Made Then Remade: Solaris, 1972 and 2002

First, my apologies for the lag between posts. The Austin Film Festival deadline was the other night and I have been trapped in front of my computer writing other stuff. Also, you know, this is a hard movie.


Basically, the story is about Kris Kelvin, a psychiatrist who is summoned to a space station orbiting a planet called Solaris where the crew is going crazy. The crew is going crazy because they see dead people, which Kris discovers after he wakes up to see his wife, Rhea, who killed herself. This freaks him out and complications arise.



I tried to be a good blogger, I really did, I attempted to watch the original Solaris by Soviet director Andrei Tarkovsky. To be fair, I did watch it once in 2002, in anticipation of the remake with George Clooney. Well, watch? Okay, remember this was the days of video and I am a very fast reader and this movie has subtitles. So, once I realized there were going to be long shots of highways and pond water, I hit fast forward and then started reading the subtitles. Good enough. I'm sorry, I just can't. I don't get it. Same problem this time, I just started reading the Think Geek catalog.



Then, I saw the remake. I wouldn't call that film accessible. It was directed by Steven Soderbergh, produced by James Cameron and starred George Clooney and I am not sure any of those guys knew what was going on in it. I spent quite some time trying to figure out what the hell it all meant, read the script, listened to the commentary and nothing. And you know, here's a personal tip, if you get a FREE TICKET for your friend and she has to talk to her boyfriend instead of you on the way to the movie (and on the way back) and then starts rolling her eyes and sighing twenty minutes in, you should really evaluate the amount of time you spend with that person because someday it will make sense. I think you should apply this to anyone you know who has to check in with a significant other every two hours. I feel that's fair.

However, the friends you do want are the ones who will watch this movie with you and try to figure out what it means at your behest. This resulted in one particularly memorable viewing of the film, where alcohol was consumed, (because, yeah, that will help you figure it out) and we basically talked through the whole thing as we tried to utilize our second semester, Junior year, higher education, to try to figure out what this meant. At the end, Ginny came up with about as good a theory as any when she said, "So, the planet is God?" I think that met with the approval of the room and we all had more cookies.

I like to think the film has a meaning, I just don't know what. Basically, the thing could have been a great Doctor Who episode. You know, the Doctor goes to a weird planet and starts seeing a bunch of dead Time Lords who are mad at him. Stuff happens, the universe is at stake, I'm not writing this for you Doctor Who staff. If you would like me to write this for you, please feel free to contact me. The author of the novel says that both films missed the point, it was about encountering something bigger than humanity can conceive, (Yes, Ginny, I guess you're right) and this is the problem. You can't do a remake of a film of a book that apparently the original filmmakers didn't understand. It won't work because no one understands what's going on. Even if you liked it, you still couldn't say what happened: "Uh, George Clooney's wife is dead, but she's not and there's this planet and it's alive? Maybe? It also might be God. WHAT HAPPENED?!"

The most serious problem appears to be Rhea. As in, what is her problem? Why does she want to kill herself? This seems to be a problem that the filmmakers care very little about, she's just some crazy woman. I hate to play the gender bias card, but yes, I am playing it.

The problem is you can't just make a movie that only you understand. I hate to semi-quote Spike Lee, only because he usually says things that piss me off, but film isn't like painting. You can't just make a bunch of canvasses that only you understand, you need other people to get what you were trying to say and I don't, I so clearly don't. I do like Cliff Martinez's soundtrack, though, it's nice to fall asleep to. See, there's only so long you can drag people along without letting them know what's happening or providing some explanation and Solaris far exceeds this time, since it's been about nine years for the newer one. Sorry for the rubbish blog post. I'll do better next time.

So, if you know what's going on or are with the Doctor Who hiring office, let me know what you think in the comments' section.

Classic Or Not? Best Picture 1997: Titanic

So, as part of my continuing Oscar coverage, I've decided to discuss the current nominees and some of the past winners for Best Picture and particularly their merits, whether or not they deserved Best Picture and do they hold up to the brutal test of time? Which brings us to Titanic, the Best Picture of 1997.

