LGBT – ETB

Destructive Lovers

Oscar Harding — Thu, 24 Aug 2017 07:00:53 +0000

Thinkpiece Thursday

by Guest Contributor Oscar Harding

There are two possible endings to every love story, either the characters are together at the conclusion or they are apart. If characters are to stay together they must work through their differences and, basically, grow up and grow together. When a love story ends tragically either one character can’t grow up or some greater internal force keeps them apart, like honor or duty.

Recent examples of each end are, Barry Jenkins’ 2016 best picture-winner Moonlight, and Abdellatif Kechiche’s 2013 Palme D’or-winner Blue Is The Warmest Colour. Spoilers follow for both films.

In Moonlight, central character Chiron (Ashton Sanders), discovers his sexuality and his love for friend Kevin (Jaden Piner). They are torn apart by Kevin’s brutal betrayal until their reconciliation after more than a decade.

In Blue Is The Warmest Colour, central character Adèle (Adèle Exarchopolous) has some awkward sexual experiences with men before realizing that enigmatic Emma (Lea Seydoux) is the one for her. But two fall out forever over Adèle’s impulsive affair.

Moonlight is a Power of Love story, and Blue is the Warmest Colour is a Power of Idealism story. In a Power of Love story, the couple ends up together. In a Power of Idealism story, they are separated lovers who are haunted by loss and longing.

In Moonlight, Chiron is a shy alienated Power of Reason character and Kevin is a charming eager to please Power of Ambition character. Kevin’s desperate desire to fit in explodes in violence toward Chiron as Kevin tries to fit into a toxic culture of the thuggish gang masculinity. Only drug dealer Juan (Mahershala Ali), a kindly Power of Love character provides the understanding and nurture that Chiron needs in his social isolation.

Chiron and Kevin are reunited after years apart. A more mature and humbled Kevin discovers Chiron has protected himself with the outward toughness of a thug. Kevin has found contentment as a fry cook who supports his son. Kevin’s honesty and tenderness give Chiron what he needs- love, not lust. Their relationship shows both men hope for real happiness.

In Blue is the Warmest Colour, both Adèle and Emma are Power of Idealism characters. They are intense, passionate, and gifted. Emma is a bold vibrant painter and Adele is a talented writer, too afraid to show her work and risk possible rejection.

Emma is devoted to Adèle. Adele is the great love of her life and muse for her glorious early paintings. She believes Adèle is perfect. Adele is unwilling to accept Emma’s adoration and be satisfied. Adèle fears Emma will ultimately reject her. She has an affair when Emma is preoccupied with helping a friend. When Emma discovers Adele’s betrayal they have an explosive screaming break up.

Years later they meet and a reconciliation is possible. But Emma has completed her emotional journey. She has grown up and finds contentment and peace in an ordinary domestic life. This grounds her creative growth and helps her mature as an artist.

Adele cannot move past her torment over her lost “great love’ with Emma. She is adrift in loss and longing and wants Emma back, or to have an affair at the very least. Emma refuses. She cherishes her family. Even though Adele is still her passionate “great love” Emma walks away from her. Adele simply cannot move on.

Power of Idealism stories always end with separated lovers. Other examples are Bridges of Madison County, Casablanca, or Gone with the Wind.

Power of Love stories always end with the lovers together. Examples are every romantic comedy you’ve ever seen.

Character is structure. Will your couple live happily ever after despite their differences? Or will the lovers part ways, remembering always that “great love” that got away?

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Dog Day Afternoon – Day Thirty One – #40movies40days

Laurie Hutzler — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 21:51:08 +0000

I’d never seen Dog Day Afternoon and decided to watch it in honor of director Sidney Lumet’s passing. The film is a great example of a Power of Idealism crime drama. (I’ll be teaching a Thriller-Crime Drama workshop at New York Law School on April 30).

Robert Berkvist recalled in the New York Times: “While the goal of all movies is to entertain,” Mr. Lumet once wrote, “the kind of film in which I believe goes one step further. It compels the spectator to examine one facet or another of his own conscience. It stimulates thought and sets the mental juices flowing.”

Social issues set his own mental juices flowing, and his best films not only probed the consequences of prejudice, corruption and betrayal but also celebrated individual acts of courage…

…Mr. Lumet (was) “one of the last of the great movie moralists” and “a leading purveyor of the social-issue movie.” Yet Mr. Lumet said he was never a crusader for social change. “I don’t think art changes anything,” he said in The Times interview. So why make movies? he was asked.

“I do it because I like it,” he replied, “and it’s a wonderful way to spend your life.” http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/10/movies/sidney-lumet-director-of-american-classics-dies-at-86.html?_r=1&ref=movies

In Dog Day Afternoon, amateur bank robber Sonny Wortzik (Al Pacino), his friend Salvatore “Sal” Naturile (John Cazale), and a second accomplice rob a bank. Their plan immediately goes awry when the second accomplice loses his nerve. He flees the scene. Sonny and Sal then discover that the daily cash pickup has left only $1100 in in the bank.

Sonny takes a number of traveler’s checks. He burns the check register in a waste basket, to prevent the checks from being traced. Smoke billows out a side vent of the building. An insurance agent across the street notices and calls the cops. Within minutes, the building is surrounded by police, as inept as the robbers. Unsure what to do, Sonny and Sal camp out in the bank, holding all the employees hostage. Chaos and high drama ensues.

They fight for an impossible or lost cause and the glory of doing what logically or ordinarily cannot be done. Often they give their lives for their doomed cause or campaign.

These characters lead best in short bursts of intense activity or creativity. They tend not to be very reliable about the boring details of grinding day-to day long-term leadership. They are “big picture” or visionary leaders. They inspire others with the sense of a destiny in one great cause.

