Home is where the road is

Following John Hughes' death, I decided to watch "Planes, trains and automobiles" (1987) for the first time. Though the movie's strong 80's vibe holds it from being a timeless piece, I did enjoy it. I especially enjoyed:

- Steve Martin and John Candy

- The opening scene, in which Page (Steve Martin) sits in an office meeting, anxious to leave so he can catch his plane, while his boss takes his time to conclude the meeting. This scene has almost no dialogue, mainly face gestures, and it's remarkably funny.

- The bromance atmosphere, which is so dominant in comedies nowadays. When Page and Dell find themselves sharing a hotel room (and a bed) for the night, they keep making sure there's nothing gay about it. The climax is the moment when they wake up in each other's arms, and jump out of bed, terrified (watch video below). Of course today it's ok for guys to say "I love you" in comedies ("Wedding crashers", "Superbad", "I love you, man").



- The moment when Page understands that Del (John Candy) has nowhere to go to for Thanksgiving. After he hated him throughout the entire movie, you really get the feeling that now he loves him. And in terms of transformations, it's nice that the film offers a minor change, not drastic. Page is not a whole new person when the movie ends, but he did learn to enjoy the presence of someone different, and to accept that things don’t always go as planned.


A day after watching "Planes", "Something Wild" (Jonathan Demme, 1986) was on TV, and I sat down and watched it. I remembered watching it as a young girl, and had a vague recollection of what it was about. I remembered the sex scene at the beginning (the bob haircut and the handcuffs are too iconic to forget). I also remembered the scene where Lulu (Melanie Griffith) leaves the restaurant without paying, forcing Charlie (Jeff Daniels), who has no money either, to run out without paying. However, I did not remember the radical shift in the middle of the movie, when it stops being a comedy and becomes a dark drama, thriller almost.


What's interesting, though, is the similarity between the movies. Both "Planes" and "Something Wild" are road movies, in which one of the main characters has no home to return to (either physically or emotionally). In both movies, the character keeps her "no home" situation a secret, and the secret is revealed towards the end of the film.

Del (John Candy) doesn't tell Page (Steve Martin) that his beloved wife had been dead for 8 years. Page finds it out by himself only at the end of the movie, by adding up all the small clues that were dropped along the way.

Charlie (Jeff Daniels) doesn't tell Lulu (Melanie Griffith) that his wife left him a few months earlier. Lulu's husband, who just got out of jail and tries to get Lulu back to him, tells her the truth about Charlie.

So I guess that in both movies, the primary idea is you can only truly dedicate yourself to a road trip if you have nothing (no one) to lose. In "Planes, trains and automobiles", Del craves Page's company because he's lonely, and his loneliness explains why, unlike Page, he only wants the trip back home to be longer. In "Something Wild", we first think Charlie joins Lulu to escape his boring family life, but it turns he's lost his wife and kids to another man. Hence, he joins Lulu because he has no family.

Research and inspiration: a study of form, content and antagonism

Speaking of dance/music numbers in films: I was watching "Rachel Getting Married" (Jonathan Demme, 2008) lately (since it's about a family, it was on my to-watch list). Many people I know loved this movie. Even those I know who didn't love it, praised the soundtrack; the fact that all of the music numbers are diegestic, that is, the music always originates from the cinematic world: a band rehearsing for the wedding inside the family house, and playing at the event itself.

Watching the movie, I found myself indifferent towards the characters and somewhat antagonistic. Thinking about it later, I realized I especially didn’t enjoy that the dialogues so bluntly tell the audience: "there are things we're talking about that you still can't understand. They're meant to intrigue you. It's a secret for now, you'll understand later". It's always a challenge to manage how much you reveal to the audience and when to reveal it, and I felt that in "Rachel Getting Married" I was too aware of this mechanism being pulled.

What I'm getting at here, is that I didn't experience any intellectual exhilaration just knowing that the music I hear is the music the characters hear. And I guess it annoyed me that that's even an option, to not enjoy the movie, and at the same time marvel at the music.


Which brings me to "the Royal Tenenbaums" (Wes Anderson, 2001) – another family centered movie, hence on my watch list. And another movie that leaves me antagonistic, today even more than when I watched it for the first time. The reason for the antagonism here is the feeling of self Indulgence that's present on every frame; the feeling that the art and costumes replace emotional depth; the fact that some of the people I know who love this film lack emotional depth themselves. But most of all it's the fact that I didn't care what happens next, and was willing to stop the DVD at any minute. I hate the term "love it or hate it" artwork, but I guess it applies on this film, so maybe I love this term after all.


Anyway, Wes Anderson debates are so 1834. This post is just an excuse for me to show clips from "Zatoichi" (Takeshi Kitano, 2003). "Zatoichi" is the story of a blind masseur and former samurai, an old woman who lets him sleep at her house, and 2 geishas (a brother and a sister), who are chasing after the killers of their parents. This is my example for form and content reinforcing one another, instead of annulling. This movie has both emotional depth, and great story and characters, as well as wonderful use of music.

First, let's go back to this scene, in which the soundtrack is a harmony of diegestic sounds (men building a house) and non-diegestic music:



And I'll leave you with the ending scene of "Zatoichi": the mob tap-dance. After you go through the movie's emotional journey, watching this scene can be truly cathartic (Or not, if we learned anything from this post). How beautiful is the bit where the adult brother and sister become young again for a few seconds?