h a l h a r t l e
y
film excerpts
& reviews
hal hartley's
'no such thing' NEW
australian hal
hartley interview 1998 NEW
margaret pomeranz's
henry fool review NEW
an excerpt from the
unbelievable truth
janet maslin's henry
fool review
simple men excerpt
another simple men
excerpt
an essay on hal
hartley's films
film optimist
index
Hal Hartley's 'No Such Thing' (2001)
Hal Hartley's most
recent film outing, variously known under the titles 'Monster'
and 'No Such Thing', was in production in Iceland and New
York City from August 2000 for its scheduled
wide release in Fall 2001. The internet movie database
describes Monster as "the story of a young journalist who
journeys to Iceland to find her missing fiancee only to encounter
a mythical creature. She eventually forges a relationship with
the being." The film is said to be loosely based on the
Beauty and The Beast fairytale and stars Sarah Polley, Helen
Mirren and Julie Christie, with Robert John Burke, a veteran of
three previous Hartley films, in the title role.
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A short
excerpt from The Unbelievable Truth
AUDRY
I told my parents I quit my job at Burgerworld.
EMMITT
You know things are really looking up for me, Audry.
AUDRY
The school psychologist says I'm apathetic.
EMMITT
The whole world's out there in front of me and I'm ready for it.
AUDRY
I told him about the holes in the ozone layer and he said he
didn't believe me.
EMMITT
A guy like me can go far, and that's exactly what I'm gonna do.
AUDRY
Thousands of people across Eastern Europe are still experiencing
huge complications becuase of Chernobyl, and he's telling me that
these should be the happiest years of my life.
EMMITT
I'm going to take this world in my teeth, chew it up and spit it
back out again.
AUDRY
Emmitt, we're on the brink of global extinction.
EMMITT
The wheels of fortune are rolling in my direction.
AUDRY
Every night I go to bed dreaming about suicide and then I feel
ashamed and cry myself to sleep.
EMMITT
My friends all like you a lot and my parents do too and...
AUDRY
Emmitt, you're not even listening to me!
EMMITT
I am so. And to tell you quite frankly Audry, I'm worried.
AUDRY
About what?
EMMITT
About you.
AUDRY
Why?
EMMITT
Because lately you seem so, you know, apathetic...
The Unbelievable Truth, (C) 1989. Written & directed by Hal Hartley.
an excerpt
from simple men
BILL
Look Dennis, the difference between Dad and me is that I fuck
with the law, he fucked with the government.
DENNIS
The law and the government are the same thing.
BILL
No it isn't. The government doesn't have to obey the law.
DENNIS
Well maybe that's not the way things should be.
BILL
Who wants a fucking government that's go to obey the law?
DENNIS
A lot of people do
BILL
Yeah? Well that's why a lot of people aren't running this
country.
Dennis locks
himself inside a phone booth.
Bill comes and stands along side it.
BILL
Listen Dennis, let me tell you something about the law. The law
is just a contract. A contract between the rich people who own
everything and the poor people who want to take it away from
them. And the contract says: if you break the law and you get
away with it - fine! But if you break the law and you get caught
you've got to play by the rules and pay the price. It's no big
moral thing. You don't need an ideology to knock over a liquour
store.
An excerpt from 'Simple Men', (C) 1992. Written & directed by Hal Hartley.
another excerpt from simple men
SHERIFF
If he comes back, try to detain him.
MECHANIC
Detain him? And then what?
SHERIFF
And then, I don't know, call me and I'll come and arrest him I
guess.
MECHANIC
And in the meantime this French sociopath stabs me and Mike to
death.
SHERIFF
Do you want my job?
MECHANIC
No, we don't want your job, we just want a little protection.
SHERIFF
Protection?
MECHANIC
Yeah
SHERIFF
Protection, certainty, assurance, security.
MECHANIC
Yeah? That too I guess.
SHERIFF
You want confidence, a pledge, safety. Guarantee, promises,
expectation, consideration, sincerity, selflessness, intimacy,
attraction, gentleness, understanding and understanding without
words, dependence without resentment. Affection. To belong.
Possession. Loss.
MECHANIC
Hey Sheriff, is everything all right at home?
SHERIFF
Why do women exist?
Excerpt from
'Simple Men' (C) 1992. Written & directed by Hal Hartley.
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janet
maslin's new york times review of henry fool
The affectless precision of Hal Hartley's previous work (Trust, The Unbelievable Truth, Amateur, Simple Men) is absolutely no preparation for the brilliance and deep resonance of his Henry Fool. Here is a great American film that will linger where it matters: in the hearts and minds of viewers receptive to its epic vision.
