Welcome to the weekly column Trailing Off in which I take a look at a trailer from the past week and analyze its potential. This will be done using an obnoxious amount of analyzing and personal thoughts on the cast and crew as well as expectations. Coming every Sunday (it's called Trailing Off for a reason), I will attempt to highlight films ranging from new blockbusters to lesser known indies and give them their due. Partially to spread awareness, I do believe that there is an art to the sell and will do my best to highlight why these trailers matter or don't with approval (trove) or disapproval (trash). So please stop by, recommend some trailers, and I will see you next time.
Trailer in Discussion
Directed By: Ryan Gosling
Written By: Ryan Gosling
Starring: Christina Hendricks, Saoirse Ronan, Eva Mendes
- Preamble -
There's an odd juxtaposition when wanting to talk about Ryan Gosling. For starters, he has been considered one of the sexiest men alive for majority of his adult life. The Notebook remains one of his most accessible works while Crazy Stupid Love shows off the physique that likely makes the women love him anyways. He is the charming fellow with a career that goes against his pretty boy looks in ways that are both baffling and admirable. While he'll still pop up on lists and be labeled a cutie pie, he is essentially an artist whose work likely isolates those that enjoy his more popcorn fare, which has become increasingly less and less.
His most recent films have been predominantly art house projects that see him dealing with directors with specific visions, including multiple collaborations with Derek Cianfrance and Nicholas Winding Refn. The results are sporadic. However, when your last film launches a thousand think pieces on whether Refn is an auteur of ultraviolence, there's a chance that this guy is shooting for something crazy. He has done admirable work both inside and out of the indie directors medium (The Ides of March being notable), but he remains an enigmatic presence that is hard to categorize. Not bad for a former Mouseketeer.
I for one find his work consistently fascinating and think that he is capable of doing so much for the medium. He may be quickly become more of a cult performer than anything else, but he remains interesting and takes risks that isn't just lowbrow familiarity. I may not like his last film, Only God Forgives, but he has a consistent track record up until this point that is worthy of note.
Which is why it has been peculiar to wait for his directorial debut to come out. It was notoriously booed at Cannes last year. The brief footage released wasn't all that engaging either. There was concern that he was kind of a hack behind the camera. While it just meant that audiences had to wait for his film to give a wider release and more coherent footage to be released, there is worry that he was setting his sights too high. Then again, the stills that followed mixed in the color pallets of Refn and Cianfrance rather than something more authentic.
It could be why the project as a whole has been more interesting. than an average directorial debut. Where most actors feel like they're incorporating the familiar veterans, Gosling's work feels indicative of the weirder art house variety. Thanks to a catalog of filmmakers who are at most charitable considered "Striking," Gosling's debut may be haphazard, but it won't be entirely boring. It will be something passionately different. The only question now is if it will be any good.
- Dissection -
There's a lot of dissection that can be made on the trailer simply by influences. A lot of them are more jarring than others. A lot of the bright colors as a backdrop for dark scenes feel like direct lifts from Only God Forgives while the nature scenes feel like lifts from Cianfrance's The Place Beyond the Pines. Even the presence of composer who (I'm assuming) is Cliff Martinez, which is an old Refn favorite. The surreal nature is all packaged together in a way that incorporates dark sci-fi as misconstrued by Refn.
Another note is that the atmosphere feels all over the place by the end of the trailer. It manages to go from Refn and Cianfrance into whisking shots reminiscent of Terrence Malick (whom Gosling has collaborated with in an unreleased film). Even the voice over feels oddly reminiscent. It helps that he casts the reliable co-stars that have popped up in various projects before to make what feels like a beautiful fever dream of colors and concepts. The plot is explored, but I am not entirely sure that I cared to follow what it actually was.
It could just be that I am a fan of the films that Gosling is aping in this trailer. It looks beautiful and bizarre in ways that compel me to care. It looks too obscure to be a big hit, but I am on board to see where things are going. While there's initial scenes that were released that didn't capture my attention, this trailer manages to make me think of something more promising. What lies ahead for Gosling's directing career? Am I being bamboozled by the quick cuts and voice overs? The cast is strong and the scenery is striking enough. I guess it will be worth checking out.
- One Sentence Sell -
Ryan Gosling apes the weirdos he worked with in order to make his own weird directorial debut.
- Trash or Trove -
TROVE
It could just be bias, but I really have been excited about Gosling's debut for a long time now. With the sign of this trailer, my dismay is starting to swerve and make way for something more interesting and enjoyable. I don't know if it will be any good because it captures me on a more inherently weird scale, but it still manages to bring something striking to the screen that makes me interested.
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