The Faculty, I'd never seen the The Faculty.
It rests at a funny crossroads in my cinephilic journey. In 1998 I hadn't yet transitioned from late-night HBO and genre movies to 'serious' movies. Around this time I ate up horror movies, and around this time teenager horror movies were the rage -- Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Disturbing Behavior, Urban Legend, um, Scream 2, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, um, The Blair Witch Project, Scream 3, um, Final Destination, um, Jeepers Creepers, things like that. But somehow I missed The Faculty.
Robert Rodriguez is a moviemaker I understood to be some kind of notable moviemaker and I watched his movies when I became fanatic about movies. I watched El Mariachi and Desperado and From Dusk 'Til Dawn. I thought he was fun but I didn't get it. I really didn't get it. I thought because he was fun he wasn't serious. I bought his movies and subsequently sold them because I thought they didn't belong in a serious movie collection. I don't own any of his movies currently, and only recently have I returned to him.
And now I understand the intelligence and dedication it takes to make a fun movie. I get it now. The dude is a badass. I get it.
THIS SECTION DEALS WITH THE MOVIE CALLED THE FACULTY AND ITS DIRECTOR ROBERT RODRIGUEZ
The Faculty peels off the starting line with atmosphere and verve. Some pre-title mayhem.
Post-title Rodriguez introduces each high school character with a little moment that says a thing about them, so we know Zeke Tyler (Josh Hartnett) is the badass rebel, Casey Connor (Elijah Wood) is the weakling dweeb, etc. Their names appear on the screen:
Strange how the character credit creates a distance between the actor and his character. It's a slick trick, I think. For the viewer in that moment there's only Casey Connor; maybe outside the movie there's an Elijah Wood, maybe.
Rodriguez doesn't sweat the space between reality and cinema. His movies, at their best, are completely unshackled and pregnant with limitless possibility. He's the master of a movie world and introduces characters like this because he knows they're in a movie and doesn't pretend otherwise -- think of how obvious this is and think too about how many directors want to disguise the artificial aspects of moviemaking. So you believe in the movie or whatever.
Rodriguez doesn't care if you believe it, he has another plan. He makes his movies too large to forget. It's a whole other way of looking at movies, and Rodriguez's commitment to the angle is total and unwavering.
Why are fireworks going off during a high school football game and why do they sync with dramatic beats? The answer is fuck you.
Rodriguez knows how to make an image stick. He knows how to captivate and arrest.
The outrageousness is played straight-facedly.
It kind of feels like what it's like to take drugs among teenage friends.
Maybe there are too many giggles, maybe giggles are a cheap way of expressing a character is high. Maybe not. Giggles happen.
It is a funny situation, after all.
And now I understand the intelligence and dedication it takes to make a fun movie. I get it now. The dude is a badass. I get it.
THIS SECTION DEALS WITH THE MOVIE CALLED THE FACULTY AND ITS DIRECTOR ROBERT RODRIGUEZ
Post-title Rodriguez introduces each high school character with a little moment that says a thing about them, so we know Zeke Tyler (Josh Hartnett) is the badass rebel, Casey Connor (Elijah Wood) is the weakling dweeb, etc. Their names appear on the screen:
Rodriguez doesn't sweat the space between reality and cinema. His movies, at their best, are completely unshackled and pregnant with limitless possibility. He's the master of a movie world and introduces characters like this because he knows they're in a movie and doesn't pretend otherwise -- think of how obvious this is and think too about how many directors want to disguise the artificial aspects of moviemaking. So you believe in the movie or whatever.
Rodriguez doesn't care if you believe it, he has another plan. He makes his movies too large to forget. It's a whole other way of looking at movies, and Rodriguez's commitment to the angle is total and unwavering.
Why are fireworks going off during a high school football game and why do they sync with dramatic beats? The answer is fuck you.
It's a bummer that, after introductions, brakes are applied for character development, plot exposition, and other transitional elements. I'd say the movie comes to a flat-out stop when the cops are called in and Casey attempts to convince them he found a dead teacher in the staff closet but they don't believe him and his parents ask if he's on drugs and things like that. These moments appease the laws of reality, viz., they're unnecessary. And boring. Reality? AHAHAHA.
I'd about written off the movie up until the moment Zeke breaks off the knife part of a paper cutter
uses it to slice off the fingers of Prof. Edward Furlong (Jon Stewart)
stabs him in the eye with a homemade-drugs-filled ballpoint pen
and Prof. Furlong's fingers crawl over the floor.
This is the moment when the beast of cinema breaks free, and it pretty much reigns through the remainder of the movie. Seriously, a bunch of cool things happen. I'm restraining myself from posting screencaps of all of them because a) there are so many b) it would give all the cool things away, and maybe you haven't seen this movie before.
The scene a little after the Prof. Furlong scene echoes a famous scene from John Carpenter's The Thing and gives it a splash of social commentary -- the teenagers must take Zeke's homemade drug to prove they're normal.
The way Rodriguez inserts the dramatic beats into this scene, and raises the tension, and treats it seriously... I don't know, this scene says so much about him as a moviemaker.
The movie's ending cashes in on the earlier character development. There's a nice and tidy message that's sort of like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which the movie references multiple times, but with a maraschino cherry topping. It's simple: be a badass, and like fuck everyone else.
It's cool. The movie and Rodriguez are of one mind. The movie asks you to think a little more about the characters: Casey Connor is the weakling dweeb, sure. But what else could he be.
A cover of David Bowie's Changes plays over the closing credits.
The movie's ending cashes in on the earlier character development. There's a nice and tidy message that's sort of like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which the movie references multiple times, but with a maraschino cherry topping. It's simple: be a badass, and like fuck everyone else.
It's cool. The movie and Rodriguez are of one mind. The movie asks you to think a little more about the characters: Casey Connor is the weakling dweeb, sure. But what else could he be.
"Why are fireworks going off during a high school football game and why do they sync with dramatic beats? The answer is fuck you."
ReplyDeleteL'ing OL at work.
You're absolutely right though, Shawn. I remember very specific images from this movie (this football fireworks business, when the football players on standing in the rain with wormy things coming out of their faces, Robert Patrick with his paper cups of water...) yet I can't recall a single shot of I Know What You Did Last Summer.
What do you make of John Stewart's character being named "Edward Furlong"? I don't think I'd ever registered that was his name. Casting T1000 gives another tie to T2, but that's all I got.
Hey Emma! Thanks for your words.
ReplyDeleteI think Rodriguez is bad at inventing names and stole one he likes.