681 Frances Ha

[matrixschmatrix]

Well given the horrid performances Lucas got out of otherwise-excellent actors throughout the Star Wars prequels, I'm not sure that his ideas about which takes were best are always germane. Though I recall Coppola saying that Duvall was often best on the first take in the Godfather commentaries as well.

[Cinosyrc]

There was a Hollywood Reporter roundtable a few years back which featured Duvall and he spoke about Kubrick's process. I believe he called it an actor's nightmare and he couldn't see the difference between a first take and a seventieth.

EDIT: Found an Indiewire article on his comments here.

[Feego]

I was listening to the commentary for THX-1138 again earlier this week and I was reminded of something that George Lucas talks about there when reading this conversation. In a scene between Robert Duvall and Donald Pleasance Lucas ruefully talks about the way that it took lots of takes not because the performances were bad but in order to 'modulate' the performances, saying that while Duvall 'got it' on the first take Pleasance usually took until take ten or fifteen to hit his peak, at which point Duvall was slightly less on top form. So there are wider issues of how things are playing in the whole scene to consider beyond just actors not getting it right the first time.

In the book Altman on Altman, Robert Altman relays a similar story about working with Warren Beatty and Julie Christie on McCabe & Mrs. Miller. Christie was much more spontaneous (a quality Altman loved in his actors) and would get it right from the very beginning, while Beatty required and actually demanded multiple takes. Altman says he would sometimes just go to bed and leave Beatty and the crew on their own to keep filming until Beatty was satisfied. Ultimately, Altman chose takes that were somewhere in the middle, before Beatty reached his peak but after Christie had achieved hers (considering how brilliant both of their performances are, it would be amazing to see her early takes and his later ones). Altman is pretty upfront about not being enamored with Beatty because of this experience.

[wigwam]

Saw this last night and it's the best thing I've seen since I don't know when. Both my wife and I fought against going to the restroom since we didn't want to miss a single word or facial expression. It's hilarious, beautiful, extremely touching and brilliantly structured so that any arcs or setup/payoffs are organic, un-forced and deeply poetic.

I liked Gerwig at first (when she co-wrote w/ Swanberg) but have liked her less and less with each film (especially Damsels) and I've also disliked Baumbach's last few since Squid&Whale. When I saw this trailer I nearly threw up in my mouth at how bad I thought it would be, especially ripping off Mauvais Sang's best moment, but when that comes up in this movie (and same for all other cringe-moments in the trailer) I was elated and feel like every movie should have that scene.

We're going to see it at least once more so hopefully I can write something less spazzy, but I loved loved loved it!

[CSM126]

You Haven't Seen Frances Ha Until You've Seen it in IMAX

[sighkingu]

I always heard in the past people say that Baumbach's characters are unlikeable but I didn't agree at all until this picture. I dug the montages, liked some of the performances especially Gerwig + Mickey Sumner but could not give a rat's ass about these characters. I'll be happy when Baumbach returns to making movies about the world he inhabits.

[Black Hat]

Finally got around to seeing this tonight and feel like I'm missing something for I saw nothing cute about the film, the character of Frances or Greta Gerwig. All these comparisons to Godard, Truffaut and Rohmer are laughable. None of the dangerous underlying sexiness of Godard, nor the tortured comedic everyday love of Truffaut or the contemplative musings of Rohmer. Nothing about the film struck me as organic, it was all this tired surface level bullshit of privileged white people and their problems. It was like watching a 90 minutes Friends episode starring Phoebe's niece but without Chandler & Joey to make you laugh. As I was watching it what kept resonating with me in the theater was the discussion some of us were having about Lena Dunham, it seems to me that some of the same critiques of Girls that I've heard can very well apply to this film.

I did really enjoy Mickey Sumner's performance, thought she was fantastic and really hit what it is to be a young career woman of her class background in New York trying to balance everything. In contrast to Sumner my issue with Gerwig was that given that New York, or the concept of post college young people trying to make it in the city, was a character in the film, her behavior felt forced and artificial to the point of caricature. In other words it didn't matter whether Frances was in New York or Topeka, Gerwig was going to play her the same exact way.

