Bieber Fever (aka Cinematic Stockholm Syndrome)

A few weeks ago, I had the bizarre experience of paying to see Never Say Never 3D (aka The Justin Bieber Film). My entire family mocked me as a consequence, but I was doing it for Epigram, which justified it somewhat (I still felt kind of, well, dirty asking for a ticket for it. I was worried I'd see someone I knew in there, but then I remembered no-one I know in Bristol is under the age of 12). It was not as bad as I assumed it would be. There was at least some form of narrative, and the 3D was well-used (apart from some really creepy shots of the Bieb's arm reaching out of the screen, like some well coiffured Mr Tickle). Having a younger sister, I am fairly well-versed in 3D "concert experience" films, with The Jonas Brothers and Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus being the masters of this particular genre (Miley evens makes a cameo appearance in Never Say Never, talking with a worrying amount of world weariness for someone who's only 18). Never Say Never definitely reaches those upper eschelons of tween moveidom. Clearly I didn't love it, but I feel more culturally aware for having seen it. Also, if you ever need to force yourself to like Justin Bieber, this is definitely the way to do it, the first thing I did when I got back from the film was listen to 'Baby' on Spotify. And that is something I never thought I'd do: 

Justin Bieber’s a nice Christian boy with good hair and some musical talent, who makes his single mum and grandparents proud. Admittedly, Bieber’s film Never Say Never is no cinematic masterpiece, but it’s one of the better examples of the concert experience/pseudo-documentary films that have become the money-spinning vogue amongst American tween superstars. The film makes good use of 3D and zips along quickly enough to hold the attention of even the most sugar-crazed Belieber (though it’s doubtful many of those read The Epigram).

However, Never Say Never is also one of the most unsettling children’s films to ever appear in cinemas. Treated somewhere between a prince and a god, Bieber just doesn’t seem real. He rides around on a segway, reducing tweenage girls (and worryingly, their mums) to hysterical tears of joy with a single glance, whilst constantly shaking his trademark fringe out of his eyes.  His fans are so obsessed with his sainted follicles that there’s a montage in the film dedicated entirely to talking about Bieber’s hair, and locks of it are currently being auctioned for charity for thousands of dollars.

Despite Bieber’s eerie precociousness, it’s his fans who are the most terrifying part of the film. They’re generally split between the aforementioned criers and assertive obsessives, who stare into the camera to tell the world that they will marry Justin Bieber and no-one else will ever have him. And thanks to Bieber’s humble YouTube origins, and his constant use of Twitter, his fans all think they discovered him and therefore own him. In many ways, Never Say Never felt like the follow-up companion piece to The Social Network, as the power and danger of social networking is one of the subtler themes you could read into the film.

Though Never Say Never ostensibly follows Bieber’s “journey” to perform at Madison Square Gardens, bar a minor throat infection, there’s never a sense that he won’t make it. The film’s real sense of danger comes from the future. At various points, Bieber is compared to Macaulay Culkin and Michael Jackson – both of whom were admittedly very successful, very young, but couldn’t be said to have had the happiest or most well-adjusted lives. When, at the end of the film, his team speculate on what the next few years could hold for Bieber, with comparisons to the likes of Culkin and Jackson, let’s just hope he makes it through puberty in one piece

- Holly Close (Originally printed in The Epigram, No. 236, Mar 7th 2011)

Late Oscars Response

For the first time ever, I sat up and watched the Oscars being broadcast live. It was quite the experience. I know there's been a lot of criticism of Anne Hathaway and James Franco as hosts, but I thought they were quite sweet. Clearly they were no Billy Crystal, but at least they weren't Ricky Gervais.

Overall, I was pretty pleased with who won, although I really thought Hailee Steinfield should have won Best Supporting Actress. I still don't understand why she wasn't nominated for Best Actress in a Leading Role (though she wouldn't have beaten Natalie Portman, who was just genius in Black Swan, and fully deserved to win), but her performance in True Grit was so good, and she really held her own onscreen with Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon, both of whom are incredibly charismatic actors. Plus, I've not seen The Fighter, so I'm not really in a position to comment on whether Melissa Leo deserved it or not.

