Cinema in the 21st Century: 2000 to 2004

British Cinema

The UK industry enters the new millennium by reprising a few well-established themes. Two urban gangster films rise above the imitative mass; World War II provides a couple of dramas, including Polanski’s harrowing and very personal The Pianist; and Billy Elliot provides, amongst other things, yet another snapshot of the north-south divide.

Billy Elliot / Stephen Daldry

2000. Colour. UK. 106 mins. DVD.

Somewhat in the strain of Kes (1969 qv) but with a more sympathetic protagonist, and echoing the theme of triumph in the face of economic adversity in The Full Monty (1997 qv), Billy Elliot is set in the north of England against the backdrop of the 1984 miners’ strike. Young Billy (Jamie Bell) surreptitiously switches from boxing lessons to a ballet class run by Julie Walters, to the eventual horror of his striking father (Gary Lewis) and brother (Jamie Draven). Prejudice is piled on prejudice before Billy’s family recognise his talent and agree to his auditioning for a place at the Royal Ballet School. In the background the strike continues, with police brutality on the picket lines and families split by strike breaking, in one of the most shameful episodes of the Thatcher era. Jamie Bell is phenomenal in his role and is given fitting backing by the rest of the cast, including Stuart Wells as Billy’s supportive gay friend. The final sequence and freeze-frame provide a triumphal climax.

Billy Elliot / Melvin Burgess

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Snatch / Guy Ritchie

2000. Colour. UK/USA. 99 mins. DVD.

Guy Ritchie’s follow up to Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998 qv) is a little too busy and too conscious of its own cleverness to quite come up to the mark of its predecessor. Good fun nevertheless (if often violent), with a large transatlantic cast that includes Benicio Del Toro, Brad Pitt, Dennis Farina, Rade Sherbedgia, Jason Statham, Stephen Graham, Robbie Gee, Lennie James, Alan Ford, Vinnie Jones and Mike Reid. Following the heist of an 84-carat diamond in Antwerp by a gang disguised as Hasidic Jews the scene moves to a London of petty criminals and illegal bare-knuckle fighting. Everybody’s got a scam and most of them come unstuck. A film that features such characters as Franky Four Fingers, Boris the Blade and Bullet Tooth Tony can’t be all bad. Brad Pitt impresses as a pugilist with a language all of his own.

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Enemy at the Gates / Jean-Jacques Annaud

2001. Colour. UK. 131 mins. DVD.

Jude Law and Ed Harris play catch-as-catch-can amidst the ruination of the siege of Stalingrad. Law is peasant sharp shooter Vassily Zaitsev who is raised to heroic status by Political Officer Danilov (Joseph Fiennes). The opposing Germans bring in the equally skilled Major Konig (Ed Harris) to eliminate Zaitsev and stifle his contribution to Soviet morale. In the background Nikita Khrushchev (Bob Hoskins) forces more and more sacrificial troops into the combat and picks up on the propaganda value of Zaitsev’s achievements. The location work is superb and there are many good cliffhanging moments; but overall Enemy at the Gates is a fairly conventional, if superior, war-cum-thriller movie with the unnecessary addition of Rachel Weisz for unnecessary love interest. Stalingrad and the encirclement of the German 6th Army was the turning point of World War II. The bombing of the city that began on 23 August 1942 created a perfect killing ground for Red Army snipers. The real Noble Sniper Zaitsev was the focus of a concerted Soviet campaign to promote the cult of ‘sniperism’. Antony Beevor’s Stalingrad is an excellent account and is available from our Bookshop.

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The Pianist / Roman Polanski

2002. Colour/BW. UK/US/ Fr/Poland/Ger. 143 mins. DVD.

A powerful and harrowing tour-de-force that tells the story of concert pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman and his life in the Warsaw ghetto during the Nazi occupation. Szpilman (Adrien Brody) is in the middle of a live radio broadcast of Chopin when the bombing of Warsaw begins. There follows, at great speed, the occupation of the city by the Germans, the creation of a new Jewish district and the rounding up of the ghetto population. Szpilman’s father (Frank Finlay), mother (Maureen Lipman) and the rest of his family are sent to a concentration camp. Szpilman avoids capture and goes to ground in the near-empty ghetto, where his art serves as a barrier between himself and the horror. As a child, Roman Polanski escaped from the Krakow ghetto just before it was eliminated. His family was shipped to the camps.