Power of Idealism characters love the big romantic gesture and are rarely interested in sticking around for the clean up after their big moment is over. They would rather disappear into the glorious memory of the grand occasion or glorious battle.

Sonny, a Power of Idealism character, fights for an impossible or lost cause (his mentally unstable male lover/wife’s sex change operation). These characters, like Sonny, love the big romantic gesture. They lead best in short bursts of intense activity or creativity. They tend not to be very reliable about the boring details of planning and step-by-step exection. This describes Sonny to a tee. He sees himself as a “big picture” or visionary leader but has no practical ability to actually bring the robbery off.

Christopher Null, writing at FilmCritic.com, sums the film up perfectly: Today Dog Day Afternoon is an unabashed classic, a template by which other movies are based and a formula which is periodically tweaked and refined. There are few things you can complain about in Dog Day — a second act that relies on a few too many variations of the same ‘the cops are scheming’ bit, and that’s about it. But Pacino’s fiery performance and Sidney Lumet’s perfect direction does more than create a great crime movie. It captures perfectly the zeitgeist of the early 1970s, a time when optimism was scraping rock bottom and John Wojtowicz was as good a hero as we could come up with.” http://www.filmcritic.com/reviews/1975/dog-day-afternoon/

In 2009, the film was added to the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.

Sonny’s passion is misguided. He goes off half cocked with no real back-up plan or step-by-step practical way to execute his dream/goal. Although I believe passion is necessary to life, I wonder when and where my passion is misguided or has lead or is leading me astray.

Do I have a full understanding of what I need to do to execute my dreams? Am I fully aware of the costs of what I choose? This project has been a way to step back and take a more objective look at what I am doing with my life and why. Already ideas are coalescing and my vision is clearing. This has been a really interesting and revealing experiment.

Milk – Lack of Internal Conflict

Laurie Hutzler — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 00:00:27 +0000

Milk features standout performances and worthy subject matter of real historical significance. The film, however, is severely lacking in story on several accounts. It is a object lesson on the need for conflict, conflict, conflict. Too much backstory compromises the emotional power of the film.

The story is too episodic. We watch Milk setting a goal and achieving it for the vast majority of screen time. Sean Penn’s performance is a stunning achievement but it is constrained by the screenplay’s step-by-step by the numbers plot. Harvey Milk (Sean Penn) moves to San Francisco and becomes a Gay Rights activist. He runs unsuccessfully for San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors and is elected on his third try. Milk becomes the first openly gay man in America to be elected to public office.

External Conflict

We see Milk overcome obstacles in his quest for elective office but those are all external obstacles; prejudice, lack of funds or lack of broad-based support. External conflict is the least emotional kind of conflict. There is little relationship conflict in the film and no inner conflict. These kinds of conflicts are the most intense and powerful for an audience.

On the relationship front, Milk breaks up with his long-time partner, James Franco (Scott Smith) over political ambitions. This is handled in a few short scenes, none of which have any real heat. It is a sad but amiable dissolution of the relationship and the two men remain committed and affectionate friends through-out the film. Not much intense conflict there.

Franco and Milk’s other friends disapprove of Milk’s new partner, Jack Lira (Diego Luna) a flamboyant needy younger man. Lira complains of feeling excluded but we never see any real rejection, cruelty or even nastiness on the part of Milks friends. Nor do we see much conflict between Lira and Milk. Tepid exasperation on Franco’s and his friend’s behalf, brief child-like petulance on Lira’s behalf and tolerant bemusement on Milk’s behalf is about as intense as the relationship conflict gets. When Lira kills himself, this big emotional moment simply isn’t earned. Where are the cat-fights, personal fireworks, desperation, deep frustration or anger that leads to that intense dramatic moment? It’s just not there.

Internal Conflict

Most troubling is the lack of internal conflict. Milk is portrayed as a smart, caring, committed, passionate, inspirational and good-humored man through-out. Were all his political ambitions noble and pure? Were there no darker impulses at work– selfishness, ego, pride or hubris? We never see him struggle with his baser and his more noble desires for political power.

Nor do we ever see Milk wrestle with himself. He never struggles with two competing values. He appears to sacrifice his love relationships to his political ambitions but we don’t we see him struggle to make that choice. Break-ups of deep caring relationships don’t just happen. There is conflict leading to a moment of personal choice– This relationship isn’t worth my time or I want something more. Where are the tears, recriminations or the uncertainty that politics is worth sacrificing some who loves you? Instead, we simply see the report, after the fact, that a relationship, has ended (tragically in suicide in Lira’s case). Where are the intense passionate conflicts as Milk neglects his partners and sacrifices them for him aspirations and ambitions?

The real, and most interesting, conflict emerges in Milk’s relationship with Dan White (Josh Brolin) This is where the emotions on the screen finally heat up and start to get real. From a character and conflict standpoint, the film catches fire with Milk’s election. Do we really need to know the step-by-step process by which White was elected? We can watch the documentary to understand that process.

The complex psychological dance between Milk and White is where the true emotional power of the film lies. White (Brolin) has an intense need to connect with Milk and earn his respect. He blames all his troubles on Milk. In turn, we get glimpses of Milk playing with White both personally and politically, taunting him and occasionally condescending to him. We finally get a tiny glimpse of Milk’s less than perfect humanity and his hubris. White is desperate and feels deeply threatened, humiliated and inadequate. How do the emotions build to the culmination of a tragic double murder? That is the heart of the most emotional story in the film and it gets too short a shrift.

Watching Brolin and Penn go at it in highly charged scenes fraught with powerful subtext and deep personal conflict is a joy to behold. THAT is the movie. The rest is purely prologue and should have been cut from the story.