High Rise

It’s very appropriate that the last words in this 'unique and dazzling vision of dystopian Britain' are from the wicked witch herself Margaret Thatcher. Directed by Ben Wheatley and adapted from J.G. Ballard's 1975 novel of the same name by Amy Jump, High Rise is vividly brought to life from the pages of a book that depicts an architecturally designed 40 story block of luxury flats within which we witness the deterioration of human behaviour. A story about the downfall of social class and the hierarchy that underpins its own weak structure which in turn leads to the release of the inner being and thereafter a collapse into violent chaos invoking a war footing between the haves and have-nots. The whole thing symbolic of today's society where the rich get richer and the poor sink ever lower into the traps that poverty sets.

 

 Lang.

Shot in Belfast in Northern Ireland the film stars Tom Hiddleston, as the doctor of Physiology Robert Laing an eligible bachelor who is the newest resident of one of the luxurious apartments and whose lofty location places him amongst the upper class. Laing quickly settles into high society life and meets the building’s eccentric tenants: Charlotte (Sienna Miller) a seductive bohemian single mum who is his upstairs neighbour; Wilder (Luke Evans), a charismatic documentarian and sexual predator who lives with his long suffering pregnant wife Helen (Elisabeth Moss); and Mr Royal (Jeremy Irons), the reclusive architect who designed the building. Life seems like paradise to the solitude-seeking Laing. But as power outages become more frequent and building flaws emerge, particularly on the lower floors, the regimented social strata begins to crumble and the building becomes a battlefield in a literal class war.

 

Charlotte.

This vision of Britain could have been lifted from today's newspaper, the suffering of working families at the hands of the moneyed classes and their political lapdogs, the grim reality of people’s lives and the decaying political system that blames the weakest in society for the countries problems. We now follow a world system that sinks further to the extreme right and will decay even further unless the 'high rise' is demolished!

 

Wilder.

I digress from the movie, but that's the affect that this movie has on me, and I imagine many other people of sound mind. The characters are vivid and real, the soundtrack is exceptional, especially the fantastic haunting interpretation of the 1975 Abba hit SOS by Portishead and of course Ballard's story interpreted by Wheatley and Jump is strikingly graphic. If like me you missed this at the cinema it’s now available on DVD. Enjoy while your still able too my friends - its getting ever blacker outside.

Foxcatcher.

Saying too much about Bennett Millers latest movie would, I'm sure, spoil it for many of you, as the movies climax was quite a shock for someone like me who knew nothing about the story before seeing the film! Based on a true story Foxcatcher (2013) was written for the screen by E Max Frye and Dan Futterman who also wrote the screenplay for Capote (2014), which Miller directed. The movie involves two different subcultures, wealth, money and self conceived power and the sport of wrestling, a rather under appreciated sport in modern day America.

 

Mark Ruffalo plays Dave Schultz.

When Bennett was originally approached with the story he knew immediately that this was a movie he had to make but it took some time to come to fruition. No one from the wrestling community wanted anything to do with the movie until John Giura joined the team as a trainer/technical adviser, which brought many other members of the wrestling community into the production. Giura was eventually given a producing credit.  Set on Du Pont's 880-acre estate in New Town Pennsylvania, and with the original mansion Liseter Hall having been demolished, the filmmakers used Morven Park in Leesburg, Virginia for the exterior filming and Wilpen Hall an 1899 mansion in the suburb of Sewickley Heights Pennsylvania for the interior filming.

 

Channing Tatum as Mark Schultz.

The story concerns the relationship between two gold winning Olympic wrestling brothers Mark and Dave Schultz, played by Channing Tatum and Mark Ruffalo, and the American munitions multi millionaire, philanthropist and wrestling enthusiast John Eleuthere du Pont, a very different role for comedian Steve Carell who is almost unrecognisable with his ‘Roman’ nose. Du Pont sets himself up as the main benefactor of the US Wrestling team to take part in the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games taking on Mark and then Dave to train Team Foxcatcher. It's a self indulgent project for one of the riches men in America at that time and demonstrates what he imagines his vast wealth can allow him to get away with.

