In the United States there has
long been a strange fascination
with stories of the American
backwoods — gritty tales of
brazen crime, graphic murder,
religious
fanaticism
and
twisted mentalities. They fixate
on the post-war rural South and
glorify the violence that erupts
among the backwoods folk. And
there’s never a person of color
in sight.
This is the vein of “The Devil
All the Time,” a stark tale of
rural Ohio and West Virginia
in the 1950s and ‘60s. It’s a
big story, with lots of people
to keep track of — characters
who connect in unexpected
ways and storylines that swing
around to fill in gaps. There
are enough familiar faces in
its vast ensemble cast to keep
it relevant, but in the end, the
biggest detriment to “Devil” is
that it didn’t need to be made.
“Devil” is built around an
amalgamation of caricatures.
The disturbed veteran, the
pious virgin, the self-important
priest, the psycho killer, the
corrupt sheriff — they’re all
built on simple characteristics
that drive home exactly what
kind of story it is, and where
you’ve seen it before. All of the
characters are forced toward
extremes — murderer or victim,
religious fanatic or indifferent
bystander. The timeline jumps
around haphazardly to keep up
with the individual plots (which
are too complicated to explain
in a few sentences, so I won’t
try), and the opening exposition
is long and complex because
every backtrack incorporates
seemingly
peripheral
characters into the body of the
story.
The
film’s
standout
performances are its biggest
names: Robert Pattinson (“The
Lighthouse”)
as
Preacher
Preston
Teagardin,
Bill
Skarsgård (“It”) as Willard
Russell
and
Tom
Holland
(“Spider-Man:
Far
From
Home”)
as
Arvin
Russell.
Pattinson’s
performance
is
fascinatingly exaggerated, but
effective: Every word out of
his mouth sounds almost like a
comedic impression of a slimy
Southern preacher rather than
a realization of one, resulting
in a character who is easy
to despise. And Skarsgård’s
compelling
portrayal
of
a
troubled war veteran gives
us the beginnings of Arvin’s
relationship
with
violence
— a tradition of thoughtful,
aggressive vengeance that is
passed on from father to son.
Though it takes 45 minutes
of time jumps and exposition
before our first glimpse of
Holland, the wait is worth
it — not only because of how
Holland pulls off a denim jacket,
but also due to the skill he uses
to approach the character. He
is perfectly expressionless; you
can tell exactly how much he
cares for his step-sister Lenora
(Eliza Scanlen, “Little Women”)
or hates the bullies that torment
her without much change in
his facial expression. His quiet
pain is present after every
tragedy, perfectly balanced in a
film where almost every other
character feels out of control. A
scene in which Arvin confronts
Preacher
Teagardin
is
a
reminder of what happens when
talented actors work together:
The
quiet
intensity
from
Holland and selfish ignorance
from Pattinson combine to
create a masterful tension.
“The Devil All the Time” has
all of the traits of a backwoods
story.
The
women
are
essentially disposable beyond
emotional significance, killed
off one by one. Every character’s
moral compass is a shade of
grey, where the ethics of point-
blank murder depend on the
character.
Because
actions
don’t actually speak louder than
words, scenes are overlaid with
omniscient narration in a strong
Southern drawl — done by
Donald Ray Pollack, the author
of the book on which the film
is based — to give you a small
amount of insight. And there’s
a disturbing on-screen killing
about every five minutes.
This film is a marathon.
It’s nearly 140 minutes long,
deeply captivating at times but
brutally slow at others. The film
is classified as a psychological
thriller, but it’s not too thrilling,
and the only thing psychological
about it is the twisted psyches of
the killers. Though it’s visually
captivating, the plot doesn’t
feel much like a plot, and so the
ending doesn’t feel much like
an ending. All throughout “The
Devil All the Time,” violence
begets violence; yet even as the
layers of dark and disturbing
fuse
towards
something
towards
a
conclusion,
it’s
difficult to figure out what you
were supposed to learn that you
didn’t already know.
Daily
Arts
Writer
Kari
Anderson can be reached at
kariand@umich.edu.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Wednesday, September 30, 2020 — 11
FILM REVIEW
‘The Devil All the Time’
feels behind the times
Live-streamed solo recitals
are nothing new in the era
of COVID-19, but most have
typically taken place in living
rooms
and
smaller
venues.
Last Sunday night on Sept.
20, however, Music, Theatre
& Dance professor Matthew
Bengtson’s
live-streamed
concert
was
an
unusual
exception.
The
assistant
professor of music and piano
literature
performed
“Great
Solo
Piano
Works
from
my Lifetime” to an empty
Stamps Auditorium — an
appropriately grand space for
the programmed music.
