For this new retrospective, let's look back at the career of the American Alexander Payne. Downsizing, the boost of this beginning of the year 2018 is the opportunity to review several films that have marked the career of the filmmaker. Very discreet and "little" prolific director (7 films in 20 years), this polyglot history graduate was born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska in a close-knit Greek family. Millennia away from a family artistic inclination – his parents are restaurateurs – the young Alexander began as a screenwriter for television. He develops a rather satirical pen with a hint of truth and surrounded by light layers of humor, which can be found in all of his films. From Citizen Ruth (her first feature film at 35!) at Downsizing, let's discover the world of Alexander Payne.
A separate and bankable figure in Hollywood, Alexander Payne belongs to this new generation of directors who emerged in the 90s. Quentin Tarantino, Steven Soderbergh, Kevin Smith, Richard Linklater, Payne… A new, more dynamic and independent wave emerged at the end of the twentieth century. The ogre Weinstein is the generous patron and supporter of these new faces that he will value within Miramax among others. Peter Bieskin's book, Sex Lies & Hollywood, will go deeper into detail. In his thirties half finished, Payne embarked on a cinematic epic that would lead him to the Oscars a few years later, with a first feature film co-written with his roommate at the time, Jim Taylor.
Citizen Ruth (1996) – 1st film
For an introduction, Alexander Payne strikes the spirits. First film and already develop the "tricks" of the director. The footage is correct and the director draws heavily (and judiciously) on cinematic grammar for his baptism of fire. A political-social satire, Citizen Ruth paves the way for original works that will mark the American's career.
From the writing you feel something different, the little wow effect that characterizes some filmmakers. We do not cry genius but the trademark that emerges. Ruth Stoops, a depraved daily life revolving around drugs, is once again pregnant. She, who already has four children removed by the D.Has.S.S., turns to abortion. But several characters will try to dissuade him…. and to convince her at the same time. She who was only human waste suddenly becomes the center of attention in the city. Alexander Payne surrounds himself with his future pen of always, his friend Jim Taylor. The duo signs a funny, acid, politically incorrect and touching story. An ambitious cocktail that takes its shape in the fair and touching interpretation of Laura Dern. The actress, then at the height of her fame, decides to play in this small independent film of three million dollars (it is very little in American cinema). Difficult to judge Payne's work as an actor director as Dern perfectly embodies his character a little silly with some surprising and moving moments of lucidity.
American and then global audiences have just seen Payne in what he will be later: a humanist storyteller of original stories full of twists and turns. Because the script is already a strong added value to this first film. Payne/Taylor make us follow this "anti-heroine" through everyday situations shot in a crazy way (we think we see Coen sometimes) with unexpected reversals of situation (and all the more pleasant when they arrive!!). Thus, the payment of bail from prison can make us laugh out loud while the distress of drug addiction manages to bring us a few tears. Already, Payne has a strong message. Ruth's dilemma and the question of abortion is approached here in a funny way but the substance has a lot of substance and this mayonnaise will remain on all Payne's menus.
Music is approached as a complement to visual storytelling. Rolfe Kent begins a long adventure with Payne. The soundtrack is very discreet and often serves to underpin the comedy or drama of the action. No ostentatious artifice and the effect works without sounding fake. This use of music can be found in all of Payne's films.In contrast, Citizen Ruth is Alexander Payne's only film that is an original story carried by a heroine. The fact is astounding enough to dwell on. Payne will turn beautiful and talented actresses certainly, but never more at the top of the bill. Although he signs almost all the scripts of his films, they will all be adaptations of books and Citizen Ruth (and Downsizing) is therefore the only true original story of the duo Payne / Taylor (this will not prevent that his look often goes beyond the novels, to the delight of all). And not everyone can boast of having Burt Reynolds in his first feature film!
Sideways (2004) – 4th film and The Descendants (2011) – 5th film
After a moving and touching drama carried by the brilliant Jack Nicholson, About Schmidt (2002), let's dwell on two pivotal films of his career in many ways.
