🍿 2022-09-25 16:31:53 – Paris/France.
One of the best things about the culture of Streaming it is the possibility of recovering, with the necessary distance, titles misunderstood because of the ephemeral nature of the moment, the nuisances of globalization and the capricious Manichaeism of the approaches.
Such is the case of 'Hillbilly, a rural elegy‘, born to be hated from the first minute, perhaps because it is too American, too academic, too intended for red carpet garlands… although, in this case, these characteristics that the film of Ron Howard made emblem and flag with a healthy impudence does not exclude the existence of a heart, of its own imprint, because if there is something good in the Yankee culture, it is its fascination for the display impudent of his shame and the almost masochistic deepening in the chiaroscuros of its troubled and complex history.
A Few Reasons to Love the Movie That "Serious" Critics Don't Want You to See
"Hillbilly", available on Netflix, it would be predictable that it would be ignored by an Academy increasingly obsessed with inclusivity, affirmative action, well-meaning cinema and political correctness, rejecting great works from its main strongholds, and would only highlight the Glenn Close's work and makeup. The Razzies, or anti-Oscars, would name, making a mischievous duet and confusing story, also Close's work, also mentioning Howard as director and vanessa taylor as a co-author, and rounding off the nonsense.
Critics, increasingly polarized, would be initiated by the film. The ordinary viewer, on the other hand, did not quite agree with such a wheel, since the evaluations that can be found on the Internet are not negative, although they are also not to be complained about ; has 6,7 on Imdb and 82% on Rotten Tomatoes (vs. 25% from critics). In short, few recent works illustrate the confrontation between critics and viewers in such an illustrious and powerful way as "Hillbilly."... especially since twenty years ago this would have been a film-event which would surely have dazzled the first and, perhaps therefore, a large part of its potential audience.
Alright, enough of this hate. First of all, I propose to focus on the career of Ron Howard. The Boy from 'Eddie's Father's Yard' has long been seen as some sort of half-mute son of the Spielberg generation, although one only has to look back to find that there is no bad movie. Some boring, like 'Apollo 13', but nothing bad. In its first stage we find very beautiful titles such as 'Night shift', 'Pisa a fondo', 'Cocoon', 'Llamaradas', 'A very distant horizon' or 'Behind the news'. And a few notables… there's 'Un, dos, tres… ¡Splash!', the never-praised 'Willow' or the exemplary 'Sweet home…somely!'.
Back then, the cute and adorably main stream Howard starred in the same league as Robert Zemeckis or Rob Reiner, but in a slightly lower register. To the credit of the truth, it is true that during these years one has not found in his delicious filmography a title from the packaging of 'The Princess Bride' or 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit?'. Add whoever writes this: that doesn't need to be done either. From 1995, more precisely with the chestnut of 'Apollo XIII', Howard will change his mind and play Take it seriously.
Zemeckis and Reiner would do three quarters of the same, but with inferior results, or much inferior in Reiner's case (remember, or better not, 'History of ours'). From there, we get a handful of films as debatable and discussed as brilliant in formulation and result: among others, the multi-award winning 'A Beautiful Mind', the bland but solid 'Cinderella man', the brilliant 'Rush' or the extraordinary 'Frost vs. Nixon'. I wouldn't fight with brass knuckles and chains for "A Beautiful Mind," but for the Nixon movie, I certainly would. I would not turn my back on escape cinema either, as evidenced by the sympathetic and profound “What a dilemma! , his adaptations of Dan Brown's horrifying bestsellers (the first was zany, the second blissful, the third simply amusing) and his poorly received foray into the Star Wars universe with docile popcorn maker 'Han Solo '. Almost nothing.
And all of this brings us back to "Hillbilly", all-American cinema: for better, for worse, for whatever. More information: "hillbilly" is a pejorative term used to refer to the inhabitants of certain rural and mountainous areas of deep america. Yes, something not so far from Jim Goad's 'Redneck Manifesto', published in Spain by Dirty Works. If you want to delve deeper into the subject, I recommend you take a look at the applied documentary “Hillbilly”, directed by Sally Rubin and Ashley York, which discusses the iconography of the phenomenon in the media and popular culture. So Ron Howard's drama would fit squarely into the genre american, which would start with 'Symphony of Life' ("Our Town", 1940) by Sam Wood, which is considered its main referent, or antecedent, of American Gothic, with which "Hillbilly" also has its concomitance in its most sordid and austere elements.