Without forsaking the clean, spare look and hyperreal clarity that are so much his own, Hartley moves into a much larger realm than was used in his earlier works. This film aspires to be a meditation on (amongst other things) art, trust, loyalty, politics and popular culture. With utter simplicity, and with unexpectedly tense story telling, it achieves all that and more.
Henry Fool is a perfect modern parable. It begins with the utter degradation of Simon Grim and the mysterious appearance of a stranger who may be his salvation.
"Get up off your knees!" orders Henry Fool (Thomas Jay Ryan, a stage actor making a swaggeringly good screen debut) barging into the basement apartment in Henry's house and instantly taking up residence.
The scarecrow-thin, owlish Simon (the haunting James Urbaniak bearing a deliberate resemblance here to a young Samuel Beckett) works as a garbage man and takes heaps of abuse from much of the neighbourhood. That includes his heavily medicated mother and his sister Fay (played with deadpan, nonchalant wit by Parker Posey, in one of her best roles). Simon is so silent that his response to this literally and figuratively Grim existence is a mystery until Henry urges him to write down his thoughts.
Simon's writing remains hidden at first (and always wisely hidden from the audience). But as it starts to emerge, its effects are astonishing. The mute girl at the local World of Donuts, this story's cultural and culinary mecca, reads a few words and she suddenly sings. When the Board of Education denounces Simon's poem as scatological, Simon and Henry share a proud handshake.
Is Simon's notorious new verse pornography or a revolutionary antidote to the stifling conformity of American culture?
Henry Fool is its own testament to the power of words, even as it merges the fortunes of its characters in a wonderfully ambiguous final gesture. Hartley's splendidly articulate screenplay (whihc won him an award at Cannes this year) is as exacting as his visual style. Even more than its story of private genius and public opinion, the dialogue itself offers proof that every word matters.'
(c) 1999, New York Times.
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drum media
australia interview hal hartley
hal's no fool:
paul fischer's exclusive hal hartley/henry fool interview
november 17, 1998, drum media (australia)
Hal Hartley is one of the most prominent figures in the world of American cinema, and the most eclectic. But his latest film, Henry Fool, has received the most critical acclaim than anything he'd done previously. In this exclusive interview, Paul Fischer caught up with Hartley during last year's Toronto Film Festival.
In the midst of last year's Toronto Film Festival, Hal Hartley managed to retain a quiet composure. A few months previously, Hartley's Henry Fool scored a Best Screenplay Award at Cannes, and the critics were raving. Hartley has always been something of an enigmatic figure in the American film industry, and in terms of the independent scene, when asked how he sees himself within it, he jokingly replies: "Much taller than most, except for John Sayles." In fact, probing deeper on this idea of independent cinema, Hartley finds it difficult to assess himself in those terms. "I actually have a hard time using this term 'independent'," he carefully explains.
"Speaking as a producer, you're always DEPENDANT on SOMEone. For some time there, people used to use the word 'independent' as some sort of qualitative tag, when you make a certain kind of film that is less than mainstream. But that's really never been the case as far as I'm concerned. However, it is true that these came a point in American filmmaking towards the end of the eighties, when people wanted to see more diversity, and I think that people in the 'business' realised there was money to be made from exploiting films that were very idiosyncratic. So I'd rather use the word 'alternative' than 'independent'." Hartley has always remained on the periphery of Hollywood movie making,
and concedes that he's never been asked to join that world "and it's unlikely I'd ever want to, because I could never do the kind of work I do now within that corporate environment".
Born November 3, 1959 in Lindenhurst, New York, Hartley first attended the Massachusetts College of Art, but in 1980 he transferred to SUNY Purchase, where he studied film under the noted director-editor Aram Avakian. Upon completing his graduation film, 1984's Kid (where he first teamed with cinematographer Michael Spiller, a fixture of his later work as well) he accepted a job with his father's construction company, later finding work in Manhattan with a public service announcement production house. After completing two more short films, 1987's The Cartographer's Girlfriend and 1988's Dogs, Hartley's employers agreed to fund his feature length debut, 1989's The Unbelievable Truth, which he shot for just $75,000. The film was a festival hit, and with the aid of the British production company Zenith, Hartley mounted his second feature, 1991's Trust, which like its predecessor was a dry, oblique romantic comedy shot in the director's native suburban Lundenhurt. Hartley released a feature-length version of Flirt, which added a pair of new short films to the 1993 release of the same name. His latest film is his astonishing Henry Fool.