With Sideways, Payne repeats his experience adapting his previous film – About Schmidt is loosely adapted from the eponymous novel by Polish writer Louis Begley (1997). The book of the same name by Rex Pickett catches the eye of the duo of screenwriters who are working to transpose it to the cinema. This wine roadtrip of two quadras at the crossroads of their lives, is part of a recurring theme that Alexander Payne will address in all his films so far. The hero will always be male, drowned in a gloomy life full of contradictions (and especially unconscious love failures) and will decide to make a 180 ° turn. A geographical turn also since we finally leave Omaha, Nebraska native of the director for sunnier landscapes (before reaching paradise in the next film). This 4th film is above all the confirmation of a work with people with whom Payne is used to working. Music (Rolfe Kent), editing (Kevin Tent), sets (Jane Ann Stewart) and costumes (Wendy Chuck). James Glennon having left prematurely, it is Phedon Papamichael who takes care of the photography (and we are talking here only about the main heads of post). The sign of a team in confidence and delivering an effective recipe, strongly impregnated with a "trademark" = this dramatic comedy that juggles very judiciously between the two tones.
Sideways is also the film that introduced Alexander Payne to the great Hollywood. He garnered five Oscar nominations (supporting actor, direction, film and adaptation). Jim Taylor and Alexander Payne will leave with the last statuette. A recognition of the profession for a rather atypical and very original pen. After four films, the American arrived late finally reaches a relative recognition that will launch him on more ambitious projects.
However, there is a seven-year hiatus before his next film. Terrence Malick had done better (20 years between Les Moissons du Ciel and the return with fanfare with La Ligne Rouge). This long absence takes on its full value with the release of The Descendants, based on the eponymous novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings (2007) that Payne adapted without his buddy Jim Taylor (who goes to production). In Hawaii, the life of a family turns upside down. Because his wife has just been hospitalized following a boating accident, Matt King awkwardly tries to get closer to his two daughters, Scottie, a lively and precocious ten-year-old girl, and Alexandra, a rebellious seventeen-year-old teenager. He also wonders if he should sell the family land, the last pristine tropical beaches on the islands, inherited from his Hawaiian ancestors. Like Scorsese who likes to film New York, Payne makes us travel pleasantly in the Hawaiian archipelago, without ever doing too much, beautiful images, a nice light and that's enough. Phedon Papamichael, his recent cinematographer colleague will even say that the sensational is never sought by Payne in his choice of executives. He likes to tell stories simply, without going through "signature plans" or technically complex to implement. The result speaks for itself. Rolfe Kent also does a remarkable job on the music by incorporating Hawaiian voices that bring the finishing touches to a believable immersion. A faithful adaptation to the original work that is essentially based on the sets and casting. George at the head of the pack, his daughters on screen are real revelations. Shailene Woodley (who will be found far too quickly in blockbusters; unfortunately) offers a poignant performance of the teenager in charge of supporting a father devastated by misfortunes. His youngest Scottie is played by an illustrious unknown who had never played before: Amara Miller. For his first film with children, Payne shows expert mastery without falling into pathos. One of the many facets of a director that he manages brilliantly.
On the scenario side, we are still witnessing a drama of a quadra, a little pommé/overwhelmed by events, who arrives at a crossroads of his life. And this cinema that is about real human beings, these characters who are so much Mr. Everyone and so unique in their characterization. Alexander Payne is a humanist, we cannot hide it. Although he does not write anything ex nihilo, he focuses on choosing the right stories and making them even more atypical with his adaptation work that merges him with the text. It doesn't come from him, but what he does with it and what we feel is a real sign of quality, which endures on all his films. No doubt it is the debate on the lands we inhabit and the respect of traditions v.s. the profit of capitalism that the book proposes that caught his eye. Or family relationships and love simply. There would be so many to mention in this film that will touch the greatest number by the wealth of the King family.
The Descendants is a success at the box office since it nuples its initial investment to collect almost $ 180 million. He also won the Golden Globe for drama and leading actor. New Oscar for Alexander Payne with the adaptation (against five nominations in total). It is the biggest commercial success of the American director to date (pending the "blockbuster" of his career: Downsizing).
