Take Three: Anna Faris

Craig here with Take Three.

Today: Anna Faris

Take One: Even cowgirls get the blues

I’m always up for a spot of Brokeback love. I know there's been plenty of attention around these parts in the past but let’s divert the love that-a-way. Let’s ride sidesaddle and gallop slightly away from Jake ‘n’ Heath. And Michelle 'n' Anne. And Ang. Hey, look, it’s Anna Faris as Lashawn Malone in Brokeback Mountain (2005).

I’d just seen Faris in Just Friends when barely a week later (January 2006) Brokeback was released here in the UK. The complete contrast between Faris in the two films caught me off guard. She pops up ninety-minutes in during a couples’ C&W night-out scene with Jake Gyllenhaal & Anne Hathaway.  She “talks a blue streak” without much pause for breath – and in doing so fills the gap where a homoerotic attraction is becoming increasingly apparent between Jack Twist and Lashawn’s husband Randall (David Harbour). Jack and Lashawn dance; she continues to chatter. A new scene comes and goes with Lashawn entering and chattering her way gaily through it.

It’s a minuscule part but one that actively enhances the film. And Faris, with a touch of cowgirl glamour creates a world for Lashawn that is surely real and would be utterly believable if we were to follow her story instead of Lureen’s and Alma’s. The other Brokeback wives have their moments of realisation and breakdown; Lashawn, being a passing, peripheral character, doesn’t get hers (Randall is another “confused” cowpoke). But, thanks to the key manner in which Faris makes palpable the glimmers of anxiety in Lashawn’s gasbagging, we know she’ll suffer as Lureen and Alma do.

Take Two: Coppola load of this casting coup

There are some things I liked about Lost in Translation (2003), and some things I didn’t. Anna Faris is the crux of my love-hate relationship with the film. I like her. I dislike the reason she’s (ostensibly) there. Faris is vibrant, lively and gleefully adorable as Kelly, the flaky blond actress who tender, sensitive Charlotte bumps into in the Tokyo hotel lobby. Her small segment – or I should say zesty interruption – perked me up just as I was beginning to get fed up with ScarJo’s misery. Faris shows her personality here even when she’s meant to be showing... Cameron Diaz’s, wasn’t it?

It takes a sharp skill to play a vapid, questionably-talented and intentionally annoying bimbo like Kelly, and do it well, but Faris possesses it; the role wouldn’t have been half as memorable or crucial without her.

Lost in Translation has its staunch defenders as well as its starchy detractors. I'm on the fence. But isn't Coppola fille displaying her snarky, precious side when she hires one – fairly unknown at the time – comedy actress to allegedly impersonate another – far more famous – one, just to imply something underhanded about the latter through the (admittedly spot-on) talents of the former? Is this indicative of the peculiarities of the largely hidden squabbles buried within the Hollywood community? It taints the film for me, but no matter. Faris knocks her scenes out of the hotel car park. She got to stretch her craft and add a different slant to her filmography whilst being wonderfully, enthusiastically familiar. Were we meant to share in Charlotte's lofty derision of Kelly? I know I didn't. I was too busy enjoying Faris.

Take Three: One order of Anna – to stay

For the third take, I meant to feature Faris' Monroe routine over a steaming manhole in The House Bunny. But after accidentally catching Waiting... (2006) for the third time, I couldn’t resist scribbling a few words on her role as Serena, ex-girlfriend to co-lead Ryan Reynolds, who works, like all the characters do, at the brilliantly named theme restaurant Shenaniganz.

Faris’ role is clearly supporting, but she breezes on screen with the bright confidence of a lead. Her pin-sharp and perfectly delivered put-down of Ryan Reynolds in one of Waiting...’s best scenes is a joy to watch and watch again. (Watch it many times: Faris’ timing is exquisite.) Faris and Reynolds (and scriptwriter Rob McKittrick) create an entertaining scene – a crude, rude re-take on the sparring couples slapstick banter - that's full of choice insults and great Faris facial expressions. Without much fuss the scene humorously reconfigures the tired old Battle of the Sexes thing into something daft and genuinely funny, just in miniature, with the couple wearing garish work uniforms emblazoned with their names.

