Hit Me With Your Best Shot: Yentl (1983) and Ex Machina (2014)
Friday, June 3, 2022 at 3:09PM In Hit Me With Your Best Shot we choose a favourite images from selected films. Click on the images herein to be taken to the corresponding article from the participants.
Bronze - a star very much in control of her own image and its various crescendos into iconography
by Nathaniel R
Is there any generation that was so deprived of the movie musical as Generation X? The eighties and nineties were so bereft of live action musicals that whenever one did arrive it felt like both an anachronism and an event. Yentl (1983), as it turns out, still feels like both...
For her directorial debut Barbra Streisand opted to return to the genre that had catapulted her to superstardom. But rather than the glitzy showmanship and comic chaos associated with both the genre and her previous work, she delivered her quietest most earth-bound musical. Another choice that made Yentl a novelty item both then and now: it's a musical in which only one character sings. Just about the only normal thing about Yentl at the time was its "gender-bending" (a popular term in the 80s) following quickly on the heels of two cross-dressing / Oscar-winning hits: Tootsie and Victor/Victoria.
Silver - Yentl is verklempt seeing Avigdor in the nude. With the gorgeous light and scenery it's like she stumbled into a Titian or Manet.
Yentl based on Isaac Bashevis Singer's story "Yentl, the Yeshiva Boy" is about a Jewish woman chafing at the restrictions of her gender who wants more than marriage and cooking. She longs for a life of religion and study, a life designated only for men, and disguises herself as a man to get it. She becomes entangled with another student Avigdor (Mandy Patinkin's breakout screen performance post his star-making Tony win in Evita on Broadway) and his fiancee Hadaas (Amy Irving).
One of Streisand's indisputable strengths as an actress and movie star -- though I wouldn't rank Yentl as an acting achievement per se -- was how much boundless inner life she could inject into romantic and sexual feeling. From Funny Girl (1968) through Yentl (1983) ... hell, all the way to Little Fockers (2010) if you'd like her 'Women in Love,' to paraphrase her hit song, are always richly felt and the chemistry with male leads is impeccably lusty. One always senses great sex is about to happen off screen.
How perfect is the lighting on this kiss? It feels both spiritual and carnal simultaneously. David Watkins was a masterful DP
Gold Medal - Best Shot. Romantic ecstacy stopped short.
In Yentl's story climax, if not its final scene, Yentl finally tells Avigdor the truth. Once the proud but rigid man has recovered from his shock at his study partner's ruse and confession, he stares long and hard at this woman before him. The two share a very brief moment dreaming of a future together and a kiss with the requisite music swell. But the music cuts short as Avigdor remembers the third part of their love triangle and conjures her presence with her name "Hadass". Avigdor and Yentl's love will not be consummated.
This end-of-romance is bittersweet, recalling the unhappy but deeply satisfying endings of classics like The Way We Were and Funny Girl. Streisand's love burns bright and deep but she walks away alone. The entire scene from confession through kiss to 'break-up' is sensationally lit by Oscar winning DP David Watkins (Out of Africa, Chariots of Fire, Moonstruck) who gives Streisand the full glamour treatment bathing the star in sensual light. Streisand has often been criticized for her "vanity" but who wouldn't have more than their share of that with her gifts? Which is why I can't resist this crestfallen close-up, as my "Best Shot", and not just because it's her strongest movie star and acting moment in the film. Though she's crestfallen, she looks positively luminous. She's spent the whole film ironically hiding in order to live openly. But Avigdor isn't the sun. And Yentl will now be walking in her own light.
Despite big feelings and the half-comic romantic pretzelling of its love triangle, Yentl as a film is surprisingly small and straightforward. Yentl gets her wish of a life of study and then realizes she wants more. She deserves the best of both worlds, the body and the mind. Cue that impeccably soaring finale ballad "Piece of Sky" to express her now limitless desires. Disney Princesses could never.
For all of Yentl's subtle links and recalls to Streisand's other classics, Yentl proved a one-off, or if you'd prefer, a bookend. She never made another musical and it essentially closed her superstar actress chapter (1968-1983) in which most of her movies were hits and half of them were musicals. But it also opened another career chapter, albeit a brief and unprolific one, as a director (1983-1996). Streisand has never officially retired from the cinema but it sure feels that way given that she's only appeared in three films in the past 25 years and directed none. Revisiting Yentl, in its warm earnestness, big feeling, and glorious optimism, reminds us that it's our collective loss.
OTHER BEST SHOT PARTICIPANTS CHOSE...
My #BestShot highlights the film's play with queer/trans identity early on. As Yentl looks at herself in a cracked mirror, she's split in two...
