Begun, the Clone Wars have: "Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones" at 20

 

Spoilers Below

For a while I've wanted to talk more about Star Wars on this blog, since along with James Bond and Planet of the Apes, it's probably the most important film franchise for me. With the second installment of the Prequel Trilogy, Attack of the Clones, turning 20, I've decided this was a good opportunity to discuss more of my feelings on the series. Attack of the Clones is perhaps the most maligned of George Lucas' maligned trilogy, though the trilogy now has the same nostalgic reverence of the Original Trilogy. If the older generation hated these films then the younger generation, people my age or younger, really took to them. I still consider myself an OT fan but I was at the right age to like these films when they came out. However, over time  my feelings have grown increasingly complicated. I like things about the PT and dislike others. And you know what, often they're the same things. The PT have great ideas and are conceptually brilliant but the execution of the story is were many of the problems lie. It feels like the scripts are all a couple of rewrites from being really solid, especially the first 2. However, I don't want to focus too much on the PT overall. Instead, let's talk about  Attack of the Clones.

As Scott Mendelson points out in his retrospective piece, by the time Attack of the Clones was released, there were challengers to Lucas' blockbuster throne such as the first The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter films. The first Spider-Man came out several weeks before Attack of the Clones and became the highest grossing film of the year, the first time a Star Wars film wasn't the number one grosser. Attack of the Clones also didn't have the novelty of being the first Star Wars movie in 16 years like The Phantom Menace had. That, and since Phantom Menace burned people so badly there was trepidation about this film. Moreover, during the whole prequel era these aforementioned were better received by critics and audiences. 

For those who need a refresher on the plot, it goes like this: Former Queen of Naboo, now senator, Padme Amidala (Natalie Portman) survives two assassination attempts and is taken back to Naboo to hide by Jedi Padawan Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen), who has grown infatuated with Padme over the last ten years and is struggling with being so close to her again. Meanwhile his master Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) tracks the dart that killed the would-be assassin to the cloning facility on Kamino, where they've been creating a army using the bounty hunter Jango Fett (Temuera Morrison) as a DNA donor. Jango even had the Kaminoans make him a son, Boba, who we know will be the future bane of Han Solo's existence.

If Phantom Menace was an ensemble piece then then Attack of the Clones is the closest the Star Wars series has gotten to a character study. It asks the question we came to prequels to find out: who is Anakin Skywalker, the future Darth Vader. The answer wasn't what fans expected. Making Anakin a nine year old boy in Phantom Menace was Lucas' first subversion of fan expectations. Then in Attack of Clones, instead of a noble, good-head on his shoulders young man with some personal flaws, this Anakin was all flaws. He's petulant, whiney (though I guess that's where Luke gets it from), disobedient, overly infatuated with Padme, and in one scene, murders a bunch of people. Lucas doesn't portray Anakin as a mythic, larger than life hero, the badass warrior who becomes a badass villain. Instead, Lucas saw Anakin as a "pathetic individual." 

I'm conflicted about Anakin's portrayal in this film. It's certainly a unique characterization and psychologically complicated. Anakin definitely had psychological issues which demanded serious therapy. The characterization does a make certain kind of sense. Unlike the other Jedi who were taken from their parents before they grew attached to them, Anakin left his mother when he already formed a bond with her. He grew a crush on Padme and then spent the next 10 years being taught to suppress his emotions. He was never in a relationship with a woman so I can see how his crush grew until it became an obsessive infatuation. Anakin has no idea how to talk to women so his creepy/stalkerish behaviour towards Padme is fitting. 

The problem lies in the execution. Lucas could've gotten away with Anakin being immature and angry if we saw  him mature throughout the film and become the noble warrior and friend Obi-Wan looks back on fondly in the original film. That, and if his infatuation towards Padme was examined and called attention to as being unhealthy. Either that or you establish Anakin as a heroic warrior, albeit a little arrogant. Then you show him crumbling upon meeting Padme again. Despite his confidence in every other area, when it comes to romantic feelings he's very awkward but in a charming and un-stalkerish way. Padme would deal with her romantic feeling in a more diplomatic (since she's a politician). Lucas also could've fleshed out the idea that neither of them had a normal upbringing, having sworn themselves to their duties.

