THE PLANK NOVEMBER 13, 2009
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A.O. Scott's piece on a decade's worth of movies is, as usual, worth reading. However, I do think this passage deserves further comment:
Perhaps the easiest and most satisfying way to make sense of the unruly cinematic abundance of the past 10 years is to sift through it for masters and masterpieces, kicking the tires to see what has been built to last. Whatever else was going on, a handful of great filmmakers made a handful of great films, just as in other decades. Steven Spielberg, freed in the ’90s by the successes of “Schindler’s List” and “Saving Private Ryan” from the burden of importance, made a series of bracingly imaginative entertainments — “Minority Report,” “Catch Me if You Can,” “War of the Worlds,” “Munich” and “The Terminal” in addition to “A.I.” — that were both nimble and deeply resonant. Clint Eastwood, in his 70s, entered the most prolific and diverse phase of his career as a director, breathing new life into long-established Hollywood genres, including the boxing picture (“Million Dollar Baby”), the crime thriller (“Mystic River”) and the combat epic (“Letters From Iwo Jima”). Martin Scorsese collected his overdue Academy Award for “The Departed”; Joel and Ethan Coen won their first Best Picture Oscar, for “No Country for Old Men,” in the midst of popping out a film a year. Gus Van Sant, Robert Altman, P. T. Anderson, Spike Jonze, Spike Lee, Steven Soderbergh, Todd Haynes. The canon of American cinema, since the early ’60s a catalog of acknowledged auteurs, expanded significantly in the new century.
Scott highlights a bunch of excellent filmmakers, but I think most of their good work occurred in the 1990s, which was a truly great decade of film. By comparison--or even on its own terms--the last ten years look pretty pathetic. "Catch Me if You Can" is wonderful, but the rest of Spielberg's output this decade has been disappointing (and did Scott really use the word "nimble" in connection with "A.I."?) Compare that to the 90s, when the director made "Schindler's List", "Saving Private Ryan", and "Jurassic Park" (the last of which is much more enjoyable than the other Spielberg movies Scott mentions).
Scott is right about Eastwood' marvelous work, but compare Scorsese's output this decade to his output in the 90s ("Casino", "Goodfellas", "Cape Fear", "Age of Innocence"). This is all subjective, but I think Gus Van Sant, P.T. Anderson, and Spike Lee ("Clockers", "Malcolm X", "Jungle Fever") all did much better work in the 90s than they did this decade. I would even argue that this is true of the Coen brothers ("Fargo", "Big Lebowski", "Miller's Crossing").
The other depressing thing about this decade is how much worse it has gotten year-by-year. Take Steven Soderbergh, who kicked off the decade with "Erin Brockovich", "Traffic", and "Ocean's 11", before going on to make a bunch of terrible movies. Spike Lee's best film of this decade, "25th Hour", was in 2002. "Catch Me if You Can" and "Minority Report" were in 2002. Spike Jonze's really excellent movie of the decade, "Adaptation", was in 2002. Todd Haynes' "Far From Heaven" was in 2002. Let's hope the next five years bring better movies than the last five years did.
4 comments
There have been a lot of great movies the past five years. You can not possibly tell me that the Wrestler was not a painfully brilliantly acted movie. And I see no reason not to call Slumdog a great movie. No country for old men was certainly distinct, and the performance by Javier Bardem unnerving. There were also a hell of a lot of foreign films that were great. And a ton of documentaries, I have watched The Fog of War probably a half a dozen times. OK, that was 6 years ago)
- blackton
November 13, 2009 at 2:45pm
So much of the innovation and talent of the past decade has been on TV, not movies.
- epicciuto
November 13, 2009 at 3:56pm
Very true, epicciuto. AV Club's recent Top Shows of the '00s was packed with great, great works. It made me start digging out some of my DVD boxed sets. (Aargh. Spam filter delendem est!)
- adaglas
November 13, 2009 at 3:59pm
So, what's new in the past decade? Apatow-style comedies, Pixar movies, the horror resurgence, the solidification of the fantasy/superhero movie for 12-year-olds as the dominant mode for the Hollywood blockbuster, and the pretty pretention exemplified by the Spielberg movies and trivialities like "The Queen" and, in my humble opinion, the Coen Brothers' latest as well. Meanwhile, there's been a decline in the number and/or quality of traditional Hollywood fare -- the adult thriller, the standard romantic comedy, the serious literary adaptation, the well-executed melodrama, the non-ridiculous action picture. Not a big fan of these trends. There are exceptions. Hollywood still makes old-fashioned Hollywood movies once in a while. Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby and Gran Torino were two of my favorites. Martin Scorsese's Aviator and The Departed were another two. Last year's Revolutionary Road was an excellent literary adaptation. The first two Bourne films were fine action fare. This year's Hurt Locker was something new and something really good. I enjoyed the Apatow-ish Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Michael Clayton was a satisfying '70s-style sober, realistic thriller. But these are exceptions. Except for Sarah Marshall, they run counter to the trends. For example, the literate, entertaining thriller -- my favorite genre -- appears to have been almost entirely abandoned by Hollywood, even as it is taken up by the French. I'm thinking of truly Hitchcockian movies like With a Friend Like Harry, Tell No One, Roman de Gare, and Cache. (I had problems with Cache, but it's still the sort of movie I miss in English.) Anyway, a few random, and mostly positive, thoughts about the last ten years: - Can Leonardo DiCaprio act, or what? - Can Matt Damon act, or what? - Can Kate Winslet act, or what? - Can Kristen Scott Thomas act, or what? Well, we already knew that, I guess. (I'm thinking of I've Loved You So Long in particular.) - If George Clooney is the last American male movie star, who's the last American female movie star? - Let's talk 9/11: United 93 was a gripping docudrama. "9/11" was an incredible documentary. Fahrenheit 9/11 made a few bad points but many more good ones, and, though it did not succeed in November 2004, it crystallized the then emerging conventional wisdom about the Bush administration. All three are essential documents of the time. - Spartan, from early in the decade, was, I think, the last really good David Mamet film, and it *was* really good. David Mamet lines find their way into my language. For example, secret special ops spy dude Val Kilmer, sitting in the back seat of a car, gives instructions to the driver. After a brief moment of silence, Kilmer says, with just the slightest edge of impatience, "Indicate you heard me." And isn't that indication what we're all searching for? I tell ya, it's either a piece of cake or a slice of life, you ever notice that? Who *wrote* that? David Mamet, who, despite his tough-guy themes and ambivalence toward smarty-pants is the most writerish writer in all of Hollywoodland, and I dig it and want him to give me more material. David? Indicate you heard me. - Paul Rudd is an amusing gentleman. - Although it's really just a comedy special, it *was* released in theaters, and was a comedic revelation: "Jesus Is Magic," the Sarah Silverman movie, followed up by her competing with Bob Sagat to steal the show in The Aristocrats. - The answer to the question posed earlier about the last female American movie star is Sandra Bullock, but, as we all know, her Cinemascope-sized charisma is wasted on her mediocre movies. Infamous, in which she plays Harper Lee in the better of the two Truman Capote pictures, is an exception. - See you next decade!
- jhildner1
November 14, 2009 at 3:07am