Translated material
Anton Dolin. Cinema-10: The age of freedom is not in sight
Towards the release of the films "The Libertine" and "Scary Movie"
Actually, to be honest, these two paintings have very little in common. But the temptation was too great to complete the “trilogy” dedicated to the comparison of French and American cinema (see previous issues ). Therefore, I took the liberty of combining “The Libertine” and “Scary Movie” on the basis that we are talking about two comedies, and we’ll talk about another one.
One of the truths that does not need proof today is that modern culture (and film culture in particular) is built on citation. Civilization, they say, is tired and outdated, nothing new can be invented - so everything is stolen from senior colleagues without shame or conscience. And since the viewer is accustomed to the fact that this is how it should be, he only rejoices when he finds out where this or that fragment was stolen from. The larger the national tradition, the more grounds and sources for quotations. Therefore, here, as usual, the USA and the European headliner, France, are ahead.
Libertines
The translation of the title of the film "The Libertine" is inaccurate. Le libertin is precisely libertin, a lover of freedom in everything, freedom of body and soul. This is the main character of the film, the famous, then still young and dissolute philosopher-encyclopedist Denis Diderot, played by Vincent Perez. Diderot's encyclopedia is prohibited, but he, without being confused, hides in the castle of his friends, fellow libertines, the baron and baroness named after him, where in a secret printing house (in the basement of the chapel, by the way) the printing of the fundamental work continues, which Diderot writes on the go, in between love affairs affairs. However, everyone here is doing this or other similar nonsense. The young daughter of a philosopher and her friend, the daughter of the owners of the castle, dream of one thing - to lose their virginity, and predictions that their destiny is to become the mistresses of a circumcised man force them to seduce Diderot's young assistant, the musician Abraham. Madame de Gerfey indulges in lovemaking, first with Diderot, then with her own cousin. Her husband, the stern Chevalier de Gerfey, turns out to be a latent homosexual and finds a common language with two marquises, “collectors of antique sabers.” Even Diderot's prim wife can't resist the skills of a black eunuch masseur for long. Meanwhile, the Baron creates an organ of piglets, each of which squeals a certain note when pressing a key (the keys are tied to their tails), and the gluttonous Baroness greedily devours these piglets. Everyone is happy and happy.
Until guests arrive at the castle: the demonic and beautiful artist from Prussia Madame Terbouche (Fanny Ardant), a kind of Milady, and after her the strangler of freedom Cardinal. The first undertakes to paint a portrait of a naked Diderot, the second tries to set the baron and baroness on the right path. The true task of both is to find out where the forbidden Encyclopedia is printed. Meanwhile, problems arise for Diderot himself - he cannot write a chapter on morality, thereby slowing down the work of the printing house. This is the external plot outline of "The Libertine". What is the film really about? - About a lot - and about nothing. You can’t call it historical, there are too many liberties and Rabelaisian absurdity, real personalities and fictional ones mix too freely. Pure comedy? - Also, and not so many episodes of this lightweight work will make the viewer actually smile. A film about issues of freedom and morality? - Yes, it’s unlikely, it’s no coincidence that as a result, Diderot gives up on the unborn concept and suggests writing in the chapter “Morality” “see Ethics”, and in the chapter “Ethics” - “see Morality”. By the way, this move was not invented by the director of The Libertine, Gabriel Aguillon. Just like everything else. The film is a typical patchwork quilt.
Aguillon shamelessly, up to his elbows, plunges his hands into the treasury of priceless treasures of French culture and cinema in order to please the viewer and laugh himself. The completely national thesis underlying The Libertine is freedom above all else. And freedom of creativity can, under these conditions, turn into freedom from creativity. Why create when you can assemble, assemble a mosaic, a puzzle? Let's start, for example, with genre. The most successful and winning (among the mass ones, of course) in French cinema is the costume film. Okay, let's make a costume film, and even make a pun - we will have it "without a costume." For the second win-win technique, after transferring the action to the era from Dumas’s novels, is the use of eroticism. Finally, make a comedy out of it all, and voila - you're done. Some will come to look at Diderot's youth, others - to see naked women (and, we might add, men), and others - just to laugh. Provided that they do not expect any supernatural merits from the picture, everyone will be satisfied.
