcoms, in particular as Sophie in Peep Show.

Eddie Marsan, a veteran of Mike Leigh’s films, plays Hannah’s violent and abusive husband, a cowardly and ruthless man who, seemingly, has no redeeming qualities. Marsan’s performance is convincing and he is a genuinely unsettling screen presence.

Peter Mullan is brilliant in every film he appears in and Tyrannosaur is no exception. Mullan, however, has clearly become typecast and while his performance as Joseph is passionate and convincing, we have seen him play the destitute and destructive Glaswegian alcoholic-type many times before and to equal effect in films such as Ken Loach’s, My Name Is Joe, his self-directed film, Neds (which suffers from the same drawbacks as Tyrannosaur) and now here in Tyrannosaur.

Peter Mullan as 'Joseph'

Mullan’s typecasting is a good place to start when finding exactly why it is that Tyrannosaur fails to work on a general level. Mullan’s Joseph character is, in many ways, a summation of all that is wrong with this film. It all just feels rather tired and at times quite clichéd. Yes, domestic abuse is horrific and depressing and yes, so are alcoholics and deprived midland council estates shot in drab shades of grey but what is Considine actually saying here that hasn’t been said before and in a far more superior way in the films of Mike Leigh and Ken Loach? The answer is not a great deal. While, Tyrannosaur is not a thriller and nor is its purpose to be one, the sense of predictability from one moment to the next leaves one feeling that they are seeing something that presents a noble cause but whose level of depth or originality is sorely lacking.

The lack of subtlety or any real subtext is key in Tyrannosaur’s failings and brings forth a theory that came to mind as the end credits began. Can great actors make great films? The evidence, using Robert De Niro as a prime example and to a lesser extent Peter Mullan as mentioned before, would suggest not. De Niro’s directorial efforts are by no means bad but they lack any depth or substance to make them memorable and were they not directed by such an acting heavyweight, it is questionable whether films such as A Bronx Tale or The Good Shepherd would be reviewed particularly kindly as when looked at as films within their own right, forgetting briefly their director, they appear one dimensional and dull.

From L-R: Paddy Considine,Peter Mullan, Olivia Colman

While Paddy Considine does not possess De Niro’s fine body of acting work (he may well in years to come) it would be fair to say that his acting, like De Niro’s, shines above many of his peers- it is honest, brutal and totally convincing. Like Robert De Niro, Paddy Considine’s debut feature as a director contains many of the flaws that mar De Niro’s directorial work. Along with A Bronx Tale and The Good Shepherd, Tyrannosaur deals with issues most would regard as important and worthy of serious discussion but does so, like the other films mentioned, in an uninspiring way. This all leads to this assessment that was first attributed to De Niro but can similarly be used in Considine’s case: Considine’s acting performances are so well regarded because he is able to utterly immerse himself into the roles he plays to the point where it appears that what we are seeing is not a fabricated performance but an extension of the actor’s psyche on the screen within the character he is playing. The downside of this skill appears to be, on the part of both men, that their personalities outside of the characters they portray, are disappointingly empty. It is as though De Niro needs Jake La Motta or Travis Bickle to show any hint of originality or creativity just like Considine needs Morrell from A Room For Romeo Brass or Richard from Dead Man’s Shoes to showcase his best work or any spark of personality. Both of these men are empty vessels waiting to be filled by the characters they become. When Robert De Niro and Paddy Considine showcase their true personalities via their directorial work, their inner emptiness is highlighted by the mundane and flat realisation of their artistic visions.

The Piano Teacher (2001)

Michael Haneke’s The Piano Teacher is a film so rich that it is difficult to know where to start when trying to analyse it and is almost impossible to do so in one article without its length becoming ridiculous. Conversely, trying to briefly cover the multitude of discussions that arise from it would surely result in not doing the film justice. With this in mind, it makes more sense to look at a key aspect of the film, in this case the idea of its central character, Erika, and her obsession with the notion of control and to focus on that.

Erika Kohut (Isabelle Huppert) is driven by the idea of control whether as the controller or the controlled. At times the lines between her outward and inner desires become dangerously twisted. Does she know what she wants and is what she thinks she wants merely a mask to cover her true desires? It can be hard to tell. The ambiguities between Erika’s conscious and subconscious desires are stark at times. Certainly from the outside Erika feels the need to exercise control and this notion of control is dictated by two elements in this film- sex and music.

