Shine

In the film, we are first shown David Helfgott as an adult (Geoffrey Rush), running in the rain with a futile cigarette hanging from his lips.  His speech seems like sporadic sentence fragments jumbled together that never stop flowing from his mouth once he starts to talk.   His smile never fades, yet he seems disconnected, lost between time, space and his own confusing string of words.  There’s an instant need to know this man’s story.

In Shine, we are shown David’s childhood dominated by his father’s repressed musicality.  His father, Peter (Armin Mueller-Stahl), constantly reminds his young boy that he’s lucky to be learning the piano.  Peter’s own father had smashed his violin, now Peter will slowly crush his son’s mental state.  Between turning David into an amazing child prodigy, pressuring the boy to win all the contests he’s entered in and physically lashing out his anger onto the boy, David only knows his father’s love through fear of failure.

As David grows into adolescence (Noah Taylor), he gains amazing opportunities through his musicality.  He is offered to study music in America and it seems that his father couldn’t be more proud.  However, just as David is offered a place to live, Peter crushes this dream and forbids his son to leave home, saying David would be punished forever and destroy the family.  When David is offered another scholarship to study in London, he hides it from his father as long as possible, defies his father and leaves.

In London, it seems that the nervous and quiet David might finally blossom, it’s the most we have seen him among people his own age and smiling.  He feverishly practices and with a professor by his side, finally attempts Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 3.  It’s the hardest piece of music for pianists, and a goal David knew his father had for him.  The images of young David constantly playing, learning and mastering this pianist’s nightmare are stirring, beautiful and bring determination and meaning to the music.  Along the way, we notice David forgetting a few things (his pants as he’s checking his mail), and may be pushing himself too hard.  Eventually, David suffers a monumental breakdown, landing him in an institution.

Will that college recital be David’s last great moment?  From here on out, Rush is back and shows us what an amazing down but not out man David is.  Though it’s hard at first to tell what this motor-mouthed David is trying to say and mean, we see clearly that he has a pure heart and a joyous love for music.

One of my favorite scenes is when David is staying at a friend’s house.  When she returns, she finds classical music blaring and water over flowing from the sink and shower.  Worried, she looks around for David and finds him in the yard, jumping on a trampoline wearing nothing but an unbuttoned overcoat and Walkman headphones.  It’s just beautiful to see someone so overjoyed by music that they stop in the midst of everything to just jump around and feel the freedom of the wind on their skin under the blue sky.

Though the journey for David to reclaim his life is the last movement of the film, it is most stirring, heartfelt and we finally see David become his own person, rather than a puppet at the hands of his father.  Rush expertly brings David from his darkest hours and into fantastic light while portraying symptoms of his schizophrenia.  Rush doesn’t lose David’s character to the mental disorder, but rather shape the symptoms around the already established David.  Add in the fact that Rush relearned the piano so he could really be playing and I completely agree that that Oscar for lead actor is well deserved.

I love how this film just wants to celebrate a life.  Out of years of abuse, obsession and torment comes this beautiful person who despite his flawed mind is a good and kind person with tremendous talent.  Sadly, it feels like Shine has been quietly tucked away while Jerry Maguire has been hailed from hello.  That’s a load of bull.  You don’t need to know a schizophrenic  or love music to connect with this film.  Just have a yearning for your own life full of happiness and freedom.

“-No one’s ever been mad enough to attempt the Rach Three.
–Am I mad enough, professor? Am I?”

Ray

The first image I remember of Ray Charles is probably that scene in The Blues Brothers where he plays Shake a Tail Feather.  As a kid, I don’t think my first thought was concerning Ray’s blindness, bur rather how he played with such enthusiasm and could really move to the music just sitting behind a keyboard.  I don’t remember, but my dad might have had to tell me he was blind before I realized it.  Maybe kids just don’t notice those sort of things when someone doesn’t seem handicapped.

This movie biopic about Ray Charles takes place way before the days of The Blues Brothers.  We first meet him as a young man on his way to Seattle to play in a little jazz joint called The Rocking Chair.  He has a nice start there as part of a trio, but quickly realizes that he’s treated like a dog on a leash.  Everyone feels like because of his blindness he needs to be looked after, taken care of, babysat.  He leaves to play somewhere else, but this keeps happening until he establishes himself.  Unfortunately, along the way he starts using heroin and cheats on his wife while he’s on the road.

