Rumble Fish, Germany Year Zero, and the epic fourth season of Breaking Bad. Only three things this week, but they're all very top notch. Only one week after the long Deadwood Season three post, I come back with an even longer post that is almost as long The Tree of Life post, but still not quite. The review of Breaking Bad has no detailed spoilers at all, and there are some statements about the trajectory of the show, nothing should be that bad. If you want to be completely pure of any and all spoilers, like some of the complex characteristics of Walt, then you may want to stay away. Otherwise I hope it will convince most of you to watch the show. For those who have seen the show, I point you towards the last paragraph for my thoughts on what the show is about on a macro level.
Breaking Bad: Season Four (Vince Gilligan, USA, 2011): If you pay any attention to what's going on in the world of original television programming, then you've probably heard from many people that Breaking Bad is great and a must-watch. So much praise has already been showered on this show from so many others, but it's all completely well-deserved. This show and Mad Men are certainly the two best shows on television right now, and Breaking Bad definitely deserves to be a part of any conversation about the best television shows of all time. If you haven't seen it yet, I won't spoil it for you, but I'll give you a taste of what makes this show so good. If you don't know already, this is a show about Walter White, a man who takes of the cooking of meth to make money for his family while he waits to die from his cancer diagnosis. But over the course of the show he becomes more and more involved with the world of drug dealing and must face decisions with cruel consequences. This is a show that's not afraid of change. If I compared the finale of season four with the pilot episode, it would be completely different. Unlike many other television shows that keep the characters and many of their situations mostly the same so they don't lose viewers, this is a show in which its characters go through a lot of harrowing experiences and get affected greatly by them. Walt goes from a weak innocent man to a man capable of ruthless acts.
The writing of this show is absolutely impeccable. Even though the show is very plot-driven and frequently uses cliffhangers and plot twists, there are still moments where everything stops and the characters have a tantalizing chat. This past season included a whole host of amazing scenes with some iconic dialogue ("I am the one who knocks!"). The storytelling is always completely unpredictable make for some amazing twists and turns in which the stakes are always high. This is a show that frequently puts its characters into deep dark corners and tries to get them out of it. It's an incredibly impressive feat by the writers. Even more impressive is that the plot almost never gets in the way of the smart character work going on. When crazy plot turns happen, it's always consistent with the characters involved, and it almost always adds another layer to the complexities of the characters.
While television is definitely a writer's medium, and much of what makes Breaking Bad great was done in the writing room, this is a show that has a directors who know how to direct. The visuals in the show are some of the best television has ever had to offer. They frequently use the New Mexico environment beautifully in ways that get across the desolate rural world in highly effective ways. The show will also come up with shots that are just as iconic as some of the dialogue, including one in the episode this season entitled "Crawl Space" that is a perfect combination of writing, acting, and directing. It's a scene that will be forever etched into your mind. There's also the fact that no show I've ever seen has been able to do tension like this show has. There are scenes this season of the utmost intensity that will literally have your heart beating.
Breaking Bad is a masterwork and technical and thematic achievement. Every season escalates the stakes, and every season gets better. If you are planning on catching up with this show, I'd tell you that the first season is very entertaining, but it doesn't represent how great the show will become. By the end of the second season, you will know why this show is great. This fourth season starts a bit slow, but in retrospect it just prepares you for the never-ending awesomeness of the second half of the season. This is also the powerhouse achievement of the character of Gus, who is introduced in the second season. Giancarlo Esposito gives one of the great television performances of all time as a stoic clear-headed mastermind that puts Walt in all sorts of trouble. This whole fourth season is an amazing game of chess between the two that ends with the ultimate checkmate.
