Harmony Korine vs. Sofia Copolla

Emma Watson stars as the 'ring leader' in The Bling Ring (2013)

With Spring Breakers (2013) on top of the box office charts in its first week of release, and The Bling Ring (2013) slated to be Sofia Copolla's most interesting film yet in a sea of non-interesting bullshit fluff, one has to compare the two considering the subject matters are extremely similar thematically. 

Both concern bright young things with 'a talent for living' who are not shall we say well-off but not necessarily starving either and go on crime sprees if for no better reason than that they're bored. 

In Spring Breakers, the motivation is to find sufficient funds to keep the beer flowing and the bikinis off for an endless spring break that leads to violence and murder, while in The Bling Ring, a bunch of spoiled brats from Beverly Hills decide to rob other rich peoples homes if for nothing more than attention, which they got. They even made a show about it which aired on E! called 'Pretty Wild'. Needless to say, it didn't do so well. 

Beautiful still from Spring Breakers (2013)

The motivation of crime for crime's sake stretches way back to the times of the infamous Leopold and Loeb case where two rich lovers decided to kill a young boy believing themselves to be personifications of the Nietzscheian 'Superman', killers without consequence, those who do the crime without ever considering of doing the time, just to see if they could get away with it, and more often than not, they can't. 

In both films the characters are hipstery brats that have nothing better to do with time, and we love to hate their careless abandon but also embrace it as we live vicariously through them for a little under 2 hours. 

The members of the so-called Bling Ring and co-starring skinny jeans.

Both of these themes run parallel in the stories of both films, so the question becomes who will be the more outrageous. Clearly, my money's on Korine. I love the man, and if you've ever watched any of his films he's one step away from pure Vincent Gallo-esque outrageousnous.

Sofia on the other hand, has always been close but no cigar. Her films almost have a point, and then they don't. It's just about sad and lonely people in a world that doesn't understand them and....snore. 

But I have to give her at least some credit, after watching the trailer for The Bling Ring, I was almost impressed. The Sleigh Bells playing in the background was also helpful, and it looks rather accurate if it's actually based on the facts which her prior film Marie Antoinette (2005) was certainly not. 

Haromony Korine, one of our generation's greatest auteurs.

Therefore we have to think of these films as a series in the portfolio of auteurs, and for Korine, this definitely fits in with his repertoire. Drugs, sex, violence, and everything bizarre have always been the corner stone of his content, and what he's able to do with it so brashly and apologetically is nothing short of art. If The Bling Ring (2013) is to be taken seriously, and looks like it's going to be, it's going to have some serious shoes to fill. The film needs to be sardonic, contemptible, fanatical, and tawdry, all in the best way imaginable. It needs to be filthy like Korine, or it will be just as forgettable as all her other endeavors, so I guess Sofia, I wish you luck. You'll need it.

Official trailer for The Bling Ring (2013)

Official trailer for Spring Breakers (2013)

An excerpt from 'Pretty Wild' the show about the girls who started the bling ring, featuring ring leader Alexis Neiers.

Spotlight on: Swoon

The infamous thrill killers that stunned the nation. A Bergmanesque shot of Nathan Leopold (Craig Chester) and Richard Loeb (Daniel Schlachet)

I've had a slight stagnation on my Downton Abbey watching so I'm not ready to publish a third installment in the series quite yet, though I would like to instead shine some light on one of the best films of the 1990's and in my opinion, one of the most definitive of that decade; Tom Kalin's Swoon (1992). I'm seeing it at the Billy Wilder theater in Los Angeles next week and am very excited. Thought I'd blog about it to get ready.
Before college took over my life and I moved to New York, I was taking an interest in films on my own and taking my ques from odd documentaries on films that TCM and AMC would show every once in a while. There was one such doc about American Independent Film which of course was born with the work of John Cassavetes back in the 50's and 60's and reached a creative zenith and strength of integrity in the 80's with the film of someone like Jim Jarmusch, it wouldn't be long until Quentin Tarantino and the Sundance Film Festival dissimulated the whole thing but out of that collective in the late 80's and early 90's sprung a couple creative minds including the likes of Todd Haynes, Gus Van Sant and Tom Kalin who's work would be sub-categorized into what B. Ruby Rich coined as 'New Queer Cinema'.

It was unapologetic, low-budget, and brilliantly poignant, but most of all it was honest. The 'New' in its name suggested that it was a break from every cinematic cliche created to illustrate gay culture from the past and tell real stories about real people in the most sincere means possible. This is not to compare it to something like Dogme 95, because the formalistic concepts through which to achieve this sincerity were secondary to the narrative at hand.
One of the most profound films that came out of this movement was tragic yet rather snide drama Swoon (1992) starring Craig Chester and Daniel Schlatchet as Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb; two young men who, one fated night in the 1920's murdered a young boy simply for the thrill of it, believing themselves to be the physical manifestations of the Nietzschean Superman. This story and the subsequent trial that followed were so sensationalized that it actually has had many previous film adaptations of it, most notably Alfred Hitchcock's Rope (1948) and Compulsion (1959) starring Orson Welles. Yet, every film prior seemed to sidestep one big part of the story; Leopold and Loeb were lovers (although to be fair, Hitchcock's version does hint at it a great deal). Note: in 1997 Michael Haneke would loosely adapt the story for his excellent film Funny Games which could also be classified under New Queer Cinema.
Though this was common knowledge and used frequently in their infamous trial, Hollywood always seemed to sidestep this one big notion. There was a romance as timeless and devoted as we've ever seen between the these two young thrill killers that is the centerpiece of Swoon. Beyond the grizzly nature of this murder, there is a love story that motivates the shocking action that lead to both of the lovers' demise. It's bizarre, it's co-dependent, it's passionate, and it's volatile, and most of all it was doomed.  They killed because they could, and perhaps for love. But what Tom Kalin explores is the notion that we would do anything we possibly could to keep the other person interested, and to keep the other person impressed. It's the ego in us.
The visual poetry of this tragic love story is breathtaking. It is shot on grainy black & white film, with minimal and at times anachronistic set dressing and a general stylized aesthetic. It looks remarkable, but that doesn't overshadow the staunch and cynical tone with which it tells it's story. It's very stoic and seems at once detached from itself so that it does not lay on the drama heavy-handedly, which is incredibly effective in that it requires the viewer to experience the narrative objectively.

Of the two main characters, the star of the film is clearly Craig Chester (who plays Nathan Leopold) a character who felt intellectually superior but psychically inferior to most, but in particular to his lover Richard Loeb and to prove his genius incited, planned, and executed the murder (or so it was thought). He is shown as a man who is completely sexually aware and able to therefore control his impulses so that he is able to play mind games on his partner and manipulate him all the while keeping strangely calm...i think that's what we all secretly wish we could do quite honestly. We've all tried to have the upper hand in a relationship, but goddamn emotion always gets in the way.

The narrative functions highly based on the visual style in order to portray the sexual subtext through iconography. Visually, this film draws on techniques of Ingmar Bergman, Kenneth Anger, and even to a lesser extent Andy Warhol and creates a re-imagined aesthetic of sexual representation on film, and I'm going to stop right now before this begins to sound like a thesis.

To conclude, Swoon (1992) is a major important commentary on sex and the mental state. It's wholly psychoanalytical and impeccably honest. It's cinematography is stunning, and it's writing though dated is rather superb. This was a tiny film that wouldn't have had as big a legacy had it not been one of the seminal works of the New Queer Cinema movement, and now will thankfully have a rightful place in the sex-in-cinema anthology.

Here is the trailer: