Youth (2015)

Play On
or
"Hum a Few Bars and I'll Fake It"

Where do you go when the music stops?

Switzerland, evidently. Composer Fred Ballinger (Michael Caine) is at a luxurious swiss spa with some other artists dealing with crises in their careers: film-maker Mick Boyle (Harvey Keitel) is working on his "testament" film—the one that will last as a classic—with a scruffy team of writers, actor Jimmy Tree (Paul Dano) who is chilling out and contemplating the route to his next role (he's worried because all people-on-the-street know him as is a favorite sci-fi character). Also, there are a famous sports figure, Diego Maradona (Roly Sorrano), the current Miss Universe (Mãdãlina Ghenea), and a parade of habitué's who are taking "the cleanse." Also, there's Fred's daughter Lena (Rachel Weisz), who is also his assistant, and who has issues with Dad about the "every-day" of being his employee and the lifetime of being his daughter.

Fred, see, is stuck. He hasn't written a thing in years, and has no real desire to. He's "retired." Retired, but remembered. He has been asked (by the Queen's stuffy emissary) to conduct one of his pieces, "Simple Song #3," at Prince Phillip's birthday concert. There's even a knighthood for him thrown into the deal. He refuses for reasons he won't reveal, other than "he doesn't perform anymore." Nor does he compose. If anything, he's "decomposing."

This is the problem. Fred won't "reveal" anything. It's why he's a composer. Music doesn't require words—it simply "is," reflecting feelings more akin to the real emotions than just mere words can express. Not that Fred can't express himself—he does and frequently, but just not about his own feelings. That's where the music is, and he's not writing it down on paper and he's not having it performed. But, the music is still there. In his head. Where it will remain. He'll broach no argument about it. And that is the way he conducts himself.

Such an interior existence is, of course, not unsocial, just selective. Mick has been his friend for years and the two can talk about anything or anyone, and they have shared boundaries that they do not cross to make the exchanges easier to navigate smoothly. They understand each other, which is a goal of Lena's, which she's having trouble negotiating. She doesn't understand anything these days, as he husband has just left her for some pop-star—"the most obscene job in the world"— (Paloma Faith) who makes music-videos. Was it her? Is it him? It can't be...the other her—so shallow!

Fred has very specific reasons why he's retired, all deeply personal and not to be revealed,  until later in the film. But, Fred has the luxury of choice. Everybody else at the spa...at least, the prominent ones, the celebrated ones...are equally stymied and stuck in place. Mick has a concept, a grand scheme for his next film, but is dependent on a gaggle of screenwriters (Sorrentino doesn't even give them names, just attributes, Disney dwarves!) out of whom he tries to coach some profundity and there's also his on-screen muse (Jane Fonda) that he must coax into appearing in it. He is entirely engaged in the process, even if he might not know what movie he's making.

Maradona is retired from soccer, but he's dealing with the cost of his fame and the lifestyle it has afforded him. He is very overweight, unhealthily so, and has grown accustomed to being indulgent and indulged.

Miss Universe is spectacularly unapproachable, but worldly enough that she can cut down approaching suitors with a withering honesty.

And Jimmy? He's stuck in his own typecasting, looking to prove himself capable of more sophisticated roles and indulges in eccentric behaviors to express his depth. He wants to be perceived as deeper than his previous roles, which he thinks are shallow and puerile—he'll find out that those roles touched lives and have his crisis solved. Contrast that actor with Fonda's aging diva, who's far more practical—her choice is whether to take a role in Mick's magnum opus or to take on a television role for a fat paycheck.

I was a big fan of Sorrentino's La Grande Bellezza—which had its own issues of aimlessness—but, one couldn't argue with the beauty of the images. I sought out seeing Youth in a theater in 2015, but struggled with my opinion of it—I hadn't written a review of it because I, frankly, didn't understand it and if I can't bring anything of value to any discussion of the film, best to say nothing at all. When when is stuck—as so many of the people in the film are—one can either blame themselves or the movie. And I'm reluctant to say that Sorrentino didn't have a solid concept to base his film around.

