With CHRISTINE, Campos, Shilowich and Hall offer a genuine, deeply-felt and honorable memorial to a talented, troubled young woman

Coming as it does on the heels of a documentary -- Kate Plays Christine -- that seemed to prove above all else how difficult and sometime pointless documentary film-making can be, the new narrative movie CHRISTINE succeeds beautifully in bringing to life a life that most of us (if we'd heard of Christine Chubbuck at all) knew only for the single act that "put her on the map."

In that regard, this movie is not unlike another excellent film that opened earlier this year, The Witness, that managed, at long last, to give us a look at Kitty Genovese in a manner that opened up her life into something much richer than the mere victim she'd seemed to have been down the decades since her murder. Rather than exploiting, both films honor their subject.

As directed by Antonio Campos (shown at left), written by Craig Shilowich (shown below) and

starring an actress who's currently as good as anyone performing in movies and TV -- Rebecca Hall (shown on poster, top, and further below) -- in what is, so far, the role of her career, Christine succeeds in creating a time (the mid-1970s), a place (a local TV station in Florida), and people (workers, friends, family, interviewees) that come together to form the kind of spot-on reality that narrative movies rarely get near.

This is the first attempt at screenwriting for Mr. Shilowich (shown at right), and as such it is not simply good, it's rather phenomenal.

The writer has packed in so much, and all of it germane, fascinating, and very warts-and-all in terms of not only Christine herself but of those around her. This allows us to see the positives and negatives clearly and to come surprisingly close to understanding who Christine was and how her surroundings worked with her personality to determine what happened.

Over the course of the film we learn so much about Christine -- everything from her virginity status to her relationships with her mother, boss, co-workers and especially the co-worker for whom she feels more than the normal attachment (played with his usual skill and subtlety by that fine actor, Michael C. Hall, below).

Via all of this, we come to understand Chubbuck as a terribly troubled yet talented young woman with rather heavily under-developed social skills. And so very good is Ms Hall is delineating all this that we quickly and hugely feel the embarrassment and naivete of this woman as she tries to work her way around and through various situations. Hall handles all of this so skillfully than not a moment registers as false or overdone. She keep us in her corner, even as she allows us to understand how that corner is so thoroughly fencing her in.

Hall has a large and often glowing face, but here she keeps the muscles in that face tightly coiled. Only when she is putting on the charming social-service puppet shows for the children she works with does she relax into those "puppet" roles to leave her constrained self behind. What a joy it is to see her suddenly liven and embrace! (Christine is not the kind of movie our "Oscar" Academy usually embraces, but I dearly hope its members gird up their loins and take a look, because quite a number of people involved with it deserve nominations.)

Around halfway along this two-hour film, my spouse noted aloud, "This does not seem like a movie." (More and more often these days, Spousie uses the word movie to double for the word fake. After we've watched something or other, he'll shrug and exclaim, "Yeah -- it's a movie.") Regarding Christine, he is so right. This is about as real as it gets. Mr. Campos, a director whose past work (AfterSchool and Simon Killer) I've enjoyed, does wonders here, using a documentary style abetted by what seems like a near-perfect production design, including period costumes, hair styles and sets.

The manner in which Campos and Shilowich and their actors capture the little TV station and its workings (above) may but you oddly in mind of its polar opposite, that glossily entertaining cable series, The Newsroom. (Or even better, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, which is used quite cannily and sadly here.) Campos' entire cast -- which include Tracy Letts (below, right) as Christine's adversarial boss, J. Smith-Cameron as her alternately helpful and trying mom, Maria Dizzia as her best friend who has her own necessary ambitions, and John Cullum, as the TV station's money man -- is first rate. There are no villains here, and no heroes, either. Just people living and working as best they can -- and doing a pretty good job of it, considering the circumstances.

In yesterday's New York Times there a fine article about Rebecca Hall and the making of the film, in which it comes out that Christine's brother refuses to see it because he feels that it is exploiting his sister. I wish he would reconsider, for this film is anything but exploitative. Christine is a movie that, during and after viewing, makes you look at things differently and understand them better. That's a tall order and it is served up here with intelligence, kindness and caring -- as expertly as you could wish.

The movie, from The Orchard and running 119 minutes, opens this Friday, October 14, in New York City exclusively at Film Forum. Elsewhere? Sure hope so, and as soon as further playdates becomes available, I'll post them here.

An American (sociopath) in Paris: Antonio Campos' second feature, SIMON KILLER; plus short Q&A with the auteur & his actor

Don't we all want to go to Paris? I sure did. Most of us will have had a better, more enjoyable, maybe even enlightening visit (it's the "city of lights" in the country of philosophers, after all) than does Simon, the anti-hero of Antonio Campos' sophomore effort, SIMON KILLER. Simon's a narcissistic cutie-pie and lady-killer (the latter metaphorically, if not by the finale, in actuality) who needs to be the center of someone's attention -- if not the American girl he left behind, then any of the few he manages to meet during his stay in France. I don't think I'm giving away spoilers here: One does not add that second word to a film's title without serving up a certain expectation for the audience.

Mr. Campos, at right, is the talented filmmaker who gave us a few years back AfterSchool -- a look at the way we live now in one of our "better" private high schools -- a movie as uniquely conceived and executed as it was appalling to witness. (It also gave us one of our first up-close-and-personal views of that very good actor Ezra Miller.)  AfterSchool was both hypnotic and exotic (in a kind of sick way), and so is Simon Killer, though for me it is not quite as interesting a movie, stylistically. Nor is its universe as "special" as that of the former film. It's leading character, Simon, as played by actor Brady Corbet, below, consistently puts us off, as befits the socio-unto-psychopathic personality this fellow inhabits.