Not only would Wood be a prolific grower of American; also Howard Hawks and John Ford, the latter especially in one of his indisputable masterpieces, 'The Tobacco Route', based on the novel by Erskine Caldwell. And also, each in his own way, Raoul Walsh, Henry Hathaway, Andre deToth, Andrew V. McLaglen, Delmer Daves and many others.
In the sixties and seventies, the genre began to use textures that were more twilight or abstract (Mulligan, Pakula, Penn, Karlson, Eastwood) or simply more brutal, energetic and wild (Peckinpah, Aldrich, Nelson, Siegel). But Howard's film presents itself above all as a back to origins which, like the great works of the master Ford, manages very well to mix progressivism and traditionalism, beyond any imposture typical of the current moment, in search of a more moral than political meaning to the told.
American-style (rural) rampage
The seedy criticism we deserve doesn't like artists who look at the past unless they intend to defame it, fix it, or deconstruct it. He also has a serious problem with traditional values and they still barely swallowed the dramas of family elation, however dysfunctional. Family is the last place to turn, but it's open all night, Ambrose Bierce said.
This explains some of the vomit poured over Howard's film: Peter Travers called it a "missed opportunity"; Peter Bradshaw did not hesitate to call it "artificial and self-aware"; Alonso Duralde called it, without further ado, “small-town nonsense”; Richard Lawson defined it as "disgusting calculation disguised as empathy". In our country, he had no better luck; Elsa Fernandez-Santos He thus exposes his dissatisfaction: “a succession of sweeping brushstrokes which aims to reconcile the two Americas”. There were also articles that touched on the critical and public divorce: without going any further, Begoña Gómez Urzaiz called it “a film that everyone loves to hate”. And just as some, not some, are ashamed to love.
Sufficient. Let's put hate aside again. 'Hillbilly' can be a america's miseries theme park who perfumes pain and poverty with a scent of Hollywood glamour, but who attacks it for these reasons understands nothing of the career of Ron Howard and can hardly be moved by a drama of John Ford. Or is it indisputable works such as 'The Grapes of Wrath' or 'How green was my valley!' didn't they make their concessions to the spectacle and to the tastes of their public so as not to be… uh… the boring bricks that they could have become?
“Hillbilly” brings together all the elements of what we once called great American cinema: become of age, intergenerational conflict, disgrace, redemption, pain, glory, defeat and triumph; roughly, the lights and shadows of American Dream. And of course it's based on facts: in particular in the autobiographical novel by JD Vance, which is played on the screen by convincing Gabriel bassoin adulthood, and Owen asztalos, during teenagehood. The book was a best-seller, highly acclaimed (uh-huh) by conservative sectors, mainly because it managed to convey something as "infamous" as the spirit of struggle and overcoming adverse circumstances: a lower-class family and a heroin-addicted mother Now it turns out that meritocracy is fascist; or even worse, trumpet.
Clearly Vance's story might not apply to all cases (not to mention mine and possibly yours), but what is clear is that cinema must also continue to play the role of factory for dreams and beautiful lies, like Nicholas Ray and that memorable 'Johnny Guitar' ending. To face our daily nothingness we already have reality; sometimes there's nothing better than a good, contrived Hollywood movie that reminds us that despite the obstacles along the way, the struggle sometimes pays off at the end of the long road.
Which is not far from the message of much of the resolutely social films that triumph at festivals and win applause from conscientious and benevolent audiences, especially when the hero is from a minority or is a woman, and is not just a lower-class white young man (as if class weren't a determining factor, the most important of all for success and privilege). Again, the diversity trap. The feverish absurdity of claiming one's identity in times that are definitely disoriented. Mireia Mullor quoted Bob Hutton's assessment of the novel: " illustrates the oxymoron claimed by capitalism and its defenders: any hard-working individual can reach the top, but to do so many individuals must fall below« .
Critics claim that the adaptation of the novel must be unfaithful to the facts, supposedly real, which are related therein to adapt to a less problematic message and more in the spirit of his time? And, of course, accepting that the capitalist system generates a disproportionate and unfair divide between rich and poor… does Hutton imply that members of the lower class should not prosper throughout their already complicated enough lives, always remaining in a kind of gray and neo-realistic impression, so as not to substitute for the powerful, because that would imply the acceptance of a reprehensible system? And above all, when women and people of other non-Caucasian races are successful… aren't they also, at the same time,…
SOURCE: Reviews News
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