Nightcrawler

Los Angeles di notte.
Quante volte l'abbiamo vista, sullo schermo? Ore e ore di macchine che sfrecciano su strade lunghe e tutte uguali, dove sembrano accadere le cose più bizzarre: penso istintivamente a Into the Night di John Landis (1985) e al più recente Drive di Nicolas Winding Refn (2011).
La distesa immensa delle luci di LA fa talmente parte del nostro immaginario collettivo che quando un giorno (o meglio, una notte), ti capita di vederla sul serio dall'aereo, ti sembra di essere davanti allo schermo di un cinema, e che tutto quello lì sotto non sia reale ma una semplice proiezione della tua mente.
LA, nella mia esperienza, è in effetti la città più irreale in cui mettere piede. E' la città in cui, se entri all'ufficio informazioni per chiedere un'indicazione, te la daranno dando per scontato che tu sia in macchina e, quando scoprono che non è così, ti guarderanno come se fossi appena atterrata da Marte. 
LA è la città in cui tutti i sogni, così come tutti gli incubi, possono diventare realtà.
Nightcrawler di Dan Gilroy è una storia che ha decisamente più a che fare con i secondi.

Louis (Jake Gyllenhaal) e Nina (René Russo)

Louis Bloom è un trentenne alla ricerca di lavoro. L'iniziativa e la parlantina non gli mancano, ma le opportunità scarseggiano. Una notte, sul luogo di un incidente d'auto, osserva un paio di operatori TV che filmano la scena per poi rivenderla al canale che offrirà loro di più. Bloom ha una rivelazione: ecco quello che vorrebbe fare nella vita. Detto fatto, acquista una telecamera e si sintonizza sulle frequenze della polizia per sapere dove accadono incidenti, incendi, omicidi. La sua ambizione e la sua sfrontatezza gli permettono di dare inizio ad una brillante carriera. Resta solo da capire fino a che punto Bloom è pronto a spingersi per ottenere quello che vuole. Ed è proprio lì che il sogno americano si trasforma in incubo.

Nightcrawler si iscrive in una lunga tradizione di film americani sulla cattiva influenza e il cinismo dei mass media, basti pensare a due classici: Ace in the Hole di Billy Wilder (1951) e Network di Sydney Lumet (1976). La figura di Louis Bloom è assolutamente geniale: trentenne che, per sua stessa ammissione, passa la sua vita su internet, è il prodotto perfetto della società attuale. Parla come se fosse uscito da un corso di marketing per corrispondenza, è lucido ed efficace sui suoi obiettivi e da manuale nel gestire il suo più volte citato "business plan". E' anche un mostro, ma questo Bloom sembra ignorarlo. E' talmente obnubilato dal raggiungimento dei suoi obiettivi, che si è dimenticato di essere umano. 
Non solo non ha mai un dubbio sui suoi atti e sulla sua vita (anche se vita è una parola grossa, nel suo caso), ma si stupisce moltissimo che gli altri non si comportino come lui. Bloom è al di là del cinismo, è semplicemente agghiacciante, è in una no man's land di cui è davvero pauroso scoprire l'esistenza.

Lucida follia: Jake Gyllenhaal nel ruolo di Louis Bloom

Dietro la macchina da presa, per la prima volta nella sua vita, c'è uno sceneggiatore "di mestiere" di Hollywood, tale Dan Gilroy, che dimostra di conoscere bene quello di cui sta parlando ed ha una mano davvero felice nel filmare sia la notte di LA che quella interiore del suo protagonista. 
Nella parte di Louis Bloom, in quella che ad istinto citerei come l'interpretazione dell'anno, c'è un attore che se continua così ne vedremo delle belle: Jake Gyllenhaal. Quasi trasfigurato: la faccia scavata, gli occhi famelici, il corpo ossuto, sembra essere abitato dalla follia del suo personaggio. E' perfetto dall'inizio alla fine, senza sbavature, senza un sospetto di gigioneggiamento. La sua è un'interpretazione scarna ed ossessiva che lascia impauriti ed ammirati.
Accanto a lui, nella parte del suo assistente (una figura davvero notevolissima), un ottimo attore inglese che di nome fa Riz Ahmed, e un'altrettanto brava (e invecchiata normalmente, ah, ma allora esiste, a Hollywood!) René Russo nel ruolo della cinica responsabile del canale Tv a cui Bloom vende i suoi pezzi. 

