OLIVER STONE ARTIST

nicholas cage in wtc


I watched WORLD TRADE CENTER again last night and liked it a lot more than the first time. I'm able to see the artistry in a film better the second time when I know the story, know what to expect, and know its worth paying closer attention to. I wanted to hear Stone's running commentary, so today I watched it the third time, with Stone talking. I used subtitles for the film, because the volume was almost all the way down while Stone talked. He'd be commenting on something that was happening, and I wanted to know what they were saying too, because that was part of it. I've watched so many foreign films with subtitles, I use subtitles now with movies made in English, because there is so much whispering going on in movies, muttering and mumbling. I figure script writers get paid pretty well and they have a reason for being involved in the film. It tells me they're pretty good writers or they wouldn't have that job, though I have seen movies I'd prefer silent.



Listening to Stone talk about his film was the same as listening to an artist tell how a painting was inspired and painted, or telling about how he wrote a given work of fiction. I like having these director's commentaries. There is no way I could ever be acquainted with Oliver Stone and have enough time with him to listen to him tell about making WTC. He wouldn't do this conversationally. I hear an artist telling his decisions along the way in making the film. Seeing it with him telling it, I was able to see it more scene by scene and pay better attention to details in a given scene. I appreciated it all the more the 3rd time with commentary. The Marine evidently drawn to the wreckage by prayer lived someplace else. From the wreckage next morning he cellphoned his workplace and said he wasn't coming back. The man this character represented reenlisted and did tours in Iraq since 2001.



Not only did I learn much about Stone's process as an artist, what he looks for visually, how he and the crew work out problems. He noted that all the characters in the film were individuals who were involved in the original incident. In some cases, the original person played himself. The man Michael Pena played appeared in a few scenes as a cop. All of the scenes in the film of the two towers on fire and falling were done by computer animation. He said they didn't use footage from that time of the towers falling. A lot of the scenes on the street were filmed in LA. They had a certain amount of time to work in NY, so they had to do the scenes that had to be NY, then computer graphics in LA, and at the studio where they created a rubble heap to rescue the 2 men from. They did it so well, it seemed documentary. He said the wreckage covered 16 acres. That's a major chunk of ground.



At one point, Stone said while he was making the film, his motivation was "to help, in some way, the human condition." He's been like that from the beginning. He wants to participate in making the world a better place. Whatever that means. It means something different to each individual. He's not the only one. An awful lot of people are guided by a need to help, in some way, the human condition. Every individual has a particular purpose. One way I saw Stone helping the human condition in this film is understanding. He brought forward the human perspective, two love stories running parallel to each other, honoring working men as valid human beings, drawing attention to the heroic element in individuals when called upon. Especially, I felt, the American response to Emergency is where we see true democracy. Any race, religion or class will assist any race, religion or class at terrific risk in America.


I liked seeing the film with attention to the creation, scene by scene. He broke it down into three acts. First act was getting to know everybody, a New York morning, people getting up, going to work, the city in different early morning lights, Stone talking about how he loves the sky in NY. The sun coming up. The second act, the collapse, the darkness of being buried alive in 16 acres of wreckage. He went with the symbolism of coming out of the darkness into the light when they were rescued. From the dark pit to a flash of bright white light, white walls of hospital corridor scenes. He said he wanted to get through the hospital scenes as briefly as possible. There is absolutely nothing new that can be done with a hospital that hasn't already been done on television. The third act, the rescue and return, he talked much of how filming darkness required various lighting issues and close quarters issues. I feel like Stone transcended something with this film, something within himself as an artist. The next time I see it, I'll turn on the commentary of 4 of the actors. Maggie Gyllenhaal is suddenly my favorite American actress. There with Mira Sorvino and a few others. Sure enough, Oliver Stone saw CRASH and discovered Michael Pena there.



I have to give it to Oliver Stone. He is, indeed, a major American director. No two ways about it. I'm surprised by my own fascination with this film. I've noticed after seeing it 3 times, it is rewarding to watch several times for the subtleties throughout, for the brilliant photography throughout. Mostly, I have found Stone's films hard hitting, poking holes in the propaganda we're controlled by, assisting the human condition with understanding. Stone is a multi-talented artist I can't help but respect. I believe a beautiful work of art is an assist to the human condition, the same as Stone does. He's a fortunate man. His entire adult life has been lived doing what he wants to do. And he's done it well.

