Princess Mononoke (1997)

QFS No. 157 - The invitation for November 20, 2024
We are all long overdue to be taken away to a different land. At least for a couple of hours.* And there’s perhaps no one better suited to take us elsewhere than the Japanese master of animation, Hayao Miyazaki. We have technically never selected a Miyazaki directed film, but his Studio Ghibli produced Grave of the Fireflies (1988, QFS No. 23), which was the first animated film we selected to watch for Quarantine Film Society.** Studio Ghibli films’ streaming distribution opened up more widely recently, which is an exciting development and will make it easier to see all of these great Miyazaki masterpieces.

Princess Mononoke is high on that list. In 1997, there was not yet an Academy Award for animated feature. Had there been, Princess Mononoke would’ve been the odds-on favorite to win that year. Disney, who dominates the category, had the above average Hercules (1997) and Anastasia (1997) – not classics, which is how Princess Mononoke is often described.

Fast forward a few years when the Oscar category was created, and Miyazaki takes home the statuette for Spirited Away (2001), a truly magnificent film that I’d rank among the greatest animated movies of all time. And just last year, at 80-years old, Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron (2023) won the top animated prize again. My Neighbor Totoro (1988) remains a favorite around the world. Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989), Howl’s Moving Castle (2004), Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (1984) are among the titles that are celebrated by anime fans and others alike – and there are dozens more.

Miyazaki’s storytelling contains magic on par with Disney’s, but I’d argue even more so with stories that are layered and contain even deeper explorations of character and the soul. His stories take on complex emotions and never pander to the audience – which we definitely saw in the post-war tale of Grave of the Fireflies. Though animation as a medium is often aimed at children, his stories cater to adults as well, often with haunting imagery and disturbing sequences. Miyazaki has elevated the medium and the genre and has made an indelible mark on the film industry as a whole.

I’m very much looking forward to finally seeing Princess Mononoke. Disappear into Miyazaki’s world for a couple hours and join us to discuss here!

*Ideally, longer.

**Flee (2021, QFS No. 69) is the only other animated film we’ve selected due to a long-standing bias among some members of our QFS Council of Excellence (QFSCOE).

Princess Mononoke (1997) Directed by Hayao Miyazaki

Reactions and Analyses:
At the end of Princess Mononoke, the victor is nature. The enraged, decapitated Forest Spirit has just decimated Iron Town, the human-made walled outpost that’s been mining ore and decimating the forest in its path. Iron Town’s ruler Lady Eboshi (voiced by Minnie Driver in the English dubbed version) has had her arm bitten off by the wolf goddess Moro (Gillian Anderson).

But San (the titular Princess Mononoke, voiced by Claire Danes) and the story’s main protagonist Ashitaka (Billy Crudup) have retrieved the head and returned it to the Forest Spirit, healing it and the cataclysm has ended. In the spirit’s wake, the Iron Town is destroyed - but it’s not the end of the story. Instead, over all the destruction, sprouts being to spring and grass grows and nature reclaims the land. In the end, nature is victorious.

Nature has reclaimed Iron Town, now a grassy hill, near the conclusion of Princess Mononoke (1997).

If there’s a central idea of Princess Mononoke - and there are several, some that were a little harder to discern for us in the QFS discussion group - it is this: nature will endure and prevail, if we help it. If we, as humans, can live in harmony with it, symbiotically.

It’s no surprise that several movies including Avatar (2009) are influenced by Hayao Miyazaki’s epic story in Princess Mononoke - from both a story perspective and also visually. But what sets Princess Mononoke apart from Western fare including Avatar is that neither humans nor nature are all entirely good or entirely bad.

Take Iron Town. The town is clearly destroying the land and exploiting its resources. Lady Eboshi is an unrepentant capitalist hell bent on ruling the world. (In fact, she holds up a newly created rifle saying that it’s a weapon that you can rule the world with.) But even she has more layers than that - she is not the villain of the film, to the extent that there is a villain of the film.

Iron Town busy extracting resources from the forest.

And using fire-laden rifles to attack the wolf spirts and wipe out the countryside.

In fact, it’s quite the opposite - she is extremely benevolent. We learn she took women out from working in brothels and gave them dignity and power - but also putting them to work in the bellows of the iron works. She’s taken in lepers who were cast out from society - but also has given the task of making weapons for Lady Eboshi’s growing empire.

Lady Eboshi has empowered the women of Iron Town, rescuing them from brothels

But also employing them in the ironworks.

In this way, Miyazaki is pointing out something that we see every day in real life. Large corporations whose business is tearing up the Earth for resources to fuel modern economy and industry, claim that they are benevolent. Sure we’re extracting fossil fuels and poisoning the atmosphere, but we’re also providing jobs, education, and look how many renewable energy projects we’re funding!

Look how happy we all are living in Iron Town - how could a place this joyful also be causing grave harm to the world? Miyazaki’s juxtaposing these two realities in fantasy medieval Japan reflects our current reality today.

