Just To Be Clear
I’m obviously in no position to talk as I won’t see Zero Dark Thirty until next Saturday, but the reason Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone has declared that Jessica Chastain “gives far and away the best performance of the year by any actress, at least here in the US” — i.e., above and beyond Silver Linings Playbook frontrunner Jennifer Lawrence — is because her Maya character satisfies the Stone ideal of female characters exuding tough, stand-alone strength.
Chastain rules, in other words, because director Kathryn Bigelow and writer-producer Mark Boal “designed the whole movie around her character, not framing her behind, depending on, flirting with any man but instead, holding her own.”
Whereas Lawrence’s Tiffany doesn’t cut it by Stone’s requirements because, as I explained on 9.27, Stone feels she’s “basically a male fuck fantasy, and the story itself is too male-centric because Tiffany is basically used by director-writer David O. Russell to support and complete Bradley Cooper‘s Pat Solitano character by (a) shaking him out of his ‘I need to get back with my wife’ obsession and (b) falling in love with him and gradually inspiring reciprocity.
“In short, the Silver Linings milieu is too male, too blue-collar, too football-fanatic and not positive enough in terms of pushing strong, independent-minded, take-charge, stand-their-own-ground female characters. Tiffany, in short, is too emotionally vulnerable and not Katniss Everdeen enough.
“Lawrence knocks it out of the park in the Silver Linings Playbook, ” Stone wrote on 9.26, “but] if she weren’t such a rising star she would be in the supporting category for her work here, as her function in the film is mainly to support Bradley Cooper’s character arc.
“What makes this an award-worthy performance is that Lawrence elevates it beyond what’s written on the page. She makes it deeper, richer, more compelling than it otherwise would be — it’s a male fantasy — yet Lawrence finds the truth in who the character is and that makes the difference.”
Shorter Stone: “SLP director-writer David O. Russell is too much of a sexist alpha male to give us the kind of strong female character we all want to see and need more of, but Kathryn Bigelow gets it like only a woman could, and she brings it home.”
I can see where the Stoner’s coming from, because as much as I loved Lawrence’s work in SLP, it’s in a traditional type of role. How many balls-out flicks are helmed by and based around a woman? Must be satisfying for female movie-goers sharp enough to give a shit about gender in film.
Tom O’Neil’s assessment seems more balanced than Sasha Stone’s. I would say every other critic is in line with him, particularly about the flatness of Jessica Chastain’s character Maya. Kris Tapley called the character a machine. No emotional range.
Jesse what about Naomie Watts in Fair Game or Clare Danes on the T.V. show Homeland?
@Cerulean: Male director/showrunner.
Does Lawrence in SLP qualify as a manic pixie dream girl?
even better — manic-depressive pixie dream girl.
Emmanuelle Riva in AMOUR is still better than all of these, but senility is as unsexy as it gets.
So Jesse emotional flat male actor (Jesse Eisenberg TSN, Ben Afflect Argo) are no dice but emotional flat female actor in such roles with female directors should get Oscars? That’s creating an unfair Affirmative Action tight rope. Lowering the bar for actresses.
Lawrence totally knocked it out of the park in the third act when she give the stats on the baseball and football stats … “I did some research” ….. ” Who sends their son with the moniker Ekcelsior to a Eagles . Ginats game?
Woah, Cerulean, I haven’t seen Zero Dark 30. I’m just commenting on Sasha’s reaction, in that if she dug Chastain, the idea that a female lead and a female director hooking up in a typically male-dominated genre might provide extra satisfaction, like a Puerto Rican kid rooting for Clemente. I may not agree with Sasha in the end but it’s cool that Bigelow had the chance to make such a movie.
And I liked Eisenberg and Affleck a lot in those roles.
Someone should put Sasha out of her misery. She is constantly smashing her head against a brick wall.
It sounded to me like Stone was simply analyzing the dramatic structures of the two films.
For those who don’t know Chayefsky’s three questions to figure out who the hero is and what the story is, pin this on your refrigerator:
WHO IS YOUR HERO?
WHAT DOES HE/SHE WANT?
WHAT IS STOPPING HIM/HER?
Bradley Cooper is the hero of SILVER LININGS and Jessica Chastain is the hero of ZERO DARK THIRTY.
By the way, if you bother to utilize Chayefsky’s questions when you assess the dramatic chops of the films unspooling, you will find yourself extremely dissatisfied by the large majority of them.
For further research, study his play THE BIG DEAL to see what is missing vis a vis dramatic conflict.
Unless you’re perfectly happy with abstract evil in the form of world-threatening megalomaniacs and aliens as the villains in your fanboy-targeted stories.
