Translated material
Anton Dolin. Cinema-14: Forever Manifesto
To the Moscow premiere of John Waters "Mad Cecil B."
There are few films alone for the development of cinema, just as there are few books for the development of literature. Yes, the average level will be provided in any weather, but there is not enough professionalism to move forward. And geniuses, as you know, are few. Manifestos and their authors come to the rescue. The artistic component recedes into the background, its place is occupied by a radical idea. And how we have a wealthy, it depends, in fact, on the case: who will undertake to develop it is a genius or mediocrity. At the threshold of any door to the new, there is always a manifesto. One of which is "Mad Cecil B." John Waters.
Waters is an ideal character for drawing up manifestos. Even the appearance is suitable: a fit, lanky gentleman in a suit, with licked hair and thin antennae. A smart face reminiscent of the leading "around laughter" Ivanov . Waters was recognized as the father of Kitchevo and Trash cinema of the 70s. Hollywood was breathing in the air from childhood, poisoned them and at the same time received immunity. In the late 60s, Waters is deliberately tasteless, full of high-profile screams and bright rags (by his own definition of the director, “Mir-Mobka”), was already familiar to the audience, but it became fashionable only in the 72nd, with the advent of the legendary “pink flamingos”, the saga about the most dirty people on Earth. Waters later, of course, fell into the obsessive hugs of a big movie, but the image of the stimulus and the outrage of calmness - not a rebel, but a kind of great -age hooligan - remained with him. "Crazy Cecil B." Waters Credo formulates very clearly: "Bezman forever."
Clear business, madness - only a trick, a trick. In fact, Waters is smart and prudent. He perfectly understands when and what callus you need to step on, and what is not yet time for. And his manifesto, glorifying the independent cinema and the stamping cinema of Hollywood, he releases, hiding in the shadow independently conquering in the war with the studios, a decent bridgehead of the directors: Sam Mendes ( "beauty beauty" ), David Fincher ( "Fight Club" ) and the same Coins . In the year, when “everything about my mother” receives “Oscars”, and “dancing in the dark” is approaching the popularity of Titanic, it is time to declare the anathema “Spielberg and others like him”. Although it becomes somewhat stretched and even funny - what is the point of protecting what has proved its competitiveness? Apparently, in order to ensure that the independent directors of the “second-plan” (namely, to those, if they discarded his merits to the history of American show business, belongs to the clever Waters) received the legal right to earn money for bread. In fact, against militants or melodramas of class “B” and below, no one objects, and the “Independent Film of Class B” causes criticism from all sides. Where is justice? She is trying to achieve with weapons in the hands of Cecil, the hero of Waters. Cecil "B": Talking initial.
The plot is uncomplicated. In the world sold by Hollywood, the underground gang of radicals, in love with alternative cinema (each on his chest, thigh or hand, tattoo: Almodovar, David Lynch, Fassborder, Andy Warhol ...), decides to take revenge, shooting the most independent film in history. The budget is zero. The main role is the famous megazezda Hani Witlock (Melanie Griffith), stolen right from the stage during the premiere of the next sweet comedy melodrama. Cecil crazy (the surname is beaten, allegedly having an “alternative” French prefix, Demented; Cecil Mad, who took an aristocratic pseudonym in the likeness of the same von Trier ) is the head of the gang, the director, who was introduced into the Baltorsky show business under the guise of the director of the Senator multiplex. In the course of filming, the abducted begins to catch a high. And so, right up to the logical predictable finale, in which Cecil ends his life with self -immolation on the set of the last scene of his film, and Hani is taken to the station. However, life or freedom for the film will have to sacrifice almost all members of the film crew.
Nevertheless, the rude humor of the director does not allow the viewer to believe at least for a minute in the reality of what is happening, most like a stupid game. "Crazy Cecil B." It was removed sloppically and schematically, and exclusively the irony of dialogues and situations (so the first “scene” of Cecil’s film is a rebellion against the system of the leaders of the arthose cinema, where the Pazolini festival and where not a single spectator has come), as well as the elegant Griffith game combined with the truly insane energy of Stephen Dorff (Cecil) make a picture Visible. Even the “cool” soundtrack, consisting of a mixture of rap, Soul and Havi-Metal, bothers the minute on the fifteenth to sixteenth. However, on the apparent unprofessionalism, a shadow of a serious concept lies with a slap trinket, which turns simply the film into a manifesto. Waters not only talks about how and how it is not to make a movie, he himself pedantically implements the recipes of his hero. “The first double is the most genuine”: excellent, let the emotions be exaggerated, and the physiognomy of the actors will express not due emotions, but pure bewilderment. “Down with the budget” is a random props reminiscent of student amateur performances (rather theatrical than cinematic). “The maximum approximation to reality” (the obvious parody of the “dogma-95” ), and the statists, whether it was a waist hired by Waters, or, indeed, people from the street, ineptly stomp in the camera, breaking the comic effect achieved. With the exception of perhaps one scene in which the filmmakers caught by surprise are pressing in oysters. This is really delicious, but thanks should not be said to Cecil and not Waters, but actually oysters ...
You can rightly notice that the notorious conceptuality only spoils the final product. This is true. The radicalism of Waters, who decided not to show , but to prove that an independent movie should be able to win Hollywood, became a trap for him. Cecil is a maximalist, and, being the author of an invisible manifesto in defense of the art house, he does not have the talent of the director. But, according to Waters, it is the mediocrity and marginal can be extremely convincing, demonstrating the irreconcilable opposition of mass and non -profit art. When we admire the Titanic or Magnolia , we do not think about the difference in concepts - we just enjoy a good movie shot by a talented person. And the real war is waged in the areas of the Cinema of the secondary. What is brilliantly expressed in the leitmotif of the sequel. The Aphers “Scream-4” or “Matrix-3” flooded the space of the film, and the main fight with opponents takes place on the set of the new potential blockbuster GUMP AGAIN , the continuation of “Forrest Gump” ... The enthusiasm is the evil with which Cecilus and Waters are fighting, which, however, are captured by another recyclable. The era of Andy Warhol and Fassbinder is behind, and even Lynch or Almodovar, not to mention Pazolini, have long been ranked to the face of official classics. Therefore, the Cecil team is looking for fans among the audience of X-kinoter and the audience of Hong Kong militants. Hollywood and independent cinema discover unexpected kinship, and the “distort” of the star does not look unnatural, and Cecil’s victory appears to the final more and more ghostly. Creating a small encyclopedia of cinema, his big expert Waters comes to unbelief in the potential of the Seventh Art.
And what is morality, what, in fact, is the essence of the manifesto? In prove the advantage of one secondaryness over the other? To approve the self -worth of everything independent and marginal? By no means. The only positive moment of the cinema, closed on himself and so brightly painted by Waters, is a joy, almost an animal pleasure received by dough Cecile and his friends - drug addicts, homosexuals and satanists - from the creative process as such. What the film will turn out, mounted from the material shot by Cecile, we will not recognize, and why! But how fun to jump from the roof without a stuntman, hold a camera in one hand, and in the other machine, to run away from the police, screaming slogans to a megaphone ... This atmosphere is also transmitted to the viewer, who at a certain moment waves his hand to the obvious imperfection of the film language of the picture and is given to the drunken joy of the anarchist with an ax in his hand. This is the manifest by Cecil-Uoters: to revive the feeling of a scandal, the freshness of the first fight or the first sexual intercourse . Feel the world again. Being always new and crazy, "crazy forever."
Perhaps Waters is too prudent to follow his advice. But he is smart enough to convince others of his rightness. For this, they exist, authors of manifestos .