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January 25, 2009
Che
I hesitate to call Steven Soderbergh an outright formalist, perhaps simply because his oeuvre is so flighty, but two of the traits running through his unwieldy body of work certainly lend themselves to an emphasis on form: he's an extremely efficient auteur, in that he strives for the most effective means of conveying an action, a joke, an ideal; and he's a clinical one, an attribute which itself begets a focus on the how moreso than the what. This has recently gotten him in hot water - The Good German seemed a cheap trick, Ocean's 13 merely cheap - but with Che he's crafted, through pure formalism, a truly magnificent piece of biography. This is exactly the sort of historical filmmaking that speaks to me; this is a biopic I can get behind! And it works, I think, largely for the reasons that so many have criticized: objectivity, distance, exposition through outward action; in other words, for stridently avoiding any sort of hagiography.
He goes so far in the opposite direction, in fact, rejecting any outre narrative tropes, that I can perhaps see why one might wonder why this character, within the context of the film, should require our attention. The answer lies squarely in the film's formalism; it is simply that the Che Guevara who begins the film becomes the Che Guevara who ends it, a transition left unremarked on but for its deep roots implicit in the film's structure. Che was designed as a procedural diptych; is perfectly bifurcated; perfectly symmetrical; and thus perfectly satisfying on a very basic level. It is essentially simple, and it allows Soderbergh to expressly convey - not history - but idealism. To convey, not through fiery speeches and agitprop but through process. Process, and the repetition of process, and the denial of certain connective points that might be useful as text but would turn the film, as an extant work, entirely askew. This is why it is necessary to watch both halves of the film in one sitting; one must make those connections, and understand those processes and see where those processes fail, to understand what it is that Guevara has committed to. Arriving at that understanding was the only question I brought with me into the theater. I left more than satisfied.
I'm waging my own little battles between form and efficiency on St. Nick. Minor skirmishes in the edit that keep me from locking picture. There are little rough edges, little errors even, that I'm hesitant to remove. In the sequence below, for example, the efficient thing to do would be to use version 1, with a cut (sloppy though it is) to get the character from point A to point B and move on with the story (I think here of the old rule about bad movies being filled with doors opening and closing). But I'm hung up on the unbroken iteration. Something about the camera move, unplanned and imperfect and overt as it is, is really wonderful to me.
There's some alchemy going on there. A shift. It's unnecessary, perhaps, but it's the sort of excess that I think might make the movie special. Or maybe I'm just deluded at this point. I'm trying not to think too much about these things.
Posted by David Lowery at January 25, 2009 7:24 PM
Comments
David,
What comes right before the kid climbs out? Do you need to even show him climbing out?
If so, then I think you're right, the second has something special to it.
Posted by: Aaron at January 26, 2009 8:22 AM
I agree with either not showing him climbing out or sticking with the second one. Or (and you just have to do this to see whether or not there's anything interesting about it) try cutting somewhere as he's climbing out, with a couple of milliseconds of sound carrying over to smooth that transition. I'd just say there seems like there could be a better cut than when his feet hits the ground.
Posted by: Matt Latham at January 26, 2009 9:39 AM
The first version is better as an initial viewing. I think you are seeing something that is not there in the version without the cut. I don't remember any other camera move that calls attention to itself like that in the rest of the film, so in terms of consistency you're skipping out of your rhythmn. Watching it here took me out of the scene. Cut it and move dude!
Posted by: rudak at January 26, 2009 6:47 PM
I have to say, removed from the context of the rest of the movie I really like the second version.
I might agree with rudak however, watching the whole film.
Of course I am a big fan of occasionally using contrasting moves/cuts that wind up underscoring the norm that is used in the rest of a piece.
Posted by: josh ickes at January 26, 2009 11:15 PM
Don't f*%ck with my accidental magic!
Posted by: Clay Liford at January 28, 2009 12:55 PM
Second version is better. More sublime following the full action.
Just cut off the beginning of the shot where he's standing in the dumpster; an idle handheld camera before an action calls attention to its own awkwardness.
Start the shot on the action of him climbing out, then end it shortly after it starts following him OTS. The longer you follow him walking the more obvious it is the cameraman is struggling to maintain the composition and it starts calling attention to itself.
Trim the beginning and end, and you've got a nice little bit of movement.
Posted by: Mr. Milich at January 28, 2009 1:44 PM
Star wipe?
Posted by: Matt Latham at February 1, 2009 6:39 PM