21st Century Cinema: 2005 to 2009

British & American Cinema

By the 2000’s a long-developing tendency had been transformed into an irreversible trend. British and American cinema production had merged to such an extent that it is becoming more and more irrelevant to refer to US and UK films by their ostensible region of origin. While Hollywood is still easily seduced by crowd-catching vehicles for home grown stars (with a growing preponderance of sequels and remakes) there has, nevertheless, been a significant intrusion of acting talent from the British Isles, and not just in supporting roles. And if US finance and distribution deals are more and more necessary for the fulfilment of British projects, the UK has now fully matured as a rich source of writers, directors and technicians for the American industry and The British Academy Film Awards have gained an international status that comes close to that of the Oscars. For this reason our selection on this page departs from the convention adopted for films produced since the 1940s: titles are organised alphabetically by year of theatrical release, regardless of whether nominally UK or US productions.

Capote / Bennett Miller

2005. Colour. USA. 114 mins. DVD.

Philip Seymour Hoffman as the effete author. Truman Capote is drawn from the rarefied New York literary scene to the Midwest by an horrific killing. Capote’s friend Harper Lee (Catherine Keener) helps him to connect with the head of the FBI investigation Alvin Dewy (Chris Cooper). His ambiguous relationship with one of the convicted killers (Clifton Collins Jr.) leads, eventually, to the publication of his ‘non-fiction novel’ In Cold Blood. In the process Capote fights to delay the execution of the killers until his research is completed. Capote’s earlier work Breakfast at Tiffany’s was filmed in 1961 (qv) and Harper Lee’s only novel To Kill a Mocking Bird was filmed in 1963 (qv).

In Cold Blood / Truman Capote

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The Constant Gardener / Fernando Meirelles

2005. Colour. UK. 129 mins. DVD.

Rachel Weisz plays the wife of mild-mannered diplomat Justin Quayle (Ralph Fiennes). Weisz is murdered while investigating the activities of a transnational pharmaceutical company in Kenya. Fiennes comes under threat as he begins to unravel a conspiracy to use Africans as guinea pigs for drug testing with the tacit approval of western governments. The supporting cast includes Bill Nighy, Pete Postlethwaite, Herbert Kounde and Danny Huston. Based on the novel by John Le Carre.

The Constant Gardener / John Le Carre

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Good Night, and Good Luck / George Clooney

2005. BW. USA. 93 mins. DVD.

If Arthur Miller drew parallels between the Salem witch trials and the McCarthy era in The Crucible (1996 qv), George Clooney uses the McCarthy witch-hunts to point the finger at the Nixon, Reagan and George W Bush administrations. Good Night, and Good Luck centres on TV newsman Ed Murrow’s courageous defense of civil liberties in the face of the Republican senator’s anti-communist tirades. Currency in the year of release came from the overt attempts of the Bush executive to intimidate and manipulate the media in the name of national security, and the weakness of journalists in the face of ‘patriotic’ pressure. It should be remembered that Hollywood itself was a prime target for McCarthyite persecution (Ronald Reagan was one of the Hollywood actors who named names in the McCarthy hearings). David Strathairn plays Murrow, Frank Langella is CBS boss William Paley and the director takes the role of Murrow’s producer Fred Friendly. McCarthy plays himself and damns himself through archive footage of his response to Murrow’s 1954 broadcast ‘A Report on Senator Joseph McCarthy’.

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Kingdom of Heaven / Ridley Scott

