|
"Look out! I think I see a Swift
Boat Veteran for Truth over There!"
The Chum of All Fears: Chris
Kentis' Open Water
About five summers ago, the summer movie season was
hijacked by Sundance fave The Blair Witch Project.
While the filmmakers and the cast involved with
the project are forgotten, Project had one of
those only-in-this-lifetime on audiences. Shot on digital
video for $35,000 and one of the first marketing campaigns
to extensively use the Internet, the improved horror
film about a film crew being stalked by evil spiritis
grossed $150 million. Every media outlet was enamoured
by Project's three actors getting subjected to
the sadistic whims of their directors and the harshness
of the damp Maryland woods that surrounded them. But
the one thing that was largely ignored by the general
consensus was how the actors developed these characters
out of the story's bare-boned structure. In essence,
the actors used the film's themes on technology and
misguided ambition to create compelling parts of the
film's concept. This summer, Open Water has received
comparisons to Project for its scrappy production
and gimmick-driven concept. And Open Water's concept
is a real whizzer: Susan and Daniel (Blanchard Ryan
and Daniel Travis) embark with a guided tour on a scuba
dive in the middle of the ocean. The couple dives, explores
the coral reef, and plays with the fish. They emerge
to find their boat is gone. The film spends a great
deal of energy explaining how this mix-up occurred,
but the audience should only be concerned with the fact
that Susan and Travis are stuck in the water. As the
hours tick away, the water becomes colder and begins
to carry them further away from shore. They get hungry,
fatigued, and dehydrated. They must contend with a swarm
of jelly fish and feeder fish who pick at their wounds.
Oh ,and did I mention the sharks. They see a fin here
and hear a splash there. The sharks bump their legs
under the water give a little nibble to test and frighten
this potential two-course meal. In essence, this is
a white-knuckled extrapolation of Jaws' first
five minutes.
And this is a great idea with a strong technical backbone.
The filmmakers go to great lenghts to make the audience
feel the dread and the horror of this experience. The
digital camera works in two ways: First, it captures
the moments underwater very well. These are brief glimpses
but everyone gets an eyeful of every fin and every razor-sharp
tooth. Secondly, the economy of the digital camera makes
it easier for the filmmakers to use the water. The audience
feels every bobbing motion and every drift. It made
me a little sea sick, but the point is well-taken. The
film also uses the perception of the characters as the
perception of the film. A character hears a splash in
the water but doesn't get a good enough look to know
what it was. That pain in their foot could be a cramp...or
a critter. The audience constantly moans: "Man,
that has got to suck big time." "I can't imagine..."
"Oh my Ga guy, did that just happen?" The
film never loses momentum with the scenario. However,
the characters are left adrift. Literally. Susan and
Daniel get scared. They freak out. They make mistakes
and they have to make tough decisions. But there's nothing
to either one of them. One could imagine the elbow-room
a situation like this could bring to character development.
Think about a couple stuck in the middle nowhere and
being encircled by danger. Think of all the possibilities.
But the only substantive material given by Open Water's
script is a fight over who decided to choose this
location for a vaction. This argument suggests and insinuates
various issues ("We wouldn't be here if it weren't
for that job of yours") but nothing develops. I'm
not suggesting the film should be a Sam Shepard play,
but the film never truly and fully engages once the
novelty of the plot's gimmick wears off. Many have criticized
Open Water for making the characters "too
whiny." I think they've earned the right to be
whiny, given the circumstances. I just wish they were
MORE than just whiny. Heather of The Blair Witch
Project - by contrast - makes the self-absorption
of her character part of the tragedy of her fate. She's
not just some bitch wandering around the woods.That
was a film that needed a hook beyond its basic idea.
A recent example from this year is Kevin MacDonald's
Touching the Void, a film that presented the
story of survival on a mountainside as a chance to question
God's existence. In this film, there is no attempt to
connect to the sea or to nature or to anything other
than the basic idea. Since Open Water's characters
never materialize, they exist as nothing more than shark
bait. And if they're just potential fish food, their
fate seems irrelevant and the film takes on the quality
of a sea-lorn snuff film. It's a wasted opportunity
but its clear that director Chris Kentis is so bowled-over
by the cleverness of the concept that they forget to
make us care about the film.
