The Juliet Letters

Thank you for the flowers

I threw them on the fire

And I burned the photographs that you had enclosed

God they were ugly children

So you're the little bastard of that brother of mine

Trying to trick a poor old woman

'Til I almost had a weakness

So begins "I Almost Had a Weakness," a darkly amusing and arresting element of The Juliet Letters, a song cycle written and performed by Elvis Costello and the Brodsky Quartet in 1993. This album has long been one of my favorites among Costello's dozens of excellent and occasionally superlative albums released since the late 1970s. The Juliet Letters is the subject of an enjoyable hour-long documentary (available via Netflix) in which the musicians talk about the process of writing and performing the pieces and during which many of the pieces are performed.

The Juliet Letters song cycle was recently adapted into a theater piece complete with a narrative to hold the pieces together. The songs, each written in the form of a different kind of letter, are strong and beautiful enough to stand on their own without having some artificial thread strung between them in an attempt to make them more powerful or accessible. It is hard to think of a composer of popular music who writes more accessible melodies or more arresting hooks than Elvis Costello, and the combination of his plaintive voice and the masterful playing by the Brodsky Quartet, by turns swooning, insistent, humorous and angry, makes for a powerful work of art. Each song is like a new scene in a stage play, or like a whole play unto itself: a letter from a female soldier fearing that she won't live to return home; a letter from a law office reducing a highly emotional breakup to a legal document; a letter of disinheritance from a half-mad aunt to the relatives she suspects are out to take her for her money; even a chain-letter-style Faustian come-on:

Don't send any money!
Fate has no price
Ignore at your peril this splendid advice
An invaluable link in an infinite chain
An offer like this will just not come again . . .
Would I lie to you?
Would I sell you a dud?
Just sign on the line.
Could you possibly write it in blood?

Each is written in a different musical style appropriate to the text and the feeling of the song. The range of feelings and styles is wide and satisfying. For example, "Who Do You Think You Are?" is an insulting letter written to expose the foibles of an ex-lover. Costello's trademarked snide and sneeringly eviscerative style are very much in evidence here:

The hunted look, the haunted grace
The empty laugh that you cultivate
You fall into that false embrace
And kiss the air about her face
Who do you think you are?
The très bon mots you almost quote from your quiver of literary darts
A thousand or so tuneless violins thrilling your cheap little heart
Who do you think you are?

The Brodsky Quartet is a British string quartet which performs the classic string quartet repertoire of Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Bartok and Shostakovich as well as collaborating with pop musicians like Björk and Paul McCartney. Costello (born Declan Patrick Aloysius McManus) has had successful collaborations with a broad range of musicians from the Dirty Dozen Brass Band to Burt Bacharach to Paul McCartney to Costello's own wife, talented British Columbian jazz singer and pianist Diana Krall.

Though he started out as one of New Wave music's premier Angry Young Men, Costello has always had a melodic bent and a brilliant ear for ballads like his first big hit, "Alison," as well as for driving, powerful rock anthems like "Pump It Up." His beautiful but half-ravaged voice, alternately brooding, cooing, wailing and pleading, is put to fine use in the darkly witty, sarcastic, spot-on observations and insights of his pop and rock works. In The Juliet Letters he further proves his versatility and shows himself capable of creating art songs in a pop-infused style that was surely influenced by the brilliant, dark and heartbreakingly beautiful popular art songs of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht found in works such as The Threepenny Opera.

This Year's Crop of Oscar Nominees, Part Two

This is part two of my essay on some of the more interesting films to be nominated for Oscars at this year's upcoming Academy Awards ceremony. For part one, scroll down.

Tropic Thunder and The Dark Knight

Dumb and offensive as so much of "Tropic Thunder" is (albeit purposely), it is often hilarious, largely thanks to Robert Downey Jr. His all-out, over-the-top turn as a know-nothing, over-earnest, blue-eyed blond Australian movie star playing an African-American soldier in blackface is so outrageously bold that he deserves his Oscar nomination for this performance. Will he win? Probably not, since he's up against the late, great Heath Ledger, whose portrayal of the Joker in "The Dark Knight" blew so many people away. These performances show two excellent actors reinventing themselves to create compelling and palpable characters out of what could have been nothing but cartoons. One is so dark and foul that he frightens us by showing the darkness within us that we'd prefer never to face, and the other so light and lacking in self-awareness that he makes us laugh with his foolish buoyancy.

Despite his disappointing movement toward conservative politics, which he says was inspired by having spent time in prison for breaking drug laws, Hollywood loves Robert Downey Jr. He is popular not only for his extraordinary talent but also for his self-reinvention, personal redemption, and willingness to take responsibility for formerly bad behavior. He is now healthy and successful and, fates willing, will have many more years in which to prove himself worthy of continuing accolades. The fact that we've lost Heath Ledger forever in the bright prime of his youth, and just a few years after he lost a best actor nod for his uncanny portrayal of Ennis in "Brokeback Mountain" to (the very worthy) Philip Seymour Hoffman for his role in "Capote," means the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will be looking for whatever chance they can get to lionize the fallen hero and remember Ledger with an Oscar.