Faris gets the upper hand. She keeps it, works it, and walks off with it by the time she’s verbally downsized Reynolds to a portion small fries. It’s a relishable, smile-inducing comic performance. I'm so on team Faris.

In a relatively short span of time, the actress has contributed so much to a commendable amount of movies that the three takes above (and three mentions below) don’t do her true justice. Judy Holliday, Lucille Ball, Goldie Hawn, Jennifer Coolidge... I’d be happy to include Faris in any future line-up of comedy gal greats. (Rumour has it that she'll be in Ghostbusters III and a remake of Private Benjamin. Good times.)


Three more key films for the taking: May (2000), Smiley Face (2006), The House Bunny (2007).

Linkenstein

What follows is a strange amalgam of old and new links. It's a frankenstein roundup, stitched together over the past four days from aborted link posts that were accidentally unposted... until now. "IT'S ALIVE!"


/Film Jon Hamm as Superman?
Movie|Line's failed/jokey photoshop attempt at the same thing utterly delights me (pictured left)
I Just Want to Be Perfect Black Swan website devoted to Nina's (Natalie Portman) psyche.
Cinema Blend a look at the newly announced cast of The Hobbit. With pics. Why do I feel that this movie is going to be such a disaster when I love the LotR trilogy? I guess I've lost faith in Peter Jackson given that the beauty of King Kong was smothered by a lack of self-editing and then we got the disastrous The Lovely Bones.

ONTD Rachel McAdams and Michael Sheen. I must have slept through this pairing. This is news to me.
Cinematical Pixar gives its first female director the book (Brenda Chapman was to helm The Brave previously due out in 2012...but you know, I assume this could delay the movie). Boo.
Montages (in Norwegian) a look at what's coming up very soon in Norwegian film. The writer is most excited for The King of  Bastøy starring Stellan Skarsgard, Kristoffer Joner and Benjamin Helstad. The film takes place in 1915 and is based on a true story about a youth prison. Hmmm. Could it be next year's Oscar submission? It's never too early to start thinking about that given that the Oscar eligibility calendar is already in the 2011 film year now when it comes to Best Foreign Language Film.

(Partially) Off Cinema
Tiger Beatdown "No One is Ever On Your Side" excellent, excellent article on Mad Men's Betty Draper Francis. A must read for fans of the show in case you missed it.
Benefit of the Doubt on Metroid, feminism and the Aliens franchise (if you're curious as to why that's suddenly in the air again, it's due to the box set's release Alien Anthology.)
Moby Lives on literature's problems in reflecting our internet ruled new world: timeliness or timelessness?
The Faster Times a list of all the new shows coming to Broadway in the spring.
The Oatmeal How to Pet a Cat. Hee

Something That's Really Bothering Me
Did you read the NY Times piece about the shortage of memorable lines in the movies these days? I suppose it's only helping them that everyone has been talking about the piece and linking to it (like me) for a couple of days but I do not understand the response. I've only read a couple of "in response" articles but they seemed to join in the lament. The article cites 90s films like Terminator 2, Forrest Gump and Jerry Maguire as among the last mammoth 'quotables.' Some response articles are saying things like "yeah, it's sad that movies aren't literate anymore..." I'm sorry but Forrest F'in Gump and Jerry Maguire are not literate movies. They just had fun simple catchphrases. Why are people equating catchphrase-making with great screenwriting and extrapolating that into a lament for the state of modern cinema? Does that mean that Arnold Schwarzenegger movies deserved Best Screenplay Oscars?  A lack of catchphrases does not a poor screenplay make. The article makes a vague statement indicating that these things can take time,  citing "Plastics" from The Graduate as a line that percolated before boiling. But then it blames The Social Network for not having a great lines (um, excuse me? It has hundreds of great lines... it'll just take awhile for a few  of them to rise to the top) Meanwhile The Big Lebowski is praised for "The Dude abides." Listen. The Coen Bros write great dialogue. But I was around in 1998 when The Big Lebowski premiered. It was received with pockets of enthusiasm (as their pictures usually are) but mostly a shrug, and some considered it a small setback after Fargo (which had been nearly as popular as Raising Arizona, their first mainstream breakthrough. Lebowski wasn't.) It was only years later after obsessive fandom had successfully added several fresh coats of "classic" paint on Lebowski that people were incessantly quoting its dialogue and acting like it was this huge hit and of the best films of the 90s.

