(Before you read this, I have to state that I never mean to offend anyone with my personal rants, heavy sarcasm, or taste in movies. Liking a film or not liking a film is based on personal taste alone. There is no right and there is no wrong, which is why movie criticism is such bulls***.)
Tomorrow, a British drama film entitled Little Ashes (dir. Paul Morrison, 2009) is being released in the US, and it brings up an issue that would appear irrelevant to most audiences. The film concerns the life and work of a young Salvador Dali and his supposed relationship with poet Federico Garcia Lorca while living in Franco's Spain, and although the film concerns Spanish affairs and artists, it was financed and shot in the UK. This, I have no issue with.
The issue is that director Morrison chose to have all the actors, even the native Spaniards, speak accented English instead of, oh I don't know, Spanish? By taking away the language of Spain - the same language that Dali, Bunuel, and Lorca actually spoke - Morrison is also taking away what is inherently Spain's culture. He is displacing a piece of Spain's history that in no way belongs to Britain.
How wrong would it be if a film about the American Revolution were shot using French or German actors speaking in their English-accented native language? And how much of a problem would us Americans have with that sort of a film?
The recent Tom Cruise shitfest Valkyrie (dir. Bryan Singer, 2008) took the same liberty, only telling a German story instead of a Spanish one. However, Singer wholly American-ized it, adding explosions, tension, and a hilarious (not in a good way) Tom Cruise performance. It's laughable to me that films like this can get made. How can people, especially the Germans, be okay that Scientologist (a "religion" considered a cult in many parts of the world, including inside my head) Cruise is playing one of Germany's most honorable men, Claus von Stauffenberg? And without telling the story in German, not even with German-accented English? (In all fairness to Mr. Cruise, he did appear in the so-so The Last Samurai, a film for which he spent two years learning Japenese). Language is an important, nay essential, part of any culture, and taking that away can certainly send a message to some ignorant viewers that the story no longer belongs or is deserved by its native country.
Don't get me wrong, I'm okay with telling stories from other countries. But the key is: If it is to be done, it must be done well, or not at all. De Niro learned Italian for The Godfather: Part II, and even though the film is not centered on a historical figure, Coppola does give us a pretty accurate experience of the feeling and culture of Italy. Julian Schnabel's recent mind-blowing film The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007) was based on the memoir of a French fashion editor, Jean-Dominique Bauby, who suffered from "locked-in syndrome." The film was originally slated to be in English and financed by Universal Studios with Johnny Depp in the lead role. Schnabel admirably contended that the English language could not do justice to the words that Bauby wrote and, despite extreme pressures to the contrary, made the film in French. He even more admirably learned French so that he could direct the film, which later provided him with an Academy Award nomination for Best Director - although it should have been a win as well.
The unfortunate feeling I have is that modern audiences are afraid of the subtitle, now a wholly realized fear as I am seeing signs at the ticket kiosk in theaters reading: Pan's Labyrinth/Y Tu Mama Tambien/The Orphanage/Insert Film Here is in Spanish with English subtitles. If you are dissatisfied, please see the manager for a full refund within the first fifteen minutes of the showing. This disturbing trend epitomizes the contradiction of rampant Americanism, and is certainly challenging, if not outrightly destroying the notion of US hegemony because of Americans' refusal to accept something that is not ours. We are telling stories that don't belong to us and not doing it well, or giving the culture or country the story belongs to adequate credit.
Franquist Spain, I'm sure, wasn't a great place to live for Dali, Bunuel, and Lorca, but is this country full of lazy moviegoers any better?
Thursday, May 7, 2009
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