Asked what it is that defines a Hal Hartley film, the contemplative director defines his work, thematically, as "dealing with the difficulties of having a relationship with somebody, whether it's a father and child, mother and daughter or friends. I like to look at the difficulties of ultimately good relationships".
Henry Fool certainly fits into that category. The film revolves around the shy, mumbling garbageman Simon Grim who most view as being slightly retarded, but not Henry Fool.
New in town, Fool is a transient with a boundless ego, a horrifying past and an eccentric intellectualised view of his world. Henry has boldly taken up residence in the home Simon shares with this seriously depressive mother and sex-crazed sister Fay. In the cellar, Henry handwrites his autobiography, "Confessions", in which he discloses his many sins. He is sure that the finished book will rock the intellectual world. Henry likes Simon and so encourages him to express himself via poetry. Simon proves to be a brilliant poet and causes an international stir with his work, much of which the Midwestern conservatives find pornographic. Still, Simon's newfound popularity leads him to learn some truths about Henry and escape his oppressive influence, something which causes a major quarrel between the friends that does not heal for many years.
"As well as being a tale of a unique friendship, what I wanted to explore with Henry Fool' is the teacher-student relationship. Also, I was interested in reflecting upon the difficulties, again, of influence. I'm often asked: who is my biggest influence? And that's a very complicated question to answer." It's an issue Hartley continues to grapple with. "If I'm asked it, I tend to hedge my way through and basically say stuff that I don't understand. But why it's difficult, is that you always feel as though you're anwering not only for yourself, but you're usurping responsibility and answers for this other person, who was supposedly this big influence. So with Henry Fool, I thought of this situation: what would happen if this person who was this big influence on your life made or encouraged you to test yourself, and achieve something that is potentially great, with the kind of person who could NEVER do anything on their own".
But the title character of Hartley's film is far more than that, he hastens to add. "For this particular character, I reached back into traditions of literature and mythology a lot and sort of cobbled this Henry Fool character together. He's a variation of the Faust myth. I like to read biographies of famous people and got very interested in that mentor / student problem, becuase it's very real. Anyone who's had a teacher who meant something to them will understand that".
Henry Fool also explores many of Hartley's deep concerns regarding art and the media. "I wanted the story to raise good, meaty questions about contemporary media and about the popular cultural assessment of what art is, what artistic endeavour is worth and what it might look like if it came along. Also, to express something of the ambivalence any creative person ought to have. I have a lot of ambivalence when I try to think about what good art is, even good art that I'm involved in, and what constitutes my talent. I think it's really easy for the media to say "Oh, he's made seven films so he really knows what he's doing. Look at the consistency of his themes" and all this stuff. I wanted to, in not too heavy a way, express the schizophrenia that's involved with being somebody who does this kind of work, who's chosen to live this kind of life".
Despite its obvious profundity, the film remains Hartley's most accessible and commercial to date, a fact that comes as no surprise to the film maker. "When I was writing it I felt this is going to be much more popular than anything I've done. That excited me, because I think it's a much more aggressive movie than any of my others. Just as criticism can be art, art has got to be criticism, and Henry Fool is a criticism of art and culture. I don't apologise for Henry. I think he's a necessary ingredient in our culture. But what I'm feeling in my bones right now is our culture is calling out for a particular kind of movie and I said "Yeah, and I think it's Henry". Even people who don't like the movie will want to argue about what it brings up".
He finally states, given the film's enormous appeal, "that the ultimate reason why this film has been good for me, is just that it's a great big story. And it's got more obvious emotion in it, which it should. I don't feel like I've betrayed myself or anything, but it felt like it needed that."
(C) Drum Media, 1998
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Margaret Pomeranz's Review of Henry Fool, The Movie Show, Australia
Hal Hartley has been making films for nearly ten years now, and after his first efforts The Unbelievable Truth and Trust fans were eager to see where he would go next.... his deadpan style, his droll non-sequiters, his visual economy in the service of seemingly banal stories was hip, then. The doldrums seemed to set in in his middle period but now maybe with his latest film Henry Fool he's emerging from the slump. Henry Fool is a stranger who turns up to inhabit the basement of the Grim family in Queens. Henry - a debut performance by Thomas Jay Ryan - is an extravagant personality, a man who believes in his own romantic posturing. He's exactly what the Grim family needs, particularly Simon - James Urbaniak - a garbageman so reclusive he appears simple-minded. But when you see Simon's family - doped-up mother - Maria Porter and loudly promiscuous sister Parker Posey - you maybe can understand Simon's desire to escape from the world. A friendship develops between Henry and Simon, Henry has an unpublished manuscript which he brags about and he encourages Simon to write....