-Ryan on Twitter
The composition reminds me of a wife sending her husband to war. Hadass' longing is given an epic sweep, but by the next shot...
-Jburks63 on Twitter
Throughout the film, Streisand plays with the motif of Yentl's hands against paper-marbled covers and leather-bound hardbacks. She cradles a tome after her father's death like a safety blanket...
-Cláudio at TFE
Despite being face to face with this same person for months, this is the first time he is actually seeing her...
-Ben Miller at Ice Cream 4 Freaks
no pun intended #bestshot
-Christian Bonamusa on Twitter
P.S. EX-MACHINA (2014)
Some of you noticed and expressed displeasure (I don't blame you) that I dropped the ball on discussing Alex Garland's directorial debut Ex-Machina (2014) which was shot by the very talented British cinematographer Rob Hardy (Boy A, The Invisible Woman, Mission Impossible - Fallout). I knew that the heady sci-fi drama which riffs on the Frankenstein myth, both the killer robot and femme fatale tropes, and subtextual noir love triangles would be a brilliant choice for this series. Unfortunately real life got the better of me. But here are the choices from the loyal Best Shot participants as well as three images I was considering though I wasn't able to give the movie the proper rewatch attention that it most definitely deserves.
She's a prisoner, but he's being entrapped...
-Ryan, Twitter
A fascinating dichotomy between analog messages on post-it notes while the most cutting-edge technology is being displayed
-Ben Miller, Ice Cream 4 Freaks
My favorite shot reveals Kyoko's contradictions with beautiful casualness...
-Cláudio Alves, The Film Experience
And for mine, though I wasn't able to rewatch these three were on my "mental" list of shots to look out for and here's why...
Because our introduction to Ava (Alicia Vikander's best work by a mile) was an instant jaw-dropper for so many reasons. Our point of view from the shadows as if we're voyeurs. The way she walked into frame both human and other with parts of her body missing. The alienating remove of seeing everything through layers of glass. Our first look at her is also a fond reminder that the Oscar win for Best Visual Effects was one of the best choices the Academy made all decade.
For the simple reason that this dance sequence is the best scene in the film, Oscar Isaac and Sonoya Mizuno are both top notch in the film and wield their physicality ]superbly to sell us on various agendas and strange diversions of thought. The musical scene is the kind of chaotic 'grace' note that only an auteur would think to throw at the audience in a heady thriller. Alex Garland has yet to top Ex-Machina but we're grateful he keeps ambitiously trying (Annihilation, Men, and the upcoming Civil War)
And finally this shot -- if I recall correctly we're looking at a version of the AI brain that Ava has -- is hypnotic in so many ways. The cool whites and blue attempts to drain the shot of emotion and drag us toward science. But the impossible complexity of this "brain" with so many layers its like a Pollock painting drags us right back. This is art, not science. But it's also creepily invasive, with two men passing around a 'woman''s brain as if its theirs; Ava will have the last word on that.
NEXT THURSDAY JUNE 9TH
Next week's topic is Fire Island (2022) which is now streaming on Hulu. Choose your #BestShot and post it before then so we can share in the roundup. You know you want to since you're already watching it this weekend.
Reader Comments (5)
Streisand originally sought noted cinematographer Vittorio Storaro to shoot Yentl. His fee exceeded the film’s budget. Streisand chose David Watkins who did some of his best work as evidenced here. Yet, in the aftermath Streisand regretted her decision and expressed frustration with herself that she simply didn’t use her own wealth to make up the difference in Storaro’s wage. The thought of how Storaro’s visuals would have impacted Yentl is provocative.
Are you implying that Barbra is an android with this mashup?
Bravo Ryan! That shot is my favorite as well. Streisand created subtle visual images throughout Yentl to address the duality of the male and female within. Look carefully at the scholars at the Yeshiva. Streisand cast female extras as some of the male students. Such thoughtful planning is in evidence to create this magnificent film.
I also find great pleasure in the use of water as a thematic element. The story begins when Yentl steps across a rivulet as she approaches the cart of the bookseller to buy a text reserved for men. As her efforts to challenge forced gender roles grows bolder, the waters she is crossing becomes ever larger till the climax where Yentl turns her back on her masquerade and embraces her identity. In that moment she is traveling across a sea with other immigrants seeking a new life.
Peggy -- is that why she never made a sci-fi film? too close to home?
Finbar -- it relaly is a wonderful film and I haven't heard that about the female extra. fasincating tidbit. I'm glad Watkins shot it though rather than Storaro (not that the latter wasn't a genius but i think Watkins did an amazing job and did it with less focus pulling than Storaro might have
something about throwing in the word Pretzel into this review made me giggle.