Sex and drugs aren’t his first problem though.  As the film progresses, we get looks back at Ray’s early childhood in the rural south.  We see his first encounter with a piano and some memories that haunt him throughout his life and only intensify with his heroin addiction.  These flashbacks also show us how Ray slowly lost his sight at just seven years old.

Jamie Foxx hands down deserved the Oscar he won for portraying Ray Charles.  Everything is there, the walk that rocks back and forth, the kinda fidgety way he moves and the slight stutter.  And it’s not done in a caricature way you see all the time, but fleshes out to feel authentic.  Foxx was even blind during filming due to the eye prosthetics he had to wear and really had to figure out how to move around the sets on his own while being Ray.

And let’s not forget the music.  Jamie Fox really did play piano for all the scenes, but you could swear it’s Charles.  He looks that passionate and natural.

Now, I think people are likely to compare this film to Walk the Line from 2005, the biopic about Johnny Cash’s career and overcoming his drug addiction.  They’re both good movies with similar subjects but vastly different.  First of all, country and jazz and rock and roll are two different worlds.  Another, Walk the Line mostly becomes a love story and Reese Witherspoon schools Joaquin Phoenix in acting, whereas Ray is strictly about Ray and Jamie Fox carries this film all on his own with out even seeing.  And their childhood traumas, Ray’s has Johnny’s guilt issues plus blindness.  Like I said, I enjoy both films, but Ray has more merit.

Obviously any fans of Ray Charles or Jamie Foxx have to put this on their must-see list.  If you’re interested in rock and roll history or the Civil Rights movement, this should also be up your alley.  Everyone else, just see it cause it’s a good movie, I guarantee you’ll be tapping your toes along with the music.

“Always remember your promise to me. Never let nobody or nothing turn you into no cripple.”

Five Easy Pieces

Robert, or Bobby to most, seems like your average blue collar drifter.  He works the oil fields, hangs out at the bowling alley, in his friend’s trailer and with his white trash girlfriend.  He’s rough talking, sarcastic and doesn’t seem to respect anyone.  You’d never imagine a guy like that coming from an upper-class household full of concert musicians.

Played by Jack Nicholson, Bobby hasn’t been home in about three years.  It’s suggested that there’s a general falling out between him and his father, but that’s never dwelled upon.  He’s visiting because his father has suffered multiple strokes, the end may be near.  With his sister being a professional pianist and his brother a classical violinist, Bobby is the black sheep who threw away his once promising musical career.

The two sides of Bobby’s life seem to be portrayed by two types of music: classical piano and country.  The country songs, mostly by Tammy Wynette, are the soundtrack to Bobby’s new life he’s found for himself down south.  They also seem to be the choice of his pea-brained girlfriend, Rayette.  The classical piano plays when Bobby is faced with family matters or in his childhood home.

One of my favorite scenes nearly combines the two music personalities.  Bobby and his coworker are stuck in traffic with horns blaring.  Bobby gets fed up and gets out of the car to yell at everyone.  He climbs into the back of a truck to find a piano in the back and proceeds play it (even though it’s horribly out of tune).  It seems even in the hot southern sun Bobby cannot escape his musical past, even when antics that can only be pulled off by Nicholson come to play.

My big problem with Five Easy Pieces is that I wasn’t sure where the heart of the story was for too long.  Like driving two days for a weekend getaway, I questioned if his time at home would be worth it.  There was so much time spent down south, and then the car ride was such a long journey, I was starting to wonder if the destination was important at all.  It’s only there that we discover who Bobby really is, the good, bad and everything.

I really enjoyed this film, but my husband curled up and fell asleep because, “Nothing was happening.”  Fair enough, it wasn’t the most eventful movie.  But it’s got the heart, the drama, and an interesting character that Nicholson was born to play.  Take it or leave it, it’s much better than Love Story.

“I move around a lot, not because I’m looking for anything really, but ’cause I’m getting away from things that get bad if I stay.”