The romance would've made more sense if Anakin was a little older in Phantom Menace. We could've seen more of Anakin and Padme's friendship grow, allowing Padme to have similar romantic feelings towards him. Since he was a little boy in the she could've never had those feelings; and she definitely wouldn't have feelings for Anakin now, not the guy who extolls the virtues of fascism. That's a weirdly handled scene. It's supposed to be cute and is set against the backdrop of hills from The Sound of Music but when he says "If it works" as a response to Padme saying his preferred style of government sounds like a dictatorship it's very dark foreshadowing for what is laughed off and forgotten.

Then there's Anakin's murder of the sand people for the death of his mother, Shmi (Pernilla August). Anakin going off to save Shmi is one of the strongest parts of the film, with Anakin on a speeder bike set against Tatooine's twin sunsets being a visually potent image. It's a shame Lucas is a such a flat visual stylist when he's shooting dialogue scenes. Shmi's death is honestly effective, showing us hints of an emotionally stronger and better film. Anakin's Kubrickian stare before he murders the sand people also showcases Christensen's acting ability which are often lost under Lucas' dialogue. But what I want to get at is Padme's reaction to Anakin telling her about killing "Not just the men, but the women and the children too." She's way too relaxed and even more so than him championing fascism, it makes usus question how Padme could fall in love with Anakin. 

I also feel like Anakin pretty much becomes Darth Vader when he kills the sand people. When you give in to hate and anger is when you turn to the dark side. In Return of the Jedi Luke's pivotal moment is when he almost kills Vader but then grants him mercy. I understand Shmi's death is crucial to Anakin's choices in Revenge of The Sith. His dreams of her dying which came true and he's scared of his dreams of Padme's coming to fruition as well. However, the murdering of the sand people just feels like too much too soon.

Coming back to the romance (there's a lot to talk about regarding the romance), David Lean's Doctor Zhivago was an influence on the film. Lucas even wanted the poster for Attack of the Clones to mimic the poster for Lean's epic romance about the Russian Revolution and Russia's role in WWI, the backdrop for a romance between a Doctor Yuri Zhivago and Nurse Lara Antipova. While Lean was a director who was able to make the scenes between his characters as powerful and memorable as his grand compositions (he also directed one of the great romances with the smaller scale Brief Encounter), Lucas' scenes between characters are often his weakest, due to the dialogue, blocking and compositions lacky dynamism. I know the dialogue in the Star Wars was always intended to be hokey and melodramatic but since this is more complex story, I think the dialogue and the performances should've been on a higher level than in the OT.

The PT is at its most powerful when Lucas allows the images and music to tell the story The image of Anakin and Padme in silhouette being led out to an arena to be executed, with John Williams' love theme playing, says more than Lucas' words could ever do. I wish Lucas did rely less on dialogue to sell us on this romance. Anakin's and Padme's actions should have spoke for them as we saw them grow closer because of the threat on her life. They never feel in danger though, not until they're led out to die with Obi-Wan on Geonosis.

Speaking of Obi-Wan, we unfortunately don't get to see enough of his friendship with Anakin in this movie. I always feel Phantom Menace could've focused on Anakin and Obi-Wan becoming friends, ending with them becoming master and apprentice. Attack of the Clones would then show us how that affects their relationship. There are moments of warmth between Anakin and Obi-Wan but it'd been nice to see more of that great friendship. It's important to remember that Obi-Wan was never supposed to train Anakin. Obi-Wan's master Qui Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson) was going to train Anakin against the council's wishes. When he was mortally wounded by Darth Maul his dying wish was for Anakin to be trained, to which Obi-Wan agreed. Both Obi-Wan and Anakin lost a father figure, and father/son relationships are obviously an important theme in Star Wars. So, both Anakin and Obi-Wan are both living in Qui-Gon's shadow and attempting to live up to his high hopes for both of them. I think it was a missed opportunity not to mention Qui-Gon at all in this film. It would've been a good bonding moment if these men reminisced about their surrogate father. 

