Invictus

Damien
Laureate
Posts: 6331
Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 8:43 pm
Location: New York, New York
Contact:

Post by Damien »

Sabin wrote:He's a self-proclaimed narrative junkie.

And he loves Daisy Kenyon? ??? That's a movie you basically have to be hard core auteurist to appreciate because it's all about Preminger's mise-en-scene and attitude towards his characters.


Hmmm, in any case, I guess he and I are 180 degrees apart -- the narrative is the least interesting part of a film to me. It's what the director does with the narrative that matters.

But I'm in lockstep with him on the despicable Going Places, an abomination that Miss Kael adored.




Edited By Damien on 1259831004
"Y'know, that's one of the things I like about Mitt Romney. He's been consistent since he changed his mind." -- Christine O'Donnell
Sabin
Laureate Emeritus
Posts: 10747
Joined: Thu Jan 02, 2003 12:52 am
Contact:

Post by Sabin »

He's a self-proclaimed narrative junkie.
"How's the despair?"
rain Bard
Associate
Posts: 1611
Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 6:55 pm
Location: San Francisco
Contact:

Post by rain Bard »

I don't think he's a huge fan of Paul Thomas Anderson, though I get the impression he's positive on There Will Be Blood, at least.

His modus operandi tends to be to avoid auteurist interpretation. The fact that he loves one film by a particular director does not mean he'll like another. Quite the contrary; sometimes he seems to bend over backwards to dislike the next seen film made by someone he's previously praised.
Damien
Laureate
Posts: 6331
Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 8:43 pm
Location: New York, New York
Contact:

Post by Damien »

Now THAT's an eclectic list. Daisy Kenyon #3? I wonder if he read the symposium Zach, Dan Sallit and I had on the film some years back in Zach's now- defunct webzine.

The Gauntlet's a great film.




Edited By Damien on 1259827006
"Y'know, that's one of the things I like about Mitt Romney. He's been consistent since he changed his mind." -- Christine O'Donnell
Big Magilla
Site Admin
Posts: 19318
Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 3:22 pm
Location: Jersey Shore

Post by Big Magilla »

Eastwood's Unforgiven is his 6th highest rated film of all time, The Gauntlet his second lowest.

The A List:

Double Indemnity*/'44 Wilder (100)
Blood Simple*/'84 Coen (100)
Daisy Kenyon*/'47 Preminger (99)
Trouble in Paradise*/'32 Lubitsch (98)
They Live by Night*/'48 Ray (98)
Unforgiven*/'92 Eastwood (97)
Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills*/'96 Berlinger & Sinofsky (97)
Decalogue Six*/'88 Kieslowski (96)
The Man Who Wasn't There*/'01 Coen (95)
Raiders of the Lost Ark*/'81 Spielberg (95)
Miami Blues*/'90 Armitage (94)
Red Dust*/'32 Fleming (94)
The Blair Witch Project*/'99 Myrick & Sanchez (93)
Kiss Me Deadly*/'55 Aldrich (93)
sex, lies and videotape*/'89 Soderbergh (93)
Se7en*/'95 Fincher (93)
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg*/'64 Demy (92)
Blue Collar/'78 Schrader (92)
Barton Fink*/'91 Coen (92)
The Third Man*/'49 Reed (91)
The Thin Blue Line*/'88 Morris (91)
Repulsion*/'65 Polanski (91)

The D List:

Salo, or The 120 Days of Sodom/'75 Pasolini (18)
Nouvelle Vague/'90 Godard (16)
The Gauntlet/'77 Eastwood (15)
Going Places/'74 Blier (10)
Damien
Laureate
Posts: 6331
Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 8:43 pm
Location: New York, New York
Contact:

Post by Damien »

Sabin wrote:MD'A

Invictus ('09 Eastwood): 38. Homily homily homily homily GOOOOOAL!! homily homily homily homily homily GOOOOOAL!! homily homily GOOOOOAL!!!!

