The Rake Magazine

Universities shape mind. Universities teach us to "think." But do they teach us to think for ourselves, or simply to think like "they" do. And who are "they" anyhow? Do they really want diversity? Do they really want diversity of thought? These are some of the questions raised by Evan Coyne Maloney's new documentary, Indoctrinate U. Interviews with students and members of academia, combined with live on-campus footage, illustrate a repressive political climate that transforms education into indoctrination and threatens our freedom of thought. Don't expect the usual liberal film in which students complain that their radical ideologies are being suppressed. Maloney was once called the "conservative answer to Michael Moore" by The New York Sun.

Through Nov. 1, 7:15 & 9:15 p.m., Oak Street Cinema, 309 Oak St. S.E., Minneapolis; $8 (students $6, members/seniors $5).

It seems Dennis Lehane is our era's Raymond Chandler, creating dark, brooding, atmospheric crime dramas. Only instead of the damp glitz of southern California, his working-class Boston -- namely Dorchester -- is like the Dublin of James Joyce and Jonathan Swift: a maelstrom of the poor and the poorer, people scrabbling for power, for dignity, and for an ethical stake in a world where there is no right.

Lehane's Mystic River, brought to film by Clint Eastwood in 2003, was set in a Boston as blue and inky as Gotham, with a slightly muddled storyline and an over-the-top performance by Sean Penn -- an actor whom I typically revere. Mystic River was good. This year's Gone Baby Gone is extraordinary. It's a classic tragedy staged in three acts, starring superb actors such as Ed Harris, Amy Madigan, and Morgan Freeman, and adapted and directed -- unbelievably -- by Ben Affleck.

That such a goofball of a performer had the talent to execute this lucid, well-paced script is a one-in-a-million surprise (though, come to think of it, Clint Eastwood had been kissing monkeys before Unforgiven). But this is a movie that seems to unfurl, organically, its story ascending in complexity: from simple crime drama to character sketch to morality play.

The plot focuses on the disappearance of a 4-year-old girl, her slatternly cokehead of a mother, and the P.I. (Casey Affleck, Ben's brother, and an actor with 20 times the skill) who was brought in by her aunt (Amy Madigan, who has aged with grace and fortitude) to find her. What happens from here is too delicate for me to describe: the film depends upon its viewers shifting allegiances to make its final point. But I will say that in the end, Affleck's character must make a choice between two evils. And the agony in this is so well-drawn, so real, it leaves viewers conflicted and cowed.

See Gone Baby Gone because it will generate discussion, because it will make you doubt your principles, and because it is a joy to immerse oneself in a story so whole. But watch, too, because the scenes of Dorchester are gritty and almost documentary-like: obese women walking with effort, former gangbangers in wheelchairs, children on bicycles, barflys with harelips, women with chipped fingernail polish and cheaply dyed hair. Yet, there is community in this. A shattered, desperate aunt; a cop from the 'hood with a diagonal scar across his face; a heroic drug dealer who risks his business trying to save a kid.

"You have to take a side and live with the consequences," Remy (Ed Harris) says at a pivotal point in the movie. "If you take little kids, if you beat little kids, you are not on my side." This is the core of the film, this absolute truth. And yet, questions about right and wrong remain.

Here's a great night out: dinner, drinks perhaps, and then Amir Bar-Lev's fascinating documentary My Kid Could Paint That (opening tomorrow at the Lagoon Cinema.) The story of four-year-old Marla Olmstead, the little girl who made abstract paintings that sold for nearly a half million dollars, My Kid will have you and your cohorts debating for hours afterward. Going into the film you might have opinions about whether or not this child's parents are charlatans or saints, about the validity of modern art, about what we seek as patrons of said art. I guarantee that when you emerge you'll be rethinking everything.

Before watching the movie, my wife and I were pretty much at odds about Marla--I was convinced she didn't create these paintings, my wife thought there was a good chance she was a prodigy. When it was over, our opinions were pretty much reversed.

I had the great pleasure to interview My Kid Could Paint That director Amir Bar-Lev and ask him about the reaction to his film, what brought him to make it, and whether we'll ever get to the bottom of this mystery.

Rake: You've been to a number of showings that have involved post-screening Q & A's. What's been the general reaction?

Bar-Lev: I'm happy to say that in straw polls we've taken after the shows we've found that 20% still think the parents are completely innocent. This gets at what I was trying to do with this film. I wanted to occupy a middle ground. The TV outlets encouraged both extremes: Marla's either Mozart or a con.

Rake: What brought you to this story?