Of course when you invest 70, 75 minutes you want to see how it resolves itself...

Spoiler

instead we get a lame musical montage of Frances going from Utica hall monitor to Manhattan choreographer. How the hell did that happen? Somebody's gotta explain that one to me because it struck me as lazy filmmaking/writing at its finest.

[Shrew]

In contrast to Sumner my issue with Gerwig was that given that New York, or the concept of post college young people trying to make it in the city, was a character in the film, her behavior felt forced and artificial to the point of caricature. In other words it didn't matter whether Frances was in New York or Topeka, Gerwig was going to play her the same exact way.

Why would the setting affect the way someone plays a character? Also, I feel it's a point that Frances doesn't fit in New York (or in this upper-middle class)--that she's a transplant who desperately wants to be a cool Bohemian artist living in Brooklyn, but she's just a Californian suburbanite lost in a sea of trust-fund kids and moneyed professionals who think nothing of hopping back and forth from Paris.

One of the things I like about the film (and is done better here than in what admittedly little I've seen of Girls) is the way it shows the cracks in the gigantic American middle class that have emerged since 2008, and how twenty-somethings deal with those lines. Which is mainly to ignore them until the awkward moment when you realize some friend literally can't pay for another fancy meal. Granted, these are all still "privileged white people" and Frances, as the one guy calls her out on, isn't actually poor and she's in no danger of starving, but unlike most of the others of her peers we see, her rent isn't subsidized by her parents.

Which I think bleeds into the organic/artificial issue. Frances is a creature of habit who's held onto her college identity through artifice. Her relationship with her friend is defined by set expressions and inside jokes repeated over and over. And when she's confronted with various issues, she develops similar set responses in an attempt to keep her artificial bubble of reality intact. In short, she's an artificial character by nature, but the way she responds and and adapts (often failing) feels organic.

Spoiler

instead we get a lame musical montage of Frances going from Utica hall monitor to Manhattan choreographer. How the hell did that happen? Somebody's gotta explain that one to me because it struck me as lazy filmmaking/writing at its finest.

Spoiler

Frances's boss complementing her choreography and encouraging her to do that instead of dance every time they talk? Her early offer of the admin job Frances later takes, and sweetening it with the promise that she could use the program's facilities to choreograph stuff?

[FakeBonanza]

I saw this film last night and wasn't overly impressed. I expect to elaborate later.

I wonder if anyone else found the ending of Frances Ha to be nearly identical to Rushmore's ending (without being quite as charming). Rushmore did come to mind immediately upon viewing Frances Ha, but the more I've considered it, the more they seem to have in common.

[FakeBonanza]

I agree with Black Hat that the French New Wave comparisons are baffling, and I have to think that they’re at least partially propelled by Baumbach’s own insistence on name dropping the movement in many of the Frances Ha interviews I’ve read. The only relevant comparison I can see is Frances Ha’s unrelenting adoration of its star; however, where Godard succeeds in making the viewer fall in love with Anna Karina in Une femme est une femme and Vivre sa vie, Baumbach fails. Furthermore, given that Gerwig participated in the writing, and was originally going to direct, it seems a little bizarre that a film would view its star so lovingly. Of course, it’s evident from watching the film that there is a unique perspective of plutonic female relationships in there somewhere, and it may be under Baumbach’s direction that Frances Ha becomes little more than a tribute to Gretta Gerwig.

The result of this dedicated view of Gerwig is that enjoyment of the film hinges entirely on whether the viewer is as smitten with Frances as Baumbach is. It occurred to me about two-thirds through my viewing that the film’s success can be measured simply on whether or not I would want to know Frances. The answer, in my case, is no. Ultimately, I do find Frances to be a sympathetic character, and I do find the ending to be a satisfying affirmation of her personal growth. Even so, Frances is too often annoying, and she so relentlessly contributes to her own failures.