I will now confess something. In 1997, I was 15. Specifically, I was a 15 year old girl. This may not have been of interest except of course that in 1997, Titanic came out. Now, I can at least have the dignity of saying that I wasn't there waiting at the theater with bated breath and frankly, I've never found Leonardo di Caprio attractive. see, Titanic came out on December 18, 1997 and I remember that day because it was the day that the latest James Bond movie, Tomorrow Never Dies, came out and I had to see that. I saw it twice, actually. At some point, I did get around to seeing Titanic and I saw that in the theater four times. The only other movie that I have seen four times in the theater is Die Another Day and that's because I am still not over the scene with James and Moneypenny.



So, I've seen Tomorrow Never Dies every Thanksgiving since (my family celebrates the holiday by watching every James Bond movie usually excepting Never Say Never Again) and I must say as films go, it holds up pretty well. Sure, the technology is dated as the characters don't seem to know what GPS is and the internet still seems new and people read newspapers, but I'm always good for the ride. I'm drawn in by the characters and the adventure and except for a few Desperate Housewives jokes about Teri Hatcher, it's back to 1997.

Titanic has not held up as well and somehow it was the Best Picture of 1997. I think this can possibly be explained by considering the competition that year. The other nominess were:

As Good As It Gets
The Full Monty
Good Will Hunting
L.A. Confidential

Now, these were all good movies and with the exception of L.A. Confidential, they are not exactly what might typically be considered Oscar movies. Grumpy Jack Nicholson? Check. (By the way, does it annoy anybody else that Helen Hunt got an Oscar for that? Please tell me in the comments if it does.)Quirky British film? Check. Film written by two guys we've never heard of from Boston? Check. Now, if I consider it, I think the reason L.A. Confidential didn't win is that compared to Titanic it feels somewhat insular and also, it may just have been too hard to follow. Also, the end was pretty depressing.

So, for those of you who don't freaking know already, Titanic is about a big ship that's going to crash into an iceberg, but first Kate Winslet gets on board in the part of Rose, a rich girl set to marry Billy Zane who plays Cal, who I just had to look up. Cal is rich and Rose's family is depending on the match to solve their financial problems. Basically, Rose is on a prison ship to a life sentence. Also getting on board is Leonardo di Caprio, who just won his ticket, barely got on board (which is admittedly contrived after a few viewings) and he's a poor Irish artist who's got joie de vivre and so forth. Also, Kathy Bates comes aboard playing Molly Brown and she may be the only part of the film I can still stand.

So, not too long after Jack gets on this scene happens and it may be the primary reason that this movie dated very quickly.



See? Anyway, not too long after this, Rose tries to kill herself and Jack saves her. Rose's mom forbids her to see him and she does anyway because they're in love or something. There's the famous nude sketch scene which relates back to a part with Bill Paxton and Old Rose that I haven't bothered to tell you about because no one cares and it's just sort of a lame excuse for starting the story because they didn't think that it was strong enough to stand on its own. I'm just guessing. Here's a love scene that seems really interesting the first four times you see it and then loses its lustre. I don't know that, I'm just guessing that's probably what happened. Or James Cameron wanted some weak excuse to use the leftover diving equipment from The Abyss.



See what I mean? So, into every life some rain must fall and every time somebody says something can't be sunk, you know that sucker's going down. So, Rose leaves her family, there's some arguing about lifeboats and by now, if you've gone to this film with someone with a Y chromosome, they want that frigging ship to sink. And so it does, Jack saves Rose, eventually becoming a big popsicle and it goes something like this if you happen to be interested:



Does Jack's knowledge of physics strike anyone else as odd and not inherent to the character? Anyway, Jack dies, Rose never lets go, she goes on and lives a great adventure of life, then is the old lady and we wrap up to an ending that goes like this.



Okay, that's the scene that can still evoke a tear in me. I'm all verklempt now, so I'm thinking that ending must be what guilted the Academy into voting for that. You also have to consider the scale of the thing which was huge and that everyone thought it would be the biggest disaster and it turned out to not entirely suck. Oh, and let's not forget THE SONG. Because this was the nineties and every half decent film needed a song by a pop diva. And a music video to go with it.



Now, possibly why this merger of song and cinema seems to have fallen out of favor is that everyone gets sick of the song and then you're sick of the movie. Do I still know the words to this? You bet. Did this film deserve Best Picture? If it did, just barely and probably due to lack of competition. Just be glad that Avatar came out in a year with much more serious competition or James Cameron would have another Oscar. Be glad.