Obi-Wan gets more to do in this film since he got the shaft in Phantom Menace, with arguably Qui-Gon taking on some of what his role originally supposed to be. His sub-plot in this film ties more in to the larger story of the film, the beginning of the Clone Wars. The Clone Wars were name dropped in the original film but we never knew exactly what they were about. Essentially they were a piece of world-building that made the Star Wars universe more alive, that it was a piece of history everyone knew about. It's established  Attack of the Clones and paid off in Revenge of the Sith that the Clone Wars were the beginning of the end for the Jedi. There was something insidious (Darth Sidious) about the creation of the clones but the Jedi were too-shortsighted to truly to see it. It's an idea that I wish was better presented. The way Lucas portrays it makes us question the Jedi's intelligence. It shouldn't have been so obvious how shady the cloning operation was. However, I love the Imperial March playing over the Clones getting ready for battle at the end. It's another example of how great a filmmaker Lucas can be when he's not relying on dialogue to tell the story, just images and music.

I think Lucas is often a better conceptual director than he is a narrative one. He always been an experimental filmmaker at heart, from his early film school films, including THX 1138, which became the basis for his first feature film of the same name. However, he's not always great at crafting character or story arcs, The plot is driving things rather than the characters' choices.  Anakin doesn't really have a character arc here. He doesn't mature and he's already so infatuated with Padme from the beginning there's not much room for him to go anywhere regarding his feelings, at least not how Lucas goes about it.. Stuff happens in Attack of the Clones but it doesn't feel like there's a real arc to the story. Lucas creates a sound structure but doesn't always know what to do in that structure.   

Attack of the Clones does at least give us a clearer picture of how things will connect to the OT, with the beginning of the Clone Wars and Anakin's romance with Padme. The film in several ways is the key to understanding Anakin's story, the middle chapter and heart of the PT in the same The Empire Strikes Back is the heart of the OT. Though I'd argue Attack of the Clones- as I did earlier- suffers from having to re-introduce Anakin. It would've made the flow of the story from Phantom Menace to Attack of the Clones tighter and stronger if we had the same actor continuing their performance from the first film. So, in cloning, I mean closing, Attack of the Clones is the awkward first step towards Anakin's downfall in Revenge of the Sith. We see the beginning of man's obsession with preventing those he loves from dying, which will lead to death of whom he loves and his own spiritual death. 

So, is Attack of the Clones an underrated masterpiece or does it rank low on your list of Star Wars films? Comment and let me know.

The Essential Films: "Sunset Boulevard" (1950)

A series of writings on films that I feel are essential for film lovers, coupled with films that are personal to me. Spoilers for those who haven't seen the film.

What happens to those whom Hollywood leaves behind? What happens when their star has faded and, for women, when they get older? Director Billy Wilder, who was born in Austria in 1906 but came to L.A. in 1933, always wondered what happened to the silent film stars who still lived in the mansions from the 1920s. This gave birth to the idea which became Sunset Boulevard, one of his greatest films, which delves in to the life of a silent movie star who still desires to be famous  

Wilder always railed against easy genre categorization in his films. The Apartment (1960) is a romantic comedy that's also a drama about adultery and selling your soul for a promotion. Double Indemnity (1944) is a film-noir about helping a woman murder her husband that's also an incredibly funny and occasionally warm story about male friendship; and Some Like It Hot (1959) is a 1920s set comedy about two men in drag being pursued by gangsters because they witnessed the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. Sunset Boulevard is his most daring tightrope act when it comes to genre and tone. It's a film noir, a dark comedy, a Hollywood satire, a gothic melodrama, and a tragedy. Film critic Richard Corliss called it "the definitive Hollywood horror film" and director John Landis also called it a murder mystery. .

Sunset Boulevard was Wilder's and writing partner Charles Brackett's 17th and final collaboration. Wilder ended the partnership due to a fight over a montage in the film though they ended up winning writing Oscars for the film. Wilder and Brackett began writing a script in 1948 but it didn't please either of them. To help with the script they hired D.M Marshman, Jr., a film critic for Life Magazine whose review for Wilder's The Emperor Waltz- co-written with Brackett- impressed them. Marshman came up with the idea of the main character being a gigolo to a silent film star. Wilder was afraid of the censors because it was an expose on Hollywood and dealt with the subject matter of an relationship between an younger man and an older woman. The script was actually submitted a few pages at the time. When they began shooting only one third of the script was completed.

