Speaking Parts
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CINEMA CAN A D A Atom Egoyan's Speaking Parts ith his third film, Speakillg Parts , Atom Egoyan continues his exploration of memory, family, and technology. The landscape is becoming familiar: the video imWages, the alienated hero, the domineering patriarch, the bewildered feminine, the highly stylized performances. This time, however, technique is more assured; the vision denser, bleaker, and at times funnier. Clara (Gabrielle Rose), university professor and writer, sits in a trance in fro nt of a monitor in a video mausoleum grasping at Images of her dead brother. Lance (Michael McManus) moves in a semi-catatonic state from room to room in a luxury hotel changing sheets. Lisa (Arsinee Khanjian), sorts laundry in the hotel basement; she is abstracted, dissociated from her tasks and environment. The dance begins as austerely as an intricate Noh drama, in which gestures and Michael McManus as Lance silence delineate the boundaries of human communication. Here, however, video cuts a liaison. lllicit because of the electronic media's the story, begs Lance to do something . But Producer to control Clara and the film. technological swath across the human, usurpation of the sexual; and illicit because of Lance can only keep his speaking part if he Acold film, Speaking Paris eschews audience exposing, like an unhealed sore, memory and the essentially incestuous nature of Clara's remains silent. Lisa is silent about Lance's involvement for more intellectual pleasures: an truth. When the body is shipped of skin, we relationship to Lance, who has become her connection to the death in room 106, despite inhicate construct within a finely balanced find, not flesh or blood, but video images. brother's surrogate. having seen him emerge from that room. Clara structure. In the confines of the rigorous Lance waits for his chance at a speaking part, The film is particularly successful in retreats to the video mausoleum ; Lisa to her stylization, the actors rarely strike a false note. and until that chance comes, he is, for the most maintaining the balance between the Lance room with another Lance video, while Lance Arsinee Khanjian brings to the screen a sweet part, silent. Lisa waits for Lance to return her Clara story and the Lisa-Eddy one; moving readies himself for the first scene in his speaking innocence, which is particularly effective in her unrequited love and until then watches videos of effortlessly from one to the other, making each part: a talk show whose host is played by the bewildered search for love; while David B-movies in which Lance appears as an extra. the obverse of the other. Producer, and whose topic is organ transplants. Hemblen is superb as the monstrous patriarch Clara checks into the hotel where Lance and Lisa In one of the funniest scenes in the film, Lisa In a crescendo of rising tension, the film cuts whose images dominate the given universe. work, local production headquarters for the film operates Eddy's second camera at a wedding, from Lance to Clara to Lisa who, under the Tom Perlmutter - she has written about her brother's sacrifice (he driving the Barbie bride to tears and the Ken pressure of unresolved emotions, begin to died giving her a lung) . In a hotel meeting room, groom to aggression with the intensity of her video-hallucinate. The crescendo ends in the she confers with the distant Producer (David video questioning about the nature of love. The final explosive moment when Lance shouts no to SPEAKING PARTS I' Ego Film Arts w.ld. Atom Hemblen) through a video link. Lance leaves his enigma of love is a hidden theme in the film. his speaking part and the patriarchal lie. Egoyan d. d. p. Paul Saressy m. Mycheal Danna ,rt d. Linda picture and resume in Clara's room and carries Clara's brother loved her sister to the point of In Speakillg Paris, Egoyan has married a Det Rosario ed. Bruce Mc Donald sd. ed. Steven Munro se. cd. Allen BeUli ll ep.lp. Ill. CameUaFriebergexec. p. (Europe! on with his job, which includes sexual services sacrificing a lung and then a life for her; she concern with the weight of the image to th e Don Ranvaud lsi ,ssl. d. David Webb 211d ,ssl. d. Cynthia for lonely female guests, arranged by the hotel loves him and writes a film in homage to his weight of the word. Speech is fragmented and GiUespie3rd ossl. d. Paul Smith p la wyer Martin Krys p. housekeeper. Despite her sex, the housekeeper sacrifice, and extends that love to his lookalike rudimentary; the characters speak in parts, co-ord . Bill Sweetman p. acc. Maria Pimentel a$sl. arl d. plays the role of local patriarch, while the Lance. Lisa defines herself through her love for compared to the sophistica tion of the video Richard Paris osst. 10 arl d. Sandra Smolski "'Md. co-ord. Maureen Del Degan Imir Moira Verwijk "'-Ill' arl. Nicole Producer, a grander Big Brother, murmurs Lance. For both women, the loved one escapes imagery. Speech, which holds out the promise Demers &'1 dec. §props Theresa Santandrea-Cullnssl. sel dec. reassuring words and conunands from the giant them and is recaptured only in video. In room of communication, is the medium of deceit; Gavin Colord assl. word. Robert Fen,,;ck &'1 § prop. cOllsl. monitor. 