Bar-Lev: I read the article in The New York Times, which spoke to my own cynicism about modern art. You can assess a piano prodigy, for instance--they either play well or they don't. But with modern art, there are questions of intentionality, and this four-year-old's paintings challenged that. These questions are also important when judging the paintings she made on camera and off-camera. Who are we to say that one painting is more polished than another? Are there any standards?

When I first met the Olmsteads I realized that this movie was going to be a family drama. At first, I really had no skepticism about the girl. The film happened in stages, and at first I didn't actually see any of the things that later on made me question their story. That's what this movie turned into--it's story about stories, how we project what we want to onto Marla's tale.

When the "60 minutes" piece aired [that suggested the father coached and/or actually did the painting] I knew my documentary just got more interesting. I felt I desperately needed to get more footage to ease my nagging doubts.

As time went on, making this film became very difficult. I didn't sleep well for six months. There's an interview in there that sums it up, when the mother's telling me that she needs me to trust them, and I have to tell them I'm not sure. Going over that footage, it's awful--when you hear your voice in an uncomfortable situation... well, I was barely capable of talking. I was sitting on documentary gold but it still didn't feel right, having spent so much time with the family. You're basically accusing them of lying, which is highly unpleasant especially when they trust you. But I had to hold to my own standards and get at the truth.

Rake: It's interesting, because there's that scene in the car where you're expressing your concerns out loud. You put your own doubts in the movie itself, and made yourself part of the story.

Bar-Lev: I didn't intend for that scene to happen. One of my interns was recording it, and fortunately they didn't stop the tape. My role was minimal, but it was difficult to edit and it took a long time. It was emotional, complicated.

As I said, I discovered was that this film is about adults, about people projecting what they want onto Marla and her art. It's like Chauncey Gardner in Being There. Her childlike simplicity brings out things in people.

The film is also about how people control information. The parents so desperately wanted their name cleared. That's what they wanted from me. As I said, My Kid Could Paint That is a story about stories, and less about greed. The parents want that control. But it's a Faustian bargain. By deciding to remain in the light, they actually lose more control.

Rake: You really wanted to get footage of Marla painting, but watching the film one gets the sense that you were never satisfied. At least I wasn't.

Bar-Lev: I did pick the best footage of Marla painting but it never truly answered the questions. Marla would never talk about her art. It was a puzzle--at first I thought she was being bashful. But when I look at the footage of "Ocean" [the first painting captured entirely on film, though not by Bar-Lev] it's more bewildering. You do see her employ a variety of techniques, but is it as good as the others? Can we see the same squiggle over and over again, suggesting genius? And again, is it fair to make those comparisons?

Rake: It's fascinating to me how one can come into this movie thinking one thing, very strongly in fact, and emerge questioning those beliefs. I was convinced the father was a con, and while I still question his veracity, the closer you get to the supposed con, it doesn't quite add up.

Bar-Lev: I saw this as an existentialist story. There's no ten commandments. While there's certainly right or wrong, it's not in terms of art. When you stop and think about the facts of this case, no scenario makes sense. You can tell yourself that there's no way Marla's doing the paintings, that the father painted them or really coached her. But then the mother clearly believed her daughter painted these, so how did the father hide his own involvement from her? How did he hide it from everyone? Sometimes I think the only way to explain it is that they really have nothing to hide.

It's like that Escher painting, with all the steps that go up and down and all lead into one another. There's no end, no easy way out.

Rake: What does the family think of My Kid Could Paint That?

Bar-Lev: Marla's mother actually said "It's a great film, I just wish it wasn't about us." I've encouraged them to lend a dissenting voice, and even offered them an opportunity to do the DVD commentary. But they're distancing themselves from it. They don't want to publicize the film in any way.

Rake: I did appreciate that you avoided pigeonholing certain people, like Anthony Brunelli, the art dealer, and Stuart Simpson, one of Marla's earliest patrons. If you were to make this a more good vs. evil story, Brunelli could come off as a cad, and Simpson as perhaps a fool. But they're good people who both who truly believe in Marla.

Bar-Lev: Anthony's a true believer. He's a salesman in the best sense of the word. Because he's one of those salesmen who truly believe in their product, and that it has meaning. The paintings get sold for as much as humanly possible because of his belief, and not because he's trying to scam anyone. He's earnest.

Stuart Simpson follows this story closely, and will chime in on blogs and chatrooms defending Marla. He credits her with helping him follow his lifelong dream of becoming an art dealer.

They're all very civil when defending Marla.

Rake: Do you think we'll ever know the true story?

Bar-Lev: I think we'll know in ten years or so. Something will happen. When Marla gets older, she'll tell us.

Monty Python's Elizabeth: The Golden Age; The Darjeeling Limited, and Michael Clayton.