When the films begins Erika is shown as a mistreated and repressed woman whose tyrannical mother has failed to provide her with a healthy and normal upbringing and has instead infantilised her, punished her and made her feel as though sexual desires are filthy and animalistic urges that have no relation to love. It is perhaps no surprise then that Erika’s desire for sex is intrinsically tied in with violence and pain and the forbidden. Ericka visits porn booths where she smells the discarded tissues, spies on couples having sex in cars and even mutilates her own vagina in a seeming act of pleasure. However, Erika’s vice-filled sexual landscape and her desires are not simply dictated by her relationship with her mother. Erika herself has a strong part to play in the direction and outcome of her thoughts and actions. Sexually, Erika seeks control at every opportunity. The sexual voyeurism which acts as Erika’s sex life in the early part of the film all points toward a desire to be in control as her actions all ultimately revolve around masturbation and self-pleasure as the idea of sharing her sexual experiences with anybody would be to surrender the controlling barrier she has constructed around herself.

It is suggested, through Erika’s age, actions and her unhealthy relationship with her mother, that her experiences of functional and conventional sexual relationships are minimal. When she is given the chance to break away from this dysfunction by entering into a relationship with young pianist, Walter (Benoit Magimel), Erika seeks to impose the same levels of control she exercises through her acts of sexual voyeurism into a relationship with another person. Erika tells Walter to read aloud a letter she has written for him detailing her desire to be punched, kicked and forced into sex. Even when expressing a desire to be controlled, Erika is exercising control.

Erika and Walter's first sexual encounter

Erika displays an outward desire to be in control and sees this as her means to achieving fulfillment. It is, however, when she surrenders this control that she comes closest to attaining any real happiness. This idea is exemplified in Erika’s job. She does not want students that can simply recite Schubert. She wants a resignation to the music; a total escape into it- a total surrender of control. Erika is truly at peace with herself when she also surrenders herself to Schubert and it is this resignation to her love of the music that Walter initially finds attractive as he knows that, perhaps subconsciously, such dedication to her craft and her ability to submerge herself into what she loves must extend itself into her intimate relationships with people. Walter is not deterred by the cold and distant outward persona displayed by Erika as he senses that such behaviour is a front

By telling Walter of her deviant sexual desires to be beaten, raped and humiliated, Erika feels she is gaining control and opening a door to satisfying what she thinks are her fantasies. However, Erika is understandably unhappy and frightened when she is beaten and raped by Walter and not just because such experiences are painful and unpleasant but because the loss of control she thought she wanted was an artifice; a false construct of the loss of control. Erika may have found happiness if her relationship with Walter had been based on a spontaneous loss of control derived from the power love rather than a falsely created and pre-meditated loss of control as this would have truly reflected her inner desires.

Erika's final defiant act

When Erika finally stabs herself, we see her final and desperate attempt to gain control. This incredibly distressing moment is deliberately ambiguous as it is unclear whether the self-inflicted wound is fatal. The knife appears to have entered an area between Erika’s chest and shoulder. As the blood emerges on her white blouse, it is clear the stabbing has caused pain and harm but has not necessarily killed her. Haneke seems to be suggesting that Erika can gain a small satisfaction from this act of masochism but, as she has found from her experiences with Walter, to totally act out her desire for control is not what she wants and can provide just a small instance of self-gratifying pleasure however fleeting it may be. It also suggests, somewhat bleakly, that Erika is unable to learn from her experiences and that allowing herself to be happy in a natural and non-violent or deviant way is something she is not willing to allow for herself. It is a disturbing and defiant final act in an equally disturbing and wholly unforgettable film containing one of the truly great screen performances from Isabelle Huppert.

