Sally Potter's The Man Who Cried

The Man Who Cried (2000)
Seen: Wednesday, April 30, 2008

What's striking to me about director Sally Potter's work, which I admittedly know not that much about, is the tightness of her film's settings and the mood they convey. The Man Who Cried (2000) is the third Potter film I've seen and it couldn't be more different than the rest that came before it. To begin, we're transported to a different era and historical time period: war time France, and though it has a feeling distinctly separate from films made in that actual setting during that actual time period, the feeling of its setting is so cold and bleak it has an uncanny familiarity, or sense of reality. Its lead characters Susie, a Russian immigrant, her roomate, Lola, and Susie's love interest, Cesar, are played by ultra-modern actors, Christina Ricci, Cate Blanchette and Johnny Depp, respectively. All of which is to say that upon initially meeting these characters they are recognizable celebrities we find in ubiquity on the cover of magazines. Rather quickly, I think, however, this cast of celebrities melts away into the story, their survival in and escape from Nazi occupied Paris.

In fact, the entire cast and crew is an amazing combination of the latter half of the century's finest figures in film history. With the influence and artistic vision of the individuals physically crafting the film, it might not be that surprising to see how the actors' celebrity image so quickly sheds from the screen. Director of Photography, Sacha Vierny, the renowned cinematographer who worked with Luis Bunuel on Belle de jour (1967), Alain Resnais on Last Year at Marienbad (1961), Hiroshima mon amour (1959), and Night and Fog (1955) (to my mind the most devastating Holocaust film made to date); and with Agnes Varda on L'Opéra mouffe (1958), and later with Peter Greenaway on The Pillow Book (1996) and Prospero's Books (1991); this guy is a walking film history text, and here he is in our own age shooting what was to be the last film before his death, The Man Who Cried.

There's no shortage of talent in the editing room either, which was occupied on this film by Herve Schneid. His work has most widely been seen in the films of Jean-Pierre Jeunet (The City of Lost Children (1995) and Amelie (2001). In short, this is one of those films where it is worthwhile to pore over the credit sheet, find the connections of its contributors and trace back through films previous how the one before us came to be.

Before I typed up these loose thoughts and observations on Potter's film, I scanned its initial reviews online, which in sum didn't describe anything overwhelmingly great (Elvis Mitchell straight-up panned the thing). Even if her movie isn't my next Ghost Busters (1984)--which is to say a movie I'll pop in and watch again and again and again, ad nauseam--I found it far above the standards of most general releases, in terms of style, technique, story, and most interestingly to me, for the incredible cast of historical players.

Ebertfest, Day 2

Go to Scarlett Cinema for a full run-down of Day 2 as it happened live!

Seen: Thursday, April 24, 2008
The following films played on day 2 of Ebertfest 2008:

Delirious (2006)
To say indie director Tom Decillo's latest film Delirious received distribution is to completely redefine the meaning of the word. More than upset about its poor marketing and subsequent lack of box office success, DeCillo was just plain befuddled about it. He corresponded with Roger Ebert last fall, and Ebert had their Q&A exchange published in the Chicago Sun-Times--a little crash course on the indie film market for the unknowing public. You can read that here, it's a nice chat to be privy to.

Beyond his written response, Ebert had it included on the slate of films at Ebertfest, day 2. The crowd really went wild for Delirious, and so did I. More than anything the script is an original take on celebrity culture that's a palatable balance between comic and grotesque. And the performances are out of this world. Michael Pitt plays a budding paparazzo who follows the elder, and much saltier, Steve Buscemi, an established failure in the business himself.

See it on DVD!


Yes (2004)
A beautiful movie. I'll have more on director Sally Potter as I move through this long, backlogged queue that includes more of her films. But if pressed to rank this among its Ebertfest counterparts, it gets the silver medal (just behind....ah, well, not to be revealed just yet. I made you wait this long for an Ebertfest recap, what's a few more days?)

Also, what a great poster



Canvas (2006)
Canvas was my one and only disappointment at the festival, which was much too inspired by the oeuvre of the Lifetime network for me to appreciate. Though, if nothing else--good performances from Joey Pants and Marcia Gay Harden!










Shotgun Stories (2007)
And I believe director Jeff Nichols' Shotgun Stories wins the bronze! I also loved this movie, which has an uncanny look and tone of David Gordon Green's films (excepting, perhaps, The Pineapple Express). And that isn't a tough parallel to draw, Nichols told us the two directors actually went to film school together. In sum, beautiful scenery of a space that isn't usually thought of as beautiful. Find this one on DVD right away too.

Minimal/Clean/Feminist

Orlando (1992)
Seen: Sunday, April 20, 2008

I was long overdue to see some Sally Potter films by the time Ebertfest rolled around back in late April, so in preparation for her 2004 film, Yes that was scheduled to screen at the festival, I picked up Orlando (1992), just to get a sense of her cinema before hand. Potter's style is so simple. Clean, bright sets, minimalist, but striking mise-en-scene, and compositionally it feels more like a modern painting. Even in the image shown above where Tilda Swinton's character is cloaked in ornate 18th century garb, there is a sense of separation from it. Mostly, perhaps, that is because Orlando (Swinton) often turns away from her own space and time to address us, speaking directly into the camera. It's sort of an acknowledgment of a primarily 20th century technology that didn't exist when her character would have. So there's an eternal life of her character that transcends time, which is, of course, the premise of the original novel "Orlando" by Virginia Woolf. Young, male Orlando decides not to age, but when he wakes one morning years later he is a woman. Swinton herself has a wryly androgynous look to her; she couldn't have been better cast. I found this film to be so curiously, almost coldly feminine, a feeling that repeats itself again in Yes, in particular. More on Potter to come...