James Schamus Tagged Articles at Cinematical

To quote an official MPAA movie ratings poster: "THE SYSTEM CAN'T WORK UNLESS YOU UNDERSTAND THE SYSTEM."

How many NC-17-rated films did you see in the theater in the past year? Maybe one? That is if Ang Lee's Lust, Caution even played in your 'hood. And considering the most screens it ever played on in any single week was 143, I highly doubt it (understandably, it could have played in more than 143 locations over the course of its 20 weeks in theaters, but I doubt many more).

But if there had been more NC-17-rated films, and they actually played near you, would you have gone to see them? And if so, why? Because you expect something more titillating than the other releases to choose from? And if not, why? Are you afraid of others thinking you are going to see something dirty? Are you embarrassed about both attending and watching graphic sex on screen? Do you correlate the experience to going to a porno theater?

Apparently angered that Ang Lee's Lust, Caution was not accepted as the official entrant for Best Foreign Language Film for Taiwan, several hundred sites have unleashed a vicious computer virus. OK, I'm making up the motivation, but the threat may be real. A Chinese software security company told Reuters: "People should be wary of Web sites that offer free downloading services because their personal passwords can be stolen." The spokesperson also said that a multitude of sites promoting the film are embedded with viruses and estimated that 15% of download links were contaminated.

How did the software company discover the virus? Reuters says: "An engineer with the company encountered the virus last week; his screen went blank and he lost his instant messaging password." Wait a minute ... an engineer with the company? The company that just happens to make anti-virus software? That raises suspicions right there, but, to be fair, I suppose that part of an engineer's job when he works for an anti-virus software company is to try and discover viruses ... starting by downloading movies with the word "Lust" in the title.

Despite a statement by producer (and co-head of US distributor Focus Features) James Schamus that the filmmakers "weren't going to change a frame" to avoid the dreaded NC-17 rating, Ang Lee decided to cut about 1,000 frames from Lust, Caution in order to gain approval for distribution in Mainland China. The film has been a big hit, earning more than US$12 million in its first two weeks of release there.

Once again, kids, this is a reminder: the only safe download is no download. Support your local theater!

[ Via CNET News.com ]

In the first minutes of Lust, Caution, we get one of those shots where the camera swish-pans quickly to the side to reveal a guy looking through binoculars; the effect, used in countless Chuck Norris and Jean-Claude Van Damme movies, is as if we were also looking through binoculars, spying. Then we get a shot of four women playing Mahjong and talking, talking, talking. The clacking of the tiles mixes with their chattering, and the subtitles flash across the screen on top of images of tiles. Are we supposed to be looking at the pictures on the tiles, and if so, did we miss anything important in the dialogue? Following that, a car rolls down the street. We cut to another shot of the car rolling down the street, this time entering a gate. Then the car parks. A man gets out and walks into a large house. That's roughly the first ten minutes of the film. It begs the question: what do these shots have to do with one another? What does any of this have to do with anything? What does it have to do with the art of cinema?

I got the impression, here and throughout Lust, Caution, that director Ang Lee just arbitrarily set up his shots without much consideration for what they meant. His only concern is the story, not the art behind it. In a crucial, early exchange between our two lead characters, Mr. Yee (Tony Leung) and Mrs. Mak (Tang Wei), Lee very simply cuts back and forth between them on the beats of dialogue. When one finishes speaking, he cuts to the other, who starts speaking. There's no mystery or rhythm, and no concern for reactions or pauses. I bring all this up only because Lee is widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers in the world, and he ought to be a good deal better than this. I suspect that, like many others throughout history, he mistrusts cinema as an art form in itself, and sees it only as an extension of literature and theater. He adds external elements to make his films seem important. In this case, the movie's length (nearly 160 minutes) and his story about the Japanese occupation of Shanghai in the late 1930s and early 1940s, carry a historical weight.

Less than two weeks ago, Ang Lee's Lust, Caution was assigned an NC-17 rating by the MPAA. Co-writer and executive producer James Schamus said at the time: "When we screened the final cut of this film, we knew we weren't going to change a frame. Every moment up on that screen works and is an integral part of the emotional arc of the characters." Schamus is also CEO of US distributor Focus Features, so that sounded like the final word. But maybe not every frame is needed after all, at least for some viewers. ScreenDaily reported on Monday morning that director Lee plans a "safer edit" of the film for Mainland Chinese audiences.

