Mud

By M

I am so glad I am finally be able to join the general enthusiasm on this movie.

Let’s start with the camera. Nichols reinvents the close-up. I am currently reading a book that I highly recommend, the Image-Movement, by French philosopher Gilles Deleuze, in which he explains the purposes that the close-up serves. Nichols gives a perfect illustration of how close-ups transmit emotion, by using them widely but wisely: we get a lot of them, but the images that we see are simple, almost still. We had already been introduced to this way of shooting in Take Shelter.

The movie has a lot in common with Take Shelter, by the way. Not only do we re-encounter the close-up, but also the panoramic. We had skies and storms in Take Shelter, we get rivers and islands in Mud. Again, the use of the photography-like, quasi still panoramic views is inserted with perfection in the movie. And suddenly, movement arrives in such a way that it blurs the frontiers between human/machine/natural/social movements, there aren’t really any transitions, these kinds of movements are different stages of the same movement. The best example of this is when one of the characters is taken to the hospital. I won’t say more, for that scene crystallises all the topics the movie builds on.

The environment (in the sense of what surrounds the characters) is brilliantly shot, and so are the actors. Rarely have I seen Matthew McConaughey so beautiful, or Reese Whiterspoon. (It’s difficult to say the same about Tye Sheridan, simply because he was in The Tree of Life, but it would be true!) All the actors are perfect, absolutely impeccable, measured, right, delicate. The games of light are much more subtle than in Take Shelter, and we move to a more restricted – in terms of variation, but richer in terms of nuance, colour palette: we oscillate from green to gold.

The narrative style is complex, as in Take Shelter, Nichols opens up numerous leads that could make of the movie something else, something worse, and he then does not follow them. He manages to create a constantly redefined dialogue of potentialities with the audience, in such a way that you are 150% focused on the movie. You are so involved that the 2h10 it lasts feel like 90minutes.

The most touching element of this movie is the story, the rites of passage, the reminder of what “Love” means, but on that, I will let N write. The most original, and perhaps the best element of this movie is the depth of the dialogues, deep in two ways: because they draw the exact portrait of deep southern America and because of what is said about humanity and interactions with the Other, but on that I will let T write.

Watch this extraordinary movie in a movie theatre.

 

By T

The best thing I can say about the writing in Mud, which Nichols did himself, is that it is precisely, 100% on form throughout the movie. Every line of dialogue feels utterly at ease; it is so good that the specter of the writer never enters your consciousness as you watch.

This is a feat no matter what, when so many (even quality) films stumble forward at times with dialogue that is tone deaf. This is particularly true of films that portray some small, backwards portion of America, as Mud does with a slice of the South. Still more extraordinary is that Nichols has achieved this in a film that, because it is in part an adventure-coming of age drama, requires its older characters to impart wisdom. McConaughey and Shepard both take up this role at times, and never once does it feel silly. That is truly a serious accomplishment.

Tye Sheridan’s character is a very self-sure and self-confident, very strongly masculine one, which at the same time suffers the limitations that go along with being 14 years old. This makes him a gold mine of human interaction, because he is constantly facing up to people who are unlike he is: adults, his own parents, women, girls, the parents of others, strangers, Matthew McConaughey, The World… The movie adopts his perspective (I think there is not a scene he is absent from) and thus offers classic defamiliarization done expertly, a fresh look at old things – for those of us not 14, anyway.

But there is so much more. The interaction of Sheridan’s mother and father comes most readily to mind, especially as one of the interactions which does not depend centrally on Sheridan’s involvement. There is one scene I will not spoil that exposes demands and failures of fatherhood, husbandhood, and masculinity better than anything I have ever read or seen.

My list could go on endlessly. Sheridan’s interactions with his friend Neckbone (yes, Neckbone), with Mud, with Witherspoon, with the girl he takes to be his girlfriend. One particular scene between Sheridan and Michael Shannon is so, so noteworthy. They are all spheres.

There are so many good things to say about this movie that I find it extremely difficult to know how to say them. But as M says, it is a movie that is really, really to be seen, in the theater if possible.

Days of Heaven

By N

Days of Heaven (1978) is Terrence Malick’s second movie. Despite not being a wide-spread popular success, it won Malick the prix de Cannes for best director in 1979.  Malick’s movies always come with anecdotes which make you admire him and his work even more – for example, most of the filming in Days of Heaven was made either in sunrise or sunset, with the final result being some magical lighting effects. Also, it took him 2 years of editing before releasing the movie. The result is astonishing with precision and beauty. Would I be wrong to say that one of the most important parts of making a movie is not shooting or directing actors but is editing. Malick clearly understands it and takes the matter seriously.

Today no one could contest that this movie is a classic you should add to your ‘10 (yes, 10) movies I should see before I die’ list. I don’t think you’ll watch it for the story though. In short: three siblings – a young Richard Gere, Brooke Adams and Linda Manz – run away from Chicago to work in a farm in Texas.  Richard Gere and Brooke Adams pretend to be siblings when they are in fact lovers. Sam Shepard, the owner of the farm, falls in love with Brooke Adams and asks her to stay with him in the farm. Knowing that Shepard is dying from illness, Richard Gere asks Brooke Adams to be with him until he dies to inherit his fortune – she decides to stay in the condition that her siblings can too, and here begins a triangular love story. As you can imagine, it is not going to end well.

Apart from that, nothing much happens. One will also note the infrequency of dialogue, for most of the story is told through the narrative spectre of Gere’s little sister, Linda Manz. Having said that, this is not problematic, and you are not bored at all; indeed, the absence of dialogue is complemented by an absolutely stunning use of scenery. His strength is not to make things look intentionally attractive; that would be too easy and superficial. Prettiness is pointless when trying to flatter reality. His two major recurrent themes, which you can find in his movies such as The tree of life (2011) and To the wonder (2012), are more than ever present in this one: dominant nature and (despair of) humanity. Malick’s shots of imposing nature are incredible; his sense of aesthetics genuinely touches you – Everything is expressed through images and music. And this is where Malick excels.

This movie is undoubtedly a wonderful cinematographic experience. Watch it in the cinema if you can – but watch it in whichever way you can.