“Justice depends upon whose ox is being gored” said Sam Peckinpah in explaining the dramatic conflict at the heart of THE WILD BUNCH.
I haven’t seen THAT movie this year.
We all understand Sasha’s point of view. It is exciting to have a strong female character directed by an excellent female director. Young girls need those images to look up to. Same with the Katniss Everdeen character and the character in Brave. Where Sasha goes wrong is proclaiming Jessica Chastain as giving “far and away the best performance this year by an actress” just because it’s a strong female role. Not due to good emotional range, advanced technical skill as an actresses, rising above the two-dimensional character from the script or bringing humanity to an otherwise flat character. That’s Jeff’s beef with Sasha Stone. He wants Chastain to be judged on merit for an Oscar not given a free pass because her character is seen as a feminists icon. That wouldn’t be fair to the other actresses in contention.
I am almost as smitten with SLP as Wells, it’s my 2nd or 3rd fave of the year, and far be it for me to agree exactly with Sasha on anything, but…. If I can objectively take a step back, SLP is definitely Cooper’s movie. Much as I liked Lawrence in it, I don’t think she’s the lead, and she doesn’t have quite the screen time it seems; For long stretches of the middle third, she’s kind of just sitting around, pouting, waiting for Cooper to show up to dance practice. It’s his arc.
And while I have no problems, none, with a romcom centered around the scattered male protagonist, and I have even less problem with IDEALIZING a female character who fits the male fantasy of no-bullshit tough-talking badass who’s also wounded and sensitive and supernaturally available…. There is, IS, unavoidably an element of J-Law’s character that comes off as, ‘AWWWWW, look at the sad pouty sexy widow, and it’s so cute she wants to DO HER LITTLE DANCING.” Again, I loved it, fell for it, and she more than counteracts the marginalization with her dialogue and intensity and that killer scene with De Niro and the football stats… But the mutual psychological resuscitation and second-chance redemption of the two leads is definitely weighted toward Cooper…. Even though Lawrence is the FEMALE LEAD, I’d say the movie is 65% Cooper and 35% Lawrence.
Cerulean nailed it and Chayefsky’s view of film is so boring, overplayed, and stale.
And, it wasn’t Chayefsky that came up with that formula but Aristotle, and real cinema has far surpassed it.
No one’s asking, but I find all those “rules” of storytelling to be a bunch of bullshit. There’s too many great, personal, experimental, crazy, operatic movies over the course of history that break all those bullshit 1-2-3, A-B-C, this this this and this “laws.” Movies and cinema can be a hundred, a thousand different things… it doesn’t always have to go back to these classic tenets of drama or characterization. Movies can be Warhol, they can be Malick, they can be Dogme, they can be some asshole filming his front fucking lawn growing for 8 hours.
IN FACT, to bring it home to the very movies we’re talking about, I wish more film criticism was VISUAL-BASED, discussing mise en scene and mood and atmosphere and stylistics, than this ROTE DISCUSSION of subtextual thematics which is just a carry-over from English Lit theory, and which is really all about a bunch of scholastic types justifying their tenure. And for goddamn sure, I’d like less nitpicking about STORY and SCREENPLAY, which all apologies to the 10,000 amateur screenwriters who loudly pontificate their opinions on movie blogs, but STORY is the most overvalued element of cinema. Yeah, plot and STORY are really great…. if you’re a TOTAL FUCKING SQUARE who wants lockstep A-B-C plotting…. which is why you see so many guys pulling the “TV is RICHER AND BETTER card.” Well, good, go watch your PLOT POINTS AND CHARACTERIZATION O’CLOCK “stories” over on AMC…. Movies are supposed to be visual, to be Kubrick, to be Leone, to be Malick, to be Lean… I don’t give a shit if the last-act romanticism of SLP is a “cheat” in terms of SCREENPLAY CONSTRUCTION, I just know it works as a gut-punch emotionally, and visually O. Russell is taking cues from Scorsese and turning the genre on its head by making the “chick flick” into in essence a working class action movie.
To quote McKEE or Chayefsky is to adhere to these antiquated notions of filmic propriety…. Christ, isn’t Gaydos some huge-time out-there stoner motherfucker whose posts make less sense than Mark Blankfield’s druggist on FRIDAYS? What’s with the RULES?
I thought SLP’s story construction WAS conventional, but the presentation made it special. It hits the plot points pretty square but does so with such breakneck editing and performances that the ride is thrilling.
