The Chase
For me, Chasing Amy is a film connected to the distant past - when I was eighteen and intimidated by its subject matter (equally intimidated by my ex-girlfriend's obsession with it). Years have passed and I'm happy to report that it's as good a film as I remember. Certainly the best Kevin Smith movie I've seen. Yet interestingly it doesn't rest on Smith's prowess as a director. In 1997, even after two features (Clerks and Mallrats) and the Miramax machine behind him, Smith still had no idea where to put a camera. His blocking is stagey, his images flat. What makes the film are the performances and Smith's dialogue. I forgot how much of a joy Chasing Amy is to listen to. For example:
Hooper (Dwight Ewell): For years in this industry, whenever an African American character, hero or villain, was introduced - usually by white artists and writers - they got slapped with racist names that singled them out as Negroes. Now, my book, "White-Hating Coon," don't have none of that bullshit. The hero's name is Maleekwa, and he's descended from the black tribe that established the first society on the planet, while all you European motherfuckers were hiding out in caves and shit, all terrified of the sun. He's a strong role model that a young black reader can look up to. Cause I'm here to tell you, the chickens is coming home to roost, y'all. The black man's no longer gonna play the minstrel in the realm of comics and sci-fi fantasy. We keepin it real, and we gonna get respect by any means necessary.
Holden (Ben Affleck): Ah, come on, that's a bunch of horse shit! Lando Calrissian was a black guy. You know, and he got to fly the Millennium Falcon, what's the matter with you?
Hooper: Who said that?
Holden: I did! Lando Calrissian is a strong role-model in the realm of science fiction/fantasy.
Hooper: Fuck Lando Calrissian! Uncle-Tom nigger!
Perhaps the key to the success of Chasing Amy is both its honesty about relationships (refreshingly non PC) and the heart Smith brings to the project. It's probably no coincidence that the film's key speech is spoken by Smith himself as Silent Bob. And it's not a new thesis - that in a relationship the focus should be on the individual, not their past (unless they've been an axe murderer, obviously). Otherwise - you'll lose them. Makes a lot of sense. So thumbs up to the film from me. Besides making me strangely nostalgic for the grungy 90s and lamenting the Joey Lauren Adams' career that never was, I was once again charmed by this small ode to love. And hell, Smith was only twenty seven when he made it!
The same praise cannot be given to Woody Allen's Anything Else. The film went straight to video in Australia, and I can see why. It's akin to a group of children putting on a Woody Allen play. Jason Biggs is way out of his depth as the pseudo-Allen, painfully exposed when he is put on screen with the actual Woody Allen (who plays a mentor figure that drives a red sports car - which I assume is supposed to be funny given Annie Hall - otherwise once again Allen has tried to create a character separate from himself through the inclusion of an "object" or "hairstyle"). I'm not sure what parallel universe Woody has descended into, but he should stay right away from dramatising the tribulations of young relationships. I'm not saying that a seventy year old filmmaker cannot write about young love, but the sight of Biggs and Christina Ricci speaking as upper middle class New Yorkers who spend their days talking philosophy and analysing every facet of their existences (in Allen-speak) is simply ridiculous. Twenty minutes in, my friends and I turned off the film. After The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, Melinda and Melinda, and I assume Hollywood Ending (never released here), if Woody doesn't deliver with Match Point I'm blocking out most of the last ten years of his career.
Speaking of all things relationshipy, I went on a date last night. However, I didn't go into the evening convinced that it was a date. In fact, I'm not particularly sure what constitutes a date. Perhaps I just hate the whole concept of a date. Ultimately, I left the evening convinced I had been on a date.
(END NOTE: It looks like Kevin Smith is making a sequel to Clerks. This goes to show how much the so called "American independent film movement" has changed over the last ten years (and in the twenty or so years since Jim Jarmusch's Stranger Than Paradise). Somehow, I don't think Smith is capable of making a sequel to rival Before Sunset...)
Hooper (Dwight Ewell): For years in this industry, whenever an African American character, hero or villain, was introduced - usually by white artists and writers - they got slapped with racist names that singled them out as Negroes. Now, my book, "White-Hating Coon," don't have none of that bullshit. The hero's name is Maleekwa, and he's descended from the black tribe that established the first society on the planet, while all you European motherfuckers were hiding out in caves and shit, all terrified of the sun. He's a strong role model that a young black reader can look up to. Cause I'm here to tell you, the chickens is coming home to roost, y'all. The black man's no longer gonna play the minstrel in the realm of comics and sci-fi fantasy. We keepin it real, and we gonna get respect by any means necessary.
Holden (Ben Affleck): Ah, come on, that's a bunch of horse shit! Lando Calrissian was a black guy. You know, and he got to fly the Millennium Falcon, what's the matter with you?
Hooper: Who said that?
Holden: I did! Lando Calrissian is a strong role-model in the realm of science fiction/fantasy.
Hooper: Fuck Lando Calrissian! Uncle-Tom nigger!
Perhaps the key to the success of Chasing Amy is both its honesty about relationships (refreshingly non PC) and the heart Smith brings to the project. It's probably no coincidence that the film's key speech is spoken by Smith himself as Silent Bob. And it's not a new thesis - that in a relationship the focus should be on the individual, not their past (unless they've been an axe murderer, obviously). Otherwise - you'll lose them. Makes a lot of sense. So thumbs up to the film from me. Besides making me strangely nostalgic for the grungy 90s and lamenting the Joey Lauren Adams' career that never was, I was once again charmed by this small ode to love. And hell, Smith was only twenty seven when he made it!
The same praise cannot be given to Woody Allen's Anything Else. The film went straight to video in Australia, and I can see why. It's akin to a group of children putting on a Woody Allen play. Jason Biggs is way out of his depth as the pseudo-Allen, painfully exposed when he is put on screen with the actual Woody Allen (who plays a mentor figure that drives a red sports car - which I assume is supposed to be funny given Annie Hall - otherwise once again Allen has tried to create a character separate from himself through the inclusion of an "object" or "hairstyle"). I'm not sure what parallel universe Woody has descended into, but he should stay right away from dramatising the tribulations of young relationships. I'm not saying that a seventy year old filmmaker cannot write about young love, but the sight of Biggs and Christina Ricci speaking as upper middle class New Yorkers who spend their days talking philosophy and analysing every facet of their existences (in Allen-speak) is simply ridiculous. Twenty minutes in, my friends and I turned off the film. After The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, Melinda and Melinda, and I assume Hollywood Ending (never released here), if Woody doesn't deliver with Match Point I'm blocking out most of the last ten years of his career.
Speaking of all things relationshipy, I went on a date last night. However, I didn't go into the evening convinced that it was a date. In fact, I'm not particularly sure what constitutes a date. Perhaps I just hate the whole concept of a date. Ultimately, I left the evening convinced I had been on a date.
(END NOTE: It looks like Kevin Smith is making a sequel to Clerks. This goes to show how much the so called "American independent film movement" has changed over the last ten years (and in the twenty or so years since Jim Jarmusch's Stranger Than Paradise). Somehow, I don't think Smith is capable of making a sequel to rival Before Sunset...)
posted by Damien at 10:52 am
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home