Don't Record It, Be It: Mike Mills' '20th Century Women'

Mike Mills' latest film 20th Century Women is a great time capsule of the sun-drenched and faded 1970s California vibe, on the cusp of the Reagan '80s but holding on to that free-spirited, Me Decade sense of navel gazing with a purpose.

I feel like my longing watching this movie was for an era that is long gone and never to return (short of a Trump-induced, terrifying loss of the internet across America). But is that a bad thing? Women shows people sitting across tables, lounging in beds, and cruising in '70s sedans talking and processing and over-sharing, just not on Facebook.
The film centers around fifty-something, divorced Dorothea (Annette Bening, in another trademark winning, natural performance) and her teenage son Jamie, living in a dumpy, spacious home in 1979 Santa Barbara.

Concerned about her son becoming an aimless, thoughtless grown man, Dorothea has Jamie's BFF Julie (a wonderfully sullen, sedate Elle Fanning, per usual) and Dorothea's twenty-something punky boarder, Abbie (Greta Gerwig, for once, charming me immensely) act as influencers, shapers, and teachers of her only child on how to understand women and how to be a "real man."

Just as lost as Jamie, the young women impart their knowledge of '70s feminism, post-punk music, and Judy Blume books. And as a true sponge, Jamie absorbs this and tests boundaries in equal measure.

Minus the charming Christopher Plummer storyline, the rest of Mills' previous film Beginners (i.e., Ewan McGregor's love life) suffered from a tweeness that rarely surfaces in Women. And that's what makes this film a much more rewarding treasure.

The slight FX in the movie (sped-up film, psychedelic color trails) add to that stoned '70s dreamy vibe of this coming-of-age story. The non-plot of slightly interconnected vignettes may bore or bug some but for me it harnessed the pace of some of those lazy, sun-bleached '70s films like Breaking Away or something with a teenage Jodie Foster.

The rambling, cigarette-and wine-soaked storyline is solidified in Benning's natural, melancholy performance as mother, teacher, wise soul, and free-spirited oddball. But she remains hopeful of her ragtag household.

The quaint vibe of huddling around a TV set to watch a Presidential speech, or dancing around bedrooms trying to dissect her son's punk vinyl playing on the beat-up turntable, all this nostalgia is palpable in Women for a slowed-down, pre-plugged in life. The story seems to revel in hands-off parenting, trial-and-error life lessons, and driving along the Pacific with no intention to record or photograph anything with a phone, and all with a message ahead of its time: Don't record it, be it.

The "Quaint Charm" of Watergate: 'All the President's Men'

Remember when a national political disgrace brought down a president? No, not 2017...at least not yet. It was 1974 and the "Watergate Scandal" led to the eventual resignation of President Richard Nixon right before his impeachment process was set to begin.

The third film in the loosely-assembled "'70s Paranoia Trilogy" of director Alan Pakula, All the President's Men was both an award-winning film and a box-office smash. People wanted their schadenfreude on the big screen and this movie gave it to them. There hasn't been a truly great investigative journalism movie after President's until maybe, 2015's Oscar-winning Spotlight.

Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, in both their '70s rumpled handsome glory, play Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein who are the masterminds behind uncovering the truth about the Watergate burglary/wiretapping of the DNC offices, and its connection to the CIA and Nixon's Committee to Re-elect the President (with that wonderfully accurate acronym of CREEP).

A main source of information to Woodward and Bernstein is "Deep Throat," an anonymous senior government official who will meet with them in person only under cover of night in an empty parking garage. "Follow the money" is Mr. Throat's main message.

Where does it lead? To the Chief of Staff and the U.S. intelligence community, of course. As Nixon is sworn in for his second term in January, 1973, Woodward and Bernstein are writing their Post expose that breaks the whole case wide open.

As we just passed the 40th anniversary of this film last year, we can compare and contrast our current political situation. The attempt to break into the opposing team's information stronghold is reflected in the Russian hacks this past summer on the DNC. But the foiled burglary and wiretaps of Watergate seem bumbling and quaint now in the face of a Trump/Orwellian manipulation of facts, hacking enabling, media silencing, strong-arming, and general despot-isms.

Where are our Woodward and Bernstein today? Our Deep Throat? Our All the President's Men?

No, It's Not Just You, There's a Conspiracy: 'The Parallax View'

Don't be fooled by the cop car chases through mud and the Charlie's Angels soundtrack of the trailer above, Alan J. Pakula's The Parallax View is one slow-burning, mysterious, smart as hell film. Released amidst the wiretapping Watergate fiasco and Nixon's eventual resignation, and just a few years after the tumultuous assassination-heavy '60s, this film appears smack dab in the new Hollywood of the '70s; antiheroes are the norm and paranoia is on the mind.

Parallax, like Three Days of the Condor (another '70s political paranoia thriller to be covered by this blog) was written by screenwriter Lorenzo Semple Jr. with the darkest sense of humor and the smartest edge of right-wing political jabbing.

Warren Beatty is a journalist trying to uncover the truth about a senator's assassination at the top of Seattle's Space Needle. Fellow journalist and wonderfully acted neurotic Paula Prentiss is convinced anyone witness to this shooting is being killed off themselves by a shadowy group. How right she is.

