Something Dead Inside My Hole: Young Adult (2011)

When I attempt to go home again all that awaits me is a great big hole. Let me explain...The only stretch of stability I had in my childhood was the period between sixth grade and graduating high school when I lived with my mom, and occasionally father, in a lovely two-story house next to the Ohio River in Newburgh, Indiana. Not all of the years there were good, most were probably bad, but in that seven year time frame I finally began to feel like I had a homebase, something I had never encountered before. When I graduated high school, and left for college, my parents moved back to Kentucky and the house was bought by a family who promptly had it picked-up and moved to a new location. So, when I try to go home again all I find is this lonely large hole in the ground...a hole that I often imagine leads further down than even I care to imagine.

I've been thinking a lot about that hole lately and it's become more than a little symbolic to me. As I am closing the corner on my fortieth birthday I am finding more and more that the anxiety and depression I have always had nagging at me is becoming more and more predominate and the only real solace I get is from my time with my wife and the music and movies that somehow never let me down. Most days I feel like that hole is getting larger and larger as I become blanker and blanker. I have successfully managed to cultivate a seemingly neutral every thing's okay persona but, secretly, I feel the pressure of 'too much' everyday....too much drink, too much debt, too much fear, too much rage...too many memories I would like to stop dwelling on. That hole has a lot of dark stuff in it and it has gotten so cluttered that I'm not even sure what I believe in anymore or even who I really am at this point.

Anyone reading might ask what any of this has to do with the new Diablo Cody scripted film Young Adult starring Charlize Theron, a work partially focused on a troubled 37 year old-writer named Mavis who returns to her hometown with the idea of getting an old flame back, despite the fact that he is married and has a newborn daughter. While most are viewing this film as a work about a truly despicable person that no one should care for, I found more of myself in Young Adult than any work I have seen in quite awhile. The cool, mostly silent, distress and rage that guides Theron's stunning performance was instantly recognizable to me and I felt like the film was holding, a sometimes hard to look at, mirror to me throughout. Of course, I can't completely speak as to Diablo Cody's intentions were with Young Adult, but I can say that while most of the audience around me was laughing at Charlize Theron in the film I was laughing with her.

Young Adult is the best film so far from Jason Reitman (a man who directed a film I loved, Juno, and one I didn't, Up in the Air). Reitman's direction here is beautifully understated, almost matter-of-fact, but his growth as a filmmmaker is quite remarkable. Diablo Cody's script for Young Adult is also the best work she has ever done and it captures something very honest and real about alcoholism and depression and it does so much better than most 'important' films on the subjects. The trailer for Young Adult sells Cody's smart and sneaky script way short. This isn't really a comedy about a selfish woman attempting to break up a marriage but is, instead, a devastating portrait of a horribly damaged person being sucked down a hole by a bored couple who view her sad life as a twisted reality show they secretly so much want to be a part of.

While Cody's script for Young Adult is quite incredible, the film is ultimately all about Charlize Theron's performance, which is an absolute force of nature. Theron has never been better and she captures Cody's fractured and tragic character with a stunning degree of authority and range. Theron's both funny and heartbreaking in the film and my recognition of many of her most despairing moments scared me but also made me feel not quite so alone. The film's final moment, featuring a haunting close-up of Theron, is both exhilarating and tragic and it's as brilliant and subtle of an ending as you'll find in any American film from the past decade.



2012 is shaping up to be banner year for me with several publishing opportunities, a big move, new-job and more time with my lovely-wife but I can't shake this increasingly terrible emptiness. Perhaps I should use the upcoming year to stop running away from it and face it...to admit I am perhaps fucked, find some relief in that acknowledgement and then, finally, really do something about it.