One should never glean one's history from the movies. Not knowing the least bit about the age of Elizabeth, the Virgin Queen of England, I can still tell you that Elizabeth: The Golden Age is about as true to the facts as any of the great Monty Python flicks, and at least as entertaining. Did the red-haired monarch really stare deeply into the limpid pools that were Walt Raleigh's eyes, hungering for a shag but settling for a chaste kiss? Probably not. Did the Virgin Queen stand atop Dover's cliffs in fetching chain-mail and watch the Armada burn, all the while muttering "it's only a model." No, again (that last part I made up.) But that's what the movies do, and often do best: they make history sexy, exciting, and, whether intended or not, hilarious. And let me tell you, there's lots to laugh at in Elizabeth.

Elizabeth is a stellar production, a sumptuous feast for the eyes, and one that boasts a top-notch, Oscar-hungry cast: you've got the lovely Cate Blanchett, normally moody Clive Owen (a bit out of his element as the scallywag pirate Walter Raleigh), the always reliable Geoffrey Rush, and the underrated actress Samantha Morton, who will someday get a decent role to chew on (perhaps in the forthcoming Joy Division biopic, Control.) Throw into the mix a riotous screenplay that never really takes itself too seriously, and you have yourself a time-killer that's loads of fun provided you don't think too much about it.

In this Elizabeth, there's an evil Spain hell-bent on taking control of England in a variety of ways. (This might have also been the plot of the first--I don't remember that one at all.) They want to install Mary, Queen of Scots (Morton), still a Catholic girl, and hopefully someone who'll inspire the country's legions of Pope-followers into revolt.

There are two ways that they can overthrow England: They can assassinate the Queen. Or they can outright attack with the famous Spanish Armada. The leader of the vile country of Spain is Philip II, played by Jordi Molla, who gnashes his teeth and wrings his hands as if he's about to cackle "No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!" Later, people will try to kill our Lizzy, the Armada will attack and be turned away, and there will be intrigue and romance and kisses in front of soft-lit fireplaces. If you're not laughing at these scenes as I was, you need to lighten up, man

Elizabeth, then, is not much different from Spider-Man, or Transformers, is it? It's got love and action and instead of men in tights or machines, you've got men in pantaloons. A big budget emptiness meant to pack theaters and kill time. Except that this one has a tenuous connection to history and scores of Oscar winners on the payroll, not to mention people who want Oscar's gold, so it's somehow more important than what springs from Michael Bay's mind. The scenes with the Armada attack are nothing more than CGI, and poorly staged at that--the director, Shekhar Kapur, would have been wise to stay inside the castle.

Elizabeth is fun, if a bit long in the tooth. Going over to the film's website, I couldn't help but notice, in the "interactive timeline", a mention that Sir Francis Walsingham, the Queen's advisor, was considered by many historians (real ones, not the advisors to this film) to also have been her lover. That's Cate Blanchett and old Geoffrey Rush for those of you keeping score. Probably it's easier to digest the notion of Cate and Clive sharing a loving embrace, but while the thought of a tryst with Walsingham and the Queen might seem a bit dodgy, it is so much richer. History, perhaps, shouldn't always be ignored.

...

Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited, his first since the risible Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou, begins with a running start. Both an aged Bill Murray, dressed in a 50s suit and hat, and young Adrien Brody, are running to catch the eponymous locomotive. The youth prevails, and watches the gasping Murray stare bewildered at the distance growing between them. It is a beautiful, funny, and strangely moving scene. One has his whole life ahead of him; the other is watching life pass him by.

From there, Anderson introduces us to the three brothers, Francis, Peter and Jack (Owen Wilson, Brody, and Jason Schwartzman), who are taking this trip at the behest of the oldest brother Francis, whose head is swathed in bandages from a horrible car accident. They are brothers, and at the beginning of this flick, perfectly realized. Francis orders everyone about, tries to shove peace and reconciliation down his brothers' throats. The youngest, Jack, is a free-wheeler, putting the make on the sexy girl in the train, although he's also trying desperately to forget his former flame (played briefly by Natalie Portman.) (Note: To get the background for this relationship, check out the "prologue" to Darjeeling, a short called Hotel Chevalier.)

Brody's Peter is anxious about the coming birth of his first child. He also can't believe that he's not divorced yet--he loves his wife, but the weight of his parents' failures are almost too much for him to bear.

And all three brothers are still reeling at the death of their father, struck down by a taxicab in New York City just a year earlier. That, and the fact that their mother has sequestered herself into a temple in the mountains of India, and has refused to see them, even going so far as to miss their father's funeral. Obviously, these boys have issues.

