THE MAINE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2004 Diary

By Laurie Meunier Graves

DAY 3

Today is Empire Falls day, and what a brouhaha there is! Empire Falls, you will recall, is the novel by Richard Russo that is set in either Waterville or Skowhegan or any other Maine mill town. HBO has made a film of it starring, among others, Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Helen Hunt, and, of course, Ed Harris, who will be receiving MIFF’s Mid-Life Achievement Award. It so happens that the movie was actually filmed in Waterville and Skowhegan rather than, say, Oregon or British Columbia, and today is the big day for a twenty-minute clip, to be shown with Pollock. (Empire Falls is currently scheduled to be released on HBO in early 2005.)

When we first arrive at the Opera House for what will be an Ed Harris triple feature (Alamo Bay, Walker, and Pollock) the streets are empty, but the MIFF crew is hard at work taping up signs and setting up temporary corridors for lines. The town is so Sunday quiet that it’s hard to envision a large crowd clamoring in line, waiting to get into the Opera House.

However, when we come out of Walker, it is quite a different matter. The line goes from the Opera House, past the Sterns Center, around the corner, and stretches past Jorgensen’s café. The house holds 940, and the show is sold out, so that means there are nearly 1,000 people waiting in line. I cannot, with any authority, say that this is the biggest event to hit Waterville, Maine, but it must come close. My husband, as he is taking photographs for the web magazine, actually hears someone say she got her ticket from a scalper. In the line, there are children, teenagers, and adults. Serious filmgoers and people who might be referred to as the “blockbuster” crowd. There is even a woman who fancies herself to be a Joanne Woodward look-alike and proclaims this on a shirt she is wearing.

What makes this such an event for Waterville? Other movies have been filmed in Maine, and, to my knowledge, have never made such a big splash. Is it the openness and generosity of the actors, especially Ed Harris, and the author Richard Russo, who lives in Maine? Is it because the story touches a nerve with people in central Maine, the least quaint part of Maine and an area bereft of its mills? Is it because so many locals are in the film, and they are eager to see themselves? Perhaps it’s a combination of all these things, but whatever the reason, I must admit it is fun to be part of that crowd and feel the energy and enthusiasm that such an event brings. Just for a moment, it makes me forget about the war in Iraq, torture, terrorism, and the upcoming elections in the fall. I am in the land of movies and Empire Falls, and, at least temporarily, it is a good place to be.

ALAMO BAY
USA, 1985; 98 minutes; 35mm; in English



Alamo Bay is the first movie of the day, and what a way to start! I hope I am not indulging in hyperbole by stating that this is a nearly perfect film. The acting is terrific, the cinematography is wonderful, and the story is so gripping that at times I wish I were reading a book rather than watching a movie so that I could flip to the end to see what happens.

The plot centers on the tensions that arise between a group of Vietnamese immigrants and the inhabitants of a small, hardscrabble coastal town in Texas. This is a town that makes its living from the sea, but just barely. Like Seducing Doctor Lewis, the residents must deal with the fact that the bay has been overfished, that a once seemingly endless resource has its limits. Unable or unwilling to change, the residents cling to their old way of life, hoping things will be better. But of course, the situation doesn’t improve. Unlike Seducing Doctor Lewis, Alamo Bay is not a comedy. In fact, just the reverse.

The movie begins by having Dinh, a young Vietnamese man played by the luminous Ho Nguyen, coming into town to join a group of Vietnamese people who have settled there. As soon as he meets the brooding Shang (Ed Harris), a veteran of the Vietnamese war, the viewer knows there’s going to be trouble. Shang and his wife and children live in the same trailer park as the Vietnamese immigrants, and Shang catches shrimp in the same bay as they do. Shang does not love his wife, is in danger of losing his boat, and is having an affair with Glory (Amy Madigan), the daughter of the man who owns the shrimp processing factory. In other words, life is not particularly good for Shang, and Ed Harris plays him as a hard, bitter man who would like to be successful but knows he never will be. Shang works hard, but he just can’t make enough to pay off the loan for his boat and live the life he wants to live.

Dinh and his compatriots are as poor as Shang’s family, but somehow they are not bitter. They work together, live together, and are even more industrious than the Texans. They have survived dreadful things—Dinh tells of how, as a young boy, he hid in the jungle for a week and ate nothing but grass—and the adversity has made them strong rather than resentful.

Glory, who helps her father in the factory, is pulled in several directions. Many of the Vietnamese immigrants work for her, and she respects their industry and thrift. In addition, she has been to college and knows that there is something beyond Alamo Bay, an easier way of life that in turn makes people more tolerant of outsiders. But, she also is deeply in love with Shang and wants to help him. Unfortunately, her resources and her energy must go to aid her ailing father, who has taken a decided dislike to Shang. So not only is Glory entangled with the Vietnamese and the residents of Alamo Bay, but she is also caught between two hard men, her father and Shang. Soon, the movie becomes Glory’s story as she must choose which path to take, and it is here that Alamo Bay and Amy Madigan really shine.