The Third Universe: Where All Your TV Dreams Could Come True

Bradley Whitford as Josh Lymon

American TV shows seem to have exploded into some sort of renaissance over the last few years.  What broke the levee?  Was it The Sopranos?  The Wire? Was it a subtle rise in quality starting way back with Homicide: Life On The Street? Or was it the advent of the DVD box set?  I couldn't tell you, all I know is there's a lot of good stuff around, with good acting and high production value.  But perched in the sidecar of this particular reawakening, is the revival of older serials, many of them revisited on DVD box sets, others found in charity shops on VHS, or downloaded from the web.  In the last few years I have watched season upon season of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, The West Wing, ER, Seinfield, Miami Vice, The Wire, The X Files, NYPD Blue and Twin Peaks to name but a few; and after a while a funny thing began to happen: faces began to reappear.  Bradley Whitford, playing the boyish, fast talking, competitive and loveable Josh Lyman in The West Wing turns up in The X Files episode 'Firewalker' as Daniel Trepkos, a scientist one sandwich short of a picnic, slowly picking off the rest of his co-workers on a remote mountain research lab in Oregon.  He again turns up in the immensely great, if not slightly reactionary, cop drama NYPD Blue, this time as the despicable, lascivious reporter Norman Gardner.

Bradley Whitford as Daniel Trepkos

Actually this is an entirely predictable phenomenon, it makes complete sense that jobbing actors would take as many roles as they could in high profile dramas, or that such actors would eventually land plum, starring roles in other programs.  But it still makes for an oddly enjoyable sensation when the gremlin-like Prinicipal Snyder (Armin Shimerman) from Buffy The Vampire Slayer walks into Jerry Seinfield's apartment as Kramer's buddy Stan the Caddy.  Or when Laura Palmer's gaunt, disturbed looking mother from Twin Peaks (Grace Zabriskie) turns up in Seinfield playing the wife of another Twin Peaks alumni Warren Frost (Dr Hayward, father of Laura Palmer's best friend Donna Hayward, who is played by Moira Kelly in the Twin Peaks movie Fire Walk With Me and who also appears in The West Wing as Mandy Hampton, Joshy Lyman's ex-girlfriend).  When Grace Zabriskie then has a walk on part in The West Wing as CJ Cregg's boss who subsequently fires her, it seems to me that some sort of circle has been completed.  Although it hasn't, because the links I just described don't form one.  I'm sure I could find some sort of circle incorporating various TV dramas, we could all play Six Degrees of Separation forever and get a little kick out of it blah blah blah.  But I'm not interested in that, I'm interested in chaos.

Grace Zabriskie & Warren Frost, both of Twin Peaks fame, appearing in Seinfield

It's about random chaos.  A crazy whirl of faces and names and characters zinging away from each other and hurtling back, splurging and congealing together in our heads.  The hilarious and scary Mayor Wilkins (Harry Groener) from Season 3 of Buffy The Vampire Slayer turns up in a couple of The West Wing episodes as the Secretary of Agriculture, a rather sweet and humble man from what we see of him.  The sarcastic secretary in ER, Jerry (Abraham Benrubi) pops up in The X Files as the naive  and hapless Big Mike Raskin, who is dispatched by a Tibetan Tulpa, a manifestation of the thoughts of Gene Gogolak, the head of a gated community who uses this evil 'thought form' to ensure that residents abide by his strict rules of neighbourhood taste.  Fabulous.

Grace Zabriskie as Sarah Palmer

This is a phenomena very much particular to TV rather than film, because a serial allows an actor to have a fairly decent supporting role for one episode and then appear in no subsequent programs in the series.  What all this amounts to is the birth of a new world, a Third Universe.  When watching a program, there are two universes at play: the viewers world, which is our world, the real world, and the one playing out on the screen in front of us.  But after assimilating so many American TV programs over the last few years, a Third Universe has arisen in my head, sparked off whenever I see a face I recognise where I haven't seen them before, and it begins to simultaneously play out as the show progresses.  By noticing these actors who have leaped across the boundaries of fictional worlds for the sake of financial rewards, it immediately places them in my universe, and I realise that they are not this character, this ruthless lawyer, witty civil servant, stressed clinician, maverick FBI agent or gruesome half-human half parasitic gooey flesh eating monster (take your pick), but also an actor seeking work to pay the bills.

