"Sense & Sensibility" is a perfect opening-night film for
a festival--perfect not because it is well-acted or lushly shot, and not
because it has more hats than Four Weddings and a Funeral, if that's possible.
It's perfect because, as conceived by director Iara Lee and Emma Thompson
(scriptwriter and leading lady), it is Four Weddings and a Funeral: a comedy
in which people behave in silly ways about love, but where the silliness
is transparent. Even if the characters look down in the mouth, we viewers
see all the whys and wherefores--all the reasons that men make love to you
and then leave you flat, all the reasons why you're better off without that
jerk (whom, by the way, you adore), and best, why all the paths will lead
the right people into each other's arms in the end. This is a hell of a
lot better than real life, where for example there is no reason why men
make love to you and leave you flat. The last one whom I knew left me for
Moscow, and when a man would rather be in Moscow... that really hurts a
girl. Finally, the reason Sense & Sensibility is the perfect opening-night
film is that, in the film's afterglow, one may float through the opening
night party and imagine that all those people you've known for years, and
all the men who've left you flat, and those you won't give you the time
of day will soon behave like Hugh Grant in a frock coat.
You may imagine this, that is, until you see some party-goer like Rosa von
Praunheim dressed as an AIDS virus and you are suddenly thwacked back to
your banal present. AIDS-virus costumes land you back in the present not
because AIDS is a 20th century illness but because of the depressingly obvious
nature of costume's "statement." There is, by comparison, no record
of anyone in a British ballroom ever dressing as tuberculosis.
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Before I arrived in Berlin, I interviewed Elia Kazan--honored at this year's
Berlinale with the Golden Bear for Lifetime Achievement--during the worst
New York snowstorm in 48 years, which did not improve his mood. When I asked
him, "Which of your works was most important to you?" he said,
"Nah, I don't want to do that." When I asked, "Who were
the colleagues who were especially meaningful to you?" he said, "Oh
I don't want to do that." When I asked, looking for a change in subject,
"Are there contemporary actors you admire?" he said, "No,
I don't admire actors as a group anymore." I tried, "Which contemporary
films do you admire?" and he said, "Not many. There aren't enough
thematic films with, not a political message, but an expression of the director's
feelings." So I asked about Oliver Stone's Nixon, a film with its share
of director's feelings. Kazan said, "I haven't seen it yet but I liked
Platoon. It was daring and strong, the kind of expression I'm talking about.
MP: And Martin Scorsese?
EK: He's a close friend and yes, he speaks from a personal point of view.
He makes films from things he's experienced.
MP: Are there certain subjects that are more suited to films? Classically,
movies are said to express emotions better than they convey information.
EK: I don't buy that. Films should come from the conviction of the director/author.
The director is the author of the film.
MP: Is it harder to make that kind of film today, with the competition with
TV and cable and the industry's need to fill the ten-plexes with fluff.
EK: I don't buy it. It was always difficult to do something with an edge.
But if I were young today and I wanted to make films nothing could stop
me. The thing to do is find a director with conviction. The money people
don't make films. Artists do. Look at Pulp Fiction: it was made for very
little money. It's a difficult film but he [Quentin Tarantino] made sure
it got made. Spike Lee is another one with that conviction. Nothing can
stop him. That's the whole point about art. I saw Leaving Las Vegas which
I like very much, and Richard III. It has a wonderful performance by Ian
McKellen. It's not easy to name films with conviction. It's hard to use
superlatives--the "best" film, the "most important"
film. I made films so I see the good and the bad in them. A film is like
a human being.
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