All of the characters are complex in this way. Even nature isn’t all good either. The wolves are particularly nasty, threating to bite off Ashitaka’s head at any given moment. The boars in particular are brutish, headstrong and unwilling to compromise. It’s their inability to let go of hatred that brings on the demon - or something like that.

I found the apes the most unsettling of the forest creatures.

The boars - just listen to reason, please!

Which is one aspect of the film we all found confusing - the rules and the mythology. Narratively speaking, the first half of the film or so is breathtaking in its scope and clear in its vision of a journey for Ashitaka to find a cure for his arm and “to see with eyes unclouded by hate.” But in the second half, Ashitaka encounters humans at war - samurai versus Iron Town, messy allegiances, even in the forest with the animals including the apes. And in the end, after all is said and done, Lady Eboshi and the conniving Jigo (with strangely aloof voicing by Billy Bob Thornton) receive no comeuppance. Eboshi does have an arm cut off, but even when nature is restored there is nothing to suggest, necessarily, that she’s going to change her tune and live in more harmony with nature. And Jigo - whose mission was to decapitate the Forest Spirit at the Emperor’s behest - survives and shrugs it all off.

The Forest Spirit, whose head is valuable - all of this is allegory that is up for analysis and discussion.

Perhaps this, too, is Miyazaki’s point several in our group contended - that these people continue to live among us. People who would live in discord with nature, with ill intentions who are only looking out for themselves. So this balance between nature and life will continue. And it’s also true that we, as American filmmakers and viewers, expect a narrative arc or change in a character. But in the East, perhaps that’s less necessary or expected - even in an animated film. After all, Ashitaka doesn’t really change at all, if you consider him the protagonist - he begins righteous and stays righteous. If anything, he’s trying to have everyone fight against resorting to anger and destruction and he loves the people of Iron Town but also Princess Mononoke and the denizens of the forest. San (Princess Mononoke) in fact still distrusts humans and her human self and doesn’t actually end up with Ashitaka.

San (Princess Mononoke) and Moro - not all good, not all evil.

Despite this lack of a narrative arc we’re hoping for as Western audience members, Miyazaki is painting a picture of there is no good and no evil. Nature itself destroys and brings to life. The Forest Spirit saves Ashitaka but also kills plants and destroys the countryside, just as life springs forth beneath its feet.

Miyazaki has mastered the animated film. But what he’s done to elevate it is that he manages to make the fantastical feel realistic. He manages to make the world three-dimensional, as if it’s there’s a camera on that hillside filming the wolves as they carry the masked San/Princess Mononoke, dodging real rifle shots. It’s a truly remarkable experience to disappear into a Miyazaki world.

But the world he’s creating, especially here in Princess Mononoke is a mirror to our world - a plea for what he hopes is ultimately balance in a world living in the absence of that balance, teetering on mutual destruction.

Near the end of the film, Princess Mononoke/San says, “Even if all the trees grow back, it won't be his forest anymore. The Forest Spirit is dead.”

Ashitaka replies, “Never. He is life itself. He isn't dead, San. He is here with us now, telling us, it's time for both of us to live.”

“It’s time for us both to live.”

L.A. Confidential (1997)

QFS No. 150 - The invitation for August 28, 2024
I’m fairly certain that everyone or nearly everyone reading this has seen L.A. Confidential, one of the great Los Angeles movies and truly a modern classic in so many ways. You’ve got a young Russell Crowe, not yet a household name, the steely-eyed Guy Pearce, Kim Basinger with probably her best performance, director Curtis Hanson’s exacting detail of the period and his fantastic adaptation of James Ellory’s period novel. And, well, okay, it does have Kevin Spacey but we don’t have to talk about that right now.

Aside from him, I’m partial to the overall excellence in the cast, which was put together by casting director Mali Finn. Mali cast L.A. Confidential and Titanic (1997), both of which came out the same year. Three years later, I moved to Los Angeles and was hired by Mali to be her assistant – my first job in the industry. To my additional great fortune, in the spring of 2001 we started work casting Curtis Hanson’s follow-up to L.A. Confidential, the Eminem-starred 8 Mile (2002). A cinephile who was closely involved with the UCLA Film & Television Archives, Curtis told us early on that he was approaching 8 Mile as a modern Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and hosted a screening of Charles Burnett’s Killer of Sheep (1978) for insight into the tone. What I’m saying is that Curtis would’ve enjoyed being a part of QFS or at least the idea of it.

Curtis, James Cameron, Joel Schumacher, Sharat Raju* and dozens of other directors loved having Mali as their casting director and she was known as a director’s casting director. She cast “real” seeming people and didn’t fall for beautiful faces, something I came to appreciate in my time working in her office alongside her. If you look at the films she worked on – and there were a lot of them – you would likely see a commonality in the actors who make up the fringes of the supporting cast. The ensemble for lack of a better term. I would argue (I mean, I have argued this point) that Titanic’s supporting cast are just as compelling as the main stars and possibly more so. That’s Mali’s fingerprints on Titanic, and you’ll be able to see that care in populating a cinematic world in this week’s selection as well.

