Film School Dropouts: Art, Fame, and the Lack Thereof

There is a line from the HBO movie RKO 281, about the making of the movie Citizen Kane, during which the actor who plays Orson Welles, speaking about film, laments the fact that the "most powerful expressive medium has fallen into the hands of bankers." Orson Welles probably never uttered that line. Someone involved in the making of the making of Citizen Kane came up with it. However, the fact of the matter is that no matter how expressive a medium is, if people can't be bothered to watch it, the message will be lost.

That is why, in compiling this series of "best of" movies, the entertainment factor is still very much a governing factor. I'm just as much a fan of edgy, experimental art films that make no sense whatsoever as the next guy, but on the other hand, I fell asleep during Transformers. I turned off Moulin Rouge when it was the onboard movie entertainment on a trans-Pacific flight. How bored do you have to be with a movie to turn it off on an airplane? The concept of good, pithy, powerful art that still has mass sex appeal is a concept that I'm sure some of the protagonists on this particular list may understand quite well:

The Velvet Goldmine

There's almost no way that a movie starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Ewan McGregor, and Christian Bale would be bad. There just isn't. And despite the amazing performances of all three, this movie has a lot else going for it. JRM plays Brian Slade, whose story is a loose biopic of David Bowie and his alter-ego Ziggy Stardust. However, the story is told through the lens of a reporter ten years after Brian's fall from fame, through a Citizen Kane- like structure (the reporter interviews various people from Brian's days of stardom, through which the details of his life emerge). Christian Bale plays the reporter, who aside from having personal connections to the Brian Slade story, being a former glam-rock fan himself, lives in a society vaguely reminiscent of 1984, a drab, colorless society whose main features seem to be large ever-present television screens. Ewan McGregor plays Kurt Wild, who is supposed to be Iggy Pop but channels quite a bit of Kurt Cobain as well. He represents the "real deal" to Brian's much more popular, but ultimately derivative, persona. The last piece of the puzzle is a pin that brings fame to whoever wears it, a pin that Brian steals from another man at the beginning of his career, a pin that supposedly belonged to Oscar Wilde (who is actually an alien. Go figure). How does this all fit together? It's almost more amazing that it does, at all.

It's a story about fame and the fall from it, about stardom and fandom in almost equal amounts, about style and shimmer and the lack of substance they cover. "A man's life is his image," says Brian, a philosophy which rings ominously true as his own image consumes him, not realizing until too late that the perfectly coiffed image hides an empty shell inside. However, the brash exuberance of the movie also poses the question of if, despite it all, it was still worth it in the end. Perhaps the film itself said it best in the opening credits: "Even though what you are about to see is a work of fiction, it should nevertheless be played at maximum volume."

Hedwig and the Angry Inch

This movie is actually a production of a Broadway musical by the same name, directed by and starring John Cameron Mitchell as Hedwig, a transsexual East German musician, split between east and west, man and woman, much as the Berlin Wall divides his country, searching for the Platonic ideal of his other half (whatever that may be). As Hedwig's small band of misfits tours the bars and diners of the United States, tailing the tour of Hedwig's former protege and lover, Tommy Gnosis, Hedwig recounts his childhood in Communist Germany, his young misadventures ("I had just completed a brilliant thesis on the impact of German philosophy on modern rock music entitled "You, Kant, always get what you want...."), the impact of his botched sex-change operation, and his relationship with Tommy, whom he tutored in music and love, only to be betrayed and left behind as Tommy rockets to stardom on the strength of Hedwig's music.

It's a brilliant gem of a film that really stands out from other rock opera musicals involving transsexuals (Rocky Horror Picture Show, I'm pointing at you). Whereas it could easily have come across as ridiculous due to its campy subject matter, Hedwig's narration, by turns dryly humorous, bitterly angry, and melancholic, instead weaves a thoughtful, contemplative thread through his quest for love and self-realization. Of course, the music itself is wonderful, also.

High Art

In direct contrast to the previous two movies, High Art (the title of which is an uncharacteristic bad pun) is a very quiet, understated character piece. Radha Mitchell, who was in Pitch Black with Vin Diesel, which is not as terrible a movie as it might have been, plays Syd, a young yuppie woman working at a photography magazine, who strikes up an unlikely relationship with Lucy, a formerly famous lesbian photographer living directly above her. Lucy and her girlfriend, Greta, have moved to New York for Lucy's career, but they now don't do much besides lie around the apartment in heroin-induced torpors. Despite the disparity between their two worlds, Syd and Lucy slowly become friends, which evolves into a relationship.