The Pitch:
1 Deep Blue Sea
Plus
1 Phone Booth
Equals
2 Open Water
"I Haven't Seen Anything Like
this Since that Pasolini Orgy at the Vatican."
I Compel Thee to Refuse Paul
Schrader: Renny Harlin's
Exorcist: The Beginning
Long story short: Exorcist: The Beginning could
have been a brilliant film from one of Hollywood's most
daring minds. Morgan Creek Productions hired Paul Schrader
( Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Auto-Focus) to direct
this pre-quel involving a disillusioned priest searching
for the origins of Hell in Africa. Given Schrader's
track record of creating characers invloved with great
struggles of faith. One must only look at the Savior
he painted in The Last Temptation of Christ or
even "family man" Bob Crane in Auto-Focus
to see the range that Schrader has explored. The
Beginning wrapped and was scheduled for release
in summer 2003. Of course, the studio saw the final
cut and hated. Too much talky! No action! So they fired
Schrader and hired former Joel Silver gun Renny Harlin
(Die Hard 2, The Adventures of Ford Fairlane, Driven)
to re-shoot 90% of the film at an additional cost of
$50 million. (Add $35 million from the original production
and this is a costly shift) The story is one that could
either be painted as high art or horror exploitation.
It's a pre-quel in the sense that it tracks the origins
of the Exorcist series but more for the development
of Father Merrin, played by Max Von Sydow in the original
but now by Stellan Skarsgard. The basic question is
posed: What turns an average priest into an exorcist?
What would a man of God face that compels him to challenge
the demon that possessed little Regan Mac Neil in the
original? The story suggests Merrin was forced into
the profession not by supernatural forces but by the
primal evil that exists here on Earth. In an interview
conducted by LA Weekly with key players in the
original version of The Beginning, it's easy
to see that Schrader was interested in making a film
about the evil nature of man rather than a conventional,
blood-and-guts slasher. Schrader agrees fully with an
earlier quote by Exorcist director William Friedkin:
"The standard horror effects were largely hidden
from our film. What made it work for audiences was the
terror-induced wonder of what humans are actually capable
of. That is one thing we can't seem to wrap our brains
around." Author Caleb Carr (The Alienist)
wrote the original draft of the screenplay that painted
Father Merrin as a symbol of the Vatican's acquiescence
during the Holocaust. He is forced to select villagers
for a firing squad to prevent an out-and-out slaughter.
"God is not here today priest", one of the
SS men inform him. Merrin flees from the Church and
re-starts life in Africa where he works in archeological
digs. On commission, he travels to Kenya to interpret
symbols found in a Cathedral purposely buried sometime
around 5 AD. But why bury a church? Trying to cover
up something naughty? As it turns out, the true battle
he must fight is not the physical combat with the demon
that emerges but from the spiritual conflict that bubbles
the Kenyan tribesmen and the British colonists concerned
with unrest. Schrader's story seemed very interested
with picking at these scabs of western Civilization
- the Nazis, the Brits - and suggesting these forces
were feeding the forces from Hell and not the other
way around. And the pedigree behind this story suggests
a pretty good film. However, Morgan Creek feared that
the film was too "talky" and didn't have enough
gore to goose up the audience. Schrader attempted to
fix this in the editing but to no avail. Surely, Schrader's
cause was not helped by Carr. Carr felt that Schrader
had pushed him out of the project and the author used
every opportunity to criticize the film in post-production.
"The actors had this look on their face I recognize
from working on stage," Carr said. "That look
screams, 'Please direct me'"! Based upon Carr's
opinion and their own money-making instincts, the suits
decided to give reign to the project over to Harlin.
Harlin in turn re-cast the film due to scheduling conflicts
(save Skarsgard who had worked with Harlin on Deep
Blue Sea), parred down most of the dialogue, and
added gorier/special-effects laden moments. And the
film goes on the gross $18.2 million its first weekend.
