the station agent

[pete]

you guys should check out this movie, it's the best movie I've seen all fall. it's about a dwarf named Fin who has inherited a run-down train depot from his friend, and his friendship/ relationship with a big goofy guy selling hot dogs next door and a separated artist who's still mourning the death of her young son. The dwarf is obsessed with trains, OBSESSED, but in a very quiet, unobtrusive way. He just wants to be left alone, but everyone always finds his height so interesting, and everyone always wants to find out what he's all about.
It's so good, it's got that sense of Rushmore in there, where three lonely, sad people, unwilling to open themselves up to each other, just hang out. Except this one is a lot quieter, and a little sadder. Not to say it's not a funny movie, but the tone is serious. The relationship between the three people, as well as this sexpot librarian who has a little bit of a crush on Fin and a chubby girl in elemantary school who is equally obsessed with trains. Everyone seems a bit lonely, just how I like it. The soundtrack is really good too, reminds me a little of the soundtrack from All the Real Girls.

The cinematography in it was beautiful. I learned that it was shot on super 16 then blown up to 35mm. I couldn't tell. It was beautiful and the trains, prove once again, that they are cinematic stables since the Lumiere Brother days. The trains here are as beautiful as any train I've seen back in the days (20's) when they shot a lot of trains in movies.

I think I'll do a series on my favorite train movies (or movies where characters are obsessed with trains) now because now there are three great movies involving love of trains: The General, this movie, and Sweet and Lowdown.

Okay.

[Cecil]

ive seen previews and it looks pretty good

[Derek237]

The lead actor was on leno a while ago. It looks like one of the better movies coming out.

[Ghostboy]

It's a beautiful little movie. It didn't have the personal effect on me that Lost In Translation did, but it's the same sort of film. A sad little comedy that leaves you feeling uplifted, although not in a cheesy sort of way. Peter Dinklage is an amazing actor, and the other lead actor, Bobby Canavale, is incredibly endearing. Patricia Clarkson -- well, nuff said. Michelle Williams is good too. Interesting that the Dawson's Creek actresses are each taking part in tiny indie films starring Patricia Clarkson.

To further the technical notes provided by Pete, the budget was only 400 grand, and it was shot in 21 days.

[Holden Pike]

Yeah, this one is quite good. It's low-key and simple and just solid charming storytelling with well-realized characters.

I'm falling madly in love with Patricia Clarkson the more I see her, and this is some of her very best work yet. Peter Dinklage gives a quiet, assured performance that is magnetic in every single instant. I hope this translates into more work for him, real, substatial roles with good filmmakers. Bobby Cannavale, who I only recognized very generally from some of this TV work, was just right as the chatty Joe, and it was like a glimpse of what Vin Diesel could be if Vin Diesel could act or had any range at all. I also loved seeing Raven Goodwin, who was so good in Lovely & Amazing, and again has natural presence on screen.

GRADE: B+

[SHAFTR]

I just saw a free screening of this film and it was very good.  The Train Chasing sequence is probably the best I've felt about a moment in film all year.  Peter Dinklage was great, I wish he had some oscar buzz for his performance.  It is billed as a comedy but I would say it's much more dramatic with some light moments.  Anyways, check it out...I think it is one of the year's best.

[xerxes]

it's really a wonderful movie... for me it is probably the second best movie of the year... the first being lost in translation

[SHAFTR]

it's really a wonderful movie... for me it is probably the second best movie of the year... the first being lost in translation

I hope to see Lost in Translation tomorrow night.  Right now my top 4 films of the year are Kill Bill / American Splendor / The Station Agent / Finding Nemo.

[Redlum]

Saw a clip from this at the Baftas last night and thought it looked fantastic. They said it wouldn't be out till March so I was wondering if anone had any news on a US dvd release?

[Chest Rockwell]

I've never been able to find anything about it being released here in sunny Jacksonville, Fl. When will the DVD come out?

[cine]

When will the DVD come out?

No release dates yet.

[pete]

what you think of this article?  (taken from the that's your lot thread)

Root for the hero

David Mamet examines the dramatic techniques that engage audiences with the trials and tribulations of the hero

Friday February 13, 2004

Dr Parkhurst was a late-Victorian reformer. Like many who preceded, and many who followed, his stock-in-trade was low-cost prurience. He haunted the dens of vice of Victorian New York City, and wrote, at length, of their appalling, nay, demonic conditions.
The good-willed people of that time, much like you and I, might read his words shaking their heads as they discovered the hoped-for mention of this or that preferred vice.

"Tsk tsk," they, or you, or I, might say, as our eyes grew wide, our heart began to beat more insistently.

For the newspaper, whatever its flag of convenience, exists to sell sex, gore, and outrage. Much like the movies. In each, the moralistic tone is very much likely to enfold, and, indeed, to allow the sale of that denied to the high-minded. Most anti-war films succeed through the power of this engine. We viewers are titillated by images we have ostensibly come to decry.

Not a Love Story, the 1981 Canadian documentary, passed as an exposé of the smut industry, but I suggest that, absent its odour of sanctity, it was powered by sexually explicit images and enjoyed by those who thought it good to watch the same.

The Green Mile, while purporting to be an indictment of capital punishment, was a pictorial, inventive, extensive, and very graphic description of the same.

Can these subjects be treated in a truly moral way? Of course; I will suggest, as per prostitution, Silvana Mangano, in De Sica's Gold of Naples; and, as for capital punishment, Kubrick's Paths of Glory, or Daniel Mann's I'll Cry Tomorrow.