Of course, you have to be attentive to the details, and Aguillon succeeds in this. For example, Vincent Perez ("Queen Margot", "For Battle!") a priori evokes in the viewer an association with lace cuffs, a wig and a sword on his side, just as after "Elizabeth" it is difficult to imagine Fanny Ardant without a crinoline. In general, Baroque style presupposes, on the one hand, the posing of a number of philosophical problems, and on the other, visual pomp and thematic frivolity. The first is the confrontation with the Church in the person of the Cardinal (a whole poem could be written about the lack of independence of this purely French demonic image, but let’s put that off until next time), as well as the notorious unwritten article on morality. For the second - incessant sex (at least, conversations on the topic of it) in the scenery of an ancient estate, fireworks in the finale... Wait, we all saw this - from Greenway, in "The Draftsman's Contract", from where Aguillon borrowed the painting of a naked portrait Diderot. By the way, the philosopher himself is needed only as another iconic figure capable of provoking at least a French viewer’s interest in the film, an advertising gimmick turned into an artistic strategy. So, here is the equation for success: Dumas + Diderot + Greenaway - and a little eroticism to boot.
But there is one more thing - something that belongs exclusively to Aguillon himself. The way he can make you laugh. And here the director successfully proves that he is a real libertine. That is, a conscious compiler who makes money on win-win tricks invented by someone else and knows how to turn them into good. There is neither the heaviness of Greenaway, nor the instructiveness of the encyclopedists, nor the sometimes shocking eroticism of Pasolini or Borowczyk - everything is elegant, witty, and light. Even the technique that almost failed the recent "Plunkett and McClane", a modern techno soundtrack in a costume film, Aguillon uses much more witty and inventive.
Libertines
But once you cross the invisible line of good and bad taste, libertine turns into a libertine. It has long been known that almost all American comedies are crude and often not funny. If the voluptuousness of the zero, faceless heroes who think, talk and joke only about sex is excusable within the framework of the genre, then the shamelessness of Scary Movie director Keenen Ivory Wayens, who draws inspiration from the same secondary and tertiary comedies, smacks of debauchery. For a libertine is one who failed to stop in time. Perhaps, however, the general (un)cultural situation is to blame for this - the plague of postmodernism has irrevocably swept across America, and a cure has not yet been found.
The director of the parody is at the same time in a vulnerable and advantageous position: advantageous because he does not need anything other than a sense of humor; vulnerable - because, without this feeling, he can remove something unbearable. The problem with Wayens is that he is not without a sense of humor, and there are some really funny episodes in Scary Movie. However, they are not able to save the film, which is going to the bottom with each subsequent frame. Shot in the style of "The Naked Guns" and "Hot Shots" by Zucker-Abrahams, the film is a parody of horror films of the 90s: the "Scream" trilogy, the "I Know What You Did Last Summer" duology, "The Blair Witch Project" and "The Sixth Sense" plus "The Matrix", a scene from which mends the inevitable plot and stylistic hole in the finale. Such comedy-parodies are made according to the skit principle: murders become jokes, absurdity invades the screen to ridicule the next cliche, all emotions are exaggerated, obscene humor serves to stir up the attention of a certain contingent of the public. But what if the director has nothing other than the original source to parody, and the original source itself is a parody of something else, as was the case with “Scream”? A situation of a closed labyrinth arises, close to the one that accompanied the release of a parody of Tarantino’s films: a more stunningly mediocre film has not appeared in recent years (and thank God).
The reputation of "Scary Movie" as the most tasteless comedy is clearly exaggerated. In the end, let’s correct the translator of the title again, it would be more logical to title the Russian version of “Scary Movie” as “Scary Movie”. That is, frightening from the point of view of bad taste. However, watching such a comedy is simply not interesting. The authors of “Scream” took care to play up every “horror” stereotype, which was deceptively accomplished or, conversely, disappointed the viewer in the next episode. The authors of Scary Movie themselves succumbed to the stereotype, and each of their next jokes can be guessed in advance. With the insatiability of libertines, they use all available means, but if a stolen technique can be made into an exquisite frivolous joke, as the Frenchman Aguillon does, then it is impossible to make a stolen joke funny a second time.
Diderot did not find a satisfactory morality, but I will give several at once. First moral: know moderation in everything. Second moral: think about where to borrow from. Third moral: it’s better to say at least something of your own. Aguillon, for example, called the black pig F Diez. Maybe this is what saved my film. As for freedom, it is generally not on the side of secondary directors tortured by talented predecessors. She is on the side of the audience, who are free to laugh or not laugh. Or even leave the theater without watching the film to the end. However, money for tickets will not be returned.