In a movie, unlike a book, it is not easy to show character development. It is much easier to present characters the way they are and let them move through the plot. Many good movies have done this, and it is a perfectly acceptable way to tell a visual story. However, occasionally a movie transcends the limitations imposed on it by being a visual medium, and it charts the growth of a character. Alamo Bay succeeds in doing this very thing, and Amy Madigan is such a fine actor that there is never one false moment. Glory’s struggle and courage are gripping and, in the end, inspiring. Glory becomes a true heroine as she gains wisdom and strength through the course of the movie and makes her dreadful choice. I only wish I could see more of Amy Madigan in movies. I hate to say this, but she is so good and smart that I expect Hollywood just doesn’t know what to do with her.

After the movie, Ed Harris and Amy Madigan talk about the film and answer questions. The audience is so small that it becomes more like a discussion, and it is perfect frosting to the cake. Harris and Madigan are articulate, open, genial, and engaging. What a wonderful way to end this film!

WALKER
USA, 1987; 95 minutes; video; in English

1/2

Walker, on the other hand, is not what I would call a great movie. It’s not even a good movie. It does have Ed Harris, and that perhaps is its only redeeming feature. Harris has such spark as an actor that he is good in whatever role he plays, even if the movie doesn’t work. Walker is based (loosely!) on the life of William Walker, who apparently took over the country of Nicaragua in the 1800s. Filmed in the 1980s, it is also a political protest against Reagan’s policies in Nicaragua, and to drill in the connection, the director throws in all sorts of anachronistic details—Time magazine and helicopters—into Walker’s 1880’s world. Random, cartoonish, and violent, Walker really is a mess of a movie. It’s as though a bunch of stoned college students got together and tried to make a film. However, Ed Harris is completely believable as the righteous zealot Walker. In his black hat and coat, Harris strides through the film like an avenging Puritan, and the gleam of his steely blue eyes lets us know that he means business. It’s a pity that the filmmakers couldn’t have done as well. I do want to add that no circulating 35mm print exists of this film, and the quality of the DVD that we saw was poor. It is even conceivable that this DVD might not have been the final cut, and if so, perhaps the theatrical release was better. But I doubt it.

HIGHLIGHTS FROM EMPIRE FALLS

POLLOCK
USA, 2000; 122 minutes; 35mm; in English



First comes the event we have all been waiting for—clips of Empire Falls. Ed Harris tells us about the film, the audience cheers wildly at appropriate times, and we see a series of scenes from the movie. Judging from what I saw, the film really has done a good job of capturing the tone of the novel and the essence of the characters, especially of the disappointed Miles (Ed Harris). The casting seems nearly as good as it was in The Lord of the Rings—apt visualizations of the book’s characters. However, two characters really stood out: the young woman who plays Tick, Miles’s smart, impatient daughter, and Ed Harris. (Of course! He always stands out.) Now, we’ll just have to wait for the entire film, all three hours of it, to see if it really did get the characters right. Since Richard Russo also wrote the screenplay, I think the film has a better than average chance of doing this. Also, it was a real thrill seeing Skowhegan, the town where my parents grew up, on film. Who would have thought something like this would come to that mill town? I’m sure my parents didn’t when they were growing up there, living an Empire Falls kind of life based around factories that would soon be heading elsewhere. Russo has told the story of our age, and I am eager to see it on film.

Next comes Pollock, another great movie. I saw it when it first came out, and it is just as good viewed a second time. The film, of course, is based on the life of Jackson Pollock, and it covers his early days as an emerging artist as it charts his trials, triumphs, and decline. In the movie, Pollock is not an easy man to like. His alcoholism, his neediness, and his crushing inferiority all come together to form a character that is less than endearing. At times, you want to grab Pollock by the scruff of the neck, shake him, and tell him to stop being so self-indulgent, to snap out if it. Except he can’t snap out of it. He cannot escape himself, and Harris’s performance is so vivid and nuanced that I really did come to feel compassion for the tormented but talented artist. Because along with the binges and rage, Harris also shows us Pollack’s gentle side, his love of animals, nature, and children, his love of his wife. Harris, who directed the film, also does something rarely shown in a movie—he shows us the joy of painting: the hard work, the inspiration, the innovation. Considering that painting is not a performing art, this is no small feat.

Pollock also concentrates on the artist’s relationship with his wife Lee Krasner, played brilliantly by Marcia Gay Harden. Krasner supports Pollock through his various tribulations. She is the typical art “wifey” who makes sure that every detail of her husband’s life is attended to so that he can focus on his art. Krasner is by turns Pollock’s lover, mother, housekeeper, cook, and career manager. Her life is devoted to him, and Lee Krasner is certainly not the only woman to have done such a thing. Many male artists have their Lee Krasners, and it’s not hard to understand the benefits for the men. But what would make a woman choose this kind of life? Is it true selflessness? Is it the attraction of genius? Is it a martyr complex? This question continues to puzzle and exasperate me. It seems like an exaggerated version of the traditional suffocating male/female relationship, where the woman completely sublimates her wishes and desires in deference to her husband. It rankled me when I first saw the movie, and it rankles me the second time as well.

Feminist grumping aside, Pollock is an outstanding movie. Why it did not receive the Academy Award for best picture, director, and actor is beyond comprehension. At least Marcia Gay Harden did receive a much-deserved award for her role. One might even say that, for once, the wifey got her due. 

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