 

Steve Carell as the multi millionaire du Pont. 

Offering a great story, although slow paced and intense, it allows the three main leads to demonstrate career best performances with both Ruffalo and the unnerving Carell both receiving acting nominations at the 87th Academy Awards while Bennett was nominated for Best Director, an award he won at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival. Also in the movie are Vanessa Redgrave as du Pont's domineering horse loving mother and Sienna Miller as Dave Schultz wife Nancy.  Don’t worry if you’re not a fan of wrestling, as I’m not, it will not spoil your enjoyment of this finely made, if somewhat gloomy, movie. Just treat at it as a metaphor for life - how the rich exploit people who are not fortunate enough have the same privileges they have. 

American Sniper.

This Clint Eastwood biographical war drama can be viewed from two different perspectives’. The first is obviously the politically incorrect standpoint and the second is as a gung-ho cowboy film, but this does depend on whether you can detach yourself from the dreadful reality of a story involving the deadliest legalised assassin in American military history.

 

Chris Kyle.

Texas born Chris Kyle was taught to shoot and kill animals by his father, to protect his younger brother from bullies and to hold America in reverence above everything else. In 2002 he married Taya Renae Kyle (played by British actress Sienna Miller) with whom he had two children.  Following the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers he volunteered for the military and was chosen for the USA’s special operations force known as the Navy Seals. In this rather unique force he became a legend as a sniper with a 160 confirmed kills with his actual tally probable nearer 255. During this period he served four tours in the Iraq War (2003 – 2011) being awarded several commendations for ‘acts of heroism and meritorious service in combat’ and receiving two Silver star medals, five Bronze Star medals, one Navy and marine Corps Commendation Medal, two navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medals along with numerous other unit and personal awards.

America love their war hero’s and its no surprise that American Sniper (2014) is the highest grossing war film in the USA, its also Director Eastwood’s highest grossing film to date and received six Academy Awards nominations but only won Best Sound Editing. Kyle is played by Bradley Cooper (American Hustle 2013, The Place Beyond the Pines 2013, Silver Linings Playbook 2012) and received a nomination for Best Actor. The screenplay was written by Jason Hall, based on the book American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in US Military History co-written in 2012 by Chris Kyle, Scott McEwen and Jim DeFelice. 

 

Taya Kyle at the movie premier. 

This fact-based drama was shown as part of the new Robert Burns Centre Film Theatre Film Club season and was hosted by Rachel Findlay who did a good job of introducing a difficult subject matter. The discussion that followed the screening was quite intense, tackling such diverse topics as whether the film was pro or anti-war, and if the movie delved fully into the problems that soldiers encounted when they return from the battlefield and how they adjust back into civilian life. My own personnel view was that it was neither a pro nor an anti-war movie, but was certainly one that refused to give any legitimate reasons for the troops being there in the first place. This act of war that has since destabilised the complete Middle East, giving rise to the Islamic Brigades and ISIS. We also discussed how it appears that Americas liberal gun laws and constant reports of violent aggression has anesthetise the US public into excepting that this and many other theatres of war are not illegal when obviously they are and have been down throughout the ages. This is a film primarily about the glorifying of bloodshed, death and patriotism, and the misguided credence of ‘God, family and country’ and how men are so easily dehumanised. The United States of America must revise their gun laws.

Hitchcock and The Girl.

Alfred Hitchcock.

