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Alexander Payne's "Nebraska" Corrals Spirited Saga

Of the many questions Alexander Payne's Nebraska raises about American individualism, the most urgent is, How to rein in Bruce Dern's unruly grey hair? On deeper reflection, the answer has to be: you don't. That wiry growth is his mane.

Dern plays Woody Grant, a grizzled Midwesterner whose driving privileges and lucidity have gone the way of the mustang. Woody has been bucking for the cause of freedom as far back as the Korean War. Now freedom's frontier cuts through Lincoln, Nebraska, where the Montana resident believes a million-dollar sweepstakes prize -- and the independence it'd buy him -- are his for the taking. First and foremost, it'd bankroll the truck he has long coveted.

Try as he might, Woody's son David (Will Forte) can't convince the boozy old crank that the whole prize thing's a sham. As much to establish a connection with his dad as to settle his own lonely heart, "Davy" takes time out from selling electronics to drive Woody to his manifest destiny. Along the way, they make a stop in their native Nebraskan hamlet, where the shadow of the Grant clan looms thickly across the heartland. We're in solid Payne territory here, a soybean's throw from the birthplace of the TV dinner.

As Payne recalled at the New York Film Festival press screening, veteran cinematographer Haskell Wexler likened Phedon Papamichael's black-and-white work on Nebraska to a moving Ansel Adam photograph. But just imagine the garishness that would have registered in color.

It's often grumbled about Payne's prairie portraits such as About Schmidt and Omaha that he condescends to hisNEB-02267BW folksy subjects. Working off a screenplay by South Dakota-reared Bob Nelson, Omaha-reared Payne claims his birthright to ferment the tone. If Payne were less deft at extracting comedy, his commentary might be too stacked to avoid sinking into a lament.

There is pointed social criticism in Nebraska's parody of what has become of the pioneer family ethos. Take for example the scene in which Woody and Davy reunite with the extended family. Davy's cousins can't get over what a pokey driver their wussy visitor is. For them, the true measure of a man is his car's odometer -- who rides the fastest horse -- though judging by their beefy girths lord knows when they last hulked from the den couch to the garage.

As the film clouds over, kin and kith alike lay claim to Woody's prospective fortune like so many vultures swarming the rural skies. Individual greed will plow through these hallowed bonds and leave the myth of small-town cohesion in tatters.

Yet if the film is prone to smirking, it also revels in small kindnesses. An especially tender one comes from Peg Nagy (Angela McEwan) at the local newspaper. As Woody's former sweetheart, she has stories for Davy that enable him nebraska-will-forte-bruce-dern-600x451to better understand and accept his dad: that he was shot down in Korea; that he was "always a little confused"; and that he swooned over Davy's spirited mother Kate (a show-stealing June Squibb). Like Davy, we can't help but take heart in Peg's considerably more romantic version of his parents' relationship than Woody had earlier imparted. (On why he wanted kids with Kate he'd explained, "I liked to screw and she was Catholic, so you do the math.”)

Peg's generosity helps set off the climax's redemptive act and gives us the nod for associating "Davy" with "Crockett." Spoiler alert: With his filial gift of a truck, our junior pioneer hero chalks one up for selflessness. Yet, this being a Payne film, irony gallops apace. As the elder Grant drives triumphantly down Main Street, he makes his son hide from sight. This may be Woody's last chance to run wild across the Great Plains. However much longer the old stallion has, this is no time for the family to trump the individual.

Director Noujam Opens 'The Square' at NYFF

noujamDirected by Award-winning Egyptian-American Jehane Noujaim, The Square is an exhilarating cinéma vérité portrait of the chaotic and inspiring events as they unfolded in Tahrir Square beginning in 2011 to overthrown Hosni Mubarak and moving beyond that to the ongoing, current political situation.

Noujaim is best know for her critically acclaimed documentaries Control Room (2004) and Egypt: We Are Watching You (2007). The feature is included in the impressive slate of documentaries presented by this 2013 New York Film Festival. During a recent press conference at Walter Reade Theater, the filmmaker and producer Karim Amer, who she met in Tahrir Square in January 2011 while shooting this film, discussed the challenges of covering the revolution in Egypt, which is constantly changing and evolving.

“The revolution continues,” the director said. “All the characters that we followed are still fighting” but “but we’ve gotten to a place where it can be show 10 years,50 years from now, and still stand as an emotional and historical document of the revolutionary events in Tahrir Square.”

Noujaim said she was at the World Economic Forum in Davos on January 25, where she had gone in hopes of getting access to Hosni Mubarak, when the protests in the Square began. “None of them showed up in Switzerland because Egypt did explode.” Noujaim got the first plane back to find that the army was already in the streets. “I was stopped by military intelligence. I had brought back a number of DVDs of my last film in 2007, they saw that and immediately thought there’s something wrong with this person because what she is doing bringing in 10 films that say ‘Egypt: We Are Watching You’ as the country’s exploding.”

A particular challenge in making a film about a struggle that is ongoing is staying current. “I’m checking Facebook and I’m continually updating as things are changing as we’re editing it and it was an exciting but kind of crazy process and I think we’re going to try to figure out some way of releasing it where we can give updates for little pieces that we’ll upload continually,” said the director.  

Amer, who is described in the movie’s production notes as an Egyptian-American entrepreneur, was protesting in the Square and posting updates on his blog when he met Noujaim, who asked him to join the filmmaking team. The activist filmmaker said, “The main battle cry of this revolution was that the people demand the downfall of the regime.”