I was pleased Aaron Sorkin won Best Adapted Screenplay for The Social Network, because even though I didn't really like the film, his script was so well-written and he's such a good writer that he deserves Academy recognition (I love Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip so much, it makes me sad that it was cancelled after one season).

It was not particularly surprising that The King's Speech won so many of the big awards, and I'm really glad it did, not just because it was a fantastic film, but because it was funded by the UK Film Council. I wrote this article on the closure of the UKFC for The Epigram a couple of weeks ago:

If one film has dominated the start of 2011, it’s The King’s Speech. The film tells the true story of how an unorthodox speech therapist (Geoffrey Rush) helped King George VI (Colin Firth) to overcome his debilitating stammer. This unassuming historical drama has been loved by audiences and critics alike, and is nominated for almost every major accolade this awards season. Firth has already received a Golden Globe for his stellar performance as the stammering monarch and he is hotly tipped to win the Best Actor Oscar, one of the twelve Academy Award nominations the film received in January – the most Oscar nominations of any film this year.

Amongst those singing the film’s praises is Tanya Seghatchian, Head of the UK Film Council’s Film Fund: "This is fantastic result for The King's Speech and points to a very successful awards season for this brilliant British film.  We are proud to have played a part in helping it to get made and congratulate everyone connected with the film.” However, behind these words of admiration lies a much sadder story.  The UK Film Council (UKFC) was abolished last year as part of the current government’s sweep of Arts cuts. Set up in 2000 to develop and promote the film industry in the UK, the Film Council funded for hundreds of successful British films, including In The Loop, Fish Tank, The Last King of Scotland and This Is England. Even more recently, the UKFC provided almost a quarter of the budget for Mike Leigh’s Another Year, whose script is nominated alongside The King’s Speech for the Best Original Screenplay Oscar. In the belt-tightening years of the mid to late 2000s, it is likely that many of these films would not have been made without UKFC funding. 

Unsurprisingly, the decision to shut down the Film Council was widely criticised, as its closure has the potential to affect all strata of the film industry. The UKFC funded regional film schemes, such as Screen Yorkshire, which itself funded Paddy Considine’s directorial debut Tyrannosaur. Tyrannosaur went on to win two major prizes at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Nationally, the British Film Institute was funded by the UKFC, as well as programmes to make cinemas across the country more accessible for those with sight and hearing impairments. On a general level, the UKFC had a strong tradition of funding films that showcased the best that Britain has to offer, be that beautifully shot character pieces or groundbreaking works by new writers and directors. It seems foolhardy and short-sighted to make cuts to one of the major industries in which Britain seems to truly operate on a global stage, particularly as the industry employs over 36,000 people.

It is not just the success of The King’s Speech that has drawn attention to the importance of the Film Council: two films funded by the UKFC, Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll and Son of Babylon, have been chosen to screen at the prestigious Berlin film festival. As UKFC-funded films continue to do so well, both critically and financially, it helps to further underline the ludicrousness of the government’s decision. However, it’s not all doom and gloom for the British film industry. Fox Searchlight, which funded films such as Black Swan and Never Let Me Go, has formed a partnership with UK-based media investor Ingenious to finance new British films. Whilst this arrangement is far from perfect, as the deal only amounts to the distribution of three films a year, it does at least go some way to filling the void left by the UK Film Council.

 - Holly Close (Originally printed in The Epigram, No. 235, Feb 21st 2011)


As a consequence of how well The King's Speech did, more funding is being put back into the UK film industry (at least this article from The Guardian), though I don't understand why they had to abolish the UKFC in the first place


NB: I know The Oscars are kind of old news now, and everyone's moved onto Charlie Sheen going nuts and John Galliano being an anti-Semite, but I've been writing an essay on Edgar Allan Poe for the last week, so time has only just restarted for me.