Layers
is what The Yards is really about
layers of time, layers of personality,
layers of honesty, loyalty and even betrayal.
Set in the vast New York City subway yards,
it is James Gray's second feature, his first
being the critically acclaimed Little
Odessa (winner of the Venice Film Festival's
Silver Lion Award in 1994), a film that established
him as an observer of the harshest, grittiest
side of life, with the ability to portray such
reality in a movingly lyrical manner.
While
Little Odessa was set in Brooklyn's
Russian-dominated Brighton Beach, The
Yards unfolds largely in the neighbouring,
working class borough of Queens, a far cry from
Manhattan's skyscrapers and social climbers.
If
cast alone was enough to guarantee a film's
critical and box-office success, The Yards would
be a shoo-in for countless accolades. Mark Wahlberg
stars as Leo Handler, who has just been released
from prison after taking the fall for a group
of friends. Hoping to put his life back together,
he heads for home, where his uncle Frank, played
by James Caan, gets him a job in the subway
yards. Eventually, he is reunited with his longtime
friend, Willie (Joaquin Phoenix), and Willie's
girlfriend, Erica (Charlize Theron). Life in
the yards, however, is just as cut-throat as
life in prison and the secrets he discovers
there ultimately make him the target of his
own family's most ruthless recriminations.
"Like onion layers that you keep peeling away,"
is how Theron described her reaction to reading
the script. "A lot of rules get broken." The
idea of layering extends to the production design
as well. Director Gray originally intended to
become a painter and, as such, his concern with
the visual feel of the film is tied to light
and a painterly palette. "James
had a particular vision for the film," says
cinematographer Harris Savides. "So he and I
went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and looked
at some of the George de la Tour paintings.
In those paintings there's a certain quality
of candlelight, of people's faces being lit
with a warm light. We wanted to translate that
quality into our lighting scheme in the film.
We used a lot of single source lighting and
a very soft-top light. And we wanted the colours
to be very subtle and subdued."
Production designer Kevin Thompson explains
that the sets were designed to create a rich
authentic look, to convey more than just a physical
location. Val Handler's apart ment,
for example Val, played by Ellen Burstyn,
is Wahlberg's mother is designed to look
as if it is filled with memories of the past.
Thompson calls it a "layering of time" that
is intended to convey depth in the lives of
the characters.
Like
Little Odessa, there is little
in The Yards that can be categorically
classified as "good" or "bad." Some characters
in both films are, indeed, scary, but their
cruelty can be traced back to murky origins.
Even as Leo struggles to keep his life together,
the mother-son relationship is sensitively explored.
"Val has brought up her son alone without a
husband," says Burstyn of her role, "and her
son has been without a father. That creates
certain problems for a young man and a closeness
in the relationship with his mother. And now
that the mother is sick, that leaves the young
man feeling unguided. "I
think it is very difficult for a young man in
his position to be facing these enormous forces
of evil and darkness and betrayal and to find
the way to do what is right. In that way, I
think a heroic, almost mythic character has
been created in Leo."
Comparing The Yards with his
previous effort, director Gray says: "I've
attempted a different emotional temperature.
I think, at the core, that I wanted it to
be about people with great intentions."
Jeffrey
R Sipe
