The Face Debate

I made a comment last post about the lack of Great Movie Faces current gracing our silver screens. It provoked a small (and I do mean small-three people were involved) uproar. Nein, nein, nein! They shouted! Robert Downey Jr. and Brad Pitt sure possessed top-grade movie mugs. Oh yes, yes, yes, I replied. Those faces are nice-lookin', sure (I have a man-crush on Downey's, if you must know), but they lack something. It's not that they're unpleasant to look at. It's that you don't conceivably have to look at them-they don't exude that unnameable magnetism many Old Hollywood-ers did.

A great cinematic face dares you not to look at it-fills the the screen so totally and vibrantly that every emotion, every tiny expression, every detail registers. Even looking at the shape of their facial features is, in its own way, a pleasurable act-pleasurable enough to carry us through mediocre material, and to elevate great material to stratospheric levels of excellence.

The two all time greats?

Bogie.

Audrey.


Alas, no such faces grace our screen today. I should note, while few actors come close to the Classic Hollywood Face Template, a couple of stars exude their own unique kind of power-I'm thinking the aforementioned Terence Stamp, the lovable, wounded-puppy charisma of John Cusack, the cool-cat allure of Uma Thurman, and the beacon of sensual ravishment also known as Cate Blanchett. However, the best Screen Face in the world right now belongs, I think, to this guy;



Oh, Georgio. You throw effortless confidence and world-weary vulnerability into a blender, and somehow produce the Best Movie Face of your generation. It made
Ocean's 11 good. It made the two sequels...watchable. And, in that tour de force final act (filled, mind you, with close-ups and one-shots designed specifically to show off that visage) it made Up In The Air great. Those are my thoughts on The Faces of Film. Your turn.

Ah, but I'm not done, faithful reader. Let's talk for a bit about #97 on my Heavenly Hundred List. We've had a group of Yiddish-influenced space rebels, a French chanteuse, and a Cockney gunslinger. Now (continuing through Europe, unintentionally, I assure you) we have an Irish busker who makes beautiful music in the quiet triumph that is-

ONCE

The 25: Two musicians flirt with the notion of romance. Their music, meanwhile, flirts with brilliance.

What makes this movie notable is not what it has, but what it doesn't-no major stars (or even B or C listers), no prestigious director, no acclaimed screenwriter or cinematographer. It was directed by a music video artiste, and stars two musicians who never acted before and probably will not act again. It's one of those happy accidents that occurs when people with no experience in an art form manage to master it anyway.

Once, the sweetest, most unassuming movie I can imagine, belongs to the Guy (Glen Hansard), an Irish street singer, and the Girl (Market Irglova), a Czech immigrant who plays the piano and hides a shocking secret. They fall in...well not quite love. They can't seem to work out the nature of their relationship, and (SEMI-SPOILER) they really never do. But this picture isn't really about a story. It's about feelings, about capturing that tentative hope with which broken-hearted people eye each other, and their silent desperation to mend. It achieves this, mostly, through the music, which is folk-rock at its finest-comparisons to Ray Lamontagne and Damien Rice come to mind, but this score is a thing of beauty all on its own. Director John Carney made a crucial decision regarding the use of said score; the characters sing, yes, but not frequently. We get only a handful of songs, all seen in realistic settings such as rehearsal rooms or the alley where the Guy plays. The thing is, we get all of them-Carney doesn't cut away mid-song, but instead stations his camera right up in his performers faces, so close that the emotion seems to seep out of their eyes and into our souls.

Sounds cheesy.
Holds true.

Credit is also due to the principles. Hansard and Irglova weren't really acting-they were trying to figure out their own feelings for each other during the shoot (offscreen, they dated for a short time, then sadly, split). As such, the usual problems that plague romances-the overacting, the forced attempts at "eloquence"-are nowhere to be found. Neither actor feels compelled to shout-they talk as normal people would talk, stuttering, mumbling, letting thoughts stream out in messy strands of shabbily disguised longing and need. They seem to be not Movie People, but real life people, scrappy, good-hearted beings of hidden hurts and treasured little joys. You wouldn't be surprised to see two people just like this on the street. Who knows how much behind-the-scenes emotions informed the onscreen interaction, but who cares!The two of them sell this film, helping it to pull off a plot twist that would sink many a Big-Budget Weepie.

Once is a mere 89 minutes, was shot mostly in one-take snippets with primitive hand-helds, and consists of little more than two person conversations punctuated by the occasional musical interlude. It sounds slight, like one of those art-house trifles that vanishes from your conscious when the lights come up. But this one stays with you. You won't necessarily think about it much-its not an intellectual work. It's a work about feelings. And the emotional impact of this one is subtle but strong, true, and long-lasting.

THE SINGULAR SCENE: The two perform "Falling Slowly". I wish you could've seen this scene in a theater. 15 minutes into the film and already we were all engulfed by stunned silences, started by our quickened pulse, embarrassed and excited by our silent tears.