L.A. Confidential is also part of what is truly an incredible film year, 1997. Check it out –  joining this week’s film and Titanic, at the Academy Awards alone you’ve got As Good as it Gets, Good Will Hunting, Life is Beautiful and The Fully Monty hitting the big categories. Then throw in Boogie Nights, Contact, Princess Mononoke, the first Austin Powers, Jackie Brown, Men in Black, Liar Liar, Wag the Dog, The Fifth Element, Tomorrow Never Dies (the best of the Piece Brosnan Bond films?), Con Air, The Game (underrated Fincher film), Face/Off, Gattaca, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Donnie Brasco, Gross Pointe Blanke, My Best Friend’s Wedding (solid Julia Roberts romantic comedy), Ang Lee’s The Ice Storm – I mean good lord we could have a screening series just on 1997!

I remember watching L.A. Confidential in the theater before I had ever even visited Los Angeles, and loved it. I’ve rewatched the film numerous times since moving to and living in LA and there’s an additional level of enjoyment you get from seeing sites that still exist – which can be an oddity in LA – as well as areas that feel very much a part of the city's past. Curtis Hanson, a native Angeleno who was probably a child when the events of this film take place, is meticulous in his recreation of that time. The DVD (which I still proudly have on my shelf) has terrific featurettes that are basically Curtis giving a tour of shooting locations in LA and they’re bite-sized and lovely.

Our 150th selection just felt like an appropriate time to revisit this film and its cool, stylish take on 1950s Los Angeles that has the slightest of connections to yours truly. I’m looking forward to revisiting it with you all and raising a glass for crossing a new QFS milestone. 

*Shameless, I know.

L.A. Confidential (1997) Directed by Curtis Hanson

Reactions and Analyses:
Closer to the end of L.A. Confidential (1997), Captain Dudley Smith (James Cromwell) holds a conference with his Los Angeles Police Department officers announcing the details of the death of one of their own, Detective Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey) and instructs everyone to find the killer at all costs. This is all misleading, of course, since it’s Dudley himself who killed Vincennes. But only we, the audience, know that.

The press conference about Jack Vincennes death from L.A. Confidential (1997).

Captain Smith (James Cromwell) asks about "Rollo Tomasi."

As the officers are filing out, he summons Detective Ed Exley (Guy Pearce) and mentions that Vincennes had a lead, and maybe it was in regards to his killer. The name, uttered in Vincennes final breath to Dudley, was “Rollo Tomasi.” The name is a fictional moniker Exley gave to the name of the man who killed his father and was never found – and only Vincennes knows about it.

It’s here that Exley now knows the truth – Dudley killed Vincennes. It’s the final piece of the puzzle that solves the Night Owl killings and answers a host of other questions for which Exley had been searching.

Ed Exley (Guy Pearce) knows. Director Curtis Hanson and cinematographer Dante Spinotti capture it in a simple, tight close up that holds long enough to register. A confluence of performance, writing, directing, and cinematography.

The shot has remained on the back of Exley’s head throughout this exchange. But once this name is mentioned, it cuts to his close up. And lingers on it – long enough for the audience to know, but we also want to know what is Exley going to do or say? It’s suspenseful, it’s tense and it’s simply a cut to a close up. Exley has to register it, decide, not betray any emotion, and come to a realization – all in a simple close up.

The next shot, it’s back to the back of his head, Dudley leaves, and Exley turns to camera, a close up again – and he’s shaken and something has changed.

It's an extraordinary moment in an extraordinary work of directing. It’s a bringing together of performance, cinematography, writing, and directing. It encapsulates what a great director does – bring together all the elements that make up a movie and synthesize them into something greater than their parts. Curtis Hanson does this masterfully throughout L.A. Confidential and re-watching the film for the seven hundredth time (give or take) gave us the opportunity to revel in the true excellence of his craft.

Perhaps it’s easy to forget that Guy Pearce and Russell Crowe (as Bud White) were total newcomers to American audiences in 1997. And take Crowe’s Bud White in Hanson’s hands as both director and writer. When I first saw the film in the theater 27 years ago, I remember loathing Bud White but also fearing him, which I think is the point. But this time, I picked up on something that might seem obvious but was new to me.

All the characters in the film are hiding something or angling for something. Dudley clearly is hiding his corruption. Exley is a climber – on the surface he’s a good cop, and truly he is. But he’s playing the angles, understanding how to get higher in the ranks. Lynn Bracken (Kim Basinger) is literally appearing to be Veronica Lake but is actually a girl from Bisbee, Arizona – and cheats on White with Exley to get Exley in trouble or killed. Pierce Patchett (David Strathairn) appears to be a businessman but he’s caught up in prostitution and drugs. The D.A. (Ron Rifkin) is a closeted homosexual. Vincennes appears slick but loathes what he does. And so on.

Bud White (Russell Crowe) is the only character not playing an angle in L.A. Confidential.

