Operation Screenshot (Films of the 2000s): Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream (2000)

My Look at Waking The Dead at The Amplifier

My look at Keith Gordon's Waking The Dead (2000) starring Jennifer Connelly and Billy Crudup can now be viewed here at The Amplifier for those interested.

Paul Thomas Anderson Tribute Month: Actor Profiles (John C. Reilly)

***Wow, it's so strange to go back and read this. This little piece on John C. Reilly was one of the very first I wrote for Moon in the Gutter, way back in December of 2006. While it was long before I had any real readers, this article did garner me my first email from someone I had wrote on, which was really freaking cool! In the nearly four years since I wrote this little article Reilly has continued his reign as one of our great actors, although now he can also claim to be one of our great comedians with side-splitting roles in films like Walk Hard, Talladega Nights and Step-Brothers all showing him as one of the funniest men on the planet. He also got nominated for his first Oscar and recently appeared in one of the real bright spots (so I am told, as I still haven't been able to see it) of 2010, Cyrus. I was tempted to really update this article but I thought I would let it stand as it is. Let me just say that John C. Reilly remains a major cinematic treasure and there are very few actors that I like seeing more in modern American films.***


The roles for John C. Reilly leading up to playing John Finnegan in Paul Thomas Anderson's debut Sydney (Hard Eight) were mostly just bit parts in films such as Brian DePalma's Causalities Of War and Woody Allen's Shadows and Fog. The great opening shot of Reilly in Anderson's film feels like a debut though, a major debut. Reilly's amazing performance, as the lonely Finnegan looking to win enough money in Vegas to bury his mother, is one of the great performances of the 90s. While Phillip Baker Hall's work as the mentor Sydney was rightly acclaimed, Reilly seemed to drift so far into the character that you forget it's a performance that needs praising.
The obvious comparison in looking at John C. Reilly is Gene Hackman. Reilly has that same everyman quality but more importantly, like Hackman, he is able to invest his characters with a real soul. There is never a moment watching Reilly where we aren't watching someone who is internally questioning and searching. While he hasn't yet found a leading role the equal of Hackman's Popeye Doyle or Harry Moseby one hopes the wait won't be long.
His most iconic work has been with Anderson, like in Boogie Nights where he gave Reed Rothchild a sincerity that anyone else would have missed and in Magnolia's lonely police officer Jim Kurring, a man so desperate for someone to accept the love he wants so much to give. Magnolia's final moments with Reilly telling Melora Walters Claudia how special she is is one of the most moving things I've ever seen in a film. Anderson's decision to drown out Reilly's wonderful dialogue with Aimee Mann's incredible score ranks with Scorsese's famous pan away from Travis on the phone in Taxi Driver as an example of a rare scene that is too personal to film straight on.
Reilly has continued in film after film to prove his dramatic, comedic and even musical chops. His performance as the simple well meaning husband in The Good Girl is a personal favorite, and his singing cowboy was a major highlight in Robert Altman's final film A Prairie Home Companion. A greatly underrated performance in an equally underrated film, Walter Salles' Dark Water, shows just how much Reilly can give what could have been a very flat character. Jennifer Connelly would talk of being floored by just how inventive Reilly was, and he had no problem stealing every scene he was in from heavyweights like Connelly and Tim Roth.
Whether or not Reilly ever gets his French Connection or Night Moves remains to be seen but I highly doubt that Anderson is done with him. In the meantime he stands as the finest character actor of his generation and someone we can look at as truly being one of us.

Sergio Leone's Last Great Discovery

ONCE UPON IN AMERICA (1984) is my favorite Sergio Leone film and, to go even further, is one of the finest films I have ever seen. It is a film that has become more and more rewarding with each passing year and I can't imagine ever getting tired of its complex nature and narrative.
I love every aspect of the film but I think might my favorite scenes might be the remarkable moments where we are transported back in time to see Noodles and his gang as children. Cinematically these moments are handled in such an exquisite way, and they remain some of the only scenes in any film that actually feels like memory. For whatever reason, whether it is the way Leone and Tonino Delli Colli shot these moments or the way that Ennio Morricone's unmatchable and beautiful score is aligned with them, these shots remain some of the most profound and personal that I have ever seen.

