Down in the Valley (2005)
Saturday, August 5th, 2006
Written & Directed by: David Jacobsen
Screenplay by: David Jacobsen
Cast: Edward Norton, Evan Rachel Wood, David Morse, Rory Culkin
Runtime: 125 min.
Rating: R
Trailer
I wonder how much pressure American filmmakers feel from the ever-present allure of the Box Office—that bastion of popular taste as dictated by creative execs and other decidedly richer-than-thou suits. I also wonder when exactly David Jacobsen felt this pressure and decided that the delicate romance of the opening scenes of Down in the Valley wasn’t enough to appeal to this Box. Of course, that’s just fruitless wondering because we’ll never know. But, the fact remains that Jacobsen’s film is still fascinating as an exploration of the civilizing of both the American West and the American Man—even if it could have been a little better without a bombastic final act. The ideas the film raises are certainly worth thinking about, and it raises a lot of them. For example, there’s the issue of the American Hero. Does the John Wayne myth still exist, or has it gone the way of a primitive, tribal water dance? If it doesn’t exist, then should it—is it helpful or hurtful for young men to look up to the tough guy? Can the honourable, independent frontiersman still traverse the highways in contemporary Los Angeles? Or, in one question: has our society burst a silly bubble or perverted a useful ideal? Any answer is much less clear. The way Jacobsen’s camera lingers over superhighways as if they were rivers and collapses the difference between the natural and the man-made, for example, suggests that there is a transition between the Wild West and today; the ever-thickening plot, however, seems to argue that the past be better left behind in favour of a better, less bloody world; and, to complicate things even more, the pseudo-apocalyptic shots of men on horseback riding on gravel roads lined with the rusted carcasses of automobiles stirs up the notion that the spirit of the Wild West will ultimately out-survive the spirit of the now. Hence, there is no real answer. Unfortunately, after the credits roll, and once the film has gone from subtle prodding to shots of cowboys in subdivisions and white horses trapped in garages, it all seems a little more shallow than it should. The film’s bluntly artificial plot twists (and weird and excessive scenes of homage to Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver) have by this time long taken over, and a film that began with great potential ends in slight disappointment. Down in the Valley is still good—the ending is effective and satisfying emotionally, if not intellectually—but it misses greatness because it just couldn’t hold on to it.
Pacze Moj
© Cinephile Magazine, 2006