But the only one who is “pure,” who we can say is what you see is what you get – that’s Bud White. In a way, he’s the least corruptible. That’s not saying he’s a clean cop. On the contrary, he’s part of Dudley’s squad that beats up rival gangsters off the records. But he’s true to himself, the boy who watched his father beat his mother to death and has the physical and mental scars to prove it.

If there’s a thesis in L.A. Confidential it’s this – to have people protect us from the evils in the world, you can’t do it with just brawn and you can’t do it with just brains. You need both. So while Bud White is the brawn, he uses his brain to connect the dots and discover that his former partner Dick Stensland (Graham Beckel) lied to him and was part of a heroin racket.

And Exley, in what is probably the best glasses-wearing police officer portrayal in history, goes from what we believe is bookish, shrewd, and prestige-chasing to someone willing to plant evidence and shoot someone a fleeing suspect in the back. The very things he tells his superior, Dudley, he’s not going to do because that’s not the right way. And it’s Dudley who he shoots from behind after all is said and done.

Moments before does what Dudley asked Exley asked him he's capable of doing - shoot a suspect in the back to prevent him from causing more harm. 

This convergence of brain (Exley) and brawn (White), and how each transform into the other, culminates in the scene where the two nearly kill each other. Exley barges into Lynn’s home and they then have sex – but it’s all a setup with Sid Hutchins (Danny DeVito) taking blackmail photos “accidentally” given to White by Dudley so White then is driven to kill Exley. And he very nearly does until Exley reveals that he knows Dudley killed Vincennes. White, still enraged, ultimately burns off and does not go through with destroying Exley.

White doesn't kill Exley. This is the moment, the fulcrum of the film. It's this moment when he uses his mind and not his muscles that allows them both to team up and find the real villain. 

It's this turn, this moment where brawn gives way to brains, this moment that saves both of them and sets them on a path to ending Dudley’s secret reign of terror. Brain without brawn is feckless and powerless. Brawn without brains is primitive and intractable. Both are needed to balance each other, a yin and yang.

L.A. Confidential succeeds in being rooted in reality, and while it starts with the cast – every single one of them is a full three-dimensional human, fleshed out and realistic – the world created by Hanson makes the film feel as if it was something that actually happened in Los Angeles in 1953. Of course, though some storylines are based on a handful of real stories in James Ellory’s original novel, Hanson’s visually recreates 1950s Los Angeles with exacting detail. But he doesn’t do it for show or make a big deal of it – it’s all in the background. The pushing back of the details gives the film a verisimilitude that brings it to life.

There’s one example in particular that is detailed in a terrific museum piece at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles. Production designer Jeannine Oppewall and set decorator Jay Hart talk about Lynn Brackett’s home – it’s filled with flowing, silky, “lounge-y” fabrics in a home with archways and layers. But in the back of the home sits Lynn’s bedroom, hidden away and small. It’s simple and the camera pans over to a little pillow that’s clearly homemade of Arizona, with the town of Bisbee highlighted.

The Arizona pillow, a symbol of the real Lynn Bracken, deep in the recesses of her home.

That’s the real Lynn Bracken – a girl from Bisbee with layers of glamour on the surface, hiding the true person inside. It’s a symbol of the film, the story, and frankly of Los Angeles. And it provides an example of the attention to details that are in the background and though you might not notice them, they do their work on you, the viewer, to root it in a reality. And with that in the background, the performers have a chance to in the foreground of the film.

The details in Lynn Bracken's home and throughout L.A. Confidential are in the background and service to the story.

This is also another example of what it means to be a director, to pull in those elements and create a world what is this richly layered and detailed.

This use of foreground and background, enhanced by the strong horizontals and angles of the Pierce Patchett's (David Strathairn) Neutra home, is the masterwork of filmmaking - the combination of production design, cinematography and directing. And one of the many great character introductions Curtis Hanson pulls off throughout.

One of those elements that routinely shines is Dante Spinotti’s immaculate cinematography. In particular, how he and Hanson use close ups in the film. As described above, closeups are used as punctuation – of Ed Exley realizing that Dudley is Vincennes’ killer. But one close up in particular stands out and it’s the moment that White discovers Lynn at the liquor store. At first he can’t see her face – she’s in a black clock with white trim. But then, she turns to him – to us, the camera – into a stunning close up, Kim Basinger/Veronica Lake/Lynn Bracken in all her glamorous beauty.

Dante Spinotti and Curtis Hanson's stunning close up of Lynn Bracken as she snaps her head towards camera and Bud White - their fates eventually will intertwine. A classic frame evocative of early Hollywood glamour headshots.

It’s evocative of the glamour headshots of the era, of the stunning shallow focus, frame-filling shots of the time. And it’s a powerful character introduction. This is a person of consequence to the story. Throughout the film, Spinotti and Hanson push the limits of the close up, cutting off top of heads in the 2.35 aspect ratio, to bring us very close to the subject. For a film with so many main characters, it’s never confusing whose perspective we’re in at any given time. We always know whose eyes we’re seeing a scene through. Whether it’s looking up to see a Santa Claus decoration on a roof that’s about to come down or looking at two suspects in an interrogation room, we always know whose story we’re following and when – that’s the work of a director, a cinematographer, and an editor telling the story visually.

