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When mavericks play by the rules
3 independent auteurs' new films mark departures for them. Saibal Chatterjee examines. Cannes '05
When a non-conventional independent filmmaker decides to go mainstream, the result can often be quite out of the ordinary. In the ongoing 58th Cannes Film Festival, not one, not two, but three internationally acclaimed north American directors known to follow their own creative instincts rather than the dictates of studio bosses have films driven by standard genre conventions.
Woody Allen's Match Point, David Cronenberg's A History of Violence and Atom Egoyan's Where the Truth Lies mark rather interesting departures from self-set norms for these well-loved auteurs. Even as they work with big Hollywood stars and tried-and-tested narrative ingredients, they come up with films that still manage to be different from the run-of-the-mill.
Match Point, screened out of competition in Cannes, is a film in which Woody Allen's sly, wry sense of humour meets an old-world Agatha Christie-type narrative. The combo works reasonably well. The first-ever Allen film to be set entirely in London, Match Point is uneven, perhaps even a tad flawed overall, but unfailingly gripping.
It tells the story of a young social climber Chris Wilton (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) whose ambitions get the better of him as he struggles to cling on to the position a powerful and wealthy father-in-law has secured for him. The only thing on the mind of his wife, Chloe (Emily Mortimer) is a child; the only woman who really turns Chris on is a ravishing wannabe actress, Nola Rice (Scarlett Johansson).
The femme fatale, now pregnant, wants Chris to leave his wife and marry her. Chris cannot afford to do that for that would mean the end of everything he has garnered for himself in London. The only way out for him is murder. He gets away with it. The message that Match Point delivers is, of course, morally dodgy -- life is all about blind chance. Do what you want to have your way, if you are lucky, the dice will roll in your favour.
The other two films, made by Canada's most admired directors, Cronenberg and Egoyan, unravel the darker shades of American life. Cronenberg's A History of Violence, featuring Viggo Mortensen, Maria Bello, Ed Harris and William Hurt, is cast in the mould of an updated version of western transported to a small-town America setting.
The film has loads of shootout scenes and twist-a-neck sort of action. But in Cronenberg's hands, they are turned into superbly choreographed, wonderfully witty cinematic moments. He does not use violence for its own sake, as genre movies so often do, and employs the conventions of the thriller to present a fine study of an individual, a family and an entire society.
Tom Stall (Mortensen) runs a diner and lives with his lawyer wife Edie (Bello) and two children in Millbrook, Indiana. Two vicious criminals barge into his diner one day. To protect his customers, Stall guns them down. He is hailed as an American hero, But all the media attention that his deed attracts invites trouble and a bunch of mobsters who drive in from Philadelphia to settle old scores with him. Turns out that Stall isn't what he seems to be -- he is really Joey Cusack, a gangster trying to live down his past.
His life is about to collapse around him as his family, particularly his wife and college-going son, threaten to turn against him. The only option he now has is to return to his past for one final day to wipe the slate clean for good. This is Cronenberg's most conventional film in years and those expecting Crash-like visual and narrative dynamics are sure to be disappointed. But those tired of Hollywood thrillers that go nowhere, here is a film that reveals the true potential of the genre, when it is served up with a slice of wit and sense of distance.
Egoyan, the creator of such arthouse classics as Family Viewing, Speaking Parts, Exotica and Ararat, is even less of a mass-oriented filmmaker than Cronenberg. Where the Truth Lies, a whodunit that explores the flip side of showbiz stardom, represents a clean break from his artistic moorings. A murder mystery is new terrain for Egoyan, but he turns it with great skill into something that serves his avowed aim of providing a take on 1960s Hollywood.
A young girl is found dead in a hotel room occupied by one of Hollywood's most successful performing teams, Lanny Morris (Kevin Bacon) and Vince Collins (Colin Firth). The pair breaks up in the aftermath.
Over a decade later, a young journalist, Karen O'Connor (Alison Lohman), who grew up hero-worshipping the performing duo, decides to get to the bottom of the truth. Egoyan's film paints a moral wasteland where everybody is out to extract his own pound of flesh. The genre is entertaining, the acting is first-rate and the ambience is sexually explicit but the mood is unrelentingly dark.
Egoyan will always be Egoyan. Even when mavericks choose to play by the rules, the eventual spin on the material is invariably their own.