This makes for an interesting, if frustrating experience, for we generally want to try to identify with and follow our hero (even our anti-hero) to some extent. Yet every time we try, Simon's behavior puts us off. When we would normally go left, but Simon turns right. If we want to zig, Simon zags. Eventually, we must just step back and watch at a safe distance, as our boy grows crazier and crazier.

Though we see various sides of Simon -- his interactions with a relative whose flat he occupies briefly, a couple of girls he meets, a prostitute or two (one of whom becomes his "amour"), a bully in the street, his mom via computer camera -- none of these makes him any more likable. In fact, each encounter has the opposite effect. This is distancing, to say the least. Our "hero" in AfterSchool may have grown up to become Simon, but in that earlier film it seemed as if there might be a little hope for him lying around somewhere.

Campos tries some interesting visual effects in his new film: his opening shot of Paris, then colors and shapes; crass color filters over his relationship with his hooker, too, as they seem to grow closer. At times the cinematography is grainy, smudged, almost always dark and unclear, not unlike Simon himself. But the sex is certainly hot. At one point, Simon gets finger-fucked by his girl (the lovely Mati Diop, of 35 Shots of Rum), although we might wish that Campos had been a bit more egalitarian in his use of full-frontal. As usual, the female anatomy gets the once-over, while the male remains discretely covered.

Another thing: the film moves too slowly. Campos seems willing to extend a scene past its sell-by simply to get more of a song he likes onto the sound track. And yet there are some indelible moments along the way. It's been awhile since we've had a movie so dedicated to exploring a sick personality. You may not much like Simon Killer, the young man or the movie he inhabits. On the other hand, you won't easily forget either of them.

The film -- from IFC and running 101 minutes -- opens today, Friday, April 5, at the IFC Center in Manhattan, then hits VOD the following Friday, April 12.

*****************

TrustMovies met with filmmaker Antonio Campos (shown below) and actor Brady Corbet (further below) in the restaurant of the Crosby Street Hotel for a brief Q&A earlier this week. Both men were pleasant and as eager to talk as you could expect from folk who've been doing the this meet-your-public thing for probably a little longer than they might like.

(In the following, 

TM's questions appear in boldface, 

Campos' and Corbet's answer in standard type.)

When I saw Simon Killer, I couldn't imagine that it had come from the same guy who did AfterSchool. They seem so different, beginning with their location and style....

I feel like the two movies are cousins. If you'd seen my short films, as well, you might find a through-line.

I'll have to do that. Still, style-wise, the difference is pretty immense. What were the biggest differences in filming the two? 

Well, this is a lot more intimate a film, I think. And then, filming in Paris, of course, and having only a outline script which the actors then improvised on. The script is a blueprint, rather than... gospel.

(To Corbet) How do you feel about improv. Do you enjoy it?  

Well, no. Not really. The thing is that I am terrible at improv. It's not my forte. I was just working on a movie last week, and the director says, 'Just say this and this and this...' And I tell him -- 'No, you've gotta write that down.'  With this film, we had some scenes that were loose, but that by the time we were shooting, we would have improvised at rehearsals, and then Antonio would transcribe what was working well during those rehearsals. Some scenes were half improvised, where I knew generally were we were going. The thing that's really hard is when you are in a position where the director wants you to be really angry, and then you run out of things to say after about 15 seconds. There's nothing I hate more than seeing an actor searching for words, because it shouldn't be about the words. People have this thing about improv, where they think it'll be more realistic. But it's not.

Watching your film, it didn't seem to be improv. It seemed real -- but not improvised.

Antonio adds, "If anything, this is more like the Mike Leigh approach to improv."

To Corbet: How did you deal with working on a character who is so dark? 

Because of the nature of this character's psychology, we tried to be true to him in every moment. Like when, early on, he's a victim of aggression. But then, the thing is, an hour later, he will no longer be that victim..

No, he's the victimizer.

Yes, he is living in a psychology where he isolates everything, moment by moment.  I didn't have to internalize anything that's going on with anybody else in the film. Just stay with Simon. And there he is, having a good time.

Hee's a narcissist. 

Sure, he a narcissist, a sociopath, all of those things. Or maybe none of them. He's so slippery, it's hard to give him a label. I think those things are impossible to speak summarily of. The best example of this, I think, would be something like in Camus' The Stranger. That scene in which the people are constantly pleading with the character: 'Why did you do it? Why did you pull the trigger six times?' When he finally talks about it, he says, 'It was hot that day! There was sweat in my eyes. I saw a figure standing in the distance and suddenly I had this chill run up my spine and it went into my right hand and I pulled the trigger over and over and over again.' So, like sometimes, you can blame an atrocity on the weather. (I laugh)

To Campos: Do you have another film in the works? Or maybe you've already finished it?

Not yet, but I am writing a second draft of something right now. It's a feature based on a documentary about a murder trial.

So you are staying within this sort of dark realm?

I guess so, yeah.

Well, it's the world we're living in right now.

It's always been the world we live in.

Hmmm.  Maybe the speed now....

The speed and the access to it. The technology makes things happen faster. Technology has made it easier and quicker to hurt each other. (Brady laughs and agrees with that assessment. As does TrustMovies.)

On that note, we have to leave our dark prince 
of independent film, and his actor, and await his next 
foray into death, shadows and troublesome personalities....