Bengtson started off the
recital with a few opening
remarks, the most salient point
being that all the programmed
music was written after World
War II, with the most recent
piece written in 2003. However,
he said, the concert was not a
“new music” concert. In many
classical conservatory settings,
any music written after World
War II usually counts as “new
music,” from degree auditions to
jury requirements. Bengtson, a
fervent early and contemporary
music
enthusiast,
disagrees
with this concept — “new
music,” he argued, is music that
is happening now. Music that
was written as far back as fifty
years ago is no longer new. The
concert highlighted some well-
known and some more obscure
solo piano pieces by George
Walker, Henri Dutilleux and
Lukas Foss and Music, Theatre
& Dance composition professor
Paul Schoenfeld.
The
first
piece
was
Schoenfeld’s
1997
“Peccadilloes,” which consisted
of six movements, many of
which were greatly influenced
by J.S. Bach. The contrapuntal
harmonies in the first, third
and fifth movements especially
suggested characteristics from
Bach’s fugues and toccatas.
The piece as a whole was
one highly representative of
Schoenfeld’s music, which is
known to incorporate sound
blends of classical, folk and
popular
genres.
While
the
sound quality over the live-
stream was less than ideal,
Bengtson’s intelligent attention
to melodic subject lines and
color
interpretation
shone
through.
The second piece, George
Walker’s 2003 “Fifth Piano
Sonata,”
was
a
highly
substantive one that Bengtson
played with great power and
control.
Before
beginning,
Bengtson described the piece
as a sonata that should be
recognized among the greats as
one with profound “rhythmic
muscle and nothing for special
effect.”
He
compared
the
piece to the sonatas of Brahms
and Beethoven. The sonata
was chordally dense and rife
with
dissonances,
yet
very
lyrical with an unforgettably
haunting opening and main
theme. The whole piece was
surprisingly very short – a total
of only five and a half minutes,
which effectively added to its
tempestuous drama.
The
final
two
pieces,
Dutilleux’s
Three
Preludes
for Piano (1973-88) and Lukas
Foss’s 1981 “Solo” were the most
tonally distinct, utilizing atonal
and
12-tone
compositional
techniques.
The
Dutilleux
was
transcendent
—
the
piece emphasized the piano’s
resonance to create formal
continuity within the second
prelude and used the full range
of the keys. The Foss was, as
Bengtson
described,
“very
humorous,” with an intriguing
style
hybrid
of
minimalist
and 12-tone approaches. The
piece very clearly had several
voices that seemed to “talk”
all at once. The very beginning
began with a single voice that
came across as possibly telling
a joke to the audience but was
abruptly
interrupted,
which
happened
successively
until
more and more voices were
introduced, breaking into a
final wild frenzy.
The concert was a refreshing
start to the new academic year
for the music school, especially
the piano department, given
Bengtson’s creative repertoire
choices
and
meticulous
execution. The presentation,
too, was a welcome concert
vision that will hopefully be
carried out further in the
months to come.
Daily
Arts
Writer
Ellen
Sirower
can
be
reached
at
esirower@umich.edu
Pianist Matthew Bengston
in (livestreamed) concert
Ah, to be Asian and second-
generation American. What a
wonderful and vexing experience.
This
week
on
Hyphenated,
we take a closer look at three
movies on Netflix and how they
normalize “second generation”
APIA experiences.
To clarify, second generation or
“second gen” refers to Americans
born within the bounds of these
United States to immigrant, “first
gen” parents.
But what does it mean to be
“second generation”? What does
that experience look and sound
like? Many try to distill the
elusive second-gen experience
but fall short in their imagination.
Some media hyperfixate and
problematize being APIA without
recognizing
that
APIA
lives
sprawl luxuriously beyond the
constructed confines of race and
culture. While there is some truth
to these popularized narratives
—
children
chafing
against
strict immigrant parents — that
experience does not exist in a
race-culture-causal vacuum.
Second gen APIA individuals
are APIA every moment of their
lives, not just when they fit a
stereotype.
To escape narrow second
generation narratives, grab some
popcorn and enjoy one (or more!)
of the films listed below. Because
it is nearing Korean Thanksgiving
(Chuseok),
Hyphenated
will
dole out Chuseok food recs to
accompany each movie.
“Seoul
Searching”
by
director-producer Benson Lee
(2016)
Accompanying
this
movie
is a traditional food eaten on
Chuseok: jeon, basically pan-
fried anything. A popular jeon,
relatively easy to make, is dae-
gu jeun (cod, battered and pan-
fried!). You can also add my
personal favorite hobak jeun (pan
fried battered squash) to your
plate.
“Seoul
Searching”
builds
off of John Huges’ 1985 “The
Breakfast
Club,”
creating
a
similar, aggressively ’80s movie
about the teenage struggle. In one
epic summer, a disparate group
of teenagers from all reaches of
the globe come together under
one roof for a culture program
run by the Korean Government.