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Layer Cake / Matthew Vaughn

2004. Colour. UK. 104 mins. DVD.

Firmly in the tradition of Get Carter (1971qv) and The Long Good Friday (1980 qv), Matthew Vaughn’s switch from producing to directing results in a good solid British gangster flick. The layers are peeled back as the nameless lead character played by Daniel Craig tries to extricate himself from the drug trade. He is compelled to take on a mission that involves the missing daughter of his ultimate boss (Michael Gambon) and a shipment of pills that, it transpires, was stolen from a vicious Serb. Craig’s performance is a little stilted, but the always excellent Michael Gambon shows his usual quality. Also starring Kenneth Graham, Sienna Miller and Colm Meaney.

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American Cinema

American creativity continues to impress, pushing the envelope of cinematic possibility with Memento, Adaptation and The Man Who Wasn’t There. The Coens invade Martin Scorcese territory with their brilliant celebration of American traditional music. References to cinematic tradition continue and Michael Moore takes on the establishment with hard-hitting documentaries.

Gladiator / Ridley Scott

2000. Colour. USA. 164 mins. DVD.

Superior sword and sandals epic that signals new pastures for Ridley Scott but harks back to an earlier Hollywood tradition — Spartacus (1960 qv) is brought to mind more than once. The totally fictional plot sees Roman general Maximus (Russell Crowe) selected by ailing emperor Marcus Aurelius (Richard Harris) to hand power back to the Senate and restore the Republic. Aurelius’s son Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix) kills his father, seizes power and orders the murder of Maximus and his family. Maximus escapes but is sold into slavery and bought by Proximo (Oliver Reed in his last film role - he died during the filming), whose business is gladiatorial combats. Maximus returns to Rome with Proximo’s gladiators and looks for opportunities to take revenge for the deaths of his family. In fact, Marcus Aurelius made Commodus co-emperor in 177 CE and Commodus, last of the Antonines, succeeded as sole emperor in 180 CE after Aurelius’s death during a campaign on the Danube. Marcus Aurelius is remembered as a Stoic philosopher and author of Meditations, available from our Bookshop. For all the fiction, the early scenes in the German forests carry the feel of authenticity. Derek Jacobi, star of the classic BBC series I, Claudius, appears here as a senator.

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High Fidelity / Stephen Frears

2000. Colour. USA. 107 mins. DVD.

Nick Hornby’s cult novel is relocated from London to Chicago. John Cusack is a music-nerd who runs a vintage record store, assisted by equally nerdish Jack Black and Todd Luiso. Like all nerds he is obsessed with compiling lists. This runs to putting together a list of the Top Five girlfriends who have dumped him, after he is shocked by the latest romantic disaster involving Iben Hjeile. The creeping suspicion that he may have been doing something wrong prompts him to return to old territory. Self discovery follows. Support and cameos are provided by Lili Taylor, Joelle Carter, Catherine Zeta Jones, Tim Robbins, Lisa Bonet, and Bruce Springsteen as himself. The music is what you would expect.

High Fidelity / Soundtrack Album

Format: 1 Disc. 15 Tracks.

High Fidelity / Nick Hornby

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O Brother Where Art Thou? / Joel & Ethan Coen

