The Sleepy Time Gal

 

Writer/director Christopher Münch

Münch with Maximilian Schell and Jacqueline Bisset in Munich

THE SLEEPY TIME GAL         A                                                                                         USA  (108 mi)  2002  d: Christopher Münch

What a discovery!  Christopher Münch, who is the writer, director, editor, and producer of the film, does a brilliant job of poetically weaving together multiple story lines of crisscrossing characters that haven’t seen and don’t know about one another, confronting incredibly powerful moments in their lives, where it’s not always the accomplishments we look back upon, but the biggest regrets and disappointments that we tend to remember.  There’s some terrific writing here, with a unique editing design, while there’s also extraordinary acting by all involved. Jacqueline Bisset?  It might be hard to believe, as Charlotte Rampling has re-invented herself in recent roles, but she never had a part as well written or as fully realized as this one.  Add to this Martha Plimpton and Nick Stahl, who both worked beautifully together before in Tim Blake Nelson’s first film THE EYE OF GOD (1997), which was one of the best American films seen in recent years.  Seymour Cassel, of all people, from the Cassavetes films (who the director met briefly before he died), reappears here along with Frankie R. Faison, where even the secondary roles have a profound impact.  All are simply fabulous.  This is highly personalized and amazingly human, a contemplative experience that is as intense and emotionally compelling as anything seen this year, a small gem of a film that has rarely been seen since its initial limited release.  Taking three years to make, with jazz and classical musical selections playing a prominent role in this rich under the surface atmosphere, the film premiered at Sundance, where most of the director’s features have played, distinguished by never having found a distributor, appearing on The Village Voice list of Best Undistributed Films of 2001, eventually released on the director’s own production company, Antarctic Pictures, shown on television by the Sundance Channel, which led to a brief American theatrical release, followed by a DVD from Sundance Home Channel Entertainment that is now out of print, never released on Blu Ray, making this an overlooked and very difficult find, though it has streamed on the Criterion Channel.  According to Film Comment editor Gavin Smith (FILM; Adventures of an Indie Gem on Its Way to the Screen), the film takes “incredible risks with material that’s been handled in really banal ways in the past.”  From the director of Letters From the Big Man (2011), Münch is a self-taught filmmaker from Southern California, the recipient of a Guggenheim fellow, while his first film, THE HOURS AND TIMES (1992), an inquiry into the Beatles’ psychosexual dynamics based on the friendship of Brian Epstein and John Lennon, won the Wolfgang Staudte Prize at Berlin for the best first or second feature.  He’s not a well-known artist, the son of astrophysicist Guido Münch and writer Louise Fernandez, and few have likely seen any of his works, but this particular film is a revelation, and well worth seeking out.

