I admit to being skeptical about the casting of Jennifer Hudson as Aretha Franklin in the new biography film Respect. While Hudson is undoubtedly a phenomenal singer, the task of tapping into the singular look and sound of the First Lady of Soul seemed to me as difficult an acting challenge as they come, but Hudson and director Liesl Tommy dismantle the task with patience and precision, albeit within a framework that doesn't exactly redefine the bio-pic approach. There is an exceptional sequence early in the film depicting the Franklin patriarch, charismatic preacher C.L. Franklin (Forest Whitaker in one of his greatest scenes to date), and the recreation of those sermons goes hand-in-hand with the destination of the film, Aretha Franklin's recording of her 1972 Gospel album "Amazing Grace" (the documentary film version having received a long awaited release in 2018), and both of these sequences undeniably capture the electricity of these two performers. The dramatic sequences of the film that depict the tension between the egos of father and daughter are a bit less successful, but the performances continually reveal a depth of feeling, and an unknowability, that seems appropriate to a subject like Aretha, whose life and career did not fit neatly into the bio-pic template. Does that stop the film from ripping a page or two from the old bio-pic playbook? Not at all. And while this most repetitive of genres is not one of my favorites, there's something about Respect that gets the balance of the formula just right. It also helps that Tommy is a strikingly confident director, especially for her first feature film (her previous TV credits include Insecure, The Walking Dead, and Jessica Jones). Like Hudson's portrayal of Aretha, the directing choices just become more rich and layered as the film progresses. Marlon Wayans is also excellent as Aretha's husband, manager, and sometimes co-writer throughout the 60's, Ted White. Liesl said in an interview with Marc Maron (also in the film, exercising his acting chops as Aretha's agent Jerry Wexler) that she had an extended period during the pandemic to trim the film from 5 hours + to the final cut, and you can sense that the scope of the film is ultimately well honed. Even if there are a few expected or false turns into alcohol binges and ego battles, the music and the personality of Aretha shines through in an authentic and honest way
The beats and rhythms of Paul Schrader's writing were ingrained in my consciousness long before I knew who Schrader was, particularly because I had seen Taxi Driver so many times in my younger days that I could playback the lines in my head like the earworm of a favorite song. Later I took a course that used Schrader's book Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer as it's central text, which helped me to think about and articulate what was going on with many of the new filmmakers I was experiencing at that time--in fact, this was so long ago that I only took the course just to see the Bresson films, which weren't easily attainable outside of an academic setting at that time. I had already seen Ozu (who I love and wouldn't fully connect to or understand until much later) and Dreyer (whose Joan of Arc is still unlike anything I've ever seen and sparked my passion for silent film), but it was the Bresson films that really left an impression on me: A Man Escaped, Diary of a Country Priest, and the film that is most directly referenced in the final scene of Paul Schrader's new film The Card Counter, Pickpocket.
The way that Schrader works through the traditions he's written about critically, often re-approaching the same themes and character types, is still compelling to me, even if The Card Counter tends to play more like a retread of some of his better work, particularly Light Sleeper and the more recent First Reformed. I think some of this has to do with those films being better in terms of casting and collaboration with the lead actors, though Oscar Isaac as William Tell in The Card Counter has a perfectly suitable deliberate and dark demeanor. But The Card Counter, for me, is like a band who made a great album once, a long time ago, and never stopped putting out different versions of that same album--at some point it's going to sound a bit stale, as good as it may be. That analogy may be selling Schrader a bit short, but he is clearly working in the same methodical, obsessive manner as many of his characters, continually trying to evolve his craft by returning to the questions and motifs that occupy him. In this film, what Schrader intends to spark, once again, is something akin to the transcendence he experienced with Bresson, and he gets much of that through the meticulous design and tonal mastery at the heart of the film. The Card Counter is an essential American film if only for the way it approaches the architecture and design of gambling spaces, and for the way it juxtaposes that with the architecture of Abu Ghraib. Both of these are spaces of trauma and desperation, where the American ideal is flailing for some semblance of control, and the way the film makes this visible within a genre framework that is usually less concerned with larger themes is the aspect that's not at all tired, but haunting, impactful, and vital. In one of my favorite refrains of the film, Tell repeatedly encounters a gambler who keeps in tow a crew of supporters who routinely chant "U.S.A! U.S.A!" at every won hand. In most other movies this would be handled as a comedic gag to be punched-up, but Schrader knows how to let this element occupy a liminal space in the world of the film, somewhere between the comedic and the horrific, connecting Tell's past as an Abu Ghraib interrogator and his present life as a card counter--which seems less about the thrill of playing than the act of coping with that past. It's in details like these that The Card Counter works best, and while so many choices are made with that same productive touch of ambiguity, what the film builds to, and some of the plot devices by which it gets there, left me unconvinced.
For those familiar with Schrader's work it will likely be far from a spoiler to point out the final, Pickpocket-quoting scene, and for those who are concerned with spoilers, The Card Counter may likely not be your bag. It's not that the film doesn't have its own share of plotted turns, but the onus to provide this is not on the card playing as much as it is on what that act represents and facilitates in the narrative--the trauma it sublimates, the violence it supports, and the connection it leads to in the end. And what the film builds to is that Bresson-inspired moment of connection and doomed romance between Tell and gambling financier/love interest La Linda, played by Tiffany Haddish. The way that LaLinda and Tell negotiate their performances within the drab, repetitive casino and competitive poker rooms is perfectly drawn, marked by some brilliantly subtle costume choices that accent their continual attempts to pass and bluff their way through the company they keep. The same is true for their vengeful, young companion Cirk (with a "C") played by Tye Sheridan, who seems to understand the Bresson-ian acting mode the most here. But the unconvincing part came for me more through the script, with the agreement that Tell and Cirk make playing like an odd and unlikely contrivance to hinge the film's forward momentum on. By the time we wind our way through the falling dominoes of the plot and land on that final shot, I had already been satisfied by the elements of the film that were working more effectively than the plotted conclusion. And, to be blunt, I don't think we're given much reason to care about LaLinda, and while Schrader seems to be aiming for something more like Bresson would dictate to actors--"BEING (models) instead of SEEMING (actors)"--it works in some instances here, but not enough to imbue the final shot with the weight he so clearly desires.
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