Cinema Report: Change of Pace, Change of Place

Took a crack at the Dawn remake yesterday. Too many errors to submit by the time I was done, but it's looking like an ASL around 2.9 seconds? 2.8? 3? somewhere around there. So, a little bigger than that of the original, like I suspected. The remake will probably have a larger standard deviation, though - it goes really fast, but not as often as the original.

Hadn't watched the remake in a while and man, it really doesn't hold up well. Setting aside that no one sounds like they're from Wisconsin (where it's ostensibly set), it's just kind of, I dunno, it is what it is. It's largely a generic action movie, filled with stock characters moving along stock character arcs to hit the expected story beats. It seemed to miss the point of the mall setting, which only provided a) a backdrop for the "Get Down with the Sickness" montage and b) a generic source of all supplies necessary. (The whole "let's watch how they go about making this place work as a hideout before everything goes to hell" element of the original is gone.)

And the remake raises what I'll call The Cougar-Dawn Paradox: Cougars are scary. Zombies are scary. But zombies that run and sound like cougars are not scary.

Oh well. On the plus side, the actors did well enough with what they had and were likable enough, the zombie makeups were generally good, and the opening reel and the opening credits are still pretty good. Best addition to the whole thing was Andy's gun shop, and how that all played out.

Anyhoo, changing latitude and attitude, today, I ASL'd Kelly Reichardt's Old Joy, a brilliant, quiet film from a couple years back. Got two extra shots in by mistake. (Really wish there was an "undo last shot" button in the program.)

Set in and near Portland, the movie follows Mark (L) as he heads out for a trip to Bagby Hot Springs with old buddy Kurt (R):


Mark leaves behind his pregnant wife Tanya, who's not so big on the idea:


Here's the trailer, if you're unfamiliar with the film:


And here's the skinny:

Average shot length: 16.9 seconds** --> See note 1, below
Length of the film: 70 minutes 53.9 seconds
Number of shots: 251** --> See note 1, below
Minimum SL: 1.7 seconds
Maximum SL: 111.7 seconds
Range: 110 seconds
Standard deviation: 16.9 seconds

And it looks like this:


(As before, any lines ending in a red dot continue past the edge of the graph as shown. Just trying to keep it down to a manageable size.)

Details here

A few notes. Spoilers ahoy.

Kind of dumb to talk about spoilers for this kind of film, and the audiences for this kind of film, but I often find, when the plot itself is relatively slight, and low-concept, if you know plot points ahead of time, the sense of moment-by-moment discovery which is vital to this sort of film gets compromised. (For example, I wonder if some of the mumblecore backlash was due to this.) So if you're reading this, and you haven't watched it, go watch it. It's only 70 minutes, won't take you too long.


Really.



No, really.




Okay now.

1. Taking out the two extra shots, at about 45 minutes and 66 minutes, there's 249 shots, giving an ASL of 17.1 seconds. (Note that an extra shot or two in a more quickly cut movie, or a longer movie, will have less impact on the overall ASL. Here, it shifts it a bit.)

2. . I'll need to go back and check to see what the longest shot was. I think it's the one where Kurt's in the car, and Mark's outside the car, in the background, talking to Tanya on his cell. The shorter shots (under 4 seconds, say), seem to come not quite regularly, but not irregularly either.

3. Second dip comes after the evocative, 65-second St. John's Bridge shot:

First shot that follows is 18+ seconds, pictured at the top of the post, which leads into the wordless series of shots that get Mark and Kurt to the gas station. About 2 1/2 minutes without dialogue at this point. Just driving through the Northwest landscape with Yo La Tengo on the soundtrack.

Immediately prior are two longer shots of about 73 seconds and 69 seconds. This is the "End of an era" conversation:



Taken together, those four shots make up just over 5% of the film's running time. Which gets into the issue of just how much of your time watching the film is spent kind of settled back, taking in those long takes. (Another wish for cinemetrics - direct access to the raw data generated by the process.)

4. Good use of a two shot in the car scenes, to let us watch each character react to what the other says, without overemphasizing each reaction. Fine performances here as well.

5. A couple of other temporal markers:
- Credits end at just under 7 min. (note that this is on the above graph - there's about 20 seconds difference between it and the time on the DVD, since I didn't start the clock til the first shot.)
- Mark and Kurt reach the little campsite at 26 min, the morning after comes in at 35 min.
- They reach the Spring at about 48 min. (note the slope of the graph here)
- They head back at about 62 min.
- Mark drops off Kurt at about 67 min.

6. Don't know if I'd try to break this into 3 or 4 acts, but let's see:
I. 0-17 min. - "End of an era." - Mark heads out on a trip with old friend Kurt, leaves wife Tanya behind.
II. 17-35 min. - "I miss you." They hit the forest. Kurt gets them lost. Builds up to Kurt's confession by the campfire, and Daniel's reaction to it (at about 33 1/2 minutes on the graph)
III. 35-48 min. - "I never doubted you, man." The next morning, they make another go at finding the spring.
IV. 48-62 min. - "Sorrow is nothing but worn out joy." What happens at the Spring.
V. 62-71 min. - Epilogue. Mark and Kurt drive home, part ways.

Something like that, maybe. I guess you could also say there's a break at about 10 minutes, at the beginning of the drive, once they're out of town (more or less) and the talk radio cuts out.

7. This shot reminds me of a shot from Erik Gunneson's Milk Punch (2000):


Okay, that's all for that. Was going to do Eagle Pennell's Last Night at the Alamo next, but I want to catch a 9:15 of No Country, so that'll have to wait til later tonight, or tomorrow.