Louis (Jake Gyllenhaal) e Rick (Riz Ahmed)

Il marcio di Hollywood non è mai stato così esaltante, credete a me. Correte a vederlo.

'71

Have you ever been passionate about a subject that doesn’t have anything to do with your life? 
I confess I was, many times. 
Most probably, though, the worst case of all is my huge interest for the Irish Troubles.
Don’t ask me why, but since a very young age I started reading anything about the long and tiresome internal war between catholic and protestant in Northern Ireland. I believe I read every novel and seen every movie on this subject. I also have my own ideas about the best novel written about it (Eureka Street by Robert McLiam Wilson) and the best movie made about it (Hunger by Steve McQueen). 

A couple of weeks ago, I found out there was a new movie about the Troubles and, of course, I immediately went to see it. I didn’t expect much and so, as it is often the case when expectations are low (isn’t the same in real life?), I liked it very, very much. 
I am talking about the movie ’71 by Yann Demange. 

The movie is about a 24 years old British soldier, Gary Hook, who is sent to Belfast in 1971, together with a bunch of very young comrades, to keep under control the explosive situation between catholic and protestant. Clearly enough, nobody knows, even his superiors, how to deal with this strange war. During his first mission in the earth of the catholic enclave, something goes wrong and Gary and another guy are left in the hands of the “enemies”. The other guy is shot to death, but Gary manages to escape. Alone, scared, injured, the guy can count only on himself and on his lucky star to get out of that awful and nightmarish situation. Will he be able to survive?

Compared to many movies about the Troubles, this is a very original one. First of all, this is not about a catholic guy but about a British soldier (very rare!) and, secondly, it is a real thriller (unique!). Forget about all the movies trying to explain why this war started, or movies about the real story of some catholic “martyr”. This is a pursuit movie, where the guy is chased from the beginning until the end and you, as spectator, jump on your seat every two seconds because you’re too scared or too agitated to watch another scene.
Catholic and protestant are put on the same level, here. The movie is quite smart in elucidating complex situations with simple shortcuts: yes, it is a bad war, yes, there are bastards on both sides, yes, instead of solving it, there were people willing to make it worse, and yes, too many families have been uselessly devastated. I have to say that this approach was very refreshing and at the same time even more powerful in dragging you in this unbelievable hell. 

Yann Demange, the film-maker behind this little gem, is – weirdly enough - a French chap, but he has a very British upbringing (he directed, among other things, the first season of the TV series Criminal Justice with Ben Whishaw). His mise-en-scène is beautiful, and the rhythm of the movie impeccable. The credit for such a great result surely goes also to the actor who plays Gary: British Jack O’Connell, already appreciated in Starred Up by David MacKenzie and now about to enter stardom as the main character of new Angelina Jolie’s movie, Unbroken. O'Connell carries the entire movie on his shoulders in a very convincing way. His desperate face mixed with his stubborn willing to survive win the audience’s attention and create an immediate and total identification. You suffer for him and with him from the beginning till the end, and you want him to be saved, at every cost!
In the distance, Belfast and his fires shine of a new light.
All of a sudden, I have a new film in my top five of best movies about the Irish Troubles!

Ciné-balade Truffaut

And when you thought that the "Truffaut's Month" was over, here comes Zazie with another adventure related to her favorite film-maker of all time.
I read many times about these Ciné-Balades, Cinema Walks around Paris, but until last week I never had the chance to follow one. Of course, when I heard that the new ciné-balade was about François Truffaut (in the 9th and 18th arrondissement, where I live!), I immediately decided to participate.
So there I was, last Saturday, with a bunch of unknown but very nice people.
The meeting point with Juliette, our guide, was in a very truffautian endroit, the church of the Trinité, in Place de la Trinité:

In the fountain in front of the church, after a night spent outside, Antoine Doinel in Les 400 Coups famously washes his face:

The second stop-over was an unexpected one: the Hotel Langlois, at 63 Rue Saint Lazare.