Armin Shimerman as Prinicipal Synder

And then I really start to have fun, as my mind begins to spin the fabric of the Third Universe.  The uncharted hinterland between reality and fiction; a swampish landscape of half-characters and split personalities, where the plethora of people, real and fictional, converge into one huge, chaotic, awesome, post-modern, self referential, medical-political-cop-teen-horror-thriller-sci-fi-sitcom-drama.  Where Bradley Whitford/Josh Lymon/Dr. Daniel Trepkos delivers witty put-downs to Republican opponents while trying to do the dirty on a hardworking cop at the same time as using his laser-sighted rifle to pick off a scientist.  All on a volcanic mountainside.  While on the phone to his agent.  Where Grace Zabriskie/Isabel/Mrs Ross/Sarah Palmer knocks back another sherry and grimaces at George Costanza while firing CJ Cregg and screaming in fear at the long haired, denim clad terror lurking at the bottom of her bed while accepting yet another role from David Lynch as a 'weird, freaky' lady.  The possibilites are endless, and if I had the money, the power, the sheer wealth of Hollywood, HBO and any other big, fuck off American network at my disposal, I would induuuuuuulge.  Think of what I could do!  If could make these actors a financial offer they couldn't refuse, then I could piece together some sort of post-modern medley of TV drama merged with a Samuel Beckett-esque aesthetic, all into one beautiful Brechtian extravaganza!  It could be a comment on the domination of US culture on the world!  It could be an expose on the hardships of being a jobbing TV actor!  It could be a fan's wet dream!  An at times glorious, at others most probably nightmarish, journey of puzzled actors, flitting between roles in confusion!  Of TV sets that transform as the camera moves; government offices morphing into graveyards populated by vampires and from there into a clean Manhattan apartment with SO much cereal (why does he have that much cereal?), where a gurney bursts through the front door, a prone body lying on top of it, while doctors and nurses propel it forward while shouting phrases that we don't understand but nonetheless make us feel tremendously excited!  The possibilities are as endless as Fox Mulder's supply of sunflower seeds.

Armin Shimerman as Stan the Caddy

But alas this will never happen.  So I must cherish this vision in my head, where it will stay, and cherish the reality of a particularly special moment, when this phenomenon I've been pondering these last few paragraphs, crossed the water to plain old Blighty.  Watching an old VHS copy of Absolutely Fabulous that I bought from a charity shop last year, who should walk into Edina Monsson's (Jennifer Saunders) living room but none other than Stringer Bell!  Stringer Bell (Idris Elba), resident of Baltimore, Maryland in HBO's The Wire; ruthless gangster, friend to the corrupt politician, a man who strives to take his calm, sober greed to ever higher levels of business, power and influence; a man so committed to protecting himself and the drug running business he oversees that he had his bosses and best friend's nephew murdered.  A man, in the end, who flies too close to the sun.  Surely one of the most intriguing characters in The Wire, nay, television history!  And here he is in Absolutely Fabulous playing a gigolo called Hilton, who accidentally mistakes one of Edina's oestrogen pills for Ecstasy, leading to ridiculous consequences, if my memory serves me correct.  You may be hoping for a clip here, but I couldn't find one, and in a way this only increases the tantalising nature of this phenomenon.  This wondrous walkway, that bridges the gap from classic 1990s BBC comedy, to high budget, social realist US drama, this is where the magic lies, this bridge we can only ever see the ends of, but never the middle, that hinterland where our minds fill in the gaps, that space between where anything is possible.  Imagine the fun we could have...

The nightmarish realities of snow & ice

I, some may say predictably, do not share the sense of unbridled joy and optimism that greets the annual London snowfall. Barring a drunken snowball fight on Saturday night that gradually became an exercise in increasingly intimidating anti-social behaviour as first buses and then unsuspecting members of the public came under attack, I found the whole thing immensely tedious.

For the last three or four years, the annual week of snow has been greeted by a variety of predictable responses. People are dazzled by snow, it’s a ‘winter wonderland’ they cry. Why? Its just frozen rain and we hate rain and cold in this country so why would we like snow?

There are armies of deluded amateur photographers clogging up our parks as they all take the same pictures that will inevitably be placed on the BBC or the broadsheet’s websites; a robin in the snow, some snowy trees, people crashing on sleds in snow, people building snowmen, images of snow itself. It’s all just a tad dull.

When I looked out of my window this morning and saw the slush, ice and dirt that had replaced the fresh snow and then the glum expressions on the faces of commuters as they navigated their way to the tube station in still hazardous conditions, it occurred to me that while I may have initially been derided for my negativity toward snow, all the people that were enjoying it so much then looked pretty fed up with it now. Alternatively, of course, this could have been due to the fact that it was Monday morning but I am convinced that the almost post-nuclear appearance of two days old snowfall and the detritus that remains is far more depressing than a Monday morning.