Each of these takes an essentially sad tale, and investigates it with dignity. Now, Not a Love Story and The Green Mile differ in degree. The second, a straightforward mercantile venture, adopts or accepts any degree of license offered by sanctimony. Why not? The first, Not a Love Story, sells flesh, while it sails under the banner of exposé toute entiere, to which a critic more moralistic than myself might respond "shame on you".

But which of us is without sin? And I mention the next term in my homily reluctantly. I very much enjoyed The Station Agent. I thought it well directed; and its four leads acted the heck out of it. But I find it falls afoul of the above-mentioned guidelines against hypocrisy.

The film's hero is a dwarf. The role is played by Peter Dinklage, who is himself a dwarf. So far so good. The film's dramatic engine, however, its premise (for it lacks a plot, and, so, the premise is its sole motive force) is that it is difficult to be a dwarf in a world full of full-sized others. This is certainly a legitimate theme. The film, however, while presenting itself as a compassionate treatment, exploits for dramatic purposes the prurient interests of the audience.

How would a dwarf woo and copulate with a full-sized other; defend himself against a full-sized other; how would he deal with the untempered curiosity of children, the misguided helpfulness of the good-willed? In just about every scene in the film we are shown the hero disappointed, insulted, saddened and mistreated.

The film-makers legitimately desire to side with, and desire that the audience side with, the hero; and we may, indeed, side with him, but are induced to do so by witnessing his degradation. Apart from his mistreatment there is nothing to side with him about, as he has, in the film, has no stated or implied goal. There is nothing he wants, other than to continue in what we are to understand is his accommodation with the circumstances of his birth.

Socrates reminds us that no evil can come to a good man either in this life or after death, and Aristotle that that which is neither good nor evil - that which is not the product of choice - is not a fit subject of drama.

The hero, therefore, not having made a choice, is held up to scrutiny merely because of the circumstances of his birth; and the authors cannot (in their fiction) avail themselves of these circumstances for professional (or, indeed artistic) purposes, and decry others who amuse themselves at the expense of the hero and those like him.

Let us discuss "aesthetic distance". It is the goal of the dramatist to involve the audience in the working-out of a hermetic syllogism. The goal of the hero is stated, the impediments to that goal are revealed. The audience, then, engages its intellectual fantasies attempting to anticipate the hero's possible solutions. This is called "getting involved". Because the creators have invested time and effort, they, the audience, become emotionally involved. They root for the hero, exult at his successes, are anxious for his triumph, and suffer at his reversals. They are permitted to do so in the degree that the syllogism is plausible, solvable, simple, and clear.

Hamlet wants to find out who killed the king, all right, we'll play along. If Ringo can't get the Sacred Ring of Kali off his finger, he will be sacrificed. Ditto.

As we have signed on for what, in Hollywood, is known as "the ride", we identify with the hero (this is what the term means: that, for the length of the drama, our interests are one).

The hero becomes an object of love, and we want to know more about him. The untutored (studio executives, and so on) mistake effect for cause. (Their logical fantasy, that in the successful drama we want to know more about the hero; therefore a drama can be made successful by telling the audience more about him.)

Now, the more the audience is told about the hero, the more their legitimate, indeed, induced desire is gratified, the less they care. For they have signed on to follow his journey (the plot), in anticipation, glee, and dread. When the author indulges his ability to frolic away from the described path (the path, the sole path to which the audience has vouchsafed its interest), the less interested the audience becomes.

(Canny test-marketers hold "focus groups" at test-screenings, and quiz the audience on the film they've just seen. "What scenes did you like least?" [Those in which the hero was in danger.] "What character/s did you like least?" [The villain.]) Oh, sigh.

To return: the reductio-ad-absurdum of "we want to know more about him" is recourse to actual physical or biographical aspects of the actor. (Eg, let's show his or her genitals, physical deformity, tattoo, etc; let's make reference to events in the actor's life which might excite interest.)

This, while, perhaps, exciting audience interest in general does so at the expense of audience interest in the plot. (Again, the author has thought it good to detour from that service for which we, the audience, have paid, and pledged our attention.) This is called violating the aesthetic distance.

Steven Schachter's Door to Door (2002) stars William H Macy as a man deformed by cerebral palsy. His goal is to become a door-to-door salesman. The audience follows him in his goal and does not quit this most excellent film thinking the hero a poor man, but a hero.

© David Mamet 2004.

[Ghostboy]

I see where he's coming from, and agree with it -- but it's sort of a lose-lose situation with films like The Station Agent. You can't make a film about a dwarf -- or even starring a dwarf playing someone never regarded to as such -- without calling attention to the fact that he's a dwarf. A well made film will let you look past that physical subterfuge, but there's no point in ignoring it, or pretending the other characters can ignore it. A film about a happy dwarf is no doubt on the Farrelly Brothers list of potential projects, but I'd wager that The Station Agent handled its characters and their context about as gracefully as possible (except for that one scene in the bar).

As always, Mamet's writing is infinitely enjoyable. He should write a sequel to this article when he sees Matthew Bright's tiptoes.

[MacGuffin]

Miramax Home Entertainment's artwork for the up and coming region one release of The Station Agent which stars the likes of Peter Dinklage, Paul Benjamin and Jase Blankfort. I'm afraid we know very little about this one at the moment, although we can tell you that it will be available to own in shops this June. We have no word on disc specs at this time, but we'll let you know as soon as we hear anything. For now though, here's an exclusive first look at the official region one artwork:

[El Duderino]

i actually went to a screening and Bobby Cannavale was there for a Q and A, the guy is extremely talented and smart....the movie was great, kudos to Tom McCarthy