Sacha Gervasi’s attempt at a biopic of the life of the Leytonstone’s best-known son Hitchcock (2012) can be seen from two perspectives. Firstly a movie about movie making in Hollywood in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s at a transitional time in the studio’s history and to a certain extent this succeeds. Secondly, as a study of a perverted weirdo, which the film hints at, but generally glosses over. The plot is partly based on Stephen Rebello’s non-fiction book Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho. The movie covers the making of this 1960’s film from when Hitchcock acquired the rights to Robert Bloch’s gothic horror novel about the true-life killer and grave robber Ed Gein, up until the films release and non-critical success.   It exposes that while Hitchcock (Anthony Hopkins) Stage Fright (1950) and Strangers on the Train (1951). 

is lusting after his latest blonde actress, Janet Leigh (Scarlett Johansson) his wife Alma Reville (Helen Mirren) is engaged in a flirtatious relationship with a younger man, the writer Whitfield Cook (Danny Huston) who had worked on two of Hitchcock’s previous scripts

Hitchcock gambled his reputation and re mortgaged his home to make Psycho and he no doubt made stars of some of his leading actresses but at what cost to their integrity? Gervasi’s film only hints at his perversity where we see Hitchcock spying on Vera Miles (Jessica Biel) via a peephole cut through the wall into her dressing room, dictating what clothes each actress should wear and the hair styles they should have not just on the set but at any time while under contract and God forbid if they get pregnant.

Janet Leigh.

I do agree with film critic Peter Bradshaw that this Hollywood movie was completely upstaged by the BBC/HBO TV play The Girl (2012) shown just before last Christmas. This was based on a 1983 book written by Donald Spoto about Tippi Hedren’s revelations that she was sexually harassed and abused when she worked under Hitchcock’s direction on two films, The Birds (1963) and Marnie (1964). The play also provides superior performances from its lead actors namely Toby Jones as Hitchcock and Imelda Staunton as Alma, better suited to the role than Helen Mirren. Sienna Miller gives a very satisfying performance as Hedren.

 

The out of favour Vera Miles.

The Girl’s most dramatics scene has Tippi Hedren cowing on an attic set while live birds are thrown at her ‘shitting and pecking’. The scene, which only lasts two minutes in the finished movie, was supposed to be filmed in one day with mechanical birds. Instead it took five days with live birds until one of them pecked Hedren’s left eye leaving a deep cut on the lower lid and she broke down and had to be taken home under sedation to receive medical care. Another example of the sadistic and cruel treatment of women from a man who said ‘Blondes make the best victims. They’re like virgin snow that shows up the bloody footprints’. Hedren was quoted as saying ‘I had always heard that his idea was to take a women, usually a blonde and break her apart’. During Marnie he actually asked her for sexual favours telling her she would never work in the film industry again if she did not grant his disgusting wishes, which obviously she did not.

 

Tippi Hedren with Hitchcock.

Our culture has a history of excusing or ignoring the excesses of famous men for example Jimmy Saville whose abuse, both mental and physical, of young girls over many years was allegedly ignored by the BBC.  Hitchcock hints that he was incapable of sex, admitting that ‘he could not get it up’ which begs the question was his attraction to blonde leading ladies a sick fantasist dream?  This ‘walrus dressed like a man’, his words not mine, makes your skin crawl. A bully who quoted indecent sexual rhymes that passed as humour, who was happy to punish his actresses if they did not curtail to his wishes and each of them treated like his own personnel possession. Not the most pleasant man to work with.

Jessie Matthews appeared in the only musical Hitchcock directed, Waltzes from Vienna (1934), and we are told in Michael Thornton’s biography Jessie Matthews that even at this early stage of Hitchcocks career he was one of highest paid directors in British films and was already accustomed to being the ‘star of the show’ and could not stand competition especially from the films young star who was at that stage ‘Britain’s first film goddess’. He was taken to task at the time by The Times newspaper for treating Jessie as ‘a not too important part of the films design’ She summed him up as a domineering young man who knew nothing about musicals and said that she and her female co-star Fay Compton, were unnerved by him because of his sarcasm and his well known reputation as a practical joker. Due to Hitchcock’s lack lustre direction and his famous distrust of actors the film was a flop, panned by the critics and has since become regarded as the worst film in his career.

As I said previously not the most pleasant man to work with.