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L.A. Confidential is one of those rare films in which every single person involved in it is at the top of their game. Everyone is hitting home runs. It’s a powerhouse of collaboration which means it’s a powerhouse of directing. A textbook film to watch if you’re interested in production design, period costumes and props, locations, history, cinematography, editing, music, performance, writing – therefore a textbook of filmmaking. Let’s hope we’re still studying now and for years to come.

Hard Eight (1996)

QFS No. 140 - The invitation for May 15, 2024
This is our first QFS selection of a Paul Thomas Anderson film. You know him from all of his great work over the last 25 years but Hard Eight was his first feature. I’ve seen so many of his films but I’ve never seen the first one so this week’s selection addresses that to remedy that shortcoming.

PT Anderson made Hard Eight when he was about 26 years old. What’s almost as infuriating as that is the next year, in 1997, he makes Boogie Nights and then two years later makes Magnolia (1999). By my count, that’s three major motion pictures before he was 30 – including two of those films, Magnolia and Boogie Nights I’d put up there as downright modern auteurist classics. The amount of stars he directed before 30 years old rivals any of the great filmmakers of all time.

Now, whether you enjoy his films or not is a matter of opinion of course. Although he has been Oscar-nominated eleven (11!) times for screenplay (5), directing (3) and best picture (3), he has never won one. This is probably bad luck and circumstance, but it also could be an indication of how people have mixed opinions on PT Anderson’s work.

For example, if you’re a fan of “The Rewatchables” podcast like I am, you probably know that they consider Boogie Nights one of the greatest films ever made. Personally, I enjoyed Magnolia more than Boogie Nights as a film, but even Magnolia is ripe for criticism – frogs and Aimee Mann and whatnot – and is not universally loved. PT Anderson has the young pre-fame filmmaking pedigree of Steven Spielberg in a way, but Anderson’s films are not mainstream nor are they small artistic and abstract explorations of the soul. He’s Martin Scorsese with less benefit of the doubt from critics. Both of them make movies lauded for artistry even though the narrative may not be so clean, but it feels like Scorsese’s long life as a dedicated artist gives him leeway with the public in ways that Anderson may not.

Of course, there is no perfect film devoid of criticism. For me his greatest achievement is There Will Be Blood (2012) one of three of his films nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture along with Phantom Thread (2018) and Licorice Pizza (2022). There Will Be Blood is a singular accomplishment of filmmaking in terms of its scope and its exploration of power, ambition, religion and will. Not to mention the sheer production feat of making a period film with an oil well explosion.

Apparently, PT Anderson’s next film will be released in 2025. All I know is that it’s his first film with Leonardo DiCaprio, which feels like a good fit when making the comparison with Scorsese. Scorsese is undoubtedly one of the greatest filmmakers of the second-half of the 20th Century, and continued on into this one. When we look back in a couple of decades about the greatest filmmakers at the start of the 21st Century, it’s hard to debate PT Anderson including at or near the top of the list. I’m looking forward to finally seeing his first one.

 Join me in seeing Hard Eight (1996) and discuss with us!

Hard Eight (1996) Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson

Reactions and Analyses:
When is it too late to reveal a major story point? The end of Planet of the Apes (1968) or Citizen Kane (1941) suggest that it’s never too late. Citizen Kane of course makes sense because that’s the conclusion of the hunt, whereas the why the world exists the way it does isn’t revealed until the last image, but it’s not the central driving why of the film. In Hard Eight (1996), our QFS discussion centered around the revelation of Sydney (Philip Baker Hall) and the central why motivation – why he’s behaving like the guardian angel or savior of man-child John (John C. Reilly).

The movie begins with Sydney taking in what appears to be a perfect stranger and offering him coffee and a smoke. It feels like Sydney knows something about John but it’s very cryptic. And for some reason, John goes on a road trip with Sydney and becomes his Players Card-scheme protégé. John does not ask why Sydney is being so kind to him.

Sydney picks up a “stranger” kicking off the question why in Hard Eight (1996).

And Sydney seems like he knows about John.

This sets off a really strange road trip.

Sydney teaches John how to get a room through Players Card scheme.

And as the film continues – even bridging two years over a first-act title card that advances time – we still don’t know why Sydney keeps being John’s angel. We get some hints about Sydney not having a connection with his own children, so the story evolves to suggest that John and Clementine (Gwyneth Paltrow) are becoming surrogate children for him.

About halfway through the film, the question of why is still not resolved. It’s at this point that nearly all of the QFS members (myself included) started to sense that the film is meandering without a real sense of purpose or direction. To me and several of us, Hard Eight suffers from hiding the ball too long. We know so little about the characters except that John’s mother had died and he lost his money trying to win enough to pay for her funeral. The opening Players Card scam is so inspired and memorable, but then the film relies upon more mood and style rather than versus substance.