The film aptly starts with a screenwriter having his own writing problems. Joe Gillis (William Holden) needs work and money. He's also got repo men on his tail for his car. While on the run from these men he hides his car in the garage of a mansion belonging to aging silent movie star Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson). Joe goes in to the house and is mistaken for an undertaker (her monkey has died). When she discovers he's a screenwriter she asks his opinion on her script which will serve as her comeback vehicle (though she prefers to call it a return). While Joe's voice-over narration (more on that later) tells us the script isn't very good he needs the money so he gets Norma to hire him to work on the script. Norma also insists he lives in the mansion with her. Later Joe realizes she had romantic feelings for him. Out of disgust he leaves but comes back when he learns she's attempted suicide. He also eventually becomes Norma's gigolo.

Sunset Boulevard is  about desperation. Joe needs money and Norma is desperate to hold on to the fantasy she can stage a comeback and be relevant again. And you know what? I understand Norma's desperation to be famous and to be loved. It can be a poison that rots you inside and makes you bitter at what you can't have. You are so desperate for it you feel you are going insane. In Norma's case, she has. And that poison has not only rotted her inside but outside as well. Despite only being 50 she appears 20 years older. While Norma can appear as a grotesque and sexist caricature of an aging actress- and in some ways she is since she was written by two men in the 40s- she's also a deeply tragic as well as funny character. That's largely due to Swanson's performance, who gives a hellish and hilarious performance, one of the seminal screen performances of all time. 

Before Swanson was considered Wilder reached out to several other silent film actresses, including Mary Pickford, who didn't like the theme of a older woman in a relationship with a younger man. And Clara Bow declined because she wanted to stay retired. It was director George Cukor who suggested Swanson. This was a comeback role for Swanson who had, after her career waned in the 40s, quit movies and worked on stage, TV, and radio. Swanson was intrigued when she was offered the part but didn't want to do a screentest for Sunset Boulevard  since she had been such a big star. Cukor joked that he would shoot her if she didn't. 

Montgomery Clift was cast as Joe but dropped out supposedly because the role reminded him of his part in The Heiress (1949), where he played a man having a relationship with an older woman. But the the suspected real reason was him actually being in a relationship with an older women, singer Libby Holman. Clift didn't want people thinking Holman was like Norma so he gave up the role. It worked out pretty well for Holden, who became an A-List star after this performance, which also earned him an Oscar nomination. He lost to Jose Ferrer for Cyrano de Bergeac (1950) but would win several years later for another Wilder film, Stalag 17 (1953). I'm glad Holden got the part. Clift was a strong actor but I think  he was a little too serious for the wise-cracking Joe. Holden's much better with sarcasm and playing a likable jerk.

Coming back to Swanson, what's integral to her performance, beyond being grotesque, funny and tragic all at once, is how she contrasts with Holden. Holden  is giving a mostly naturalistic performance but Swanson is more theatrical in her gestures and facial expressions. This creates plenty of humour- Joe's sarcasm against Norma's non-ironic claim of "I am big. It's the pictures that got small." It also creates the feeling that Norma is always giving a performance never being completely in reality, and this just solidifying how's she losing her mind. I'm reminded of Vivien Leigh's performance in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), where her theatrical style of acting juxtaposes with Marlon Brando's method acting. Blanche, like Norma, is mentally unbalanced and this style of acting, pitted against naturalistic acting, makes that clearer to the audience. 

There's a clear separation between Norma's world and the "real" world, which is how the film manages its different tones. The gothic horror and film-noir elements don't intrude when Joe's outside the mansion. Things always feel normal. Film historian Tom Stempel wrote about how the lighting (courtesy of cinematographer John F. Seitz) blends the two worlds of the film together.