Hartley's stories have always been full of pain. Dysfunctional families impose impossible weights on his central characters, but fragile connections build a strength. Those elements are present in Henry Fool. But rarely does Hartley create a character so dramatically overt as Henry. What's interesting about Hartley is the elusiveness of his films. What exactly is Henry Fool about? My theory about Hartley is that he's a romantic, desperate to conceal the fact. We yearn for Simon to break out of himself but when he does it's slightly disappointing. And his final romantic act, reminiscent of the end of Casablanca, leaves us doubtful of its rightness. What can I say? Henry Fool is another Hal Hartley film, yes, but it's breaking out of some of the self-imposed constraints to expose the pain rather than underplay it.
An essay on Hal Hartley's films, 1998
Hal Hartley is a contemporary independent film maker whose films cohere on the basis of cinematic style, narrative approach and director. Hal Hartley’s filmography features: The Unbelievable Truth (1989), Trust(1990), Simple Men (1992), Amateur (1994), ‘Flirt’ (1995) and the as yet unreleased in Australia ‘Henry Fool’ (1997). The films that I will be focussing on include Simple Men, The Unbelievable Truth, and Amateur. Hartley’s cinematic style has been described as “realistic yet non naturalistic” (Fuller, 1992). His first three films are considered melodramatic, yet anti genre. His fourth film ‘Amateur’ mocks the action thriller genre whilst Flirt is a post structuralist film (Danielsen, 1996). As an auteur, Hartley writes and directs all of his films, and also creates their sound design under the pseudonym Ned Rifle. All of his films have taken on cult status and feature a core team of talent including cinematographer Michael Spiller.
The sound of bombs dropping is a sonic refrain which subtlely accompanies the image of Audry from the very first time we see her. The fact that the audience instinctively knows that the spiralling camera work and plane sounds at the end of ‘The Unbelievable Truth’ may well be the dropping of bombs exhibits how well Hartley realises the worlds of his films for his audiences and actively assimilates them into their logic.
In this film dual plot lines traverse existential territory (Murphie, 1996) in the search for freedom which can only be attained once the brothers reconcile with their father and Bill overcomes his misogyny. Narrative closure is attained once this occurs. According to Graham Fuller (1994) one of this film’s underlying messages is that “misogyny is self defeating”. Hartley approaches the issue of the gaze in cinema on an existential level, revealing that objectification, and particularly the objectification of women, is an obstacle to freedom.
Like Godard before him (Monaco), Hartley has been described as a women’s director. Strong, complex, female characterisations juxtaposed against possibly dangerous and adrift males are central to all of his narratives, with either one as likely to be the protagonist. Dialogue is particularly important in this film, whether it’s a cyclical, stylised discussion of Madonna’s exploitation of her body spun around a table, or an argument over the difference between the government and the law, dialogue is always crucial in Hartley films, to comic or philosophical effect.
<This film features long takes and straight cuts which convey a fluid notion of the passing of time, lending the film a level of realism reminiscent of Renoir and Godard. Kauffman once said of Hartley that he “choreographs more than he directs”. This is obvious throughout this realistic looking film in which there is minimal camera movement, fluid continuity editing, dynamic depth of field cinematography and highly stylised screen direction.
This surrealistic send up of the musical genre creates a marked shift in tone, narrative structure and existential territory. It is after this scene that Bill relinquishes misogyny and the possibility of freedom becomes available to him. Slow pacing reminiscent of Jarmusch and Godard marked the passing of time in this film until the introduction of this non narrative sequence which enters into the realm of pure time.
Whereas the actual journey addresses in a very personal manner the lives of its characters through the central themes of faith, love and money ; the existential journey has ramifications for the impersonal, social world outside of the film, and actively challenges the values of its audience. Hartley, like Godard and Brecht, doesn’t want to merely create entertainment. “Asked if he wanted his audience to enjoy his movies he says: ‘Enjoy? No, they have to work. Anything worthwhile necessitates work” (de Jonge, 1996). Hartley’s films are subversive of the dominant order in a myriad of ways. Their narratives actively question the position of women in society and its high value of materialism. In the tradition of Godard, Hartley aims to confront his audience into activity rather than passivity.