Beatty's search leads from dead end to murdered personal contact. In order to infiltrate this mysterious Parallax Corporation, he puts himself in the mind (or the position of the available employee applicant, more accurately) to join the ranks of would-be assassins.

The film's infamous "brainwashing scene" is a bit hokey by today's standards but I'm sure made quite an impact then in the more innocent, pre-internet, pre-ADHD age. The first modern filmic instance of this might have been Alex's (Malcom McDowell) "visually restrained" brainwash/torture in Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange.

Instead of rehabilitation as the goal, like in Clockwork, it's subliminal advertising to recruit killers. How would this ring true today and what scary/scarier tactics would be used? Virtual reality sensurround simulation/stimulation?

Think of this in today's terms, on this day of Trump's inauguration: "The Parallax Corporation/___ (fill in the blank with a contemporary international corporation's name) Division of Human Engineering."

Frightening.

 

"We hope you find the test a pleasant experience."

That's Very Exciting...But That's Gonna Cost You More: 'Klute'

"Lots of guys want to swing with a call girl like Bree. One guy just wants to kill her."


Klute is a 1971 thriller directed by Alan J. Pakula and was the first film in what was to be known as his "Paranoid Trilogy" of '70s films, which include The Parallax View and All the President's Men. I hope to cover these other two films in the trilogy soon. They all seem very prescient in this current, scary political landscape.

Although Klute is your basic missing persons/cop thriller with a sexy hooker angle, the vibe of the film is stunning in it's portrayal of a steadily declining NYC in the early '70s and the emotional detachment of Jane Fonda's Bree Daniels, the call girl who really wants to become a great actress.

Donald Sutherland, in his sonorous-voiced best, is the titular character of John Klute, a Pennsylvania detective looking for his missing friend, a high powered executive in Manhattan and frequent client of call girls. Sutherland also has an emotional detachment, an "all-business" vibe when investigating the case. He rents a room in Fonda's building, wire taps her phone, and shadows her movements, from auditions to clients. As Klute and Bree begin to fall for each other, Fonda's character admits she's feeling paranoid about being watched and followed, which she is, by both Klute and the eventual killer of Klute's missing friend and several prostitutes.

Microfilm, as a band, are such fans of the film that we wrote a track titled 'Inhibitions' inspired by Bree as a character and Klute as a film. It was one of our earliest songs and had a killer, lengthy moody remix done of it by Scottish artist Soundhog. It's one of my favorite remixes of our work.

Although released three years before the outing of Watergate, the film focuses on instances of secret tape recordings, buggings, and surveillance in a very dated and almost quaint way. Reel to reel audio tapes and peeking through windows are high drama in the world of Klute, but still the beginning of tech surveillance that would improve and grow in leaps and bounds every decade. Made today, the surveillance subplots would be more high tech and commonplace. Maybe this invasion of privacy would seem routine and if not expected, then not shocking. Would Bree's life be lived through her smartphone and business be done through a web app? Would her pad be furnished by IKEA?

From a tossed-off quip by Bree/Fonda in the film, she thinks her current, very spacious, loft-like apartment in Manhattan is a "kip" (a bed or room in a shared rooming house) and that she used to have a place on Park Avenue. As a part-time hooker? Simpler times.

Her place has a wonderful shabby chic vibe that Anthropologie would kill for; it's one of those lost, melancholy New York moments throughout the film where living in a pre-cleaned up Manhattan as a..."freelancer" was still possible.

Although possessing an overly plotted police thriller script, Klute has many loose moments of connection between Klute and Bree, walking Manhattan streets shopping for food or lounging in their apartments. And Fonda's monologues to her offscreen psychiatrist are brilliant, improv-heavy moments of acting that won her the Oscar for this role.

There are moments of lush beauty too, like Bree walking through the empty garment factory of Mr. Goldfarb, one of her clients. Striding through dusty air under a glow of overhead lighting Fonda moves in a slinky gown and boa, with the beautiful score by Michael Small of strings and hammered percussion surrounding her. It's wistful, slightly sinister, moody, and decaying, much like the world in Klute's NYC.

Welcome to Microfilm Speaks - a Blog on Film

Welcome to 'Microfilm Speaks' a blog devoted to talking about the films that we, as a band, like. We're Microfilm, an electronic duo based in Portland, Oregon since 2008.

Although we agree on a lot of film titles, there will be one sole writer on this blog: me, Matt Keppel. I'm the lyricist, singer, and co-songwriter of Microfilm.

Film has always been a big inspiration for many of the songs we write. Directors like Fassbinder, Pakula, Friedkin, Argento and cult classics like Taxi Zum Klo and A Certain Sacrifice have become themes and subjects of our songs. Even actresses have become the muse for our tracks; ask Tilda Swinton. I mean the word 'film' is the half of the name of our band if you need any more proof.

Sometimes direct dialogue samples inspire a track, or the subject matter has a cinematic edge, like Airlock: Open, where the lyrics reflect a familiar tale of where outer space ennui meets madness, in films like Moon or Solaris.

As you can see, film permeates what we do as a band with Microfilm, and what I do as a lyricist within this band.

The focus of this blog will start with '70s paranoid thrillers like Alan J. Pakula's Klute and The Parallax View and Sydney Pollack's Three Days of the Condor, and then branch out into other genres and titles that we like.

Welcome. Turn that TV set on.