2005. Colour. USA. 144 mins. DVD.

Kingdom of Heaven - Director's Cut / Ridley Scott

4 Disc Extended Edition with Many Extra Features

Ridley Scott re-engages with the Hollywood epic tradition after the success of Gladiator (2000 qv). Kingdom of Heaven consciously mixes compressed and simplified historical fact with a number of fictional storylines. 80 years after the First Crusade and the foundation of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, a truce between the Franks and the Saracen leader Saladin (Ghassan Massoud) is threatened by the actions of dissident Frankish factions and European crusaders. The truce is finally and irredeemably broken by the banditry of the rogue castellan of Kerak de Moab, Reynald de Chatillon (Brendan Gleeson). Set against all of this is a rather flimsy plot which supposes that the main character, Balian (Orlando Bloom), the illegitimate son of crusader knight Liam Neeson, is reconciled with his father and encouraged to leave France for the Holy Land. Here he embarks on a love affair with Sibylla, sister of Baldwin, the leper King of Jerusalem, and wife of sometime regent Guy de Lusignan (Marton Csokas). In fact, Balian of Ibelin was one of the premier barons of the Kingdom and had married the widowed second wife of Sibylla’s father Amalric. (Her mother, Amalric’s repudiated first wife, had married Hugh of Ibelin.) The film returns to a more accurate historical narrative with Balian’s organisation of the defence of Jerusalem, although the bargain struck over its surrender was by no means so benevolent. And there is just the slightest hint in the duologue between Balian and Saladin that posterity might benefit from the destruction of the city! To be fair, the DVD has a (scarcely literate) subtitle feature that adds detail and explains where the film departs from historical fact. Good supporting performances from Leeson, Brendan Gleeson, Jeremy Irons and David Thewliss overpower the one-dimensional Bloom; and the cinematography is superb, with some fine set pieces. Most notable are the arrival of Baldwin’s host before the walls of Kerak under the banner of the True Cross; the aftermath of the Battle of Hattin; and the culminating siege of Jerusalem. A great deal of material on the Crusades, from a wide range of perspectives, can be found on the Rome & Byzantium and Early Medieval & Crusades pages of our Bookshop. Zoe Oldenburg’s The Crusades is a good readable introduction.

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Munich / Steven Spielberg

2005. Colour. USA. 164 mins. DVD.

A fictionalised account of the aftermath of the Munich Olympics massacre by Black September in 1972, based on the novel Vengeance by George Jonas. Mossad puts together a team to search out and eradicate the Palestinian terrorists responsible for the slaughter. Geoffrey Rush is the Israeli government puppet-master Ephraim and Eric Bana plays Avner, leader of the assassination team of Daniel Craig, Ciaran Hinds, Hanns Zischler and Matthieu Kassovitz. As the terrorists are gradually eliminated Avner begins to question the morality of his actions. The original novel had been previously filmed in the 1986 made-for-TV Sword of Gideon.

Vengeance / George Jonas

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No Direction Home / Martin Scorsese

2005. BW. USA. 240 mins. DVD.

Epic two disc documentary of Bob Dylan’s early years as a performer and songwriter, from 1961 to 1966. Lots of good archive stuff, including footage from D A Pennebaker’s 1967 documentary Don’t Look Back of the UK tour. Interviewees include Dylan himself (his first interview for 20 years), Joan Baez, Alan Ginsberg and Pete Seeger, the last putting the record straight on what actually happened during the ‘electric’ set at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. The move to amps was less well received in the UK, and the Film culminates in the Albert Hall concert where Dylan was hectored continually during the second, non-acoustic set. Scorsese has created a fascinating testimonial to one of the greatest influences on popular music in the latter part of the 20th Century and the man who, more than any other, gave a voice to the youth of the 1960s.

No Direction Home / Soundtrack Album

Format: 2 Disc Set. 28 Tracks.

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Sin City / Robert Rodriguez

2005. BW/Colour. USA. 119 mins. DVD.

Comic book adaptations are not our favourite genre but an exception must be made for Sin City, based on the works of writer and artist Frank Miller. Robert Rodriguez translates three of Miller’s stories faithfully from the printed page to film, setting stark live action imagery against digitally generated backgrounds. The narrative owes much to the tradition of the darker pulp magazines but more to the flinty melodramas of such authors as Dashiell Hammett. Style and narrative combined on film hark back to classic film noir. Miller’s world is not a pleasant place. Crooked cops, killers, hookers and vigilantes populate an amoral and violent townscape. Sin City features a massive cast that includes Benicio Del Toro, Mickey Rourke, Clive Owen, Brittany Murphy, Bruce Willis, Jessica Alba, Devon Aoki and a cannibalistic Elijah Wood. Quentin Tarantino directs one segment, and Rodriguez resigned from the Directors’ Guild of America so that he could give a full co-director’s credit to Frank Miller.