I only re-count the troubled production because it's
the core of Exorcist: The Beginning's initial
promise and ultimate failure. There is obvious care
put into the film's back story. The moment of Merrin's
rejection of faith serves as a strong story foundation
and does raise peculiar issues about the Catholics and
Nazi Germany. And Skarsgard creates a character that
most confront these demons - both literally and figuratively
- in a consistent tone that makes this journey all the
more powerful. But Harlin's obvious contributions are
a real killer. And Harlin knows it. In the same interview,
Harlin said he viewed the original version of The
Beginning and liked Schrader's take, "but I
knew that's not what the studio wanted." What the
studio wanted was lots of scares and buckets of blood.
And that is what they get. The scenes involving vicious
animal attacks, suicide, tribal birthing, and decapitation
might as well blare the banner: "This Rock-'Em
Sock-'Em Moment Brought to You by the Director of Cutthroat
Island!" But one must wonder about the exploitative
nature of these scenes. Most of the violence is lodged
upon the native tribes with almost a mockish tone to
the seriousness of the moment. A young boy is savagely
eaten by a pack of CGI-hyenas with a rousing action
score blazing in the background. Tribal rituals are
handled with the authenticity of a 1930's swashbuckler
and the previously-mentioned labor scene insinuates
a violence associated with footage of female circumcision.
I'm not saying that I'm an expert with how African tribes
should be portrayed on screen, but Harlin and Company
comes across as vile and shallow as the British colonists
they attempt to vilify. And I'm not comparing Harlin
and Morgan Creek to the militaristic savages that polluted
the African continent after WWII. Well, maybe I am but
I think any group of filmmakers who take such an intriguing
concept and make it into such graphic grandstanding
may be deserving. Never mind the big climax that attempts
to parrot the confrontation in the original Exorcist.
The actress possessed has the same make-up, she levitates,
and Father Merrin must take line after line of foul-mouthed
abuse. A line like "You wanna stick your cock up
my wet ass?" surely felt like an homage to the original
on the page. They got catcalls and laughter from the
audience. Why? Because Harlin doesn't understand context.
In the original, little Regan's taunts hurled at Father
Karras were filthy an awful ("Your mother sucks
cock in Hell"!) but grounded in Karras' internalized
guilt. In this film, using a dirty word is just like
using any dirty word and elicits humor rather than the
intended dramatic effect. This scene, like all the additions
to Schrader's story - make Exorcist: The Beginning
a big exercise in posing. It's tragic that Harlin
was brought in to create some sort of carbon copy of
the original film. The material left by Schrader suggests
a deep and penetrating film that really gets down to
the core issues most audiences relate to in a horror
film. We're not scared of demons from Hell and CGI hyenas.
We're scared of mankind's ability to assist and inhibit
real evil. Whether Schrader's final cut of this is a
success is still left for debate. (Carr has weighted
in that it does not. William Peter Blatty -author of
the original - loved it and called it a "classy
and appropriate addition to the story." Blatty
has yet to see the new version.) But Morgan Creek plans
to release both versions on DVD and possibly sell the
Schrader version to Showtime or HBO. They want to make
their costs back on the wallet strings of big dorks
like me who will gladly pay the price. But the dual
release may add evidence to the argument that studios
should rely more on the independent spirit of filmmakers
who are given larger and larger toys. Is there any doubt
that horror fans would have lined up in equal numbers
for a Schrader Exorcist than for Harlin's? Probably
not. These type of films always open huge and - like
the weekend numbers suggest - normally begin a plummeting
descent after the first Friday night. But if the fans
are given something different, they might keep the word
of mouth going. What fear inhibited Columbia with handing
over Spider-Man to Sam Raimi or Warner's decision
to let Chris Nolan direct the next Batman film?
Schrader might have given the film more prestige and
left the audience with a fresh look at something familiar.
Time will tell but for now, Exorcist: The Beginning
remains only as a promise to the horror-geek fan
with nothing that is delivered. Surely God is somewhere
in this project.
The Pitch:
1/2
1 and a Half Indiana Jones
Plus
1 Father Dowling Mysteries
Equals
1/2
2 and a Half Exorcist: The Beginning
|
