Alex de Campi: Gojira!

***

WHO

FILM & TV

COMICS & BOOKS

22.5.06 Cannesblog Days 5 & 6: Back in the New Prairie Groove

No Quote of the Day today. Nobody said anything particularly scandalous.

Saturday night I went out by myself, got a bottle of wine and a pack of cigarettes and sat at a cafe, working on the opening pages and initial structure of NIL. It felt so good to actually be creating. I haven't written in ages. And I think NIL is going to work. It all unfolded like a peony, delicate and complex... but of course novels are tricky beasts, and they have a tendency to sit down like petulant children and refuse to take a step further when you are about 2/3 done the journey. No promises. I may never finish the book, but at least I have made a start.

Then I had a decent meal (I haven't really been eating), got some sleep, and listened to a lot of Operation Ivy at top volume on the walk into the centre of Cannes on Sunday morning. There's not much that food, sleep and loud ska-punk can't solve.

On Sunday morning, my faith in the industry was also renewed by the magic of damn good cinema. In brief: Robert Altman! I forgive you, even for Resurrection Blues, almost. A Prairie Home Companion was amazing, easily his best work in years. And the cinematography...Great camerawork for me is like great sex. Nothing makes me happier. All I have to say is, watch for the shot with the cigarette-case lid. Of course, I listened to the actual Prairie Home Companion radio show as a kid. My family know the genius of Garrison Keillor of old. And two hours of bluegrass and gospel music took me back home in so many ways. You see, I live in England, but I am not afflicted with that rather cringe-making anglomania which causes some Americans to flock to London. I'm here by historical accident and subsequent laziness. I love my country. I think its government are a bunch of idiots, but I love my country. And Prairie Home Companion was the sort of film that shows why I love America.

Red Road is sick and twisted and I adored it, but then I'm a sucker for very psychologically bent films. Its closest comparable is Thomas Vincent's Je Suis Un Assassin (one of my favourite films of recent years), although Red Road's camerawork has none of the supreme style of Vincent. Had the odd Cannes moment of running into the entire cast and director on the terrace of the Grand Hotel directly after seeing the film at a market screening. Do you know how much it messes with my head to have to unexpectedly confront the realities of a fiction while I am still processing the fiction?

A Guide To Recognising Your Saints isn't perfect, but the acting performances by nearly the entire cast, but especially Robert Downey Jr and Shia LeBoeuf (who I have mostly now forgiven for Constantine) were top. See it. They also blasted Ace Frehly's "Back in the New York Groove" over the credits, and let me just say, CHOON. That song has almost a Pavlovian ability to make me cheerful. Princess is mental and like a Park Chan Wook anime by Danish people about porn. See it too.

Last, the duff apple in the bunch: Southland Tales, the second film from Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly (who is now dead to me). Oh dear heavens. It's bad, gentle stranger. Showgirls bad. Battlefield Earth bad. Too long, horribly written, and with just the worst choice of actors. It was so bad I had to drink half a bottle of Lagavulin to erase its memory.

At an Icelandic film lunch, had a marvellous talk with the head of programming for the New Cinema Festival in Montreal. We (and filmmaker Christopher Thomas) nerded out big time about film theory, Hitchcock and Lacan, and I was taken to task for never having read Baudrillard's Seduction. Hey, I'm self-taught. There are big gaps in my knowledge. And I'm stone cold broke. But I'm buying Seduction as soon as I can.

More tomorrow. I had something important to tell you, but I'm too hung over to remember what it was.

( 7:40 AM )

1 Comments:

This is so cool reading about "Guide to Recognzing Your Saints". I love that song you mentioned. Can you recall any other songs from the movie? I am really looking forward to seeing this one! thanx

By Anonymous, at 12:51 PM