D'Angelo's Scale of Eastwood Appreciation:
Gran Torino - 34
Changeling - 67
Letters from Iwo Jima - 55
Flags of Our Father - 54
Million Dollar Baby - 62
Mystic River - 43
Blood Work - 43
Space Cowboys - C+
Obviously this fool doesn't get one of the great contemporary directors. He pprobably doesn't like Ford or Renoir either. Likely has never heard of Leo McCarey except in passing. Who does he like? (I'm guessing Paul Thomas Anderson.)
"Y'know, that's one of the things I like about Mitt Romney. He's been consistent since he changed his mind." -- Christine O'Donnell
Sabin
Laureate Emeritus
Posts: 10747
Joined: Thu Jan 02, 2003 12:52 am
Contact:

Post by Sabin »

MD'A

Invictus ('09 Eastwood): 38. Homily homily homily homily GOOOOOAL!! homily homily homily homily homily GOOOOOAL!! homily homily GOOOOOAL!!!!

D'Angelo's Scale of Eastwood Appreciation:
Gran Torino - 34
Changeling - 67
Letters from Iwo Jima - 55
Flags of Our Father - 54
Million Dollar Baby - 62
Mystic River - 43
Blood Work - 43
Space Cowboys - C+
"How's the despair?"
The Original BJ
Emeritus
Posts: 4312
Joined: Mon Apr 28, 2003 8:49 pm

Post by The Original BJ »

Mister Tee wrote:Is it me, or do some critics seem to review Eastwood movies with one hand tied behind their backs? I've liked alot of Eastwood's recent stuff, but not all of it. And the tone of these reactions here comes perilously close to that received by one of the ones I didn't like, Flags of Our Fathers.
I agree completely. The reviews for Flags of Our Fathers were way suspect, in my opinion. The print critics seemed to have nothing but reverence for the holy combination of Eastwood and Spielberg, not to mention the film's subject matter. There seemed to be quite a bit of tiptoe-ing around the film's flaws, and I don't mean just that those critics liked the movie more than I did. You really did get the sense they were just being forgiving.

I'm still hoping, though, that Invictus will be a lot closer to the Eastwood films I've loved than the disappointments.
Mister Tee
Tenured Laureate
Posts: 8637
Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 2:57 pm
Location: NYC
Contact:

Post by Mister Tee »

Is it me, or do some critics seem to review Eastwood movies with one hand tied behind their backs? I've liked alot of Eastwood's recent stuff, but not all of it. And the tone of these reactions here comes perilously close to that received by one of the ones I didn't like, Flags of Our Fathers.
User avatar
Sonic Youth
Tenured Laureate
Posts: 8003
Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 8:35 pm
Location: USA

Post by Sonic Youth »

Hollywood Reporter's and Variety's reviews. Looks like a very decent film, perhaps to a fault.



Invictus -- Film Review
By Kirk Honeycutt, November 27, 2009 09:00 ET


Nothing speaks so dramatically about Clint Eastwood's recent and remarkable burst of creativity as a director of awards-worthy films than the appearance of "Invictus," a historical drama that few if any filmmakers could have launched within the studio system. Here is a movie about Nelson Mandela, South Africa after apartheid and, of all things, the sport of rugby. None is high on any list of topics that studio suits crave, which tend more toward vampires and superheroes. Even the title -- that of a Victoria-era poem -- is obscure.

When released during a December storm of Oscar contenders, "Invictus" will pull its audience from adventurous, older moviegoers. Even the presence of Matt Damon, along with Morgan Freeman, will bring in only a small number of younger people. But for those who do buy tickets, it will be a pleasure for them to encounter a movie that's actually about something.

The downside here is a certain trepidation on the filmmakers' part to dig very deeply into what is still a politically sensitive situation. Then too, the real-life protagonists are very much alive and one an iconic figure. That's always a problem for any film that wants to deal with such personalities as flesh-and-blood characters.

The opening scene brilliant sets the stage. Released from prison on February 11, 1990 after 27 years, Mandela (Freeman) travels in a motorcade that passes between two fenced sports fields. On one, white youths in spiffy uniforms play rugby. On the other pitch, black kids kick a soccer ball. The black kids rush to the fence while the white kids' coach tells his charges to mark the day when their country went to the dogs.