The most evident example of Baumbach’s failure to draw me to Frances is the central dinner party scene. Baumbach surrounds Frances with a group of generically unsympathetic yuppie character-types. Initially, these characters are introduced as pretentious and entitled, and in stark contrast to Frances’ attitude; Frances even makes an astute but inappropriate observation about a young mother. From here, the scene dovetails, as Frances becomes an awkward mess, rambling like a fool for the rest of what must be one of the film’s longest scenes. The ultimate result of this is the I felt pushed further away from Frances and found myself relating closer to the non-characters that I was set up to dislike. Certainly, this is meant to be a low point for Frances, but it is when the character most requires our sympathy that Baumbach fails to elicit it.

Speaking of generic character types, beyond Frances, I cannot find one fully realized character in the film. Each of the film’s characters conform to a stereotype commonly associate with young adults of this generation. Because Baumbach and Gerwig don’t feel the need to flesh out these characters, their motivations cannot be accounted for. I don’t, for instance, understand why Sophie is in fast-progressing relationship with Patch, except that I have a cultural familiarity with these characters, and I can infer things from the work that other cultural sources have put in to explaining this type of relationship, and these types of characters. It’s of tremendous to the performances of Mickey Sumner and Michael Zegen that the characters Sophie and Benji function at all, because the script is so thin.

Considering the script, I found it especially difficult to negotiate with the film’s two or three most revelatory lines. I’m afraid I can only specifically recall one of these, but it was delivered so unnaturally that its desired effect is lost. When Frances declares, “I’m not a real person yet,” it is deliver as a statement, with a very prominent beat afterward. I certainly don’t need the themes of the film spelled out for me, and especially not at the expense of the “reality” of the film.

It seems to me that Noah Baumbach has no discernible style of his own. Despite all the New Wave discussion, Frances Ha seems to rely most heavily on the Woody Allen’s collaborations with Gordon Willis. In fact, the film’s most prominent recurring visual theme is Frances running through the streets of New York, which were used to greater effect by Willis in both Manhattan and Broadway Danny Rose. I do appreciate that Baumbach often employs longer takes, allowing the actors to act the scene out in a more fluid manner, but I don’t recall anything particularly remarkable, from a visual standpoint. I am a big fan of black and white photography, as I think there is something inherently cinematic about it, but it did seem a little jarring to see a film shot digitally in black in white (presented in black and white, anyway. I assume it was shot in colour). The image seemed a little too sharp this way, and the colours a little too stark. This is especially problematic when it seems black and white was chosen for a more romantic effect.

All of this being said, I feel as if I enjoyed the movie about half the time, struggling with it during the other half. I think that there were as many effective sequences as ineffective ones. I particularly liked the scene in which she takes Lev out to dinner, and, in fact, the period in which she lives with Lev and Benji is one of the strongest portions of the film. I also think that the movie finds its rhythm in the third act, starting with Frances’ return to the university. And as I mentioned, I found the ending to be very effective, and it really did redeem the character of Frances for me (though not entirely). I’ll agree with the poster who said that the final sequence is among the more effective conclusions that I can recall in recent years.

I guess even now I’m torn on the film. If it came down to a rating, I’d give it 2.5/4, which is to say that, for me, it sits somewhere between mediocre and good. She seems nice enough, but I wouldn’t like to know her.

[Black Hat]

Why would the setting affect the way someone plays a character? Also, I feel it's a point that Frances doesn't fit in New York (or in this upper-middle class)--that she's a transplant who desperately wants to be a cool Bohemian artist living in Brooklyn, but she's just a Californian suburbanite lost in a sea of trust-fund kids and moneyed professionals who think nothing of hopping back and forth from Paris.

Spoiler

Frances's boss complementing her choreography and encouraging her to do that instead of dance every time they talk? Her early offer of the admin job Frances later takes, and sweetening it with the promise that she could use the program's facilities to choreograph stuff?

