Film Retrospective of the 2000s: Part I

I admire people who can analyze individual events and accurately place them into a useful context. David Brooks of The New York Times excels at this, and as such he might be my favorite opinion writer. For Brooks every event is a notch in a cultural movement traceable to colonial America, or a degree of movement in the swinging pendulum of politics. I try to model my own critical thinking after this so that I might recognize broad trends in politics, sports, and film.

With the end of the 2000s approaching, I naturally feel moved to contextualize the movies of the last decade. But I’m mostly inept at doing so. I’m able to understand the previous 70 years of cinema—I’ve read books that explain them. But for me the 2000s remain a series of disparate events. I don’t know the broad trend that I could identify and thusly mark myself as a useful film critic. As such, I’m left with smaller ideas, which lamentably lack a visionary unity to make one proud. I’ll offer these smaller notions over the next few days and weeks, beginning with this.

In the 2000s many American directors made good films, but no new directors emerged who have guaranteed themselves a place among masters.

In the 1990s, David Fincher established himself with Seven and Fight Club. Both films reflected sardonic humor and stylish storytelling with a social consciousness that wasn’t overbearing. In the 2000s films like Zodiac and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button continued to show his talented direction, but the films themselves were underwhelming. Most importantly, his films lacked an ideology and authorship. Instead, he offers the technical prowess of a very good director, but not a great filmmaker.

Paul Thomas Anderson also released two impressive ensemble films in the late 1990s—Boogie Nights and Magnolia. His follow-up film in 2002, Punch-Drunk Love, was self-conscious, a film with a typically indie plot attempting to be more than it was. Thankfully, his next film, There Will Be Blood, reproved his formidable directing talent. While that film includes brilliant individual scenes, the whole is less than the sum of its parts. It lacks an effective emotional core, and the plot is simply not interesting enough. I have hopes that Paul Thomas Anderson may have his best days ahead of him, but in the 2000s he did not progress artistically.

Likewise, Sam Mendes made his film debut in 1999 with American Beauty. His follow-up films include Road to Perdition, Jarhead, and Revolutionary Road, all of which are well-executed movies. Even more so than Fincher, Mendes’ films have praiseworthy production values, but lack artistic intensity. His record thus far reflects only a conventionally effective director.

Finally, Darren Aronofsky has provided the most interesting path. He began the decade with the intensely emotional masterpiece Requiem for a Dream. Several years later he released The Fountain. Although a mediocre film, The Fountain was artistically courageous, and Aronofsky defined a personal style that employed powerful music, carefully chosen compositions, and montage editing. Interestingly, he entirely abandoned these formal elements with last year’s The Wrestler, which used hand-held cinematography and straightforward editing. In both The Fountain and The Wrestler, Aronofsky keeps his characters underdeveloped and emotionally simplistic. His challenge of the next decade will be synthesizing his artistic vision with the basic necessities of great storytelling.

Of course, this analysis is limited to American filmmakers. New directors may be emerging around the rest of the world, but in American cinema the next generation has so far mainly sputtered.