Movie Review: First Man

First Man **** / *****

Directed by: Damien Chazelle.

Written by: Josh Singer based on the book by James R. Hansen.

Starring: Ryan Gosling (Neil Armstrong), Claire Foy (Janet Shearon), Jason Clarke (Ed White), Kyle Chandler (Deke Slayton), Corey Stoll (Buzz Aldrin), Christopher Abbott (David Scott), Patrick Fugit (Elliot See), Lukas Haas (Michael Collins), Shea Whigham (Gus Grissom), Brian d'Arcy James (Joseph A. Walker), Pablo Schreiber (Jim Lovell), Cory Michael Smith (Roger B. Chaffee), J. D. Evermore (Christopher C. Kraft Jr.), John David Whalen (John Glenn),Ethan Embry (Pete Conrad), Skyler Bible (Richard F. Gordon Jr.), Ben Owen (John Hodge), Olivia Hamilton (Patricia White), Kris Swanberg (Marilyn See), Ciarán Hinds (Robert R. Gilruth).

 

There have been so many movies and TV shows about NASA in the 1960s – most of them focused on the astronauts themselves – that you wouldn’t be wrong to wonder if Damien Chazelle’s First Man, about Neil Armstrong, would really do anything new – having anything else to offer that we couldn’t see in legitimately great films like Philip Kaufman’s The Right Stuff or Ron Howard’s Apollo 13. Perhaps surprisingly, the answer is yes. First Man endeavors to put you inside Armstrong for the duration of the movie – and makes that clear that wasn’t really a comfortable place to be. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a movie that made space travel look less glamorous or more uncomfortable than First Man does – just being inside those capsules and rockets was dangerous and uncomfortable, and during the flight scenes Chazelle rarely lets you outside at all – you’re stuck in there with Armstrong. And when he’s not flying, Armstrong is presented as emotionally closed off – he is not uncaring or unfeeling, he just doesn’t like to show his emotions to anyone, at any time. That made things difficult for those around him.

 

Chazelle casts his La La Land star Ryan Gosling as Armstrong, and it’s an interesting choice. You’d be hard pressed to find a more naturally charming actor than Gosling working today, but in First Man he has to repress all that charm, force it down deep inside. This is a very interior performance from Gosling (he has done this before, most notably in Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive – which he was brilliant in, and he tried in Winding Refn’s Only God Forgives, in which he was not). Much is made early in the film about his 2-year-old daughter’s death due to cancer – and although he barely mentions her again, her death hangs over much of the rest of the movie (and gives the films its emotional climax late – the one moment the movie seems to take historical liberties with). He will have to attend many funerals over the course of the film – and they all bring him back to his daughters. But he never knows what to say in them – or really, at other times, to people. The movie’s hidden subject matter is this kind of portrait of stoic masculinity, which I miss it examined a little more (like say, American Sniper did) – instead of just presenting it as the norm. Pretty much everyone at NASA behaves the same way – not to the extreme as Armstrong – but basically. This makes them all kind of blend together – with really only Jason Clarke, as Ed White and Corey Stoll as Buzz Aldrin, standing out in any sort of meaningful way.

 

On the home front, Claire Foy is saddled with the unenviable role of “supportive, but worrying wife”. This is actually one of the areas I was dreading a little – seriously, there is little that is duller, or more retrograde, than the worrying wife at home – but Foy and screenwriter Josh Singer, bring more nuance to the role than I expected. It almost presents her job as being more difficult – she is stuck at home, listening to a box, to find out what her husband is going through. She has no control, no power – and no escape from her own grief, that Armstrong does. She also does a lot of emotional heavy lifting, because Armstrong refuses to – when she blows up at him, a scene that we often see in these movies, and often feels false, here it rings true – he is acting like an asshole, and her reaction makes sense. It’s not a nagging wife role, but something deeper.

 

Still, you can tell that what drew Chazelle to this movie was the flight sequences themselves. He crams us into those ships and capsules right alongside the men, showing us their limited view out of windows, when in reality they spend most of their time staring at buttons and levers and switches to try not to die. The scenes of takeoffs are almost unbearably loud and visceral – Chazelle uses the shaky camera work I normally do not like, to great effect here to place us there. Everything is so loud and so chaotic, that when we finally get to the moon, Chazelle makes the daring, but brilliant, choice to drop out all sound for a while on two occasions. It’s a beautiful touch – and the perfect way to end this film that was so often not about the beauty of space travel, finally finding those fleeting moments of piece.