At first, The Darjeeling Limited is simply wonderful. These three goofy Americans are touched with new-age spirituality and an earnest desire to try and fix what's broken in their lives. The artifice in every scene is a perfect reflection of the emotional lives of these boys--and, despite their ages, they are boys--and we are at once swept up in the beauty of the set design, the camerawork, and the way these work in conjunction with the actors and their material. The train is a metaphor for their own sheltered lives. Anderson knows boys, he understands the crazy ways they try to assert themselves, their secret language and the in-jokes they make to one another, and the clumsy ways they try to open their hearts. TWilson, Brody and Schwartzman display beautiful chemistry--they seem as though they've been sharing sleeping quarters and arguing between bunk-beds for years.

Would that they stayed on the train. Thanks to Peter's bringing in a poisonous snake, the trio's kicked off the Darjeeling Limited, and from there Anderson seems utterly lost. The train is symbolic of the cocoon these man-children have lived in and will probably always live in, and it's fine and dandy to see them shagging a bored Indian girl or insulting the German tourists next to them. It's another thing altogether for Anderson to try and ratchet up the emotions by having the brothers save a couple of young boys from drowning in a river, only to lose another. And when Anderson takes our heroes into the village, and heaps on the details of the Indians' poverty and grief, the shallowness of the brothers becomes apparent to everyone but the director. The young child's funeral is so secondary to their own story as to be deeply insulting: if Anderson's going to show us the father's pain and suffering to such degree, then don't cut away to a slo-mo of the three walking to the ceremony with the Kinks blaring away.

Sadly, The Darjeeling Limited never regains its footing. This is a shame, because for a moment Wes Anderson, who is a truly original voice in American cinema, had himself a film that was both touching, funny, and strangely wise. It has wonderful performances, including small roles that make one marvel at the joy of great character acting. But Anderson doesn't understand his boundaries. His three boys morph from being three confused souls and turn into three asshole Americans who can't see past the end of their broken noses.

...

Michael Clayton looks good, and, man, it certainly sounds good. Tony Gilroy directed the flick, from his own screenplay, which he obviously adores. Gilroy was the screenwriter for the Bourne series, which are some of the greatest spy thrillers ever made, but their screenplays weren't their strength. But someone doesn't agree with that assessment, because Gilroy was given the keys to the kingdom, being allowed to direct his own "thriller", and people it was some big stars, most notably George Clooney. Unfortunately, Michael Clayton's script, which will be soundly praised, is nothing more than smoke and mirrors.

The film opens with a breathless speech by Arthur Edens, played with tremendous brio by Tom Wilkinson, another of our unheralded actors. Edens has gone crazy. Normally the chief council for a law firm defending a pesticides company that's killing people, he meets one of the plaintiffs, a beautiful farmgirl whose parents died from the poisons his company has sprayed all over this great green earth. Upon seeing this vision of feminine loveliness, he loses his mind and, seeking to purify himself from the wickedness of his ways, decides to strip naked during a deposition and renounce his life.

In comes George Clooney's Michael Clayton. Clayton is a fixer. He's going to set everything straight. The fact that he never does in the course of this film, nor does he seem to be able to even convince people that he has any authority whatsoever does not to be of any concern to us, since everyone says he's the man who fixes things, we're meant to believe that. Needless to say, Edens won't go away, the giant company murders the poor man, and Michael Clayton has a spiritual awakening.

The problem isn't that the plot is an old, haggard thing that's been recycled from better paranoid flicks from the 1970s (such as The Parallax View or Network, movies that had no problem ending on cynical, dour note, as opposed to Clayton's triumphant end), but that Tony Gilroy is no Paddy Chayefsky. Namely, a writer whose words dominated his films. Chayefsky (Network) knew that his speeches needed to excite, needed to make the characters real, and needed to move the plot forward. Michael Clayton is so full of empty bluster it never ends up being about anything, saying nothing about our times or the characters that people the film. The film is full of startling contradictions: the murder of a key character is a great scene, meant to show us that the heavies who do this dirty work are professionals of the highest order. They kill in such a way as to leave everyone believing this was an accident... and yet, they try and off Clayton with a car bomb. What?

Subplots take far too long to play out, the dialogue has no snap, the women in the film are treated as either virginal young things or dry, shrewish corporate mouthpieces. And Clooney is way out of his league: moments where he's supposed to be awakening to the truth make him look like a deer caught in the headlights. Clayton's ending, too, is an insult: back in the days of The Parallax View (a film that Clayton is similar to) we weren't force fed a happy ending. The characters in 70s paranoid thrillers were often destroyed by the machine. It was up to us--the audience--to emerge from the theater frustrated and angry, to take that anger home and maybe, just maybe, pay attention to the shitty things corporations did and do something in real life.