Even the revelation, finally when it happens, is not done visually or through some action by our main character. A supporting character, Jimmy (Samuel L Jackson), knows the truth – Sydney was a gangster who shot and killed John’s father – and he blackmails Sydney. Now that Syndey has taken John in as a son, there are personal stakes that we as an audience understand now.

Ohhhhh… that’s why. Samuel L Jackson (as “Jimmy”) tell us. But is it too late in the story to reveal that? Several us felt that yes, it’s too late.

This late revelation backloads the action and drama. Suddenly, there is plot and stakes. But since this happens late in the narrative arc, everything is crammed together as the film builds to a somewhat obvious conclusion: when you threaten a former gangster with blackmail, you’re probably going to get yourself killed.

And that’s exactly what happens. Sydney breaks into Jimmy’s home and shoots him as he’s coming home from a date. We get a simple glimpse of what a young Sydney must’ve been once like – cold, professional, efficient, and compassionate (he lets the date go home). There’s something fun about watching an aged gangster, living with regret, coming to terms with his past and trying to make up for something he’s done. But if we don’t know why he’s doing it, does that take away from our feelings about it? Everything does click a little bit better, but there are a lot of aspects of the story unsaid.

You threatened a former gangster with blackmail - what did you expect would happen?

Sydney comes to help out Clementine and John at a hotel room where a semi-conscious man lies handcuffed and beaten up. We are given bits of information as to what happened, but John and Clementine are so unreliable and distraught that it’s still unclear what happened in what is, up to this point, the only dramatic scene more than an hour into the movie. We learn that Clementine and John were married that day … and yet Clementine is still continuing work as a prostitute? Or is John (and maybe Jimmy?) acting as a pimp in an ill-conceived scheme for money?

The first really dramatic thing in Hard Eight happens about an hour into the movie and introduces a lot of questions.

Questions include - how doomed is this marriage?

Also – had Sydney been keeping tabs on John throughout his life, like Obi-wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker? Was John’s father a gangster too, because why else would Sydney feel so distraught? And why is Sydney in Reno or does he live there because he finds John somehow who doesn’t live there but then…

I’m not bringing up these holes specifically to attack the plot or premise. It’s more a reflection of the filmmaking here. The filmmaker is relying on style and not substance for so long, so then when we get some substance but not enough of it, we start reaching for more substance, as opposed to being brought along with the narrative. There is no obligation for a movie to explain everything; obfuscation can be a useful narrative tool especially in a movie. But Hard Eight keeps the audience in the dark in a way that seems to do a disservice to the storytelling.

Speaking of the filmmaker – of course, we selected this film as it’s Paul Thomas Anderson’s first movie. The next two he makes, Boogie Nights (1997) and Magnolia (1999) cement him as the next great director of a generation. Our conversation, however, helped illustrate how that’s a contentious claim on greatness. I pointed out in the QFS discussion that Hard Eight has a tonal issue. Are some of these scenes and situations supposed to be played for laughs? Are Jon and Clementine fun doofuses in the Coen Brothers mold? It’s hard to tell, but that balance comes through a little more in Boogie Nights and Magnolia. Others in the group feel that PT Anderson never ever quite gets tone right in any of his movies, as if the director enjoys turning a “tone dial”from one end to the other without any balance. I can see that – Magnolia swings from poignant moments between Frank Mackey (Tom Cruise) and his catatonic dying father to an infamous breaking-the-fourth-wall singing sequence to Aimee Mann’s “Save Me.” It’s bold, but for me personally, PT Anderson can pull off the tonal shifts with a few missteps here and there (the end of There Will Be Blood, 2009, is an example for me where the ending has a really whimsical tune followed by a goofy final line by Daniel Day-Lewis’ Daniel Planview into the end credits).

In the end, we were interested in discerning what from this movie convinces producers, studios, and star cast to be in his next films? One benefit PT Anderson gets in the 1990s is that Hard Eight was made during the golden age of independent cinema. What probably didn’t hurt is that this is also the golden age of ample funding of music videos – a medium in which PT Anderson truly excelled. As far as films, there are a lot of 1990s studios willing to take risks on a fledgling filmmaker with a voice. For me, just seeing Hard Eight that voice isn’t totally clear – or rather, it isn’t totally clear to me what signaled to producers that this filmmaker has something unique that cannot be suppressed and has the instinct if not skill to tell a story expertly. It’s likely that the very real documented problems PT Anderson had in making Hard Eight – in which the studio attempted to recut it – prevented him from making a film fully of his desire.

