Carnage: Nine Rounds in a Brooklyn Home

Carnage

Directed By: Roman Polanski

Written By: Roman Polanski and Yasmina Reza, based on the play by Ms. Reza

Starring: Kate Winslet, Jodie Foster, John C. Riley, and Christoph Waltz.

Director of Photography: Pawel Edelman, Editor: Herve de Luze, Production Designer: Dean Tavoularis, Original Music: Alexandre Desplat

Rated: R for nasty things said among adults

            The title Carnage seems like an appropriate title for any film by the international auteur Roman Polanski. Not that his films are particularly violent, though they have their occasional horrific moments, but the word “carnage” seems to apply to the psychological state of characters making it through Mr. Polanski’s unsettling worlds. When we think of Mr. Polanski as a filmmaker, we think of Jake Gittes staring blankly at a dead woman, Rosemary embracing her son of Satan, or a writer maliciously hit by a car, his life’s work flying into the air.

            So Carnage, shortened from the Yasmina Reza play God of Carnage, seems like an appropriate for Mr. Polanski to take on. Ms. Reza’s play was a hit in Paris, London, and here in New York on Broadway, and like Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, is a 4 person actor’s showcase more than anything else. But Carnage doubles the Georges and Marthas, who slowly break down social order into manic chaos seems ripe for Mr. Polanski to play with visually and build into another one of his cinematic satires. Which is where the problem lies for this adaptation: the director doesn’t even begin to bite the apple. Mr. Polanski has some eye for composition, but he never really takes the play and makes it his own.

         Part of the problem perhaps comes from that Mr.  Polanski adapted the play with Ms. Reza herself, and besides a couple of bookended shots, the film keeps the narrative space of the play the same. Not that it should necessarily—Mr. Polanski has created some of the most terrifying small spaces in films like Repulsion and Knife in the Water. And thus we open in progress as Alan and Nancy at the Brooklyn home of Michael and Penelope. As we learn, Alan and Nancy’s son has smacked a couple of teeth out of Michael and Penelope’s son. We quickly pick up on their quirks, all of which are first seen as minor. Alan (Christoph Waltz) is a somewhat absent lawyer who can’t avoid his Blackberry. Nancy (Kate Winslet) works in finance and seems to avoid any sort of conflict. Michael (John C Riley) sells hardware appliances and seems nonchalant about the issue. And Penelope (Jodie Foster) is working on a book about Darfur and sees herself as a righteous do-gooder.

New York Film Festival: Roman Polanski's Carnage (Opening Night Selection)

Carnage (Opening Night Selection)

A Film By Roman Polanski

France/Germany/Spain/Poland

Correction: This post has been updated to correct the gender of the film's co-writer, Yasmina Reza, who is a woman.

            The title Carnage seems like an appropriate title for any film by the international director Roman Polanski. Not that his films are particularly violent, though they do have their horrific moments, but the word carnage seems to apply to the psychological state of the characters when they have finished their toil through the unsettling world that Mr. Polanski likes to create. When we think of Mr. Polanski as a filmmaker (as opposed to his always on-the-horizon legal troubles), we think of Jake Gittes staring blankly at a dead woman, Rosemary embracing her son of Satan, or a writer maliciously hit by a car, his life’s work simply flying into the air.

            So Carnage, shortened from the Yasmina Reza play God of Carnage, seems like an appropriate for Mr. Polanski to take on. Ms. Reza’s play was a hit in Paris, London, and here in New York on Broadway, and like Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, is a 4 person actor’s showcase more than anything else. But thematically, the play about two couples who slowly break down social order into manic chaos seems ripe for Mr. Polanski to play with visually and build into another one of his cinematic satires. Which is where the problem lies for this adaptation: the director doesn’t even begin to bite the apple. To say that Carnage is really a filmed play is an understatement to how literal of a translation this is.

Contagion: An Infection of the Mind

Contagion

Directed By: Steven Soderbergh

Written By: Scott Z. Burns

Starring: Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law, Kate Winslet, Marion Cotillard, John Hawkes, Jennifer Ehle, Demitri Martin, Bryan Cranston, and Elliot Gould.

Director of Photography: Peter Andrews, Editor: Stephen Mirrione, Production Designer: Howard Cummings, Original Score: Cliff Martinez

Rated: PG-13 for seeing famous people horrifically die.

            There’s a number of minor plot strands throughout Contagion, a big budget star-packed virus thriller from master filmmaker Steven Soderbergh, but the one that opens the film is the most curious. We begin with Gwyneth Paltrow, looking a bit under the weather as she sits in an airport bar. She answers the phone and talks to a lover that is not her husband after they’ve quickly met during a layover. The talk has no discussion of “what if your husband finds out?” or any of that, and while her husband will learn, Ms. Paltrow will be dead, and nothing will come of it. But it's the discussion that Mr. Soderbergh wants us to listen to—it’s rational, good fun, the tone suggests. Nothing serious, maybe a little emotional, but mostly rational. Too rational almost.

           Contagion may be a genre picture, but the aims of Mr. Soderbergh and writer Scott Z. Burns are both the political and the philosophical. This is a film about the battle between rationality and emotions, between doing what’s necessary and doing what’s right. The virus outbreak genre pretty much began and ended with 1995’s Outbreak and there’s not much to say in terms of the dangers organisms can cause in humans—after all, it’s not exactly very cinematic to watch people cough and die. But paranoia, as one character says “more dangerous than any virus,” is a ripe subject, especially as we near the anniversary of September 11^th, as the age of conspiracies and technology has completely changed our way of processing information. Mr. Soderbergh and Mr. Burns create a fascinating and horrifying portrayal of how our emotions can destroy our bodies.