After the NC-17 rating was assigned for the US, Zhang Peisen, an official from the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, was quoted in China.org.cn as saying that the film had "already passed the content and technical examines" in China. However, Ren Zhonglun, president of the Shanghai Film Group, claimed that Chinese censors "had voiced some opinions for revisions that Ang Lee has accepted." Thus, it's entirely possible that Lee has been planning a different edit for some time. Yet it seems strangely at odds with what Schamus has said about "every moment" being "an integral part" of the character-based spy drama. Won't cutting some or all of the sex scenes affect the audience's understanding of the characters?

Lust, Caution debuted at the Venice Film Festival last week and failed to impress the trades. Derek Elley of Variety wrote: "Too much caution and too little lust squeeze much of the dramatic juice out of" the film, while Ray Bennett of The Hollywood Reporter said it had "long periods of boredom relieved by moments of extremely heightened excitement." Lust, Caution is set to open in the US on September 28; its release in China has been pushed back to October 26, according to reports.

It's no wonder the film is called A Little Game, because it's taken some strategic playing in order to get all the pieces to fit correctly. Only a few months after Focus Features lost control of the then Gabriele Muccino-directed flick -- causing Jim Carrey and Cameron Diaz to abruptly vacate their roles and abandon the project -- Focus co-chair James Schamus has convinced Ang Lee to take over for Muccino and helm the film. According to Variety, Lee will begin production on A Little Game (based on the French play A Little Game of Consequence) as soon as he's finished with Lust, Caution, his directorial follow-up to Brokeback Mountain.

A Little Game originally fell apart after Carrey and Diaz voiced concern over the pic's third act, and when a rewrite wasn't up to par, the two split -- officially squashing all hope of the duo's much talked-about reunion after first pairing up on The Mask. Following the fall out, Schamus was desperate to get this thing made, going so far as to take on the rewrite himself and, now, pulling Lee onboard for his third straight pic with Focus, and 11th collaboration with Schamus.

Plot concerns an engaged Brooklyn couple who, because of a rumor, decide to pretend they've broken up in order to see what their friends and family really think of their relationship. No word yet on whether Carrey and Diaz will return (it's highly doubtful), but I couldn't see them together in the first place. Then again, I have a hard time picturing Diaz in any role that's worth my hard-earned dollars.

Focus Features ran into a fairly large obstacle on Tuesday when stars Jim Carrey, Cameron Diaz and director Gabriele Muccino all vacated their posts from A Little Game, due to begin filming Oct. 19. Ouch. Both stars had problems with the third act of the film, based on a French play, and a promised rewrite failed to make everyone happy, which has turned A Little Game into A Big Mess.

Studio head James Schamus is tackling the rewrite himself, having written The Ice Storm and other films, in the hopes the movie can still be salvaged, at least with Jim Carrey onboard.

Carrey is finding himself in turbulent waters without anything to guide him to shore lately, having had Used Guys and Ripley's Believe It or Not! fall apart before shooting. He also fired his agents recently, which in Hollywood effectively states "do over!" We'd fire our agents too after both saddling us with the Tea Leoni curse and failing to capitalize on our excellent turn in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Carrey's problem, it seems, is that he wants to be taken as a serious actor after appearing in both Eternal and The Majestic. However, this guy is goofy to the core, and that's a good thing. But he's already crossed the line of taking himself, and his press, too seriously. Hopefully he can find a happy medium without doing films like Ace Ventura III, which is happening without him anyhow.

Related Posts:

Carrey and Diaz Reunite for Muccino Pic

Muccino Learns Consequence

The WTF Files: Ace Ventura 3??

Focus Features, the indie specialty unit at Universal Pictures, launched in 2002 at the Cannes Film Festival. It was helmed by James Schamus and David Linde, but now that Linde is Universal's co-chairman, all eyes are on Schamus to keep Focus in its winning streak (they received 16 Academy Award nominations and 4 wins in 2005). Schamus will not only oversee Focus' international financing and distribution channels, but also develop specialized and animated films, as well as manage Focus' genre label, Rogue Pictures.
 
As a fan of the former Good Machine, Schamus' first indie production company, I'm willing to bet that Focus will stay on top of the specialized film division market. It was with Good Machine that Ang Lee and Schamus began their successful collaborations, and that Schamus and Ted Hope set about advancing the art of international financing to fund artistically riskier films at home. Schamus, who holds a Ph.D. in Film Studies from U.C. Berkeley, appears to be a mix of scholar and savvy businessman: he's a widely published film historian and theorist, and he executive-produced several Good Machine features that won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, including Edward Burns' The Brothers McMullen, Tom Noonan's What Happened Was . . . , and Todd Haynes' Poison.