On a more macro and analytical level, I feel like Breaking Bad is a show that is incredibly relevant to today. Walt has values that represent everything that is wrong with our financial and political system today. Walt started trying to make money for his family, which is how most of these Wall Street executives start probably. But after Walt had enough he kept going. He was motivated by greed, but also by competitiveness and pride. In a way, it's his masculinity that gets in his way. That's exactly why many of these Wall Street executives who brought this recession were motivated to do the risky and illegal financial maneuvers they engaged. They didn't know when to stop (all the more reason why Walt's gambling story is ironic). On a path like this, it usually doesn't end well. That's why I can't wait to see the final 16 episodes.
Grade: A
Rumble Fish (Francis Ford Coppola, USA, 1983): We all know Coppola's big four movies, The Godfather Parts I and II, Apocalypse Now, and The Conversation. Those are the movies the man is most famous for, the rest of his filmography has been mostly written off as misfires. But hidden in that bunch of "misfires" (in quotations because I haven't seen most of them), is this dreamy ethereal drama about a certain way of gangland life. Matt Dillon plays a Rusty James, a guy who looks intensely up to his older brother, Motorcycle Boy. His brother has a mythical quality to him, he was the leader of a group of guys that were very strong, up until Motorcycle Boy left and went off to California. But he comes back and now Rusty James has someone to idolize. It's a simple story with complex subtext in the fact that Rusty James want's to be a ruthless gang leader, while Motorcycle Boy doesn't want anything to do with violence anymore and tries to convince Rusty in his own quiet way to do the same.
The film is completely shot in black-and-white with the exception of a few color betta fishes. The movie seems to be told from the perspective of Motorcycle Boy, even though Rusty James gets the most screen time. Motorcycle Boy is color blind, thus the film is black-and-white. He's also hard of hearing, hence the quiet nature of the movie. He wants to see the world in color, because he has the experiences now to see it that way, but Rusty James is going down a path that will end up in color blind vision for him as well. The main draw of the movie is the beautiful filmmaking of Coppola. The story is very Hollywood, but the technique is like an art film. Much of it seems influenced by German Expressionism, especially in scenes like the ones outside a bar in which the background clouds are going by at an extremely fast rate. Coppola creates a metaphor, he creates a piece of art. The film's story is very simple, but the technique is unique and a joy to behold. The complexities of the film don't hold anything to Coppola's best movies, but this is surely one of his more underrated movies.
Grade: B+
Germany Year Zero (Roberto Rossellini, Italy, 1948): This is the third and final film from Rossellini's War Trilogy (following Rome Open City, and Paisan). It's a film that is set in the present-day at the time, unlike the previous two films that were set in days of the German occupation of Italy and the days shortly after the end of the German occupation. This film is set after World War II is over, chronologically it's certainly a sequel, but in a way it's also a prequel. This is a film that shows the empty broken buildings of the war-ravaged Germany and the everyday struggles of the people, but it also shows the ideology that created the war in the first place and how it led to this situation. Chronologically it's a sequel, but in an ideological way, it's a prequel. The boy at the center of the story, Edmund, is shown trying to help his family survive by doing whatever jobs he can and making money anyway he can. He meets an old teacher who is still hanging on to Nazi ideas, and influences the boy to do horrible things that he thinks will help his family (if you've seen the movie, I include the final act of the boy as one of these things).
It's a depressing movie not because Rossellini thinks the future is lost, but only because it's a movie about the past, not the future. The past was a depressing time, and this film shows how this dangerous ideology affected people and caught on. The boy represents the people of Germany pre-WWII, and the boy's teacher represents the rising Third Reich. But there's also the sequel part of the movie. The part of the movie that displays the ravages of the war that occurred because of that dangerous ideology. As Edmund walks around Berlin, through the location-shooting of Rossellini, you can see the effects of the war on not only the previously magnificent buildings, but also the faces of the people walking the streets. I've read many criticize the movie for its overt sentimentality and not totally buying the ending of the movie, but it seems I see it different from them. I completely bought the ending, and you can buy it even more when you consider that Germany Year Zero is not a movie about the aftereffects of WWII, but how it started.
Grade: A
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