At once, Eastwood and South African writer Anthony Peckham deliver a metaphor for a nation divided along racial lines and a hint that sports will be one of Mandela's strategies for bringing South Africans together.

Four years later, Mandela is the country's first black president. Many white citizens fear black rule just as many black citizens look to Mandela for revenge. It's a prescription for social instability and political disaster.

Mandela hits upon an ambitious plan to use the national rugby team, the Springboks -- long an embodiment of white-supremacist rule -- to grip the new South Africa as the team prepares to host the 1995 World Cup. So he begins to woo its Afrikaner captain, Francois Pienaar (Damon), to his cause.

In the beginning, the Springboks are portrayed as the rugby equivalent of the Bad News Bears. But a string of improbable wins brings them to the finals against a New Zealand team that is an overwhelming favorite.

The film, based upon the book "Playing the Enemy" by John Carlin, has an understandably narrow focus of 1995 South Africa. Mandela is seen only in the context of a sudden rugby convert. He signs papers and greets international delegations between matches. Francois is glimpsed with a family and wife --or girlfriend, even this is unclear -- but he exists solely to play his sport.

The film enters neither of their lives. It's a film about a nation's psyche, not its individuals. Where you would love a vigorous portrayal of two larger-than-life personalities, the film tiptoes through polite scenes where everyone speaks and acts with political correctness.

Likewise, the actors stick close to the surface. Freeman gives you a folksy yet sagacious leader. He ambles rather than walks and peers at people with sly wisdom gleaming in his eyes. He doesn't try to plumb the depths of a one-time rebel or a man struggling to keep both his nation and family together. Indeed the film writes his former wife, Winnie, out of the picture altogether and a daughter is seen glaring at him or the TV whenever rugby gets mentioned. Why is she so angry?

Damon has taken the flabby dough-boy body from "The Informant!" and chiseled it into pure muscle. He looks like a rugby player. What he thinks about apartheid or Mandela or anything else you never learn. He certainly respects the nation's president but their relationship is largely ceremonial.

The film's title stems from a short poem by the British poet William Ernest Henley, first published in 1875, that Mandela often recited to himself while imprisoned on Robben Island. The key final lines are: "I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul." Francois finds meaning here too as he seeks to lead his team to victory.

So this is a conventional film that takes the measure of a country's emotional temperature but not its individual citizens. The game scenes are skillfully done -- the sound of the body hits lets you know why rugby is an orthopedist's delight. CGI shots and other effects seamlessly fill the stands with thousands and convert contemporary South African locations back 14 years.

The film's money shots come at the end when blacks and whites cheer and embrace. For once a sports victory is something more than just another win. What's missing though is a human relationship to carry you through to this end. Mandela maintains convivial, even humorous relationships with all his staff and advisors and Francois seems to have a loving family -- and a black maid who shrewdly watches everything in the household.

Somewhere here, even among the president's bodyguards who are portrayed in surprising detail, there may have been a few people who could carry the emotional ball, so to speak. As it is, we applaud the final game but must leave the cheering to the on-screen fans.


---------------------------------------------------


Invictus

By TODD MCCARTHY
Vareity



"Invictus" is a very good story very well told. Shortly after Nelson Mandela emerged from 27 years in prison and became president of South Africa in 1994, he seized upon using a rugby World Cup the following year as an opportunity to rally the entire nation -- blacks and whites -- behind the far-fetched prospect of the home team winning it all. Inspirational on the face of it, Clint Eastwood's film has a predictable trajectory, but every scene brims with surprising details that accumulate into a rich fabric of history, cultural impressions and emotion. The names of Eastwood and stars Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon should propel this absorbing Warner Bros. release to solid returns Stateside, with even better prospects looming in many foreign markets, where an unfamiliar sport and South African politics may pose less of a potential B.O. hurdle.

