In the Valley of Elah

In the Valley of Elah

dir. Paul Haggis

Hollywood is an unmysterious place.*

Spencer Owen, BERKELEY
with special guest: John Doe, LOS ANGELES
June 12, 2007 - 35mm - unnamed L.A. movie theater

The Introduction to the Introduction by Spencer Owen

I've never seen The Sopranos more than four times. One of those times, it even happened to be a rerun of another one of those times. This summer, I plan to start the series fresh. But it has been hell -- "hell," I say -- trying to avoid finding out details about the ending. At this point, thanks to Google News, Reuters, MOG, Defamer, and the Daily Show, I know the form of the ending, and I know that it's ambiguous, and I even know the song that plays, but I don't know the content. That's okay with me. I'm proud that I've managed to evade the meat of the issue. The furious people, I guess, are getting the press, and then my friends love it. (A reaction like the one being reported by the media makes me think that the show wasn't, at least at large, appreciated for what probably made it so great. But I digress.)

The point is, no amount of spoiler alerts can prevent a worldwide discussion from at least partially making itself known to a person so connected to certain media outlets like myself. Luckily, the new Paul Haggis film, In the Valley of Elah, is not currently being discussed worldwide, so my urgent SPOILER ALERT for the following post should be absolutely heeded by anyone wishing to see the film untainted when it arrives at theaters later this year. I haven't seen Elah yet; needless to say, neither has almost anyone. However, if you hated Crash like I did, and you couldn't care less, perhaps you'd care to engage vicariously in this minor bit of critical revelry concerning the introduction and conclusion -- that is, the framing device -- of In the Valley of Elah. In the following discussion between myself and guest John Doe, the outrage manifested towards writer-director Paul Haggis and the society that spawned him easily rivals the globe-spanning fury from jilted Sopranos fans. Except, and I'm taking my friends' word on this one, we're right and they're wrong. I'll let John take it from here.

The Introduction by John Doe

Hello friends,

John Doe of Los Angeles here. I went to see Paul Haggis' new film In the Valley of Elah the other night. In my opinion, it was generally a bad movie, done in by Mr. Haggis' overwrought approach to nearly every single sequence, scene, and moment. I would rather not review the entire thing, as it was definitely a rough cut and I'm sure played much longer than it will once released. Also, one can always hope that certain post-production adjustments might improve a project like this. As bad as it is, it's not some piece of assembly line nonsense. Mr. Haggis is certainly trying to make a great film about something he cares about, and that's never something to completely dismiss. Still, he's a preachy, simple-minded filmmaker so much of that time that his ambition seems to almost backfire on him; he aims to engage complex issues, and seems so certain about his ability to do so in an intelligent way, that he chooses to leave absolutely no room for interpretation, or even for an audience member to get a thought in edgewise. This has the unfortunate effect of simplifying the "issues" in his films to the point that there seems to be nothing left for an audience to do. Nothing, of course, but to clap.

Anyway, after coming home, I began a conversation with my friend Spencer Owen, and what follows is a transcript of my description of (and our subsequent discussion about) Elah's framing device, which is one element that I'm certain will remain in tact once the finished product arrives at a theater near you. This device was so indicative of Mr. Haggis' unfortunate tendencies, and our conversation so indicative of our problems with him as a filmmaker, that we both agreed it was worth posting here at the Six-Reel Shuffle. What follows is a relatively detailed description of the film's final scene (as I remember it), right up to the "fade out." There are also some other plot spoilers contained here. And think of this not as a review, with measured critical thoughts, but as an in-the-moment reflection on something that really left a bad taste in my mouth. Consider this our passing that taste on to you.