Yet, his directing is confident, the command of the camera is elegant but at times more sizzle than steak. Comparing this to, say, Quentin Tarantino four years earlier in Reservoir Dogs (1992) or Wes Anderson three years earlier with Bottle Rocket (1993) with their first films, PT Anderson is harder to get a grasp of in terms of what convinced producers and studios of his greatness. One can easily see Reservoir Dogs showcases a writer-director of the highest order and Bottle Rocket suggests the quirkiness that will characterize all of Wes Anderson’s future work. But Hard Eight is harder to pin down. In three short years after Hard Eight releases, PT Anderson directs Mark Wahlberg, Julianne Moore, Burt Reynolds, Luis Guzman, Don Cheadle, William H Macy, Heather Graham, Jason Robards, and of course Tom Cruise in a role that very nearly won him what would have been his only Oscar, across two landmark films.

Opening image of Hard Eight mirrors one of the final images.

What I’m trying to get at here is – how. Very much in line with the why we tried to address in Hard Eight. Not that it wasn’t ultimately correct to support this filmmaker at this stage of his fledgling career. However it ended up happening, the American film landscape is lucky someone saw whatever greatness lay in store for PT Anderson and gave him a chance to flourish. Without it, we wouldn’t have some of the more iconic films of the last 25 years.

Rushmore (1998)

QFS No. 120 - The invitation for August 30, 2023
We return to Wes Anderson, he of the recent Asteroid City (2023) and of QFS No. 59, The Darjeeling Limited (2007), making this the second of his films to be selected for QFS. Which is among the highest honors of cinema.

Rushmore is Anderson’s second film and I’d argue this is the one that really planted his flag on the film world’s map. His first film Bottle Rocket (1996) is terrific, was an indie darling, and introduced him and Luke and Owen Wilson to the world. But Rushmore gets a bigger cast, a wider release, and is a stronger film in many ways.

I saw Rushmore at the State Theater in Ann Arbor when it first came out while I was in college, and I remember really liking it but also being slightly puzzled about why I liked it. This was the first movie by this new filmmaker that I’d seen, and I vividly remember the marketing attempting to portray this as a comedy. It’s funny, for sure, but it’s not the kind of humor that plays well in short television spots.

On future viewings, I realized that this wasn’t intended to be funny or conventional and I started to understand more about the unique voice and style of Wes Anderson – who I’ve grown to love as a filmmaker. The other day I was saying that I can’t remember when was the last time I’ve seen Rushmore and lo and behold! It’s playing in Greater Los Angeles! In Eagle Rock, and to be exact at the new Vidiots.

A brief word about Vidiots. Vidiots was a beloved DVD rental store in Santa Monica near Santa Monica High School – the kind of store that both filmmakers and non-filmmakers could love. Mainstream titles next to obscure movies. New releases and films divided by director instead of only by subject. Truly a film lover’s place run by film lovers – the place LA deserved as the world’s movie capital. Vidiots suffered financial difficulties like all rental places did with the advent of streaming and converted to a nonprofit foundation model to stay alive. They still ended up having to close up the Santa Monica shop. But with financial help they kept their video stock in storage and the foundation kept the Vidiots spirit alive.

Like a proper Hollywood zombie, they rose from the dead, took over an old theater in a suburb on the complete other side of Los Angeles from Santa Monica, and opened their doors earlier this year. Not only do they rent movies, but they now screen them as well. They’ve just utterly exploded in popularity this year – every single screening is sold out before an enthusiastic crowd and they’ve revitalized a commercial section of Eagle Rock just in the few months they’ve been open. There are scant few good stories about the theater going experience and the motion picture industry in general these days, but this is truly a happy one. I stopped by the new spot a little while ago just to check it out, but this will be my first time seeing a film in person at the resurrected theater attached to the resurrected video store.

I think seeing Rushmore at Vidiots is a perfect way to start watching films at this new venue. Watch Rushmore however you can we’ll discuss next week!

Rushmore (1998) Directed by Wes Anderson

Reactions and Analyses:
Since Rushmore (1998) came out, we’ve had more than two decades of films by Wes Anderson. This, perhaps, set my expectations in a particular way. Anderson’s style has been parodied and mimicked, a style that seemingly has always been defined as “quirky.” His use of flat space, center-framed, direct-to-the-camera looks from his characters and their manner of speaking, the editing - all that artifice can have the effect of keeping a viewer at arm’s length. Something to admire, but rarely to connect on an emotional level.

I say this because I was surprised at my reaction to watching Rushmore for the first time in at least a decade. For me, Anderson’s work has recently favored style over substance and it’s hard to remember that this wasn’t always the case, that his filmmaking was once new and novel. Rushmore moved me in a way I had not expected or had remembered from the times I watched before. Perhaps it has been overshadowed in my mind by The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) where we see the director’s style blossom full scale and continue onward. I’d argue that The Royal Tenenbaums is the first real “Wes Anderson Film” where he’s unshackled, has a large budget, and no one is impeding his directing.

Rushmore is much more sweet than I remember and has something to say about loss, about loneliness and dealing with both of those without healthy tools to do so. There’s a sweetness to it - bittersweetness, even - that I hadn’t remember and didn’t give Anderson credit for at the time. Of his live action films, it’s a contest between Rushmore and Moonrise Kingdom (2012) to be his most poignant and sweet. There’s a somewhat happy ending, after all - Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman) dances with Rosemary (Olivia Williams) and has an actual girlfriend (Sara Tanaka as “Margaret Yang”).