2000. Colour. USA. 103 mins. DVD.

The most exuberant offering to date from the Coen brothers. Three incompetent dimwits, led by Ulysses Everett McGill (George Clooney), escape from the chain gang and head off in search of buried loot. Everett is a pseudo-intellectual narcissist with a hair fixation; Pete (John Turturro) is a grudging fellow traveller, perpetually perched on the brink of anger; and Delmar (Tim Blake Nelson) is an amiable simpleton who goes with the flow. En route they gather up black bluesman Tommy Johnson (Chris Thomas King), fresh from the sale of his soul to the devil at a remote crossroads. The plot, paying very loose lip service to Homer’s Odyssey, brings them into contact with a succession of characters. Most notable are a Blind Tiresias figure (Lee Weaver), a Cyclops in the form of bible salesman John Goodman and three Sirens (Mia Tate, Christy Taylor , Musetta Vander) in one the most erotic sequences ever filmed. Holly Hunter stands for Penelope, the real objective of Everett’s Odyssey. Other encounters include a hick record producer, crooked politicians, the Klu Klux Klan and Baby Face Nelson. Film references come thick and fast. Cool Hand Luke and Bonnie and Clyde (1967 qv) are easily spotted, as are gangster movies of the 1930s and 1940s. The attentive may pick up on King Kong (1933 qv) and Moby Dick (1956, currently unavailable). The rest we leave to the resourcefulness of the viewer. But above all the film is an exultant paean to American traditional music — work songs, blues, gospel, mountain music, spirituals and country — from Dan Tyminski’s stunning over-dubbing of Man of Constant Sorrow, to Lonesome Valley by The Fairfield Four and Tim Blake Nelson’s He’s in the Jailhouse Now. Other artists are too numerous to mention (but see Down From The Mountain on this page). Music direction is by T Bone Burnett and the special features include a documentary on the making of Down From The Mountain (qv), the full length feature film of the concert based on the soundtrack and staged at the home of the Grand Ol’ Opry. Chris Thomas King’s character is a (very) loose amalgam of real life bluesmen Tommy Johnson and Robert Johnson, both of whom were reputed to have sold their soul at the crossroads. His haunting rendition of Skip James’s Hard Time Killing Floor Blues is another musical highlight. Find these artists and more in our Blues Store.

O Brother Where Art Thou / Soundtrack Album

Format: 1 Disc. 19 Tracks.

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Shadow of the Vampire / E Elias Merhige

2000. Colour/BW. USA. 91 mins. DVD.

An intriguing conceit that supposes that Max Schreck, star of Nosferatu (1921 qv), was, in fact, a real vampire brought in for authenticity by eccentric director F W Murnau and sustained by the blood of cast and crew. Willem Dafoe produces a spooky rendition of Schreck that is brought into high relief by cross-cutting to footage from the original film. John Malkovich plays the obsessive Murnau, who tackles growing concerns by assuring his team that Schreck has studied with Russian innovator Stanislavsky and is simply immersing himself in his role. Schreck’s victims include cameraman Wolfgang Muller (Ronan Vibert) and, ultimately , female star Greta Schroder (Catherine McCormack), the morsel promised by Murnau to entice Schreck onto the project. Eddie Izzard plays McCormack’s leading man. Shadow of the Vampire is a film buff’s dream, underpinned by a knowing script, mordant humour and a genuine feel for German Expressionist cinema. If there are failings they are probably due to an unbelievably tight budget that made it necessary to discard sections of the original script and to restrict the shooting schedule to a mere 35 days.

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Down From The Mountain / Nick Doob

2001. Colour. USA. 98 mins. DVD.

Full length feature of the concert at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium inspired by O Brother Where Art Thou? (qv). Hosted by fiddler John Harford, around nineteen songs are performed by some of the best American traditional musicians. Strangely, Man of Constant Sorrow, the signature track of O Brother, is omitted; but other songs from the film and its artists include Charlie Patton’s Oh Death (available from our Blues Store) from Ralph Stanley, Po Lazarus from the Fairfield Four, Down to the River to Pray from Alison Krauss and The First Baptist Church Choir of Whitehouse, Tennessee and Nobody But the Baby, from Alison Krauss, Emmylou Harris and Gillian Welch. The last was the backing track for the steamy Sirens scene in O Brother. Other notable performances are by Chris Thomas King (Tommy Johnson in O Brother), The Cox Family and The Peasall Sisters.

Down From The Mountain / Soundtrack Album

Format: 1 Disc. 12 Tracks.

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Memento / Christopher Nolan

2001. Colour. USA. 109 mins. DVD.

This film can seriously damage your brain and those of others around you! The opening scene of a killing is the final act chronologically. From here events are played out in strict reverse order as the film progresses. Leonard Shelly (Guy Pearce) has been traumatised by the rape and murder of his wife and has been unable to form new memories ever since. He constantly reminds himself of his quest to find the murderer by a system of aides memoire — Polaroid photographs, scrawled reminders and even messages that he has tattooed onto his own flesh. Included are notes about his apparent friends, Teddy (Joe Pantoliano) and Natalie (Carrie-Anne Moss). The viewer has a dubious advantage over Shelley in that he becomes more and more aware of what is to come; but like Shelley he has no idea of what has gone before. Confused? You will be. Intrigued? You should be. Memento is one of the most imaginative films for years.

