First thoughts on Amor Towles "Rules of Civility"

Like all good writing, Amor Towles Rules of Civility deftly transports you into its intended environment. Here, it’s the chink chink of glasses, the heavy stench of cigarette smoke, and the bright baubles of the well-heeled classes of late 1930s New York. The mysterious but plucky Katey Kontent is our guide, and her fondness for Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations is no accident. Even from 140 pages in, the comparisons to Pip are evident, but what keeps this from traveling toward an expected and unsurprising conclusion is the lack of idealism and naiveté with which Katey confronts her world. This doesn’t appear to be a bildungsroman. Not too far into the novel, it becomes clear that Katey has already reinvented herself once when she moved from the Russian ghetto of Brighton Beach to the prim but poor Mrs Martingale’s boarding house. The opportunity comes again for her and her friend Eve on New Years Eve in 1937, when they come across a wide-eyed, deep-pocketed New York blueblood. A series of events follow that bring Katey and Eve out of the Lower East Side and up Fifth Avenue, altering the course of their lives forever.

Only half way through the novel, I’m still in the dark as to where they end up (though we know from the Preface that Katey has made it to 1969 with a husband in tow), what’s lost in the journey, and whether it’s for better or worse. But the thrill of the era is captured so resplendently in each paragraph that it seemed a shame not to jot my thoughts down on impulse. Whether it turns into a great novel or is merely the best-written pitch for a film I’ve ever come across remains to be seen. Either way, it makes me thirsty for a dry martini and an extra hundred pages. I doubt I’ll be ready to leave the party by the time I get to the end.

Outside of Time and Space in Bombay Beach

Thinking of a series of dreams
Where the time and the tempo drag,
And there's no exit in any direction
'Cept the one that you can't see with your eyes.
Wasn't making any great connections,
Wasn't falling for any intricate schemes.
Nothing that would pass inspection,
Just thinking of a series of dreams.
--Bob Dylan "Series of Dreams"

What defines a well-lived life? What makes a man rich? Or happy? Some version of these questions lies at the root of most cinematic endeavors, and Bombay Beach is no exception. The film takes place in an insular, dying, desert seascape outside of time, populated by atypical individuals who seem like they were plucked from the negatives of Diane Arbus and Walker Evans. The lives of this band of eccentrics have been written off by society as bleak and hopeless, but this very isolation and abandonment has cultivated a different, no less vibrant and loving community.

In the neighborhoods in and around Bombay Beach there is no Obama or Romney or Bachmann talk. There is no anxiety about “the future of things”. There is no media or marketing or malls.There is no constantly updating Facebook stream, or Linkedin profile, or rss feed. There is a dying sea and the sun and long stretches of road and sand. There are tin roofs and trailers. There is garbage and wire and flea-bitten mutts that snuggle with empty beer cans and restless children. But through the eyes of director Alma Har’el’s camera, Bombay Beach also contains magic and innocence and whimsy. There is deeply felt emotion and friendship. There are games of pretend and large group potlucks. Here, in this surreal place where time does not rush ceaselessly into the future, a moment is felt for its full weight. It's not a means to an end but is the end itself. While the lives of these economically marginalized folks are captured for what they are, Har’el finds a romantic spirit embedded. The film’s folksy and dreamy score complement a shooting style in which her subjects appear like mythical beings, entering shots larger than life, captured in the soft light of the magic hour, or up so close that every wrinkle and freckle is heavy with reverence.

And then there is the dancing. The choreographed moments dispersed throughout the film bring the already alien landscape of the Salton Sea further out of time, essentially constructing an alternate post-apocalyptic version of America that is breathtaking in its strangeness. We see the shadow of a large man and wife spin against the siding of house, and a group of children clasp hands in a choreographed dance of the game red rover. One of my favorite moments is a masked dance between two teen lovers in a gazebo lit up by Christmas lights. Somehow it doesn’t feel forced. Somehow it feels honest and beautiful.

Har’el’s Bombay Beach is graceful in its decrepitude and wise in its ignorance. Whether the residents profiled feel the same warm glow and magic she projects onto them and their lives is another story. Regardless, it is a strange and intriguing landscape so distant from the America I know. One I would very much like to visit, even if only in a dream.

Bombay Beach // Trailer from Alma Har'el on Vimeo.

The Eyes of Michael Shannon

There’s a scene in Jeff Nichol’s disquieting new film Take Shelter in which Michael Shannon pulls his car over to the side of the road.  We are beside him, looking through his windshield.  The road ahead is blown out by the white emptiness of overexposed daylight.  The rear view mirror floats there, hanging on nothing.  On it’s own, its already a jarring shot.  The reflective surface lying in wait against the oppressive glare of the afternoon sun.  This is in contrast to the crackle of thunder heard moments earlier.  The sound of a storm brewing.  A storm that no one but Shannon’s character Curtis can hear or feel.

We return to the mirror.  In its reflection are Curtis’ eyes.   They are panicked and wild and frightened, but they are also intelligent and piercing.  They are eyes that bore holes into you and burn indelible marks into your subconscious, leaving you unsettled and ill at ease.  Is this man crazy, or does he know something?  You are nervous.  Maybe even a little scared.  With just his eyes against the bright light of day, the anxiety of the narrative—of this man—becomes more than just moving images, but a palpable sensation that surrounds you and locks you in.  There is something unearthly about them. Set low on the forehead, they look out at you from the mirror with an unnatural cerulean blue.  With nothing else in the frame, you can only concentrate on the intensity with which these eyes are emitting its message:

Something is coming.  There is reason to fear.  Why doesn’t anyone see?

I went to Take Shelter this evening on a whim.  It had been awhile since I went to the movies by myself—one of my favorite things to do in NYC.   Fortunately, the crappy weather and lack of appealing plans presented me with this rare opportunity and I checked to see what was at the Angelika.  I'd seen the trailer for Take Shelter months back and had been hooked by a scene in which Michael Shannon's character is confronted by a flock of swarming CGI birds.  But even more than the birds I was intrigued to see Shannon take on a leading man role.  Over the past ten years he has appeared in a number of supporting parts to extreme effect, stealing the show from the lead every time.   Here again, he doesn't disappoint.  The film itself is already impressive—a taut, moody discourse on the generally unsettling and anxiety ridden state of the country.  But Shannon takes the film's ethereal and saturnine canvas and grounds it convincingly in the character of Curtis.  He is a man on the edge, but of insanity or an awful truth?  The answer is left unclear.  And we are left with the impression of Shannon’s intense eyes, daring us to wonder what is coming next.