Backstage: Obsession and Celebrity

Backstage, opening today at Shattuck Cinemas, is a story of obsession and fantasy, depicting the relationship between a pop star and one of her fans, a teenage girl who has come to idolize the singer to the point of zealous obsession.

Much of the plot may seem over the top, but director Emmanuelle Bercot based her screenplay on actual fan letters written to pop stars, fashioning these missives into a screenplay that attempts to explore the strange dynamic between the trappings of fame and the marketing of celebrity and the desperation of the young, impressionable consumer who becomes irresistibly drawn to the unattainable. 

If the film seems at times to indulge too greatly in an adolescent world, to dwell on the clichés of the pop star lifestyle, it is important to remember that this is deliberate, that the film is essentially telling the tale through the eyes of a star-struck girl who has romanticized and glorified every facet of her idol’s existence. She is hardly an objective observer; rather she provides a filtered lens that colors the action with her own dreams, desires and pain.

Lauren, the star, is self-centered and melodramatic. She sees her success as something of a trap and her self image as a reluctant celebrity, combined with her troubled romantic life, send her into wildly inappropriate bouts of self pity. But Lucie, the young girl who worships her and, through a chance encounter, becomes her confidant, interprets this drama even more dramatically, seeing Lauren as a martyr, as an artist on a grand scale, and thus any impediment to Lauren’s happiness and artistic success is seen by Lucie as a force of evil intent on destroying a goddess. 

The casting, by Antoinette Boulat and Bercot, is excellent. Emmanuelle Seigner has just the right aura, bringing to the role of Lauren great beauty and ferocity as well as vulnerability and emotional instability. And Isild le Besco plays Lucie with the appropriately ungainly movements of a budding adolescent, the stark, frightened, deer-in-the-headlights expression of a girl forever lost, and the sensual, maniacal, glassy-eyed gaze of a slightly unhinged fan seeking to forever bind herself to the object of her obsession. Supporting roles are often filled by non-actors who hold the same occupations as their characters; the security guard is played by a security guard, the record executive played by a record executive, etc., and the technique succeeds in bringing a certain veracity to the film’s otherwise heightened realism.

There are a few missteps however. Bercot created an entire album of original songs by Lauren and often relies a bit too heavily on them to carry the film’s emotional weight, with too many shots drowned out by music and too many scenes simplistically explained by Lauren’s lyrics. And her use of symbolism can be simplistic and heavy-handed as well. One of Lauren’s possessions, for instance, is a stuffed deer, meant to capture the nature of her own existence: innocence captured, killed, stuffed and always on display, a lifeless commodity used to adorn a hotel room just as posters of Lauren adorn the bedroom walls of teenagers all over France. Had it only appeared once, or perhaps only in the background, it might have been a more subtle and effective symbol. But Bercot features it so prominently it verges on parody. In one scene Lauren appears is profile alongside the profile of the deer, just to make sure we don’t miss the connection; and in another shot, Lucie is seen caressing the deer and nearly kissing it.

But again, we are seeing this story through the eyes of a deranged fan, so perhaps these awkward moments can also be attributed to her skewed perspective. And ultimately that is where Backstage has its greatest success, in the presentation of that perspective. For whatever its faults and however silly its characters may sometimes be, viewers who remember the more dramatic fancies of their adolescence will recognize some degree of truth in Lucie’s delusions and the burden they inflict on the adults around her.

Backstage (2007). Starring Emmanuelle Seigner and Isild le Besco. Directed by Emmanuelle Bercot. Written by Jerome Tonnerre and Bercot. 115 minutes. Not rated. In French with English subtitles. 

PFA Screens Two Italian Art House Classics

A fascinating pair of Italian films will screen this weekend at Pacific Film Archive. The first, Il Posto (1961), could be seen as a sequel to Francois Truffaut’s The 400 Blows, presenting another quietly observant portrait of a young man suffering through a rite of passage. It’s as though the 13-year-old Antoine Donel of the earlier film has now grown into the 18-year-old Domenico Cantoni, sent by his parents into the big city of Milan to find a job.

Directed by Ermanno Olmi, Il Posto fits in with the Italian neo-realism school of filmmaking in its presentation of a humanistic tale of youthful dreams and ambitions sacrificed at the altar of security and conformism.