The first part of documentary is about the bringing down of a dictator and the election of a president, Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Morsi. But two weeks before they took the film to Sundance, the filmmakers said all of characters in the film were back on the streets protesting because Morsi claimed dictatorial powers and tried to rewrite the constitution.

the-squareThe power of Noujaim’s film is that she tells the story of these events through the first-hand experiences of a charismatic group of young activists, both secular and Muslim brotherhood, who risked their lives in the protests, where they were often attacked and brutalized by the military. These protagonists are an articulate and appealing group and you can’t help rooting for them. Often they also had their own video cameras and blogs and posted startling images and stories of the military brutality online.

“Putting this together when everyone in the square had cameras was both a huge blessing because we had people that wanted to give us footage that we were working with and we were providing footage for other people,” Noujaim said.

“But a lot of times it felt like we were not only making a film but there were so many times when our characters were long gone, but I had to stay for several more hours because I was the only person with a camera in the Square and everybody said ‘You’re the only witness, you have to stay here’ and this happened with all the filmmakers on the project.”

Noujaim’s team edited their film in an office that was five minutes away from the Square where the revolutionaries in the film often crashed. The activists also often offered their advice to the filmmakers on what scenes were essential and should not be cut.

For Noujaim, the editing was tough. “It was a very intense process and I guess in terms of crafting the story we really had to take ourselves, we had to move away from Egypt and we had to look at what we had and decide, this is what has to be a film that is going to last for many, many years and it has to be the characters’ journey.”

Noujaim focused the film on this charismatic group of revolutionaries thanks to advice given to her by legendary documentarian D. E. Pennebaker, who was present at the press conference.

After the Q&A, I asked the director in the lobby if she ever feared for her safety when she was often one of very few women in the Square. “You’re around people that if they got arrested they would spend their lives in prison,” she said. “They would be beaten badly and you know that you would be, as somebody who has an American passport, as well as an Egyptian passport, you know that you have options of getting out and yet these people are fighting for your country alongside you. It gives you an incredible strength.” She added, “There were a number of times when everybody on this team who made the film has been either shot at, arrested, injured, tortured, in some way.”

She had some close calls. She was arrested three times and one time spent three days in custody, driven around for about eight hours in one of the big huge police cars. “I was arrested with Magdy (Ashour), the Muslim Brotherhood character, and through the whole thing he was talking to me through the barrier that divided me from 40 men, and he was saying, ‘Don’t worry about it, it will be fine,’ singing songs, getting me through.”

The Square will screen as part of the 51st New York Film Festival, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2013 at 8:30 p.m. at the Walter Reade Theater.

12 Years a Slave Wins TIFF 2013 People’s Choice Award


Winning at the highly watched, well-hyped Toronto International Film Festival can do wonderful things for a career, and speaks plenty about future Oscar nominations. At TIFF, the festival’s films are voted on by an audience instead of a Jury. Recent films given the People’s Choice Award  include Slumdog Millionaire, The King’s Speech and Argo. That bodes well for 12 Years a Slave director Steve McQueen and his actors and crew, a well put together ensemble that numbers Chiwetel Ejiofor as Solomon Northrup, the protagonist and author of the memoir that 12 Years a Slave is based on. Co-starring in the film, Michael Fassbender is the cruel plantation owner Edwin Epps who oversees Northrup after purchasing him off 
William Ford (Benedict Cumberbatch), a Baptist preacher and slave owner. Brad Pitt, Quvenzhané Wallis, Paul Giamatti and other stars also lend their talents to this coherent ensemble. With the stake so high in talent, it's no wonder the film has received acclaim from all of its viewers.

Couple great source material and superb with striking cinematography by Sean Bobbitt, wonderful writing by John Ridley, and superb direction by Steve McQueen, and it’s little wonder that 12 Years a Slave did take the cake at TIFF this year. In an exploration of slavery that damns nearly every white character on screen while consistently reaffirming Northrup’s existent humanity, even under duress,, McQueen has set himself and his cast up well for Oscar season. Many Oscar tipsters have even mentioned that McQueen, the London-born Holland resident, could end up being the first a black director to win Best Director at the Academy Awards.

Before TIFF, 12 Years a Slave premiered as a sneak peak in the Telluride Film Festival, and has since been confirmed for the 2013 BFI London Film Festival as well. It’ll get commercial release by Fox Searchlight Pictures and Regency Enterprises on October 18, 2013. Given the film’s popularity with critics, we can be sure to expect more film festival showings and even more acclaim for 12 Years a Slave and its cast in the coming months. To see a trailer for this wonderful drama, click here.

12 Years a Slave is directed by Steve McQueen and stars Chiwetel Ejiofor, Brad Pitt, Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Giamatti, Quvenzhane Wallis, Sarah Paulson, Paul Dano, Scoot McNairy, Garrett Dillahunt, Alfre Woodard, Dwight Henry, and Michael K. Williams. It hits theaters on October 18.

Wrapping Up the Seattle International Film Festival

SIFF

From Thursday, April 25 (with an official start date of May 16) to Sunday, June 9, the Seattle International Film Festival has screened 447 films, 31 of which I had a chance to watch. From opening with Joss Whedon's Shakespearean piece Much Ado About Nothing, which I called "a one-and-done modernized adaptation proud to bear its fuzzy flaws," to Sofia Coppola's teens-on-a-tear, The Bling Ring, this festival had diversity and volume on its side more than anything.

Bending between the genres of drama and horror, sci-fi and coming-of-age, thrillers to a wealth of documentaries, hearing stories pulled from France, England, South Africa, Brazil, Australia, America, Paraguay and Denmark from new filmmakers and seasoned veterans alike, we walked the world within these films.

Read more: Wrapping Up the Seattle...

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