This is the first post examining a film on the Top Ten list on the right and why it's essential to NOLA filmmaking. (Expect at least 9 more. ;-) You may have noticed an change to the list— I replaced DEJA VU with THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON, because while the former is the first post-Katrina feature completed in NOLA, the latter is a better template for filmmakers as its story has more actionable lessons.
A LOVE SONG FOR BOBBY LONG was ignored and abandoned upon release. Made in the "Bob Yari era" of indie cinema (2004), it has all the hallmarks of the time: over-budgeted, movie stars cast against type and working for scale, first-time director (Shainee Gabel, also adapting an unpublished novel), edgy content with an incongruously happy ending.
Ironically, the reason the film probably failed— weird, shamelessly self-destructive alcoholics living hand-to-mouth in a southern slum— is why it is Essential NOLA Cinema. To the Straight Square World (ie the non-NOLA part of America; eg America) these people are disgusting. To us, they are our friends and neighbors (and often, our heroes and their opposite, our politicians). What's the shock of disgust to them is the shock of recognition to us.
At least, that's what happened with me: I first saw the film as advanced sneak peek in LA at the William Morris screening room. I loved lots about its direction, music, and style, but I didn't "get it" in most respects, not until I moved to NOLA in '06 and saw it again. (In the Q&A at WM, I learned the film was a WMA "package" meaning that the agency repped all the stars and director, and financed it (with Yari, of course, under the "El Camino Pictures" banner which was a short-lived partnership with WM), and took a packaging fee (really a producers fee) instead of the usual percentages. Acquisition press release)
WHAT IT GETS RIGHT—
The characters are dead authentic. The settings (Algiers, with Bywater pillar Bud Rip's standing in as their local watering hole) are great. The story has a disarmingly languid rhythm but its episodic feel is just slight of hand. The decisions of the characters, their motivations, foibles, and reactions, are equal parts fascinating, funny, and tragic. The cinematography is outstanding. Above all, it gets NOLA time right. Time does not follow calendars in NOLA, it is fundamentally different here, all periods of American life exist simulateously. David Simon's "Treme" worked so hard to get details right but failed hard because its premise fundamentally misunderstood the flow of NOLA time. This film gets it right.
WHAT IT DOESN'T—
There's 2 main problems, the casting and the ending, and how fatal these are varies widely among people I've talked to. Scarlett Johansson performs her role well but never takes the chances necessary to make the character authentic to her circumstances— Gabel shares the blame here, because her character would realistically be much more like, for instance, Lindsay Roberts' character in Craig Brewer's THE POOR & HUNGRY. A genuinely run-down, feral performance would've complimented Travolta's complete, vanity-free immersion in the title character. The ending is complete miscalculation, probably designed as a commercial hedge against the ugliness of the prior 90 minutes, which obviously didn't work. (It also might be the result of too much fealty to the novel.)
THE TAKE-AWAY—
Making good films about NOLA requires not just authentic characters and places, but organic plot, meaning actions consistent with character, and progress, developments, reversals, etc that happen in NOLA time, not calendar time, according to the unique logic of the town and the people in it. But as this film proves, you don't need much more than that, either. At the end of the day, it's a "people in rooms talking" film but it never feels small or cheap or dull because the characters and what they're saying is so original and compelling.
Personally, I think it's one of the best films ever made about here. An easy addition to the Top 10 list.
A LOVE SONG FOR BOBBY LONG is playing at Indywood tonight at 7p, Sun 4/27 at 3:30p, Mon 4/28 at 2p, Tues 4/29 at 930p, and Wed 4/30 at 6p.
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