Being a huge fan of auteur work, I am always on the look out for new directors that distinguish themselves against the backdrop of Hollywood. I enjoyed watching as Christopher Nolan and Darren Aronofsky became accepted by the mainstream, and I am looking forward to seeing what the future holds for Miranda July, Jamin Winans, and Rian Johnson. Directing is an extremely hard field to break into, and most filmmakers have to give up all their artistic integrity in order to break into the Hollywood system. Being the son of David Bowie certainly helps though, and that’s whom I want to talk about in this entry, Duncan Jones, aka Zowie Bowie.
Being the son of a rockstar certainly has its advantages, such as being able to pool funding for your film projects, but Jones still has to be able to convince people that he has personal artistic merit. His first film, Moon, was very successful in convincing people of that, myself included. An independent science fiction film, Moon tells the story of Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell), who is contracted to work on a lunar space station for three years with only a robot named Gerty (Kevin Spacey) for company. Two weeks before his mission ends, he gets into an accident driving around on the surface, and wakes up back in the station. He has no memory of what happened to him, and when he goes to find the crashed vehicle, he finds himself in it, barely alive. There is no more I can say without giving out major spoilers. The film won a BAFTA and was highly praised by many critics, and Jones hopes to follow it with two sequels. It caught the eye of Summit Entertainment, who commissioned Jones to direct this year’s Source Code.
Source Code was tremendously successful. Its still making money around the world, so it’s hard to put a measure on its success, but it has already surpassed the hundred million dollar mark. It has been critically successful as well, with the consensus being that it’s a perfect breed of Inception and Groundhog Day. Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Army Pilot Colter Stephens, who has only eight minutes to save a train from being bombed. He has multiple chances to relive the same eight minutes, thanks to the science fiction technology that allows him to occupy the body of a school teacher who died on the train that morning. Again, I can’t go too deeply in the movie without going into the spoilers. I was a little disappointed with the movies; a lot of it is smart and beautifully shot, but the ending leaves a giant plot hole that detracted heavily from the movie (what happened to the school teacher if they all survive?), and it is just about the most happy and sentimental ending possible. I believe that Jones was in on this project to further strengthen his name in the business though, so I still have great hope for his films in the future.
Like I said earlier, Jones has plans to make two sequels to Moon, and has a few other Science Fiction plans lined up. He is on the short list to take over The Wolverine, which Darren Aronofsky recently quit. I wouldn’t mind it, but I am hoping he puts out something that’s more his own creation instead.
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