Domenico seems to dread his entry into the working world, a world presented as one of time-worn adults marking time in soulless, dreary employment. However, a ray of light appears in the form of a young woman named Antonietta (Loredana Detto), and her sparkling presence illuminates the screen as well as the life of the hero. Together they navigate the job application process and take pleasure in each other’s company, the two bright-eyed youths constituting a slightly subversive presence in an otherwise stale maze of corridors, offices and standard-issue furniture.

The key to the film is Sandro Panseri, a non-professional actor with soulful eyes and the gentle, timid face of a youth trying to comprehend and master the ways of a foreign territory. He’s a small, skinny waif masquerading as a grown-up in ill-fitting grown-up clothing. He hits all the right notes and Olmi captures each one, showing us in wordless close-ups the fear, uncertainty, shyness and delight that flitter across the face of the young protagonist.

But about three-quarters into the film, Olmi suddenly abandons the main character for an extended sequence in which we learn something of the personal lives of each one of a number of accountants at the unnamed firm where Domenico has landed. It may seem like a tangent at first, but the sequence marks the opening salvo in a tour de force closing sequence that drives home the film’s major themes.

Domenico is promoted, and in an uncharacteristic but highly effective montage, Olmi shows us why. One of the accountants we’ve encountered has passed away, possibly by suicide, and his desk is turned over to Domenico, much to the dismay of his new colleagues. One, a 20-year veteran, complains to the manager, and when Domenico agrees to move to a desk in the back of the room, a frenzied and ruthless rush ensues as the other accountants begin a mad dash to claim the desk immediately in front of their own, a desperate game of musical chairs for which they’ve apparently been waiting for decades.

The final shot shows Domenico watching a man at the front of the room as he cranks what appears to be a mimeograph machine, feeding paper into one end and removing it from the other as a deafening mechanical whirr dominates the soundtrack. The grind has begun.

Yet as bleak as this conclusion may seem, it is also somewhat ambiguous, for throughout the film we have seen Domenico warmly befriended by the adults in his new environment, receiving a series of reassurances that a simpler life of lower expectations is not all bad but is in fact full of small pleasures. With these gentle moments of camaraderie and kindness, Olmi provides a welcome softening of the film’s sharp edge.

Domenico may have found himself in a dispiriting situation, but there is still energy and vivaciousness and curiosity in his face, a sign that although life is certainly capable of pummeling the spirit out of a young man, he still has a choice—plenty of choices, really—and retains the power to shape his own destiny. And the fact that Domenico is able to so clearly see his predicament in the closing scene leaves us with hope that he has the strength and determination to overcome it, now that he finally understands it.

Federico Fellini’s La Strada (1954) similarly focuses on a main character with enormously expressive eyes in the form of Gelsomina (Giulietta Masina), another youthful spirit facing dire circumstances. But the style and delivery of the tale could not be more different from the observational calm of Olmi’s Il Posto.

La Strada tells the tale of a boorish brute of a traveling sideshow performer, Zampano, played by Anthony Quinn. When his wife dies, he travels back to her remote, impoverished village and essentially purchases her younger sister to take her place. Gelsomina has a clown-like countenance, and eventually she takes on the makeup of a clown, too. Her childish innocence calls to mind silent film comedian Harry Langdon, blending an adult body with an infantile purity that at times confounds us with its ambiguity.

And despite its rather simple story, the film is full of ambiguities. Gelsominia is at once innocent and deeply aware of her place in Zampano’s life. And the Fool, a character capable of both cruelty and martyrdom, provides lessons in life and love for the main characters while treating them with a degree of contempt.

The film itself seems to straddle two realms, leaning at times toward realism and at times toward a sort of fable-like fantasy. Beneath its circus settings, desolate stretches of beach and never-ending highways, it is a simple love story about a man who cannot admit his feelings and a child-like woman who is entirely governed by her own.

La Strada concludes with a powerful shot of Zampano alone on the beach after learning that his dismissal of Gelsomina has led her to madness and death. As he faces the open sea, he glances upwards for a moment, as though discovering God for the first time and begging his forgiveness. And it seems like the first time that he has lifted his brooding gaze from the ground, the first time we have seen the whites of his eyes. But it is too late now, and Zampano simply crumbles to the ground as though merging with the brittle sand.