This hotel, that was once named Hotel des Croisés, was used in 2001 by the American film-maker Jonathan Demme for the shooting of his movie The Truth about Charlie (remake of Charade, the 1963 Stanley Donen movie with Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant). The film was a massive homage to French cinema in general and Nouvelle Vague in particular. Demme re-named the hotel Hotel Langlois in honor of Henri Langlois, the man behind the Cinematheque Française, and the owners loved so much the name that they decided to keep it. I thought it was a super cute story!

The third place we visited was Place Saint Georges: Truffaut used the Theatre Saint Georges as location for the theatre where the jewish director Lucas Steiner hides himself during the Paris occupation in Le dernier Métro (1980):

The next stop-over was always related to Henri Langlois: when his family moved from Turkey to Paris, he lived in Rue Laferrière, above the Place Saint Georges, and it was in his apartment (quite famously in its bath tub) that he was piling up all the film reels he could find before the creation of the Cinémathèque:

Truffaut spent his (sad) childhood just a couple of streets above this one, at the 33 of Rue de Navarin:

Antoine Doinel, his alter ego in Les 400 Coups, lives very close by, at n° 4 of Place Gustave Toudouze:

The school of Antoine Doinel and François Truffaut was not far away, the Lycée Jacques Decour, in Avenue Trudaine:

Avenue Trudaine is also the street where, in Baisers Volés (1968), Doinel as private detective follows a woman and the woman immediately understands somebody is following her!

In Les 400 Coups, Antoine Doinel very often finds a shelter for the night at his best friend's place. I didn't know that the interiors of René's parents house were filmed in a big apartment at n° 10 of Rue de Douai!

The exteriors, though, were filmed in the private street Avenue Frochot, which was an homage to Truffaut's favorite French film-maker, Jean Renoir, who lived many years in this gorgeous street:

Always in Rue de Douai, but this time at n° 41, there was the apartment of Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, who was the founder of the Cahiers du Cinéma together with André Bazin. In this apartment Truffaut filmed, in 1955, his first short-movie, Une Visite. Truffaut was so unhappy about it, that notoriously destroyed every copy of his first serious attempt to cinema. Probably the most interesting thing to say about this short movie is that the cinematographer was a certain Jacques Rivette, while the editor was a certain Alain Resnais... 

In the near Rue Mansart, there is the restaurant owned by Jeanne Moreau's father, La Cloche D'Or. The place is still open and still looks quite charming:

Paris is a city full of great and beautiful cinemas, but I think that at the time of Truffaut's childhood, there were really incredible salles de cinéma! The greatest one was the famous Gaumont Palace, considered the "biggest cinema in the world": its theater could contain 6000 people. Built in 1899, completely renovated in 1931, the cinema was sadly closed in 1973. Now at the same address of Rue Caulaincourt, you can find an awful Castorama and a miserable Hôtel Mercure... Modern time suck!

The walk took end in front of the Montmartre Cemetery, where Truffaut is buried.
It was time for Juliette to show us the last piece of movie with her i-pad and super cute sound system:

Before leaving, one of the participants, a curator at the Montmartre Cemetery, told us the most incredible story: one day, in his office, Jean-Pierre Léaud showed up asking if it would have been possible to have the grave near the one of Truffaut for himself. When he was told that wasn't feasible, Léaud insisted again and again and left his phone number, praying them to call him if things would have changed. The curator and his colleagues found out, a bit later, that the grave was actually available. They called Léaud's number but in vane: they never had an answer. 
Long live Antoine Doinel!

I wish to thank Juliette of Ciné-Balade for being such a lovely guide.
Dear readers, if you happen to be in Paris in the next weeks, the Ciné-Balade Truffaut is still going on. Don't miss it!

The Fundamentals

Maybe it is because I just got back from New York, but I think Woody is absolutely right.
As long as we have those things, well.. we're fine!