Cinema Verite

Column: The Word on DVDs | Date Published: Tuesday, 17 July 12 | Author: Justin Hook | 10 months, 1 week ago

[Warner Home Video]

In 1973 the US public broadcaster PBS screened a 12-part series (An American Family) tracking the everyday lives of an ordinary American family. They weren’t famous, tremendously rich, nor representative of anything other than sheer suburban ordinariness. Widely considered to be the first reality TV show, it was as controversial then as Lara Bingle’s claims to legitimacy are today. America was shocked that intimate details of other people’s lives were turned into TV fodder. An American Family was a reminder of the debasement of society. Never mind that Richard Nixon was being impeached in the background and the country was ablaze with anti-war protests. No, the appropriately named ‘loud family’ was the real cause of social chaos and upheaval.

Cinema Verite is the story behind the making of the doco and offers a contested view of how it all went down. Craig Gilbert (James Gandolfini) pitches his idea of cameras in the home capturing every moment to PBS executives who are less than impressed. Especially so when the early footage reveals little more than a family doing family stuff. But it turned out the Loud family had much more to offer. Bill (Tom Robbins) was a womaniser who left his dutiful wife Pat (Diane Lane) at home to ponder a life not lived. During the course of the original series the real life couple argued, snarked, battled and eventually divorced ‘live’ in front of millions of viewers. Now that’s how you do reality TV. The executives liked that much more.

Cinema Verite is a revealing look at the chicanery and manipulation of America’s first reality TV family. They suffered but they fought back, on talk shows and in the media. The Loud family learnt quickly that the best defence is offence – in more ways than one.

	The Killing – The Complete Series 2: [Madman] Hindsight is a cruel mistress. What once was the best thing ever often turns into a reminder of youthful indiscretion and immaturity – tattoos, for example. The second season of this Danish crime drama/thriller certainly led to a few quizzical glances backwards. The first season felt complete and near perfect; an engrossing dissection of the impacts of crime across communities and families. Despite 20 hour-long episodes it never dragged, in spite of glacial and very deliberate pacing. This season is only half the length but feels twice as long. It starts with the discovery of a body at a war memorial but our sensible-sweatered hero Sarah Lund (Sofie Grabol) is nowhere to be found. Her headstrong ways didn’t sit well with the brass and she’s off monitoring the border or something. Of course in no time she’s back on short-term loan that is nothing but, annoying colleagues, family and her superiors. And herein lies the problem; it feels like we have been here before. Lund pays no attention to authority, her game is disobeying the rules and piecing evidence together when logic suggests she’s way off base and no one will stand in her way. Isn’t this all very Cop Drama 101? Was she like this in the first series and was it that obvious? Yes, and yes. It’s just more evident now, especially as the plot engine (one death that spirals into plenty more – drawing in the military, Islamic terrorists, shady politicians and dishonoured soldiers) feels hacky and rote. Nevertheless, Grabol’s insouciant charm saves the day and the slow reveal in the second half is a decent pay-off. But somehow it doesn’t seem enough anymore. That’s the problem when bars are set so high.

	Justified – Complete First Season: [Universal/Sony] After one of the most memorable and arresting pilots in a long time, Justified fell sharply and heavily. The promise of a simple story unfolding slowly, drawing in nuance and layers with multi-episode character and plot arcs quickly became a pro-forma crime-of-the-week cop show. It was devastating. Especially when such talented actors (Deadwood’s Timothy Olyphant and The Shield’s Walton Goggins) were given such great dialogue courtesy of Elmore Leonard, creator and co-producer of the show. Olyphant’s serpentine Raylan Givens is a trigger-happy US Marshal, who in the first five minutes of the opening episode plays out a well-mannered old school showdown on top of a Miami hotel. With the crim dead, Givens is disciplined and reassigned to his hometown in rural Kentucky where he confronts old foes, his estranged father, ex-wife, hardcore racist rednecks and your standard rollcall of small town hoods and gangsters. Givens navigates these divergent paths with a seething smile. The character is magnetic and Olyphant’s portrayal of him is a study of restrained anger; a steam valve ready to pop. Justified makes sense when it slows down and pieces together the larger narrative. It’s in the back half of this debut season that every failure is rectified and Givens’ family background comes into play. Animosity between the Givens and Crowder clans is decades old (possibly based on the real-life Hatfield and McCoy battles) and when it is carefully woven into the fabric of the show, everything feels resuscitated and reenergised. This first season is by no means perfect (moving production from verdant Pennsylvania to dry SoCal is obvious and disappointing) and the star-rating above shouldn’t be construed as such, but Justified bounced back in extraordinary fashion. It’s one of the decade’s best.