The two films are showing as part of PFA’s tribute to Janus Films, the American distributor responsible for bringing so many foreign art house films to the United States in the 1950s and '60s. The series concludes next week with a screening of Mario Monicelli’s The Organizer (1963).

Il Posto (1961)

Directed by Ermanno Olmi. 93 minutes. 6:30 p.m. Friday.

La Strada (1956)

Directed by Federico Fellini. 108 minutes. 5 p.m. Saturday.

Pacific Film Archive, 2575 Bancroft Way. $4-$8. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu.

Samurai Classics at Pacific Film Archive

Pacific Film Archive will present a series of seven samurai films beginning today and running through Dec. 17.

Most of the films come courtesy of Janus Films, the great American distributor of foreign arthouse cinema whose 50th anniversary PFA has been honoring in another ongoing series.

But the samurai series ain’t quite as highbrow as all that. Not on the surface, at least. These are popular entertainments, full of action and humor. But look closer and you’ll see films full of art and artistry, of complex themes and human struggle worthy of the highest forms of art, here dressed in violent period melodrama.

Of course no samurai series would be complete without the biggest samurai film of them all, Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai (1954). Seven Samurai gave rise to an American version, The Magnificent Seven, but the western version pales in comparison with the original. Kurosawa takes his time with each character, presenting a fuller, richer, more engaging ensemble than the swaggering icons played by Yul Brynner et al.

Kurosawa is represented in the series by two other films as well: Throne of Blood (1957), his samurai adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, and Yojimbo (1961), a brilliant and funny film inspired by American westerns and later remade as a western, albeit an Italian western: Sergio Leone’s Fistful of Dollars.

But most enlightening films in the series are the lesser-known classics of the genre.

The series starts with this weekend with two films by Masaki Kobayashi, Samurai Rebellion (1967) and Harakiri (1962).

Harakiri is a stunning film, a gradually unfolding tale of heartbreak and misfortune that builds toward a climactic act of revenge. Most of the film consists of conversations in which the characters play out a tense, strategic battle of wills, yet now and then the slow-burning tone is punctuated with scenes of sudden violence.

Kobayashi and photographer Yoshio Miyajima establish themselves quickly as masters of interiors with an opening credits sequence of slow tracking shots which delineate the architectural splendor of a great mansion. The pattern continues throughout the film with beautiful but discreet compositions and graceful tracking shots through corridors and into rooms, with pillars and doors and windows and figures arranged perfectly like stones in a garden.

Kobayashi often maintains a certain distance from his subjects, unobtrusively watching them as they go about their business. But when the action starts and the tone shifts, so too does the camera, zooming in like a Sergio Leone telephoto shot or tilting toward canted angles a la Orson Welles, signaling a shift in the dramatic action as well as the strategic repositioning of characters within fragile alliances. But Kobayashi also demonstrates his talent for outdoor shots with a one-on-one battle on a windswept plain that contains echoes of Bergman.

The plot concerns the requisite lone samurai, this time seeking to destroy the facade of nobility and honor maintained by a great clan, and he does so, for the most part, without action but with words. It is like one of those extended endgame scenes in a James Bond movie where the villain stops the show to explicate in great detail for the hero’s benefit the machinations of his nefarious scheme. Only here it lasts two hours and results in a tour de force of swordfight choreography as Tatsuya Nakadai takes on the house’s company of samurai and by extension the entire feudal system. He smashes down doors, breaks through walls, smears the house insignia with the blood of his enemies and dismantles the interiors that Kobayashi had photographed with such care throughout the film, the architecture that had sustained the house and masked its cowardice.

The series also features two films by director Kihachi Okamoto: Kill! (1968) and Sword of Doom (1966).

While Kobayashi’s work embodies much of what of what is best in the samurai genre, the films of Kihachi Okamoto elaborately deconstruct these elements in gleeful parodies that, like the Italian westerns of Leone, are equal parts satire and homage. Okamoto’s Kill!, made just six years after Harakiri, picks apart the genre’s stock features and embellishes its humor-laced plot with a score that deconstructs the genre’s musical themes as well, combining Japanese instrumentation with the cartoonishly grand orchestrations of the spaghetti western scores of the 1960s.

For more information on the samurai series, see Pacific Film Archive’s website: www.bampfa.berkeley.edu.