106, an unknown woman kills herself for love of whereas video is often the channel of truth. The Richard Parisassl. sel COIlSI. Gavin Cofords,,"ic pailli. Jason At the video shop, Eddy (Tony Nardi ) tells Lance. Presumably, she didn't ha ve the Producer te lls Clara he respects her, that the Da vis wig des. Cindy Emery gaff. David Owen best boy Tony Ramsey key grip Cynthia Barlow assi. grip David Patrick lsi Lisa that his work includes recording events like consolation of video. story is special. But his video face immediately ossl. enm . David Plank 21ld ossl. enm. Paul Boucher sd. fCC. orgies and weddings. Lance provides yeoman 's The men, however, love no one. Eddy records tell s li S a different story. John Megill boom Peter Melnychuksc. SCII'. Monika Gagnon service to the hotel guest in room 106, and impassively; orgies and weddings are alike to It is through their video hallucinations that slills Johnnie Eisen 24 p@levid. vI'. CUff Lopes vid. co-ord. repeats it for Clara after she auditions him. him . The Producer is a controller of images. "Do Lance and Lisa begin to establish what is true or BiUSweetmand. obs. Jordan Merkurloc Illgr . Ruth Mandel ensl (0-0 10. Rose Gutierrezextms ensl. Glen Schultz, Scott Lance gets the part, his first speaking part, while you know who I am? If you watched television, right, and video also serves the function of Mansfield p.o. Naomi Boxer craft Avant Gout, Heather Clara is being eased out of the picture, erased you watched my sho ws," he tells Lance in an memory. In Family Viewillg, it was the archive of McMillan 01'1 dept. p. fl. Melinda Hector, Rick Conroy, James and mutilated by the Producer, who rewrites outburst of self-definition whose boundaries the famil y, those images which in linking one to Buffin, Beth Patnck, John Wojkows ki co-,d. Atom Egoyan include all who have consumed his images. the past, kept one human. In Speaking Parts, the dm/. ed . Micheal Werth lslflssl. ed. D,,;d Trevis2l1dassl. cd. history by changing the scrip t. In an effort to Kim Roseborough foley flrt. Steve Munro I'e-I'ee. lIIix. Daniel save her story, Clara goes on location and wai ts, Lance, with his bisexual looks, stands poised memory of the brother is preserved in video and Peilerin, Film House litle Metamedia fillll timer Chris Hinton like Kafka's K, to meet wi th the Producer who is and paralyzed between female and male. He reminds Clara and us of what is true against the fi llll l'rof. Medallion Film, Vid eo ltd. /.1' . MichealMcManus, never accessible. The vi deo link that served the neither watches nor makes images. He waits to lies of the Producer. But video can also be Arsmee Khanjian, Gabrielle Rose, Tony Nardi, David be assigned his speaking part. corruptive and expressive of patriarchal power Hemblen, Patricia Collins, Gerard Parkes, Jackie Samuda, purposes of patriarchal control becomes the Peter Krantz, Frank Tata, Patrick Tierney, Robert Dodds, instrument of Clara's and Lance's illicit sexual Clara, desperate that the film remain true to relationship s, particularly as used by the Leslek LIS, Sharon Corder, David MacKay. CINEMA CANADA PAGE SO NOVEI4BER 1.1. CINEMA CAN A D A William D. MacGillivray's The Vacant Lot and Bruce McDonald's Roadkill oodness!! I Gracious III Great balls of fire III Two Canadian rock and roll fli cks were unspooled during the most recent edition of the Toronto Festival of Festivals. One of them, BruGce McDonald's Roadkill, blasts across the silver screen like some insane cross between Russell (Don McKellar) and Ramona Eraserhead, This Is Spinal Tap and Rock N' Roll High (Valeria Buhagiar) School , while the other, William (Life Classes) MacGillivray's intentions seem fuzz y, but the shooting schedule and a minuscule budget, n. d. EvangeloKioussis nssl. 10 p. Cari Green p. sec. Paula MacGillivray's The Vacan t Lot , plods its way to picture keeps nagging at you to like it. And, director Bruce McDonald has fashioned a McNeil ullil pllb Heather Levecque key props Monique celluloid immortality alongside such earnest, once in a while, the picture actually manages to rip-snorting odyssey through rock n' roll Hell, a Desnoyers props Stephen Arnold set dressers Reisa Muir, Darlene Sheils, Heidi Haines cost.