Have Yourself a Cinematic Christmas

If the world was plunged back into the Stone Age tomorrow, all modern conveniences vanished in an instant, humans reduced to wearing the skins they tear off of animals, gnawing on bones and grunting inordinately at each other (which actually doesn't sound that removed from current day), we would still need stories.

With the Internet, iPods, cell phones, and the Kardashians all gone, and life again reduced to the basics of food and shelter, the sad scruffy humans will gather around flickering penumbra of a fire, and seek to entertain themselves.

So too during the holidays, when all of a sudden folks have a tiny bit more time on their hands and are looking for something to distract them from the great darkness hovering just beyond the campfire's circle of light. The movies are there, but finding a film that entertains the entire clan of the cave bear is well nigh impossible.

On Christmas day, my entire family likes to go to the movies. In years past, big films opened traditionally on Christmas day -- Lord of the Rings, Titanic, and even more Lord of the Rings. This year there isn't a great deal of choice, I would rather poke at mud with a stick than go see The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. Black Swan, 127 Days, The King's Speech all have some interest, but they are nothing I would make a child sit through. There is always Tron, I suppose, already touted to be the holiday film of the season simply for want of anything else, it would seem. The thought of sitting through more 3D things whizzing out the screen, just makes me tired.

'True Grit'

At Christmas, I am still drawn to the classic storytelling tropes, Westerns for example.

I had high hopes for the Coen Brother's remake of True Grit, the only film to ever secure an Oscar for John Wayne. The original, aside from the fact that it had Glen Campbell in it, was pretty benign stuff. Plucky girl meets aging duke and rooting-tooting Western ensues. But despite its PG-13 rating, the Coen brothers' remake is not so child friendly. If your kid is at all squeamish, the sight of various body parts getting lopped off, or people shot in the face will not bring on the Christmas spirit. The Old West is a pretty brutal place in the eyes of Joel and Ethan. This may be closer to the genuine historical truth than John Wayne's camped up version, with its characterization that occasionally bordered on male burlesque, but it's not as much fun.

This new True Grit virtually glows with authenticity, right down to the stains on Rooster Cogburn's filthy long underwear. The film is lovely to look at, art directed to within an inch of its life. From the stitching on a young girl's cinched up coat, to the vast hardscrabble landscape in which the action unfurls, there is a level of attention to making the West look entirely new again. But in the process, the goofy edge that gives Western's some of their charm has been severely diminished.

For those who have not seen the original film, nor read the book upon which both versions are based, the story remains largely the same. A fourteen-year-old girl named Mattie Ross, determined to avenge the death of her father by a low-down thieving murderer by the name of Tom Chaney, hires a rotted-out hulk of a U.S. Marshall by the name of Ruben J. (Rooster) Cogburn. A Texas Ranger named LaBeouf (played originally by the Rhinestone Cowboy Glen Campbell, and in the new version by Matt Damon, although I don't know which is worse) joins them. LaBeouf is also on the trail of the aforementioned murderer and the three of them light out for Indian country, fussing and fighting all the way. This perhaps sounds more fun than it actually is.

Tongue, twisted

In the new version, Jeff Bridges does a fine job bringing old Rooster C. to lurching life, even if he does seem to be occasionally channelling Billy Bob Thorton's Sling Blade speech patterns. Language plays a central role in this film, which employed Charles Portis's 1968 novel as its source material rather then John Wayne's sprawling drawling inflections. Here, as in the previous Coen's western, No Country for Old Men, language is as much a weapon as any gun, especially for young Miss Ross who wields her tongue like a Colt pistol, firing threats, admonishments, sermons and insults in a carefully calibrated spray. The different patterns of speech are occasionally so flowery and arcane that they border on well nigh unintelligible.

The film's dialogue is drawn directly from Charles Portis's novel that predates Cormac McCarthy-isms by a long shot. An article in The Believer Magazine describes Portis as "Like Cormac McCarthy, but Funny" and covers the man's unlikely career and the even more unlikely gestation of the work that secured his fame, "a book so strong that it reads as myth."

But the Coen brothers' version of Portis's story, despite its pedigree, large budget, and superlative thespians, lacks a full-on punch. Watching actors acting, even great actors, I find myself largely unmoved lately. There is a degree of self-congratulation that seems to take place, even within the performance itself, that is greatly in evidence here. Certainly, the film has the requisite amount of shoot-outs, nasty villains, heroic moments, and just a smidge of sentiment.

Even if all the pieces are present and accounted for, there is something oddly missing at the heart of this enterprise, some capering quicksilver form of life or energy that would elevate the action from merely serviceable to artful. Perhaps it's the level of gravitas, sonorous music and serious intent that takes most of the fun out of things. The film is altogether too careful, too self-conscious, which is a problem that seems to plague many narrative films lately.

The gift of romance

Or maybe it's simply that you can't make movie magic happen, even with all the time and money in the world. Hubris will always land you on the far side of things. The suspension of belief, the thing that one longs for, to be removed entirely from your own self, caught up in a drama, taken away utterly, is denied by this level of knowingness.

Still it is nice to get out to see a film. The romance of the movie theatre is still there, though, inside that dark warm cave, where the warm heft of another human being beside you, shoulder to shoulder, feels like an odd form of solidarity. Is it any wonder that all one wants to do when one is in such a place is make out in the back row? I think it is perfectly understandable. It's little wonder then that filmgoers at Christmas revert to the old romantic standbys, the tried and the true.

The other day while numbly flicking channels, I was snared by a scene from It's a Wonderful Life, where George (Jimmy Stewart) and Mary (Donna Reed) struggle with their unspoken passion for each other. The holidays bring out those good old-fashioned lovey-dovey feelings. With this in mind, Vancity Theatre is offering a solid hit of classic romance with screenings of Shop Around the Corner, West Side Story and Remember the Night. The Pacific Cinematheque has The Apartment, which is perhaps the most romantic film about a suicide attempt that I can think of.

If you watch all of these films, one after the other, you may emerge from the theatre, blinking owlishly and be sadly disappointed with dreary old reality, where no one ever seems to do unexpected things, the fizz of screwball romance, dizzy dames and hard gun-toting men evaporates into the air. I know that the movies aren't real, that is their charm after all. But sometimes, it's a gift to live in some other world for a time.