Perhaps the thing that disturbs me the most is the way in which snow, like deep dry sand, makes fast and sharp movement virtually impossible. My (thankfully infrequent) nightmares often involve being chased by a pack of vicious thugs, dogs or a variety of snarling monsters. The faster I try and run, the slower my progress becomes and my enemies gain on me where their infliction of brutal violence is foiled only by my waking up. I may attempt to punch or strike my assailants with sharp or blunt objects but my arm will move slowly through the air as though I were attempting my retaliation underwater. Wes Craven perfectly captured the sense of one’s terrified progress being prevented by unstable underfoot terrain in his original Nightmare on Elm Street film. As Nancy tries to escape the clutches of Freddy she finds the stairs in her house have turned into a greenish goo that sucks on her feet and ankles and makes her an easy target for ole’ Pizza Face.

Some might say that the power of snow to make us all cautious is a good thing as it unites us all in walking in the same undignified shuffle. We may endeavour to navigate the streets without adhering to this unifying gait but invariably slip and land with sickening force on our elbows and kneecaps, brushing grey slush off our clothes, giving a chuckle of carefree abandon as though what has just occurred is a fun activity and limp away from the scene of our accident crying tears of pain. Some may say this but not me. For me, snow is the realisation of my fears. I always gained some comfort knowing that I could rely on solid ground and my vaguely agile frame to run away from nutcases, gangs of slush-ball throwing youths or the appearance on earth of any horror movie monsters or villains. Now, as long as the snow, slush and then ice, lies on our streets, I have to deal with the fact that I can no longer rely on good old-fashioned speed. I will be stranded on an urban ice rink at the mercy of the malevolent and insane moving incredibly slowly or slipping and being pounced on if I try to move quickly.

How Do You Like Your Crime Thrillers? Rare and Oozing With Love: Romanticism in Michael Mann's Manhunter

Let us talk of Michael Mann films in colours: If Heat (1995) is a bluey grey, all guns ties and smart jackets, and Collateral (2004) is the slick silvery grey of hitman Vincent's suit and hair cast against the yellow, smog-infused light of the Los Angeles night, then Manhunter (1986) is purple and green, deep black and bright azure, as if the psychology of the characters has been smeared across the screen. Pick the odd one out (it's Manhunter genius).  It's one of Mann's earlier endeavours and for me it's always stood somewhat apart from his other crime thrillers, nay, all crime thrillers.  Romance, the realm of bittersweet embraces and love that transcends time, rarely collides with hard-bitten cops and the methodology of twisted murderers, or at least not in this way; but Manhunter has it in spades.  Consider this scene: we see the reflection of a man's chest, beige skin tones intermingle with the night, his pensive expression suggesting his mind is elsewhere.  He is joined by his wife at the window:

Woman:  Remember the first time we met?

Man: Yeah

Woman: We were together in that room, even though I'd never seen you before we were sitting there speaking.  And something flickered across your face like a shadow and I said "What's that?"  Remember what you said?

The man pauses.

Man: I said "This is too good to relive."

Woman: Time is luck Will.  I know the value of every single day.

The dialogue is oblique, the words are pared down: 'in that room', the word 'speaking' instead of 'talking', as if a spell were being incanted into the air.  The recollection lacks context, it evokes a timeless intimacy between two characters, their voices spoken over a bed of swelling synthesizer which creates a dark churning melancholy.  Such a scene is far from typical for a grisly crime thriller.

Romance in it's broadest terms refers to a feeling of mystery and remoteness from everyday life, often associated with love.  In FBI criminal profiler Will Graham's (William Peterson) search for Francis 'The Tooth Fairy' Dollarhyde (Tom Noonan), a serial killer who bloodily murders families in their homes (it is a romantic film, honest), there oozes a thick, almost alien, ardour.  'Your primary sensory intake, that makes your dreams live, is seeing,' Graham says, and the entire film clutches this concept close to its heart.  Bedroom's bathed in blue light, expressionistic production design swathed in purple and green; the film's sumptuous visuals echo the heightened visual sensations that Dollarhyde's psychopathic urges feed off; this is no austere urban story.