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Walk the Line / James Mangold

2005. Colour. USA. 124 mins. DVD.

Reese Witherspoon takes the co-lead in the story of the love affair between country singer June Carter and music legend Johnny Cash, played convincingly by Joaquin Phoenix. Walk the Line flits around Cash’s youth and early career, his audition with Sam Phillips of Sun Records, his sometime drug and alcohol dependence and the failure of his first marriage. The culmination comes in the late 1960s with the celebrated concert at Folsom Prison and the marriage that was to last until the deaths of both singers in 2003. Director/writer James Mangold and co-writer Gill Dennis collaborated with June Carter and Johnny Cash for seven years on the script development.

Walk The Line / Soundtrack Album

Format: 1 Disc. 16 Tracks.

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Borat: Cultural Learnings of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan / Larry Charles

2006. Colour. UK. 83 mins. DVD.

Sacha Baron Cohen takes his own brand of irreverent and offensive anarchy to the big screen with the able assistance of Seinfeld producer Larry Charles. Kazakhstani journalist Borat Sagdiyev (Cohen) heads for the USA to film a documentary in the company of his producer Azamat Bagatov (Ken Davitian). Almost immediately he is sidetracked by an episode of Baywatch and sets his sights on California as a result of a growing obsession with Pamela Anderson. En route he presents the supposed prejudices and traditions of his supposed homeland to a disturbing cross-section of real Americans. The results are often worrying as Borat’s bigotry finds its echo in seemingly normal people. Hilarity vies with embarrassment as Cohen leads his victims shamelessly up the garden path.

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The Last King of Scotland / Kevin Macdonald

2006. Colour. UK. 121 mins. DVD.

The reign of terror of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin (Forest Whitaker) seen through the eyes of Scottish doctor Nicholas Carrigan (James McAvoy), who is on hand to treat the president after a car accident and is appointed as his personal physician. The Scot is seduced by Amin’s charismatic charm and the luxurious lifestyle that is the prerogative of the Ugandan elite, but eventually begins to recognise the burgeoning psychosis of an absolute leader corrupted by absolute power. As Amin’s atrocities increase Carrigan realises that he, too, is at risk and frantically tries to escape. McAvoy gives an effective performance as the naïve doctor, but Whitaker triumphs with an Oscar-winning portrayal of a delusional tyrant touched by occasional moments of humanity.

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Venus / Roger Michell

2006. Colour. UK. 95 mins. DVD.

Two grumpy superannuated thespians (Peter O’Toole and Leslie Phillips) pass their twilight days in a round of London coffee shops and theatres until life intervenes in the form of Philips’s niece’s daughter (Jodie Whitaker). The brash northern nineteen-year-old is brought in to nurse O’Toole and revives the Old Adam in a man struggling against the indignities of ageing. O’Toole and Phillips are evenly matched in this elegy on friendship, love and inescapable mortality. Sound support is provided by Whitaker, Richard Griffiths, Corin Redgrave, and Vanessa Redgrave as O’Toole’s neglected wife.

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The Assassination of Jesse James ... / Andrew Dominik

… by the Coward Robert Ford.