But yeah, why would I use three of Chayefsky’s rules to tell me whether a flick works or not? Just experience the movie and let it sink in during the process and then worry about explaining why it clicked or didn’t. Cutter’s Way features the most half-assed character motivation I’ve ever seen but that’s the point and it works. Lebowski, too, totally unconventional. What does the Dude want? Some money because what the hell? His car back at one point? His rug back? These aren’t “riveting” motivations.
They are if you live in LA.
@bluefugue – yes her Tiffany character is a manic pixie dream girl in the worst way – because she does it deliberately. And also she swears! So cool!
>No one’s asking, but I find all those “rules” of storytelling to be a bunch of bullshit.
I see it this way: rules (such as Chayevsky’s) may indeed work. It does not follow that they are the only rules, or that a film which disregards them *must not* work.
There are rules (mostly defined after the fact) to composing in the classical sonata-allegro style, but I doubt Charlie Parker needed to know them.
(Which isn’t to say jazz musicians don’t follow rules, by the way — they do, with extreme rigor, but they’re not the same ones.)
Just a test … subsititute Jennifer Lawrence in SLP with let’s say, Rashida Jones, and leave the same reviews. Is Jones billing above or below the title? Is she lead or supporting?
Also, on the record as hating the name “Maya” for Chastain’s character in ZDT.
Those rules are pretty solid. They’re the essence of drama. But if all you’re after is cool visuals and great lighting perhaps they may seem quaint. Not that there is anything wrong with that. Cinema can be many things. But in order to break those rules you have to understand how they work and why. I’ve been in screenwriting classes where people justified they’re bad writing by pointing to Kubrick or Tarantino without understanding that those guys follow those rules.
And motivations don’t always have to be big and important. They can be very simple. In fact, most of the time simple is better.
“I’ve been in screenwriting classes where people justified *they’re bad writing by pointing to Kubrick or Tarantino without understanding that those guys follow those rules.”
*”their”
Serves me right for criticizing anybody’s bad writing.
Watched SLP last night, and thought it was good, but I felt underwhelmed compared to the reviews out there. Lots of good moments but the sum of them is not great.
The last 20 mins or so were pretty much the best part.
“particularly about the flatness of Jessica Chastain’s character Maya. Kris Tapley called the character a machine. No emotional range.”
This was a particularly hot debate back in my film classes in college. Titanic notwithstanding, Bigelow and Cameron both seem to be “guilty” of writing/directing their female leads in this way (JLC and Bassett for the former, Linda Hamilton and Sigourney Weaver for the latter). Wasn’t Ellen Ripley’s (eventual) return in Aliens originally conceived for an original male character?
Is that really “progress?” Do we really need to completely desexualize female characters (in turn, de-emphasizing their core femininity) in order for them to give “strong” performances (or — perhaps more accurately — for us to allow ourselves to recognize and praise the performance as “strong?”)? Is Chastain’s character in ZDT somehow “stronger” for embracing qualities that we generally associate with modern masculinity than her character in, say, Tree of Life or Take Shelter?
I don’t have the answers to any of these questions now any more than I did back then. And, to be fair, it does sound like the flick takes a skeptical (or at the very least, agnostic) view of her character’s decision to behave like a single-minded obsessive at the expense of her humanity.
Anyway, I’m really looking forward to it.
Lex,
Given your POV outlined in comment #17, I’m rather curious what you thoughts are on Cloud Atlas, Life of Pi, or maybe even Samsara?
scylax: what’s a sane person like you doing in these parts? seriously, thanks for pointing out the oldest rule of all: in order to bend or break em you gotta know. and also: simple isn’t stupid. it can actually be quite brilliant, IF you got something to say.
Raising_Kaned says … Is that really “progress?” Do we really need to completely desexualize female characters (in turn, de-emphasizing their core femininity) in order for them to give “strong” performances …
When people were cheering Bigelow as the first female to win the directing Oscar for The Hurt Locker I made a similar comment questioning the relevancy of awarding it to a woman for a making a distinctly masculine genre film. I remember a comment followed saying something like “who would I prefer, someone like Jane Campion or Penny Marshall” … and at the time, I thought yes. Maybe it was just as important to award it for a film with a decidedly female point of view. Maybe ZDT is the film Bigelow should (and maybe will) win an Oscar for.
“Watched SLP last night, and thought it was good, but I felt underwhelmed compared to the reviews out there. Lots of good moments but the sum of them is not great. The last 20 mins or so were pretty much the best part.”
Wow… TOTALLY disagree. Liked it overall, particularly any scene where Cooper was put in his place by Lawrence (example: their first meeting over family dinner). But it was the last 20 minutes for me where it got totally predictable, familiar, and generic. I expected more from DOR than getting literally every single character from earlier in the film to magically show up for the climactic scene. (What, was the kid with the camera unavailable that day?!)