|
When it comes to celebrities, there are activists and then there are activists.
It is hard to fault Bono’s work, for example. U2’s lead singer has studied hard, traveled often and used his celebrity to promote a worthy cause at the highest levels of world government. The same could be said of Angelina Jolie, who has also taken her work as UN goodwill ambassador quite seriously.
This summer, I have decided to go back to my late adolescence and read some horror literature (what better way to deal with terrorism that to read about ghosts and demons while walking down Broadway?). A friend of mine recommended a couple of books that I have just finished reading: "A Heart Shaped Box" by Joe Hill, and "A Good and Happy Child" by Justin Evans. My rule with scary books (and films) has always been this: if they can give me one good scare -- one adrenaline sting, one good, old-fashioned hair rising – they've made the grade.
The Current Discussion: All four Oscars for best acting went to non-Americans. Is Hollywood's cultural hegemony finally breaking up? Or are we Hollywoodizing foreign talents like Javier Bardem and Marion Cotillard?
While it’s true that the four actors who won Oscars on Sunday are all non-Americans, all but one of the films in which they worked were produced in Hollywood. The American cinema machine is alive and well. What was interesting in this year’s Oscars was the much-needed comeback of grown-up movies. Cinema is the most powerful of all media, even more so than television, which lacks the former’s reach and enduring emotional impact. That’s why it was satisfying to see Hollywood reward the serious and relevant work of men like the Coen brothers, Tony Gilroy and Paul Thomas Anderson. All their movies did what cinema does when it becomes art: they held a mirror in front of a turbulent and violent world.
It’s a good year for movies when the audience gets to see and reflect on characters like Anton Chigurh and Daniel Plainview, both symbolic of the world we now live in. And it’s certainly a great year for Hollywood when Cormac McCarthy, the most grown-up of all grown-up American novelists, sits smack in the middle of the second row at the Oscars.
The Current Discussion: The Academy Awards are coming, and an Indian movie, "Slumdog Millionaire," could win best picture. But what are we overlooking? What's the best non-Hollywood movie you saw this year?
"Waltz with Bashir" was, hands down, the best non-Hollywood movie I saw this year. It's not only visually imaginative but also heart-breaking. The movie represents an exercise in national introspection. It is also an admirable and deeply artistic act of contrition. What happened at Sabra and Shatila in the early eighties has long been a burden on the conscience of Israel. This movie's power comes from its unflinching willingness to see the brutality of war directly in the eye, with all the complexities and contradictions it entails. By the end of the movie, when director Ari Folman finally breaks away from animation and takes the audience near the dead, one can feel the weight of guilt and then, strikingly, something close to an authentic catharsis. The world now waits for a similar exercise from a moderate Islamic filmmaker.
Comments (27)