>In Amateur, the protagonist Thomas is an amnesiac with a shady past. On this Hartley said “Having a person who has a history that he can’t remember, and that you the audience know, implicates the audience in this kind of existential dilemma. I guess it’s to reawaken our consciousness about how we make decisions. Most of the time we don’t analyse out reactions and decisions that much. Fiction is an exercise through which we can do that”. (Winters, 1995).
This film once again tackles the relationship between men and women. Graham Fuller (94) noted that “Amateur is not a film about what it’s about. The intellectual inquiry here extends to analyses of the sexual objectification of women and movie violence”. All of Hartley’s films feature ambiguous, non narrative possibilities and multi layered plot lines and meanings. It is because of Hartley’s dead pan style, rejection of genre conventions and philosophical questioning that he has been touted as “the 1990’s Godard” (Fuller, 1992). Hartley has enthusiastically acknowledged the influence of Brecht, Buster Keaton, Renoir, Greenaway and Godard on his films (Hartley, 1996), particularly regarding his use of realism and melodrama and his auteuristic address of women, violence, fatalism and the commodification of culture in his films. Hartley has also has been likened to everyone from contemporary film maker’s such as Jim Jarmusch, Gus Van Sant, Ben Stiller and Krystof Kieslowski because of the topicality of his narratives and also because of their slow pacing and visual style, right through to Harold Pinter, David Mamet, Paul Auster, Edward Hopper, and Bresson in his script writing (Bauer, 1994).
Godard’s influence is most obvious in Amateur, with its emphasis on existentialism and clear disdain for Hollywood genres (Braudy, 1979) and their traditional psychological basis. More than once, scenes in this film are filmed from behind character’s backs as in Godard’s ‘Vivre sa Vie’, exemplifying Hartley’s non traditional, realistic visual style. Hartley extrapolated on this, saying “The back of someone’s head is part of that person, too, worthy and necessary to be seen” (Hanson, 1995). In turn, Hartley’s influence is obvious in the recent film ‘Nadja’, both philosophically and stylistically.
It
is through the combination of original, genre defying screenplays
and their low key direction, a visual style dedicated to realism
marked by acute framing, minimal camera movement and deep focus;
in their dry humour, parallelism, emotive music, lean dialogue,
non narrative sequences; and in their proactive address of the
audience that Hartley’s unique cinematic mark as an auteur
becomes clear.
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REFERENCES
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Bauer, Douglas (1994), ‘An Independent Vision: Film Director Hal Hartley’ in ‘The Atlantic’, April 1994.
Bordwell and Thompson, (1997) ‘Film Art: An Introduction’, Fifth Edition, McGraw Hill, NY
Braudy, Leo (1979) ‘Genre: The Conventions of Connection’ IN Mast, Gerald and Cogen “Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings’, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Danielsen, Shane (1996), ‘Short, black and slides’ in ‘The Sydney Morning Herald’, September 16, 1996.
de Jonge, Peter (1996), “The Jean Luc Godard of Long Island” in ‘The New York Times’, (August 4 , 1996)
Fuller, Graham (1992), “Hal Hartley: Finding the Essential” introduction to the screenplays for ‘Simple Men’ and ‘Trust’.
Fuller, Graham (1994), “Hal Hartley: Doing Damage” introduction to the screenplay for Amateur.
Hanson, Matt (1995), “The Sophisticated Yet Ultimately Awkward World of an American Auteur” in ‘Dazed and Confused’ (June 1995 Ed).
Hartley, Hal (1996), ‘Actually Responding’, introduction to the screenplay for ‘Flirt’.
Kauffmann, Stanley (1992), “Books and the Arts: Stanley Kauffman on Films” in ‘The New Republic’ (November 9, 1992)
Monaco, J. ‘Godard: Women and the Outsider’ in ‘The New Wave’, p 98 - 125.
Murphie, Andrew (1996) “Sound at the end of the world as we know it”, in ‘Perfect Beat’, January.
Pall, Ellen (1995), “The Elusive Women in the Quirky Films of Hal Hartley” in ‘The New York Times, Sunday, April 9, 1995.
Sarris, Andrew ‘Towards a Theory of Film History’ IN B, Nichols ‘Movies and Methods’.
Sartre, Jean Paul (1948), “Existentialism and Human Emotions”, New York Philosophical Library.
Sterritt, David (1995), ‘A Filmmaker’s Take on the Nature of Identity’ from ‘The Christian Science Monitor, April 5, 1995’.
Winters, Laura (1995), ‘True Attitude’ in Vogue magazine, June 1995.
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