In the Mood for Love
was a bit of an over-hyped affair if you ask me. A lot of people who are
familiar with Wong Kar Wai's work rank it as one of the best films about love
and loss ever made. And yet, when I finally got done to watching it in the
internet centre at Nalsar with a friend, we were left a bit puzzled. It sure
looked pretty, and we supposed there was something to be said for the hypnotic
score, but in the end it felt mostly like an overlong snooze fest.
Disgruntled and feeling our faith in humanity's cinematic
tastes fast eroding, we went straight to Roger Ebert's review of the film. It
begins with the lines "they are in the mood for love, but not in the time
and place for it". That felt about right, as right as a later line - "the
thrust of Wong's film is that paths cross, but intentions rarely do".
Reading these lines, retrospectively improved the film we'd watched. Finally we
got to the point where Ebert notes - "Lovers do not notice where they are,
do not notice that they repeat themselves.
It isn't repetition anyway - it's reassurance. And when you're holding
back and speaking in code, no conversation is boring, because the empty spaces
are filled by your desires".
And with those words, we felt In the Mood for Love
transforming before our eyes, edging past the endlessly repetitive sequences
we'd been exasperated by, and becoming a better, more worthy piece of
filmmaking. In about 700 words, Ebert had managed to salvage a movie for us,
had given us something legitimately beautiful that we could take away from it.
Weeks later, the same friend and I were watching Charlie
Kauffman's Synecdoche, New York back in the internet centre (we sure watched a
lot of movies there). This time round,
we hadn't heard much about the movie. As we reached its brutally unflinching
ending, we sat in silence, watching the end credits roll, not quite being able
to articulate our thoughts. We knew we'd seen something astonishing, but how to
adjectivize this emotion, how to frame it within the strictures of language?
And again, Roger Ebert came to
our rescue: "We find something we
want to do, if we are lucky, or something we need to do, if we are like most
people. We use it as a way to obtain food, shelter, clothing, mates, comfort, a
first folio of Shakespeare, model airplanes .... whatever we think we need. To
do this, we enact the role we call "me", trying to brand ourselves
a person who can and should obtain these
things.
In the process, we place the people in our lives into compartments and
define how they should behave to our advantage. Because we cannot force them to
follow our desires, we deal with projections of them created in our minds. But
they will be contrary and have wills of their own. Eventually new projections
of us are dealing with new projections of them .... Hold that trajectory in
mind and let it interact with age, discouragement, greater wisdom and more uncertainty.
you will understand what Synecdoche, New York is trying to say about the life
of Caden Cotard and the lives in his lives".
What made Ebert stand out from so
many other critics, what initially drew me to his writing and made me seek out
his reviews, was the manner in which he necessarily gleaned the best out of a
movie. Where just about every other major critic seemed to be more intent in
ripping apart film after film, pausing for breath at the Oscar lineup, Ebert
was finding the good in the movies left
by the wayside. He notes in his 4 star
review of Romance and Cigarettes how
it stands at 33% on the Rotten Tomatoes meter because "so many timid taste
mongers have been affronted by the movie". Not him though - for him,
Romance and Cigarettes was, "the
real thing, a film that breaks out of Hollywood jail with audacious
originality, startling sexuality, heartfelt emotions and an anarchic liberty.
The actors toss their heads and run their mouths like prisoners let loose to
race free". His hearty endorsement got me and my friends to watch what
is one of the most enthralling musicals of all time, one that also manages to
sneak in a scene of Susan Sarandon using the word "whoremaster".
Of course, sometimes this fervent
need to see the good could go too far. I am baffled by his review of Prometheus
where he terms it a "magnificent
science-fiction film, all the more intriguing because it raises questions about
the origin of human life and doesn't have the answers". And to call The Golden Compass "a darker deeper fantasy epic than the Rings trilogy or the Potter
films" is just ... I'm still trying to frame an adequate response to
that gaffe. Then there were the times when he could really bring the sarcasm -
his review of Valentine's Day tells
us: "Valentine's Day is being
marketed as a Date Movie. I think it's more of a First-Date Movie. If your date
likes it, do not date that person again. And if you like it, there may not be a
second date".
Zing.
Ebert came to gradually define the way I watched movies. I recall a glorious period of time where I
could see no wrong in cinema, where I'd forgotten the bitter sting of
disappointment because I could just somehow focus on the parts of the film that
worked. Sometimes I was more Ebert than
Ebert himself. I will admit, for instance, to actively enjoying portions of Valentine's Day. And I don't just mean the bits with a shirtless Taylor Lautner, which, come on, even Ebert probably enjoyed.
Lately, the Ebert in me has been fading, slowly replaced by
someone more cynical, perhaps more discerning.
There is a set of criteria that my mind forces onto every movie it
watches, and if it is unable to stand up to those standards, I am unable to
defend it. This doesn't fill me with any
sense of pride or joy, and it is often frustrating. It is the reason why I am
unable to be enthusiastic about The Dark Knight Rises, even with its somewhat
exhilarating final hour, and why I couldn't quite heartily endorse Life of Pi
even though there were parts of it that took my breath away.
Losing Roger Ebert means the loss of one of the most enthusiastic cinephiles of
our time. In his writing, there was droll wit and autobiographical verve. There
were wonderful insights into a life
lived in the service of cinema. There was a desire, a need that leapt out from
the written word, to ensure that you got up and watched that film he was
recommending to you, everything else be damned. As his health began to fail
him, there was sadness, extended reflections on mortality creeping more and
more steadily into his writing.
Always, always, there was an unabashed love for the cinematic medium and its myriad possibilities.
So Goodbye Roger Ebert, and thank you so very much for letting
me into your world for so many years. As I consider the prospect of not having
a new review of yours to look forward to, I will think of the words of my
friend Lawrence: "Three thumbs down".