It's not really a lesbian movie, even though it has quite a lesbian following because it portrays Syd's first sexual experience with a woman in a very truthful, down to earth way. It's actually a movie about the price of art, and the price of relationships. Syd and Lucy's relationship cost them Syd's former relationship with her (admittedly unworthy and douchebaggish) boyfriend, Lucy's old relationship with Greta, and put Syd's position at the magazine in trouble, but these sacrifices pale in comparison to what the cost of Lucy's art would ultimately be. The movie is a very simple production, but is all the more powerful because of it.

Gods and Monsters

Another subtle character study, but this movie has the advantage of having Magneto in it. Ian McKellen plays the aging gay director James Whale, who made the original Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein movies, but who is now elderly, frail, weakening, and mostly forgotten by the world except by film school students with interests in obscure subjects. The story is a fantasy about Whale's last days, during which he strikes up an unlikely friendship with his gardener, played by Brendan Fraser -- a somewhat surprising casting choice, but actually pretty fitting upon closer inspection, as the character of Clay Boone calls for a caveman who gains a soul through this friendship with Whale. McKellen, for his part, plays Whale to the hilt -- he's poised even when losing his memory, alternately polite, charming, poignant, and cutting, never senile, or lecherous, or laughable even at his most vulnerable. These two men, completely different both in temperament and background, form a somewhat awkward friendship that will nevertheless change both their lives.

Now, let's go back to sex, drugs, and rock and roll -- 18th century style.

Farinelli

This is the (true-but-not-really-true) story of Farinelli, a castrato singer who was so famous that he became something of an international sensation -- the first true rock star, if you will. Mutilated at an early age to preserve the angelic boy soprano he was to become famous for, he became the darling of royals and aristocrats everywhere, with his brother Ricardo, a talentless composer, hanging onto his coattails. It's not only fame that the two share, either -- the women that Farinelli attracts but cannot satisfy end up primed in Ricardo's lap. As Farinelli's star rises, he catches the eye of the great composer Handel, who acknowledges his talent but thinks him a heartless singing machine. For his part, Farinelli longs to sing the beautiful music Handel writes, but is bound to his brother and his mediocrity.

It's a rich, lavish production (a Belgian film made about Italians speaking French, although Handel speaks English occasionally), full of lush sets, wigged and powdered women (and men), and bosoms heaving in the candlelight. The story that emerges is a bit frothy, but by turns lyrical and moving. Since there is no modern day equivalent of Farinelli's voice, the director concocted a synthetic voice by fusing together a male and female singers' voices.

Frost/Nixon

By far the best thing about this movie is the performances by its two leading men. The history behind the story was diluted somewhat for dramatic effect, what emerged is rather more a flight of fancy than a real piece of reporting. However, Ron Howard, who directed Apollo 13, also directed this stage adaptation, so you know you're in for a good piece of storytelling, no matter what. And it's worth suspending your historical judgment to watch Sheen and Frank Langella go at it on the screen -- a clash between titans if there ever was one. I am a little bit reminded of RKO 281 again, and the showdown between Orson Welles and William Randolph Hearst, which also centered on the rise of the younger man's career through the destruction of the older man's career.

I Shot Andy Warhol

I suspect a lot of people think this movie is utter trash. Its subject matter certainly doesn't do anthing to dispel this idea -- Lili Taylor plays "motor-mouth street freak writer-prostitute-lesbian-gun-wielding assailant Valerie Solanas," as described by Amazon, who wrote the SCUM Manifesto (which is basically a huge rant about how men are inferior to women in every way) and did, indeed, shoot Andy Warhol after he refused to produce her play called "Up Your Ass." The performance, however, is amazing, and the character of Solanas is strong enough to be sympathetic despite her many roughnesses. She comes across as tough, lonely, misunderstood, witty, and driven, which is in direct contrast to the rather slimy persona of Andy Warhol, who doesn't seem to be so much a genius as just a really aloof, elitist prick that surrounds himself with pretentious ass-kissers. One of them, when watching footage of Solanas's transvestite friend Candy Darling (who hands out with the pack as kind of their star freak-show attraction), remarks "Oh, I love her. She's so real. She just gets realer and realer and realer."

The movie is filled with witty lines and and a lot of droll moments to capture the mood of the anti-establishment, counter-culture vibe and lifestyles. It's definitely worth a see.