The article does suddenly remember that "I drink your milkshake" (There Will Be Blood) permeated pop culture but completely forgets about "I wish I knew how to quit you" (Brokeback Mountain) which was quoted just about as often as movie lines ever get quoted. And then there are any number of lines from Mean Girls (Best Shot subject this week!) as reader Dom pointed out a few days ago. You or someone you know quotes that movie every day. I know, right. 

I guarantee you that "milkshake" and "quit you"will never disappear. And that 5 years from now, some line from The Social Network will still be in the public vernacular. One day people might not even remember where they first heard the line they end up using from The Social Network it may dig so deep down into the bone marrow of everyday conversation. You think everyone who has ever said "fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night" was thinking of All About Eve (or had even seen All About Eve) when they first said it?

Part 2: Jake Gyllenhaal on "Zodiac", "Donnie Darko" and "Brokeback"

If you missed my Tribeca Film article about Jake Gyllenhaal's New Yorker festival interview, open it up and dig in. But here on home turf, why not share quotes I couldn't fit into that overview? I know some of you probably suffer as do I with "too much Jake is not enough" so here's some cinematic memories to temporarily satiate your Gyllenhaalism.

Talking about Donnie Darko, Zodiac and Brokeback Mountain -- by most estimations the high points of his career -- made him extra reflective. If this past weekend's event was any indication he understands as well as anyone that these are the key titles. If Love and Other Drugs is the breakout success most seem to be expecting, it'll replace Zodiac in his key trio; He's not the star of that film anyway since that film's movie star is unquestionably David Fincher. Fincher isn't onscreen but that hardly matters when you can see his smudgy auteur fingerprints on every painstaking frame.

Donnie Darko
(<-- Jake with director Richard Kelly on the set.)
He said of his breakout film, that "it remains one of the most important I've been involved in." What does he look for in a role?

It's changed for me and i'm still figuring it out. Initally it's just a response to the story, the story itself is what's most important. Love and Other Drugs, you know, the first moment I read that I was crying at the end and when I read Brokeback Mountain I was crying at the end and when I read Donnie Darko and I was throwing up.

He had made October Sky before starting college. He dropped out at 19 -- he regrets not finishing -- and felt lost. And then came Darko.

It really marks, more than any other movie I've ever done, figuratively a time in my life. And that movie -- before we started shooting,  I had been having a rough time figuring out what was up, what end was up.

Jason Schwartzman was supposed to play that part. They had financing, they were ready to go and he dropped out and I stumbled upon it and out of the director's desperation got the role. It really matched somehow somewhere where I was in my life. I remember it premiered at Sundance and my mother, father and sister came up to me afterwards crying and realizing that I had been saying something to them with that movie -- how lost I was.

How did I do it? I don't know something about talking to that rabbit. It just seemed to comfort me at that time.

He realized how odd that sounded, laughing as he said it. Apocalyptic giant rabbits don't generally read all warm and fuzzy like security blankets, do they? When asked about the film's cult status he explained that how an audience responds is not something you can control -- he made it because of how much he related to Donnie.

When you think of cult films a lot of time's there's a bit of a wink. I don't think that was our intention at all.  It's a deeply serious movie to me... Whether you're experimenting with drugs or not there's a moment where you go 'Whats real? What's not?'

There was no thought of result. Any time I've ever done anything with the thought of a result its been a bad thing.

Hmmm. Could he mean Prince of Persia? (I kid, I kid. You can't win them all)

Brokeback Mountain (<--- Jake with director Ang Lee)
I was personally glad that when it came time to discuss his one bonafide classic, he didn't take the bait of reiterating discomfort about making out with Heath Ledger. (People are always trying to get actors to say how much they hate man-on-man scenes. It's so tired journalists. Stop it!) Instead he spoke about love scenes generally.

When you're in a movie and you're in a love scene -- it comes up in any love scene whether it's with a man or a woman -- it's inevitably uncomfortable, awkward and everybody is in on it. No matter how intimate it is, everyone is in on it. There's this weird sense of being watched. If you've ever made out with anyone and know you're being watched, you can't help but watch yourself. That takes the sexiness out of the whole thing anyway but we're performers so you can make it work. Occassionally I've been into it but I won't talk about with whom.

