Wednesday, March 13, 2013
CRANE
Today's film was James Franco's film thesis at NYU
It is, nonetheless, made with a pretty big budget.
Takes from the life and poetry of Hart Crane, who some believe is the first great American poet of the 20th Century.
T.S. Eliot is an American citizen and counts in the race but he took off for the UK where he became a staunch anglophile and put on airs.
Crane did no such thing. He was well travelled and never left a sort of working man's kind of mentality. A relatively open gay man, he infused this consciousness into his poetry which, for many, was inaccessible.
The film is "interesting" meaning that it is a bit difficult. It is not meant to be a biography, I think, but rather, a sensibility. A kind of poem with life flashes. There is, of course, a lot of poetry reading.
The queer parts are done with considerable realism as are the tortured poet stuff which involves a lot of walking around in "a mood". We see a lot of NYC, Paris and what is supposed to be Havana but I bet is not.
Franco stars and, as the young Crane, we have James' brother Dave who has his own career cooking outside of being James' brother. A fun move.
The period is the 20's but the sensibility is more Godard or new wave French. There is a lot of handheld. The editing is quirky.
I liked it but it is a freshman outing. The other actors are marginal. Not a lot of rehearsal time I bet. I also bet a lot of it was filmed on the sly, not with a permit. The reason for the handheld and the quick cuts.
You can see Franco experimenting with light, night, sun flashes and so on. He wins with most of it.
I am glad that I saw it and wish him luck on his first full studio or even indie film. You gotta know that, in my heart, I love James Franco intensely and I am a kind critic no matter what. I am reasonably certain that if it had been another film maker it would not have gotten this first class DVD treatment. The NYTimes blasted it.
A 3 out of Netflix5.
The preview is ballsy. It doesn't mask the purpose and drift of the film. It is very brief, about a minute short of the normal length.