 

But, I think that's the case. In looking at the theme of age, self-worth, and self-perception, I think he found it wasn't enough to just concentrate on an inarticulate composer (I kept think of Ballinger as a stand-in for Jerry Goldsmith—a brilliant composer, but a terrible communicator about his "process," constantly saying "I just hear it in my head!"), and so took an Altman-esque approach, making a collection of short stories on the theme, rather than one over-all novel.

 

Mick lines up a shot for his proposed movie;

The movie he sees in his head, scattered individuals unrelated in a landscape.

As such, Sorrentino could have used the Mick-director character as a stand-in, looking for a story to fit the images he sees, rather they're related to each other or not. As such, I'm all for that. People are not monolithic—as much as the media, pollsters, statisticians, and business metrics want to pigeon-hole us. We all react to a given situation differently, we all have our ways of coping—some good, some bad, some effective, some utterly worthless. We learn that way. We grow, hopefully, even as we grow older and hopefully wiser.

 

Ultimately, the film feels very random. Much like life. Much like youth.

 

But, those images, though. Sorrentino has a particular "eye"—which I think is part of my point. I'm glad I saw Youth, as fleeting as it ultimately was.

Julia (1977)

Julia (Fred Zinnemann, 1977) I won't get into the actual veracity of the story behind Julia (other than this article isn't tagged with "Based on a True Story" (not that any movie that claims that distinction is probably being very truthful). But, the movie (and Hellman in her book, "Pentimento") hedges its bets by opening with an atmospheric shot of Lillian Hellman (and, according to entertainment myth, it actually IS Lillian Hellman in that boat) and Jane Fonda's voice-over narration:

“Old paint on a canvas, as it ages, sometimes becomes transparent. When that happens it is possible, in some pictures, to see the original lines: a tree will show through a woman's dress, a child makes way for a dog, a large boat is no longer on an open sea. That is called pentimento because the painter "repented," changed his mind. I'm old now and I want to remember what was there for me once and what is there for me now." 

Cut to memory of days gone by: Lillian Hellman (Jane Fonda) is writing...or trying to, anyway. It's a struggle.  She chain-smokes, stabs at the typewriter in frustration, and, even goes so far as to throw the damned contraption out the window. All of this is not lost on her lover, Dashiell Hammett (Jason Robards), himself a writer (currently living on royalties) who goes about his day keeping up their New York coast beach-house and observing the recalcitrant chaos which is "Lilly" composing. "You know you don't have to do this," he rather sarcastically counsels. "It's not like you've written anything before. No one'll miss you. It's a perfect time to change jobs." 

He suggests that if she's blocked, she should do something else, another job, a vacation, go to Paris, see her friend Julia. "Just don't go crying about it!" he scolds. "If you're gonna cry about it, go stand on a rock!" But, she doesn't leave, just retreats to her memory. Her childhood friend Julia (Lisa Pelikan as a child, Vanessa Redgrave grown up)she remembers with absolute clarity, how she was a restless spirit, raised by her entitled grandparents (who tell her when she sees some injustice "don't look at it") and finally escapes when she is accepted at Oxford to study medicine and does graduate studies at the University of Vienna. She decides to go to Paris, re-purposes herself to write her play...and to see Julia. After many missed phone-calls, she gets a mysterious phone-call that Julia is in hospital, injured from an attack from fascist demonstrators on campus.

Once in Vienna, she find her friend badly beaten, unable to talk, and she is told that she has a reservation for her stay at the Hotel Imperial, provided by an "Herr von Fritsch" who is not staying at the hotel and cannot be reached. Julia disappears from the hospital and her records expunged, leaving Lilly confused, searching, frustrated, and unable to finish her play. She returns home and resumes writing.

But, the memory of the events in Vienna haunts her. She finishes her play, but finds Hammett in the morning, reading it, and more than critical. "You want to be a serious writer," he says. "I don't know what happened, but you better tear that up." A long torturous second draft produces "The Children's Hour," high praise from "Dash" and interest from Broadway, where she becomes the toast of the town. But, there is no word from Julia, although Lilly writes her regularly.

