Abortion Tagged Articles at Cinematical

NOTE: This post discusses Twilight, the movie, and the Twilight book series (particularly the latest book, Breaking Dawn), and is SPOILER HEAVY. If you've not read the books and don't want to read spoilers, do NOT read this post until you've read them. It's also longer than my usual column, as I had a lot of ground to cover, so if you hate reading long pieces, skip it. Thanks.

You're probably aware, even if you're not into books about vampires and clumsy, average teenage girls falling in love with one, that there's a popular book series called the Twilight Saga, and the first book in the series, Twilight, is being adapted for the big screen by director Catherine Hardwicke. What you may not be aware of is the little undercurrent of female writers decrying the series as inherently anti-feminist.

The Twilight series grew in popularity, mostly off the radar of the feminist set, until it got so popular that the feminists started to take notice -- and offense. I first became aware of this anti-feminist backlash when Meg Cabot, author of The Princess Diaries (among other girly books) responded on her blog to readers writing her to ask what she thought of the series, thusly: " I didn't take my husband's last NAME when we got married. Do you honestly think I'd like a story about a girl considering changing SPECIES for a guy? No offense to any of you, but as a feminist, I just can't go there... "

I found Cabot's take interesting because I'm a feminist myself, who also didn't take my husband's last name when we got married, but I don't happen to find the series inherently anti-feminist. Nonetheless, since the release of the fourth book in the series, Breaking Dawn, on August 2, the feminist mutterings have started to escalate to a dull roar.

There's almost always some controversy around the Best Foreign category at the Oscars. This or that film doesn't make it in because of some minutae of the rules, and critics (and sometimes, directors and producers) howl in protest. When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the nominees for the category this year, though, it was a bit different. The loudest howls of protest were not over the films excluded for various obscure rules, but over the exclusion of Romanian filmmaker Cristian Mungiu's Cannes winner, 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days (aka, "that Romanian abortion film." )

The Chicago Tribune's Michael Phillips wrote on his Talking Pictures blog recently (originally posted February 5, and rerun today) about the film's exclusion. Phillips writes that the film was third on his own Top Ten list for the year, saying, "It is a rare film indeed that shows you so much in the way of dire circumstances, yet does not exploit or cheapen the human factor." Phillips talked to Mungiu about the film for this post, and the director has some rather astute things to say about some specific decisions he made with regard to the filmmaking.

Over on The Hot Blog, David Poland has the weekend box office numbers up, and the one thing that popped out at me, probably because I just saw and reviewed the film last week, is that Lake of Fire, which opened at Film Forum in NYC this weekend, did not do nearly as well as might have been expected. There's some discussion in the comments on Poland's post speculating on the whys and wherefores of the film's less-than-stellar opening, the main gist of which is that either the film did not appeal to people because no one wants to see the abortion process on a big screen while they're munching their popcorn, or because the film doesn't take a side on the abortion issue, and people who are passionate about it on one side or the other do not want to see the other side treated fairly.

I pondered this for a while this morning as I lingered over my Monday morning coffee. As I noted in my review of the film, Lake of Fire does give both sides of the debate equal weight, but I also think that the way each side will be perceived is in the eye of the beholder. I could see the film playing well in red states, because the film doesn't portray right-to-lifers (on the whole) as a bunch of nutcases. Sure, there are some some interesting folks in there, but there are also attractive women in there talking about why they are pro-life. And even the folks that a liberal might view as off-their-rocker (such as Assembly of God preacher John Burt and Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry) would probably be viewed by a lot of fundamentalist Christians as good, God-fearing guys who are simply passionate about their beliefs on the subject.

A key moment in Tony Kaye's black-and-white abortion documentary, Lake of Fire, sums up the film's philosophical stance on the issue quite succinctly: Alan Dershowitz, says simply, "Everybody is right when it comes to the issue of abortion." And although the film includes what could be considered "shock footage" -- things like a doctor casually washing off and examining the dismembered parts of a 20-week-old fetus in a colander to make sure he got it all out -- the film carefully avoids taking a clear stance on one side or the other of the abortion debate.

In that sense, Lake of Fire rather reminded me of last year's Jesus Camp, directed by Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing, which also examined religion and politics with an eye toward objectivity. In both cases, your take on the message of the film will depend largely on your philosophical point of view. To a lot of people watching Jesus Camp, the evangelical Christians teaching children to be "soldiers for Christ" were downright scary; if you're an evangelical Christian, though, the film views almost like an infomercial or recruitment video for your cause -- of course it makes sense to convert souls for Jesus from the cradle up, and to raise children to be wiling to fight and die for their God. The same can be said of Lake of Fire, though if you lean strongly toward one side or the other of the abortion debate, Kaye's objective eye may be harder to discern.

Reason #4,526,397 why France is different than the USA: I don't remember watching any abortion dramas as part of the curriculum when I went to school. The Guardian is reporting that 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days -- about a woman seeking an abortion in dictatorial Romania, circa 1987 -- will be screened in French schools. But don't worry: even the French had reservations about whether it was appropriate to do so.