At the center of this film is Frances, played by Jaqueline Bisset, star of Peter Yates’ Bullitt (1968), François Truffaut’s DAY FOR NIGHT (1973), and John Huston’s UNDER THE VOLCANO (1984), who regards this as the finest performance of her career, where much of the character is based on the director’s own mother, a remarkable free-spirited woman in her fifties who has led a full life, with a keen intellect and love for the arts, married twice with two sons, one from each husband, though one lives abroad and is heard only by telephone and never seen.  Working as a freelance writer, social activist, and radio personality, also something of a history buff, she has an enlightened effect on the many people she has met, yet also interwoven into the storyline is Rebecca (Martha Plimpton), a high-powered corporate attorney, as we discover parallels between a younger version of Frances and Rebecca’s own life, where initially viewers have no idea how it all fits together.  Feeling more like a subconscious memory exploration, featuring a series of spatial shifts moving back and forth in time, a patchwork of random incidents, beginning with Frances in New York City in the summer of 1982, moving to Frances in San Francisco six months later, then discovering Rebecca in New York, jumping forward another year to Frances in San Francisco, switching back to Rebecca in Boston before boarding a plane for Daytona Beach, Florida.  Yet there are also some extraordinary 1930’s shots of New York City, supposedly shot by the director’s grandfather, a Mexican newsreel cameraman who had spent time in New York.  The autobiographical elements are simply an underside of this film, where things don’t necessarily have to make sense, as this is more of a story about human relationships, yet the stream of images are a potent reminder of how we come to understand the complexity of our lives.  What we see from Frances’ past is shown in poetic flashbacks of black-and-white photographs and home movies, which may be real or imagined, given a very literary feel.  Frances has a young gay son living in San Francisco, Morgan (Nick Stahl, a stand-in for the director), trying to establish himself as a photographer, working a minimum wage job in a photo copy shop, where they are close, but often butt heads in disagreements, leading completely different lives, where most of the backstory is never filled in.  Instead, Frances has to come to terms with rapidly spreading cancer, where part of confronting her own mortality is revisiting the source of her biggest regret, as she was forced by her own mother, Anna (Carmen Zapata), to give up a baby girl born out of wedlock to adoption.  Illegitimacy was once a real concern in 1950’s America, carrying a heavy weight, something few would comprehend today.  Rebecca, as it turns out, is that missing daughter, who also reflects on her birth mother as she gets older, pondering all the missing and unanswered questions, revealing the profound influence parents have on their children, oftentimes in ways that are only understood when reflecting on them later in life.  It’s an unusual technique of developing two separate storylines on parallel tracks throughout the picture that somehow merge emotionally and psychologically, as they never come face to face, but meet only in their minds and imaginations, which adds greatly to the emotional weight of the film.  This is an extremely original cinematic vision, taking us to unexpected places, surprising us every step of the way, showcasing different locations, styles of architecture, and enticing landscapes, as it probes an underside of something that never fully surfaces into the light, but has a pregnant life force of its own, with the director reeling viewers into their anxiously unsettled mindsets, where it’s clear just how much this exploration means to them, becoming a rarely seen existential essay on pursuing one’s own identity, where this unforgettable film is essentially that journey. 

Frances goes through the chemotherapy sessions, surrounded by caring doctors and hospital staff, with encouraging therapists, then she got better, and was in remission, hoping it’s just a setback, that she can get her life back on track, revisiting an old flame, Bob (Seymour Cassel), who happens to be Rebecca’s father, currently living with his wife of thirty years, Betty (Peggy Gormley), on a farm in the Amish country of Lancaster, Pennsylvania.  While they still have a serious connection, perhaps more interesting is the relationship between the women, who have always known about the other, as it was never a secret, but Betty never knew about the child, only that Bob could just as easily have been married to Frances, where she is writing a book that fictionalizes a love story she imagines, which turns out to be fairly close to the truth about the affair between Bob and Frances.  Coming face to face, finally, opens up a part of their lives that each has never experienced, where there are so many emotions hidden beneath the surface.  Bob, of course, wants to pick up where they left off, even going on a hot-air balloon ride together, causing Frances to grow uncomfortable and leave without any word, as she just disappears like a thief in the night.  Seeking to make amends with some of the combative relationships she has experienced, always feeling strangely unfulfilled, Frances has a strained relationship with her mother, a small-minded Puerto Rican woman who is openly racist, still something of a culture shock and open wound in her life, something that apparently will never heal.  Rebecca, meanwhile, is sent to a Daytona Beach radio station for a corporate takeover, where she runs into one of the disc jockeys there, Jimmy (Frankie Faison), a black radio station manager who had free reign to play whatever he liked on what was commonly known as a “race station,” but he understands how the business works and has no hard feelings, thankful for the time he had there, where the station’s reputation was established by late night programming from a woman who described herself as the “Sleepy Time Gal,” with a photo of her hanging in the studio, someone Jimmy was drawn to as well, but Rebecca has no idea this is her mother.  As Rebecca attempts to gather court sealed information about her mother, it’s an eye-opening process, with Frances leaving behind messages for the daughter she never knew, searching for missed opportunities, where the dramatic combustion is nothing less than compelling, treading on very rare territory, using kaleidoscopic, stream of conscious imagery that can feel abstract and emotionally jarring, where we can never be sure whether we’re watching the fantasies of one character or the memories of another, yet it’s all in pursuit of a better understanding of ourselves.  There’s even a French girl (Clara Bellar) gathering mushrooms near San Francisco Bay that Frances encounters, where these ambiguous side excursions just add to the complexity of the experience.  As Frances’ condition deteriorates, she makes peace with life and death without an ounce of sentimentality, attended by a sympathetic hospice nurse, Maggie (Amy Madigan), and visited by her son, where it’s as close to being in the same room with someone dying as you’re ever likely to see onscreen, with Bisset miraculously displaying an unsparing depth of range we’ve never seen from her, providing touching moments that are simply unforgettable, most without uttering a word, requiring the full attention of viewers.  Tenderly observant, falling outside of traditional boundaries, ultimately this is a probing exploration of what it means to face death, avoiding melodrama, forgoing typically comforting clichés in favor of multifaceted ambiguity, offering something far more truthful and uncompromisingly open-ended.

