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| Sam Mendes, Auteur? prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | next With these three works, at least, Sam Mendes seems intent on presenting familiar things to us in a new and shocking way. Cabaret has been through several stage productions and a movie, all of which are based on John Van Druten's dramatic play I Am a Camera, in turn based on Christopher Isherwood's Berlin Stories. Nazi Germany has been portrayed many times, but "just when we thought no one could show us anything new about the rise of Nazism, along comes this Cabaret to remind us that art will always instruct in ways wondrous and enlightening, though sometimes terrifying."3 The seedy side of suburban and small-town America has been explored in such varied films as Blue Velvet and The 'Burbs. Gangster films have gone through several variations, but have never really disappeared since they were invented in the 1930s. But Mendes' works brings a fresh and scathingly brutal, yet ultimately humanist point of view. And all three of these works implicate us, the audience in the action. They are all narrated; in each, someone is talking to us, telling us a story. Nancy Franklin of The New Yorker says of Cabaret: "…you're uneasily aware of…being more than a spectator at the passing parade."4 Lester tells us that though we do not understand what he means in his dying speech, we will someday-someday we will make the same discovery that he has made. Young Michael treats us as though we know something of his father, that we have false information that he must set straight. Sullivan himself shoots at us in one scene, as we stand in for someone he loves, but must kill. These techniques pull us deeper into the story, making us feel that we have some part to play, or at least that something is required of us, even if it is only to reflect upon our own lives in light of what we have seen. Now let us turn to some formal considerations. Any discussion of the visual similarities of Road to Perdition and American Beauty has to consider that they share not only a director, but also a cinematographer — well-known and multi-award-winning Conrad L. Hall. Quite possibly much of the visual style could be attributed to him, and not to Mendes. However, Hall has made relatively few movies in the last several years, and the couple I have seen did not particularly strike me visually, as did both Beauty and Perdition. This is not to say that he made no contributions — Mendes has stated more than once that he did. Also, many of the visual similarities of the two films are in the mise-en-scène, not in lighting or filters or anything traditionally in the realm of the cinematographer. Mendes' background as a stage director does not prepare one for the remarkably cinematic style he uses in his films. Neither film is stagy or confined, except where the mood requires them to be constricting. However, he does tend toward a very careful mise-en-scène. Shots are usually balanced-doorways in the center of the screen, a tall something on the left balanced by a tall something on the right, a splash of dominant color in the middle. In American Beauty this indicates the seeming stability of the family. In Road to Perdition, shots like the one of Michael looking through a perfectly centered doorway of light at his father divesting himself of various items including a gun indicate that Michael wants and believes his father to be an upright upholder of the law. In Beauty, the dominant color is red, the color of the American Beauty roses that Carolyn grows. These roses stand as the symbol of middle-class degeneracy, appearing on the dinner table as the family talks past each other, in Lester's fantasies of the teenage Angela, and finally, foreshadowing Lester's bloody death. Perdition doesn't really have a dominant color — it is not a bright film, and its colors are muted, befitting its Depression-era setting. Its flashes of brightness come from gun muzzles. 3. Sunshine, Linda. Introduction to Cabaret:
The Illustrated Book and Lyrics. prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | next Page last updated 8/1/04. |
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