To put things in their proper perspective, 4 Months is no sensationalist film exploiting its subject matter. It garnered sensational reviews at Cannes, where it won the Palme d'Or, but critics like our own James Rocchi pointed out that, though it's definitely "not 'fun' ... it's incredibly affecting, magnificently acted and superbly made." James said the film moved and challenged him, made him feel and think as it "demonstrated the personal and political challenges of a heartbreaking choice that, in many ways, is no choice at all."

4 Months also won the National Education Prize, which entitled it to receive government funding to produce a special educational DVD that would then be shown to French students aged 15-18. The education minister thought the film was so "incredibly hard to watch," he announced last Friday that the project would not be funded. Reportedly he wanted "to protect a vulnerable audience" and said his decision had nothing to do with the subject matter. No matter: Laure Tarnaud, a member of the "French society of French directors," noted that Gus Van Sant's Elephant was screened in schools and claimed that "the censorship ... appears to be motivated by the desire not to talk about abortion." The education minister "vehemently denied" the charge, but nonetheless reversed his decision the following day. Now I'm curious: are films with such serious subject matter being shown at your local high school?

Otilia (Anamaria Marinca) and Gabita (Laura Vasiliu) are college roommates. They may live in the wintry squalor of 1987 Romania -- in the last days of Communism -- but their lives seem familiar to us despite that gigantic difference; they have exams coming up, friends and lovers, future opportunities and current challenges. They may buy their perfume on the black market, but they still buy it -- they're kids, essentially. There's school; there's the joy and effort of friendships; there's the looming reality of future mandatory military service; most pressingly, Gabita needs to have an abortion -- in a rigidly-policed state where that's been illegal for decades. Otilia is going to help her -- How could she not? -- but neither of them are prepared for what that's ultimately going to cost.

Written and directed by Cristian Mungiu, 4 Months 3 Weeks & 2 Days is the sort of film that will inspire a visceral reaction from most moviegoers -- a quick grimace, a darting look away: Wow, that sounds not-fun. And no, 4 Months 3 Weeks & 2 Days is not 'fun' -- but it's incredibly affecting, magnificently acted and superbly made; in a lot of ways, it reminded me of last year's Oscar-winner for Best Foreign Film, The Lives of Others, insofar as both depict universal challenges of human existence -- what to do about one's problems, how those difficulties can poison how we deal with others -- with the harsh realities of fascist power making those challenges even more difficult to deal with. I cannot imagine how hard it must be to decide to have an abortion and see it through in the here-and-now; watching that agonizing choice played out with additional layers of challenge -- bribes, secrecy, covert meetings and the looming possibility of jail -- is achingly painful and fraught with tension.

ThinkFilm, the distributor who brought indie films like The Aristocrats, Shortbus and F*ck to theaters, is obviously no stranger to controversy. The company has just announced its latest acquisition, worldwide distribution rights to the documentary Lake of Fire, which addresses a very divisive subject: abortion. Not only that, but the documentary is 2.5 hours long and black-and-white -- we're not talking about March of the Penguins here, in terms of box-office appeal. The film premiered last year at the Toronto International Film Festival. I can't find many reviews of the film, but Variety and Hollywood Reporter both were favorable.

Lake of Fire was directed by Tony Kaye, whose last film was American History X in 1998 and who is now in negotiations to direct the Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson film Black Water Transit. He financed the filmmaking himself and claims to have spent 17 years working on the documentary, in order to capture all sides of the abortion issue. In fact, he's considering lengthening the film for a TV release, perhaps with a multi-part airing, to update and add more footage. ThinkFilm plans to screen Lake of Fire at festivals, then follow up with a platform release strategy starting in October in New York.

It's been almost ten years since Tony Kaye's American History X debuted. Okay -- it's been exactly eight years last week, but it's been close enough to ten for the director to be prepping for a 10th Anniversary DVD. In order for everything to run smoothly with the special edition release, he's patched up things with New Line, the studio he fought with over the final cut of History, which was his first feature. In these eight years since that film's release, Kaye has not been able to put out another feature -- possibly because of his reputation following the New Line battle. However it's not as if Kaye was idle during that time-- and has been screening his newest project, a documentary about abortion titled Lake of Fire. The doc premiered in September at the Toronto International Film Festival, where it was reportedly well-praised, but Kaye's still trying to find distribution for it. It is unclear whether distributors are apprehensive in dealing with Kaye out of fear that he will put them through a similar battle as he had with New Line. Since Kaye claims to have spent 16 years and upwards of $8 million on the film, it would be a shame if no company bites with a substantial deal, especially since Kaye's announced that he does not need to make anymore changes to it, even though he kinda wants to.

In addition to shopping Lake of Fire, Kaye is keeping very busy and with many projects for the future. Aside from his success directing commercials and music videos (including the new Johnny Cash video for "God's Gonna Cut You Down"), he's apparently doing well as a director-for-hire and is currently working on special assignments for Johnson and Johnson and the United Arab Emirates. For his next fictional feature, he will be concentrating on a script by Robert McKee titled Madness (this would ironically be the first feature film written by McKee, who is famous for his books and seminars on the craft of screenwriting -- he is the guy portrayed by Brian Cox in Adaptation), which focuses on a doctor with a cure for schizophrenia who marries a former patient.