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The Man Who Wasn't There / Joel & Ethan Coen

2001. BW. USA. 111 mins. DVD.

The chameleon Coens switch track again, from the slick high spirits of O Brother Where Art Thou (qv) to the fatalistic sobriety of 1940s film noir. Ed Crane (Billy Bob Thornton) is a monochromatic and monosyllabic chain-smoking barber who is attracted to an implausible dry cleaning venture as an escape from the stultifying normality of his life. To raise the money for his investment he sends an anonymous blackmail demand to his wife’s boss and lover . The note starts a chain of misunderstanding, deaths and wrongful indictments. The occasional UFO reference has, we suspect, been inserted purely out of mischief (this is Roswell country). Thornton turns in a compelling performance as a man driven by repressed emotions who expects little from the world and is seldom disappointed. Coen regulars include Frances McDormand as the unfaithful wife. James Gandolfini from TV’s The Sopranos is the adulterous boss. Artful and arty — understatement is also a statement!

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The Shipping News / Lasse Hallstrom

2001. Colour. USA. 111 mins. DVD.

Serial underachiever Quoyle (Kevin Spacey) finds release from a disastrous marriage when his absconding wife (Cate Blanchett) is killed in a car crash. The slightly sinister Aunt Agnis (Judi Dench) enters Quoyle’s life following the death of his parents, and Quoyle, Agnis and Quoyle’s young daughter Bunny head off from Poughkeepsie, in upstate New York, to their ancestral roots and the battered family home on the windswept Newfoundland coast. Here Quoyle is persuaded by newspaper proprietor Scott Glen to take on the Shipping News column on the local Gammy Bird. With new self-confidence he extends his original brief, encouraged by Glen and fellow reporter Rhys Ifans, but in the face of increasing animosity from editor Pete Postlethwaite. In the meantime Spacey develops a rapport with Julianne Moore and gradually becomes involved with the eccentric fishing community. But in the background there are dark and haunting family secrets; and a constant theme is man’s ambivalent relationship with the sea. Spacey turns in a convincing performance (the same cannot be said for his wig) in a film with some chilling Gothic moments.

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Adaptation / Spike Jonze

2002. Colour. USA. 110 mins. DVD.

When screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich, 1999 qv) was hired to adapt Susan Orlean’s best seller The Orchid Thief for the screen, he found the task virtually impossible. The book is a non-fictional meditation on the pilfering of rare ghost orchids from the Fakahatchee Strand in Florida and is not noted for a strong narrative storyline. After months of struggle Kaufman decided to write a film about the problems of writing a film about the book. But this is only the starting point for a tangle of vermicelli leading, eventually, to the evolution of the kind of drugs-and-shootout exploitation movie that Kaufman was determined to avoid. Being John Malkovich director Spike Jonze again teams up with Kaufman (The Orchid Thief begins on the set of the previous film). Nicholas Cage plays both Charlie Kaufman and his less scrupulous fictional twin Donald (who is given a writer’s credit alongside Charlie!). Chris Cooper plays John Laroche, the original orchid thief; Meryl Streep is author Susan Orlean; and Brian Cox is script guru Robert McKee whose seminars provide Donald with the formula for success and Charlie with the final Darwinian adaptation of Adaptation. Contemplative and hilarious in turns.

The Orchid Thief / Susan Orlean

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Bowling for Columbine / Michael Moore

2002. Colour/BW. USA. 169 mins. DVD.

Guerrilla documentary maker Michael Moore launches an Oscar winning tirade against America’s infatuation with firearms. In 1999 two students walked into Columbine High School and methodically shot down fifteen people. The two had spent time at a local ten-pin alley prior to the carnage and Moore asks mischievously why no-one had speculated on the insidious effects of bowling on American youth. More seriously, Moore proposes that the real reason for the high incidence of gun-related homicide in the USA is the climate of irrational fear and paranoia created by the news media and reactionary institutions. Moore’s technique is to pounce on unsuspecting and unprepared interview victims; the results are often hilarious, frequently absurd and sometimes frightening. The director is presented with a rifle as an incentive to open a new bank account; he confronts K-Mart with the fact that the type of bullets used at Columbine were still available through their stores (they were subsequently withdrawn); and there is a telling and troubling encounter with Charlton Heston, President of the National Rifle Association.

