French movies aren’t much in vogue with American audiences anymore–the Edith Piaf biopic La Vie en Rose, which has earned $10 million here, is the only French movie of the year to find much success, and it’s the first Gallic offering since 2001′s Amelie to do that well.
But this week brings Noah Baumbach’s Margot at the Wedding, the third attempt this year by American filmmakers to pay homage to French filmmakers. Earlier this fall, Wes Anderson’s The Darjeeling Limited went to India in imitation of the languid air and saturated colors of Jean Renoir’s 1951 family drama The River. Chris Rock’s surprisingly measured I Think I Love My Wife, a remake of the 1972 Eric Rohmer drama Chloe in the Afternoon enlivened by Rock’s acid standup-style observations on the frustrations of marriage, presents a typically French story of a businessman with a successful marriage flirting with adultery without either bunny-boiling theatrics or door-slamming farce.
Equally indebted to Rohmer is Baumbach’s new film, his first since the triumphant release of his autobiographical The Squid and the Whale. Margot at the Wedding features Nicole Kidman in the title role of a woman who goes to the beach house of her semi-estranged sister (Jennifer Jason Leigh) a few days before the titular nuptials and finds herself unable to conceal her dislike of her crude prospective brother-in-law (Jack Black). From the film’s title, which winks at Rohmer’s Pauline at the Beach (Baumbach also dubs the sister Pauline), to its washed-out look to its rumpled unstylish costumes to its depressed intellectuals politely jabbing away at each other’s most vulnerable spots, it has the trappings of Rohmer down cold.
But Margot at the Wedding offers more than that. There is a boisterous American quality to Baumbach’s work that lights a fire under the style of Rohmer, who is frequently content to let the story inch forward or even pause as everyone contemplates the scenery. In Baumbach’s script, strange deadpan wit and skewed observations enliven the conflicts, which aren’t limited to one or two quandaries but tumble in from every direction due to misunderstandings and feuds among siblings, cousins, neighbors, spouses, and lovers. There is a subtle wit to Rohmer, but Baumbach’s film actually makes you laugh. The Woody Allen of the 1970′s would have been proud to have made this film.
Economists of all ideological stripes pretty much have a consensus that Keynesyian spending is necessary in the situation we’re in. The only dissenters are just nattering nabobs, the same who cried “socialism” during the campaign, and who probably believe Obama wasn’t really born in Hawaii.
Reagan increased the deficit by a huge amount, btw.
In attempt to counsel against total despair (partial despair may be justified), I will point out that Obama said “short-term boost,” that is, his support for government intervention is qualified. Whether it is strictly qualified – e.g., only in these extreme circumstances and for a brief time – or is only the opening of much larger and long-term government intervention, remains to be seen.
“only government”…?
not ‘government in partnership with…’? not ‘with carefully targeted government intervention’…?
given that rhetoric is the one thing we know our new president does exceptionally well, this is an awful awful sign…
franglo,
Keynesyian spending is only necessary if the politicians and the special interests to whom they are beholden will not allow the distortions within the economic infrastructure to be adequately addressed.
It’s a given that they will not be and so, yes a Keynesian economic ‘remedy’ is ‘necessary’.
Unfortunately, it also ensures that the next economic downturn will be even worse than it otherwise would be for there still are no ‘free lunches’…
Are you claiming that a desire for increased socialism is NOT at the heart of proposed liberal ‘solutions’?
I don’t know that Obama was NOT born in Hawaii, or that he was…and that is the point. But the issue can be easily resolved by him and he has not done so.
In fact, he has purposely refused to release any information beyond the absolute minimum.
Isn’t transparency by politicians something desirable upon which we can ALL agree?
Or is Obama above it all… and if so, when would you prefer the coronation?
What franglo doesn’t point (or perhaps recognize) is that the reason it is so important to government to try to keep the economy going just as it has been, is that government revenues depend on that continuation, and our enormous network of government regulations can only be paid for by such a continuation.
If we stopped paying for all the things government mandates and oversees, Americans would still be awash in wealth. We are today having the richest, most comfortable, least inconvenient economic recession in history. If we look around for burdens to unload, it’s not the roofs over our heads, our children’s food or clothing or mind-expanding activities, or even our SUVs that do us the least good. We actually have a choice about what to pay and not pay for, unlike most humans who have ever lived before us. The 40% of our incomes that goes to the government every year, in the form of taxes and regulation, should be as much on the chopping block as anything else we spend on.
What we need to ask ourselves is whether it is so important to us to add more clients to the rolls of state-funded health care, enable the careless to borrow money freely, prevent new drilling or the retooling of oil refineries on our territory, avert the expanded use of coal for energy, prop up the teachers’ unions, and ensure that our industries don’t have to adjust to new economic conditions — whether all of this is so important to us that we are willing to go into debt of unfathomable size to try to freeze the government-mandated situation of 2009 in amber.
It’s just possible that we’d rather unload the regulation, the entitlements, the taxes, and the debt, and let the people make their own economic choices.
Keynes is back! Government spending will keep people employed but every dollar of input will give you fifty cents of output (say seventy cents if you want to be kind). In the private sector by contrast, every dollar of input will give you 5 to 10% of annual return on average (including business failures at one end and Googles and Microsofts at the other). So don’t expect to get rich under Obama unless you own a cement plant. But expect that he will keep employment in check until the next wave of innovation comes. Maybe that is the best we can expect for now…
The only way to get rich from an Obama administration is by having a good lobbyist. ‘Cause it sure won’t be through honest hard work.
Government can help solve the economic problem. In fact, government has an obligation to help. It’s “how” that’s the point of contention (no pun intended). I would support government help through tax cuts and other incentives for private companies and individuals to invest their capital. What I won’t support is government trying to solve the problem by heaping more burdens on the private sector. And unfortunately, that appears to be the direction of Obama.
Given that the neocon Bund led us into a trillion dollar war and robbed us blind, I’d say we’re in something of a fix.