Life (15.)
Directed by Anton Corbijn.
Starring Robert Pattinson, Dane DeHaan, Joel Edgerton, Alessandra Mastronardi, Stella Schnabel and Ben Kingsley. 111 mins
Life is a film about James Dean that starts with a close up. Not of Dean, of a light bulb, specifically the red light bulb that would go on outside a photographer's dark room to show that they were busy developing film inside. Life is a photographer's film about photography and its power to shape lives and events, but there's also a strong dose of 50s nostalgia and fond remembrance for proper photography, the kind that needed enormous flashbulbs and was ridiculously convoluted and not to be attempted by the hoi polloi.
Director Corbijn is a prestigious photographer who moved into the movies but after a series of increasingly unsuccessful (non) motion pictures can probably see that opportunities are likely to dry up soon so has decided to snuck in a personal project before the big hook comes to pull him back to the real world. His choice is the tale of snapper Dennis Stock (Pattinson) and his pursuit of the then unknown Dean (DeHaan) to shoot a photo-story for Life magazine. At that stage Dean is taking pleasure in aggravating studio boss Jack Warner (Kingsley) and not playing the game. He is ambivalent about his approaching fame, and Stock sees something fresh and new in him, as well as a route into something more prestigious than shooting Premieres and publicity. The two men bond but Dean is reluctant to commit, sensing that this photo shoot will help to build the cage of celebrity around him.
It's a precious moment in western culture but however you shape it, man tries to take another man's picture is not a compelling narrative. There's also DeHaan's portrayal of Dean, which is good in many ways but crucially doesn't have whatever charisma and magic Dean had. His rebelliousness is mostly obnoxious and DeHaan's take on his mumbled intensity just translates as stoney droney. Maybe that's part of the plan though: Stock has a line about Dean's appeal, “I could see it through the lens.” Maybe the film is suggesting that most star charisma is an invention of the camera, something divorced from the actual person.
For Corbijn this may be a masked autobiography. Like Stock, he once took a photo of a doomed young talent that came to define them and to steer them down a path that would be ultimately destructive to them. For Stock it was Dean walking through the rain in Time Square with his collar up, for him it was the shot of Ian Curtis looking back into the camera as the band walked into a subway.
Reviews of previous Pattinson films: Bel Ami, Water For Elephants
Directed by Anton Corbijn.
Starring Robert Pattinson, Dane DeHaan, Joel Edgerton, Alessandra Mastronardi, Stella Schnabel and Ben Kingsley. 111 mins
Life is a film about James Dean that starts with a close up. Not of Dean, of a light bulb, specifically the red light bulb that would go on outside a photographer's dark room to show that they were busy developing film inside. Life is a photographer's film about photography and its power to shape lives and events, but there's also a strong dose of 50s nostalgia and fond remembrance for proper photography, the kind that needed enormous flashbulbs and was ridiculously convoluted and not to be attempted by the hoi polloi.
Director Corbijn is a prestigious photographer who moved into the movies but after a series of increasingly unsuccessful (non) motion pictures can probably see that opportunities are likely to dry up soon so has decided to snuck in a personal project before the big hook comes to pull him back to the real world. His choice is the tale of snapper Dennis Stock (Pattinson) and his pursuit of the then unknown Dean (DeHaan) to shoot a photo-story for Life magazine. At that stage Dean is taking pleasure in aggravating studio boss Jack Warner (Kingsley) and not playing the game. He is ambivalent about his approaching fame, and Stock sees something fresh and new in him, as well as a route into something more prestigious than shooting Premieres and publicity. The two men bond but Dean is reluctant to commit, sensing that this photo shoot will help to build the cage of celebrity around him.
It's a precious moment in western culture but however you shape it, man tries to take another man's picture is not a compelling narrative. There's also DeHaan's portrayal of Dean, which is good in many ways but crucially doesn't have whatever charisma and magic Dean had. His rebelliousness is mostly obnoxious and DeHaan's take on his mumbled intensity just translates as stoney droney. Maybe that's part of the plan though: Stock has a line about Dean's appeal, “I could see it through the lens.” Maybe the film is suggesting that most star charisma is an invention of the camera, something divorced from the actual person.
For Corbijn this may be a masked autobiography. Like Stock, he once took a photo of a doomed young talent that came to define them and to steer them down a path that would be ultimately destructive to them. For Stock it was Dean walking through the rain in Time Square with his collar up, for him it was the shot of Ian Curtis looking back into the camera as the band walked into a subway.
Reviews of previous Pattinson films: Bel Ami, Water For Elephants