The Brief Discussion

JOHN: Early in the movie, as Tommy Lee Jones is first setting off to find his son, he's driving his truck out of his hometown and sees that a janitor guy, who's Hispanic or something (but speaks fairly good English... I say "fairly good" because he's still a pretty dopey "Hispanic" character), is hanging the American flag at the high school upside down. So Tommy Lee stops and has him take it down, turn it the right way, and then raise it again. And he says, "You know what it means when you hang the flag upside down?" "No." "It means our country's in distress, send help, we're at a loss," or something to that effect.
SPENCER: Uh huh.
JOHN: So then... the movie happens, and, you know, Tommy Lee discovers how traumatic Iraq was for his son, and how it completely ruined his brain, basically. So then at the end he gets a package from his now-dead son (sent while he was still alive), and part of the package's contents is a pretty tattered American flag... I can't say I really know why his son sent him a tattered American flag, but whatever... Cut to: the next morning, Jones is again at the high school with the janitor guy, and he seems to be raising the flag his son sent him. So he's putting it on the thing, and he raises it (we don't see it yet), and then he pulls out a roll of duct tape and duct tapes the rope to the pole so nobody will mess with it (stupid). And then the janitor says, "So I shouldn't take it down at night?" and Tommy Lee's like, "No, you leave it just like that."
SPENCER: Wait, wait. Wait.
JOHN: Hold on, I want to finish this. ... and janitor's like, "Oh. That's easier." And then the janitor says, "It looks pretty old!" and Tommy Lee says, "It's been well used."
SPENCER: God, this is torture...
JOHN: Then Tommy Lee drives off. Pan up, and the tattered flag is hung upside down. Applause. Fade out.
SPENCER: That was TORTURE.
JOHN: (laughs)
SPENCER: I swore you were gonna say, "There's a shot at the end of Tommy Lee putting the flag on upside down" and I would've been like, "Oh, okay... that's not so bad." But JESUS!
JOHN: That's what I'm talking about! That's the fuckin' Haggis way!
SPENCER: You know what else is the fuckin' Haggis way?
JOHN: What?
SPENCER: A stupid Hispanic guy putting it on upside down.
JOHN: (laughs) Yes. It is. Very much so. It would never happen. None of that would ever happen.
SPENCER: Nope.
JOHN: By the way, the line "Oh. That's a lot easier," or whatever, gets a pretty big laugh. Asshole.
SPENCER: Wow... holy Christ... I get madder at this by the second. I seriously was ready to not care, and have it be ordinarily lame, but no... I think that Haggis and Spielberg must have had a long talk.
JOHN: Spielberg would never stoop to this, I don't think... his sensibilities wouldn't allow a full scene like that.
SPENCER: I just think Spielberg was like, "Tell you what, I'm interested in making less boneheaded political movies. But there's still a place for truly boneheaded ones. Here's all the tricks." And then Haggis ran with it longer and deeper than Spielberg ever could.
JOHN: He'd go for the flag shot, perhaps (though I'm talking in spirit, because Spielberg would never make a movie about this). But it really just comes down to Haggis sucking as a writer. That's it. He sucks as a writer, and is even worse as a director of his own writing.
SPENCER: Funny thing is, though, he's also great. Totally great. Really worth watching out for his next projects. Really captures the zeitgeist.
JOHN: Right, he's really putting some dents in the American dilemmas of the day.
SPENCER: I think this is a key problem, a curse that Haggis shares with many amateur (or even professional) screenwriters you're faced with on a day to day basis. These films rely -- whether intentionally or not, and usually because of the faults of the writer to be unable to see the big picture -- on the viewer's inattentiveness. For that ending to work, the viewer has to not notice all the things that are wrong with it.
JOHN: Well, yeah, that's true. But it's also true that, based on almost every script I've read, I really can't even tell you what subtlety looks like on the page. It's so, so, so rarely there.
SPENCER: Okay, but more crucially, the viewer has to not really care about the continuity and not really be interested in putting two and two together right away. Like, when that opening scene happens, it happens... and then when a flag appears any other time in the film, the viewer has to NOT remember that first scene in order for that excruciating final sequence to work. Either that, or the viewer has to be like "Oh, I see what he's doing... this is fun to watch play out!" ... which has to be rare.
JOHN: Yeah, that's very rare. It's just something that's never quite happened with popular movies... it's never been okay, really, in a popular sense, to make a movie that doesn't do all the thinking for you. audiences prefer to applaud a statement rather than a question. And the way it's done in this movie is, like, TEXTBOOK framing.
SPENCER: Yeah.
JOHN: A reasonable person would say, "Oh, this is going to come back later, isn't it? Sheesh." But no way. Nobody does. It reeks of planning, is what I hate.
SPENCER: And furthermore, the audience has to be inattentive enough not to notice the idiotic, baseless stereotype of that janitor character.
JOHN: Yes. The stereotype that a janitor of Hispanic descent, who speaks fluent English, and clearly isn't illegal, doesn't know the right way to hang a flag... mindblowing.
SPENCER: Yep.
JOHN: Why not make it a fuckin' little kids job? A kid who just didn't care that he'd done it wrong, not someone too stupid to know better.
SPENCER: Why not ... not make it anyone's job, and just have him notice that it's upside down, and change it back, and not have to have the conversation...
JOHN: Yeah, totally.
SPENCER: ...because if you live in this fucking country, and even if you don't, you understand the basic symbolism of the American flag... for god's sake.
JOHN: Of any flag!
SPENCER: Let's take this a step further. Why not have that first scene not exist. And then if you have to end your movie with the shot of Tommy valiantly and defiantly putting up the flag... it would be unexpected and, perhaps, more powerful. What about THAT!
JOHN: Well, but see, Haggis is all about planting seeds. He needs that stupid dialogue so we know what it means EXACTLY when Jones does it in the end.
SPENCER: Yeah, because we wouldn't know otherwise.
JOHN: Right. We'd just be totally in the dark. Clueless and confused.
SPENCER: All we'd have is this totally unforeshadowed moment. Jeez... never heard of it.




