A Film with No Second Level
Last night I was invited to a private screening, in the presence of several of its stars and the director, of Hamnet at the Studio 28 movie theater in Paris. This is the theater where L’Age d’Or de Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali was shown that resulted in a riot. The last scene of that film, in which Christ is portrayed as the Marquis de Sade, resulted in the chairs ripped up from the floors and fist fights in the aisles. One more example of the classic 20th-Century Artistic Formula (which is now tiresome) of shocking the bourgeoisie. Since then, the chairs have been put back in place, the bourgeoisie has mostly disappeared, and a general atmosphere of “who gives a damn about anything” has installed itself into the general world consciousness.
It's a nice place: chandeliers looking either like Sorcerer or Dunce Caps by Jean Cocteau on the walls in the screening room, a bar, a reception room, lots of photos of French movie stars photographed standing in the theater. It’s often picked for French premiers because of these trappings. Going there is like visiting a shrine.
I hadn’t been to a film event like this for some time. The last time was back in 2000 during the Slamdance Film Festival. My brother was working for the festival and a short film of his, Wilber Whateley’s Sex Drive, was screened. Besides being the star of the film, I also composed the music, so I went. I recall meeting Ben Gazzara in a bar where Dwight Yoakum, who had self-produced a cowboy film starring himself, was giving a concert. Yoakum’s film, which was the event of that festival wasn’t so bad, but it didn’t have whatever makes a film into a success—I think this quixotic factor is usually called The Magic.
Park City is better known as the home of Robert Redford’s Sundance Film Festival. Because of this, there were movie stars just about everywhere. I saw Nick Nolte walking down a snow-filled street—much smaller-looking then his on-screen personality. I saw Roger Ebert on his way to a screening of Magnolia.
The atmosphere was charged with sexuality, grinding ambition, false smiles, the false compliments, back-biting, and a thousand other forms of bullshit. I recall a screening where the son of one of the most famous screen composers was presenting a film in which he’d done the cinematography—it was supposed to be a parody of the then-popular Austin Powers. It had all the trappings of a possible event, the screening room was packed, the lights went down, the film began. There was an initial laugh… then silence. Everything that worked in the original was stale—perhaps the reason was that it was a copy and not a parody. It used all the same formulas, there was nothing new to it, no catch. After a while the only person in the screening room who was laughing was the pretty girlfriend of the cinematographer, with her face like a ravenous lion whose prey has escaped, hoping her laughs would become contagious. The cinematography was very good, but that won’t turn a turkey into an eagle.
As far as Hamnet goes, I kept repeating in my mind during the screening the old TV advertising slogan, “Calgon, take me away!” The person who invited me is on the Golden Globes selection committee and said the film is considered a sure thing for the Golden Globes and a strong contender for the Oscars. It’s a piece of phony, meaningless garbage, a run-of-the-mill melodrama of the worst variety which, in attaching itself to Shakespeare, hopes it can trick the public into thinking that somehow the sufferings of poor Agnes Shakespeare, are somehow intrinsically different that those of another woman who gives birth, loses a child, and feels abandoned by her spouse.
Luckily the film was made by a woman, Chloé Zhao, or some of its choices would raise the ire of the Politically Correct Thought Police. I’m referring to Agnes’ relationship to the earth and spirituality, etc. It’s a film with no second level, no deeper meaning.
Not that the technical elements were bad. Like the doomed Austin Powers copy, the acting, camera work, color design, all the technical aspects of the film were good. They did their jobs. Hats off to Jessie Buckley for her capacity to scream, howl, and wail in so many different contexts. She did her part admirably. If only it had been used to better purpose.