Of course this section of the film also introduced us to the wonder that is Jennifer Connelly. Discovered by Leone just after her 13th birthday (she only had one small television credit at that point) and hired on to play the key role of the young Deborah after successfully auditioning with Robert De Niro himself, Connelly is unforgettable in the handful of scenes she appears in. I would argue that it is these moments between her and the young Noodles that more than anything else gives the film the devastating emotional impact it has.

The film, Leone's last and Jennifer's first, is every bit as good to me as THE GODFATHER or any other great epic gangster film you'd care to name. Jennifer would follow up the film working for another great Italian legend, but more on that later this week.
Here is a clip of Jennifer talking about Leone. Unfortunately James Lipton cuts her off before she is able to say a lot, but the experience obviously remains a special one to her. I have a feeling she wanted to speak a lot more on it.

The Jennifer Connelly B-Sides: Étoile (1988)

Filmed in Italy less than five years after her astonishing debut in Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America, 1988’s Étoile remains one of the most little seen films in the career of Jennifer Connelly. Never gaining a United States release and currently only available in Japan, the film remains along with a smattering of television appearances one of the key missing pieces in what has become one of the most remarkable careers in modern cinema.


As directed by Peter Del Monte, who co-scripted it with Italian horror favorite Franco Ferrini, Étoile is an interesting if confused little film that never seems to fully make up its mind as to what it wants to be in its 101 minute running time. Part love story mixed with an odd tale of possession, Étoile isn’t a bad film, but it is a muddled one and one gets the feeling while watching it that it could have been so much more than it finally is.


Connelly stars as a young American dancer named Claire Hamilton who is attempting to make her way into a prestigious Italian Ballet school as the film opens. Claire soon meets and falls in love with a geeky but sweet young man also visiting the town, but their hopes of a solid relationship are damaged when she is inexplicably taken over spiritually by a dead ballerina named Nathalie whose great goal is to perform the ultimate version of Swan Lake.


Forgive me if my plot description of the film is a bit confused, but honestly it is a pretty fair representation of Del Monte’s bizarre script that hops from one head-scratching situation to another. No one would accuse Étoile of being predictable but unfortunately it’s not very cohesive either, so any sort of plot description is futile at best.


California born Del Monte has certainly had an interesting career with Étoile representing neither the best nor the worst of it. The high point to my eyes for the writer-director remains the fascinating Asia Argento vehicle Traveling Companion, a wonderful film that shows Del Monte is a really talented gentleman capable of getting some wonderfully nuanced and touching work out of his actors. Other films in his canon include the 1982 cult film Invitation au Voyage, the utterly bizarre 1987 Kathleen Turner production Julia and Julia, and 2000’s Controvento which featured Del Monte’s sometimes companion Valerie Golino. Étoile represents the mid-point for Del Monte and he shot the film in his mid forties, just after production on Julia and Julia had been completed.


Etoile’s cast is not surprisingly mostly made up of Italian actors, although much loved award winning Charles Durning appears in what has to be considered one of his most bizarre performances. A particular out of the blue break down sequence in a phone booth takes its place as on of the film’s and Durning’s most ill-conceived moments, but otherwise the always durable Durning gives the film a lot of support and watchability.


Technically the film is fine. It has that certain mid eighties sheen on it, thanks to cinematographer Acacio de Almeida, that automatically makes it feel very much of its time. The Set Direction by Oscar winner Bruno Cesari is very well thought and the film is nothing if not stately and handsome. Otherwise the most notable behind the scenes touch comes from frequent Wim Wender’s composer Jurgen Knieper who contributes a solid if not totally memorable score.


