Review: Crossfire Hurricane

(Brett Morgen, 2012)
(Originally posted at Take One)

Marking the 50^th anniversary of the formation of The Rolling Stones, Brett Morgen’s illuminating documentary Crossfire Hurricane both commemorates and studies the extraordinary legacy enjoyed by one of the world’s most iconic rock bands. Compiling a wealth of painstakingly researched scraps of rare and often unseen archive materials, ranging from newsreels, personally filmed backstage videos and a host of live performance footage, Morgen – whose previous documentaries include Chicago 10 and The Kid Stays in the Picture– has sculpted a lovingly rendered tribute to such an astonishing milestone of British rock music, taking a standard approach to the genre and peppering it with insight and evocation, even if it fails to be totally comprehensive.

This may not be entirely Morgen’s fault, however, as The Rolling Stones have padded out their remarkable fifty-year tenure with an illustrious and eventful career marked by an exhaustive, long-standing and unsurpassed dedication to the music they’ve so profitably released. Honed and meticulously edited together, Morgen has created a timely and inspiring distillation of the band’s highs and lows which, thanks to the Stones’ help in the production of the documentary, raises a congratulatory glass and a dutiful slap on the back. That isn’t to say the film is one-sided and biased towards depicting the band in a completely positive light; quite the contrary in fact, as the film makes many pit stops in order to explore the low points in their career, which range from the tragic, premature death of original band member Brian Jones, the rising temptations of rock ’n’ roll – especially Keith Richards’ frequent run-ins with the police for drug abuse – and their unjust brandishing as anti-establishment rabble-rousers.

It is perhaps here that Crossfire Hurricane finds its most interesting groove. Charged with inspiring a counter-cultural movement in both England and, subsequently, wherever their infectious success took them, the Stones were lambasted by a certain percentage of the public who saw them as nothing more than catalysts for social and civil unrest, especially with their dizzyingly lively concert performances, and of course the disastrous events at their self-organised free festival on the Altamont Speedway, itself an event scrutinised in the Maysles brother’s 1970 documentary Gimme Shelter. Sparking disorder and casual mayhem in their wake, the band invited a level of mass hysteria perhaps only shared by The Beatles, whose rise to success began at a similar time.

Yet, with their shaggy hair and unobvious looks, The Stones were carelessly allotted into the unwarranted position as the bad guys in conjunction with The Beatles’ white knights, whose sunny music and sleek attire contrasted with Mick Jagger, Keith Richard and Charlie Watts et al’s non-conformity, unkempt haircuts and garishly diverse fashion sense. An excellent juxtaposition of the band’s rebellious attitude with British culture comes in the form of an expertly pieced together montage of their activities and the fans they so enthralled, cut together with a number of advertisements that outline the supposed ideals of domesticity and the nuclear family.

Never letting their ostracism from certain distinguished figures get in the way of consistently producing record after record, The Rolling Stones only intermittently became prey to the lure of their profession, letting drugs, sex and booze cloud their better judgements. The best thing about Morgen’s film – and surely a reason why they appear to have commissioned it so wholeheartedly – is that it really does paint them as intelligent and very well educated men who know exactly what they want and how to amass their talents to get it. The spine of the film is a series of interviews with the current band members set in the present who Morgen was not, for whatever reason, allowed to film, only to record. This produces a series of unadulterated sequences where the blackness of the screen gives the audience a break from the gloriously flashy havoc and allows us to fully comprehend and listen to the pains, the joy and the utter fulfilment expressed in their voices.

Although Morgen’s film serves only to commemorate The Rolling Stones and their dextrous career, rarely conveying anything particularly new about the band as it inescapably sketches over large portions of the band’s foundations, Crossfire Hurricane is a reflection and celebration of their justified success. Just like the lyrics the film borrows its title from, they were born into a hurricane of incongruity and fervent popularity. Yet as the finale (and a recently announced comeback tour) suggests, this band fully deserves whatever merit one throws at them, as does Morgen, whose film is a gas.

Review: Seven Psychopaths

(Martin McDonagh, 2012)

The long-awaited second feature from Martin McDonagh, whose award-winning 2008 debut In Bruges was met with, and has subsequently enjoyed, a deserved popularity, Seven Psychopaths sees the Irish writer and director returning to the big screen with an impressively cast revenge thriller that makes the most of an excellent screenplay muddied by a clunky, self-congratulatory story of angst and abduction in the city of angels.