Once again in his extraordinary late-career run, Eastwood surprises with his choice of subject matter, here joining a project Freeman had long hoped to realize. In fact, the filmmaker has frequently dealt with racial issues in a conspicuously even-handed manner, most notably in "Bird," and his calm, equitable, fair-minded directorial temperament dovetails beautifully with that of Mandela, much of whose daily job as depicted here consisted of modifying and confounding the more extreme views of many of his countrymen on both side of the racial divide.

Mandela is the lynchpin of "Invictus," whose title is Latin for "unconquerable" and comes from a stirring 1875 poem by British writer William Ernest Henley. Although far from a conventional biography, Anthony Peckham's adaptation of John Carlin's densely packed book "Playing the Enemy" commences with Mandela's extraordinary transition from imprisonment to the leadership of a country that easily could have fallen into a devastating civil war.

As he takes office, Mandela allows that his greatest challenge will be successfully relaxing the tension between black aspirations and white fears. Pic adroitly avoids becoming mired in the minutiae of political score-settling by summing up racial suspicions through the prism of the new president's security detail. Mandela's longtime black bodyguards are shocked when their "Comrade President" forces them to work with some intimidating Afrikaners, experienced toughs who until very recently were no doubt striking terror into the hearts of the black population.

Directed by Eastwood with straightforward confidence, the film is marbled with innumerable instances of Mandela disarming his presumed opponents while giving pause to those among his natural constituency who might be looking for some payback rather than intelligent restraint. Freeman, a beautiful fit for the part even if he doesn't go all the way with the accent, takes a little while to shake off the man's saintlike image, and admittedly, the role of such a hallowed contemporary figure does not invite too much complexity, inner exploration or actorly elaboration. That said, Freeman is a constant delight; gradually, one comes to grasp Mandela's political calculations, certitudes and risks, the troubled personal life he keeps mostly out of sight, and his extraordinary talent for bringing people around to his point of view.

Where the rugby match is concerned, that talent is manifested by how, over tea, Mandela personally appeals to the captain of the South African team, the Springboks. A blond Afrikaner with no discernible politics, Francois Pienaar (Matt Damon) would just like to lift the squad from its present mediocrity. But Mandela quotes inspiringly from the poem -- "I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul" -- speaks of leading by example and exceeding expectations, and leaves Pienaar astonished at the idea that they can dare to dream about winning the World Cup.

Just as it's disinclined to offer a primer on South African politics, the film refrains from outlining the rules of rugby; the viewer just has to jump in and surmise that it's something like a cross between soccer and American football. What the film conveys with tart economy is that rugby was a white game, scorned by blacks; as one man puts it, "Soccer is a gentleman's game played by hooligans, rugby is a hooligan's game played by gentlemen."

In a magnificent irony, the team the mostly white South African squad ultimately faces in the title match is a mostly white New Zealand team called (because of their uniforms) the All Blacks. The climactic faceoff, played in front of 62,000 fans at Johannesburg's Ellis Park Stadium roused by the presence of Mandela himself, lasts 18 minutes of screen time; when such an event plays out like this in real life, it's often exclaimed that it could only have been scripted for the movies. Here, it's real life dictating the incredible scenario.

With the exception of the meeting with Mandela and a couple of family scenes, most of Damon's screen time is spent in training or on the field, and it's meant as highest praise to say that, if he weren't a recognizable film star, you'd never think he were anything other than a South African rugby player. Beefed up a bit (or, perhaps more accurately, slimmed down somewhat from "The Informant!") and employing, at least to an outsider's ear, an impeccable accent, Damon blends in beautifully with his fellow players.

Some of the most amusing and telling scenes throughout involve the bodyguards, whose body language, facial expressions and intonations of minimal lines convey much about the uncertain state of things in the country.

Shot entirely on location in South Africa, "Invictus" looks so natural and realistic that it will strike no one as a film dependent upon CGI and visual effects. In fact, the climactic match would not have been possible without them, as virtually the entire crowd was digitally added after the action was filmed in an empty stadium. You really can't tell.

Tech contributions are solid down the line and local tunes fill out the discreetly supportive soundtrack.




Edited By Sonic Youth on 1259366419
"What the hell?"
Win Butler
Post Reply

Return to “2009”