James Gray is called old-fashioned for a good reason. His films are endlessly compassionate and understanding of people's foibles. In a world loaded with ironies and tropes, it not just the otherness of his films to the rest that draws us to them, but its their closeness to the lives we live. Gray's Two Lovers absorbs its hero's trauma, rage, love and life into its big heart. It understands that human weaknesses, and human compromises cannot be shrugged with one shoulder and empathized with other. Gray's complexity is not in the method or technique, but in the characters he draws. There is no specific vision (can there be an intentional vision for an artist?), no terrific shot or a bleeding style, but an undeniable sense of human handling of characters and their quotidian yet valued lives and loves.
James Gray is called old-fashioned for a good reason. His films are endlessly compassionate and understanding of people's foibles. In a world loaded with ironies and tropes, it not just the otherness of his films to the rest that draws us to them, but its their closeness to the lives we live. Gray's Two Lovers absorbs its hero's trauma, rage, love and life into its big heart. It understands that human weaknesses, and human compromises cannot be shrugged with one shoulder and empathized with other. Gray's complexity is not in the method or technique, but in the characters he draws. There is no specific vision (can there be an intentional vision for an artist?), no terrific shot or a bleeding style, but an undeniable sense of human handling of characters and their quotidian yet valued lives and loves.
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