Setting should affect the way someone plays a character when itself is a character. New York to me was irrelevant to Frances, my point being she wouldn't fit in anywhere.

Spoiler

And Frances turned it down in a charming display of cutting her nose to spite her face. So how did she end up in the job? Her boss kept the position open because she knew Frances would change her mind?Please.

I agree with Black Hat that the French New Wave comparisons are baffling, and I have to think that they’re at least partially propelled by Baumbach’s own insistence on name dropping the movement in many of the Frances Ha interviews I’ve read.

To that end a minor thing that drove me crazy was the kid having a poster of Small Change up on his wall. There is no way in hell he would, of all the Truffaut films, have a poster of that one on his wall. My friend who also was annoyed by this and is older than I told me that Small Change was a pretty big hit in New York back in the 70s and thus it was a case of Baumbach being indulgent at the expense of his character's truth.

[matrixschmatrix]

So this movie was easily the best new movie of the year for me, and also one I won't be able to watch again for a long time- and I feel as though any claims that Frances' behavior is unreal or unmotivated are nonsense, because I've literally never identified with a character in a movie or their decisions (stupid and self destructive as they occasionally are) as this one. It was legitimately difficult to watch- not in the way that a documentary about real poverty or suffering is, of course, but in the way that watching a friend make an asshole out of him or herself can be, just endlessly wishing that there was something you could do to make this thing better.

Spoiler

I don't see the clerical job still being open as some great leap- I believe that it didn't start right away when initially offered, and in any case it's the kind of thing that might generally be filled by a temp and thus easily refilled. And the dance troupe leader really does have some faith in Frances, so it's not implausible that she would still have interest in helping her to stabilize. I mean, honestly, that is like the smallest suspension of disbelief I have ever been asked to perform

Also- how is Small Change an implausible thing for pretentious rich kid types to have a poster for? They shop at NYC tag sales, and a vintage poster of any kind seems like precisely the sort of thing that would catch their eye.

I don't know, I'm probably a bit defensive about this one, but from my perspective if you as a viewer can't empathize with Frances, that's your problem, not hers.

[Jeff]

To that end a minor thing that drove me crazy was the kid having a poster of Small Change up on his wall. There is no way in hell he would, of all the Truffaut films, have a poster of that one on his wall. My friend who also was annoyed by this and is older than I told me that Small Change was a pretty big hit in New York back in the 70s and thus it was a case of Baumbach being indulgent at the expense of his character's truth.

Also- how is Small Change an implausible thing for pretentious rich kid types to have a poster for? They shop at NYC tag sales, and a vintage poster of any kind seems like precisely the sort of thing that would catch their eye.

The Small Change poster featured in the film is from the Film Desk re-release of 2009. Plenty of perfectly reasonable and charming people have it on their walls.

[matrixschmatrix]

Haha, sorry- I'm not saying that exclusively pretentious rich kid types would have such a poster

[Jeff]

Criterion release scheduled for November 2013

[Cronenfly]

Looks like a nice, meaty release, with three substantial-looking bonus features and no fluff. I have mixed feelings about the IFC deal overall, but this is definitely one case where Criterion handling the film makes a lot of sense, with supplements unlikely to happen otherwise.

[zedz]

I'm afraid I'm with the shruggers on this film. It's a perfectly pleasant throwback to various American indie films of the late 80s / early 90s, and Gerwig has enough charm to make her thinly written character watchable, but I fail to see anything special - unless it's now become a novelty to see an American independent film that isn't striving to be a studio calling card.

Also, I'm completely bewildered why you'd bother ripping off an iconic movie sequence so brazenly if you're going to do so in such a totally half-arsed manner. I was so embarrassed for the filmmakers at that moment.

[mfunk9786]

What sequence?

[zedz]

I was just finding it.

Behold.

[rwiggum]

Let's be honest: Calling that "Iconic" is a bit of hyperbole.

