Ice Storm, The: The Criterion Collection

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I have so little interest in Ang Lee´s second English-language feature "The Ice Storm" (1997) that I don´t even feel like providing an argument as to why I have so little interest in it. The film, written by James Schamus and adapted from the novel by Rick Moody, falls into the sub-genre of "suburban malaise" films that almost invariably bore me to tears. In defense of Lee´s film, it is a far sight better than other offenders of the group such as the loathsome "American Beauty" or the insipid "The Hours." "The Ice Storm" is glib and over-determined, but it´s not as morally repugnant as Sam Mendes´ Oscar-winning debut nor does it feature Nicole Kidman with a funny nose (though it does co-star a young Christina Ricci who played a "funny nose" character in the recent "Penelope".)

The one and only aspect of the film that I find interesting is its treatment of comic books and, by extension, the film´s deft employment of the opening sequence. After a few exterior shots of an iced-over train, the film cuts to a close-up of a single panel of a comic book. It is issue 141 of the Fantastic Four, the December issue which (since cover dates of comic books are always later than the actual release date) probably would have been on sale a few months before Thanksgiving, 1973, the day when most of the action of the film takes place. It´s actually a close-up of the very last panel of the issue in which Benjamin Grimm, AKA The Thing proclaims that we have just witnessed "The End of the Fantastic Four!" Starting with the final panel is a sly way of indicating that the opening scene of the film is actually from the end; this becomes obvious when you reach the end of the film but there´s no way to know on an initial viewing.

The camera then pans up the page to the three panels on the top row where we find out what prompted The Thing´s fateful pronouncement. Interestingly, this is one situation when a pan up represents a reversal in chronology (to an earlier event in the story); normally any pan in a film represents a move forward in time. Reed Richards has just zapped his son Franklin with an anti-matter gun in order to prevent the boy´s uncontrolled cosmic power from destroying the universe; in the process, he´s turned little Franklin into a vegetable. Paul (Tobey Maguire), who is reading the book, then lets us know a little more about the events in voice-over. According to him, the Fantastic Four were like a family and that "the more power they had, the more harm they could do to each other without even knowing it."

During Paul´s voice-over, a slow close-up tracks from left to right and up and down over the top three panels (which is a bit odd considering we´ve just seen Paul close the comic book). This gives the viewer a chance to read every word. In the panels Reed and Sue (his wife, the Invisible Girl) argue about Franklin.

Panel 1: Reed "I had to do it Sue, he was becoming too powerful. I wish there´d been another way." Sue: "What- what´s happened to him? What have you done to him, Reed?" Reed: "His mind – I´ve shut down his mind."

Panel 2: Sue: "Then you´ve turned him into a vegetable. Your own son!" Reed: "Don´t you see, Sue? He was too powerful… if his energy had continued to build, he´d have destroyed the world!" Sue: "But he was your own son, Reed. If you´ve never loved me, you should have loved him. Franklin was your son."

Panel 3: "Do you think I wanted to do it? I had no choice – there was nothing I could do!"

There´s the movie´s plot writ small. And just in case you missed it, Paul´s voice-over lays out the entire thesis in even more explicit terms.

Filmmakers can get away with murder in opening sequences because viewers haven´t yet been cued to watch for clues in the story. They´re still getting acclimated to the world of the film; it´s still time to get settled in, not to act as a detective trying to fit all the pieces together. It´s amazing how much information the opening scene of a film can, and often does, convey without spoiling anything As heavy-handed as it all sounds when it´s laid down on paper, the fact is that most viewers aren´t going to take the time to read each word even though the shot provides ample time to read most of it. Paul´s voice-over fades into the past the instant he finishes it; the story, much like the train, just keeps rolling along the tracks.

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