There’s a recent upturn in filmmaking for these fly-on-the-wall films that seem to present real life events as they happened. Paul Greengrass is the biggest (and best) proponent of this (with United 93 and Bloody Sunday), but Michael Winterbottom does a good job aping the technique in A Mighty Heart. It’s all about the search for and tragic death of reporter Daniel Pearl, dealing primarily with his wife Marianne’s (Angelina Jolie) vantage point. The acting is well done and blends in with the other ‘real life’ characters portrayed in the story, but the filmmaking style itself is not conducive to rewatching – or entertainment for that matter. So while it is a lifelike retelling of an important tale, much as those Greengrass films, it’s not something you would generally want to revisit.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
A Mighty Heart (Michael Winterbottom, 2007)
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2 comments:
I'm surprised Jolie didn't get as much awards attention as she deserved. She plays even the most wrenching scenes with great subtlety. Winterbottom utilized the hand held camera more for grittiness I think than urgency, but I still thought it was effective. Not a masterpiece, but one I don't think deserved to be lost among all the other films. I certainly thought it was less flawed than Atonement, yet I think Atonement might still be the better film. I don't know, I've only seen them once. Also interesting to see Daniel Pearl was played by Dan Futterman, whom wrote "Capote," but I remember him more for his turn as the son of Robin Williams gay club owner in "The Birdcage."
Also Mulligan, do you consider rewatchability important for a story like this? I would consider it for blockbuster pictures, but not this film. There are plenty of films that I think are fantastic that I don't think I'll watch again such as Requiem for a Dream, Grave of the Fireflies, and Hard Candy. I wouldn't score those films lower because of that lack of rewatchability. If anything, I give them more credit because they were so effective to keep me at bay.
Completely forgot you asked me a direction question on here and I hadn't responded yet.
I do feel that rewatchability plays a roll in how I perceive a film, not for entertainment purposes but more for artistic ones. For as hard to watch as a film like Requiem for a Dream or - seeing as I haven't seen those other two you mentioned - United 93 or even war films like Schindler's List and The Pianist... I'm still intrigued in revisiting them more to see how the director created such an effect.
With A Mighty Heart, while I do feel it's a good film, I think it's pretty straightforward in its style and story. There's nothing calling me back to see it again and maybe that's because I have just seen it recently, but I've already seen Bloody Sunday twice and I'd much rather go back and watch that one again.
And another reason against A Mighty Heart is that the story it tells seems familiar and maybe Winterbottom was even using the technique to avoid the film feeling too "Hollywood," whereas United 93 and Bloody Sunday are chronicling much larger events in the grand scheme of things and the stylistic choices seemed appropriate to avoid taking sides. The story of Daniel and Mariane Pearl is tragic and it deserves documentation, but it also needs to be kept in perspective.
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