At this point he made a little 'oh what the hell...' kind of joke like he was going to tell us with whom he... but then he retreated. Damnit!

When he tried to talk about the reunion scene, he had difficulty.

It was about more than just kissing. The scene in Brokeback Mountain where Heath and I see each other after a very long time. This has been hard for me to explain for years. We had very little to do with that scene being as powerful as it is. It was powerful when you read it in the screenplay. It was powerful in the short story on the page. What we do when we had that moment together is filled with -- it's filled with moments that people have had that have nothing to do with us. We just basically went up and slammed our mouths together. You know what I mean? We were the instruments for something that was much bigger than  both of us.

Do you know what he means? He did ask.

David Denby, the critic interviewing him, reiterated that the film still "plays beautifully" now years later, calling it "flawless." They showed the famous 'quit you' scene and Jake told a funny story about how early on in the movie rehearsals the crew made fun of him trying to act "old" -- most of the crew was in their 40s, the age Jake was playing, and he was holding his back like it was hurting and moving slowly and such and the crew was like "We're not 80, we're 40!". But then he got serious... the movie is clearly special to him, and brought back memories.

We rehearsed it before we shot the movie and it was still winter and there was snow everywhere. There was Ang and the location scouts. We drove out and Ang played us the music he was going to have in the movie. I had my dog with us. He was jumping around in the snow. It was no different when we shot. It was already right there.

Denby asked him if he had any regrets about his performance.

I think I do have regrets about it, about things, as every actor does. When i see Heath's work in that movie it's just transcendent and amazing and as a fellow actor to me I just always admire him. I hoped that I could be as good as. So I watch it and I always see that.

Zodiac
(<--- Jake with David Fincher at Cannes)
The subject of playing different ages in films shot out of sequence came up again when it came time to discuss David Fincher's second serial killer picture.

I think if you think too much about it on the day you're screwed. With that movie, you'd be surprised what a change of a shirt can do and a little bit of makeup. In terms of age -- when I first read Brokeback Mountain and Zodiac I thought "this role should be played by a 40 year old." And then I was cast. There's bravery in casting someone younger and sometimes it's totally wrong but in these two movies for some reason it worked better. I think people suspend disbelief very easily. If I were to play, as I was joking, "OLDER." It just never works out very well unless you're Marion Cotillard.

Thought you La Vie En Rose fans would like that quote.

Denby showed two clips from Zodiac, a scene with Mark Ruffalo and a scene when Graysmith (Gyllenhaal) visually but not quite verbally confronts the man he believes is the killer (played by John Carroll Lynch) in a hardware store; they stare at each other in accusation, curiousity and then mutual recognition. Gyllenhaal related that they did hundreds of takes, and did those hundreds of takes, twice.

We shot that twice. David didn't like the first store we shot in. That was again multiple takes. The funny part of that is John Carol Lynch played by dad in  Bubble Boy so that look is filled with so much more than just 'hunter and hunted.' I was desperate for you show a scene of me and him crying in a car and me in a bubble.

Discussing a crucial late scene with Mark Ruffalo in a diner, Gyllenhaal got contemplative about understanding what directors want and ideas he had about acting from a young age.

That was the third time we shot the scene. We shot each of our takes close to 50 times. So... 150th take? Now I see what David wanted. I watch it and I'm like 'Now I know.' I didn't know what he wanted.

What I've been learning -- this is what happens when you start when you're 15 years old -- no one is going to hold your hand and when you're 15 you need that. As I've gotten older and worked more and more I've realized how much I have to be prepared and there for the director so they think 'Jake's got my back I don't need to worry about him.' I  think I had a misunderstanding for a long time -- because I grew up in a family off filmmakers -- that we're all supposed to collaborate. The truth is an actor is supposed to show up and do their job and know their job to a 't' 120% and be ready to go. Discover on the day but be ready to go. When I watch that I see myself learning.

Fincher is a taskmaster but you have to appreciate the young movie star's honesty about his long learning curve. It all sorta makes you wonder how many times Rooney and Jesse had to shoot that five minute break-up scene that kicks off The Social Network, doesn't it?

That's all! I hope you enjoyed all of this Gyllenhaalia.
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