Movie Review: La La Land

La La Land

Directed by: Damien Chazelle.

Written by: Damien Chazelle.

Starring: Ryan Gosling (Sebastian Wilder), Emma Stone (Mia Dolan), John Legend (Keith), Rosemarie DeWitt (Laura Wilder), J. K. Simmons (Bill), Finn Wittrock (Greg Earnes), Tom Everett Scott (David), Meagen Fay (Mia's Mom), Damon Gupton (Harry), Jason Fuchs (Carlo), Jessica Rothe (Alexis), Sonoya Mizuno (Caitlin), Callie Hernandez (Tracy), Josh Pence (Josh), Anna Chazelle (Sarah).

 

You have to admire a film like La La Land, which from first frame to last, completely and totally embraces its premise and style, and dives headlong into it. Written and directed by Damien Chazelle, La La Land is that Hollywood rarity these days – an original musical written directly for the screen. The film is a love letter to the films that inspired it – the work of Astaire and Rogers, Gene Kelly, Vincente Minelli, Stanley Donen and Jacques Demy among many (many) others. Chazelle layers in the references and the metaphors, fully aware that modern audiences may not be aware of everything he is cribbing from, which allows him some fairly brazen references. For the most part, La La Land is joy to watch for its entire runtime – two things hold it back from being the masterwork that many of the films that inspired it were – the first is that the songs, while solid and work in the context of the rest of the film, aren’t as memorable as perhaps they should be (two are – the rest I’ve already forgotten) – and the second is that La La Land is a film that just reeks of effort. All movie musicals – at least good ones – are a ton of work, and yet the very best of them seem completely and totally effortless – La La Land doesn’t. Yet, these are such minor complaints on an otherwise great movie, they hardly seem worth bringing up.

 

The film is about a doomed love affair between two Hollywood dreamers. Ryan Gosling is Sebastian, a poor jazz musician, who likes jazz in its purest form, and hates to see that it is dying, if not already dead. He dreams of owning a jazz club where they can play jazz the way it was meant to be played – although whether anyone showed up or not, is up for debate. Emma Stone is Mia, an aspiring actress, who goes out on one terrible audition after another, while making a living working as a barista in an studio lot coffee house. The two meet cute a number of times, before they finally do get together. A few other characters pop up for a few short scenes, but the film is basically focused on these two, and their relationship, doomed from the outset.

 

It helps to have Ryan Gosling in the role of Sebastian – because with an actor less charming that Gosling, Sebastian’s negative qualifies – his tendency to mansplain everything, his pretentious rambling about purity, etc. would otherwise make him insufferable. But because he’s played by Gosling, with a knowing smirk whenever Sebastian starts to go off on one of his tangents, you go with it as part of his goofy charm. Sebastian may well be a stand-in for Chazelle himself (who, making this as his follow-up to Whiplash, clearly loves jazz). Both Sebastian and Chazelle are in love with an art form that is arguably dead already except in terms of nostalgia (jazz for Sebastian, movie musicals for Chazelle – or perhaps, just movies!) – but are essentially in love with something they never experienced firsthand. Stone is even better than Gosling in the film, given the role of the ingénue that everyone in the audience falls in love with. Yet, as clichéd as the role may be in many ways, she makes it her own – makes it feel real. While Gosling’s Sebastian remains essentially the same throughout, Stone gradually grows, becomes a stronger, more confident person than ever before. This is expressed through her singing as well – which starts out lovely, but quiet – but gradually builds throughout the film, culminating with Audition – easily the best song in the film, when she finally lets loose. Stone has been doing great work for a while now – here, she takes it to a different level.

 

The musical numbers in La La Land are fine. The opening number is an odd one – it doesn’t really involve with Gosling or Stone, and is a large scale number set on the freeway in LA – which of course means during a traffic jam. What the number does do is establish exactly what kind of movie this is going to be, also gives Chazelle an excuse to stage the kind of large scale musical number the rest of the movie will not be (you get the feeling he has wanted to make a musical for his entire life, and isn’t going to miss his chance to do whatever he wants with it). I do think it’s the film worst musical number – except for John Legend’s song, which I still cannot figure out if it’s supposed to be bad, or whether it just wasn’t for me (I have no idea why Legend wanted to be in the film – essentially playing a John Legend type as a sellout – even if he’s a sellout with a point).