In the Bedroom

 

Director Todd Field

Field with his wife Serena Rathbun

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

IN THE BEDROOM             A                                                                                               USA  (131 mi)  2001  ‘Scope  d: Todd Field

A boy’s will is the wind’s will,                                                                                                          And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.                                                                        —from My Lost Youth, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1855

A modern tragedy, a wrenching portrait of grief and its ravaging effects, more relevant now than when it was released, largely due to the endless gun violence in America, rupturing the stability of ordinary lives, leaving bereaved and utterly distraught families losing children and young adults at such a young age, where the numbers are staggering, Key Statistics - Brady Campaign, forced to deal with inconsolable loss, their lives upended by a grotesque reality, leaving giant-sized holes that can never be filled.  The film is an extraordinary depiction of quiet anguish, expressing a despairing sense of irrecoverable loss, registering the shock, grief, anger, and the desire for revenge, with viewers forced to contend with the grief of bereaved parents staring down the missing void in their lives, haunted by an overwhelming sense of dread.  What this film has is adult intelligence, continually registering the pulse of the characters, getting under their skin, showing empathy by exploring the shattered lives that can never be healed, too badly damaged by a wildly fatalistic turn of events that has robbed them of their future, leaving families utterly devastated by the emptiness left behind, forever wondering what could have been.  Listed as the #3 Film of the Year by Roger Ebert, Roger Ebert's Top Ten Lists 1967-2006, and #7 by the Village Voice poll, Film Poll: Top 10 Movies by Year, 1999–2016, it was a critical and commercial success, winner of a Special Jury Prize at Sundance, the first official Sundance selection to earn a Best Picture nomination, made for $1.7 million, earning more than $43 million in its theatrical release, though the first-time director had to fight Harvey Weinstein from cutting thirty minutes.  Still it was promoted with false advertising, revealing secrets about the film that suggested it was an atmospheric thriller, something along the lines of the Coen’s neo-noir Blood Simple (1984) or the stylishly made murder mystery THE DEEP END (2001), with many critics finding it overly contrived, yet the film isn’t reliant upon the narrative, as it’s largely a reaction to it.  Not so much about a murder as the aftermath of a murder, an exposé of bottled-up emotions, this is a broodingly intensive piece of introspection, with Field crafting a small story told with near surgical precision that has largely been forgotten since then, relegated to a distant past, where the only available DVD contains no extras or director’s commentary, and has never had a Blu-Ray release that typically generates renewed interest.  The director may be known as much for the projects he never completed as those few that he did, The Lost & Unmade Projects Of Filmmaker Todd Field, a Kubrickian protégé making only three films in a quarter century, yet looking backwards, this film sews the seeds of his budding career, where anyone seeing 2022 Top Ten List #2 Tàr can appreciate the similarities in conveying the tragedy of human failings, demonstrating that rare capacity to explore the interiority of things, allowing audiences to interact with the material, provoking a multitude of differing reactions, becoming a discussion on the personal and societal ramifications of horribly destructive human behavior, revealing how tragically humans react to personal trauma, often compounding their misery.  Adapted from the 1979 short story, KILLINGS, by Andre Dubus, who tragically lost the use of his legs in a 1986 accident, setting the majority of his stories in New England, the author described his choice for a title in a 1993 interview with literature professor Olivia Carr Edenfield, Conversations with Andre Dubus - Page 154 - Google Books Result, “It’s called ‘Killings’ because everybody is getting killed in that story.  He doesn’t gain his life; he does something terrible.”  The title of the film, on the other hand, co-written by Field and Rob Festinger, refers to the rear compartment of a lobster trap known as the “bedroom,” where if it contains more than two lobsters, they begin to viciously turn on each other, but it also references the marital intimacy that emanates “in the bedroom,” a secret domain kept away from the children, yet it’s where all the most important decisions are made.  Field was introduced to the work of Dubus while studying directing at the American Film Institute in 1992, one of America’s finest short story writers, amazed that his stories were about broken people living in tightly knit communities where everyone knows their neighbors, actually visiting him at his rural Massachusetts home of Haverhill on the northern border before embarking on this film project, both feeling excitement about the story.  Having the good fortune to be mentored by both Dubus and director Stanley Kubrick, establishing a connection while working as an actor in EYES WIDE SHUT (1999), drawing inspiration to direct his first film, but both died within 11 days of one another shortly before production on this film began, with Field paying tribute to Dubus with a dedication in the final credits. 