* The above photograph, we've been told, was actually taken in Mr. Haggis' living room. The giant Oscar behind him was a preemptive gift from the Academy, which expects him to lead a lustrous, progressive, award-studded career. The back of the human-sized award, which sits on a rotating pedestal, is lined with shelves, with places for at least ten more of the little gold fellows.

Babel

Babel
dir. Alejandro González Iñárritu

And the Oscar goes to: Earth Wind & Fire (as remixed by Fantastic Plastic Machine)!

Spencer Owen, BERKELEY
February 24, 2007 - DVD/Academy screener (thanks, Anonymous!)

What needs to be said about Alejandro González Iñárritu's Babel? Hopefully not much; it's a bad film, and the Academy saw fit to recognize this fact by... well, by doing whatever they wanted, since as we're all aware, neither a nomination nor a win means a thing about the quality of a movie. It was nominated for several awards and it won only one. Yet, of the nominations for which it had any sort of decent odds (not, for instance, best picture), best score, its sole and meager prize, is the most offensive one of all. Why? It's a fascinating story! Promise!

But let's talk movie shop before we talk music shop. People talk about Crash and Babel in the same general category, and so here I distinguish between them. Crash is an incompetent time-waster, akin to the rough cut of a made-for-TV movie or, in my dream world, a local film festival also-ran. Its condescending and pretentious intentions are painfully obvious, its insipid situations painfully unconvincing and contrived. It is about racism. Babel is competent, just quite obnoxious. It is not about racism; if it is trying to be, it fails. It paints a somber picture of a globe easily tipped to crisis, and does so with a pointlessly-structured set of four "interlocking" stories by turns boring and infuriatingly manipulative.

Like Crash, it is based on a lot of contrivances, but these aren't as irritating as the manner of narrative assemblage, and most importantly the effort one has to expend to care about Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett and their two kids. I spent a good deal of time on my critique of Babel's construction and ultimately decided to heed the advice of my opening sentences. I will, however, bring in my comment about the nominated Adriana Barazza (who lost to Jennifer Hudson): good acting, but by the time she has her climactic scenes, we're so infuriated at her puppet-masters that we'd rather see the strings cut.

Now I'd like to talk about someone offscreen, Gustavo Santaolalla. What is his role in this free-for-all? He's a Los Angeles-based Argentinian composer and solo recording artist, and has also been the producer for a wonderful Mexican band, Café Tacuba, and others, too. He provided the musical backdrop, in part, for Iñárritu's previous films as well as this one. This man just won last year for the score to Brokeback Mountain, and I was not wholly displeased by that choice. Though I wasn't enamored with the theme, it gave the movie a memorable, non-regrettable signature. And now, it's 2007 – another year, another Santaolalla, this time for Babel. He sure seems to have the stuff! Let's look closely.