Nebraska (2013) – 6th film
Undoubtedly the director's most artistic and intimate film. It is also the first film to which he does not devote his pen. Bob Nelson's script fell into Payne's hands while filming About Schmidt. His friends who produced his first films Albert Berger and Ron Yerxa asked him to recommend a director from Nebraska if possible, and Payne proposed his own application. They agreed by producing it. Bruce Dern was the first choice for the lead role and he read the script as early as 2006 before this long hole in Payne's career. In Nebraska, he plays Woody Grant an unbearable septuagenarian father, killjoy, alcoholic convinced that he has earned a million dollars as announced by this obviously false advertisement he received. His entourage is desperate by this man who matures an Alzeihmer who handicaps him more and more. His youngest son, David Grant, decides to take him to Lincoln, Nebraska where the lottery business resides to get him out of his daily life and renew father-son bonds that never really existed. A road movie close to Sideways and extremely touching by actors at the top and a breathtaking image. The duo of parents June Squibb and Bruce Dern is deliciously spicy; She who literally says everything that comes to mind. A real character from the Payne universe.
The choice of black and white is unprecedented in Payne's career. Not that he doesn't appreciate the technique, just that the opportunities hadn't manifested. This is probably the film he worked on most aesthetically. Freed from the constraint of color, his production designer for the duration of a film, J. Dennis Washington, worked closely with Phedon Papamichael (cinematographer) to ensure that the sets were provided in textures. Wendy Chuck, his long-time costume designer, also brought her expertise to give the end an image so symbolic that shades of gray take the role of color. A mastered exercise in style for a director who did not pay much attention to the image (all things considered, it was not a priority to have sophisticated and meticulously composed shots). Nebraska offers a range of nature and urban plans that are really worthwhile. The light of the cinematographer is also effective in the structure of each shot. To finish on the image, the film was shot with a high-end camera (a classic in Hollywood whose name will not be mentioned), in cinemascope (using anamorphic lenses). The result is stunning in several aspects. First of all, the quality of the image that highlights the details of a face (and you combine the effects of shadow and light to obtain visual jewels). The choice of cinemascope allows the viewer to be immersed in vast territories and reinforces the movement of the characters in them. We see a lot of wide shots, often used in a comic tone with a very simple staging (no cut) for an even more effective effect (salute the performance of the actors that demonstrates that the best is the enemy of the good).
Nebraska is also a new screenplay for Payne. We no longer follow a lost quadra at the crossroads of his life. Building on its experience on the theme of family in The Descendants, this film develops a tumultuous father-son relationship under a register always impregnated with the Payne cocktail: drama and humor. We are undoubtedly witnessing the apotheosis of irony in Payne. A slight taste of black humor where laughter does not mask the gene that seizes us at the same time. We laugh at old age but we are relieved to have seen a film that talks about it in such a raw and at the same time so real way that we often bury our heads in the sand with the daily life of the "elders". A very humanistic film once again where Payne shows us that he makes excellent films that talk about human beings, more in their faults than in their good days.
This film is a critical success while the public does not really follow. However, Payne and his troupe of technicians leave with some awards since the film is presented in Competition at the Cannes Film Festival and Bruce Dern leaves with the prize for best actor, logically. Alexander Payne offered the role of his life (at 77 years old) to the father of his first actress, Laura Dern. Nebraska is probably the least accessible film of his career (many will already freeze, wrongly, in front of the B&W). But above all, it is a very silent film, with an excellent rhythm and dialogues interpreted with great emotion, without false notes. Some will call it an auteur film and the comparison is far from wrong. Whatever happens, Nebraska is the best for writing.
Downsizing (2018) – 7th film
For 2018, Alexander Payne is fart his prize pool to offer us this little object of dystopia / science fiction very very symbolic. The director will be the first to say it, Downsizing is a comedy, we oppose it, but the film brings so many new ideas and questioning of our society that it becomes almost a social and political satire. New to the gang, Matt Damon plays Paul Safranek a resident of Omaha (back home) who decides with his wife to try downsizing, a process that shrinks the size but increases the standard of living, to start a better life in the sun.
Alexander Payne tries a new genre for him in a story from the imagination of the solid Payne/Taylor duo. This is the explanation of the seven-year hole during which the two friends worked on the scenario. The circle is complete with Citizen Ruth. This is the director's second original script and it was worth the wait. Nice surprises to the cast (Hong Chau a name to remember), a scenario with twists and this subtle black humor that delivers strong messages in a very elegant and comic way. A pure Payne product!
In theaters January 10, 2018.