But that's interesting, I wasn't aware of the Carax film. I'll check it out. That being said, the sequence in Frances Ha worked well for me, and nothing about it felt "half-assed." I was really charmed by the film, and this is an easy day-one purchase for me.

[zedz]

Let's be honest: Calling that "Iconic" is a bit of hyperbole.

Well, it's the sequence Agnes Varda chose to end her tribute to 100 years of cinema with, so I'm hardly alone in that opinion!

The Carax sequence is so indelible, I just wonder what Baumbach and Gerwig thought they were doing trying to replicate it, since every component of "long tracking shot of lead character running / dancing down a city street to the tune of 'Modern Love'" is done better in the original (the tracking shot is longer and more ambitious; it's actually a character moment; Lavant's a better runner and a better dancer than Gerwig; even 'Modern Love' itself is better, thanks to the lead-in Carax provides), and they obviously thought they were creating their own iconic sequence, since that's the song they play out to at the end of the movie. Of course, the other thing this invidious comparison does is remind me that I could easily buy Lavant as an avant-garde choreographer, but Gerwig? Not really.

[Shrew]

I was actually at a Q/A session with Baumbach after a screening and he went into the "Modern Love" sequence. The Carax was a reference, but so were lots of running scenes--400 Blows, Manhattan, etc. Baumbach played around with different songs, but ultimately went with Modern Love because (to quote roughly) "David Bowie's obviously the best music for running down the street; Carax already proved that. Steal from the best, etc."

I don't think Baumbach was trying to compete with Carax at all, and the two sequences are pretty different besides the music and running (with a leap and a spin/cartwheel). Baumbach isn't ever going to be a great visual stylist like Carax (nor does he pretend), so the sequence is more montage-based than elaborate tracking shot in Frances. I disagree that it isn't a character moment; if I recall, it comes when Frances is excited and optimistic, but running off the various difficulties that are obvious to the audience if not to her, which fits the peppy melody/darker-than-you'd-expect lyrics of Modern Love. Whatever the technical gap between the films may be, there's a tonal similarity (just in the one scene) that merits the use of the song in each. It's not like the Vertigo theme in The Artist, where the original is so closely tied to (and indeed created for) its images, plus an incredible gap in tone (descent into pits of darkest romance vs "*woof*Timmy's trapped in the barn*woof*) where the latter's choice just seems utterly bewildering.

But overall, Frances Ha is really packed with references/homages to other films, particularly to Delerue/Constantin rich soundtrack--which is why the earlier remarks in the thread that it's got nothing in common with the French New Wave don't make much sense to me. From the knowing "borrowing" to its cinephile spirit, the film is derivative if anything. I think it wears its influences proudly and suggests a matching tone of whimsy-cum-melancholy that nevertheless becomes its own thing by the end. Stylistically, it can't compare, but it's still the most style we've seen out of Baumbach.

Another note from that Q/A re: the title. Apparently it was originally just "Frances" but there was already film by that name, which Baumbach wanted to avoid (for reasons). Then it was going to be Frances H. because he liked the sound of Christiane F. but decided the last initial sounded too much like an anonymous drug user, and he or Gerwig came up with Ha, and then the ending scene.

[Cold Bishop]

Ugh. That's the big dance sequence everyone was raving about? He even uses "Modern Love"? That certainly dampens my enthusiasm to see this film.

unless it's now become a novelty to see an American independent film that isn't striving to be a studio calling card.

Pretty much.

[matrixschmatrix]

There are a couple of dancing scenes, I don't know that I'd characterize that as 'the big one'- for one thing, it's mostly not a big scene kind of a movie. It's a moment of freedom and joy in a section of the movie that's subtly but pretty unremittingly painful (for me, anyway) and I enjoyed it as such. Also, given that Frances is shown as being a big movie watcher, it doesn't seem out of the question that she's playing that scene to herself in her head.

[Kirkinson]

Of course, the other thing this invidious comparison does is remind me that I could easily buy Lavant as an avant-garde choreographer, but Gerwig? Not really.

Can you explain why?