I’ve seen Clean, Shaven , which is a masterpiece of audio in film.
It sounds like the style (or, function of the camera) is taken to a more precise level?
The audio-visual experience is in this film. It’s more a film about the man, and not necessarily the illness. Both films are precisely executed, and extremely well-done, but I connected more with Keane.
I’m a fan of the style Kerrigan forged with those two films, Keane and Clean Shaven. They’re both about “schizophrenic” characters (though it seems there are deeper unspoken aspects of the protagonists’ disease) and the plot line would really be rather boring if Kerrigan hadn’t integrated this sub-plot (which becomes the chief plot line even though the conflict is entirely in his mind) of paranoia.
The only problem I had with Keane is that, as magnificent as Damian Lewis’ performance is, the character of Keane is not consistent. His “schizophrenia” only surfaces and grows out of control when it suits the story and when he is around his daughter he is, for the most part, a caring father that shows little to no sign of the ailment that plagues him throughout the rest of the film. This is more to blame on the writing than the acting because it’s an obvious inconsistency in the writing. I can see, to a certain extent, that being with his daughter is therapeutic and that his symptoms lessen, but the fact that in several scenes his symptoms disappear is perplexing and the only reason I wouldn’t consider it a “perfect” film.
In the case of Clean Shaven, the protagonist was in character the entire film. This presented very awkward moments and really went against the typical convention of “sparing the audience” any major, prolonged discomfort. While, I think, the character of Keane is more likable because we as the audience can relate more than to that of the protagonist in Clean Shaven (where we’re pretty much outsiders looking in), Clean Shaven is a slightly better film that doesn’t shy away from moments that might shed a bad light (or a more confused light) on our protagonist.
My problem with that, Deckard is it’s actually more unrealistic to think someone with schizophrenia is always ‘crazy’ or always ‘normal’ or whatever. There are differing degrees of mental disease and it can be insinuated that if he lives off his disability checks from the Government but is not getting drugs or any sort of help for his mental disease that the Government did not find his mental disease debilitating enough to force him into any kind of care.
Meaning: He’s almost ‘normal.’
That’s purely an insinuation based on a 30 second scene 10 minutes into the film, but it’s certainly a valid interpretation of the scene.
It’s actually a little easier for us to accept the portrait of disease in Clean, Shaven. It’s easier for us to think that people with mental disease cannot trick us into thinking they’re ‘normal.’ It’s easier for us to think that someone with schizophrenia is a child murderer, and not a man you would let watch your child for the better part of two days. Neither portrait is more, or less correct. There are schizophrenics that kill kids (an extremely small percentage), and schizophrenics that can seem completely normal (<—I know that personally).
“it’s actually more unrealistic to think someone with schizophrenia is always ‘crazy’ or always ‘normal’ or whatever.”
While I agree with you on principle, I think it’s also unrealistic to think that a schizophrenic’s symptoms of schizophrenia disappear entirely. Schizophrenia is I guess you call a “chronic” disease (though I don’t think that term is used to describe that condition medically) and, without medication, the patient is under a constant struggle. With Keane, the character it’s just so convenient that he is suddenly understanding, caring, and patient when his daughter is in the scene, but when she’s not he snaps back in “schizophrenic mode”. Of course, as I previously mentioned, it could simply be that his daughter is like a remedy to his ailment, but while I like the tenderness of that aspect, it seems more likely that it was an easier way to get the character through certain situations. As I’m sure you know, schizophrenia isn’t something you simply switch on and off, it is an ever-present struggle.
I don’t expect Keane to start killing people, but neither do I expect him to lapse in and out of schizophrenia for no other reason than to merely to suit the plot of the script. I understand that this adherence could be problematic for the director (not to mention the actor) because many scenes (such as those with his daughter) would have to be taken in a different more difficult direction, nevertheless it would’ve been a challenge that paid off.
On the other hand though, perhaps the script isn’t to blame since I heard that a lot of the scenes were improvised, even so it’s a continuity error, but nothing to destroy the film.
And I also agree that the film Keane is probably my favourite of the two (even though I believe Clean Shaven to be the better of the two), simply because, contrivance or no, the character of Keane is very sympathetic and his plight (while nearly identical to the protagonist in Clean Shaven) brings up a lot of unanswered questions (such as, did the separation from his daughter cause his schizophrenia to surface? or did he show signs of having this condition beforehand?).
And let me emphasize that I’m not one to seriously use the word “normal” (or “not normal”) to describe anyone. Keane has problems, but he still cares about his daughter unquestionably which is more than can be said for most “normal” people.
That’s not exactly what happens, though. In the scenes with Abigail Breslin he’s very clearly struggling to keep a calm face on things. In fact there are a few scenes that attest to this.
1. The camera opens on Abigail Breslin (the only time in the film it opens on someone other than Keane), she’s eating some fries at McDonald’s. The camera eventually moves to Keane, and he eventually tells her he’s going to the bathroom. In the bathroom he has a breakdown. He obviously left because he couldn’t stand looking at this adorable little girl any longer. He wants to know why he can’t find his daughter (most likely because she doesn’t exist), but this little girl has a mother that doesn’t even really want her. He doesn’t understand why this mother left her, and why his daughter was taken from him (or so he believes).
2. In the skating rink he actually has an enormous breakdown right in front of her. He screams at people, he talks to himself, he starts crying. He falls apart because he can’t take it anymore. She has to comfort him.
I think if there is one thing the film portrays perfectly its the constant struggle of mental disease. There is a constant tension in every scene because we can feel Keane is on the edge. He’s always seemingly a second or two away from falling apart.
Moderated
That’s true, you’ve convinced me to watch it again. :)
Another aspect of Clean Shaven is that it plays very heavily on the “unreliable narrator”, in this case the audience cannot be sure that what they are seeing in the film is an accurate realistic account of what is really happening. So, while the protagonist seems ‘strange’, one can never be sure if he is as often the victim as he sees himself or perhaps a perpetrator, or is imagining entire scenarios. Whether Keane follows this same perspective though is questionable, perhaps unlikely because Keane is a bit more sympathetic.
Col. Dax
Lodge Kerrigan’s 2004 film Keane is a film that encompasses the thoughts of a singular person. By focusing the effects of mental disease on one man, instead of the disease as a whole Kerrigan says more about mental instability than almost any other film made on the subject. There is only one single scene in the entire film that isn’t started from the perspective of ‘Keane.’ It comes off as a total shock, even though the scene itself is almost completely mundane, on the surface at least. The scene begins on Abigail Breslin eating her dinner at a McDonald’s restaurant, and starts off as a peaceful, very innocent scene in a sea of turmoil, and anxiety that is the rest of the film, and the totality of the person, ‘Keane.’
It’s almost a disorienting experience. The film plays so fervently towards Keane’s perspective of events you don’t even see reaction shots (something one comes to expect when odd situations are portrayed on celluloid) of the numerous people who would most certainly be disturbed at seeing a man speaking to himself, sometimes screaming at himself in public. The film uses this disorientation as a device. It creates a mystery to every event, to every choice, to every action, to every character. We can’t know the thoughts, or mind set of any other person in the film.
http://www.theauteurs.com/films/2822
Lodge Kerrigan
Keane
Your thoughts?