Revolutionary Road

Combining the talents of actors Kate Winslet and Leonardo di Caprio with that of director Sam Mendes sounded like a wonderful idea, and the intense trailers for "Revolutionary Road" certainly captured my attention and drew me in. And yes, the performances were moving, disturbing and impressive. But the looming darkness of the film, the tension and painful payoff combined to produce a story essentially without redemption, a hopeless reminder of a time of stifled longings, needs and dreams. While it is very good, it still left me feeling like it could have been just a bit better, and the tragic arc of the story left me feeling depleted and sad enough that I walked out of the cinema rather sorry that I'd seen it.

Mendes doesn't shy away from tragedy or darkness. "American Beauty" opens with a voiceover announcing that the protagonist, Lester Burnham, is about to die, and we follow him down that road and end up exactly where we are warned we will. Yet the eventual death comes at the moment of Lester's dawning awareness and compassion, a moment when he is so full of love as to feel complete, so that, horrifying as his end appears to be, he dies contented and enlightened and having stopped himself from doing someone harm. We see meaning in his life and hope for several (though not all) of the characters left in his wake. And as dark and menacing as Mendes's film "The Road to Perdition" was, I still found a faint glimmer of hope in its ending, some understanding among the primary characters of why their lives had to follow the paths that they did. Badness was snuffed out, and a key character finds a better life. It is a bleak film, but beautiful, powerful and not completely crushing in my view, though I know many people found it too dark and difficult to enjoy as much as I did.

"Revolutionary Road," however, left a dark, sad spot in my heart, though it did reinforce my convictions regarding the vital importance of the fight for women's rights that took place in the two decades after the period in which the film takes place. The tightly controlled and judgmental values of the 1950s and early 1960s were indeed stifling and chilling to millions of men and women; for other excellent fictional accounts of the stultifying limitations on personal freedoms prevalent at this time, see Imelda Staunton's powerful performance in the Mike Leigh film "Vera Drake" or watch the terrific television show "Mad Men." It's no wonder American society had such a narcissistic and uninhibited overreaction to such mores in the decades following.

"Revolutionary Road" is a fine film, but I did not find it as strong as most of Mendes's earlier work; the clashes between characters felt stagy and talky, and the angst was too outward and obvious. I would have liked to see a bit more simmering and a bit less of a rolling boil going so much of the time. As much as I admire the acting of the wonderful Ms. Winslet, who is director Sam Mendes's real-life wife, I thought this played to her weakness, which is an overearnest shrewishness which several of her roles fall into. I blame Mendes more than Winslet in this case; I wish he'd asked her to show more of the subtlety that she's capable of. The arguments between her character and di Caprio's either had to get uglier or more subtle than they did for me to really believe in their exchanges. Although she's getting more attention for this film than Leo is, I thought di Caprio's performance was subtler and more interesting in many ways; watching his revulsion over his missteps made me queasy in sympathy, as well as vaguely disgusted by his weakness.

WALL•E and the Soundtracks of Thomas Newman

WALL•E is of course a shoo-on for the best animated feature film Oscar. A funny, beautiful and touching film, it transcends animation gimmickry and stands on its own as a delightful piece of film-making. The only question is whether it was fair to leave it out of the "Best Picture" category, it's so good. Happily, having it completely outclass the other entries in the animated feature category guarantees it the big-deal Oscar it deserves. It will probably win a variety of other technical Oscars and the best original song award for the beautiful tune "Down to Earth" which was written by Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman. The song is sung by Peter Gabriel during the credits. I also loved the songs A.R. Rahman wrote for "Slumdog Millionaire," however, and think they added significantly to the power of the film. Whichever of these songs wins, I'll be satisfied.

I'm mad for the soundtrack work of Thomas Newman, who scored "American Beauty," "The Road to Perdition," "Six Feet Under," "The Shawshank Redemption" and "Jarhead," among many other films. His shimmering, jangling, quirkily dark pieces use surprising rhythms and unexpected instrumentation. He moves from unusual synthesized sounds to rich orchestral strings, incorporates piercing oboes, simple but effectively repetitive acoustic piano lines and multiple strummed guitars. All of it is percussive and rich with mysterious aural pleasures. He uses layers of strings to build up to painful climaxes sometimes held almost to the breaking point before resolving. Newman's work is distinctive, easily recognizable, heartbreakingly moving.

Newman is the cousin of singer and songwriter Randy Newman, a renowned film composer in his own right, nominated for 17 Oscars and winner of one (so far). The Newmans are part of a musical dynasty: Thomas is also the son of legendary and prolific film composer Alfred Newman, the nephew of composers Lionel and Emil Newman, and brother to David Newman.