A story of love and loss immersed in a small town New England setting, it resembles the intimacy of Kenneth Lonergan’s 2016 Top Ten List #5 Manchester by the Sea, taking place in the fishing community of Camden, Maine, a quiet escape from the rat race of urban centers, where a Red Sox broadcast is always on the air (Field purchased the rights out of his own pocket), preserving the pre-war innocence of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town (1940), where the sanctity of middle-class life prevails.  Opening with a near idyllic reverie, two lovers are seen frolicking in a field, Frank Fowler and Natalie Strout (Nick Stahl and Marisa Tomei), both very much in love, yet the bucolic surface conceals contradictions lurking underneath, with hovering parents Matt (Tom Wilkerson) and Ruth Fowler (Sissy Spacek) expressing their concern at a family barbeque, understanding the easy allure of the earthy sexiness of Natalie, fearing she may disrupt their son’s future plans, as Frank is home for the summer before heading back to school, studying to become an architect, while Natalie is older, a working class mother with two young children, not yet divorced from her abusive husband Richard Strout (William Mapother), whose family owns the local sardine cannery, a prominent fixture on the waterfront.  Ruth disapproves of this relationship, sneering at the class disparity, while Matt is more tolerant, allowing nature to take its course.  When the headstrong Richard makes an uninvited appearance to the family gathering, making a beeline straight to one of his kids celebrating their birthday, Ruth is concerned there will be trouble, quickly asking her husband to intervene, but Frank welcomes him to stay and have a meal.  Already there is palpable tension in the air.  Frank, with his boyish looks, has had plenty of girlfriends, claiming this is no different, just a summer fling, but his mother suspects this is different, as he’s considering postponing school to earn money on a fishing boat in order to be closer to Natalie and her kids, who are developing an attachment, already becoming an extended part of the family.  Matt is a local physician, and an avid fisherman, enjoying spending time on his boat tending to his lobster traps, while Ruth is a high school choir instructor with a special interest in Eastern European music, specifically Balkan states that have seen their share of political upheaval and war, repeatedly seen teaching her students a Bulgarian folk song, Zeni Me, Mamo - YouTube (3:14), which adds an underlying pathos to the film.  When Frank is roughed up by Richard with a punch to the eye, he refuses to press charges, not wishing to escalate the conflict, though it’s a clear sign of his erratic and over-controlling nature, upset to see his wife running around with another man.  Events take a tragic turn, however, when Frank, protecting Natalie and her kids from being terrorized by repeated acts of domestic violence, is shot and killed by Richard, a crime of jealousy, shattering all illusions of a tranquil life in a cozy community, sending Matt and Ruth into an emotional tailspin of anger mixed with unending despair, where it’s simply impossible to process the paralyzing hold this has on them, where there is no pain in the world more painful than losing a child.  The film is at its best in registering the shock and grief of Matt and Ruth, making the audience imagine their pain through understatement and prolonged silences, using imagery rather than words.  Shot in Rockland, Maine, where Field resides, using his own cabin in the woods for a critical scene, it’s made almost exclusively with no panning shots and a static camera by Antonio Calvache, never relying upon dramatic effects, as we cut away from the action, only hearing the shots, revealing the distraught reaction of Natalie, while we also don’t see Matt delivering the news to Ruth, instead he’s seen walking down a lonely school corridor contemplating the significance of what he’s about to do while she’s still engrossed with work.  The camera respectively, almost discreetly, follows the precisely drawn lives of each of these individuals, allowing the camera to linger on the faces, charting their emotional responses, their interactions, their conversations, capturing both what is said and what is not, where the accumulation of detail is astonishing, creating recognizable figures that resemble real life.      

