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At the
movies Film Teachers
By JOSEPH CUNNEEN
If Zhang Yimou, world-class Chinese
director of Red Sorghum and To Live, has made a smaller
movie in Not One Less, its just as powerful as his earlier epic
dramas that starred the celebrated actress Gong Li.
Not One Less starts out as a documentary of life in a
poor, mountainous village, concentrating on the problem of providing elementary
schooling for some 27 children 10 years old or younger. The regular teacher,
Gao Enman, has to leave for a month because his mother is dying, and the mayor
brings him a 13-year-old primary school graduate, Wei Minzhi (played by
herself) as the only available substitute. Gao is appalled at Weis lack
of training, and tells her that 12 children have already disappeared this year;
she must not let any more get away. He counts out 26 pieces of chalk for the
school days he will be away, and tells her to take his book, write out the
daily lessons on the blackboard and make the students copy them.
It looks hopeless; the children have no respect for their new
teachers authority. After covering the blackboard with a lesson, Wei
simply tells them they cant leave the schoolroom until sunset, and sits
down outside in front of the closed door. Unsmiling and bossy, she makes no
attempt to win over her young charges except to take them out for a brief
singing exercise. But her stubbornness seems useful when she makes the class
troublemaker, Zhang Huike, apologize to a girl who felt humiliated when he read
her diary to the class.
The movie follows the tentative bonding between teacher and
students as Wei reads the class list each day to make sure they are all still
there, and later involves them in a common effort after Zhang Huike, whose
family is deeply in debt, runs off to the city to find work. Together they
determine how much money Wei will need for a bus ticket to the city and to
bring the boy back; they work as a group to earn money by moving bricks and
accept their small equal share of two bottles of cola bought with what they
believe is in excess of the needed bus money. They go on to solve more and more
complex computations when they learn that the bus tickets are far more
expensive than they believed. But these acts of intelligence and solidarity --
including crowding together to conceal Wei when she boards the bus without a
ticket -- seem to be of no avail, since she is ejected a short way outside the
village.
Not One Less takes a more dramatic, even heroic, turn
at this point as the undaunted Wei tramps on by herself to the provincial
capital, finally hitching a ride in the back of a truck. The city is chaotic
and indifferent, and she hasnt a clue as to how to find her missing
student. Her pigheadedly comic yet unbearably moving efforts are occasionally
interrupted by shots of a forlorn Zhang Huike walking past a line of food
vendors. The movie generates a powerful emotional reaction precisely because of
Zhang Yimous restraint, his leisurely, apparently detached approach to
his story. Just as he makes no effort to prettify the village, Wei is never
seen as charming, remaining largely impassive throughout her
ordeal. We are all the more overwhelmed, therefore, when she cries near the end
in response to an interviewers question, and especially when she finally
smiles.
Making Not One Less is a special achievement in view
of pervasive Chinese censorship. Approval was probably facilitated by setting
its action in an earlier time, as indicated when Teacher Gao wants Wei to learn
a song honoring Chairman Mao. Zhang Yimou obviously wants to call attention to
the scarcity of educational resources allocated to the Chinese countryside, but
his movie has such inherent power that it transcends any topical or
ideololgical factor.
Curt Hanson, remembered for the
sophisticated crime-thriller L.A. Confidential, is working in
comedy this time, directing a movie version of Michael Chabons novel.
Wonder Boys opens with an already-stoned Grady Tripp (Michael Douglas)
conducting a college creative writing class. Douglas comic voice-over
discloses the fact that his wife has left him just as the literary festival,
Word-Fest, sponsored by his college, is about to take place.
It promises to be stressful, since his gay editor, Terry Crabtree
(Robert Downey Jr.), who hasnt had a major success since Gradys
earlier best-selling novel, is flying in from New York, hoping to see the new
manuscript. The problem is that Grady has already reached page 2,611 in his
book, but hasnt a clue how to end it. When Grady arrives at Word-Fest,
Sara Gaskell (Frances McDormand), the college chancellor, with whom he has been
having an affair -- and who is the wife of his department chair -- lets him
know that she is pregnant, and he is finally at a loss for words.
Although its a fine farce premise and cinematographer Dante
Spinotti makes good use of Pittsburghs industrial architecture and wintry
bad weather, Hanson also wants to make it all seem significant. Hes got a
good cast, and there are lots of laugh lines in Steve Kloves screenplay,
but there are also signs of strain. Instead of involving the audience in the
Grady/Sara relationship and exploiting the comic talents of Frances McDormand,
the emphasis falls on Grady acting as mentor to James Leer (Tobey McGuire), a
troubled and possibly talented student writer who seems incapable of telling
the truth. In a further twist, Crabtree, after arriving at Word-Fest
accompanied by an impossibly tall drag queen, soon shifts both his professional
and nonprofessional attention to Leer.
Writers and editors are surely fair game, and Wonder
Boys should amuse anyone not depending on it for an understanding of how
books get written or published. Its sense of fun never takes off, however;
something as wacky as Brady getting bitten by the Gaskells blind bulldog
and Leer promptly shooting it and stuffing it in the trunk of Gradys car
could take place in an old-time screwball comedy, but such a movie would build
on the incident. Here it seems only a pretext for having Michael Douglas limp
through the rest of the proceeding. The characters marijuana-induced
befuddlement probably allowed for cynically amusing interior monologues in the
book. The movie merely exhibits Bradys genial haziness, and the joke
turns sour after the dead dog is left in Leers bed in his parents
home after Grady and Crabtree -- having discovered the young writers
brilliance -- take him away.
Theres directorial intelligence behind many details in
Wonder Boys, plus a fine score with songs by Bob Dylan, Leonard
Cohen and Neil Young. Recurring shots of Michael Douglas pecking away at an
old-fashioned typewriter in a rumpled chenille robe with puffed sleeves are
enjoyably silly. Happily, one of the young women in Gradys course (Katie
Holmes), who had earlier looked on her teacher worshipfully, finally gives him
some sane advice -- both for his writing and his life -- Youve got
to make choices. But the happy ending seems tacked on rather than a
needed last fillip of wackiness.
Joseph Cunneen is NCRs regular movie
reviewer.
National Catholic Reporter, March 24,
2000
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