Santaolalla has several cues in the film, and they're all rather insignificant, very brief mood enhancers and segues. Fine; this is the stuff of a score, more often than not. But in Babel, it often seems arbitrary. So much of the movie does a fine job without music, and it doesn't seem particularly organic when Santaolalla's worldly noodlings show up. There is other music in the movie, and it's all perfectly appropriate; in fact, generally, the music from outside sources works much more organically within the film than Santaolalla's original compositions. Past the one-hour mark, in the film's best sequence, the deaf Japanese girl (my favorite character) has a delightful day with some of her disabled and non-disabled peers, feeling accepted and feeling finally like a part of the world she lives in. This day climaxes in a dance club, and as they enter, the Fantastic Plastic Machine remix of "September" by Earth Wind & Fire is gradually introduced into the ambience of the soundtrack and then joyfully takes over. As the revellers revelled, I felt completely involved in the movie for the first time. Rather effectively, Iñárritu takes this opportunity – for the first and only time in the movie, tastefully – to occasionally cut the sound out completely with the edits, to remind us that this girl is inherently alienated. It isn't the first time someone's employed this technique, but since he'd withheld it this far along, it comes in as a surprise, and casts a perfect emotional contrast in the moment.

But that's Fantastic Plastic Machine! Criminy, where is Santaolalla's big Academy-baiting moment? Where's the sweeping statement equal to Pan's Labyrinth's lullaby theme? The Pan's theme took over a half-hour to show up; with Babel, we're at the two-hour mark! The trusted name of Gustavo isn't enough for the Academy to nominate a sparse and ambient tapestry, is it?

No, but "Iguazu" is enough. Yes, it's a song by the man himself. I've gotta admit – it's not bad. It's named after a waterfall, and it sounds like an imitation of one, a harp-like pattern of quick, arpeggiated string plucking on an instrument I can't quite recognize. You might recognize this piece of music not by name, but by source. Iñárritu used it previously in Amores Perros. You can also find it in Michael Mann's The Insider from 1999. More recently, it also showed up, I'm told, in the cable serial Deadwood. The first place you'll find it is on Santaolalla's 1998 solo album for Nonesuch entitled Ronroco. The latest place you'll find it is in Babel. This is correct, and you'll find few who deny it: Santaolalla's music makes, incomparably, its biggest impact on Babel when "Iguazu" is used as backdrop to a climactic montage over two hours into the film.

Let's recap. A song is released on CD, without film accompaniment or the intention thereof, nearly a decade before a particular Oscar year. It is used in at least two other films during the interim. It is then the primary force leading to an Oscar nomination, in said decade-later Oscar year, for best original score. There's a first for everything, I suppose. (By the way, if anything like this has happened before and you're aware of it, I urge you to comment on this post; I love to learn.)

I will allow you to guess what piece of the soundtrack they chose to represent the score during the presenter's nomination montage. Then the thing straight up won. It is perhaps hyperbole to add up all the elements of this situation and call it an insult to the art of musical composition for film, because it's the Oscars. But I'm insulted, as a music enthusiast first and a film enthusiast first-and-a-half. So should be, at the very least, the other four composers that were nominated. (Even Javier Navarrete for Pan's Labyrinth.)

A coda. In the film's final scene, we wrap up our Japanese story, and a lovely piano trio is introduced, fittingly melancholy with a beautiful tune. This piece is called "Bibo no Aozora." It is written by Ryuichi Sakamoto, and it is performed by Sakamoto, accompanied by the cellist Jacques Morelenbaum (with whom Sakamoto has recorded a couple of albums) and the violinist Everton Nelson. After about four minutes of this piece, the final shot fades to credits, and the music crossfades awkwardly to more Santaolalla. It isn't "Iguazu," but it sounds just like "Iguazu" ... "Son of Iguazu," maybe. At the end of the credits, you can hear some of the noodling that makes up some of the rest of the score. Here's that whole cue. Thanks to whoever uploaded this to Odeo.


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Pan's Labyrinth (Oscar's Fever!)

Pan's Labyrinth
dir. Guillermo del Toro

Unfortunately for the Pale Man, he cannot cover his ears and use his eyes at the same time.

Spencer Owen, BERKELEY
January 26, 2007 - 35mm/Landmark Shattuck

There are, unsurprisingly, five movies nominated by the Academy for Best Score this year. One of them is Pan's Labyrinth, directed by the suddenly-beloved Guillermo del Toro. This movie is nominated in more than one category, which makes the fact of its recognition in the score department go down a bit smoother; if it had been nominated only in this category, I would be fairly perplexed, but now I can write it off as a sort of "associative" nomination. Y'know -- they thought it was a magical movie, and what's magic without magical music, or something. But really, what makes a score worthwhile enough to nominate?