On Letterboxd, I read Sean Fennessey of The Ringer call Rushmore “the best movie about a sociopath.” This is entirely possible. A QFSer added to that, saying Max is “Ferris Bueller but a dick.”

Perhaps Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman) was under-appreciated at Rushmore Academy? From Rushmore (1998) Directed by Wes Anderson.

However true this might be, it’s also entirely possible that Rushmore Academy was not the perfect school of Max. I know for a fact that there are schools on the Westside of Los Angeles that encourage ambitious, driven students who may not succeed in academics but flourish in project-based learning. (I’m not saying these schools would necessarily approve the building of a research aquarium on its grounds, but they probably wouldn’t have kicked out Max for that level of ambition.) The editorial cut from Dr. Guggenheim (Brian Cox) saying “He’s one of the worst students we’ve got” and then it goes into the montage of all the things Max does at school - it shows what’s valued in this academic environment. He might be full of crazy leadership energy, but he’s failing all the learning from books. (He even dreams that his skill in calculus is on par with his extra-curricular ambitions.)

Speaking of montages, it’s time to honor Wes Anderson as one of the true masters of montages. He’s in a category all his own. Between the Max’s clubs-and-groups montage that introduce the character and the montage where Max and Herman Blume (Bill Murray) are battling each other and it escalates - truly fantastic. There’s a real art to getting the montage right and Anderson does do it a lot in all his films. But in Rushmore, they are masterful. Funny, advancing the plot or character development, spot-on music choices. Having put together montages myself I can tell you there’s definitely an art to them. They can go on too long or feel frivolous or have the wrong music choice. There are so many ways to abuse them, but Anderson uses them to near perfection.

It’s no wonder that one of Anderson’s inspirations is The Graduate (1967). Mike Nichols has a montage of Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) having an affair with Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft) that spans time and space, editing from one location into another, all to the music of Simon and Garfunkel. Anderson undoubtedly studied this extensively. Throw in Hal Ashby’s offbeat humor and relationship in Harold and Maude (1971) and the student journey in 400 Blows (1959) and you get the origins of Rushmore and the mind at its helm.

Max’s journey is pretty fascinating in the film, both in its content and its structure. He goes from an ambitious student who, except for his grades, is an ideal representative of Rushmore Academy. He loves the school and gives it all of his time, falls in love with the new teacher Rosemary Cross (Olivia Wilde), befriends Blume a wealthy parent, inadvertently starting a rivalry over Rosemary’s affection. He gets kicked out of the one place he loves and then, finally, resurrects himself - both emotionally and academically at the public school - at least enough to use his ambition to produce a massive stage production at his new school that helps bring Rosemary and Blume together.

Max and Blume (Bill Murray) watching wrestling at Rushmore Academy.

What’s there to make of a journey like this? It’s not rooted in realism, but there’s an emotional core in Rushmore. He lies about his sexual exploits with a parent, he hides the fact that his mother’s died, he lies about his father’s profession and that he has simple, middle class home and life outside of Rushmore. So he’s a sociopath, sure. But he’s lonely and his primary existential crisis, I believe, is that he’s ordinary. So he does whatever he can to be extraordinary (other than study, apparently). It’s teenage melancholy, not angst, that Anderson concerns himself with. And boy, is that refreshing.

Anderson benefitted for coming up through the golden age of independent film in the 1990s. Bottle Rocket (1996), though excellent, does not necessarily suggest giving someone enough money to make Rushmore. But this was an odd blip in the long history of the American film industry where money to finance small, personal independent films was actually out there. Perhaps not on par with the 1970s, and not that it was easy, but there were some great character driven, auteurist fare being produced by mainstream studios and their offshoots. (Personal note - I started my career at the tail end of this era when money for indie films was drying up everywhere so I know this time period first hand.)

In our QFS discussion, I asked whether people think Rushmore is a landmark film. By that I meant - is this a film that you can say demarks a change in either the film industry, directing, the visual medium, etc? One way to tell is by copycats. In the era this film came out, I consider Pulp Fiction (1994) in that category. Not a year went by for a long time where there weren’t a dozen other movies with smart-talkin’ pop-culture quoting hitmen or unnerving violence in a mainstream film or something that played with structure and time the way that movie does.

By that definition, Rushmore might be in the “landmark” category, though QFSers were mixed on that point. There were certainly spoofs and mimics and perhaps a handful of copycats. I remember one brutal review of Napoleon Dynamite (2004), calling it “a Wes Anderson cover band.” I’m not sure if there was a wave other than that of knockoffs. He’s one of a kind - one of the only people working today who you can say “a Wes Anderson Film” and you have a genre unto itself.

And while The Royal Tenenbaums sprouted into the first of this singular genre, Bottle Rocket was its seed and Rushmore its seedling. It was a joy to rewatch that seedingling again and know that a bright future was ahead for one of the true auteurs in American cinema.