David,
I quite agree that filmmakers are enthusiastic about the considerable freedom given them by digital production. But then you write, “Most filmmakers don’t care if digital projection looks better than celluloid; they’d be thrilled if it looked as good.” And I wonder.
I think most filmmakers do care about the picture quality of their films, as evidenced by the fact that those who broke through with video (like Rodriguez) turned to real film the moment they had the money. And besides–sod the filmmakers! I care! While I am perfectly able to enjoy films shot on video, such as Blair Witch, El Mariachi or American Movie, I also enjoy the voluptuous pleasures of great celluloid cinematography in a film like Fargo or The Double Life of Veronique.
You write of Magnolia: “At a screening the other day I had the pleasure of listening to Joel Siegel make fun of the movie behind me and John Simon (in a separate conversation) make fun of the movie in front of me. That clinches it–it’s one of the year’s best movies!”
It’s also on my best-movie list (No. 2). I also heard there was a lot of derision at the Boston screening. (“If you can keep your head when all about you,” etc.) That’s one difference between New York screenings and Chicago screenings: In Chicago, unless a movie is really bad and everyone senses that everyone else thinks so, the critics do the director the courtesy of not distracting from his work by vocalizing their own opinions. I have been to a lot of New York screenings over the years, and have been surprised a) at how some critics feel the right to laugh scornfully or even talk back to the screen, and b) how so many of them loudly share their opinions of a film as soon as it’s over. In Chicago we have a rule that we do not talk about films with each other after the screening. I have zero need to know what my colleagues think, and they have the same interest in my opinion.
As for Magnolia, it is so exciting to see a director (and yes, you are right, actors) swinging for the fences, not holding back, not playing it cool, going for it. What a movie.
I agree, too, about Chloë Sevigny’s work in Boys Don’t Cry. She provides our entrance into the story, and her reactions to Brandon let us know who Brandon is and how he/she is perceived. It is a superb performance.
I fully expect that many critics snorted and hooted all the way through Titus, too, but Harry J. Lennix was superb in the film’s key role, as the villain Aaron. And Anthony Hopkins was splendid, too, in a role that provides the definition of thankless. In a season when directors have been breaking free of timid generic expectations, why not an audacious film of Shakespeare’s least accomplished and most wretchedly excessive tragedy?
Roger