• Philip Glass is nominated for Notes on a Scandal; he's got his thing and people like it.
  
• Alexandre Desplat's work for The Queen really does enrich its film.
  
• Then there's Thomas Newman for The Good German, and Newman's been around long enough that I find this unsurprising; it's like nominating James Newton Howard.
  
• We'll get to Gustavo Santaolalla's Babel if or when I get a chance to see it. (I will go in wanting to like it; he did a nice job on Amores Perros, and also happened to produce a few records by the best Mexican band I've heard, Cafe Tacuba. Go listen to their album Reves/Yosoy, actually. It's one of the finest of the '90s. I digress.)

I walked into Pan's Labyrinth ready to listen intently to the music -- no more intently than I normally hear music in films, that is, but with a particular attempt at Oscar-level acuity (note: sarcasm). Hearing with Academy ears, so to speak. I came out of the movie having enjoyed it on some levels and disliked it on others, the enjoyment only just edging out the dislike, as it has such wonderful imagery in the fantasy sequences and never quite gets truly boring or irritating in the rest... except for the matter of a particular musical concept. Yes, that's right; the music was my least favorite part, if only just for one lame idea, flaccidly executed. And I'm close-to-positive that this nauseating phrase was the reason why the music was nominated.

Javier Navarrete (this is the only work of his I've heard, due to his having scored primarily Spanish cinema I've never seen) does a suitable if thoroughly unimaginative job meeting the criteria of the styles. He does summon up some horror at moments meant to be horrific, notably to highlight the actions of the Pale Man, my favorite "character" in the movie. He does this nicely, and the visceral aspect takes it up a small notch. Still, 90%, even 95% of the movie is scored "suitably," rarely if ever transcending mere pragmatism or basic genre trope. This is not something I'd moan about if we weren't trying to figure out why it's 20% likely to win an Oscar. Is this all a movie needs to do to get the Academy's attention? Something's missing.

In fact, I believe they'd gotten through the entire first act before I heard any semblance of theme, and then it happened. The lead character, a girl named Ofelia, is going through some strife, no doubt. So is her foil and not mother but maternal substitute, Mercedes, who doesn't really get to know Ofelia but who nonetheless feels a deep bond with her, and who has a protective instinct and a strong moral backbone in general. Mercedes is cradling Ofelia in a time where they both could use a good cradling -- it's some emotional stuff, or at least it's meant to be -- and Ofelia asks Mercedes: "Do you know any lullabies?"

"Oh, this is it," I must have nearly said out loud, I thought it so clearly. Mercedes replies, "I don't remember the words, but..." With that, the score symphony actually pauses in order for her solo to begin, at which point she hums a quite insipid minor-key melody as the strings play the changes beneath her. I don't know where this melody came from -- a wholly original Javarrete composition, perhaps, or maybe an adaptation, maybe even from a real lullaby -- but if this is the moving motif we were waiting for, and oh it is, we are disappointed. It's a whiny sap-tap of a tune, something that would have worked much better if it hadn't been so obviously laden with significance. If she'd merely hummed the lullaby without the assistance of an orchestra and then we could move on, to speak of it later only as a humble scene... but no, this lullaby, of course! It's the emotional essence of the tale! How evocative this song is, how masterful its author for creating it just so!

And does it return? Mm. It haunts the rest of the movie, and I won't spoil too much, but it comes back at the end, twice as overwrought. Good thing you and Mr. Navarrete went to the John Williams seminar, Guillermo; that hour spent on Star Wars Episode II really made an impression. Bonus: plays over the credits, only a few minutes after it appears at the end, too! So here I wonder: who honestly cared for this enough to put it on a ballot? Was there nothing better? Could it really be just an "associative" nomination? In my favorite theoretical scenario, the head honchos who overwrite all the poll results were trying to think of a movie with a theme that Itzhak Perlman could play on stage at the ceremony without having to practice. You'll hear it a minimum of two more times, and one of those is guaranteed to be when it takes home Best Foreign Film; I hope the other one isn't when it wins Best Score.