The film is able to explicate those dramatic passions that are normally too cringe-worthy to watch in most movies; Manhunter's plot is cast in a visual and aural representation of it's sensory themes, the camera work and soundtrack achieve a sort of hyper-drama, a realisation of the character's motives in the very fabric of what we see and hear.  Graham, brilliantly downbeat in a sullen and disturbed performance by Peterson, voices thoughts aloud, directed at the killer: 'You took off your gloves and touched her didn't you?  Didn't you you son of a bitch!  But when your gloves were off, did you open their eyes?'  Having Graham speak out loud, angry and excited, is a method so outright, it almost catches the viewer off guard when first watching it, we're unsure how to take it: 'Is this crass?  Trite?  My gut tells me no...'  It works, because it is not exposition, it illustrates Graham's working method, as well as his mental state, in dynamic fashion.  Later Graham dreams of his wife, Molly, blonde hair and white beach clothes, as she walks down a pier towards him.  Framed close up, Graham looks lustfully at her from his yacht, high wailing synths soar on the soundtrack, the aural equivalent of the soft focus seagulls taking off into the blue sky behind him.  In many other films this would be an outrageously saccharine sequence, but here the shots take on a hallucinatory nature.

Brian Cox, who stars in the film as Hannibal Lektor, a psychopath that Graham nearly lost his mind apprehending, so deeply entrenched was he in Lektor's thought processess, mentions in the DVD extras that 'Lektor infects Will', Graham is a man unwell, talking to his reflection, speaking word to the killer (I'm gonna find you goddammit!'), hunting what is inside himself; Molly (Kim Griest) says 'Will, you're gonna make yourself sick.'  She's not wrong!  Throughout the film Will teeters on the edge, he steals furtive glances at photos of the murdered families during meetings, retraces the killers footsteps as if he is the killer.  He aludes to The Tooth Fairy as 'our boy', suggesting a certain empathy and fondness for this most brutal and deranged of murderers, and Graham's yearning for his wife chimes with the killer's own yearning for human and sexual contact.  This parity between hunter and hunted is wherein lies the danger zone.  The hounded look on Graham's face makes you wonder who is the hunter and who is the hunted?  Both cop and killer are looking for love and acceptance: Will needs his wife and child to keep him from the brink of the abyss, and the imposing and sepulchral Dollarhyde seems almost pacified when Reba (Joan Allen) sleeps with him, the interjection of a hopeful, adult relationship into his life calming his bloodthirsty needs.  The film beautifully draws these comparisons throughout: using the same POV shot for both characters when they climb the same set of stairs, Will recognizing how Dollarhyde can be caught when he realises they've both been watching the same home movies of the victims.


Because it was made in 1986 and uses some stylistic tropes of that era, I feel Manhunter has to fight against being dismissed as a corny movie, made harder by it's daring, romantic approach to it's subject.  Manhunter is not banal; just because it is a 1980's film does not mean it is automatically trite.  Yes Graham talks to himself, yes his wife declares in a particularly impassioned way: 'I'm here.  I'll be here whenever you come home.  Or I'll meet you, anywhere.  Anytime.  That's what I called to say', but these moments come off as dramatic and romantic rather than shallow or crass.  The use of an affirming, mesmerizing pop song (The Prime Movers 'Strong As I Am') as Dollarhyde rips up his vans dashboard in anguish, the purple light which bathes Reba and her male friend as he jealously observes them (purple seems to symbolise something to do with insanity in this film, as it also inexplicably rises out of Hannibal Lektor's sink) and the psycho-sexual extravagance of the scene where Dollarhyde takes Reba to the zoo to caress a huge, tranquilised tiger testify to this romance, something remote from everyday life.  As Reba's hand is guided up and down the beautiful, inert creature by it's keeper, Dollarhyde stands against the wall and slowly reclines his head, closes his eyes and opens his mouth, aroused by the sense of power he now attains.  The whole sequence resounds with an unfulfilled yearning, a romantic, erotic, visual feast.  I just haven't seen this in other crime thrillers.  To describe this film in single adjectives 'passionate' 'melancholy' and 'bewitching' will always precede 'tense' or 'thrilling'.


Although later Mann films such as Heat or Collateral set the bar for serious crime/cop thrillers in the 90's and 2000's, neither has the sumptuous intensity that drips from every frame of Manhunter; you feel subsumed in it as Will Graham stares at his reflection, calling out to the killer, as shards of purple and green fracture and illuminate each location, infusing everything with a strange, throbbing beauty.