The film would probably have all but been lost in time right now were it not for the luminous young Connelly, and Étoile captures her at an interesting point in her career. Having still not developed the astonishing power she now possesses as an actress capable of delivering some of the most honest and intense work in American film, Connelly is still slightly awkward here but charmingly so. Possessing a natural grace and an uncommon beauty, Connelly’s work here feels a bit like an answer of sorts to her work in Argento’s Phenomena a few years before. I suspect screenwriter Ferrini felt the same way as he had indeed written her fan favorite role Jennifer Corvino for Argento, and I am sure some of the connections here between the two films were intentional, although Étoile is nowhere near as fascinating as Phenomena.


Étoile never really comes together but for Jennifer Connelly fans it is more than worth searching out. The film had a belated European release in 1990 but from what I can tell it failed to really catch on anywhere in the world. I suspect some enterprising small company will eventually release it stateside but for right now the Region 2 Japanese disc (that is out of print at this point) is the only game in town, save for grey market copies.

Noodles and Deborah Together Again

Vanity Fair has never been one of my favorite magazines but their annual Hollywood issues are always something to look forward to due to the always splendid photography. This months is possibly the best ever with Annie Leibovitz paying tribute to Film Noir with an incredible assortment of some of our finest living stars.
The photo that put a lump in my throat features a reunion of sorts between Once Upon A Time In America's Noodles and Deborah. Sergio Leone's epic film from 1984 is a favorite of mine and it gave Robert De Niro one of his greatest roles and introduced the world to the lovely and talented Jennifer Connelly.
Connelly and De Niro have never actually worked together as Connelly played Deborah as a young girl while Elizabeth Mcgovern played her as a grown up and shared the screen time with De Niro. Connelly's portrayal of the young Deborah continues to give Once Upon A Time In America the overwhelmingly haunting feel that it continues to exude all of these years later.
This photograph marks the first time Connelly and De Niro have actually worked together to my knowledge. Pardon the scan quality but it's just meant as a teaser to a great Leibovitz spread that can be easily found everywhere.
Connelly would go from Leone's epic to one of Dario Argento's most personal films and has built a lovely career and life for herself. De Niro continues to be one of our great icons and will hopefully one day return to roles, like Noodles, that expose his great talent for all it can be.

Overlooked Classics: Waking The Dead (2000)

For as long as he can remember, all Fielding Pierce has ever wanted was to be president. Now, just past his thirtieth birthday, it looks like his dream might well be on the way to coming true as he’s been selected to run for an position that will surely lead him to the the high office that he has so long yearned for. Viewed from the outside Fielding Pierce is leading a truly blessed existence but inside something is going seriously wrong. He’s starting to feel more and more distant from himself and more and more like a puppet and tool for all interested parties. Even more than that he has been seeing someone from his past again, a former love named Sarah Williams who seems to be just around the corner of every street he walks. Fielding hasn’t seen Sarah, the great love of his youth, in more than a decade and he would be thrilled if it wasn’t for one thing…Sarah Williams died many years ago.
Keith Gordon’s heartfelt and incredibly moving film WAKING THE DEAD was released in 2000 to a few empty theaters and a mixed critical reception. The film, taken from Scott Spencer’s novel from the early eighties, has touched many people since including myself and is turning out to be one of the slow burning great films of the decade. Several things make this film valuable, not the least is Gordon’s sensitive and poetic direction, but more than anything else it is a showcase for two powerhouse actors and a tribute to what love between two people can do to for the human spirit.
Gordon got his start as an actor in the mid seventies and earned the love of millions of genre fans all over the world with his unforgettable work for Brian De Palma in DRESSED TO KILL (1980) and especially for John Carpenter in CHRISTINE (1983). He studied De Palma and Carpenter closely on the set of both of those films and his young dreams of being a director on his own materialized in 1988 with the very interesting THE CHOCOLATE WAR.