Michael Clayton will garner its nominations and the script, which is created partially to call attention to itself, will surely get a nomination and probably a gold statuette. Strip away the excess dialogue, some of which is very good (if not well done by Tom Wilkinson, at least) and you'll find that the men and women are cliched, the plot is creaky and often contradictory, its ending insulting. We deserve better than this.

Brand Upon the Brain!. Now showing exclusively at The Parkway Theater.

You might find this strange, but here goes: I often wonder if cinema was ruined with sound. That the noise and the clatter wrecked an image that so subtly tapped into your subconscious, made you dream differently, hell, even live differently. Have you ever seen a silent movie? Or even better, watched it on the silver screen? I have, a number of times. That's all I do, it seems. Watch the silents, enjoy pure cinema. In theaters it's so different: to sit with that many people, in the quiet, with only a piano tinkling away in service to the story. Once, I even closed my eyes. Piano. And then reaction. Gasps, laughter. The darkness and the silver quaking past my eyelids. Give me the silents--oh, the movies were never better. But I was born too late. I missed it by a long shot.

I'll tell you something else: benshi. That's right, a benshi, those crazy Japanese performers who narrated silent film all those years ago in mighty Japan. Live performance, a man in a flowing robe, explaining poetically the scene as it unfolded behind him, or, like a haiku, in few words and timed hush, allowing the image to move you. Often, this fellow would make sound effects. Sometimes he would do a back flip upon the death of a character. Or pull out a sword, its blade glistening in the light of the projector. Each town had its own benshi, their favorite, and I like to imagine great silent films coming to our town, in a painted van, with fanfare, and our favorite benshi doing his thing for our utter enchantment. A piano accompanying. Maybe a cello. I love the cello.

If I told you that there was a silent film in town, with a benshi, you'd go, wouldn't you? I mean, if I told you to shake that little metal ball in there--tap, tap--in your brainpan, the one that rattles like a can of spray paint, and dredge up all that strange and foggy memory that's settled in the sludge of daily life, you would, wouldn't you? I mean, if I told you a movie could do that to you, make you a human being composed of moment and memory, you'd beg me for information, right? You'd say "To hell with the Cineplex, to hell with George Clooney and the Rock and malls!" and you'd drop your plans and go sit in an old neighborhood theater and watch something that, later, made you shiver?

This is Brand Upon The Brain! It is playing in an old movie theater whose front rows are comfy chairs. Painted on this theater's walls are strange images on billowing, dusty curtains. When the lights go out, they go out, and there's quiet, not the thump, thump of whatever movie's blundering about next door.

Brand Upon the Brain! is black and white and silent. Brand gives us music, beautiful music, melancholy and thrilling, and reminiscent of the sea. You can almost smell the brine from the moan of the cello. Isabella Rossellini narrates, breathlessly, ordering us to participate, shouting her entreaties. She is a benshi, and one of the best. Of course, there is only a recording of Isabella, sweet Isabella. But she is our only benshi, sadly, and she wears that international crown with pride. "The past, the past, into the past!" she shouts, and with her we are thrust headlong into that past. We follow Guy Maddin, filmmaker, into his past and discover, simultaneously, that there are some discomforting parallels in all our childhoods.

What is it about? Man returns to island of his youth, called back by his mother, paints a lighthouse, cannot cover the grime, and falls back into the sticky tar-baby of memory. This past involves sexy detective work (with harp-playing shamuses), horrific childbirth, and a plot to drain the youth-giving orphan nectar from the kids who are housed there. There are mad scientists, the Undressing Gloves, the Light-Bulb Kid, a turpentine bath, and the great line, "What is a suicide attempt without a wedding?"

There are beautiful women, rugged men who get caught in their memories like a sailor trapped in a tropical storm, there are orphans, and, as mentioned, orphan nectar. There is science fiction, witchcraft, cross-dressing, and the manic, fearful, joyful and confusedly sexual life of a child.

What... are you scared of the silent film? Worried that you'll be bored? Oh, you won't be bored. Do you get bored when you dream? When you reminisce? When some little thing triggers a decidedly uncomfortable memory? That's not boredom, it's fear. Confront your fears my friends. Brand Upon the Brain! is a time machine, into cinema's past, coming to us from Winnipeg, through Japan and American movie history, and somehow pitching its tent on the rocky surface of your own moony memories. As much as I love Isabella, if we were truly lucky, we'd have our own benshi, some lovely actor or actress gesticulating and singing and wielding harpoons on stage as this silver, silent madhouse shines on.

Then again, it'd probably be Garrison Keillor.