YNMS: The Lost City of Z
Wednesday, April 13, 2016 at 2:30PM Laurence here. Many people were disappointed by the way James Gray's The Immigrant went mostly unnoticed beyond critics' groups. From the story to the stars, it seemed like a fairly strong prospect to garner Gray some mainstream awards attention, but the Weinsteins never seemed confident in it. Now Gray is making a decidedly more bombastic play to voting members with his new film, The Lost City of Z. This time he's paired up with Jennifer Aniston's former production company, Plan B, which has become very good at producing Best Picture nominees.
Based on David Grann's non-fiction bestseller of the same title, The Lost City of Z stars Charlie Hunnam as Percy Fawcett, a British explorer in the 1920s who led an expedition to the Amazon rainforest in search of a mysterious lost city. Grann's book chronicles the numerous attempts over the years to follow Fawcett's footsteps, with evidence emerging in 2005 that the city perhaps did, in some form, exist. The film seems to primarily function as a biopic of Fawcett, whose obsession with Z's existence led him into the heart of darkness.
Let's break down the now hard-to-find trailer after the jump...
Yes
- The Look. This film looks utterly sumptuous; Gray is said to be an avowed fan of Apocalypse Now, and you can very much feel its influence in these images as filtered through the muted period colour palette...
- ...that he developed with Madonna's "Frozen" video cinematographer Darius Khondji, who shot The Immigrant, a film which was perhaps a little too restrained but utterly gorgeous to look at, up to an including that excellent final shot.
- Robert Pattinson carves another notch into his auteur bedpost, co-starring as Corporal Henry Costin, who accompanies Fawcett on his expedition, and his presence in a film like this is exciting.
- Also co-starring as Fawcett's son is newly minted Spiderman, Tom Holland, who hasn't really had a chance to show what he can do on the big screen since his breakthrough in The Impossible.
- Counter-programming. Action-adventure films, loosely though that genre may apply given Gray's cerebral style, are becoming fewer and further between. This is likely to be more Fitzcarraldo than Road to Zanzibar, the 1941 Bing Crosby/Bob Hope film which was initially based on a story about finding Colonel Fawcett but, due to plot similarities to 1939's Stanley and Livingstone, instead became a light comedic romp without reference to Fawcett at all.
- The story has the potential to be totally engrossing given what happened to Fawcett in real life. World War I! Cannibals! Boats! Suits! Facial hair!
No
- At first glance, it feels like it could have touches of the white saviour syndrome that often befalls films like these, though in context - and given the story's factual basis - it might be a feature, not a bug. Still, expect thinkpieces.
- The trailer blares, "HIS COURAGE...HIS COMPASSION...HIS CONVICTION...WOULD CHANGE THE WORLD", which makes me concerned that they're not sure how to sell this film.
- The only female character appears to be Fawcett's wife, who will presumably be around solely to serve as a voice of reason/nag. Plus she's played by Sienna Miller, who is mostly forgettable, and apparently now utterly addicted to girlfriend/wife roles.
Maybe So
- It was exciting that Charlie Hunnam would get to make use of his native accent again after the distractingly wooden drawl he employed in Pacific Rim and Crimson Peak, and yet his upper-crust English explorer accent sounds almost as silly.
- If it's anything like The Immigrant - or The Revenant, to which it seems tonally similar - this could be a very sober, dour movie.
- This trailer leaked a couple of weeks ago and is no longer available on YouTube. In this day and age, typically a trailer leak forces a studio - Paramount, in this case - to release the real thing. Crickets on that front and no mention of the film at CinemaCon despite principal photography wrapping late last year. Might this end up pushed to 2017, or could it possibly end up at Cannes like most of Gray's previous features?
At this stage, I'm a pretty emphatic YES on this. It's new territory for Gray, and that he's cited David Lean and 1960s 65mm epics as inspiration for the film, it's difficult not to be.
Are you a YES, NO, or a MAYBE SO?
Reader Comments (17)
"...Jennifer Aniston's former production company, Plan B..."
Seem an odd way to describe Brad Pitt's company.
Maybe if human history had been recorded with women in roles of real importance (and including keeping home fires burning which was pretty freakin' important for subsequent generations), then actresses, portraying real-life characters in period films, would have something more to do than be the "voice of reason/nag". But because you give this as a reason for a "no", I'll assume that you feel the same way. I don't agree about Sienna Miller, though. I quite like her in most everything.
I'm a YES. The book was fantastic.
I'd be a huge yes...but Hunham is not an actor I have faith in at all. Hoping it's an accent thing. I do love Gray though, so a yes nonetheless.
Paul-but a fun way, in my opinion. I'm calling it this from now on.
Also, this is a hearty yes-I'm addicted to period epics, and this is clearly up that alley. Even if Sienna Miller for some reason was cast.
I was a Yes when I read about the film last year and I still am.
History is History. You just have to deal with it and be grateful that society changes.
This is a complete yes. Even if it's not great, it should be a spectacular cinema experience.
I wanted to be yes, the project on paper seems such an fascinating combination of subject and talent and yet I was distinctly underwhelmed by the trailer (I can't put my finger on why, I just don't feel the film is going to give me something new).
Put me down as a maybe so for now, likely to be dependent of what else is out the same week.
Yes, because this looks quite sweeping and wonderful. But I really hope this is not just the story of Fawcett's expeditions. He's hugely important to the book, but the author's parallel expedition in modern times is just as important, and the ending of the book (specifically, what he learns about the location and nature of Fawcett's fabled Lost City) would make for one hell of a movie climax. I've pictured it in my head for years and I want to see it on the big screen, dammit!
1. paramount has nothing to do with this movie
2. the trailer was pulled because its a sales trailer made by the sales company not the film makers and probably taken to a market like berlin...it was never meant to be seen outside of that context
Yes yes yes yes
It's James Gray
Of course it's a YES, no questions asked
I'm a yes to history/adventure type of films, also anyone who cites David Lean as an inspiration is worth paying attention to.
What even is Sienna Miller these days but a supportive spouse?
Don't like the trailer so I am a no for now
@Paul Outlaw - I like to call it this because I love imagining a world in which they didn't break up and now Jen is an Oscar-winning producer for 12 Years a Slave too.
@Pam - Exactly what I was thinking. Sometimes it amazes me the propensity for Hollywood to insert men into women's stories, but the opposite is almost unheard of.
@for real - From what I could see, Paramount has a distribution deal with Plan B and is listed as handling US theatrical on IMDb. Maybe that isn't set in stone but it seems a safe assumption until something is confirmed to the contrary (StudioCanal has taken it for a bunch of international territories). And whether or not it's a sales trailer doesn't make it any less fascinating to break down. It's always interesting to know what the producers want distributors/exhibitors to see versus what they want the audience to see.
@Glenn - Perhaps a facial blindness victim testimonial?
For me James Gray is Always YES
Juz wiki Percy Fawcett, he was 58 when he disappeared...Hunnam is 38!!! No matter how he try to aged himself w tt mustache, its not working!!! Y dun they can't someone more age appropriate?? This is like Joy in gender reverse!!! Lol
Firth, or maybe even Rylance would be a better choice
Nice cinematography thot
I really wanted to like this, but this trailer has put me off the movie if anything. It has a real Masterpiece Theater vibe about it, with lots of posh men standing around and twitching their facial hair at each other, but more than that, it looks awfully dour. This is a movie about a guy who explored the Amazon basin, searched for a fabled golden city, and (spoiler, maybe?) vanished without a trace. To make that story into something as dreary as this trailer is a minor, horrible miracle.