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The Hours / Stephen Daldry

2002. Colour. USA. 114 mins. VHS.

David Hare wrote the script, based on Michael Cunningham’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, and a bevy of fine actresses bring Stephen Daldry’s masterly direction to life. Three stories, separated by time and space, are intertwined. In 1920s London Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman) is working on her novel Mrs. Dalloway and preparing to entertain sister Vanessa Bell (Miranda Richardson). In 1950s Los Angeles a pregnant housewife (Julianne Moore) plans to read Mrs. Dalloway but is distracted by her preparations for her husband’s birthday and by an encounter with neighbour Toni Collette. In the year 2001a New York book editor (Meryl Streep) prepares a party for her ex-lover, poet and Aids victim Ed Harris, but is sidetracked by the arrival of an old friend (Jeff Daniels). All three stories are linked by the novel, and by the lead characters’ suicidal fears and questioning of their priorities. The Hours was Woolf’s working title for Mrs. Dalloway.

Mrs. Dalloway / Virginia Woolf

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Insomnia / Christopher Nolan

2002. Colour. USA. 118 mins. DVD.

Two LAPD detectives are shunted away from an internal affairs investigation to assist with a homicide case in Alaska. Eckhart (Martin Donovan) had seemed ready to co-operate with internal affairs, but without implicating his partner. Dormer (Al Pacino) is not entirely convinced that Eckhart will do the right thing. In Alaska , Dormer is disorientated by the 24 hour days of the far north. When a trap is set for the homicide suspect Dormer shoots Eckhart by mistake. It is generally supposed that the suspect was responsible. Another sleepless night for Dormer sees the entrance of the killer Walter Finch (Robin Williams). Finch has witnessed the shooting of Eckhart and proposes an alliance that will clear him of the original murder. Christopher Nolan’s mainstream debut is far more conventional than his independent Memento (qv). Al Pacino turns in his best performance for some time and Robin Williams plays against his normal sympathetic persona. Crystal Lowe is the teen homicide victim and Hilary Swank is Dormer’s admirer, rookie Alaskan cop Ellie Burr.

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Road to Perdition / Sam Mendes

2002. Colour. USA. 112 mins. DVD.

The follow-up to American Beauty (1999 qv) is based on Collins’s and Rayner’s graphic novel, which was in turn inspired by Kazuo Koike’s manga opus Lone Wolf and the Cub. For all this, Road to Perdition seems most evocative of classical Greek tragedy: the plot inches forward with relentless and compelling inevitability as Michael Sullivan (Tom Hanks) struggles to evade a fate that is inseparable from his condition. Family man Sullivan works as a liquidator for his adoptive father John Rooney (Paul Newman). Sullivan’s twelve-year-old son Michael Junior (Tyler Hoechlin) inadvertently witnesses a multiple hit. This brings Sullivan into murderous conflict with Rooney’s jealous natural son (Daniel Craig) and with Rooney himself. Perdition is a small Midwestern town, home to Sullivan’s sister-in-law, and the road to Perdition signifies Sullivan’s attempt to extricate his son from the consequences of his chosen way of life. The photography is redolent of 1930s America and the atmosphere is in the tradition of the great gangster movies. Jude Law is a twisted contract killer, antithesis of Hanks’s character.

