A moment of beauty in a mess of a movie
Watched Romance and Cigarettes last night -- or rather, I sat down intending to, but it was such a horrible combination of earnest, intellectual, high art, low brow, and just plain bad, I fast-forwarded through most of it. A great disappointment given the cast-- Kate Winslet, Susan Sarandon, James Gandolfini, Eddie Izzard, Mary Louise Parker, Christopher Walken -- I could go on-- and sadly, it is that rare movie that makes superlative actors look largely like incompetent amateurs. Written and directed by John Turturro who while a fine actor (think almost any Cohen Brothers film, for example) just should not work behind the camera. This is a "down and dirty" musical set in working-class New York (for a New Yorker, JT has no idea how to capture the texture of the city). It uses 50's through contemporary music -- like Moulin Rouge, but all grind, no wind. Turturro often makes it obvious his actors are lip synching -- perhaps he thinks it adds color and grit. Yes, painful grit that incites audible groans and an itchy fast-forward finger. I started watching at triple time when I realized a Sarandon number was staining my happy memories of her exuberant Rocky Horror performance. The movie also has herky-jerk, stop and go pacing, sudden interjections of agit prop, static camera set-ups of theatre set-pieces, and random cultural references as appropriate as black pepper on crème brûlée.
However, I share because, it has one truly beautiful scene, that I was pleased to find on youtube. If you are keen to see the movie regardless of this review, I'd argue that it will spoil nothing to watch this clip, given it's mostly a fantasy moment. Features a gorgeous song written by Nick Cave, sung by Ute Lemper and mouthed by Kate Winslett.
Click to viewWinslet musta had flash backs to Titanic when shooting in this fish tank. And dontcha just love the little fishies?