AMERICAN MELTING POT

maggie gyllenhaal in wtc

I watched Oliver Stone's film, WORLD TRADE CENTER, last night late. I don't think Stone made this one to be a blockbuster academy award winner, millionaire-making mega film such as JFK or PLATOON. This one goes inward. It is a consciously made story that comes across as a documentary that happened to have cameras in difficult places. It follows the story of 2 NYPA (Port Authority) cops stranded inside the rubble of the collapsed first tower, pinned down, unable to move. Much of the film was them in the dark talking to each other with a distance of about 20 feet between them. Then at their homes, their wives and kids, their reactions to hope against hope.

These two men's stories actually happened. It has elements you don't often see in a serious film, like the Marine who felt a strong compulsion to help, to search for anyone who might have survived. His conviction and single-minded action on it brought the guy in NASHVILLE to mind when his mind was set on assassination. The Marine put on his Marine Corps cammies and joined the effort to rescue survivors. He found another Marine to go with him to search in some unlikely regions of the destruction. He was the one who found the 2 police survivors. At one point, in the home of one of the 2, a woman is found by surprise in the kitchen on her knees praying, a mother. You don't see much of that in movies. In a subtle way, I took it the woman's prayers were such they set the Marine in motion searching where no one else was looking.

The drama in the story seemed to be whether one or both of these guys would make it. I felt like Oliver Stone stepped out there to try something artistically that ran the risk of chasing off the audience looking for eye candy. All the spectacle part that's been on tv so much the Bush-Cheney administration banned it from tv, which kinda makes me wonder, was off-stage. It was the intimately human story of 2 men who survived a most disheartening situation. It took us into the homes of these men. It took us to their inner attics and basements, too, where we watched them wind down to their final things to say, all of which was at home to wife and kids, not to tv news. When they came back to the world, those were the first things they said.

There was a time I'd have seen the movie because Nicholas Cage was in it, but that was so long ago that by now he's like any other Hollywood star whose movies I avoid, like Brad Pitt and Robert Redford. It was the David Lynch film, WILD AT HEART, that made me want to see something else with Cage. It wasn't long before Hollywood offered him more than he could refuse and he became another pretty boy to pose for the camera. I saw Cage in John Woo's FACE OFF with John Travolta, and that was it for either one of them. Neither of their names made me want to see anything with them playing roles. There is the occasional step outside the norm, which Travolta did in PULP FICTION, and perhaps Cage did in WTC. It seemed to me Cage performed as an actor in every scene. He was never a pretty boy. He was dirty and ugly most of the time. He made a memorable character.

Michael Pena was the actor of the other NYPA survivor. I recalled him from CRASH, the Latin guy who made a truly unforgettable and endearing character as the locksmith. His character was a whole human being. Oliver Stone saw Crash too. He put Pena in a leading role with Cage and he was up to it. Again, he created a whole human being. All this was done in a terrifically theater-like manner. These two carried much of the story with just their faces in the dark and their voices. No movement. Just words. It worked. Looking at the art of what they were doing in the film, it was a theatrical tour de force. Looking at the boxoffice in it, all that inaction weakened the boxoffice response. Maggie Gyllenhaal was the actress who played Michael Pena's wife. I'd seen her a few days before in CRAZY HEART. In both films she made a complete human being. She made a character who was individual in both roles. She wasn't just filling in the space and speaking the lines. She made it seem more like a documentary so unselfconsciously performing her roles.

I'd not heard anything about this movie that made me want to see it. I saw it in a big display of $5 movies in the Galax Walmart where I went to find a battery operated wall clock to replace the one that died after at least 20 years. I've learned that in sale bins where just about everything isn't worth a nickel, there is one in there someplace that is hiding and everyone else is missing it. I saw WTC, Nicholas Cage. Nope, not this one. Then I saw Oliver Stone. Stone doesn't make bad movies, and this one is pretty far advanced in his body of work. It didn't have stars on the front nor a notice of thumbs up. Nothing mentioning film festival nominations. Only noting on the front, "a true story," and at the top a line from a critic, "Glorifies that which is best in the American spirit." That's a good way to put it for advertising. It's catchy and seems to make sense. The funny part is, that's actually what it does. American response to emergency transcends racism, politics, belief systems, nationalism. Emergency is the melting pot of Democracy, it seems like Stone is saying, the melting pot illustrated so beautifully by Herman Melville in MOBY DICK, the variety of human hands in the melting pot of whale blubber, kneading out the chunks. In the NYPD the world's races and nationalities are represented. Stone makes particularly American films, and this was another one. I'll watch it again soon with Stone's commentary, hear what he has to say about it.