What results is a breathtakingly
hilarious
summer
camp
experience. I was not expecting to
laugh during this aggressively ’80s
movie but “Seoul Searching” had
me wheezing towards the middle.
Very few things are funnier than
watching
an
overly
militant
Korean American teenager try to
pick a fight with North Korean
soldiers at the DMZ.
But
like
the
Breakfast
Club,
“Seoul
Searching”
is
fundamentally about the second
gen experience overlayed with
the stress of being a teenager.
Each student desperately wants
to present themselves in a certain
way. They use clothes and big
hair to explore their boundaries
and their conception of who they
are, papermache-ing outer shells
informed by their home country
trends and lived experiences. In
visually differentiating characters
by
cultural
trends,
“Seoul
Searching” pokes fun at culture
shock, dramatizing the ways
assimilation
and
immigration
have individually transformed
the teenagers’ lives.
With
a
consciousness
for
anti-Japanese racism, childhood
abuse
and
adoption,
“Seoul
Searching”
explores
more
complex issues. The fumbling,
uncertain
teenagers
reach
a
mature understanding by the
end of the movie. Yes, the actions
and opinions of all people are
influenced by their upbringing,
but that lived experience does
not make them and their actions
justified.
“Seoul Searching” succeeded
brilliantly in documenting how
much of a confusing wilderness
identity, sexuality and globalism
can be.
“To All the Boys I’ve Loved
Before” directed by Susan
Johnson (2018)
Accompanying this movie is a
healthy helping of Bindae-tteok.
This isn’t a typical Korean practice
but on Chuseok, my family always
eats Bindae-tteok stacked with a
thick slice of Jeolpyeon (a kind of
tteok, rice cake) and kimchi.
The movie adaption of Jenny
Han’s book invigorated my tired
old bones when I first watched
it. I related to how tangential
Lara Jean’s race was treated.
Her central conflict was not
cultural but rather a sweet and
romantic
fake-dating
snafu.
But upon re-watching the film
for this column, I became more
appreciative of the subtle ways
the film included race.
The
main
character
Lara
Jean’s race was never at the
forefront of the book’s plot but I
always appreciated the author’s
small details that signaled that
Lara Jean wasn’t wholly white
despite her predominantly white
school and white father. She and
her family, in remembrance of
her deceased Korean American
mother, maintain some Korean
holiday traditions. Despite not
knowing the language, Lara
Jean ate some Korean food and
drank special probiotic drinks
like Yacult, unfound in most local
supermarkets.
If “Seoul Searching” dove
deep into untangling the knot
of personal and cultural hang-
ups, “To All the Boys I’ve loved
Before”
successfully
captured
the normal levity of being second
generation for many second gen
students.
“The Half of It” directed and
written by Alice Wu (2020)
Accompanying
this
movie
is
japchae,
stir-fried
glass
noodles mixed with thinly sliced
vegetables mixed with soy sauce
and sesame oil. While not my
favorite Korean dish, this is a
staple of Korean cuisine.
I saw “The Half of It” for the
first time only last week but it has
been very well received by critics
of The Michigan Daily (please
check out both the Daily Arts and
The Statement sections for a more
comprehensive review).
Ellie Chu, the protagonist of
“The Half of It” is a quiet girl,
neither out of the closet nor free
with her personality. At home, she
cares for her father. His limited
English language skills make her
his proxy. She pays their electric
bills because the call center people
reportedly cannot understand
him through his accent. Her role
as translator is a familiar situation
for many second gen individuals.
Similarly to “To All the Boys
I’ve Loved Before,” “The Half of
It” doesn’t fixate its plot on APIA
immigrant struggles. But also
like “To All the Boys,”the film
still alienates and references race.
For Ellie, racism plays a big part
in her narrative about alienation.
She feels frustrated people cannot
look past her father’s accent. In
school, she gets jokes about her
last name, Ellie “chu chu.” Unlike
Lara Jean of “To All the Boys I’ve
Loved Before,” Ellie is friendless,
largely excluded from the social
fabric of her small town. That
begins to change as Ellie gets
involved in a classically Cyrano de
Bergerac plot to help a hapless guy
woo the prettiest girl in school.
Hyphenated: APIA
second-gen movie night
DAILY APIA COLUMN
NETFLIX
KARI ANDERSON
Daily Arts Writer
ELIZABETH YOON
Daily Arts Columnist
COMMUNITY CULTURE REVIEW
ELLEN SIROWER
Daily Arts Writer
The piece as
a whole was
one highly
representative
of Schoenfeld’s
music, which
is known to
incorporate
sound blends of
classical, folk
and popular
genres
The piece very
clearly had
several voices
that seemed
to “talk” all at
once
Read more online at
michigandaily.com