"In both Double Indemnity and Sunset Boulevard, Seitz does something that has always impressed me. Both are films noir, and he finesses the fact that both are set in the sunniest of locales, Los Angeles... he brings together the light and the dark in the same film without any seams showing... he brings together the realistic lighting of Joe Gillis out in the real world with the gothic look of Norma Desmond's mansion. Again with no seams showing."

The contrast between the darkness of Norma's world and the brightness of L.A is important. Her world is the dark underbelly of Hollywood. I'd argue Joe is the bridge between the two worlds. If he's not completely destroyed by Hollywood he's at least on his way. He could become like Max Von Mayerling (Erich von Sroheim, playing a version of himself), a former silent film director and Norma's former first husband, now butler. He couldn't bare it when Norma left him so he turned his back on directing and became her servant. He even writes fake fan letters to her, feeding her delusions. Stroheim gives a drolly comic performance as Max but there's something haunted in his eyes. This is a man who has fallen very far and has had to watch his ex-wife descend in to madness. Through him we see that Norma wasn't always like this and he acts as a reminder of what Joe could become if he doesn't cut Norma out of his life completely.

Norma's opposite is Betty Schaefer (Nancy Olson), a script reader who once wished to be an actress. It didn't work out but unlike Norma she isn't bitter about not being famous. She sees the merit of working behind the scenes and wishes to be a screenwriter. She's also the counterpoint to Joe due to her belief that a story should have a message. She also isn't as cynical-minded as Joe. She criticized one of his stories early in the film as trite and formulaic, believing he's too good of a writer to waste his talents on overdone stories. However, she sees potential in another of Joe's story and wants to work on it together.  

Joe and Betty fall in love though she has a fiancee, Artie Green (Jack Webb). When Joe's leaving Norma he pushes Betty away emotionally so Norma won't hurt her and because Joe knows she deserves better, which is Artie. Joe is then shot by Norma and falls in to her pool. We were shown this corpse at the beginning.  I'm not sure how much of a twist it is that Joe's been narrating this whole time from the dead. but the image of Joe's corpse in the pool is a brilliant and spooky shot, created by having a mirror at the pool's bottom.

The original opening had Joe in a morgue recounting his death to other corpses. The preview audience laughed at it and it was removed for the finished film, which I think was a good choice. I think the narration from a dead man is morbid enough without going too far. I think it's a great bit of sardonic humour, though film critic Thomas M. Pryor of the New York Times didn't care for. I think it works as subversion of the bodyless voice narrating, literally making that voice detached from a dead body. The murder mystery bookends and narration are also part of how the film incorporates film-noir tropes

In the film's final and most famous scene Norma is to be arrested but she believes the cameras are there to shoot the film with DeMille. Max returns to the directors' chair as he calls action. She comes down the stairs and thanks the crew, ending with the iconic line, "Alright Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up," coming towards the camera, and essentially us, with the image blurring and fading to black. Norma gets an oddly happy ending. In an anonymous essay for the film the writer comes to the conclusion that Norma has been completely absorbed by the glory of her past:

 In the final shot of the film as Norma stares directly into the camera, we see the soft-focus glow that was a trademark of the silent film era increase in intensity before enveloping her completely as the film fades to black. Norma’s mind has finally been wholly consumed by the past that she’s long yearned for, but her hollow, wide-eyed gaze lives on in the minds of all who beheld it, pleading with us to consider our own role in her descent

Norma said earlier that she abandoned her audience but it was the audience who left her behind. Sunset Boulevard is about the ones who Hollywood and we leave behind and how fame fading away is often worse than never being famous. To know glory and then to lose it becomes a living death for Norma. Wilder was cynical but not uncompassionate. The film is a damnation of the system that created Norma Desmond and then threw her away because audiences got bored. Hollywood and audiences could never see the real person behind the star and what may happen when they were abandoned. Without stardom, some of these people feel they have nothing. What do audiences owe these stars? Maybe nothing. Maybe just some compassion. I think I relate to Norma too much. She may not be easy to love but it's easy to part of ourselves in her, the desire to be loved and comfort that hope brings us, even if's a delusional hope that'll eventually swallow us up.