On a goodwill trip to Russia (along with Hal Holbrook's Alan Campbell and Rosemary Murphy's Dorothy Parker), Hellman is contacted in Vienna by a "Mr. Johann" (Maximillian Schell), who carries a message and a request from Julia—come see her in Berlin on the way to Moscow, in that way, with her help, anti-Nazi organizations can smuggle in $50,000 of Julia's money to bribe the release of some fellow dissidents. The mission is, of course, not a little dangerous; she will be detouring, travelling to Nazi Germany and Lillian Hellman is Jewish. Although she is warned that, as in childhood, she is "afraid of being afraid," she is cautioned by Julia's message not to be a hero, if she thinks she cannot do it.

Of course, she does it, although it attracts the curiosity of Campbell and Parker, and Hellman boards a train for a tense journey to Berlin, where, unbeknownst to her, she is being kept under watch by the Nazi's and under wing by the sympathizers, who anonymously supervise her every nervous move for a rendezvous she can't begin to imagine.  

The film won the BAFTA that year for Best Picture. It also won three Academy Awards: Vanessa Redgrave's supporting performance as Julia (frankly, every time Redgrave acts she should win an Oscar); Jason Robards won for Best Supporting Actor for his wry romanticized portrayal of Hammett (Schell was nominated as well) and Alvin Sargent's spare, episodic screenplay that, although it never stays in one place for very long, is nonetheless amazingly rich in detail. I also think this is probably Jane Fonda's most relaxed, most versatile and least mannered performance of her entire career—she was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar, but lost to Diane Keaton's Annie Hall. Her portrayal is "scrappy" (as described in the screenplay) but also vulnerable, tremulous, but never weak, and Fonda takes major advantages of those moments for subtle drama and opportunities for comedy.

Fred Zinnemann was 70 when he made Julia and was approaching his fourth decade making movies (this would be his second to last film). His direction is meticulous, but like much of the director's work over the years, not so much as to be stodgy—he frequently punctuates the steadiness of the compositions with ones that are "catch-as-catch-can" to bring life to the story-telling. He is aided by editor Walter Murch—doing his first editing work outside the USC Mafia film-making tent—who is positively brutal in his cutting, but creates a dramatic tension through it that might not be there if he weren't so fastidious. George Delerue's score is uncharacteristically unromantic, relying more of the tension he employed in his work for The Day of the Dolphin. If there is any weakness to the film, it's in Douglas Slocombe's too-veiled photography, which looks like a bad imitation of Geoffrey Unsworth's fine-grained work. It may be a film of memory, but, if so, it's awfully fuzzy.

The film has been criticized for its emphasis less on Julia, but on Hellman's story, which seems odd. It is Hellman's story, and if hers is less dynamic, more flighty, and a bit specious in her pursuit of fame and fortune (and acceptance), then so be it. That's what her story was. "Julia" (if she existed) was out of sight, a creature of moments and not continuity, and ultimately, a mystery as unknowable as one of Hammett's femme fatale's. And she was a reflection of what Hellman wanted to be—worldly, passionate, committed, and independently wealthy. In some form, Julia existed, if only in a case of need.

I can't tell you how many times I've seen Julia, but I saw it a lot. It was the favorite film of a gal I was going out with at the time, and it was the "go-to" movie on date night. But, personal history aside, the film still resonates for its unresolved story, the questions, the regrets, the "what-could-have-been's" at its end and the sense of unreality that the world was drenched in during the 40's before, in our fear, paranoia, and triumphalism, we produced our "Scoundrel Time" in the 1950's. It's a deftly handled film of flawed individuals trying to do the right thing and falling short.

Lilly and Dash (left)

Lillian Hellman in 1939 (right)

Julia was also the film debut of an actress with the unlikely name of Meryl Streep
(wonder whatever happened to her?)