Gordon’s debut feature earned him some acclaim and his follow up feature, 1992’s A MIDNIGHT CLEAR, continued the trend and marked him as one of the most interesting young talents of the early nineties. After some television work Gordon returned to the big screen with his controversial Kurt Vonnegut adaptation MOTHER NIGHT in 1996. This film would seemingly split both critics and audience members between those who saw it as a failed experiment and others who saw it as a near masterpiece. At the very least it showed that Gordon was a filmmaker who understood how to bring the best out in his actors as both Nick Nolte and Sheryl Lee delivered two of their best performances for MOTHER NIGHT.
Jodie Foster’s Egg production company was looking for new and interesting projects in the late nineties and this happened to coincide with Gordon’s wish to adapt Spencers non linear and ambitious love/ghost story WAKING THE DEAD to the screen. With Foster’s support, a relatively small budget and a crew consisting of his talented MOTHER NIGHT cinematographer Tom Richmond, Gordon and Foster began to the auditioning process in the hopes of finding two young actors who could portray the complex roles of Fielding Pierce and Sarah Williams.
Billy Crudup had immediately established himself as one of the premier young American actors in the nineties with a series of incredibly diverse and great performances in films like Woody Allen’s EVERYONE SAYS I LOVE YOU (1996), INVENTING THE ABBOTS (1997) and especially WITHOUT LIMITS (1998). He was preparing for Cameron Crowe’s ALMOST FAMOUS when Gordon approached him for Fielding and the two hit it off immediately. Crudup’s handsome but eerily sad face seemed custom made for the struggling young politician and he was cast immediately. The large supporting cast also began to come into place and Gordon scored several coups by getting veteran award winning character actors like Hal Holbrook, John Carroll Lynch and Ed Harris for small but important roles. Talented young actresses Molly Parker and Sandra Oh also came on board for the film but Gordon and Foster had still not found the person for the most pivotal character in the film, Sarah Williams.

After auditioning several of America’s best young actresses, Crudup approached Gordon with the name of someone he had worked on a few years earlier in INVENTING THE ABBOTS. Jennifer Connelly hadn’t worked in a couple of years and in 1999 was hardly considered a key actress in American film. Her early promising work had given away to a string of disappointing productions and Jodie Foster herself had said some disparaging remarks about the ‘Jennifer Connelly’ type in the early part of the nineties. Gordon had always suspected something special was hidden within Jennifer Connelly though and at Crudup’s urging they brought her into audition.
Connelly was nearing thirty years old in 2000 and she had only made one film, DARK CITY (1998) in the four years since she had worked with Crudup and the time away had changed her. Gone was the unsure sex symbol that had graced films like THE HOT SPOT (1990), THE ROCKETEER (1991) and CAREER OPPRTUNITIES (1992) and in her place was a breathtakingly mature, poised and beautiful young woman who seemed to know instinctively that this low budget little film would be the most pivotal role of her career since her debut in Sergio Leone’s epic ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA fifteen years earlier.
Connelly nailed the audition and floored both Gordon and Foster. With their Sarah Williams in place, production on the time hopping WAKING THE DEAD began in Quebec in the mid part of 1999. The ambitious film, a labor of love for all involved, would prove to be a happy but stressful shoot due to the time restrictions and the budget but it was brought in on time to make its debut at the Sundance Film Festival in January of 2000. Crudup and Connelly accompanied Gordon and Foster at the festival where they watched their film receive a mostly solid if slightly muted reception. The lack of recognition awarded the film at the festival must have been disappointing for all involved but it didn’t change the fact that they had given everything they had to it.
WAKING THE DEAD is a remarkable film on many different levels. More than just a story of lost love, it is a work that explores what happened to America between the early seventies and mid eighties. The loss of identity and confidence that plagued the country in this period is perfectly reflected in Crudup’s overwhelming emotional performance as Henry Fielding. Here is a man who wanted to be good and powerful, but he quickly comes to find that the two often don’t go hand in hand.
WAKING THE DEAD is a love story though first and foremost and it is a truly remarkable one. The relationship that develops between the slightly straight laced and conservative young Fielding and the leftist activist Sarah Williams is rendered beautifully by Robert Dillon’s award nominated script, Gordon’s tender direction and the sensitive dedicated performances by Crudup and Connelly. The scenes with the two of them are some of the most uniquely personal and believable in all of modern American film. The audience never questions that these two are deeply in love; they can only question how they couldn’t be.
As Sarah Williams, the young idealist who is finally willing to die for what she believes in, Jennifer Connelly is near overwhelming to watch. Carrying a pitch perfect Louisville, Kentucky accent and a conviction that is almost unheard of in mainstream cinema, Connelly erases more than a decade of bad casting and unfortunate films in just a few scenes. One moment in particular where she is left alone in her apartment with only Fielding’s shirt to remember him by has to be one of the haunting and perfectly realized moments of the decade. Keith Gordon’s WAKING THE DEAD is a rare example of a truly grown up and mature work. This isn’t a work that ever panders…compared to most productions from the decade it is like an exceptional piece of poetry that has a rhyme that needs to be repeated over and over in order for it to truly stick. Once it does though, and its effect is given time to process, WAKING THE DEAD becomes one of the most resonate and spiritually inspired works of the decade.

