FILM ESSAY 2000 - STYLE AND SUBSTANCE-ABUSE
From the dark underworld of drugs to lavish, head-spinning fantasy worlds, 2000 was the year that many filmmakers decided to focus on artistic creativity in their films.
The year started out slow with a run of disappointing mainstream fair, but it soon picked up as Gladiator entered the scene. The Roman epic was not your typical summer blockbuster. There were no big explosions and bombs overtaking the screen, but an old fashion action film with chariots, swordplay, and massive battle sequences. This critical favorite, though no classic in my book, would become a commercial hit and be nominated for a slew of Oscars, taking home Best Picture and Best Actor.
Gladiator�s biggest awards competitor would not show up until late December. This was the magical Mandarin martial arts epic Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, a far better film and, had the Academy not been so Euro-central, the film that should have won the Best Picture Oscar. Indeed, the story is classic and touching, but it is all pulled together by the impressive, gravity-defying fight scenes, lush, grandiose landscape and set pieces, and beautiful costumes. Like The Matrix the previous year, this film showed that there are no limits to how visually stunning an action film can be while still maintaining a strong story-line.
But action films were not the only ones to capture moviegoers attentions. There was not one, but two impressive movies that expressed the realistic side to the world of drugs: the drug war epic, Traffic, and the downward spiral drama, Requiem for a Dream. In Traffic, director Steven Soderbergh uses remarkable cinematography, consisting of three separate color tones, to perfectly weave together three separate plots together: the new drug czar and his addict daughter, the wife of an arrested dealer, and a Mexican cop facing corruption on the force.
The latter of the two films, Requiem for a Dream, did not have the option that traffic had of a large budget, but God-Among-Directors Darren Aronofsky manages to bring great style and grace to his film. Combining astonishing cinematography, a haunting score, makeup, and his soon-to-be infamous dilating pupil sequences, Aronofsky doesn�t need a big budget to capture the darkness of the downward spiral of drugs. With a simple set, and Ellen Burstyn�s powerful performance, he can make a small apartment seem like an utter hellhole of loneliness.
Continuing the theme of darkness, the year also brought us the nightmare fantasia of The Cell. Though the story is debatably lacking, there is no denying the visual wonderment of this film. With its one-of-a-kind costuming and never-before-seen set pieces, director Tarsem Singh creates a mind-bending dream world of frightening proportions. Even the harsh coldness of the center itself adds to the nightmare. In contrast to this, there was the Seuss-ian beauty of The Grinch. The cartoonish makeup and equally animated set pieces help bring children�s fantasy to life.
Last, I must speak of what is probably the single most beautiful film to look at this year, O Brother, Where Art Thou. Very loosely adapted from Homer�s The Odyssey, the story is not what drives this film, though it�s references to the sirens and cyclops of the aforementioned book add a certain quirkiness to the film. No, what allows this film to hit its mark is the cinematic beauty it holds. From the baptism scene, to the flood, to the sirens, even the characters simply making their journey, there is not a moment in the film that one cannot look up at the screen and be impressed. The film is just an amazing credit to what is possible in film. It proves that a special effect does not have to be a big explosion, but can be as simple as the wind blowing the autumn leaves off of a tree.
This was the year that critics and audiences alike found a common ground in the beauty of film. With the commercial success of small art films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Traffic, and O Brother, Where Art Thou and the appearance of The Cell on Roger Ebert�s top 10 list, Hollywood should realize that beauty has its place in mainstream film. Hopefully, soon word will catch on and audiences will no longer be bombarded with unimpressive blockbusters that can go no further than the hollow characters and shallow effects that destroy them.
Other note-worthy films of style:
American Psycho | The Gift | Quills | Urbania | What Lies Beneath.
HOME