Colin Farrell – reteaming with McDonagh – plays Marty, a Hollywood screenwriter and sometimes alcoholic struggling to surpass the frustrations of his current bout of writers block and come up with a story based around the title of his upcoming script, the eponymous Seven Psychopaths. In his bid to gain inspiration from LA’s noted ‘psychopath’s’, Marty inadvertently becomes embroiled in the city’s underworld when his unrestrained and possibly mentally unhinged best friend Billy (Sam Rockwell, apparently given carte blanche to be as madcap as possible) kidnaps local gang boss Charlie’s (Woody Harrelson) beloved shih tzu.

Having already established a lucrative business of kidnapping dogs and subsequently returning them in favour of healthy reward sums, Billy, alongside partner Hans (Christopher Walken) purposefully leads Marty into dangerous territories in order to ‘help’ research his friend’s screenplay, which the increasingly bloody events provide ample material for. As the bodies start piling up and Charlie’s desperation for the safe return of his pooch becomes evermore tortuous, Billy, Marty and Hans retreat to the desert while they carve out a plan to save their own skins.

Sending up the Hollywood production system, albeit with a darkly comic underscoring, McDonagh’s Seven Psychopaths is a surreal and at times very funny drama that eschews any sense of realism in favour of an over the top and self-reflexive meta-narrative which revels in its passion for storytelling. This is a worthy follow-up feature for McDonagh, and it’s a testament to how the successful ripples of In Bruges have allowed him to pick and choose a very fine array of stars, from Harrelson’s superb Charlie (whose crotchety exterior quivers away at the prospect of his missing pet) to Walken, who delivers the film’s much needed beating heart as a man defined by his loyalty to both his friends and his ill wife. Similarly, despite teetering on the edge of over the top caricature, Rockwell delivers an excellent performance of zany exuberance, ensuring that his Billy is both an engaging anti-hero and, as the plot drags on, a chaotic magnet for violence and moral unrest.

For all of McDonagh’s deft ability at ringing comedy from even the most gory sequences, whilst retaining a zippy, fast-moving atmosphere as the film ducks in and out of the overarching plot whilst delineating who the titular seven figures are and why they are deemed to be psycopaths – an element that leads to a predictable third act reveal – what brings his sophomore effort down is his own self-awareness. As clever as the initial idea of having his protagonist (named Marty) be a screenwriter toiling away at a similarly titled screenplay – which could explain McDonagh’s four year absence – it quickly ebbs away and becomes inundated by a twisty story whose bloated convolutions work against its originally in-jokey tenor. As a result, no matter how much irony is batted around in a slick play on mainstream American cinema and various genre conventions, Seven Psychopaths descends into an aimless excursion in cheap thrills, goaded by its own deluded sense of satisfaction.

Review: It Was the Son

(Daniele Ciprì, 2012)

Based on a novel by Roberto Alaimo, Daniele Ciprì’s directorial debut It Was the Son (È stato il figlio) is an ambitiously operatic and grandly incoherent misfire. Catapulting the viewer – in a style similar (but rarely as tightly wound) to the Coen Brothers at their best – through a whirlwind of originality and noxious black humour, it still fails to offer anything particularly memorable or impressive along the way. (Continue reading here)

Review: Museum Hours

(Jem Cohen, 2012)

New York-based filmmaker Jem Cohen has etched out an impressively understated career as an independent documentarian and film-essayist amidst a thoroughly mainstream climate. Museum Hours extends his proclivity for creating observational portraits of urban landscapes, only this time he attaches it to a careful deconstruction of the notions of spectatorship and the relationship between cinema and art. (Continue reading here)

Review: Beware of Mr. Baker

(Jay Bulger, 2012)

Taking its name from a warning sign that adorns the driveway of a particularly cantankerous British rock ‘n’ roll legend, Jay Bulger’s all-encompassing documentary Beware of Mr. Baker peers behind the dark glasses and gruff facade of one Ginger Baker. A wunderkind drummer, world renowned agent of disaster and, most significantly, a member of a variety of bands, namely Cream. Baker is an infamous figure tainted by a catalogue of ill-fated decisions and a history of substance abuse, and is the focus and subject matter for Bulger’s impressive filmmaking debut. (Continue reading here)

Review: Our Children

(Joachim Lafosse, 2012)

Labelling itself as a film destined for tragedy from its opening shot, Joachim Lafosse’s Our Children only intermittently becomes flooded by its own despondent (and true) story. A subtle family drama of sometimes overwhelming complexity, Lafosse juggles a snarling interrogation of marriage with some exceptional performances, pitting Tahar Rahim and Niels Arestrup together again after their similarly notable appearances in 2009’s A Prophet. (Continue reading here)