Angelina Jolie and the screaming
When I start analysing a film while watching it for the first time I generally stop being immersed in the film experience, and the magic has gone.
During the scene when Angelina Jolie's character hears the news of her husband's death and she starts crying and screaming, I remember how I found the screaming annoying and I wished she would stop. Maybe that was the desired effect. Who knows? However, at that point I emotionally disengaged from the movie and the character, from the hurt and pain she must have felt.
While the scene progressed I began thinking, 'Hmm, why am I thinking about Jolie's performance and the choices the director made in filming it this way and not becoming upset by the terrible horror of this woman's experience'. Michael Winterbottom is a bit of a heavyweight director, and I'm not about to say he can't cut the mustard or he should have shot that scene differently. Ah, bugger it, maybe I am.
'Interesting,' I thought, whilst turning down the volume on Ms Jolie, 'how would I do it? What would work better?' I imagined the camera staying outside the bedroom with all those other people, hearing the muffled screaming coming through the closed door, whilst the camera pans from face to face, and they all look exactly how you imagine. No-one looking anyone else in the eye, no-one saying anything, no-one moving. I think that would work quite good. But, I'm no Michael Winterbottom, haha. No, I think the reason the scene is shot the way it is, is this is the BIG scene for the star of the film. There's no way Ms. Jolie would allow her 'Oscar' (™) moment to slip away and we can all only guess whether there was a clause in her contract or not, etc, etc and so on.
As you may have guessed, while I think Angelina Jolie is a very good actress I'm not necessarily convinved that she's up there with Meryl Streep or Cate Blancette in the Oscar (™) stakes, although I am aware she won one for Girl, Interrupted, in which she did some notable screaming. After all she is the same Angelina Jolie that appeared in movies such as Cyborg 2 (forgiven due to being very early in career..) and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Yes, it can get pretty bad, eh? There is another steaming turd of a movie worth mentioning for it's immemorable entertainment value, Angelina's lousy accent and her amazing ability to play the mother of an actor roughly the same age as herself. Yes you guessed it folks, Alexander. Need say no more, except Rosario Dawson, ahem...
Which, in closing, leads me to the other important debate regarding this movie - what was with the lousy French accent? I didn't reaslise she was French until well into the movie, and I learned to speak French at school! Mon Dieu!
This comment was posted for my fun and your entertainment so there's no need to get all righteously outraged and indignant now. Is there? :)
Oh, and from here on this is my serious point that you can get as righteously outraged and indignant as you want. If you ingrates can stand the pain of reading subtitles and you're curious to see how an actor portraying the emotion and horror of just finding out the person you love has been killed, then watch the sterling, powerful performance of Dutch actor Clarice von Houten in the excellent Paul Verhoeven film 'Zwartboek' aka Black Book. Now, THAT is acting.