The Descendants & men in crisis the films of Alexander Payne

Alexander Payne’s latest film takes audiences to a beautifully shot Hawaii and is a bittersweet tale that manages to balance humour and drama. As with Payne’s previous films, ‘About Schmidt’ and ‘Sideways’, ‘The Descendants’ charts the journey of a down-at-heel male character. In the case of this film, George Clooney plays Matt King, a cuckolded husband and father of two girls. Matt and his wife have drifted apart and he feels unable to take care of and relate to his daughters. When Matt’s wife is involved in an accident and suffers a terminal injury, he becomes the sole carer of his daughters. He also discovers his wife had been unfaithful with a Hawaii real estate agent and decides to journey with his daughters to a neighbouring island to confront his wife’s lover and tell him of her condition. Added to this and hence the film’s title, Matt is the sole trustee of a huge expanse of Hawaiian land handed to him from his ancestors and the film also charts the decision Matt must make between leaving the land in its current unspoilt state or selling it to developers- a sale which would add to his already considerable wealth and also that of his extended family.

Having seen Alexander Payne’s most recent and well-known films, The Descendants follows in much the same vain as those before it. Much of this film’s humour is generated from the fallibility and vulnerability of its central male lead. Like Warren Schmidt (Jack Nicholson) in About Schmidt and Miles Raymond (Paul Giamatti) in Sideways, Matt King lacks confidence due to the hurt he has suffered from those closest to him and also the stubbornness and inflexibility that dominates his behaviour.

Payne’s films begin as the central male characters are nearing some kind of emotional breaking point. In About Schmidt, Warren’s wife has died and his relationship with his only child is distant while in Sideways, Miles’s wife has left him and his desire to be a writer is tempered by his lack of self-belief and inability to recover when rejected by publishers. The circumstances of both men coupled with their fragile mental states actually create a plethora of funny moments when these fragilities are tested such as Warren comically attacking the man his wife slept with and Miles pouring a wine tasting spit-bucket into his mouth, onto his clothes and eventually over his head as his exasperation reaches breaking point.

Payne’s men are depressed without their situations being hopeless. His recent films chart men who have homes and security but whose depression arises from their sense of dissatisfaction- existential angst perhaps. It says a lot for the skill of the filmmaker that he is able to generate audience sympathy and emotional investment from characters whose outward situations seem so comfortable and in the case of Matt King in The Descendants, so wealthy. Matt King, however, is frugal. A beautifully observed moment shows Matt in his very basic office eating a bleak looking packed lunch while his voiceover tells the audience of the kind of wealth he has and what he has inherited. He says he follows the motto of ‘giving his daughters enough money to do something but not enough to do nothing.’ This is all very true and noble but Matt’s restraint and self-imposed frugality seem to be hindering his sense of self satisfaction and adding to the sense of caution that is the cause for his unhappiness. Matt’s restraint with money inevitably leads to restraint in other aspects of his life and ultimately is the cause of his problems. Jokes are made throughout the film’s first act that if he’d ‘spiced things up’ in the bedroom or bought the things his wife wanted then their relationship would not have become so distant and perhaps she would not have been unfaithful or even had her accident. Matt King, like other Payne leads, is forced to face up to the worst aspects of his character and admit he needs to change the principles he has adopted in order to get close to those he loves to reach some kind of inner peace.

The Descendants, like Payne’s previous two films, is also a road movie, a journey of reflection and self-discovery for the male leads. About Schmidt follows Warren Schmidt as he travels across America in a Winnebago and Sideways follows Miles Raymond in his red Saab as he travels through California’s wine country. In the traditional road movie narrative tropes, these men are moving and going on a journey both physically and emotionally. The landscape is acting as a backdrop for self-reflection, a place that can be taken in and looked at as the thoughts that have brought these people here are churned over so they may come to terms with their existence and reach fulfillment. The Descendants is no different. As the film progresses, the shots of nature become more frequent and more static as the audience are given the same time to reflect as Matt King is. Matt is moving across Hawaii as he is on a journey and the longer the shots of nature become, the more their beauty can be taken in and the more Matt can reach his inner peace as he understands better what is around him and consequently more about himself.