Because there are no witnesses to the crime, and Richard’s parents are rich enough, the killer claims it was an accident resulting from a struggle, so instead of murder, his charges are reduced to manslaughter, possibly facing only five years in jail, released on bond until a trial can be set, which could take another year.  Meanwhile he’s out on the streets, with the grieving family forced to witness his freedom, viewing him as a ruthlessly self-centered individual, reminded every day when they see the family name on the cannery, or their delivery trucks, becoming a constant reminder of their unending torment, fueling yet another layer of grief.  Having to see her son’s killer causes no end of exasperation for Ruth, turning inward, smoking incessantly, planting herself in front of the television watching mindless shows, while Matt, a respected public figure in town, pretends everything’s OK, shrugging off any offers for help and assistance, going about his business as if nothing’s changed, but the beer he turns to at night provides no consolation.  It is the mourning of these parents where the film gains strength, elevating the increasingly tortured dynamics between husband and wife to an Ibsen-like emotional abyss, with much of the pain brought to life in the ghostly faces of Tom Wilkinson and Sissy Spacek, literally shells of themselves, barely speaking to one another, capturing their looks, silences, and restrained gestures, with a heartbroken Marisa Tomei adding her own tortured guilt, turning into a heart-wrenching meditation on grief, treading the same territory as Atom Egoyan’s The Sweet Hereafter (1997), with Matt and Ruth living in the shadows, choking on the daily existence of their lives and their futile search to find meaning, where she utters at one point, “It’s like the moments between waves crashing—or pauses in music.  There’s no noise, but it’s deafening.”  Beautifully expressed in the prolonged silence of a poker game, an evocative Longfellow poem speaks to the haunting mystery eating at them, recalling the refrains of a Scandinavian “Lapland song,” gloomily reflecting on the innocence of youth, which has simply disappeared, "My Lost Youth" Longfellow Poem from "In the Bedroom" YouTube (2:28), where at least in Longfellow’s eyes, a boy’s will and the wind’s are the same.  Particularly chilling is the requiem-style eloquence of the Eastern European music performed live in the town square, Camden Harbor Park, with a poetic overlook of the boats lined up in the harbor, with the sea off in the distance.  The death of their son has torn a hole in their marriage, where nothing can be communicated, eventually turning on each other, castigating blame in a fiery exchange that resembles the dramatic intensity of Bergman or Cassavetes, unfolding with a masterful precision, Confrontation scene - In The Bedroom (2001) YouTube (6:30).  Free of cliché’s, they seem like a genuinely authentic couple, delving into their inner, psychological sanctum where everything is off-kilter, a massive disruption of the stability of their lives, tearing open a wound that can never heal, enraged by a lack of accountability for their son’s death.  The moral dilemma is acute, front and center in the film, veering into a nightmarish option with staggering consequences.  While the film does not advocate vigilante justice, the idea of seeking atonement for the killer’s sins is emotionally relatable.  If the murder is not drastic enough, the consequences take on deeper ramifications, stripping away at the supposed veneer of middle class civility, like the shocking aftereffects of 9/11, when Americans suddenly wanted retaliation, with many viewing this film as an allegory of America’s response to September 11 and its aftermath.  Released just two months afterwards, it became the poster child for the rage that was felt at the time, tapping into deep collective emotions stirred up by the terrorist attacks, but after a passage of time, it’s more likely viewed as a morality tale, an existential search within ourselves to find redemption.  The finale is equally haunting and compelling, captured in an interminable silence, where the moral complexity is worthy of debate, eliciting longstanding questions about vengeance and justice, In the Bedroom (2001 Todd Field) YouTube (4:56), perhaps a companion piece to Kieślowski’s A SHORT FILM ABOUT KILLING (1988).  Field has kept almost all the elements of the Dubus story, but has amplified them and altered the tone, deciding to humanize the eternal questions nagging at the human soul, ending with a flourish of picturesque beauty, once again revisiting the tranquility of a tiny coastal town.