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A Beautiful Mind / Ron Howard

2003. Colour. USA. 130 mins. DVD.

Somewhere during his Nobel Prize winning career, mathematician John Nash crosses over into an alternative world of paranoid delusion. Nash (Russell Crowe) progresses from student prodigy to a prestigious position at MIT and is recruited to work on a government cryptology project at the height of the Cold War. The trick with Akiva Goldsman’s screenplay and Ron Howard’s direction is that it is difficult to spot the moment when Nash parts company with reality; and the final revelation of the extent of his hallucinatory universe is truly shocking. Jennifer Connelly plays Nash’s wife Alicia and there is good support from Paul Bettany, Ed Harris and Christopher Plummer. A Beautiful Mind has been criticised for its cavalier treatment of Sylvia Nasar’s biography, but the film excels in its depiction of the devastating effects of chronic mental illness. Nash’s Nobel Prize was awarded for his work on Game Theory, which established principles that were widely adopted during Cold War policy making. Years later, when confronted with the suggestion that his emphasis on pure self-interest and his dismissal of altruism as a motivating force were unduly pessimistic, Nash agreed: “What do you expect? I was a paranoid schizophrenic!” . These few words gave a perspective on almost half a century of distrust, fear, international confrontion and proxy wars - but the bitch that bore it is in heat again!

A Beautiful Mind / Sylvia Nasar

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The Life of David Gale / Alan Parker

2003. Colour. USA. 130 mins. DVD.

Why is disgraced academic and anti-death penalty campaigner David Gale (Kevin Spacey) ensconced on Death Row, condemned for the rape and murder of friend and fellow-activist Constance Harraway (Laura Linney)? Why does he protest his innocence in the face of overwhelming evidence? Why, with four days to live, does he grant a limited number of interviews to journalist Bitsey Bloom (Kate Winslet)? Scriptwriter Charles Randolph’s twists and turns are not entirely unpredictable, but there is sufficient inventiveness in the plot development and enough excellent performances to keep the interest engaged. Also appearing are Matt Craven, Leon Rippey and Rhona Mitra.

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Mystic River / Clint Eastwood

2003. Colour. USA. 137 mins. DVD.

Sean Penn, Tim Robbins and Kevin Bacon produce impressive performances as three childhood friends whose lives were changed irrevocably by a single incident of abuse. Thirty years after the event the three are caught up in the investigation into the murder of Penn’s daughter (Emmy Rossum), and old wounds are reopened. Blue-collar Boston is the downbeat backdrop for an accomplished saga of lost opportunity and elegiac regret. Sound support from Marcia Gay Harden, Laura Linney and Laurence Fishburne.

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21 Grams / Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

2003. Colour. USA. 125 mins. DVD.

Three stories and a chronologically splintered narrative are kept under firm control by director Inarritu. College professor Paul Rivers (Sean Penn), suburban housewife Christina Peck (Naomi Watts) and ex-con and born-again Christian Jack Jordan (Benicio Del Toro) are drawn to a fateful meeting in an Arizona motel by a tragic accident that links their otherwise disconnected lives. At heart a fairly traditional, if gripping, thriller once the plot elements fall into place.

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The Butterfly Effect / J. Mackye Gruber & Eric Bress

2004. Colour. USA. 113 mins. DVD.

Brilliant student Evan (Ashton Kutcher) discovers an inherited condition that enables him to send his consciousness back in time, a knack that explains a history of blackouts and memory loss. When his first love and best friend Kayleigh (Amy Smart) commits suicide, Evan uses his gift to try and rectify the effects of her abused childhood. But as in chaos theory, everything is connected and actions have unforeseen consequences - leading in this instance to a twisted sting in the tail of an above average time travel movie. Logan Lerman and John Patrick Amedori play younger versions of Evan, with support from Melora Walters, Elden Henson and William Lee Scott. Extras include interviews that examine chaos theory and the endless fascination with time travel and its paradoxes.

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Fahrenheit 9/11 / Michael Moore

2004. Colour. USA. 122 mins. DVD.

An over-enthusiastic scattergun approach results in a frequent lack of focus as Michael Moore gallops through the dubious connections and motivations that underlay the Bush administration’s reaction to the attack on the World Trade Centre. Moore points to preferential treatment of Osama Bin Laden’s family and the royal house of Saudi Arabia; the links between the Bush regime and Bush’s Texas oil interests; and the questionable recruiting and indoctrination practices of the US Army. Unashamedly intended to scupper George W Bush’s re-election hopes, Fahrenheit 9/11 might have come closer to its objective had it been less obtuse and more coherent. But there are many thought-provoking facts and figures to be prised out of Moore’s showboating and occasional lapses of taste.

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