2007. Colour. USA. 155 mins. DVD.

In this dark and compelling deconstruction of an enduring legend, Andrew Dominik places his sharp focus on Jesse James (Brad Pitt) and the brothers Robert and Charlie Ford (Casey Affleck and Sam Rockwell). The media myth of Jesse James is well-established and the hero-worshipping 20-year-old Robert Ford has grown up on a diet of press reports and dime novels, and with a growing conviction that he, too, is destined for stirring deeds and celebrity. The two brothers attach themselves to the remnant of a disintegrating James Gang shortly before the last train robbery of a long and brutal career. In the following months Jesse infects the dispersed gang members with his growing paranoia and the Ford brothers are drawn into his claustrophobic orbit. Pitt, Affleck and Rockwell bring total conviction to characters whose obsessive mistrust develops towards an inevitable outcome, with Jesse appearing to be complicit in his fate at the end. The after-story verges on the surreal as the Ford brothers deliver hundreds of theatrical re-enactments of the shooting; as Bob Ford fails to find public approval and recognition; and as Charlie sinks into remorse and suicide. This atmospheric tale of an ineffectual nobody seeking fame at any price is thrown into relief by a strong supporting cast that flicker in and out of the main action: Mary-Louise Parker as Jesse’s wife, Paul Schneider as Dick Liddil and Sam Shepard as Frank James. The whole is raised to a higher level by the cinematography of Roger Deakin, who seems from time to time deliberately to evoke the work of David Lean and Freddie Young, especially Lawrence of Arabia (1962 qv) and Doctor Zhivago (1965 qv). The mesmerizing score is by Nick Cave, who briefly busks his way through ‘The Ballad of Jesse James’ in a New York barroom. Strangely, the film was pretty much ignored by the American and British Academies in 2008. An ‘extras’ disc adds historical detail through contributions from author Ron Hansen and other biographers and historians.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford / Ron Hansen

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Elizabeth: The Golden Age / Shekhar Kapur

2007. Colour. UK/Fr/Ger. 111 mins. DVD.

Opulent costume drama, a continuation of Shekhar Kapur’s earlier film Elizabeth (1998 qv). The Virgin Queen has overcome the problems that faced her early years, only to be confronted with further threats. These include the machinations of Mary Queen of Scots, well played by Samantha Morton; the enmity of the Catholic Church and Spain; and the impending Great Armada. Geoffrey Rush reprises his role as Walsingham, Elizabeth’s spymaster. Sir Walter Raleigh (Clive Owen) replaces Robert Dudley as the romantic interest and the supporting cast includes Jordi Molla as Philip II of Spain, Abbie Cornish as Elizabeth Throckmorton, Rhys Ifans as Robert Reston and David Threlfall as Dr John Dee, scientist, magician, visionary and Rennaissance Man. But Cate Blanchett in the title role excels and matches her original performance. Elizabeth: The Golden Age failed to attract the attention paid to its predecessor, winning only the Best Costume Design Oscar. For more on the period, go to our Bookshop.

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I'm Not There / Todd Haynes

2007. Colour/BW. USA/Ger. 135 mins. DVD.

An enigmatic montage for unredeemed Bob Dylan fans. The singer/songwriter has had many incarnations and Todd Haynes creates a mosaic of characters, each representing a different period in Dylan’s career. It would be ungracious of us to go into detail and spoil the fun, but the surrealistic treatment includes an 11-year-old black Woodie Guthrie, an ageing Billy the Kid, a Joan Baez look-alike and an uncanny Dylan impersonation by Cate Blanchett. Fractured timelines demand undivided attention, and the soundtrack mixes covers with original recordings. Cate Blanchett is accompanied by Ben Wishaw, Christian Bale, Richard Gere, Julianne Moore, Heath Ledger, Michelle Williams and Marcus Carl Franklin.

I'm Not There / Soundtrack Album

Format: 2 Discs. 32 Tracks.

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No Country For Old Men / Coen Brothers

2007. Colour. USA. 122 mins. DVD.

Tommy Lee Jones’s West Texas drawl comes dripping slow and rich as molasses and sets the scene: an ageing sheriff struggling to understand a society degenerating into mindless violence. Poor-white Llewellyn Moss (James Brolin) stumbles across the carnage left by a drug deal gone wrong and absconds with a valise full of cash. He is pursued by psychopathic killer Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), whose weapon of choice leaves lawmen baffled. In turn, an over-confident Carson Wells (Woody Harrelson) is hired by a slick lawyer to track down Chigurh. In the meantime sheriff Ed Tom Bell is always one step behind in his quest to save Moss from a seemingly unavoidable destiny. Unusually, the Coens have here opted for adaptation (from a novel by Cormac McCarthy) rather than original screenplay, and the result matches the very best of their productions. Tommy Lee Jones is superb as the uncomprehending sheriff whose humanity is insulted by the anarchy that is loosed upon his world. Javier Bardem gives a chilling performance as the remorseless instrument of arbitrary fate, a major theme of No Country For Old Men. The setting is a desert landscape as bleak as the isolation that envelops the characters in a plot that finds occasional moments of dark humour but no final resolution. The title is taken from W B Yeats’s Sailing to Byzantium. A pointer can, perhaps, be found in another Yeats couplet: ‘The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity.’