Technically the film is a wonder…the photography, specifically the lovely and cold Quebec snowfall, is captured perfectly by Richmond and a majestic score by tomandandy that recalls some of the key work of the seventies by Robert Fripp and Brian Eno. WAKING THE DEAD hits a perfect tone from its opening tragic scene to the final endearingly hopeful shots. Add on that everyone in the supporting cast, especially Parker as Fielding’s status obsessed finacee and Paul Hipp as his troubled failure of a brother, does some of the best work of their careers and WAKING THE DEAD succeeds as a great modern example on how to make an ambitious work with a small budget and tight shooting schedule.
The film isn’t perfect and its faults are worth pointing out. Gordon’s decision to cut out nearly an hour of important character development and key plot points hurt the overall flow of it. Luckily he was able to include this footage, some of it among the most wonderful moments of Connelly and Crudup’s career, on the deleted scenes section of the DVD. Enterprising home viewers with the capability can cut the footage back in to make WAKING THE DEAD all the more rewarding and masterful. It is understandable as to why Gordon cut the footage out but it is still unfortunate.
A couple of minor little quibbles aside, such as Gordon’s needlessly inserting subtitles to alert the audience to already obvious time shifts, and the missing footage not taken into consideration WAKING THE DEAD is one of the most perfectly realized little seen masterpieces of the decade.

I first saw the film the week it came out on DVD a year so after it failed to capture the public or critic’s imagination in 2000. The film and the wonderful work by Crudup and Connelly immediately struck me as something very special and I must admit it reminded me of a particularly special time in my own life, and what I had myself become. I’m continually amazed by how many people haven’t seen the film, or haven’t even heard of it. To me it’s one of the major works of the decade and an absolute sign that Keith Gordon might very well turn out to be one of the premiere directors in America.
Connelly followed up the film with the equally devastating REQUIEM FOR A DREAM and within a couple of years had her first Academy Award for her portrayal of Alicia Nash in A BEAUTIFUL MIND opposite Russell Crowe. Crudup remains one of the best actors in the country although his talents are often ignored which is extremely unfortunate. Gordon has completed just one feature film since, the brave if disappointing THE SINGING DETECTIVE (2003). He has since does some television work and I for one can’t wait to see what he delivers next. Despite what some people might say, this decade has not been easy for uncompromising independent talents and those are two words that describe Keith Gordon perfectly.

All of my writing on it finally doesn’t mean a lot though as the readily available film remains so little seen. If you haven’t experienced it, give WAKING THE DEAD a shot. If you find it disappointing, rewind it to the moment where Fielding walks Sarah home for the first time in the snow or the moment where he breaks down in front of his family at a restaurant towards the end of the film. These are just two of many moments that separate WAKING THE DEAD from most of the cold and impersonal works that populate our cinemas today.

A lot has changed in this country in the eight years since WAKING THE DEAD first premiered and those changes have only made its message of the importance of love, acceptance and the courage to stay true to who you are all the more relevant. It’s a ghost story about America…a country that often feels like it fading from what originally made it so great…much like the ghost of Sarah Williams just off in the distance and always out of reach…disappearing just around the corner.

For two interviews with Gordon on the film please visit here and here.