... -Jeremy Richey, 2011-

Behind the Scenes With My Favorite Actors: Jean-Pierre Léaud in Domicile conjugal (Bed and Board)

Behind the Scenes With My Favorite Actors: Claude Jade in Bed and Board

***Captured from a vintage short found on Criterion's Antoine Doinel Box-Set.***

Operation Screenshot (Films of the Sixties) François Truffaut's Antoine and Colette (1962)

Operation Screenshot (Films of the Fifties) François Truffaut's The 400 Blows (1959)

Truffaut for your Bookshelf

There have been many books written about the films and life of François Truffaut, as well as many volumes dedicated to his own writing. While quite a number of great books are out of print, quite a few are still fairly easy to snag here in the states. Here are a few of my favorites with links to their Amazon listings:

Truffaut's Writings:

The Films in My Life

Hitchcock

Interviews

Correspondence 1945-1984

Truffaut par Truffaut

Early Film Criticism



Books about Truffaut:

Truffaut: A Biography

Francois Truffaut

Taschen's Francois Truffaut

...

Remaking Truffaut: Johnny Tough (1974)

Thankfully the films of Francois Truffaut have only been officially remade a handful of times although, sadly, rumors of more are on the horizon. The results so far have been mostly, and not surprisingly, disappointing with the most high profile pictures being the lackluster Burt Reynolds retread of The Man Who Loved Women and the horrendous Angelina Jolie Mississippi Mermaid redo Original Sin. Among the most interesting have been the underrated Jules and Jim remake Willie & Phil and the film this older post of mine focuses on, Horace Jackson's flawed but well meaning inner-city take on The 400 Blows, Johnny Tough. To go along with my month-long Truffaut celebration I thought a revisit was in order:



It is a real shame that the directorial debut from Horace Jackson, 1974’s Johnny Tough, isn’t a more consistent film. A shame because the idea behind it, to remake Francois Truffaut’s monumental masterpiece The 400 Blows as an inner city African American drama, is a fascinating and compelling one. Even though the film is ultimately a disappointment and a flawed feature it is still an interesting one and is deserving of a look if you can track it down.



Jackson only directed two features in his career, with the other being 1977’s Joey (a.k.a. Deliver Us From Evil), and he is probably best know as the screenwriter of the fascinating The Bus Is Coming (1971.
Jackson’s film career started in the mid sixties with Living Between Two Worlds (1963), a film he wrote, produced and even acted in. Johnny Tough shows him as an ambitious talent but, unfortunately, an inexperienced cast and budgetary problems damage the film and watching it today one can only sense the great-film it might have been.

Johnny Tough is indeed an almost straight remake of Truffaut’s legendary first Antoine Doinel film with young Dion Gossett (seen here in his only big screen appearance) as the troubled title character. Gossett is actually quite good in the film and, truth be told, he is more convincing than most of the adult actors that surround him.



The rest of the cast is almost entirely made up of actors with no film experience and it shows as almost everyone struggles with Jackson’s ambitious screenplay. Character actor Renny Roker is the only one featured of the major players who has more than a handful of credits on his resume and it is no surprise that he gives one of the better performances in the film. The rest of the cast, put simply, fail to sell the demanding material and the film has a hard time making up for this.

The film is also fairly visually flat and finally resembles a TV movie more than a big screen feature, although admittedly the faded full frame print I saw makes it hard to definitively judge the photography of Pets cinematographer Mark Rasmussen. Even in this print though it is clear that Johnny Tough lacks the urban finesse that typified the best of this period. It is a bland looking picture about an exciting subject and it simply never visually pops.



The score, by acclaimed Detroit musician Dennis Coffey, is also a bit of a let down as it suffers from a lot of needless repetition, which is more than likely due to the limited budget and short shooting schedule.

Despite all of the major problems the film has, it is still hard not to admire what Jackson was attempting here. The film has balls and I must admit by the closing scene (which does a fascinating turn on Truffaut’s famed closing still of Jean-Pierre Leaud’s Doinel) I was more than a little moved…even though my emotion was due more to the fact of what was behind the film rather than what was actually on the screen.

Johnny Tough was released in theaters in 1974 and failed to connect with audiences or critics. It floated around for awhile (sometimes under the title of just Tough) and reappeared in 1977 on a Drive In Bill as a companion piece to Jackson’s Joey. It can be found on a public domain, transferred from VHS, DVD usually for around a dollar around the country.

Johnny Tough is an undeniably flawed but really well meaning little film with a lot of heart and made with a lot of ambition. Wile not the great work it surely could have been, fans of African American cinema in the seventies and admirers of Truffaut’s film in general shouldn’t miss it.