Reviews

The One Oscar Winner I Did See

2/24/2013

Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova in Once.

I have not seen any of the movies nominated for Academy Awards this year.

When I read that Steven Spielberg – Steven Spielberg! – does not think it important whether Connecticut legislators voted for or against slavery, I’m not putting my money down to watch his movie. (My wife is from Connecticut; you should hear her.)

However, we did see a movie Saturday night that won an Academy Award in 2008. The public television station in our region, WNET, Channel 13, has a Saturday night series of indies that keeps us close to the tube. Many of these movies are true and accurate in the best sense – emotionally.

The indies follow another series of so-called classics featuring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Fred Astaire and Gary Cooper that we find hopelessly brittle and out-dated., But the indies touch us almost every week.

Saturday night we caught up with Once, the John Carney film, about an Irish busker and a Czech immigrant who meet on the streets of Dublin and within a week make music and change each other’s lives. How did we miss it when it came out?

Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova won the Oscar for best original song, Falling Slowly. On Saturday I realized the movie has been turned into a Broadway musical (I’m a little slow.)

The caliber of the indies series is consistently high -- an American Indian man going home to die (Barking Water), a young Spanish woman working for an aging intellectual (Amador), and two young teachers in New York, one Muslim, one Orthodox Jewish, whose lives and values are so similar (Arranged.) The films take us places both exotic and as real as the inside of our own hearts.

How did we not know of all these films? I guess because of the money-making machine that produces blockbusters that get hyped for mass audiences -- and the awards.

But I am resistant – this year, more than ever, when I hear that Spielberg shrugs off an historic vote in Congress, or Ben Affleck invents a phony chase in Iran, or Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal hype torture because it heightens the plot, .

Goodness knows we have enough birthers and climate-change deniers out there. Can we afford a disdain of facts in pop movies? Facts matter. So do insights into the human heart. We stay home Saturdays for the indies on WNET.

Brian Savin

2/24/2013 12:11:25 pm

Thank you for your solidarity with us Nutmeggers, George! When I saw Lincoln, there was a large gasp in the theater audience when the phony Connecticut vote was announced on screen. Dowd's reference to the Wall Street Journal research was appreciated. Connecticut's reps crossed party boundaries to vote in unison in favor of the Amendment. May Spielberg and Kushner get wiped out in tonight's vote -- and may their Porsches stall in the middle of the Montague Highway next weekend and the irate weekend Hamptons residents give them what they both deserve!

George Vecsey

2/24/2013 12:19:03 pm

Brian,I was stunned when I saw the reaction from Spielberg and Kushner. Kushner's Angels in America is one of the great works of recent times -- particularly the made-for-TV version with Streep, Pacino, Thompson, et al. Just brilliant. It cuts to deep truths. So how can he be comfortable deliverating reversing what idealistic representatives did? We all know there is hyping of reality in the movies. But those guys? GV

George Vecsey

2/24/2013 12:20:56 pm

sorry, I meant, deliberately

John McDermott

2/24/2013 01:13:38 pm

I doubt Spielberg would take such liberties if the subject of the film were the Holocaust. But I could be wrong about that too. But all these Hollywood types-Spielberg, Scorsese, Stone, Lee, Bigelow and the rest-always fall back on "it's a movie, an entertainment, it was never meant to be historically accurate".

Brian Savin

2/25/2013 07:30:06 am

Forgive and suffer me one last comment. Kushner's past success in making moral points makes his reaction here all the worse in my eyes. People can fairly argue the proper line between historical accuracy and historical fiction a long time. However, when facts that go to the very heart of the moral point of the story being told are deliberately falsified (or simply uncaringly asserted, although he did admit to falsifying), then the work loses any claim to having any moral point in my view. The alleged point of this drama is to show the triumph of moral courage in the face of human frailty and deep political division (see, e.g., Kushner's lengthy interview with Bill Moyers). And some of the people who displayed that courage best were the delegation from Connecticut, who came together across party lines to get the job done once and for all.

Speilberg and Kushner got exactly what they deserved last night -- nothing. And Connecticut schoolchildren into the future got a proper record to study.

George Vecsey

2/25/2013 08:04:38 am

Brian, I totally agree. We all make mistakes. That's why the NYT has a Corrections Dept -- and why we turn ourselves in, with a heavy heart, when we get something wrong.
Everybody gets things wrong. I've been snookered here and there, even in a book, but when somebody points it out to you, and you can still change it, you do it. You're right about Kushner. He was so exacting in Angels. Why not be exacting in Lincoln? I can't make any moral judgment about the awards themselves. Not my department. GV

Ed martin

2/25/2013 10:08:45 am

Last week on NPR I heard a snippet of a conversation about Argo, I dont think it was Ben Affleck, but whoever, was defending the additional "drama" added, for example the car chase as the plane departs which did not happen. I though the defnse was amazingly cavalier.

Alan Rubin link

2/25/2013 10:36:26 am

Everyone here is exactly on target; they goofed and are sloughing it off. Spielberg and Kushner would probably be very harsh on anyone who were that sloppy.

Every business is well served when they recognize mistakes and address them. Many a longtime customer has resulted from a corrected mistake.

Historical accuracy today is actually quite good as evidenced by all the high caliber books that keep coming out. My monthly history study group often revisits a previously discussed topic because of these wonderful updates.

However, there is a big difference between conflicting interpretations of the past among historians and revisionism for a movie, whether intended or accidental.

I had expected Lincoln to be better, but I liked that it focused on one issue.

Note: It was impossible to get a sense of any of the documentaries during their few seconds of exposure. There were many excellent ones, but these should not be missed:

Inocenti—a remarkable story of an essentially homeless young high school student who pursues her artistic dream and makes it to NYC. It is both moving and artistically beautiful.

Searching for Sugerman—all folk music lovers from the 50’s and 60’s should enjoy this. Rodriguez was from Detroit and disappeared until it was discovered that he was a big hit in South Africa.

Paperman—a short and whimsical animation.

George Vecsey

2/25/2013 10:50:49 am

Happens all the time. I was once writing a book (not Loretta Lynn's) with some feelers from movie guys, who wanted me to heighten a relationship between two people, both of whom said it didn't happen that way. I had to fight off the movie people and the movie never got made. -- but it was a learning experience. It's a different reality. Like putting in a chase because they know how to do chases. GV

T.C.

2/26/2013 03:45:51 pm

Go to the movie theater for Beasts of the Southern Wild before you dismiss all of the movies nominated this year - if it's still out. If not, it will probably show up on Channel 13 eventually.

George Vecsey

2/26/2013 11:47:04 pm

Thanks. I was talking mostly about the three that have been challenged about details. We're bad about going to the movies -- although we do patronize a terrific place in Kew Gardens, Queens, that shows National Theatre Live and operas and ballet on film. I notice the movies they show there -- but somehow don't get to them. Thanks for the recommendation. GV

Ed Martin

2/28/2013 12:51:23 pm

Is "Beast of the Southern Wild" that documentary about the New Orleans Saints and the bounty hunters?

Carolyn Vogel

3/1/2013 09:32:02 am

Love your website! So nice to learn about your kids.
Now we can keep in touch more than at Christmas.
You do need to get out to the movies more tho.
Carolyn