No Country For Old Men / Cormac McCarthy

The Collected Poems of W B Yeats / William Butler Yeats

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Sweeney Todd — The Demon Barber of Fleet Street / Tim Burton

2007. Colour. USA/UK. 112 mins. DVD.

Tim Burton’s stylish screen adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s stage musical, with long-time Burton collaborator Johnny Depp in the title role. Todd returns to London after fifteen years of wrongful imprisonment, vowing vengeance on Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman), who was responsible for his conviction and his wife’s suicide. By way of a career change, Todd takes up barbering and teams up with pie maker Mrs Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter) - the rest is familiar territory. The cast includes Sacha Baron Cohen and Timothy Spall and this piece of whimsical gore deserved rather more than the single award gained in 2008 — the Oscar for Best Art Direction.

Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street / Soundtrack Album

Format: 2 Discs. 20 Tracks.

Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street / Anon / Ed R L Mack

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There Will Be Blood / Paul Thomas Anderson

2007. Colour. USA. 158 mins. DVD.

The unacceptable face of capitalism meets evangelistic Christianity in the turn-of-the-century oilfields of California. Daniel Day Lewis is Daniel Plainview, a complex and tortured oilman who uses persuasion and intimidation in equal measure to realise his over-riding ambition. He comes into conflict with a young preacher, Eli Sunday, creator of the Church of the Third Revelation. The struggle between God and Mammon inevitably leads to apocalyptic confrontation. Day Lewis gives a defining and acclaimed performance in a powerful film that is marked by ambivalent themes, disturbing undertones and brilliant cinematography. Based on Upton Sinclair’s novel Oil.

There Will Be Blood / Soundtrack Album

Format: 1 Disc. 11 Tracks.

Oil / Upton Sinclair

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Foreign Cinema

The Diving Bell and The Butterfly / Julian Schnabel

2007. Colour. Fr. 112 mins. DVD.

Or My Left Eye? Comparisons with My Left Foot (1989 qv) are inevitable — similar circumstances, a fine leading performance in a physically restricted role, a treatment that injects humour, humanity and human frailty into a subject that might have provoked mawkish sentimentality, and a narrative that illustrates the ability of the imagination to deal with personal catastrophe. Jean-Dominique Bauby (Mathieu Amalric) suffers a stroke and awakes in hospital paralysed apart from the use of one eye. The former Elle editor works with his speech therapist (Marie-Josee Croze) and a stenographer (Anne Consigny) to devise a system of dictation by eye-blinks that involves working through the alphabet, letter by letter. The result is his memoir, The Diving Bell and The Butterfly. Much of the story is filmed from the viewpoint of Bauby’s single eye, with his thoughts and reactions given as voice over, but the script and cinematography break through the claustrophobic perspective to achieve a film with extensive emotional range.

The Diving Bell and The Butterfly / Jean-Dominique Bauby

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La Vie En Rose / Olivier Dahan

2007. Colour. Fr. 135 mins. DVD.

A remarkable performance by Marion Cotillard more than redeems a biopic that suffers from over-ambitious tampering with narrative structure. Edith Piaf was the iconic French chanteuse and her life epitomised the tragic and romantic artist — born into exploitative poverty, raised to international acclaim, doomed to unfortunate love affairs, sinking into alcohol and drug abuse and an embittered drawn-out final illness. Piaf’s voice was unique and is still immediately recognisable — there is no attempt here from Cotillard at replication, and the soundtrack album provides an instant collection of Piaf’s best-loved songs. The Oscars committee departed from usual practise by awarding Best Actress to the lead in a foreign language film.

La Vie En Rose / Soundtrack Album

Format: 1 Disc. 27 Tracks.

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