 

I did admire how the film wears its heart on its sleeve, and has no embarrassment about embracing every musical cliché imaginable. We’re already in a fantasy world for the most part, and yet even that doesn’t stop Chazelle from having a fantasy inside a fantasy in the films closing moments – where one character imagines what would have happened had they done something different, producing a wonderful montage that is even more emotionally heightened than the rest of the film. The cinematograph is beautiful – shot on film, naturally – and gives the films a wonderful look.

 

All in all, La La Land is a wonderful movie musical. Yes, I have my share of problems with the film – all of which are relatively minor, but do add up. But you cannot help but admire Chazelle who has made one of the year’s most ambitious films here, if not quite one of its vert best.

Movie Review: Whiplash

Whiplash
Directed by: Damien Chazelle.
Written by: Damien Chazelle.
Starring: Miles Teller (Andrew), J.K. Simmons (Fletcher), Paul Reiser (Jim), Melissa Benoist (Nicole).

How far do you have to push yourself to be great at something? Does greatness require you to subject yourself to people who will torture and torment you, if it makes you better? Does it require single minded focus so much so that you sacrifice everything else in your life, and become a complete asshole in the process? Whiplash is a film that tackles these issues, but refreshingly does not really come up with an answer. Also refreshingly, the film does not give into clichés easily, and zigs when you expect it to zag throughout the film. It is a film about music, but it has the visceral energy of an expertly crafted thriller, right up to its stunning climax.

The film stars Miles Teller as Andrew Neyman, a first year drummer at Schaffer – the best music school in the country (or so we’re told). He is a talented jazz drummer –but he wants to be a hell of a lot more than talented – he wants to be one of the great, the next Buddy Rich. He is the alternate drummer in a secondary competition band at the school – but when Fletcher (J.K. Simmons) hears him play, he offers him a spot (again, as an alternate) in the Studio Band – the one that everyone in the school wants to be in. Everyone in the band is terrified of Fletcher – and it doesn’t take long for Andrew to figure out why. His first time on the drums, Fletcher is nice the first few times he screws up – either rushing or dragging the tempo, he stops and tells him to try again. And again. And again. And finally, out of nowhere, he hurls a chair at Andrew. And that is when Fletcher rips into him for the first, but certainly not the last, time. Fletcher will push Andrew farther and farther than he thought possible – he’ll practice until his bands bleed. He’ll cruelly dump the girl (Melissa Benoist) he just starting dating because she will hold him back. He goes home to his single dad (Paul Reiser) and his extended family, and acts like a petulant child.

Fletcher is the type of role that comes along to a character actor like Simmons maybe once a career if you’re lucky. Anyone paying attention has known that Simmons is a terrific actor, at least as far back as his scarily good work as a skinhead on Oz, nearly 20 years ago. Since then he has done some fine supporting work in film, and just about every TV show imaginable, who is finally given the role of a lifetime. His performance has already been compared to R. Lee Ermey’s great one in Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket, and to be sure he does resemble the character to a certain extent, with his never ending tirade of profanity and sexual insults, belittling the members of his band to push them farther. But while Ermey’s performance is mainly comic and brilliantly one note, Simmons finds different aspects to play – and hits different notes. He is terrifying when he’s screaming at the top of lungs, but he’s even scarier when he’s quiet – threatening to explode at a moment’s notice. Simmons owns the screen every moment he’s on it. The accomplishment of Teller’s performance is that he doesn’t let Simmons completely overwhelm him – even as Fletcher belittles Andrew in the film. As it moves along, and Andrew becomes more confident, he begins to talk back to Fletcher – begins to believe he truly is the next great one. Even if we naturally root for Andrew, Teller doesn’t make him wholly sympathetic or likable – quite the opposite in fact. By the end of the movie, it is no longer a cruel teacher torturing an innocent student – but two assholes squaring off against each other.

 
Written and directed by Damien Chazelle, Whiplash has a propulsive energy from the outset. The smartest decision he may have made was to choose the drums for Andrew’s instrument – as the constant beat provides a sound you feel throughout your guts. The editing quickens in the music scenes, but is cut to the beat of the drum, and never becomes overly chaotic so that you do not know what is going on. The screenplay introduces elements and supporting characters, and we think we know where it’s going, but it doesn’t go there – it goes in a different direction instead. The climax of the movie may not make complete, logical sense, but is so thrilling, I barely cared.